The Unquiet Dead (36 page)

There was nothing to fear from the gentle entanglement of Mink Norman, and yet Nate was uneasy. Community policing was the most unforgiving of mandates: Esa needed his objectivity. If there was a connection between the museum and Drayton's death, he needed to isolate it. He wandered back to them, well aware that his presence was an intrusion. Their heads were bent over the Qur'anic folio, dark and gold together.

“Do you know Albinoni's Adagio?” he asked idly.

Mink didn't look up. Her hand rested on Esa's. “I'm sorry?”

“It's a piece of music. Esa knows it. Perhaps if you don't, Sable might?”

“If it's well known, I'm sure she does. She may even have played it. It's been kind of you to loan her your music.”

“I'm looking forward to hearing her play. After I meet her, of course.”

“You'll have to throw one of your parties.”

He gazed about the room, a thought striking him. “Where do you keep the piano?”

“In our private quarters. The board didn't want responsibility for it.”

“The sound would be lovely down here, drifting out to the courtyard, vanishing over the water.”

“You have the writer's gift of evoking a mood.” Her laughter encompassed both men. “It would be exquisite, I agree, but one can't have everything. I've been fortunate enough to realize a dream—I'm more than content.”

“You've a lot to be proud of here. I doubt anyone else could have accomplished as much in just two years.”

“As I said, my friends have been good to me.” She looked from one man to the other. “Is anything the matter? Is this something other than a friendly visit?”

Nate waited for Esa to say something, anything. When he didn't, Nate sighed heavily and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “I should get back. I'm sorry if I intruded.” To Esa he said, “Walk me out, would you? I've a message for you.”

They had developed their own code of silent signals during their misspent youth. Esa couldn't miss what he was asking.

“I'll just be a moment,” he said to Mink.

Uneasy, Nate felt the weight of Mink's stare on the back of his neck

He waited until they had reached the terra-cotta steps to grab Esa's arm. “Come with me,” he said. “You shouldn't stay here alone.”

“What are you accusing me of?” Esa's eyes were hard green stones.

“Nothing, you fool. Rachel called me. She said to get you out of here. You need to take a step back.”

“I need to step back?” He shook off Nate's hand. “You've been involved with the museum for two years—”

“Yes, two years!”

“—and it's taken you until my arrival to realize that Mink's a captivating woman.”

“I'm not interested in her!”

“The hell you aren't. You've been hanging all over her.”

“I was asking Rachel's questions, questions you were supposed to ask. Did you listen to her answers?” He lowered his voice with an effort. Even now she might be standing by the portico.

“I saw the way she smiled at you.”

“She doesn't give a damn about me. It's you she's interested in, and either way it doesn't matter. There's something wrong with the museum, something about the meetings or David Newhall—I don't know what it is, just something. Can't you feel it?”

“I deal in facts, not suppositions.”

“Well, what do the facts tell you?” Nate asked desperately. “Chris moved here two years ago. David came two years ago. And the first I heard of the museum was two years ago.”

He faced Esa's wrath without flinching.

“What in God's name are you talking about? The museum has nothing to do with Drayton. Newhall told us he was at the museum on the night of Drayton's fall and he was. Along with other members of the board.”

“Which members? Ask her to tell you.” He could handle Esa's contempt, if he could just get him to look at the truth.

“What's your theory, then?” Esa challenged. “That Mink is covering for David Newhall? Why would she? You asked a question, she answered it. You wanted to know about the music, she told you.”

“And you believed her?”

“Are you saying you don't? You used to have more faith in the women you claimed to love.”

And there it was. The indictment he had waited for all this time.

Brutal, bitter, the words hung in the air between them. Then Esa thought better of it. “Nate—”

“No. I'm glad you finally said that. I was a fool over Laine, I admit it. Everything I believed about her was wrong. Everything I did was wrong. But if you're angry, it shouldn't be over this. Mink is a friend, that's all. It's not me who stands in your way, it's Rachel.”

Nate blinked rapidly as he descended the steps. “There was a time when you didn't assume the worst about me, Esa. I was your friend. That's all I'm trying to be.”

 

36.

I cannot find words for what happened there.

Rachel found Nate pacing the gardens behind his house. He looked wet and cold and very much alone.

“Where is he?” she demanded. “Wasn't he at Ringsong?”

“He's still there now. He wanted me gone.”

“Christ. We need to get over there right away.”

They had raised their voices over the wind, a wind so fierce and sudden that it picked apart Rachel's ponytail, sending dark strands whipping about her face.

Nate shrugged. “Not me. I've told you, he doesn't want me around.” He shivered as the wind began to howl.

Rachel was too full of urgency to feel the cold. “Grab your jacket, you're coming with me.”

She had the unique ability to override his better judgment, her voice sounding in his ear all the way to the cloakroom and back again to the drive. He shouldered his way into the jacket he reserved for walks along the escarpment. A steely rain slanted against the horizon, the lake beyond arranged in little thrusts of chaos against the shadowy outline of the shore, the white bone of the Bluffs at a treacherous distance.

As her voice carried on, his pace sped up. He came to an abrupt halt at the museum. “That's Aldo's van, the one they use for landscaping. It wasn't here earlier.”

“I've seen it before. Last night outside David Newhall's house.”

She sprinted up the terra-cotta stairs and jammed her finger on the doorbell. When there was no answer, she moved through the portico and forecourt to the great room. The only person in it was Hadley Blessant. She was taking photographs of the exhibits through the powerful lens of a camera.

“Where's Inspector Khattak?”

“He's not here,” said Hadley, a slight frown sketched between her brows. “Is something the matter?”

“Do you know where he is?” Rachel couldn't conceal the anxiety in her voice. Hadley lowered the lens of her camera.

“They went for a walk on the Bluffs.”

“In this weather?”

“I told them. It's not a good idea to walk the Bluffs in the dark. Mink said she needed the air and your inspector wouldn't let her go alone.”

“Damn chivalrous fool,” Nate muttered under his breath.

“Does this have anything to do with my father?”

Rachel spared a moment from her own worries to address the girl's concern. “No, Hadley, nothing at all. Don't worry about your dad, he'll be fine.”

She didn't thank Rachel, but as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, Hadley offered, “Do you want me to come help you look? There's a flashlight in the flex room.”

“I'll find it, thanks.” Rachel's gaze searched the room and the courtyard beyond, the windows lashed by rain. “Why is Aldo's van parked out front?”

“They were here. Mink called them a little while ago but she decided not to wait for them, so I told them she took the path along the Bluffs. If the van's still there, they probably went after her.”

Rachel's voice climbed an octave. “His brother was with him?”

“And their friend. Mr. Newhall. They meet about the museum every now and again. The Osmonds come to look in on the gardens.”

“Thanks.” She grabbed Nate by the elbow. “Let's go.”

They made their way outside, the rain driving against their faces in little spikes. Rachel began to run, Nate at her heels. Within five minutes, she'd turned her ankle.

“This is crazy,” Nate said. “There's nothing to be afraid of. What you've told me simply doesn't make sense.”

“You needed to read more as a kid” was her answer. She hobbled along behind him, blinded by rain, the flashlight skipping ahead down the muddy, rain-soaked path. Lightning pulsed against the sky, the Bluffs outlined like the hollows of a skull. The tumbling waves of the lake roared into the silence.

“There!” Nate pointed ahead in the distance, where shadows were grouped against an outcropping of white clay. Three men stood huddled together, shouting against the wind. A man and a woman were balanced in each other's arms at the very edge of the cliff.

Rachel tried to resolve the picture in her mind, dashing water from her eyes. Once she understood what it was, she raced past Nate down the path, her ankle forgotten. Nate tracked her, his feet slipping in the mud.

“Esa,” he called. “What in God's name are you doing?”

The group at the edge froze in position. Rachel skidded to a halt in front of Mink Norman.

“Come back,” she heard Esa say. “We'll walk here another time.”

The three shadows against the rock loomed larger as Nate joined his friends.

Mink turned to Rachel defiantly, her blue eyes blazing, her gold hair a sodden tangle against her face.

“So you've come at last, armed with your weapons.”

Khattak glared at her. “What are you doing here, Rachel?”

“It's what you're doing that concerns me, sir. I don't have any weapons,” she said to Mink. “Were you expecting that I would? Did you expect me to arrest you?”

Harry Osmond jerked in his brother's hold.

“Rachel, I'm warning you—”

“I'm sorry, sir. You have to know the truth about her. You have to realize why it matters so much that Drayton was Dra
ž
en Krstić, the butcher of Srebrenica.” A palpable shudder ran through the men behind her. “You knew this, didn't you? Not just you, Mr. Newhall, but the others as well. Avdo and Hakija Osmanović, the survivors of Srebrenica. You recognized Krstić from the base at Poto
č
ari. That's why you moved here.”

Harry jerked his head back and forth in a strange repetitive motion. “No,” he said. “Oh no.”

Rachel spoke to Mink. “I thought it was Mr. Newhall—Damir Hasanović—but I was wrong, wasn't I? You sent the letters. It was you, all along. There is no Sable Norman studying at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. And there's no Mink Norman either. But there was a Selmira once, wasn't there? That's who the girl in the photograph is, the picture you sent to Krstić. The girl who hanged herself—your sister, Selmira.”

Esa turned toward her, shielding Mink from her questions.

“What in God's name are you talking about, Rachel? Do you have any idea what you're doing to your career? I took you on when no one would touch you!”

“I know, sir, and I'm truly sorry.”

“Esa,” Nate interrupted. “Krstić came here two years ago, the Bosnians came two years ago. And the plan for Ringsong was set in motion two years ago. Andalusia, Esa. What was Bosnia if not a second Andalusia?”

Cradling Mink closer under his arm, Esa pulled her back from the edge. Bright with fury, he turned on Nate. “If our friendship ever meant anything to you, you'll shut up right now. You'll take Rachel and you'll leave this to me.”

“It's not just Andalusia, Esa. It's the music, the Adagio. She didn't just send him the photograph and the letters. She sent him the Adagio. Of course she knew what it was. She's literate in music.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

“They know,” Rachel said desperately, pointing at the Osmond brothers. “Avdo and Hakija. They're from Srebrenica. I've been searching for my brother, sir, he was missing for seven years—that's when I understood what must have happened here. What happened to Krstić. It's the missing men, the missing boys. That's why they don't have families. That's why it's only Damir, only Avdo and Hakija, only Mink Norman. Nobody else survived, sir, you know this. It's about the dead of Srebrenica, the men Krstić ordered to their deaths. That's why she sent the letters and the photograph of Selmira. Tell him, Mink. Tell him your real name. He fought for your people, he's earned the truth.”

“No one fought for us,” Mink said tonelessly, drawing away from Esa. “Isn't that so, Damir? Let him tell you.”

David Newhall shrugged, the rain on his glasses obscuring his eyes. “What do you want to know? I've told you the story of the base. I begged the Dutch for my brothers' lives, for my mother and father, but Mesha said, ‘Don't beg for us, that's not how I want to live. There will be a prisoner exchange, that's what Mladić promised us. You see, he's given candy to the boys?'” David removed his glasses, studied the others through shrouded eyes. “He strode around the base, gave speeches to the refugees, some to us, some to others, dispensing chocolates to the children when all the time he knew there was never going to be a prisoner exchange. We didn't have any prisoners to exchange.” He drew a ragged breath.

“Mink,” Esa said. “Tell me what this is.”

Rachel hated the hollow sound of his voice, the disbelief in it. It presaged an emptiness within her own heart as Mink Norman moved from the shelter of his arms without a qualm. She turned her face up to the rain and reached out a hand to hold Harry Osmond's.

“Selmira
was
my sister, your sergeant is very clever. I don't know how she identified Selmira from that photograph when the tribunal never could. She and I hid with the other girls inside the base on the day that the Serbs overran Srebrenica. Our parents were dead, our brothers had gone to the woods. We wouldn't learn for some time what had happened to them, and then only because of Damir.” She nodded at the man whose gaze was fixed on her. “That night, Chetniks came to the factory looking for girls. They were dressed like the Dutch, so I waved at them. That's how they noticed us. Nesib, my brother, told us to hide, to make sure we didn't attract their attention, but I was young, I didn't listen. They took us because I didn't listen. But I was lucky because Nesib had a friend in the Serb army. He warned my brothers to leave Srebrenica at once. And he rescued me from the Chetniks. I know he tried, but he couldn't rescue my sister. The others wouldn't let him.”