Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

Most important of all, uniforms were to be abolished or simplified, with no more fancy hats or tailored jackets with gold braid and rows of ribbons.

If it hadn’t been for the uniform, his sister Iris wouldn’t have looked twice at Cooper Young. It was the second look that did it. Until then Iris was a nice intelligent girl, expected to marry a nice intelligent man who would put her fortune to good use and sire three or four sons to carry on with it. Instead she fell for a uniform, gave birth to two half-witted daughters and became a sour, sick old woman. Poor Iris. The crowning irony was that the Admiral retired and now wore his uniform only once a year at the Regimental Ball. Van Eyck didn’t enjoy music or dancing, and he certainly didn’t spend money lightly, but he never missed a Regimental Ball. Each one produced a yearly renewal of his anger against the military.

Van Eyck took up his pen and a sheet of the paper Ellen had given him.

Secretary of Defense, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Overspend is overkill. Explore the following ways to cut your preposterous budget:

Reduce salaries.

Begin pensions later, terminate sooner.

Dispense with all uniforms.

Eliminate commissaries and personnel, R & R stations, free transportation to and from battles.

Avoid wars. If this is impossible, put them on a paying basis with T. V. and publishing rights, et cetera.

Reform, retrench or resign, sir.

Van Eyck reread the letter, making only one change. He underlined dispense with all uniforms and added an exclamation point. Once uniforms were abolished, the other reforms would automatically occur sooner or later.

He heard someone yell fire but he didn’t bother looking around. If there was, in fact, a fire, it seemed silly to yell about it instead of calling the fire department.

There was, in fact, a fire.

Little Frederic Quinn, acting on the advice of his older brother, Harold, who was taking the advice of his best friend, Bingo Firenze, whose uncle was a hit man for the Mafia, always carried a packet of matches even though he had given up smoking when he was seven. Bingo had figured it out. Fire was the best attention-getter in the world and no matter where you were something was flammable, not merely the more obvious things like paper and wood, but stuff like Grady’s polyester warm-up suit hanging on a hook in the first-aid room. It took nearly all the matches in the packet before the warm-up suit finally ignited.

“Ha ha, Grady,” Frederic said just before he passed out from smoke inhalation.

In the excitement following the discovery of the fire nobody could find the key to the first-aid room. Grady tried to pick the lock with a nail file. When that failed, the engineer pried the door open with a hatchet and put out the fire by tossing Grady’s warm-up suit into the pool.

Frederic was given artificial respiration, and in a few minutes he was conscious again and coughing up the pizza, doughnuts and potato chips he’d had for breakfast.

Miranda Shaw knelt beside him and pressed a wet towel to his forehead. “Poor child, what happened? Are you all right?”

“I want a chocolate malted cherry Coke.”

“A glass of milk would be more—”

“I want a chocolate malted cherry Coke.”

“Of course, dear. Stay quiet and someone will bring you one. How did the fire start?”

“I don’t know,” Frederic said. “I got amnesty.”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t remember.”

“The little bastard set it himself,” Grady said. “And I’m going to kick his butt in as soon as his pulse is normal. Give me the rest of the matches, Frederic.”

“What matches? I don’t remember any matches. I got amnesty.”

“You’re going to need amnesty, kid, if you don’t hand over the evidence.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?” Miranda repeated. “Why would a child want a lawyer?”

“I’m pleading not guilty and taking the Fifth.”

“A fifth of what, dear? I don’t understand.”

“Hey, Grady, this is a far-out chick.”

Miranda stood up, looking helplessly at Grady and holding the wet towel at arm’s length as if it had turned into a snake. “He seems to be acting so strangely. Do you suppose he could be delirious?”

“No, ma’am. He always acts like this.”

“When I get my lawyer,” Frederic said, “I’m going to sue you both for libel.”

Miranda’s silk robe was stained with smoke as well as the remains of Frederic’s breakfast, and the flower had fallen out of her hair. Grady picked it up. Some of the petals came loose in his hand and drifted down onto the tile floor. He hadn’t realized until then that the flower was genuine and perishable. He thought of the baby duck that had died in his hands and all the soft delicate things that shouldn’t be touched.

“I’m sorry,” Grady said. “I didn’t mean to wreck it like that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I thought the thing was — oh, plastic or something you can’t wreck.”

“Forget about it, please. It simply happened.”

“Like the fire,” Frederic said. “Honest to God, Grady, one minute I was sitting there doing my transcendental meditation and the next minute I was surrounded by leaping flames.”

“There were no leaping flames.”

“ I saw leaping flames. I must have been delirious.”

“No flames, no delirium. Just a little creep with some matches, and a smoldering warm-up suit which will cost the club twenty-five bucks to replace. A new door lock will bring the tab to two hundred, and cleaning and painting, fifty extra. Maybe I should add ten bucks for my medical services. I saved your life.”

“Who asked you to?”

“Nobody. People were on their knees begging me to let you croak. But I have a kind heart.”

“Yeah? Well, bring me a chocolate malted cherry Coke, double whipped cream.”

“Get it yourself,” Grady said.

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

“I bet you want me to split so you can come on with the chick. Well, ha ha, I’m not going.”

“You just changed your mind, Frederic.” Grady grabbed him under the arms and jerked him to his feet. “Ha ha, you’re going.”

“All right, I’m going, I’m going. Only don’t pull any of the mucho macho stuff till I get back, will you? It’s time I started my education. The kids depend on me for info.”

Miranda leaned against the wall, watching Frederic skip down the corridor toward the snack bar. Her braid was half-unraveled and her face had already started to sunburn.

“He’s a very strange little boy,” she repeated. “I find it difficult to understand what he’s talking about, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What did he mean when he called me a chick?”

“A girl.”

“A girl. ” Involuntarily she reached up and touched her face, as if to cover the tiny scars left by the last knife. “How nice. Though I’m afraid it’s not very accurate.”

“Accurate enough.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Sure I am, lady. But that’s the way you want it.

“Let me get this straight, Ellen.” Mr. Henderson closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips very tightly together. This was supposed to set up a magnetic current which had soothing and curative powers. “The door to the first-aid room has been burned.”

“Yes, Mr. Henderson.”

“Perhaps you mean singed or scorched, requiring a few touches of paint here and there?”

“Burned,” Ellen said. “Also, the lock’s broken.”

“I don’t understand, it doesn’t make sense, how such peculiar things happen to me. ”

“Frederic Quinn was playing with matches.”