Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

of John and Eugenia Stonecypher. In keeping with a hallowed family tradition, the couple had planted Eugenia’s most recent afterbirth in the same hole as a flowering plum sapling, a ritual intended to insure long life and happiness for the Stonecyphers’ baby girl. Prue had almost thrown up.) “It isn’t my idea of a fun time,” she added.
    “You haven’t even called me,” countered her friend.
    “I’m a little blue,” said Prue. “What can I say?”
    “You can say you’ll call me. You can lean on your pal, Prudy Sue. Look, I’ve got the most marvelous news. I’ve found a place that sells Rioco!”
    “What’s that?”
    “You remember. That Brazilian cola Binky told us about last spring.”
    “She didn’t tell me.”
    “Well, it’s full of jungle speed or something. Half of Rio is buzzed on it. Guarana. It sounds like bat shit, but it’s fabulous stuff. They’ve got it at the Twin Peaks Grocery. What say we dash out there?”
    “I’m on deadline, Vickie.”
    “We could go this afternoon.”
    “Vickie …”
    “All right, be in your funk, then.”
    “You’re sweet to think of me.”
    “I’m not trying to be sweet, Prudy Sue. I want my friend back.”
    A long pause, then a sigh from the columnist. “I’m trying, Vickie. Give me a little time, O.K.?”
    “You got it. Just don’t mope, Prudy Sue. Get out and get some air, at least. Take Vuitton for a walk.”
That was what did it: a little sisterly advice from an old friend.
    Despite repeated warnings from Father Paddy, she had known that this moment would come. How could she have avoided it? How could she not return, however briefly, to the scene of her happiest moments on earth?
    Besides, she might find a clue there—something to aid DeDe in her search for Luke and the twins. She wouldn’t have to tell DeDe everything—just enough to point her in the right direction. That couldn’t hurt, could it?
    She also wanted some answers herself. Maybe the truth, however painful, would free her from this crippling melancholy. It was worth a try, anyway.
    And Vuitton needed the walk.

Ingaluk
    T HE FIRST THING MARY ANN NOTICED ABOUT LITTLE DIOMEDE was the row of crude wooden boxes perched on the rocks above the village. She asked Andy Omiak about them.
    “Coffins,” he replied amiably. “Most of the year the ground’s frozen solid. We have to bury people above ground.” Seeing Mary Ann’s grimace, he added: “It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s so dry here that the boxes last longer than … their contents. The dogs scatter whatever’s left.”
    The dogs were the next thing she noticed. Dozens of them—thick-coated and yellow-eyed—roaming the island in ominous packs. “We’re glad to have ‘em,” insisted Andy Omiak. “They function as our radar. If anybody comes over from the other island the dogs will let us know.”
    DeDe, who had been silent during the trek from the airfield, turned to the Eskimo Scout. “What about the other way around?”
    Andy Omiak frowned at her. “You mean …?”
    “If somebody tried to cross over to the Russian island, would you have any way of knowing it?”
    “Oh … well … there it is. It wouldn’t be too hard to see anybody who might try to cross over. This time of year it never gets dark, so … why do you ask, anyway?”
    DeDe maintained her stride, looking straight ahead. “We think somebody may be trying to cross over. He may have already, in fact.”
    “From the mainland?”
    DeDe nodded. “A man about fifty and two four-year-olds, a boy and a girl. They were Eurasian and dressed in parkas, so they might have been mistaken for Eskimos.”
    Andy Omiak smiled. “Not around here. Everybody knows everybody. We’d see that for sure.”
    Mary Ann asked: “If they came from the mainland, would they have to arrive by airplane?”
    The Eskimo Scout shrugged. “Probably. That’s the usual way. I guess he could come in by boat … from Wales or something. There wouldn’t be much point in stopping here, though. Why wouldn’t he go straight to Big Diomede?”
    It was a good question—one that cast a shadow on the validity of their search. In light of the roving dogs and Eskimo Scouts, a stopover on Little Diomede would be almost foolhardy. Why not go directly to Big Diomede, if you were going to go at all?
Willie Omiak, Andy’s pilot cousin, parted company with them as soon as they reached Andy’s house, a sturdy wood-and-tarpaper structure near the waterfront. “I’ll be