"That's okay. You should have seen what they were charging for them, per bloom. Good thing I'm a cop and they give me a hundred-percent discount."
Holly laughed. She had been telling him the truth when she said that she liked him, but whenever he came close to her, she always felt as if she ought to be cautious, although she didn't exactly know why. She had met him nearly two years ago at the Children's Welfare Department barbecue, when she was holding a hot dog in each hand, one for her and one for Daisy, and she had liked the look of him even then. But she often felt that his eyes never quite agreed with what he was saying. She sometimes thought that there was a hidden "Mickey Slim," a verywatchful"Mickey Slim," who very rarely showed himself.
"I'll talk to you later," she told him.
"You're really okay, though? I mean, Elliot Joseph hit you pretty hard, didn't he?"
"I'm okay."
"Okay, then. I'll see you later. Okay?"
The Ghost Boy
She was packing up her briefcase to leave when Katie came into her office. Katie was wearing a nubbly hand-knitted sweater in broccoli green and French mustard, and Holly knew that she was going to ask her something awkward because her head was tilted back and her glasses pushed right to the end of her nose. "Holly, I don't know if you're up to doing this. I mean, do tell me if you're not."
"Depends what it is. I'm in no condition to have a fistfight with anybody just at the moment."
Katie flapped a telephone message at her. "It's nothing much, just a backup call. A woman onSoutheast Boise called the police just after ten o'clock this morning. She said she could hear a child screaming in the first-floor apartment right below her. The police attended and talked to Mrs. Hannah Beale. Mrs. Beale has an eleven-year-old son calledCasper who is suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. According to Mrs. Beale,Casper doesn't want to undergo any more chemotherapy, and he was kicking up a fuss about it."
Holly checked her watch. Damn. She had promised Daisy that she would try to get home early.
"What would you like me to do?"
"I'd like you to check up on this situation, that's all."
"You mean today? Now?"
"It shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes. I wouldn't have bothered, normally, but one of the police officers reported that Mrs. Beale appeared to be very stressed-out."
"Okay ," agreed Holly, reluctantly. She took the phone message and noted the address.Southeast Boise was over the river, on the opposite side of the city. She hoped that the afternoon traffic wouldn't be too clogged up.
She buttoned up her coat. On the windowsill beside her, in a tall sunlit vase, stood the lilies that Mickey had given her. She had been thinking of taking them home, but she decided to leave them in the office till the following day. She had been glancing at them all day and wondering what Mickey was trying to say to her:I like you? I respect you? I pity you?
The sun was still shining when she drove across the Ross Island Bridge. By the time she reached Southeast Boise, however, it had been covered by a thin gray veil of cloud, and the street looked strangely nostalgic, like a photograph fromLifemagazine, circa 1965. The apartment block in which the Beales lived was a two-story building made of cream-colored brick, with turquoise-painted shutters and a dead lime tree standing in front of it. A gang of kids were skateboarding along the sidewalk using a homemade ramp. In the driveway, a short, fat woman in a headscarf was washing what looked like a brand-new Malibu.
Holly parked and approached the woman washing her car. "Pardon me. I'm looking for Mrs. Hannah Beale."
The woman kept her back turned to her, so Holly couldn't see if she was answering. She walked around the car until she was facing her, and said, "I'm sorry- do you know where I can find Mrs. Hannah Beale?"
The woman looked Holly up and down. She was pale and puffy-faced, with eyes like raisins pushed into dough. She wore a bronze satin blouse and flappy white pants that were two inches too short for her, and strappy white sandals. A single hair grew from a mole on her chin and spiraled around.
"I'mHannah Beale, for the second time. Who wants to know, for the second time?"
Holly produced her ID. Mrs. Beale peeled off one of her pink rubber gloves and examined it closely. "Children's Welfare Department? What's this?"
"The police department got in touch with us . It'sonly a matter of routine."
"Jeez! Itoldthose cops-how many times did I tell them?-Casper's sick. He has to have his chemo, even if he doesn't like it, or else he's going to die." Holly could detect an accent, northern Minnesota or maybe southeastern Manitoba, with a rise at the end of every sentence so that it came out like a question.
"We wanted to know if there was anything we could do to help," said Holly. "It can't be very easy for you, taking care of a child so sick."
"I'm fine. I can manage. Did somebody say I couldn't manage?"
"Is Casper your only child?"
Mrs. Beale jerked a thumb toward the skateboarders. "That's Thomas-the one in the green T-shirt-and Kyra; she's the girl in the pink." Holly shielded her eyes against the gray afternoon glare. Thomas and Kyra both looked like their mother, squat and overweight. Kyra was only about thirteen, Holly would have guessed, but her stomach bulged over her cherry-colored jogging pants as if she were five months' pregnant. Thomas had tight ginger curls and more ginger freckles than face.
"How aboutMr.Beale?" asked Holly.
"Daah,"said Mrs. Beale disgustedly, flapping her glove.
"But you're managing okay?"
"I'm doing fine, thank you. I'm not saying it's easy."
She dropped her sponge into her foam-filled bucket and waddled over to the side of the apartment block to turn on the hose. Holly stood back while she sprayed the Malibu from front to back.
"Any chance I could see Casper?" asked Holly.
"For what?" asked Mrs. Beale. "He's been real sick today. He needs his sleep."
"Like I say, it's only routine."
"Well, there's no need. He was howling this morning because he doesn't like his treatment, that's all it was. It makes him nauseous, you know?"
"All the same, I'd still like to see him."
"I don't think so, miss. He's too sick to see people today."
Holly waited while Mrs. Beale polished her car with a chamois leather. "Can you tell me what hospital he's being treated at?"
No reply.
"Is it a local hospital? Providence St. Vincent, maybe?"
"What do you want to know that for?"
"It's just for my records."
"As if I don't get enough busybodies poking their noses into my private business."
"Well, I'm sorry, but Casper was screaming loud enough for somebody to call the police, and the Children's Welfare Department has a statutory obligation to follow it up."
Mrs. Beale stopped polishing and snapped the wet leather in the air.Snap!andsnap!as if she were making a particularly vehement point about something. Her two children had stopped skateboarding and had come to join her, standing close to their mother with sullen, spoiled expressions on their faces.God,thought Holly.Talk about the Addams Family.