Inside, somebody made a low, groaning sound.
I shouldered my way in, fast, squinting because the light in there was dim. The living room looked as though a small tornado had come swirling through. End table toppled, coffee table kicked askew, lamp and books and sofa pillows and a scatter of other items over the carpet. The sofa had also been knocked sideways — and a pair of bent legs and foot were poked out behind it.
I sucked in a breath and ran over there. And then stopped and stood gawping a little with both confusion and relief, because the woman down there on the floor was not Cybil.
Nurse Jocelyn Dunn.
She lay sprawled on her back, one hand curling and uncurling spasmodically, her head twitching from side to side. There was a puffy bruise on her left temple, another on her cheekbone, and two or three cuts leaking blood in thin streams down into her gray-blond hair. Her eyelids were at half-mast, the eyes rolled up so that only the whites showed. She made another groaning sound; the curling and uncurling, the head twitching, went on unchecked. Conscious, barely, but not aware of me or anything else.
I veered away from her, to look into the kitchen. After that I checked the bedroom, bathroom, study, and peered out into the back patio. No sign of Cybil. In the living room again I took a quick second look at Nurse Dunn. The blood on her was fresh; she hadn’t been there very long. Then I ran out onto the front porch, thinking to try next door—
And there was Cybil, just walking out of Captain Archie’s place across the street.
She stopped when she spotted me and stood waiting as I ran over to her. Some sight she was, too. Hair disheveled, face flushed, eyes as bright as new pennies. In one hand she carried the bald-knobbed hickory walking stick that had belonged to her late husband. She didn’t need it to get around; she’d kept it for sentimental reasons, and possibly for use as an emergency weapon. She was holding it weaponlike now, in the middle with the big knobbed head jutting forward.
“Cybil, are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right. What are you doing here?”
“Never mind that now. What happened?”
“I saw you come out of my bungalow. Is that woman still unconscious?”
“More or less. You did some job on her — looks like she has a concussion. What’d you hit her with, that stick?”
“This? No. I brought it along for protection. I didn’t want to call the police from my phone, in case she came to, so I took her master key and came over here to do it. They’re on the way. I told them to bring an ambulance—”
“Will you please tell me what happened?”
“That fat cow tried to smother me, that’s what happened. With one of my own sofa pillows.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“To shut me up, of course. She’s the one who murdered Captain Archie. Her and her boyfriend, John Klinghurst.”
“I know all that. I—”
“You know it? How did you find out?”
“By doing what you asked me to. Investigation. How did you find out?”
“I finally remembered where I’d heard the Klinghurst name,” Cybil said. “Dunn was showing off a ring to Dr. Lengel a few months ago, while I was at the clinic. She said her fiancé gave it to her. Klinghurst is an unusual name and it stuck in the back of my mind. So when I saw her right after I remembered, I invited her in for a cup of coffee. I thought I’d do a little detective work myself. I guess I went too far and tipped my hand.”
“I guess you did. Why didn’t you call me instead of putting yourself at risk—”
“Don’t scold me. I made a mistake, don’t you think I know that?”
“You’re lucky to be alive. How’d you manage to get away from her?”
“Samuel Leatherman. He saved my bacon.”
I blinked at her. “Did you say—?”
“That’s just what I said. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”
“Cybil... are you sure you didn’t get a whack on the head yourself?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Then what’re you talking about? You mean you used one of the tricks Leatherman uses in your stories?”
“No, that is not what I mean. I mean,” she said slowly and distinctly, as if she were trying to get a point across to a halfwit, “that Samuel quite literally saved my life.”
“And just how did he do that?”
“The same way he dealt with the murderer in Dead Eye, essentially. He and I smacked that top-heavy tramp upside the head and kept right on smacking her until she was out cold.”
“Cybil...”
“My book, you ninny,” she said with a mixture of exasperation and triumph. “That’s what I picked up and hit the woman with while she was trying to smother me — my brag copy of Dead Eye.”
I stayed with Cybil for a few minutes after the police left and the ambulance took a semicoherent Jocelyn Dunn off to the hospital. Not that Cybil needed me, once I’d added what I knew to her statement about the nurse, John Klinghurst, and Captain Archie. As a matter of fact, she barely knew I was there. She was surrounded by an eager crowd of other residents, regaling them with a salty account of Dunn’s attack and her Samuel Leatherman counteroffensive. She listened when I told her I was leaving to keep an appointment — it was after three by then — but only long enough to nod and then give me a peck on the cheek. She was holding court again as I walked away.
She’d said she would tell Kerry what had happened, but I figured it would be better if Kerry heard it from me first. I called her on the way out of Larkspur.
“I really shouldn’t be surprised,” she said when she got over the initial shock. “We both know that’s the way Cybil is — headstrong, a fighter, and absolutely fearless.”
“You forgot shameless.”
“I didn’t forget it, I just didn’t say it. What do you bet she turns up on the evening news, and uses the opportunity to plug her book?”
“No bet.” A local TV news van had been pulling into the lot as I was leaving it. “Guaranteed.”
Tough old meat, all right, I was thinking fondly. As tough as it comes. And I wasn’t too sure anymore about what Tamara had called the real sweet center.
20
I needn’t have hurried getting down to Greenwood; George Agonistes turned up twenty-five minutes late for our appointment. I was in the fidgety, clock-watching stage of waiting when his unmarked white van finally pulled into the library lot. I got out to talk to him as he swung into an adjacent space.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I got hung up.”
“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”
“I never stand up paying customers. You bring me cash?”
“After you do the job.”
“Sure. How far is it?”
“Not far. I’d ride with you, but you probably want to make a fast getaway before I do what I have to.”
“See no evil,” Agonistes said piously. “Lead on.”
I led on. A woman was walking a standard poodle near the foot of the Hunters’ driveway. She stopped to look as I made the turn, so I smiled and waved at her; she waved back. When I got up to the parking area, the white van grinding along on my tail, I glanced into the rearview mirror. The woman was still in sight, her attention on the poodle taking himself a squat by the side of the road. I considered it a positive sign that she found her dog crapping of greater interest than tandem visitors to the Hunter home.
Everything here was status quo; I’d swung by before going to the library to make sure. I joined Agonistes, who stood looking over the property with a jealous eye, his thin, gnarly body bent against the wind, his wild thatch of Don King-style hair blowing in different directions.