// To unify the behavior of having just a tombstone vs. siblings
// that include a tombstone, we create an empty object and mark
// it deleted
if (count == 0) {
RiakKvPB.RpbGetResp.Builder responseBuilder = resp.toBuilder();
RiakKvPB.RpbContent.Builder contentBuilder = RiakKvPB.RpbContent.getDefaultInstance().toBuilder();
contentBuilder.setDeleted(true).setValue(ByteString.EMPTY);
resp = responseBuilder.addContent(contentBuilder.build()).build();
count = 1;
}