The Unquiet Dead (21 page)

“Not warm enough. Not for orange trees. They need special precautions. Now, miss, if you don't mind, we weren't quite finished when we saw the broken window.”

With a typical lack of nuance, Melanie Blessant had broken the small oblong window beside the front door to let herself into Drayton's house.

“You're going along to the back?” she asked them. “I'd like to see the back.”

In grudging silence, the Osmonds led her to the back of the house. Here, Rachel stopped to take stock. The garden exploded in a profusion of herbaceous borders, roses and lilies—hundreds of plants and flowers that she hadn't a hope of recognizing. Peonies? Chrysanthemums? Ranks of color, blooms piled high as snowbanks, scent and texture and astonishing variety. The garden gave the house its character, its charm. Drayton had placed comfortable loungers at intervals beneath the shade trees. She leaned against one, watching the brothers at work.

Harry's job was to spray fertilizer on the grass, a simple enough task. Aldo crouched onto his haunches to prune deadheads and trim back the hedges, supplying the appropriate tools from the pockets of his coverall. They were silent as they worked, ignoring Rachel.

She moved closer.

“When was the last time you and your brother saw Mr. Drayton?”

Aldo rose from his knees in a smooth motion, balanced against the handle of his garden shears. He looked from Harry to Rachel, a vigilance in the act that puzzled Rachel.

“Three days, maybe four, before we heard about his fall. He'd asked us to come and consult on new plantings.”

“Both of you?”

Again that wary glance across the yard at Harry.

“Yes.”

Her instincts told her to separate the two. “Perhaps Harry would like to show me the new plantings.” She strolled over to the far end of the garden, her pace easy, her manner relaxed. Aldo followed at once.

“We didn't put anything in. We just discussed his ideas. Look, miss.” He gripped her wrist with surprising strength. “Harry can be unpredictable. I can answer anything you want to ask.”

Rachel detached Aldo's grip without difficulty.

“Is that so, Harry?” She smiled at him, her voice gentle. “Did you like Mr. Drayton? Chris?”

“He was nice to me,” Harry said. Then he frowned. “He wasn't always nice, was he, Al?”

“He doesn't know what he's saying. He was nice, Harry, remember? He let you plant the lilies.”

“He was nice,” Harry agreed, pushing up the brim of his hat. “He let me plant the lilies. Orange lilies. Yellow.”

“When wasn't he nice, Harry? Can you tell me?” And then as Aldo moved to intervene, “Mr. Osmond, would you wait beside the loungers?”

“You have no right to question my brother.” His voice became rough, irregular. “He doesn't understand you.”

Rachel placed both hands on her hips and faced Aldo Osmond squarely.

“Do you have something to hide, Mr. Osmond? Does Harry? Do I need to take you both in?”

“We have nothing to hide. I just don't want my brother to become upset.”

“You have nothing to worry about, sir. I have a lot of experience in these matters.”

Aldo didn't back away. “He's my brother. It's my job to watch out for him.”

“You can listen to everything I have to say. Just wait over there, please.”

“I'll stand here. I won't interrupt.”

“See that you don't. Harry, will you show me where you planted the lilies?”

Harry turned off his sprayer. He motioned Rachel to the very edge of the garden, where the lilies rose and fell in orange rows. Harry's hand caressed their delicate heads.

“These are the pretty ones.”

He led her further down the path. With every step, she was conscious of the livid rage Aldo aimed at her back.

“Do you like these lilies?” Harry asked her.

“I do. Very much. Did Chris like them too?”

“He liked the orange ones. He didn't like the others. He yelled at me. He said I did wrong. The wrong ones.”

“Show me.”

“It's nothing,” Aldo denied. “It was nothing.”

“Mr. Osmond, you said you wouldn't interrupt. I'd like to see them, Harry. Will you show me?”

Harry took her to the far side of the garden. Planted in a bed that circled a maple tree was a covey of yellow flowers, their buttery heads bowed on their stalks.

“He didn't like these? But they're so pretty.”

Harry shifted from one foot to the other.

“He yelled at me, right, Al? He said it was my fault. But I didn't plant these. I didn't, did I, Al?” He jumped from foot to foot, his voice rising.

Aldo joined them, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“You've upset him now.” He reached for his brother's hand and stroked his own callused palm over it. “It wasn't your fault, Harry. You didn't plant these.” The lines in his face hardened as he scowled at Rachel. “I don't know why Mr. Drayton didn't like them. It's not a good place to plant, in the shade of a large tree, but we wouldn't have made such a mistake. He asked us about it and I showed him the landscaping plan we had sketched together. No plantings under his maple. Harry doesn't know how to read people. He thought Mr. Drayton was angry at him.”

“Did he yell at him?”

“He wasn't the kind of man to yell at anyone. Especially not Harry. He seemed more disturbed than angry but he didn't explain why.”

“Did he ask you to uproot them?”

“No.” Aldo sounded puzzled. “He asked us to leave them. He said he needed to think about them. Maybe he didn't like yellow.”

“He didn't like yellow,” Harry echoed.

Rachel nodded at them.

“I appreciate your help, Mr. Osmond. And I apologize if I upset Harry. It was nice to meet you, Harry. Thank you for showing me your work.”

As she made her way back to her car, she heard Harry protest.

“I didn't plant them. That wasn't my work.”

*   *   *

Rachel met Khattak at his office and waited for him to finish his phone call. He was speaking to a contact at Immigration, but from his scowl he wasn't getting the answers he wanted. She cast a furtive glance at his bookcase. Would he notice that his pristine copy of
Apologia
was missing? She turned her attention back to him as he ended his call.

“What did you find out?”

Rachel straightened her spine.

“It was Melanie Blessant who broke in. She said she was looking for Drayton's will. Apparently, she's not content to wait to hear from his lawyer. Is there a will, sir?” She hadn't overlooked Khattak's absence from the investigation. Nor did she know what leads he was working on his own.

“There is.” He slipped his phone inside his pocket. “The lawyer's name is Charles Brining. We have an appointment with him in the morning. He wasn't prepared to speak on the phone about the terms of the will. You sound as if you didn't find Ms. Blessant all that convincing.”

“I'm not entirely sure it's the will she's looking for. She's just
so
stupid,” she added, thoughtfully. “I can't quite believe it's real. She saw other papers in the safe, though she'll tell you that she didn't snoop around in ‘Chrissie's' things. The amazing part is that she didn't get why Chrissie received so many letters that weren't even addressed to him. Maps and rivers and such.”

“The Drina,” Khattak confirmed at once. “And the Drina Corps.”

“There was more. Something we didn't find in the papers we took from his study. She talked about a death road.” She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. “She thought it meant a trip to Las Vegas.”

“The road of death,” he echoed.

“You know what it is.”

“It's what survivors call the escape route to Tuzla. The men who managed to break out of Srebrenica. Many were killed or captured along the road, to be executed later. Some reported chemical weapon use.”

“I didn't know that.”

Khattak checked his watch but it was a deflection, not a sign of impatience.

“It came out in a Human Rights Watch report a few years after the fall of Srebrenica. They couldn't definitively substantiate the witness testimony, so they called for a wider investigation. The Yugoslav Army was known to have developed delivery systems for a chemical agent called BZ.”

“Christ.” Rachel no longer bothered to curse under her breath. “Are you telling me those weapons were used?”

“I suspect as much, but I can't say with certainty. Survivors said the mortars caused a strange smoke to spread out around them. Some of the men exposed to it experienced hallucinations. They turned on their friends or killed themselves. The physical evidence of chemical weapons use remains elusive, however. Does Ms. Blessant know something about this? Should I talk to her?”

“She'd like nothing better, I'm sure. I can't be certain what Melanie knew. What I do think is that if she did know something—if there was something in that safe that penetrated through what passes for her brain—she simply didn't care about it. Whatever she knew, it didn't change her plans. She wanted to marry Drayton desperately. And she wanted to give him a ready-made family.”

“We should be asking ourselves what the girls' father thought of that. It's a fairly steep price tag, giving up your girls to a fugitive accused of war crimes.”

“If he knew.”

“Someone knew. I wonder if it was Melanie Blessant.”

“She's not going to tell us, sir.”

“There may be a more roundabout way. Her daughter Hadley strikes me as being quite observant.” He recounted what he had learned at the museum, but Rachel was shaking her head.

“She's a minor. We can't question her without a parent present.”

“Then let's ask Ms. Blessant. Let's see how far her motherly concern extends. Perhaps she'll be satisfied if Mink Norman is present.” His voice caressed the name and Rachel scowled.

“Do you think that's wise, sir? We can't have interested third parties contaminating a line of inquiry.”

“There's no reason to think of Ms. Norman as an interested party.”

Rachel's eyes searched his face. “Isn't there, sir? Surely, we can't know who the interested parties are yet. At least until we've discovered the identity of the letter writer. Can you say with certainty it wasn't Mink Norman?”

He didn't concede her point, but he didn't sidestep it either. “I know there's more to these letters than we've understood. We need to go back to the Bosnian community. It's time we started asking questions there.”

“I thought we were supposed to keep this quiet. Surely we're not going to treat Bosnians as suspects when we haven't had the nerve to come clean about Drayton.”

“I'm saying we should pursue both avenues, Rachel. You've had a good instinct about Melanie Blessant that I'd like to follow up. We need to talk to the parents and, failing that, to their daughters.”

“And while you're managing our community policing mandate, what will I be doing?”

Khattak didn't hesitate. “Read the letters more closely. Something may strike you.”

“You're seeing Melanie on your own?”

“I think it's the likeliest chance of success.”

He was right, of course. Melanie would be eloquent under the spell of his attraction. And if this bothered Rachel, she told herself it was for professional reasons.

To Khattak she said, “And if it isn't?”

“Then I'm willing to bet that she doesn't much care if we interview her daughters.”

“And what if the girls aren't there?”

“Then they're likely at Ringsong.”

They'd come to an impasse. Rachel thought about objecting again but left it. “Be careful, sir. We're working in the dark here. We don't know anything about anyone.”

“I think you'll find once you've gotten to know her that there's nothing to fear from Ms. Norman.”

“Is that what you call her?” Rachel asked, curious.

“You don't trust easily, do you Rachel?”

“I wouldn't have thought that was a useful quality in a police officer.” She hesitated. “I'm just wary of provocative women, sir.”

Khattak's gaze made a slow inventory of the shelves in his office before coming to rest on Rachel's face. “Is that a comment on my personal behavior?”

Nervous sweat soaked Rachel in an instant. “Of course not.” She had never, ever wanted to traverse this ground with Khattak. He knew the entire history of her sordid entanglement with MacInerney and hadn't once ventured a personal remark. Her voice stayed trapped in her throat.

“We don't share much about our personal lives, do we?”

There was a rueful note in his voice. She swallowed on a ball of fear.

“That's all right though, isn't it?”

She did not want to talk about Don Getty. Not with Khattak. Not with anyone. If this was an overture of friendship, she'd do her best to deflect it at once.

“But something's been worrying you, hasn't it?” he went on. “Outside of this case.”

Oh God. How to answer him?

“The specter of a war criminal walking our streets is more than enough to worry me, sir. I hope I've given this case my full attention.”

She studied her fingernails. She'd find time for a manicure if she could just walk out of this office now. When he didn't speak, she forced herself to look at him.

He seemed more than a little uncomfortable himself. “Rachel. This is supposed to be a position of leadership. If you ever wish to speak with me about anything, I can assure you it won't leave this office.”

Oh God, she thought again. Did he know about Zach? Had he noticed her lack of focus, her mind constantly wandering to her brother? Was that what this was about?

Tears flooded her eyes and she began fumbling needlessly through her bag. “I'd best get on these letters, sir. Thank you, though.”