“I don’t remember exactly,” Ellen said. She did, though. Exactly, to the minute. “Goodbye, Ellen. Hasn’t it been lovely weather? I must fly now. See you tomorrow.”
She went back into the corridor. On one of the rattan settees placed at intervals along the wall, Admiral Young’s two daughters sat in identical postures. They looked so stiff and self-conscious that Ellen knew they’d been eavesdropping. Cordelia’s face was sallow, as usual, but Juliet’s cheeks and chin and the tip of her nose were pink with suppressed excitement.
Ellen tried to brush past them but they rose simultaneously and blocked her way.
“Sorry, girls, I haven’t time to talk to you right now.”
“You were talking to him,” Cordelia said.
“And that other him,” Juliet added. “We think something’s wrong. I smelled disaster the instant I heard Miranda Shaw’s name.”
“Juliet’s no magna cum laude,” her sister explained. “But she has very keen senses.”
Juliet lowered her eyes modestly. “I really do, don’t I, Cordelia?”
“I already said so. Now get on with the story.”
“Why don’t you tell it if you’re in such a bloody hurry?”
“No. You tell, I’ll edit.”
“Oh, I hate being edited,” Juliet cried. “Oh God, I hate it, it makes me throw up.”
Cordelia did her Rhett Butler imitation, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn, which put Juliet in a good mood again and she was able to continue her narrative: “This year Mrs. Young had the peculiar idea of giving her brother, our Uncle Charley Van Eyck, a birthday party.”
“Why you didn’t smell that disaster, I’d like to know.”
“Heavens to horehound, I can’t smell them all . . . The trouble with Mrs. Young’s idea was fixing Uncle Charley up with a dinner partner because he’s such a weirdo. She decided to try Miranda Shaw, probably because Miranda doesn’t know Uncle Charley very well. Mrs. Young kept phoning and phoning, and when she couldn’t get an answer she gave us the job of coming down here every day to keep an eye out for Miranda so we could pass along the invitation when she showed up. Only she never did and the party was last week.”
Cordelia started to describe the party, how Uncle Charley got drunk and dressed up in one of the Admiral’s old uniforms and sang “Anchors Aweigh” with dirty lyrics, but Ellen interrupted.
“Thank you for your information, girls. Don’t worry about Mrs. Shaw, I’m sure she’s quite all right.”
“You are very unworldly, Ellen,” Cordelia said. “Things happen to women.”
Juliet nodded. “Even to us. Once in Singapore we were escorted by—”
“Shut up. The Singapore incident is nobody’s business.”
“Well, you told everybody at the time. You could hardly wait to spread it around the yacht club.”
“This isn’t Singapore and Mrs. Shaw wasn’t accosted,” Ellen said. And if she was, she accosted right back. “Mrs. Shaw probably decided to take a vacation.”
She told Aragon the same thing, while the girls stood in the background listening, Cordelia rolling her eyes in a pantomime of disbelief, Juliet waving one hand back and forth across her face as if fanning away a bad smell.
Aragon said, “Mrs. Shaw didn’t actually mention taking a vacation?”
“No. Some of our members talk about their trips for six months in advance and six months afterwards, but Mrs. Shaw is the quiet type.”
“I see. Well, if you happen to hear from her, please let me know. You have my card.”
“Yes.” She had thrown the card away immediately, without even stopping to think about it. “I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
As he went out the door Aragon wondered why someone who was so terribly sorry didn’t look even a little bit sorry.
In the parking lot he found his car already occupied. Sitting behind the wheel was the red-haired boy he’d seen on the lifeguard’s tower. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of a surfer on it and the advice Make Waves, but he looked as if he didn’t need the advice.
He slid across the seat to make room for Aragon. “You should lock your heap, man. These old-model Chevs are very big.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“I showed you, man, I didn’t tell you. Nobody learns by being told.”
“All right, thanks for showing me.”
“No sweat. It’s because of the ignition.”
“What is?”
“The reason the old Chevs are being ripped off. They’re easy to start without a key. Let me show you.”
“Don’t bother,” Aragon said. “I have a key.”
“Yeah, but suppose you lose it and—”
“The only thing I ever lose is my temper.”
The boy studied his fingernails, found them uninteresting, jammed his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans. The resulting posture made him look as though he’d been strapped in a strait jacket. “I suppose you’re wondering who I am.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“I am Frederic Marshall Quinn the Third, numero tres.”
“I figure you’re also a smart-ass numero uno.”
Frederic acknowledged the compliment with a worldly little shrug. “Sure, man. Why not? I got to survive.”
“Haven’t you heard, Freddy? Smart-asses are the first to go.”
“In your day, maybe. Times have changed.” His hands came out of his pockets and his fingernails were reexamined. “I heard you talking about Mrs. Shaw. You a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“I may need a lawyer someday so I thought I’d do you a favor, then you’ll owe me one. Right?”
“I’ll consider it,” Aragon said.
“That’s not good enough. Let’s make it a real deal here and now. We’re both in the same boat, see, on account of I’m looking for somebody, too.”
“Sure you are.”
“Honest. There’s this lifeguard, Grady. He’s okay. I mean, he’s kind of like my friend. I’ve been learning about macho from him so I can pass the info to some of the kids at school. Only just when I was catching on to a few tricks, he split. Didn’t say goodbye or where he was going or when he’d be back, didn’t even wait for his paycheck.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I heard Ellen talking to Henderson about it, wondering where to send Grady’s paycheck. She got mad because it would screw up the bookkeeping if Grady didn’t cash his check. She was even crying about it. She cries easy. Really gross.”
“Who was Grady practicing his macho on?”
“That’s the favor I’m doing you, man. Her, Mrs. Shaw. She was his new chick.”
Aragon watched in silence as a fat brown bird landed on the hood of his car, hopped over to the windshield and picked a bug off one of the wipers. “You wouldn’t make up a story like that, would you?”
“Sure I would, but I didn’t. It was right here in the parking lot that I first saw them together. Grady was using a different technique, high class, no hands, lots of talk and eye contact. Then they drove off in her car, a custom-job black Lincoln Continental. What about our deal?”
“It’s on. I owe you one. When you need my services, give me a call. Here’s my card.”
Frederic shook his head. “I already got your card. I picked it out of the wastebasket where Ellen threw it.”
“All right, Frederic, now I owe you two.”
“Two? How come?”
“It’s a personal thing.”
“I like personal things.”
“So do I,” Aragon said. But not this one. She threw it in the wastebasket because she had no intention of telling me anything. The conversation was a cover-up, hocus pocus. “The girl in the front office, Ellen you called her, what’s she like?”
“She
loses her cool and chews me out about once a day, but she’s not on my H list.”
“What’s your H list, Frederic?”
“H for hate.”
“Is this a real list or do you merely keep it in your head?”
“Real, man. Lots of people on it, too. I added one today, that old creep Van Eyck. He told me he was going to string me up by my thumbs in the boiler room. Imagine saying that to a kid.”
“I’m trying to imagine what the kid said first.”
“I only asked him if he was queen of the fairies.”
“That’s not an endearing question, Frederic.”
Frederic looked up into the sun, squinting. “How am I going to learn things without asking? If he isn’t queen of the fairies, he could have answered no. And if he is, well, we live in an enlightened society.”
“Don’t bet your thumbs on it, kid.”
“It wasn’t even my idea in the first place. The two flakies, those sisters that are always hanging around, they were talking about it. You know, hormones. They decided if the old man’s trouble was hormones it could be corrected, but if it was genes it couldn’t and they were stuck with it. Would you care to know what I think?”
“I don’t believe I would, no.”
“Van Eyck has blue genes.” The boy doubled up with laughter and his tomato-red face looked ready to burst its skin. “That’s a joke I heard at school. Blue genes, see? Hey, man, don’t you have a sense of humor?”
“It’s been temporarily deactivated,” Aragon said. “Now let’s leave it at that and you go back to school and I’ll go back to the office.”
“No. No, you can’t. You have to look for Grady. I got everything figured out for you—find Mrs. Shaw and Grady will be with her. They’re probably just shacked up in her house making macho and not answering the phone.”
“How many times have you called there, Frederic?”
“Six, seven. Why shouldn’t I? I mean, Grady and me, we’re like friends almost. When he’s not around I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
“You could attend classes once in a while. They have people there you can talk to called teachers.”
“Don’t lecture me, man. Every time I go near a grownup I get a lecture. Except Grady.”
“And what do you get from Grady?”
“Action. Anyway, he can’t afford to give me a lecture. He dropped out of the tenth grade and has been maxing it ever since.”
“Maxing?”
“Living up to his maximum potential, like doing what he wants to without being caught.”
Aragon watched the brown bird hop across the hood and down to the ground, thinking that Mrs. Shaw was an unlikely choice for Grady’s maxing. “Listen, Frederic, are you sure Mrs. Shaw is Grady’s new chick? She’s an older woman, a widow with a refined background—”
“Where have you been all these years? Backgrounds don’t matter anymore unless they’re real special like Bingo Firenze’s. His uncle is a hit man for the Mafia. Now that matters . . . Are you going to find Grady for me?”
“I’m going to keep looking for Mrs. Shaw. If Grady’s with her, fine. I can’t guarantee anything beyond that.”
“Why are you after Mrs. Shaw, anyway?”
“There are some probate papers for her to sign. Know what probate means?”
“Sure,” Frederic said. “It’s when a person dies and everybody’s fighting for the money that’s left and a judge decides who gets it.”
“Close enough.”
“I hope Mrs. Shaw gets the money. Grady needs it. He’s always scrounging. Last month he borrowed twenty dollars from my sister, April, just before they sent her away to riding school in Arizona. Grady doesn’t know it yet but April gave me the IOU so I could collect. I’m saving it to use sort of like blackmail when I need a very important favor.”
“Bingo Firenze’s uncle would be proud of you, kid.”
“Sure.” Frederic opened the car door. “Listen, when you see Grady don’t tell him it was me who sent you. I wouldn’t want him to think I care what he does or anything like that. Deal?”
“Deal.”
They shook hands. It was a solemn occasion: Aragon had acquired his first private client.
Leaving the parking lot, he drove past the front entrance of the club. The two sisters were standing outside the door looking as though they were expecting something or someone. He hoped he wasn’t it.
“That’s him, all right,” Cordelia said. “Did you notice how he stepped on the accelerator the instant he spotted us? Very odd, don’t you think?”
“Well, a lot of people do it,” Juliet said wistfully.
“A lot of people have reason to because they know us. But this young man doesn’t know us, so that can’t be the reason.”
“He has rather a pleasant face.”
“You gullible idiot, they’re the worst kind. Believe me, he’s up to no good. You mustn’t be taken in by appearances, Juliet.”
“I’ll try not.”
“They mean nothing.”
“I know. But wouldn’t it be nice to be pretty, Cordelia? Just for a little while, even a few days?”
“Oh, shut up.” Cordelia gave her sister a warning pinch on the arm. “We are us and that’s that. Don’t go dreaming.”
“I won’t. Still, it would be nice, just for a few—”
“All right, it would be nice. But it’s not going to happen, never ever, so forget it.”
Juliet’s eyes were moist, partly from the pinch, partly from the never ever, which was even more final than plain never. Through the moisture, however, she could see the Admiral’s Rolls-Royce approaching, as slow and steady as a ship nearing port. “Here comes Pops.”
“Maybe we should tell him.”
“What about?”
“The disaster,” Cordelia said, frowning. “You told Ellen you distinctly smelled disaster the instant you heard Miranda Shaw’s name.”
“I did smell it, I really did. Unless it was my depilatory.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, there you go ruining things again.”
“I can’t help it. I only this minute remembered using the depilatory, which has a peculiar odor, kind of sulphurous, like hellfire. I’m sorry, Cordelia.”
“You damn well should be, blowing the whole bit like this.”
“It’s still very possible that something awful happened to her. We saw her and that lifeguard looking at each other and it was that kind of look, like in Singapore.”
The mention of Singapore inspired Cordelia to new heights. It was her opinion that Grady had lured Mrs. Shaw up into the mountains, stripped her of her clothes, virtue, cash and jewels, probably in that order, and left her there to perish.
Juliet contemplated this in silence for a moment. Then she said cheerfully, “So it wasn’t my depilatory after all.”
The Admiral had agreed, after a somewhat one-sided discussion with his wife, Iris, to forgo the football game on T. V. and take the girls downtown for lunch at a cafeteria. They both loved cafeterias and selected so many things to eat that they had to use an extra tray to hold the desserts. After consuming as much as they could, they packed the rest into doggy bags and took them down to the bird refuge to feed the geese and gulls and coots. The gulls and coots ate anything, but the geese were choosy, preferring mixed green salad and apple pie.
The Admiral parked the Rolls, then moved to the rear to open the door for his daughters like a salaried chauffeur. “Are you ready for lunch?”
“I guess,” Juliet said.
“You guess? Dear me, that doesn’t sound like one of my girls talking. What about you, Cordelia?”
Cordelia didn’t waste time on amenities. “Pops, did you ever know anyone who was murdered?”
“Now that depends on your definition of murder. During the Second World War
and the Korean conflict I saw many of my—”
“Oh, not that kind of murder, it’s so ordinary. I meant the real thing, with real motives and everything.”
“What’s the point of such a question, Cordelia?”
“Miranda Shaw has disappeared.”
“Vanished,” Juliet added.
“We think she’s been murdered.”
“Done in.”
“Come, come,” the Admiral said mildly. “Miranda Shaw isn’t the kind of person who gets murdered. She’s a fine lady with many womanly virtues.”
“Ah so,” Cordelia said. “And what are womanly virtues, Pops?”
“My dear, I should have thought your mother would have told you by this time.”
“Maybe nobody told her.”
“Yes, I see. Well, I can’t speak for all men, of course, but among the traits I consider desirable in a woman are kindness, gentleness, loving patience.”
They both stared at him for a few seconds before Cordelia spoke again. “Then what made you pick Mrs. Young?”
“That’s a very rude question, Cordelia. I shall do my best to forget it was ever asked.”
“Oh bull. You always say that when you don’t know the answer to something.”
“Most likely,” Juliet said, “he didn’t pick her, she picked him. Ten to one it happened like that. Didn’t it, Pops?”
The Admiral cleared his throat. “I wish you girls could manage to show more respect towards your parents.”
“We’re trying, Pops.”
“But remember, you’re not in the Navy anymore,” Cordelia said briskly. “We’re not ensigns or junior looies. Are we, Juliet?”
“Not on your poop deck,” Juliet said.
Aragon left his car on the street at the bottom of the Shaws’ driveway.
It was an area of huge old houses build on large multiple acreages when land was cheap, and surrounded by tall iron or stone fences constructed when labor was cheap. Most of the residences had gatehouses, some not much larger than the gondolas of a ski lift, others obviously intended as living quarters for servants. The Shaws’ gatehouse had Venetian blinds on the largest window and a well-used broom propped outside the front door.
Aragon pressed the button that was supposed to activate the squawk box connecting the gate to the main residence. Nothing happened. The squawk box was either out of order or disconnected. He waited several minutes, trying to decide what to do next. The gate was iron grillwork ten feet high. It would be possible to scale it, as he’d once scaled the Penguin Club fence, but the results might be more severe—a couple of police cars instead of a lone security guard.
The Murder of Miranda Page 6
