Shreve nudged Karen. She had to nudge again, harder, before Karen moved. She had never seen anything more terrifying than the smiling, immaculate figure of her old classmate.
Shreve cleared her throat and made an attempt to reassert her authority. "Miriam, I told you not to come in the house. You were supposed to wait for me and drive me home."
"But that would have been silly. I wanted to search the house one more time. Now I'm sure. It isn't here. She must have given it to someone to keep for her. We'll have to make her tell us where it is."
"She will, Miriam. She will. Let me-"
"She's already told you a lot of lies, Shreve. You don't know how to question people. The only way you can be sure they aren't lying is to hurt them. That's how I was sure Rob was telling the truth when he said he didn't know about my dress."
Karen took a quick, involuntary step back. Shreve didn't look at her. She said urgently, "Miriam, put the knife down, okay? You'd better leave this to me. You know you get… you get too excited sometimes-"
"Please don't talk to me that way, Shreve," Miriam murmured. "I don't like it when you talk to me that way. As if I were irresponsible or something."
"Give me the knife, Miriam." Shreve stepped forward.
The blade made one brilliant, flashing move. Shreve's hands went to her breast. They could not hold back the flood; it bubbled out, staining her gloves and spreading across the crumpled linen of her dress. The sound of her body striking the floor made an appalling noise; it seemed to Karen as if the entire house vibrated with it.
"She shouldn't have done that," Miriam said. "She's so damned bossy."
"We've got to call a doctor. The telephone-"
"I'm afraid not." Miriam's voice was politely regretful. "I cut the wires, you see. Why don't you just give me the dress, Karen? Then I'll go, and you can do what you want about Shreve. I don't know why you're so worried about her, she always was nasty to you."
"But, Miriam…" Karen's voice failed. Was Miriam really so far removed from reality that she failed to see the old dress no longer mattered? Whether that was the case or whether Miriam intended to kill her too and hope she would be blamed for Shreve's death didn't really matter. The result for her would be the same, because she couldn't give Miriam the dress. Shreve was still alive-the ghastly stain was still spreading-but she would bleed to death if she didn't get help soon.
There were three doors in the room-one into the dining room, one into the hall, and the back door, the one closest to Karen. The way to it was barred, not only by Miriam, but-Karen realized with a jarring shock-by the dead-bolt lock. She would need a key to open it, and the same thing was true of all the ground-floor windows. She'd have to break the windows to get out, not only the panes of glass, but the connecting wooden strips. It looked easy in the movies, when the hero flung himself at a window and it exploded in fragments that left only a neat little cut on his cheek, but she had a feeling it wouldn't work so well in real life.
There was only one viable means of escape, then- the front door. She was almost certain Shreve had locked it from the inside, but the key would still be in the lock. She started edging toward the dining room door.
Shreve's purse had fallen too, spilling a clutter of objects across the floor. Miriam pushed them around with her foot. "She really shouldn't have done that," Miriam repeated, in a querulous, complaining voice. "She had it coming. So did he. He did it for years, you know. It started right after Mother married him. I was thirteen. I told her, but she didn't believe me. She must have known, though. She wouldn't stop him because she cared more about what people thought than she cared about me."
"Oh, God," Karen said involuntarily. "That was why…"
"I thought after I got out of high school I could go away to college and get free of him," Miriam said conversationally. "But he wouldn't let me. He said it was better for me to live at home and go to Georgetown. So I had to do it. And then, when she came in and saw what happened, I had to do it to her too, or she would have told someone it was me."
The sensation that froze Karen's limbs and came dangerously close to making her forget her own peril was not fear. It was a paralyzing blend of horrified pity and of mindless terror-terror of the irrational and the unknown. Miriam was beyond reason or appeal. Part of her mind was back in the past, reliving her torment and the double murder it had caused. Even her voice changed.
"Of course after I did it I was all splashed with blood. I knew the dress was the main thing. I had to get rid of it. Then I remembered Shreve was next door, visiting her grandmother. We were all going out someplace afterward, to celebrate. To celebrate…" A sudden, obscene giggle blurred her voice. Then she went on, "Shreve stopped to see the old lady because she'd told her she had a graduation present for her. We thought it would be a check, but it was only some tacky little cameo pin. Shreve had a change of clothes with her because we were going to meet her folks at the restaurant and we wanted to get out of those stupid pink dresses right away. So mean of them, making everybody wear the same dress. But it turned out to be lucky for me, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
"Anyway, I went out the back into the garden and signaled Shreve-we had a special place where we could climb the fence, we used it when she was at her grandmother's and we wanted to get together without anybody knowing. We changed clothes right there, in the yard. Nobody could see us, you know how high those walls are." She giggled again. "Shreve looked so funny standing there in her underwear holding that nasty, dirty pink dress of mine at arm's length. Her grandmother was half senile even then, and she knew she could get changed and hide the dress up in the attic without anybody seeing her, and that's what she did. I just went straight to my room by the back stairs. The maid had gone to the store to get liquor. She was the one that found them. She got hysterical, so I had to call the police. I think they were suspicious, all right. There was one horrible man with a big fat stomach and eyes like marbles who kept asking me questions. He shot his mouth off to the reporters, that's where they got that Lizzie Borden stuff, but my uncle threatened to sue the papers, so that stopped that. You see, the doctor said the killer must have been covered with blood, and they couldn't find any bloodstains on my clothes, except for the ones I got when I knelt by Mother after the police arrived. I thought I had better do that to cover up any spots on my shoes or under my fingernails. The dress got most of it, though."
A faint, bubbling moan stirred the air. Miriam glanced casually down at the still form at her feet. Her expression didn't alter, and Karen nerved herself for the final appeal.
"She was a loyal friend, Miriam. She helped you. She'll die if you don't get a doctor for her."
"Loyal to herself, you mean. Oh, sure, she helped me at first. I think she was so surprised and-well-excited, she just acted without thinking. But once she'd done it, she was an accessory, wasn't she? If the story ever got out, it would finish her husband's career. And Shreve wants to be First Lady someday. You know how this town is, every bit of mud sticks. I wonder what she did with…" Her foot nudged Shreve's purse.
Karen turned and ran.
The swinging door slapped shut behind her. She had never realized how long the dining room was; it seemed to take her forever to reach the farther door. It was closed. She lost several seconds there, because her hands, slippery with sweat, couldn't get a firm hold on the knob. The door opened outward. Shelter for a moment; but she dared not stop, and as she flung herself at the front door, reaching for the key, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Miriam had come out of the kitchen and was standing at the back of the hall.
The bullet smashed into the door, missing her head by only a few inches, sending splinters flying. Her body reacted before her dazed mind; falling, rolling as she fell, she cursed herself for not remembering the gun. Miriam had not forgotten about it. For a crazy woman Miriam was thinking and functioning very efficiently.