Flowering Judas (32 page)

Shpetim shrugged this away. “Andor can take over for a hour. He won't kill anybody. But a baby is dead. A baby has to be dead because there was that skeleton. You don't agree.”

“Of course I agree.”

“And something has to have happened to the baby, because the skull was cracked,” Shpetim said. “I saw it as clearly as you did. Cracked right down the side. And yes, I know, you told me. That could have happened after the baby died. But the baby died. And somebody put its body somewhere for the skin to fall off the bones, and then he put the bones in that backpack. And somebody has to do something about that.”

“I know they do,” Nderi said patiently, “but that person doesn't necessarily have to be you. If I thought you really knew anything, it would be different, but we told the police all we knew and it wasn't much. The thing just showed up at the site.”

“We didn't tell them everything we knew,” Shpetim said “We didn't tell them the things we thought were obvious. When something is obvious, you expect everybody to see it, just the way you do. But they don't see it. Or I can't see any evidence that they've seen it.”

“Seen what?”

“Two things,” Shpetim said. “First is the timing. The backpack has to have been put there just the night before, and no earlier, because if it had been there even an extra day, we would have found it earlier.”

“I don't think that's something they don't know and we do,” Nderi said. “We came right out and told them that. Twice. That isn't something new.”

“Yes, yes,” Shpetim said. “But then there's the new. I really mean new. The backpack was new and so was everything else in it.”

“I don't see what you're getting at.”

Shpetim tapped his fingers on the table. “All along, everything we've heard, Chester Morton always carried a bright yellow backpack. The backpack was the only thing that disappeared when he did. The baby's skeleton is found in the bright yellow backpack, there was a baby or a pregnancy or something in the Chester Morton case, the backpack must be Chester Morton's and so it turns out there really was a baby. But, Nderi, that can't be true.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Shpetim said, “the backpack was new. Brand new. That wasn't something Chester Morton had had for twelve years. It wasn't something he had had for twelve days. There were smudges on it because it had been in the dirt all day, but anyplace you could see the canvas was bright, bright yellow. Brand new. And that wasn't the only thing that was brand new.”

“It wasn't?”

“The books,” Shpetim said. “There were the books. The ones you had, too, when you went to Mattatuck–Harvey.
Current Issues and Enduring Questions. The Everyday Writer.
They were there, in the backpack. And they were new.”

“Can you really tell if a book is new just by looking at it?”

“There were no creases in the cover. There were no stains. Nothing was bent back or—or even rifled. It looked like they'd never been opened.”

“You can't really know that.”

“Yes, I can,” Shpetim said. “I really can. And if I'm wrong, it will only take a moment or two to prove it. They only have to go look at the backpack again. But nobody is looking at the backpack. Nobody is paying any attention to it. It isn't the baby they're investigating. It's the death of Chester Morton. So I think we should tell someone, and the someone I think we should tell is Gregor Demarkian.”

“Just get in the truck and go tell Gregor Demarkian.”

“Yes,” Shpetim said. “Right now. Before it gets away from us.”

 

SEVEN

1

For Gregor Demarkian, the really odd thing about Shpetim Kika was not that he'd arrived at Gregor's hotel room at a quarter to seven in the morning, unannounced and apparently knowing the way and room number without having to ask at the desk. By now, that kind of thing was beginning to seem par for the course in Mattatuck. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody knew everything. And everybody went barging around into other people's private spaces without thinking twice.

What got to Gregor about Shpetim Kika was how much he looked like Fr. Tibor Kasparian, and how much he sounded like him, too. That was odd because Gregor had just gotten off the phone with Tibor, knowing he'd already be at the Ararat and hoping to get more detailed information about what was happening with old George.

“No, Krekor,” Tibor had said. “Bennis is not holding out on you. Nobody is holding out on you. There is nothing to tell. Yorgi is resting. He's comfortable. He turns down a lot of the pain medication, I think because he wants to be clear. He is not getting worse. He is not getting better. They are afraid to release him from the hospital. And that is all.”

Gregor didn't think that really was all, but he did think it might be all they knew. He wanted to understand what was going on with that. He didn't know how to try. It was easier investigating crime. Nobody was trying to spare your feelings with that.

With his son standing beside him, Shpetim Kika sat on the chair next to the desk holding a hat in his hand. It was an ancient, battered hat, and Gregor had the impression that he didn't wear it often. The suit looked a little more lived-in, but Gregor was sure it was something that came out only on “Occasions.” He wasn't used to being an Occasion all by himself.

The son was wearing work clothes. He looked too embarrassed to breathe.

“So,” Shpetim Kika was saying, “you see what I am trying to say. It is a baby that is dead, yes? There is the tiny skeleton. I saw it myself. The skeleton's skull had a crack in it, a crack all along one side. Somebody cracked a long break in the skull. Something bad must have happened to the baby. Even if the crack in the skull didn't happen until after the baby died, the baby still died. It's important to know who the baby was and how it died. Am I right?”

“I think so,” Gregor said.

“I have been trying to tell Nderi here,” Shpetim said. “You can't let a thing like this go. It isn't right. You do not just let babies die and throw their skeletons away like trash. And then there is the thing that the skeleton was in a place I am responsible for. I do not want it being said in Mattatuck that the Albanians are murderers.”

“They're not going to say the Albanians are anything,” Nderi said. “They say that kind of thing about the Hispanics, but not about us. I don't think there are enough of us.”

“Albania is a very messed up country,” Shpetim said. “It has many political problems. It has not much money. But Albanians are good people.”

“Pop, if you keep this up, you're going to start singing—”

“Albanians are good people,” Shpetim said. He sounded positive.

Gregor was seated on the edge of the bed. He was having a hard time clearing his head. He'd gotten to bed fairly late. He'd gotten up very early. He'd showered and dressed and talked to Tibor. He still hadn't had any coffee. His head was full of cotton wool.

“Let me see if I've got this straight,” he said. “You dug up the backpack on this construction site of yours—”

“Yes. No. I did not dig it up myself. I was in the shed doing paperwork. My men dug it up. And Nderi was with me. He didn't dig it up.”

“All right. Your men dug it up. And then what?”

“They called us over and we went,” Shpetim said. “Nderi and I went across the site to where the men were all standing around in a circle. Nderi and I were talking about his engagement. He is engaged now, to a very fine Albanian girl, a Muslim. Her family was all killed by the Communists, but she is not what you would expect a girl to be living on her own. She has great modesty. And great sense.”

“Is that what you said at the time?” Nderi demanded.

Shpetim waved him away. Gregor tried not to laugh.

“Let's get back to it,” Gregor said. “You walked over to where the men were standing. Where was the backpack? Was somebody holding it?”

“No, no,” Shpetim said. “They had left it in the ground. They hadn't touched it.”

“It was because it was famous,” Nderi said. “We'd been hearing about that backpack for years. The bright yellow backpack. The only thing Chester Morton had on him when he disappeared. The only thing missing from his things. That kind of thing.”

“Okay,” Gregor said. “So they found the backpack and called you over, and then what?”

“The flap was partially open,” Nderi said, “and somebody had pulled it back. With a stick, I think, not their hands.”

“And the skeleton was right there,” Shpetim said. “You could see it, with the crack in its skull. It was all right there to see. And the skeleton was white. Bright white, like it had been cleaned. Everything looked as if it had been cleaned.”

“But it was lying on the ground,” Gregor said. “Or in the ground. In a hole.”

“It wasn't much of a hole,” Nderi said. “It was—” He shrugged.

“Everything looked as if it had been cleaned,” Shpetim insisted. “Or better than it had been cleaned. Like it was new. It was a bright yellow backpack, it was so bright, it could have been bought from the store the same day. It was blazing yellow. There were little pieces of dirt on it from being in the ground, but it wasn't dirty. And nothing inside it was dirty. There were books.
Current Issues and Enduring Questions,
that was one of them. And
The Everyday Writer.
I recognized them because Nderi had them when he was in school.”

“For English Composition,” Nderi said. “They're the textbooks for that course. Or they used to be, when I was in school, and that was about the same time Chester Morton was in school. I think somebody may have said it, that he was taking English Composition.”

“Of course somebody said it,” Shpetim said. “Everybody said it. Last seen in his English class. But, Mr. Demarkian. The books were new, too, just like the backpack. They were clean, white, and stiff. You could have sold them in a bookstore. They didn't look like they'd been carried around for even a day. They couldn't have been stuffed in a backpack with a skeleton for twelve years. And nothing could have rotted on them for twelve years.”

“Well,” Gregor said, “the official findings were that the skeleton hadn't been in the backpack. I mean, the body hadn't decomposed in the backpack. It had decomposed somewhere else and then the skeleton had been put in the backpack.”

“Even without the skeleton,” Shpetim said, “those books could not have been carried around. They were new. They were brand new. And the backpack also. And that is a problem. I think all the police, everyone, they are trying to solve the death of Chester Morton. They think the baby is part of the death of Chester Morton. What if it isn't? What if someone went out and bought all those things, bought them new, to make the baby look like it had something to do with Chester Morton, and now nobody is thinking about the baby because they are all thinking about Chester Morton.”

“All right,” Gregor said. “You mean you think the baby's skeleton has nothing to do with Chester Morton at all?”

“That's right,” Shpetim said. “It is, I think, a—a frame.”

“You think somebody is trying to frame the dead Chester Morton for the death of this baby?”

“Exactly,” Shpetim said.

“I think that somebody must have brought that backpack to the construction site with ghosts,” Nderi said. “That's what I can't get over. I heard on the news that the police think it was buried out there in the middle of the night, but that isn't possible. I mean, not without somebody seeing. We've got security cameras out there. We have to. People steal material and equipment. But I've looked at those tapes, and the police have, too, and there's nothing on them except the usual patrol cars checking up every once in a while to make sure nobody's doing something they shouldn't.”

“Here, the police guard your property,” Shpetim said. “In Albania, you have to worry they're going to take it.”

“I thought you didn't want people to think that the Albanians were bad people,” Nderi said.

“The Albanians are not bad people,” Shpetim said. “Only their government is bad. Maybe you can come out to the site with us now, and we can show you. We can show you where the backpack was. We can even show you the security tapes. We have them on the computer.”

Gregor blinked. “I've got to be at The Feldman Funeral Home at nine,” he said. “And I need a taxi. The desk says that if you call a taxi it takes a while for him to get here. So—”

“We can take you to Feldman's,” Nderi said. “And you don't have to hang around watching hours of tapes if you don't want to. I can e-mail them to you and you can watch them on your own computer. It's better to have lots of copies anyway. That way, they won't all disappear.”

“That's it, then,” Shpetim stood up. “You'll come with us to the site, and you will look around, and then Nderi will take you to your appointment. I don't envy you. I don't like any appointment in a funeral home.”

2

Gregor called Tony Bolero while he was being driven down to “the site,” as the Kika men both called it. He found it hard to listen to a cell phone while he was being squished between the two men in the middle of the bench-like only seat of a pickup truck cab. He didn't even know they made trucks with bench seats anymore. It worried him to think that the truck might be as old as it looked. It had a logo on the side that read:
MATTATUCK VALLEY CONSTRUCTION
. Gregor supposed it sounded better than “Kika Constuction,” but he thought that any Armenian-American he knew would have gone with “Kika” and been done with it. The name was very important.

Tony Bolero had gotten some sleep, but not much. He'd had to settle for the off hours when the man from Feldman's had been willing to stay awake.