Free Still Waters by John Moss

civility, neither excessively familiar nor imperious. It was the first time in his life that he had encountered someone in the role of servant who answered to a bell. Instinctively, he wanted to call after her that he was from Cabbagetown, at least as alien from all this as Manila.
    Back in the dining room, he examined the huge Heriz carpet spread almost wall to wall, then gazed outside. The garden was rather dismal, compared to its neighbour, but to his surprise there was a large green pond.
    When he returned to the receiving room, he asked Mrs. de Cuchilleros if she kept koi. No, she explained. Not really. A few, nothing to speak of. She wasn’t sure. Thirty years ago, when they bought the property, Robert Griffin had asked if he could keep a few fish in her pond, and on several occasions, she didn’t know how often, she had looked out very early in the morning and seen him by the pond as if standing vigil. He would stare into the water like an Inuk hunter — which meant Eskimo, she explained — and then without coming tothe door he would leave. There was no upkeep; it was a natural system. Sometimes in the autumn he came over and skimmed leaves off the surface. It never froze over completely in winter. She had seen movement in the murky water but couldn’t say if it was fish, flesh, or foul. She spelled out the last word for the sake of the pun.
    â€œDoes it smell?” asked Miranda. “The pond next door is fresh.”
    â€œNo,” said Mrs. de Cuchilleros, annoyed that her jest had provoked a literal response. “Not at all. It is as fresh as his.” She summoned her maid and said something to her in apparently fluent Spanish. A colonial habit, Miranda thought. Spanish is the old language of the Philippines, supplanted by English and Tagalog, but both women would regard it as the appropriate language of servitude — the maid speaking it out of deference and Mrs. de Cuchilleros, because she could.
    The maid responded with a brief expletive and left. “No,” Mrs. de Cuchilleros repeated. “I asked Dolores if she ever noticed a smell — I hardly ever go out there — and she said no. So there you are, my freshwater oasis. If there are fish in it now, I expect they’ll stay for the duration. No one feeds them, they get enough wild insects, as opposed to the tame ones, and they live longer than people. I have a gardener come in most days, but he just mows to the edge of the pond. It’s clay, you know, brought in by the Griffins generations ago, the one who built this place. It’s a nice old pond. My first husband loved it.”
    â€œMrs. Cuchilleros, were you married before?” asked Miranda in surprise.
    â€œ
De
Cuchilleros,
my dear
. Jorge de Cuchilleros was my only husband, my first and last.”
    â€œOh,” said Miranda.
    When they said goodbye and were outside, Mirandatook Morgan by the arm and led him around through the walkway into the lawyer’s garden, talking all the way. “
My first husband
. How quaint.
De
, and
my dear
. Her little jokes. She’s a caricature. What she said to the maid, besides asking about the smell, was ‘Do not serve tea.’ Did you notice she called her Dolores, almost the same as your mother’s name?”
    â€œDarlene.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMy mother.”
    â€œSorry. I thought it was Delores. Did you find anything when you went to the bathroom? She gave me the creeps. We should have asked to see the attic. Reminds me of
Psycho,
Anthony Perkins rocking in the window. I wonder if she had children.”
    Morgan said nothing.
    â€œShe killed him!” Miranda blurted.
    â€œAnthony Perkins?”
    â€œShe killed Robert Griffin.”
    Morgan smiled. He liked when she held his arm. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he could feel the curve of her breast as they strolled through the garden.
    â€œI’d better check in with Legal Affairs,” she said,