Twenty-Seven Bones (32 page)

Seven weeks later. Thanksgiving. The trestle tables have been carried down to the meadow, set up end to end under the spreading rain tree, and laden with the usual Thanksgiving fare: turkey and trimmings, conch and fungi. There was also a tofu turkey for the vegetarians.

Before dinner, in lieu of a formal blessing, they went around the table, and everybody said what they were thankful for, and everybody drank a little toast. By the time Pender’s turn rolled around, he’d reached the state of clarity one of his old friends back in Washington used to call
In Jim Beamo, veritas.

“I’m thankful for all the new friends I’ve made. I’m thankful for my thick skull. I’m thankful for my new satellite dish. I’m thankful for my new job as chief of detectives, which I’m scheduled to begin on December first—and by the way, you’re all under arrest—just kidding. And most of all, I’m thankful for this beautiful woman here, and that you’re never too old to fall in…well, you know, love.”

Everybody raised his or her glass, took a sip or a belt. Pender sat down. Dawson was next. She had a short speech ready, but Pender had sabotaged all that by using the L-word for the first time. She stood up, fluttered her hand at her breast. “I’m all…” She looked down at Holly, to her right. “What’s the word?”

“Ferklemt?”

“Ferklemt.”
Then she looked down at Pender, to her left. “I love you, too,” she said, and kissed him on top of his head.

“I hate getting kissed on top of the head,” he whispered, as everybody raised their glasses again.

“Get used to it,” she whispered back.

Holly was next. “I have a lot to be thankful for without knowing who to be thankful to. So to whoever it was who left that mon—I mean, that paper bag—on my doorstep back in October, whether you’re within the sound of my voice or not, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and if you ever want to cop to it, free massages for life. I love you.”

Dawn was next. “I’m thankful for three people.” She put down her glass of sparkling apple juice and ticked them off on her fingers: “Auntie Holly, for being my nex’ mother. Whoever left the money—I mean the paper bag. And Mr. Apgard. I know he did bad things, but he brought me home safe and sound, like he promised. And I hope they don’t kill him—that would be just as bad as what he did.” She picked up her glass, raised it high. It took a few seconds for all the other glasses to be raised, but eventually they were.

Marley went last. “I guess everybody knows what I have to be thankful for,” he said, raising his glass in his new GSR-activated myoelectric-stimulated, signal-boosted right hand, then bringing it slowly to his mouth, tilting it, taking a sip. It was one of the first things he’d learned to do with his new hands, and one of the more difficult. The others watched him, holding their collective breaths and rooting silently for him not to dump the whole glass down his shirt, which still happened every so often.

But not this time. Arm and hand performed flawlessly. Marley returned the glass to the table, bowed from the waist, and sat back down, to applause. Auntie Holly of course was bawling. Pender asked him if he wanted to help carve the turkey.

“Maybe next year,” said Marley.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Pender.

Those familiar with the U.S. Virgin Islands, where I lived many years ago, will recognize St. Luke as a highly fictionalized composite of all three islands, St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. For all the local idiom I’d forgotten over those many years, my thanks to George Seaman’s eloquent
Virgin Islands Dictionary.

For Niassian ethnology, I am indebted to Andrew Beatty’s fine study,
Society and Exchange in Nias,
Peter Suzuki’s
The Religious System and Culture of Nias,
and of course to E. E. Schröder’s
Nias, Ethnographische, Geographische en Historische Aanteekeningen en Studien,
and I apologize to all three gentlemen for the extreme liberties I have taken with their research.

For anyone with a special-needs child like Marley, I strongly recommend you contact the nearest Shriner’s Hospital. If Holly had known about the fine work done free of charge by the guys in the fezzes, she might not have needed Bennie’s money.

Thanks to my former editor, George Lucas (the other George Lucas), for the line about how the Bundys and Dahmers live forever in the public’s memory, but the guy who catches them is forgotten by the next full moon.

Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to Fred Hill, who’s been my agent for over twenty years now. There’s little doubt in my mind that without him, I’d still be working a day job.