The Corpse at the End of the Chapter

by Karen Hayes

  Monica said of course they did, didn’t she remember? They had Wi-Fi installed so customers could bring in their laptops and look up stuff while they relaxed over coffee and some of Eve’s pastries. She gave Copper a brief lesson on how to access it and how to search for anything she wanted to know about. Copper jotted down some notes so she wouldn’t forget. She planned to get busy online after they closed the store for the evening. She knew she couldn’t access the same information Louise had, but she was sure she’d be able to find out some things. Even if it took her a while. Which it probably would, given her limited computer skills.

  * * *

  The sheriff went to the Rainy Day Bar and Grill after work, sat at a table, and ordered a double deluxe bacon cheeseburger with fries, and a beer. And he told Suds he’d like to have a little chat with him about Ruby.

  “Sure, Harve,” he said, and when he brought the sheriff’s order, he also brought a burger for himself, with onion rings, and sat down across the table. Harve caught a whiff of the onion rings and wished he’d ordered some himself. They made great onion rings at the Rainy Day.

  “Terrible thing about Ruby,” Suds said, and his eyes began to tear up a bit. He pulled out the dish towel that hung over his belt and blew his nose with it. “Best bartender I ever had. She’s gonna be truly missed. She is already.” And he pointed to several bou-quets of flowers surrounding a picture of Ruby on the bar—like a make-shift shrine. “Everyone liked Ruby. Me and Joanie kinda thought of her as our daughter. She were just a couple years younger than our own daughter.”

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter, Suds.”

  Suds nodded sadly and wiped his eyes with a napkin he pulled from the metal container on the table. “She were only a bit over a year old when she passed. Took sick one day and died the next. Dr. Lafferty–it was Old Dr. Lafferty back then, of course, was stymied. Said it was just one of those childhood fevers that come along every now and then. Joanie wasn’t herself for quite a while after that. Well, I wasn’t neither. We both loved that little girl a lot. Losing her was hard.”

  “I’m sorry, Suds. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, Harve, you wasn’t even born then. And it’s not somethin’ I talk about much. But it hurt, bad, losin’ that child. And it hurt real bad when I lost Joanie just a few years back. Ruby and me was both tore to pieces about that. Ruby was all I had left. Now she’s gone, too. Don’ know what to do now, Harve. You want a onion ring, Harve?”

  “Sure, Suds.” Harve reached over and plucked an onion ring from Suds’ plate, dipping it in the container of blue cheese dressing, and taking a mouth-watering bite. The Rainy Day’s onion rings were cut thick, then dipped in a light beer batter before going into the deep fat fryer. They were, in the sheriff’s estimation, the best onion rings in the world, bar none. Especially when dipped in Suds’ homemade blue cheese dressing, thick with hunks of cheese. He hoped Suds would offer him more, or else he was going to have to place an order himself. Maybe he’d get a takeout order and go home and eat them in front of the TV.

  Suds took a bite of his burger and asked, “What can I tell you about Ruby?”

  Glad to be back on the subject he’d come about, Harve asked, “Do you know where she went to bartending school?”

  “Sure.” Suds pointed to two framed certificates that hung above the bar. “One’s her graduation from bartending school, the other’s her certificate in Advanced Mixology. She could make pretty much any drink you’d ever heard of.” There was admiration in Suds’ voice as he talked about Ruby’s skills. “And fast. Boy, was that girl fast. Could mix a dozen drinks in five minutes. And she could do that juggling thing, you know, like you see on TV sometimes, with the various bottles. Toss a bottle around, pour, toss another bottle around, pour. It was fun to watch. Customers loved that.”

  “Yeah, I think I saw her do that a few times. Pretty fancy. So, she finishes bartending school, then starts working clubs in Portland.”

  “No. Ruby were just barely nineteen when she got those certificates. Got to be 21 to tend bar in Oregon. She went to Idaho, where the drinking age is just nineteen, worked there for a couple years, then went back to Portland. That time in Idaho really let her build up the skills she learned in school and gave her the exper-ience she needed to get a really good job in Portland. She worked a couple really high end clubs in the city.”

  But Ruby had tired of city life, and about eighteen years ago she had decided to come home to Misty Valley. Suds had hired her immediately and he and his wife, Joan, had been like surrogate parents to the young woman, just 27 at that time. She had shared her story with them. Yes, Suds and Joan knew about her and Brandon Lafferty and that Cindy Doyle was Ruby’s daughter.

  “Ruby had found out from someone–I think it was Aggie Lafferty, although how she found out, I don’t know—who had adopted the girl and found out where she lived. She would follow her discretely and take pictures. She drove to the city a lotta Sundays to follow that girl around. When Cindy became a para-medic and got that job in Pleasant View, Ruby was overjoyed. Now her pride and joy was just forty minutes or so away instead of two hours. She truly loved Cindy, but she felt she couldn’t let on to the girl who she really was.”

  “How did Agatha Lafferty even know about the baby?” Harve asked.

  Suds shrugged. “Beats me. Reads the papers, I guess. Ruby said Aggie used to visit her in prison.”

  Harve’s eyebrows went up. Now they were getting somewhere. He took his last bite of burger, swiped one more of Suds’s onion rings, and got to his feet. “Thanks, Suds,” he said. He wrote down the addresses of the bartending school and some of the clubs Ruby had worked for in Portland. Suds didn’t know where Ruby had worked in Idaho. Harve was so excited about what he had learned, he left without ordering his onion rings to go.

  Harve was grateful for the information Suds had given him. He could feel the barkeep’s grief and hoped he didn’t go into the kind of slump he had when Joan had died from a fast-moving cancer just eight years ago. Suds and Ruby had both been devastated and Suds had even shut down the Rainy Day for a month and just retreated from the world. Ruby worked as a waitress for the Cabot Lodge and Café during that month while she tried to bring Suds back to life and reality. When he finally re-opened his bar, Ruby went back to work for him. And had been there until someone had decided Ruby didn’t need to be a bartender anymore—or anything else, for that matter. He hoped he could find some answers in the city.

  * * *

  Harve got up really early next morning and was in the warden’s office at the state prison by 10:45. The warden had Ruby’s file, showing she had only had one visitor the whole nine weeks she was there, one Agatha Lafferty, who came every Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Lafferty had apparently been there when Ruby went into labor, had accompanied her to the hospital, where Ruby was delivered of twins—a girl and a boy—even paid the hospital bills.

  “This file doesn’t show Ruby coming back here,” the sheriff said. “Wasn’t her sentence longer than that?” He looked though all the papers. “Is there a page missing?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “This is just what I found in the archives.”

  “I’d like to talk with whoever was in charge back then, if that’s possible,” Harve said. “You’re too young for it to have been you.”

  The warden nodded and smiled. “Right. It was my uncle. And he’s still around. Retired now, though. Lives in Portland.” He scribbled down an address and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Harve. “Do you have GPS?”

  “No. Our county is a little behind in some technological things,” Harve told him.

  “Okay, let me pull up MapQuest and I’ll get you directions. It’s not hard to find. I’m sure he’ll be willing to talk with you. I’ll give him a call and let him know you’re coming.” He pulled the map and directions off the printer and handed them to Harve.

  “Thanks for your help, Warden,” Harve said.

  * * *

  The
apartment building Harve drove up to about an hour later was small but tidy looking, with well-trimmed rose bushes in the front. Harve pressed the buzzer of the apartment number indicated on the paper and heard the door latch release. He went in and up one flight of stairs and knocked on the door. The man who answered was tall, attractive, and dignified, with white hair and beard, and appeared to be in his early to mid-sixties.

  “Sheriff Blodgett, come in,” he said with a pleasant smile, and introduced himself as Don Sargent. “I understand you’re looking for some information on Ruby Stone.”

  “Yes,” the sheriff told him. “Ruby was murdered Sunday night. I’m just trying to look into some background to see if I can find any clues. I’m hoping that you, Mr. Sargent, might be able to supply some helpful information.”

  “Oh, please, Sheriff, call me Don. No need to be so formal. But you say the Stone woman was murdered? Oh, how sad. Nice-looking girl, as I recall, but a bit of a, shall we say, tramp. Single and pregnant. Well, that seems to be the way they do it nowadays, doesn’t it? No morals amongst today’s young people. Or those of Ms. Stone’s generation. I’ll tell you what I can remember, which isn’t a lot. She wasn’t with us for long before she had her babies. I think they were a couple of weeks premature, which I understand happens sometimes with twins. Would you like some coffee, sheriff?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “No trouble. I just put on a pot a little while ago. I also made a couple of sandwiches. Do you like chicken salad? I get it from CostCo.”

  “I do, yes. Thank you. I wasn’t expecting lunch.”

  Sargent went off to his tiny kitchen and returned with a tray holding two cups of coffee and two small plates with the sand-wiches. “Black okay?”

  “Fine,” Harve said as he accepted his mug.

  “The bread’s sourdough,” Don Sargent said as he seated himself in a hard chair opposite the couch. “I get it from this little bakery down the street. More pricy than grocery store bread, but it tastes better too.”

  “It looks good,” Harve said.

  Sargent set his plate down and took a sip of his coffee. “Now, about Ruby Stone...”

  “And her babies,” the sheriff prodded.

  “Yes, her babies.”

  “Twins, I understand.”

  “Yes. Fortunately, there was this woman who came to see her every week without fail. Said she was not really a relative, but was a friend. I don’t recall her name–Lawson or something.”

  “Lafferty,” the sheriff offered.

  “If you say so. It’s been too long. I really don’t remember. She seemed to care very much for the girl, even paid her medical expenses, I understand.”

  “Well, Mrs. Lafferty’s son was the father of Ruby’s babies.”

  “Oh? Was that the man Ruby accused of paternity?”

  Harve nidded.

  “I thought he refused to accept responsibility. Wasn’t that why she was incarcerated—she assaulted him or something?”

  “Actually, he didn’t think he had fathered Ruby’s children—not at the time, anyway. But his mother seems to have known better. And by the way, she was also murdered—last Friday morning.”

  “And you suspect her son? I could see him maybe killing Ms. Stone, although why would he wait so long? I mean, it’s been a long time—more than twenty-five years, I think. That makes no sense. Andy why would he kill his mother?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t really have any viable suspects right now. And I don’t think he did it, anyway.”

  “So what would you like to learn from me?” Sargent asked.

  The sheriff told him about what appeared to be a missing page in Ruby’s file that would have shown her return to prison after the birth of her babies.

  “But she didn’t come back to prison,” the former warden explained. “She suffered from post-partum depression for a time, so remained in the hospital, then was just released.”

  “Just like that?”

  Sargent set his mug on a coaster that was sitting on a small end table next to his chair. Leaning forward, he clasped his hands, resting them on his knees. “I guess I’d better tell you that story,” he said, “as much of it as I can remember. It’s quite interesting. You see, when Ruby first came before the judge on the assault charge, she was not, apparently, very well dressed. In fact, I heard she was just a little shabby. Like a bit of a tramp, as I said. The young man who was pressing the assault charge was very well dressed and seemed affluent. A medical student, I believe. Judge Green was (he has since passed away) quite a snob. He would not be likely to take the word of someone he would consider a ‘street person’ over that of a well-dressed, polished young man. He would not consider this lowly person’s assault on this young man to be justified in any way and no doubt thought there could be many possible contenders for the paternity of her unborn child. But after Ruby’s stay at the hospital, the judge informed the Board of Pardons that he’d had a change of heart and wanted Ruby Stone’s sentence reduced to time served. Why that page was missing from her file, I have no idea, but that is what happened. Why the judge changed his mind, I don’t know. But the woman who was the judge’s secretary at the time is still around. I run into her now and then. She might be able to help you there. Her name’s Lydia Friar. I don’t know her address off-hand, but I think you’ll find her in the telephone directory. You may borrow my directory if you like. It’s on the shelf under that coffee table in front of you.”

  The sheriff pulled out the Portland Directory and looked up Ms. Friar’s address and telephone number, which he jotted in his notebook, then rose to his feet. “Thanks, Don. I appreciate your help.”

  “No problem, Sheriff. I hope you find your killer.”

  Sheriff Blodgett called Ms. Friar from his cell phone after he got to his car. She was about to leave for a luncheon engagement with some friends, but when he told her what he wanted, she was able to answer his questions over the phone.

  “I remember that case very clearly,” she said, “because it was so unusual for the judge to change his mind. You see, he had a very definite prejudice against young women who were, well, promiscuous, if you will. He always thought they deserved whatever bad things might happen to them. But Ms. Stone’s friend came to see Judge Green after the girl’s babies were born and pleaded for clemency. She told the judge that the girl’s charges of paternity against the young medical student were correct, and that she knew because the young man was her son. She really gave His Honor the what-for, if you know what I mean, raked him over the coals for his treatment of a poor young woman whose only crime had been to fall in love with a scoundrel. The judge was not pleased, but finally agreed to release the girl when her treatment at the hospital was done.”

  “That easily?”

  “Well, I was not privy to their entire conversation, mind you. And it was only by, well, eavesdropping, I guess you’d have to call it, that I heard any of their exchange.” She paused for a moment before saying, “Sheriff, I hate to say this about a man I worked for for quite a few years, and admired very much, but he’s since passed on, so I guess it doesn’t matter now. Anyway, I suspected at the time that a bribe might have been involved. The woman appeared to be fairly well-to-do. But it was merely a suspicion, based in part on the fact that the judge took me to lunch that day to a very expensive restaurant, something he had never done before. And he seemed very pleased with himself.”

  The sheriff thanked Ms. Friar, then followed his directions to the bartending school Ruby had graduated from. Harve didn’t figure there would be anyone there who remembered Ruby. After all, it had been 26 years, and turnover at such institutions was bound to be quite regular. Besides, she had been there, at best, some four weeks. What he was hoping for was a list of others who had been there at the same time, others he might be able to track down and interview. But the very helpful young receptionist introduced him to the owner of the school, who had also been teaching there for 30 years. M
ario Caruso was a bartender at night and on weekends and an instructor at the bartending school he owned by day. And he remembered Ruby very well.

  “The best student I have ever had,” he said. “She was so fast at mixing drinks. Had she been of age, I would have hired her immediately at the club where I worked as head bartender. And I did do that, a couple of years later, when she came back from Idaho.”

  “How was she with the other students?” Harve asked. “Did she have any particular friends?”

  Caruso shook his head. “Nah. She was rather quiet. Kept to herself mostly. I even broke my own rule and asked her out myself, but she turned me down. Too bad. She was a real looker.”

  “How did Ruby pay her tuition? Did she somehow receive a scholarship?”

  “No. We don’t give scholarships. Ruby’s tuition was paid in full by some woman who said she was Ruby’s mother-in-law.”

  “Mother-in-law? But Ruby’s never been married.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Caruso said with a shrug, “but the woman told me Ruby had given her a couple of beautiful grand-children, so she deserved something in return. She also said her son didn’t know what he had lost.”

  “Okay, I guess that was Agatha. How long did Ruby work for you, once she came back from Idaho?”

  “Hmmm, about six years, I think. She also worked some shifts at a couple other clubs. Then she quit. Told me she was homesick. Went back to some podunk little town and started working at a bar there. The owner called me one day, checking out her references. I told him he was lucky to have her, that I’d take her back in a heart-beat. Haven’t heard from her since. So why are you checking on her, Sheriff? She in some kind of trouble?”