Hex: A Ruby Murphy Mystery

by Maggie Estep

  “I have no idea, Ned.”

  The doorbell rings again.

  “Call the police!” I suddenly scream as loud as I can, gambling that Ned won’t shoot me for doing it.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Ned says thoughtfully. “Now we’re going to have to let this interloper in.”

  That said, he puts one hand on my shoulder, flips me around, and points the gun at the small of my back. “Please walk slowly to the door,” he says.

  I do as I’m told. He reaches in front of me and quickly flips the lock, then pulls the door open, revealing Oliver.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Ned tells my friend, “but kindly keep your mouth shut or I’ll make Swiss cheese of the lady here.”

  This is about the last thing on earth Oliver needs. He stands there gaping at me, his eyes huge with astonishment.

  Ned pulls Oliver inside the apartment and slams the door shut behind him. “Who are you?” he asks Oliver.

  “Oliver,” my friend states matter-of-factly staring at Ned’s gun. And then, in a blur of motion, Oliver’s leg flies up and he kicks the gun out of Ned’s hand. The gun skids along the floor as Oliver, faster than light, somehow gets behind Ned and in one swift, graceful move reaches up under Ned’s glasses and sticks his thumbs in Ned’s eye sockets.

  “Fuck!” Ned screams as Oliver does something under his jaw, sticking a finger in there, causing Ned to buckle over.

  “Call 911, then find me something like a rope or a belt,” Oliver tells me, seeming completely calm and poised.

  I pull the cell phone from my pocket and dial with one hand while removing my belt with the other. Oliver snatches the belt and binds Ned’s hands as I tell the 911 operator what’s going on.

  Ned isn’t exactly unconscious, but whatever Oliver did to him seems to have made him blurry. Several moments pass before he registers what’s happening. By then Oliver is standing, pointing the gun at Ned.

  And of all the emotions to have at a time like this, I get seized with extreme guilt. Hating myself for dragging Oliver into this mess. My avowed pacifist friend who renounced knife-fighting and karate some years ago because these made him feel too violent. Here he is brandishing a gun. And he doesn’t look so good. It seems he’s dropped another ten pounds from this last round of chemo.

  A few moments pass and then a voice shouts the blissful phrase, “Police, open up!”

  I let them in as Oliver maintains his gun-pointing stance.

  In an instant the cops are on Ned, uttering things like, “Don’t move, pal.”

  Though I haven’t done anything illegal in a long time, cops still give me the creeps. I sit down on Ariel’s white couch and stare at my knees. I feel queasy.

  Reinforcements arrive and start asking me questions as Ned repeatedly states that this is all just a misunderstanding. And, if it weren’t for the fact that he was armed, I think he probably could talk his way out of the whole thing. But he was armed.

  The cops take statements from Oliver and me. Eventually, they haul a now subdued, humble-looking Ned away.

  X

  OLIVER AND I sit side by side on the white couch, stunned.

  “You’ve got some questionable taste in men,” Oliver says after a while.

  “And you’ve got seriously good timing,” I say. “What on earth are you doing here, though?”

  “I wanted to see you. You weren’t answering at home. Weren’t answering the cell phone. I called Ramirez. He’s listed. He told me you came here. I got a cab over and sweet-talked that little cutie at reception into telling me your former employer’s apartment number. You’re lucky you’ve got me to save you from your fits of bad judgment.”

  I agree with him wholeheartedly.

  “I should call Ariel and tell her what’s happened. Then I’m just going to go back to Coney. Now that Ned’s locked up, I’m safe,” I say, pulling the phone out and punching in Ariel’s number.

  “I’m afraid your apartment is a mess,” I tell her.

  “What do you mean?” Ariel asks, sounding very annoyed.

  I explain.

  She is very, very quiet.

  “This means all my suspicions about Frank killing horses were probably unfounded,” I tell her.

  She still says nothing.

  “Ariel?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is louder than usual. “I’m here,” she adds. “So you’ll be going back home, then?”

  “Yeah. You want me to leave your keys at the front desk?”

  “Yes,” she says, voice icy, “that will be fine. Thank you.” She hangs up in my ear.

  I stare at the phone a moment, then turn to look at Oliver, who’s draped himself along the couch like he’s lived in this apartment his entire life.

  “So?” he says.

  “So that was deeply weird.”

  “What?”

  I relay the conversation. The iciness in Ariel’s voice.

  “Well, it’s behind you now. It’s all over,” Oliver says, “go home.”

  “And what will you do? I thought you wanted to see me.”

  “I’ve seen you. My work here is done.”

  “Oh.”

  “Go on, pack your cats up. We’ll walk out together.”

  For the thousandth time, I’m not sure how to read Oliver. Does he want me to force my company on him? Did he really just want to get a quick gander at me?

  “Stop worrying,” Oliver says.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he affirms.

  “Okay.” I shrug, then go to look for the cats.

  I find Stinky sprawled across Ariel’s bed. As I lean over to scoop him up, I notice a handful of photos spilling out of a folder on the floor. I’m pretty sure they weren’t there before I went up to my piano lesson. Ned must have unearthed them for some reason. Though what he’d want with Ariel’s belongings is beyond me.

  I skim through the pictures. There are a few of Frank and many of some other dark-haired man. One photo in particular catches my eyes. It shows Ariel standing next to a horse. Specifically, Ariel standing next to a horse that looks a great deal like Raging Machete. Ariel who claimed to know nothing about horses. Standing next to a lean, muscled bay racehorse with a white blaze on its face. It doesn’t make any sense. And it makes me uneasy. I slip the photo in my back pocket.

  I pick Stinky up and haul him into the living room, ushering him into his carrying case. I then unearth Lulu, behind the elegant toilet in the bathroom.

  I empty the unused litter box, then take a quick visual survey to make sure I haven’t left anything behind.

  “I think I’m ready,” I tell Oliver, not mentioning the photo I found or its possible implications.

  “You okay?” he says, tilting his head as he looks at me.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah. Should I be coming with you to Coney?”

  “No. I mean, not unless you want to.”

  “I could use a long nap. I should go home.”

  “That’s fine,” I say. I reach over and touch his cheek. He closes his eyes. Kisses my palm. Smiles a small, sad smile.

  Oliver carries Stinky’s case as I wrangle Lulu and the huge shopping bag and my backpack.

  I lock Ariel’s door and leave the keys with the receptionist—who Oliver winks at—and we go out onto Twenty-third Street, where I hail a cab.

  I kiss Oliver good-bye—a lingering, almost sexy kiss—then get in the cab.

  A beefy Polish-looking cabby suspiciously eyes the cats’ cases.

  “Cats,” I say, “nice cats. I’ll tip you well. I promise.” His small eyes are a dull blue. I tell him my destination.

  He snarls at me then jerks the car into the traffic of Twenty-third Street. I’m trying to think of something to say to try to improve his dour mood when he turns on his radio, choosing, on this fine afternoon, to blare light jazz.

  From inside his cage Stinky growls at the sound.

  Sebastian Ives

  28 / Checking for Heat

/>   Some mornings I get here and I just want to go home and put my head in the oven. This morning is a perfect example. I’m the only one here. Neither Arnie, Ned, Macy Frank, or even the damned new girl has shown up. Only Domenico, little high school kid who comes to muck out stalls three mornings a week, is here. I put the kid to work and start making phone calls. No answer at Ned’s and I can’t reach Frank anywhere, though that one’s no surprise. I try finding the new girl’s phone number but don’t see it anywhere and figure there’s not much hope for her since this makes two mornings she hasn’t shown up.

  Arnie answers his phone on the fifth ring. He’s none too happy about all his useless employees failing to show up. He tells me to go over to his friend John Troxler’s barn, see if John can spare any help.

  I hang up, make sure Domenico knows what I need him to do, and then walk over to Barn 54, where Troxler’s got his string.

  I find the trainer standing in front of one of his horses’ stalls, looking worried, which is essentially how Troxler always looks. He’s a good man. An honest trainer. He’s had his ups and downs like the rest of us, and lately a few more downs than anyone’s got a stomach for.

  “John, how’re you doing?” I say, approaching the man.

  “Sebastian.” He nods.

  “Arnie asked me to come by and see if maybe you can spare any help this morning,” I tell him, explaining how not one of Arnie’s employees has materialized.

  Troxler looks even more worried. Rubs his chin a little. Stares off into the horse’s stall for a minute. “I can send Pedro over for an hour or two, but that’s about it,” he tells me.

  “I’ll take it,” I say. “Anything will help. We ain’t gonna work any today but I gotta get them all walked.”

  Troxler nods again, tells me to follow him around to the other side of the shedrow, where we find Pedro mucking out a stall. Pedro’s a small thickset fellow, not much younger than me. Doesn’t seem too upset at being farmed out to me for the morning.

  I thank Troxler, wishing I could do something to make the man stop frowning. He turns back to the important business of staring down his horses. Pedro and I head back over to deal with Gaines’s barn.

  The morning goes by pretty fast, what with so much work to do. Pedro proves worth his weight in gold, and Domenico’s doing just fine too. I wouldn’t half mind getting rid of everybody, Gaines included, and running the barn with just these two. But it’s not up to me.

  What is up to me is making progress with the gorgeous Miss Yashpinsky. Yesterday, I told her she ought to stop by around lunchtime today and maybe we’d go over to the cafeteria together. It’s getting close to eleven, though, and no sign of the girl.

  I go into the tack room to start organizing what’s got to be cleaned. I’m staring at yesterday’s dirty bridles, which, to my deep chagrin, never got cleaned, when I feel someone behind me.

  I turn around and find her there. Red hair spilling over shoulders. Wearing clean blue jeans and a pretty green top. You’d never know she’d been on a horse all morning. Looks like she just stepped out of a little farmhouse somewhere in the country.

  “Good day to you, Miss Yashpinsky,” I say.

  She smiles. She’s so pretty.

  “Hungry?” I ask her.

  “Yup, brought us lunch,” she says, holding up a brown paper bag.

  “You, dear lady, are brilliant.”

  I get an encore on the smile.

  “I know a nice quiet place where we can eat,” I tell her, the very idea of a quiet place on the backstretch making her pale eyebrows rise.

  I tell Domenico to take a break and, after thanking Pedro for his contributions to the war effort, I lead the glorious Miss Yashpinsky to the far end of the backstretch. There are a few deserted barns where I go sometimes to get away from things and organize my thoughts.

  We walk over there, taking little muddy paths between shedrows. On the way, we get more than a few sideways glances from various workers, and I briefly imagine what it might be like to bring Asha home to my mother, Lenora Ives, eighty-two years old and mean as a mustang. I decide to discontinue this line of thinking.

  “My humble picnic spot,” I say, waving my arm to take in the expanse of the two decrepit barns.

  “I never even knew this was here, it’s nice,” Asha says, looking around. Which is when I start feeling there’s some real possibility between us two, future damnations of Lenora Ives notwithstanding.

  I find us two old rusted buckets and turn these over to make seats as Asha unpacks thick sandwiches, pretzels, and some Cokes.

  For a little while we eat in silence. The lean roast beef sandwich she’s brought me is the best thing I’ve tasted all year. And the view ain’t bad either. The sun blistering up there in the middle of the sky is lighting up all the fire in Asha’s hair. After a few minutes of silence she starts asking gentle questions about Little Molly and Gaines and all that. I tell her as much as I know, which sure ain’t much. For some reason, I mention Ruby, the hotwalker girl, and how I feel there’s something a little off there. Asha probes this, asking if I think the girl might have been a murderer. I tell her I can’t picture that but something is off.

  I watch Asha delicately wipe her mouth with one of the paper napkins she brought along, and then, abruptly, she gets up from her bucket, stands in front of me, leans down and plants one on me. The remains of my sandwich fall out of my hand as I reach up and put my arms around the girl’s waist, pulling her to me so hard I fall backward off the bucket and she lands on top of me, those glorious thighs on top of mine.

  The girl is a little much, though. She is so quickly in so much heat that I feel like she’s gonna kill me or something, and anyway it’s not like we’re in a bedroom, we’re exposed to the elements and the eyes of anyone who happens to wander over.

  “Hey,” I say, pulling my mouth away from hers, “go easy on me, woman, I’m forty-five.”

  This makes her laugh. She throws back her head and grinds her hips into me and I have to start thinking of very unpleasant things indeed in order to contain myself.

  “There are empty stalls over there,” the wild woman says.

  “Miss Yashpinsky, I am not going to make love to you in a barn,” I say, and to be truthful, I am somewhat mortified, wondering now if she’s some sort of nymphomaniac.

  I guess she senses all this, because no sooner have I formulated the thought than she’s suddenly standing up, brushing herself off like she just fell off a horse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” she hisses.

  Then, before I’ve had time to say two words, she turns and storms away.

  I sit there, stupefied, calling out her name a few times until she’s long out of hearing range.

  Eventually, I stand up, collect the trash from our sandwiches, and walk back to Gaines’s barn.

  Though the office door is open, indicating Gaines has come in, I’m in no mood for him right now. I go straight to Sunrunner’s stall and run my hands down the filly’s legs, checking for heat.

  There isn’t any, though. All the heat today is apparently being contained inside Miss Asha Yashpinsky.

  Women.

  Ruby Murphy

  29 / Horse Trouble

  As the wastelands of Brooklyn slip by the car windows, I stare at my pilfered photo of Ariel and horse. I can’t for the life of me figure out what this photograph means. All I know is it doesn’t seem to bode well. I try moving on to more soothing thoughts as I stare out at the strange sprawl of warehouses at the edges of Bushwick and watch this give way to short buildings and throbbing bodegas. Scraggly kids hanging in packs on street corners. Exhausted young women propping children on their hips. Feral dogs scavenging the cratered streets.

  I’m daydreaming so hard I’m surprised when the car comes to a halt. I look up and find we’re in front of my building.

  “You are here,” my driver informs me, in case I had any doubts.

  “Yes. Thank you,” I say, fumbling for my wallet.

&
nbsp; I give him a big tip. Being generous to surly people is perversely satisfying.

  Getting out of the car, I gulp in deep breaths of Coney air. My little spot of seashore may not be the most beautiful—or cleanest—but its smell soothes me all the same.

  The weight of Stinky’s cage nearly pulls my arm from its socket as I slowly climb up to my apartment. I pause in the stairwell, listening. Then Stinky lets out a wail and, at the same time, Ramirez’s door opens and my neighbor pops his head out.

  “Where’ve you been, girl?” he wants to know.

  “I told you. Manhattan. Hiding. Why, what’s up?” I say, almost not wanting to know.

  “Nothing. I was worried. That Oliver friend of yours called here looking for you, and that’s the last I heard.”

  “He saved my ass.”

  Ramirez scowls. “What happened now?”

  “Ned. The guy I went to the motel with. He was the one who broke into my place too. And then, somehow, followed me to my hideout in Manhattan.” I relay the grim details.

  His face bunches up like a fist. “You’re gonna stop it now, right? You’re gonna get back to your job at the museum and mind your business, right?”

  “Exactly,” I say, though I keep seeing Joe’s big sweet horse face in the corner of my mind’s eye. And I’m getting a strong urge to go to Belmont and check on him.

  “Good,” he says, squinting.

  “Where’s Elsie?” I ask, peering past Ramirez, expecting to see her there sitting in the kitchen.

  “Still at the hospital. They’re taking them breasts out.”

  “Surgery?”

  “Yeah. And a lot of antibiotics. They got her on an IV.”

  “Oh shit, Ramirez, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugs. “She’s gonna get better now.”

  We talk a little more, until Stinky lets loose with a wail. I tell Ramirez to give Elsie my best and go across the hall.

  I let the cats out of their cases and give them a snack. They both crouch before their bowls, ravenous from all the unusual activity. I watch them for a minute then go into the living room to stare at the blinking answering machine. Right now I’d like nothing more than to turn everything off. Leave my life. Leave the country. Go wander around Rome or Tangier. Instead, I hit the Play button.