Free Silent Murders by Mary Miley Page A

head.”
    “I told you so.”
    I looked at her blankly.
    “The bird hitting the window.”
    “Oh, Myrna, that’s just coincidence.”
    “It’s not. It happened before.” I sat motionless as she struggled to decide whether or not to tell me about it. Finally she took a deep, fortifying breath and plunged into her story. “It was in 1918 when the Spanish flu came. I was thirteen. Mother and David caught it first. You couldn’t get nurses. I mean, there weren’t enough. One would show up and then disappear into the night. Father and I nursed them. When they were half recovered, it struck me. Father made up the couch for me in the dining room. He used to come and wrap me in frozen sheets every night, trying to get my temperature down. He sat there—I can remember him sitting right over me—and he went through the agony with me, afraid I was going to die.”
    She paused and shivered, although it wasn’t cold. Without meeting my eye, she swallowed hard and continued. “Finally I passed the crisis, and Mother and David recovered. Then one night, I heard terrible noises from upstairs. He was hemorrhaging. He had the flu probably a long time before it showed itself, not knowing it because he’d been so busy taking care of everybody else. And particularly of me. Well, I became hysterical, and to get me out of the way, they sent me to one of my mother’s friends. While I was wandering around the house, a bird hit a window. A minute later, the telephone rang and I knew what it meant. I took off up the stairs, running as far away as I could. They called me but I wouldn’t answer. When I finally went downstairs, my mother’s friend was crying. I knew my father was dead.”
    “I’m so sorry, Myrna,” I said, giving her a hug.
    She thanked me with a weak smile. “So you see, it’s not an old wives’ tale. It’s true.”
    I thought of poor Esther. “Yes, maybe it is.”
    A noise from the hall drew my attention. The two policemen were standing in the doorway, both of them looking at me. I didn’t know how long they’d been there.
    “You’ll be coming to the station with us, Miss Beckett.”
    I stood up. No need to ask why. It had always been just a matter of time before someone at the police station connected me to the other murder, Esther’s murder.
    I was the only person who had been at the scene of both crimes. It didn’t look good.

 
    9
    “Sit there.”
    The police sergeant pointed at a wooden bench that looked as comfortable as a Baptist pew, and I sat with my hands clasped in my lap so no one would see my ink-stained fingertips, waiting to be questioned again about the two Hollywood murders.
    Hollywood is not really its own town—it was at one time but nowadays it’s part of Los Angeles, so the cops were Los Angeles cops and the police station was one of that city’s network, Division Six on North Cahuenga next to the fire station. In my experience—and I have some experience—small-town cops are stupid and mean; city cops are every bit as mean but not nearly as stupid. So I sat still as a rock and tried not to look scared.
    I knew what they were doing—letting me stew a while to lower my resistance—but knowing didn’t make the clock tick any faster. I tried to distract myself by watching the noisy symphony that played in front of me. Clerks banged file drawers, secretaries clattered away in triplicate on Remingtons, telephone bells jangled, sergeants barked orders, detectives argued, and the swinging gate that divided the public from the police added an unsteady percussion to the whole. Division Six was a crowded place, even on a Sunday. Crime doesn’t take a day off. One officer adjusted the western blinds to let in more of the bright daylight; another, standing on a desk to change a lightbulb, kicked over a full coffee cup and cursed it. A drunk was processed at the counter and hauled through the door marked JAIL ; two sullen prostitutes were fingerprinted, just as I had been earlier, and