Still Waters

by John Moss

  “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 bru
tality 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.

  When they were gone, Morgan picked up a chrome-plated Zippo lighter from the bench and fiddled with the unfamiliar mechanism until it flared into an orange-blue flame that burnt his finger. With a rapid flick of his hand he let the lighter drop to the floor. Then he leaned over, retrieved it, and slipped it into his pocket, where he could feel its residual warmth.

  After the time it would have taken him to have a cigarette, Morgan went back into the autopsy room. “The big question is why?” he mumbled as he moved close to Ellen to follow her progress. He was thinking about smokers, not the corpse on the table.

  “I can’t tell you that, Morgan. I never know why. No matter how much I cut and probe, I can’t get there. I can slice and dice the brain, but the mind is something else. I know that’s trite, but it’s true. I’ve never seen a soul, either.”

  “Maybe you’ll surprise yourself someday and find a cavity the size of a walnut near the hypothalamus, but it’s empty and the occupant has fled. There’s a whole galaxy of souls out there, billions of walnuts rattling along the corridors of heaven. And I don’t even know what you mean by the mind.”

  “The potential inherent in the functioning brain for awareness…” She paused and leaned low with a bright light to peer into the depths of the body. “I don’t know, Morgan. You tell me. What is the mind?”

  “Maybe it’s like a grasp, something shaped in the air with your hands, the way your fingers move to catch water. It’s not the hand or the water but what they can do. More like the content in a computer, not the hard drive or a memory stick, but the content itself. And it can be erased. Look at her, just like that, and all you’re left with is machinery.”

  “Late night at the morgue — the chatter never stops! Can you pour us some coffee? I don’t know how much more I’m going to get out of her tonight.”

  Morgan got two cups of coffee and came back. “What about him?” He nodded in the direction of the stainless-steel drawers. “Robert Griffin. What’s the last word?”

  “Died from asphyxiation. No trauma to speak of apart from death. His lungs were rosy and plump. Seems to have died without protesting.” She walked to a drawer, pulled it open, and peeled back a white cloth so that Griffin’s face gleamed in the phosphorescent light. “There was a fair dose of Valium in his system. Maybe that explains it. Apart from a little water damage he looks quite passable. Death becomes him, I think.”

  “More so than life. He seems to have had an impoverished existence despite his wealth. No family, no friends, an indifferent lover, an obsession with fish. There was no water in his lungs, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No sign of a struggle?”

  “Right. A small cut on his left temple, nothing much.”

  “Would there have been blood?”

  “I doubt it. It happened, as far as I can tell, virtually at the point of death. There would hardly be any to speak of.”

  “Unless someone cleaned it up.”

  “Who? He was busy expiring.”

  “The killer.”

  “I don’t think there was anything much, not if his heart had stopped pumping.”

  “But it must have bled a little. I can see veins.”

  “His face was underwater.”

  “He didn’t drown?”

  “Right.”

  “But he was asphyxiated?”

  “Right.”

  “So it was almost as if he co-operated in his own murder, let someone smother him.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then maybe he had a burst of air pumped into him, say, from an aerator used for an aquarium. Just to make sure he would float.”

  “He was gassy. It must have gone into his gut. Why bother?”

  “The killer wanted it to look like suicide but didn’t want him to sink, to remain undiscovered. Or didn’t want us draining the pools.”

  “Surely a killer would know we’d find his lungs dry.”

  “The killer didn’t expect an autopsy. The killer thought we’d find him, write him off as an accidental drowning or suicide, and that would be that. She could bury him and get on with her life.”

  “You think Eleanor Drummond did it?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I think. And then killed herself in a sort of Grand Guig
nol fit of housekeeping.”

  “So it’s all wrapped up then?”

  “I think the fun has just begun,” said Morgan. “How do we tell victim from villain? What about the daughter? Why the double life of Eleanor Drummond? There’ll be a registered birth for Molly Bray. And what about the fortune in fish? There’s Miranda’s connection —”

  “Miranda’s connection?”

  Morgan explained.

  “And Eleanor Drummond witnessed the document naming Miranda executrix?”

  “Executor. Yeah, and since Griffin knew he was going to die, he must have known Eleanor would be his executioner. That’s strange enough. But why bring Miranda into it? And why wouldn’t Eleanor intercept the request? What could she gain from Miranda’s involvement? That’s as much a mystery as why Griffin would ask in the first place.”

  “And bribe her with bequests she could hardly refuse …”

  “She’s not his beneficiary.”

  “Well, whoever is, is in for a lot of money, I guess. I’m going to clean up here. It’s getting late.”

  “Sure,” he said, prodding at Griffin’s effects lying inside a plastic bag near his head. He took a wallet out, opened it, and removed a folded piece of yellow paper. “I knew there would be one of these here. The guy left notes all over the place.”

  He read aloud, his voice sepulchral in the sterile chamber. “‘A farmer in Waterloo County once showed me a peculiar phenomenon. We were standing in his barnyard near a cow and her newborn calf. He walked over and stood between them, edging the calf away from its mother. The cow became visibly anxious as the distance increased, and in spite of being wary she came trudging forward in her calf’s direction. The farmer then lifted the calf off the ground, cradling it with one arm under its rump and the other under its neck. He lifted it maybe six inches. The cow suddenly stopped and gazed around in bewilderment. She could no longer recognize her own calf; she had lost it. As soon as the farmer set the calf’s feet on the ground, the cow saw it again, even though it was still in the farmer’s embrace. Several times he lifted it a few inches off the ground and each time the mother became confused by its disappearance. The point is, the cow had no concept of her calf. Her maternal instinct was directed toward a particular set of stimuli. When one of these was removed, namely that her calf was connected to the ground, the set collapsed. She could not extrapolate from the remaining stimuli.’