Victims (26 page)

Captain William O’Connor sat and stared at the telephone for a long time before he dialed Jim Dunphy’s number. He spoke quietly, with little or no modulation. He gave away nothing, not his feeling, his opinion, his anger or his agreement. He then asked Dunphy if he wanted to call his partner and give her the message or should he do it?

“I’ll call, Captain,” Dunphy said very formally.

“All right. And—this goes for both of you. Take a few days off. You both deserve. Report back on Monday. Or Tuesday. Whatever.”

“Yes, sir, Captain,” Detective Jim Dunphy replied.

S
HE HAD WARNED HIM
she would not be good company. He promised that being with him for a long weekend would give her a new perspective. It wasn’t that she objected to having a few days off unexpectedly, she told him, it was just that she had been
told
to take the time.

Miranda would not discuss any aspect of her current investigation. This was off limits to Mike Stein. Nor was he particularly interested. He had his own concerns. When they reached his house in Bridgehampton, he settled her on a large, formless, lush couch, surrounded her with beautiful pillows of all shapes and sizes and fabrics.

“Take off those sandals, lean back and relax while I fix us something light and fast and terrific. And give you something to read while you’re waiting.”

She had expected the sensational first article: he had prepared her for it. Still, it took her breath away.

THE GIRL WHO WAS MURDERED TWICE

by Mike Stein

(first of a series of six articles)

Featured was a photograph of Anna Grace, identified as the victim. Next to it, shocking to Miranda, was a photograph of Maria Vidales. They both looked vaguely dreamy, vapid, unreal. In the pictures, side by side, they might have been twins.

Under Maria Vidales’ name was the statement
VICTIM’S MOTHER “THOUGHT IT WAS THE SPANISH GIRL.”

There was a picture of Paul Mera, identified as
THE MAN WHO KILLED HER THE FIRST TIME.
There was a legend instructing the readers to turn to the centerfold for pictures of the “other murderers.”

Spread over the two pages of the centerfold were photographs of all of the people on Barclay Street who had been interviewed.
THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO KILLED ANNA GRACE THE SECOND TIME.

He had gotten a great deal of background information on everyone in the story. His opening dealt with Anna Grace: traced her background, her life, her marriage, her devotion to her husband, to her mother, to her profession. “Yet she was ultimately rejected, allowed to die, not only by strangers but by the person who allowed personal vanity—and possibly prejudice—to corrupt a mother’s love.”

Miranda skimmed the story, amazed at how much information he had been able to gather and compress. It was well done for what it was, sensational, intriguing and leaving the reader wanting more.

“I’ve finished the articles,” he told her. “A few days off, away from all of it, then I’m digging in for the book. I’ve a tight deadline and a lot of work to do.”

“Will it be very different from the articles?” she asked.

“More analytical. I’ve been in touch with people—the ‘experts’ in behavior. They’re working up information for me—why these people failed to act, why they are reacting so defensively now. These bastards are trying to institute a lawsuit against me, the paper, my publishers. It’s all to the good. More publicity.”

“Do they have any grounds to sue? You have called them all murderers. You don’t think that is valid for a lawsuit?”

Mike Stein smiled. “Miranda, let’s not talk about any of this, okay? When you called me, remember what I said?”

“Yes. That you were planning to call me and ask if I could get a few days off. To come out here with you. To relax. To get away from everything and everyone and just to...”

“And just to.”

“And I said that it was a very good idea, Mr. Stein. And I think it was.”

He took the articles away from her. “Let’s really forget all this. Now, lady, tell me. Why do you insist on calling me Mr. Stein?”

She traced a fingertip along his mouth, tickled the corners into a smile.

“Because it pleases me to do so, Mr. Stein.”

“Miranda, Miranda. Saying your name pleases me. It is a gentle, sensuous experience, Miranda,” he said softly.

“How easily we please each other.”

“Not quite.”

“That was the beginning of pleasure. Step by step into areas of pleasure, all separate and apart. Verbal, unspoken, playing lightly, gently. We set the scene for our pleasure, slowly, slowly.”

Her sensuality was total. She was one of the few women he had ever known who genuinely
liked
her body, enjoyed the long, languid stretching that made her aware, section by section, of every bone, every muscle, every inch of skin in which she was encased.

He was fascinated by the color of her body: the play of light on the hollows and the sharpnesses, the mysterious darkness that glowed golden with undertones of cinnamon and bronze. From every angle, she appeared not only sensuous but maddeningly familiar: from another time and place and dimension. From some Egyptian-tomb wall painting, from some exotic, ancient place. She was Mayan, Aztec: a wary goddess, no complaisant virgin waiting sacrifice to fire.

Miranda: her high cheekbones and fine jawline; her black brows over blacker eyes; her wide full lips, turned up at the corners into a puzzling, amused smile; her long fine nose.

He ruffled her short black hair which clung to her skull and framed her cheeks. He pushed it back, to see her broad forehead, damp and serene.

Miranda. He said her name. He enjoyed the taste of it, the feel of it in his mouth, and then the taste of her as he enjoyed her body, encompassed her flesh and felt captured by her as though they had entered into a mutually agreed-upon secret and ancient and sacred rite.

Miranda.

They exchanged secrets and dreams, carefully. He told her, as they walked hand in hand at the water’s edge, what the articles, the book, the possible film, meant to him. Another chance.

“I’ll be fifty in a month, Miranda, and I’ve been feeling a hundred. I felt as though it was all over, all in back of me. That I’d had it, used it up, blown it, wasted it. It’s another chance that I hadn’t expected. I’m wiser now, I think. I’ll savor whatever is ahead.”

They stood on the beach and looked up at the house. “My ex-wife gave me a Labor Day deadline—sell it or buy her out. Now it’s mine. Really mine.”

“This house, it means a great deal to you. It is an important part of you. It is...what would I say your ‘place’? Where you feel you belong.”

“You’ve got it. It’s where I always want to return to, no matter where else I’ve been. I really was afraid to lose it.”

“Then I am glad for you, Mr. Stein.”

“Tell me your dream, Miranda. You must get sick and tired of your job. How much longer can you see yourself doing this—being with this ‘underlife’ of the city.”

She shrugged. “For a time.”

“And then?”

She studied him carefully before she spoke. “Law school.”

He looped his arms over her shoulders in an easy, friendly way and smiled down at her. He shook his head. “Oh. Miranda. Are you planning to be the savior of the great unwashed? Stand up for them in court and make the deal to put them back out on the streets? With all you know about it?”

“You make certain assumptions, Mr. Stein. You make very quick surface evaluations. And sometimes you are wrong. About this, you are wrong. I want to specialize in constitutional law. Someday, I want to be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. From the heart of the Constitution, Mr. Stein, is where all else in this country begins. Are you familiar, intimately familiar, with this document of our country?”

He let his head fall onto her shoulder, pulled her closer. When he pulled back, she was smiling at him, mocking him.

“You are right. I’ve made certain assumptions. With you, Miranda, I must learn to make no assumptions. You are like no one else I’ve ever known. You...”

“I am me. Just let me be who I am, not who you
think
I should be. Yes?”

“Oh, yes. Oh yes, Miranda.”

She had another surprise for him. She was a powerful swimmer and she took swimming very seriously. She didn’t pace herself to his less-than-athletic crawl. Swimming was a solitary thing for Miranda. Something she would not share with him. He became exhausted quickly, then sat on the beach and watched her. However she moved, he found pleasure in watching.

When she came from the water breathless, smiling, exhausted but exhilarated, her flesh cool and firm, he held her against him, his hands at the back of her head. He pulled back to study her face, her mouth opened slightly, the flash of white teeth, the slight gasping for air, the glinting amusement in her black eyes, the smile. The secrets contained behind that face: Miranda.

They had bought a selection of gourmet food from three or four fancy shops in town. Catering to the summer people, directly from the Upper East Side.

“I would rather have fresh vegetables,” Miranda said, wrinkling her nose at the exotic, expensive food.

“You are too healthy already. When you want plain and simple—good. Then
you
do the cooking. When I’m the cook, we eat from expensive cartons.”

They ate and made love and showered and made love and listened to music and they fell asleep in each other’s arms. They awoke at about ten that night and began to clean up the modern, high-ceilinged house. Miranda looked overhead: there were skylights in nearly all the rooms. She studied the stars and felt light and serene and happy. She had consciously stopped thinking about anything that bothered her. It was something she had learned to do, a form of self-taught meditation, to free her mind, if only for short periods of time.

Miranda did not particularly like his house, but she took pleasure in his pleasure. It was a handsome house. When it had been built, it was unique for the area. Now it was only one of a hundred variations, which to Miranda all looked more or less the same. She preferred simplicity by the ocean—a cabin, a cottage. This was too much: too sharply angled and opened and calculated for effect rather than for comfort.

She had admired his body: long and lean and well muscled. A bit too white; he’d had no sun all summer and he had to go through shades of red before he tanned. His white hair, which he had had since his late twenties, framed a still-youthful face. An oddly boyish face with pale translucent blue eyes. She knew that his boyishness was studied and insincere, but it was pleasant and he was good to look at and to touch. He enjoyed the physical things that she enjoyed. He was as willing to follow and learn as he was to lead and teach.

He was an interesting man, and Miranda Torres was glad she had come with him to his house in Bridgehampton. She felt better, more in control, less tense, ready to put her energies back into her job.

She dug into her pocketbook to check that she had not forgotten anything.

And then everything between them changed.

“I can’t believe I’ve been so careless,” she said. “I have been carrying these around with me since last week. You see how crazy they have made me, the people from my job. I am usually very efficient. So maybe the captain was right. I did need a few days away.”

“And do you feel more efficient now?” he asked.

They were each of them busy with last-minute, getting-ready-to-leave chores. He was checking out the refrigerator, making sure it was empty and clean so that he would not be offended in the future by some terrible-smelling corruption of what had once been beautiful.

He glanced at her, saw her expression: tense and serious.

“What?” he asked. “What are those papers?”

“Death certificates,” she told him. Reading softly, more to herself than to him, she quickly mouthed the injuries inflicted on Arabella Vidales. An assortment of horrors and humiliations ending in death by strangulation. Christine Valapo’s death certificate listed nearly identical information, but Miranda read each word, quickly and efficiently. As though she had an obligation to this unknown murdered woman not to shrug off the specific facts of her death.

“I’ve been carrying these around all this time. And a copy of Anna Grace’s death certificate. List of wounds inflicted, damage done to her and—” Miranda stopped speaking abruptly. She squinted, held the paper closer, went toward the floor lamp. She held her finger at the words and looked up at him.

“Mike,” she said.

It was a peculiar sound, the sound of his name: puzzled, stunned, a turning to him for clarification.

“Well, at least she hadn’t been sexually mauled and beaten the way those poor stewardesses were. And she wasn’t left in a garbage dump, in a...”

He stopped what he was doing, stopped collecting things, packages, suitcases, bags of food.

“Miranda, what?”

She did not answer, but instead she extended the death certificate toward him. Without realizing it, she didn’t release it to him, merely pointed at the words on the bottom line:
“The cause of death as determined by the autopsy on the body of Anna Hynes Grace: cerebral aneurysm.”

Her reaction confused him. She seemed to pull herself back into the tense, wary, uneasy posture that had characterized their first few hours together.

“Miranda, what the hell? It’s a mistake, that’s all. A miscopy from another death certificate. Jesus, over a period of what? seven days, there were something like twenty-five deaths by violence in Queens. Unheard of. You yourself said they were shifting bodies around. Didn’t you tell me that the stewardesses were sent to Manhattan and no one even notified you? Come on, we’ll get it all straightened out.”

She read through another portion of the report and she told him, “It states that none of the stab wounds was fatal. None pierced any vital organ or caused undue internal bleeding and...”

“Miranda. For Christ’s sake. If you knew the number of mistakes that are made every day in medical examiners’ offices all over the country you’d—”