Still Waters (14 page)

“You're right,” said the ME. “Like it was lifted aside before the weapon went in.”

“She was fastidious,” said Miranda. “She rolled up the carpet. She could have just moved it aside, but she rolled it up and put it in the closet. She put her shoes neatly out of the way —”

“But not her jacket?” the ME interjected.

“She needed her jacket.”

“She did?”

Morgan found something deeply sensual in Miranda when she was totally caught up in extravagant thought; the raw intellectual energy released pheromones or something. He listened with benign, almost indulgent concentration. They were, all three, excited by where she was going.

“Okay,” Miranda continued, “she knows precisely what needs to be done. Everything is prepared. She lifts the aquarium down onto the chair. She kneels beside it. This isn't so you won't hear when it breaks, Morgan. It's because she knows once she starts she won't have the strength to pull it down from the shelf. She doesn't know you're there. She takes her nail file and jabs a hole in her abdomen to get things started. She puts down the
file and pulls the aquarium over so that it breaks in front of her and spills water over her legs and lap. Then using her jacket to get a good grip — that's why her jacket is scrunched up and bloody — she takes hold of a large shard of ice she's made for the purpose. It's about the size of a small sword. She inserts the end of the ice into the gut wound, but it won't go in as easily as she anticipated. It takes all her strength to drive it through. There's your bruising. Then she leans forward against the ice and works it in a predetermined trajectory among her lower organs. Her heart and lungs are still going strong, pumping the blood through her guts. The blood spreads in a sheet across her lap. With less blood in her head the pain eases and she slips into a kind of euphoria, gouges away as much as she can, falls to the side, and dies.”

The three of them stood close to Eleanor Drummond's splayed cadaver, pressed together by the intimacy of a shared secret. Then, a little embarrassed, they separated emotionally, but stayed close, not wanting to lose what they had.

“Was it the tap water?” Morgan asked. “Is that what tipped you? I've heard of icicles as weapons before, or at least it's out there in the realm of urban myth, but the meltwater always gives them away. The spilled aquarium was meant to cover it up. A bit cruel, though. She was willing to sacrifice that beautiful fish.”

“I don't think she shared all of Griffin's passions,” Miranda said.

“What about the ice sword? Where did that come from? You said ‘prepared for the purpose.' How so?”

“Remember the vase with the long-stemmed roses?”

“The dying flowers, yeah, in Waterford crystal.”

“After we found her, when we went down to the den, the flowers had been thrown out. She used the vase.
Dumped the flowers — they were dead, anyway — filled it with water, and popped it into the freezer alongside the shrimp. It's the right shape — tall and slender, tapered toward the base. In a matter of hours she had her weapon. She could have made it while we were still there, Morgan. Between talking to you and talking to me, she began the procedures of her own demise. Chilling, isn't it?”

He decided not to pick up on the ice motif.

“Why the need to inflict such terrible pain on herself?” Miranda asked rhetorically. “Why ritual suicide? It had to be more than simply an attempt to mislead. Surely, it wasn't for honour or for ritual obligation. How far can we push the Japanese connection?”

“Maybe it all has something to do with the koi,” Morgan suggested.

“I don't know Mazda from Toyota, Hyundai from seppuku,” said Ellen.

“Subaru,” said Miranda, then conceded, “yeah, seppuku.”

“Hyundai is Korean,” added Morgan.

They both stared self-consciously at the medical examiner. This was her realm, the kingdom of the dead, and morbid good humour was an affirmation of primacy. She was neither stupid nor malicious, just territorial, they decided. And Miranda, while not threatening, was the one in control.

Miranda continued her rhetorical inquiry. “Could anyone need to suffer so much? How terrible or beatific to embrace absolute pain.” Caught up in her own words, she lapsed into silence for a moment, then said, “Martyrs welcome arrows and flames. Yearning for release, purification, absolution, redemption, yearning for heaven? If what she was trying to resolve was bad enough — yearning for hell.”

“Or oblivion,” Morgan suggested.

Miranda frowned. “Oblivion? There would be easier ways, don't you think? It may have to do with koi, or maybe not.”

“It does make sense,” said the medical examiner. “The deliberate pattern of violence inside her gut, the bruising, the lack of resistance, no weapon, the focused brutality. I think you're absolutely on, love. Absolutely on. I still don't know about controlling the pain, though.”

“I was reading a while back about operations in the early nineteenth century,” said Morgan. “A witness in London described a woman being led out into an operating theatre and curtsying to the medical observers before climbing onto the surgical table and lying back while aides held her arms and legs. She had a large tumor excised from her breast without anaesthetic. According to the diarist, she didn't cry out. When her breast was sewn back up, she was helped from the table. As soon as she got on her feet, she turned and curtseyed again to the audience before being led back to the ward.”

“The point being?” prompted Miranda.

“The point being, since there were no alternatives available, she controlled her nervous response. It surely isn't that she didn't feel pain. Her mind and her body conspired to deal with it by wilful quiescence, just as another person might by screaming bloody murder.”

“And you agree that Eleanor Drummond could have had that kind of will?” asked Miranda.

By way of confirmation, the ME observed that she had seen women in childbirth go through absolute misery, their bodies tearing open and wracked with agony, yet they barely cried out beyond an involuntary whimper, while others, through easy births, had howled enough to wake the dead. After she told them that, she surveyed
the crypt, the wall of stainless-steel drawers marked with ID labels, and the tables with sheets pulled up over their occupants. Then she looked at the body of Eleanor Drummond. “Well, maybe not wake them up, but to scare hell out of them, anyway. And look at those fakirs in India. We don't know how they control blood flow to self-inflicted wounds, but they do. And apparently pain, as well.”

“There was a woman in Mexico,” Morgan said, “who went into labour and was alone. When the baby wouldn't come, she knew something was wrong. She took a carving knife and delivered the baby by Caesarean. Both mother and baby survived.”

“So we're agreed?” asked Miranda. “She was a very determined woman whose options had narrowed to zero. That leaves us with a bigger mystery than ever, I suppose. The big question is
why
? And how does all this connect with the death of Robert Griffin?” She took a deep breath. “Is her suicide an implicit confession that she killed the old boy? Or that she couldn't live without him? I mean, it's got to connect, but I'm at a loss.” She smiled. “I've had enough for one night. Triumph is tiring. I'm going home.”

“You'd better talk to the girl out there,” Ellen reminded.

“Sure, on my way. Good night, Ellen. Night, Morgan.” Miranda slipped out into the brightly lit corridor. The lights were kept high, she observed, even in the dead of night.

The girl was sitting on a bench by the soft drink machine, legs outstretched, staring at the floor.

“Hi,” said Miranda. “Are you here with someone?” She noticed the girl was playing with a lighter, but there were no butts on the floor and her fingers weren't stained.

“My mom said to wait for her.”

“Here?”

“She left a note.”

“What's your mom's name?”

“Molly Bray.”

“There's no Molly Bray here.”

“Maybe there is,” said the girl.

“What's your name?”

“Jill.”

“Well, Jill, this is no place for you. You'd better go home. I'll give you a lift. I'm a police detective.”

A tremor of apprehension passed over the girl's face, which resolved into a mask of studied composure. “No, thank you. I'll wait. She said I should come here.”

“To the morgue? Jill, do you know what this place is?”

“Yeah, I think so. It's for dead people.”

“Do you think your mother's dead?”

There was a long pause.

“Yes.”

The girl regarded her with astonishing self-possession. At the same time there was vulnerability in her eyes, as if she might suddenly collapse but didn't know quite how to do it. This girl was used to self-restraint — and self-reliance. But she was so young, and underneath the bravado she must be incredibly frightened.

“Is there anyone I can call?” Miranda asked.

“No. Thank you.”

“What's that pin you're wearing? It's very beautiful.”

“A fish.”

“Is it silver?”

“It's black and white. The silver's where the white parts are and the black is empty. So it's whatever colour you're wearing. I mostly wear black. My mother gave it
to me.”

“Do you know what kind of fish it is?”

“Shiro Utsuri.”

Miranda shuddered. “Jill, does the name Eleanor Drummond mean anything to you?”

“No.”

Miranda reached into her purse and retrieved the envelope with the photograph. She examined the picture, then held it out to the girl.

“That was me when I was nine.”

“I think you'd better come with me, Jill.” Miranda preceded the girl into the autopsy area of the crypt and asked Ellen to cover the body of Eleanor Drummond, except for the head.

Miranda held the girl by the arm and drew her close to the table. Gazing at the composed features of the dead woman's face, the haunting pallor giving her skin the translucent quality of a Lalique sculpture, Jill seemed mesmerized. No one said anything. Jill reached out tentatively and touched the back of her hand to the woman's cheek. She didn't flinch when contact was made with the cool flesh, as Miranda had expected. Jill related to the brutality of death in ways Miranda did not at the same age, or even now.

The girl turned and walked out of the room, and Miranda followed her, with Morgan close behind. Jill sat by the soft drink machine, staring at the floor, uncertain what to do next. Miranda wanted to comfort her, but the girl apparently needed distance.

Morgan tried for clarification, speaking in a quiet voice to Miranda. “It seems out of character. She wouldn't just leave a message saying, ‘Pick up my body at the morgue.'”

“Jill, do you have your mother's note?” Miranda
asked. “Could we see it?”

The girl handed her a folded sheet of pale blue vellum. On it were clear instructions to meet her at this address. Miranda expected a spidery script, but the writing was slanted all to one side.

“Your mother didn't write this, did she?” Miranda asked.

“No.”

“Did you write it?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I don't understand how you knew to come here.”

She gazed into Miranda's eyes with the bewildered look of a bird plucked from the air.

Miranda resisted taking the girl in her arms. They had to sort this out. “How did you know to come here, Jill?”

The girl seemed to be searching inside for an answer.

“When did you last see your mother?” asked Morgan, sitting beside her. Miranda was sitting on the other side; between the two of them they were shoring her up without touching her.

“This morning … when she drove me to school. She said not to worry and I wasn't worried until she said that. Like, of course, I worried. She sometimes does strange things. She told me Victoria, our housekeeper, would look after me. She said you, the woman cop, would look after me. I asked her why would I need anyone to look after me. I asked her what cop. She said you'd find me. So I went into school, worried sick. When I got home, she wasn't there and she didn't come home for supper. Victoria had no idea what was going on, so I phoned all the hospitals. When I phoned here, they said there was a woman here, a murder victim, who fit my mom's description.
So I came over. I was waiting for you.”

She looked into Miranda's eyes, her own eyes pleading for release from the emotional confusion. Miranda recognized the familiar fear of a brutalized child. She had been the same age when her father died.

Almost immediately Jill rallied and spoke in an even tone. “You know it when someone says goodbye to you and what they mean is forever. I knew this morning that I'd never see her again. But it was like being inside a movie. The more scary it was the more unreal it all seemed. Now it seems real. That's my mom in there on the table. Isn't she beautiful?”

“Yes,” said Miranda, “she's very beautiful. Why the note, Jill?”

“I'm a kid. Kids can't hang around places like this without permission.”

“Permission?”

“Like school, a note from my mom.” Miranda winced, and Jill smiled at her sweetly. “That's irony, isn't it?”

“Yes, Jill, that's irony. Come on now. Let's get you home. Is anyone there?”

“Victoria.”

“Your father?”

“My father is deceased,” the girl said with incongruous formality.

“I'm sorry, Jill.”

“It's okay.” She gazed plaintively at Miranda and then away. “I don't want my mom to be dead.”

“I know. Come on. Let's go home.”

“Call me first thing in the morning, Miranda,” said Morgan. “Good night, Jill.” He remained seated while Miranda and Jill walked out through the front entrance, Miranda's arm draped lightly across the girl's shoulder, the girl leaning slightly into Miranda's body, almost as if
they were comforting each other.