The Haunting Ballad

by Michael Nethercott

  It did. “Ruby.”

  “Yes. Ruby Dovavska, the provocative poet. I’m not sure if she’ll still be on the premises by the time I rejoin you, so I was thinking you might fly solo on this. Are you up for speaking with her on your own?”

  “Of course I am. You know, I can talk to a woman without you holding my hand.”

  “Delighted to hear it,” my partner said. “Good luck. I’ll see you fairly soon.”

  After he rang off, I returned to the main room and began scanning the crowd, trying to locate Ruby. Unsuccessful, I finally buttonholed Mazzo and asked if he’d seen her.

  “She just went back to her apartment. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk.” He flashed a suggestive smile. “Maybe less if you’re in hot pursuit.”

  I didn’t like the smile or the insinuation. My pursuit’s centigrade was none of his damned business.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Once she’d opened her door to me, Ruby Dovavska made me stand in the hallway for a good half minute—which can be an extremely long interval under certain circumstances. Such as, for example, when a striking young woman with a jagged little smile is scrutinizing you from head to toe.

  After a tiny eternity, Ruby gestured me in. I was met by the lingering odor of what I assumed was old incense, though it seemed oddly sweet.

  She locked the door behind us. “There’s more than a few questionable types in this neighborhood. Being a private eye, you must be used to all sorts of creeps.”

  I tried to sound cool and confident. “I know my way around unsavory lowlifes.” When I heard my words hit the air, I wanted to cringe.

  Ruby tilted her head. “You don’t say?”

  “I don’t.” What the hell?

  I found myself wishing she would just turn her back on me so I wouldn’t have to stare at that lovely, disorienting face. After all, it wasn’t like I needed to study it more to confirm that Ruby was the female Tucker the waiter had seen with Lorraine. All the components were there: long black hair, slightly off-kilter nose, faint half-moon scar high on her left cheek. On another woman, those features might have added up to something less than attractive. On Ruby, they were fairly riveting. The waiter hadn’t mentioned her eyes, but up this close, they, too, were compelling. Then there were her lips … full and carnivorous specimens which parted now to say:

  “I’m going to get you a drink. A nasty one.”

  “Uh, that’s okay, I’m—”

  “Don’t worry, nasty can be a good thing.”

  She stepped into the apartment’s small kitchen, giving me a chance to glance around the living room. The walls were covered with an assortment of Oriental tapestries, and the sparse furnishings consisted of two battered armchairs, several towers of books piled in corners, and a stack of canvases leaning against one wall. The topmost painting depicted a voluptuous woman garbed in nothing but a stovepipe hat. Bending over, I flipped through the seven or eight other paintings. One and all, they featured naked people, men and women, sporting the same headgear. I was no judge of what constituted good or bad art, but this was certainly bizarre art. Straightening up, I now noticed a stovepipe hat—no doubt the stovepipe hat—perched atop one of the book stacks. The one thing I didn’t see anywhere was an easel. I wondered if Ruby kept it in her bedroom.

  “Perusing my nudes, were you?” She had suddenly reappeared, holding two glasses.

  “No … Yes … That is…”

  “I know they’re not great, but they’re mine. I did a showing at a gallery last month. Believe it or not, I sold three paintings.” She extended one of the glasses. “Here.”

  I took the drink and downed half the copper-hued liquid in one swig. It was burning and strong, and I didn’t bother to ask what it was. Ruby finished her own drink in one pass. She set the glass on a book stack and stretched her arms high over her head, fingers interlocked, in what might have been a yoga move. Whatever kind of move it was, it served to hike her black shirt well above her navel, compelling me to kill the rest of my drink in one wild gulp. Thankfully, Ruby’s arms descended without incident.

  She looked intensely at me. “I could do you.”

  “Excuse me?” I think I took a step backward.

  She pinched the fingers of her right hand together and made a sweeping movement in the air, back and forth. I was mesmerized and unnerved. What, for the love of God, did she have in mind?

  Sensing my confusion, Ruby laughed softly and dropped her hand. “Painting. I could paint you.”

  “Oh…” Any ease I might have fleetingly felt was dispelled by a glance at the stovepipe in the corner. “You mean…”

  “I’ve done a prizefighter,” she said, “a concert violinist, a burlesque queen, and a doctor … a specialist. Ear, nose, and throat.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve done a few authors, a couple of socialites, and even a minister.” She reflected for a moment. “Well, a former, disgraced minister. I’ve done them all. Never a private eye, though.”

  “Thanks, but…”

  She came a step closer. “If you want, you can keep your spectacles on.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling both stirred and stupid. Here I was, a seasoned PI (well, if not seasoned, then at least not a total rookie), unsettled by this young bohemian dabbler. Whether with paintbrush, pen, or the proximity of her curvy body, she seemed hell-bent on generating commotion—an unhurried, detached commotion, but commotion nonetheless. Audrey’s face suddenly popped into my brain. My fiancée wore a scowl mixed with disappointment at seeing me in my present situation. I felt a spark of indignation. Who was she to be judging me after her recent outings with Byron Spires? It would serve Audrey right if I were to disrobe this very second and reach for that tall black hat—

  Then I remembered her call to Spires, the one breaking things off. No more keeping company. When the chips were down, Audrey had done the right thing.

  Now so did I. “You’ll have to find yourself another model, Miss Dovavska.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t want to be in the company of boxers and fan dancers?” Ruby gave a playful frown.

  “Plus maybe an Irish troubadour or two?” The words leapt out of me.

  The frown lifted itself into an amused little smile. “You’re referring to Patch Doonan, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  She gave a dismissive flip of the hand. “I know you saw Patch facing off against Manymile last night…”

  “Battling for your hand, by the looks of it.”

  “Oh, come on. Manymile’s just a friend. As for Patch…”

  “Yes?”

  “Patch was a couple of nights’ distraction.”

  “That’s very tender of you.”

  “Look, he’s an okay guy, good for a laugh, but it’s not like I’m going to take him back to Chappaqua to meet my folks.” Ruby took my empty glass. “Not that my parents would want to see me, either.”

  Something like sadness passed across her face. Retrieving her own glass, she vanished back into the kitchen. I followed her in.

  “There’s a reason I came here,” I said.

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” She dropped the two glasses in the sink—deliberately dropped them. I gave a little jolt as at least one of them shattered. Ruby placed her hands on either side of the basin and examined the broken fragments, her long hair draped on either side of her face.

  “Kind of beautiful,” she said in a strange, distant voice.

  I waited for her to expand on that thought, but she didn’t.

  Eventually, Ruby turned back to me and folded her arms across her chest. “Well? You have some detective business to conduct?”

  I cleared my throat. “I know you wrote a letter to Lorraine Cobble asking her to meet you for breakfast on the day she died.”

  “That’s false.”

  “You were seen. At Horton’s Grill.”

  “Sure, I was there, but I never wrote any letter. Also, it wasn’t even breakfast. Lorraine was the one eating. I just had tea.”<
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  “Still, you arranged to meet there.”

  “False again. I happened to be passing by when Lorraine tapped on the window and waved me to come inside.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she liked me, I suppose. Some people like me.” Ruby headed back into the living room, with me in tow.

  “Did you get together often?” I asked.

  “Never, really.”

  “Though that morning she wanted to chat?”

  “Seemed like it.”

  “What about?”

  “Reckon I can’t recall, Sheriff,” Ruby said flippantly, plopping herself into one of the armchairs. “Wait a minute—actually, I can. We talked about Quetzalcoatl.”

  “Who’s that? Another musician?”

  She laughed at me. “Not exactly. Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent god of the Aztecs. Lorraine was reading a book about Mexican folklore and was telling me about him.”

  “That’s all you discussed? Nothing else?”

  Ruby leaned her head back, seeming to give my question some thought. “She talked about Manymile Simms a little … how she thought the blues were going to make a real comeback. Then she talked about being a kid.”

  “A kid?” Somehow I couldn’t picture Lorraine Cobble as a pigtailed, rosy-cheeked child.

  “Lorraine told me about the first time she visited the Village, when she was eleven. She’d gone to Washington Square Park, and there was a mandolin player from Portugal there who sang her a song from Wales. She said that really struck her as amazing—that here was this Portuguese man playing a Welsh tune on an Italian instrument in New York. That this was how music worked…”

  Ruby went quiet for a moment, then looked straight up at me. “Mostly Lorraine just seemed to want to talk. About nothing, about anything. She wasn’t usually so loquacious, but that morning she just seemed like she wanted to converse with another human being. I just happened to be the one she found. I wonder if…”

  She became silent again.

  “You wonder if what?”

  When Ruby finally answered, she seemed to have changed topics. “My grandfather got up one day and ironed every shirt and pair of pants he owned. Even ironed his neckties. Everyone says he barely ever touched an iron prior to that. He went to bed that night and never woke up. It was as if he knew. So I wonder if it was like that with Lorraine—that she somehow sensed it was her last day on earth and wanted to connect with someone to tell them stories from her life.”

  “My partner would probably buy into that.”

  “Not you, though?”

  “I don’t believe in premonitions,” I said. “Did Lorraine mention if she had plans to meet anyone else that day?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Do you remember what time you were with her that morning?”

  Ruby thought about that. “I’d say I sat down sometime before ten. We were together for maybe forty minutes. I know I definitely left by ten thirty because I had a doctor’s appointment to get to.” She smiled at me and added, “Gynecologist.”

  I suppressed a blush. “Did she seem like she might be expecting someone else to show up at the restaurant?”

  “Not at all. We left at the same time. I’ve no idea where she was headed, and like I say, I was going to—”

  “The doctor’s, right. So that was the last time you ever saw her?”

  “Yes, it was.” A look of mild wonder played across her face. “Have you heard from anyone else who was with her that day?”

  “Not besides the waiter. You’re the only one.”

  Ruby gazed off and, after a moment, began speaking softly, seemingly to herself. “Maybe that night on the roof Lorraine looked up and saw Quetzalcoatl flying across the moon. Maybe she was so entranced that she jumped into the air and landed on his back. Then they flew off through the stars together and never returned.”

  I thought of informing her that the only true part of that story was the bit where Lorraine never returned. I didn’t. At that moment, Ruby looked so tranquil and reflective that I was reluctant to intrude on her fantasy. Instead, I thanked her for the drink and for answering my questions. She shifted in her chair and stared up at me, as if waking from a dream and noticing me for the first time.

  I gave a little nod and let myself out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I was in sight of the Café Mercutio when a shadow slid out from around a corner and seized my arm. I pulled free and stumbled backward, my hands curling themselves into fists. Since I never carried a gun, I was hoping against hope that my own mitts would prove effective weapons.

  “At ease now, Lee Plunkett!” a particular brogue commanded. “You wouldn’t want to thrash your own assistant, now would you?”

  Mr. O’Nelligan stepped out beneath a streetlamp.

  I dropped my fists. “What the hell are you doing skulking around like that?”

  “It’s not skulking. Well, maybe it is a bit, but it’s not for your benefit.”

  “For whose, then?”

  “For the Doonans. I was just in the coffeehouse and saw them making stirrings to leave. I thought I’d wait out here to intercept them in case you didn’t return in time and I needed to confront them on my own. Mazzo informed me you’d gone to see Miss Dovavska and I should expect you from this direction.”

  “Wait a minute, why do the Doonans need confronting?”

  “I learned something interesting during my dinner with Marguerite—a very pleasing repast, by the way. Do you remember Patch Doonan mentioning that he’d spent some time as a local thespian?”

  “Couldn’t you just say ‘actor’?”

  He didn’t answer that. “Well, it seems that Marguerite and Patch happened to share the stage a few months back in a modest production of J. M. Synge’s Deirdre of the Sorrows. Certainly that work is not up to the caliber of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, but since Deirdre was written on his deathbed, one can’t expect—”

  “Whoa!” I held up a hand. “Please tell me that a lecture on Irish drama isn’t the ‘something interesting’ you promised.”

  “It isn’t. Though it would be to your betterment if you immersed yourself more in the arts.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement. Now, what about Patch?”

  “In Ireland, this past winter, a certain incident occurred,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “One I’d already heard of prior to tonight. On New Year’s Day in County Fermanagh, there was a failed IRA attack on the Brookeborough police barracks. Most of the insurgents escaped, but two were killed. Afterward, an effort was made in some quarters to make heroes of the dead men. As it so happens, the three Doonan brothers were back in Ireland visiting their family at the time.”

  “Okay, but what does that—”

  “Listen now. By mid-January, the Doonans had returned to New York, and Patch and the rest of the cast had begun rehearsals for Deidre. One of the stagehands was another Irishman, from Fermanagh as it turns out. Apparently, he mentioned to a few of the actors, Marguerite included, that the Doonans had an uncle, one Michael Doonan, who supposedly took part in the barracks attack. Furthermore, there was a rumor afoot that Patch was somehow involved.”

  “Huh. What did Patch have to say about that?”

  “Apparently, the stagehand only mentioned it to Marguerite and three or four others before someone told him to stop spreading unproven gossip. As far as Marguerite knows, Patch was never aware that tales were being told about him.”

  “Well, I grant you, that’s certainly interesting,” I said. “So how does it play into our investigation?”

  “I’m not sure if it does or doesn’t. Here’s another little piece—Loomis Lent had a minor role in that production. Though Marguerite doesn’t know if he was party to the rumors about Patch.”

  “Again, interesting, but is it important?”

  “Again, I don’t know, but these are people who were associated with Lorraine Cobble, and anything of an unusual nature should be explored.”


  “I suppose we can go talk to this stagehand if we want to pursue things.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan shook his head. “Unfortunately not. The man moved back to Fermanagh at the end of February.”

  Down the street, a couple of people emerged from the Mercutio, but no one I recognized.

  My partner glanced at them, then back to me. “While we wait for the Doonans, tell me of your own adventures.”

  “Adventures…” I sighed. “Sure.” I told him first about my encounter with Byron Spires, not sparing the niceties of my Cagney impersonation, Little Miss Coco, Spires’ fishing analogy, or Audrey’s phone call severing their friendship. That last elicited a smile and nod from my partner. He obviously was pleased that Audrey had slammed that door shut. I next went on to detail my time with Ruby, discreetly leaving out any mention of stovepipe hats. Mr. O’Nelligan mulled over what I’d just shared. “Hmm, if Miss Dovavska did keep company with Lorraine at ten that morning—yet did not write the letter requesting a ten o’clock rendezvous—then that clouds things. What became of Lorraine’s meeting with our unknown letter writer?”

  “Maybe she just decides to blow them off. Maybe she chooses to decline the offer and instead go for breakfast by herself. Then she sees Ruby and invites her to join her. The letter writer gets stood up.”

  “Perhaps appearing at Lorraine’s later that night, embittered at being shunned.”

  “I guess that’s one direction to go with this.”

  My colleague drew a slow hand down his gray whiskers. “I’m intrigued by Ruby’s theory that Lorraine sensed her end was nigh. What if it’s true?”

  I tried for a nonfanciful take on that. “You mean Lorraine might have learned someone meant to harm her?”

  “I wasn’t thinking in such tangible terms.”

  “You’re not thinking spooky voodoo omens, are you?”

  Mr. O’Nelligan cast a chilly eye on me. “Are you truly expecting me to answer in the affirmative?”

  I didn’t need to reply to that since, just then, the Mercutio’s door opened again and four figures stepped out onto the sidewalk. The Doonans and Kimla. They were heading our way, their voices filling the air. Well, mostly Patch’s voice.