Ab knew before he had finished telling his story at the police station in Klaten that he was going to be in trouble. He had blood on his hands and he was babbling on about two murders and Balinese executions. He was a fool, and should have simply phoned the veterinary college or one of the expatriates back in town for help. He did have the presence of mind, before leading the police back to Susu Senang, to go to the bathroom at the station and wash off the worst of the blood.
He led the police between the cattle pens like a zombie, seeing nothing, his mind racing from Soesanto to George and back again. What’s going on here? Soesanto, what does your government not want us to know now? What did George get himself into? What should I have done? What could I have done?
***
As the police put the body in the back of their mini-pick-up, Ab came back to the side of the cow and walked slowly around her. George had not been doing an autopsy. He would not have been doing an autopsy on an animal that looked this much like anthrax, not after all they had talked about. It was a set-up. “Dr. Ab! You will come now.” The policeman took Ab by the arm and led him to the truck.
In the Klaten station, Ab was given several forms to fill out, and questioned in some detail about what had happened.
After the initial questioning, the police chief left him to sit on a hard bench in the front office, and retreated to his office with several other officers for consultations. Ab went to the bathroom to wash up again. He stared at his face in the mirror, then went out to the secretary at the front desk and asked if he might leave. No, he would have to stay. Could he make a phone call? His wife would be worried. The secretary hesitated, then allowed him access to the phone. He pulled Nancy’s business card out of his pocket. She might know what to do.
The phone rang four times before Nancy answered. “Sorry, I was out back doing some inventory.”
When he explained the situation to her, she was silent for several minutes. “I thought you were still up in Boyolali,” she said quietly. “I’ll—I’ll see what I can do.” He could see the police chief come back into the room and talk to the secretary, pointing at him. He frowned, then remonstrated her angrily. He was stalking over toward Ab.
“Listen, Nancy, I have to go. Please try to do something. Don’t you have friends somewhere?”
The police chief took the phone receiver from his hand and set it back down. “According to our information, you do not have a wife,” he said.
“Well, she’s sort of like a wife, you know?” Ab smiled knowingly at him, but the chief’s face was expressionless. He placed a hand on Ab’s shoulder and guided him to a small room at the back. “Anyway, in my country we’re allowed at least one phone call.”
“You are not in your country. You will wait here. No more phone calls.” There were two hard wooden chairs in the room, which was bare except for the required pictures of the president and vice-president. In the next room, there was a heated discussion going on. The phone rang. More discussion. They were carrying on in Javanese, so that Ab couldn’t understand.
Suddenly the door swung open and the police chief strode in, thumbs behind his belt. “We have decided that Mr. George died from anthrax. It is too bad. You may go now. But you must be gone from this country in one week.”
Ab stood up. “But…” Ab was about to say something about the stab wound, but bit his tongue. “One week? What about Dr. Soesanto? He didn’t die of anthrax. What about the contract with the government? I am to be helping Dr. Soesanto…helping the veterinary college. I have another full year on my contract. I have to train Soesanto’s replacement. I can’t just leave like that.”
The chief reached out and took Ab’s hand, shook it, and then touched himself on the breast. “Do not worry. The police in Yogyakarta have been informed about Dr. Soesanto. They will take care of that. As for the university—it was here before you, and will continue long after you are gone. We all will, insh’Allah.”
Ab was sure he was missing something important. It was all happening too fast. He stepped outside, then turned back. “The body? May I take the body with me?”
The police chief looked weary and angry at the same time. “You will leave now. The body is none of your business.”
“But he is my friend, and his wife will want to see the body, and she will want to send it back to Canada for proper burial. Do you not respect religious rites in Indonesia?”
The chief scowled, and then seemed to soften. “Listen. This is not my doing. I will see what I can do. We shall seal the body into a proper coffin for transport to Canada,” he said. He ran a hand back over his head, and then added, quietly, “If we are provided with sufficient money to do so, I think we can do this.”
Ab reached for his wallet. “How much is sufficient? Will a hundred thousand rupiahs do?”
The chief looked thoughtful, as if calculating some costs.
“Here is two hundred thousand. It’s all I have.” Ab did a quick calculation in his head: two hundred dollars. In Canadian terms, cheap.
The police chief took it, glanced at it and looked around, as if he had lost something. “We shall prepare the coffin for you for shipment. We will even make arrangements at the airport so that you do not have problems. You may pick it up here tomorrow around noon.”
The evening prayer calls were blasting out from the mosques by the time Ab reached Yogyakarta again, and darkness was dropping. It was only at this point that he remembered having seen Waluyo, and his sudden, inexplicable disappearance. In none of his reports to the police had he mentioned this. He must have been in shock. His first impulse was to turn around and go back to Klaten, but he stopped himself. They would be closed by now, and it would just make more trouble for himself. Besides, they would surely get around to questioning Waluyo, since he was the head manager—wouldn’t they? And what about Soesanto? How would that be investigated?
Ab’s mind was racing in all directions. What had George wanted to tell him? What was that about talking to him before he talked to Nancy? Well, it was too late for that, wasn’t it? Ab tried to push his mind laterally. Waluyo seemed the obvious choice all around, but he was probably working for someone. What were some other possibilities? What about John Schechter? Would he kill? Ab remembered the look he gave across the dance floor and George’s none-too-subtle advances to Claudia. And the heated exchange at the fairgrounds. Ab shuddered. No, that was impossible. Expatriates might fight and copulate, but they didn’t kill. Or did they? What if John had found out? How did Soesanto fit into this? Was the kris making mischief? Was 1966 going on and on and on?
***
Budi answered at the gate. Tina had gone home already, assuming that there would be no cooking this evening. He stood by the buffet a moment and remembered the kris. Returning to the car, he picked up the package from where he had thrown it, turned it over in his hands, then stuffed it into the overnight bag he had taken to Gandringan, and which was still sitting on the back seat. How had the knife ended up at his place? Had George picked it up from Soesanto and brought it over? Was that what he had wanted to talk about? And what did Nancy have to do with this? Why had George said something about Nancy?
He drove over to George and Sarah’s house and stopped out front in the dark lane. How do you tell a woman you loved—love?—that her husband is dead? Do you say, “I’m sorry, but…” Do you just look into her eyes, and then she knows? And you realize that this changes everything about your lives? Every option he could think of seemed trite and maudlin. George was dead. He climbed out of the car and went to the door. When the door finally responded to his knocking, Sarah was there. She threw her arms around him and clung to him and wept into his beard. Over her shoulder, he could see Nancy sitting on the couch. Gently, he stroked Sarah’s thin blond hair. There was nothing to be said.
Ab and Nancy stayed late at Sarah’s, to keep her company. Frieda and Nettie had been in bed when Nancy had arrived with the news. Sarah said she would tell them in the morning. She had no idea how, none whatsoever. Sarah agreed that Ab and Nancy should go pick up the coffin, while she and the girls packed up to leave. She would arrange for a flight tomorrow afternoon. She gave Ab an extra set of keys for George’s truck, which was still out at Susu Senang. They’d have to use the truck to bring the coffin, and would have to go by the main farm to pick it up before they went to the police station. Ab thought Sarah seemed suddenly very clinically efficient, and mused that this ability to act in a crisis would have made her a good veterinarian, better than him. When Ab and Nancy left, Sarah was standing in the doorway to the girls’ room, staring into the darkness.
Outside, Ab and Nancy sat on the stairs and he put his arm around her shoulders. “You sure must know somebody, to have gotten me out of trouble that quickly.”
She was quiet a moment. “That’s just it. I didn’t call anyone. I don’t know anybody that could have helped you. Someone else didn’t want you in trouble.” She looked at him nervously, sideways. “Someone a lot more powerful than me.”
“Or someone else didn’t want a murder investigated. Or just wanted me out of the country. They gave me seven days to get out.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about that, so sorry.”
“Well, it’s not your fault, is it.” He ran his hand slowly up and down her back. “I just don’t understand it. Why kill George? Why kill Soesanto?”
She sat up and laid her hand on his thigh. “Soesanto alive is more of a mystery than Soesanto dead. George, George. I don’t know.” She stood up and paced in a circle, rubbing her hands together. “I just don’t know. It’s so stupid. So pointless.”
“Sarah said he’d wanted to talk to me.” He was going to add, “before I talk to you,” but couldn’t think of a good reason to add that, or to say something about the kris. His mind went numb. “If only I hadn’t stayed overnight in Gandringan. If only I had come back a day earlier.”
She stopped her pacing. “That wouldn’t have helped at all. There was nothing you could have done.”
“So who knew he was going out there?”
She was silent a moment. “Waluyo. And, according to Sarah, John Schechter.”
Nancy stood still, staring to where old Budi was sitting on his stool, smoking.
Ab shook his head. “But that’s insane. I mean, to be killed for your political views, that’s one thing. But for philandering? Sarah would be devastated twice over.”
“If it’s true, you don’t think Sarah would have known?” She brushed her hair away from her eyes. “You underestimate her intelligence. But I don’t think you expatriates are capable of these things. A planned murder would take a level of commitment and courage…” She waved her hand in the air. “Passion maybe.” Her voice drifted off.
Ab thought about that for several minutes, turning the possibilities over in his mind, then reached up to have Nancy pull him to his feet. Nancy straddled the motorbike as Ab stood by his car. “You could stay at my place tonight,” he offered.
She was silent, then in one quick motion dismounted, came over, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him hard, passionately, her whole muscular body pressed against his. Just as suddenly, she was back on her bike, pushing down on the starter pedal. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, and then was gone.