His voice salivating so that we would realize that this was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill murder of a woman, the announcer said, “She was a Ph.D. candidate—and an exotic dancer at the Fun Palace.”

  14

  THE LOCAL NEWS MEDIA had had kept a wary distance from Loie Marsh. Whatever the unsavory details of her death, much of her public life had been spent fighting violence against women, and in Seattle, at least, that was something to respect. Possibly more to the point, her family was obviously good, decent Scandinavian stock. Soon, no doubt, a reporter was bound to pick up some of the things I’d learned and use them in a profile that would smear her memory while pretending to be sympathetic, but so far it hadn’t happened.

  Nicky Kay’s murder didn’t get the kid glove treatment. The papers interviewed her professors at Stanford; the TV cameras focused on the exterior of the Fun Palace. Even Djuna Barnes, Nightwood and the twenties in Paris were thrown into the story. It was everything that the media loves. “The Double Life of Nicky Kay.” “Student’s Secret Life.” In reality there had been nothing secret or double about Nicky’s life. She’d been one of the more upfront people I’d ever met in my life.

  On the other hand the media helped me piece a few things together. From the two papers and the local TV station I found out that Nicky had been a brilliant student at the University of Washington, had gone to Stanford first for a Masters, then a Ph.D. in English. She had apparently worked in a strip joint in the North Beach. Three years ago she’d returned to Seattle to work on her thesis. Her advisors and professors were uniformly “shocked.”

  All in all they managed to dig up lots of dirt on Nicky as a sex worker. But further than that they didn’t go. Either the mention of sadomasochism was unthinkable for family TV and newspapers, or they didn’t have a clue. If they’d wanted they could have splashed the papers with lurid accounts of Nicky’s speech at the conference and hinted at all sorts of rude and nasty goings-on, but there was no reference anywhere to Nicky’s sexual preference or predilections or to her relationship with Oak. And though they said Nicky had been strangled, the media didn’t link her murder with Loie’s. Did that mean Nicky hadn’t been found with a dog collar around her neck?

  Or did it mean that the police were keeping that bit of information to themselves?

  I decided to call up the one person I knew who was even remotely connected to the world of journalism, an old political cohort who had once worked on the alternative, now defunct, Northwest Passage. Sandy had recently become the Washington State governor’s press secretary.

  As I expected, she wasn’t particularly delighted to hear from me. For the last couple of years she’d been trying to put some distance between her and her more radical past.

  “No Pam, I am not going to call up my ‘reporter friends’ and ask them what ‘implement’ was used to strangle this exotic dancer.”

  “But Sandy, the newspapers aren’t saying and I can hardly call up the police department and ask them myself.”

  “Pam, I can’t abuse my position.” She was patient. “Do you know how many people are constantly trying to worm information out of me about the governor’s policies? This is a good job and I don’t want to lose it.”

  “This isn’t to do with the toxic waste bill, hon. It’s just a simple murder case. For old time’s sake? Remember Satsop?”

  I was pulling on her heartstrings. We had once been in the same affinity group that had gotten lost in the woods attempting to occupy the site where the Satsop nuclear power plants were to be built. By the time Sandy and I and a woman named Colleen had finally staggered onto the site it was twilight and everybody else had already been arrested. We almost had to beg the sheriff to take us in too, just so we could be sure we’d get home before dark. It’s ignominious moments like that that either destroy or eternally bind friendships.

  But Sandy wasn’t moved. “Colleen tried that one on me last month,” she said crisply, “Wanting to know if the governor was going to support the low-income housing bill.”

  “Oh well,” I sighed. “Maybe when I have something really important to ask you….”

  A half hour later she called me back. “Nicky Kay was strangled by a thin cord of some sort, probably leather or plastic,” she said with some repugnance. “She wasn’t choked by the dog collar that was found around her neck. The detectives think that the same person also may have murdered Loie Marsh, but they asked the media not to reveal the m.o. yet for fear of copycat murders. That what you wanted to know?”

  “Sandy, you’re a pal.”

  She laughed. “We did have a good time back then, didn’t we?”

  Penny didn’t come into work on Monday. She called from Group Health to say Toni had an ear infection, that that’s why she’d been screaming. It wasn’t serious and had already started to clear up. Ray came in but he was so tired from being up all night that he spent most of the morning lying on the office couch. Moe, June and I finally got tired of tiptoeing around him and made him go home.

  “They’re too old to have kids,” June clucked. “That’s the problem.”

  “What do you mean, June?” Moe asked. “They’re only thirty or so, aren’t they?”

  “You want to have all that baby stuff over by the time you’re twenty,” June said sagely. “My girls’ll be out of the house before I’m forty. Then I’m going to live.”

  Around mid-afternoon Hanna called, asking for Penny and sounding very worked up.

  I assumed she was upset to have heard about Nicky. After all, they had been college roommates. But Nicky seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind.

  “Loie’s manuscript has been stolen!”

  “What? The new book she was working on? How do you know?”

  “A detective came over this morning asking to look through her papers again. I thought everything was in a couple of boxes, but when I pulled them out, one of the boxes was half empty.”

  “How do you know that’s where Loie kept it? Had you ever seen the manuscript before?”

  “Of course I’d seen the manuscript,” said Hanna. “She completely took over my study with her papers. She had two file boxes for the project. One labeled We Took Back the Night and the other one Notes. And now the manuscript and half the notes are gone.”

  “Who do you think could have taken them?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve got to get them back!”

  “Why? Now that Loie’s dead the book will never be finished. It will never be published, will it?”

  With an effort Hanna took control of herself and said, “No, that’s right. It won’t be published. I suppose I’m more upset that someone’s been in the house. Whoever murdered Loie wanted that manuscript—and they broke into my house to get it.”

  “I’d be upset too,” I said, and I told her to call Penny at home.

  By the time we said good-bye Hanna was composed again. I wondered if, as an actress, she had learned to calculate the effectiveness of her outbursts, or whether they came upon her unawares, and uncontrollably.

  The Espressomat was not its usual lively self that evening. In spite of the steady hum of steaming machines, there was a kind of stillness at the heart of it. It had only been a couple of weeks since I’d sat here wondering whether I should go to the conference. What had been mildly intriguing and provocative had turned sour. There was someone in Seattle who was sick with fear or revenge, someone who had needed to make sure Loie couldn’t speak on the panel that evening. Someone who for some reason had also needed to kill Nicky. According to what Sandy had told me it was the same person, but what was the link?

  If Loie had been involved in sadomasochism there might have been a reason to kill her. It wasn’t absolutely impossible. Look at the TV evangelists. The more they talked about the evils of leading an immoral life, the more they ranted against pornography and prostitution and homosexuality, the more they secretly felt compelled to act out their fantasies and engage in extramarital fornication. Jimmy Swaggert said he’d been fascinated by pornography since he was a boy. Being an ultra-right-wing Christian fundamentalist had been both a cover and a prop for him. He may have struggled against his tendencies only to be drawn irrevocably back to them. Perhaps Loie had too. Perhaps she and Nicky had been lovers years ago when they were both students. Maybe they’d taken up again when Loie returned to Seattle. And Oak had found out….

  It was difficult to keep Oak out of my mind. She was big and she was a proclaimed sadist. Those great forearms would have no trouble tightening a dog collar or a leash around someone’s throat. But even if Oak had killed Loie and Nicky in a vengeful love triangle, why would she have stolen the manuscript? It didn’t make sense.

  Hadley took a break and came over. “I should be ready to go soon,” she said apologetically. “Amanda went home sick today. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that being an employer was a little like being a school nurse?”

  I asked her sympathetically if I could bring her a cup of coffee or something, and she vaguely shuddered. “An orange juice would be nice,” she said. “Thanks honey.”

  While I was up at the counter getting it for her I saw Miko come in. She was far from her flamboyant self. Instead she slipped in like an animal looking for shelter.

  “Hi Pam,” she said in a flat subdued voice.

  “Hi.” It was strange to see Miko looking so vulnerable. “Come and sit down with us if you want, after you’ve got your coffee.”

  She looked almost pathetically grateful. What was with her? Surely it couldn’t be Nicky’s murder? She’d hardly known Nicky.

  Hadley picked up on it too. “How’s life in videoland these days?”

  Miko shrugged. “All right.”

  “I thought that evening at your studio last week was really interesting,” I volunteered, with a vague feeling I was repeating myself. To my horror Miko’s eyes began to fill with tears. She wasn’t the crying type—somehow that made it worse.

  The Espressomat’s remaining employee, Lillian, slouched over with a tray of cups in her hand. “I’m sorry, Hadley, I just can’t handle it by myself. I mean, my naturopath really really advised me to keep away from stressful situations and I’m having my period and not feeling very well anyway and I never thought that working in a cafe would…”

  “Okay, okay, Lillian.” Hadley unfolded her long limbs and took the load of cups. She looked sorrowfully at me. “I think you’d better go on home without me, Pam. I may be here until closing. See you, Miko.”

  I didn’t think Hadley had seen Miko almost begin to cry and I wasn’t sure if I had either. She had pulled herself together slightly.

  “Miko, what’s upsetting you so much?”

  “It was just that, that evening. At my place. Afterwards.” Miko was crying in earnest now. Mascara ran down her cheeks like coal deposits, and it was hard to understand what she was saying.

  “Nicky and Oak stayed and we drank a bottle of wine and had a long discussion about S/M. And they kept saying, I should try it. I’d really like it. So finally I said okay and we went to Oak’s house, she has a whole set-up in her basement. I mean, really like a torture chamber. I got completely freaked out. I mean, I was a little drunk, but not that drunk, so finally they gave up trying to persuade me and we went into the living room and then Oak went to bed and I was going to give Nicky a ride back to her place and then, I don’t know, Nicky and I ended up making love. Not S/M stuff, just regular stuff, it was wonderful. I felt so fantastic afterwards, I went home feeling really happy and peaceful… And now she’s dead. I can’t help thinking that Oak killed her and I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why do you think that Oak killed her?” I said, trying to take it in. Was any of this plausible, at all? Was a woman who so fervently espoused S/M likely to make vanilla love with someone in her partner’s house? Could Miko be making this all up for her own purposes? “Why?” I repeated.

  “Nicky wanted to leave her. She told me when I gave her a ride home. She told me a lot of things.”

  “Do you have any reason to think that Oak might have killed Loie? Had Loie and Nicky ever been involved?”

  “Loie and Nicky!” said Miko, completely astounded.

  “Is that totally impossible? They knew each other years ago, after all.”

  Miko was shaking her head. “I don’t understand any of this. I shouldn’t be talking to you anyway, I should really be talking to the police. Shouldn’t I?”

  “Well,” I said. “Only if you’re sure. After all, accusing Oak could really open up a can of worms. The papers are already having a field day with Nicky’s job as an exotic dancer. Can you imagine what would happen if the media got hold of a torture chamber? Your name would be dragged right into it, you know. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be talking to the police—but you’d better be pretty careful of what you say and how you say it.”

  “Christ,” said Miko, shaken, obviously seeing the headlines float before her: SCHOOL EMPLOYEE IN S/M LOVE TRIANGLE.

  “What should I do? What should I do?” Miko was groaning.

  “What do you say we take a little drive?” I said.

  “Where? Why?”

  “To see Oak. She’s unlikely to try to kill both of us. And maybe we could find out a few things. Like whether she even knew you and Nicky did it.”

  Oak lived in the Central District, not far from Providence Hospital. Miko and I drove in separate cars, so I didn’t get a chance to ask her some of the questions that kept coming into my mind.

  I wasn’t surprised that Miko had been persuaded into a closer look at S/M. After all, she was interested in exploring the whole subject of sex, her own fantasies as well as others, so it was probably natural that when the opportunity asserted itself she would take advantage of it. Perhaps she’d even created the opportunity herself, by inviting Nicky and Oak to her video screening.

  But would Miko have gone so far as to make love with Nicky in Oak’s own living room, while Oak was asleep? And would Oak, if she found out about it, be so angry that she would kill Nicky? The news reports had said that Nicky had been discovered in an alley behind the Fun Palace in the early hours of the morning. If Oak had been the murderer, would she have been likely to do it there, instead of someplace where she could control the situation better? The alley indicated a surprise attack. And if Oak had killed Nicky, according to my theory, she must have also killed Loie. But what possible reason would Oak have for killing Loie? And how would she have had time? My thoughts jumped around. Could Oak have been the person in the classroom who was threatening Loie with consequences if she told? If Loie told the audience that she and Nicky had once been involved? Maybe that was in Loie’s manuscript too.

  Miko pulled up behind me and we went up to the neatly kept, dark-painted house.

  “Who is it?” asked a subdued and cautious voice.

  “Miko and Pam Nilsen.”

  Oak opened the door, not slowly, but with a jerk. “What do you want?”

  I started to say, “To ask you some questions,” but Miko suddenly broke down and threw herself at Oak. “I can’t believe she’s dead. I’m so sorry, Oak.”

  I hadn’t imagined tears being part of Oak’s hardcore image, but suddenly she was crying too, not easily and dramatically like Miko, but in a kind of stunned, quiet way. For the first time I looked at her without her leathers on and realized that she was much younger than I’d thought, in her mid to late twenties. She was medium height, stocky, with a strong torso. Under her tee-shirt her breasts were small, like those of a fat man. And her face was almost pretty, with a cleft chin and dark blue eyes. I hadn’t noticed that at all before. I’d only seen the leather jacket and pants.

  Oak finally let us come inside. The small living room was surprisingly old-fashioned, the furniture and decor from the thirties. It looked as if it had been passed on intact from an older generation: lace doilies under ceramic pots; a braided rug, twin armchairs, twin end tables, twin lamps. The only thing that was modern in the room was a large TV set and VCR and behind it, rows and rows of video cassettes.

  It was hard to believe there was a torture chamber downstairs. I told myself I didn’t want to see it, but of course I did.

  Oak sat down in one of the armchairs. Grief had come out like measles all over her face, blotching her fair skin. She said, “Until you got here I was just feeling relieved. Neither the police or the newspapers have connected me with Nicky. I guess I was just in a state of shock. I found out like everyone else—on the news last night. I don’t want the cops to come, but it feels like, unless they do, nothing has really happened.”

  “So Nicky didn’t live here then?” I asked.

  “No—she had her own apartment, downtown. She didn’t stay there much, but she needed it for being alone sometimes, and for sex.”

  “You mean—she was a prostitute?”

  Oak looked at me as if I were crazy. “I said for sex—with her other lovers.”

  I felt Miko freeze beside me on the sofa.

  “We had an agreement,” Oak said. “Mondays and Thursdays we both saw other people if we wanted.”

  “Did that work out for you?” I asked.

  Oak nodded. “Yeah. Nicky and I had been together for about three years. The S/M was there from the beginning, but after a year or so the romance started to go. We had the choice to let the whole thing slide or figure out new ways to deal with it. So that’s what we decided.” Oak wiped the last of her tears from her eyes.

  Miko said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, Oak, but last Thursday…”

  “I know all about it.”

  “Nicky told you then?”

  “She didn’t have to,” Oak said and for the first time she smiled a little. “I watched it.”

  “You watched it?”

  Oak seemed apologetic but she was still smiling. “Nicky had these ideas sometimes. It was her idea to bring you to my house in the first place, to see if we could get you to see what we saw in S/M. Then when you got freaked out and left the basement Nicky said she still thought she could seduce you. I said I doubted it. So she told me to pretend to go to sleep and then come to the top of the stairs in an hour.”

 

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