java + child pid process

[paco]

Hi,
in fedora core 2 i've got this problem with my java application
With Runtime exec method i start an external process (a ksh shell script 
called test.ksh). 
I see that  test.ksh parent pid is different from java process pid but is a  
pid of a process already died.
Why?What is this intermediate process?

In other linux (for example gentoo) and HP-UX test.ksh parent is java process.

Can i obtain this behaviour in fedora?
thanks a lot