Flowering Judas (44 page)

“It was frozen
stiff
when I put it up there,” Kyle said. “I never realized before that that was meant literally.”

“And how could he have done it without anybody seeing?” Howard asked.

“Oh, that's the easy part,” Gregor said. “I went over there and looked the other day. The billboard is positioned slantwise to the road. It's very large, and its scaffolding reaches down into a dense clump of trees. You can do anything you want behind that billboard and nobody from the road can see you. The miracle was that nobody driving by saw the body as it came up over the top, because Kyle here had to be literally swinging it.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “All right. That.”

“Fine,” Gregor said. “But then we've got the disappearing corpse. I take it the two of you see that as my fault, you removed the corpse because—”

“How were we supposed to know what was going to happen?” Kyle said. “I see those television shows. And I know the real thing isn't that good, but you were talking about sending the body to the state medical examiner's and I couldn't figure out, neither of us could, what that would mean. So—”

“So,” Gregor said, “you just drove up to Feldman's and took the body out. And it was simple, because you were in uniform and you had a police car. Didn't it occur to either one of you that too much of the stuff you were doing could
only
be successful if somebody was in uniform and had a police car? Dropping off the backpack. Getting the body out of Feldman's. Putting the body in Chester Morton's old trailer. Try any of that in anything
but
a police car and you'd have been nailed midstream. It's something of a miracle you were never nailed anyway. Is that the end of it? Are the two of you sure I'm not going to find something else wandering around that you should have told me about?”

Darvelle shook her head. “We got a little scared. Especially after moving the body. I mean, you know, from Feldman's. It just didn't feel safe anymore. If you see what I mean.”

“Right,” Gregor said.

“Wait,” Howard Androcoelho said. “Just a minute. Are you telling me that Chester Morton committed
suicide
?”

“Exactly,” Gregor said.

“But then, I don't get it. I mean, we can't arrest anybody for a suicide, well, unless they live, you know, and—”

“Those two people in that truck didn't commit suicide,” Gregor said. “Why don't you try wrapping your mind around that.”

 

SIX

1

Shpetim Kika heard the news on the little television set he kept in the construction site. The set was always on, but he didn't watch it much, because it didn't have cable. Once there had been a time when there was no cable. Everybody in this area and everyplace else in the United States had relied on their antennae. How had that worked? The antenna was useless as far as Shpetim could see. The set filled up with snow. It made buzzing noises. Sometimes it just went mute. It was impossible at least half the time.

It was just after lunch, and Shpetim had been watching Nderi and Anya, standing together near the edge of the site, near the new parking lot where cars would be when the building was open. Anya had taken a big box of something out of the trunk of her car. Then Nderi had taken the box from her. Now they were both walking across the site toward him, but they were walking very slowly. It reminded Shpetim of something. He wasn't sure of what.

The television broke through its snow for a moment and someone said, “This just in. Sources inside the Mattatuck Police Department are reporting that an arrest will be made this afternoon for the murders of two local residents near Stephenson Dam just hours ago. Sources also tell us that these murders are connected to the disappearance and death of Chester Morton and that the break in the case was obtained through evidence provided by the infant's skeleton found on a construction site near Mattatuck–Harvey Community College.”

Shpetim Kika had lived most of his life in a Communist country. He knew when the news was complete and utter bullshit. He thought what he'd just heard was at least half that. What made him happy was that somebody had mentioned the baby. It was as if he had been trying to push a boulder uphill and it had finally budged.

There was a guy, Shpetim thought. From literature. He pushed the boulder uphill over and over and over again, and as soon as he reached the top, it fell down again. Well, Shpetim decided, he'd beaten the guy from literature. He'd pushed his boulder up to the top of the hill and it had gone straight over.

Nderi and Anya were coming up to him now. Anya was chattering away, and smiling. Nderi was staggering a little under the box.

“Hey,” Nderi said, reaching the construction shed. He put the box down on the ground in front of the door. “Anya brought food. She and Mom have been cooking all morning.”

“I have the day off from work,” Anya said. “There was a funeral. One of our people died. We got off for the funeral and then there was the reception, but I didn't go to any of it. It wasn't somebody I know.”

“Heart attack,” Nderi said solemnly, looking down at the box of food.

“At forty-six,” Anya said. “It was truly awful. You'd think he'd know better, being in the medical profession. But you can't tell with people. And even the ones you think are doing everything right, they die, too. And then there are others who break all the rules, and there they still are at eighty-seven.”

“My grandfather lived to ninety-five,” Shpetim said. “And he wasn't senile, either. He lived to ninety-five and scared the hell out of all of us to the end of his life.”

“I don't remember any of my grandfathers,” Anya said. “They both died in jail.”

Nderi picked up the box again and came into the shed with it. He put it on the little desk and looked inside it. “I keep telling her she should think of them as martyrs,” he said. “I mean, it's not the same as dying because you're upholding the honor of God, but it is, in a way, because they wouldn't have been arrested if they hadn't been Muslims. I mean—”

“It's all right,” Anya said. “I understand what you're getting at.”

Shpetim looked into the box and came up with an enormous loaf of bread and then what looked like a vat of lamb and beans. There were utensils at the bottom of the box. That was a good thing.

“Ah,” he said. “I forgot. I heard it on the television. Yeah, yeah, I know. But you could hear it a couple of minutes ago. There's going to be an arrest this afternoon, you know, an arrest about all the nonsense, not just Chester Morton but—”

“Oh,” Anya said. “Those two people out near the dam. Wasn't that awful?”

“Listen,” Shpetim said. “Maybe it was awful and maybe it was not. These people. You hear things. The people in that trailer park—”

“You can't look down on people just because they're poor,” Nderi said. “You told me that yourself. You used to be poor.”

“I don't look down on people because they're poor,” Shpetim said. “I have never done that. It's not the poverty, but the way they live. Having children where there is no marriage. Living off the government when they could be working. And the alcohol. And the drugs. You know what I'm saying. You do not know what those people are. You can't say it was terrible until you know.”

“No,” Anya said, “I think it was terrible anyway. I think it's terrible when anybody dies, and as for the way they lived. Well. You don't know what happened to make them like that. And even if nothing did, even if they decided for themselves to live badly, isn't that a tragedy, too? God gives us life. It's terrible when we waste it.”

“Yes,” Shpetim said, caught again by the fact that he was being reminded of something. He still couldn't think of what. He turned to the television set and waved his hands. “Anyway,” he said. “It came on the television. There is going to be an arrest. There is a break in the case. The break in the case came through the skeleton of the baby. See? I was right all along. The baby was important. And now, since we went and talked to Mr. Demarkian, they will be able to arrest the evil man who did these things, and everybody will be safer. It's America, the way I told you. In America, you go to the police, you state your case, the right thing gets done.”

“But we didn't go to the police,” Nderi said. “We went to Mr. Demarkian.”

“Mr. Demarkian is a consultant hired by the police,” Shpetim said. “He is the police here for as long as he is hired. And that's a good thing, too, don't you see? The regular police are not quite up to the job. The patrolmen who came here are clueless. The police commissioner is an idiot with spaghetti for brains. You don't have to worry. They know all that themselves. They bring somebody in with a good mind and the work gets done.”

“I wonder what it's all about,” Nderi said.

“I can't imagine behaving like that,” Anya said. “Not the people at the dam. I can't imagine behaving like that, either, but I was thinking of Chester Morton. Running away from your family like that. Disappearing into thin air and not seeing your own mother for twelve years. Your own mother.”

She went to the box and began to set things up properly. There were paper bowls for the lamb and beans, wider paper plates to put the bowls on and bread and butter. There were smaller paper plates for the pastries at the bottom. Shpetim watched in amazement as
stuff
just kept coming out.

“I brought real forks and knives and spoons,” Anya said. “We thought the plastic ones were too—I don't know. Skimpy. The tines of the forks kept bending. I'm supposed to gather these up and bring them back when you're done.”

“They wreck their families,” Nderi said. Then he blushed. “I shouldn't say ‘they' like that. It's not everybody, not all the Americans. But a lot of them do. You can't imagine running away and not seeing your mother for twelve years—”

“Well, you know,” Anya said. “Except for a politcal thing. If the authorities were hunting you and you were going to be killed. For politics. Like at home during the war.”

“Yeah,” Nderi said, “but I've heard all about Chester Morton. I didn't really know him or anything, but I've heard. And the other Morton kid, too, Kenny, I've heard the same thing. And the Mortons aren't the only ones. They hate each other.”

“Hate each other,” Shpetim said. “The families do?”

“The Mortons all hate their mother,” Nderi said. “And they talk about it all the time, even to strangers. And you can see why. I've met Charlene Morton. I've seen how she treats people. How she treats her own children. She hates them as much as they hate her.”

“I don't believe it,” Anya said, very definitively. “How can a mother hate her own children? Her children are a mother's life.”

Shpetim took the bowl of beans and lamb she handed him, and the fork, and then he got it. He knew what he kept being reminded of.

Anya reminded him of Lora, all those years ago, when they first knew each other. And Nderi reminded him of himself.

And, Shpetim thought, it was a good thing he'd listened to reason and decided not to oppose this marriage.

2

When Howard Androcoelho called to say he was bringing over Gregor Demarkian, Charlene listened, and told him she'd be at home, and then hung up. The air in the office felt very still. There was a fan pumping away somewhere, and the air conditioning was on, but the air didn't feel as if it were moving at all. It was odd to think how long it had been since the first day she had sat in this office, knowing that Chester was gone. Charlene remembered that day as if she'd just lived through it. The air had felt very still then, too. Her skull had felt as if it were cracking open.

Charlene waited for what felt like a million years. Then she got up, got her pocketbook off the top of the metal filing cabinet, and headed out to the parking lot to her car. Stew saw her leave. Charlene saw him see her, and stand up as she passed, too. She went by as if he weren't there.

Out in the parking lot, Charlene got into the brand new Focus and turned on the engine. She checked the rearview mirror. She checked the side mirrors. She looked at the nail polish on her fingers. It was an ordinary pink color. It was not like all those new things the girls had on their hands these days. She did her nails herself in her own bathroom once a week. That said something. That was true.

She got the car out onto the road and drove the long back way to Sherwood Forest. Just a couple of hours ago, she had been yelling at Kenny because he would not come home and be part of a united family front. That was how she had imagined this happening. They would all be together. They would be solid against the world. How had it happened that she had failed to instill that sense of family into any of her children? First Chester. Then Kenny. But really, all of them. Mark and Suzanne weren't anywhere around when she needed them, either.

She parked her car in the driveway and went up to the house by the front walk. She liked that approach. The front doors were double doors. They were wide enough so that, if you propped them open, you could drive the Focus itself right into the foyer. Charlene remembered building this house. She remembered sitting at the kitchen table in the old place, the place that was closer to the office, and spreading out the blueprints so that she could go through them with a magnifying glass. The children were all in bed. Stew was in the living room, falling asleep in front of the television. The house, like the business, had been her idea to begin with.

She went into her living room and looked around. There was the big couch, and the love seat, and an overstuffed chair for Stew. There was her own wing chair, with its upright back, that made her feel safe. Charlene didn't like relaxing, the way most people did. Relaxing made her feel like her life was going to hell.