Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

Juliet contemplated this in silence for a moment. Then she said cheerfully, “So it wasn’t my depilatory after all.”

The Admiral had agreed, after a somewhat one-sided discussion with his wife, Iris, to forgo the football game on T. V. and take the girls downtown for lunch at a cafeteria. They both loved cafeterias and selected so many things to eat that they had to use an extra tray to hold the desserts. After consuming as much as they could, they packed the rest into doggy bags and took them down to the bird refuge to feed the geese and gulls and coots. The gulls and coots ate anything, but the geese were choosy, preferring mixed green salad and apple pie.

The Admiral parked the Rolls, then moved to the rear to open the door for his daughters like a salaried chauffeur. “Are you ready for lunch?”

“I guess,” Juliet said.

“You guess? Dear me, that doesn’t sound like one of my girls talking. What about you, Cordelia?”

Cordelia didn’t waste time on amenities. “Pops, did you ever know anyone who was murdered?”

“Now that depends on your definition of murder. During the Second World War and the Korean conflict I saw many of my—”

“Oh, not that kind of murder, it’s so ordinary. I meant the real thing, with real motives and everything.”

“What’s the point of such a question, Cordelia?”

“Miranda Shaw has disappeared.”

“Vanished,” Juliet added.

“We think she’s been murdered.”

“Done in.”

“Come, come,” the Admiral said mildly. “Miranda Shaw isn’t the kind of person who gets murdered. She’s a fine lady with many womanly virtues.”

“Ah so,” Cordelia said. “And what are womanly virtues, Pops?”

“My dear, I should have thought your mother would have told you by this time.”

“Maybe nobody told her .”

“Yes, I see. Well, I can’t speak for all men, of course, but among the traits I consider desirable in a woman are kindness, gentleness, loving patience.”

They both stared at him for a few seconds before Cordelia spoke again. “Then what made you pick Mrs. Young?”

“That’s a very rude question, Cordelia. I shall do my best to forget it was ever asked.”

“Oh bull. You always say that when you don’t know the answer to something.”

“Most likely,” Juliet said, “he didn’t pick her, she picked him. Ten to one it happened like that. Didn’t it, Pops?”

The Admiral cleared his throat. “I wish you girls could manage to show more respect towards your parents.”

“We’re trying, Pops.”

“But remember, you’re not in the Navy anymore,” Cordelia said briskly. “We’re not ensigns or junior looies. Are we, Juliet?”

“Not on your poop deck,” Juliet said.

Aragon left his car on the street at the bottom of the Shaws’ driveway.

It was an area of huge old houses build on large multiple acreages when land was cheap, and surrounded by tall iron or stone fences constructed when labor was cheap. Most of the residences had gatehouses, some not much larger than the gondolas of a ski lift, others obviously intended as living quarters for servants. The Shaws’ gatehouse had Venetian blinds on the largest window and a well-used broom propped outside the front door.

Aragon pressed the button that was supposed to activate the squawk box connecting the gate to the main residence. Nothing happened. The squawk box was either out of order or disconnected. He waited several minutes, trying to decide what to do next. The gate was iron grillwork ten feet high. It would be possible to scale it, as he’d once scaled the Penguin Club fence, but the results might be more severe — a couple of police cars instead of a lone security guard.

He was turning to leave when he noticed that two slats of the blind on the gatehouse window had been parted and a pair of eyes was staring at him. They were small and dark and liquid, like drops of strong coffee.

“Hello,” Aragon said. “Are you in charge here?”

“Nobody in charge. Nobody home. All gone, gone away.” The man’s accent sounded Mexican but there were Oriental inflections in his voice. “Maybe you are in charge?”

“No. I just want to see Mrs. Shaw.”

“Me too. I need my truck.”

“Mrs. Shaw took your truck?”

“You bet not. I have the keys. How could the Missus take my truck?”

“All right, let’s start over. And it might make it easier if we didn’t have to talk through the window. Why don’t you come out?”

“Sure.” The door of the gatehouse opened and a tiny man stepped out, moving briskly in spite of his age. He was so shriveled and hairless that he looked as though he’d fallen into a tanning vat and emerged a leather doll. “See, I can go in and out, out and in, easy for me. But for my truck to go in and out, out and in, I need to use the gate, and it won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“It is an electric gate and there is no electric.”

“Why is there no electric?”

“Missus forgot to pay, I guess. A man came and shut it off. I said you can’t do that, Missus is important rich lady. He said, the hell I can’t. And he did.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Very bad, yes. He wouldn’t wait for me to get my truck onto the driveway, so it is still up there behind the garage with all my tools in it. I can’t earn a living without my truck and tools. Here, see who I am.” The old man showed Aragon his business card, so dirty and dilapidated that the printing was scarcely legible: Mitsu Hippollomia, Tree Care, Clean Up, Hauling, Reasonable Rates. “I can’t leave without my truck, so I stay here in the gatehouse waiting for the electric and keeping my eye out for truck thieves.”

“How long have you been living in the gatehouse?”

Hippollomia, having no clock or calendar, didn’t know for sure. Nor did he care much. He was enjoying the closest thing to a holiday he’d ever had, with plenty of rest and food. He went to bed when it was dark and got up when it was light. He ate the avocados and persimmons that were ripening on the trees, and tomatoes reddening on the vines. From the storage room beside the main kitchen he had canned goods and preserves off the shelves, and melted ice cream out of the freezer. Besides such physical luxuries, he had the satisfaction of knowing he was doing an important job, protecting his livelihood.

Aragon said, “Do you mind if I come in and take a look around the property?”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“I work for Mrs. Shaw’s attorney. There are some papers for her to sign and he hasn’t been able to get in touch with her.”

“She’s not here.”

“Have you been inside the house?”

“Not so much.”

“How much is that?”

“Only in the storage room off the kitchen. I take a little food now and then.”

“How do you get in?”

“There are a whole bunch of keys on nails in the garage,” the old man said. “But I didn’t need any of them. Missus isn’t too careful about locking the house because the electric gate keeps strangers out.”

“You found the back door open, Mr. Hippollomia?”

“Not open, unlocked.”

“And it’s unlocked now?”

“Yes.”

“Would you have any objection to my going in?”

“It’s not my house. I have no say-so.”

“You’re the only one on the premises,” Aragon said. “That more or less puts you in charge.”

The old man’s shoulders twitched inside his oversized work shirt. “You go when you want, you do whatever, I’m out of it. I wait here.”

“I’d like to make sure Mrs. Shaw left the house of her own free will. By the way, do you work for her on a regular basis?”

“Yes.”