He paused and frowned, and then he said, "Names?"


Another pause. "Never heard of either of them."


He nodded and said, "Okay. Okay, I'll get right over there."


"Problem?" asked Holly.


"Yes… I'm sorry. I'm going to have to drop you off. There's been a shooting at the Deh-Ta Grocery Store in Chinatown. One individual killed, another one seriously wounded. Somebody at headquarters seems to think that they're friends of mine." He frowned again, thinking, but then he shook his head. "Some guy called Gerald Butler and some other guy called Kevin McKenna. Never heard of either of them."


"Do you want me to come along?"


"You can if you like. It shouldn't take me very long."


"Then I'll come along."



When they reached Chinatown they found the whole block sealed off and seven squad cars parked across the street with their lights flashing, as well as two ambulances and a TV truck. Mickey led Holly through the police barrier and up to the front of the Deh-Ta Grocery Store. The grocery's front was painted in red and gold, and most of the window was crowded with Chinese posters and postcards and dangling dolls and decorations.


Inside, there was a glass counter on the right and a long central aisle crammed with bottles of rice wine and cans of smoked oysters and boxes of Chinese spices. Three floodlights had been positioned around the store so that it looked dazzlingly bright, like a movie set: INT. CHINESE GROCERY STORE. NIGHT.


Seven or eight police officers and paramedics were standing in the aisle in front of the counter, talking in the casual way that people who are used to human tragedy always do. On the wooden floor in front of them lay the body of an overweight young man in his late twenties, wearing faded blue jeans and a white shirt with splashy red poppies on it, except that they weren't splashy red poppies: They were blood. Holly could see his pale hairy belly bulging over his belt.


A stocky, gray-haired man in a crumpled gray linen coat came out of the store. "Mickey… hi. Thanks for dropping by." He looked Holly up and down. "Didn't want to screw up your evening or anything."


"This is Holly Summers. She's our consultant lipreader."


"Oh,right. I heard about her. The deaf lady. You used her on the Steelhead Cannery case, didn't you? Classic bust, that. Classic. I don't know how she did it."


"Jack, she may be deaf, but she can understand what you're saying, and believe it or not she can speak."


"Oh, sorry. Tell her I'm sorry."


Mickey pointed to Holly, and Jack Harris gave her a quick, embarrassed glance and muttered, "Sorry."


"So what's happening here? Who are these guys that are supposed to be friends of mine?"


"It was a robbery that went wrong. Three guys came into the store, one of them stood by the door to stop anybody else from coming in, the other two went up to Mr. Deh-Ta and told him to open the register."


"Were they armed?"


"Mr. Deh-Ta said that one of them was holding something black that looked like an automatic weapon. He said he was frightened for his life, so he took out his pump-action shotgun from under the counter and let the guy have it, point-blank range in the chest. The second guy ran for the door but Mr. Deh-Ta shot him in the back. Lucky for the second guy that Mr. Deh-Ta is a lousy shot: It only took half his shoulder off."


"That sounds like pretty good luck to me," said Mickey, looking at Holly. "Did you recover the automatic weapon?"


Jack Harris lifted his left hand. Dangling from his index finger was a black collapsible umbrella.


"You could do a lot of serious damage with that," Mickey remarked.


"Depends where you put it before you opened it up."


Mickey looked around. "So who said these guys were friends of mine? What did you say their names were?"


"Gerald Butler is the dead guy. Kevin McKenna is the guy with no shoulder. It was McKenna who said you were friends of theirs." Pause. "Well, obviously."


Mickey said to Holly, "Wait here a second, will you?"


He went into the store and edged his way through the cops and the paramedics. Holly could see him hunkering down beside the body. After a while he stood up and edged his way out again.


"August Moon," he said, with a peculiar cough.


"What?"


"Gerald Butler is part of a Chinese transvestite act who call themselves the Three Concubines. His stage name is August Moon. Kevin McKenna is Lotus Flower, and the third guy was probably Bruce."


Jack Harris took out his notebook. "You know something? The longer I live, the more I see, the less I don't fucking believe it."


"They wouldn't have hurt a fly. They'd had some bad luck getting bookings, that's all. This, ah… Mr. Deh-Ta-he still around?"


"Sure. He's in the squad car over there."


"Mind if I talk to him for a minute?"


"Be my guest."


Mickey held up his wristwatch and tapped the crystal to indicate to Holly that he wouldn't be long. He went over to the squad car and climbed into the rear seat next to Mr. Deh-Ta. Holly couldn't see much of Mr. Deh-Ta because of the reflected light against the curving window, but he looked thin and fiftyish, with wiry hair sticking up.


Jack Harris suddenly turned to Holly and shouted,"You really that deaf? Like, ah, I don't want to be personal or nothing!"She could tell by the excited look on his face that he was quite pleased with himself for talking to her, as if he had plucked up the courage to have a conversation with somebody in a wheelchair.


"Totally deaf," she smiled. "So there's no need for you to shout."


"Oh," he blinked. Then, cunningly, "How did you know I was shouting?"


"Because your face went bright red and everybody else turned around to look at you."


"Oh."


She turned to see what Mickey was doing. Although the inside of the squad car was so dark, a curve of light illuminated Mickey's lips, and now and then Mr. Deh-Ta turned halfway toward her too. She couldn't pick up everything that Mickey was saying, but the expression on his face said it all.


"So how much did you have in the register?"


Head shake.


"How much did you have in the register, Mr. Deh-Ta? I want to know how much you had in the register."


"Hundred dollar. Maybe hundred twenty-five and change."


"You killed a guy for a hundred twenty-five and change? You fuckingkilledhim?"


"-gun-"


"What, are you blind? That wasn't a gun, that was a fuckingumbrella. Do you ever watch TV?"


Head shake.


"I said, do you ever watch TV? Do you watch cop shows? Ever seen a cop show?NYPD Blue,anything like that?"


"He ask for money. He say give me all your money."


"With anumbrella,Mr. Deh-Ta! You ever seen the bad guys inNYPD Bluepulling umbrellas? 'Give me all your money, or else I'll make sure that you don't get wet!'?"


Holly started to smile, but then she saw Mickey take hold of Mr. Deh-Ta's necktie and shake the Chinaman's head from side to side. She looked around for Jack Harris, but he had gone back inside the store.


Mickey's face was as hard as riven slate. "You killed a guy, Mr. Deh-Ta, and you took half another guy's arm off, because you didn't fucking look and you didn't fuckingthink.And do you know what's going to happen to you? Nothing, that's what's going to happen to you. In fact, they'll probably give you a fucking medal."


Mickey stopped for breath, and then he slammed Mr. Deh-Ta's head back against the headrest. Holly saw Mickey's mouth shouting, "He was a human being! He was a human being! You just don't get it, do you! He was somebody's son!"


She walked quickly over to the squad car and rapped on the window. Mickey immediately let go of Mr. Deh-Ta's necktie and made of show of tugging his shirt collar straight. At that moment Jack Harris came back out of the store, writing in his notebook.


Mickey climbed out of the far side of the car. He smoothed back his hair with both hands and buttoned up his coat. Holly stared at him and she didn't know what to say. He simply raised one eyebrow, as if to say "What?"


Jack Harris opened up the nearside door and helped Mr. Deh-Ta to climb out. Mr. Deh-Ta looked confused and bewildered, and when Mickey came around the car toward him he lifted one elbow as if to protect himself.


"Don't worry about a thing, Mr. Deh-Ta," said Mickey, slapping him on the back. "You're a hero."



On the way home, Mickey turned to Holly and said, "You're quiet."


"I don't know. I guess I'm a little shocked, that's all."


"Because I gave that guy a hard time?"


"Because I'm seeing a side of you I never saw before. First Elliot Joseph, now this guy."


Mickey thought about that for a while, and then he said, "I'm a cop, Holly. That means I get paid to uphold the law. But there's law and there's justice, and believe me, they're two different ball games.


"August Moon… he was one of the gentlest people on the planet. You want to talk about law? Okay, August Moon broke the law. But you want to talk about justice? He was executed without a trial. He was executed for being different, and for finding it difficult to make a living. All over America, every day of the week, peoplemurderpeople and they don't get executed. But August Moon tried to steal a hundred twenty-five bucks with a collapsible umbrella and that was it. The death sentence."


He drew up outside Torrefazione. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have seen what happened tonight. You did very good work at the Compass…. You've probably saved a woman's life."


"I have to go in now. Daisy will be home soon."


All the same, she stayed where she was and looked at him for almost half a minute without saying anything, and he looked back at her.


"I hope, ah…," Mickey began, and then stopped.


"You hope what?"


"I hope what happened with Elliot Joseph, and back there at Deh-Ta's… I hope you're not starting to think that I'm some kind of psycho."


She smiled and shook her head. "I can understand why you lost your temper. I think I might have done the same."


"You? I can't imagine you angry."


"Oh, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."


"What would you do?" asked Mickey. "Turn green and throw a bus at me?"


"No. I'd stop reading your lips, that's all."


"Whoo. That would shut me up, wouldn't it?"


"As far asI'mconcerned, totally."


Mickey reached out and gently fingered her hair. "This isn't an easy thing to say. I mean, however I put it, it's going to sound patronizing."


"Go on," she encouraged him.


"The whole thing is… I like you, Holly. I really like you for who you are. It's no good me trying to pretend that it doesn't matter, you being deaf. Like, it's part of the reason I like you so much: the fact that you're deaf and yet, the way that you deal with it."


He clenched his fist and knocked himself twice on the forehead. "Shit, that came out wrong."


Holly smiled. "I like you, too, Mickey."


"But what?"


"I didn't saybut. It's just that I don't know you very well. After this evening, less than I thought."


"But you still like me?"


She hesitated, and then she kissed him on the cheek.


Daisy Sulks


Friday was Marcella's evening off, so Holly went down to Torrefazione downstairs and brought up pepperoni pizza with extra black olives. It was fresh and hot, but Daisy ate only one slice of hers and then prodded at the rest with her fork, swinging one leg under the table.


Holly watched her for a while and then said, "You don't like it? I could get you something else instead. Maybe some linguine?"


Daisy shrugged and continued prodding and swinging.


"Now you're not talking to me? What? You're annoyed that I'm going away for the weekend?"


Another shrug. Holly finished her mouthful and said, "Listen, I haven't had a break for over a year. I deserve a break, quite frankly. And you don't mind spending the weekend with Gillian, do you? If you do, why didn't you say so before I made the arrangement?"


"I don't mind spending the weekend with Gillian, okay?"


"So what's wrong? Tell me, I'm your mother."


"It's nothing."


"It'snothing?So why are you behaving like a ballet dancer with a sore butt?"


Daisy glowered at her from under her eyebrows but didn't answer.


"You all finished, then?" Holly asked her. "You're excused from the table. You can wash your plate and put it away and then you can go pack for tomorrow. And don't take that yellow skirt with the frills: It's too small for you and it makes you look like a human daffodil."


Daisy sulked off into the kitchen. Holly sat at the dining table alone, trying to finish her pizza, but she didn't have the appetite for it anymore. She pushed her plate away and poured herself another glass of wine. Under her breath she sang,"What is your one-o? Green grow the rushes-o. One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so."She could hear it in her head but she couldn't hear her own voice.


Tears at Bedtime


Holly packed the smart green weekend bag that Tyrone had bought her at the Columbia Sportswear Company, and then she went to see how Daisy was managing. Daisy was sitting on the end of her bed with a heap of clothes strewn all over it, and only a Princess Barbie and two pairs of panties in her case.


"Come on, I'll help you," said Holly.


"I can do it."


"Okay, but if you're going to do it, do it. I want you to get an early night tonight."


She waited, but Daisy made no effort to finish her packing. In the end she sat down beside her and said, "What's wrong? Come on, pumpkin, you can tell me what it is, whatever it is."


Daisy looked at her and her eyes were filling up with tears. "I miss my daddy," she said.


Holly put her arm around her and hugged her. Daisy was so outspoken and sure of herself that sometimes she forgot how young she was, how vulnerable. "I know you do, pumpkin. I miss him too."


"Do you have to go to Mirror Lake with Katie and Doug? Couldn't you go someplace else?"


"You don't want me to go to Mirror Lake? Is that what this is all about?"


"I don't want you to go with Ned."


"But why? You don't even know Ned. Neither do I."


"I just don't like the sound of him. Ned. He sounds like a horse."


"He's probably okay. Katie thinks I'm really going to like him."


"That's the trouble."


Holly reached over to Daisy's nightstand and plucked out a Kleenex. She dabbed at Daisy's eyes and then said, "Blow. That's better. Now are you going to tell me why you don't want me to go with Ned?"


"Because of Uncle Mickey. If you like Ned, then you won't go out with Uncle Mickey anymore."


"I see. You really like Uncle Mickey, huh?"


Daisy flushed and nodded.


"I like Uncle Mickey too. But we're not dating or anything like that. We work together, that's all, and I like to think that we're friends, but that's about as far as it goes."


"You don't have to marry him or anything."


"Oh, thanks."


Daisy was almost hurting with the effort to explain what she meant. "It's just that he reminds me of dad. I mean, he doesn'tlooklike dad, but when he's here- when he came to supper and told me that story-hefeltlike dad."


To her surprise, Holly suddenly found that she had tears in her eyes too. She stroked Daisy's forehead and said, "Yes. Yes, I know what you're saying."


A Night Visitor


There was no moon that night and the apartment was intensely dark. Holly lay awake until nearly two-thirty in the morning, watching the red numbers on her bedside alarm clock counting away her life. She had promised Daisy that she would do everything humanly possible not to like Ned, and that even if she did, she would still invite Uncle Mickey round for supper and let him stay to tell her bedtime stories.


She heard a ship hooting mournfully on the river, and then another, as if they were whales mating.



She remembered waking up one morning to find David sitting in the white-painted rocker by the bedroom window, his eyes narrowed, looking through the two-inch gap between the blind and the windowsill. He seemed to be waiting.


"David?" she had asked him. At that instant he had whipped his head sideways, his eyes tightly shut, as if something were flying directly toward his face.


Six days later he was dead. She often wondered if he had experienced a premonition of what was going to happen to him.



The bedside clock flicked to 2:33. Holly turned onto her back and stared up into the darkness. This is what it must be like, being blind.


As she lay there, however, she became aware that there was an even darker darkness, and it appeared to be hovering right over her. It kept shifting its shape, but it looked as if it had outspread wings and was steadying itself in some unfelt updraft.


The longer she stared at it, the blacker it became, black and ruffled like a monstrous bird. She knew that there was nothing there. How could a giant raven be flying over her bed? Yet, she was sure that she could see it rising and falling and constantly altering its appearance, and she began to feel a chilly dread of what it was going to do to her.


She carefully reached out with one hand toward the nightstand. She found the cable that led to her bedside lamp and tried to locate the switch. Up above her the dark shape spread wider until it was covering almost the entire ceiling.


She found the switch, and she was just about to turn on the light when the shapedroppedon her with a rush of feathers and freezing-cold wind. She cried out"Aaahh!"and threw up her hands to protect her face, knocking the lamp onto the floor.


She waited. Silence. She opened her eyes and gradually lowered her hands. The bedside clock said 2:57. The room was still dark, but she could sense that there was nothing there. She climbed out of bed and groped her way over to the main light switch. When she turned it on, she saw that her sheets were violently twisted, as if she had been fighting, and that the red pottery lamp was broken into three large pieces. David had brought her that lamp from San Francisco.


She went to the bathroom for a drink of water and stared at herself in the mirror. She hadn't noticed before, but she was beginning to get dark circles under her eyes, as if she were ill or very tired.


She was still standing there when Daisy appeared.


"Mommy? I heard something."


She tried to smile. "That was only me. I was having a bad dream just like you did."


"It wasn't you."


Holly turned around and put her hands on Daisy's shoulders. "There's nobody else here, pumpkin. I promise you."


"It wasn'tinside. It wasoutside,tapping at my window."


"Honey, we're three stories up. Nothing can tap against your window."


"It sounded like a bird."


"A bird? How do you know?"


"I could hear its wings. It was tapping against the window with its beak and it was flapping its wings too."


Holly said nothing but bent forward and kissed the top of Daisy's head.


"It was a bird," Daisy insisted. "It was a bird and it was trying to get in."


Mirror Lake


They reached the cabin at Mirror Lake just before noon. The water was so still that it reflected a perfect upside-down world with dark sawtooth pines and scatterings of red-and-yellow maple leaves. The cabin itself was painted a rusty red, with a gray shingle roof and a veranda running the length of it. It stood on a small promontory on the southeastern side of the lake, next to a sagging wooden jetty where an old green rowboat was tied up.


Doug climbed out of the Voyager and stretched. He was wearing a logger's jacket in orange and brown check, with a lamb's-wool collar and a cap to match. "Smell that ozone!Haaahh!Smell that pine!Haaahhh!"


Katie wore a bulky maroon sweater with elks on it and a knitted hat pulled down low over her forehead, so that she looked like an affluent bag lady. "I thought Ned would be here by now. He only had to drive up from Government Camp. I hope he'scoming."


Holly walked to the very edge of the lake. She was wearing black: a black windcheater with a fur hood, black jeans, and black leather boots. Although her world was always silent, she could almostfeelthe silence here. Beyond the lake, above the treeline, Mount Hood loomed, only three and a half miles away, ghostly and grand.


This close, the mountain's gravity was overwhelming, even though its whiteness made it almost invisible. She felt as if it were pulling her toward her destiny with a greater force than ever before.


"What do you think?" asked Doug, joining her at the lakeside.


"It's beautiful. So peaceful."


"You should be here when the geese are mating. It's like a traffic snarl."


Katie called, "Are you going to give me a hand with the shopping, Doug?"


"Sure thing. Did you remember the pickles?"


"I sure did. I bought some of those Rocotillo peppers you like too."


Doug was silent for a moment, and then he said, "My grandfather built this place. He used to say that you could stand by this lake and talk to God."


They carried their bags into the cabin. It was chilly inside, and musty, but as soon as he had taken his case to his bedroom, Doug took the fire screen away from the gray stone hearth and started to build a fire. Katie led Holly through to a small bedroom at the back, with pine furniture, a hand-sewn quilt on the bed, and a view of an overgrown yard, with bracken and rusty-colored ragwort.


On the wall hung a small oil painting of a woman standing in a field. She was wearing a blue apron and a bemused smile, as if she couldn't understand why anybody would think that she was interesting enough to paint. Not far away from her, perched on a single fence post, was a large black bird with ruffled feathers.


Holly went through to the kitchen, where Katie was unpacking the shopping. "We'll go down to Lyman's Hotel for lunch; you'll love it. But this evening I'm going to cook my famouschuletas veracruzana."


In the living room, Doug had already got a good fire crackling. The living room had a high ceiling with exposed rafters and was furnished with big, comfortable couches upholstered in flowery chintz. The rafters were hung with copper pots and pans, and all around the walls there were glass cases containing stuffed fish: salmon, trout, steelhead, and sturgeon.


"My grandfather was mad for fishing," said Doug. "See that baby at the far end? That sturgeon? That weighed nearly fifty pounds."


Suddenly he lifted his finger. "That'll be Ned."


He opened the front door and Holly saw a bronze Land Cruiser parked next to Doug's Voyager. Katie came out of the kitchen and said, "You're going to like this guy, I promise you."


"What did I say?" Holly retorted. "No matchmaking, if you don't mind."


"How about a beer? Come on, I know it's a little early, but this is our weekend off."


"Sure, I'll have a beer."


Doug came back into the cabin, closely followed by Ned.Well,thought Holly,at least he isn't a short, pudgy guy with a comb-over.In fact he was tall and broad-shouldered, with wavy reddish-blond hair and clear caramel-colored eyes and a square, suntanned face that put Holly in mind of Robert Redford but thirty years younger and with a much thicker neck. He was wearing a navy sports coat, a blue-checkered shirt, and Armani jeans.


"Holly, this is Ned Fiedler. Ned, I'd like you to meet Holly."


Ned nodded and grinned. Then he made both of his hands into Y shapes and made a pulling-apart gesture, after which he pointed directly at Holly and made a circular gesture over his head.


Holly smiled. "I'm sorry… I lip-read but I don't sign. Signing has a totally different grammar, and I never needed to learn it."


Ned flushed. He looked helplessly at Doug and said, "What do I do now?"


"Youtalk,that's all," said Holly. "So long as I can see your lips, I can tell what you're saying. And thanks for trying to learn some ASL…. That was very considerate of you."


"Was I any good at it?"


"Well, I think you just about managed to say 'How you, big hat?'"


Katie came out of the kitchen with four bottles of Portland Ale. "We're real glad you could make it, Ned. I've been trying to persuade Holly to have a weekend off since Labor Day."


Ned raised his bottle to Holly and said, "I'm glad I could make it too. Here's to us, and here's to having a great time."


"To us," they chorused. "And to having a great time."


Ned Gets Serious


They went for lunch to Lyman's, a picturesque redbrick hotel built in 1905 and surrounded by larches. It stood on a promontory overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, and through the windows of the old-fashioned saloon bar they could see the river shining as it ran between the hazy, sun-gilded mountains. The water was wide here, and it was crisscrossed with the multicolored sails of sailboards, reds and yellows and blues.


"You ever tried windsurfing?" Ned asked Holly. "Amazing sport. Really amazing. And this is the best place in the whole darn world to do it. You got your strong, steady winds, anything between fifteen to thirty-five miles an hour, and at the same time you've got your strong opposing currents."


"I'm more into cycling. Well, I have a little girl and most weekends we take our bikes around Forest Park."


"A little girl, huh? How old?"


"She was eight in May. She's very good company."


"You ought to bring her along with you one weekend. I could teach her how to windsurf. You, too, if you like."


"That sounds exciting."


"Oh, believe me."


There was a long silence while Holly picked at her grilled chicken salad with smoky mayonnaise, and Doug made a spectacular mess of his Dungeness crab baguette, dropping lumps of crabmeat onto the tablecloth.


"Doug was raised by warthogs," said Katie. "That's why he eats like that."


"Hey, I enjoy my food," Doug protested. "Irelishit, unlike you. I like to get physically involved with it."


"So does the front of your sweater."


They drank another toast. Doug put his hand in front of his mouth to suppress a burp, and then there was another long silence. Eventually, Holly said, "So, Ned… wood pulp."


He gave her what he obviously believed was a winning smile. "That's right. Wood pulp. Fascinating business, wood pulp."


"What is it you actually do?"


"I'm senior exec in charge of recycling. That means making the best use of residual fiber and other waste materials."


"Oh, right."


He put down his fork, with a neatly cut square of steak still on the end of it. "You see, not many people realize this, but there are all kinds of different waste materials. There'spreconsumer waste, which is leftover scrap generated in the paper-and box-manufacturing process. That's what we call 'clean' waste. Then there'spostconsumer waste, which is articles that have been used for their intended purpose and are ready to be discarded, such as OCC."


Holly looked blank.


"Sorry-that's short forold corrugated containers."


"I see."


Ned leaned closer. There was a shred of steak caught between his two front teeth. "Recycling is far more important than biodegradability, because very few items are actually biodegradable with current landfill practices. What I aim to do, Holly, is to capture used itemsbeforethey reach the landfill and put them to their best possible use."


"You make it sound like a mission."


"Itisa mission, Holly. You're right. At Hood River Forestry Industries, we consider it our duty to keep Oregon's forests protected and sustained, for the future of our children and our children's children."


"Andtheirchildren, too, I'll bet," added Doug. "And their children's children's children."


Katie nudged him and said, "How many beers have you had?"


Ned kept on smiling with those clear caramel eyes, and Holly did her best not to stare at the shred of steak.



"You ought to get Holly to tell you about her lipreading," said Doug as they finished their raisin ice creams. "She's so good that she can even tell what part of the state a person was raised in."


"It's nothing," said Holly, embarrassed. "It's a knack, that's all."


"Doesn't sound like nothing to me," said Ned. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs in his neatly pressed jeans. "Can you tell me what part of the stateIwas raised in?"


Holly hesitated but Doug said, "Go on, Holly. Tell him."


"I don't think so, really."


"Oh, come on," Ned coaxed her. "I've got twenty dollars that says you get it wrong."


Holly said, "Okay, it's a bet. Actually, you weren't raised in Oregon at all. Or at least your parents weren't."


"I wasn't?"


"No. Your accent is more like northeast Minnesota or northwest Wisconsin. Within a two-hundred-mile radius of Duluth, anyhow. Also, you twice used the wordsawbuckwhen you were talking about cutting wood, whereas in Oregon they tend to usebuckstandorbuck-horse."


Ned turned to Doug and said, "Did you tell her that?"


Doug grinned and shook his head.


"You're sure? That isamazing. That is an absolutely amazing talent. My father started a lumber company in Babbitt, Minnesota, and I lived in Minnesota until I was seventeen. Then my father's company was taken over by North Minnesota Timber, and I was offered a job with Hood River. Amazing. And how did you know that stuff about sawbucks?"


"I make a study of it-you know, local and colloquial phrases. It helps me to tell where somebody's from and what kind of person they are. You know, white-or blue-collar, city or country."


"She does it for the Portland Police Bureau," said Doug proudly. "She's the only court-accredited lipreader in Oregon."


Holly said, "Doug…" She didn't like anybody to know about her police work. Obviously she had been obliged to take Doug and Katie into her confidence, because of the erratic times that she needed to take off from the Children's Welfare Department. But for her own protection she didn't want murderers and drug dealers and sexual perverts finding out whose evidence it was that had sent them to jail.


But Doug plowed on. "Only yesterday she was lipreading this guy who's going to have somebody's wife murdered. Can you believe that? There he was, in the Compass Hotel, arranging to have this woman killed like he's ordering lunch."


"That's amazing," said Ned. "You just don't realize what's going on all around you, do you, unless you know where to look."


"Doug," warned Holly. Then, to Ned, "You don't want to believe everything Doug says, especially after five beers."


"No, no, I haven't told you the best bit," said Doug. "The best bit is, this guy was talking about how they're going to dispose of this woman's body once they've killed her."


"Really? What were they going to do?"


"Doug!" snapped Holly, and Katie shook his arm and said, "For God's sake, Doug, it isn't funny."


"Of course it's funny. They're going to give the body to a guy they know in the wood-pulp business. Thewood-pulpbusiness! They're going to mush her up and turn her into cardboard boxes. So who's our number-one suspect?"


Doug slapped his thigh and let out a whoop of laughter. But then he realized that neither Holly, Katie, nor Ned was smiling at all, and his laughter petered out into a fit of coughing.


Ned said, in the flattest of voices, "Sorry, Doug. I know you were only kidding, but we at Hood River have total integrity when it comes to the raw materials we use in our mechanically ground-paper-making system. And what you call 'cardboard' boxes aren't made with cardboard at all; they're made with linerboard and corrugating medium, which is one hundred percent postconsumer recycled fiber."


Doug lifted both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I apologize. But when Holly told me about the wood-pulp guy, I have to admit that- Okay, sorry."



Back at the cabin they changed into warm coats and hiking boots so that they could take a walk up to Seven Arches Falls. Holly was ready first and came into the living room as Doug was poking the fire and building it up with more logs.


"Doug… I want you to know that I'm not angry with you or anything."


"I'm sorry, Holly. I opened my big yapola and stuck my foot straight into it, didn't I? But I think it's incredible, what you do. I just wanted Ned to know that we're proud of you."


"Doug, I have to think of my security. I have to think of Daisy as well as myself."


"I know that. But Ned… well, Katie and me, we've known Ned almost as long as we've known each other."


"Do we ever get to know people, do you think? Like,reallyknow them? I thought I knew David before I married him, and how wrong I was."


Doug stacked another log onto the hearth. "Let me tell you something: When you first walked into the Children's Welfare Department, my heart practically stopped on the spot. I had the biggest crush on you for months and months, until I realized that you weren't interested in me at all, and that I was never going to be able to summon up the courage to ask you out."


He turned to her, and there were tiny flames dancing in his eyes, like fireflies. "So… well, I accepted my lot, didn't I? I swallowed my disappointment. Katie's a really great girl, and I'm very fond of her. But I still look at you sometimes and wonder what it could have been like, you and me, and my heart still hurts, now and again, when I'm feeling sentimental, or drunk."


Holly reached out and held both his hands.


"I'm real sorry about spilling the beans," he said, swallowing hard. "It wasn't funny after all, was it, any of it?"


Holly said, "It doesn't matter, Doug. You're forgiven. But think about it: Supposing Nedisthe wood-pulp guy?"


Cabin Fever


That night, unable to sleep, she stood with her forehead pressed against the chilly glass of her bedroom window, staring up at Mount Hood. The mountain appeared oddly insubstantial, almost fragile, as if it had been modeled out of nothing but crumpled white tissue paper.


She was very tired. During the afternoon they had climbed right up to the head of the Seven Arches Falls, so that they could see all seven separate cascades gushing down the mountainside into pool after foaming pool, and then down through the trees and the bushes to Mirror Lake. Then they had skirted the woods and descended an awkward rocky track, walking over five miles through the trees before coming back to the cabin.


Ned had stayed close to her side, offering his hand whenever she needed to climb up a slippery, moss-covered boulder, and even when she didn't. He had talked to her about thinning and sustained harvest and best management practices, and by the time they came through the cabin door she knew so much about forestry and wood products that she could have written a book about it-on recycled paper, of course.


After a supper of Katie'schuletas veracruzana,which were thick and spicy pork chops, they sat on the rug around the fireplace with glasses of pear brandy from the Clear Creek Distillery and told ghost stories.


Ned casually hung his arm around Holly's shoulders and made a point of turning to face her directly whenever he spoke, exaggerating his lip movements. He plainly believed that he was being considerate, but Holly could lip-read people who were stammering, and people who were muttering, and people who were talking so fast that even their friends told them to slow up, and after a while she began to find it wearing.


Katie told a story about when she was five years old and had walked into the yard where her mother's washing was hanging out to dry. She said that she had seen a bas-relief figure appear in one of the sheets, a figure with a horrified face. But when the wind had suddenly flapped the sheet up in the air, she could see that there was nobody standing behind it, and she was alone.


Doug had glimpsed his dead father in the sporting-goods section of a Fred Meyer store. He had followed him from one aisle to another, trying to catch up with him, but his father had left the store and disappeared across the crowded parking lot. "One minute I could see him…. I knew it was him; he was even wearing his old felt hat. Next minute the sun dazzled me and it was just like he melted away."


Holly was about to tell them about seeing David's Porsche and what the woman in the bookstore had warned her about, but Ned got in first. "I never saw a ghost personally. I guess my upbringing was too rational, ha-ha. But up in the woods of Minnesota they have this story about a shadow that attacks people at night. It comes out of the woods and it grabs you by your hair, and then it drags you back into the forest and nobody ever sees you again, ever."



She picked up her wristwatch from her night table. Ten after two. She supposed she ought to try to sleep, but for some reason she felt disturbed, as if something were badly wrong. She looked toward the oil painting of the woman in the field and she almost expected the black bird to fly off the post and flap off into the painted sky.


After a while she returned to bed and pulled the blankets up to her neck. She wished she hadn't come here to Mirror Lake, and that she was back in her apartment, with Daisy and all her Barbies sleeping in the next bedroom. It was not that she particularly disliked Ned. It was just that she didn't find him at all interesting-or wood pulp, for that matter-and yet, he had demanded so much of her attention. Even when she had taken her drink out onto the veranda late that evening, just to smell the pines, he had followed her and stood uncomfortably close to her and given her aReader's Digest-style exposition about the magic of the forest and how his heart was at one with the wilderness. She hadn't even been able to turn her back on him, because he would have known immediately that she wasn't listening.



She was actually asleep and dreaming about walking in the darkest reaches of the forest when she was woken up by somebody lifting the blankets behind her. Immediately she turned around, and as she did so Ned climbed naked into bed with her and put his arms around her. He was hairy-chested and hairy-thighed, and she felt his erection bump against her hip.


"Get out!" she shouted at him."What the hell do you think you're doing? Get the hell out of my bed!"


He tried to pull her even closer, tugging up her nightshirt, but she twisted herself around, kicked at him with her heels, and climbed right out of bed. She switched on the bedside lamp and he was sitting up blinking at her, and he was actuallygrinning.


"Get out," she told him. She said it more quietly now, because she didn't want her voice to sound shrill and out of control. "I don't know what gave you the idea that I was the slightest bit interested in you, but believe me, I'm not."


"Well,that'sreal hard to figure," he said, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. "From the way you've been coming on to me all day, I definitely got the impression that you were more than ready for a bit of grown-up playtime."


"Just get out."


"Hey, steady, Holly. There's no call to be so unfriendly."


"Do you want me to call Doug and have him throw you out?"


"Doug?Doug?I hope you're not serious."


Holly walked around the bed and threw open the door. Ned said,"Pfff,"and slowly shook his head, as if he couldn't believe that she really wanted him to go. "You know what Doug told me about you? Doug said that you were a real fun girl."


"I'll tell you how fun I am. I'm fun enough to call the police and make a complaint of attempted rape."


"Well, excuse me. Somebody with a disability like yours, I thought they would have jumped at the chance to have a good time with a good-looking guy."


"I'm deaf, Ned. I'm not a leper. Now go."


"Okeydokey. Your loss. But don't you try making any trouble."


"What do you mean?"


"I mean that Doug and Katie both saw how much you'd taken a shine to me today, and if I was to tell them that you'd come on to me…"


He climbed out of bed and came right up to her. He was reeking of sweat and alcohol, as if he had been drinking and masturbating to work himself up to invading her bedroom, and his penis was slowly sinking. He looked her in the eyes and said, "If I was to say thatyoucame intomyroom, just begging for it, and I'd behaved like a gentleman and sent you away and that you were just trying to be vengeful… well, Doug and Katie and me, we've all known each other a very long time. We're likefamily. Who do you think they'd believe?"


He stood only inches away from her, swaying. "Am I speakings-l-o-wenough for you? You dou-n-d-e-rs-t-a-n-dme, don't you?"


"Get out," she repeated.


"Okay… have it your way. But I'll tell you this: I never realized that being deaf lowered your sex drive. You learn something every day."


He lurched out of the room and she turned away so that she wouldn't have to look at his backside. She closed the door behind him and locked it. Her heart was thumping against her ribs as though somebody were knocking a tennis ball against a wall. She sat down on the foot of the bed, her hands clasped tightly together. She felt like crying but she was braver than that, and in any case she couldn't find any tears.


Holly Tells a Lie


"Sorry that your daughter's sick," said Ned, smiling, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the morning sunshine. "Hope she gets better real quick."


Holly stood by while Doug lifted her weekend case into the back of the Voyager. Katie came up and gave her a hug and a kiss and said, "Give Daisy our love, won't you? I'm sure she's going to be okay." Holly climbed into the front passenger seat and Doug shut the door.


They drove back toward the main highway with the sunshine flickering between the trees like a zoetrope. After a while Doug said, "Everything'sokay,isn't it? I mean, between you and us."


"Sure, everything's fine. I'm worried about Daisy, that's all."


"Well, of course you are. What happened to you when you were young-I guess it tends to make you doubly anxious anytime Daisy runs a fever."


They reached Interstate 84 and headed back toward Portland. "I'm sorry I spoiled your weekend," said Holly.


"Hey, don't even think about it. I'll be back at the lake by twelve. Plenty of time to get some fishing in.


He offered her some gum, but she shook her head. He folded a stick into his mouth and said, "Ned's a great guy, isn't he?"


Holly told a lie.


A Weekend Alone


She spent the rest of the weekend alone, reading, watching television, varnishing her nails, eating pasta from the restaurant downstairs.


Now and then she went to the window and looked down into the street below. Once or twice she thought she could see a black, shadowy figure underneath the awning of the map and antique print shop on the opposite corner, but she was never sure if it was a figure or just a shadow. Sometimes it looked tall and jagged. At other times it flapped, like a dark overcoat blowing in the wind.


On Sunday afternoon she came across a quotation in the arts section ofThe Oregonian,a poem by P. J. Quint. It read, "Inside my cupboard I heard people talk, and laugh / Were they discussing me? I could not clearly hear / And so I stood, as minutes of my life went by / Listening in indecision, and in fear."For some reason she found this poem deeply disturbing and didn't want to go into the kitchen after that, or open a cupboard door.


That evening she went to bed early and treated herself to fresh pearl-colored nail polish, a bright green Lancôme face mask, and a bikini-line depilatory cream that smelled like burning carpet. After she had showered, she went to her bedroom window and looked out over the street. The lights of the city glittered in the evening wind. She saw three men arguing on the corner. One of them kept going away and coming back again, jabbing his finger in anger. She saw a woman hurrying along the sidewalk. The woman kept turning to look behind her as if she were being pursued. Her shadow looked like the shadow of a giant bird's wing.


The Doctor Is In


Holly had just taken a mouthful of sprinkled doughnut when Emma signaled to her from the switchboard. She went out into the reception area, sucking her fingers.


"Dr. Ferdinand, from East Portland Memorial," said Emma.


"Oh, great. You've told him that I can't speak to him in person?"


Emma nodded and said, "She's right here, Dr. Ferdinand. Yes, she says good morning to you, too, and thank you for calling back."


Holly said, "Ask him about Casper Beale."


"Oh, yes," said Emma. "Ms. Summers is interested in a patient of yours, Casper Beale?"


There was a pause, and then Emma turned back to Holly. "He doesn't have any patients of that name."


"A boy. An eleven-year-old boy, with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."


"No, sorry."


"Is he sure about that? His parents are separated, so maybe he's registered under another name."


"He doesn't haveanyeleven-year-old boys with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Nor eleven-year-old girls, either."


"But tell him I've met Casper Beale myself. He lives with his mother on Southeast Boise. They had an appeal for him in the media. His neighbors raised money last fall to send him to Disneyland."


"No. Sorry. Positively not."


When Emma had hung up, Holly stood beside her for two or three minutes, thinking. If Casper Beale wasn't a patient of Dr. Ferdinand's, then whose patient was he?


"Emma… if I make you a list of hospitals with pediatric cancer units, would you call them for me and ask if they have Casper Beale on their lists?"


"Sure thing. What happens if they don't?"


"I don't know. I don't even want to think about it."


Suspicion


It was foggy when she arrived at the Heilshorn house early that afternoon. It was that dead-cold Portland fog that turns the city's eastern suburbs into a silent community of ghost houses, with ghostly cars rolling along the streets and ghostly children playing on the sidewalks.


The garage door was open so that she could see a Dodge station wagon parked inside, and there was a black late-model Lincoln Town Car parked in the driveway behind it.


She rang the bell and almost immediately a middle-aged man opened the front door. He was medium height, almost bald, with a plump, well-fed face and a cast in his eyes, so that his left eye appeared to be looking over Holly's right shoulder. He wore a white business shirt and black pants and checkered argyle socks.


"Mr. Heilshorn?" asked Holly, producing her ID card. "I expect your wife's told you that we have an appointment."


"That's the reason I'm here," said Mr. Heilshorn sharply. "I can't say that I'm anything but outraged at what's being implied here, but I wanted to tell you face-to-face that this is a family with nothing to hide."


"Do you mind if I come in?"


He stepped back to allow her into the hallway. "Your, uh, footwear, please?" he said, nodding down toward her feet. "New carpet. My wife likes to keep things pretty much immaculate."


"Yes. She said that before."


Holly took off her brogues and Mr. Heilshorn led her into the living room. Mrs. Heilshorn was already posed in an armchair next to the fireplace, dressed in a yellow satin catsuit with a deep décolletage, a matching yellow scarf tied around her hair. Beside her, on the arm of the chair, sat a pale, pretty little girl with brown bobbed hair and big brown eyes, wearing a pink sweatshirt and a stonewashed denim skirt.


"Hello again, Mrs. Heilshorn," said Holly. "So this is Sarah-Jane."


"Sarah-Jane can confirm that she got her bruises from her bicycle," said Mrs. Heilshorn, without waiting to be prompted.


Holly sat down and propped her notepad on her knees. "Sarah-Jane, my name is Holly and it's my job to take care of children when they get hurt."


"Sarah-Jane got her bruises from her bicycle, didn't you, Sarah-Jane?"


"Mrs. Heilshorn, I'm sure that there's no serious problem here, but I'm directed by state legislation to investigate. I'm sure you understand why."


"Listen," said Mr. Heilshorn, "we're a respectable, law-abiding family. I pay my taxes, I work for Oregon-Pacific Realty. My company donated a fountain to the art museum."


"All the same, Mr. Heilshorn, we were alerted by Sarah-Jane's school and I'm sure that you can understand why we have to look into the matter."


"Idon't,as a matter of fact. You're virtually accusing me of-"


Holly waited. Mr. Heilshorn spun his hand around in his effort to explain himself.


"Well, what you're implying here, I wouldn't evensayit in front of Sarah-Jane, let alone think of- Jesus, she wouldn't even know what I was talking about."


Holly took out her pen. "There's no accusation here, Mr. Heilshorn. But if you're agreeable, I'd like to talk to Sarah-Jane alone for just a few minutes. I'm sure that we can clear this up without any need for acrimony."


"Acrimony? Jesus. This is my ten-year-old daughter here."


"I know, Mr. Heilshorn. But if you can give me five minutes alone with her…"


Mr. Heilshorn shoved his hands into his pockets and took a deep, flaring breath. "All right," he said, at last. "All right, fine. You can talk to her alone. But believe me, you're wasting your time. I can tell you right now what she's going to say. She's going to say that she slipped off her bicycle seat and that's all there is to it."


It was then that he took hold of Sarah-Jane's hand and squeezed it so tight that her knuckles were spotted with white.


"That's what you're going to tell the lady, aren't you, sugar?"


Sarah-Jane looked up at him and gave him the briefest of smiles and nodded. But Holly saw something in her eyes, and it wasn't the panic that she had seen in Mrs. Heilshorn's: It was weariness. Sexual abuse, in the end, always makes children weary.



"So… your mom tells me you're out on your bike a whole lot."


Sarah-Jane nodded.


"She says every day and sometimes she doesn't even know where you go."


"I always tell her. I only go to see Kylie in Tabor Vista. And my friend Penny sometimes, but she lives all the way down on Division."


"I see. Do you have any boyfriends?"


Sarah-Jane blushed and shook her head.


"Not even one boy you like?"


"Well, Kylie's brother Lennie, but he's just her brother."


"Does Lennie like you?"


"I guess. He talks to me sometimes but that's all."


"How old is Lennie?"


"Sixteen, I think. But he doesn't act like he's sixteen. I mean, he's nice to me."


"Did he ever kiss you?"


Sarah-Jane burst out into frantic giggling."No!No, never!"


"Did he ever touch you at all?"


"Uh-uh."


"He didn't touch you in any way that could have caused those bruises on your legs?"


Sarah-Jane looked serious. "He never touched me, ever."


"Did anybody else ever touch you in a way that could have caused those bruises on your legs?"


Sarah-Jane shook her head again. Holly could sense her extreme tension. She began to knock her knees together as if she needed to go to the bathroom, and bite at her left-hand fingernails, and kept clearing her throat in little high-pitched hiccups.


"Your daddy and mommy say that those bruises on your legs were caused by your bicycle seat. Do you want to tell me how exactly that happens?"


"I guess I jump off the seat too quick when I stop."


"But how do you get bruised by the seat if you've already jumped off it?"


"I don't know. I just do. It happens all the time."


"Do you mind if I look at your bruises?"


Sarah-Jane hesitated and then she said, "Okay." She lifted her skirt two or three inches. Holly saw a pattern of bruises about the size and shape of large black grapes. Some of them had faded to yellow, but there were others that were clearly more recent.


"Okay, that's fine. Thank you. When was the last time you bruised yourself?"


"Yesterday," Sarah-Jane whispered unhappily.


"Well, I have to tell you, honey, I saw your bicycle and it has a big soft seat, and I'm finding it very difficult to believe that all of those bruises could have been caused just by your hopping on and off it. Do you know what those bruises look like to me?"


"No."


"They look to me like somebody's been grabbing hold of you… somebody strong. Do you think that could have happened? Because-let me tell you now-nobody's going to be angry with you if that's what really happened. It wasn't your fault, not your fault at all. But it's very important that we find out where those bruises came from, because we don't want you to get any more. Even if it means the state of Oregon buying you a brand-new bicycle, one that doesn't hurt you like this."


Sarah-Jane lowered her head and twisted her plastic-bead bracelet around and around. Holly waited without saying anything while the mock-rococo clock on the mantelpiece crept slowly past four, and although she couldn't hear it, she could guess that it marked the moment with a fancy little chime.


Holly reached out and took hold of Sarah-Jane's hand. "You don't have to suffer this anymore, Sarah-Jane. All you have to do is tell me what really happened and I can make sure that it never happens again. Ever."


Tears began to slide down Sarah-Jane's cheeks. She said miserably, "It was my bicycle seat," and then she covered her face with her hands, and Holly couldn't even persuade her to look up at her, let alone say any more.


Tragedy


"Mr. and Mrs. Heilshorn, I have to tell you that my strong suspicion is that Sarah-Jane has been physically abused. More than likely by an adult, judging by the size and the span of the fingermarks."


Mr. Heilshorn's left eye glared furiously over her shoulder. "Do you know what you're saying here?" he demanded.


"Absolutely. The school doctor suspected it, and now that I've had the opportunity to talk to Sarah-Jane for myself, I'm convinced of it."


"On what fucking grounds, may I ask?"


"Mr. Heilshorn, there's no need to be abusive. I'm just doing my job, which is protecting vulnerable children like your daughter from physical and emotional harm."


"You're trying to accuse me of precisely what?"


"I'm not accusing you of anything, Mr. Heilshorn. It's not my job to accuse you of anything. My job is simply to assess Sarah-Jane's situation here and if necessary to recommend further investigation into her physical and emotional well-being. Which I'm telling you now is what I intend to do."


"She never gets sick," Mrs. Heilshorn put in. "I give her an excellent diet, the same as me. Plenty of fruit, plenty of vegetables."


"Mrs. Heilshorn, we're not discussing what Sarah-Jane has for lunch. We're talking about the possibility that somebody has sexually abused her."


"From a few fucking bruises? What do they prove? Sarah-Jane and me, we often have a rough-and-tumble. You know, horsing around in the yard, stuff like that. Sometimes I give her piggybacks-so what? I'm her father, for Christ's sake."


Mrs. Heilshorn said nothing but gnawed at her bright scarlet lips and looked anxious.


Holly put her notes away. "I'm going to recommend that you bring Sarah-Jane into the children's clinic for examination by a police doctor. If she really did sustain those bruises from falling off her bicycle seat and horsing around in the yard, we'll soon be able to tell for sure. I can make an appointment now."


"She's a virgin," Mr. Heilshorn interrupted. "I can absolutely guarantee that, one hundred and ten percent."


"Well, as I say, we'll soon be able to confirm it."


"Jesus, I don't believe this. I don't believe that you can walk into my home and suggest that I- Jesus. I mean, what kind of people are you? You got dirty minds or what?"


Holly stood up. "I'm sorry, Mr. Heilshorn. I'm doing my job, that's all. Why don't you bring Sarah-Jane along to the clinic tomorrow morning and we can put this matter to rest."


"I'm going to call my lawyer, I warn you. I'm going to sue you for slander and invasion of my personal privacy."


"Somebody's personal privacy may have been invaded here, Mr. Heilshorn, but I certainly don't think it's yours. Now, do you mind if I have another quick word with Sarah-Jane before I leave? I want to tell her what's going to happen tomorrow."


Mrs. Heilshorn said, "I'll get her," and left the living room. Mr. Heilshorn said nothing but glowered at Holly and intermittently sniffed. Holly used her cell phone to text the clinic and arrange for Sarah-Jane's examination.


"Eleven forty-five okay for you?" she asked Mr. Heilshorn. He gave her a dismissive wave of his hand.


It was then that Mrs. Heilshorn came back in, looking flustered. "She's locked herself in her room and she won't answer when I knock."


"I'm not fucking surprised. You think she's stupid? She knows what's going on here. Trying to say that I molested my own daughter… Jesus."


"Her appointment's at eleven forty-five," Holly told Mrs. Heilshorn. "Can you make sure that she's there on time? Here's the address, and here's my cell phone number in case you need me."


Mr. Heilshorn snatched her visiting card and peered at it. "Holly Summers. Well, I can't say that it's been much of a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Summers. Goodbye."


"I still need to have a word with Sarah-Jane before I go."


"And what if I say you can't?"


"Then I'll have to call the police and I'm sure you don't want a squad car in the street outside your home."


"I'll try knocking again," said Mrs. Heilshorn.


"Jesus."


Holly followed Mrs. Heilshorn up the blue-shag-carpeted stairs to the second-story landing. She tip-toed across to a door with a flowery ceramic plaque sayingSarah-Jane's Palaceand gave a brisk little rap. "Sarah-Jane? Sarah-Jane? It's Mommy again. Can you open the door, please?"


There was no answer. She tried rapping again. "Sarah-Jane, I don't want to have to get cross with you!"


Holly said, "Let me try." She leaned close to the door and said, "Sarah-Jane. This is Holly. I need to tell you something important before I go back to the office. It'll help you to understand what's going to happen tomorrow."


She paused and then she said, "I know this is difficult for you, but you're very grown-up and I know that you can get through it. Do you think you could come out and talk?"


Still no answer. Mrs. Heilshorn looked at Holly and shrugged. "She can be very sulky when she wants to be. You know what they're like at this age."


"I think we ought to open the door," said Holly.


"But she's locked it."


"I still think we ought to open it. Can you ask your husband to come up here and help us?"


"Anthony, will you come upstairs, please? Ms. Summers thinks we ought to open the door."


"Jesus."


But after Holly and Mrs. Heilshorn had knocked again and again, still with no reply, he came stamping up the stairs and beat on the door himself. "Sarah-Jane! Will you stop acting so goddamn childish! Open the goddamn door!"


Silence. Mr. Heilshorn turned to Holly and pointed a finger at her. "If I break this door down, I want the city to pay for it, you got me?"


"Please, Mr. Heilshorn. Just open the door."


He gripped the frame in both hands and gave the door one hefty kick with his stockinged foot, and then another. The door splintered around the lock, and a shove with his shoulder was enough to open it.


Inside, Sarah-Jane's Palace was as neat and as perfect as Mrs. Heilshorn's Palace downstairs. A brass-knobbed bed with a pink satin quilt. A white dressing table with ruched lace skirts around it, and a silver-backed comb-and-brush set. Heaps of teddy bears and floppy-eared bunnies and frogs. Posters of pop stars.


"So where is she?" Mr. Heilshorn wanted to know.


"She has to be here. She locked the door from the inside. Unless she climbed out the window."


Mr. Heilshorn went to the window. "She couldn't have. The window's locked from the inside too." Grunting, he bent over and peered under the bed. "No, not there…. So where the hell is she?"


Holly opened the closet door. Inside, on a high brass rail, hung color-coordinated coats and dresses and slacks, all perfectly pressed, and these had been pushed along to one side so that Sarah-Jane could knot a white rope belt around her neck and hang herself. She had used a little red-roofed Fisher-Price dollhouse to stand on, kicking it over onto its side. Her eyes bulged out in a furious stare, and her lips were turquoise. She resembled a grotesque puppet fromSesame Street,rather than the pretty little girl whom Holly had talked with downstairs.


Mrs. Heilshorn let out a terrible shriek, more like a war whoop, and dropped onto the bed with her red-clawed hand held over her mouth. Mr. Heilshorn immediately rushed into the closet and seized Sarah-Jane around the hips to take her weight."Untie her!"he screamed."Untie her!"



Later, Mrs. Heilshorn came downstairs, her mascara blotched, her yellow scarf looped untidily on one side. She came up to Holly and handed her a piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a school exercise book.


"I suppose the police better see this."


Holly took it. A short message was scrawled, hurriedly, in purple crayon. It said,It wasn't daddys fault it was my fault love sarahjane.


11:17 P.M.


Detective Sergeant Gene Brushmore:So what was it that wasn't your fault?


Anthony Heilshorn:I don't know what she meant. Maybe she was worried about the bruises, the accusation that was being made.


Brushmore:You mean the suspicion that she was being sexually abused.


Roger T. Floren, Attorney:My client utterly refutes this suggestion and we will be showing that it was made recklessly and willfully by the Hawthorne School doctor and by Ms. Holly Summers from the Portland Children's Welfare Department, and in effect they were indirectly responsible for Sarah-Jane taking her own life.


Brushmore:The medical examiner… in his preliminary medical examination… the ME says that there is absolutely no question that Sarah-Jane had been sexually… you know, sexually interfered with. Molested.


Floren:Even if this is true, my client denies that he was responsible.


Heilshorn:I loved her. You think I would have… ? I wouldn't. I couldn't.


3:54 A.M.


Brushmore:[Coughs.] Detective Janet Spectorsky has been talking to your wife, Mr. Heilshorn, and your wife has made a statement of her own free will that you regularly took Sarah-Jane into the roll-out bed in your-what you called your "Lion's Den." And this was done for sexual purposes.


Floren:Come on, Sergeant. You can't expect my client to respond to an allegation like that.


Heilshorn:Wait a minute here. You don't see it for what it was, do you? You just don't see it. There was no- Valerie and me hadn't had any kind of a marriage since Sarah-Jane was born. It was like she totally lost interest in the physical side of things. She never allowed me to touch her; she never even allowed me tolookat her, for Christ's sake. She's my wife, but I haven't seen her undressed in over ten years. Glimpses, but what's glimpses?


Brushmore:So the arrangement seems to have been that you had sex with Sarah-Jane instead? And your wife allowed it? Encouraged it, even, so that she wouldn't have to have sex with you herself?


Floren:My client isn't saying that at all. Come on, Anthony, you don't have to answer any more questions. It's nearly four in the morning, we're all… This is putting my client under duress.


Heilshorn:I loved her. I was very careful. I tried my best not to hurt her.


Floren:Anthony, you don't have to say any of this.


Heilshorn:[Beginning to weep.] You don't see it, do you? I loved her.


Brushmore:She was your daughter, Mr. Heilshorn. She was only ten and a half years old, and you were regularly having full, penetrative sex with her.


Heilshorn:She was still a virgin. I never did that to her. I swear to God that she was still a virgin.


Brushmore:What are you trying to say to me here? Your wife says that she frequently found blood and other stains on your sheets. Here it is: "I had to strip the bed and wash the sheets at least twice every week…. I like everything perfect."


Floren:That's enough, Sergeant. This interview concludes now.


Heilshorn:What does it matter? She's dead.


Floren:It matters, Anthony, because you have a constitutional right not to incriminate yourself.


Heilshorn:She's dead! Okay? I had sex with her, yes. Played with her. Made love to her. We called it "playing lions and tigers," I don't really know why. I went into her, yes, but I was her father, and I took that responsibility seriously, and that's why I never took her virginity.


Brushmore:You're saying that-?


Heilshorn:Yes, her bottom. Her little tush, we called it.


Brushmore:You anally penetrated your own daughter at least twice a week and you're trying to tell me that this was the behavior of a caring and responsible father?


Floren:[Throws down pencil.] God give me strength.


Heilshorn:You don't see it, do you? Ilovedher, and she loved me.


Hugging Daisy


After Marcella had cleaned up the kitchen and gone home, Holly sat on the couch with Daisy and hugged her. Daisy always knew when she had seen something terrible at work, because she brushed her hair for her and kissed her and looked at her as if she could never look at her enough. It was warm in the apartment and still smelled of Marcella's bean stew, and Holly played "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" at least six times. She couldn't hear it herself, of course, but it was Daisy's favorite.


When Daisy was asleep, Holly went into her room and looked at her some more, as if all this looking could erase the vision of Sarah-Jane hanging in her clothes closet. But the pain of thinking about Sarah-Jane's suffering was more than she could bear, and after a while she had to close Daisy's door and stand in the corridor outside with tears running down her cheeks and her mouth puckered to stop herself from sobbing.


She knew now what she would do with the Cinderella doll that Mickey had given her. After Sarah-Jane's funeral, she would go and lay it on her grave.


A Sour Morning


Doug called her into his office as soon as she arrived at work. He was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets, and even when she came in he didn't look around.


"Doug?" she said at last.


He turned to face her. "That Heilshorn business: We're going to be crucified."


"What else did you expect me to do? I discussed it with you Thursday. There was nothing to indicate that urgent action was called for, and in any case I don't think that time was the factor here."


"I'm afraid the press don't see it that way. Did you see the TV news this morning? Have you read the papers?"


"I haven't had time, Doug. I had to get Daisy off to school."


Doug slapped a copy ofThe Oregoniandown on his desk. "Here it is:Portland Children's Welfare Department in State of Paralysis. Children at Risk Being Sacrificed by Over-Cautious Caseworkers.Too little, too late. Daniel Joseph one week, Sarah-Jane Heilshorn the next."


"For God's sake, Doug, you know how difficult it is to assess any abuse. The parents are devious; the kids are too confused or intimidated to say anything. Or they have their moral compass completely screwed up, like Sarah-Jane."


"Holly, it's your job to stop these things happening before they happen. You're deaf, I'll grant you that. But when children's lives are at stake, I can't make any concessions."


"My deafness has nothing to do with this. I discussed the Heilshorn case with you Thursday and you agreed that it was safer to leave it until Monday."


"You were in the damn house when the girl hung herself! You were actuallythere!Have you seen what it says here in the paper? 'Caseworker Holly Summers is stone deaf, and it is a tribute to her personal courage that she has overcome this handicap to help children in need. But in this case she wasn't only deaf but blind, too, and an innocent little girl lost her life.' The director is furious."


Holly waited while Doug took his glasses on and off, rubbed the back of his neck, and rearranged the papers on his desk. "So what do you want me to do?" she asked at last.


"I don't want you to do anything."


"I was going to go see the Pfeiffer family this morning, over on Tiggetts Southeast."


"Helen will do that for you."


"Meaning what?"


"Meaning that Helen will do that for you: You're suspended."


"Suspended? Doug, what on earth are you talking about? I can't be suspended: I have a full caseload this week, and next week's even worse."


Doug stared at her and she couldn't even be sure that it was really him. He was more like Doug taken over byThe Bodysnatchers. "Sorry, that's the decision."


"So what's going to happen to Daniel Joseph? And who's going to give the expert assessment in the Heilshorn case?"


Doug kept his eyes lowered but he said, "Not you, that's for sure. We can't take the risk. If a court holds the city liable for what happened to Daniel Joseph or Sarah-Jane Heilshorn, we could be looking at compensation that runs into tens of millions of dollars."


"So how long is this suspension going to last, if you don't mind my asking?"


"I don't know… at least until these two cases have been cleared up."


"I see. So what do you expect me to do now, go home and play solitaire?"


Doug shrugged. "I'm sorry. That's all I can say.Myjob's on the line too."


"All right. You have my number if you need me. Maybe we can talk about this later, out of office hours, as friends."


"Well, ah, there's something else I wanted to say. Not related to work."


"Yes?"


"It's difficult to know how to put this, but Saturday night, up at the cabin…"


"Yes, go on. What?"


"You weren't entirely truthful about the reason you left so suddenly, were you?"


Holly stared at him. She couldn't work out what this was leading up to, but Doug was obviously very uncomfortable about what he was going to say next.


"The thing of it is, Holly, Ned told us in confidence about your going into his room."


"Ned saidwhat?"


"He was very embarrassed. Didn't really want to mention it at all. But he thought we ought to know about it, in case… well, in case we ever invited you to Mirror Lake again, with some other man who might not be so laid-back about it."


Holly could feel her cheeks flushing. "Laid-back?Do you want to know what really happened that night?"


"Holly, I really don't want to discuss this any further. I think we have enough departmental difficulty here without getting involved in any personal unpleasantness."


"No, wait up, Doug. Let me get this straight. You and Katie really believe that I tried toseducethat bozo?"


"Ned's been a very dear friend of ours for years, Holly. He's as straight as an arrow."


"So what am I?"


Doug was about to answer when his phone flashed. He picked it up and said, "Yes. Yes, Mike, I've told her. Well, of course she's not happy about it. None of us are happy about it. At ten? Okay. And, Mike, I just want to say again how sorry I am. We all are. The whole department."


He put down the phone. "Mike Pulaski."


"I gathered."


"We're having a damage limitation meeting at ten. See what we can do to-"


"-limit the damage?"


Doug nodded.


Holly took out her ID card and tossed it onto his desk. "The damage is already done, Doug. You haven't had the guts to support me in either of these cases, and on top of that, you have the barefaced nerve to accuse me of acting like a slut. If this is the kind of man you are, I'm very, very glad to be suspended. In fact, I quit."


"Holly-"


"What?" she challenged him.


"Nothing. I'm sorry it had to turn out like this, that's all."



As she was clearing out her desk drawer, Emma came in.


"What's happening?" she asked, wide-eyed.


"I quit. I'm leaving. I've had enough."


"Really?"


"Really. It's this Heilshorn case. Well, the Joseph case too. Doug's going to throw me to the wolves."


"I can't say that I'm surprised. I overheard them talking this morning and Doug was saying something about a sacrificial lamb."


"That's right,me."


"They'll ask you back, you know," said Emma, sitting on the edge of her desk. "They can't run the Children's Welfare Department without you."


Holly shook her head. "I wouldn't come back if Doug Yeats crawled into the room stark naked withSORRYwritten on his ass and kissed my feet."


"Yuck, neither would I."


Holly reached over and picked a ballpoint pen out of her jelly jar. "Here: Write down your cell phone number. I don't want to lose touch."


She cleared out the last of her desk. She found a very old packet of Jelly Bellies in the back of her drawer, so old that they had all turned crusty-white. She dropped them into the wastebasket along with her Japanese Garden calendar and a plaster statuette of Little Orphan Annie that Doug had given her. "By the way, did you find out where Casper Beale is being treated?"


"No," said Emma. "I was going to tell you about that. I called every cancer unit in the Portland area and none of them had anybody called Casper Beale on their records. So I looked up the Casper Beale Cancer Fund on the Internet. There was a story about it in thePortland Tribuneon October 17 last year. According to that, Casper was being treated at the Tasco Clinic in Seattle, which has a very highly specialized unit for treating children with cancer."


"And?"


"The Tasco Clinic had never heard of him, either. Or anyone like him."


Charity Begins at Home


Late that afternoon, she drove back across the Ross Island Bridge to Southeast Boise. This time there was no Mrs. Beale outside in the driveway, washing her brand-new Malibu, or overweight children playing on the sidewalk. In fact, the entire street was deserted, except for a mangy orange dog and the ripped-up pages of anIncredible Hulkcomic scattering in the wind.


She rang the doorbell. She hoped that it worked, because she had no way of telling. She waited but there was no answer. She cupped her hands around her face and peered in through the yellow glass window beside the door. She was sure she could see somebody moving around inside. She rapped on the glass with her keys and shouted out, "Mrs. Beale? Mrs. Beale? Can you open the door, please?"


Almost a minute went past and then the door was opened, only five or six inches. She could see Mrs. Beale in a white satin bathrobe covered in splashy scarlet poppies, like August Moon's blood-spattered shirt at the Chinese supermarket. A cigarette was hanging from between Mrs. Beale's lips, so that one of her puffy eyes was closed against the smoke. It looked as if she were giving Holly a long, knowing wink.


"It's you again. What the hell do you want? I thought I told you to leave me the hell alone."


She was about to close the door but Holly quickly pushed her hand against it to keep it open. What she was about to do was in blatant disregard of department regulations. But then she thought,I've quit. They can't fire me now that I've quit. Besides, I'm doing this for Casper, not the Children's Welfare Department. I'm doing this for me and Casper and nobody else.


"Mrs. Beale," she said, "I'm pretty sure I've found out what you've been doing." Her voice was strangled and off-key, although she couldn't hear it.


"What the hell do you mean? Get out of here."


"You haven't been taking Casper to the Tasco Clinic, have you? Or any other hospital?"


"What?"


"Casper doesn't have cancer, does he? In fact, there's nothing wrong with him at all."


Mrs. Beale slowly took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew smoke. "I don't know what you're talking about. What the hell are you talking about?"


"I'm talking about the Casper Beale Cancer Fund. You bought yourself a new car and a plasma-screen TV and you took yourself off to a vacation at Disneyland. Thirty-five thousand dollars' worth, at least."


Mrs. Beale opened the door wider. "You listen to me, lady. Casper's sick. You spoke to him yourself. He's dying. Heneedsthose things."


"He doesn't need anything, Mrs. Beale, except love, and feeding, and proper care."


"You're trying to suggest what? Interfering dogooders like you-that's so typical. You'd deny a dying boy a decent TV? He can't play in the street, he can't go to school, he can't go swimming. He can hardly walk. What else can he do but watch TV?"


"I'm not talking about TV, Mrs. Beale. I'm talking about systematic child abuse. You've been starving him on purpose, to make him look as if he's sick."


As she spoke, Casper appeared in the hallway behind her. He was wearing the same faded red pajamas that he had been wearing the last time Holly saw him. He looked infinitely old, and he walked with a slow, hesitant shuffle.


"Momma," he said.


Mrs. Beale didn't even turn around. "Casper, go back to your room!"


"I feel pukey," said Casper tiredly.


"Go to the bathroom if you feel pukey. Don't bother me now."


To Holly, she said, "And you. You can get the hell out of here and leave me alone, before I call a cop."


"You won't do that," said Holly.


"Oh, no?"


"You won't do that because you know that you're guilty of willful mistreatment. Casper, listen to me. Do you know what your momma's been doing? You don't have cancer at all. You never have."


Casper slowly raised his eyes toward his mother and blinked in bewilderment. Mrs. Beale wrapped her robe even more tightly around her bosom and said, "You're crazy, you know that? Ofcoursehe has cancer. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Look at him."


"Any child would look like that if you half-starved him and shaved his head and gave him stuff to make him vomit if he ever looked like he was putting on weight."


"You'd better watch what you're saying! You don't have any idea what I've had to go through, ever since he got sick. I've never slept more than two hours a night. I've been cleaning up puke and changing his sheets for nearly two years, and what am I going to get at the end of it? A broken heart, that's all."


"Oh, you might squeeze in one more vacation to Disneyland," said Holly. "I'll bet you didn't even take Casper along with you, did you, the last time you went? What did you do, leave him at home to fend for himself?"


"I needed it!" Mrs. Beale screamed at her. "I needed that vacation! I deserved it!"


Casper weakly sat down on the doormat. Holly opened up her bag and took out a folded printout of a newspaper story.


"Two and a half years ago, Mrs. Beale. A story on the back page ofThe Oregonian. A woman in San Antonio, Texas, pretended that her daughter had cancer. She fed her on nothing but Cream of Wheat with sour milk and sleeping pills, and she shaved her head to make it look as if she were undergoing chemotherapy. She went to the library and took out books on leukemia so that she would know what she was talking about. She even arranged for the girl to have psychiatric counseling, to prepare her for an early death."


Mrs. Beale looked confused. She kept shaking her head and furiously scratching her elbow, but she didn't seem to be able to speak.


Holly shook the printout at her. "Do you know what she did, this woman in San Antonio? She and her neighbors organized fund-raisers to pay for the little girl to have specialist cancer treatment, and a vacation in Florida, and all kinds of goodies.


"But of course shedidn'tdie because she didn't have cancer at all, any more than Casper has cancer. You saw this story, didn't you, and you thought to yourself:If this woman can do it, so can I.Except that you made sure that Casper looked really, really sick, so you wouldn't get found out, the way that this woman was. She forgot to shave her daughter's head one day, butyounever forgot, did you? You've ruined Casper-ruined him for the rest of his life, probably. Physically and mentally. And for what? Ten days in Disneyland and a TV and a car."


Mrs. Beale muttered, "He's sick. You can see that he's sick." But she seemed incapable of doing anything but stand in the open doorway, her cigarette burning down to her fingers. It was almost as if she had detached herself from this situation altogether and had turned her mind to something else.


Holly bent down and gathered Casper up in her arms. He was pitifully light, like a bird's nest, and all she could feel through his pajamas were his ribs and his thighbones. He reeked of stale urine and fresh vomit.


"You put him down," said Mrs. Beale. "You hear me? You put him down."


"I'm taking him away from you, Mrs. Beale. I'm going to drive him to the emergency room at East Portland and I'm going to save his life."


Casper rolled his eyes up to look at her. A string of dribble was swinging from his chin.


"I don't think so," said Mrs. Beale. "Casper ismychild, and you can't take him off without my say-so." She threw her cigarette aside but still she made no move to stop Holly from carrying Casper away. Holly held Casper tightly, as tightly as she had ever held anyone.


"I'm taking him, Mrs. Beale, and nobody's going to prevent me."


"You think I won't sue you? I'll sue you."


"Mrs. Beale, you can do whatever you like, but Casper's survival comes first."


Holly turned and walked back down the drive, supporting Casper's prickly head against her shoulder. She was terrified that Mrs. Beale was going to come running after her and attack her from behind, but she kept on walking. When she reached her car and opened up the back door, she turned around to see that Mrs. Beale was still standing where she was before, lighting up another cigarette.


She climbed into her car, trembling. Casper said, "Where are you taking me?"


Holly helped him to fasten his seat-belt. "You'll see. Someplace where you can be happy."


A Celebration with "Mickey Slim"


When Holly arrived home, she made herself a glass of lemon tea and took it into her study. There was mail on her desk but she didn't feel like opening it. Her mind was too crowded with thoughts of Casper Beale. She had driven him to East Portland Memorial Hospital and they had immediately taken him into intensive care. She had reported what she had done to the police, and a very bullish woman detective had come to the hospital to ask her some questions. Under the circumstances, though, she hadn't thought that they would take the matter any further. "You should have done it by the book, honey, you know that. But you're not going to be prosecuted for saving a child's life."


She thought about Daniel Joseph, too, and Sarah-Jane Heilshorn, and the way in which Doug and Katie had let her down. She wasn't a bitter person. She wouldn't have been able to tolerate her deafness if she were bitter. But she felt deeply resentful about Doug's betrayal. He had used her as a scapegoat because she was deaf, and there was nothing she could do about it except despise him for it. All that bullshit about "the sweetest girl in the Children's Welfare Department."


Her cell phone vibrated.


"Meet me 6 pm Hugos Bar? Mickey."


Well, why not? she thought. She could use a drink, and a shoulder to cry on. It was 5:45 already, so she went to find her coat. Marcella was in the kitchen, ironing Daisy's blouses, and she said, "You going out, Ms. Summers? What time you come back?"


"Not late. But I've had one of those days."


"You don't worry. I always look after your Daisy."



Hugo's Bar was on Southwest Alder, a narrow building of chocolate-brown brick wedged between Esparto fashion store and a glossy new marble-front bank. Mickey was waiting for her right in back, at a circular oak table, under a low-suspended Tiffany-style lamp. All around the dark green walls hung mahogany-framed engravings of sternwheelers and steamboats.


He stood up when she arrived. He looked even more gaunt than usual. He said, "What'll it be?"


"A large glass of pinot noir. Averylarge glass of pinot noir."


"Something wrong?"


"I've been suspended. I quit."


He said, "You quit? I don't believe what I'm hearing." She told him all about Sarah-Jane Heilshorn, and he listened and nodded. When she had finished, her eyes were filled with tears of frustration, and he laid his hand on top of hers. "I always said Doug Yeats was an asshole, didn't I? Didn't I always say that? I'll bet when he was a kid he took an apple for his teacher every day,andpolished it with his own nose perspiration."


"Oh God, make me feel sick."


"Well, don't you worry about Doug, because I've got some good news for you: We picked up two guys outside the Robert Herrera Hair Salon just after two o'clock this afternoon."


"Really?"


"Caught them in flagrante: They were trying to force Mrs. Gillian Rossabi into a four-by-four at the curbside. One of them was a well-known psychopath from Bend called Jimmy Novak and the other was a local waste of space called Frederick Drendel. Novak was carrying a.45, a pair of nylon handcuffs, and a switchblade knife."


"That'sterrific!You actually got them! At least something's turned out good."


"Well, not totally good, not yet. We also arrested John H. Rossabi, Mrs. Rossabi's less-than-devoted husband, but Merlin Krauss contrived to be out when we called, although it's only a matter of time. I'm pretty confident we'll find your wood-pulp guy too."


Holly raised her glass. "Congratulations. Here's to you."


"Are you kidding me? We wouldn't have even known that this hit was going down at all if it hadn't been for you. Mrs. Rossabi would have been turned into cardboard boxes and nobody would have been any the wiser."


"Actually, they're not made of cardboard. They're made of linerboard with a corrugated medium sandwiched in between, one hundred percent recycled pulp."


Mickey frowned at her. "You're getting more like an encyclopedia every day, I swear it. What's the capital of Venezuela?"


They were still laughing and joking when Holly caught sight of somebody sitting in the booth on the opposite side of the bar, somebody so intensely black that they looked more like a shadow than a person. She couldn't see his face, because the Tiffany lamp hung in the way. All she could make out was a shoulder and an arm-or was it a cape and a hood? Or was it nothing but the way the light was falling across the buttoned banquette?


Mickey suddenly realized that she wasn't watching his lips.


"What's the matter? Something wrong?"


"I don't know…. Over in the corner there. Can yousee somebody sitting there?"


"In the booth, you mean? No."


"You mean there's nobody there at all?"


He took another look and shook his head. "No. Nobody. Why?"


"I get the feeling that I'm being followed."


Mickey tipped back his whiskey. "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that you're more than worth following? I'd follow you myself, if I had the time."


Three Quiet Days


The next three days were so quiet that she felt as if time had stopped. She went shopping and bought herself two new sweaters at Pioneer Place, one rust-red and one navy. The rust-red sweater was too large when she tried it on at home so she had to take it back, and they didn't have a smaller one.


She sorted through her filing and shredded ten months' worth of credit-card bills and personal letters. She tidied the drawers in her bedroom, throwing away crumpled-up tubes of face cream and mascara brushes that looked like grumpy centipedes. She went out and bought three new imitation-leather photograph albums and emptied four shopping bags full of photographs onto the dining table so that she could shuffle them all into chronological order.


The trouble was, every photograph she picked up held her in a spell, and a whole afternoon went by before she had filled up even two and a half pages. Here was David, leaning against his new Porsche, grinning into the sunshine. Here was Holly, three weeks after his funeral, looking pale and cross. Here was Daisy, age eleven months, in nothing but a diaper, just about to topple sideways on the very first day when she started to walk.


And she thought to herself:What was this all for? Why did I live through all of those years of love and argument and agony and loss? To end up here, jobless, alone, unloved, in this apartment, putting all these photographs in order?


But she remembered then what George Greyeyes had told her about Raven.Raven is a scavenger, who takes away your luck. First your livelihood, then your home, then your loved ones, and then your happiness.


For the first time she acknowledged that she had been really cursed.


Casper's Warning


On Thursday evening she collected Daisy from school and took her to East Portland Memorial Hospital to visit Casper.


"Try not to be shocked, sweetheart: He looks very, very sick. But the doctors say that he's getting better."


Casper was out of intensive care, but he was still in a room of his own because he was so susceptible to infection. A small, bare room, with a view of the flat asphalt roof of the hospital kitchens, and the glaring sun going down over the Tualatin Mountains to the west.


Casper was propped up on three pillows, and he was being fed with a glucose drip. A dark fuzz was already growing on his head, and that made him look even more monkeylike than he had before. When she saw him, Daisy gripped Holly's hand and squeezed it tightly.


"Casper, this is my daughter, Daisy," said Holly, smiling. "How are you feeling today?"


Casper said, "Pretty tired, most of the time. I keep on falling asleep. Then I wake up and I don't know where I am."


"I talked to Dr. Arneson," Holly said. "He told me that you're doing real good. You've put on three and a half pounds since Monday."


Casper raised one of his bony hands and touched his cheek. "I keep wondering what it's going to be like, not being sick anymore."


"It's going to be a whole new life, believe me. Look, Daisy's brought you a present."


Daisy reached into her shopping bag and took out a scale-model Ferrari in a box. Casper looked at it and smiled. Then he handed it back.


"Go on, open it," said Daisy. "It's yours."


Casper looked up at Holly, and Holly suddenly realized that he had never been given any toys before-or if he had, he hadn't been allowed to keep them. He struggled to open the cellophane and in the end Daisy did it for him. He lifted up the car and peered into the windows. "It even has a steering wheel and a gearshift."


Holly said, "The doors open too."


They drew up chairs beside his bed and watched him as he steered the Ferrari over his bony knees.


After a while Holly said, "There's something I have to tell you, Casper: When you're better, you won't be going back home to live with your mother."


Casper frowned at her. "Why? Why not?"


"Because it was your mother who made you sick."


"I know. I know she did. But she always looked after me."


"Actually, she didn't. She deliberately starved you and she gave you medicine to make you vomit so that everybody would think you had cancer. She nearly killed you."


"Where am I going to go, then?"


"I expect that the Children's Welfare Department will find you some people to look after you. Foster parents. I don't work for them anymore, but I know for sure that they'll fix you up with some real nice people."


"But can't I go home?"


"I'm sorry. You won't be able to. But I wanted you to know that if you needed anybody to talk to… well, we'll always be here. Daisy and me."


Casper didn't say anything, but Holly could tell that he was upset. It happened so often when children were abused: No matter how badly they had been treated- even if they had been beaten or starved or sexually molested-they always wanted to go back to their parents. Children worked harder at keeping their family together than anybody did, and they always blamed themselves if the family fell apart.


"Casper… your mother isn't well. She wouldn't have treated you like that, otherwise."


"She always took care of me."


Holly didn't know what to say. She stood up and kissed Casper on his white, dry-skinned forehead. "Don't worry… things will work out. All you need to worry about is feeding yourself up. I want to see you eating cheeseburgers by the end of next week."


Casper's voice was suddenly different: throaty and almost threatening. "My momma… she won't like it if you take me away."


"I know she won't, Casper. But it's all for the best."


"Something bad will happen to you if you take me away. Something really, really bad."


"Why don't you get some rest? We'll come see you again in a couple of days."


Casper kept on staring at her, as if he were trying to remember every detail of what she looked like. As if he never expected to see her again.


They walked along the corridor to the elevator. Daisy said, "He'screepy."


"He's very sick, that's all."


"No," said Daisy, emphatically shaking her head. "He'screepy."



They crossed the hospital parking lot to Holly's car. As they did so, Holly saw Doug's green Pajero pull up outside the main entrance. Doug climbed out, although he didn't see Holly. He walked around and opened the passenger door. He helped out a woman in a brown suede coat.


Holly hesitated, holding her car keys in her hand. The woman turned around and she saw that it was Mrs. Beale.


Mrs. Beale hesitated, too, and looked around, as if she could sense that Holly wasn't far away. Just as Doug laid a hand on her shoulder to guide her inside, she caught sight of Holly and stared at her. As she did so, five or six black birds suddenly fluttered off the roof of the hospital and circled around, their feathers ruffled by the wind.


"Mommy?" asked Daisy.


"It's nothing," said Holly. "I thought I saw somebody I used to know, that's all."


In the Japanese Garden


Friday afternoon was sharp and sunny, so Holly drove up to the West Hills and went for a walk in the Japanese Garden, which had always been one of her favorite places to relax: five and a half intricate acres of pathways and bridges and stepping-stones that led between ponds and iris beds and formal gravel gardens. And Mount Hood, in the distant background, like Mount Fuji.


There was hardly anybody else around, and the fall sunshine glittered on the weeping willows. The chilly air was filled with the earthy smells of a gradually dying year. She walked through the five-tier stone lantern that led to the Strolling Pond Garden, and crossed the Moon Bridge over the upper pond. Farther down the garden, by the Zig Zag Bridge, she could see two Japanese men standing by the railings, talking, while a young Japanese girl of about fifteen was kneeling on one of the stepping-stones in the lower pond, wiggling her fingers in the dark green water to attract the koi carp.


Holly made her way down the mossy steps to the opposite side of the lower pond. Under the water the carp flickered like animated slices of orange peel. The girl looked up at her and smiled shyly. She wore a fleece-lined denim jacket and embroidered jeans and her hair was tied up in Pokémon-style bunches. Holly smiled back and gave her a little finger wave.


She sat down on a carved stone bench. She had needed an hour of reflection like this, a time to heal her hurt and her disappointment. She also felt that she had to make some decisions about herself. Was she really going to quit the Children's Welfare Department forever? How was she going to feel about all of those children out there who still needed her help? And what was she going to do about Mickey? Was she going to allow him to get closer? Did she trust him? Did she trust herself? She was always pleased when she saw him, and there was no question that she found him attractive, even though he wasn't handsome and even though she had witnessed how violent he could be.


She thought to herself:You're afraid, aren't you? Why don't you stop being afraid? Next time you meet Mickey, show him that you're interested. See where it goes from there.


A few curled leaves dropped from the trees onto the surface of the pond, circling around and around, and the carp came up to nibble at them. One of the Japanese men took off his white fedora and leaned forward on the railings, looking intently at the young girl.


"You don't think she'd give me any trouble?"


"Of course not. Her father brought her up to be obedient."


"Well, I could offer you a lot of money, depending on what she does. We have a new studio now, and a much more professional cameraman."


The man with the white fedora was about thirty-five, smartly dressed in a navy-blue blazer. The other man was about ten years older and dressed in a green weatherproof jacket. He took off his glasses and polished them on a crumpled shred of Kleenex.


"So how much are we talking about?"


"Two thousand. More, if the sales are good. She's pretty, and she's very young, and this time we hope to have more than thirty-five men."


The older man half-turned his back, so that Holly could no longer lip-read him, but she could still see the man with the white fedora. "It's our biggest seller now,bukkake. It outsells everything else we do by ten to one. I've even seen Americanbukkake."


Bukkake. Holly felt cold. Even here, in this tranquil Japanese garden, the world was poisoned. She hesitated for a moment, and then she stood up and walked around the edge of the pond until she came to the Zig Zag Bridge. The two men stopped talking, obviously waiting for her to pass. But she came right up to them, and smiled, and held up her cell phone.


"Pardon me, but I was wondering if either of you two gentlemen could help me. You see, my battery's dead and I have to call my daughter to tell her where to meet me."


"Ah," said the man with the white fedora. He reached into his blazer pocket and produced a tiny Sony cell phone with a shiny chrome cover. "Here, please, be my guest."


"That's so kind of you. I didn't knowwhatI was going to do."


"Please, no problem."


Holly went across to the other side of the bridge and punched out Mickey's number. When he answered, she quickly texted him:


"NOTE THIS NO. HOLLY."


"??" he texted back.


"XPLN L8R."


Then she said loudly, "Okay, honey, I'll meet you at Janine's in fifteen minutes. That's great."


She handed the phone back. "Thanks again. Some people think I'm overprotective when it comes to my daughter… but you know, you can't be too careful, can you, not these days?"


"Absolutely right," agreed the older man.


"Is that your little girl down there?"


"My niece."


"Well, you must be very proud of her."


The two men exchanged a quick, enigmatic look. "I am," said the older man. "Very proud uncle indeed."


Text Message


In the parking lot she texted Mickey again and explained what she had lip-read. She watched as the girl and her uncle and the man in the white fedora came out of the Japanese Garden and stood talking for a while. Then the uncle and the man in the white fedora shook hands and bowed to each other before they went off in opposite directions. The girl took hold of her uncle's hand and swung it as she walked.


Mickey replied that the cell phone had already been traced to Butterfly Motion Pictures with an address on Boren Avenue in Seattle, Washington. "Ill put Det Nelson on it pronto." Holly wouldn't have known whatbukkakewas unless she hadn't been involved in another Japanese sex-abuse case last November, when more than 60bukkakevideos had been confiscated from a video rental store downtown. It was the latest rage in Japanese pornography, in which dozens of men climaxed over the upturned face of a single young girl until she looked as if she had been frosted, like a cake. Sometimes it was done with her eyes held wide open. Other times she was given pints of semen to drink, out of a flask, to see if she could manage to keep it all down. That was what the proud uncle on the Zig Zag Bridge had been offering for $2,000.


No Daisy


Holly drove home. The afternoon was growing overcast now. When she let herself in, Marcella was in the kitchen, rolling meatballs on a floured board.


"Hi, Marcella." She looked at the coatrack. "Daisy not back yet?"


Marcella shook her head. "Maybe she go to see her friend."


"She didn't say anything about it this morning. You couldn't give her a call for me, could you?"


"Sure thing." Marcella smacked the flour off her hands and picked up the phone from the kitchen wall. She dialed and waited, but after a while she shook her head. "Her phone is switch off."


"That's odd. She told me she'd be home by five for sure."


"Don't you worry, Ms. Summers. She forget what time it is, that's all."


Holly went to the window. "I don't want her out too late…. It looks like there's a hell of a storm coming over."



When the kitchen clock crept to six-thirty and Daisy still hadn't come back, Holly had Marcella call Daisy's best friend, Tracey Hunter. The sky was the color of slate, and raindrops began to measle the window-panes. Tracey's mother said that Daisy had left their apartment shortly after four and that as far as she knew she was coming directly home.


"I'm worried now," said Holly as Marcella hung up the phone. The Hunters lived only three blocks away, over the Columbia Valley Travel Office. "Try calling the Williamsons."


Marcella phoned all of the friends that Daisy might have gone to visit, but none of them had seen her. She also called Tyrone, in case she had stopped by the gallery, but he hadn't seen her, either. "But call me as soon as you find her," he said.


Holly put on her raincoat and said, "Listen… I'm going to go look for her. If she comes home just give me a buzz, okay?"


"Sure thing, Ms. Summers," said Marcella. "Don't forget your hat. It's a rain like drown rat."


When she stepped out into the street, the rain was cascading from the yellow-and-white-striped restaurant awning and flooding the gutters. People with umbrellas and newspapers over their heads were running for shelter. She turned up her collar, thrust her hands into her pockets, and stepped out quickly in the direction of the Hunters' home.


Halfway along Thirteenth Street she saw a small figure running toward her holding a pink cotton jacket over her head, and with relief she called out,"Daisy!"But the figure wasn't Daisy at all; it was a little Chinese girl, and she ran past her without even looking at Holly.


With the rain clinging to her eyelashes and dripping from the tip of her nose, she walked all the way to the Columbia Valley Travel Office. There were color photographs in the window of all the different river trips that tourists could take up the Columbia and the Willamette, to Multnomah Falls and Mount Hood and the International Rose Test Garden, a mass of yellow roses. She looked around for a few moments, but there was no sign of Daisy anywhere, and she began to walk back.


She called into several stores and restaurants, asking if anybody had seen a little girl of eight in a pink jacket and jeans, but all she got in reply was the solemn shaking of heads. In the doorway of the Portland Family Bakery she sent a text message to Mickey, telling him what had happened.


His reply came back almost at once: "Don't worry Ill get on it go home."


Mickey Brings Bad News


She sat at the dining table, still wearing her wet raincoat, while Marcella stayed with her.


"I can't believe that she would have gone anywhere without telling me."


"Ms. Summers, Daisy is a good girl always, you know that. But even good girls sometimes play a little mischief."


"She's been upset lately, you know, about not having a father. I think she's getting to the age when she really needs a man in her life."


"Hmmh! That depends ifyouneed a man in your life. You've been very good to Daisy, Ms. Summers, raised her good."


Holly tried to smile. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Marcella. I wish you'd call me Holly."


Marcella shook her head. "How many times you ask me this, hah? And each time what do I say? I work for you, I give you respect. In this times now, nobody give nobody no respect. Not husbands for wives, not parents for children. Every place you look is no respect."



A few minutes after eight-thirty, with still no sign of Daisy, the red light over the doorbell flashed, and Marcella went to answer it. It was Mickey, looking as if he had swum from the other side of the Willamette River.


"What's happened? Have you found her?"


Mickey glanced at Marcella. "I need to talk to you in private."


"You can trust Marcella."


"I know, but this is kind of tricky, and it's important for Daisy's sake that nobody else knows about it."


"Well… all right. Marcella, can you leave us alone for a while?"


"It's okay. I go downstairs and see Leo in the kitchen. You call me when you need me."


After Marcella had gone, Mickey said, "I had a call about twenty minutes ago from a snitch called Nicky Moranes. He said that Merlin Krauss had asked him to pass on a message."


"Merlin Krauss? A message? About what?"


Mickey took out a clean but fraying handkerchief and wiped his face and his neck. "It seems that Krauss has found out that you lip-read and that you're qualified to give evidence about what he was saying about knocking off Mrs. Rossabi. Don't ask me how he found out."


He took a deep breath, and then he said, "Holly, I'm afraid to say that he's taken Daisy and he's not going to give her back unless you guarantee that you won't testify against him in court."


Holly slowly sat down. She could actually feel her face turning to chalk. "He'stakenher? Did he say where she was? Oh God, he hasn't hurt her, has he?"


"He said she was safe and well. But he wants to meet you face-to-face and hear you promise that you're not going to help to convict him."


"Of course I will! Where is he?"


"Holly, it's not as easy as that. Merlin Krauss is wanted for conspiracy to commit homicide in the first degree-and now kidnapping. I don't have the authority to let you negotiate an amnesty for him. That's in addition to exposing a civilian to potentially mortal danger."


"But we're talking about Daisy's life! And you can't force me to testify against him, can you? And what kind of case will you have if I don't?"


"Holly, you're putting me in a real difficult position here."


"Difficult position?Difficult position?This is my little girl, Mickey! This is my dead husband's only child!"


"We're talking about a guy who arranges murders here, Holly! A guy who kills people for fun and profit! You think you can trust him to let Daisy go, and you too? If you go to see him, he'll probably whack you both!"


"I have to try, Mickey, and you have to let me. Tell me where he is."


Mickey shook his head. "This goes against any kind of kidnapping or hostage procedure."


"Who else knows about this? Your captain? Your commander?"


"So far… nobody but me."


"Then if nobody else knows about it, you won't have to take the responsibility for it, will you? All you have to do is tell me where Krauss wants to meet me."


"I'm sorry, Holly, I can't. I'm going to have to call this in and see what a negotiating team can do to get Daisy free."


Holly reached across the table and gripped his hand. "I'm begging you, Mickey: Help me. If Daisy gets hurt, then I wouldn't want to go on living anyway."


Mickey looked at her intently for a very long time. She saw something in his eyes but she couldn't understand what it was. Tension? Anxiety? Or relief? The artist Goya, who was suddenly struck deaf, had once said that it gave him the ability to see what was really there, and not what he wastoldto see.


"Okay," said Mickey at last, dry-mouthed.


"So where? Tell me where he is."


"He's in a house about five miles south of Bonneville, about an hour along the valley."


"How am I going to find it?"


Mickey stood up. "I'll take you there. You're under too much stress to find it yourself. Besides, if I come with you, you stand at least a half-decent chance of getting out of there in one piece."


"You don't know how much I appreciate this."


"Hey, I have a very soft spot for Daisy. I'm Uncle Mickey, remember?"


"Yes, you're Uncle Mickey."


He checked his watch. "Let me go first…. I'm parked around the corner by Kendrick's. It's very important that nobody knows that we left together."


"What shall I tell Marcella?"


"Tell her-I don't know-tell her that you called one of Daisy's friends and they think they know where she is. Tell her she can go home."


"Mickey… thank you."


"Yeah," he said. "Right."


Surprise Surprise


It started to thunder as they drove eastward on Interstate 84, along the Columbia River Valley. Holly couldn't hear it, but whenever the lightning flashed, she could see that the clouds were purple.


Mickey drove as fast as he could, but the rain was hammering down so hard that he could hardly see anything in the darkness up ahead of them, and when another car came toward them, the windshield was filled with brilliant spangles of blinding light.


Because it was so dark, it was difficult for them to have a conversation, but as they neared the Bonneville turnoff, Holly touched Mickey's arm. "What shall I say?" she asked him. Mickey turned to her so that she could see his lips in the light from the instrument panel.


"Don't volunteer anything. Just ask Krauss what he wants and tell him you agree. Don't challenge him. Don't lose your temper. Don't call him any names."


"I'm okay, Mickey. I've had to deal with worse people than Merlin Krauss."


"I don't think so. Not yet."


The road became a track and the forest all around them was as black as the forest in a fairy tale, where people wore dark cloaks and slippery shoes. Mickey's Aurora wasn't designed for off-road driving, and they jounced and jolted through puddles and potholes.


Mount Hood was so close now that Holly had to bend her head down to see it. Every now and then its snow-covered peak was lit up by oddly colored flashes of lightning.


"Ass end of noplace at all," said Mickey.


After nearly fifteen minutes, with branches and briers scraping at the car's paint, they turned up a sharp left-hand hairpin, and there stood a large cedar-built house on stone pillars with a wide deck outside. Eight or nine vehicles were parked outside, most of them luxury-edition Jeeps and Toyotas. The large windows of the house were all brightly lit, and as she climbed out of Mickey's car Holly could see people moving around inside.


"Merlin Krauss is holed up here? It looks more like a party than a hideout."


Mickey said nothing but took hold of her elbow and led her up the steps to the deck. As they approached the house, a patio door slid open and a young man appeared through the net curtains, holding a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and slacks, and at first Holly didn't realize who he was. But then he lifted his glass and said, "Mickey! You did it! You're a genius!"


He was the young lawyer whose lascivious conversation she had lip-read in the coffee shop in the courthouse, the one who had admired her "gazongas."


Holly frowned at Mickey and said, "What's going on? What'shedoing here?"


The young lawyer stepped back and gave her a mock bow, "Kenneth T. Mulgrew Junior, at your service, but just for tonight you can call me Kennie. Divorce settlements and prenuptial agreements a specialty, not necessarily in that order."


"Mickey, what the hell's going on? Where's Daisy? Where's Krauss?"


She tried to twist her elbow away but Mickey gripped it tightly. "Come on inside, Holly. There's some people who can't wait to meet you."


"Mickey-let go of me, you're hurting."


Mickey pulled her close to him. "Listen," he said, "this is not exactly what I said it was, but Daisy is still being held hostage, and if you don't behave yourself she's going to suffer, do you understand?"


"Mickey?" she said. "Mickey, what's going on here? Tell me!"


"It's a party, Holly, you were right. And you're the entertainment."


Kenneth T. Mulgrew took hold of her other arm, and between them they forced her through the patio doors and through the ghostly net curtains as if she were a bride appearing on her wedding day. She found herself in a large living room furnished with heavy leather-upholstered couches and chairs and with landscape paintings all around the walls. The room was crowded with at least a dozen men, almost all of whom she either knew or recognized. As she came through the curtains, they raised their glasses and cheered.


Over the racket, Holly turned to Mickey and said, "You have to tell me where Daisy is!"


"I'll tell you, don't you worry. But not just yet, okay?"


"Tell me where Daisy is!"she screamed, and the underwater sound of her voice momentarily silenced every man in the room.


Mickey gave her the smallest shake of his head. "She's safe, Holly, I promise you, and she's going to stay safe. But I had to think of some way to get you out here on a dark and stormy night, now, didn't I?"


Holly wrenched herself free of him and approached the assembly of men. They were all dressed in casual clothes, some of them in shiny Hugh Hefner-style bathrobes. Middle-aged, mostly, although there were one or two younger men. She looked from one to the other, and she simply couldn't believe that they were all here. Martin A. Brimmer, with his white cropped hair and his cleft chin, commander of the Central Precinct; Gerry Valdez, an Omar Sharif lookalike, deputy district attorney; Oliver Pearson, paunchy and perma-tanned, senior partner in one of the most respected law firms in Oregon, Pearson Greenbaum & Traske. Ranking police officers and court officials and even Randolph Bruckman, the charming and helpful legal adviser from the governor's office.


She looked from one to the other, but not one of them was at all abashed. Instead they smiled at her and lifted their wineglasses, and one or two of them winked. There was a heavy smell of aftershave in the room, Obsession and Hugo Boss, and an aromatic undertone of marijuana too.


"What's going on?" she said at last. "What's happening here? Gerry… Randolph… what are you all doing here? What have you done with my daughter?"


At that moment a white-haired man wearing a quilted black Japanese-style robe tied with a sash edged his way through from the back of the gathering. It was Judge Walter Boynton, who had always reminded her so much of Ray Walston inMy Favorite Martian.


"Ms. Summers! So pleased you could come! I'll tell you what we're doing here: We're having ourselves a party. A surprise party, as far as you're concerned."


"I want my daughter back and I want her back now, and I want to go home."


"So what are you going to do? Call the police?"


Holly looked desperately to Mickey, but Mickey did nothing but give her a shrug. Why didn't he say something? Why didn't hedosomething?


Judge Boynton came up to her and tried to put his arm around her, but she stepped away. "Don't touch me. Take me back to Portland now and give me back my daughter."


"Well… that's not really an option, I'm afraid," Judge Boynton told her.


"If you want me to forget this ever happened, I'll forget it, I promise you. Just give me my daughter."


"In all fairness, no can do. We've kind of committed ourselves, haven't we? You know who we are now: You've seen our faces."


"But what do you want me for? What's this all about?"


Judge Boynton said, "Come here, let me show you something."


"What?"


"Come here, I won't touch you, I promise."


The other men stepped aside as he walked toward the window at the far end of the room. Holly looked around for any sign of sympathy or support, but all she got in return were the same shameless smiles.


Judge Boynton stood by the window. She could see his reflection, and hers, but she could also see beyond the parking area, where there was dark scrub and rocks, and a ghostly white figure that appeared to wave in the wind.


"You know what that is?" said Judge Boynton. "That's the spray from a waterfall, and whenever the wind gets up, it takes on the shape of a woman dancing. The Indians think that it's the spirit of Akula, the woman wonder-worker whose magic was so powerful that any man who crossed her was emasculated. That's why they call this place Phantom Woman Falls.


"It turned out to be very appropriate that I built a weekend house here, because my friends and I have been seeing for many years how women have been emasculating men in all walks of professional life, and in the judiciary in particular.


"These parties-they started as a way for us stuffed shirts in the legal profession to let our hair down. We called ourselves the Justice League, after the comic books. We used to hire a girl or two, drink a lot, do some fishing. But then one day one of our members complained about the way in which a woman in the Judicial Department had been promoted over his head, for no other apparent reason except that she was a woman.


"He said, 'I'd like to bring her out here for a weekend and show her what it'sreallylike to get screwed.' So… to cut a long story short, we fixed it for him."


Judge Boynton sipped his wine and smiled at the memory. "That's how it started. Instead of hookers, we brought high-flying women to our parties and, to put it simply, we gave them an object lesson in why God created women. To serve, and to be obedient, and to give pleasure whenever required."


Holly stared at him, appalled. "What happened to all these women?"


"Whathappenedto them?" Judge Boynton didn't seem to understand the question.


"Oh my God," said Holly. She felt as if she couldn't breathe.


Judge Boynton said, "Believe me, if you're a good sport, you might even enjoy yourself. Now, why don't you relax, and have a drink, and we can all share an evening of grown-up entertainment."


"I'm leaving," said Holly. "Mickey, drive me back to Portland-and if you won't drive me back, give me your keys."


Mickey took off his coat and flung it over the back of an armchair. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs. "Holly… my whole life I've been rejected or insulted or looked down on by the women I really want…."


"What?"Holly stared at him in disbelief. She thought that she must have made some ridiculous misinterpretation in reading his lips. But he came right up to her, standing so close that she could feel his breath on her face.


"It means that I've had enough, like all of my friends here have had enough." He pronounced his words very slowly and clearly, so that there was no mistake.


"Mickey?"She felt like hitting him with her fists in frustration. This couldn't be Mickey, talking like this. Not the Mickey who told Daisy a bedtime story. Not the Mickey who had brought her lilies. And to think she had sat in the Japanese Garden only this afternoon and thought about starting an affair with him. She almost felt as if she were going mad.


"Iwantyou," he said. "I know for sure that Kennie wants you; and Mark; and Randolph; and so what we're going to do is: We're all going to have you. You can make this easy and decide that it's going to happen anyhow, so you might as well have a good time. Or else you can make it difficult, and if you make it difficult, the odds are that one or two of us might have to slap you to get you in line."


"Mickey, for God's sake, tell me this is some kind of joke."


"No joke, baby. This is where the guys and me get what life has denied us."


"You said you liked me. You said youlovedme."


"Idolove you, Holly, don't doubt it. I've loved you ever since I first saw you standing at that barbecue with those two hot dogs, one in each hand, wondering what the hell to do with them. I always flirted with you, didn't I? I always took care of you, didn't I? Fetched and carried? But what did I ever get in return? A peck on the cheek and a plateful of pork and peppers."


"Mickey, don't. Please, Mickey. This isn't you."


Mickey gave her a slanting, Harrison Ford-playing-a-psychopath smile. "Sorry, Holly. I've never really been the sympathetic sort.Patient,maybe, when patience is called for. Sometimes you can get what you want by knocking somebody's teeth out. But other times you have to play it more subtle. Like fly-fishing, you know? Casting, waiting, and reeling them in. And that's what I've been doing to you: casting, waiting, and reeling you in. And here you are, landed."


"You're not going to…," Holly began, but everything was rapidly beginning to make sense.Thiswas why she had been feeling that the world around her had altered so much, and that bad luck was sniffing so close to her heels. She hadn't been able to understand what was wrong, but of course it had been much too close to her, so close that she couldn't focus on it. It had been Mickey all the time. His lips had said that he loved her but his eyes had been watching her with nothing but dispassion. A raven's eyes. A predator's. In a way, it was worse than discovering that he had been killed.


"God, you're evil," she said.


"No," said Mickey. "Just tired of you treating me like some kind of second cousin." Before she could stop him, he ducked his head down and kissed her forehead. "You're mine now. You'reours."


She swallowed. The men all shuffled in closer now, still smiling. When she spoke, her throat was so constricted that she couldn't stop herself from coughing. "If I"-cough-"if I let you do this… will you swear to me that nothing will happen to Daisy?"


Judge Boynton beamed and lifted his glass. "Now, that's one of the things that I really like in a woman: maternal instinct."


Raven's Revenge


"This is the arena," announced Judge Boynton proudly, leading the way into the bedroom. In the center of the room stood a four-poster bed with carved pine pillars and headboard, hung with heavy orange-and-gold brocade curtains and covered with a matching throw. The floor was carpeted in cream shag pile, and on the walls hung a series of erotic oil paintings that might have been titledNudes of All Nations.It looked as if it had been designed for aPlayboyspread, circa1973.


Mickey ushered Holly into the room. Close beside her, Martin A. Brimmer said, "Forget about your inhibitions, Holly. This is a special place. Private. Nobody else will ever find out what happened here."


"This is nothing to do with inhibitions," Holly retorted. "This is nothing but gang rape by a group of losers who are too old and too ugly to find a woman who wants to go to bed with them."


"Holly," warned Mickey. "We're thinking of Daisy now, aren't we?"


"Oh, sorry, Uncle Mickey. And to think I let you sit on her bed and tell her a bedtime story…"


"That was a story about somebody who did somebody else a favor-and got rewarded for it."


"That was a story about men who get what they want by deception, and if they can't get it by deception, they get it by force."


"Come on, now, Holly," put in Randolph Bruckman. "We're all friends here, aren't we?"


"How can you call yourself a friend?"


Randolph gave her a private little smile. "To tell you the truth, I've always wanted to ask you out to dinner. Never had the nerve, I guess."


"Well, this will save you the price of a meal, won't it?"


It was then, however, that Judge Boynton said, "Okay, gentlemen. Let's do it."


Mickey and Martin seized Holly's arms while another man came up behind her and tried to gag her with a silk scarf. She kicked and struggled and thrashed her head from side to side, but two other men grabbed her legs and they were far too strong for her. Mickey seized her chin and held it in a clamplike grip while the scarf was pulled tight between her teeth and fiercely knotted at the back of her head. She stared at Mickey with bulging eyes, trying to appeal to him to stop these men from hurting her and to let her go."Unnnffffff!"she grunted at him, but all he did was grin and turn away. The next thing she knew, a dark woolen scarf was tied over her eyes so that she was blinded as well as deaf.


She was suddenly swamped in total helplessness and absolute terror. She felt as if she had been swept away from the shore by an icy wave, in darkness, and that she was drowning, with nobody to see her and nobody to hear her. She had always been able to cope with her deafness, because she could still see, but her blindness made her deafness even more overwhelming than ever.


She was going to die. Her whole world was cold and black and chaotic but utterly soundless. She couldn't even manage a muffled scream, and if she had, she couldn't have heard it. It had been frightening enough when she was a child, seeing Margaret fall from her bedroom balcony in flames, but now death was afterher,and she had never realized how heart-clenchingly terrifying it was going to be, to know that the end of her life had almost arrived.


Her arms were forcibly lifted and her sweater was pulled over her head. Her bra catch was unfastened by fumbling fingers. She violently twisted her hips, but two men unbuttoned her jeans and dragged them down to her ankles, and at last her panties were pulled down too.


She had no idea of what the men were saying- whether they were silent or whether they were laughing or whether they were whooping with excitement. She was so panicky now that she found it difficult to breathe, but there was no way of begging them to stop.


She was heaved across the bed. Four or five men turned her over onto her back, raising her arms over her head and opening her legs. They held her pinned down until she felt narrow nylon cords being tied around her wrists and ankles, leaving her spread-eagled and helpless.


She thought:Now, now they're going to do it,and braced herself, biting hard on her gag.


But then there was a long pause. Thirty seconds went by… almost a minute.


What are they doing? Maybe they've changed their minds. No, they haven't changed their minds. They're going to rape me and then they're going to kill me. They'llhaveto kill me, won't they, because I know who they are. Oh God, I hope they don't do the same thing to Daisy. Please don't let them hurt Daisy.


She tried to calm herself by breathing deeply and steadily, the way her yoga instructor had shown her, but it was almost impossible with her mouth so tightly gagged. She kept swallowing saliva, almost choking.


Still nothing happened; none of the men touched her. She lay completely still, trying to feel them, trying to sense what they were doing. Were they still in the room? Maybe theyhadchanged their minds. Maybe they would let her go if she promised not to tell anybody what had happened here tonight.


But she knew with iron-cold certainty they wouldn't. How could they? A judge, a police commander, several respected attorneys, a police lieutenant, and a court official.


How could they afford to let her live?


Judge Boynton had boasted that none of their previous victims had complained, and there could be only one reason for that. She thought of Sarah Hargitay and Jennie McLellan and Kay Padowska and Helena Carlsson. All of them independent, strong, and very attractive women, and all of them had disappeared without a trace, except for Sarah Hargitay's shoe, which had been discovered at Bridal Veil, only a few miles from here.


Oh God, Daisy. Oh God, let them do what they like to me but don't let them kill me. What will little Daisy do if they kill me?


Holly felt something soft and heavy touch her cheek, like plums. Instantly she jerked her face away, but then something else brushed her other cheek, something harder, and then her shoulder. She felt a man climb onto the bed beside her, then another, and another. She could feel them, she could feel their weight and she could feel the heat of their bodies, and she could smell them too: a strong, rank smell, stale sweat and Gucci aftershave and alcohol. They were all naked, all of these men, all hairy, and they were rolling and massaging their penises all over her body, even the soles of her feet, as a way of exciting themselves.


Wildly she kept on jerking her head from side to side, but that only encouraged them to press their penises against her even harder. Even though she was tied so tightly, she managed to twist her hips and buck herself up and down on the bed, but again that only seemed to excite the men even more.


She felt warm slime against her left cheek, and she was so disgusted that she retched. She knew that she couldn't break free, but she wasn't going to let them think that she was ever going to give in to them. She was trembling uncontrollably with effort and she could feel the blood banging inside her head, but she kept on struggling and grunting and more than anything else her soul screamed out,No!


Fingers started to stray all over her, tugging at her nipples and sliding right inside her, single fingers at first, then three and four fingers at a time. There was nothing she could do but shake her head and let out furious noises, like an animal.


Oh God, let this be over. Oh, please, God, let this be over.


There was another pause. She tried to catch her breath again, but the smell of sexually aroused men was so repulsive that she gagged again, and bile ran down the back of her throat. Then a heavily built man climbed onto the bed and positioned himself between her legs. She could feel his hairy thighs against her skin. He opened her up with his fingers, and then she felt the swollen head of his penis pressing against her.


Please God.



Something happened-something so jumbled and unexpected that she couldn't work out what it was. The man bounced on the bed and struggled off her urgently, as if he had found a snake in the sheets. Some of the other men started to struggle around too: She felt three or four of them collide with the side of the mattress. She couldn't imagine what was going on, but they all seemed to have totally lost interest in their orgy in a matter of seconds.


She thought she faintly saw two or three flashes through her blindfold, and then she smelled something smoky and acrid.Don't tell me the house is on fire and they've just left me here, all tied up,she thought. She grunted and pulled at the ropes around her wrists, but the men had knotted them so tight that she couldn't even begin to loosen them.


Then she felt a hand placed on top of her head, firmly but very gently, as if somebody were trying to reassure her to stay calm. Her head was lifted from the pillow and the blindfold tugged free.


To her surprise, the house was in darkness, except for a dim illumination from the windows. A shape was standing over the bed, something huge and very black. She stared up at it, still gagged, unable to cry out. Her heart almost melted with fear. This was a hundred times more frightening than the Justice League. This was the thing that took all of your happiness away. This was bad luck incarnate, and now it had caught up with her at last, and it was greedy for her misery.


Outside the bedroom window the lightning flickered on the peak of Mount Hood, and she saw black shiny feathers and eyes that glittered in the darkness like beetles.


Another black shape appeared in the doorway, and then another. The lightning flickered again. She should have known that the mountain would eventually draw her to her death.


It was then, though, that her gag was untied, and one of the black shapes approached the foot of the bed. She saw a knife shine, and her ankles were released, quickly followed by her wrists. The huge black figure picked her up off the bed and wrapped the throw around her.


Only a second later all the lamps came back on again, and Holly found herself sitting on the bed next to George Greyeyes. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, but the black gleam that she had imagined were feathers were simply his greased-back hair. At the end of the bed, folding up his jackknife, was another Indian whom she didn't recognize. He was twentyish, broad-faced, good-looking, with a plaid shirt that didn't conceal his bodybuilder physique. A third young Indian appeared, slighter and skinnier, with glasses and with a leather tool pouch attached to his belt.


George Greyeyes took hold of Holly's hand. "Are you okay? Look: Your clothes are all here. Why don't you get dressed?"


She nodded, numbly. "Oh, George. Oh, God. They were going to-"


"Shh, everything's okay now. But we have to get out of here."


Holly stared at him. She still couldn't quite believe what had happened. "I have to find Daisy."


"Daisy's fine. Apparently somebody nabbed her while she was walking home and drove around with her for a couple of hours. But after that, they dropped her back at the end of the street, safe and sound."


"How did you find me? How did you know what they were going to do to me?"


"Shh," said George. "Let's leave that till later. We'll give you a couple of minutes to get dressed and then we have to go."


"I thought you were Raven. I really did."


"If it hadn't been for Raven, I may not have found you. But come on, hurry."



When she was dressed, she went back through to the living room. There was blood sprayed everywhere, all up the walls, all over the furniture. Judge Boynton lay facedown on one of the leather couches, white and skinny like a Roswell alien, with most of the back of his head blown off. Randolph Bruckman was folded up in the corner with a hole in his big hairy belly. Three other men lay dead and naked in the kitchen doorway, a tangle of arms and legs.


"Mickey Slim" was close to the open patio door, facedown, his steel-colored eyes wide open, as if he were making a microscopic inspection of the carpet. Blood crept out from underneath his chest.


Holly slowly approached him. She stood over him with her hand pressed over her mouth while George Greyeyes kept a cautious eye on her.


Mickey's arms were dotted with dozens of small circular scars, pale and wrinkled, and his back was decorated with faded white ridges. These weren't the kind of scars that a cop would sustain on the streets. They hadn't come from bullets or knives or gangland beatings. But Holly knew what they were. Holly had seen marks like them so many times before, only fresher, on the arms and backs of children whose parents had stubbed out cigarettes on them and lashed them with belts and canes.


When he was small, Mickey must have suffered the same misery as Daniel Joseph and countless other children. Now she knew the real reason why he had knocked out Elliot Joseph's teeth.


She hesitated for a moment. She didn't know whether she felt anger or pity. Then she said, "What about the rest of them?"


"Run off into the woods, bare-ass naked," said the Indian boy in the plaid shirt, with a grin.


"What are you going to do? God, George, you'vekilledthem! Aren't you going to call the police?"


"These peoplearethe police. And the judiciary too. What do you seriously think is going to happen here?"


"I don't know. I really don't know. But I think I'd like to go home now, if I can."


George laid his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "You sure opened a can of worms here, Holly. But all that's going to happen is that somebody's going to put the lid back on, real tight."


They left the house and went down the steps. George's Grand Cherokee was waiting for them there, and George helped Holly into the front passenger seat. She turned and looked back, and as she did so a lurid flash of lightning lit up the peak of Mount Hood, as if it were a stage set for a melodramatic play.


Superstition


George came to see her two days later. Marcella had pot-roasted a chicken with red vinegar and they opened a bottle of Barolo.


"So what did the police say?" asked Holly, tearing off a piece of bread to mop up the juice on her plate.


"They said that I was clearly acting in self-defense and that no charges are going to be pressed."


"They said that straight-faced?"


"Yup."


"They said it was self-defense despite the fact that you shot a judge and three other men in the judge's own home, and they were all naked, and none of them were armed?"


"To be fair, somebody fired off one shot at us first. I guess it was probably Mickey. Anyhow, you know what my father always used to say? The law is only a point of view."


"Have you heard any more about the rest of them?"


"Still running around the Mount Hood Recreation Area in their birthday suits, living off nuts and berries, I imagine."


"What's 'birthday suits'?" asked Daisy.


"Naked," said George. "But then some people havenoshame at all."


Holly said, "I still can't work out how you found me… how you saved me."


George smoothed back his hair. "This is really tasty, this chicken. Your Marcella ought to give me the recipe."


"Go on, George. Tell me."


"I'm a little embarrassed, because this makes me sound so superstitious. But I wouldn't have found out what had happened to you if I hadn't believed in Raven."


"When you saybelieved,you meanreallybelieved?"


"I believed in that curse that Elliot Joseph cast on you too. After he did that, I made a special point of checking up on you, even following you sometimes, just to make sure that Raven wasn't close behind you."


"You really thought that Raven would come to get me?"


"In a way, he did, didn't he? He brought you plenty of bad luck. But those times I was following you, I began to notice that other people were watching you, too, and other people were checking up on your movements. That lawyer that asked me about you, I caught him talking to his friends about you later, and the way they were talking I began to think that something very strange was being set up. I didn't tell you because I didn't really have any evidence, and you were jumpy enough anyway, thinking that every black shadow you saw was Raven coming closer."


"Raven tapped at my bedroom window," said Daisy.


"Well, if he did, he was only trying to warn you. Raven only brings misery to those who are cursed, not their children."


"So what happened on Friday evening?" asked Holly.


"I was having a drink with John Singing Rock and his brother Henry after work, in the Pioneer Bar. We'd had a pretty hard day and I needed to relax. But who should I see on the other side of the bar but this young lawyer guy, and he was talking to two of his friends. He was really excited, really up. He said that Mickey Kavanagh was going to collect you from your home and drive you to Phantom Woman Falls, and that they were all going to"-he glanced at Daisy-"well, they were all going to make whoopee."


"What's whoopee?" Daisy wanted to know.


"It's fun, like having a party."


"So what's a whoopee cushion?"


"That's fun too. It's a cushion that makes a farty noise when you sit on it."


"Can you buy me one?"


"Believe me, pumpkin, from what Marcella tells me, you don't need one."


She turned back to George. "Youfollowedus? Me and Mickey?"


George nodded. "It wasn't easy, in that storm, believe me. When we got there, we looked in the window, saw what was going on, and Henry went down to the basement and killed the generator."


"You saved my life, George. You know what they would have done to me, don't you?"


"I don't think it takes too much imagination."


She leaned across and kissed his cheek. "Thank God you're deaf as well… otherwise you never would have known what those guys in the Pioneer Bar were saying."



After Daisy had been tucked into bed, they spent the rest of the evening talking by candlelight. Holly told George how Mickey had tricked her into going to Phantom Woman Falls by pretending that she was going to do a deal with Merlin Krauss.


"Didn't you see it on the news?" said George. "The highway patrol arrested Krauss just outside Klamath Falls. Yesterday morning, I think-for speeding. They say they're close to arresting the guy who was supposed to dispose of the body too. It looks like you're going to have your day of glory in court after all."


They also discussed the Joseph case. Little Daniel was improving, although he would never regain the sight of his left eye, and his speech was slurred. George had heard nothing about the Heilshorn case except that Anthony Heilshorn had mysteriously managed to break both of his legs on his second day at the North County Correctional Facility.


A Present from Ned


George had just opened another bottle of wine when the red light over the doorbell flashed. "Somebody's calling late," he said. "Do you want me to get it?"


"No, that's all right. Just pour out the wine. It's probably Marcella, forgotten something. She'll forget her head one day."


She went downstairs and opened the front door. A man in a brown coat was standing outside with a large bunch of yellow roses.


"Holly Summers?" he asked.


"That's me."


"Present from Ned," the man said. He lifted the bunch of roses and shot her in the face at point-blank range, in an explosive shower of yellow petals.





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