A Hopeless Case

by K. K. Beck

  She touched her swollen lip. “So far it’s had its downside,” she said.

  “That’s the difference between listening and actually getting in there and helping,” he said. “The difference between being a cop and a social worker. A fat lip.”

  “I don’t remember Uncle Harold ever getting a fat lip. In fact, I wish I knew exactly what the old boy was really up to all those years.”

  “You mind if I say something?” he said, not waiting for her assent. “This is a really flaky deal you’re getting into here. You’re a smart lady. There’s got to be a lot you can do without having to take on the world’s injustices. I do it because I’m stupid, and they issue me a weapon and pay me a salary. What’s your excuse?”

  “The money’s a lot better than what the taxpayers are willing to pay you,” she said. “A lot better.”

  “Yeah? So that’s it? The money?”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t do it otherwise. I don’t know. I guess Uncle Harold thought that, or he wouldn’t have made the terms so tempting. And right now, to tell you the truth, I haven’t got anything else to do.”

  “Yeah?”

  She shrugged apologetically. “I’ve been kind of drifting, I guess.”

  “You don’t look like you’ve been drifting.”

  She laughed. “You mean I don’t have all my possessions in a shopping cart?”

  “No, I mean you look like you know what you want and you know how to get it. I mean you don’t look wishy-washy. You know how some people have those kind of blank faces? A lot of people, in fact. You don’t look like that.”

  “I guess I’ve been a determined drifter,” she said. She looked over at his plate. He had practically inhaled his half of the omelet, and neatly stripped off the orange slices. “Are you still hungry?”

  “No thanks. That sure hit the spot.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Great.” He settled back in his chair. In fact, he looked as if he were hunkering in for the evening. In a way, this pleased her. There was something very large and comforting about him.

  Jane decided his wife was an idiot, nagging him about being more sensitive. Didn’t she get it? Men weren’t necessarily subtle. If they didn’t discuss their more complex emotional thoughts it was because they weren’t interested enough in subtle nuances to have any complex thoughts, or, more importantly, to listen to anybody else’s with much perception. They’d rather go down in the basement and nail shut a window to keep out bad guys.

  She made coffee and suggested they have it in the living room. She tucked her feet up underneath her on the sofa and shook her hair back. “I’m glad you came by,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been pretty skittish since I was assaulted. Little noises make me jump.”

  “Real common,” he said solemnly. “To be attacked like that, it changes your view of the world in some way. All of a sudden, it isn’t as predictable a place. But you seem to be doing great.”

  Paradoxically, these encouraging, if slightly patronizing, words made her feel helpless all of a sudden. She briefly imagined her head on his shoulder, the rough tweed of his jacket on her cheek and his fingers in her hair. She caught herself up short, but it was too late.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, in a low, confident voice, with a wave of her hand. But she knew he’d seen that helpless flicker in her eyes. Because now he was looking back at her with a kind of intense, shiny-eyed look of his own, and she saw that male protective instinct that could get all tumbled up with sex given half a chance. The older she got, the more she thought that beneath a veneer of civilization, human beings hadn’t changed much since sabertooth tigers lurked outside the cave.

  “I’d offer to stay,” he said. “Sleep on your sofa here, if I thought you were scared. But to tell you the truth, I’ve got a van parked at the corner. You’re under surveillance. It’ll be there all night.”

  “For my protection? Or are you just keeping an eye on me?”

  “Both,” he said, with a sideways smile, sipping his coffee.

  “I see.”

  “Those guys outside are going to wonder what’s happened to me,” he said, setting down his coffee cup. “I appreciate your feeding me and listening to my troubles. Like I said, you’ve probably heard it all before. Insensitive jerk husband who doesn’t understand what women want, wondering why he got dumped. Jesus.”

  She walked him to the hall. He stood in front of the door for a moment, and she touched his sleeve and gave him a level gaze. “Don’t apologize,” she said. “This man-woman stuff can be rough. Sometimes I think we fail to communicate because we’re two separate species and we only come together to mate.”

  “Yeah. Same old battle of the sexes.”

  “Thank God for the truces, though,” said Jane.

  “I’m kind of battle fatigued right now, but basically I agree with you,” he said. He gave her a slow, appreciative smile, and reached toward her face, almost touching her mouth. “Take care of that lip,” he said. “And don’t forget, I want that diary.”

  Chapter 21

  Just as Jane was leaving the house to go see Claire Westgaard, the phone rang. It was Gail English.

  “Wendy told me you came by,” she said in a voice that sounded more agitated than strained. “I’d like to see you. The police have been helpful, but there’s more I want to know. I hope you’ll come.”

  “Of course,” said Jane. “I have an appointment right now, and I don’t know how long it will take, but I’ll come right afterward. All right?”

  “Yes. Please. I don’t understand what happened to Dick, and I want to know.”

  “Of course you do,” said Jane. “Give me your address.”

  “It’s right near the Pike Place Market.” She gave directions to a downtown building of expensive condominiums.

  In the car, driving up the shady, tree-lined streets on Queen Anne Hill, Jane tried to imagine what Claire would be like. She imagined her as a grown Linda— intense and fanatical. Or perhaps she was a different sort of cultist entirely, passive and suggestible. Maybe Claire had been a friend of Linda’s. Maybe she could tell Leonora something about her mother. But if Claire was too crazy, Jane thought, it would be better that she didn’t.

  Claire lived in a gray-and-white cottage that appeared to be staggering under the weight of wisteria vines. The house and garden were surrounded by white lattice, similarly engulfed by jasmine and clematis. The effect was frivolous and cheerful.

  Claire herself, when she answered the door, proved to be a round, rosy, pretty woman with pre-Raphaelite hair in a golden cloud around her face. She was also in an advanced state of pregnancy, but Jane could tell from her full, round arms and her ample breasts that she had always been large.

  “Come in,” she said in a voice full of girlish anticipation. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

  Inside, Claire’s house looked like something from a Laura Ashley catalog, a riot of chintz print slipcovers, white baskets filled with flowers, botanical prints, ribbons and lace, and painted wicker furniture.

  Claire led her outside to a small deck surrounded by roses. They sat at a table set with teacups and a teapot in a tea-cozy of glazed floral cotton trimmed with white eyelet lace. Claire herself wore a loose Victorian-looking garment in an apricot-colored floral pattern, and reminded Jane of a comfortable, slip-covered chair. Jane admired her rounded, alabaster arms as she poured them tea, her agreeable face, and the sheer volume of her red-gold hair.

  “Bucky,” Claire announced, “is crazy about you.” She looked up at Jane for some reaction.

  “He is?” said Jane, managing a pleased but slightly puzzled air. “I’ve only met him once.”

  “I know. He told me that too. But you made quite an impression.” Claire sipped tea. “You see, Bucky is sort of an old boyfriend of mine, and I always like to keep track of old lovers. You know, make sure they’re happy? Anyway, that’s why I let him talk me into telling you about the Fellowship. I was curious about you.”

 
; Jane gazed through the french doors at the decor of the room they’d just left.

  Claire laughed. “My decorator hates it,” she said. “But I just tell her, look, if you want me to get someone else to order all this stuff and arrange for everything and take the commission, I will. I know what I like.”

  “I think it’s fabulous,” said Jane. “I mean, if you’re going to go chintz and flowers and white wicker, why not push it to the limits. You don’t want to be skimpy with this kind of country stuff. It should look rampant and abundant. Like perennial borders.”

  “Exactly,” said Claire. “If I was going to go minimalist, I’d go really minimalist. Just a white wall and a stainless steel coffee table and one thistle in a vase or something.”

  “Nobody could call this minimalist,” said Jane, who thought living here would be slightly claustrophobic, but that it was a nice place to visit. It smelled of roses.

  “You’re not like I imagined you,” said Claire.

  Curious to know what Bucky had to say about her, Jane said, “What did you expect?”

  “Bucky didn’t say you were skinny,” said Claire. “But, if you don’t mind my getting personal, I’m not surprised you have a chest. Bucky’s crazy about tits.”

  Jane laughed. She had never thought of herself as skinny, but realized this was a relative term.

  “They’re real, aren’t they?” Claire persisted. Then, as if shocked at her own impertinence, she added jokingly, “I hate it when thin, flat-chested women get implants. If they’re going to be fashionably scrawny, they shouldn’t be able to add on the benefits God intended for us full-figured gals.”

  “They’re real,” said Jane, who found it astonishly easy to slip into intimacy with Claire. “They’re the old-fashioned kind that sort of flop to the sides when you’re on your back.”

  “Believe me, I know,” said Claire.

  “You’re not going to tell Bucky that, are you?” said Jane, suddenly alarmed.

  “Oh, of course not,” said Claire, looking deadly serious. Jane wasn’t sure she believed her.

  Jane felt that an afternoon discussing decorating and cosmetic surgery with Claire might be a lot of fun, but she supposed she’d better get to the matter at hand. “Bucky tells me you were a member of the Fellowship of the Flame.”

  “It’s so embarrassing, really,” she said. “But I was very young.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Jane.

  “Well, it was all about getting your flames glowing at the right rate. Proper balance. You were supposed to get proper balance.”

  “What did you do, exactly?”

  “Mostly we chanted and listened to the Flamemaster. The deal was we were always on the chilly side, and he felt our flames needed to be higher. So we’d have these kind of orgiastic dances in the middle of the night. The whole thing was basically party time, with some lectures thrown in. And of course we all thought the Flamemaster was just fabulous, so spiritually in tune, so wise. He could look right into our souls and see just how our little flames were doing.” She waggled her fingers in the air to represent flames.

  “Definitely the charismatic type, then?”

  “Oh, definitely. It’s hard to figure it out. I mean, he isn’t that attractive or anything. Kind of a wimpy-looking guy with thinning hair. But glowing eyes and a great voice.” Claire looked thoughtful. “Voices are really important, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jane.

  “I mean, could you be attracted to a man with a horrible voice?”

  Jane thought for a minute. “No,” she said. “I don’t believe I could.”

  Claire entwined her fingers in a nearby bit of jasmine. “Before I came to my senses and met and married my nice husband, I hung out with a lot of unsuitable guys. I specialized in screwed-up types. Borderline alcoholics, manics, that kind of thing. You know. I thought everyone else was boring.”

  “I know,” said Jane, sighing. “Slightly crazy guys, or starving artists and musicians, or guys in dangerous professions. Why do we do it?”

  “So we can enjoy the benefits of craziness without being crazy ourselves?” mused Claire.

  “I think you’re on to something,” said Jane. “Seems unfair to all those other nice, responsible men.”

  “You’re assuming they want some thrill-crazed woman around,” said Claire. “Anyway, I finally came to my senses. As far as the Flamemaster goes, physically anyway, it was his voice that got us, I guess. All the girls, anyway. I think the guys were only there to pick over the girls after the Flamemaster had his fill.”

  “You mean he was—”

  “We were all fucking him,” Claire said matter-of-factly. “What do you expect when you get a guy who tells everyone he’s God and put him together with a lot of stupid young girls? Anyway, it didn’t seem like such a big deal back then because everyone was fucking everyone all the time anyway.” She paused. “He was a pretty boring lay, to tell you the truth, but he always made you feel that it was some kind of a religious rite or something, and that if you were bored it was because you weren’t spiritually in tune.

  “We’d all be dancing around, tearing off our clothes and drinking cheap wine, and he’d kind of flit around and choose someone and slip into his room with them. It smelled of incense in there and there were a lot of draperies and things, and a big waterbed. Sort of a low-budget Hugh Hefner scene. He really got off on two girls at a time.” Claire laughed.

  “Do you remember Linda Donnelly?”

  Claire scrunched up her face in concentration. “No, but I’m no good at names.”

  Jane took a photograph of Linda from her purse and slid it across the table.

  “Oh, yes. I do remember her. Linda, huh?”

  She stared at the picture, a plump hand sliding absentmindedly over the melonlike bulge of her pregnancy. Claire looked like a fabulous piece of ripe fruit, thought Jane.

  “She was pregnant when she first came to the group. The Flamemaster was too conventional to want to nail her—in that state anyway—so I think she was kind of ignored.”

  “Linda had that problem a lot, I think,” said Jane.

  “She was kind of sullen, but very intense. A little scary.” Claire looked up. “What happened to her? Let me guess. She’s running her own cult now.”

  “She died. She was drowned. They thought it was an accident, but it was rather mysterious.”

  “How awful.” Claire’s forehead puckered up. “What happened to her baby? It was a girl I remember. She brought it around once. To be baptized by fire.”

  “Her father raised it. Linda had a husband. What was the baptism by fire like?” It sounded alarming.

  “It was sort of a fire ceremony. We just passed the baby around and chanted some stuff about flames. The Flamemaster made it all up as he went along, I’m sure.”

  Jane made a mental note not to tell Leonora about the baptismal ritual. Too Rosemary’s Baby.

  “Anyway,” continued Claire, “we never saw the baby much after that. And then I guess this Linda dropped out. We didn’t see her around anymore.”

  “Did anyone talk about her?”

  “For a while the Flamemaster was real down on her. That was how it worked. A sort of personality thing. You spent all your time deciding whose flame was balanced. The Flamemaster would drop these little hints and pretty soon people would be down on you and kind of freeze you out. If there was anyone he couldn’t control, he’d start the whispering campaign. He’d act really sorry, like he wanted them to get it right but they just weren’t cooperating. Linda was ‘willful’ he said. ‘Willful’ meant you wouldn’t go with his program.”

  “Did she have a friend there named Robin? Apparently there was a kind of buddy sytem.”

  “It wasn’t that organized, but the Flamemaster would sometimes assign us to spy on each other. You know, ‘Keep an eye on so-and-so. I’m worried about her levels.’ That kind of thing. Like we were supposed to be thermometers or something.”

  Claire co
ncentrated for a moment. “There might have been a Robin,” she said after a while, “but I don’t remember one. Like I said, I’m not good at names.”

  “Linda apparently gave them some money. An inheritance. Did anyone say anything about it?”

  “Really? I never heard about that. Of course, we were all supposed to turn over everything, so I’m sure she did. In fact, I do remember we were all supposed to visualize generosity for Linda. The Flamemaster said her flames were blocked because she was holding back. Of course he said that about a lot of us.

  “You’d worry that everyone would freeze you out if you didn’t. And of course, the more you had to give, the more you were appreciated. After I gave them my farm, I was the Queen of Sheba around there. My flame was perfect as soon as I signed the papers.” Claire seemed amused at her youthful self. Jane would have thought she would still be resentful.

  “At first we were supposed to all get jobs, but we were up all night chanting, and people kept calling in sick and getting fired. And then people would talk about all this flame stuff at work and scare the hell out of their coworkers and end up getting fired.

  “For a while he sent us out to panhandle, and then he wanted us to run a business. Finally, he said he’d received a vision that we were to move to the country and live off the land.

  “So I gave him the farm and we all moved over to Vashon and the Flamemaster was nice as pie to me. I was the anointed one, sort of his chief consort. That’s what made me realize how stupid it all was. And it was pretty boring over on the island. We had to do a lot of manual labor, getting the place fixed up. People started drifting away after that.”

  Jane forgot momentarily about Linda. “What did you do then?” she said.

  Claire laughed. “Well, it had turned into the seventies, and I’d been fooling around like a stupid hippie worrying about my flame levels and cooking dinner for a hundred people at a time in a leaky old farmhouse. I came back to town and found out everyone else was making money, so I got my real estate license. I was selling all this property and doing okay, but I got really mad I’d given away that farm. I met Bucky at some stupid networking cocktail party and we had a little fling there for a while—he was the first not totally whacked-out guy I had a relationship with as I made my re-entry into normal life—and I told him about it and he got a nice settlement out of the Flamemaster. So I had my down for an apartment building.”