“We met twenty years ago, when Bunny first came to Las Vegas to be a dancer. I was a magician’s assistant at the time. Then it just seemed that we always ended up in the same shows and we became best friends.” Ruby sipped her coffee. “Bunny had a lot of talent but could never make it to a headliner spot.”
“Why?”
“Mostly bad luck.” Ruby’s gaze became unfocused and she didn’t answer right away. “It seemed like whenever she was about to get her big break, something would go wrong. She’d agree to go to Mexico with a boyfriend and their car would break down, so she’d end up missing a rehearsal. Or someone would talk her into going on a skiing trip, and she’d fall and sprain her ankle.”
Skye nodded. Ruby’s description sounded like the Bunny she had come to know. Easily led, usually to her own detriment. “That’s a shame.”
“Yeah, it is. Bunny is a good egg and deserves better from life.”
Skye allowed a moment of silence, then, edging closer to what she really wanted to know, said, “Was she upset about Benny being arrested?”
Ruby shrugged. “It’s not his first dance with the jailhouse band.”
“So did they catch him doing the usual?” Skye tried to be casual.
“No. He . . .” Suddenly Ruby stopped. “Never mind. It’s not important.” She took another sip of coffee and parried, “Are you and Simon engaged?”
Skye shook her head. “No. We’re not ready to settle down yet.” Refusing to be distracted, she probed, “You know, I’m still not clear as to why you ran away when Wally stopped you.”
“Like I said, I panicked, silly me.” Ruby fluffed her hair and tried again to sidetrack Skye. “Speaking of the police chief, do you and he have something going on the side? He’s really hot.”
“No, of course not.” Skye felt her cheeks flush. “Why would you ask that?”
Ruby drained her cup. “The vibes, honey, the vibes. You just can’t fight the vibes.”
Skye opened her mouth to rebut Ruby’s claim, but the blonde muttered something about running errands, and hurried away. Skye frowned. What kind of errands could someone new in town have to do?
After a few minutes of unproductive speculation about the older woman’s intentions, Skye gave up. She had too much to do to waste any time trying to figure out Ruby.
Skye spent the rest of the afternoon getting the alley’s restaurant ready for the night’s crowd, and when she finished up around five, Bunny drafted her to help with the talent show.
Even though the program didn’t start until seven, the contestants were already crowding the stage. Evidently word had gotten out that there was room for only twenty entertainers, and that it was first come, first perform.
Skye sat at a table to Bunny’s left, giving out numbers and taking names. She wondered if the talent show was so popular because Scumble River was full of enough hams to supply Easter dinner for the entire state of Illinois, or due to the prize Bunny had wheedled out of Quentin Kessler, the owner of the dry goods store: a big-screen TV.
So far Skye had registered comedians, singers, dancers, an accordion player, and even a lady who had dyed her poodle pink and taught it to dance on its back legs. The animal’s owner had colored her own hair to match, curled it to look like the canine’s fur, and wore a rose net tutu similar to the one the dog sported around its hindquarters.
Currently Skye’s attention was riveted on a girl standing center stage tossing two burning batons and reciting:
“The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.”
Suddenly Ruby erupted through the doors leading into the bar. A hush fell over the crowd as Ruby shouted, “I’ve been vandalized!”
Skye rushed off the stage. “What happened? Were you attacked? Where?” Ruby looked fine. Her leopard-print miniskirt and black silk blouse were undamaged. There wasn’t a hair out of place in her blond pageboy, and her makeup wasn’t smeared.
“I’m fine, but when I get ahold of the prick who tore up my car, he won’t be.” Ruby whirled on her stiletto heels and marched away. “Come look.”
Skye, followed closely by Bunny, the talent show contestants trailing them like baby ducks, trooped outside. As they neared the bowling alley parking lot the blare of an alarm assaulted Skye’s ears.
She hadn’t seen Ruby’s car before, but when Wally had told her that Ruby drove a pink Cadillac, she had felt a certain sense of solidarity with the blonde. Skye herself drove a 1957 aqua Bel Air, a big car in an unusual color. She had pictured Ruby’s car as a pretty pastel, like the ones the cosmetic ladies drove. She had been wrong—very, very wrong.
The pink of Ruby’s car was closer to neon, and the Eldorado had been fitted with a miniature statue of David for a hood ornament. It was anatomically correct—and he wasn’t wearing a fig leaf. There were several snickers and pointing fingers in the crowd as people realized what they were seeing.
Ruby, ignoring the group’s reaction to her choice of art, threw out her arms in the direction of the decimated vehicle and ordered, “Look what someone’s done to my baby.”
The doors hung open at odd angles, and objects that had been inside the car now littered the asphalt. The upholstery had been skinned from the seats, chunks of foam had been dug out and dotted the area around the car, the dashboard had been ripped off, and the carpet peeled back from the floor. Even the ceiling fabric hung in shreds like the tassels on a stripper’s costume. It was evident the Cadillac had been searched, and the searcher didn’t care about the damage inflicted.
Skye examined the destruction. “I’ll call the police.”
“No!” Ruby grabbed her arm. “I mean, let’s not get carried away. Sorry to rile everyone up. I’m sure it was just kids having some fun.”
Skye raised an eyebrow. “Kids in Scumble River do not have this kind of fun.”
Bunny stepped between the two women, and although she gave her friend a puzzled glance, she said to Skye, “Ruby meant that she didn’t want to ruin some kid’s life for one mistake, not that the kids in Scumble River are bad.”
“We have to call the police.” Skye crossed her arms. She knew something was going on, and she wasn’t letting Ruby and Bunny float down the river of denial. Wally needed to get to the bottom of it.
“Suit yourself, but I’m not pressing charges,” Ruby said. “In fact, I’ll tell them I did it all myself.” She looked down at Skye, which was easy to do, since she had five inches on her even without the high-heeled shoes. “As long as I don’t file an insurance claim, no crime has been committed. There’s not a thing the cops can do.” Ruby turned her back on Skye and said to the people standing around them, “Anyone know a good garage that can repair this damage?”
Skye ground her teeth in frustration. What was this woman up to? Ignoring the crowd, which was now shouting out places where Ruby could take her car to be fixed, Skye crossed the parking lot, marched into the bowling alley, around the bar, and didn’t stop until she was sitting behind the desk in the office. She was going to call Simon. Maybe he’d have an idea.
“What? You’re kidding.” Simon had picked up on the first ring, and Skye had immediately launched into an account of Ruby’s latest escapade. “I’ll be right over.”
“What’s the use? If Ruby doesn’t press charges or make an insurance claim, there’s nothing the police can do.” Skye twirled the phone cord around her finger. “The big question is, Why doesn’t she want to involve the police? Did Wally tell you anything when you talked to him yesterday afternoon?”
“No. He avoided answering most of my questions. All he would say was that Ruby had explained her actions to his satisfaction, paid the tickets for reckless driving and obscene display, which is a misdemeanor, and allowed Wally to confiscate the items to be destroyed.”
“Did he at least tell you her full real name?” Skye asked. Why was Wally protecting Ruby?
<
br /> “Jones. The name on her driver’s license is Ruby Jones.” Simon made a scornful noise.
“I wonder which husband that name’s from.” Skye tapped her fingers on the desk. “Guess it’s time to call your friend in Vegas and see if he can tell you anything.”
“I’ll do that. Even with a common name like Jones, there can’t be that many six-foot-tall, full-figured Rubys who owned sex stores.”
“You wouldn’t think so, but I’ve heard some strange things about Las Vegas.”
Chapter 6
Out of the Mouths of Blondes
Skye scanned the group of people that had assembled in the bowling alley bar for Team Trivia and wondered if the winner of last night’s talent contest had come back. Not that she would recognize him if he were there. The guy had worn a gorilla mask during his comedy routine and signed in as Lenny Bruce.
Since Skye was pretty sure the famous comedian had not risen from his grave in order to perform in Scumble River, she thought it a safe bet that Mr. Anonymous had used a false name. The question was, Why?
Before she could come up with a guess, her attention was diverted to a group of teens attempting to oust people from their seats by tipping their chairs forward. Once someone fell from the chair, the teens claimed the seat. Skye caught the ringleader’s eye and pointed to the entrance. The girl pasted an innocent expression on her face and shrugged helplessly. Skye pointed again. The sign hanging on the door was clear. It read:STANDING ROOM ONLY ! The teens scowled, relinquished the stolen seats, and marched out of the bar.
Skye let out the breath she’d been holding. She hated to see the kids go—she knew there was little for them to do in town—but the place was too crowded to deal with any group that would cause problems.
Bunny had brought in extra chairs, but still people stood, leaned, knelt, and sat on the floor. Skye was surprised that such a large crowd had turned out on a weeknight just for a game of trivia.
So many wanted to play that Bunny had had to decree that they would use a lottery system to select the contestants. Skye had collected the strips of paper, and now held a recycled pickled-egg jar crammed full of the tickets.
Bunny mounted the stage, dragging a reluctant Ruby after her. She took the mike from Skye and announced, “Our special guest from Las Vegas, Nevada, Miss Ruby, will draw twenty names. There will be four teams of five. Team One will play Team Two, and Team Three will play Team Four; then the winners of the first two rounds will play the third round for the grand prizes.
“Everyone ready?”
The audience roared its approval, and Ruby started picking slips from the jar. Skye only half listened as the names were called out. She recognized most, although one or two weren’t familiar. Suddenly she froze as Ruby announced, “Earl Doozier is our lucky thirteenth contestant.”
A man wearing sweatpants and a flannel shirt pushed his way through the crowd. He was skinny except for the bowling ball–sized potbelly that hung over the elastic waist of his pants. His mud-brown hair formed a horseshoe around the back of his head.
Skye struggled to keep her expression neutral as he climbed the steps up to the stage, but she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of Earl Doozier on a trivia team. She was afraid to imagine his answers.
Earl was the patriarch of the Red Raggers, a clan who always seemed to turn up whenever there was trouble. They didn’t necessarily initiate the problem, but they also never missed an opportunity to contribute to the chaos.
The Dooziers were tough to describe to anyone who hadn’t grown up with the legend of the Red Raggers. The best Skye could come up with was a tribe of outsiders who didn’t want to be insiders. She had established a good relationship with Earl through working with his many children, sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews in her job as a school psychologist, but for the most part the Dooziers kept to themselves.
So why on earth was Earl at the bowling alley signed up to play Team Trivia? The only reason she could think of was that he had once told her he’d learned everything he knew from the two wise men, Jack Daniel’s and Jose Cuervo; and for tonight’s game Bunny had persuaded the owner of the Brown Bag Liquor Store to donate five gift certificates. Maybe he wanted the prize to further his education.
The rest of the participants were chosen, and when the game began, Skye slipped away to check on how things were going in the rest of the bowling alley.
She hurried through her checklist, wanting to be back in time to see Earl play when it was his team’s turn. The lanes were doing fine, and the cook appeared to have things under control in the kitchen, but Frannie Ryan, the grill’s waitress, was having a rough time.
The teenagers who had been kicked out of the bar had settled at the counter, and they were obviously intent on humiliating Frannie.
Skye narrowed her eyes. Frannie was one of the coeditors of the high school newspaper that Skye supervised, and she had been through a lot with Skye, even once helping to save her life. The mean teens had picked the wrong person, time, and place to attack.
As Skye strode toward them she heard the leader of the pack, a girl named Blair, say to Frannie, “So, do you get all the free food you can eat? Is that why you’re as big as an elephant?”
Frannie was solidly built and would never be a size two or even a twelve, a trait that caused her much heartache.
Skye felt a flare of anger. She didn’t put up with bullying of any kind, and being on the curvy side herself, she especially didn’t allow fat bashing. She paused for a second to get control of her temper, and while she was calming herself down, Ruby swooped down on the group.
The older woman put her hands on the back of Blair’s stool and leaned over her shoulder. “You know, honey, I’ve been facing down underfed, ignorant ego busters like you my whole life, and they’ve never won.”
One of the others at the counter jeered, “Maybe if you’d lose some weight, you wouldn’t have to keep ’facing people down.” ’
Ruby moved over to the boy who was speaking, bent down, and spoke into his ear. “Sweetheart, I’ve had five husbands, one of them a duke, made and lost millions of dollars, and traveled around the world. Do you really think your itty-bitty, no-account opinion means anything to me?” Ruby straightened and flicked him on the arm with her thumb and index finger. “Kids like you may be big shots during your teenage years, but in the real world you generally end up digging ditches or working for someone you looked down your nose at in high school.”
The teens exchanged uneasy glances. They weren’t used to people talking back and making them feel bad about themselves.
Although Skye hated to interrupt Ruby when the older woman was on a roll, she couldn’t in good conscience let her attack students from her high school, even obnoxious ones. But she wouldn’t let them get away scot-free either. She preferred to use the behavior management technique of consequences, so she said, “Kids, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave the bowling alley. We have a no-bullying policy here, and you’ve broken the rules.”
Blair twitched her shoulders. “Whatever.” Then she turned to the others and said loudly, “Let’s get out of here before we start to look like these three—Fatty, Fatter, and Fattest.”
There was some grumbling, but the six teens grudgingly got to their feet and shuffled away. As they rounded the corner Blair’s voice floated back toward where Skye, Frannie, and Ruby stood: “We should have known better than to hang out anywhere Fat Frannie was. People might think we’re her friends. Wouldn’t that be mortifying?”
Blair’s words had hit their mark. Frannie burst into tears and fled into the grill’s stockroom. Skye and Ruby were quick to follow. They found the teen sitting on the floor with her back against the wall.
Skye sat next to her and said conversationally, “You know, this is what those girls wanted—your crying over what they said makes them the winners.”
Frannie shrugged, drew up her knees, and buried her face in them.
Skye opened her mouth, then closed i
t without speaking. It was tempting to launch into a speech on coping with bullies, but she knew the real art of counseling was not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Ruby, on the other hand, felt no such restriction. She pulled an old chrome chair in front of where Frannie and Skye sat, eased onto the cracked vinyl seat, and crossed her legs. “I’m pretty sure that girl was a skinny, evil witch, but we’d better make sure.”
Frannie sniffed, but continued to stare at the floor. “What do you mean, make sure?”
“We need to run her through the test to be positive,” Ruby said, maintaining a serious expression but winking at Skye, who shot her a puzzled look.
Frannie straightened and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “What’s the test?”
“There are five questions, and you have to answer yes to all of them to classify someone as a skinny, evil witch.” Ruby held up one finger. “First, would that person split a salad with four friends and call it a meal?”
Frannie nodded. “I’ve seen Blair do that in the cafeteria with the other ’in’ girls.”
Ruby put up a second finger. “Would she claim she was full after eating a package of airline peanuts?”
“Definitely.” Frannie started to smile. “I’ve seen Blair eat one M & M.”
“Three: Would she count carbs even at a health-food restaurant?”
“Thats one’s tougher. We don’t have health food in Scumble River.” Frannie pursed her mouth, thinking.
“I’m pretty sure we can say yes,” Skye contributed. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“Is her idea of a great conversation one that consists mainly of the words sit-ups, crunches, and treadmilling?” Ruby went on.
“Absolutely.” Frannie grinned. “It’s all she ever talks about.”
“And last, but most important, does she ever say, ‘I’m not hungry, I ate yesterday?” ’
Frannie was now beaming. “Yes, yes, yes! I’ve heard her say that.”
Ruby nodded solemnly. “Then I pronounce Miss Blair a skinny, evil witch. Do you think she’ll want the T-shirt prize?”
Scumble River Mystery 07 Dead Blondes Tell No Tales Page 3