Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

“Six.”

“How many were in it originally?”

“According to the pharmacist’s label, thirty.”

“Now, if Mrs. Shaw took one every night as prescribed, beginning June the twentieth until July the fourth when you picked this up in her medicine cabinet, how many should there be left in the bottle?”

“Fifteen.”

“Are there fifteen left?”

“No, sir. As I said before, there are six.”

“So nine are unaccounted for.”

“They’re missing, yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all.”

It was enough.

On October the fourteenth the grand jury of the county of Santa Felicia returned an indictment of willful homicide against Miranda Waring Shaw in the death of Iris Van Eyck Young, a human being.

Shortly after Miranda Shaw was arrested Aragon went out to the county jail to see her. He was escorted to one of the consulting rooms, which was the size of a shoebox and smelled of disinfectant flowing in through the air conditioner along with cold dry air and the inescapable noises of an institution.

A policewoman brought Miranda as far as the door and then left, or appeared to leave. Aragon had the feeling she was standing just outside in the corridor.

He said, “Hello, Mrs. Shaw,” but she didn’t answer or even glance at him.

She had changed during the weeks since he’d talked to her in the cabana at the Penguin Club. The makeup around her eyes only emphasized their dullness and her face seemed frozen under its layers of pink and ivory. She’d been allowed to wear her own clothes instead of the cotton dress which was the women’s uniform. She had on a blue faille suit that made her look as if she were on her way to a cocktail party and had just dropped in at the jail for a visit with some erring relative.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Are you. Well, that doesn’t change a thing, does it?”

“I thought you’d like to be told anyway.”

“Thanks.”

They sat down on steel and plastic chairs riveted to the floor.

“Smedler sent me,” he said. “He wanted you to know that Admiral Young is arranging bail for you. It’s taking time because of the amount of money involved, a hundred thousand dollars. Though that’s much too high under the circumstances, there’s nothing we can do about it, the judge has an ulcer and quotes Scripture. However, you should be out of here by tomorrow morning.”

“Then what?”

“A trial date will be set, which won’t be definite because there’ll probably be a number of postponements. You can figure on three or four months minimum.”

“And where do I spend these three or four months?”

“Not here, that’s the important thing.”

“I have nowhere to go. I can’t very well return to the Admiral’s house. It wouldn’t look right and I wouldn’t feel right with those girls following me around, spying on me. They’d enjoy that, it would be like a new game to them.”

“Or not so new.”

She clutched the steel arms of the chair. He noticed that most of the coral polish on her nails had been chipped or peeled off and the nails themselves bitten. “Did they say evil things about me to the grand jury?”

“Evil? No.”

“Why does Cooper want to bail me out?”

“He thinks you’re innocent. A lot of people do.”

“It’s too bad some of them weren’t on the grand jury.”

“Some of them were,” Aragon said. “The vote of fourteen to five means that five people were against the indictment. After going over the transcript, Smedler agrees with them and so do I. Not only is the D.A.’s case weak, he broke half the rules of evidence in presenting it. He won’t be able to get away with that kind of stuff when the actual trial comes up... Do you feel like answering some questions?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Suppose we find out.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you ever buy the Admiral any presents?”

“Of course not.”

“Both the girls claim they overheard him thanking you.”

“They’re mistaken. Surely nobody believed them. Why should I, living on a pitifully small salary, buy presents for Cooper with all his money? It’s ridiculous.”

“People do ridiculous things.”

“In this case two people heard ridiculous things. Surely nobody believed them,” she said again.

“The fact that both girls claim to have overheard it may make it twice as believable.”

“But the two of them are always in cahoots about everything.”

“I think we can find ways to establish that when the time comes.” He consulted the page of notes Smedler had made when he read the transcript of the hearing. “One of the points brought up was that you refused an invitation to go to a fireworks display at the club on the grounds that you didn’t want to leave Mrs. Young alone. Yet you left her alone anyway.”

“I walked the dog.”

“A couple of hours earlier than usual.”

“Yes. She asked me to. She said Alouette was acting sick. Heaven knows, that was nothing unusual. She fed the poor creature absurd things like chocolate éclairs and cheesecake.”

“At dinner that night you removed the candlesticks from the table because the flickering lights were giving Mrs. Young a migraine. Where did you put them?”

“On the buffet.”

“Then at that time both candlesticks would have had your fingerprints on them. Did you handle either of them again?”

“No. I had no reason to.”

Aragon felt encouraged. Though she couldn’t, under the circumstances, have been enjoying herself, at least she was coming to life. Her eyes were getting brighter and a trace of animation showed on her face.

He said, “A bottle of Dalmane was found in your medicine cabinet. Do you take it regularly?”

“No. Hardly ever. I’ve been afraid of drugs ever since that clinic in Mexico.”

“There were only six capsules left.”

“Six? That’s impossible. The bottle was nearly full the last time I noticed it.”

“And you don’t know what happened to the rest?”

“No.”

“Did anyone have access to your room?”

“It was cleaned twice a week by one of the day staff. Otherwise I kept it locked. I’m not positive, but I suspect the girls had learned some method of unlocking it. Occasionally items would be in a slightly different place from where I’d left them, or a drawer would be partly open.”

“They picked the lock with a credit card,” he said. “That’s how they knew about the lingerie from the bridal shop.”

“I see.”

“You bought it on June the sixth.”

“Around then, yes.”

“Why?”

“For my marriage to Cooper. I had to have a decent trousseau.”

“Mrs. Young was still alive at the time.”

“Yes, but she didn’t stay alive. Wasn’t it a nice coincidence that she—”

“Be quiet. I mean, for God’s sake, don’t say things like that. It wasn’t nice and a lot of people think it wasn’t a coincidence.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so mean about it. I see things from my standpoint and you see them from yours.”

“For the next few months we’re going to be sharing a standpoint. Mine.” In spite of the air conditioning he had begun to sweat. He loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt. “In fact, from now on you’ve got to consider yourself on trial. Watch what you say, what you do. Be careful where you go and with whom.”

“It would be simpler if I just stayed here in jail,” she said bitterly. “I might as well if I have no rights left, if I can’t even see the people I want to.”

“That depends on what people you want to see.”

“I won’t tell you. You’ll only get mean again if I do.”