Faye Kellerman - Decker 11 - Jupiter's Bones

by Jupiter's Bones

  Decker regarded Marge's face, stroked it tenderly, erasing his dripping tears off her plastic oxygen mask with his fingertips. 'You re halfway there, Dunn. C'mon, baby, I know you can hear me! We've got this connection so don't crap out on me now!'

  Another eruption bombarded the mountainside. Again visibility was wiped out. The ambulance shook and jerked, then skidded over the rocky ground as equipment was hurled across the interior of the car. Stone and rock pummeled the vehicle.

  But within an instant, the darkness transformed into total, sun-blinding daylight as chemical explosions of fire and hard material spewed into the early morning ethers.

  The blast was deafening. Decker held his ears and winced in pain. But the earth refused to be hushed. After the initial burst, it suddenly opened up its jaws, and bellowed out deep, shattering belches. The ambulance was seized by the ground's fury, tossed and blown as if storm-swept. As Decker rocked in the van, his eyes adjusting and peering through the petroleum winds outside, he could make out the bunkers exploding in fiery, domino fashion. One violent meteor blast after another. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! BOOM!

  An inferno had erupted like a hot volcano. Within seconds, the buildings that had once comprised the Order of the Rings of God were a memory. Completely eradicated. All that was left was hot fire, shooting flames, belching smoke and glowing, white ashes.

  After four hours of sleep, a nurse woke Decker up to check his vitals. The interruption irritated him, and he blurted out that hospitals were the worst place in the world for recuperation and why didn't she just leave him the hell alone. Rina said something to him - and to the nurse - but he didn't process any of it. Instead, he endured the poking and prodding in a state of semiconsciousness, then dropped back to sleep as soon as the white-garbed devil made her exit.

  The next time he woke up, he thought about Marge, how he should be with her. All he had to do was throw on a robe and take the elevator down one floor because he really did want to hear her talk.

  Really talk.

  Not just hear her moan and groan and say things like, 'I hear you' and 'yes.' He wanted to hold a conversation even if it were conducted in monosyllables. But the idea of physically moving seemed insurmountable, or, at the very least, a supreme effort. Besides, his bedside clock told him it was 4:06, and that looked to be a 4:06 in the morning rather than 4:06 in the afternoon, although in hospitals - like casinos - it's impossible to tell time.

  The kicker was Rina sleeping on the cot. Some orderly had brought it in for her yesterday and placed it right next to his hospital bed. Decker figured Rina wouldn't be sleeping at 4:06 - oops, now 4:07 - in the afternoon. She'd either be awake, maybe reading a book or talking to a nurse or perhaps she'd be home, taking care of Hannah...

  Who was taking care of Hannah?

  Probably his in-laws. Or maybe Cindy.

  He was very proud of his logic. It indicated he had the capacity for rational deduction. Again, his blurred and darkened vision fell on Rina lying on the hard surface, wrapped up in a sheet. He flashed to the montage of carnage at the Order, to the body pieces being transferred to the morgue by the coroner's office. Lots of sheeted gurneys covering hundreds of incomplete corpses. He wanted to wake Rina up just to make sure she was still alive, even though he knew she had to be very much alive. Hospitals didn't put patients and corpses in the same room.

  So he didn't wake her up, thinking that yes, she was alive and maybe he should let her sleep. And maybe he should sleep himself.

  The next time his brain tuned in, he found Rina's cot empty. For one panic-stricken second, he thought that maybe he had been right, that she had been part of the blood bath. But more likely, it meant Rina was up and about, and it was a permissible waking hour. Murky sunrays shot through the hospital room's postage-stamp window. (Didn't they dust in here?) Slowly, he swung his long legs over the edge of the mattress, then attempted to sit upright.

  The world started to spin, his cerebral cortex knocking around his cranium like beads in a tin can. He dropped his chin to his chest and held his temples, trying to stave off the increasingly loud ringing between his ears. Then he thought that perhaps if he stood up, it would get better. Shoving his weight upward, he stood on bended knees while reeling on the soles of his feet.

  Then Rina was saying, 'Just what do you think you're doing!'

  Decker sunk back onto the mattress, too tired to defend himself. Reality was starting to intrude - where he was and what had transpired. After being checked-in for observation, after hitting the pillow, he had been too exhausted to dream, too spent to have nightmares. But he knew they would come. The ordeal had been too much to fathom in his waking world. It had to come out somewhere, and the subconscious was as good a place as any.

  Hopefully, it would come out after he had finished with all the questions and had done all the paperwork. That's what awaited him - hell and red tape. But the self-pity didn't last more than an eye-blink. He was alive, Marge was alive, his kids were alive, and most of the Order's children had been saved.

  C'mon, Deck. Give yourself a break!

  He asked Rina what time it was. His words sounded foreign to his ears.

  'It's seven-ten.'

  Seven-ten. Checked in at two-thirty P.M. yesterday, he'd been sleeping for something like fifteen hours. Interrupted hours because of the damn nurses... who were only doing their job, he knew. But it was still irksome. He finger-raked wet, carrot tresses. He must have been sweating in his sleep.

  'I need to see Marge,' he announced.

  'She's sleeping.'

  A few-second delay to process what she had said. She is sleeping. 'How do you know she's sleeping?'

  'Because I was just down there.'

  'How's she doing?'

  'Her vital signs are very strong.'

  'Is she breathing on her own?'

  'Very much so. She has supplemental oxygen, but they took her off the ventilator hours ago.'

  Decker nodded. He could feel the fog lift from his head.

  'Maybe I'll just go down there and watch her sleep.'

  'You need to take care of yourself, Peter. You need to rest.'

  Rina's voice seemed soft...or more like muted. His head was still buzzing, but at least he could hear. Then she stopped talking, and the only sound that presented itself was this annoying hum in his brain.

  'I said gomel,' he stated proudly. Gomel was the Jewish prayer said upon deliverance from danger. 'Or at least my version of it.'

  Rina nodded. 'It's truly a miracle you're on two feet.'

  'I'm not exactly on two feet.' Decker sank into the pillow. 'How long do I have to be here?'

  'It's a twenty-four-hour observation.'

  'You mean incarceration.'

  Rina looked at him. Moisture had filled her eyes. Her lower lip began to quiver. She bit it hard, but it didn't stop the tears.

  'Ah, honey!' Decker reached out to her. 'I'm perfectly fine! Just a little... sleep-deprived!'

  She sat on the edge of his bed and locked her arms around his neck. He managed to drag himself into a semiupright position and drew her close, draping his arms around her warm, sweet-smelling body, trying to absorb her light to illuminate his foul darkness.

  Their tears mixed, both of them crying silently. Like two enjoined puzzle pieces, they remained separate units, but one entity. They stayed that way until the nurse came in, chirping that it was time to take his blood pressure.

  It was hard to reconcile this Marge - sleeping among crisp, white sheets - with the muddy corpse they had pulled out a day ago. Though inhaling through an oxygen mask, Margie was breathing on her own. Tube-fed, but her body was getting nutrition. Her heartbeats were strong and regular. So engrossed by the high-tech life preservation machines, he hadn't noticed the pajama-clad package sitting by Marge's hospital window. The young teen was staring out the yellowed pane, her elbows leaning against the ledge, her forehead touching the glass.

  Decker cleared his throat and the girl swung around. Immediately, she
sat up ruler-straight.

  'You can relax, Vega.' Decker tightened his robe belt around his waist. 'As a matter of fact, you should relax. You should probably be in your room with the others.'

  'I am fine.' She looked away. 'I had to see her. Just to make sure.'

  'Yes, I know how you feel,' Decker agreed. 'I had to see her,

  too.'

  Vega glanced at him, but didn't respond.

  Decker said, 'How are you feeling?'

  'I am well.'

  'Does anyone know you're here?'

  Vega lowered her head, shook it from side to side.

  'Then maybe you should get back to your room. You wouldn't want to worry the staff with your absence.'

  She made no effort to move.

  'Vega?' Decker said. 'Did you hear me?'

  'Yes, Lieutenant.' But she was affixed to her chair. 'It is wrong that I disobey, and do not tell the nice nurse where I am. I am very bad.'

  Decker side-stepped Marge's bed and came over to her. He sat on the floor, again tightening his robe. If a nurse walked in, he didn't want her to think that he was a pervert. 'Vega,' he said softly. "There isn't a bad bone in your body.'

  Vega studied him with confusion on her face. 'Bones cannot be good or bad. They are just bones.'

  Decker took a moment to organize his thoughts. 'Vega, you are a very good young lady. You know that, don't you?'

  She said, 'I saved the baby. That was very good.'

  Decker exhaled out loud. 'No, that was an incredibly heroic act! Extraordinary! That went beyond being good! But you, just by being you, are good. Do you understand what I am saying?'

  But she didn't understand.

  She said, 'I am good when I do good things, I am bad when I do bad things.'

  'No!' Decker shook his head vehemently. 'It doesn't work that way. Good people - like you - they are always good even when they make mistakes.'

  'I did not say a mistake, I said I am bad when I do bad things.'

  'That still isn't correct. You can be disobedient, do a naughty thing. But that doesn't make you bad. That makes you a good person who was disobedient or naughty. You are still good. Am I making any sense to you?'

  She said nothing.

  'Let's take an example.' Decker tried appealing to her logic. 'You listened to Marge. Now the Order said you did a bad thing, that you disobeyed the rules. But I know you did a good thing. Most important, you know you did a good thing - to listen to her. If you hadn't listened to her, she would be dead.'

  A tear fell down her cheek. 'All the people in the Order of the Rings of God are dead. Maybe by listening to Marge, I caused them to die.'

  'Oh no, no, no, no, no!' Decker said. 'They had made plans to die long before Marge or Lauren - Andromeda - or Agent Stone had appeared through that tunnel. Furthermore, they were going to kill other people before they died. You know that because you saw those...'He swallowed hard. 'You saw the babies. If you had stayed, you would have been murdered just like the babies were murdered.'

  She had been staring into Decker's eyes. This time, she looked away. 'The babies are now in a better world. That is not so bad.'

  But her tears had thickened. Decker wanted to hug her, but held back. Everything in this world - the violator's world - was foreign to her. Who knew what constituted comfort to Vega? Was comfort even a word in her vocabulary?

  Vega said, 'Many adult people have come and talked to us. Most wear white coats like those in the Order. Perhaps they want us to think that we are talking to friends, not violators, by dressing like us.'

  'Actually, doctors in the violator's world wear white coats.'

  'So they do not have ulterior purposes.'

  'No.'

  'These doctors,' Vega said. 'They talk to us in groups, they talk to us individually. They ask us questions, they give us tests. The woman who gave me a test said I was very, very smart.'

  'You are very, very smart.'

  'I overheard some of them talking. They said that we were all very smart, that we had an outstanding knowledge of math and science that went beyond our years. They said also that our reading comprehension was very high.'

  'I'm sure that's all true.'

  She faced him, wiping away tears. 'If Father Jupiter and his followers produced such smart progeny who study and try to understand the physics and metaphysics of the universe, why is everyone saying that Father Jupiter and the Order are so bad!

  She sniffled.

  'The violators should not say the Order was bad! It was not bad. It was not bad!'

  Decker nodded.

  She swiped her nose on her hospital gown. 'The violators do not understand! They say we are smart, yet they say the Order is bad. That is a contradiction! They should not say that! It is very wrong for them to say that!'

  It was painful for her to hear such criticism, and she was defending her people. Was it done out of habit, out of loyalty, or out of guilt? Because when given her first brush with free will, Vega had opted for Marge over the Order. Because she knew instinctively what was really right.

  He didn't dare explain it to her. That kind of stuff was better left to the pros.

  The kids were being extensively evaluated. Before he dropped off to sleep, Decker had spoken to the head honcho - some shrink doctor who had worked for years as a police consultant in the Westside substation. He was also reputed to be a top-notch child psychologist. The Brass had put him, among others, in charge of setting up the adjustment program. Still, the doctor had taken time out to talk to Decker. Though Decker knew psychopatter when he heard it, he still found himself talking to the man. The guy clearly understood cops.

  Decker said, 'I'm sure there are lots that we violators don't understand about Father Jupiter and the Order of the Rings of God. But I'll tell you what I understand.'

  'What is that?'

  He ran his finger down the bridge of her nose. 'I know that you are a very good lady. And I know that you will do great things in this world. You will not only be a great scientist - if you choose to be a scientist - but you will be a very moral scientist because you are a very upright individual.'

  She said nothing.

  A moral scientist. Decker flashed to the accusations leveled at Emil Euler Ganz aka Father Jupiter. Perjury. Adultery. Plagiarism. A sadistic man who took pleasure in ruining careers according to his own daughter's recollections. Yet, others saw him as a god and a savior. Where was the truth? If it existed, it certainly wasn't absolute.

  'A very moral scientist and a moral person,' Decker went on. 'Because you are a moral girl. You were born that way.'

  Vega said, 'I think that everyone is born a certain way, Lieutenant. But that is not all of it. It was our Father Jupiter, our teachers and our gurus at the Order who shaped my being. You are trying to separate the Order from me. But that is an impossibility.'

  Decker regarded her young, wet face. Of course, she was right. The irony of it all - this morally superior creature coming from a cult steeped in immorality, and run by venal, murderous leaders. She had now been emancipated from the manacles of these maniacs. Would freedom and choice corrupt her pure spirit?

  Vega said, 'People should stop saying untrue things about the Order of the Rings of God, and our Father Jupiter. He was a holy man. The violators are wrong to say mean things about him.'

  'What things specifically bother you?'

  'They say that Father Jupiter was wicked and crazy. They do not know. He was a prophet! God's hand-chosen whose mission was to spread His word. They do not understand!'

  Decker agreed. 'That's true. They don't understand.'

  She looked out the window. 'They do not know of the Order's wonderful teachers. They did not see the care, the charity that was given to the less fortunate. We never lacked for food. We were always clean and warm. We were constantly immersed in wonderful knowledge.' She shook her head. 'They do not understand!'

  They don't understand, because all that's left for the public is a human boneyard. Such a tragic, avoidable
event! An utter waste of human life. A minute more and Marge would have been gone. Decker said, 'Maybe someday you will write a book and explain it all to us. Try to make us understand.'

  'I would like that very much.'

  Decker gave her a brief smile, his eyes drifting over to the hospital bed. Vega noticed the subtle shift in his attention.

  'Detective Marge will be all right?'

  'I hope so.' A pause. 'I think so.'

  'She is your friend?'

  'Yes, Vega, she is my friend.'

  'Maybe when she gets better, she can be my friend, too.'