She marveled at the change in him. The monklike demeanor he had held was gone, and an ordinary man, angry, confused, and grief-stricken, sat beside her, clutching her hand. He’d lost his glow of inner peace. And she grieved for that loss, almost more than for his other losses.
“Just because your uncle told you a story meant to protect you doesn’t mean that everything he taught you was false. Plenty of people who are not fools have faith
– faith in God, faith in the basic goodness of human nature. You don’t have to give those things up.’’ “What about you, Lydia? What do you have faith in?’’
She searched her mind, wanting to come up with something to satisfy them both. But she didn’t know. She didn’t want to say what she’d realized in that moment, that she had been searching for faith in him. She’d started to convince herself that he could heal the pain she had been carrying inside her since the death of her mother, that he held the truth that could set her free. It was that search that had been drawing her to him.
“Because you see the truth,’’ he said, when she didn’t speak, “you don’t need faith.’’
“Because I see the truth, I need it even more; faith that there is something larger, something better than what we see. There are people who believe you healed them. What about that?’’
“I never healed anyone. People lied to themselves. And I was starting to believe it, too. They were searching, just like you were. For something larger, something that could fix the injustice of suffering. They let themselves believe a fairy tale. Just like I did.’’
“But I saw you in my dreams,’’ she said.
“I can’t explain that, Lydia.’’
“And that’s the space that faith occupies. In things we can’t explain and can’t understand.’’
Now he sat silent, trying to grasp at the fading concept of himself and his world. He wondered who he would be, now that everything he had known was slipping away. “So, do you know what happened to them?’’
“Yes. Do you want me to tell you?’’
“Yes.’’
As carefully as she could, she relayed the fate of Serena and Manuel Alonzo, giving him the whole truth as she had learned it from archived articles from the newspaper. She felt he deserved that. “Your parents were poor, living here in the barrio of Santa Fe. Your father worked in construction and your mother was a nurse’s aide at Santa Fe General Hospital. They married very young and it was an abusive relationship. Your father beat your mother, Juno.
“When she found out she was pregnant, she became afraid for your life. She was afraid you would not survive the beatings. She was too afraid to divorce him or leave him, fearing that he would find and kill her anyway. So she killed your father, set their house on fire while he was passed out from drinking.
“She went to trial and was found guilty. She gave birth to you in prison and died in labor.’’
Lydia told the story in all its earthly ugliness. And when she was done, she told him about Bernard Hugo and what they had discovered. And Juno wept, feeling grief and pain for the first time in his life. She sat beside him with her hand on his back and nodded to the officer standing by the door, who had stood waiting for her signal to start digging up the garden. Lydia was certain it was here they would find the victims’ hearts. She wasn’t sure why Hugo had buried them here, she wasn’t sure what his message was, but she had a vague sense now of the way the killer’s mind worked, of his essence. And though she didn’t know what his ultimate goal was, she knew he intended to have vengeance against Juno for not saving his son. The only thing she really didn’t understand was why he chose the victims he did. Was it just a matter of opportunity? Were they just unlucky enough to fly into his radar?
“Juno,’’ Lydia said gently, a thought occurring to her suddenly.
He had lifted his head from his hands and seemed to be staring off at the altar, lost in his grief. He came back to himself when she spoke to him.
“Did any of the victims ever come to you for counsel? Did you heal any of them, Juno?’’
He seemed to deflate even further as he considered her question, and realized the implications of the answer he was about to give. In that moment he truly had lost everything he believed to be true.
“I’ve seen all of them,’’ he said softly. “Christine and Harold came to me a year ago to help them overcome their addictions. Shawna came to me to help her with her anger. And Maria, she came to me when a doctor found a lump in her breast.’’
“And what happened with each of them?’’
“Christine and Harold seemed to have beaten their addictions when they disappeared. Shawna became involved in the church and that seemed to give her some peace. When Maria’s tumor was removed, after her visit, it was found to be benign. She claimed that before she had seen me, she was sure she was about to die from breast cancer, and that as I played my guitar, she could feel the cancer leaving her. She was quite vocal about it.’’
“So you helped all of them. In ways, you healed all of them. That should mean something to you, Juno. Each of their lives was better for your interaction with them, whether it was divine or not.’’
“Lydia,’’ he said, “if your question implies what I think it does, then all of their lives were ended because of their interaction with me.’’
“No, Juno, all of their lives ended because of their interaction with Bernard Hugo. Don’t confuse that. Do not take that on. You acted in a way that was true to yourself and true to your belief in God.’’
“So did Bernard Hugo.’’
Twenty Three
Lydia sat in the doorway and watched as the police began to overturn the garden, removing the flowers first and then raking through the dirt carefully, trying not to damage what might be found, if anything. A headache had started to settle behind her eyes, the events of the day bearing down like a weight on her brain. She kept trying to move the images of Juno weeping and of Bernard Hugo’s chamber of horrors from her mind so she could focus on what their next move should be. But all she could do was watch, wondering what or who they would find buried in the garden. She thought she knew.
The flowers were piled on the ground like corpses and Lydia found herself mesmerized by the rhythmic sound of the raking in the dirt. The sun was hot and the officers were sweating heavily in their efforts. There was no other sound except the wind and the occasional car driving by. Lydia stared at the statue of Madonna and Child and wondered what those stone eyes had borne witness to, as she heard a rake make contact with a hard surface beneath the dirt. As if answering some kind of macabre cue, Medical Examiner Henry Wizner appeared at the garden gate.
It seemed as if time slowed as the police officers moved out of the way and Wizner knelt by the garden, opening his black bag. He removed surgical gloves, a small paintbrush, and a spade. With the brush he carefully whisked away the dirt to reveal a small glass circle, around which he carefully dug with the spade. Lydia moved over closer to him as he reached with his gloved hand and pulled a glass mason jar from the earth. Inside, floating in a clear liquid Lydia could only assume was formaldehyde, was a human heart.
“It’s time to go, Juno,’’ Lydia said, approaching Juno from behind. He sat where she had left him an hour earlier, barely having moved.
“What did you find?’’
“Maybe we should talk about this another day.’’
“My uncle?’’
“No.’’
Juno just nodded.
“Why don’t you come back to my house?’’ she offered. “You can stay there as long as you need to.’’
“I need time alone. I need to be somewhere familiar.’’ He answered slowly, his voice as slight and far away as he seemed to be. “I need to try to understand everything that has happened here.’’