FOR JOHN, THOSE SAME THREE DAYS OVER EASTER WERE eventful; visiting privileges had been taken away. He did not know why this happened. For a time the guards told him to come back in an hour—or come back tomorrow morning. But then on the fourth day—that is, the Tuesday after Easter—he was told he was not welcome.
“No visit,” the man at the desk told him, waving his hand abruptly, as if they had caught on to something deceptive that John was up to. “No visit no more—no más visit,” he declared, his tie immaculate but sweat under both arms, one eye drooping.
Then as he was walking back to the resort a police car picked him up and drove him back to the station. There, sitting in what was, he determined, interrogation room four, he was asked questions for over an hour. Did he see the body of Florin, did he know where Florin was. Did he think he could outsmart the police of Oathoa, did he have relations with Mary Cyr. When he said no to that, Erappo Pole smiled and said:
“Why not—everyone else has.”
Then they questioned him about Señor Xavier—who was paying him? And the Cyr family—were they a family of criminals like so many people thought? Every time he answered a question they looked more disturbed and positive he was lying. Then suddenly Constable Fey came in and spoke to the two policemen in the room. He spoke quite harshly and was quite impassioned.
They all went into the hall for a few moments. Then Fey came in, and without looking at him said:
“You can go.”
And so he did. But he knew by the way they obeyed Fey that he had more clout than an ordinary policeman—so he must know something more as well. And if he knew something more as well, then he must know something about her innocence. And John began to remember everything that went on since he arrived.
Certainly someone else is working on this, he thought. Certainly Fey knows something very important he is not saying.
John went back to his room. He did not know what to do. He sent his findings off to the Canadian embassy and waited for a reply. A standard “Thank you for visiting Canada’s website in Mexico” came back.
They came from the tierra caliente—the hot land—and now it was hot. It was too hot for John, who could not seem to function in it—the heat blazed down upon him, even when he wore the hat he had bought from a rack at the supermercado. It was too hot for Mary, who lay on the floor of her cell, silently as the hours seemed to drip away—remembering how she had in her rooms at the cottage all kinds of things she collected. Moosehead quart bottles that she spent her time shining, old CYR COMPANY OIL cans that she kept in immaculate condition—a porcelain British flag—a picture of Beaverbrook with Jean Norton at a spa. The picture of her dog, Muggy Muffs. The picture of Denise Albert that had by now become famous. The picture of her mother shaking hands with John F. Kennedy. The little jar Debby Dormey collected blueberries in; the autograph from Neil Young, which she cherished until his attack on her family’s pipeline some years later. The knowledge that half or more of the people whose careers she applauded and championed, men she first helped get published or promoted and sometimes did benefits with, did not think her more than a frivolous rich girl. None of them came to her defence. Now, in silence, with the heat seeming to draw away the air, she realized this. She realized she treasured people, and gave money to their causes while they secretly scorned who she was.
She thought of Bobby and called his name softly and said:
“You are loved.”
It was what some anonymous person had written her from Canada, after so much hate and glee. Someone had simply written and said:
“You are loved.”
It was, as we later discovered, Beeswax.