Shattered Silk (34 page)

"I've never fully appreciated how true that is," Karen agreed. "When I remember the conversations I had with the two of them, I realize that every statement was misinterpreted-on both sides. When Miriam protested the price I asked for the dresses, she was really expressing amazement that I asked so little. And when I said I hoped she would buy more things, she interpreted it as meaning that there would be more demands for money, not only from her, but from Shreve. It would have been a rather ingenious blackmail method, actually; the merchandise was there, and as I kept telling everyone, the price depended solely on what people were willing to pay."

"I still don't understand why she killed Rob," Cheryl said, gazing at Tony with limpid blue eyes.

For once her attentive look and her appeal to his superior knowledge didn't improve Tony's morale. He answered almost reluctantly. "She-uh-explained that too. The house had been searched several times, without success; she thought Karen might have taken the dress to work and concealed it somewhere on the premises. She bribed Rob to let her in. They had been intimate-that's how she put it, intimate once upon a time-and she knew he'd do anything for money.

"What really killed the poor dumb bastard was a combination of curiosity and greed. Miriam told him Karen had something that belonged to her-implied it had been stolen. That wasn't good enough for Rob; he kept asking what it was. We'll never know whether he figured it out. Miriam thought he had-but as Karen has good reason to know, guilt makes people believe a lot of things that are false. Rob may well have had an inkling of the truth. After all, he had just written up that old murder case and he knew a lot about it. He knew Miriam was the girl whose parents had been killed; he may have suspected she did it. He wouldn't have been the only one to suspect her. However much he knew, he knew too much for Miriam. She believed she was already being blackmailed and she was not about to let someone else join the club.

"After they finished at the shop, he followed her in his car to that hamburger joint. It was closed by then; he left his car, and got in hers. She wouldn't tell us how she lured him into the woods. She just giggled and looked coy… God, it was awful. But he wouldn't, have been afraid of her. He was proud of his body and his muscles, and she was-is-a small woman."

"Maybe she forced him to go with her," Cheryl suggested. "At gunpoint."

"She didn't have the gun-not MacDougal's, at any rate. Mrs. Givens was the one who stole it. Both of them were in the house at different times; neither really trusted the other's honesty or competence. It was Miriam the first time, when Karen was attacked; she got in through a window, as I suspected. Then Mrs. Givens came to see if she couldn't retrieve the clothes by normal means, and Karen's reaction convinced her that Karen was aware of what she had and was determined to get as much money as she could for it. She stole the new house keys and had duplicates made; Miriam returned the originals next day, so Karen never realized they had been borrowed. Miriam was responsible for all the violence. Shreve-Mrs. Givens-didn't want that kind of trouble, she only wanted to find the dress and also play on Karen's nerves. I think she was always afraid of what Miriam might do. She knew only too well what her friend was capable of."

"Then Miriam was the one who almost ran Karen down?" Cheryl asked.

Tony couldn't stand it any longer. "Don't ask me, ask him!" He turned on Mark, who had not spoken a word, and who sat slouched in his chair, his eyes fixed morosely on the tips of his shoes. "He's the mastermind! The hero! Go ahead, buddy, enlighten the ignorant. Brag a little. Don't mind me."

"What?" Mark glanced up.

"You saved the day," Tony said bitterly. "Solved the case, dashed to the rescue, arrived in the nick of time-leaving the cops with egg all over their faces. Tell us how you did it. You're entitled to gloat."

Mark slumped lower and tried to push his chin into his chest. "Sure, rub it in. I don't blame you."

"Rub what in? You saved-"

"Saved nothing!" Mark yelled. "What saved Karen was that loony old lady! There's a gallant rescuer for you! If she hadn't gotten Miriam rattled and conned her into emptying the clip, I'd be dead. Me-not Karen. Karen was going for Miriam with a poker when I walked in the door. I was about as much use as-as that goddamn dog!"

Alexander, resting in his velvet-lined basket, lifted his head and growled. It was only a feeble echo of his old growl, for he was still full of dope and his ribs were confined by tape and plaster.

Tony stared at his sulking friend. Then his lips twitched. "Well, well. It never occurred to me… Sorry, pal. I guess I don't mind looking like a jackass so long as I have you keeping me company."

Cheryl glanced at Karen, her eyebrows lifting. Men, she seemed to be saying. Men. I'll never understand them.

At any rate, the air was considerably clearer after that. Tony loosened his tie; Mark sat up straight and ran his hands through his hair.

"Since I'm exposing my lack of intelligence I might as well tell all," he said amiably. "I didn't even pick the right killer. I thought it was Shreve. That's why I asked her to go with the group this weekend. I had to go myself, I couldn't get out of it, so I figured at least I could keep her away from Karen."

"That was a noble, self-sacrificing gesture," said Karen.

Mark looked at her uneasily and decided not to pursue the point. "I knew a number of things you didn't know," he explained to Tony. "Mostly from Cheryl. She talks all the time, and I usually don't hear one word in five, but when she was talking about Karen I tended to pay closer attention. She told me all about old Mrs. Ferris being Shreve's grandmother, and Shreve trying to get the clothes back. It meant nothing to me at the time, but it stuck in the back of my mind while we were discussing what the burglar might have been looking for. But there were so many other possibilities-historic jewels, those expensive dresses.

"I had also read Rob's book. Your description of the way he was cut up stirred my memory again, but I didn't make the connection. The names were misleading rather than helpful; I knew Miriam only by her married name, and as I learned later, she had never assumed her stepfather's surname. So even Karen, who had known Miriam by her maiden name, wouldn't have connected her with the Ferguson case unless she had read the story."

"Which I didn't," Karen admitted. "I skimmed through most of the book, but the only stories I actually read were the nice harmless ones about Georgetown ghosts. There was no photograph of Miriam-"

"Rob wouldn't have used one," Tony said. "He was skirting the edge of libel on that story anyway, especially with the title-'Lizzie Borden or Jack the Ripper?' Lizzie being, as we all know, the proper daughter who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother. Actually, Rob got the idea from some of the reporters who followed the case at the time. The parallels were too close to miss. I missed them, though. All the times we've discussed the Borden case…"

"It's the classic of all classic crimes," Mark said thoughtfully. "Miss Elizabeth Borden was actually brought to trial for the murders of her father and stepmother. She got off; the townspeople simply couldn't believe a prim, proper lady would do such a vicious thing. But the clincher was the fact that the police never found a bloodstained dress. People are still arguing that one; a dress was burned-witnesses said there was no blood on it, but were they correct? Did she strip and commit the murders naked? Nobody knows. But the essence of that case was the bloody dress, just as it was in the Ferguson case. Miriam was suspected by the police-but there she was, in the same dress she had worn all day, and it didn't have a spot on it.

"After reading the story again and looking at the pictures I realized that Mrs. Ferris lived next door to the Ferguson house, and I began to wonder whether Shreve had had something to do with those killings. It simply never occurred to me that there was another woman involved. Again, the thing that misled me was the difference in the names.

"When I got back from Atlanta Tuesday morning- this morning, for God's sake-I can't believe it… I went straight to the office. I called Tony around lunchtime, but he wasn't in. I didn't reach him until early in the afternoon. I had no idea anything had happened. When he told me, I… Well, I won't attempt to describe my state of mind. I'd been wrong, dead wrong, that was all I could think. I started calling here. I guess I called every fifteen minutes. I had no idea where you had gone; if I had known, I'd have been even more scared than I was. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer, so I grabbed a cab and came on over. The first thing I saw was Karen's car, and then I felt better; I figured she'd just gotten home. But when I got to the door there was that-that old lady. She turned coolly to me and said, 'What an extraordinary thing! That was a bullet. Don't you think it is extremely bad manners to shoot at someone who is knocking at one's door? They needn't answer if they don't choose to see me just now.'"

His imitation of Mrs. Grossmuller made Karen laugh. "Wasn't she wonderful?"

"Wonderful," Mark agreed gloomily. "I said, 'Are you sure it was a shot you heard?' and she said, 'I assure you I could hardly be mistaken, young man; before I poisoned him in 1965 my late husband the Judge greatly enjoyed shooting things.'

"So," Mark went on, "we conferred-briefly-and she said she'd go to the back door and create a diversion. I-uh-I had keys. I'd asked the locksmith to make extras for me…"

He looked as if he expected a reprimand. Karen said tactfully, "Anyway, Mrs. Grossmuller was super. Cheryl, I wish you could have seen her face when Mark let her in and she saw poor Shreve lying on the floor, and all that blood. I thought for a minute she was going to make some remark about poison, and how much neater it was… She just looked the situation over, nodded calmly, and said it looked as if we had things under control, and where was that nice little dog? She was the one who rushed Alexander to the vet. I must send her some flowers."

"I already did," Mark grunted.

"What kind? No, don't tell me-red roses?"

"What else?" Mark smiled faintly.

There was a brief silence. Then Cheryl said, "It's stopped raining. The sun is coming out."

"I'm starved," Karen said suddenly.

"What would you like?" Cheryl started up. "There's some salad-"

"I don't want anything healthy. I want ice cream. Lots of ice cream."

"Sounds good," Tony said, grinning. "What kind?"

Karen thought. "Pralines and cream. Or butter pecan.

"I'll see what's available." Tony got to his feet.

"Chocolate," Mark said absently.

"Cheryl?"

"Can I come with you?" Cheryl asked.

"Sure." Tony's grin expanded. "Let's go, babe."

As they left the room Karen called, "Pralines and cream
and
butter pecan."

"I thought you were on a diet," Mark said.

"Not anymore." Karen settled herself comfortably in her chair. "I'll never be a size 6 again, and I don't care. I like myself the way I am."

"Do you think I don't recognize a cue when I hear it?" Mark pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap. "Okay, I like you the way you are too."

After a long interval, during which she discovered what had been missing in Tony's kisses-only one thing, but it was the one that counted most-Mark said, "I guess we'd better get married. Ruth won't like my moving in unless we're properly engaged."

"Your concern for Ruth touches me, but I wouldn't want you to do anything rash."

"Look what happened the last time I forgot to ask you."

After another, longer interval, Karen murmured, "That wouldn't happen again."

"Oh? I was beginning to worry about Tony. Did he-"

"None of your business."

"Right. None of my business. Do you think he and Cheryl will make it?"

"I'm more hopeful than I was. I'm going to suggest that he refuse to rent to us unless she puts out."

"My dear girl, how vulgar," said Mark, imitating Mrs. Grossmuller. "So you're going ahead with the shop, are you?"

"Any objections?"

"God, no, I wouldn't dare object. Besides, I've always wanted a wife who has her own income."

"Mark."

"Mmmm?" said Mark, his lips against her ear.

"It was sweet of you to minimize what you did to spare Tony's feelings-"

"Sweet, hell. I was threatened with extreme bodily harm by my own sister if I didn't."

"-but I know what you did, and I think you're brave and noble and brilliant and wonderful…"

This time it was the telephone that interrupted them. Karen went to answer it. Her exclamation of delight brought Mark to the door.

"Pat! Pat, darling, where are you? Still in Borneo? How is Ruth? Is Mrs. Mac all right? How are you? Oh, great. Yes, I'm fine. What have I been doing?" She glanced at Mark, and laughed softly. "Well, Pat, you aren't going to believe this…"

Pen name of Barbara Mertz, who also writes as Elizabeth Peters. Under the name Barbara Michaels, she writes primarily gothic and supernatural thrillers. The name Barbara Michaels was chosen by her publisher since she had already published one nonfiction book on ancient Egypt, and the publisher wanted her novels to be distinctive and not be confused with her other historical book.