Unspeakable

by Graham Masterton

  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 dro
pped 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 anyo
ne.

  "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.