The Authorities, page 17
“No, I said they were screwing,” Loomis corrected him.
“What’s the difference?” Max asked.
“Screwing is a funnier way to put it. It has a hard K sound in it.”
“And was their relationship common knowledge among the other patients?”
“They tried to keep it quiet, but it was pretty obvious from the way they were acting. Of course, I saw right through them. To be a comedian, you have to understand the nuances of people’s behavior. They didn’t keep it a secret for long. Eventually, the truth came out.”
“How did it come out?”
“I told everyone. Derek had just gotten mad and stormed out again. Everyone was all uptight. So I defused the tension by making a joke about the doc screwing the clown.”
“Did that really seem appropriate?” Max asked.
Oscar Loomis rolled his eyes. “Look, man, I’m a comedian. I say what other people are thinking. Everyone in the room was thinking about the doc screwing the clown, so I brought it out into the open so we could all laugh about it.”
Professor Sherwood asked, “If you were the only person who had it figured out, how could everyone have been thinking about it?”
Loomis said, “Well, they were thinking about it after I told them.”
“I’m sure they were,” Max said. “And did you all laugh about it?”
Loomis scowled. “Not technically, but I got a reaction. A groan’s as good as a laugh.”
Sloan’s voice in the team’s earpieces said, “If that’s true, he’s gonna be a huge star.”
Max nodded almost imperceptibly, then asked, “How did everyone feel about the doctor having an affair with one of his patients?”
Loomis shrugged. “Eh, I dunno. Never really asked. Probably seemed weird to them.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“I was stoked! Are you kidding?”
Max looked perplexed. He turned to Rutherford and said, “Stoked?”
“Happy. Excited,” Rutherford explained.
Max turned back to Loomis. “Why were you stoked?”
Loomis looked amazed. “You have to ask? My therapist was screwing a clown! That’s gold! I got, like, five minutes of material out of it! All I had to do was run through all the therapist clichés. Please lay on this couch. How does that make you feel? What does this stain look like to you? Sorry, time’s up for this session. It writes itself! Then you’ve got the clown clichés to play with! Did they do it in her car, and if they did, how many other clowns were in there? They could have a three-way in the glove box. Did she have to redo her makeup to make her O-face? Did any part of her anatomy honk? It’s killer stuff!”
The team looked back at him, stone-faced.
“I word it all much better in the act. Would you like to see?” Loomis opened his MacBook and started sliding his fingers around its touchpad. “It’s on my YouTube channel. Here, let me pull it up.”
Max said, “No, thank you. That’s really not necessary.”
“Are you sure? I’ve got the page up right here.”
“Yes,” Max assured him. “I’m afraid we’re here on business.”
Loomis looked down at his computer, dejected. “Yeah, that’s cool,” he said. “I understand. You can just look at it tonight when you get home.” He started to close the computer, but stopped, squinting at the screen. He looked at Rutherford, then back at the screen, then back at Rutherford. Then, again, back at the screen.
“Hey, man, is this you and Derek?” he asked, spinning the computer around on the table. On the screen, Loomis’s YouTube start page was displaying videos shared by various feeds he followed, one of which was represented by a freeze-frame of Rutherford and Derek Sambucci, seemingly dancing some sort of demented tango. The text beneath the thumbnail said: “SAVED BY BEES!!!”
“Yes,” Rutherford said. “That’s me.”
Loomis turned the computer back around and jabbed at the touchpad. Tinny grunts of effort played over the laptop’s speakers.
On a whim, Rutherford checked his personal phone, which he was still carrying in addition to his new work phone. There was a text from Vanessa. It was three periods in a row. He thought, It’s a bit confusing, but I’ll give her a break. It’s not easy to text someone an icy silence.
Oscar Loomis muttered, “Whoever shot this needs to learn to hold their phone sideways when they film stuff.”
On the computer, a distant, hollow voice called out, “Stop, or I’ll release the bees!” Then there was a buzzing sound, and a look of terror formed on Mr. Loomis’s face, both of which intensified as the video progressed.
The buzzing ended abruptly. Loomis said, “Wow.”
“The bees helped,” Rutherford said, “but I don’t know that they saved me. The fight had only just started and I—”
“This says the video was posted today,” Loomis interrupted, “and you’ve already got nearly fifty thousand views.”
“Really?” Rutherford asked, wincing.
Loomis said, “Yeah. Hmm. Hey, I can help you make the most of this. You should repost this with a link to one of my videos. I could whip up some bee material. I’ll look through my notebook. We can film it here with my phone. It’ll take like five minutes, tops. I gotta have something about bees. You throw a click here link on your video and I’ll do the same back to you. That way we both get something out of it.”
“It isn’t my account,” Rutherford said. “I didn’t post the video.”
“Oh. That sucks. You should get your own video out there. You gotta use this publicity, man! I could interview you. You—helmet chick—you don’t say much anyway. You could film us with the webcam on my computer. I’ll do a quick intro, welcome everyone to the Oscar Loomis show, and then I’ll ask you questions about how you were getting your ass kicked until the bees saved you.”
Rutherford said, “No thanks,” in a tone that told Oscar Loomis not to ask again.
“Fine,” Loomis said. “Whatever. I don’t care. It’s your decision. Doesn’t matter to me.” He glanced at Max as if looking for an ally. “Some people just don’t recognize an opportunity when they see it.”
Sloan said, “And some people see them where they don’t exist.”
Max, who was much more accustomed to Sloan’s silent commentary than Rutherford was, looked at Sloan and said, “That’s true.” Loomis thought Max was agreeing with him, when in fact he was joining Sloan in a joke at the comedian’s expense. To drive this home, Max winked at Rutherford before turning back to Loomis.
Max asked, “What did you think of Dr. Arledge?”
“He seemed a good guy, for a clown fetishist.”
“Were you finding his treatment helpful?”
“Yeah, I did, until he cured me.”
Max’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “He cured you of your social disorder?”
Loomis rolled his eyes. “I never had a disorder. I just had the wrong idea. I used to try to be always on. See, I had this theory that if I just went around constantly making any joke I could think of all the time, at least one out of three of them would be good enough to get a response. That meant that if I made three jokes a minute, I’d make people who met me laugh, or at least smile, once per minute. I figured people would only remember the jokes that worked and they’d think I was the funniest guy they knew.”
“But you don’t think that anymore,” Max said.
“No, the doc showed me that for every one joke that worked, two just made people uncomfortable, and people found the discomfort more memorable than the laughs.”
Max nodded. “That must have been a hard lesson to learn.”
“Yeah,” Loomis said. “But I’m glad I did. It showed me that I can be funny, but my real gift is for making people squirm. I took my act in an edgier direction. I make my audience confront the truths they’d rather hide from. I hold up a mirror and make the audience take a good long look at what I see.”
Rutherford said, “You do five minutes of jokes about clowns and therapists having sex.”
“That’s what I see. Or saw. I didn’t really see it. You know what I mean.”
Max nodded. “Yes, we understand.”
Sloan added, “If he had seen it, you know he would have filmed it and put it on YouTube.”
SIXTEEN
Rutherford was physically exhausted after fighting Derek Sambucci in the morning and fighting the van for the rest of the day. The whole team was exhausted mentally after dealing with Oscar Loomis. That said, Sloan, Max, and Rutherford all agreed that the alleged affair between the victim and one of his patients was something they needed to follow up on. It was their first good lead.
“Is it really?” Professor Sherwood asked. “I mean, I know it’s juicy and all, but is an affair really a motive for murder? I’m married, and if my wife stepped out on me I’d be angry, but I wouldn’t want to kill her.”
“That’s good for you and your wife,” Terri said, her disembodied voice being streamed into their ears via the party line. Rutherford had already gotten used to the idea that when the group was in transit, Max would activate the party line as a matter of course, and any time a team member was on the clock but not involved directly in business, they were expected to participate.
Terri continued, “If my husband messed around on me, I’d at least beat the crap out of him. Or I’d probably have Rutherford do it. It’d be good for his image.”
“And not everyone is even as understanding about this as Terri,” Sloan said. “Infidelity definitely works as a motive, not just for Mrs. Arledge, but for everyone else involved. Mrs. Arledge could very well have killed him for having an affair, or had someone else kill him. The clown could have killed him for ending the affair. The clown might have a jealous boyfriend. Mrs. Arledge could have an angry friend. Men who cheat seldom only cheat once. Maybe he had another mistress, and that got him killed for any of the reasons I just ran through.”
Another thing Rutherford was growing used to was hearing Sloan talk about unpleasant, violent subjects using a cheerful voice that had probably been designed to read web pages to the blind.
Professor Sherwood was a scientist. He understood bees. Sloan and Rutherford had backgrounds in law enforcement, Max was ex-Dutch Secret Service, and Terri had been in corporate management. They all understood motives for murder, so they recognized that Ms. Molly Belanger, aka the clown, had one, and had caused several, so even though they were all tired, and would have liked to call it a day, they were not displeased to hear that Terri had managed to set up a meeting with her.
Molly Belanger was twenty-six. She’d graduated with a BA degree in theater from UW. She wasn’t married and had no kids. She lived in a pleasant upper-middle-class suburb, on a pleasant upper-middle-class street, with her pleasant upper-middle-class parents, both of whom came to the door when Max rang the bell.
In some climates, homeowners have to work to get plants to grow and be healthy on their property. In Seattle, it is a trick to restrict plant growth to only those species that you want, and to keep them from becoming so robust that they cover the house and blot out the sun. In older suburbs like the one where Molly Belanger lived north of downtown, just beyond the University District, the plants didn’t look like decorative items chosen to beautify humanity’s artificial habitat. Instead, the neighborhoods looked like small clearings carved with great difficulty into a lush, green forest. The accoutrements of people’s lifestyles seemed to have been shoehorned in between the plants wherever there was room. Even the expansion seams in the road stood out, highlighted by a line of bright green flora that was either a very grasslike moss or a particularly mosslike grass.
Rutherford was second in line behind Max as they approached the door, walking single file up several stairs and a steep concrete path across a small lawn clogged with shrubs.
Sloan said, “Hey, Rutherford. Could you please come back here for a minute?”
Rutherford said, “Sure,” then stepped aside to let Professor Sherwood pass, which put him in front of Sloan.
“What can I do for you?” he asked as he kept walking.
Sloan said, “Come back here, which you’ve already done.”
“But what do you want?”
Sloan stopped walking and leaned on her cane. “For you to come back here,” Sloan replied in her clipped, synthetic voice. She did not look at him as she answered. She was watching Max, who was already ringing the bell. Sherwood stood behind and beside Max. Sloan stepped backward so that she would be behind Rutherford.
Rutherford was confused, but when the door opened, he started to understand. Mr. Belanger answered the door. Mrs. Belanger stood behind him, but only their heads were visible to Rutherford, meaning that only his head, not his scruffy clothing, was visible to them. Standing behind Rutherford, Sloan was practically invisible. To the Belangers, the team was composed of a kind-looking older gentleman with a charming accent, a dignified older black man in a windbreaker, a younger man standing behind them, and maybe someone else.
Unsurprisingly, they were immediately invited inside.
Just as unsurprisingly, the older couple’s smiles dimmed as Rutherford passed them and died entirely when Sloan entered. Rutherford was all the more grateful that his e-cigar was too contaminated with puddle water to use.
The living room was the architectural equivalent of the one sweater everyone has that’s been worn so much and is so comfortable that you would never consider getting rid of it, even though it’s outdated and unattractive. Just looking around the room made Rutherford feel happy and sleepy. A young woman was standing in the center of the room. She had chestnut hair, a pretty face, no makeup, and a dour expression. Mr. Belanger introduced her as his daughter, Molly. She was the person they’d come to see.
Mrs. Belanger offered to take their coats. Max and Sherwood took her up on the offer, but Rutherford, knowing that he had a firearm the size of a tire iron and a small machete strapped to his rib cage, said, “No, thank you.”
She turned to Sloan, froze for a moment, watched as Sloan made no effort to remove her jacket or her gloves, then offered, “Can I take your . . . hat?”
Sloan shook her head no.
Mrs. Belanger tried to hide how uncomfortable this made her, but didn’t do a very good job. She stammered noncommittally for a moment about how that was okay while she hung Max’s wool coat and Professor Sherwood’s windbreaker on a coatrack.
Sloan said, “I feel bad, the poor dear. Please be extra nice to the parents. Their daughter may have brought this on herself, but they didn’t.” Her computer voice was excellent at conveying basic information, but it was as bad at expressing sympathy as it was at sarcasm.
Everyone knew why the team was there, so the clown’s parents brought in a couple of extra chairs and then excused themselves. The father glared at Rutherford and Sloan as he left.
Molly Belanger sat in a recliner Rutherford suspected was usually the domain of her father. Max and Sloan sat on the sofa and twisted sideways to see her, as the couch and the recliner were at right angles to each other. Rutherford was seated opposite her, so he didn’t have to twist, but he and Sherwood were sitting on wooden dining room chairs, which was less than ideal. Sherwood distracted himself from the hardness of his seat by waving his wand in the direction of various items around the room. After a few moments of this, he looked at the readings, turned to Rutherford, and whispered, “It’s just as I thought. Potpourri.”
After a brief explanation of who they were, what they wanted, and why she shouldn’t pay any attention to Professor Sherwood or the buzzing noise she was hearing, Max started the interview. Sloan advised him to start slow, so he did.
“Your parents seem lovely.”
“Yeah,” Molly said. “They’re great.”
“I understand you live here with them, yes?”
“Yeah, just until I pay off my student loans. Which, at the rate I’m going, will be five years after I die of old age.”
“What did you study?”
“I have a degree in theater.”
Max nodded. “And is that where you became interested in clowning?”
“Yes. Before college I was like everyone else. I heard the word clown, and I thought of children’s parties, kiddy shows, and horror movies. I had no idea the rich history clowning has. You sound like you’re from Europe.”
“The Netherlands,” Max said.
“Then maybe you know, but the traditions of clowning go back hundreds of years. A lifetime could be spent learning about the face paint patterns alone. Clowns use makeup, costume, pantomime, music, props, set decorations, dance, and magic tricks all together at once, and all just to make people laugh at them. A clown is noble. A clown is an artist. And yet their hope is to be seen as a fool. I just can’t think of anything more fascinating than that.”
“You make it sound wonderful,” Max said. “Where do you perform?”
“Mostly at children’s parties,” she said, sourly. “I tell knock-knock jokes and make balloon animals. It pays the bills.”
Max nodded, paused, then said, “Well, Ms. Belanger, I’m certain you know why we’re here.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You were a patient of Dr. Daniel Arledge.”
“Yes. And I’m sure you want to ask about our, um, romantic relationship,” she said with palpable disdain.
“Sadly, I do have to ask.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Look, the first thing you have to know is that Dan was a good man. He was. He didn’t pursue me. He didn’t come on to me. All he did was help me with my problems, then I got carried away.”
