As soon as she returned home she called Ellen. She used the kitchen phone because it was the only one in the house not connected to any of the others and nobody could listen in.
Ellen answered. “Penguin Club.”
“Ellen?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Grady is back?”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
“I’m taking it very well, thank you. How long has he been here?”
“A week.”
“A whole week and you never said a word to me.”
“I intended to, but—”
“Are you trying to keep us apart?”
“You are apart, Miranda. You’ve been apart for a long time.”
“No,” Miranda said. “Not for a minute. Perhaps Grady doesn’t realize it yet, but I do. He came back here to see me.”
“He needed a job and Mr. Henderson agreed to rehire him.”
“That’s simply a cover-up.”
“Miranda, please—”
“Oh, I won’t rush him. I’ll give him a little time to adjust and then I’ll arrange a meeting. I’ve saved enough money to buy a whole new outfit. Grady likes soft silky things.”
“Stop it, Miranda. He hasn’t even asked after you.”
“Of course not. He’s too subtle for that. He wouldn’t ask you anyway. It’s been obvious from the beginning that you’ve had a hopeless crush on him.”
“You just won’t listen to reason, will you?”
“Not yours,” Miranda said. “You’re not my friend anymore.”
To celebrate the July Fourth holiday Mr. Henderson planned a special event for the club. It was his most inspired idea since the Easter Egos costume ball where everybody came dressed as the person they would most like to be resurrected as. (Toward the end of the evening two of the resurrectees, Héloïse and Abelard, staged a knockdown drag-out fight. This didn’t spoil the party, since it was generally viewed as part of the entertainment, especially the choking scene. A number of volunteers gave Héloïse artificial respiration, but she survived anyway and a good time was had by nearly all.)
The July celebration, which Henderson called a Wing Ding, was given the theme Unidentified Flying Objects. Denied a special permit for a fireworks display on the beach in front of the club—fireworks were illegal throughout the state—Henderson rented a barge and had it anchored offshore as a base for the fuegos artificiales he’d brought across the border from Tijuana. The display was a great success until the Coast Guard literally cast a damper on it by dousing the barge with a firehose.
Henderson wasn’t the only miscreant. The police and sheriff’s deputies were busy all over town trying to enforce the ban on fireworks. From the barrio along the railroad tracks to the elegant old streets which zigzagged up through the foothills the night was alive with the explosions and flashes of homemade bombs and mail-order or under-the-counter shooting stars and Roman candles and whiz-bangs.
An extra loud explosion at 1220 Camino Grande attracted no special attention until a passing motorist saw flames shooting out of a window and called the fire department. By the time the flames were extinguished Iris Young was dead.
Part V
Iris’s sitting room was officially sealed off and both the damaged wall and the door were boarded up to prevent further collapse.
Police poked around in the rubble, carrying away boxes of ashes and shattered glass, burned sections of tables and window frames and splinters of lamps, the disemboweled chair where Iris normally sat, her record albums melted now into masses of black glue, the charred remnant of the cane she always used, her mutilated chess pieces blown around the room like men in war.
The people living in the house were questioned and requestioned, separately and together, and bit by bit the circumstances of Iris’s final hours emerged. During the afternoon she listened to a new album of Tosca while paying some bills and balancing her checkbook. She did some typing. She finished a mystery story she’d been reading. She executed her next moves in the chess game she was playing by mail with the professor in Tokyo and the medical missionary in Jakarta and gave both letters to Miranda to mail.
In the evening she was alone in the house. At her urging the Admiral took the girls to the fireworks display at the club. The housekeeper, Mrs. Norgate, went to babysit her infant grandson. And Miranda was out walking the dog, who had suffered a digestive upset after eating a chocolate éclair.
It was a warm night, but Iris’s poor circulation made her susceptible to cold and even in summer she frequently used the gas log in her sitting room downstairs. Miranda offered to light it for her before she left the house. Iris refused. She was in a bad mood as well as in pain. She had appeared at dinner only long enough to complain that the vegetables were overcooked, the beef roast tough and the candles gave her a migraine.
Miranda took the dog to Featherstone Park, half a mile down the hill toward the sea. He seemed to feel better out in the open air, so they stayed for quite a while, the dog lying beside her while she sat on a bench listening to the night explode around her. When she returned to the house the driveway was blocked by police cars and fire engines and a small crowd of curiosity seekers being held back by men in uniform.
“What’s happened? Let me past. I live here. Mrs. Young . . . I’ve got to see if Mrs. Young is all right.”
As in all cases of violent death under unusual circumstances, an autopsy was performed. Though the body was severely burned, enough blood and tissue samples were recovered to confirm that the actual cause of death was smoke inhalation. The evidence indicated that while Iris was attempting to light the gas log she’d lost her balance and fallen. A frontal head injury rendered her unconscious and unable to escape the subsequent explosion and fire.
When the body was finally released for burial a memorial service was held in the chapel of the mortuary. The Admiral kept his head bowed throughout the proceedings. Charles Van Eyck, lulled by the minister’s voice and three double martinis, drifted into sleep. Now and then Miranda dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief very carefully to avoid smudging her mascara. The girls kept staring at the closed coffin as though they half expected it might open and out would pop Iris, having decided she didn’t like being dead.
Cordelia was openly critical of the nature and length of the service. “It’s so silly, the minister yapping away about God and heaven when Mrs. Young didn’t believe a word of that stuff.”
“It’s better to be on the safe side,” Juliet said. “Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case it’s all true. Besides, it’s not hurting anyone.”
“It’s hurting me. I’m hungry.”
“Shut up. I want to hear about heaven.”
Even after Iris’s burial the damaged door of her sitting room remained boarded up and no workmen were allowed in to start cleaning up and rebuilding. A guard was kept in the hall to enforce the rule.
The girls, perturbed not so much by the death of their mother as by the disruption of their normal routine, hung around the hall trying to get answers and assurances, especially from the day guard, a red-haired young man named Grella.
“We thought the investigation was over and done with,” Cordelia said. “Why are you still here?”
“Orders.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“Best I can do,” Grella said. “The fact is, the reports haven’t come back from Sacramento yet, and until then—”
“Why Sacramento?”
“That’s where the crime lab is.”
“What do they do there?”
“Analyze evidence to try and find out exactly what happened.”
“It’s perfectly clear what happened. Mrs. Young fell while she was lighting the gas log and hit her head. I’m not a bit surpri
sed. She was always bumping into things and getting mad about it and cussing to beat hell.”
“We’re Navy, you know,” Juliet explained, “we learned all the cuss words years ago. But we’re not allowed to use them except in the privacy of our own rooms, like chewing gum. You’re chewing gum right now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Are you allowed?”
“I think so. I never asked.”
“You’d better ask.”
“Let’s stick to the subject,” Cordelia said sharply. “Why is the lab in Sacramento taking such a long time?”
“They’re busy. They test evidence sent to them from every place in California.”
“That’s just physical evidence. Somebody should test the other more important kind of evidence, like what such and such a person said to so-and-so. We know plenty of that stuff.”
“No kidding.”
“Only nobody will listen.”
“I’ll listen,” Grella said. He didn’t have much else to do anyway except, as Juliet had observed, chew gum.
The girls conferred in whispers behind cupped hands, Juliet frowning and looking worried. She would rather have limited the conversation to nice friendly things like gum and the weather and the Navy, which wouldn’t offend anyone, with the possible exception of Uncle Charles, who didn’t care very much for the Navy. But Cordelia wasn’t passing up her chance at an audience.
“Well, first of all,” she said, “Mrs. Young had a terrible temper. And every year it got worse. When she went on a rampage she yelled and screamed and threw things. One day she even hit Miranda on the arm with her cane and Pops had to raise Miranda’s salary two hundred dollars a month so she wouldn’t quit.”
“No kidding,” Grella said. “Who’s Miranda?”
“Oh, you’ve seen her floating and fluttering around the house. Mrs. Shaw. She’s supposed to be teaching us etiquette, which is really dumb because we never go any place we can use it.”
“What happened after she got the two-hundred-a-month raise?”
“She stayed. And she used the extra money to buy him presents.”
“Mrs. Shaw bought your father presents?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“We don’t know.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“No. But we heard him thank her for them. It was one night after Uncle Charles had been here for dinner. Miranda and Pops were standing right in this very hall.”
“And where were you?”
Cordelia indicated the railing at the top of the stairs. “Up there. It’s our favorite place for finding out what’s going on when nobody will tell us.”
“So what went on?”
“It was a kind of a mushy scene, with her playing the little woman and him apologizing for the way Mrs. Young treated her and saying don’t cry, please don’t cry. Sickening. Nobody ever asks me not to cry, let alone tacking a please onto it.”
“Then what?”
“He thanked her for the presents, said he was very happy with them.”
“Your father and Mrs. Shaw, were they chummy? That is, did they . . . ?”
“We think so,” Juliet said a little sadly. “Probably in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce.”
Blushing, Grella looked down at his feet, which were still there, and then at the door of Iris’s sitting room, which wasn’t. “Did you witness this—ah, this—”
“Hanky-panky,” Cordelia said. “That’s what we call it. Everyone knows what we’re talking about but it’s not vulgar. No, we didn’t actually witness it. There were signs though, plenty of them, smiles and stares, touchings that might have looked accidental but weren’t.”
“Did your mother suspect what was going on?”
“Maybe. She couldn’t hear very well but she had eyes like a hawk. Of course, we didn’t say a word to her about it. She’d have gotten mad at us.”
“Why?”
“Everyone does.”
“This is a very interesting development,” Grella said. “I’m not sure what I ought to do about it.”
“You ought to tell that lab up in Sacramento there are lots of things they won’t find out in test tubes.”
Grella didn’t tell the lab but he told his sergeant and the sergeant told his lieutenant. There was general agreement that the hanky-panky in the Rolls-Royce put a different light on the case.
On a morning in mid-July, Aragon was summoned to Smedler’s office.
Charity was waiting for him when he stepped out of Smedler’s private elevator. She had just finished misting her plants and the room was as hot and wet as an equatorial jungle. Beads of moisture clung to her red wig, which was draped over a life-sized bust of President Kennedy.
Charity saw him staring at it. “A work of art, isn’t it? I got it at a swap meet over the weekend in exchange for my old muskrat jacket. I was passionately in love with Jack Kennedy, still am after all these years.”
“It might cool your ardor if you turned on the air conditioning.”
“My plants wouldn’t like it.”
“Don’t tell them.”
She wiped some of the moisture off the wig with a piece of Kleenex. “Better not come on funny today, junior. Boss man had another bash with his wife and now he’s feeling guilty because he won. Guilt always gives him a migraine.”
“What’s he want from me?”
“How should I know? Maybe he wants to give you something.”
“Like what?”
“His migraine.”
Smedler was sitting behind his desk reading the morning mail. The bash with his wife had resulted in no visible scars, but even now his face was flushed and his hands had a very slight tremor.
He wasted only two words—“Sit down”—before coming to the point. “I saw in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago that Admiral Young’s wife was killed in a fire. Know anything about it?”
“Only what I read in the newspaper account.”
“Sketchy. Very sketchy. Makes me wonder . . . You aren’t privy to any off-the-record stuff, are you?”
“No.”
Smedler rubbed the left side of his neck and the area behind his left ear, which was a deeper color than the other ear. “I’ve played golf with the Admiral a couple of times. Nice quiet chap, hardly the type you’d suspect of fooling around.”
“Who suspects him of fooling around?”
“My wife heard it on the grapevine at the country club. The rumor is that Miranda Shaw has been working at the Admiral’s house in some capacity, and one capacity led to another capacity. I’ve instructed my wife not to repeat a story like that unless she’s sure of the facts. It would be damned embarrassing for a man in my position to be sued for slander. Women don’t realize the possible consequences of this gossip. Of course, it may not be gossip. Give me your personal opinion, Aragon. Does a relationship between the two of them seem feasible, considering his age, et cetera, et cetera?”
“The feasibility of a relationship depends on the number of et ceteras.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t talk like a lawyer. Are they sleeping together?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“How?”
“Miranda’s a friend of yours.”
“I spent a day and a half with her,” Aragon said. “Most of the time I was driving and she was unconscious. That hardly adds up to a friendship.”
“It’s possible.”
“It didn’t happen. What’s more, I don’t consider it part of my job to pry into the love affairs of admirals.”
“It’s one admiral, not the whole U.S. Navy, and one love affair, not a history of Hollywood. All I’m asking is that you and Miranda should have a nice cozy talk over a couple of drinks. If sh
e indicates no personal interest in the Admiral, I’ll muzzle my wife and that’ll be the end of that . . . It’s funny she was left alone in the house that night.”
“Who?”
“Iris Young. As I understand it she was crippled. A wealthy woman like that would surely have someone around to look after her or at least to keep her company.”
“She had Miranda.”
“Yes,” Smedler said dryly. “She had Miranda.”
The death of Iris had dealt a fatal blow to Charles Van Eyck’s social life. Her house was
the last place in town where he was more or less welcome for dinner, and in spite of the mediocrity of the food, drink and conversation, he missed the invitations. To his surprise he also missed Iris. She’d been his last surviving relative—if he didn’t count the girls,
and he didn’t—and he felt quite depressed at the idea of being the final Van Eyck, with nothing to leave behind as a memorial except his correspondence. Since most of this was unsigned, it didn’t constitute much of a memorial.
Iris had found out about the anonymous letters when he made the mistake of writing one to her about Miranda, and the even worse mistake of not checking the spelling of the word Jezebel. She wasn’t taken in by his denials. “People who live in glass houses,” Iris had said, “should learn to spell. I can only guess you’ve been scattering these around the landscape like confetti. Do try not to get caught, Charles. It would embarrass the family.”
He had not been caught. Concerned Citizen, One Who Knows, a Word to the Wise, Irate Taxpayer, Member of Loyal Opposition, Awake and Aware, Cassandra and Pentagon Pauper continued their correspondence.
It was a warm sunny afternoon. At the club Van Eyck sat in a deck chair under the twisted old cypress tree. He wore his writing costume: flowered Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, a tennis visor and bifocals. He had a new refill in his pen and plenty of paper, which he’d snatched from the office while Ellen was on a coffee break. The tide was high but the waves gentle, so there was minimal noise to distract him. Still he was distracted. The pain in his left hip worried him. He thought of a mare he’d ridden as a child which had to be shot when she broke her leg. He wondered where he was going to spend Christmas Day now that Iris was dead. Finally he dozed off for an hour or so, and when he woke up he felt refreshed and the mare and the hip pain and Christmas were going out with the tide. Charles Van Eyck went with them and Seeker of Truth got down to business.
The Murder of Miranda Page 18
