Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Chapter 13
The news reported that former President Soeharto had recovered and was allowed
to return home. Footage showed him in a wheelchair, smiling that enigmatic half-smile
that could be interpreted a thousand different ways.
What would happen now to the bones, stored at police headquarters as potential
evidence? Nol hadn't forgotten about the bones, but he hadn't been thinking about them
either. For a day there, history had risen out of the dirt and snapped its dirty fangs, but
nobody had been badly bitten and the creature was slumbering again.
Nol had been busy supervising the renovations to the rental before Miss Tina
moved in. The pool man cleaned the pool, but when he started unrolling a hose from the
well, Nol stopped him. Nol had promised Tina a spring fed pool—well, not precisely a
promise, but foreigners took such things more seriously than they should—and spring
water was what she should get for the first filling. He called Timon, whose wife had
relatives in management at a spring water bottling plant. Several of the hygienic tankers
that transported volcanic spring water to the plant were diverted to the villa. Suti returned
home one evening to find the last of the trucks pulled up the side wall, pumping its
contents into the pool.
"Why," she asked Nol, "are we filling the pool with Bali Emerald Spring drinking
water?"
"We have to fill the pool as quickly as we can or else ground water will push the
pool shell out of the ground."
Tina inspected the renovations and the pool and declared herself pleased. She
moved in, bringing with her a suitcase, a laptop and printer, a few books and files. Most
of her belongings she'd already shipped home, she said. The first thing she did was place
on the book cabinet a small framed photo of two girls. The older frizzy-haired teen had
her arm around a younger girl. Clearly sisters, and Nol remembered what Tina had said
about her younger sister going missing, but he didn't say anything. He knew what the
feeling was like, and he didn't need to talk about it.
Tina asked him to drive her to the supermarket to shop for new linens and towels.
She had her own VW Safari, a rental she kept parked in the tin shed by the villa, so why
was she asking him to drive? Probably to get him to pay for her own home
improvements. She chatted on the way, asking Nol if Putu was enjoying his summer
vacation. Of course, Nol said, although truth to tell he'd hardly seen his son, who was
surfing all the hours of the day, not to mention hanging out all hours of the night with that
zoo girl.
At the store, Tina bought linens and towels, which she paid for herself. She also
bought box of fancy chocolates for Suti and Arini, and a box of Dunkin' Donuts for Dian
and Putu.
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