Tully did not change expression. “Did you tell him you went to see Crandall Cox on the night of the murder?”
“Of course,” Sandra Jean said. “I couldn’t have him hearing it from another source, could I?”
“What reason did you give Andy for the visit?”
She said hurriedly, “Oh, something or other that wouldn’t disturb his dear addled brain too much. Shall we go, Davey?”
He knew then that Sandra Jean had probably ascribed the visit to sisterly duty, something that involved Ruth as the principal — a total and shameless lie. Tully shrugged and went to the door. So long as Sandra set the record on Ruth straight with the police, he didn’t care how she bamboozled Andy Gordon and Mercedes Cabbott. They would have to watch out for themselves.
Julian Smith kept them waiting fifteen minutes.
“Sorry,” he said, rising from his desk. He offered no explanation for the delay. He looked quickly from Sandra Jean to Tully and back again. “Hello, Miss Ainsworth.”
“Hi, Lieutenant.” They had a slight acquaintance.
“What’s up, Dave?” Smith said. “Something on Ruth?”
“In a negative sort of way,” Tully said. “May we sit down, Julian?”
“Oh! Please.” When they were seated Smith said, “I didn’t get that, Dave.”
Tully glanced at his sister-in-law. “How do you want it, Sandra? You or me?”
“I’m quite capable of speaking for myself.” She seemed so self-possessed Tully’s glance sharpened. Julian Smith noted his reaction, slight as it was, and became intent. “I wish to make a statement, Lieutenant. Isn’t that the way it’s put?”
“Statement about what, Miss Ainsworth?”
Sandra Jean ignored the question. Sitting straight-backed, knees primly together, she took inventory of the Homicide man’s office. “Exactly how is it done, Lieutenant Smith? Do you have a stenographer in, or is it taken down on tape?”
Julian Smith said gently, “Don’t worry your head about the mechanics of my job, Miss Ainsworth. First tell me what’s on your mind. You can always repeat it for the official record.”
“Stop stalling, Sandra,” Tully said. He knew Smith already had the tape recorder going.
She pouted. But then she folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them. “Ruth wasn’t the woman who spent those three days at the Wilton Lake Lodge with Cranny Cox two summers ago. I was the one, using Ruth’s name.”
Tully was watching the detective’s face. It gave no sign of surprise.
“What made you decide to come in with this information, Miss Ainsworth?”
“Well, I’ve naturally been scared to get involved,” Sandra Jean murmured. “But my brother-in-law’s convinced me it’s the only right and decent thing to do. I mean Ruth’s being my sister and all.”
Julian Smith swung about. “How did you find out about this, Dave?”
Tully was angry. Great expectations, he thought bitterly. “You don’t seem impressed, Julian.”
“Would you mind answering my question?”
“I’ll answer your damn question,” Tully growled. “I found out about it the same way you should have — I figured it out. Ruth and Sandra Jean look a lot alike. It’s a couple of years since the people at the Lodge saw the woman with Cox. Ruth isn’t capable of a hot-pillow romance with a cheap woman-chasing crook like Cox. So it must have been Sandra Jean. Q.E.D. Simple?”
“Too simple, Dave.”
Tully jumped to his feet. “It’s the truth!”
“Maybe,” Julian Smith said. “And maybe it’s a cook-up between you and Miss Ainsworth to cover for your wife and her sister.”
13
David Tully cooled off very suddenly — his urge to grab Smith by the neck and shake sense into him died at birth. He had caught a certain look in Sandra Jean’s eye, a look of calculation. She was the problem, not Smith. It was dawning on her that the lieutenant’s skepticism gave her a possible out even now.
Tully said very quietly to the girl, “If you have any idea of putting on an act for Julian’s benefit and finally ‘admitting’ that you and I hatched up a cock-and-bull story to save Ruth — forget it, Sandra. This is something that can be proved by having Dalrymple and the maid identify you.”
“Sit down, Dave,” Julian Smith said.
“Sure.”
Tully sat down, his stare pinning Sandra Jean to the wall. He could almost see the computer inside her pretty head whirring and clicking to produce the decision.
It was made. Sandra Jean looked bewildered and hurt. “I don’t know why you’d say a thing like that, Davey. I’m telling the truth, Lieutenant. I was the one. And, as Dave says, all you have to do to prove it is take me up to the Lodge for a positive identification.”
“All right,” Smith said. “Let’s take it from there. Why did you use your sister’s name?”
Sandra Jean said coolly, “Dave has a theory that it’s because I’ve always hated her. It’s nothing as Freudian as that. I was eighteen, I thought I was being terribly sophisticated, and since I never expected the story to get out I thought using Ruth’s name was a good joke. Now, of course, I see what a bad joke it was.”
“So when Cox came to town to blackmail Ruth, it was you he really meant?”
“Obviously. He asked me to come over to his room at the Hobby Motel—”
“The night he was shot?”
“Yes. I went.”
“Alone? Or with your sister?”
“As far as I know, Ruth didn’t know a thing about it. I went alone, yes.”
“With the gun?”
“Yes. I took it from Dave’s house. I knew it was there. I’ve always come and gone in the place as if it were my own home.”
“Miss Ainsworth, do you realize the implications of what you’re saying?”
“I’m not implying anything,” she said. “You’re inferring.”
He blinked at her, sat forward. “Cox tried to blackmail you, and you used the gun?”
“I did not use the gun. Anyway, he took it from me and wouldn’t give it back.”
Smith knuckled his jaw. “You did intend to use the gun, however?”
Sandra Jean said calmly, “If I’d intended to shoot Cox, I’d hardly have carried a gun traceable to a member of my family. And I’d certainly have picked a better scene for my crime than a wide-open motel on a busy night. I’d have chosen a safer time, place and weapon, Lieutenant, believe me. I took Dave’s gun simply to scare Cox.”
The detective’s face told nothing. “And did you scare Cox?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. He took a crazy chance and jumped me. He didn’t know I couldn’t have pulled the trigger even if I’d wanted to. Anyway, he wouldn’t give it back to me.”
“Then your story is that you didn’t shoot Cox.”
“It’s not a story, Lieutenant. It’s a fact.”
Smith drummed on his desk. “Tell me, Miss Ainsworth,” he said suddenly. “What was Cox asking of you?”
“Nothing.”
“Come again?”
“Nothing then.” Sandra Jean lowered her head again, modestly. “He knew Andrew Gordon and I were — are... well, in love. He was setting me up for a richer haul — after I became Mrs. Gordon.” She looked up with a show of anxiety. “I do hope this is all — I mean, confidential, Lieutenant.”
“Confidential!” Julian Smith sprang to his feet. “What is this, Dave? Doesn’t this girl understand the position she’s in? Confidential, she says! Miss Ainsworth, don’t you realize that, simply on the strength of what you’ve already confessed, I have grounds for holding you?”
She smiled.
Smith abruptly sat down again. “There’s something cross-eyed about this,” he complained. Tully had never seen him so upset. He was beginning to feel queasy himself. She had something up her sleeve, but what? I should have known, he thought. She came along too damn meekly!