by Inga Vesper
The detective frowns. ‘I think we should go somewhere else. This is . . . not a great place to talk about a case. Are you hungry?’
Ruby eyes him. She’s hungry, yeah. Who isn’t, at this time of night? But what’s he planning?
‘I know a diner about three blocks down,’ he says. ‘The Tropicana.’
‘I can’t go there.’
The detective looks confused. ‘Why not?’
The answer is, just because. Because she ain’t welcome there. Because the owner is gonna get out his shotgun. Because they’ll put on the dog shit face and she’s not gonna be able to eat one bite. They’ll probably lace her burger with piss and strychnine.
The detective misunderstands. ‘Come on,’ he says and scoffs. ‘This isn’t Alabama.’
‘And thank the Lord for that.’ Anger rises in Ruby’s stomach. Sometimes this detective is really, really dumb. ‘You think it’s fine just because there’s no sign on the door telling me to stay out? You go talk to the man who runs the Tropicana. There’s no need for a sign. I . . . I can’t go there.’
He sighs and looks away, a little uncomfortable. She knows that look. Even Joyce had it, when things got too close to the truth.
She still doesn’t trust the detective. But she has an idea. A little test, if you will. Let’s see those liberal credentials in action.
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘We’re going to a different place. And I’m driving.’
‘What?’ He looks at her as if she’s asked to move into his hobby room. ‘But you don’t—’
‘I ain’t going nowhere unless I’m going there myself.’
He considers this with a glance at his battered Buick. His chest heaves and sinks. ‘Can you drive?’
Kinda. She’s had a few gos at it with Joseph, in Old Man Toby’s tow truck. You press down the clutch and crank in the gear and let the brakes come up.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Of course I can.’
*
She cannot. The Buick is different. The seat is too far from the steering wheel and the gears don’t want to shift. She yanks the gear lever into drive and slowly lets one of the pedals come up. The engine purrs, then sputters. The car jolts and chokes with a snarl.
‘Handbrake’s still on,’ the detective says hoarsely.
Ruby feels her face flush hot. ‘It’s a different model,’ she murmurs. ‘I’m just—’
‘Try again now.’ He releases the handbrake. ‘Let the pedal come up halfway. Feel that resistance? Now you step on the gas, just a little, and don’t forget to steer.’
The car rolls forward. He flips on the blinker for her and she floats into traffic. She remembers now. Use only one foot, push down the gas. Keep the steering wheel near the middle of the road.
It’s beautiful. The car swims along Crotona, leisurely and smooth. Other cars stream ahead, a shoal of fishes in an ocean of night. Red ones and silver ones, and even a bus, lumbering along like a whale. She chokes the engine at a traffic light, but the detective takes great care to look relaxed about it.
‘Clutch down, restart,’ he says, and she pushes the pedal and turns the key.
The radio plugged into the dashboard crackles and spits out a stream of police talk. ‘1-4-1 over in the Hills. Sergeant Woods, repeat. Location check, unit seven.’
The detective switches it off.
They cruise out of South Central. She keeps waiting for him to say ‘stop’ or ‘not like that’ or ‘what are you doing?’, but he doesn’t. He just turns on the stereo and hums along to Pat Boone. Ruby sets the blinker and pulls onto the Harbor Freeway. They fly along and she lets the car gather speed, faster and faster.
It’s magic. Out here, the asphalt is smooth as velvet and the lights of LA blink in the distance. The world sweeps past, dark and wide and open. Streetlights flicker across the hood. Her heart soars. She forgets about the letter and Momma and the unfairness of it all. This is freedom. When she gets her money and an education, she’ll go driving like this every night. Just by herself.
They coast along until the Central Flavor Late Nite Diner comes into view. Ruby’s been here once before, years ago, with Momma and Mimi. Mimi was little then, they’d been on the way back from the doctor and the bus broke down. The waitress gave Mimi a free pack of crayons and the Black chef came out and asked if Momma wanted her eggs cooked all through or with the yolks still runny.
When she exits the freeway, the car swerves left and the detective goes: ‘Woahwoahwoah, slow down.’ She breaks too hard, then slips off the pedal and the car makes an ugly jump. The detective winces. She steps on the gas and sweeps into the parking lot. The tires squeal, she pops the clutch and the engine chokes out with a rattle.
That’s done it. He’s gonna kick her out of the driving seat forever. Tears shoot into her eyes. She does not dare look at him.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers.
He exhales. ‘The old girl can take it. Been through worse with my daughters.’
He has daughters. She didn’t even know.
The diner is full of folks grabbing dinner after the movies or before hitting town. A waitress brings menus. It turns out they’ve put the prices up by half a dollar. Ruby takes her time choosing. She’s got five bucks in her purse, but she doesn’t want to spend her hard-earned money on waffles and burgers. So it’s gonna be plain fries and a coke. Which is a shame, because the food here, as far as she remembers, is pretty good.
The detective looks up from his menu and raises one eyebrow, which makes him look like a news announcer. ‘By the way, choose what you like.’
‘Huh?’
‘I’m saying, don’t worry about the price.’
She smirks. ‘It’s on you?’
He puts the menu down with a grin. ‘Even better, it’s on the State of California.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ruby
T
he waitress brings two soda floats. The detective pushes one across to Ruby and clutches his own glass with both hands.
‘I’ll sum up where I am,’ he begins. ‘Stuck down the rabbit hole. First, there’s the baby. Frank’s mother said Joyce had a mental problem at the time of the pregnancy. It got so bad Frank moved out. He . . . they left her completely alone. And afterward, they never even asked what happened. The baby was gone, and that, it seems, was the end of that for the Haney clan.’
Ruby thinks of the geraniums and Joyce standing on the terrace, bathed in yellow sunlight, snipping at the crumpled buds. ‘That’s nasty,’ she says.
‘It doesn’t make sense. Frank and Joyce just went back to normal. They moved down to California, had another baby and played happy house.’
Yeah, only there were stains on Mrs Ingram’s bedsheets and a crazy man who broke into the house. Happy family? So much for that.
The detective rubs his temples. ‘Anyway, next thing you know, we find Deena Klintz rotting in her living room. She took some paintings Joyce had made. But the paintings have disappeared, apart from one. Did her killer take them away? No one has a clue. No one’s coming forward with anything. I just don’t get it. So, what do you think?’
Paintings, huh? Ruby suppresses a shiver. ‘I think no one’s gonna tell you the truth in that place.’
He looks up, annoyed. ‘You sound like my boss. I’ll get the hang of it, don’t you worry. But . . . it’s a different ballgame than Brooklyn. Those boxy houses. The gingham curtains. Women going to drawing classes. Driveways and pools and housewives waiting with drinks ready for the husbands when they come home . . .’
Ruby bites down a laugh. ‘I know. Aprons with frilly bits and the same frilly bits on the bedroom curtains.’
‘Sanforized flannel.’ The detective snorts. ‘Morning shopping at the mall. It’s not my world.’
‘You gotta rethink,’ she says, and utters a quick thank-you prayer to Dr Futterer. ‘Who’s got a motive? Who’s not what they seem to be? Everyone there’s got something to hide.’
‘That’s crazy.’ He picks up a spoon and
starts pushing the ice cream in his float under the surface. Tiny bubbles of soda settle on the orb of cream, trailing veils toward the bottom of the glass.
Ruby bides her time and considers. ‘Yes, they do. Joyce had a big secret. It was eating her up, and yet there was no one to talk to. The Sunnylakes folk, they live in dreamland. And they don’t want anyone popping that bubble. They . . . play-pretend. You must have noticed.’
‘Yeah . . .’ He frowns. ‘Kinda.’
‘So you gotta stop expecting them to help you and start digging at the deep, dark secrets that they’ve got. Which brings me to another point. I need an insurance.’
‘A what?’
‘To make sure you won’t blab to the Haneys or anyone. I . . . I’m saving up for something important and I need that job.’
The detective raises an eyebrow. ‘What do you want?’
She puts on her sweetest smile. ‘Your darkest secret. Tell me something you don’t want anyone to know.’
‘What? Why?’
‘So I can trust you. You gonna get some secrets from me. So first you give me a secret in return. Something that hurts.’
He flinches. His skin looks sallow in the lamplight. He’s tired, Ruby thinks. Really tired. Like he’s had a long and horrible week. But there is something else under his skin too. Something he’s varnished over with male swagger and white confidence.
‘I could tell you why I got transferred,’ he says slowly. ‘That good enough?’
‘Nope. That’s not a real secret. Your boss knows the reason, and your colleagues, too, I guess. I want something better. Something you never told no one.’
He stares at her, and she’s almost expecting him to get up and leave, but then he sighs.
‘All right,’ he says. ‘Maybe . . . I’ve got something. I was drafted in ’45 and deployed in the Pacific theater. I thought at least I’d get to shoot some Nazis but . . . well, our enemy was yellow, not blond. But when they shipped us to Mindanao, our allies were also yellow, so you couldn’t really tell. Woodruff urged us to shoot whatever, shoot first and ask questions later. Didn’t really matter to most of the boys . . .’ He sighs. ‘One of them was Billy Benson.’
Ruby scrutinizes him. The way his face has gone ashy . . . it’s a true story, all right.
‘On Leyte, the general put together a corps to hunt down the remaining Jappos hiding on the islands. Me and Billy went in hooting and shooting. We didn’t expect there to be . . . you know . . .’
‘I don’t know.’
‘People.’ He swallows hard. ‘It sounds stupid, but the Japs were wiped out already. We just assumed it’d be an empty island. But there were villages filled with locals, terrified fathers trying to protect . . .’ He stops himself and closes his eyes for a moment. ‘Billy was far ahead of me. He shot some young man. A teen. His chest just . . . exploded. Then this older guy, maybe his father, came running from the house with a knife. Billy raised his M1 to fire, and it jammed. So I raised mine. But I . . . I couldn’t pull the trigger. I was frozen. I had two little girls at home. Prissie was not yet a year. I just kept thinking what would I do if some maniac shot one of them in the chest? Wouldn’t I come running just the same?’
‘What happened?’
‘The old man stabbed Billy in the leg, but then Billy fixed his gun and killed him. Billy never saw me until I caught up with him and helped him remove the knife. It was a rusty, dirty blade and it went right through the big artery. We lost nineteen of the boys that day, and Billy two days later. Then they dropped the bombs and we got shipped home. I’ve never told anyone, not even Fran.’
‘OK . . .’ She’s not sure what to say. ‘I understand, though. I don’t think I could kill anyone, ever.’
‘Well, I always thought I could . . .’ For a moment, he is far away. But then his attention returns to his soda float and he waves a hand impatiently. ‘Now, your turn.’
She pushes her own float away. ‘First of all, I think Barbara’s seen something important. When we went inside and there was all this blood in the kitchen . . .’ Ruby pauses; the detective leans forward. ‘I saw her playing through that afternoon with dolls, and it seems there was a man at the house. She was playing it out with her dolls. And remember what she told me. They made a mess.’
‘She saw her mom with someone. Who?’
‘I’m trying to get it out of her, but it’s hard.’
‘Well, keep at it. But be careful. Kids don’t remember things like we do. They—’
‘I know. Don’t ask leading questions, and all that.’
He grins. ‘That’s right.’
‘Second riddle, and perhaps the answer to the first. A man broke into the house yesterday.’
‘The Haney house?’
‘Yep, while I was there alone. He was searching for Joyce’s paintings.’ The memory dries out her throat and she takes a spoon of ice cream.
‘Her paintings? What for?’
‘How should I know? I didn’t bother asking. He had a gun.’
‘My God, are you OK?’
‘I was scared to jeebies. He said he’d been to see a friend of Joyce’s and did I know where her paintings were. I said no, and then I grabbed Barbara and ran over to Mrs Ingram.’ Something strikes her, then. ‘How come you don’t know? She said she’d call the police.’
‘Don’t think she did.’ The detective frowned. ‘Could be that the boys at the station forgot to tell me.’
‘Or could be that she didn’t believe me. She said she didn’t see him, after all. Probably didn’t want to bother for a Negro.’
Part of her expects him to say something, then, but he just clears his throat. Figures.
‘Can you describe this man?’
‘Black hair, a bit scruffy. Kinda hard to tell, maybe thirty years old? He was . . . It wasn’t his first time there. He knew the house, and I think he knew Barbara. Oh, and he had two stunted fingers.’
‘Jimmy.’ For one moment, the detective looks spooked. ‘He’s Joyce’s old flame. Did she ever mention him to you?’
‘No.’ She never breathed a word. Not even when they spoke about Joseph.
‘Seems he’s been shaking up the Haney’s domestic bliss a fair bit,’ the detective says. ‘You said he was looking for paintings? When was this? Before noon?’
Ruby looks at him and then terror dawns. Deena died that afternoon. And that man . . . She clutches her drink. ‘Oh, Lord in heaven. You think . . .’
‘Perhaps.’
Unease gnaws at her belly. Deena is dead. Deena, with the bad teeth and the uncertain look in her eyes when she sat on Mrs Haney’s couch.
Not that she liked Deena. White trash have a way about them. When they encounter Blacks, some see kinship, but others see a lower rung. They like it when someone’s lot in life is even worse than theirs.
The waffles arrive. The detective gobbles down his food as if he’s been starved. Ruby scans the mountain of goodness on her plate. There’s bacon and eggs, with the yolks nice and solid, and syrup in a glass jar and cheddar slices with pickle. But her appetite has passed.
Well, actually, she could eat, just a little bit.
While the detective is munching away, she takes the chance to ask a few questions herself.
‘How old are your daughters now?’
‘Sandy’s twenty-one and Priscilla is seventeen. Sandy’s at college, and Prissie is a cheerleader.’ There’s a spark of pride in his eyes as he says this, but then his face falls. ‘Prissie had a big game today. My wife’s been preparing for a week and I missed it. I was at Deena’s investigation. Fran is going to fry my balls in . . . oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to swear.’
‘Don’t worry, mister.’ Ruby smiles. ‘I had a momma with a mouth like God gave her. You should have heard her laying it on my pa.’
The detective smiles. ‘What about Joyce and Frank?’ he asks. ‘Do you think Joyce ever put Frank in his place? Did they row?’
‘Mr Haney’s a creep.’ Ruby rolls the word over her lips,
enjoying the feel of it. ‘He didn’t like me being there. And the reason, I think, was because Mrs Haney did. He was jealous.’
‘Jealous?’
She roots for an explanation. ‘You know,’ she begins, ‘my momma, she always said there’s two kinds of men. Some care about you and some care only about themselves. They will do for you, but they’re just doing it to get you where they want you. Down low. Now, Mr Haney, he’s that second kind of guy. He didn’t care about Joyce, but he put her in a place where she couldn’t escape. He wanted her to think about nothing but him and their perfect little world.’
The detective nods. ‘You know, that’s pretty astute.’
Ruby swallows her waffle. ‘I haven’t yet told you my third clue,’ she says. ‘But this one . . . it’s just a suspicion.’
‘Right now, I’ll even follow up tarot card readings.’
‘Mrs Ingram. I . . . I think she has a fling with Mr Haney.’
‘Really? You sure?’
‘She . . . well, my momma would have said she’s an easy woman. And she likes people to know it. I saw cuff links like Mr Haney’s in her bedroom. And stains. You know.’
Before her inner eye, the sheets rise from the washing machine, the telltale stains shining. And Mrs Ingram’s look. Something about that makes her shiver. A predator look. A cat who got the mouse and now shows it off to the kittens.
‘Hm.’ The detective mops up sauce with the last piece of waffle. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘What if Joyce found out?’
He pauses, his fork halfway to his chin. ‘You think Frank would kill his wife to get with his sidepiece?’
‘Maybe.’
‘He could just divorce her. And he has an alibi for the day of Joyce’s disappearance. We checked with his hotel. And don’t forget Deena. She was killed on the same day we found the baby. Frank Haney was in custody.’
‘Not until the evening.’
Ruby chews on the last piece of bacon. How is she gonna make him see? If the detective gets stuck, Joyce will never be found. And if she’s dead, her killer will get away with it. She’s got such a bad feeling about Mr Haney. There was the beer bottle, suggesting he’d been back. The fact that he gave Mrs Ingram a gun to look after, on that very same day Deena was shot.