Unspeakable

trying to tell me that this was the behavior of a caring and responsible father?

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 dropped 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