Valley of Bones (24 page)

“Boys!” from the house. Barlow opened the screen door.

Paz followed him in. “And…?”

“It ain’t him, it’s her. She was why he was killed. He was just a convenience. They wanted her, not him. Well ain’t this nice!”

The table was spread with food, steaming platters of mashed potatoes oozing butter, chicken-fried steaks the size of hubcaps, chunks of corn bread, enough bean salad to flatulate Orlando. Barlow went to wash up and Paz drew Lorna aside.

“And did you help cook all this?” he asked.

“Oh, right! I was put in a corner like a porcelain doll while Edna did all. She considers herself lucky not to have to castrate bull calves too.”

“You disagree, obviously. I hope you gave Edna the full feminazi treatment.”

“I know you’re loving this. In fact, I personally
would
like to castrate bull calves. According to any number of my boyfriends I’ve been doing it figuratively for some time.”

“You shared that point with Edna, of course.”

“What is this, some kind of test? You’ve brought the whole University of Girl through here to bounce them off Edna?”

Paz thought about this. With some surprise in his voice he said, “No, you’re the first one.” Lorna did not know what to say to that.

They sat down, Cletis at the head of the table, and he said grace. Lorna had heard grace said at the Waitses’ house before this, but it was a routine, with one of the children rushing through it. But here there was a silence before, and Cletis Barlow really seemed to be communicating his thanks to God. As always, Lorna was faintly embarrassed. She looked over at Paz, who seemed to be in a trance. Grace concluded, she turned to the food. She was unfortunately not at all hungry, although she had been too upset by Emmylou’s fit to think about lunch. There was something wrong with her gut, and it
was an effort to get down enough food to avoid insult. The Barlows, who obviously ate such meals all the time, were all lithe and gnarly as vines. Maybe God kept them thin. It was a possibility. Paz was eating like a machine. Bright chitchat was apparently not expected at the Barlow table.

Paz was eating hard so as to avoid unprofitable mental excursions. Of course it was the girl, or woman, Dideroff, and not the hapless Sudanese official. He had discussed that very thing with Oliphant, but as one of a number of baffling possibilities, and had Cletis still been his partner, they would have nailed it the first day, and of course Cletis would’ve taken one look at the woman, had a nice talk about Jesus and the saints, and come up with the right answer in about six minutes. He had to talk to Cletis some more, but not just now; Barlow placed a Chinese wall between home and work, not that it was his work anymore, but still….

The clattering of cutlery and other eating noises slowed. Mrs. Barlow urged further consumption. They tried, faltered, failed. Mrs. Barlow sighed, observed they would just have to throw it away, and stood up, casting a meaningful eye on Lorna, who felt herself pulled to her feet by tidal prefeminist forces. She began to help clear, although when collecting Paz’s things, she was inspired by his self-satisfied grin to pour a little iced tea onto his lap. Oops! He had the nerve to laugh.

Dessert was pineapple upside-down cake sweetened fully as much as the laws of physical chemistry allowed and thin sour coffee. Talking was apparently allowed during dessert. James was on Lorna’s right, and he told all about his recent Boy Scout trip. He was an Eagle and an assistant scoutmaster. Lorna had never sat next to a Boy Scout before. Waves of wholesomeness wafted from him, and he blushed whenever Lorna spoke. Then Cletis said, “Lorna, Jimmy here tells me you saw a lady drive out a demon.”

Now it was her turn to blush. “I’m not sure what I saw,” she said.

“I take it you don’t believe in demons.”

“I don’t believe that’s the cause of mental illness, no.”

“What’s the cause then, would you say?”

“A variety of things. If you’re talking about frank psychosis, schizophrenia, most authorities believe it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain.”

“And what causes them?”

“Genetics in some cases, maybe environment; it’s not clear. They used to think it was bad families, but they don’t think that anymore.”

“Hmm. So what’s your explanation of what you saw?”

“I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I might have been confusing what I observed after the orderlies sedated him with what happened just before, when Emmylou was touching him.”

She saw a look pass between Barlow and Paz, a sly smile from the former, and on the face of the latter an expression that could have been embarrassment.

“Yeah, you might’ve been confused. Witnesses sometimes are. But what’re you going to think when you go back to that hospital and find what’s-his-name, Masefield, is as sane as you are?”

“That’s really unlikely.”

“But just suppose.”

“Well, in that case, I’d have to put it down to spontaneous remission. It’s rare but it does happen.” She paused. Everyone was watching her, not like a gang of inquisitors, but like a family watching to see baby try something new. “But I still wouldn’t believe in demons.”

“Well, that’s interesting. So you’re closed off to any way of accounting for what your eyes see and your ears hear, except where it fits into your kind of explanation, even when that explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense. Spontaneous remission? Why, that sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘Heck, it beats me!’ ”

“It beats believing in demons,” snapped Lorna, her temper rising.

Barlow said, “ ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ Isaiah, 55:9. Let me tell you a story, explain where I’m coming from. One time there was a wild young man. He cursed, he drank, he committed acts of violence and fornication, he broke every commandment
but number six. He hadn’t killed anyone yet, but that was just because he hadn’t met anyone who he thought wanted killing. Well, one day that changed. He’d run a load of moonshine down from Georgia for this fella, and the fella had paid him some money and promised him more at delivery. Well, he delivered it all right, but the fella said he didn’t owe him nothing more, and he just kind of grinned and passed looks around at all the men who were there waiting to get their liquor, and our young man couldn’t do a thing, on account of the fella was armed and so were all the other men, they were that kind of men. So he was angry as a kicked-up nest of hornets and he goes running back to his truck, and takes his sixteen-gauge shotgun down from the rack and loads it up and he’s got his hand on the door on the way to murder, when he sees that he ain’t alone in that pickup truck. Lord Jesus is sitting right there on the passenger seat, looking just like a regular man. And Jesus looked that young man in the eye and all the love and forgiveness in the world flowed into him and he heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Son, put up your weapon and go on home and sin no more.’ And he did. Well, that’s a true story and that young man was me, praise the Lord.”

James and his mother murmured, “Praise the Lord,” and Barlow added, “Well, what do you think of that?”

Lorna said, “I’m sorry, this is really very difficult for me. I don’t want to offend your religious sensibilities…”

Barlow grinned at that. “Oh, we’re used it it. ‘But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock and unto the Greeks foolishness,’ First Corinthians, 1:23. Go on with what you’re going to say. We won’t bite.”

Paz said, “No, but after they clear the table they’re going to hold you down on it and torture you with hot irons until you convert.”

“Yes, and I believe we’ll need the extra-large size irons for her,” said Edna, deadpan. “James, why don’t you go get them ready in the torture room.”

“Aw, Ma, do I have to?” whined James. “I
always
have to do the tortures.”

There was laughter then, in which Lorna joined, but uncomfortably. At the parties she normally attended, people like the Barlows were the butts of jokes, and while she saw the irony in thus having the tables turned, it was not particularly pleasant. So she spoke with more asperity than she otherwise might have. “Yes, well, no offense, as I said, but we would regard what you experienced as an hallucination brought on by stress. Blood pressure rises, adrenaline and other hormones are released, these have an effect on the medial temporal lobe and you hear voices and see visions. We can reproduce the same effects in the laboratory with electrical stimulation.”

“And does it make you happy to believe that?” asked Barlow, fixing her with his colorless eyes.

“Happy has nothing to do with it. It’s the truth. It’s the way the world is. We just have to live with it.”

“Hm. Well that’s a point of view. But just because they figured out how the sun works, and just because they can build a bomb that works the same way, that don’t mean that there’s no sun in the sky, does it?”

While Lorna was thinking about this, Barlow said, “Jimmy, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at those confession notebooks you’ve got. I might come up with something, since I don’t guess I’m going to get to see this woman.”

Paz said, “If it’s okay with Lorna. They’re her property. I’m just guarding them.”

Lorna assented, not without some secret irritation at the irregular aspects of this case, although she was happy that the theological discussion seemed to be over. The line between what was confidential therapeutic material and what was a public legal document had become hopelessly blurred, and it annoyed her. She grabbed up the dessert things somewhat roughly and stalked into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry we were such teases,” said Mrs. Barlow, after five minutes of Lorna’s stiff face and short answers. “It’s just what we always do with Jimmy. I guess it’s something of a family joke. I hope you weren’t offended. That’s the last thing we meant to do.”

Lorna felt close to tears, for unknown reasons, which made the feeling worse. “Oh, it’s not that. I’ve felt a little nuts ever since I met this woman. And I
asked
for it.” Here Lorna unburdened herself about the various oddities of her relationship with Emmylou Dideroff, all of it pouring out into the steamy kitchen air.

“Y’all’re being led to something,” said Mrs. Barlow.

“But I don’t
believe
in any of that!” Lorna wailed.

“You know, it don’t much matter what you believe. You heard Cletis’s story. Whatever y’all say about brain chemicals, there was a real change there and it came out of nowhere. I knew Cletis Barlow before that and I can tell you. He was the wildest boy in Okeechobee County and that includes the Indians.”

“Were you going out with him then?”

“Oh, heavens, no! My pa would’ve had my skin if I’d even’ve looked at Cletis Barlow. We were hard-shell twice-on-Sunday church people. But I did look anyway. I guess I was sweet on him from third grade. When he showed up at our church afterward and got saved, I declare I nearly fainted with thanksgiving.”

“What did you like about him? I mean before.”

“I liked the way he moved. And if he was wicked, he wasn’t mean wicked, if you know what I mean. And to tell the honest truth, I reckon I just couldn’t love a man who wasn’t a little bit dangerous. Could you?”

Again Lorna was at a loss for words.

Paz spent the next hour playing horse with James at the backboard nailed to the barn. He got creamed, a first, and felt cranky and old. Again he wished for a drink of something other than iced tea. Cletis was on the porch, in his chair, with the two notebooks on his lap.

“Slowing down, Jimmy?”

“He’s getting taller. What do you think about our girl?”

“I’ll tell you, son, I don’t often lust to be back on the job, but here’s one makes me feel like an old lame hound on a frosty night when the coon is out. She won’t talk to you at all?”

“No, she says the devil’s in her and it’ll make her lie unless she writes it all down in order.”

“I’ll believe that. But she’ll lie in writing too. Just once, maybe, hoping it’ll slip by them.”

“Them?”

“Sure, whoever’s behind all this. Whoever’s got your Major Oliphant from the FBI so agitated. Anyhow, you ain’t going to find the bottom of this in Miami.”

“No? Where, then?”

“Where she’s been. Up to Virginia where she stayed, talk to those nuns of hers…but they’re not going to let you do that.”

“You think?”

“Heck, no! She didn’t kill that Arab, but you got a dead man they can stick with it, which is always real handy, and you got this Wilson fella as the mastermind. That’s as far as it’ll travel. Kind of a shame, to tell the truth. I’d sure like to know what all got it moving.”

Paz said that he’d like to know it too. He went into the kitchen to say good-bye to Edna and collect Lorna. He found Edna alone.

“So, when’s the wedding?” she asked.

“Edna, I just met the woman. You know, you should get together with my mother.”

“What makes you think we ain’t getting together already, plotting and cackling and praying for your salvation and a mess of grand-kids?”

Paz laughed, but a little uncomfortably. “Stop it, Ed, you’re giving me the willies.”

“She likes you. I can tell.”

“She’s a pleasant colleague is all. I brought her up here because she had a weird experience and because I was coming up anyway because I wanted to talk to Cletis. How’s he been?”

“He pines a little, but the place keeps him busy enough. Oh, here you are!” said Edna brightly, in just that tone that informs the newcomer that she has been the subject of discussion.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Paz, and then, “Just a second…”
because he felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He stepped into the hallway to take the call.

“Where are you?” asked Morales.

“North of the lake. What’s up?”

“You need to get back here, boss. Jack Wilson’s car went into a canal off Alligator Alley. It looks like there’s a driver in it.”

“Oh, terrific! What’s the location?”

“It’s just west of the Miccosukee line.”

“I’ll meet you there in an hour or less,” said Paz and gave his young partner a complex set of instructions on how to deal with the state police and those of Broward County and the Indian tribe involved.