by Ann Charles
“Jessica thinks they are just friends,” Ruby said. “But I’ve seen him watching her.”
“You think he’s stupid enough to make a move?” Statutory rape could lose him his pecker out here in a land full of shotguns, power tools, and over-protective old men.
“I don’t know. But I think Jessica might be stupid enough to get herself in a pickle and not have a way out.”
After having had to get out of a pickle or two in her younger years, Claire could see that happening. Some boys did not like to be rejected, nor did they take kindly to a fist to the nose or a knee to the groin.
“I could see that happening with her,” Claire said and tipped her drink.
What Claire did not bring up for Ruby to also worry about was that the twenty-year-old might have caught wind from Jess about the money and antiques her mom had stashed away in the house. His interest in Jess might go beyond boy-meets-girl. Claire would have to ask Natalie if Beanpole were the same one Nat had overheard talking on the phone last night. Maybe the artifacts he was planning to transfer were not from the Lucky Monk. Maybe they were from Ruby’s basement.
Ruby stood and stretched. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me, Claire. Jess thinks the world of you.”
“She’s a good kid.”
“If she finds out you are ratting on her …” Ruby trailed off.
“I know the risks, Ruby. I also know that Jess is a naïve teenager and I don’t want to see her hurt—physically or emotionally. The poor kid’s been jerked around by her frickin’ father for too long. It’s bullshit that he thinks he can come down here and steal her from you with a bunch of lies, expensive toys, and jewelry.”
“Jess showed you the father-daughter heart necklace he got her, huh?”
She nodded, remembering the bright glow in Jess’s eyes at the time and how it had made Claire’s throat tight. The kid was so hungry for her father’s love it was heartbreaking. “Was that a real emerald?”
Ruby’s laugh was harsh. “I doubt it, but your mother made quite a commotion about it, goin’ on about how your grandfather never did anything so nice for her.”
It was no wonder Gramps’s cheek had ticced this afternoon when Manny asked if anyone knew how long Deborah planned to stay this time.
“Ruby, I’m sorry I left you alone with Mom last night.” Claire had wanted to catch Ruby alone and apologize ever since Mac had made her feel like a heel earlier today.
“Honey, you don’t need to babysit me when it comes to your momma.”
“It’s not babysitting. It’s more like tag-teaming or forming a collective front.”
She shook her head. “Your momma does have a way about her that could test the patience of one of those Himalayan monks. I don’t know how your daddy dealt with her all of those years to be honest.”
“He didn’t. He avoided her.” Thinking back, all of the overtime he had worked and late nights with his bowling buddies now made sense. The connection to Mac and his overtime since Ronnie had arrived on the scene would have been similar if it had not made Claire pace the bedroom floor more nights than not until he made it home.
“I suppose that’s one thing I should thank Jess’s dad for today.”
Claire frowned up at Ruby. “What do you mean?”
“Steve and your momma.”
“What about them?”
Ruby’s brow lifted. “Your grandfather didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Steve asked Deborah to dinner tonight. They were both dressed in their finest duds when they left for Yuccaville a couple of hours ago.”
Groaning, Claire closed her eyes. Damn it! She should have seen this coming. Deborah had found a whole new way of making Ruby pay for marrying Gramps. She was going to charm the snake who was aiming to sink his fangs in Ruby’s throat.
Chapter Nine
Tuesday, October 2nd
Two evenings later, Ronnie held down a bar stool at The Shaft, sharing a scarred wooden table with her sisters and Natalie. On the jukebox, the Dixie Chicks were ready to run. Ronnie knew that exact feeling clear down to her toes. She just needed to scrounge up a little cash first.
Claire and Natalie had wolfed down their burgers in record speed after building big appetites working long hours on the new restrooms for the last two days. They now lounged in their seats across from her, picking at the piles of French fries on their plates.
Ronnie preferred to drink her supper tonight, her worries ganging up on her stomach and pummeling it. She had almost gagged at the scent of cooked beef and fried potatoes when Katie’s friend Arlene had delivered their food.
Katie pushed away her supper of peanuts and pretzels, turning down Arlene’s second offer to have the cook grill her a cheeseburger.
“I’m not that hungry tonight,” Katie explained, wiping the peanut shells off the table with the rag she had snagged from behind the bar.
Claire caught Katie’s hand in mid-swipe, scowling at her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, tugging free of Claire.
“Don’t bullshit me, Kate. Your cheeks are pale again.”
“You look like you’re losing weight, too,” Natalie pointed out, grabbing the loose waistline on Katie’s jeans. “Without your belt, these would be on the floor.”
Katie pushed Natalie’s hand away. “I’m fine. I’m just working harder than usual while Butch is gone. Stop making such a production about me.”
Ronnie watched Katie from under lowered lids, keeping her lips sealed for now. Not for the first time she wondered if Butch was really in Phoenix “on business” or if something else was keeping him there … or someone else.
She had a strong hunch that her youngest sister was on the heartache diet, which was an awful lot like the divorce diet that Ronnie had been on months ago and lost twenty-five pounds without even trying. Only Katie’s diet cost less money and didn’t involve splitting up community property. Or sitting through a series of incredibly personal, humiliating as hell interviews by men and women flashing stupid badges.
Katie wiped off her chair and shoved it under the table. “I have to get back to work.” Without another word, she fished her order pad out of her back pocket and rushed over to a table of workers fresh from the Copper Snake mines.
Normally Ronnie didn’t give a rat’s ass about her fellow barflies, but after her almost run in with the goons the other night, she had scoped out everyone who had stepped through the door so far. The miners’ lack of cowboy hats and worn shit-kickers differentiated them from the three small groups of local ranch crews. Pair that with the telltale red dust visible on their clothes and the dirt rings on the backs of their necks and their trade was obvious. Other than that, The Shaft’s clientele consisted of two truckers whose rigs sat outside, a big guy in a Tucson Electric uniform and cap wearing a slew of gold chains around his neck, and two older women clothed from head to toe in khaki. Ronnie recognized the last two from her time behind the counter at the General Store. They were part of the archaeological crew.
No goons, no cops, no Deborah. Ronnie should have been whistling Dixie along with the Chicks, but anxiety seemed to be burning its way up her windpipe, and two glasses of gin and tonic were not dousing the flames.
Oh well, it was early; she would just have to keep pouring more down her throat.
“Something is up with her,” Claire jutted her chin in Katie’s direction.
“Maybe she’s just missing Butch,” Natalie threw out, grabbing a fry from her plate. “Men can really mess up your guts.”
Claire eyed Natalie for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think this is about Butch being gone. She’s pissy as hell, not forlorn and mopey.”
“It’s probably something to do with Mom,” Ronnie threw out to sidetrack Claire. If Katie felt the same as Ronnie a couple of years ago when she had first learned Lyle was having multiple affairs behind her back, predominantly with the young blonde secretaries he kept hiring and firing, the
fewer people who knew her world had been turned upside down the better, including family.
“No,” Claire pointed at Ronnie, “Mom is your problem lately, or at least a big part of it. Kate has something else bugging her.”
Pushing aside the urge to lean over and bite Claire’s finger, Ronnie shrugged and shared what Katie had told her on Sunday. “Maybe she’s unhappy about being your research bitch, but she doesn’t know how to get you to stop badgering her.”
Claire’s brows climbed up her forehead. “My research bitch? Are those her words or yours, Ronnie?”
“Mine,” she lied for Katie’s benefit. “I’m going to take her place on this one and get you what you need.”
Claire picked up a French fry, took a bite, and chewed while frowning across the table at her. “Really?”
“Uh-huh. What’s with that look on your face?”
“This look?” Claire exaggerated her expression, scrunching her nose, making Natalie chuckle. “It’s my ‘I smell something fishy’ look.”
“Yeah, well knock it off. It makes me want to grab some French fries and cram them up your nose.”
“Now you’re getting pissy, too. You need to stop hanging around Kate so much. She’s rubbing off.”
“I’m not pissy, just a little ticked at you.”
“At me? What have I done now besides let you live with Mac and me for the last month?”
“Mac let me live in his house.” After being in the same boat Ronnie had sailed in for the last five years, Claire had no room to get uppity about her station in Mac’s life. “You’re just sleeping with him in lieu of rent while you hop from job to job.”
“Ouch,” Natalie said, squirting ketchup along the length of a fry before eating it.
“Wow. This coming from the woman who has been focused only on herself since she blew into town with her suitcases in hand and has yet to even offer to take out the garbage.”
Ronnie didn’t really want to fight with Claire tonight, but it felt good to let out some of the anger that kept simmering inside of her and threatening to blow her top off. Besides, of all the people in her family, Claire could take the heat better than anyone. She always had been the fighter in their family, ever since second grade when she took on the fifth grader who kept bullying Ronnie and stealing her lunch.
“Kiss my ass, Claire.”
Claire guffawed and shot a fake expression of disbelief at their cousin. “Holy shit, Natalie. Did you hear that? Ronnie just swore twice within a five-minute period. We should check her for signs of electroshock therapy.”
“Ass is not really a swear word,” Ronnie said, stirring her drink. Claire wouldn’t be surprised at her language tonight if she had witnessed the multiple meltdowns Ronnie had had in her lawyer’s office a few months back. Maybe in time her sister would get used to the “new Ronnie,” although she didn’t really feel new, more tarnished and jaded than anything.
“Says she who once chewed me out for using the word ‘whore’ instead of ‘prostitute,’” Claire said. “Mom would keel over if she heard you talking like this after all of those etiquette classes she made you take.” Her eyelids lowered into a suspicious glint as she chomped on another French fry. “Maybe I should be asking you what’s wrong, not Kate.”
“Stay out of my shit, Claire,” she said and emptied her glass in a single gulp.
“That’s the gin talking.” Claire took the glass away from her. “You’re gonna need a ride home from the Sheriff again if you keep it up.”
“You’re paying for my drinks, so you can cut me off at any time.”
Coughing in surprise, Claire sat back. “I’m paying? Why is that?”
“You owe me for time spent researching Ruby’s stash.”
“Shhhh.” She glanced around them before leaning closer. “I owe you? I wasn’t paying Kate, so why should I pay you?” Ronnie’s stomach roiled from the smell of fried potato on her breath.
“Why weren’t you paying Katie?”
“She owes me for a bet she lost.”
“What bet?”
Claire shook her head. “It’s complicated.”
Natalie bit into another French fry. “Complicated how?”
“Complicated because it involved Mom, but I’m not going into it right now.” Claire sat back and grabbed another fry, swirling it around in the pool of ketchup on her plate. “All right, Ronnie, I’ll pay for your drinks, but you’d better have something good for me.”
Yeah, about that … “I’m working on it.”
Yesterday, she hadn’t made as much progress as she would have liked because of the gang of senior citizens Katie had warned her about. She had entered the library and found every one of the computers with internet access occupied.
She donned the polite smile perfected during those damned etiquette lessons and asked how much longer a lady wearing a gaudy flower brooch missing two petals would be online. Immediately, four gray-haired women surrounded her. The ringleader, who led with the red walker bearing dingle balls that Katie had mentioned, pointed out the “dibs” quarters lining the desk next to each computer.
Still smiling Ronnie pulled out several quarters. That was when the rubber foot of the red walker crushed her pinkie toe.
“A warning,” the bully said. “Next time you may lose a toenail.”
Hopping on one foot, Ronnie looked to the librarian’s desk for help and found it empty where moments before two women had sat, stamping books.
In a fast limp, she grumbled all the way back to Katie’s car, yanked open the door, and whipped her purse inside. It rolled across the seat, dumping the contents between the passenger seat and door. Such was her luck in this damned town.
When she stopped yelling curses in the hot car, she leaned over to pick up the contents of her purse. Several pieces of fake jewelry had spilled onto Katie’s seat. They must have been buried down at the bottom of her purse, because she’d thought she stashed all of that crap back in her suitcase. She picked up the pearl necklace and squeezed the strand in her palm until the pearls left indents in her fingers, imagining wrapping it around Lyle’s dick and cinching tight until that sucker popped right off.
That was when she got a brilliant idea.
Ten minutes later, her worthless trinkets in hand, she was back in the library. The pearl necklace was an instant hit. It secured her a solid hour on what she was told was one of the “faster” computers. The necklace with the fake ruby pendant went next, securing another forty-five minutes on an adjacent, slightly slower computer. She went through two tennis bracelets, one ring, and one set of earrings.
Today, she brought out some of her really good “stuff” and spent half as much jewelry to get twice as much time online.
It was a good thing Lyle had been so obsessed with buying her affection over the five years of their bullshit marriage. It turned out the so-called “worthless” jewelry was worth something after all.
“Earth to Ronnie, come in.” Claire nudged her foot under the table, bringing her back to the present and her lack of gin. “You’re working on what?”
“Pinpointing the difference between seventeenth and eighteenth century pocket watches.” Ronnie held up her empty glass toward Arlene. “Before I can go much further, I need to see the inside of Ruby’s watch.”
Claire crossed her arms over her Super Grover T-shirt. “Why?”
“To see if there is any signature on the inside painting.”
“We’ll need to borrow Gramps’s fancy light-up magnifying glass.”
“I also want to see if there is a certain kind of spring inside the watch itself.”
“We can’t tear it apart. A single mar on the surface could reduce its value by who knows how much.”
Ronnie waited while Arlene set another gin and tonic down in front of her. “Maybe I can find something else that distinguishes it.”
“Did you print out anything I can read on it?”
“No. The library was having trouble with the printer.”
/> “That’s a bunch of hooey,” Claire grumbled, throwing down the fry and wiping her hands on her napkin. “I bet they disconnected it. When I was there, those golden oldies kept hitting the print key and then making a loud commotion about being on social security. They were demanding a senior discount for the prints. It’s a scam.”
After hanging around with them for two days, Ronnie had no doubt that Claire was right about the scam—one of many goings on with that geriatric gang of thugs. Now that Ronnie and her fake jewelry had been admitted as an honorary member, she had witnessed plenty of penny-pinching shenanigans committed by several of them. She could also confirm what Katie had suspected—they had the librarians in their pocketbooks, too.
“Either way,” Ronnie said, “I’ve only been able to take pictures of different screens with my cell phone.”
“Let me see them.” Claire held out her hand.
Ronnie reached for her purse and started digging for her phone through the knots of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.
Claire cleared her throat loudly, purposefully.
“I’ll find it, Claire. Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
Ronnie better not have left it sitting next to one of the computers at the library. The Geritol Gang liked to pawn electronics left behind and pool the money for their gambling runs. They’d invited Ronnie to join them next Wednesday at a casino over on the Apache Reservation off State Route 70. Katie’s bully with the dingle balls was pretty sure they could smuggle her on the senior citizen transportation van without being caught. Ronnie had expressed her doubts and as gracefully as possible declined the curly white wig one of the ladies had pulled off her own head and offered on the spot.
“Uh, Ronnie,” Natalie said. “I think you have a visitor.”
She looked up.
Sheriff Harrison glared down at her. He’d sneaked in through the door while she’d had her face in her purse. He stood across the table, all stiff legged and hard-faced, his brim tugged low. All he needed was a hand-rolled cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and pearl-handled pistol on his hip and he would be ready to draw on her.