“Mike Rodenska. I’m just a house-guest.”
“Her house-guest?”
“No. Her parents’. Her mother and her stepfather, that is. He’s Troy Jamison.”
“Oh. The builder. That place on Riley Key. Sure enough. That answers the question about the room. We’ve got a private room open right now, which is unusual, and we’ll move her there from emergency. Who’s their doctor?”
“Dr. Sam Scherman.”
“I’ll let him know. Where are her people?”
“Her mother should be getting here pretty soon. Will she be able to see her?”
“No reason why not, after we move her, but there won’t be any conversation going on. Now we come to the bonus question. How did it happen?”
“She fell.”
“Is that right?”
“She tripped and fell and … hit her face against the bumper guard on her car.”
“She was standing by the car?”
“Yes.”
“The car wasn’t moving?”
“No.”
“My friend, you can have a nice little chat with the cops. Your story is feeble. I’ll list this one as assault with a deadly weapon and let them worry about the lies you’re telling.”
“All right,” Mike said wearily. “I assume you’ll keep this to yourself. Somebody hit her.”
“With what? You’re doing better.”
“With his fist.”
Mike received a stare of cold contempt. “Look, my friend. I’ve got more to do than stand around here trying to pry the facts out of you. If you hit her, phone a lawyer. But stop wasting my time.”
“I’m telling you the truth, damn it! I saw it happen. He hit her with his fist.”
Pherson started to turn away and then turned back, dubious, skeptical. “You really mean that?”
“I swear it’s the truth.”
“His fist! Who is this joker? King Kong? Floyd Patterson?”
“Doctor Pherson, if a man is disturbed, if he’s on the edge of some sort of a breakdown, can he—be more powerful than he ordinarily would be?”
“How big is this guy?”
“Six two. Maybe close to two hundred pounds. But not in good shape. Forty years old.”
Pherson frowned. “When the normal man smacks a woman he almost always instinctively pulls his punch. If a man that big got crazy mad enough … and her bone structure is fragile, small … you’re not kidding me?”
Rodenska, with a trained reporter’s skill, told Pherson exactly what he had seen.
Pherson shook his head. “Okay. I believe. But you better get hold of the cops right now and have them pick that boy up. He came awful damn close to killing her with one punch.”
“I’d rather not.”
“So you still want to talk to the law.”
“Doctor, this is a family thing. It was her stepfather. Her mother doesn’t know that yet. I told you, I’m just a house-guest. I’d really like to leave it up to Mrs. Jamison. Maybe she’ll want to sign a complaint. I wouldn’t know. But it’s her—little problem.”
The big doctor whistled softly. “My, my, my!” he said. “Any other witnesses?”
“Two. A retired doctor and his wife. He didn’t seem talkative.”
“Well, she did fall off the front end of that car. That’s when she popped the finger. I’ll put it down as a fall. I’m going off now, right away. Soon as I arrange the room and phone Sam Scherman. Should I tell Sam the score?”
“He’ll believe you quicker than you believed me. And I guess he ought to know.”
“Okay. And I’ll leave the mother to you.”
“Thanks so much.”
“Sam will have some ideas about who should work on that face. Is she a pretty girl? It’s hard to tell.”
“Very pretty.”
“They’ll watch her close tonight. You couldn’t call her critical, but concussions are tricky.”
Mike thanked him. Apparently the heavy traffic delayed Mary. Mike was glad it did, because it gave Dr. Scherman a chance to get to the hospital and check on Debbie Ann before Mary arrived. Sam Scherman was in his fifties, an irascible little man who spoke his own brand of shorthand in a quick, light, bitter voice.
“Delivered that girl child,” he said to Mike privately. “Third delivery in career. Postpartum hemorrhage. Lost Mary, almost. Beautiful baby. Lovely girl. Damn Jamison. Used a rock or a club, clean job. Mary due?”
“Overdue,” Mike said, feeling as if he was catching the shorthand disease.
“Jamison?”
“Packed and left.”
“Why Marg and Charlie?”
“They helped bring her in. It happened almost in front of their house.”
Scherman stared at him thoughtfully. “Man slugs a woman, it isn’t politics, cheating at bridge. Emotions. Sex. And Mary away?”
“Doctor, I’d rather not make any guesses about—”
“First I’ll settle her down about the girl, tell her we’ll get Hanstohm from Tampa, put her face back together. Then with the pressure off, you better tell her who, where, how, why. She’ll find out anyway. Gutty woman. Deserves whole score. Keep her away from that damn Marg. Here she is now.”
Mary hurried to Sam Scherman, giving Mike the absent glance she would give a stranger. “Sam! Where is she? How is she? What happened?”
“Come along. Talk on the way up.”
Mike went back to the waiting room and told the Laybournes Mary had arrived and had gone up with Scherman to take a look at Debbie Ann. It was fifteen minutes before she came back, accompanied by the doctor, arguing with him.
“But I want to stay with her, Sam! Really!”
“Nonsense. No danger. Go home. All you people go home.”
“But Sam!”
“Maybe tomorrow she needs you. So then you’re dead for sleep. What good are you? You got that Placidyl left?”
“Yes, there’s a few …”
“Take one tonight. Come tomorrow with flowers. Smiling. Stop arguing.”
Mary permitted herself to be led out to the station wagon. Charlie had set the rear seat up again, refolded the cot. Mike got in back with Mary. She seemed stunned.
As they turned out of the parking lot she said, “But what happened?”
“It was an accident,” Mike said. “She took a fall.” He waited for Marg to contradict him, but she kept silent.
“Just an accident,” Charlie said ponderously.
“Where did she fall?”
“I’ll show you how it happened when we get home,” Mike said.
“Where’s Troy?”
“I’ll tell you about that too,” he said, and touched her hand with a warning pressure. She looked quickly at him and he saw the sudden comprehension in her eyes—her understanding that whatever it was that he wanted to tell her, he did not want to tell her in front of the Laybournes.
“Poor baby,” Mary murmured. “People seem so … alone in a hospital.”
“She’ll mend fast,” Mike said. “She’s healthy.”
When they got back onto the Key one half of a florid sun showed above the steel edge of the Gulf and the waterbirds were heading for their mangrove homesteads. Mary, with warmth, declined Marg and Charlie’s offer of further help, and thanked them for all they had done. Durelda’s Oscar was waiting for her. Durelda came out to meet them in the yard as the station wagon drove away.
“Miz Mary,” she said excitedly, “I was waiting on you. Something bad is going on and I can’t find out a thing about it. Some boy brang Miz Debbie Ann’s car back and said she got hurt and they was taking her to the hospital so I phoned the hospital and they toll me she was doing well as expected, so with nobody telling me nothing I toll Oscar I’d just wait right here until somebody come to let me know.”
“Thanks for waiting, Durelda. I really appreciate it. Debbie Ann had a bad fall and hurt her face, but she’s all right now. I’m sorry nobody thought to let you know.”
“They said she was lyin’ an
’ bleedin’ in the road,” Durelda said darkly. “Run over, I wondered. I looked at the little car and there was no blood at all.”
“You go on home now. You’ve had a long wait.”
“I can anyway carry your bag inside before I go, Miz Mary. You home for good?”
“I guess so, Durelda.”
She started toward the house carrying the suitcase she had taken away from Mike, saying over her shoulder to them as they followed her, “With you gone ever’thing gets messed up around here, nobody telling nobody nothing.”
“I should have phoned you, Durelda,” Mike said.
“Surely you should,” said Durelda.
After Durelda left, Mary stood in the living room looking out toward the Gulf, her back to the room. “Troy packed a bag,” she said quietly.
“Yes. He left, Mary.”
“For good?”
“That was the impression he gave.”
She turned toward him, angrily. “Did you try to stop him? Did you?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m sorry, Mike. How did she fall? What’s happening? Sam acted strange. Marg and Charlie acted funny. You better tell me.”
“Can I fix you a drink?”
She laughed in a mirthless way. “One of the little niceties of the culture, Mike. People don’t say brace yourself. They don’t say I hate to tell you this. They ask you if you want a drink. Yes, I want a drink. But if you take more than sixty seconds bringing it to me, I’ll go out of my mind.”
It was dusk on the terrace. He took the drinks out there. She followed him.
“All right, Mike. I’m sitting. I’m braced. This is a strong drink. Aim and fire.”
“Troy drank heavily last night. He didn’t get up until about two. As soon as he had some coffee, he packed a bag. I couldn’t get much out of him. He didn’t want me to give him a ride. Debbie Ann was coming home in the car. She saw him walking with the suitcase. She stopped. Apparently he wouldn’t talk to her. So she backed up and got out and waited for him. I started … walking toward them. I couldn’t hear what was said. And suddenly he … hit her.”
Her eyes were round and wide in the dusk, the drink motionless halfway to her lips. “He what!”
“He hit her, Mary.”
“Couldn’t … couldn’t anybody stop him?”
“He only hit her once. He knocked her onto the hood of the car. She fell off the front end of the car. And he kept on walking.”
“This is incredible! Who else knows this? Who saw it?”
He explained about the elderly couple on the beach, about the Laybournes’ suspicions, about telling only Pherson and Scherman, and telling Pherson only to keep it from being police business.
“About the police,” he said. “That will be your decision, and Debbie Ann’s.”
“He’s sick, Mike. He’s so sick.”
“I know.”
“To just … hurt her like that. She’s so sweet. She wouldn’t hurt anybody. Tell me, Mike. Why would he do a thing like that?”
Now is the time to tell her, he thought. We’ve got her clubbed to her knees. Now we kick her in the face. Tell her about her sweet little daughter. Come on, Rodenska. Here we go.
“I don’t know why he did it, Mary.”
“It’s so pointless!”
“The fact is that he did it. And she’s going to be all right.”
“But think of the psychic damage, Mike.”
“I’m not going to worry about that.”
“Where did he go? Right to that … Rowley woman?”
“Probably.”
“I shouldn’t have gone away, Mike.”
“I’ll give you that. You’re right. You shouldn’t have gone away.”
They talked, but the talk was meaningless. They had another drink, but there was nothing festive about it. Finally he talked her into letting him fix something for them to eat. He said he knew where things were, said he could scramble the hell out of an egg. He fed the two of them. She helped clean up. She phoned the hospital to check on Debbie Ann, and then went off to bed. Mike went to his room and wrote to his sons. He took a stroll on the beach. There was a moist west wind, a haloed moon. It had been, all in all, one of the very long days. He felt too tired to try to think about anything. After he was in bed he was conscious of the stillness and emptiness of the other guest bedroom. Mary was in the far end of the main house. He wondered if she was sleeping. He hoped so.
Ten
THE PHONE STARTED RINGING early on Monday morning. The concerned, the curious. There had been a paragraph in the Ravenna paper, so brief and noncommittal that it merely whetted curiosity.
“Mrs. Debbie Ann Hunter of Riley Key, daughter of Mrs. Troy Jamison, was rushed to Ravenna Hospital yesterday afternoon after a serious fall. Her condition is said to be fair.”
After taking three calls herself, Mary instructed Durelda to take any others that might come in and tell them Mrs. Jamison was at the hospital.
One call was for Mike. He took it on the wall phone near the kitchen door, and recognized the whispery croaky voice at once as Shirley said, “Mike, that’s a private line, isn’t it?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“So is this one. Mike, the whole Key is buzzing. People are saying Troy put the slug on her. Is she hurt badly?”
He gave a capsule report of the injuries.
She gasped and then said, “Mike, I heard another rumor too. They’re saying Mary got out because Troy was … fooling around with Debbie Ann.”
“Nice clean outlook these people got.”
“I guess you can’t blame them too much. But I thought it would get back to you, and I wouldn’t want you to think I …”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“Thank you, Mike. I felt creepy all day yesterday. Spooky, sort of.”
“Yesterday was one of my large-size days.”
“If there’s anything I can do …”
“I’ll let you know, kid. Thanks for calling. We’re going in right now.”
It was a little after nine when they arrived at the hospital. Her private room was on the third floor. Sam had already seen her and had left word for Mary that she seemed to be in pretty good shape and he was setting up the operation for the following morning.
“Can Mr. Rodenska see her too?” Mary asked the floor nurse.
“As far as I know,” the nurse said.
“Go see her alone,” Mike said. “She’d like that better.”
“I want you with me. Please.”
“Okay.”
The door was ajar. Mary tapped. The special nurse let them in, introduced herself, said the patient was feeling a little better, and left, after asking them to stay not more than ten minutes.
Debbie Ann’s bed was cranked up a few inches. The left side of her face was shocking. The split skin had been stitched and dressed. But what had been a concavity was now a high mound of dark red discoloration. The eye was pinched shut. The swelling distorted the nose and puffed the left corner of the mouth. Her jaw was taped in place. Her finger was splinted. She wore a clumsy-looking neck brace. One gray-blue eye stared at them, wearily, bitterly.
“Oh, my poor baby!” Mary said. “My poor darling.” She pushed a chair close to the bed, sat and took Debbie Ann’s left hand in both of hers. “Do you feel just horrible?”
“I feel awful, Mommy.” The high-pitched voice was very frail. “I hurt in a hundred places.”
Mike stood behind Mary’s chair. That single eye was not dulled. It was aware, and wary. Mike suddenly realized the girl had no way of knowing how much he had told Mary, and had good cause for alarm.
“It was a horrid, brutal, unspeakable thing for him to do. I think he was striking at me through you, darling.”
“Have you seen him, Mommy?”
“No, I haven’t, dear. And when I do I’m going to tell him just what I think about—all this.”
“I stopped because I wanted to talk to him and … all of a sudden he had a �
�� terrible expression on his face … and there was a big kind of white flash, and … I woke up here. I thought … he’d shot me in the face … but the nurse said …” She slowly closed her eye.
“Darling! Are you all right?”
The eye opened just as slowly. “I’m all right.”
“Why did he hit you? Have you any idea?”
The single eye glanced quickly up at Mike, then looked away. He knew the question in her mind had been answered. He felt his muscles tensing.
“I—don’t want to tell you, Mommy. I’m ashamed.”
“Ashamed of what? You must tell me.”
The girl’s voice was halting, remote—her diction impeded by the taped jaw. She had to speak through clenched teeth. “Shirley and I went to the Hutchasons’ party Saturday night. Then we went back to the house. We had some drinks. Mike and Troy were there, drinking. We sort of—went right on drinking. Troy was making my drinks. I guess they were strong ones. I lost track. Then we were … walking on the beach … Troy and me. And he said … let’s go look at the Skimmer in the moonlight. We went below … to see if there was any liquor aboard. When … he grabbed me I thought it … was like a joke. And then … I knew it wasn’t. I guess I screamed. But Shirley and Mike were playing records. I … could hear the music. “Begin the Beguine.” He … tore my clothes. They’re in … the back of my closet … on the floor. Before he … finally let me go he made me promise I wouldn’t tell. He said he’d kill me. By then Mike and Shirley were gone. Yesterday … I went for a long ride to think things over … and I decided I … would tell. But first I wanted to find out … if he was sorry or anything. I saw him and he wouldn’t talk. So I got out of the car, right in front of him. I said … we should both tell you what happened, Mommy. And he … hit me. That’s why he hit me. I think he … thought he killed me.” She gave a long gasping sigh through clenched teeth and then made what must have seemed to Mary like a pathetic little attempt at a joke. “If that’s what rape is like … it’s pretty hard to do like they tell you to do—relax and enjoy it.”
Mary stood up so suddenly the chair banged back against Mike’s knees. She turned blindly, her face like dirty chalk, and plunged toward the doorway. Mike looked at the wide gray-blue eye. In its expression he read smugness, mockery, satisfaction.
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