Barbara Michaels - Shattered Silk

"Anyway, I went out the back into the garden and signaled Shreve-we had a special place where we could climb the fence, we used it when she was at her grandmother's and we wanted to get together without anybody knowing. We changed clothes right there, in the yard. Nobody could see us, you know how high those walls are." She giggled again. "Shreve looked so funny standing there in her underwear holding that nasty, dirty pink dress of mine at arm's length. Her grandmother was half senile even then, and she knew she could get changed and hide the dress up in the attic without anybody seeing her, and that's what she did. I just went straight to my room by the back stairs. The maid had gone to the store to get liquor. She was the one that found them. She got hysterical, so I had to call the police. I think they were suspicious, all right. There was one horrible man with a big fat stomach and eyes like marbles who kept asking me questions. He shot his mouth off to the reporters, that's where they got that Lizzie Borden stuff, but my uncle threatened to sue the papers, so that stopped that. You see, the doctor said the killer must have been covered with blood, and they couldn't find any bloodstains on my clothes, except for the ones I got when I knelt by Mother after the police arrived. I thought I had better do that to cover up any spots on my shoes or under my fingernails. The dress got most of it, though."

A faint, bubbling moan stirred the air. Miriam glanced casually down at the still form at her feet. Her expression didn't alter, and Karen nerved herself for the final appeal.

"She was a loyal friend, Miriam. She helped you. She'll die if you don't get a doctor for her."

"Loyal to herself, you mean. Oh, sure, she helped me at first. I think she was so surprised and-well-excited, she just acted without thinking. But once she'd done it, she was an accessory, wasn't she? If the story ever got out, it would finish her husband's career. And Shreve wants to be First Lady someday. You know how this town is, every bit of mud sticks. I wonder what she did with…" Her foot nudged Shreve's purse.

Karen turned and ran.

The swinging door slapped shut behind her. She had never realized how long the dining room was; it seemed to take her forever to reach the farther door. It was closed. She lost several seconds there, because her hands, slippery with sweat, couldn't get a firm hold on the knob. The door opened outward. Shelter for a moment; but she dared not stop, and as she flung herself at the front door, reaching for the key, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Miriam had come out of the kitchen and was standing at the back of the hall.

The bullet smashed into the door, missing her head by only a few inches, sending splinters flying. Her body reacted before her dazed mind; falling, rolling as she fell, she cursed herself for not remembering the gun. Miriam had not forgotten about it. For a crazy woman Miriam was thinking and functioning very efficiently.

She was shooting well, too. The second bullet hit the floor on the spot Karen had just left as she scrambled, rolled, crawled through the doorway into the parlor.

Now which way? There were two doors, the one at the front through which she had come, another at the back of the room opposite the kitchen door. It was like some horrible game, the Lady and the Tiger-pick the right exit you win, pick the wrong one you're dead. She stayed down, crouching between the two big sofas. Through the thin curtains at the back of the room she could see the gray, rainswept garden. The entrance to Paradise could not have looked more seductive. If only she could get out of the house! The walls that had once formed shelter were now those of a prison, shutting her in with her own death. Once outside, she could make a run for it, risk a bullet. She remembered Pat telling her that hand weapons weren't accurate except at dose range. Inside, the range was close enough.

Two shots fired. How many did the damned gun hold? She knew absolutely nothing about guns except the one important fact: they fired hard little pellets that killed people. If only Cheryl were here…

Thank God Cheryl wasn't here. It would be over, one way or another, by the time Cheryl finished searching the back roads of the Eastern Shore and realized she had been sent on a wild-goose chase. No wonder the voice on the telephone had sounded familiar.

A board in the hall creaked. She wished she knew which one. There were several that protested when a foot pressed them. If Miriam had the sense to stay where she was, she had it made. From the hall she could cover both doors and cut off the stairs. Karen would have welcomed a chance to get upstairs now. Those windows weren't locked. It was a long way to the ground, but the boxwood under the windows of the master bedroom would break her fall.

Another creaking board. The same board, or another? Was Miriam moving or standing still, waiting, shifting her weight impatiently? Think, Karen told herself. Do something. You can't squat here forever.

But there was a false and dangerous illusion of safety in silence, immobility. She knew how a rabbit or a mouse must feel when it crouched motionless in the open, hoping to escape the cruel eyes of a predator. She scanned the room, trying to find something that would help her. There was a poker in the set of tools by the fireplace. She could have used something like that earlier, when the only weapon she faced was a knife. No good now.

As her eyes continued to search the room she saw something half hidden by the rose-pink draperies at the front windows. It looked like a muff or a moth-eaten fur collar torn from one of the old coats she had bought. It didn't move.

A stab of anguish as surprising as it was intense brought her to her feet. The heavy brass stand with its collection of fireplace tools fell with a crash as she snatched the poker. Had she heard a shot? She thought so; it was hard to tell, the ringing reverberations of the tumbling metal kept echoing, drowning out other sounds. She felt the pull of her lips, drawn tight over clenched teeth, and as she circled the couch on the way to the door at the back of the room she found a fleeting irony in the thought that it was Alexander-not Shreve, not even her own shrinking flesh-that had moved her to a fury so intense it swallowed fear. When the third-or was it the fourth-bullet shattered a vase inches from her elbow, she kept moving, straight through the door into the hall.

The thing that stopped her in her tracks was not the sight of Miriam standing half in and half out of the parlor and facing directly toward her. It was the sound of someone at the front door.

Miriam had to raise her voice to be heard over the fusillade of knocking. "They can't get in. They'll have to go away pretty soon. I'm getting very annoyed with you, Karen. Why don't you stop this nonsense?"

Karen pulled back into the shelter of the doorway. This latest development was almost too much for her reeling brain and her aching body to absorb. She knew who was at the door, even before she heard the peremptory voice demanding entry.

Mrs. Grossmuller. Mrs. Grossmuller come to collect the money owed her-banging on the door, yelling…

Mrs. Grossmuller would not go away pretty soon. Would Mr. DeVoto see her, and come out to ask what she wanted? It was still raining; he might not even notice she was there. And she, Karen, had told him not to call the police. She knew she ought to turn the old lady's presence to her advantage, but she couldn't think clearly.

Miriam was getting rattled. Another bullet smashed into the door; Mrs. Grossmuller's voice soared into a high-pitched shriek. Surely the bullet could not have penetrated the heavy door. She must have cried out in surprise, not in pain. Karen wondered how crazy Mrs. Grossmuller was. She'd have to be pretty far gone if she failed to realize that something peculiar was going on inside the house. Would she have sense enough to go to the police?