Murder with a Past

6

The mansion — no one ever referred to it as a house — lorded it over the landscape from its eminence above the town. It was a gigantic white-brick edifice with the tall white pillars and sweeping verandas of the Virginia Colonial style, out of place and out of time. But if you could ignore the modern developments clustering about its skirts, and the grimy town far below, it was beautiful.

Tully drove up the winding approach between the immaculate palisades of seventy-foot arborvitae trees, worth a fortune in themselves, catching glimpses of the intricate terracing beyond that kept a crew of landscape gardeners busy nine months a year. Then he passed the tennis courts and the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Over the hill behind the house, Tully knew, were stables and riding trails and a nine-hole golf course, separated from the rear terrace by an immense acreage as carefully tended as a Londoner’s postage-stamp garden.

The English butler — only Mercedes Cabbott would have the nerve to employ an English butler in a community where the acquisition of a cook or even a mere maid was a major triumph — preceded Tully through the gleaming two-story entrance hall and showed him out onto the flagged terrace at the rear of the mansion, overlooking the incredible lawns. Mercedes was seated in flowered grandeur at a white-ribbed glass table, big enough for twelve, before a display of savory-smelling silver-lidded mysteries.

“Good morrow, David,” she said.

“Good what?” Tully said, in spite of himself.

“What else can I call it? I don’t know whether the hell it’s morning or afternoon — whether this is breakfast Edouarde whipped up for me, or lunch. What is it, Stellers?”

The butler said, dead-pan, “A bit of each, Madam.”

“Thank you, Stellers. How about disposing of this grapefruit for me, David? It’s laced with sherry. Or would you care for some he-man chow?”

“I only dropped in for a few minutes, Mercedes—” Tully began.

“And a great mercy it is, David — you look half starved. Pull up one of these spidery iron chairs George picked — I can’t imagine why! Another place, Stellers, and tell Edouarde to fix Mr. Tully a filet. Medium rare, David, isn’t it?”

Tully smiled faintly. “That’s right. But really—”

“Shut up, darling. It will make me happy. Don’t you want to make me happy?”

Sipping Edouarde’s Lucullan coffee, listening to Mercedes Cabbott’s brisk small-talk, Tully resigned himself to a long session. She was a tinkling, vivacious little woman, all pinks and whites, with the figure of a young girl and the temperament of a fifteenth century queen. She wore her white hair like a crown and left the dye bottles to commoner females.

No one told Mercedes what to do, not even her husband George Cabbott, whom she adored. She kept whimsical hours, ate when she pleased, abhorred exercise and never gained a pound. She was a many-sided creature with unpredictable moods, and the inherited millions to indulge them. She would suddenly take off for Europe, or India, or some unannounced destination and be gone for months. She would often, without explanation, refuse to support a much-needed community project; yet Tully knew that she just as often made huge anonymous donations to causes or institutions that caught her fancy.

This youthful woman with the imperious blue eyes was old enough to be a grandmother many times over — which she would have been, she had once remarked to him, had her daughter Kathleen Lavery lived. Tully knew how much Mercedes wanted grandchildren — grandchildren of “the right sort.” He supposed this had something to do with her ferocious possessiveness toward Andrew Gordon, her only remaining child, and the fierce eye she kept on the girls in whom he showed an interest.

Tully had known Mercedes all his life as most others in town had known her, which was to say not at all. Then his plans to build Tully Heights brought them together. During their negotiations for the purchase of the land he wanted for his development, they had become friends.

It was through Mercedes Cabbott that he had met Ruth Ainsworth. Ruth had exploded into Tully’s life when she made a sudden appearance in the storybook mansion as Mercedes’s house guest that memorable summer. Mercedes’s insistence on making the wedding for them had seemed to touch Ruth deeply; Tully, who had other plans, found himself abandoning them without a struggle.

It was at the wedding that he first met his bride’s sister; Sandra Jean had come from somewhere in the East to be Ruth’s maid of honor. And in the mansion Sandra Jean had remained, playing a rapidly warming game with Andy Gordon, as a sort of quasi-member of the family. The Ainsworth girls’ mother and Mercedes had been intimate friends since their college days, it seemed, and Mercedes had characteristically kept an eye — and often a hand — on her friend’s daughters when Mrs. Ainsworth died. Between Mercedes and Ruth there had been an obvious affection; toward Sandra Jean the wealthy woman evinced no such personal involvement. Their relationship was too complex for Tully to grasp.

He had once asked Mercedes, “Sandra Jean seems to bring out the iron in you. Why do you let her stay?”

“Because,” Andy’s mother had replied sweetly, “here I can keep tabs on what she’s up to.”

Something Mercedes was saying jolted Tully out of his ruminations.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was off on Cloud Nine. What was that again, Mercedes?”

“I said you’re not eating your steak. Now let’s talk turkey. When are you going to get down to the reason for this visit? I know it’s about Ruth.”

Tully put down his steak-knife. “How did you know?”

“Darling, two men were here. Policemen. Very discreet and well-mannered. And pathetically anxious to sniff out Ruth’s whereabouts.”

“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.

“Sandra Jean,” he said softly.

She tilted her head. “Yes?” An amused light danced in her eyes.

“Why the hell,” he said in the same soft tone, “don’t you go and get dressed?”

The light in her eyes shifted to the other end of the spectrum. She wrapped the robe about her tightly and stamped out of the room.

When she reappeared she was wearing one of Ruth’s print dresses and a pair of Ruth’s flat-heeled straw shoes. Her glance at Tully was spiteful. She went to the bar and mixed herself a drink.

Tully dropped into a chair. “Waiting for someone?”

“Do you mind, Mr. Tully?”

“I’m not sure I don’t. Andy, of course?”

“Of course.”

“I should think my house would have lost its charm for him as a trysting place.”

“Trysting place!” The girl laughed. “You are from Squaresville, aren’t you?”

“Strictly,” Tully said. “But, Sandra, let’s keep our eye on the ball, shall we? I don’t know what Andy’s version was, but last time he was here he made a couple of unpardonable remarks about Ruth. Viciously nasty.”

“And you popped him one,” Sandra Jean jeered. “But we understand, Davey. You were under a great strain, and all that jazz.”

“I still am.”

“Andy forgives you. I forgive you. Do you forgive you?”

“I’m sorry I blew my top. But he had it coming.”

“Going, as I heard it.” Sandra Jean took a thirsty swallow. “You don’t care a lot for my fella, do you?”

“I couldn’t care less. I wish you’d meet him somewhere else.”

“Like in a dirty room in a dirty motel... like?”

Mercedes Cabbott is dead right, he thought. This kid is a bitch. “I suppose that’s a sisterly reference to Ruth.”

“Is that what it was?” Sandra Jean asked innocently. “Who’s being the nasty little boy now?”

Tully shrugged. He was too exhausted to reply.

Hips on gimbals, Sandra Jean prowled about the room, gesturing with her glass. “You get one thing straight, O Pure in Heart. Nobody wrecks me with Andy, but nobody. Mercedes Cabbott can maneuver herself dizzy, you can bar me from this house, but that thar gold strike’s mine! Get me?”

“Not that I give a damn,” Tully murmured. “But it isn’t as if you were penniless.”

“Those icky little trust funds Ruth and I inherited? They might look like a ten-strike to a girl who had to pull herself up by the runs in her stockings, but it’s strictly for the hoi polloi, buster. I need as much in a month as that fund brings me in a year.

Something in the way she said it sounded an alert. But he kept his own voice casual.

“You wouldn’t be in a financial jam, would you, Sandra?”

“Oh, I owe a few people.” She said it indifferently, but he noticed a slight frown.

It came to him in a flash. “Gamblers, maybe?”

“It’s none of your business,” she said, and he knew he was right. There were several gambling joints just outside the town limits, and Sandra Jean liked to play the wheel. “Anyhow, it hasn’t a thing to do with my greedy plans involving Andrew. He’s the biggest chance I’ll ever get, and I’m not letting him get away from me. You remember that, sweetie.”

The door chimed.

Sandra Jean looked at her brother-in-law. “That’s my Andy now,” she said, “and if you’ve any idea of telling him what I just said, forget it. In the first place he wouldn’t believe it. In the second place, I can get pretty nasty myself, Sir David.”

Tully said dryly, “I never had the least doubt of it,” and he got up and opened the door.

George Cabbott stood there.

“Oh, George,” Tully said.

“Anything new on Ruth?” The big bronzed man had changed from jeans and T-shirt to a conservative suit.

“No.”

“If she’d met with any harm, Dave, you’d have heard by this time. By the way, is Sandra Jean here?”

“Here I am,” Sandra Jean said. She was standing stock-still in the middle of the living room. “Hi, George. Is something wrong?”

Cabbott said pleasantly, “That would depend on the point of view. I dropped by to tell you you needn’t wait for Andy to show up — if, of course, that’s what you’re doing here.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“He’s having a long, long talk with Mercedes.”

“Oh, one of those.” Sandra Jean laughed, but Tully noticed that her eyes remained wary.

“I don’t think this one is quite like the others,” Cabbott said. “I’m afraid Mercedes has pretty well made up her mind to cut Junior off without a cent, as the saying goes, in a certain contingency.”

“How does that involve me?” the girl said. “Or is that the whole point?”

“Judge for yourself, Sandra,” George Cabbott said, and Tully could have sworn there was an undertone of amusement in his voice. “The last thing I heard Mercedes tell Andy as I left was that, in her opinion, if he was old enough to take a wife he was old enough to get a job and support her.”

“Now, George,” Sandra Jean said, and there was amusement in her voice, too. She can sure put on an act, Tully thought. She’s about as amused as a lady spider watching her dinner get away.

George Cabbott merely smiled and left.