Norma Hurst was crouched under the aluminum awning above the Tullys’ fieldstone barbecue pit. The long barbecue knife was in her clutch. Bubbles made a froth at the corner of her mouth.
“My God,” Ollie Hurst whispered.
“Save your self-pity for some other time,” Tully snapped. “We’ve got to get that knife away from her. You circle to her right. But slow.”
He drifted toward the left. “Kathleen,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. No one’s going to hurt you. We’re here to help you.” He kept up the pleasant-toned reassurances, trying to get all her attention. “Why don’t you put that thing down? I’d like to talk to you, Kathleen. Kathleen... Kathleen...”
Ollie Hurst had it almost made. Two steps more... He chose that moment to stumble over something in the grass.
As Norma began to whirl, Tully rushed her, grabbed the knife close to the handle, and twisted. To his amazement, the knife refused to come away. Then he felt her other hand clawing at his face and he was fighting for his life.
“Ollie—!” he choked. “Pin her arms!”
Her husband got behind her mechanically, threw his arms about her. She was making blubbering sounds now, like an animal, her teeth glittering in the strong lights. Tully got both hands on the haft of the knife and wrenched. He staggered back as she suddenly released it, lost his balance and fell heavily to the grass. Instead of struggling aimlessly she doubled over and brought her right heel up in a vicious backward kick. Ollie Hurst let out a whooshing oomph! and then a yelp and sat down.
She was free.
Gasping, she began to scramble up the slope of hillside beyond the perimeter of the lights. Tully flung the knife as far as he could in the opposite direction and dashed after her, launching himself in a flying tackle. They both fell, face down.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you,” Norma Hurst shrieked. She slithered about in his clutch like a fish, everything going at once, arms, hands, fingernails, legs, feet, teeth.
There was only one thing to do, and Tully did it. He got his right hand free and punched her in the jaw.
17
When the private ambulance drove away Ollie Hurst, looking eighty years old, got into his car and began to back out of the driveway. Tully walked along, one hand on the driver’s door.
“Let me know what the psychiatrist says, Ollie.”
The lawyer swallowed. “Dave...”
“Forget it. If you need me, call.”
Tully waited at the edge of the road until Oliver Hurst’s car disappeared around the curve. Then he went into the house and made for the phone in the den.
“Julian? Dave Tully. I’ve got to see you.”
“What about?” The Homicide man sounded tired and peevish. “I was just getting set at the TV.”
“It’s important, Julian. May I come right over?”
“To my house? My wife’s walking around half-naked. Where you calling from?”
“Home.”
“I’ll come over there.”
Tully hung up and went into the kitchen and dug around in the refrigerator. Nothing but cold cuts. He made a face and set the kettle on to boil. He was just pouring hot water into the big mug with the word PAPA on it when he heard Julian Smith’s car pull into the driveway.
He let the detective in and said, “How about a cup of coffee? I know you don’t drink.”
“Instant?” The detective was in rumpled slacks. He needed a shave.
“That’s all there is in the house.”
“The hell with it,” Smith said.
He followed Tully into the kitchen and sat down wearily. “How’d you get those scratches on your cheek?”
Tully set the kettle back on the electric range and sat down to his coffee. “That’s the reason I want to talk to you, Julian. Norma Hurst did that.”
“Norma Hurst?” The lieutenant stared at him.
“I found her here when I got home. She’s gone off the deep end again, Julian. She thinks she’s Kathleen Lavery.”
Julian Smith slowly took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Kathleen Lavery... She was Mercedes Cabbott’s daughter, wasn’t she? Died in a boating accident in Europe somewhere?”
“That’s right.”
Smith looked puzzled. He lit his last cigarette, made a ball of the empty package, glanced around, then stuck the paper ball in his pocket. “What happened, Dave?”
“Ollie went out food-shopping and she took off. I had to handle her with kid gloves, and she did quite a bit of talking — as Kathleen. Finally Ollie got around to looking for her here. She went completely off her rocker and into a violent phase — got hold of my barbecue knife, and I had to knock her out. Delusions of persecution.”
“Where is she now?”
“At Pittman, the private sanitarium. Ollie called for an ambulance. That’s the place she was in after their child died.”
The detective looked around for an ashtray, saw none, and tipped the ash into his cupped hand. “I don’t get it, Dave. I’m sorry, of course, for both of them, but why did you have to get me out at this hour of the night to tell me about it?”
“Because I think what happened tonight is tied into the Cox case.”
Smith looked around again for an ashtray. “Don’t you have an ashtray?” he asked irritably. Tully got up and went into the den and brought back an ashtray. It seemed to make the Homicide man feel better. He emptied his hand of ashes and tapped some more from his cigarette into the tray and said in a good-humored tone, “You sure you aren’t the one who’s gone off his rocker, Dave?”
“I’m saner than you are, with your damn compulsive neatness,” Tully snapped. “Here’s what I learned via Norma’s delusion tonight: Kathleen Lavery and Ollie Hurst were in love with each other. In fact, they planned to get married. Mercedes characteristically interfered — talked Kathleen into a three-month separation from Ollie in Europe. The whole thing became academic when the girl was drowned in Switzerland.”
“So?” the lieutenant asked, unimpressed. “What’s that ancient history got to do with this Cox crumb’s murder at the Hobby Motel a few nights ago?”
Tully said slowly, “I think Crandall Cox’s killing had its origins in that ancient history. He may have come back here to shake down Sandra Jean—”
“And Ruth?”
“Okay, and Ruth! — but his killing had nothing to do with either one of them. I think Cox was murdered by Kathleen Lavery.”
Julian Smith blinked. “Are you nuts, Dave, or am I?”
“Listen to me, will you?” Tully said tensely. “Norma’s lived all her married life with the guilty knowledge that she got Ollie Hurst only because Kathleen Lavery died. The guilt has built up to the point where apparently Norma feels the compulsion to deny that the girl died at all. But in the real world the girl is dead. The only way Norma can resurrect her is to slip into a deluded state and become Kathleen herself.
“Now look!” Tully leaned over the table toward the silent Homicide man. “Cranny Cox was born and brought up in this town. He was a no-good and a girl-chaser from his teens. If you dig deeply enough, Julian, I’m betting you’ll find that in those days Cox chased Kathleen Lavery and, what’s more, caught her and made time with her.
“Norma knows this—”
“How?”
“How the hell do I know how?” Tully cried. “Maybe Kathleen told Ollie after they fell for each other, and Ollie told Norma when they got married. Anyway, the other day Cox comes back here. Somehow Norma finds out, probably through Ruth. But Norma’s already nursing the delusion that she’s Kathleen. She goes to see Cox that night — as Kathleen. Cox doesn’t realize he’s dealing with a mental case, tells her to get lost or something — almost certainly, being Cox, laughs in her face when she calls herself Kathleen. It triggers Norma’s violence — I saw it happen tonight. And there’s the gun, my gun, within reach. Julian, I tell you the answer to this puzzle is that Norma Hurst shot Cox while she thought she was a girl dead God knows how many years!”