“What did you find?” I hadn’t actually expected the search to be productive. We weren’t dealing with a fool. Still, our opponent couldn’t have predicted an immediate search. If Chase had been killed, it would have taken hours for the authorities to arrive and begin a formal, thorough investigation.
Chase watched, his face expressionless.
Trevor shook his head, as if to clear it. “A few things that matter. Could matter. Nothing to prove they do. Some cocaine in Haskell’s room. A letter in Lyle’s briefcase, a job offer from Triton TV …”
“And?” I prompted.
“Miranda’s taking a lot of pills.” He kept his eyes away from Chase.
But I didn’t.
And I didn’t miss the spasm of pain.
7
The wind was freshening. Trevor shaded his eyes to look out at the sound. “Choppy.”
A gusty wind kicked up frothy whitecaps. High, thin clouds raced across the glazed sky. Not the most pleasant afternoon for an outing on a yacht, but Chase had been adamant. Said he’d be damned if he was going to sit around cooped up with Trevor with nothing to do.
The Miranda B.’s motors roared to life.
I lifted my voice. “Trevor, check the weather reports. There was a hurricane heading for Cuba. That’s probably why we’re getting some higher waves.”
“Sure. Listen, Henrie O …”
From the deckhouse Chase gestured impatiently for Trevor to come aboard.
Trevor held up a hand. “Coming! Just a second.” Then he turned to me and said swiftly, “I’ve got to talk to you. There’s a Lloyd’s of London policy that…”
His words were drowned by the deep boom of the Miranda B.’s horn. It was throaty enough for an ocean liner.
“… Stedman.” The horn boomed again. The lawyer shrugged in a gesture of frustration and scrambled aboard.
As the yacht plowed through the whitecaps heading for the Atlantic side of the island, Chase poked his head out a side window and gave me a vigorous wave, as if this were a holiday outing on an ordinary day, not a temporary respite from suspicion and fear. I looked after him with an up welling of admiration. I didn’t love him. I never could again. But he had been an integral part of my life, and now he was facing a terrifying situation with admirable composure.
I wondered what the lawyer had wanted to tell me. Something about an insurance policy. Something that concerned Lyle Stedman? Stedman was an employee. What would he have to do with insurance for Chase?
I would have to await the yacht’s return to find out.
But I had plenty to do, and I was glad I didn’t have to worry about Chase while I did it. He was safe from harm, at least for the duration of his outing with Trevor, and I had the island’s nervous inhabitants to myself. I hurried back toward the house.
Despite the wind rattling the palmetto fronds, I settled at a table on the breakfast patio. I had to force myself to do it. I itched to set out—immediately—to talk to each and every person on the island. There was so much to do, so much to be discovered, but I learned a long time ago that it’s better to think before you approach an adversary.
I studied the sheaf of handwritten reports that pinpointed where each person had been when the shots rang out. No one, unfortunately, had seen anyone else gripping a “smoking gun.” Or any gun at all.
Someone, of course, was lying about his or her location.
Only Trevor and I had an alibi.
I was still a little surprised that no one had glimpsed someone else when hurrying toward the point. It did reflect the variety of locations on the island: the pier, the boathouse, the gardens, the pool, the house, the tennis courts, the track, the servants’ quarters, the storage building, and the thickets that afforded privacy almost everywhere. Once those running toward the point plunged into the maritime forest, they would be well hidden from view.
I reviewed each person’s purported location. Enrique: checking provisions on the Miranda B.
Burton: near the jogging track.
Valerie: sitting beneath an arbor in the rose garden studying a script.
Lyle: doing hand-over-hand on the monkey bars near the track.
Trevor: at the tennis courts with me.
Haskell: floating in the pool.
Roger: in the library reading Earth in the Balance.
Miranda: weeding in the herb garden between the storage building and the servants’ quarters.
Rosalia: in the kitchen. She apparently didn’t hear the shots although Roger, who was also in the house, did.
Betty: on the walk between title storage building and the kitchen.
I now had a much clearer picture of the location of each suspect, and no reason to doubt anyone’s word. Yet. But the reports were important from another aspect. All handwritten missives tell you something of their authors. Enrique’s printing was large, the letters somewhat irregularly formed, but they marched across the page forcefully, arguing a strong personality. Rosalia had trouble with Bs and Ps and might be dyslexic. Would that indicate she mightn’t be all that accurate a marksman? Betty’s spelling was atrocious, but she was the only one to emphasize that the shots came in such quick succession they could scarcely be counted. Burton wrote in tiny but legible script. I doubt if he’d ever raised his hand in a classroom. Valerie’s flamboyant script reflected, not surprisingly, a penchant for the dramatic. Her little discourse had style. Haskell couldn’t keep to the line: his writing was poorly formed and erratic. Even within a single word, an odd letter would be capitalized or missing or written twice. In his case I didn’t fault the school system but the mood-altering substances so common on school grounds. Miranda’s round, schoolgirlish script had as much personality as a mound of mashed potatoes. Chase wrote so hard and fast the pen almost punctured the sheet. Lyle scrawled oversize, thick-inked words that swaggered across the page.
I came back to Betty’s ill-spelled, much-crossed-out-and-over effort: “… so hot I wuz mizrabul, hot as a furnuss. I hurd the shots, fast, fast, fast, fastur than korn pops…”
I closed my eyes for an instant, trying to place myself in the mind of the gunman.
Bang, bang, hang.
Why such a rush? Why not take another second or two, adjust the aim, react to the jolt of the gun? Why this pell-mell haste when a little more time might have spelled success?
I opened my eyes.
I didn’t like the feeling seeping through me, the sense that the personality we sought was unstable, impulsive, undisciplined.
No. I must not confuse haste with disorder.
There was nothing disorderly in this attack except for the rapid firing.
Perhaps Chase had started to turn toward the woods, toward his attacker. That might have accounted for the hurry. A determination not to be seen.
That rang true with both episodes. Care and effort were expended to leave not a single trace and to avoid a direct confrontation. The marksman was too cautious or too cowardly to face the victim, yet clever enough to entirely change the method of murder in the second attempt.
I had a tantalizing sense that this was critical, that I was close to understanding something of the mind behind the poisoning and the shooting.
But it was elusive, nothing I could grasp and define.
I gave up on it. I had enough concrete work to do. And I was determined to conduct the interview I’d had in mind when I headed toward the tennis courts that morning.
I wanted to talk to Miranda.
Because, sad to say but true beyond doubt, in the event of murder look first and look hard at the spouse.
Even one as young and lovely as Miranda.
Perhaps especially one as young and lovely and nervy as Miranda.
I didn’t find her on any of the porches. She was not in the gardens or near the pool. I paused beside the hot tub. There was something faintly sickening about the smell of chlorine and the shush and gurgle of the foaming, steamy waters. I looked toward the luxurious wing where she and Chase stayed.
Roger Prescott still had his aura of ineffable good humor. But there was a worried look in his pale blue eyes and a grave cast to his face.
“I’m looking for your stepmother.” I raised my voice a little to be heard over the water bubbling in the tub.
He blinked, then gave an odd laugh. “Actually, I never think of Miranda as a stepmother. Absurd, really. I’m almost twice her age.”
“But she is your stepmother.” I walked toward him. “I need to talk to her.”
His face crinkled. “She’s pretty upset. Maybe I can help you. I took her to her room.”
But it was their room, Miranda’s and Chase’s.
“She’s got a pretty rotten headache.” His voice was soft.
How interesting that Roger was being much more protective of his pretty young stepmother than Chase appeared to be of his wife.
“Are your father and Miranda having trouble?” I moved toward the wet bar in the arbor and fished a club soda out of the refrigerator.
“I’d certainly be furious with him if I were her.” His face flamed as he realized how that sounded. “Oh, God, don’t take that wrong. And I guess I understand now. But ever since last month Dad’s been a beast to her.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, patted his moist face. “Goddamn weather’s like a sauna. He’s acted so funny—I mean, he can’t possibly think that Miranda—that’s nuts, really nuts. No, that can’t be it. I know he didn’t tell her about the poisoning because he didn’t want to scare her. She’s just a kid really. She doesn’t know about ugly things.”
I kept my face blank. It’s always a mistake, I could have told him, to confuse innocence with age. There are children who are preternaturally wise and old folks who see with angel eyes.
I dropped into a webbed chair. “Tell me about Miranda.”
“There isn’t much to tell. Like I said, she’s just a kid.” His chair creaked under his weight. “Lyle hired her. He figured it would fit in with Dad’s back-to-the-basics editorial stuff. Youth. Innocence. An anchor without that sleek New York fashion-model look. Dad agreed.” He grinned but without malice. “Obviously. I understand from Lyle that Dad asked to meet Miranda because he was impressed with her work. Two months later they got married in St. Thomas.”
“It’s a rather striking age difference.” I kept my voice neutral.
But Roger took it as criticism. He pulled his chair closer to mine and said earnestly, “It’s not the way you think it was. People just assume Dad’s a cradle snatcher. I know for a fact—Lyle told me—that Dad was impressed with her, but that would have been the end of it. Except for Miranda herself! Lyle said she fell for Dad like a ton of bricks. He didn’t go after Miranda at all. It was Miranda who went after him. But if you know anything about her past … Her mom died when she was just a little girl—younger than I was when my mother died and that’s tough—and Miranda’s dad raised her. I guess he must have been a great father. Poor kid, she lost him, too. Last year. Anyway, when Miranda met Dad, it was like somebody tossed Stardust in her eyes. She was obsessed with him. And, hell, how could any man turn her down? I wish I had just a little of Dad’s magic. Whatever it is.”
I could have told him. I met Chase when I was her age and Chase was young and vibrant with the unmistakable, seductive aura of a winner. But it wouldn’t have made Roger feel any better.
“You don’t seem to mind.”
“Mind? Mind what?”
“Having such a young stepmother.” I reached over to drop the soda bottle in a wastebasket.
He gave me an endearing smile. “Henrie O, I like Miranda—and I want Dad to be happy.” His eyes darkened. “The only problem Dad and I have is that we don’t agree on anything about how he runs his papers. God, he could do so much good. But we all know they belong to him. Not me.”
He seemed oblivious to the obvious next step. “They will be yours someday, won’t they?”
“Oh, yeah, but Dad’s in great shape. He’s—” His eyes narrowed. “Oh, now, wait a minute. You think I’d poison my own dad, shoot him down so I could control the editorial policies of his newspapers? No way. I’m not into patricide. Not for any damn reason.”
I left him looking after me with an expression of hurt. I know the conclusion I was supposed to draw: This good fellow, this right-thinking agreeable son, was too open, too disarming, too earnest to be considered a suspect.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I knocked on the French door.
No answer.
I knocked twice more, then turned the handle.
The drawers to the dresser were yanked open. Negligees and blouses, silk slips, panties and bras poked over the edges of the drawers, were strewn atop the puffy bedspread. Two open suitcases were propped against the pillows. The Prescotts’ decorator would have cringed at hearing the elegant piece of furniture described as a dresser. It was actually an English Colonial commode of lemonwood and ebony. It glistened in the light of the crystal lamp.
Miranda swung about to face me. Her heart-shaped face was ashen. She looked like a bereft child.
I had come into the room in no mood to console, ready to snap a terse “Grow up.”
But this was a personality that was so fragile, so near dissolution that instead I asked, “What are you doing, Miranda?” in a mild, soft voice.
“I want to go home.” The words were tiny breaths. Blindly she grabbed a handful of rainbow-hued lingerie from the top drawer.
“Where is that?” I stepped quietly closer.
Her head swiveled and anguished eyes focused on me. “Chase hired you?”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t lovers?” Her mouth quivered.
“No.” Now I understood her shock when I’d first arrived. She’d been convinced her husband was inviting a lover to the island. I must have come as quite a surprise. But now her distress was dreadful. It was akin to seeing a kitten mauled by dogs.
“I thought … I thought … but the folder you had, it was all business.”
Now I knew who had looked in my purse, rifled through the dossiers.
“Yes, all business.”
Some of the pain seeped out of her face. “You don’t lie, do you?” It was the trusting voice of a child, high and thin.
What a sad, guileless question. But, for now, there was only one answer to give, no matter how false. “No.”
“Tell me—Tell me why Chase doesn’t come to me. Why has he shut me out? Why has he been so distant, as if he didn’t love me anymore? Why has everything been so wrong? It has been wrong. For weeks now. He isn’t himself. He’s … His eyes are wild. Wild!”
I crossed the room and led her to the wicker chairs near the windows. She came obediently and sat down, still holding a lavender camisole tightly in her hands.
“Sometimes,” I began gently, “we have to remember that people—even people very close to us—act in strange ways because of difficulties they’re facing. The way they act may not have a single thing to do with us. Now, you admire Chase—love Chase—because he’s strong. Isn’t that right?”
Her eyes clung to mine. Her hands gripped the lovely silk camisole as if it were a lifeline.
“Look at it this way, Miranda. Chase has been very kind to you, very gentle. Am I right?” I reached out, loosened those talon-tight fingers, pulled the camisole away, shook it out.
“Oh yes, yes. Always.” Her hands trembled. She clasped them tightly together.
“How gentle would it be to tell you that someone wanted to kill him?” I folded the camisole, laid it on the bed.
She winced as if I’d struck her. “Do you mean … It isn’t because he thinks … thinks …”
“That you tried to poison him? Shot at him? Of course not. Now let me help you put these things away. First I’ll bring you a cool cloth …” As I talked I walked briskly into her bath, found a clean washcloth, and dampened it.
When I handed it to her, she accepted it with a shy smile. “You’re
right. I know you are. I’ve been so selfish! Just thinking of myself and not about Chase at all and how terribly upset he must be. Oh, how awful to realize that behind a face you know there is so much hatred.” She pressed the cloth against her face for a long moment, then jumped up, suddenly bright and vivacious. It was disconcerting to see her mood change so abruptly. “Quick, we’ll put everything back. I don’t know what I was thinking of. How could I have been so stupid? But, you see, I care so much,” she said nakedly. “I can’t live without him.”
“Don’t say that,” I said sharply. If ever age teaches any truth, it is that we must accept life as it happens, no matter what the pain, no matter what the loss. And loss always comes. Loss is the price of love. “We don’t make those decisions, Miranda.”
It took only a few minutes to restore the handsome room, to put away the scattered lingerie, to return the expensive luggage to the back of a huge walk-in closet. As we worked, Miranda talked, her voice as high and light as the chatter of starlings: how wonderful Chase was, how handsome, how strong, how fascinating, how exciting….
Roger’s observation had indeed hit the mark. Miranda was obsessed with her much older husband. Despite her youth and her delicate, childlike beauty, there was a powerful sense of hunger, avidity, over-whelming determination. Was she so obsessed that if she felt him slipping away, she would rather see him dead than lose him? She had cried that she couldn’t live without him. Did she mean instead that she would not permit him to live without her?
As for Chase, no matter how delightful at first—the possession of that no doubt exquisitely youthful and lovely and passionately responsive body—wouldn’t her constant outpouring of adoration become oppressive? Had he tired of Miranda?
As we walked out of their wing, into the main hall, she impulsively stood on tiptoe and soft lips brushed my cheek. The scent of Giorgio tickled my nose. “Thank you. You’re so kind. I feel so much better. I believe I’ll go out to the gardens now, cut some roses. Chase loves red roses.”
I watched her walk down the hall, so young, so graceful, so lovely.
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