“Did you tell them?” Tully asked quickly. “Do you know?”
“No, David, to both questions.”
“She’s in serious trouble,” he muttered.
“I gathered as much,” she said in a quiet voice. “David, what’s it all about? Tell me, please.”
“She’s suspected of causing a man’s death. His name was Crandall Cox.”
“That motel shooting?” The little woman had guts of steel. Her eyes turned steely, too. “We shan’t let them harm her, shall we, David?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Not if we can help it.” Mercedes glanced over her shoulders into the house. “I wonder what’s keeping George?”
“Mercedes... have you heard from Ruth?”
She returned her attention fully to him. “I’m not sure I’d tell you even if I had.”
“What do you mean!”
Mercedes Cabbott leaned over and squeezed his big hand with her tiny one; it had surprising strength. “You needn’t bark at me, David,” she said gently. “You’d have a troubled look of a different sort if your concern were without a doubt. There’s a big question in your mind suddenly about Ruth.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Tully said stiffly.
“You know exactly what I mean. It’s Ruth’s possible relationship with this worm Cox that’s eating away at you, not the absurd allegation that she shot him.”
“Well, suppose it is!”
“Then I was right. I don’t blame you one little bit, David. It’s natural for a man to doubt under such circumstances.”
“Is it?” Tully said miserably. “I always thought that if a man loved a woman—”
“Garbage! A man is a man, which means that he’s a peculiarly vulnerable creature.” Mercedes smiled at him. “But I have good news for you, David. Natural as your doubts are, they’re unnecessary. I know Ruth through and through. She really loves you. No other man exists for her—”
“Would you make the same statement in the past tense?” he mumbled. “A man, say, named Cox?”
“Do you think you have a right to expect that Ruth was brought up in a bottle?” She squeezed his hand again. “But I’d stake a very great deal on that girl, David. I’ve never known her to do a vulgar or sordid thing.”
Tully sighed. “I’m sorry, Mercedes.”
“That’s good.” The blue steel came back into her eyes. “Because now I can say I’m sorry, too.”
He looked up, puzzled. “You? What for?”
“For what I have to do, David. I have to use what weapons fate puts into my hand.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“In a short time you and Ruth are going to be hip-deep in the worst slops of a sex and murder scandal. I mean publicly. I’m going to have to use it, David.”
“That’s just what Sandra Jean predicted.”
“She did?” Mercedes nodded. “Good for her — she’s even shrewder than I gave her credit for. Funny how an angel like Ruth could have such a little bitch of a sister. A bitch, I might add, in continuous heat.”
Tully said, without thinking, “It takes two to couple, Mercedes.”
For a moment she looked furious. Then she shrugged her pretty shoulders. “Yes, it does, David. I suppose you’re justified in taking that tone about Andrew — I haven’t always sounded rational about my son. I’m afraid I haven’t done a very good job with Andy.” Her voice hardened. “But he’s all I have left, and he’s going to be what I want in spite of himself.
“When I buried Kathleen...” Mercedes stopped; for the merest flash of a startling instant, she looked ancient. All Tully could think of was Rider Haggard’s Ayesha swiftly crumbling to dust. Then Mercedes was herself again. “I wasn’t able to stop mourning Kathleen, David. And when I was left with Andy Junior, the ghost of Kathleen took over. What I mean is... I was terrified from that moment on. Terrified that I might lose him, too.”
He had never seen Mercedes Cabbott so nakedly distressed.
“I’ve become increasingly aware of the poor job I’ve done with Andy. Maybe it was marrying George Cabbott that opened my eyes. Third time the charm, they say. George is the man I should have met and married in the beginning. If he’d been at my side in Andy’s formative years, to help me bring Andy up...”
“Mercedes.”
“No, let me say it, David. I want you to know... I honestly don’t feel any personal spite toward Sandra Jean. Under other circumstances, in fact, I could like the girl — she’s so like me in so many ways. But it’s too late all around. Andy is what I’ve made him, a useless and overprotected lunkhead who doesn’t know how to take care of himself. He wouldn’t survive six months outside the environment I’ve created for him. But finally knowing all this doesn’t change anything. I love him, and I’ve got to keep him from coming to serious harm. Sandra Jean would swallow him like a female shark... Have I been awfully selfish, filling your ears with my true confessions when you’re in such immediate trouble? Forgive me, David.”
“For what?” Tully said. He engulfed her little hand and felt it stiffen in his grasp. She was an island surrounded by an impenetrable reef — a strange and lovely little island full of unexpected hazards. No one, with the possible exception of George Cabbott, had ever really explored her.
At that moment George Cabbott came out on the terrace, and Tully rose, feeling a great relief.
George was a big man, as big as Tully, bronzed and bleached by outdoor living. He wore old jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers as if they were a uniform.
“’Lo, Dave. Sorry I’m late, sweetheart. I was scrubbing up.”
As her husband stooped to kiss her, Mercedes crinkled her little nose.
“You’ve been in the stables again, darling. Sometimes I think I married a horse.”
George Cabbott chuckled, and she threw her head back for his kiss. Tully looked away and took the first opportunity to excuse himself.
He had never felt so alone in his life.
Pulling into his driveway, Tully thought he would burst from the pressures building up inside him. He was tired of waiting for Julian Smith to locate Ruth; he had to do something on his own.
And a new fear was gnawing away at him. Was Ruth’s continued absence really voluntary? It was possible that she had seen something at the Hobby Motel that had made her a danger to someone. Maybe the police couldn’t find her because her body...
Tully ground his teeth and tried to shut out the thought...
Inside the house something was different.
Tully stood holding his breath, trying to sense what it was.
Then he had it. The silence — the silence was gone. With a hoarse cry he made for the master bedroom.
Someone was taking a shower.
He flung himself at the bathroom door.
“Ruth!” he shouted. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Davey — Sandra Jean.”
Tully stood there. Finally, he walked out.
He was in the living room when Sandra Jean joined him, her skin warmly moist where it showed beneath the short terrycloth robe. Ruth’s robe, damn her! She padded to him, bare legs glistening. Her face was scrubbed shiny, her hair fell in damp ringlets on her forehead. She reminded him so much of Ruth that he had to turn away.
“Mind if I borrow a dress from Ruth, Davey?”
He could have throttled her. He controlled himself. “Help yourself.”
“And a cigarette from you?”
He fumbled in his jacket pocket. She stood close to him, as he lit it for her. Damn her soul, did she have to smell like Ruth, too?
She looked up at him slowly. “Thank you, pops.”
She had scarcely bothered to draw the robe together.
“Mmm,” she said, inhaling deeply. “This tastes good. Change your brand, Davey?” She laughed, and somehow the robe came apart.