Bone Valley

by Claire Matturro

  “You’ll survive.” But Olivia smiled with sympathy.

  “Sure. Hey, and I’ve still got Rasputin.” Though the blue jay was grown now, and eating bugs on his own, he’d sometimes fly onto my patio table in the evenings, where I’d feed him a trail mix bar while I drank my wine. Sometimes he’d even sit on my shoulder.

  “And you and Miguel…you think you’ll ever hear from him again?” Olivia’s tone was soft, motherly.

  “No,” I said, though I still entertained fantasies. “Do you think you’ll ever hear from him again?”

  “No.” But Olivia blushed. Though she had denied it when I finally point-blank asked if they had ever been lovers, if I were Fred the lawfully wedded husband, I’d keep my eyes open. Fred, who let his wife bring a fugitive into their house for hot meals, hot showers, and naps in the guest bedroom, seemed entirely too trusting for a grown-up, especially one who made his living in the practice of law.

  But before I could pursue Miguel further with his blushing den mother, Olivia changed the subject. “So, what about you and Philip? Bonita tells me he sends you roses about once a week.”

  “I don’t know. First I’ve got to—” I was going to say I had to get Miguel totally out of my system, but all that lust and the cursed lure of the promise of what might have been was all way, way too sappy and high school for me. So I finished by saying, “I just need some time and space.” The classic cliché of the can’t-commit crowd.

  “I think the boy has potential,” Olivia said.

  I wasn’t sure if she meant Philip or Miguel, but decided to go with the bird near the hand, and not the one on the lam. “Well, then, let’s see if Philip will agree to take rotating weeks for putting out panther poop and faking the tracks.”

  “Now there’s a test for a future husband—whether he’ll break the law to perpetuate the myth of a panther at a proposed mine site.”

  We laughed, and made our way down to the western fork of Horse Creek. Then I laughed again, laughed at the beauty of how it had all turned out after Samantha the panther officially saved our lives.

  That’s what we told everybody.

  Of course, no one in Official Law Enforcement believed our story for a minute. But being a trial lawyer, I had coached my witnesses well, and we stuck to the chronicle of the events of the great night when Samantha the one-eyed panther had become an official heroine.

  What we rehearsed and told them wasn’t too far off the truth, which in my experience is the best approach for a lie. We said, over and over again to various incredulous cop-type people, that the fight started outside, moved inside, moved outside again, and Samantha attacked Rayford, as he was clearly intent upon killing us all. As we told it, Josey and I had already been beat down by Rayford outside on the driveway, and Olivia, the only one without impressive wounds and cuts and bloody welts, had been tied up inside, and Rayford was cocking the trigger of the gun to send Josey and me into the netherworld, when, boom, like armed and dangerous karma, Samantha escaped from her cage and leaped upon Rayford, saving us all from certain death at the hands of a madman.

  Of course, we also repeatedly explained that Rayford had killed M. David and Angus, and we were all just as fuzzy as one could get about what Miguel had to do with any of this. We never admitted for one moment that Miguel was in that house that night, and when the bomb squad dismantled Miguel’s fertilizer bomb, and, yes, found Miguel’s fingerprints, we just played dumb.

  Of course, Officialdom would like to question Miguel about that bomb, except for a small hindrance, that being that they can’t find him.

  And, in the official story we had made up, just in case anyone thought that we all stood around with a gun in one of our hands and watched a panther kill a man, we made it clear we had no chance to save Rayford and that, in fact, the panther had saved us. After all, we had the bruises, we had the trail of conflict and busted things in the house, we had each backing the other up—the unassailable, proper wife of a prominent attorney; the equally if not more unassailable, honorable sheriff ’s department investigator; and me, perhaps assailable, what with being a trial lawyer and all, but equally firm in my convictions and consistent on the details.

  So, it went down like we said: Samantha the panther saved our lives, Rayford killed M. David and Angus, and we didn’t know squat about Miguel.

  No, not a cop in sight bought that story. But nobody in cop-land could shake us from it, and they didn’t have any witnesses or physical evidence to show otherwise, and the media loved it. I saw to that—Samantha was the heroine one-eyed panther who had been lovingly cared for by the ailing but no less heroic Lenora. When I played Lenora into the story like a skilled publicist, donations and cards and letters came in so fast Lenora had to hire the two Episcopalian nuns to count the money, write the thank-you cards, and be her bookkeepers.

  And, not only did Samantha rescue us, but she was rescued right back. After killing Rayford, the big cat had hidden from the storm under Josey’s big truck. Adam got there quickly with his tranquilizer gun and a small army of panther lovers, and she ended up getting a nice nap, courtesy of modern chemistry, and then a huge, natural, new cage—actually just a hell of a fence around an acre of Lenora’s land—paid for by Mrs. Sherilyn Moody, who told me in a ceremony honoring her for the generous gift that it was the least she could do to help the cat that killed the man who had killed her beloved husband.

  Generous among the money that flowed into the wildlife preserve was a huge infusion of cash from an anonymous source, aka Delvon. Lenora is making regular payments on her mortgage and medical bills, and, not incidentally, helping Delvon launder his money.

  Under the prayerful care of Delvon and the two nuns, Lenora is recovering, and though she still wears the wig of Delvon’s red hair, she’s shown me where her own is now growing back. And it’s curly, she says, and giggles.

  Delvon the faithful keeps watch, waiting for Lenora to get over Angus enough to maybe love him back.

  Though I am not at all certain how having my crazy brother living nearby is going to play out, I figure, oh, what the heck, at least Dolly won’t be stealing his affections and moving him in with her.

  Acknowledgments

  Folks, I had a lot of help on this one.

  Right off, let me tell you that Boogie Bog, its CEO, and its shady cast of characters are entirely and wholly fictional creations. However, an abandoned phosphate-processing plant in Manatee County, Florida, called Piney Point, is real. When its owner went bankrupt in 2001, it left 1.2 billion—yes, that’s billion—gallons of toxic waste waters stored in holding ponds roughly equal to a five-story building for the state of Florida to clean up. At Piney Point, seventy-foot-high ponds, called gyp stacks, contained phosphogypsum, the waste product of processing phosphate into fertilizer. This gyp waste is radioactive, highly acidic, and unquestionably deadly when spilled into natural waterways. The state of Florida as of mid-2005 had spent $95 million to treat and then dump more than a half-billion gallons of this toxic waste into the Gulf of Mexico. Work is still under way, and the final cleanup bill may be as high as $170 million.

  Fortunately, unlike the fictional Boogie Bog, the earthen dams around the Piney Point gyp stacks did not break, nor did the stacks flood in heavy rains. Nonetheless, the damage to the Gulf of Mexico and the economic hit to the state of Florida as a result of Piney Point are enormous. And continuing.

  The threat of a catastrophic spill from Piney Point was very real. Cavities and cracks in the earthen dam, the only thing holding the toxic waste waters back, appeared, but the Florida Department of Environmental Protection heroes sealed those cracks before any spills occurred. But it wasn’t just the cracks in the dam that posed a continuing danger, it was also the rain. In Florida, it rains a lot. These ponds trapped the rain. An article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune quoted a Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson as saying that rainfall in one year alone added 331 million gallons of water to Piney Point’s stacks, and that water becam
e toxic when mixed with the waste. Heavy rains in December 2001 brought the stacks to within a few feet of overflowing. And, at a similar gyp stack near Tampa, Florida, high winds and torrential rains from Hurricane Francis on September 5, 2004, ripped a chunk from its earthen dam and 65 million gallons of highly acidic wastewater escaped into Tampa Bay. According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida currently has twenty-five gyp stacks that contain an estimated 1 billion ton of phosphogypsum. More toxic gyp wastes accumulate every year, posing a continuing danger to Florida and its waterways.

  My gratitude to the people who helped me understand the phosphate issues is great. Tim Ohr, a freelance writer and author of books on natural Florida, including Florida’s Fabulous Canoe and Kayak Trail Guide, Florida’s Fabulous Trail Guide, and Florida’s Fabulous National Places, selflessly walked me verbally through the basic issues concerning the phosphogypsum stacks left at Piney Point, and gave me a thorough lesson in the basics of phosphate mining. It was Tim’s task to teach me such things as the difference between a slime pond and a gyp stack. His primer course in phosphate mining laid down an important foundation for Bone Valley. Tim didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat when I first contacted him after reading several of his articles. Yet he shared his time and knowledge most graciously and generously with me. Thank you, Tim.

  Sarasota Herald-Tribune environmental editor and writer Tom Bayles, another stranger, took time out of his busy workdays to answer what seemed like a hundred questions via e-mail and phone about Piney Point, phosphate mining, and the science and numbers involved. Tom in person and Tom’s articles were a vast source of information and inspiration. And Victor Hull and Allen Horton, though we never talked, your articles in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune were another great source of information on Piney Point and all things Florida and phosphate. Thank you all.

  My father, John Hamner, retired journalist, and friend Mike Lehner both ran unofficial clipping services for me, mailing me articles on phosphate, gyp stacks, Piney Point, and other such things when I was outside the range of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. All the reporters who have covered phosphate and gyp stacks in Florida helped greatly—you should see my Piney Point and phosphate files!

  Three Web sites also proved so helpful I wish to mention them, not only to thank their contributors, but to refer them to any of you who wish to read more on phosphate issues. These are: www.manasota88.org, www.thephosphaterisk.com, and www.fipr.state.fl.us (from the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research).

  Please let me thank the animal-rehabilitation people I met in researching this novel. These people do work that is both hard and heartbreaking—and sometimes dangerous—and they do it with great love and generosity. To Zannah in Georgia, for sharing the story of Bob the doomed squirrel, for her good, big heart, and for teaching me something about raising baby squirrels, thank you. To Bill in Georgia, for his love of our winged creatures and answering all the bird questions, especially the feeding ones, thank you. To Lorraine in Thomasville, for the story of the bobcat who attacked her in a cage, the goats, for all the animals saved, and for sharing her animal sanctuary with my husband and me one Sunday, thank you. Your animal sanctuary, where I watched the deer and the coyotes and the fox all cohabit peacefully, gave me a glimpse of what I think the kingdom of heaven might be like.

  To Jane in Tallahassee and the people at St. Francis in Gadsden County, thank you for teaching me about the care and feeding of orphan birds, patching up tortoise shells, and all other things such as that. Oh, and a word about what to do if you find an orphan baby bird or other animal, or a wounded animal: contact a certified wildlife rehabilitator. It’s often pretty complicated, and you can make things worse in a hurry if you don’t know what you are doing. If you can’t find a wildlife rehabilitator listed in your phone book, try calling your local veterinary offices; they can refer you.

  Mike Peel, certified Rolfer in Bradenton, took the time to enthusiastically teach me about Rolfing, both by word and example. The fact that the Rolfing scene ended up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak, didn’t devalue your lessons—thank you, Mike.

  Dan McNicol showed me the Peace River, up close and personal, from a canoe and a tent on its banks. It’s a glorious river, and it should be protected and cherished, not mined and exploited, and I thank Dan for introducing me to it in a whole new way.

  With great delight, let me thank Jan Heffington, friend and Florida neighbor, for sharing her trained cats, Cleo and Bailey, with me whenever I needed a kitty fix while writing, and for having one of the best ideas in Bone Valley and generously letting me use it. Thank you, Jan.

  Always, always: Thank you to my editor, Carolyn Marino, and her assistant, Jennifer Civiletto, for not only making me a better writer, but for adding an element of grace to the whole process; to my publicist, Samantha Hagerbaumer, who keeps track of me even when I can’t; and my agent, Elaine Koster, who makes the maze and fine print far less scary, and is an excellent sounding board and wholly honest in her critiques.

  And finally, though by no means lastly, to Bill, Deborah, and Peter, who teach by example that it isn’t the slogan on your T-shirt, or the bumper sticker on your car, but how you live each day that makes a person an environmentalist. These three are rare examples of people who live lightly on the earth with tremendous respect for nature, and they helped to inspire the character of Lenora.

  Thank you all. And, if I didn’t get it exactly right, then it’s my fault, not any of these generous people’s.

  Now, a word to the people and officials of Charlotte County, Florida: As of this writing, it looks like you are losing the battle to save the Peace River, one of America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2004 and your source of drinking water, from the phosphate miners. I hope by the time this book comes out, your story has a better ending. Keep up the good fight.

  About the Author

  A former appellate attorney and member of the writing faculty at Florida State University College of Law, CLAIRE HAMNER MATTURRO was recently a visiting faculty member at the University of Oregon School of Law but has now returned to Georgia. She is the author of two previous Lilly Cleary novels, Skinny-dipping and Wildcat Wine.

  Visit her website at www.clairematturro.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Praise

  MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT—EVERYONE LOVES CLAIRE MATTURRO’S LILLY CLEARY!

  “A delightful heroine: A sharp, sassy, sexy attorney with a penchant for trouble and an almost neurotic dislike of clutter, personal and physical…. Cleary is likable, an entertaining addition to the ranks of wise-cracking crime novel heroes.”

  Virginian-Pilot

  “Matturro has a wicked sense of comedic timing. I don’t know what they put in the water down there, but she’s got to be drinking from the same well as Carl Hiaasen.”

  Boston Globe

  “Funny and tough and full of wacky characters who are utterly real, [Bone Valley] is a mystery, a legal thriller, and a serious novel rolled into one. Lilly Cleary is not just another lawyer–detective. She’s as smart as she is sexy, and she’s got a cockeyed but endearing array of clients and sidekicks that spring to life from the fertile Florida soil.”

  James Hall

  “Matturro’s brassy heroine has elbowed her way onto Hiaasen and Leonard’s turf…. We Florida writers don’t need this kind of competition—and I’ll be standing in line for her next one.”

  Tim Dorsey

  “Breezy…funny…Claire Matturro is very much worth reading.”

  Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Claire Matturro takes the legal thriller firmly in hand and invigorates it with an irreverent but always on-target mix of humor, suspense, and characters so real you’ll swear you see these people every day. The author combines…the kind of off-the-wall humor that Janet Evanovich does so well, adds a sophisticated twist to the wit, and then layers in an insider’s jaundiced view of the law akin to Lisa Scottoline�
��s novels.”

  Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “Attorney Lilly Cleary blends cynical amorality with a fetish for organic foods that perfectly reflects today’s political and cultural values. I loved the fresh, original voice and am already looking forward to her next adventure.”

  Margaret Maron

  “Loads of fun.”

  James Grippando

  “Matturro proves that multilayered mysteries don’t have to be put solely in the hard-boiled category. Using humor and absurd situations, Matturro illustrates all that is wrong—and right—with our legal system…. Matturro also constructs a most appealing—and annoying—heroine in Lilly Belle Rose.”

  Charleston Gazette

  “Breezy and funny, with a heroine who’s a magnet for trouble. Dive in!”

  Lisa Scottoline

  “Lilly Belle Cleary…moves at the speed of sound…In a breezy, self-aware style, Cleary brings a reader into the sordid, ethically challenged world of defense attorneys.”

  Detroit Free Press

  “Matturro’s writing is crisp…. [She’s] a fresh South Florida voice, reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen…. Thankfully, there’s enough room in the literary crime pool for both of these writers.”

  Miami Herald

  “A bright, brassy, sexy heroine enters the lists of legal fiction with a joyful noise…. This new kid on Grisham’s block is one to watch.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “Lilly Belle Cleary is a whip-smart lawyer with the heart of a buccaneer and the soul of a lady bountiful. Bone Valley is bona fide fun.”