The July celebration, which Henderson called a Wing Ding, was given the theme Unidentified Flying Objects. Denied a special permit for a fireworks display on the beach in front of the club — fireworks were illegal throughout the state — Henderson rented a barge and had it anchored offshore as a base for the fuegos artificiales he’d brought across the border from Tijuana. The display was a great success until the Coast Guard literally cast a damper on it by dousing the barge with a firehose.
Henderson wasn’t the only miscreant. The police and sheriff’s deputies were busy all over town trying to enforce the ban on fireworks. From the barrio along the railroad tracks to the elegant old streets which zigzagged up through the foothills the night was alive with the explosions and flashes of homemade bombs and mail-order or under-the-counter shooting stars and Roman candles and whiz-bangs.
An extra loud explosion at 122 °Camino Grande attracted no special attention until a passing motorist saw flames shooting out of a window and called the fire department. By the time the flames were extinguished Iris Young was dead.
Part V
Iris’s sitting room was officially sealed off and both the damaged wall and the door were boarded up to prevent further collapse.
Police poked around in the rubble, carrying away boxes of ashes and shattered glass, burned sections of tables and window frames and splinters of lamps, the disemboweled chair where Iris normally sat, her record albums melted now into masses of black glue, the charred remnant of the cane she always used, her mutilated chess pieces blown around the room like men in war.
The people living in the house were questioned and requestioned, separately and together, and bit by bit the circumstances of Iris’s final hours emerged. During the afternoon she listened to a new album of Tosca while paying some bills and balancing her checkbook. She did some typing. She finished a mystery story she’d been reading. She executed her next moves in the chess game she was playing by mail with the professor in Tokyo and the medical missionary in Jakarta and gave both letters to Miranda to mail.
In the evening she was alone in the house. At her urging the Admiral took the girls to the fireworks display at the club. The housekeeper, Mrs. Norgate, went to babysit her infant grandson. And Miranda was out walking the dog, who had suffered a digestive upset after eating a chocolate éclair.
It was a warm night, but Iris’s poor circulation made her susceptible to cold and even in summer she frequently used the gas log in her sitting room downstairs. Miranda offered to light it for her before she left the house. Iris refused. She was in a bad mood as well as in pain. She had appeared at dinner only long enough to complain that the vegetables were overcooked, the beef roast tough and the candles gave her a migraine.
Miranda took the dog to Featherstone Park, half a mile down the hill toward the sea. He seemed to feel better out in the open air, so they stayed for quite a while, the dog lying beside her while she sat on a bench listening to the night explode around her. When she returned to the house the driveway was blocked by police cars and fire engines and a small crowd of curiosity seekers being held back by men in uniform.
“What’s happened? Let me past. I live here. Mrs. Young... I’ve got to see if Mrs. Young is all right.”
As in all cases of violent death under unusual circumstances, an autopsy was performed. Though the body was severely burned, enough blood and tissue samples were recovered to confirm that the actual cause of death was smoke inhalation. The evidence indicated that while Iris was attempting to light the gas log she’d lost her balance and fallen. A frontal head injury rendered her unconscious and unable to escape the subsequent explosion and fire.
When the body was finally released for burial a memorial service was held in the chapel of the mortuary. The Admiral kept his head bowed throughout the proceedings. Charles Van Eyck, lulled by the minister’s voice and three double martinis, drifted into sleep. Now and then Miranda dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief very carefully to avoid smudging her mascara. The girls kept staring at the closed coffin as though they half expected it might open and out would pop Iris, having decided she didn’t like being dead.
Cordelia was openly critical of the nature and length of the service. “It’s so silly, the minister yapping away about God and heaven when Mrs. Young didn’t believe a word of that stuff.”
“It’s better to be on the safe side,” Juliet said. “Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case it’s all true. Besides, it’s not hurting anyone.”
“It’s hurting me. I’m hungry.”
“Shut up. I want to hear about heaven.”
Even after Iris’s burial the damaged door of her sitting room remained boarded up and no workmen were allowed in to start cleaning up and rebuilding. A guard was kept in the hall to enforce the rule.
The girls, perturbed not so much by the death of their mother as by the disruption of their normal routine, hung around the hall trying to get answers and assurances, especially from the day guard, a red-haired young man named Grella.
“We thought the investigation was over and done with,” Cordelia said. “Why are you still here?”
“Orders.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“Best I can do,” Grella said. “The fact is, the reports haven’t come back from Sacramento yet, and until then—”
“Why Sacramento?”
“That’s where the crime lab is.”
“What do they do there?”
“Analyze evidence to try and find out exactly what happened.”
“It’s perfectly clear what happened. Mrs. Young fell while she was lighting the gas log and hit her head. I’m not a bit surprised. She was always bumping into things and getting mad about it and cussing to beat hell.”
“We’re Navy, you know,” Juliet explained, “we learned all the cuss words years ago. But we’re not allowed to use them except in the privacy of our own rooms, like chewing gum. You’re chewing gum right now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Are you allowed?”
“I think so. I never asked.”
“You’d better ask.”
“Let’s stick to the subject,” Cordelia said sharply. “Why is the lab in Sacramento taking such a long time?”
“They’re busy. They test evidence sent to them from every place in California.”
“That’s just physical evidence. Somebody should test the other more important kind of evidence, like what such and such a person said to so-and-so. We know plenty of that stuff.”
“No kidding.”
“Only nobody will listen.”
“I’ll listen,” Grella said. He didn’t have much else to do anyway except, as Juliet had observed, chew gum.
The girls conferred in whispers behind cupped hands, Juliet frowning and looking worried. She would rather have limited the conversation to nice friendly things like gum and the weather and the Navy, which wouldn’t offend anyone, with the possible exception of Uncle Charles, who didn’t care very much for the Navy. But Cordelia wasn’t passing up her chance at an audience.
“Well, first of all,” she said, “Mrs. Young had a terrible temper. And every year it got worse. When she went on a rampage she yelled and screamed and threw things. One day she even hit Miranda on the arm with her cane and Pops had to raise Miranda’s salary two hundred dollars a month so she wouldn’t quit.”