A Hopeless Case

by K. K. Beck

  “Hi. It’s Calvin. Yeah. Remember the woman I told you about? The one who wants to find out about the Fellowship?” He paused. “Just relax, will you? She’s here now. Would you mind speaking to her?” He paused again. “Come on now, aren’t you being just a little paranoid?”

  He held his hand over the receiver for a moment. “Wonders if you aren’t one of them.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me speak to him,” said Jane, walking over to the desk and taking the receiver.

  “This is Jane da Silva,” she said in businesslike tones. “I understand your need for, er, privacy, but I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay. But I might not answer them,” said a frightened voice.

  “That’s fair enough,” said Jane. “I just wondered if you knew a Linda Donnelly. She drowned sixteen years ago. She was part of the Fellowship.” She couldn’t bear to add “of the Flame.” It sounded so corny.

  “There was a girl who drowned. I vaguely remember that,” said the voice. “But I don’t remember her name.”

  “Do you remember what she looked like?”

  “I think she had dark hair. That’s all I remember. Why do you want to know about this?”

  “I’m looking into her past for a member of her family,” said Jane. “She gave a lot of money to the group at one time, I believe.”

  The man gave an audible sniff. “I can believe that,” he said. “We all did. They told us if we didn’t turn over everything our flames would go out. We’d die a cold, quick death.”

  “Who said that?” said Jane, excited. Threat of death. It sounded like fraud, or maybe even extortion.

  “The Flamemaster, of course.” The voice was less fearful. Now it was a little snippy.

  “Yes, naturally.”

  “As a matter of fact, that’s why I remember the girl who drowned. He said she wasn’t generous enough. She was holding back. He said that’s why she’d died.”

  “Do you suspect—” she began. But he interrupted her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. These are dangerous people.” She was afraid he was going to hang up.

  “Wait,” she said. “You talk as if they’re still around.”

  “Oh, they’re around all right,” he said, rather bitterly.

  “You mean you think that the group still exists.”

  “In a different form, perhaps. But they’re around. Doing the same old mind trips on people.”

  “Who was the Flamemaster?” she said.

  “Uh-uh. I’m not going to answer that one,” he said. “Listen, I don’t know who you are. Calvin says you’re okay. So take some advice. Don’t mess with these people. If you do, protect yourself somehow. That’s all.”

  He hung up.

  Jane replaced the receiver and stared at Calvin Mason.

  “He’s really frightened,” she said. “He acts like these people are still around.”

  “Yeah, well, he is kind of a rabbity little guy.”

  “He practically accused them of murdering Linda.”

  “That’s good news,” said Calvin. “There’s no statute on murder. Not that that means you could get Leonora’s money back.”

  “I wonder if Uncle Harold really wanted me to tangle with thugs?” Suddenly she felt indignant. The way this guy talked, she could get killed. And it would be Uncle Harold’s fault. She felt as if Uncle Harold had planned to manipulate her from beyond the grave, but had somehow screwed up and got her into a dangerous mess. Why couldn’t he have either left her his money, or cut her off entirely? Instead she was operating in a scary, gray area.

  “Look, Jane, take my advice. If you track these people down, be prepared to back yourself up with some muscle.”

  “You mean like a bodyguard?”

  “Well, they did have guns, they did push my guy around, and now you’re saying they might have killed someone.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said.

  “I’d be glad to help,” he said. “Same rates as investigative work.” He pointed to his swollen face. “See? I’m fearless.”

  Jane smiled back. “No offense, Calvin, but if your knuckles looked like your face,” she said, “I’d take you up on it.”

  Chapter 14

  The Fellowship of the Flame! You’re kidding.” Bucky’s voice sounded pleased and amused. “I’ve had some dealings with them myself.”

  Bucky had called her to ask—in a rather patronizing but eager way, Jane thought—how she was doing.

  She figured she’d better tell him something that indicated she was being industrious, so she told him very briefly that she was checking into an old injustice perpetrated by the group.

  “The Fellowship of the Flame,” he repeated with a knowing snicker.

  “Don’t tell me you were the Flamemaster,” she said. She imagined Bucky for a minute in an asbestos jumpsuit— the shiny silvery material of ironing board covers.

  “Wasn’t a bad gig,” said Bucky. “That guy raked in plenty.”

  “Tell me all you know about them,” said Jane.

  “Hmm. I really shouldn’t. It has to do with a privileged matter.”

  Jane knew she had him. If he’d been a correct, discreet sort of lawyer, he wouldn’t have volunteered that he knew about the Fellowship at all, and he certainly wouldn’t have bandied about that it was a privileged matter. He was clearly dangling the bait in front of her. She thought she’d better bite.

  “Just a little general background would be immensely helpful,” she said. After a pause she added, with just a hint of a tremble to her voice, “I’d be so grateful. This isn’t easy, you know, and I’m all by myself.” She stopped herself before she added, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” in a Blanche DuBois accent.

  “Well,” said Bucky, now obviously very pleased, “maybe we can do a little something for you. Let me make a phone call and get back to you. Or better yet, maybe we can talk about it over dinner.”

  “Dinner would be lovely,” said Jane, trying to sound sincere but not too enthusiastic. “But I wish you’d call me with the information right away. If you get any, that is. Time is really of the essence here.”

  “All right,” said Bucky. “That way dinner can be strictly social.”

  “Umm, yes,” she said. Bucky was a transparent jerk, but he was reasonably amusing, and she had been feeling socially deprived. In a new town, you had to start somewhere. Besides, he had a pipeline to the trustees—those querulous old men who were standing between her and her money. The specter of his hand on her knee in a dark restaurant, followed by a tussle at her doorstep, flitted briefly into her consciousness, but if anything like that came up, she imagined Bucky wouldn’t be too hard to handle.

  She checked her watch. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment.”

  “Mrs. da Silva, on the case,” said Bucky. “Righter of wrongs and bringer of hope.”

  He really was irritating. It was easy for him to laugh. He didn’t have a lot of cantankerous old men to answer to.

  “Or are you going off on some more mundane errand? Maybe aerobics or just to buy Drano or something. What is your life like?”

  “I really have to go,” she said. “I’m checking out someone on Capitol Hill who runs a special effects business.” Why was she bothering to tell Bucky? She supposed she wanted him to know how hard she was working so he’d tell his ridiculous uncle. There was something so undignified about the whole procedure. It was rather like a perpetual job interview.

  • • •

  Richard English’s studio was at the base of First Hill, an older neighborhood that had so far defied complete gentrification and persisted in remaining a jumble of businesses, small groceries and restaurants, tough-looking taverns, chic apartment buildings from the twenties, and a few tumbling-down old houses covered with asphalt siding and morning glory vines.

  She pulled up in front of an old brick building on Pine Street that looked as if it might once have been a li
very stable. There were no windows, except for a row of small painted-over panes up high, about ten feet from the ground. The small door was painted blue with white numbers and letters. RICHARD ENGLISH PRODUCTIONS. PARK OFF OF ALLEY IN BACK.

  But she didn’t have to. There was a meter right in front. She didn’t even have to feed it, as it was after six. It began to rain a little, and she smiled, recognizing the Seattle smell of wet summertime pavement from her childhood, a smell of dust turned into something sharper by raindrops.

  Inside, there was a small reception area. There was no one there. She called out “hello” and walked back through a door that led farther into the building. A short passageway led to a vast room, dimly lit from above. She looked up to see a grid of metal bristling with lights. Ahead of her, one long wall was painted bright blue. Another wall was stacked with giant paintings; they seemed to be realistic but rather lurid landscapes.

  There was an eerie stillness here, but a palpable presence, too. Nervously she glanced into a corner where a clutch of five-foot-tall masks stared back at her. She gave a little start, then forced herself to look at the garish faces, wide eyes with Disneyesque lashes, grinning red lips.

  Straight ahead, there was a table that seemed to be dominated by a crumpled mass of cloth. She stepped toward it and got the impression of a bundle of old clothes.

  Just then, the lights went out. Instinctively, she stepped aside quietly, hoping her eyes would adjust to the dark. They didn’t. The place was apparently sealed against any outside light. She remembered the small row of windowpanes she’d seen from the street. They had been painted over.

  She moved three steps over and two back. Then she heard someone else’s steps coming toward her. Small, neat, careful steps. She moved back once more, as quietly as she could, on the balls of her feet.

  She started to speak. “Mr. English?” she was going to say. But she stopped. Why the silence? It was unnatural. Something told her she shouldn’t let whoever it was know exactly where she was. She stepped a few steps to the side. The pattern of those other feet made the same number of steps. It was as if they were moving blindly around a chess board.

  If only she could get around and back to the entrance. She was being stalked, she knew that now. Knew it from the silence and from the way those steps moved toward her, a few at a time. She fell to her knees and crawled backward to where she thought that long table was. If she could get around in back of it and then skirt along the side of the room, she could negotiate her way to the door and back to the reception area. Then what?

  She’d have to decide that when she got there. She had no choice now but to find a way out, and the way in was the only way out she knew.

  Her heart was pounding. She was sure the other person could hear it. She wanted to gasp, to cry out, but she tried to keep her breathing shallow and silent. She thought about leaving her purse on the floor, then remembered she’d need her car keys. She wrapped the strap over her shoulder, crossing her chest, and began once again to crawl on her hands and knees. It was a much quieter way to get around.

  She hoped she was heading toward the table. The other person had stopped. She hadn’t heard footsteps for a few seconds, although who knew how long she’d been there. The complete absence of light made it seem as if she were in another dimension entirely. She felt with one arm for the table leg. Nothing. And then she heard the steps again, nearer this time. She felt the air above her move as if an arm had passed over her back. If she’d been standing, that arm would have found her.

  She stayed as still as she could, squeezing her eyes shut like a child does when it’s afraid of the dark, as if it can shut out the monsters. She heard breathing now, a nervous breathing, like hers, and she sidled away from the source of the sound.

  She made circles in front of her with her palms, looking for obstacles, hoping to find the legs of the table. When she finally touched metal, she groped it gingerly. She heard a crash from about three feet away, but no human sound. She guessed that one of the lights she’d seen on tripods had crashed over. She tried to pinpoint the direction of the sound and stay away from there.

  Her hand crept up the metal she’d discovered. It felt like a tubular steel table leg. She hunched closer to it. Slowly, she raised one hand above her head, palm up. It touched cool wood. She was under the table.

  Still trying not to breathe, she sat, encircling her knees with her arms and pulling them toward her chest, as if to stifle the pounding of her heart.

  She willed herself to think despite the fear. She had managed to get a basic orientation before the lights went out. This table was parallel to the blue wall; the door was opposite and on her right. But she wasn’t sure which direction she was facing.

  She heard the breathing again and pulled herself further back. Then she felt the table above her bump and heard a grunt. Someone had walked into the table. She crept back and thought for a minute about getting up on the table itself. They’d never think to look there. If they bumped into the table again, they’d veer off.

  She crept back and to one side until she brushed the table leg again. Then she slid out, and, still on her knees, felt above her for the rim of the table. She wrapped both hands around it and pulled herself up so she was on her feet again. Then she felt with her knee for the top of the table. She pushed herself up and climbed so both knees were on the table, and, that done, she fell forward on her hands.

  Then she felt it. The crumpled mass of cloth. It wasn’t a bundle of clothes at all. It was a body. It was still warm, but she knew, even in the blackness, that it was a dead body. It was completely inert.

  She screamed and tried to roll back off. A second later, she felt a man’s arm around her waist, felt his breath in her face, and, still screaming, felt herself being shaken from side to side.

  “Stop it!” she shouted, but he didn’t answer. He just kept shaking her until her neck snapped and her eyes rolled around. “Who are you?” she screamed, and he was still silent and still shaking her. She was frightened at the sound of her own screaming. She heard herself shout hysterically, “It’s dark,” and then she couldn’t scream anymore.

  He had his thumbs together on her windpipe and then he slammed her head down on the concrete floor. She heard a sound in her head that had to be her skull cracking, and she couldn’t breathe. Her head felt as if it would burst from within and without. “Please, God,” she said inside her head, and then she could breathe a little. He’d loosened his grip on her throat.

  Then, she felt a blow across her face. It was surprising and horrifying, because she couldn’t see it coming, so the blow just exploded across her face. She went limp, and instead of struggling, pretended to lose consciousness. It wasn’t hard to pretend. She felt herself slipping away.

  Her arms were splayed out on either side of her, and she felt a gloved hand run along the length of her right arm, as if it were looking for something. The hand stopped when it reached her wrist. He was feeling for her pulse. Yes, there’s a pulse there, she thought. I’m still alive. It was her last thought before the blackness.

  Chapter 15

  Her eyes were open now. She didn’t remember whether or not they had ever actually closed, and she didn’t remember opening them, but here she lay, staring up at a ceiling full of gridwork with lights clamped onto it at intervals. None of those lights was on, but she could see now.

  Her head pulsed and her throat was sore where those thumbs had pushed into it. Her body felt the cold damp of concrete through her clothes. She tried, with difficulty, to sit up, finally settling for being able to turn her head to one side to get her bearings.

  The door from the studio to the office was open. He must have left that way. There was a strip of light between the door and the frame, enough to vaguely illuminate the room. She saw the shapes of the horrible masks, the outline of the klieg light that had crashed to the floor. Slowly, she remembered the details of how she had come to be here.

  She seemed to be alone now. Her face contorted wit
h pain, she managed to lift her head off the floor and pull her body up into a sitting position. She propped herself up on one elbow and felt her face with the tips of her fingers. She felt blood. Cool and tacky. She’d been here a while.

  She twisted her torso and looked over in the direction of the table. That shape she’d seen as a mound of clothing and later felt as a dead body was still there. She managed to roll over onto her hands and knees. She stayed like that, wobbling, for a second, then struggled to push herself up.

  With the feeling coming back a little more at every step, she made her way over to the table. The body was covered with a large piece of black velvet. She lifted one corner of it and looked into a dead man’s face.

  It was pale and bloodless, and his lips were pulled back so his teeth and gums showed. His eyes, blue-green, looked like milky glass. He wore a brown suede bomber jacket over a striped Oxford cloth shirt and jeans. There was a huge, dark stain on the shoulder of the jacket.

  Without touching him, and still holding the corner of the black velvet in the tips of her fingers, she circled around and looked at his head from the end of the table. There was a lot of blood in his sandy hair; in fact, his head seemed to be lying in a thick patch of it. He must have been struck from behind, and the blood had run down over his shoulders.

  Jane thought it was certain that whoever had hit him had also hit her.

  She dropped the corner of the cloth, watching with relief as it covered him again. Then she stepped back and felt something squishy underfoot. She backtracked a little more and bent down to look at it. It was a cartoonish dinosaur, and it was holding a miniature pizza with a perfect little circle of blood on it. The dinosaur was smiling.

  She realized she had better call the police.

  When she got out of the studio area, into the front office, she heard birds singing. It was dawn. Through the window, she saw a rosy gray patch of sky, illuminating a pale, deserted street. The phone had an alarming array of buttons, and for a moment, after all she had been through, it seemed too much to have to figure out how to get an outside line. She began to cry. Snuffling a little, she pushed down the top button, then dialed 911. It worked.