"She's sleeping," Pat said, as Friedrichs turned toward the bed. "I'll watch her, don't worry. The rescue squad can be here in five minutes, if… You don't have to stay."
Friedrichs' lips twisted. He sat down at the desk. "Do you suppose I could sleep? I don't expect you to believe me, Mrs. Robbins, but I told you precisely what happened. I almost wish what you suspect were true. It would provide an explanation." His eyes went to his daughter, lingered, and then moved around the room as if he were really seeing it for the first time that night. "You didn't have to clean up in here. Merely staying is kindness enough."
"I just put a few things back in their places," Pat said. "books and ornaments-not much. She must have knocked them down when she ran."
"Would it be out of place for me to suggest that fact substantiates my story? Or do you suppose I came in here to attack her?"
With an effort, Pat forced her eyes away from his tormented face. At least he had had enough experience to know that things like that did happen, that horrified outrage was no defense. His hands were gripping the arms of the chair so hard the knuckles showed like naked bone. They were big, hard hands, and the arms bared by his rolled-up shirt sleeves were the arms of an athlete. He must play tennis or handball, she thought to herself. If he had attacked the girl in her bed she would have had a poor chance of getting away from him.
"If I really thought you had tried to hurt her I wouldn't be sitting here now," she said. "Mr. Friedrichs, have you-"
"My name is Josef. With an f."
Pat had to smile.
"Yes, I suppose we have progressed to first names. Mine is Pat. You needn't fear that I'll take advantage of it."
A wave of red swept over Friedrichs' face. She hadn't realized how pale he was until the flush gave his cheeks their normal color.
"Drink your coffee," she said. "You're still in a state of shock. It won't do Kathy any good if you pass out, or-or have a heart attack."
"My heart is perfectly sound." He gave her a startled look. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch on-"
"I touched on it," Pat said steadily. "My husband died of a heart attack a year ago. We thought his heart was perfectly sound too."
"I owe you an apology, Mrs.-Pat. Not for what I said just now; for my behavior the other evening, when you most generously offered new neighbors…" He hesitated, and the ghost of a smile curved his thin lips. "Bread and salt, shall we say?"
"Pasta is basically flour, like bread," Pat agreed. "And there was plenty of salt in that casserole."
"Whatever the ingredients, the intent was the same. It was a kind gesture and my response was boorish. I regretted it at once. I tried to call to you, but apparently you didn't hear me. That's no excuse, however, I might have telephoned to express my regrets-or, at the very least, returned your umbrella! My apologies are belated, but, I assure you, heartfelt."
"Forget it," Pat said, amused at his carefully constructed sentences and meticulous grammar. Mark was right; the man should be living in the nineteenth century.
"Thank you." He relapsed into silence, as if to free her of the obligation to talk. Maybe he didn't feel like talking either. The apology had been made with a certain grace, although he had offered no explanation for his boorish-ness, as he called it. But the omission had its own decorum. Excuses would have necessitated personal references, and perhaps, if Nancy 's hunch about his marital misadventures were correct, an appeal to sympathy or an expression of self-pity. Pat glanced at him from under lowered lashes. He must be in his forties; his cheeks and forehead showed the harsh lines of experience, harsher now with strain. No, not the face of a man who indulged in self-pity or allowed others to pity him. Nor, unless all her instincts were false, the face of a man who would mistreat his daughter.
They did not speak again. The night wore on, with the deadly slowness of all vigils. Pat had long since learned the art of sleeping with one eye open; she did so now, drifting in and out of half-slumber, her senses always alert for any untoward sound or movement from Kathy. Once she slipped deep enough into sleep to dream. It seemed to her that the light from the lamp on the bedside table burned low, and that in the shadowy corner behind the bed something moved. A long arm, skeletal in its pallor and bony thinness, reached out toward the sleeping girl.
Pat woke with a start, to hear Kathy moaning. Fried-richs was sound asleep, his head on the desk, resting on his folded arms. Pat got up, stretching stiffened limbs, and tiptoed to the bed. When she touched Kathy, the girl's breathing resumed its quiet pattern.
Pat went back to her chair. The night had turned quite cold. The thin curtains shifted eerily in the breeze, like formless shapes of ectoplasm. She shivered, and wondered, half-seriously, if nightmares lingered on in the room where a dreamer's mind had shaped them. That pale skeletal arm… If Kathy had dreamed of something like that reaching out for her, no wonder she had fled in terror.
Of course the explanation was more prosaic. In her drowsing state she had heard Kathy moan, and had conjured up an appropriate horror.
But she did not sleep again. The birds roused before the sun, raising a racket in the old apple tree outside the window, and finally the sky began to brighten. The sun was not yet up, but the room was fully light when Kathy awoke.
Her father woke the moment she did, sitting up with a stifled grunt as his stiff muscles protested. His sleep-heavy eyes went straight to Kathy. The girl had turned so that her back was toward her father. She was facing Pat, and after a moment recognition replaced the haziness of waking that clouded her eyes.
"Mrs. Robbins-it is you. I thought I dreamed you." She yawned like a sleepy kitten, her even white teeth sparkling.
"Kathy?" Josef's voice cracked. Kathy rolled over in bed.
"Daddy. Did I oversleep? What time…" Then she really saw him. "What's the matter? You look so…"
She sat up and held out her arms. Josef dropped to one knee beside the bed. Even then he did not embrace her; he took her hands in his and held them tight. Pat, who had moved to the foot of the bed so she could observe what went on in those first, revealing moments, was reassured-about the Friedrichs, if not about their immediate problem. The girl's candid face showed fear, but only for her father, not of him. She turned to Pat.
"Mrs. Robbins, what happened? He's hurt-his face is all scratched and… Is that why you're here? Oh, Dad, you look terrible!"
Pat sat down on the edge of the bed.
"He's fine," she said. "Josef, I could use some coffee, and I'll bet Kathy is hungry."
"Right." Josef rose to his feet, freeing his hands from Kathy's agitated grasp. "I'll just… I'll be right back."
He knew, of course, why Pat had dismissed him. Kathy's bewildered blue eyes followed him as he stumbled from the room.
"Mrs. Robbins, what-"
"Now we talk," Pat said. "You're the patient, Kathy, not your father. What happened last night?"
"Last night? I don't understand."
"Are you taking drugs, Kathy? Pills? Pot? Peyote, or seeds, or-"
Hoping to catch the girl off guard, she made her voice hard and inquisitorial. She would not have been surprised, or convinced, by an indignant denial. Instead, Kathy blushed guiltily.
"I've smoked pot a few times… at parties… Please don't tell Dad, he thinks I'm a virgin saint or some-thing. Hey. Wait a minute. You mean last night? Honest to God, Mrs. Robbins-"
"It couldn't have been marijuana," Pat said, half to herself. "The symptoms weren't right. Besides, I'd have smelled it."