The Murder of Miranda

by Margaret Millar

  A purple van carrying Oregon license plates was parked nearby on a patch of sea daisies, its roof draped with jeans and T-shirts drying in the sun. Beside the van a blonde girl lay on her back, nude, sleeping.

  Aragon said, tentatively, “Hello?”

  She twitched as though an insect had buzzed her ear. Aragon repeated the greeting a little louder and this time she opened one eye. It was blue and bored. “What?”

  “I said hello.”

  “So hello. If you’re from the Federales, we’re not carry­ing any grass. Cross my heart. In fact, you can search me if you like, as long as Mike doesn’t see you. He’s the jealous type and I’m his lady.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  She sat up, shaking the sand out of her hair. “If you’re such a gentleman, stop looking.”

  Aragon tried. “Is that Mike out there?”

  “Him and his friend, Carl.”

  “There are three of them.”

  “The other one’s just a guy who was on the beach when we got here.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “I didn’t ask him. Names don’t matter anymore. I mean, nobody cares. My old lady had a neat system, she called all her guys the same name. Ed.”

  “Why Ed?”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with Ed?”

  Aragon had never before argued the merits of the name Ed with a naked girl and it seemed a poor time to start. Besides, she had already lost interest. Her mind was on food.

  “Is there any place around here where I could get a hamburger? We’ve had nothing to eat but fish all the way down the coast. I’m afraid my face will start to break out. Have you heard that too much fish will make your face break out?”

  “I haven’t heard that, no.”

  “Maybe it’s not true. I hope not. It wouldn’t be fair to have your face break out for eating something you don’t even like . . . Mike’s watching us. I better put some clothes on. Oh Christ, he’s coming in.”

  All three surfers were heading for shore. The waves were still high but they’d started breaking too fast, so that ebb and flow met at an impasse in a wall of water. The girl had pulled a pair of jeans and a T-shirt off the roof of the van and was putting them on. The jeans fitted like hand-me-ups from a younger, thinner sister and the front of the white flimsy T-shirt was somewhat inaccurately labeled Out of Sight.

  “Mike believes in nudity,” the girl explained. “But not mine. He wants I should be bundled up like an Eskimo all the time.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Really? I look that good?”

  “I think so. The trouble is, the Federales might think so, too, which could cause problems. Officially, they’re pretty stuffy about women wearing enough clothing. Unoffi­cially—well, you’d better be more careful.”

  “No kidding, I look that good? Wait’ll I tell Mike. He’ll freak out.”

  The three men emerged from the surf. Aragon picked Grady out immediately. The other two were younger, not yet out of their teens, and they’d had their hair cut for the trip across the border, so that their foreheads and the backs of their necks were several shades lighter than the rest of their bodies. Grady was deep brown all over except for the permanent sun scars across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.

  Mike escorted his lady into the van in spite of her pro­tests—“Every girl’s got two of those and one of them, so what’s the big deal?”—and his friend Carl took the hint and began jogging up the beach.

  Grady sat down in the sand, shaking his head to get the water out of his ears and off his hair. His movements were violent, as if he were trying to rid himself of something more adhesive than water.

  Aragon said, “Are you Grady Keaton?”

  “Good question.” The gaze he directed at Aragon was without interest and his eyes had a frosted look like star­board lights seen through fog. “I used to be.”

  “What changed you?”

  “I came here. In these parts I’m addressed as Mr. Shaw on account of the lady I’m with is Mrs. Shaw and the Mexicans are very, very square. The real Mr. Shaw doesn’t give a damn because he’s dead. He died of old age, which is not something I expect to do. How about you?”

  “I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Sure you have. Everybody thinks about dying. It’s the normal thing. Or is it? What the hell, who elected me judge of normal?” He transferred his gaze to the sea. “Every wave is different, did you know that? I mean every single one of them. Like if an experienced surfer sees a photo­graph of a wave in a magazine, he can usually tell where the photograph was taken—Pismo, Hollister, Huntington, any top spot on the coast.”

  “I’ve heard that but never believed it.”

  “It’s true.”

  “So Miranda Shaw is with you.”

  “No.”

  “You said—”

  “I said I was with her. There are a few small differences, like who’s picking up the tab, who invited who, who gives the orders and makes the decisions. I never even heard of this place until I was on my way. And the kind of salary I make I couldn’t afford to stay here for a day. I wouldn’t want to, anyway. The surfing’s nothing special and I’m usually the only one in the water, so what’s the fun? Surfing isn’t just riding waves on a board, it’s a whole way of life, like those kids in the van surfing from Oregon to La Paz. If I had the money—and I might someday, free mon­ey, no strings attached—that’s what I’d do. Except I’d start further north at Vancouver and go down to San Lucas and take the ferry that runs over to Puerto Vallarta.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the kind of trip she’d enjoy.”

  “Who?”

  “Miranda Shaw.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of inviting her.”

  Up to this point Aragon had been standing, shifting his weight from one foot to another until both his shoes were filled with sand. He sat down and removed them and his socks and finally his shirt. The sun struck his chest like a branding iron and he put the shirt back on.

  “I’m Tom Aragon, an attorney from Santa Felicia. I was sent to find Miranda Shaw.”

  “I figured you weren’t here on my account.”

  “In a way I am. I bring greetings from a young friend of yours in Santa Felicia, Frederic Quinn. He asked me to look you up. You’re one of his heroes.”

  “So is Bingo Firenze’s uncle, hit man for the Mafia, so I’m not exactly flattered . . . Why do you want to see Miranda?”

  “It concerns her husband’s will.”

  “I thought that had all been settled. Shaw left everything to her, didn’t he?”

  “The question is, what’s everything?”

  “What’s everything? What in hell would it be? It’s stocks, bonds, real estate, cars, bank accounts, jewelry, the works. He was a very rich man. Wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.” It was true enough. Shaw was once a very rich man and he left everything to his wife. Aragon didn’t con­sider it his duty to explain that everything was not only bank accounts and stocks and bonds and real estate, it was also debts.

  “Something’s funny the way you’re talking,” Grady said. “Was he or wasn’t he a rich man?”

  “I repeat, he was.”

  “And he willed his estate to Miranda?”

  “She’s his sole beneficiary.”

  “Then what’s this about?”

  “Shaw’s will hasn’t gone through probate yet. There are some papers which have to be signed by Mrs. Shaw.”

  “Well, that’s easy.” For a moment Grady looked almost friendly. “She’s over in the cottage lying down. She sleeps a lot. They all do around here, the place is like a morgue.”

  The fatigue which Dr. Ortiz claimed was normal for peo­ple under treatment seemed to spread from the point of injection throughout her entire body, leaving her simulta­
neously light-headed and lead-footed. She had giddy spells, and once she had fallen when Grady wasn’t there and she couldn’t even recall the incident until the soreness of her wrist and the bruises on her arm reminded her. Grady thought she’d been drinking and she let him think it.

  She lay drowsy-eyed on the bed, wearing the white chif­fon nightgown she’d purchased at a bride boutique in San Diego. She didn’t feel like a bride. The injections weren’t as painful as they’d been in previous years because Dr. Ortiz had added what he described as a secret new ingredient, but the numbness was almost worse than pain. She’d ex­pected a surge of vitality and youth. Instead she felt shriv­eled, as though she were gradually being mummified. She had no appetite, for food or life or even Grady.

  “Go and surf, dear.”

  “But you said—”

  “Run along without me. I’ll come down later and watch you.”

  Then suddenly it was later and Grady was back.

  “Where were you, Miranda?”

  “I must have dozed off.”

  “It’s six o’clock.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. I meant to—”

  “There wasn’t a soul in sight the whole damn after­noon.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted, a beach where you didn’t have to fight for every good wave.”

  “Well, I got it, I sure as hell got it.”

  Always, after one of her long sleeps, she was jittery. “Go and tell Dr. Ortiz I don’t feel well. I need something to calm me.”

  “You’ve started pill-popping, you know that? Pills and booze and goat glands—Christ, what a combo.”

  “Please, Grady. I’m quite nervous.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Miranda. Pack your stuff right now and we’ll take off.”

  “I can’t. Dr. Ortiz warned me that I must complete the course of treatments or the effect will be lost.”

  “What effect?”

  “Don’t I look . . . younger, Grady?”

  “You look okay. You looked okay before.”

  “I feel younger. I really do.” She giggled. It was a terri­ble effort.

  The room was like that in any second- or third-rate mo­tel back home. The furnishings were new but already showing signs of wear—a double bed with a forty-watt lamp on each bedside table, a bureau topped by a mirror and a small electric fan, a desk scarred by cigarette burns, a standing ashtray advertising Tio’s Tequila, a dressing al­cove behind a wooden screen, a shoebox-sized kitchenette off the bathroom. An air-conditioning unit bore a sign Fuero de Servicio, Out of Order, and the atmosphere was hot and humid.

  Insects droned and buzzed and whirred and ate each other and ate Miranda, too, when they discovered a way into the room through a hole in a screen. Her thin delicate skin was easy to penetrate, and the scent of her perfume was irresistible to bees in the daytime and mosquitoes at night, and to fleas and no-see-ums at any hour. There were clusters of fleabites across her abdomen and under her breasts. Her feet and ankles were covered with tiny red lumps like miniature pimples, which sometimes itched so terribly she scratched them until they bled. On her head, hidden by her hair, were curious welts oozing a colorless liquid that crystallized. When the fragile crystals broke un­der her comb, the oozing started all over again.

  She dreamed of being consumed, of calling to Grady for help, and he came knocking at the door.

  “Miranda?”

  She opened her eyes.

  “Are you awake, Miranda?”

  She said, “No,” not to be funny but because it was the truth. She was not awake, not hungry, not thirsty, not cold or hot, not in pain, not even itchy from the insect bites.

  “Miranda, someone’s here to see you from Santa Feli­cia.”

  She sat up on the bed, suddenly and fully awake. “I am not receiving visitors this afternoon. Who—who is it?”

  “A lawyer named Aragon. Some legal technicality has come up and you’ve got to sign a few papers.”

  “Wait a minute, please.”

  She put on the robe that matched her gown and ran a brush quickly through her hair. With the blinds drawn, the room was nearly dark. When she passed the mirror on her way to the door her image was a white shadow, like the ectoplasm of a bride.

  “Hey, Miranda, hurry up.”

  “All right.”

  She unbolted the door. Grady came in with a towel wrapped around his waist and immediately turned on the fan and began opening blinds and windows. The fan whined and whirred like a superinsect, scattering its inferi­ors across the room, muffling their sounds of protest.

  Miranda shielded her eyes from the sudden sun. For a whole minute she could see nothing but a moving red blaze. Then gradually the stranger emerged from the blaze, a young man wearing college-style cords and a Hawaiian shirt and horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a rather shy look. He carried a briefcase.

  “Mrs. Shaw? I’m Tom Aragon.”

  “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “No, we haven’t. I work for Mr. Smedler.”

  “Smedler.” She repeated the name as if she was honestly trying to remember the man who went with it. “I can’t quite . . .”

  “Smedler, Downs, Castleberg, McFee, Powell.”

  “Oh, of course. That’s the firm handling my husband’s estate.”

  Or lack of it. He resisted an impulse to say the words, though he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have shocked her. She didn’t fit Smedler’s description of her as a nice well-bred little woman who’d been insulated and protected from the world.

  “I’m afraid this is not a very good place to entertain,” she said carefully. “Or to do business, Mr. Aragon. There’s a café in the main building but it’s closed during the after­noon.”

  “I won’t take much of your time.”

  “It will seem long to Grady. He’s easily bored . . . Grady, would you mind? This promises to be a very dull session and you might as well be doing something interesting. Go and surf, dear.”

  Grady minded. “I surfed already.”

  “It’s a private matter, Grady.”

  “We’re not supposed to have secrets from each other,” Grady said.

  “Well, we do. Hundreds.”

  “He knows we’re here as man and wife. I don’t see what’s to hide. I’ve got a right to be in on—”

  “We’ll discuss it later.” Go and surf you bastard.

  As soon as he’d gone, Miranda switched off the fan.

  “I prefer the heat to the noise, if you have no objection, Mr. Aragon.”

  “None at all.”

  “Please sit down.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took one of the green vinyl chairs. It had a broken spring in the middle of the seat. He couldn’t avoid it, so he tried to sit as lightly as he could, keeping some of his weight on his thigh, a posture that made him look as if he were waiting for the starting gun of a race. He thought about what kind of race it would turn out to be—low or high hurdles, quarter-mile, marathon—and how he wasn’t ready for any of them.

  She sat in the other vinyl chair. If it had a broken spring, she showed no sign of it. She seemed composed, almost regal, a great lady willing to donate time to the problems of the little people, even in her nightclothes in a hot dingy little room in a foreign country.

  “I find these circumstances quite extraordinary, Mr. Aragon. To begin with, no one is supposed to know where I am.”

  “Someone guessed.”

  “Smedler, I presume. It’s rather bad form for him to send someone after me like this. One would think that he, of all people, would understand, since he’s been married three times and heaven knows what else how many times. This is an affair of the heart.”

  “It is also an affair of the California judiciary.”

  “The California judiciary can wait. I’ve certainl
y been kept waiting long enough. Neville died last spring, leaving a legal and uncomplicated will which should have been settled months ago.”

  “Probate is often a long procedure,” Aragon said. “You could have shortened it somewhat by cooperating with Smedler. Why these delaying tactics, Mrs. Shaw?”

  “I was in a hurry. Some things can’t be postponed. I was due for another treatment at the clinic and Grady needed a holiday. I thought it was possible to combine the two.”

  “And was it?”

  The slight movement of her head didn’t indicate yes or no.

  “In practical terms, Mrs. Shaw, all you’ve gained is a couple of weeks and the money Tannenbaum paid you.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  He told her about the Admiral’s daughters and the ruby necklace and bracelet. As she listened her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened as though she was resisting the idea of Juliet and Cordelia wearing her jewelry.

  He added, “Disposing of items belonging to a frozen estate is against the law.”

  “The jewelry belonged to me and was not part of the estate.”

  “What about the other things you sold?”

  “I’m the sole beneficiary, so they were mine, too.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re legally obliged to share them with Mr. Shaw’s creditors . . . You knew about the credi­tors, of course.”

  Again the slight noncommittal movement of her head. “I didn’t know.”

  “You suspected.”

  “I was aware of odd things happening, phone calls at all hours, strangers at the door. And Neville acted so different, secretive one minute, talking a blue streak the next, never letting me open the mail. I didn’t understand what was happening.”

  “Do you understand now?”

  “I’m beginning to,” she said with a grim little smile. “He was making sure I didn’t inherit anything. If he changed his will, I could fight it in court. If he simply left me noth­ing but debts, it would be legal and I’d be safe from fortune hunters. He kept referring to fortune hunters as though there was one behind every tree. He took it for granted that I was too stupid to protect myself so he had to do it. Well, he protected me all right. From fortune hunters, if not from anything else.”