“I gather this was your doing,” she said to Morgan.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Very gentlemanly, Morgan. Very modest. But perhaps a sheet would have been enough. It’s sweltering under there. You go on out to the living room and I’ll see what I can do with these two. Come on, love,” she said to Miranda. “We’ll start with you. Up you get.”
As Morgan left the room, the M.E. was struggling to get Miranda mobile. From the living room he could hear thumping and bumping but could not imagine what, exactly, was going on.
After a surprisingly short time, Miranda and Ellen emerged from the bedroom with the stranger between them. Ellen had dressed both in baggy sweatshirts and pajama bottoms. Morgan got up and Ellen helped the two women to the sofa, where they sat side by side, both looking dazed as if they had just woken from a long sleep.
“I’ve checked them over,” said Ellen, addressing Morgan as if the women were not there. “Miranda’s fine. I mean physically. They both are. I think we might try a tranquillizer.”
“I don’t do tranquillizers,” Miranda snapped.
“But then again, perhaps we won’t try a tranquillizer,” said Ellen, pausing, “on either of them. Goldilocks here is in deep shock. She may have been sedated, but everything’s working fine. I’d feel better getting her to a hospital —”
“No hospital,” said Miranda.
“— or not. I don’t think she’s in any danger. I don’t think either of them are.”
“I think we’re both in danger,” said Miranda.
“If someone was trying to kill you — ” said Morgan.
“— we’d be dead.”
“Did you check her bag?” Ellen asked.
“No,” said Morgan. “What bag?”
“In the hall,” said Ellen. “It’s not Miranda’s.”
“Not my taste,” Miranda explained.
“And I figured it’s not yours, Morgan. Therefore, it must be Miranda’s new best friend’s. It’s blond-appropriate.”
Miranda smiled.
Morgan retrieved the bag from the floor of the hall. He brought it back into the living room and set it on the glass-topped coffee table. All three women leaned forward, anxious to see what was inside. Morgan realized this was the first sign the stranger had shown of interest in anything not bottled up in her own skull.
He pulled out a gun, dangling it carefully from the trigger guard. He sniffed it then set it down gingerly on the glass.
“It’s been fired,” he said. “Fairly recently.”
He removed item after item from the bag, setting each on the table in a random display. Mostly it was cosmetics and toiletries. There was a wallet and change purse, both empty. In the shadowy depths at the bottom was a large crumpled-up wad of used tissues.
Morgan turned to the young woman. “What’s your name?” he asked. They were stunned when she responded.
“I think Michelle,” she said. Her cobalt-blue eyes began to take on personality, as if she were finding her way inside toward the light.
“How do you know Miranda?” he asked.
Her eyes flicked in Miranda’s direction but she said nothing.
“What happened?” Morgan asked, speaking in a voice intended to project gentle authority. “Where’d you come from, why are you here? What’s your last name, Michelle?”
She directed a conspiratorial glance at Miranda. “I’m tired,” she said, trying to get up from the sofa. “I’d like to sleep.”
“Me too,” said Miranda, rising and helping the young woman. “Thanks for coming, Ellen. I’ll call you in the morning. Night, night.”
She began to lead the woman who called herself Michelle into the bedroom.
Morgan stopped them. “What’s going on?” he said.
Miranda looked into his eyes, asking for patience. “Will you stay?” she said. “Sleep on the sofa?”
“I think I killed a man,” said the strange young woman.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” said Miranda.
She looked at Morgan and shook her head slowly, as if to acknowledge her friend was delusional. Morgan walked Ellen to the door as the other two women went into the bedroom.
“What the hell was that?” said Ellen. “She killed someone?”
“I don’t think so, I don’t know.”
“She’s been through something major. You should get her downtown.”
“Yeah. I want Miranda in better shape when we do. It’s not going to change anything, letting them sleep.”
“They’re not friends, you know, Morgan.”
“I know, but Miranda needs her, and they seem to connect. I’ll be right here.”
“You want me to stay?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks for coming. I’ll call when we get this sorted out.”
“Good luck. You all right?”
“Fine, just fine.”
“G’night love,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him on both cheeks. She walked out, pulling the door shut behind her.
Morgan went back to the glass coffee table and picked up the Lewinsky-esque bag. It still felt heavy. He prodded the large clump of soiled tissues at the bottom with a ballpoint then turned the bag up and emptied it over the table. A wad emerged slowly, breaking free from where it had adhered to the inside of the bag, and then rapidly unravelled across the glass, a flurry the colour of diluted blood.
Morgan’s eyes focused on the massive gold ring before his mind could grasp that he was looking at a severed human hand. Unmistakably male. He was surprised at how cleanly it had been cut away at the wrist and how little blood there was at the stump end. He was surprised at how well-manicured the nails appeared, with their cuticles neatly done, the edges evenly curved.
They were sitting in an anteroom of the psychiatric ward of a hospital. Outside, they could see rooftops of other hospitals that lined University Avenue in a stalwart display of public health-service efficiency. It was mid-morning, the June sky a radiant blue with cotton clouds hovering in random swatches as if smog were only a rumour.
Miranda listened as Spivak berated Morgan with enough exaggerated indignation to make it obvious he was not actually angry, just frustrated.
“You sat there! You sat there all bloody night long, staring at a bloody disembodied hand. With a smoking gun on the table. With a homicidal amnesiac. You didn’t call in? What the hell were you thinking? They needed their beauty sleep?”
“Yeah,” said Morgan.
“Did you nod off yourself, is that what happened, did you stretch out and you were so goddamned laid back you fell asleep?”
“Yeah,” said Morgan.
“Morgan,” said Miranda.
“No, I didn’t. I was thinking.”
“You and your goddamned thinking —”
“You should try it,” said Miranda.
“Thank you, Detective,” said Spivak, turning to Miranda. “You’re quite alert after a good night’s rest.”
A doctor came through locked double doors and approached