A Hopeless Case

by K. K. Beck

  Eventually she would. She’d tell him absolutely everything. Twenty-four hours from now.

  Chapter 28

  When Jane went to pick up Leonora the next morning to take her over to her half aunt’s house in Issaquah, Bob Manalatu was sitting in the living room, looking very much at home, watching a daytime game show with Kenny. The two men were drinking coffee.

  “Do you really think we need him?” said Leonora in a whisper at the door.

  “Just for a short while,” said Jane. “I’m working on a deal with the Fellowship of the Flame, and I gave them twenty-four hours to think it over.”

  Leonora looked worried. “All right. I mean he’s nice enough but I don’t know how long I can go on feeding him.” She went out of the room and Kenny got up, but Bob kept watching TV after giving Jane a friendly nod.

  “Just what’s going on?” said Kenny. “What kind of trouble are you expecting?”

  “With Bob on the job, none,” she said. “I found the head of the Fellowship of the Flame and I’ve asked him for Linda’s money back. He’s thinking it over. It’s just that the Flamemaster tries to sound threatening once in a while. I thought it would be wise to have Bob around, just in case. They’ve already seen him in action.”

  “Wow. You really got into this, didn’t you?” said Kenny. “I feel like I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “It’s better that you don’t,” said Jane. “And it’s not for too much longer.”

  “So how much did you ask for?”

  “A quarter of a million. That ought to get Leonora through school.”

  “Well, if it’s Linda’s money it’s really mine, now, isn’t it?” said Kenny. “I mean of course we’d use it for Leonora’s education and all that. But I’ve got some old debts to clear up myself.”

  “Let’s not worry about that until we get the money,” said Jane. Privately, she decided she’d make sure Leonora got the money, not her father. It was stupid of her not to have foreseen that Kenny would want some. Jane sighed. Leonora was a minor. She’d have to have it put in trust or something. She’d figure it out when and if she got the money.

  If seemed a big if to her right now. She’d had time to think about the previous day’s events. Wayne hadn’t seemed particularly eager to hand over any funds. He acted as if he could talk his way out of any embarrassment. But if he was a killer, how could he be so cool? Either he was very stupid and believed in his own invincibility, or he had convinced himself in some mad way that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Well, the police would decide all that. Jane hoped to turn everything she knew over to them as soon as Leonora got her check. For now, she didn’t want Leonora to feel any strain. Whatever happened, it was probably a good thing that Leonora was going to meet her family.

  Leonora was dressed tough, in jeans, a black cotton top, and a beat-up gray jacket. Around her neck was an olive drab scarf with black blotches on it, which gave her street urchin punk look a dash of real chic. Jane guessed Leonora had dressed tough because she didn’t feel tough. She was braced for the kind of rejection her mother had never handled very well.

  “Nervous?” she said with a smile.

  “For sure,” said Leonora, looking suddenly very young and sweet.

  Jane put an arm around her. “It’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” said Bob, his bulk rising from the sofa.

  “Issaquah. But you can stay here.”

  “You said I was supposed to keep an eye on Leonora here until that guy’s twenty-four hours are up,” said Bob. He looked at his watch. The strap looked like a belt. “We got about five hours to go.”

  “Okay. Come on,” said Jane, and they all went out and got in her car, Bob squeezing himself into the back.

  As they were driving on the floating bridge across Lake Washington over to the Eastside, Leonora said, “When you found them, the Flame people, did they remember my mom?”

  “Yes,” said Jane.

  “What did they say about her?”

  “He, not they. I talked to the man who used to call himself the Flamemaster. He didn’t say very much. I don’t think he knew very much about her. He was only interested in her money.”

  “I guess no one cared about her. No one cared enough to remember her and tell me about her. Even Dad wouldn’t.”

  “Maybe Susan Gilman will tell you about her,” said Jane.

  “If she doesn’t like me that’s okay,” said Leonora defiantly. “She should have found me a long time ago, but she didn’t bother, so if she doesn’t like me now, I don’t care.”

  “I hope you’ll give her a chance,” said Jane. “She was just a kid when your mother died.” There really wasn’t much point trying to convince her. It would be up to Leonora.

  “I don’t like their house,” said Leonora as they pulled up to the driveway. “Too plastic.”

  “This was sort of like the neighborhood your mother grew up in,” said Jane, wondering if Mrs. Donnelly would ever be in contact with her granddaughter Leonora. She knew one thing. Anyone who was kind to a child, generally got its affection for life. Anyone who rejected a child could forget about ingratiating herself later, no matter how hard she tried. It was that simple.

  “Really,” said Jane, “Susan’s not that much older than you are. Just a few years.”

  “I’ll wait out here,” said Bob as they got out of the car. Jane was glad of that. She already felt awkward, herself, going along. The monolithic Bob’s presence would be even more unsettling.

  If the visit went well, Jane decided, she’d find an errand to do so Susan and Leonora could spend some time together. In fact, there was something she could do over here on the Eastside. A little niggling question had come up last night, when she’d lain in bed, going over everything, looking for lies. After all, it had to be in the lies that she’d find the truth.

  Susan started off on the right foot. She handed baby Camille over to her cousin immediately, and Leonora turned out to be like most young girls: she loved babies. The two of them sat there and admired the infant, who gurgled and smiled and sucked on her fist. Then Susan said, “I only saw you once, but you were a beautiful baby. It was seeing you that made me know how wonderful babies were.”

  “Do I look like I did when I was a baby?” said Leonora expectantly.

  “Yes. You do. You were a nice calm baby, with a smooth forehead. Smart-looking. Jane says you’re smart and musical.”

  Susan tilted her head. “I think you look a lot like Linda. Want to see some pictures? I got them all out for you.”

  “Sure,” said Leonora, swinging her legs like a gamine and looking pleased.

  While Susan went to get the family albums, Jane leaned over to Leonora. “How about if I pick you up in about an hour? Give you some time alone?”

  “Okay,” said Leonora, looking momentarily frightened but eager. “Susan’s all right, I guess. Isn’t the baby darling?”

  Jane patted her hand. “See? You didn’t need me.”

  Leonora smiled a lopsided smile.

  Outside, Jane told Bob she was going over to Bellevue. “No big deal, it’s just a chance to leave them alone and follow up on something I don’t understand,” she said.

  “You want me to stay here, keep an eye on the girl?”

  “No one followed us here, did they?” said Jane.

  “Not that I could see.”

  Jane bit her lip. She was half tempted to ask Bob along just because when she took the car he wouldn’t have a place to sit. But then she noticed a cast-iron lawn bench on the front porch. It should hold him.

  “No, I’ll be back in an hour at the most. Why don’t you sit on the porch.”

  Bob shrugged. “No problem,” he said, rolling across the lawn like a tank. He was actually rather graceful, and Jane was getting used to the sheer mass of him.

  She had a little trouble finding Dr. Hawthorne’s Bellevue office. She was approaching it from the east this time, and it threw off he
r sense of direction. But finally she recognized the milky gray building and the Japanese landscaping.

  Dr. Hawthorne’s waiting room was empty. The receptionist was clacking quietly on a computer keyboard and listening to a classical music station.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have an appointment,” said Jane. “But I was wondering if I could see Dr. Hawthorne. My name is Jane da Silva. It will only take a few moments.”

  The woman’s face showed no emotion. Probably very useful when dealing with unhappy people, thought Jane. “He’s with a patient now,” she said, checking her watch. “It will be another seventeen minutes.” Jane imagined the punctual Dr. Hawthorne throwing out a patient in mid-sob.

  “I’d like to wait, if you don’t mind,” said Jane.

  “All right. But I don’t know if he can see you.” She checked an open black appointment book. “He’s going to lunch with Mrs. Hawthorne.”

  The chippie he’d hooked up with while throwing over the psychologically deficient first Mrs. Hawthorne, thought Jane.

  “Well, I’ll see if he has a minute or two,” she said, confident the woman wouldn’t throw her out. She went over to one of the sofas and leafed through a magazine. She wasn’t concentrating, though, and glanced up at the pre-Columbian artifacts. Today, their faces looked as blank as the receptionist’s.

  Precisely seventeen minutes later, she heard a door close and the sound of muffled voices. Presumably a patient had slunk out the back, according to psychiatric custom. Jane hopped up, but the receptionist got into Hawthorne’s office first.

  “By all means,” she overheard him say. “Send her in.”

  He stood to greet her, shook her hand, looked at her searchingly with his keen blue eyes. “I wondered how you were doing,” he said. “Still searching for Linda?” He shook his head just a fraction, as if to say her preoccupation was somehow mentally unhealthy.

  “In a way,” she said. He was managing to intimidate her, and make her feel foolish.

  “I got your phone message,” he said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. If the name you’d mentioned had rung a bell, I would have. What was it again?”

  “Robin.”

  “Robin. No. I can’t recall anything about a Robin. Male or female?”

  “Female.”

  “Sorry I can’t help you. Who was this person?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Jane. “I’ve spoken to her, though.”

  “So you’ve found her. Well, that’s good.” He smiled benevolently. Jane felt more comfortable again, as if his approval mattered.

  “There’s someone else I should have asked you about,” she said. “Richard English.”

  He tilted his head back and placed his forefinger beneath his lower lip. “Now that name sounds a little more familiar,” he said, “but I’m not sure why.”

  Jane had a sudden inspiration. “Did you ever do groups? Back when you were seeing Linda. He may have been a patient.”

  “No. I don’t do groups,” he said with a condescending smile, as if they were somehow a little tacky. “And I don’t think he was a patient.”

  “You may have seen his name in the paper then,” said Jane. “He was killed on Capitol Hill in his studio. Murdered.”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” the doctor said, singularly unimpressed by the English murder, she thought. He frowned to concentrate. “Maybe I heard something on the news. Richard English. Hmm.”

  They were silent for a moment, and then he said: “Are you any more clear now as to why you are conducting this search into the past? I think you should understand your motivation, Mrs. da Silva.”

  Her brows rose a little. Conversation with Dr. Hawthorne had such a leaden quality, as if every remark were of deep psychological significance.

  “I’m speaking as a human being, not as a therapist,” he added gently.

  “I didn’t realize they were mutually exclusive,” said Jane, smiling.

  Dr. Hawthorne was not amused, but managed to produce a frosty little smile in return. “Well,” he said with an air of finality, “were those the questions you were going to ask me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just one thing. You told me that Linda never remembered her dreams. Yet she left behind a book, a notebook, full of dreams. Very vivid dreams. This has been puzzling me.”

  Dr. Hawthorne’s eyes narrowed a little and he looked thoughtful. He was silent, so Jane waited him out. Finally he said, “Perhaps they weren’t dreams at all. Perhaps she was simply making them up. It would fit with her personality.”

  “But why wouldn’t she make them up for you then?” said Jane. “Little Catholic children routinely make up transgressions for confession. Why would Linda write her dreams down and not try to impress you with them?”

  He shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

  After another pause, Jane rose. “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.” Dr. Hawthorne glided out from behind his desk, guided her by the elbow to the door, and opened it. “Leave your address and phone number with my receptionist,” he said. “If anything comes to me I’ll get in touch with you.”

  Outside, Jane saw a fortyish blonde with a salon tan, leaning on the reception desk flipping through the Yellow Pages. She was clearly not a patient, the way she made herself comfortable here in the office. This must be the second Mrs. Hawthorne, Jane thought, looking at her curiously. She was wearing a white silk blouse and a short black leather skirt with high heels. The outfit was a little young for her. She was thickening around the waist and hips, but her legs were still good. She’d probably worn short skirts like that twenty years ago, and was glad they’d come back again.

  “I can’t imagine how you forgot to make the reservation,” she said to the receptionist irritably. Jane didn’t recognize the voice at first. Not until she saw the black mole hovering right below the hemline at the back of Mrs. Hawthorne’s thigh, exposed because she was leaning over the counter. And then Jane knew.

  She walked up to the blonde, who eyed her out of the corner of her eye, slightly annoyed, as she ran a finger down the page of the phone book.

  “You’re Robin, aren’t you?” she said pleasantly.

  Mrs. Hawthorne spun around. Her eyes grew very wide and she didn’t speak. She looked frightened.

  Jane smiled. “I guess you are,” she said. Mrs. Hawthorne just kept staring at her. Jane’s face suddenly crumpled with anger; to her own amazement, she drew back her hand and slapped the blonde hard against the side of her face. “You bitch,” she heard herself say.

  Chapter 29

  Mrs. Hawthorne let out a little cry and tears sprang into her eyes. The receptionist, Jane, and Robin stood in a silent tableau for a second until Dr. Hawthorne emerged.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded in an agitated voice.

  “Nothing,” Jane said. “I’m leaving.”

  “This woman struck Mrs. Hawthorne,” said the receptionist. “She called her Robin.”

  Dr. Hawthorne grabbed Jane by the shoulders and, although she resisted, he managed to drag her back into his office. His wife followed.

  “Let me go,” shouted Jane.

  “This woman is assaultive and dangerous.” Dr. Hawthorne yelled over his shoulder to the receptionist. “I’ll have to sedate her.”

  “Let go of me!” Jane shouted in as imperious a voice as she could muster.

  Dr. Hawthorne drowned her out. “Be quiet!” he ordered, wrestling with her and kicking the door shut. “Help me, goddammit,” he barked at his wife.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said.

  “Help me hold her while I prepare an injection.”

  Jane thrashed around in his grip and managed to escape his grasp. With both hands free for a moment, she grabbed at one of his thumbs and pulled it back as far as she could.

  His face winced with pain.

  “I’m sorry I slapped your wife,” said Jane, still hanging on to the
thumb.

  “Jesus, she’s pulling off my thumb,” said Hawthorne.

  “She called me Robin,” said his wife, horror in her voice. “Is it Jane da Silva?”

  Hawthorne began to kick. His foot connected hard with her shin, and Jane’s hands fell away from his thumb. His face was red now, and his gray hair hung over his forehead.

  “This is stupid,” said Jane, panting a little and stepping back.

  “Hold on to her while I get the syringe,” shouted Hawthorne. Suddenly, he was behind his desk, rummaging in a drawer.

  “Stick me with a needle, and you’ll have a malpractice suit on your hands,” said Jane. Mrs. Hawthorne came toward her, hands fluttering at her sides. Jane knew she didn’t have the will to grab her.

  “Damn it, don’t touch me,” Jane said to the woman. “Don’t even think about it.” She smoothed back her hair. “I’m leaving now, okay? There’s no point getting into a fight like a bunch of kids.”

  “What’ll we do?” Mrs. Hawthorne asked her husband plaintively.

  “We have to stop her,” he said, inverting a bottle over a needle. “We’ll have to get her out of here.”

  “Your receptionist saw me,” said Jane.

  “Yes, she saw you assault my wife. You’re clearly psychotic.”

  “But what can we do?” said his wife again.

  “What do you mean, what can we do,” he snapped, easing the plunger of the syringe downward. “We have to get rid of her. She’ll ruin everything. She asked me about Richard English.”

  “No, baby, no,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, running to his side. “No more.”

  “It’s over,” said Jane, stepping back another step. Hawthorne’s wife was clutching at his sleeve. “She’s not going to help you anymore.”

  “I did it all for you,” Hawthorne shrieked at his wife.

  “All what?” said Jane.

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” he said huffily. “I don’t owe you any explanations. Some misplaced maternal impulses have dragged you into my business. You’re a silly woman.” He reached over for her, but his wife held him back. He shook his wife loose and hit her hard with the back of his hand. She fell into a corner, her black leather skirt hiked up, her face pale and startled.