His voice came back strained and soft. "She gave you this?"

Ivy frowned, not understanding Suhara's behavior. "Well, yes. I told her not to, the necklace was the only she had left that we hadn't taken from her, but since I had given her something she insisted..."

Suhara touched the necklace briefly, his eyes clouded. "Then she must finally have given up on herself."

"What do you mean?" Ivy inquired, wondering what possible connection Suhara could have to this necklace. "How do you know about it? Carmen said she never showed it to anyone...and that her mother gave it her, before her parents died."

Suhara lifted the locket and peered at it closely; it was indeed the same necklace he had once given to a friend long dead, decorated with tiny scrolls and landscapes etched painstakingly into the gold. Mystified, Ivy undid the clasp and handed to him. He walked unsteadily to the couch and sat down weakly, then opened the locket with trembling hands. His voice was barely a whisper, as he said more to himself than to Ivy, "It is the one."

Now completely bewildered, Ivy sat down next to him and asked, "What one? How do you know about it?"

He continued to stare at it, as if unaware that she had spoken. She repeated her question, and he mumbled, "Because it belonged to Catherine LeVrai."

"Catherine LeVrai!" Ivy exclaimed. She looked at it a little suspiciously. "Then how did Carmen get it?" she wondered out loud, not really expecting an answer.

"I know," Suhara said tonelessly. "I have known for many years."

She was thunderstruck. "What!"

"I knew for a very long time," he said, speaking guiltily and to no one in particular, as if he had committed some grevious wrong and felt he must reveal it, even if only to the walls. "But I never told her I knew. I wish I had, for perhaps I could have saved her from the life she leads now..."

"What are you talking about?" Ivy demanded, impatience creeping into her voice.

He shut his eyes and gripped the locket in anguish. "I could have told Lynn, and Lynn would have taken her off the case. But I left her to deal by herself with her parent's murder..."

"Murder!" Ivy's voice rose and octave, and she nearly jumped out of her seat. "I think you should tell me what you mean, Suhara. Now."

He shook his head no and looked at her, and as he did his eyes cleared a little. "One reason I kept it to myself is because I did not wish for a promising young detective--who was at the time very much like yourself--to seek vengeance upon these murderers."

"I wouldn't take off after a bunch of killers," Ivy assured him, feeling that seh was stating the obvious. "That's for Homicide Division to sort out. Please tell me what's going on, Suhara, this is serious!"

For a while he was silent, searching her pleading face for any sign of insincerity. Then he got up and shut the french doors to the patio; as well as his bedroom door. He locked the outside door, then sat down next to her and spoke in a low voice.

"Many years ago, during the Peacekeeper Generation, I befriended a charming but reckless young detective named Catherine Parrisait. To her I was a close friend and advisor, though she did not always take the advice I gave her." He smiled briefly at the memory.

"After her Academy training she worked Epidemical Crimes with her partner, Lynn Vickman. But when Lynn was nominated for the position of Central Chief, Catherine became depressed because of the loss of her partner; as well as little jealous. She dropped to part-time and married an Interpol detective, Johnathan LeVrai."

"Johnathan LeVrai? So you knew Catherine personally! You never told me that," Ivy rebuked him.

"There are many reasons why," he said as he waved his hand. "Have patience. You will know them all in a moment.

"A year later she had a baby girl, Karlena, whom I saw first when the baby was a few months old, at the Generation ceremony. She had her mother's features but her hair was much darker, deep black even at that age, and she had her father's blue eyes." Ivy’s eyes widened upon hearing the descritpion. "Go on," she urged, as she wanted to hear the rest of the story.

"After Karlena was about three I did not see her again," he told her. "Johnathan had been promoted at Interpol and Catherine used her free time to stay home with Karlena; though I still saw Catherine sometimes when I was on a case.

"I had already known that once Catherine married I would see much less of her than I had, so I wanted to give her something special for a wedding present. A few days before she left for the wedding ceremony in France, I gave her a parting gift. I gave her the necklace you have now; and I told her to eventually pass it on to Karlena."

"That explains how you know about the necklace, but how did Carmen get it?" Ivy demanded. She was beginning to get irritated with Suhara's slow unraveling of the story, and was wondering if her own hypothesis was as correct as she thought it was.

"Patience," Suhara told her. "I'm not nearly finished.

"I was at home reading when I got a frantic phone call from Lynn." He shut his eyes for a few moments, remembering the details of that day. Ivy shifted uncomfortably. "It was a sunny day in September. I had been out on the porch enjoying the weather. When I answered the phone, Lynn was in hysterics. She was halfway between crying in anguish and shouting in anger, trying to break to me the news that Catherine had been murdered." He bowed his head slightly and was silent for a few moments. Ivy put her hand on his shoulder.

He stirred. "We suspected Muerganne Giovanni, a criminal that Catherine had run into once before; but we never had enough evidence to prove it. Johnathan was dead too, but Karlena's body was never found, so it was assumed that she was still alive somewhere. I searched for a year, but found no leads, nothing.

"A few years later Rodger, a boy we had hired to program the computer system, came with Lynn into the Agency leading a small girl by the hand. At first, the girl rarely if ever spoke, as if some past trauma had silenced her. Rodger told us her name was Carmen Sandiego."

Ivy held her breath, as if anticipating what would come next. "As the years went on and Rodger's influence brought her to talk again," Suhara went on, "I began to watch her closely. Partly because she held promise, and if she chose to work with the Agency I wanted to be the one to teach her; and partly because she bore a striking resemblance to Catherine."

Now Ivy leaned forward eagerly as Suhara went on, taking in his every word. "As she grew older, she became more and more like Catherine. Her daring and spirit, her speech and manner, even the confident way she carried herself was the same." He clicked open the locket again and handed it to Ivy. She gasped as she saw the portraits there; one a small girl about five years old, the other a young woman who bore an remarkable resemblance to Carmen. "Even her habit of wearing a hat at the same angle," he said. Ivy was speechless.

"To make absolute sure, I wanted to know if she still had her mother's necklace. So one night, while she was asleep, I crept into her room feeling like an intruder. When I touched her neck I felt the small chain, and when I lifted my hand it hand in it the very same necklace you hold now."

Ivy just sat there with her mouth hanging open, as the full implications of what Suhara had just told her hit her. When she saw Suhara staring at her she shut it and attempted to say something intelligent, to convey the fact that she understood what he had told her. "So her real name is Karlena LeVrai?" she stuttered.

"It is."

"So she didn't spend her childhood at the orphanage."

"No. She was only there about two years."

"But," she asked, still unclear on a few things, "why didn't you just tell her you were a friend of Catherine's?"

He sighed deeply, and Ivy realized--a bit guiltily--that she had hit upon the crux of Suhara's sorrow. "I thought it was the right thing to do," he said defeatedly. "I thought that reminding Carmen of her past would cause her too much pain. She seemed to have put it behind her, in light of her new life at the Agency. She had people who cared for her here. And as learned as she was with my special training, she was still impulsive at times, and I feared she might go after the murderer herself and die in the attempt to bring him forward. And that is why..." his voice broke suddenly.

Ivy's voice was soft and only the slightest bit pressing. "Is why..."

"Muerganne," he choked. "He was involved, somehow. In the Case of the Crystal Chandelier. What happened then, who can say? Perhaps he found her, somewhere in that maze. I do not know what happened to her, Ivy, but I think somehow, Muerganne...I should have told her, should have kept her off the case..." He buried his head in his hands, and his body shook.

"Hey, don't blame yourself for whatever happened to her," Ivy told him, putting her arm around his shoulder. "There is nothing you could have done."

"It is my fault!" he suddenly cried, his voice anguished. "She was my responsibility. I had promised to watch and help her, for Catherine, but I let her down...I let both of them down..."

He could contain himself no longer. Ivy continued to assure him that there was nothing he could have done, but Suhara continued to mourn for the lost child whom he still cared for as he might his own daughter, despite all she had done.

Return to the Summary 1