States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

believe you took those!” I reach out and snatch them back.

He pulls a dog biscuit from his pocket. “Sit, Miranda, sit,” he says, and she does, long pink tongue lolling to one side.

“Her name’s Miranda?”

“Yep, Miranda. That’s always been her name. They said it wasn’t good to change it.”

I cover my face with my free hand, keeping the dog I now know to be Miranda, on a tight leash with the other.

“Wha…What’s wrong? You don’t like her?”

I pull my hand away from my face and laugh so hard Vinnie starts laughing too.

After a few seconds he stops. “Why are we laughing?”

“Miranda? Really?

“So?”

“You have the right to remain silent, etc. etc. You remember that, don’t you?”

His eyes widen. “Like the Miranda warnings the cops read you to get you to tell them all the shit you’d rather not talk about?”

I extend my hand. “That’s ten bucks for you this time.”

Vinnie’s hand goes to his mouth. “Oops.”

“And yes, Miranda from Miranda versus Arizona, the most famous criminal case ever.”

“She’s perfect for you, right?” he says, a slight note of worry in his voice.

“Come on, black hair, blue eyes, missing a leg, what dog could be more perfect for me?” I lever myself onto my knees, not the most elegant of moves given the lack of flexibility in Oscar’s ankle area, and Miranda hops up and gives me a kiss on the nose. “She’s got a little hitch in her giddy-up, but she gets around pretty good for an old war dog.”

Vinnie stands back like a proud father. “I’d say you both do,” he says, but his words are muffled due to the fact that I have my face buried in my dog’s warm, furry neck.

***

My phone rings.

Vinnie levels a BBQ spatula the size of a shovel at me. “Let it go, why don’t you? Nothing good happens after the sun goes down,” he says, flipping a burger high in the air. “Unless it’s happens between the sheets. If you know what I mean.”

“Men, all the damn same. Right, girl?” I say to Miranda, her eyes fixed on the flying patty.

I pull the phone from my pocket. I can’t take the chance of missing a paying client. Criminals get arrested during their workday, which is night. “Hel-lo,” I say between bites.

“And she wasn’t breathing and there was blood, and…” It’s as if I’ve walked in on a conversation, each word merging into the next in a manic flood.

It’s a woman. Can’t quite place the voice.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!”

I hold the phone away from my ear, the screams like nails on a blackboard. Miranda’s ears prick up and she sits at attention, as if she’s waiting for a command.

“Who is this?”

Silence for a second. “It’s me, Gretchen. Zoe’s mother, for Christ’s sake.”

“She hit her head when she fell. There was blood all over.”

“Who? Zoe?”

“Yes, Zoe!”

“Fell where? How?”

“In her—” her voice cracks.

“Slow down, Gretchen. Take a deep breath and start at the beginning.”

She’s gasping, trying to get out the words.

“Anton and I were at a function at the Ritz.”

“Wait, what? First tell me, did you bail Zoe out?”

“Yes, but they didn’t let her out until 4 a.m. Can you believe that? Who’s running that place?”

“Gretchen, what about Zoe? Is she okay?”

“You asked me to start at the beginning, so stop cutting me off!”

I bite my tongue.

“We had committed to the gala months ago. We’re major donors, you know.”

I focus on the rhythm of the electric-blue pool water eddying around the filter to stop myself from saying, “Of course you are.” Instead, I say, “Go on.”

“And Anton goes to Guatemala to perform cleft-palate surgeries for free every year. And so we went. To the gala, I mean. We thought it best to keep up appearances.”

“Gretchen, dammit! Tell me, what happened to Zoe?”

“We shouldn’t have left her alone.”

“Jesus. What happened?”

“Okay, okay.” A few deep breaths. “My husband ordered in her favorite meal, spaghetti and meatballs. When we left, she was on the computer in her room. She said she’d be fine.”

“Go on.”

“We didn’t stay long at the gala. Well, I didn’t. I left about nine o’clock. Anton stayed.”

“And?”

“And when I got home, I knocked on Zoe’s bedroom door, but she didn’t answer. She has a hard time sleeping, she’s never asleep early. But I thought maybe she had headphones on or something. I went to my room to get ready for bed.”

“You didn’t go into Zoe’s room? Was it locked?”

“No, we don’t have a lock on Zoe’s door. After the last time, and…” Sobs swamp her words.

After a few seconds of trying to calm herself, she squeaks, “Before I went to bed, I stuck my head in to say goodnight, and— Oh God, oh God!”

“What?” I say so loud Vinnie peeks around the grill to check on me.

“She was lying on the floor, not moving. Her head was twisted to the side. There was a huge gash on her forehead. And the blood. It was everywhere!”

“Had someone attacked her?”

“No. She fell off her chair.”

“What?”

“There was an empty pill bottle in the counter in her bathroom. Her Xanax. She’d taken it all. Every last pill!”

I flinch at the mention of Xanax, the same anti-anxiety medication my shrink keeps trying to make me take and I keep refusing.

“Zoe was taking Xanax?”

“Yes, not all the time, only when she gets stressed out.”

“Does that happen often? Her getting stressed out?” I say, which sounds stupid given what she’s accused of doing.

“Lately, yes,” says, her voice rising as if she’s got something else to say, so I wait.

“A few months back she started cutting herself, and her doctor thought she needed medication.”

“I see,” is all I say, but what I’m thinking about is an empty house and a bottle full of pills—the perfect opportunity.

“She looked like…like a broken doll. Grace, it was awful.”

“Is Zoe…?” I pause long enough to substitute the word “okay” for “dead.”

“She was unconscious when they took her to the hospital. They said they would pump her stomach.”

“They took her to the hospital?”

“Yes, but the police came