“You mustn’t tell anyone, not even Baize. This is just between us.”
“What are you saying, Paul?”
“Jan was trying to hunt down wanted killers and bring them to justice. That’s why he died.”
There was a shocked silence. Carla stared back. “What killers?”
“You remember that Jan often went abroad on concerts?”
“Of course. That was work.”
“Sometimes. Other times it was to talk with an organization called Families for Justice. It’s a group of relatives of victims of the genocide in the former Yugoslavia who try to track down war criminals.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jan wanted to help find the brutal camp guards and executioners who carried out so many of the war crimes, the ones who escaped. Have you any idea what happened to those wanted men?”
“No.”
“NATO caught the big names—the top army officers and politicians who ordered the ethnic cleansing and the butchery. We all saw the names in the headlines, the ones tried in the international courts at The Hague. People like Milosevic and his top henchman, Ratko Mladic. But many of the lesser-known thugs who carried out atrocities avoided prosecution.”
“How?”
“Some vanished abroad and created new identities for themselves. Others were aided by supporters or friends. A number of the more brutal Serb paramilitary commanders had connections to organized crime, the Balkan and Russian mafias, who helped them do a disappearing act.”
“Where did they disappear to?”
“Anywhere you can think of. Europe, South America, Australia, even the United States. Just like the Nazis of old, they fled like rats deserting a ship. Jan was determined to bring as many of them as he could to justice. That’s what he was doing in his spare time. That’s what consumed him.”
“Why didn’t Jan tell me all this?”
“I guess he didn’t want you to be involved. There were other reasons, too.”
“What reasons?”
“These were dangerous people he was hunting down. He thought you might be worried about that.”
“I’m still waiting for an answer, Paul. Why did Jan die?”
“Because he got close to identifying several brutal paramilitary commanders who were never brought to trial. That’s why.”
“Has this got to do with your parents’ deaths? How they died in the shelling? Is that why he was hunting these war criminals down?”
Paul didn’t answer but his eyes welled up with tears, and he put a hand on his jaw and looked away. Finally, he said, “Yes, that was part of it. These men are just like the ones who destroyed our village and ruined our lives.”
He looked at her. “I still remember that day. How we made it out alive was a miracle. Anyone who didn’t flee fast enough or survived the shelling were rounded up and either executed or imprisoned.”
“How do you know what Jan was doing, Paul?”
“Because he told me. What we lived though as kids made us very close. We kept no secrets from each other.”
“These people paid someone to murder him?”
“I’m sure they didn’t need to. They could do it themselves. Butchers like those didn’t need to pay others to kill for them.”
“You mean to say someone just decided to kill Jan because he was investigating them?”
“They’re dangerous people, Carla. With horrific crimes in their pasts. They probably saw Jan as a threat to their freedom. A threat they decided to eliminate.”
Carla sank back in the chair, shaking her head, her hand going to her mouth.
“How long have you known about this work Jan was doing?”
“Since he got involved a few years ago. I begged him to stay out of it, but Jan was determined to carry on.”
“Why did he do it? Why risk his life?”
“Because he wanted to speak for the dead. Because he wanted to see these killers and torturers face the courts. He was obsessed with finding the guilty.”
“Were you involved, too?”
“No, I kept my nose out of it.”
“You should have told me all this before now.”
“Jan insisted that I not breathe a word to you. I had to keep my promise to him.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police everything you’ve just told me?”
“Carla, you don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I know what these people are capable of. As a boy, I witnessed their terrible crimes. I saw the villages they destroyed, the victims they butchered. Men, women, children. They’re not human, they’re unfeeling beasts. Like the worst of the Nazis, they showed no mercy.”
“Who killed Jan? Who? Tell me their names.”
Paul pushed himself from his chair. “I don’t know their names. Jan didn’t confide everything to me. But I’m pretty sure it was the same people he was trying to track down.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Jan told me he was worried for his safety. That he’d noticed that he was being followed on a few occasions.”
“Followed by whom?”
“He didn’t know. But he felt certain he was being watched.”
“That’s not proof.”
“No, it’s not. But he’d had a veiled warning.”
“What kind of warning?”
“A call to his cell phone a few months back.”
“Tell me.”
“The caller spoke in Serbian. It was a man. He told Jan not to stick his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. That’s all, then the man put down the phone.”
“One of his contacts in the Families for Justice called me and told me he was convinced that these people killed Jan. That others were murdered in the past, when they got too close.”
“Are you going to tell the police about the men Jan was hunting? Are you going to tell them everything now?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I don’t understand.”
Paul glanced at the family photographs on the sideboard.
“I have a wife and two young daughters to protect. I’ve already lost my parents and my brother to those beasts. I want no more bloodshed, no more murder. The men who killed Jan got what they wanted—his silence. They’ll have no gripe with anyone else so long as we don’t stick our noses in it. It’s over, it’s done. We have to let it be, Carla.”
Anger flared in her voice. “He was your brother, for heaven’s sake! How can you sit there and say that so calmly?”
“Would it help if I shouted?”
“I can’t believe that you’ll accept Jan’s death that easily.”
Paul stared back, and Carla saw the wet at the edges of his eyes. “What’s easy about it? I loved him. My heart’s broken. I’ve lost the only living relative I had. You speak as if I have a choice. But I’ve got none. These people are a law unto themselves. If you pursue them, or inform on them, they will find you and kill you.”
“What about the police? They can protect us.”
“No, they can’t.” He leaned forward. “Do you know what happened to the first Serb prime minister after Milosevic? A man named Zoran Dindic. It was he who sent Milosevic to trial at The Hague, then ordered the arrest of Serb war criminals with connections to organized crime.”
“No, tell me.”
“A Serb mafia hit man put a sniper’s bullet in him. They assassinated the prime minister, for God’s sake.”
He shook his head. “All the mafia hoods behind that crime have still never been caught, despite Interpol, despite the FBI, and despite almost every police force on the planet out to arrest them.”
He sat back again. “These men are hard and violent gangsters. Into drug smuggling, prostitution, murder, human trafficking, you name it. Cross them and there’s no escaping their wrath. They’ve killed a prime minister. Do you think they’d stop at killing me and my family?” He glanced at her stomach. “Or a pregnant woman?”
He stood, massaging his neck. “They killed our dog. I found her in the backyard with her throat cut.”
“What?”
“It happened while we were at Jan’s funeral. I had to bury her out in the desert. I couldn’t tell Kim and the girls. They think the dog ran away.”
“How can you know for certain that it was a threat?”
“Come on, Carla, a blade is a favorite Balkan weapon. You’re lucky if there’s a single warning. After that, you’re dead.”
He placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. “I’m telling you what I told Jan. To stay out of it. And don’t make things worse by informing the police. I love you, Carla; you’re part of my family. Your safety matters to me.”
He leaned down, kissed her on the forehead. “You have Jan’s child to think about. Just be glad you didn’t die, too, or lose your baby.”
She was silent.
“Will you stay tonight?” he asked.
“I wanted to come to this place he loved so much and stay here in memory of him. But now I don’t know, Paul.”
“Please stay. And don’t be angry with me, Carla. I’m trying to do what’s best. To keep us all safe and avoid another tragedy like Jan’s death.”
She stared at him, hard. “And what about doing what’s right?”
His mouth tightened, and he was grim-faced.
“I’ve made up Jan’s bed in the old part of the house. The one he had as a kid and when he lived here for a time after college. He always slept in that room whenever he came back here to prepare before a concert. He called it his Arizona office. I thought you’d want to sleep there tonight.”
He bent to pick up his empty coffee cup. “Maybe you’d like to have some of his personal things from his room? I think he would have wanted that.”