Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

“She paid up,” Ellen said. “In cash.”

“Her bill’s been outstanding for some time. I haven’t pressed the matter because I wanted to give her a chance to get over the loss of her husband.”

“Well, I guess she got over it.”

“Why cash, I wonder. Nobody around here pays cash. It’s a dirty word... This lawyer, Aragon, what sort of information is he after?”

“He’s trying to find Mrs. Shaw so she can sign some legal papers.”

“That sounds plausible to me,” Henderson said. “What’s he like?”

“Young, dark-haired, horn-rimmed glasses, rather appealing.”

“I meant inside.”

“I can’t see his inside. Outside he looks honest enough.”

“Then there’s no reason to be secretive about it. Tell him Mrs. Shaw is not here. Unless, of course, she is?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

“Neither have I. Odd, she was coming every day for a while. Mr. Van Eyck used to stare at her across the pool. I sensed a possible romance between two lonely people. That would have been good for the club — we could have held a lovely wedding reception in the ballroom, with white cymbidiums and silver ribbon and podocarpus instead of ferns. Ferns are common... When’s the last time you saw Mrs. Shaw at the club?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” Ellen said. She did, though. Exactly, to the minute. “Goodbye, Ellen. Hasn’t it been lovely weather? I must fly now. See you tomorrow.”

She went back into the corridor. On one of the rattan settees placed at intervals along the wall, Admiral Young’s two daughters sat in identical postures. They looked so stiff and self-conscious that Ellen knew they’d been eavesdropping. Cordelia’s face was sallow, as usual, but Juliet’s cheeks and chin and the tip of her nose were pink with suppressed excitement.

Ellen tried to brush past them but they rose simultaneously and blocked her way.

“Sorry, girls, I haven’t time to talk to you right now.”

“You were talking to him, ” Cordelia said.

“And that other him,” Juliet added. “We think something’s wrong. I smelled disaster the instant I heard Miranda Shaw’s name.”

“Juliet’s no magna cum laude, ” her sister explained. “But she has very keen senses.”

Juliet lowered her eyes modestly. “I really do, don’t I, Cordelia?”

“I already said so. Now get on with the story.”

“Why don’t you tell it if you’re in such a bloody hurry?”

“No. You tell, I’ll edit.”

“Oh, I hate being edited,” Juliet cried. “Oh God, I hate it, it makes me throw up.”

Cordelia did her Rhett Butler imitation, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn, which put Juliet in a good mood again and she was able to continue her narrative: “This year Mrs. Young had the peculiar idea of giving her brother, our Uncle Charley Van Eyck, a birthday party.”

“Why you didn’t smell that disaster, I’d like to know.”

“Heavens to horehound, I can’t smell them all... The trouble with Mrs. Young’s idea was fixing Uncle Charley up with a dinner partner because he’s such a weirdo. She decided to try Miranda Shaw, probably because Miranda doesn’t know Uncle Charley very well. Mrs. Young kept phoning and phoning, and when she couldn’t get an answer she gave us the job of coming down here every day to keep an eye out for Miranda so we could pass along the invitation when she showed up. Only she never did and the party was last week.”

Cordelia started to describe the party, how Uncle Charley got drunk and dressed up in one of the Admiral’s old uniforms and sang “Anchors Aweigh” with dirty lyrics, but Ellen interrupted.

“Thank you for your information, girls. Don’t worry about Mrs. Shaw, I’m sure she’s quite all right.”

“You are very unworldly, Ellen,” Cordelia said. “Things happen to women.”

Juliet nodded. “Even to us. Once in Singapore we were escorted by—”

“Shut up. The Singapore incident is nobody’s business.”

“Well, you told everybody at the time. You could hardly wait to spread it around the yacht club.”

“This isn’t Singapore and Mrs. Shaw wasn’t accosted,” Ellen said. And if she was, she accosted right back. “Mrs. Shaw probably decided to take a vacation.”

She told Aragon the same thing, while the girls stood in the background listening, Cordelia rolling her eyes in a pantomime of disbelief, Juliet waving one hand back and forth across her face as if fanning away a bad smell.

Aragon said, “Mrs. Shaw didn’t actually mention taking a vacation?”

“No. Some of our members talk about their trips for six months in advance and six months afterwards, but Mrs. Shaw is the quiet type.”

“I see. Well, if you happen to hear from her, please let me know. You have my card.”

“Yes.” She had thrown the card away immediately, without even stopping to think about it. “I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

As he went out the door Aragon wondered why someone who was so terribly sorry didn’t look even a little bit sorry.

In the parking lot he found his car already occupied. Sitting behind the wheel was the red-haired boy he’d seen on the lifeguard’s tower. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of a surfer on it and the advice Make Waves, but he looked as if he didn’t need the advice.

He slid across the seat to make room for Aragon. “You should lock your heap, man. These old-model Chevs are very big.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“I showed you, man, I didn’t tell you. Nobody learns by being told.”

“All right, thanks for showing me.”

“No sweat. It’s because of the ignition.”

“What is?”

“The reason the old Chevs are being ripped off. They’re easy to start without a key. Let me show you.”

“Don’t bother,” Aragon said. “I have a key.”

“Yeah, but suppose you lose it and—”

“The only thing I ever lose is my temper.”

The boy studied his fingernails, found them uninteresting, jammed his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans. The resulting posture made him look as though he’d been strapped in a strait jacket. “I suppose you’re wondering who I am.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I am Frederic Marshall Quinn the Third, numero tres.”

“I figure you’re also a smart-ass numero uno.”

Frederic acknowledged the compliment with a worldly little shrug. “Sure, man. Why not? I got to survive.”

“Haven’t you heard, Freddy? — smart-asses are the first to go.”

“In your day, maybe. Times have changed.” His hands came out of his pockets and his fingernails were reexamined. “I heard you talking about Mrs. Shaw. You a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“I may need a lawyer someday so I thought I’d do you a favor, then you’ll owe me one. Right?”

“I’ll consider it,” Aragon said.

“That’s not good enough. Let’s make it a real deal here and now. We’re both in the same boat, see, on account of I’m looking for somebody, too.”

“Sure you are.”

“Honest. There’s this lifeguard, Grady. He’s okay. I mean, he’s kind of like my friend. I’ve been learning about macho from him so I can pass the info to some of the kids at school. Only just when I was catching on to a few tricks, he split. Didn’t say goodbye or where he was going or when he’d be back, didn’t even wait for his paycheck.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I heard Ellen talking to Henderson about it, wondering where to send Grady’s paycheck. She got mad because it would screw up the bookkeeping if Grady didn’t cash his check. She was even crying about it. She cries easy. Really gross.”