Valley of Bones (46 page)

“I’m not done. I assume you don’t know you’re pregnant.” There was the usual stunned, gaping pause here.

“I can’t be pregnant. I’m on the pill.”

“I know you’re on the pill, dear, I’m your doctor. But you seem to
be the lucky one in a hundred for which it fails. In any case, there it is, about five weeks. Didn’t you realize you’d missed a period?”

“I thought it was the cancer,” Lorna wails. “Oh, God, and that’s why I was puking up all the time.”

“Right. And the itching is an allergic reaction to sand flies, very common down here in South Florida. In any case…when I was an intern we called it Von Veilinghausen’s syndrome—a group of unrelated symptoms interpreted as a novel or more complex disease. But back to the brucellosis. There’s a real danger of spontaneous abortion here, not so much in human females as in cattle, but real enough. So what did you want to do about the condition? I’m assuming it’s an accident, in which case—”

“No! I want to keep it,” says Lorna, without any conscious thought at all.

Dr. Greenspan gives her a swift, sharp look and then smiles. “In that case, mazel tov. We’ll start you on rifampin right away.”

NO ONE ANSWERED
the doorbell, and Paz felt a little tickle of fear. Lorna’s car was gone from the carport, but that could mean anything. He used his key and paused in the short hallway, placing the grocery bag on the floor and listening. Nothing, the sound of an empty house, and then something else, a murmuring drone. Oh, right, he knew what
that
was. He took the bag into the kitchen and unloaded it onto the counter. Taking his cell phone, he punched the key for Lorna’s, and got the service. He left a call-me message, and the thing was no sooner back in his pocket than it played its tune.

“Where are you?” he asked and learned where and then heard the news. “Well,” he said, “that’s great.” More listening. “I thought brucellosis was something you got from guys named Bruce, sort of a gay community thing. No, you’re right, it does go to show I don’t know everything.” Now an even longer pause. Paz felt queasy now and had to pull up a kitchen chair. “Is she sure?” he asked. “Well, well, lucky
us. I guess I’ll have to marry you and give up my dreams of a career on the concert stage. No, I’m not kidding. No, listen to me. It’s not a question of
pressuring
. Pressure doesn’t even begin to describe it. Ever since that asshole got tossed out the window, my whole life has been on a railroad track with somebody else driving. All I’ve been doing is looking out the window at the scenery going by. Don’t you feel that way?” She did and told him about Emmylou’s phone call before they said good-bye.

Paz cracked a beer and went into the living room, where he found Emmylou Dideroff on her knees before the little African crucifix standing in front of her on the coffee table. He cleared his throat. She let out a little cry and sprang to her feet, her face flushing.

“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You looked like you wouldn’t have heard a bomb.” He instantly regretted that figure of speech.

“No, I would have heard a bomb.” With that unearthly smile. “Lorna isn’t here. She went to the doctor.”

“Yeah, she called. So, how’s things with God?”

“Fine, as always. Is Lorna…okay?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t cancer. She has some rare disease, which they can apparently fix with antibiotics. She’s also pregnant. How about that?”

“Yes,” said the woman, as if confirming something she already knew. “God be thanked. What will you do?”

“Oh, the usual. Marriage, house in the ’burbs, driving to soccer games.”

“Not that usual anymore. Well, congratulations and God bless you.”

“You should stick around for the wedding. My mom will be in her glory—every witch doctor in Miami will be there. You could be a bridesmaid. I bet you’d fit right in.”

“Thank you, but I think my ride will be here soon. I have to get ready. Do you know if Lorna has an iron and board?”

Paz directed her to the laundry alcove on one side of the Florida room and then walked through the glass doors to the back patio. He
lay down in a padded lounge chair and sipped his beer. He felt very peculiar, and for a while he couldn’t figure out what it was, and then he realized that for the first time in his memory he had absolutely nothing to
do,
no people to see, no cases to keep track of, no naggings from Mom to avoid, no girlfriends to juggle. He was between lives, and he felt like a sage of the East. Something Willa used to quote popped into his mind, Thomas Merton:

Paz spent what seemed like a week lying there, watching clouds sweep across the sky and observing the lives of the birds and the larger insects, until Emmylou Dideroff came out and stood in his field of vision. She wore a dark gray calf-length cotton dress, with a freshly starched and ironed white apron over it, black leather boots on her feet and a white headcloth over her hair, marked with a thin bloodred stripe. She smelled pleasantly of spray starch and shone with an austere beauty.

“My boat is empty,” said Paz.

“Yes,” she said. “Good for you.” She held up a grocery bag. “Well, I’m all packed. My earthly goods.”

“You kept the habit.”

“Yes. I couldn’t bear to throw it away, and here I am. Will Lorna be back soon? I’d like to say good-bye to her.”

“Half an hour, maybe,” said Paz. He rose from the lounger. “So, off you go to further adventures.”

“I certainly hope not,” she said with a smile.

“Uh-huh. Little Emmylou rides off into the sunset, her work done. Although no one is really sure what that work was, are they? It’s like
all the big boys sit down at the poker table, the U.S. government, the city, the state, the oil companies, the Church, the Sudanese rebels, the Sudan government, and Mr. Sonnenborg—can’t forget
him
—and somehow, by dawn’s early light, when the game is all over, who do you think is holding all the chips? Why, good gracious, it’s little Emmylou Dideroff! Let’s see if we can count ’em up.”

Paz plucked at his fingers as he spoke: “First, we have the fortunate death of the oil explorers. They could’ve hit a mine, but they also could’ve been purposely blown up by someone who didn’t want them talking to anyone. Next we have the fortunate rescue of our heroine, who gets tortured just long enough to convince any normal person that she’s telling the truth. No Joan of Arc last act for Emmylou. Rescued by a mysterious military gang who seem to be financed by our heroine’s own Society, which just happens to get all its income from—hello?—oil company stocks. Next, somehow, one of the two people who really believes there’s a lot of oil there, and also happens to be the very guy who tortured our heroine, arrives in Miami looking for her. Now how did he know to come?”

“Skeeter must’ve told him.”

“Skeeter was working for the feds, for Parker. Who was watching you. Why in hell would he have done that?”

“He was a strange man. He always wanted to be the one controlling the play. That was his only pleasure, to make fools out of the whole world. He had no interest at all in how the game came out. He thought every outcome was equally meaningless. That’s why he blew the whistle on Orne Foy.”

“Did he? I kind of figured you for that one.”

“You’re very cynical, Detective.”

“True, but you have to admit you got a history of getting even. As a matter of fact, all the people, every single one of them, who ever crossed or messed with Emmylou Dideroff are dead. Except old Packer, and I’ll lay odds that something’ll happen to him, if it hasn’t already. Add to that, the one other guy who knew you were blowing smoke on the oil business is dead too, of course, although I’ll give
you that Skeeter getting knifed was a coincidence pure and simple and—”

“Just another damned Eskimo.”

“What?”

“You want to believe that there are giant wheels turning, deep games being played, and there are, but not by men. God has preserved me in wonderful ways and done his will through me, using what means were at hand, including the plots of evil people. You know, God really wants to talk to us. He tried Scripture, he tries the still small voice, but we’re all unbelievers now, so he mainly speaks to us through a conspiracy of accidents.”

“That’s a way of putting it. Come on, Emmylou, just between the two of us, what’s the true story on the oil?”

She stared at him for what seemed a long time and part of him was terrified that her face would start to change and he’d be having this conversation with the Prince of Darkness. He went on. “I had an idea you might like. If you tell me the real story I’ll get your confessions to SRPU in Washington. That should convince them there’s no oil in your part of Sudan. I mean they don’t really know you.”

Some moments passed until he saw her give a little nod of decision, as if getting a message from somewhere.

She said, “Now I put lives in your hands. Are you ready for that?”

“Yes. I’m used to it.”

“I know, and I’m telling you this not only because of what you propose, which would be an act of mercy in itself, but because you love the truth more than anything, and I don’t want you to dig into this ever again.” She took a deep breath and said, “Richardson found a huge diagenetic trap on the upper Sobat basin, sixty billion barrels or more. I destroyed all their data and I sent them out by a road I knew had been freshly mined by the enemy.”

“Because God told you to?”

“No, it was my own idea.”

“Playing God?”

“Yes. And don’t judge me. It’s not good for your soul, and I’m being judged in a much harder court.”

“But why? The oil would make them rich. Your people. Don’t you want them rolling in it?”

“No. They’re happy. They have their cows and their God and a peace they can defend. Oil would destroy their world. Money and arms would come pouring into Sudan from every oil-addicted country on earth, and there would be mercenaries and the GOS would exterminate them to the last baby and the world would go tut-tut and fill their gas tanks. Now they have a chance. When the world collapses they’ll have a little secure place maybe. Maybe Dol Biong’s heirs will be prince-bishops of a little state, and maybe something good will come of it. I don’t know. But I would and will do anything to give them the chance.
Anything
.”

Paz saw the mad saint start to come back into her face and then the doorbell rang.

“And I guess we’ll have to leave it at that,” said Paz, moving toward the door. He opened it and there stood a towering, thin young woman in an SBC habit. She had cheekbones like wings, huge slanted eyes, and skin as shiny and black as a pocket comb.

“You’re a Dinka,” Paz said, with his neck hair wriggling at the reality of her presence, and
The Confessions of Emmylou Dideroff
burst into vivid life.

“Yes, I am,” said the woman, but then Emmylou was there and with a cry she threw herself at the Dinka girl and they embraced and chattered away in that ringing tongue. Introductions were made: this was apparently Mary Dyak, Mary number three, from the famous gun, now all grown up and a novice. Then more Dinka. Paz waited a decent interval and said, “Well, so long, Emmylou.”

She said, “Give my best to Lorna and please don’t think bad of me.”

“I don’t,” he said. “You played the cards you got dealt. But I’m a cop, or was, and people lying to me gets on my nerves.”

He held out his hand for a conventional shake, but she grabbed it
in both of hers and fixed him with her blue eyes, gas flames now, and she said, “Remember, lives in your hands.”

“You going to have me whacked if I tell?” he asked lightly.

“No, but you may sleep uneasy.
You know what I mean
.”

He did and he felt sweat on his brow.

Then the two sisters trotted down the walk, and at that moment Paz saw the way their dark dresses swung with their walking and realized that one wore a dress of cotton, one of wool. He had to lean against the doorpost, so rubbery were his knees, as they got into a black car and drove off.

“WELL, WE WON’T
see her like again,” said Lorna later on, after their glorious reunion, having been to bed and become hungry and giggled around the kitchen with no clothes on, Paz making omelettes in a silly position so as not to spatter his groin with spitting butter, and afterward eating a hilarious naked lunch, or supper, outside on the patio to the scandal of the birds.

“I sure hope not,” agreed Paz. “She was a pisser all right. Saint or devil—you choose.”

“I don’t think you do choose. She once told me something to that effect. Not even saints ever get rid of the demons, maybe especially not saints. One other thing, though, and don’t laugh, but I knew at the bottom of my bones that I had stage-four lymphoma when I walked out of here, and she said she’d pray for me, and when I got to the doctor’s office I didn’t have it anymore. And I don’t believe in any of that stuff.”

“A miracle, you think?”

“Or a medical error—you choose. In a funny way I think I’m going to miss her.”

“You’ll get over it,” said Paz. “And whatever it was, it couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer person, is what I say, and I’m sure little Jennifer or Jason will agree.”

“Little Amy,” said Lorna. “My mother. Is that cool?”

“Absolutely. Amelia, to give it that Cuban tang. And if a boy, how about Jésus?”

“That will guarantee my dad will never speak to me again, although marrying someone without a graduate degree will start the disownment process.”

“You can tell him I’m a full professor at the University of Girl.”

“Which has closed its doors and is no longer accepting applications.”

“Boy, that’s harsh. You’ll have to take total responsibility for improving my mind. Can you do that?”

“I can but try,” said Lorna. “But back to Jennifer and Jason, what’s your position on sonograms? I mean do you want to know the sex beforehand?”

Paz looked at her with a kindly look, but one tinged with some sadness too. The poor woman really had no idea. He said, “Dear, in this family we don’t need sonograms. My mom will tell you what sex the child is if you ask her, and probably even if you don’t. In fact, she’ll probably call us right now and let us know.”