Murder with a Past

11

It was 2:00 P.M. before Julian Smith got back to his office.

Tully was seated near the lieutenant’s desk. The tailored Homicide man stopped and looked at him. “Why are you still here, Dave?”

“Where else do I have to go?” Tully was slumped on his tail, his long legs stretched way out, his big hands clenched over his belt.

“How about your office?” Smith went briskly to his desk. “Your business must be going to the dogs.”

“Julian, I want to talk to you.”

“Sure, Dave,” the detective said, glancing through a pile of reports and memoranda. “But right now I’m pretty busy—”

Tully sat up straight. Smith glanced over at him. He immediately pushed the pile of paper aside.

“Okay, Dave.”

“Is there an autopsy report yet on the Blake woman?”

“Just a preliminary one.”

“What’s it look like?”

“The M.E. is pretty sure she died as a result of acute alcoholism. He’s making the usual tests for poison, but there are no marks of violence on her, no toxic indications so far except the alcohol.”

“So she’s going to he written off,” Tully said with a peculiar smile, “as an accidental death?”

“In all probability.” Smith leaned back in his swivel chair, clasped his manicured hands behind his head. “From the empties in the room and blood analysis, she died when her intake of alcohol passed the critical point. She took one big slug too many — if she had passed out before that, she’d likely have survived. Maudie’s tough luck was that she collapsed on the bed before she drank that last one. She landed on her back and she was too near unconsciousness to get up; about all she had the strength to do was lift the bottle to her mouth that last time. Her body tried to heave the stuff but, with her head way back the way it was, only an insignificant amount came up. So...” Julian Smith shrugged and sat up. “We get two-three deaths like that a year, Dave, even in a town of this size. Okay?”

“No,” David Tully said.

“What d’ye mean no?” the detective demanded.

“I mean no, you’ve got it all wrong, Julian. Maudie Blake’s death was not an accident. It’s too damn convenient for somebody.”

“Murdered, hm?” Smith seemed unexcited.

“Yes, I think she was murdered.”

“And who’s the somebody you think murdered her?”

“The same one who murdered Cox.”

“You mean,” Julian Smith said, “Ruth?”

Tully’s face convulsed. He leaped to his feet, upsetting the chair. “Damn you, Julian, I don’t mean Ruth! Ruth’s the pigeon in this thing, don’t you see it?”

“Dave,” Smith said. “Why don’t you drop by your office? Or go home and lie down? You’re as wound up as an eight-day clock. What do you say?”

“No!” Tully stood glaring down at him. Suddenly he righted the overturned chair and seated himself in it. “No, Julian, I’m going to sit here till you listen to what I have to say. Or have me thrown out.”

Smith hesitated. Then he smiled. “Of course I’ll listen, Dave. Shoot.”

Tully sat forward immediately. “I’ve had some time to think since this morning, and I’ve doped it out. Ruth didn’t fire that shot. Someone else did. Maudie Blake knew that — knew who really murdered Cox. She implicated Ruth to cover up the killer. And when I came nosing around, Maudie tightened the noose around Ruth’s neck to keep me off the right track.”

“You mean by sending you up to Wilton Lodge, Dave?”

Tully blinked. “You knew that?”

“I’ve had one of my men tailing you. We know you went to see Maudie Blake yesterday. We know you then drove up to the Lodge. After you left there, my man tackled the manager. Dalrymple was quite cooperative.”

“It’s too damn bad,” Tully said thickly, “your man didn’t stick around Flynn’s Inn instead. The Blake woman would still be alive!”

Lieutenant Smith frowned the least bit. “I don’t see that that kind of talk is going to get us anywhere, Dave. What’s your point?”

“Don’t you see it? Why Maudie sent me up to the Lodge? She wasn’t interested in the lousy hundred bucks she asked me for, or the seventy-eight I was actually able to cough up. She was after a goldmine! That Wilton Lodge business strengthens the circumstantial case against Ruth. It sends me off in the wrong direction. To that extent it protects the real killer better, and so ups the value of what Maudie’s selling. Protection, Julian — that’s what she had in mind! She was going to hold what she knew over the killer’s head and make him pay through the nose for keeping quiet!”

Tully stopped, out of breath, looking at Julian Smith with shining eyes. The shine slowly dulled.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” Smith said, shaking his head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Why not, for God’s sake?” Tully cried. “Doesn’t it make sense?”

“As a theory, Dave, sure. But it’s a theory based on pure assumption, with not a scrap of evidence or a single provable fact to support it — based on two assumptions, actually: that Ruth was not the last one to see Cox, and that Maudie Blake was murdered. There’s no evidence that anyone but Ruth visited Cox on the night of his murder, and the medical findings are that the Blake woman died of overdrinking.” Smith shrugged. “You know, Dave, unsupported assumptions are tricky things. I could assume something you wouldn’t like.”

“What’s that?” Tully muttered.

“The circumstantial case against your wife rested largely on Maudie Blake’s testimony as to what she overheard from her room at the Hobby Motel the night Cox was shot,” the detective said. “I could assume that Ruth murdered Maudie — to get rid of a damaging witness. As a matter of fact, Dave, Maudie’s death is a bad break for the State... and a very good one for Ruth.”

Tully sat still. He had not thought of that at all.

“So, you see,” Smith said mildly, “as the officer in charge of this case I’d have to welcome evidence that Maudie was murdered, because it would corroborate the assumption that she was murdered by your wife. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on where you’re sitting in this merry-go-round, Maudie was not murdered, so my assumption carries just about as much weight as yours.”

Tully was silent.

“Dave, Dave,” Lieutenant Smith went on in the same mild tone, “face it — tough as it is, face it. Sick, broke, Cox came back to town to blackmail Ruth. To keep him from wrecking her life, she shot him. Nothing else explains the use of your gun, taken from your house. No other motive has turned up.”

Julian Smith rose. “I can’t blame you for trying to find an out for Ruth. I’m sure if she were my wife I’d do the same thing — shield or no shield.”

He came around the desk.

“I’ll tell you what, Dave.”

Tully looked up.

“Suppose I take the tail off you. I didn’t like having to put you under surveillance in the first place. But in this business you either learn to treat your friends like anybody else or you turn in your shield and take up a milk route. I had to make sure. That Wilton Lodge trip of yours convinces me you really don’t know where your wife is.”

Tully’s lips twisted. “Am I supposed to say thanks, Julian?”

The lieutenant said carefully, “I don’t think I get you.”

He rose. “You’re telling me I’m not going to be tailed any more because you still think I know where Ruth is and may try to contact her — or she me. You’re not taking the tail off me, you’re doubling it.” The detective’s barbered cheeks began to show blood. “I don’t blame you, Julian. You’re a good cop. Let me know if you get a lead on my wife.”

Julian Smith grinned faintly. “And vice versa?”

“Depends,” Tully said. “It all depends.”

He picked up his hat and left.

Tully let the automatic part of him take charge of the Imperial’s drive home; he had other work for his conscious mind.

He kept trying to visualize the shapeless shadow of the unknown — the stealthy black blob he was now choosing to think of as the real killer of Crandall Cox and Maudie Blake.

If only he could form a picture of him... of it. The Blob...

After a while Tully gave that up as hopeless. He — it — the Blob might be anyone in the world.

He forced himself to concentrate on the crime.

The Blob had visited Cox that night at the motel after Ruth left. (To go where? But this question Tully killed dead in its tracks.) Maudie Blake overheard, recognized the voice, maybe even saw its owner as he slipped into the room, or out of it afterward. Maudie moved over to Flynn’s Inn. She made contact with the killer, told him where she was, demanded a talk... It could have taken place either at Flynn’s or elsewhere. Wherever it was, Maudie must have laid it on the line: I know you shot Cranny Cox. I’ve set up this Ruth with the cops as your pigeon, and I can even make it look worse for her with what I know. But it’s gonna cost...

Greedy Maudie Blake. It cost, all right, but not the Blob. It cost Maudie her life. One murder or two — the penalty was the same.

It happened after I left her, Tully thought, after she sent me up to the Lodge. The Blob must have been watching, waiting. I leave, he goes in. Through a side entrance or something, unseen. Then up to her room.

She’s pretty loaded by this time. He may have come prepared to strangle her, or to hit her over the head, or smother her with a pillow. But her drunken condition gives him a better idea, a way to kill her that looks like accidental death...

The formless Somebody standing or sitting in Maudie’s room. Maybe pretending to drink with her as he discusses her demands. Urging her to drink even more. Until she falls on the bed and passes out.

Then how easy to kill her.

The alcohol-saturated blood already poisoning her liver, kidneys, brain... All he has to do is to keep forcing the liquor down her throat as she lies conveniently across the bed with her head over the side and her mouth open. He would have to be careful that she didn’t choke to death. A little at a time... delicate as an operation, but easy, so easy. And finally the alcoholic content of her blood reaches and passes the fatal level.

Dead of an overdose of alcohol. What had Julian Smith said? “We get two-three deaths like that a year.”

Obliterate traces of his visit. Trip the tumbler, let the door swing shut, locked.

Easy.

Safe.

(And where was Ruth all this time?)

It gnawed. It gnawed.

Shortly after Tully’s return home, a sleek white sports car with the top down dragged to a stop before the house.

The screech of rubber brought him to the front window. Sandra Jean and Andrew Gordon were getting out of the car. They were talking and laughing. Mercedes Cabbott’s son made a sweeping gesture: I am master of the world, it said. He stumbled slightly as they started up the walk. Tully wondered how much Andy had had to drink.

Tully opened the front door.

“Hi, pops,” Sandra Jean said.

Andy made two fists, did a little shuffle, and threw a one-two at an imaginary opponent. He grinned crookedly at Tully. “Sure it’s safe for me to come in, Champ? You pack a mean wallop.”

“Andrew, don’t be silly.” Sandra Jean took him by the arm.

“Come in,” Tully said.

They breezed past him into his house, Andy Gordon still shadow-boxing. He’s not as drunk as he’s acting, Tully thought; he rarely is.

“Oh, Andy, stop that,” Sandra Jean said. “We haven’t time for games. You can play all you want afterward.”

“Afterward?” Tully said. He closed the front door.

“Haven’t you heard?” Mercedes’s son threw his head back and howled like Tarzan. “The mating call! Mind if I have two or six of your drinks?” He wobbled toward Tully’s bar and got busy.

Tully glanced at Ruth’s sister.

She nodded. “We’re getting married, Davey.”

“Oh?”

“Eloping!” the darkly handsome boy chortled. “How’s that for an idea, Champ?” He threw himself into an armchair with his drink and stretched his muscular legs, grinning. Tully noticed that he merely sipped from the glass.

“Great,” Tully said. “Whose idea was it?”

“Mine, o’ course. Got down on my knees to my li’l ol’ gal. Didn’t I, sugar?” Andy rested his head on the back of the chair and began to sing O Promise Me. He broke off to take another sip. Tully glanced contemptuously at Sandra Jean. She laughed in his face and went over to Andy and stooped to rub cheeks with him.

“You certainly did, darling. Nicest proposal I’ve ever had. And so legal, too. Look, I’ll be ready in a jiff—”

“Wait a minute,” Tully said. “I take it Mercedes knows nothing about this?”

“You take it and you can have it,” Andy chuckled. “I s’pose you think I’m afraid of her. No such thing, my friend. Just cutting the old umbilical. I’m old enough to know what I’m doing. Right, my-love-my-dove-my-undefiled?”

“And such muscles, too,” Sandra Jean crooned.

“And what’s more,” the boy said, waving the glass, “if that louse of a stepfather of mine opens his yap — pow! I’ll smear him all over the palace floor.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” his bride-to-be smiled, laying her finger over his lips. “This is going to be a civilized elopement. No brawls, no quarrels — just sweetness and light. Mercedes doesn’t mean a thing she said. All we have to do is do it, Andy. She won’t cut you off. She’ll come around.”

“Not losing a son, but gaining a daughter,” Andrew Gordon muttered. “I dunno though, Sandra. The old girl can get awfully tough...”

“Everything’s going to be just fine, Andy,” Sandra Jean murmured, nuzzling his ear. “You just trust Sandra Jean.”

“Yeah,” the boy said. He pulled her face down and kissed her fiercely.

She struggled, laughing. “Andy! In front of Dave—?”

“Hell with Dave.”

“No, now you finish your drink while I get those things together,” the girl said firmly. “I’ll be right back.” She extricated herself, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and hurried out of the living room.

Tully followed her.

She went into his and Ruth’s bedroom. Tully went in after her. She wheeled on him.

“Whatever you’re intending to say, Dave — I warn you, don’t.”

“Seeing that this is my bedroom,” Tully said, “do you mind if I throw up all over it?”

Her eyes, so beautiful, so like Ruth’s, flashed hell’s-fire. For a moment he thought she was going to spring at him claws first. But then, with remarkable discipline, she forced herself to smile.

“Davey, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come except that I have some things of mine here I want to take with me on our honeymoon. I won’t be long, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

Hair. She had washed a lighter tint into her hair since he had last seen her. He wondered what its original color had been, why she kept changing it.

“Sometimes I think you’re not human, Sandra.”

“Mercy! And what do we mean by that?” the girl said mockingly. She looked human enough as she turned to walk across the bedroom, her hips rising and falling rhythmically. “Aren’t I female-human?”

“On the outside, definitely. But what are you inside?”

“Lover, it goes clear through.” She paused at the closet door — Ruth’s closet — and turned around. “I know what’s bugging you about me, Davey, and it hasn’t a bloody thing to do with Andy Gordon or Mercedes Cabbott. You think I’m acting like a bitch because I’m proposing to run off and get married while my sister’s in all this trouble. But what do you expect me to do? Sit on Mercedes’s terrace and wring my hands? I told you, I can’t help Ruth. All I can do is help myself. This is my big chance at sonny-boy. I may never get another.”

“You mean it’s your big chance at the fortune sonny-boy’s slated to come in to.”

“Sonny-boy and his dough. Look, Dave, I know how you feel about me, but I’m nowhere near as bad as you think I am. Of course Mercedes’s money has a lot to do with it. I wouldn’t marry Andy if he wasn’t coming in to it. But I’m really fond of the kid; I intend to be a good wife; maybe even make a man of him. The big laugh in this thing is that I’ll probably turn out the best goddam daughter-in-law Mercedes Cabbott could possibly want for her precious Andrew. End of speech.”

She swirled about and yanked the closet door open and walked in and snapped the closet light on. She began to rummage among the garment bags and hangers.

“I know darned well I left my white linen here...”

Sandra Jean tilted her head thoughtfully. Tully felt a pang, a stab of recognition. The head-tilt was one of the mannerisms he so loved in Ruth.

He stood there watching the girl. The dim light in the closet played tricks on him. Of course, the hair was different. But if it were darkened to auburn... yes, with auburn hair...

Something cracked in Tully’s head.

Split it wide open.

For an instant he felt dizzy.

He steadied himself in the bedroom doorway.

“Sandra.” He had trouble with his voice.

“Yes?”

“The natural color of your hair. It’s auburn, isn’t it?”

Busy going through the garments in the closet, Sandra Jean made a vague affirmative sound.

He began a slow crossing of the room. It was as if he were wading in an undertow. “Two summers ago. In June. Your hair was its natural auburn then, wasn’t it?”

“How should I know? Why on earth—?”

She whirled. He was just outside the closet, breathing in heavy gusts, making slow grinding sounds with his teeth. She paled and shrank against Ruth’s clothes.

“What’s the matter with you?” his wife’s sister asked. Her voice was high-pitched suddenly.

Later, Tully was to marvel at his control. All he was conscious of now was the throbbing in his temples and the tickle of sweat as it crept down his nose.

He said thickly, “How long have you known Cranny Cox, Sandra?”