“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.”