by Adan Ramie
Lee let a pregnant pause go by before she looked at Ruby again. "And when did you realize that he didn't?"
"About a month in," Ruby said.
“Why the hell did you stay with him?” Lee asked, her voice cold and hard. “Did you like it or something?”
Ruby stole a glance at her. Who was sitting next to her? Her girlfriend? Her captor? A perfect stranger? The lines had become so fuzzy; they had melted into each other until Ruby wasn't sure what she felt anymore.
They drove on for miles in silence. Ruby glanced furtively at Lee, but Lee never returned her gaze, just kept her eyes steeled on the road for hours. Then, as suddenly as the silence had begun, Lee shattered it.
"I think it's time to take a break," she said. She pulled into the dark parking lot of a cheap motel and cut the engine.
The two got out of the car. Each slung bags over her shoulders, Lee locked the car with a click of the key fob, and they walked into the lobby. A grimy Vacancy sign blinked like a strobe under the unreadable name. Later, as they slept curled together in the ratty sheets of the lumpy bed, Ruby lie awake.
The question that plagued her the most was the hardest to let in. It was not the question of if Lee was a victim or a psychopath, or whether Lee would end up killing her, too. The big question was if Ruby cared. If she found out that Lee was no more than a calculating murderer, would she leave? Or would she stay, always knowing that one day Lee could turn on her like a mad dog? More importantly, if she did stay, what did that make her?
A DAY LATER, THEY WERE in a different place. Ruby stared out the window at a blinking crosswalk sign. A man crossed, oblivious, and flipped off the driver of the car who honked at him after it nearly hit him. He swore, so did the other driver, then they both went their separate ways as if it had never happened.
She flipped the radio on and turned to a talk station. A man with a deep, level voice was reading from a popular novel. Ruby let herself be soothed, and lost herself in the drawling cadence of his words as she noshed the chewy baked treat and drank the hot brew, her eyes still trained on the building that Lee walked into almost an hour before. When the emergency broadcast sounded, she spilled her coffee and dropped the rest of the cookie in her hand. A woman's voice, stern and urgent, started talking as if reading from a flyer.
"Police in Jefferson County, Texas have announced that they are searching for a missing woman. Twenty-six-year-old Ruby Isles left her home late in the night on November 2nd in the company of twenty-four-year-old Malena Barsten. Police believe that Mrs. Isles may be in danger, and Ms. Barsten should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you have seen or know the whereabouts of Ruby Isles or Malena Barsten, please contact the tips line for the Beaumont police department at 1-888-88-TIPS."
Ruby's heart dropped into her stomach, and she tossed the rest of her slapdash breakfast out the window of the car. She cranked the car, flipped on the lights, and dropped the car into drive. As she crept forward, thoughts splashed through her head and dripped down to puddle in her belly like the cold, congealing blood they left pooling under Truman. Had he died? Who had connected the dots? And did the police blame them for Josie's death?
In front of the door, she beeped the horn once. She clicked off the radio as it went back to the reading of the story as if there had never been a broadcast. When the door didn't open, she honked again, this time more urgently than the last. She rolled down the passenger side window and tried to look through the reflective glass in the front of the building. It might as well have been opaque. She swore softly, and wondered what was taking Lee so long. Just when she had her hand poised over the steering wheel to beep again, the door opened, and Lee walked out.
"Get in," Ruby hissed. She slammed on the gas pedal.
"What's the rush?" Lee asked.
Ruby made her way out of the parking lot, pulled onto the street, and almost hit an oncoming car. The car honked, Ruby swore under her breath, and Lee watched her with a scowl. They merged into traffic, and Ruby pointed them in the direction of the interstate.
"What's going on?" Lee wasn't buckled, and wasn't even properly seated. Ruby reached over, one hand on the wheel, and grabbed for Lee's seatbelt. Lee slapped at her hand, and buckled in. "Ruby! Talk!"
Ruby sucked in a breath and held it. She merged again, and they were headed for an on-ramp. She waited until they blended with the other high speed traffic before she let out her breath and let her eyes meet Lee's for a split second.
"You're being weird. Just tell me," Lee said, her voice softer. She put a gentle hand on Ruby's knee.
Ruby looked from Lee's eyes to her hand, then back at the road. When she spoke, her voice sounded remarkably calm. "I just heard a news bulletin. They're looking for us."
Lee jerked her hand away as if Ruby were a coiling serpent instead of a jittery woman on the run. "What?" she hissed.
"It was on the radio. And if it's on the radio," Ruby said.
"Then it's on TV, and on the internet," Lee finished for her. Ruby nodded, and Lee sat back in her seat, stunned. She let out a stream of curse words, then sucked in a deep breath. She blew it out hard. “What did they say?"
Ruby ran a hand over her damp forehead and dodged around a semi-truck going below the speed limit. When she was safely in front of the truck, she glanced over at Lee. "They gave our names and ages. They said you kidnapped me, and were to be considered armed and dangerous."
Lee barked a laugh. "That sounds so clichéd."
Ruby nodded and licked her lips with a tongue that was too dry to do any good. She cleared her throat. "Do you have anything to drink?"
"Yeah," Lee said, and reached into the bag she had brought out of the store. "Sorry it took me so long." She opened a glass bottle of ginger ale and handed it to Ruby, who gulped it gratefully before she handed it back. "But I got what I needed."
She opened the bag, and Ruby peered down into the passenger floorboard to see what it contained. Inside were two full clips that fit the gun stuffed into the glovebox, a butterfly knife, and three plastic bags rolled up and sealed to conceal what was inside. Ruby trained her eyes back on the road and willed herself not to ask what else Lee had acquired, and how. Lee pulled out the butterfly knife, flipped it open, and grinned at the gleaming blade that appeared.
"I always wanted one of these," she said. She tucked the blade in and put the knife into a jacket pocket. "So, now that we're fugitives," she said, then dropped her head and laughed. "Now that I'm a fugitive and you're officially the innocent victim, are you going to go back to your big house in the suburbs?"
"God, no." She didn't miss a beat. Ruby reached down for the ginger ale, twirled the top off with her thumb and forefinger, and drank another several gulps. She replaced it without its cap, and wiped her hand across her mouth delicately. "I'd rather take my chances out here."
CHAPTER 24
Two days later, Dr. Nettle sent Harry a text that he had a report ready.
"Cal, get down to the morgue. We got the results for our dead body," Harry said to Cal's voicemail. She ended the call, stuffed her phone in her pocket, and stepped onto the elevator. Down the hall, CSS Biznicki rushed, her arms full of files, toward the closing door.
"Hold the elevator!" she called, and Harry put a booted foot in front of the door to stop it. It re-opened, and the young analyst scrambled onto the elevator out of breath. "Thank you so much," she puffed. One arm cradled the files as the other massaged a stitch in her side. "I have got to get more exercise. Four please."
"Yeah, you and me both," Harry responded, and mashed the floor button. She checked her cell phone. Zero bars. Then she met Busy's eyes. "So, what's got you in such a rush?"
"I just found something major on the Moon Cycles case that I've got to get to Detective Creech. He's gonna flip," she said with a grin and a blush. "Where are you headed?"
Harry indicated the lit button marked M. "Rick's got some news on a body for me."
"He's probably got the fastest autopsy turnaround I've
ever heard of," Busy said. She blew hair off her forehead, then sighed. "I wish I worked as fast."
Harry shrugged, and stepped back as the doors started to open. "You might not be fast, but you're thorough. I think that's just as important, if not more so, in our line of work."
Busy blushed crimson. "Thanks, Detective." She stepped off the elevator, then turned to face Harry. "Good luck."
"Don't need it," Harry said as the doors closed in front of her.
In the morgue moments later, Harry stared down at the semi-decomposed body of the man from the Isles house. She tried to breathe through her mouth as Dr. Nettle went through his notes.
"Joseph Herrin, age 22. Time of death was roughly one week ago. This isn't what I expected," the coroner said, and let the paper he had raised drop back onto the clipboard. "When you told me you found him in a bed, that is."
"What did you find, Rick?" Harry asked, her feet squared and her hands stuffed into her pockets. "What's so weird?"
Rick Nettle put the clipboard down and walked halfway around the body. He pointed to a large, mottled pattern of bruising on the body's left. "The bruising and bone fractures here," he said, then pointed to the hip, "and here, as well as the internal bleeding of the stomach, liver, and intestines all point to a pedestrian car accident."
"He was hit by a car, then moved to a bedroom?" Harry asked, and leaned over to investigate a tattoo barely visible through the bruising on his hip. "Do you think hit and run?"
The doctor shrugged. "It's hard to say. I estimate he was hit by a vehicle going approximately forty to fifty miles an hour. He might have lived if he had been taken to a hospital instead of a home. He bled to death internally."
Harry chewed on that for a moment. She knew something was missing, some part of this strange puzzle that would pull it all together, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "Did he have anything on him? Anything that might tell me what he was up to when he was hit by the vehicle, and why he was brought to my stabbing victim's house?"
"I don't know if it's going to tell you much, but here's everything he had on his person," the coroner said, and handed her a large plastic zip-tie bag. "Let me know how this one ends, Harry. It's definitely a strange one."
"You got it." Harry took the items with her back to the elevator. She pressed the button to go up just as the elevator dinged and its door opened. Cal stood with a sheepish smile. "Whatever it was, I hope it was worth missing the coroner's report," Harry said, and stepped in beside him.
HARRY CALLED EVERY phone number Joseph Herrin had in his pocket until she finally got someone who had some information: his former landlord. The charming, elderly gentleman invited her to gelato at his daughter's shop, and she took him up on the offer.
"So," she asked as she swirled her spoon in the steadily melting gelato, "tell me about Joseph Herrin."
The man grinned and raised his thick, untamed eyebrows. "Josie was a fantastic tenant," he said, his Sicilian accent smooth and mellifluous. "He always paid in full, always on time, and did not give me any problem until recently."
He dropped his spoon and snapped his arthritic fingers over his head. His daughter, a sallow girl with a persistent frown, scampered to him. He waved a hand over his bowl and spoon; she made them disappear as well as any magician's assistant. He put both hands on his knees and leaned back to stare at the ceiling.
"I guess I first notice there was a problem when he was late on his rent. I visited him to get the rest on the fifth, as I do, and found him with a roommate. He told me she was there just for the weekend, but I knew better. The girl had been living with him for months, but I never say anything, because I thought she was girlfriend." He let out a bellow of a laugh, and rubbed his belly. "I should have known better, right, Genova?" he called over his shoulder. His daughter responded with something between a smile and a scowl.
"Are you saying he was a homosexual?” Harry asked.
The old man shrugged. “It takes all kinds, I guess.”
“Yes, sir.” She wanted to gloss over this part of the story, because she knew it most likely meant nothing to the case, but as usual, it seemed to mean so much to the people who discussed it. "Can you tell me the name of his roommate?"
"Sure," he said, and reached behind him to pull out his wallet. "I got her name, phone number, and a picture, like I do with all my tenants." He handed a Polaroid snapshot over the table. Lee Barsten stared back at her, along with a hastily scrawled phone number, and her name. "I was hoping she would straighten up, help Josie pay the rent, and I wouldn't have to see her again."
"But that's not what happened?" Harry asked, her eyes on the photo.
He shook his head. "No, it didn't. Some weeks went by, and he had more visitors, but these were not social callers." He tapped a finger to his forehead, on the side of one eyebrow, and leaned toward Harry. "I know they were drug dealers or the type. Always yelling about, 'My money this,' 'My money that,'" he said.
"So, Josie was in trouble with some shady characters?" The old man nodded. "Did you ever find out how much money was owed?"
He waved the idea away as if it were a bug. "No, I try not to pry. But it was enough that they burned my damn building down." His voice went gruff, and his accent poured out thicker and harder to understand. "They think they can take my livelihood? My home? In Italy, I could have them killed." He looked her up and down, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, then forced a smile. "But this is not Italy, and I follow the law."
She tried to hide a smile, and held up the picture. "Can I keep this?"
He waved it toward her. "Take it. What use is it to me?"
"Thank you for your time and cooperation," she told him, and stood to leave.
"Please, take a drink to go," he said, and snapped to his daughter. "Genova makes a fine soda. It cleanses."
Harry refused for only a moment before she relented. While the angry girl made her drink in a paper cup, Harry tried to put the pieces together in her head. She knew Josie Herrin and Lee Barsten were on the run from someone who they owed money to, someone angry enough to commit arson to make a point, and someone smart enough to make it look like an electrical fire.
Was that someone angry enough to hit Josie with a car? And how did Ruby Isles come into the picture? Why maim her husband and kidnap her? She had more questions for the Isles siblings. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she thanked a blank-faced Genova and took her Italian soda out of the shop.
LATER, CAPTAIN BRIGGS turned her squinted eyes from the file on her desk to the two scraggly looking detectives sitting in front of her. She closed the folder, picked it up, and tossed it; Harry snatched at the air to grab it before it fell onto the floor. Cal leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest and squinted his eyes as if to protect himself from the spit of a cobra. Harry met the Captain’s gaze, but swallowed through a dry lump in her throat.
"So, you're telling me that, despite my objections, you followed through with investigating your little hunch?" The detectives were silent. She leaned forward with steepled fingers and trained her eyes on Cal. "Detective, are you going to allow your partner to drag you back down?"
He frowned and chewed at his cheek. "I didn't think she was, Cap."
"Don't 'Cap' me. Do you think insubordination looks good on a cop's record?"
"No, ma'am," he said. His eyes met hers. "But it's all connected. I think we have a really screwed up case here, and if we don't follow it now, we might never find these people."
She nodded and leaned back, her eyes on Harry. "Detective, I took a risk when I hired you."
Harry kept her head high.
The captain snorted a laugh she couldn't suppress. "Thresher, you are a thorn in my ass. But you're right." Cal and Harry's eyes lit up, and Cal pulled himself taller in the chair. Briggs sat back in hers. "I almost hate to say it."
Harry grinned and stood up. "We won't make you regret it."
Captain Briggs winced. "If you do, I'll have your badges, and you can
switch gears to flipping burgers or private dicking around."
CHAPTER 25
Dim afternoon sunlight poured through the dingy lace curtains and burned Lee's eyes. She rolled over, out of Ruby's arms, and grabbed the watch she had left on the bedside table. It was seven o'clock – nearly nightfall. She glanced behind her at Ruby's sleeping body. She hadn't slept well the night before, and Lee knew she could blame herself for that. If she had more self-control... Then, that wasn't a very beaten path for her to travel, and she needed her full mental faculties to get them out of their current jam.
She slipped out of the bed and tucked the blanket around Ruby, who rolled over and moaned in her sleep, then grabbed the map sticking out of the closest duffel bag. They were close to the border, and she wondered if the passports she had gotten them would pass through without setting off any alarms. If so, they were in the clear, and they didn't have anything else to worry about. But if one person recognized either of them, they were screwed.
The clunk of a door opening by force caught her attention, and she crossed the room to the window in a few steps. With one finger, she pulled the curtain back just far enough to see out. Their car—Ruby's rented car—was open, and a burly man leaned down inside the driver's door. A few feet away, a familiar wiry shape stood surveying the parking lot. She stepped away from the window, checked that the door was locked, and stumbled to the bed.
"Ruby, wake up," she whispered loudly. She pushed Ruby's shoulder. Ruby moaned, but didn't wake. Lee shoved her again, this time more roughly, and Ruby sat up.
"What?" she snapped, then stretched with a groan. She squinted around the room until her eyes landed on Lee. "What gives?"
"You need to get up and get dressed right now," Lee said. She was still whispering, but slowly, and at least she knew she was being clear. "We have got to get the hell out of here."