5
“He’s a practicing Catholic,” Detective Tom Radnovich said when the
waitress asked Detective Pete Orsini if he wanted bacon, ham or sausage with
his eggs and Orsini said, “No, thanks.” “He’s still practicing?” the waitress,
a woman of about fifty with hair dyed red, asked rhetorically. “I would’ve
thought he’d have the knack by now.” It was a setup, and Detective Orsini
smiled. He had heard some variant of the joke many times and felt that enduring
it was a small price to pay for proclaiming his faith, or having it proclaimed.
It was nothing, compared to what the martyred saints of the Church had to bear.
Though
baptized, he had grown up in a lapsed household, and it was only when he met
the girl who was to be his wife that he sought out the welcoming maternal arms
of the Church. But being an adherent of an ecumenical organized religion,
rigid, paternalistic, woman-denigrating, made him sympathetic to other such
religions, and so he did not feel altogether like a stranger when he visited
the Dawat-ul-Islam Mosque in order to talk to Imam Becker. Becker, too, came
from a nonpracticing Catholic family and, like Orsini, found religion when he
fell in love with a devout girl. But Marilyn Reilly, now Marilyn Orsini, had
only brought Pete back to the church of his ancestors. Marrying Emine
Kardeş, on the other hand, required that Othmar Becker – who, having
majored in what in Central Europe is called Orientalistics, already knew
Arabic, Persian and Turkish – convert to Islam. Their honeymoon in Turkey turned
into two years of study at a seminary, followed by a call to serve as imam at a
mosque newly formed by a small Turkish community in the Bronx and richly
endowed by a Turkish multimillionaire. True to the Ottoman spirit, the
community invited fellow Muslims of all nationalities that had once been in the
Empire to join. Preaching was in English.
Orsini
had given Radnovich this information at their first meeting, in the course of
introducing him to the Begović case. Now he had some new information: a
couple of girls who had known Lejla at BCC had come to the station to report
that back in March they had seen her on campus holding hands with a guy.
Definitely not Bosnian, they said with a giggle. A black guy.
Why had they not reported it sooner? Because they hadn’t thought of it, but
they had recently come across the guy, with another white girl, and one of the
girls said to the other, Hey, maybe we ought to tell
the police about him and Lejla, poor girl.
“Have
you ID’d the guy?” Radnovich asked.
“Yeah. Delmar Franklin, twenty-eight, a part-time student,
works at the bookstore.”
“So
what do you think? That he might be a suspect?”
“Can’t
rule it out,” Pete answered with a shrug between sips of black coffee.
“But
he could also be a motive. I know how racist my fellow Slavs can be.
Girl dating a black guy – a good pretext for an honor killing.”
“But I
thought the family members all had alibis, don’t they? I mean,
the same alibi.”
“I’ve
got a new theory.”
Detective
Orsini ate his meatless breakfast in silence while his partner explained his
theory, between forkfuls of sausage, eggs and hashed browns.
“That’s
interesting,” Orsini said as he gulped the last of his coffee. “So now we have
two leads. Of course, if Lejla wakes up one of them will be moot.”
“Not
necessarily. She may have been grabbed around the neck without ever seeing her
assailant.”
“Good
point.”
“But
are you serious about the boyfriend?” Radnovich asked. “Any
history of violence?”
“Ambiguous.
A couple of years ago there was a call from a neighbor with regard to a girl
who was visiting him, but the girl denied any violence and said it was just noisy
sex. There was also suspicion of drug-dealing, but no solid evidence.”
“Let’s
pay him a visit. And also the imam, to see if any of the
suspected Gremnik Boys belong to the mosque.”
“Do
you have a list?”
“Yeah.”
“So
finish your breakfast and let’s go.”
“Would you care for some eggs?” Betty heard
Megan ask her while coming out of the shower.
“Sure,” Betty said, stepping into the kitchen. At home she almost
never ate eggs, because of Paul’s concern over his, and by extension her,
cholesterol. Not that their lipid panels had ever given cause for concern, but
Paul said that he liked to be careful.
“How?” Megan asked.
“You mean, how would I care for them? I would coddle them,” Betty
said with a giggle, sitting down at the dinette table.
Megan laughed, but quickly stopped. “That was Daniel’s joke,” she
said.
“So it was,” Betty said. There was no point in telling Megan that
she and Daniel had both heard it from their mother’s friend Mark.
“How many? Megan asked, taking the egg
carton out of the refrigerator.
“Just one,” Betty said. “As an old boyfriend of my mother’s used
to say, one egg is un œuf.” She
giggled again, and this time Megan laughed unrestrainedly.
“As long as we’re into egg jokes,” she said when she stopped
laughing, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
“I don’t know,” Betty said dutifully.
“The egg,” Megan said. “The chicken faked it.” Betty burst into a
gale of laughter, spates of which lasted all through breakfast. She had
recently been thinking about faking it,
and wondering if her orgasms with Paul had always been the real thing. Most of
them were, she was sure of that, but there had been times...
“I forgot to tell you,” Megan said while she was rinsing the
breakfast dishes as Betty was drying them. “I have a client coming at ten.”
“Client?”
“Yeah,
I have a few clients, local business owners, that I do
tax returns for. June fifteenth is the filing deadline for self-employed
persons.”
“Not
April thirtieth?”
“That’s
for everyone else! I don’t actually like to wait till the last day, and I’ve
already filed all the others. This is the last one. It’s a restaurant, and it’s
where we’re going to have dinner tonight.”
“So,
does that mean I get to take Sam to the park?”
“Yes, you lucky woman!”
It was commencement day at Bronx Community College. The streets crossing
Sedgwick Avenue, where the detectives were slowly making their way to the
campus in heavy traffic, were swarming with cars looking for parking spaces.
Detective Orsini had foreseen the problem and had arranged for the bookstore’s
loading zone to be free for them to park in. He had also checked if Delmar
Franklin would be working that morning and was assured that all available
employees would be at work, since the store would be exceptionally busy,
between the commencement attendees shopping for souvenirs and the students
preparing for the summer session (summer module, they had called it)
that was to begin the following Monday.
“That’s
him,” Orsini said, pointing at a good-looking young man behind one of the
registers. The bookstore was indeed crowded. The young man reminded Radnovich
of an actor he had recently seen in a television show (Cosby, maybe?).
Four people were in the line before his register, and the one he was attending
was a very pretty Asian girl who appeared to be flirting with him. They were
bantering softly, and as the girl got her wallet out of her purse, he stroked
the back of her hand. She smiled at him.
“Delmar
Franklin?” Orsini said as the detectives approached the register.
“NYPD. May we talk to you?”
“Sure,”
he said, seeming a little surprised but not too much so, “but do you mind if I
finish with this lovely lady?”
“Go
ahead,” Radnovich said to him, and then, to the other customers in the line,
“Maybe you folks ought to get into another line.”
“There’s
no need for that,” a blond woman in her forties, probably the manager, said as
she appeared from nowhere to sidle behind the counter. “I can take over.
Go on, Delmar.”
Delmar
seemed reluctant to have his transaction with the lovely Asian girl
interrupted. He smiled at her wistfully and stroked her hand one more time
before stepping out from behind the register to join the detectives.
“Friend of yours?” Orsini asked him.
“Just a customer. I like to be attentive.” Delmar Franklin
smiled, showing dazzling white teeth. They moved away from the counter to a
relatively quiet area of the store, where books called GENERAL LITERATURE were
shelved.
“I’m
Detective Orsini. This is Detective Radnovich. We’re here to ask you about
Lejla Begović.”
“Bega-who? Oh, Lejla, the girl that’s in a coma. I heard
about that. Too bad. Lovely girl.
Yeah, she used to come in here.”
“We
were told that you had a relationship with her,” Orsini went on.
“Relationship? I had no more of a relationship with her than
with the pretty Miss Kim here.” At that moment the pretty Miss Kim was filing
out of the store, bagful of books in hand, and gave Delmar a final flirtatious
look. “So far, anyway,” he added with a smile.
“Are
you sure?” Radnovich asked.
“Well,
actually, we did have coffee a couple of times. She liked to flirt with me.
Lots of girls do.”
“You
never had sex with her?” Radnovich insisted.
“What?
You gotta be kiddin’ me.” Delmar Franklin’s accent made a sudden shift.
“Why,”
Orsini asked, “are you a monk or something?”
Delmar
laughed. “No, I sure ain’t no monk. I like girls...”
“Well,”
Radnovich said, “there’s evidence that Lejla had sex shortly before she was
assaulted. We’re trying to figure out with whom.”
“Evidence?” Delmar said with a chuckle. “You mean, like
sperm?”
“No,”
Orsini said, “spermicide.”
“Then
it couldn’t have been me. I don’t use no rubbers. I
was usin’ ‘em when I was eighteen, see, and somehow I managed to get me two
kids, with two different girls, that I’m supportin’. So I got me a vasectomy.
But anyway, I wouldn’t try nothin’ with Lejla once I seen her with that scary
guy.”
“What
scary guy?” Radnovich asked.
“One
of them East European types, Yugoslavian or whatever, except he wasn’t the same
as Lejla, ‘cause they was speakin’ English. He was walkin’ her to campus,
then he kissed her and turned back.”
Radnovich
had a sudden flash. “Would you be able to identify him if I showed you some
pictures?”
“Yeah, sure, as long as the picture showed that big scar on his
left cheek.”
“Could
you come with us to the car?” Radnovich said. “I’ve got some pictures there.”
“Hey,
detectives, that’s gonna look like you’re arrestin’ me!” Delmar said with
another chuckle. His relief at turning from suspect to informant was gleefully
evident. “I’m kiddin’,” he added. “I’m glad to be of service to New York’s
finest.”
Delmar
Franklin kept up his banter during the walk to the car. Once there, Radnovich
got his attaché case from the backseat and extracted the Gremnik Boys file,
which contained one sheet for each of the eight suspected members. When he saw
the third one, Delmar said unhesitatingly, “That’s him.”
As she was pushing the stroller, with Sam happily and unintelligibly
chatting with an imaginary friend, Betty thought once again about Paul’s
exchange with Dick about “Mrs. Berman.” She was sure that if Paul really had
made the comment about her keeping her name, he would have mentioned it at the
time. Maybe he had intended to say it and now believed that he had done
so. Or maybe he now felt that he should have said it at the time and
needed to correct the account.
But
that would be dishonest! Was she suspecting Paul of dishonesty? After the
repeated vows they had made, that they always would be honest with each other?
Even in his remarks to her at the wedding ceremony, in which he glossed,
lawyerlike, the words love, honor and obey, Paul had said, “Honor
is related to honesty, and I shall honor you by being honest with you.”
“What
the fuck’s going on with me?” she asked herself sotto voce, and was
immediately was startled by the possibility that Sam might have overheard her
and that before long he would be saying “what the fuck.” At least there were,
at the moment, no passers-by within earshot.
The
thought that she might no longer be in love with Paul, so flippantly expressed
to her mother in the aftermath of a dream but promptly forgotten, made a return
visit. She tried to dismiss it by focusing on Sam, whom she was taking out of
the stroller, now that they had arrived at the playground. But the maneuver didn’t
work. Sam made her think of Daniel, and the extent to which she missed her
brother was now like an open chasm in her heart. If only she had spent more
time with him. If only she had, at least once, gone to New
York to visit him. If only she had made time to be with him, just the
two of them, during one of his Montreal visits. She didn’t want to blame Paul
for her failure, but she couldn’t help it. Paul’s antipathy toward Daniel, manifested
not by anything he said but by avoidance, had infected her.
Sam
was happy in the sandbox, pouring sand with his red shovel into the blue pail
and promptly pouring it right back out. She found the process fascinating to
watch from the bench where she was seated along with a few other young adults.
No one spoke. The Toronto reserve, she thought.
Why
had Paul never mentioned to her what he knew of Daniel’s paternity? He had
assumed that she knew, but why not ask her how she felt about it?
Sam’s
face suddenly took on a look of discomfort. Betty knew that he was almost toilet-trained,
but not quite. Megan had told her that for the hour or so that she would spend
with him in the park she had nothing to worry about, but she wondered what
might be going on. “What’s the matter, Sam?” she asked when she went to crouch
beside him. “Potty?”
Sam
shook his head. “Potty home,” he said.
“Do
you want to go home?”
He
shook his head again. “Park,” he said.
“You
want to stay in the park?”
He
nodded. “Park,” he said again.
When she got back to the bench, a man who was sitting closest to her
– though still a good two hip spans away – finally broke the silence.
“How old is he?” he asked.
“Twenty-one
months,” she said. “He’s my nephew,” she added.
“He’s
lucky to have a beautiful aunt like you,” the man said. He was an
ordinary-looking guy of about thirty-five. What was he doing at the playground
on a Friday morning? She was about to ask him which of the children was his,
but decided that she didn’t want to get into a conversation with him. And what
if he was there just to pick up women? She remembered seeing someone like that on
a television crime show, NYPD Blue or Law & Order or one of
those. But that was New York. She was in Toronto, and she wasn’t feeling the
least bit threatened. “Thank you,” she said to the man as she smiled and
returned to her thoughts.
“We understand, Reverend,” Detective Radnovich began, “that you know all
the members of your mosque.” They were in his study, in the house next door to
the mosque. The second session of Friday morning prayers had just ended.
“Oh,
yes,” Becker said. “We are not a very big community. And I have a very good
memory.” No doubt, Radnovich thought, with all the languages he had learned.
“We
have a list of certain Albanian names. We would like you to tell us which of
them belong.” Radnovich put the list in front of the imam.
“This
one, and this one, and this one,” Becker said as he pointed to three names on
the list. One of them was Omar Murova, the younger brother of Safet Murova, the
man that Delmar Franklin had placed with Lejla Begović.
“What
about this one?” Radnovich asked, putting his finger on Safet’s name.
Becker
smiled. “No,” he said. “He’s married to an Albanian woman, but she’s Christian.
I’m not sure if Catholic or Orthodox. Maybe Greek Catholic.”
“He’s
married?” The two detectives said in unison.
“Yes. Omar
used to talk about his sister-in-law sometimes. They don’t seem to get along.”
Becker smiled diplomatically. Radnovich and Orsini looked at each other.
“Used to?” Radnovich asked.
“He
hasn’t been coming to mosque lately.”
“So he
wasn’t at prayers today?” Orsini asked.
“No.
But the other two were.”
“How
long has it been,” Radnovich asked, “that Omar hasn’t been coming to mosque?”
“A few weeks – no, perhaps more. He was here on Eid ul-Adha,
but since then I’m not sure.
The
detectives looked at each other again. “Thank you for your help, Reverend,” Radnovich
said. “Salaam 'alaykum.”
“Wa’alaykum
as-salaam,” Becker said, reaching his hand out to the two detectives.
“How
about that,” Orsini said after the door had closed behind them. “In one day we
go from no suspects to three.”
“Right
now I have only one,” Radnovich said. “Let’s find out more about Safet
Murova.”.
“And
his wife,” Orsini said.
“We
should also look for any connection the Murovas might have with the
Begovićes. Omar is the same age as their sons.”
“What
kind of scenario do you see?” Orsini asked as he sat behind the wheel of his
car while Radnovich was getting into the passenger seat.
“Let’s
try this. Suppose Omar Murova and one or both of the Begović brothers are
buddies. Omar meets the pretty younger sister. He’s interested in her, tells
his big brother about it. The brother decides to make a play for her and
succeeds, maybe telling her that he will leave his wife for her. Lejla gets
impatient, maybe threatens to tell his wife. Safet decides to silence her.
Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her.”
“He
didn’t!”
“May as well have. He, or whoever did it, didn’t know that
she was alive.”
They
were headed south on the Grand Concourse, toward the tire shop where both
Murovas worked, intending to get there before lunchtime. “You like it that it’s
one of the Albanians,” Orsini said, “don’t you?”
“Why?
Because I’m a Serb?” Radnovich wasn’t sure whether to be
indignant at the suggestion of prejudice or to take it as a joke.
“No,
that never crossed my mind. It’s just that it would tie this case to the other
one, the accidental death of a journalist.” Accidental Death of an Anarchist
had been produced the year before by a community theater group in the Bronx,
with the action transposed from Italy to an unnamed Latin American country. “I
mean, it’s good police work. I’m not saying you’re obsessed like a Javert.”
“You’ve
seen Les Miz?” Tom had seen it with Karen when she was pregnant with
Brian.
“Actually,
no, but I read the book. In high school. An abridged
edition, though.” Both men laughed. “Actually, as novels about police work go,
it’s not bad.”
They
parked a block away and walked to the tire shop as surreptitiously as they
could. There was no sight of Omar, but Safet was carrying two huge truck tires,
one on each shoulder, into the covered shed. Radnovich thought that it might
have been better to question Omar first, but if Safet was whom they had, so be
it. They approached him from behind till they were flanking him, unseen by him
because of the tires. They walked alongside him silently till he put the tires
down and was startled to find a plainclothes cop on either side of him. He made
a quick turn as though exploring the possibility of running away but
immediately gave up.
“Safet
Murova?” Orsini said. “NYPD. We’d like to talk to
you.”
Safet
said nothing. He looked around him, trying to make eye contact with a coworker,
but none looked his way.
“Would
you take a little walk with us?” Radnovich asked rhetorically.
“You
arrest me?” Safet finally said.
“Not
if you cooperate,” Orsini said. For the time being they were good cop/good cop.
They walked in silence until they were some twenty paces from the shop, on a
relatively quiet side street. “What can you tell us about Lejla Begović?”
“What
I can tell about Lejla Begović? I can tell plenty about that little
whore.” He spat on the ground behind him. “My brother Omar he
in love with her. Become good Muslim so can marry her. But she want make
sex before they married. First he say no, but she very pretty girl so he say
yes. And he find she no virgin. Broke
his heart.” He spat behind himself again and muttered an Albanian curse.
Safet’s
outspoken outburst caught the detectives by surprise. Given Omar’s possible
alibi, it was almost self-incriminating. But Radnovich was wary of a rash
accusation.
“What
was your relationship with Lejla?” he asked.
“Relationship? Hah! Little whore! Omar no want her. I make
sex with her.” He laughed. “She say I am better from Omar,”
he added with more laughter, which gave his scar a dancelike movement.
“Did
your wife know?”
The
expression of laughter vanished instantly from Safet’s face. “My
wife? Please, no.” His voice was almost trembling. It was unclear if he
was worried about hurting his wife or afraid of her.
“But
you were seen with her, walking her to campus, kissing her,” Orsini said.
“Please,”
Safet said, lifting his index finger, “One time. Just one time we make sex.”
“Where?”
“In...
in the van,” Safet said, pointing in the general direction of the shop, where
the van was presumably parked. “On top of truck tire,” he added with a smile.
“So
what did you do with her?” Radnovich asked, his voice suddenly several decibels
louder than up to then.
“Do
with her?”
“Yes,”
Orsini said, matching Radnovich’s volume, “how did she end up strangled?”
“Not
me,” Safet said.
“Not
you? Then who else?”
“You
had two good reasons,” Radnovich added, this time in a sympathetic tone. “She
broke your brother’s heart, and you were afraid of your wife.
Two good reasons to keep her quiet. Isn’t that so, tough
guy?”
“No...
not me.”
“Then who? One of the other Gremnik Boys?
Emrush? Haris?”
The
code of silence had set in. Safet was going to say no more.
“We’re
going to have to book you,” Orsini said.
“I’m
going to tell your boss,” Radnovich said. He walked back to the shop while
Orsini handcuffed Safet and read him his rights.
To the
announcement that the police were taking Mr. Safet Murova with them to the
station, the two men in the office of the tire shop responded with silent nods,
as if the matter were routine. When Tom returned, Orsini was getting Safet into
the car, while Safet was turning his cell phone on. “I gave him the option of
making his phone calls now,” Orsini said, “and he accepted.”
Safet
reached his first contact quickly, and spoke softly and rapidly in Albanian,
with the word police audible a few times, and with okay as the
last word. With his second call he had to wait a while and evidently ended up
with voice mail or an answering machine. He began his message with “Silvana” –
probably his wife’s name – and continued it, slowly and deliberately, in a
stilted sort of Albanian, quite unlike that of his first call, as well as
devoid of the nasal sounds that had marked it. When he finished the message he
pressed Off and handed the phone to Orsini, who
was already in the driver’s seat, without a word. Apparently Orsini had told
Safet that his call log would need to be examined at the station.
“Is
that your wife, Silvana?” Radnovich asked him.
Safet
remained silent, but after they had been driving for about three minutes
decided to break his silence. “Yes,” he said, “my wife. Silvana DiMaggio.”
“DiMaggio?”
Orsini said. “I thought she was Albanian.”
“Not Albania. Arbëresh. Albanese
from Italy. Sicilia. Chiana Arbanisi.”
After this
succinct lecture on cultural geography they drove in silence to the 51st
Precinct. Radnovich thought that once he got back to his own he would ask
DePalma, who was of Sicilian origin, what he knew about ethnic Albanians in
Sicily. Their dialect was probably quite different from what Kosovar Albanians
spoke, and Safet Murova had to use some kind of formal Albanian in order to
communicate with his wife.
It had
been a long morning. The two detectives decided to have lunch while their
suspect lingered in the station lockup, under the watchful eye of the desk
sergeant, waiting for his wife or anyone else to show up. Orsini had already
contacted the DA’s office and faxed a summary of the evidence to the ADA, who
would decide whether a charge of assault one or attempted murder would be
filed. An arraignment hearing was scheduled for three o’clock.
Other than the 514 area code, Betty did not recognize the number that
appeared on the screen of the cell phone that she had forgotten to turn off.
Its insistent ring – maybe Megan would help her install a more pleasing
ringtone – had startled her. Who, she wondered, might have her number, aside
from Paul?
It was
Marcia, her mother-in-law. “Hi, sweetie,” she said, “how are you doing, eh?”
Thirty years in Montreal, and she still spoke like a Torontonian.
“I’m
fine,” Betty said without thinking, “couldn’t be better.” Was she telling the
truth? Could things really not be better? With Paul, at
least?
“That’s
good. I always thought that a break once in a while is good for a marriage.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Paul...”
A break good for a marriage? Her mother’s friend Tina
Leblanc – the blabbermouth doctor who was Mireille’s oldest and closest friend,
though Betty had not met her till she was twenty – had once alluded quite
casually, in Betty’s presence, to a fling that Mireille had had with Greg
Berman one summer when Marcia was in Israel with the boys. Mireille had later
told Betty that it was something she felt ashamed of. Now there were at least
two things that maman was ashamed of.
“... but
he isn’t taking it so well. You know how it is.”
“I
guess so. But I think Paul understands me.”
“Oh,
he’s very understanding, Paul is.” Marcia laughed. “Sometimes he understands
what you’re saying before you’ve said it.” Betty joined her in laughter.
“Anyway,”
Marcia continued, “I was thinking of coming to Toronto to see my family” –
Marcia had a brother and a sister living there, besides cousins – “and as long
as you’re there, may be we could get together. Back here in Montreal we almost
never get a chance to talk, just you and me.”
“When
were you thinking of coming?”
“Well,
I was thinking of coming Sunday, but Paul told me that you’re going to New York
that day, so maybe I’ll come tomorrow. Would that be okay?”
“Why, sure...”
“We could
meet tomorrow afternoon for tea, in my favorite teashop in the Annex. I’ll call
you when I get in tomorrow. Okay, sweetie?”
“Okay,
Marcia. See you tomorrow.”
Megan,
who had come into the study unbeknownst to Betty, was looking at her with an
inquisitive gaze. “That was Paul’s mom,” Betty said. “She’s coming here
tomorrow. She’s from here originally, you know.”
“Yeah,
I think Daniel told me. To him, of course, she was Harvey’s mom.”
“I
guess so.”
“You
know what Daniel once told me? That maybe Paul hated him because he was
Harvey’s best friend...”
“Hated
him? Paul never hated Daniel! That’s ridiculous!”
“Think
about it, Betty: little Paul is having fun with his big brother, then Daniel
comes over, and Harvey leaves Paul stranded and goes off with his friend.
Wouldn’t you hate someone if it happened to you? I know I would.”
“But
Paul isn’t like that! He... he understands people!”
“So
I’ve just heard!”
“So
you’ve been listening in on me!” Betty pretended to throw the cell phone at
Megan, and it slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor.
“Accident!” Betty shouted. Both women laughed. “By the way,
can you help me get a nice ringtone on my phone?”
“Sure.
But think about what I said, or rather what Daniel said. And he said more: that
maybe Paul went after you to get back at him. If he took Paul’s brother away
from him, then Paul would take Daniel’s sister away from him.”
“That’s
more than ridiculous. That’s insane. Around the time we were teenagers I began
to suspect that my brother might be a little crazy. His obsession with his
father... I mean with his quote father unquote... and that whole DNA business –
look where that got him. That weekend that we spent here in Toronto, I told him
I thought he was crazy. And then going off to report on murderous civil wars, in
the middle of the action... wasn’t that crazy? But now, to hear what he had to
say about Paul, that really tops it.”
“You’ve
got some strong feelings on this, girl,” Megan said, bemused. “Just give
yourself a chance to think about it a little. And maybe ask your mother-in-law
what she thinks about it. Now, hand me that phone. Let’s see what kind of music
it holds in its brain.”
Yes, Rick DePalma told him, there were Albanian-speaking people in some
villages around Palermo. They were called Arbanisi, and they had their
own mafias, with the tremendous advantage of having a language that other
Italians couldn’t understand. Of course they weren’t all mafiosi,
and they weren’t only in Sicily, but also on the mainland, in the south. The
former congressman DioGuardi was one of them; that was the reason that he had
lately been traveling to Albania and Kosovo.
“I was
wondering what an Italian like him was doing there,” Radnovich said with a
chuckle.
“Yeah,
there are all different kinds of Albanians, including Italian ones. So, are you
going to quiz this Safet guy about any connections with the KLA?”
“Do
you think I should? Already?”
“Maybe
we can get the DA to go easy on the charges if he talks.”
“That’s
a thought. So do you think I should go there now, before the arraignment?”
“Why not? And if you get some results, let me know, and you
can take off for the weekend. You’ve got your kids to pick up.”
“Actually,
there’s a change. Karen had to take Lindsey to the dentist and wants her to
stay home this evening, so I’m not picking them up till tomorrow.”
“So
what do you plan to do tonight?”
“I
thought I might to out to a bar. Specifically, to the one where Daniel Wilner
got hit.”
“So,
will that be work or play?”
“Both,
I guess.”
“That’s
the spirit,” Rick said. “Have a good weekend!”
“You too!”
It was
time to get back to the 51st. He didn’t feel like checking out a car, and a patrolman
drove him there. When he got there no lawyer, or anyone else,
had arrived yet, but Safet did not seem impatient or anxious. He was
alone in the holding cell, except for a fly whose flight he was following with
his eyes while drinking a Pepsi.
“Hi, Safet. Remember me?”
“I
remember you good. You Detective Radnovich.
You Serb.”
“I’m a
Serb-American, Safet. My father was born in Serbia, but he came to this country
a long time ago, in the days of Tito. He was anti-Communist. My mother’s family
came a very long time ago, seventy years. I have nothing to do with
Milošević. You understand?”
“Understand.”
“I
have some questions for you, and how you answer may help you with the charges
about Lejla Begović. Help you. Do you understand?”
“Understand.”
“Okay.
I want to know about some of your friends back in Kosovo.”
“Friends in Kosova? Me?”
“Yes,
your friends. Some of them may be in the KLA.”
“Oo
chuh kuh,” Safet corrected emphatically. “Not kay ell ay.”
“Okay,
UÇK. Take a look at this list of people.” He put in front of Safet the list of
twelve Albanian names from Megan Kenner’s notes.
Safet
scanned the list, slowly, one name at a time. Must be a slow
reader, Radnovich thought. A few times there was a barely suppressed
smile.
When
he was done, Safet looked up at Radnovich. “Okay,” he said, “I look.”
“Do
you know any of them?”
“How I
know them? They are in Kosova, I am here in New York.”
“But
you were there only two years ago. Were you in UÇK?”
Safet
shrugged his shoulders.
“How about your brother Omar? Emrush Thelu? Haris Karimaj?”
Safet
suddenly seemed to lose his cool. “Yes!” he shouted. “Everybody
UÇK! Okay?” He muttered a phrase in which the detective thought he heard
the word Serbe.
But
Safet’s loss of self-control was only apparent. Suddenly he was smiling while
looking past Radnovich’s shoulder. The detective turned around and saw through
the grate of the cell door that the desk sergeant was bringing two visitors to
the holding cell, along with Pete Orsini. The two were women, both
striking-looking without being actually pretty, one a brunette around thirty
and the other a dirty blonde some five or ten years older. One of them must be
Silvana, Safet’s wife, he concluded.
Radnovich
stood up as the cell door was opened. Orsini gave him a sheepish smile.
“Detective Radnovich,” he said, “I’d like to present Silvana DiMaggio, Mr.
Murova’s wife.” It was the brunette. She was dark-complexioned, as befitted her
Sicilian origin, full-figured and short, but gracefully balanced on extremely
high stiletto heels, in a form-fitting short-sleeved summer dress whose green
color matched her eyes.
“I’m
Rita Clementi,” the tall, bony blonde said in a pure New York accent. “I’ll be
acting as Mr. Murova’s attorney.” Before Radnovich had a chance to say anything
clever she turned to Safet and spoke a few sentences to him in carefully
enunciated Albanian, to which he responded with nods. “I’m not a criminal
lawyer,” she said to Radnovich, “so my position is just temporary.”
“She’s
my cousin,” Silvana DiMaggio said with a smile. If so, Radnovich thought, then
they must be distant. Her accent sounded Italian. She sat down, in the chair
where Radnovich had sat, opposite her husband and reached out for his hands
before realizing that they were cuffed behind his back. They began speaking
softly in Albanian.
Radnovich
began to give Rita Clementi a brief summary of the possible charges – assault
one or attempted murder – when Orsini interrupted him. “I’ve just heard from
Lincoln Hospital, and Lejla may not last the night. So the charge may be
murder.”
Safet
Murova’s expression did not change. “And what, exactly,” the lawyer asked,
“have you got to link my client to this unfortunate girl?”
“Let’s
talk privately for a moment,” Radnovich said, and began to move to the corner
of the cell that was farthest from Safet’s chair. Rita Clementi followed him
with some reluctance.
“Your
cousin may not want to know this,” he began, “but he admitted to us that he’d
had sex with her. And there’s the business of his brother Omar’s previous
involvement with her. That gives us a double motive right there.”
“Motive
shmotive,” Rita said. “How about evidence? From what I
hear that girl was a piece of work. Her own family seems to have disowned her.
If you look hard enough you can find any number of people who had no use for
her. I mean, I’m sorry for her and all that, after what happened to her. But...”
“After
what happened to her? It just happened?”
“I
don’t mean here. I mean back in Sarajevo, when she was thirteen, and she was
raped by Serb militia. You didn’t know?”
“Her
family never told me. How did you know?”
“Of
course they wouldn’t. It’s too shameful. She told Omar, and Omar told Safet,
and Safet told Silvana, and Silvana told me. Now I’m telling you. And before
you accuse me of blaming the victim...”
“I wouldn’t dream of it...”
“Good.
Nothing excuses what was done to that girl, but pinning it on Safet...”
“As
you said, Counselor, you’re not a criminal lawyer. We’ve gotten convictions
with much less. What kind of lawyer are you, by the way?”
“I’m
an entertainment lawyer, if you have to know. And if you’re going to make a
joke about it, chances are I’ve heard it.”
Orsini
came over. “Time for court,” he said.
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