He could actually see her thoughts snap back to the present. Her head jerked up and she said, “What did you say?”
“I said you murdered Cox.”
He thought she was going to faint, and he found himself becoming irritated. Sandra Jean Ainsworth wasn’t the fainting type. She was play-acting. Or was she? To hell with her, he thought impatiently.
“Well?”
She shook her head, seemed to be making a great effort. Finally she swallowed, and her lips parted, and her voice cracked as she spoke. “No. No, Davey. It wasn’t me.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Tully growled. “What do you take me for, a stupid sucker like that oaf in there?”
“Davey, no, no.” She got to her feet and went to the bedroom window. She turned to face him, resting her palms on the sill, leaning back so that the curtain framed her head. “This time I’m telling the truth. You’ve left me no choice.”
Tully laughed. “You admit the Wilton Lake shack-up?”
Her head moved ever so slightly.
“You admit typing that note?”
Again.
“You admit stealing my gun? Using Ruth’s name? You admit the whole damn thing and expect me to believe you didn’t shoot him?”
“I didn’t,” Sandra Jean said. It sounded real.
Tully was confused again. He sat down on the big bed — it was king-size, made to order, built especially long, and how tiny Ruth always looked in it and how he used to tease her about it — just sat there, arms dangling, suddenly without strength or stamina, staring into the past... or the future.
“I didn’t,” a husky voice said in his ear; and he felt the humid tickle of Sandra Jean’s breath and the pressure of her body against his back. She had crawled across the bed from the opposite side and seized him softly, like a hostage.
Tully rose violently. The girl fell over backwards with a cry of surprise and pain, exposing her thighs. He reached over and yanked her skirt down so hard the hem ripped.
“Let’s keep this clean, you little whore,” he said through his teeth. He leaned over the girl, and she scrambled away like a terrified bug, tumbling off the other side of the bed and staring up at him from her knees. “I’m not taking your word for anything, understand me, Sandra? Anything! Not after the vicious deal you’ve given Ruth.”
“Yes, Davey,” Sandra Jean whispered.
“You say you didn’t shoot Cox—”
“No,” she whispered, “no.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you admit you were there that night with my gun.”
“Yes...”
“Why? Why my gun?”
She began to whimper. “I didn’t know where else to get one. Davey, I swear that’s the only reason—”
“Never mind the swearing bit; it doesn’t impress me. If you didn’t shoot Cox, why did you take the gun in the first place?” He hardly recognized his own voice now; it was harsh and low, without mercy or humanity. “Answer me!”
She clutched the bed. “To scare him. I wanted to scare him.”
“And you say you didn’t use the gun?”
“I couldn’t, Davey. I was too afraid. He... he took the gun away from me. We had a wrestling match over it.”
Tully leaned his fists on the bed and glared down at her. “Why did you want to scare him? What was he after?”
“I didn’t know when I went there, but I knew Cranny Cox.” Sandra Jean’s body shook in the slightest shudder. “He was a monster. But a smart monster. I was an idiot to write him about my chance to marry a wealthy man. I might have known he’d try to cash in on it.”
“How? By blackmailing you on the strength of those three days at the Lodge? Threatening to tell your husband-to-be about it and so spoil your marriage plans unless you paid up?”
“That’s what I thought. But when I accused him of that, he laughed and said he’d hardly break the egg of the golden goose before it hatched. He even offered me a drink and wished me luck with my fiancé.”
Tully slowly straightened. It made sense. Why should Cox milk Sandra Jean’s modest trust-fund when, by waiting for her to marry a rich man, he would have a fortune to squeeze?
“All right,” Tully said.
The girl scrambled to her feet, started to leave.
“All right so far,” Tully said, and she stopped in her tracks. “I’m not through with you. So that’s all Cox wanted you for, eh? To prepare you for the blackmail to come?”
“Yes, Davey,” Sandra Jean breathed. Her eyes were full of fear again.
“And you just walked out of his motel room — leaving my gun behind? Wasn’t that a little careless of you, Sandra?”
“You don’t understand,” she said quickly. “He’d taken it from me and he wouldn’t give it back. I wanted it back — I asked him for it. He laughed and said he was keeping it as a memento. I suppose he was afraid I’d change my mind and shoot him after all if he let me get my hands on it again.”
Tully brooded.
The girl watched him with anxiety. She took a tentative step toward the bedroom door, stopped as he stirred.
He looked up. “Then what happened to Ruth?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice rose. “Davey, I don’t!”
“Did you see her that night?”
“No—”
“At any time?”
“No, Davey, no.”
“You have no explanation for Ruth’s disappearance, then? It’s simply a great big mystery to you. Right?”
“Yes, Davey. I’m telling you the truth!”
“Sandra.” The word had a flat, almost mechanical, timbre. His eyes, sooty with fatigue, stared at her out of a face as rigid as a cheap Hallowe’en mask. “If I find out that you know anything about Ruth’s movements that night — where she went — what happened to her — where she is — anything! — I’ll kill you. I’ll give you one more chance. Where is Ruth?”
She said hoarsely, “I don’t know.”
For a long time they stood that way.
Then Sandra Jean stirred cautiously.
“Davey...”
“What?”
“May I... go now?”
“Go?” Tully looked up. “Go where?”
“To Andy. Remember we had plans to—?”
He stared at her again, shook his head. “You baffle me, Sandra, you really do. There’s only one place you’re going, and only one man you’re going there with — that’s to the police, with me.”
“I suppose I have to,” Sandra Jean said after a while.
“You have to.”
“It means postponing our elopement...”
Tully said nothing. The girl became reflective. Watching her, Tully marveled at her resiliency. The fear of the immediate past was gone. The trip to the police was an accepted fact. The problem now was apparently how to mend her fences with Andrew Gordon.
She looked up. Problem solved.
“Will you give me a few minutes with Andy?”
He shrugged.
She went to the living room. Tully followed her as far as the hall. He saw her stoop over Mercedes Cabbott’s son, who was asleep, kiss him lightly on the forehead, slip into his lap, begin to murmur into his ear.
Sickened, Tully turned away.
A quarter of an hour later he heard Andy Gordon leave. Tully went into the living room.
“Success?”
Sandra Jean was smoking a cigarette in perfect calm. “I think so. He wasn’t as miffed as I expected.”
“Maybe Andy’s not so keen on this connubial connection as he pretends to be.”
“Don’t be an ass. His tongue is hanging out.”
“How much did you tell him?”
“Just enough. I said something’d come up about Ruth’s trouble that couldn’t wait, and we’d have to elope some other time.”
“Just like that. And he fell for it?”
She smiled. “I gave him a Sandra Special before he could think about it. It’s a type of kiss I’m thinking of patenting. It produces amnesia.”