“So,” he said, “who do you think Shelly’s mother might have been?”
Cindy laughed, crossing one long brown leg over thi other.
“Why, me, of course,” she said.
“Isn’t that wha everyone thought?”
He smiled. “Well, you were the right age and your cottage was nearest to where she was found,” he said, as i those were the only reasons she’d been under suspicion.
“You’re being very kind, Rory,” she said.
“Cind^ Tramp. Wasn’t that what the kids called me?”
“Perhaps some of them,” he said diplomatically, but h< could tell from Cindy’s smile that her skin was quite thick “Well, I can assure you that I was not Shelly Cato’i mother. I have to admit, though, it was probably pure lucl that it wasn’t me. I look back now and shudder over the kind of girl I was. I’m glad my kids are boys instead o girls. I would lock the girls up.”
“I’m tempted to lock Zack up myself, sometimes,” h< said.
“It was probably just a tourist, Rory,” she said.
“That’:
why the police never came up with a suspect. Al though. ” She wrinkled her nose, looking out toward th ocean.” Although? ” he prompted her.
“I’ve always had a nagging suspicion,” she said. ” really hesitate to say this. I hate to speak ill of anothe woman. I know how it feels.”
Rory leaned forward, thinking that Cindy had truly no changed: she was still a tease.
“You can’t tell me that much and not tell me what you’re talking about,” he said “I always thought it was Ellen,” she said.
“You’re member Ellen? The Catos’ niece?”
He nodded.
“Well, I don’t know how well you remember her, bu she was pretty loose with the boys.” Cindy shrugged “Not as loose as me, I admit, but still… She could of nasty. Do you remember that?”
He remembered it very well. He’d been exposed to it only a few weeks ago.
“There was something mean about her. One time, my aunt and uncle were visiting us. They had two little kids, my cousins, and my brother and I were going somewhere, so they hired Ellen to babysit for them.
Well, she smacked one of the kids around pretty viciously. The little girl had a couple of bruises on her arm. I know my aunt and uncle spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Cato about it, and probably to Ellen’s mother, as well. That was the end of it, as far as I know. But I think about that incident from time to time. There was no denying that Ellen had been abusive. I could see her leaving a baby on the beach and not giving it another thought. “
Now that she said it, so could he.
“Ellen doesn’t look anything like Shelly, though,” he said.
“Well, I haven’t seen Shelly since she was tiny,” Cindy said.
“But I remember she had brown eyes. Very light hair, but big brown eyes, like Ellen’s.” Cindy suddenly sat up straight in her chair and looked toward the sky.
“Don’t go by what I’m telling you, Rory,” she said.
“It’s a big stretch from hitting a child she was baby-sitting to leaving a newborn to die on the beach.” He sensed her trying to backpedal and knew that speaking her hunch out loud had made her uncomfortable.
“I was probably right with my first guess. It was most likely a tourist. Maybe if you do a show about it, that person or someone who knew her will come forward with the truth.”
“Maybe,” he admitted, but he was still thinking about Ellen, about how she was always trying to interfere in Daria’s parenting of Shelly.
“How is your sister?” Cindy changed the subject. “Polly? I remember her so well. She was the first mentally retarded person I ever really got to know. I liked her a lot.”
Her words touched him.
“She died a few years ago,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Rory. How unfair. You know, m;
strongest memory of you was of your devotion to her. “
“She was special to me.”
“It wasn’t just Polly,” Cindy said.
“You were al way so nice to everyone. Remember that boy who couldn’ catch any fish, and you” — “Yes, yes.” His claim to sainthood. “That was unusual for a boy, to be so sensitive to other people. If I’d had to predict what you would have become I would have guessed a social worker.”
“A social worker!”
“Yeah, think about it. That’s really what you do on Tm Life Stories, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I always get the feelin your heart breaks for the people whose stories you tell 01 your show. I bet some viewers think it’s an act, but any body who knew you when you were a kid would know that you’ve always been a
