THE MURDER OF MIRANDA
To my grandson, Jim Pagnusat
The Murder of Miranda © 1979 The Margaret Millar Charitable Unitrust
This volume published in 2017 by Syndicate Books
www.syndicatebooks.com
Distributed by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
The Murder of Miranda eISBN: 978-1-68199-006-4
Cover and interior design by Jeff Wong
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
While the physical situation of the Penguin Club bears certain resemblances to that of various actual clubs on the California coast, the characters who populate it refer to no actual persons living or dead. Both the characters and the events are wholly imaginary.
Part I
Mr. Van Eyck had a great deal of money which he didn’t want to spend, and a great deal of time which he didn’t know how to spend. On sunny days he sat on the club terrace writing anonymous letters.
Bent over the glass and aluminum table he looked dedicated, intense. He might have been composing a poem about the waves that were crashing against the sea wall below him or about the gulls soaring high overhead reflected in the depths of the pool like languid white fish. But Mr. Van Eyck was oblivious to the sound of the ocean or the sight of birds. The more benign the weather, the more vicious the contents of his letters became. His pen glided and whirled across the paper like an expert skater across ice.
. . . You miserable, contemptible old fraud. Everyone is on to what you do in the shower room . . .
His attention was not distracted by the new assistant lifeguard sitting on the mini-tower above the pool. She was a bony redhead whose biceps outmeasured her breasts and Van Eyck’s taste still ran to blondes with more conventional anatomy. Nor was he paying, at the moment, any attention to the other club members, who dozed on chaises, gossiped in deck chairs, read under umbrellas, swam briefly in the pool. Wet or dry, they presented to the public a dull front.
Viewed from different, more personal angles they were far from dull. Van Eyck was in a position to know this. He had, in fact, made it his business as well as his hobby. He spent his time shuffling along the dimly lit corridors that led to the secluded cabanas. He wandered in and out of the sauna and massage department on the roof, the wine cellar in the basement, the boiler room and, if it wasn’t locked, the office marked Private, Keep Out, which belonged to Henderson, the manager.
Locks and bolts and signs like Keep Out didn’t bother Van Eyck, since he assumed they must be meant for other people, passing strangers, new members, crooked employees. As a result of this casual attitude, he had acquired a basic knowledge of vintage wines, therapeutic massage, Henderson’s relationship with his bookie, the heating and chlorination of swimming pools and human nature in general.
. . . You are weaving a tangled web and you will be caught in it, blundering spider that you are . . .
Van Eyck had another advantage in his pursuit of knowledge. He frequently pretended to be hard of hearing. He looked blank, shook his head sadly, cupped his ears: “Eh? What’s that? Speak up!” So people spoke up, often saying highly interesting things both in front of and behind him. He grabbed at every morsel like a hungry squirrel and stored the lot
of them away in the various hollows in his head. When he was bored he brought them out to chew and finally spit out on paper.
. . . You must be incredibly stupid to think you can keep your evil ways hidden from an intelligent woman like me . . .
Van Eyck reread the sentence. Then, very lightly, he struck out woman and substituted man, leaving the original word easily legible. It was one of his favorite stratagems, to toss in small false clues and allow the reader to lead himself astray, up and down blind alleys, far from the center of the maze where Van Eyck sat secure, anonymous, shrouded in mystery, like a Minotaur.
He leaned back and took off his glasses, wiped them on the sleeve of his Polynesian print shirt and smiled at the bony redhead across the pool. No one would ever suspect that such a kindly old man, hard of hearing and seeing, was a Minotaur.
“He’s at it again,” Walter Henderson told Ellen, his secretary. “Don’t give him any more club stationery.”
“How can I refuse?”
“Say no. Like in N-O.”
“We haven’t had any complaints. Whoever he addresses the letters to can’t be club members or we’d have heard about it before this.”
“Suppose he’s sending threats to the President. On our stationery.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t. I mean, why should he?”
“Because he needs a keeper,” Henderson said gloomily. “They all need keepers . . . Ellen, sane people like you and me don’t belong in a place like this. I think we should run away together. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Ellen shook her head.
“You don’t consider me a fun person, is that what you’re trying to tell me? Very well. But bear in mind that you’ve seen me only in these non-fun circumstances. After five I can be awfully amusing . . . It’s that lifeguard, Grady, isn’t it? Ellen, Ellen, you’re making a most grievous error. He’s a creep . . . Now, what were we talking about?”
“Stationery.”
“A very non-fun subject. However, let us proceed. In the future club stationery is to be used exclusively for club business.”
“When members ask for some stationery it’s hard to refuse,” Ellen said. “It’s their club, they pay my salary.”
“When they joined they signed an agreement to abide by the rules.”
“But we have no rule concerning stationery.”
“Then make one and post it on the bulletin board.”
“Don’t you think it would be more appropriate if you made it, since you’re the manager?”
“No. And remember to keep it simple, most of them can’t read. Perhaps you should try to get the message across in pictures or sign language.”
Ellen couldn’t tell by looking at him whether he was serious or not. He wore Polaroid sunglasses which hid his eyes and reflected Ellen herself, twin Ellens that stared back at her in miniature as if from the wrong end of a telescope. Henderson’s glasses needed cleaning, so that in addition to being miniature, the twin Ellens were fuzzy and indefinite, two vague pale faces with short brownish hair balanced on top like inverted baskets. Sometimes, deep inside, she felt quite interesting and vivacious and different. It was always a shock to run into her real self in Henderson’s glasses.
“Why are you peering at me, Ellen?”
“I wasn’t, sir. I was just thinking there isn’t any room on the bulletin board since you put up all those pictures your nephew took of sunsets.”
“What’s the matter with sunsets?”
“Nothing.”
“And by the way, I wish you’d stop calling me sir. I am forty-nine, hardly old enough to be called sir by a mature woman of—”
“Twenty-seven.”
“I made it quite clear on my arrival how the various echelons are to address me. Let me repeat. To the maintenance men and busboys I am boss. Waiters and lifeguards are to call me sir, and the engineer and catering manager, Mr. Henderson. To you I am Walter, or perhaps some simple little endearment.” He smiled dreadfully. “Sweetie-pie, love-bunny, angel-face, something on that order.”
“Really, Mr. Henderson,” Ellen said, but the reproof sounded mild. Henderson’s lechery was, in fact, so fainthearted
and spasmodic that Ellen considered it one of the lesser burdens of the job. She didn’t expect him to be around long anyway. He was the seventh club manager since she’d worked there, and though he was competent enough and had arrived with excellent references, his temperament seemed ill-suited to dealing with the wide variety of emergencies that came with the territory.
The current emergency involved the plumbing in the men’s shower room.
One of the toilets had been plugged with a pair of sneakers and a T-shirt. All three objects, in spite of their prolonged soaking, were still clearly inked Frederic Quinn and the nine-year-old was confronted with the evidence. He was then locked in the first-aid room to ponder his crime by Grady, the head lifeguard.
Little Frederic, who went to an exclusive boys’ school and knew obscenities in several languages, needed only one: “You can’t keep me a prisoner, you pig frig, you didn’t read me my rights.”
“Okay, here are your rights,” Grady said. “You’ve got a right to stay in there until hell freezes.”
“There is no hell, everybody knows that.”
“Or until a tidal wave washes away the club.”
“The correct word is tsunami, not tidal wave.”
“Or an earthquake destroys the entire city.”
“Let me out, goddammit.”
“Sorry, it’s time for my lunch break.”
“I’ll tell everybody you beat me up.”
But Grady was already on his way to his locker to get his sandwiches and Thermos.
Left to his own devices little Frederic poured a bottle of Mercurochrome over his head to simulate blood and painted himself two black eyes with burnt match tips. Once his creativity was activated, it was hard to stop. He added a mustache, a Vandyke beard, sideburns and a giant mole in the center of his forehead. Then he redirected his attention to the problem of getting out:
“Help! May Day! Police! Paramedics!”
If some of the members heard him, they paid no attention. There was a strong tradition of status quo at the club as well as the vaguely religious notion that somewhere, somehow, someone was taking care of things.
Miranda Shaw lay on a chaise beside the pool, shielded from the sun by a beach towel, a straw hat, an umbrella and several layers of an ointment imported for her from Mexico. She had no way of knowing that she was the subject of Mr. Van Eyck’s current literary project.
. . . What a fraud you are, acting so refined in public and doing all those you-know-what things in private. I can see behind those baby-blue eyes of yours. You ought to be ashamed. Poor Neville was a good husband to you and he is barely cold in his grave and already you’re ogling young men like Grady. Grady is hardly more than a boy and you are an old bat who’s had your face, fanny and boobs lifted. Now if you could only lift your morals . . .
Miranda was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and there seemed to be no particular reason why. The sound of the waves was soothing, the sun’s rays were not too warm and the humidity registered forty percent, exactly right for the complexion. It must be the new ointment working, she thought, rejuvenating the cells by stimulating the nerve endings. Oh God, I hope it doesn’t hurt. I can’t stand any more pain.
She twitched, coughed, sat up.
Van Eyck was staring at her from the other side of the pool, smiling. At least she thought he was smiling. She had to put on her glasses to make sure. When she did, Van Eyck raised his free hand and waved at her. It was a lively gesture, youthful and mischievous compared to the rest of him, which had been sobered and slowed and soured by age. He must be eighty; Neville was almost eighty when he died last spring—
She gave her head a quick hard shake. She must stop thinking of age and death. Dr. Ortiz insisted that his patients should picture in their minds only pleasant gentle things like flowers and birds and happy children and swaying trees. Nothing too amusing. Laughter stretched the muscles around the eyes and mouth.
She attempted to picture happy children, but unfortunately little Frederic Quinn was screaming again.
Since his cries for help had gone unanswered, little Frederic was resorting to threats.
“My father’s going to buy me a fifty-thousand-volt Taser stun gun and I’m going to point it at you and shock you right out of your pants. How will you like that, Grady, you creep?”
“It’ll be okay for starters,” Grady said, finishing his second peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Then what?”
“You’ll fall motionless to the ground and go into convulsions.”
“How about that.”
“And maybe die.”
“What if your father doesn’t want you running around loose with a stun gun?”
“My brother Harold can get one for me,” Frederic said. “He has Mafia connections at school.”
“No kidding.”
“I told you that before.”
“Well, I didn’t believe you before. Now I don’t believe you again.”
“It’s true. Harold’s best friend is Bingo Firenze whose uncle is a hit man. Bingo’s teaching Harold a lot of things and Harold’s going to teach me.”
“You could probably teach both of them. And the uncle.”
“What a heap of crap. I’m just a kid, an innocent little kid who was molested in the locker room by the head lifeguard. How will that sound to Henderson when I tell him?”
“Like music. He’ll probably give me a medal.”
“You’re a mean bastard, Grady.”
“You bet.”
Happy children, swaying trees, birds, flowers—Miranda couldn’t keep her mind on any of them. Her discomfort was increasing. The doctor had assured her that the new ointment wasn’t just another peeling treatment, but it felt the same as the last time, like acid burning off the top layers of skin, dissolving away the wrinkles, the age spots, the keratoids. He promised no pain. He said I’d hardly be aware of the stuff. Perhaps I used too much. Oh God, let me out of here. I must wash it off.
She didn’t allow her panic to show. She rose, draped the beach towel around her with careless elegance and headed toward the shower room. She walked the way the physical therapist at the clinic had taught her to walk, languidly, as if she were moving through water. The instruction manual advised clients to keep an aquarium and observe how even the ugliest fish was a model of grace in motion. Miranda had an aquarium installed in the master bedroom but Neville had complained that all that swimming around kept him awake. The fish solved the problem by dying off rather quickly, with, Miranda suspected, some help from Neville, because the water had begun to look murky and smell of Scotch.
She moved through an imagined aqueous world, a creature of grace. Past the lifeguard eating a peanut butter sandwich, past the young sisters squabbling over a magazine, and into the corridor, where she met Charles Van Eyck.
“Good morning, good morning, Mrs. Shaw. You are looking very beautiful today.”
“Oh, Mr. Van Eyck, I’m not. Really I’m not.”
“Have it your way,” Van Eyck said and shuffled into the office to get some more stationery. It was fine sunny weather. His venomous juices were flowing like sap through a maple tree.
The episode left Miranda so shaken that she forgot all about fish and aquariums and broke into a run for the showers. Van Eyck watched her with the detachment of a veteran coach: Miranda was still frisky and the fanny surgeon had done a nice job.
“No, Mr. Van Eyck,” Ellen said. “Absolutely no. It has the club letterhead on it and must be used only for official business.”
“I can cut the letterhead off.”
“It could still be identified.”
“By whom?”
“The police.”
“Now why would the police want to identify our club stationery?” Van Eyck said reasonably. “Has there been any embezzlement, murder, interesting stuf
f like that?”
“No.”
“Then why should the police be concerned?” He peered at her over the top of his rimless half-glasses. “Aha. Aha. I’m catching on.”
“If only you’d just take no for an answer, Mr. Van Eyck.”
“When you crossed the terrace you peeked over my shoulder.”
“Not really. And I couldn’t help-”
“Yes really. And you could help. What did you see?”
“You. That’s all. The word you.”
“You and then what?”
“You—well, then maybe a couple of adjectives or so. Also, maybe a noun.”
Van Eyck shook his head gravely. “I consider this a serious breech of club etiquette, Ellen. However, I will overlook it in exchange for a few sheets of notepaper. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Not for me. I have strict orders from Mr. Henderson. If I don’t obey them I might get fired.”
“Nonsense. You’ll outlast a dozen Hendersons. Be a good girl and rustle me up that paper. Half a dozen sheets will do for the time being.”
Little Frederic was trying a new ploy.
“Grady, sir, will you please unlock this door?”
“Can’t. I swallowed the key.”
“Hey man, that’s great. You can sue the club and I’ll act as your lawyer. We can gross maybe a couple-—”
“No.”
“Okay, just let me out of here and we’ll press the flesh and forget the whole thing.”
Grady peeled a banana and took a two-inch bite. “What whole thing?”
“You know. The toilet bit.”
“Are you confessing, Quinn?”
“Hell no. Why would I pull a dumb trick like plug a toilet with my own clothes? I’m a smart kid. I was framed.”
“If you’re so smart,” Grady said, “how come you’re always being framed?”
“Someone is out to get me.”
The Murder of Miranda Page 1
