The old man didn’t move.
“Admiral? You may step down now.”
“Before I do I would like to make another statement.”
“Go ahead.”
“If this is all you wanted from me, you might have spared me the embarrassment of a subpoena. I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know and I haven’t cast any new light on the situation . . .”
“Perhaps you have, Admiral. Thank you very much.”
“You didn’t even ask me about my wife’s death, how it must have happened.”
“We know how it happened, Admiral. Please step down.”
It was the second most important occasion in Cordelia’s life—the first being the Singapore incident—and she had prepared for it by buying a new outfit, a red and white polka-dot pantsuit and genuine red snakeskin shoes. (“Whoever heard of a genuine red snake?” Juliet said. “You were had.”) She put on her best wristwatch, three rings, a bracelet made of carved ivory elephants and as a last-minute addition the ruby necklace, formerly Miranda’s, which she’d bought from Mr. Tannenbaum a year ago. She hadn’t worn it since Miranda moved into the house and she didn’t know why she suddenly decided to wear it today, keeping it hidden under the collar of her jacket until she got into her car and on her way to the courthouse.
No one had clearly explained to Cordelia the actual function of the grand jury, but she wasn’t nervous. She had, in fact, the pleasant feeling that she was doing her duty, and
she spoke in a loud distinct voice, giving her name, Cordelia Catherine Young, and her
address, 1220 Camino Grande, and her occupation, none.
“Miss Young, have you discussed the testimony you’re about to give with any members of your family?”
“You asked me not to.”
“I’m asking you now whether you did.”
“Maybe I exchanged a few words with Juliet. I couldn’t very well not. The subpoenas arrived at the same time and there she was and there I was. We could hardly pretend nothing was happening.”
“Did you discuss with her in detail what you were going to say before this jury?”
“No.” Cordelia kept her hands in the pockets of her jacket, fingers crossed to protect her from a perjury charge, but in case crossed fingers had no legal significance she added, “Not really.”
“Do you know Miranda Shaw, Miss Young?”
“Naturally. She lives in the same house, day and night.”
“What is her job?”
“She’s supposed to teach me and Juliet things like etiquette, which we already know and anyway we’re never invited any place where we can use it. Mrs. Young just couldn’t get that through her head.”
“Mrs. Young is—was—your mother?”
“I assume she was. That’s what it says on my passport.”
“Did you get along well with your mother?”
“Nobody got along well with her. She was too hard to please and she had a terrible temper.”
The District Attorney stood up and walked around the table, partly to stretch his legs, partly to give the jury a chance to examine this new picture of Iris Young, considerably different from the one presented by the Admiral.
He returned to face the witness chair. “Miss Young—may I call you Cordelia?”
“I don’t mind if you think it’s etiquette.”
“We make our own rules of etiquette in this courtroom. Now, you said a moment ago, Cordelia, that nobody got along well with your mother.”
“It’s true.”
“If Mrs. Shaw, for instance, didn’t have a fairly pleasant relationship with her, what made her stay in the house?”
“Money.”
“Will you explain that?”
“Mrs. Shaw intended to leave after Mrs. Young hit her with the cane but Pops gave her a raise so she’d stay.”
“How much of a raise?”
“Two hundred dollars a month.”
“Do you know how Mrs. Shaw received the extra money? Was it added to her salary?”
“Good lord, no. That way Mrs. Young would have found out about it because she paid all the bills and salaries and stuff.”
“Then where did this extra two hundred a month come from?”
“Pops gave it to her. It worked out fine because she gave some of it right back.”
“How?”
“She bought him presents.”
“Mrs. Shaw bought your father presents?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever see any of them?”
“No. But Juliet and I heard him thanking her one night in the hall. He said her presents had made him very happy.”
“What did you think when you heard this?”
“Exactly what you’re thinking,” Cordelia said. “Hanky-panky.”
“Hanky-panky?”
“That’s Juliet’s expression for it. She hates to say dirty words when she doesn’t have to. Of course, I can spell it out for you if you—”
“No, no. Hanky-panky is fine.” The District Attorney sat down again, heavily, as though the pressure of gravity on him had suddenly increased. “I’d like you now to go back to the early evening of July the Fourth. Where were you and Cordelia?”
“Home.”
“Doing what?”
“Helping Miranda get the table ready for dinner. The sun was still shining but she made me pull the drapes so we could eat by candlelight. It’s supposed to be more civilized, that’s what she says.”
“Did your mother come to the table for dinner?”
“Long enough to gripe about the food and take her medicine. The doctor made her take a capsule for her arthritis at every meal.”
“And you distinctly recall her doing so?”
“Yes. She took one of the same capsules she always did.”
“What color was it?”
“One end was white and the other end blue.”
“The colored end couldn’t have been orange?”
“No.”
“Or red?”
“No. I was sitting right beside her. She took one of her ordinary blue and white capsules and after that she got up and left without finishing her food.”
“Where did she go?”
“Where she always went to escape from the rest of us, her sitting room. She even had a lock put on it to keep us out.”
“When?”
“About a month before she died. It worried the doctor because he was afraid something might happen to her and nobody would be able to get in to help her. But I told him not to fret, I could always pick the lock with one of my credit cards.”
“You could pick the lock?”
“It’s easy. Even Juliet can do it.”
“Getting back to dinner on the night of July the fourth, why did your mother leave the table before finishing her food?”
“She said the meat was tough and the candles had given her a migraine. Even though Miranda took the candles off the table right away, she left anyway.”
“Evidently she didn’t share Mrs. Shaw’s feeling that eating by candlelight was more civilized?”
“She never liked anything Miranda did.”
“Why didn’t she fire her?”
“Because Miranda took us off her hands, out of the house. Mrs. Young hated having us around but she worried about us when we weren’t. We spent a lot of time down at the beach club. I swam a lot but Juliet mostly ate because she had a crush on one of the waiters. It wasn’t very romantic. She got fat as a pig and then she found out he was married and had five children. It was a shattering blow plus having to go on a diet.”
“I’m sure it was. Thank you, Cordelia. I have no more questions.”
Cordelia stepped down from the stand with some reluctance. The second biggest occasion of he
r life was over and she didn’t know for sure what it was all about. In addition, the red snakeskin shoes were beginning to pinch and the ruby necklace felt quite heavy around her neck, as if Miranda herself had somehow become entangled in the silver clasp.
In comparison with her sister, Juliet was conspicuously dowdy. She’d inherited the frugal nature of her mother’s Dutch ancestors, and all her clothes came from Salvation Army and Humane Society thrift stores, and out-of-the-way little shops with names like New to You or Practically Perfect or Born Again Bargains.
The beige chiffon dress she wore had a pleated bodice which moved in and out like an accordion with every breath she took. She took a great many because ever since breakfast she’d been having an attack of nerves. People had urged her to tell the truth but nobody had defined what the truth was except Uncle Charles Van Eyck, and his advice was diluted with alcohol: “Truth is a matter of opinion. So opine, Juliet. Opine.”
She wished that Cordelia could be on the stand beside her encouraging her to opine, but the District Attorney explained that this was against the rules of a grand jury hearing, and like it or not, she was on her own. It gave her a creepy feeling having no Cordelia to watch for guidance, a frown, a nod, a shrug. When she walked to the front of the room her knees shook and the accordion pleats kept going in and out very rapidly. She could feel her lips quivering in the anxious little smile Cordelia hated— “You look like an idiot when you do that”—and her mind was an absolute blank—“Opine, Juliet, opine.”
She knew the grand jury was supposed to consist of nineteen people, but there seemed to be at least fifty and she noticed that the District Attorney, who previously seemed rather nice, had very cruel eyebrows. She gave her name and address in a whisper, as if the information were top secret being dragged out of her under duress: Juliet Ariel Young, 1220 Camino Grande.
The District Attorney’s eyebrows jumped at her. “I must ask you to speak louder, Miss Young.”
“I . . . can’t.”
“Please try. Would you like a glass of water?”
Even the mention of water made her want to go to the bathroom, and she said “No” quite firmly.
“That’s better, Miss Young. Perhaps you’d feel more at ease if I called you Juliet. Let’s give it a try anyway . . . Now tell me, Juliet, were you living at 1220 Camino Grande the first week of June, approximately a month before your mother died?”
“Yes.”
“On the afternoon of June the sixth was a package delivered to the house for Miranda Shaw?”
“Yes. She wasn’t home, so the deliveryman asked me to sign for it.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you describe the package?”
“It was a huge silver box tied with white satin ribbon. There was a fancy label on it, The Ultimate in Intimate, which is the name of a bridal boutique downtown.”
“What did you do with the box?”
“Left it on the hall table. Miranda got very excited when she came and saw it. She took it right up to her room and locked the door.”
“Did she mention it to anyone?”
“No.”
“Were you curious?”
“I guess I must have been.”
“Please speak up, Juliet. Did your curiosity prompt you to take any action?”
“You know it did. I told you all about it.”
“Now tell the jury.”
“It was Cordelia’s turn to help Miranda fix the table for dinner, so while they were busy downstairs I went upstairs and sort of let myself into Miranda’s room.”
“You picked the lock?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“Did you find the box?”
“I didn’t have to find it. It was in plain sight on the floor, empty.”
“What about its contents?”
“There was an expensive-looking nightgown made of some white filmy material trimmed with lace and little pink rosebuds. A robe made of the same material was draped over a chair.”
“Where was the nightgown?”
“On the bed, lengthwise, as if someone invisible was lying inside it. The wig made it worse.”
“Wig?”
“She had put one of her wigs on the pillow. It made me feel qualmsy. I got out of there in a hurry.”
“Did you talk to anyone about it?”
“No.”
“Not even your sister?”
“Expecially not her. She would have wanted to go and see it for herself and drag me along and I was scared we’d be . . . that Miranda would catch us and . . . well, you know.”
“I don’t know. Tell me.”
“I was scared if Miranda caught us she’d take steps. That was the way she threatened us, saying she’d take steps if we didn’t listen to her and obey her. She never explained what she meant, but she meant something not very nice. If my father marries her it’ll be murder.
She can twist him around her little finger.”
“Wait. Hold on a minute, Juliet. You said if your father marries her?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s put things in perspective here. The clothes which Mrs. Shaw bought at the bridal boutique were delivered on June the sixth, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“That was a month before your mother died.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think there’s something peculiar about this order of events?”
“I don’t . . . can’t think anything.”
“Why not?”
“I live in the same house with her.”
“Are you afraid, Juliet?”
Juliet didn’t answer. She had her hands clasped together very tightly, as though someone had threatened to separate them by force.
“Let the record show,” the District Attorney said, “that the witness is nodding her head affirmatively.”
From the moment Charles Van Eyck walked into the courtroom it was obvious to the District Attorney that the old man had primed himself for the occasion with alcohol. He thanked the bailiff effusively for escorting him to the witness stand, bowed to the members of the jury, shook hands with the District Attorney and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Van Eyck?”
“Yes, indeed. Never better. And yourself?”
“Please sit down, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Not at all. A pleasure to be here. Didn’t have anything else to do anyway.”
“Will you state your name and address for the record?”
“Charles Maas Van Eyck, 840 Camino Azur, the azur referring to the jacaranda trees planted along the road, though the blossoms are actually more purplish than bluish, wouldn’t you say so?”
“You’re retired, are you not, Mr. Van Eyck?”
“Dear me, no. I’m a monitor of government waste. Can’t afford to retire from a job like that when there are so few of us and millions of them. Even you are one of them because you’re a county employee.”
“Then I suggest we get down to business immediately and avoid further waste. You were related to the deceased woman, Iris Young?”
“She was my sister.”
“Was it a close relationship?”
“Close as either of us could stand.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Towards the end of June, shortly before she died. She called and asked me to come over, she had something important to talk to me about while the Admiral and the girls were out of the house. Very odd. We never had much to say to each other.”
“Did you go?”
“Hard to say no to Iris. She’s always been a forceful woman. Kicked and screamed when she was a baby and much the same sort of thing w
hen she got older.”
“Who let you into the house?”
“Miranda Shaw. She was on her way to the garden to cut some flowers.”
“Did you exchange any words?”
“I asked her about the possibility of a small drink before I talked to Iris. But she said no because Iris had seen my car coming up the driveway and was waiting. In fact, the music was already playing.”
“Music?”
“People like Iris who are getting deaf often use the trick of playing loud background music so that other people will have to shout above it. Most irritating. An ordinary conversation turns into a shouting match.”
“Do you remember what the weather was like?”
“It’s always pretty much the same at that time of year, warm, sunny, rather monotonous.”
“Were the windows open in your sister’s room?”
“Yes, I distinctly recall sitting beside one to get away from the music. Never cared much for Mozart, same damn thing over and over. He probably started too young, should have been booted out to play cricket like the rest of the boys.”
“Can you give me the gist of the conversation you had with your sister, Mr. Van Eyck?”
“She was in the process of drawing up a new will and she wanted to warn me not to expect anything, since I already had an adequate income. I objected to the idea of being cut off without a penny—the principle of the thing, her own flesh and blood and all that—so she said very well, she would leave me a penny. Iris had a rather crude sense of humor.”
“Did she tell you anything else about the will?”
“Its main purpose was to set up trusts for the two girls so they’d be well provided for during their lifetime but unable to throw money around. The capital would eventually go to various institutions and foundations.”
“What did she intend to leave to Admiral Young, her husband?”
“The house.”
“Just the house?”
“Probably its contents, too.”
“No cash, stocks, bonds?”
“He has a sizable pension. Iris thought anything more would simply make him a target for some predatory woman.”
“Did she mention anyone in particular?”
“She didn’t have to. Cooper never got much chance to meet other women, predatory or not, and Miranda was right there in the house all the time. I said, ‘Cooper’s too old for Miranda.’ And she said, ‘He’s also going to be too poor.’”
The Murder of Miranda Page 22
