Unspeakable

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