Presumed Guilty

Now was her chance — her only one! Miranda ran.

Her footsteps sounded like drumbeats across the asphalt roof. Even before she reached the fire escape she heard the first gunshot, heard the whine of the bullet as it hurtled past. No time to think, only move! She scrambled for the fire escape, swung her leg over onto the first metal rung.

Another gunshot exploded.

The bullet’s impact was like a punch in the shoulder. Its force sent her toppling sideways, over the roof’s edge. She caught a dizzying view of the night sky, then felt herself falling, falling. Instinctively she reach up, clawed blindly for a handhold. As she tumbled over the edge of the fire escape landing, her left hand closed around cold steel — the railing. Even as her legs slipped away, dangling beneath her like dead weights, her grip held. She tried to reach up with the other arm but it wouldn’t seem to obey her commands. She could only raise it to shoulder height, and then her hand closed only weakly around the outside edge of the landing. For a second she clung there, her feet hanging uselessly. Then she managed to brace one foot against the brick face of the building. Still alive, still here! she thought. If I can just pull myself over the rail — get back onto the landing…

The flicker of a shadow moving just above made her freeze. Slowly she lifted her gaze and stared into the gun barrel. Annie was standing at the roof’s edge, aiming directly at Miranda’s head.

“Now,” said Annie softly. “Let go of the fire escape.”

“No. No—”

“Just open your fingers. Lean back. A fast and easy way to die.”

“It won’t work. They’ll find out! They’ll know you did it!”

“Jump, Miranda. Jump.”

Miranda stared down at the ground. It was so far away, so very far.

Annie swung one leg over the roof’s edge, aimed her heel at Miranda’s hand gripping the rail and stamped down.

Miranda screamed. Still she held on.

Annie raised her heel, stamped again, then again, each blow crushing Miranda’s left hand.

The pain was unbearable. Miranda’s grip loosened. She lost her foothold, was left dangling free. Her left hand, throbbing in agony, could stand the abuse no longer. Her right hand, already weak and growing numb from the bullet wound, didn’t have the strength to hold her weight. She gazed up in despair as Annie raised her heel and prepared to stamp down one last time.

The blow never fell.

Instead, Annie’s body was jerked up and backward, like a puppet whose strings have been yanked all at once. She let out an unearthly screech of rage, of disbelief. And then there was a thud as her body, hurled aside, slammed onto the rooftop.

An instant later Chase appeared at the roof’s edge. He leaned over and grabbed her left wrist. “Take my other hand! Take it!” he yelled.

Bracing her feet against the brick wall, Miranda managed to raise her right arm. “I can’t…can’t reach you….”

“Come on, Miranda!” He leaned farther, his body stretching over the edge. “You have to do it! I need both your hands! Just reach up, that’s all! I’ll grab it, darling. Please!”

Darling. That single word, one she’d never heard before on his lips, seemed to spark some new source of strength deep inside her. She took a breath and strained toward the heavens. That’s as far as I can go, she thought in despair. No farther.

That’s when his hand closed around her wrist. At once she was held in a grip so tight she never feared, even for an instant, that she would fall. He dragged her up and up, over the roof’s edge.

Only then did her strength give out. She had no need of it now, not when Chase was here to lend her his. She tumbled into his arms.

No tree had ever felt so solid, so unbendable. Nothing, no one could hurt her in the fortress of those arms. He said, “My God, Miranda, I thought—”

Instantly he fell silent.

A pistol hammer clicked back.

They both spun around to see Annie standing a few feet away. She wobbled on unsteady legs. With both hands she clutched the gun.

“It’s too late, Annie,” said Chase. “The police know. They have your final letter. They know you killed Richard. Even now they’re looking for you. It’s over.”

Annie slowly lowered the gun. “I know,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “I loved you,” she said to the heavens. “Damn you, Richard. I loved you!” she screamed.

Then she raised the gun, put the barrel in her mouth and calmly pulled the trigger.

Fifteen

This time the ministrations of cranky Dr. Steiner were insufficient. Only a hospital — and a surgeon — would do. An emergency ferry run was ordered and Miranda was loaded aboard the Jenny B with Dr. Steiner in attendance. The hospital in Bass Harbor was alerted to an incoming patient: gunshot wound to the right shoulder, patient conscious and oriented, blood pressure stable, bleeding under control. The Jenny B pulled away from the dock with two passengers, a crew of three and a corpse.

Chase wasn’t aboard.

He was at that moment fidgeting in a chair in Lorne Tibbetts’s back office, answering a thousand and one questions. A command performance. A woman, after all, was dead; an investigation was called for; and as Lorne so succinctly put it, the choice was between talk or jail. All the time Chase sat there, he was wondering about the Jenny B. Had it reached Bass Harbor yet? Was Miranda stable?

Would Lorne ever finish with the damn questions?

It was two in the morning when Chase finally walked out of the police station. The night was warm, warm for Maine, anyway, but he felt chilled as he walked to his car. No more ferries to Bass Harbor tonight. He was stranded on the island until morning. At least he knew that Miranda was out of danger. A phone call to the hospital had told him she was resting comfortably, and was expected to recover.

Now he wondered where to go, where to sleep.

Not Chestnut Street. He could never sleep under Evelyn’s roof again, not after the damage he’d done to the DeBolt family. No, tonight he felt rootless, cut off from the DeBolts, from the Tremains, from the legacy of his rich and haughty past. He felt born anew. Cleansed.

He got in the car and drove to Rose Hill.

The cottage felt cold, devoid of life or spirit, as if any joy that had ever existed within had long since fled. Only the bedroom held any warmth. This was where he and Miranda had made love. Here the memory of that night, that one night, still lingered.

He lay on the bed and tried to conjure up the memory of her scent, her softness, but it was like trying to catch your own reflection in water. Every time you reach out to hold it, it slips from your grasp.

The way Miranda had slipped from his grasp.

She’s not one of us, Evelyn had once said. She’s not our kind of people.

Chase thought of Noah, of Richard, of Evelyn. Of his own father. And he thought, Evelyn’s right. Miranda’s not our kind of people.

She’s far better.