When She Was Bad

1

The People’s Posse ended tonight, as it did every week, with host Sandy Wells alone in the spotlight, seated on a three-legged stool on an otherwise darkened soundstage, with a stark, textured black drop cloth for a background. He was wearing his trademark leather jacket and his silver hair was razor-trimmed to perfection; as the theme music faded, he turned to face the camera in three-quarter profile-his best angle, all his media mavens assured him.

“And so ends the bloody saga of Ulysses Christopher Maxwell,” Wells declared, his gunslinger eyes narrowed and his bulldog jaw outthrust. “There are, as always, many questions that remain unanswered. Forensics and ballistics can only tell us so much-we may never know, for instance, exactly why or where veteran private investigator Mick MacAlister met his fate, or how his tarpaulin-covered corpse wound up in the back of a pickup truck parked only a few blocks from his office, riddled with bullets fired from the same revolver that eventually terminated Maxwell’s monstrous reign of terror.

“But this much we do know….” As he did every week when it came time to deliver his closing homily, Wells turned to his left to face camera three. The sudden move had the effect of a theatrical aside, adding an inclusive intimacy, as if he had been addressing a wider audience, but was now speaking directly to the individual viewer. “Ulysses Maxwell was not born a monster. It was the extreme abuse he suffered as a child, from parents who had no doubt been abused themselves as children, that turned him into one. Ultimately, of course, each of us is responsible for his or her own actions-still, it’s incumbent upon each of us to do what we can to break the chain.”

As he spoke, camera three had been tightening in on him; by now he was in extreme close-up, his exquisitely barbered face filling the screen. “If you were abused as a child, I urge you to get professional help-break the chain. And if you know someone who was abused, a spouse, a friend, a relative, encourage them to do the same and break the chain-you’ll find plenty of links to mental health organizations on our website, www dot peoplesposse dot com. And most crucially, if you suspect someone of child abuse, but want to protect your anonymity, we’ve set up a brand-new dedicated tipline at 1-800-NOCHAIN-it’s a free call, guaranteed confidential-drop a dime and stop a crime. Break the chain.”

Wells turned back to camera one. “So until next week, I’m Sandy Wells, and you are The People’s Posse. Take care and be safe.”

“You too, Sandy,” Irene Cogan muttered from her living room sofa. It had been a slightly disconcerting experience, watching herself being interviewed by a man she’d never met or even spoken with. But at least they’d withheld Lily’s name, and the unknown actress who’d played Lily during the “re-creations” had been a buxom blond in her early twenties. The unknown actress who’d played Irene looked more like Matt Damon in drag, and wore a shiny reddish-blond wig that kept threatening to fall off during the chase scene at Scorned Ridge.

It had also felt kind of weird to see Scorned Ridge again. The dilapidated cabin, the domed Plexiglas drying shed where Maxwell and his foster mother used to keep the strawberry blonds-reexperiencing it all through the filter of the boob tube, with actors and actresses playing herself and Maxwell, had an oddly distancing effect. Irene found herself wondering which version she’d be seeing in her next nightmare.

As soon as Wells had signed off, the screen split vertically in two, silently rolling the TPP credits on the right half, while the left half ran a visually elongated promo for the show coming up next on The Crime Channel. It was a two-year-old documentary about a DID patient up in Washington whose alter had attacked his therapist.

Irene, who’d seen it before, turned the volume down and began channel surfing idly, her mind a thousand miles away again. She was thinking about her upcoming trip to Salem, the Oregon capital, to testify before a committee looking into the alleged abuses of electroshock therapy protocol at the Reed-Chase Institute. Irene had at first been reluctant to participate in what looked like a very public flogging of a very dead horse, but eventually she’d decided that someone had to speak up for poor Al Corder, if only to point out that however misguided his methods, he might very well have been on to something.

Exhibit One, of course, was the astonishing improvement in Lily DeVries’s condition. As soon as the legal hassles were behind her (in light of Alison Corder’s testimony that Lily had saved her life, the Portland DA had decided to go the slam dunk route and charge Maxwell with all four Oregon murders), she’d enrolled full-time at CSUMB-California State University Monterey Bay, also known jocularly as UFO, the University of Fort Ord, because it was situated on the vast, decommissioned military base.

The university was currently on spring break, Irene was reminded, when she looked up and discovered she had channel surfed her way from The Crime Channel to MTV’s Spring Break Party-Cancun. Lily had been frantic for permission to attend the event with a few of her college girlfriends, but after conferring with Irene, now counseling Lily on an as-needed basis, Uncle Rollie had made a counteroffer of an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for Lily and a friend.

And judging by the goings-on currently being aired, thought Irene, they’d made the right decision. The overheated atmosphere, the girls in their skimpy tops and butt-floss thongs, the bare-chested, sweating boys, the orgiastic dancing, the overt sexuality, the whole suds-and-Ecstasy subculture, would surely have been-

Ohmigod! thought Irene, doing a full Wile E. Coyote double take, jaw dropped, neck outstretched, eyeballs all but popping out on springs. “Pen!” she shouted. “Pen, get down here quick!”

Pender had never much enjoyed watching himself on television. He’d been up in his study, formerly the spare room, playing poker on the Internet when he heard Irene shouting. He tore off his computer glasses like Clark Kent turning into Superman, grabbed a 3-iron from the golf bag leaning against the wall, and was out the door and down the stairs in seconds, hauling ass faster than he’d hauled it in years.

But then, there was a lot less ass to be hauled. The Grim Reaper is a hell of a motivator-Pender had lost fifty pounds since his heart attack, given up cigars, and cut way down on the Jim Beam. He’d also kept his promise never to use a golf cart again, and coincidentally or not, had lowered his handicap two whole strokes-it was now under the drinking, if not the driving, age.

“What is it?” he called, racing into the living room.

“Take a look at this.” Without turning around, Irene nodded toward the television.

Pender circled around behind the sofa, sheepishly dropping the 3-iron behind it, and sat down next to her. The two had been living together for almost seven months-Irene had insisted on Pender moving in with her while he was recuperating from his heart attack, and once they’d become lovers, it hadn’t seemed to make sense for him to pay rent elsewhere when they were sleeping together every night anyway.

“What is this, some kind of a test?” he asked her incredulously. In Pender’s experience, women Irene’s age-or any age-did not customarily insist upon their boyfriends watching nubile, half-naked college girls shaking their hooters.

“Wait, she just moved out of the picture…watch the right side of the screen…there! There she is-red top.”

He had already spotted the well-developed girl in the red top-he just hadn’t looked up at her face. “Oh shit, oh dear,” he said, feeling like a dirty old man. “I thought she was supposed to be in D.C., taking in all the fine educational sights.”

“So did I,” said Irene.

“She does seem to be enjoying herself,” said Pender after another few seconds.

“She does, doesn’t she?” Neither of them had taken their eyes from the screen.

“Are you going to tell Rollie?”

The show cut to commercial. Irene hit the Mute button on the remote. Her heart (to use a nonpsychiatric term) was so full she couldn’t find words to express what it meant to her to see Lily dancing, happy, surrounded by kids her own age. Pride was in there somewhere, parental and professional. Also awe, and a little understandable trepidation. She turned to Pender with tears in her eyes. “Sweetheart,” she said softly, “if I’d had boobs like that when I was her age, I’d have been shaking them, too.”