by Maggie Estep
“Uh huh,” said Ruby. She hadn’t seen many dead people, but she did agree that dead people looked dead. No doubt about that.
“You know,” Dolly said after a pause, “I think Jody’s probably at Delaware Park.”
“Delaware Park? Why?” Ruby asked.
“That’s what they were saying. Her and the boy she had with her,” Dolly shrugged, making her chest jiggle. “I guess the boy had a lead about a job at the track there. They were asking me for directions. I’ve been known to go to the races, you know.” Dolly lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder, as if upholders of the community standard might be lurking there, waiting to incriminate Dolly as a filthy horse-player.
“But wouldn’t they have come back? What, they’re just going to go to Delaware Park and stay there? What’s Jody going to do?”
“I don’t know about none of that,” Dolly said. “All’s I know is they asked me about how to get there. Then, next thing I know, they’re driving off and ain’t been back since. Look, I’m enjoying chatting with you, but I gotta put my feet up. I got bad varicose veins. Ten minutes standing up and I’m in pain.”
Ruby watched Dolly, who seemed familiar with the layout of Jody’s house, go into the living room, sink into an armchair, and make herself comfortable propping her legs on an ottoman.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby offered, not knowing what else one said under such circumstances.
“Ain’t your fault. It’s genetic. My pop had ’em too. Plus I’m fat. That don’t help.”
Ruby didn’t know what to say to that either, so she offered Dolly a glass of water. Dolly declined.
“Just give me a minute and I’ll be good as new,” Dolly said.
Ruby had no reason to hang around Jody’s any longer, but she didn’t want to rush Dolly. She sat down on the couch opposite Dolly and arranged Spike in her lap. He’d probably be too big for anyone’s lap in another few weeks, but for now it was nice having him there.
Ruby glanced up at the wall clock and saw that it was just after 10 A.M. Outside, clouds had drifted over the sun and the day had turned dark.
17. STALKED
Before Ruby could come up with something to talk to Dolly about, the big woman started snoring. Ruby stared at Dolly in disbelief and wondered if maybe the woman was narcoleptic. She thought of the Gus Van Sant movie where the late River Phoenix played a narcoleptic male hustler. She tried remembering how River Phoenix had died in real life but couldn’t. She moved on to thinking about River’s brother Joaquin Phoenix in the movie Gladiator. Which led her to thinking of Gladiator director Ridley Scott, who had made one of Ruby’s favorite movies, Blade Runner. She managed to thoroughly distract herself until her cell phone started ringing in her back pocket. She maneuvered to get the phone out without disturbing Spike in her lap.
“Yes,” she said.
“Hello,” Tobias said.
He’d gotten presumptuous enough to assume that Ruby would know his voice.
“Who’s this?” Ruby asked, to irritate him.
“Tobias,” he said impatiently.
Ruby gently pushed Spike off her lap then got up to walk outside for some privacy even though Dolly hadn’t stirred.
“Still no sign of your wife,” Ruby said, closing Jody’s front door behind her. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “I’m at her house right now.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s a mess. There’s a neighbor who thinks maybe Jody went to Delaware Park.”
“The track?”
“Yeah.”
“Alone?”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Oh,” said Tobias.
“You’re still not going to tell me where you are?”
“Why should I?”
“So I could call you with updates.”
“Our current system is working for me just fine.”
“Ah.”
“I’m sorry if this is a burden to you.”
“It’s okay. I agreed to it.”
“Yes. You did. Well,” Tobias paused, “I’ll check in with you later?”
“Sure,” Ruby said.
He hung up. Ruby closed her phone. She went back inside and found both Spike and Dolly standing in the kitchen.
“Where’d you go?” Dolly asked, speaking for both of them.
“Had to take a call. Didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Uh,” Dolly grunted. “You gonna keep hangin’ around here or what?” She put her hands on her hips.
“I guess I’ll go to Delaware Park. Try my luck there.”
“Uh,” Dolly grunted again.
“How far is it from here?” Ruby asked. She had a vague idea that Delaware abutted Pennsylvania at some point, but she didn’t know where.
“About an hour. You got a map?”
“Yeah,” Ruby nodded, “in the car. Wanna show me?”
“Sure,” Dolly shrugged. She looked around the place one last time then walked outside.
Ruby locked the doorknob lock then pulled the door shut behind her. She got her MapQuest printouts out of the car and spread them on the hood.
“What’s this?” Dolly frowned so hard her eyebrows became one.
“MapQuest.”
“Uh. Well. Delaware Park ain’t on here.”
“I know. Just show me the right direction.”
Dolly did as Ruby asked.
“Well,” Ruby said when she’d made a few notes.
“You want some chicken for that dog?” Dolly asked out of the blue.
“What?” Ruby wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“Chicken. I got some spare chicken. You want some for the dog for the road?”
“Uh, sure, yes, thank you,” Ruby said.
“Meet me at my house,” Dolly said. She opened her car door and slowly lowered herself onto the seat.
Ruby put Spike in the Mustang then got in.
It took Dolly a few tries to get out of her car, and Ruby felt bad for her. Dolly had started reminding Ruby of Stinky, who was overweight for mysterious reasons. For the most part, the big cat got along fine, even seemed proud of his size, but sometimes he struggled to jump up onto things, and he always looked horribly embarrassed by any lack of grace he might exhibit.
Ruby left Spike in the Mustang and followed Dolly up onto her porch.
“Wait here,” Dolly said.
Ruby waited, wondering if Dolly had something in there she didn’t want Ruby to see or if she was just a keenly private person.
After a few minutes, Dolly came back out onto the porch. She was puffing as though she’d just climbed Everest.
“Here you go.” Dolly handed Ruby a big hunk of chicken wrapped in plastic.
“This is great,” Ruby said. “Thank you, Dolly.”
“No problem,” the large woman said.
“Would you mind calling me if you see Jody come back?” Ruby had written her cell phone number on a sheet of paper from a small notebook in her glove compartment.
“I got a feeling she ain’t coming back,” Dolly said.
“Why?”
“Just a feeling I got.”
“You mean she’s gonna sell her house?”
“No,” Dolly frowned. “Just not coming back.”
It sounded so ominous that Ruby left it alone.
“Take care, and thank you,” Ruby said.
“You too,” said Dolly. She looked sad. She had been so gruff with Ruby for the first half hour of their acquaintanceship, but now that Ruby was leaving, Dolly seemed melancholy.
Ruby tried to come up with something soothing to say, could think of nothing, and got back into her car. Spike jumped into her lap and licked her chin. Ruby gently pushed the dog back to his side then drove to the end of the long driveway before stopping the car to gather her thoughts. She longed to go home and crawl under the covers. Eat Cheerios in bed. Wallow. But Delaware Park wasn’t that far away, and she might be able to find Jody within a few hours.
Ruby l
it a Marlboro then called Violet to see if her friend could put her in touch with Ann Julian, a trainer they both knew at Delaware Park. Violet answered on the eighth ring, sounding harried.
“What do you need to do at Delaware Park?” she asked after Ruby had told her that she wanted to get in touch with Ann Julian.
“I think Jody’s there. At least, that’s what her neighbor told me.”
‘And are you keeping yourself safe in all this?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Please, be careful, yes?”
“I will, Violet.”
Ruby closed her phone and drove forward.
The clouds above had thinned, and the day had turned beautiful again.
SOON AFTER RUBY passed back through Trout Falls, she felt her spine tingle. She glanced at her rearview mirror and nearly vomited. The blue Honda was there. Right there, practically tail-gating her. She could make out the driver’s black hair. The face was a little indistinct, but it gave her that creepy frisson of recognition all the same. Ruby memorized the New York plate. Then, seeing a driveway off the road on the left, she made a sharp turn into the driveway, turned around, and gunned the Mustang back to the police station in Trout Falls. She pulled up in front and got Spike out of the car in case her stalker tried to break in. She marched to the front door of the 1970s-looking structure.
“Can I help you, miss?” A man in a police uniform greeted her at the door.
“I need to file a complaint. Someone’s stalking me.”
The cop looked a little bewildered. He scratched his head. “You live around here?”
“No, just passing through town. But this individual’s following me in his car.”
“This a boyfriend that’s following you?”
“No,” Ruby said, irritated. “I don’t know who it is.”
“Oh,” the cop said, looking even more confused. He was a pleasant enough looking guy in his early fifties, on the shorter side of the spectrum, with a mop of curly black hair and small wire-rimmed glasses. He looked more like a demented surgeon than a sheriff, which is what he turned out to be.
“This man has been stalking me for a while,” Ruby said.
The sheriff’s eyes got big, and he turned back to look at a female cop sitting at a desk.
Ruby wondered if they thought she was insane.
“I’m not making this up,” she said, realizing that her saying this made it sound as though she was making it up.
“No one said you were, miss.” The female cop rose from the desk. As she stood up, Ruby saw that the cop was very pregnant. Ruby thought of the movie Fargo. Frances McDormand in Fargo was the only pregnant cop Ruby had ever seen. You sure didn’t see them on the streets of New York, even in tame, post-Giuliani New York.
“Thank you,” Ruby said.
“Cute dog,” the pregnant cop said.
“Thank you,” Ruby said again. It was all so pleasant.
“Come on,” the sheriff motioned for Ruby to follow him, “let’s get some facts.” He led her into a small, cluttered office. There were cheerful wildlife posters on the walls and stacks of books everywhere.
“It started a few weeks ago,” Ruby said, settling into the chair the sheriff had offered. She didn’t want to push her luck by putting Spike in her lap, so she made a “down” motion with her hand a few times, and on her third try, the pup crouched down and rested his head on his paws.
Ruby launched into all the facts about the blue Honda. She gave the sheriff the plate number she’d memorized, and he called out to the pregnant cop to have her run the plate. Ruby told the sheriff how the Honda’s driver had tried to run her down in Harlem. Sheriff Jaffe, who interrupted Ruby’s discourse to introduce himself at one point, was displeased with Ruby for failing to tell the New York cops about her stalker.
“I know. It was just stupid,” Ruby said, hanging her head and trying to look contrite enough to arouse sympathy.
“Not a whole lot I can do for you at this stage,” the sheriff said.
“That sounds ominous.”
“Not meant to. Just that the individual hasn’t actually harmed you yet.”
“He tried to run me over!” Ruby protested.
“Right. You should have reported that when it happened. It’s a little late now.”
At that point, the pregnant cop waddled in.
“The car was reported stolen three weeks ago,” she said.
“He’s been driving a stolen car all this time?” Ruby asked.
“Apparently,” the pregnant cop shrugged.
The Honda’s being hot seemed to stir their interest a little, and by the time Ruby left the station, she knew that they’d put out some sort of bulletin on the Honda and that the creep probably would be stopped at a tollbooth soon. This was reassuring.
Sort of.
18. LOST
Ruby knew that Delaware Park got a big facelift when slot machines started bringing money to the old track, but she pictured the place as grim, something like Aqueduct, with lots of cement and few trees. Instead, Delaware Park was lush and nearly as lovely as Belmont. Dark green barns stood in orderly rows, and handsome old trees shaded horses and back-stretch workers as they went about the business of early afternoon chores.
Violet had asked Ann Julian to leave Ruby’s name at the stable gate. The guard there directed Ruby to Ann’s barn. As Ruby nosed the Mustang into a spot, Spike started wagging his tail and looking all around. Ruby had no idea how he’d be around horses, so before getting out of the car, she scooped him into her arms.
Ruby had taken only a few steps toward the barn when Ann Julian materialized. She scowled at Ruby.
“Hi, Ann,” Ruby said brightly.
“That a dog?”
“This is Spike,” Ruby said defensively.
“Mind he doesn’t bark or get underfoot,” Ann said, barely relaxing her scowl.
“I’ll hold on to him,” Ruby said.
“How you been? You look different,” Ann commented as she led the way toward her barn office.
Ruby was always flummoxed when people told her she looked different. She figured it was a euphemism for older, or fatter, or something generally unflattering.
“I mean you look fit,” Ann added. “I hate when people tell me I look different. I always think they mean ugly.”
Ruby laughed, “Thanks for clarifying. I was actually just thinking you meant something less than flattering.”
They were walking past horses stalls now, and Spike was trying to struggle out of Ruby’s arms, presumably to go sniff at the baffling enormous animals. Ruby held him tightly.
Ann’s office was crammed with crap. File cabinets, a desk, and a sad-looking green couch all jammed inside a small, windowless room that smelled of Murphy Oil Soap. Two broken bridles were dangling from a hook. A large feed supply store calendar hung over the desk. Ann closed the door and told Ruby she could put Spike down. The puppy eagerly explored the small room, carefully sniffing everything.
Ann glanced at a corner of the calendar, squinting as she tried to make sense of what she’d written there.
“So, your guy is working for Nancy Cooley,” she said, sitting down in an office chair. “She’ll hire just about anyone, that one.”
“Oh?” Ruby shouldn’t have been surprised that Ann had tracked Elliott down so quickly. The backstretch seemed vast to outsiders, but it functioned like a small village where secrets were few.
“Barn seventeen,” Ann added. She was resting her large call used hands over her knees, looking down at the tops of her hands as if they displeased her.
“And yeah, there’s a woman with him,” Ann added. “City slicker type. Heard more about her than about the guy. Good-looking woman they say.”
Ruby asked after Ann’s string of horses. They were almost all claimers, but she talked about them as if they were stakes horses. Ruby made the right noises for the right amount of time then told
Ann she needed to go find Elliott and Jody
“Yeah. I got a lot to do too. Good luck with whatever the hell it is you’re up to,” Ann said.
Ruby picked Spike back up for the walk to the car. She didn’t want to, but she’d have to leave the puppy in the Mustang while she nosed around.
NANCY COOLEY was a small woman in her forties. Her graying brown hair was cut in a choppy punk do that wasn’t unflattering. Her blue eyes held mischief. Ruby liked her right away.
“Yeah, I hired Elliott a few days ago,” Nancy said. “He seems all right. But what are you telling me—he’s in some kind of trouble?”
“No, nothing like that,” Ruby said. “I’m looking for a friend of his. I think she’s with him.”
“The redhead,” Nancy said.
“Yes, Jody Ray.”
“Yeah, now there’s trouble if I ever saw it.”
“Oh?” Ruby said.
“I’m just speculating. Seems like she’s on the run from something.”
“Do you know where they are now?”
“Elliott’s cleaning tack down the aisle.” Nancy motioned in the distance. “I don’t know where the redhead is. Probably he’s got her locked up in his room. She didn’t look well last I saw her.”
“Okay if I go talk to Elliott?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Ruby walked down the barn aisle, passing the horses as she did. Some had their ears forward and were interested in Ruby; others made faces and pinned their ears.
Elliott was whistling as he ran a sponge over a bridle that hung from a hook. He didn’t look up from his work until Ruby was right in front of him.
“Oh,” he said when he saw her.
Ruby recognized him, so she assumed he recognized her too.
“Hi, Elliott. I’m Ruby, a friend of Violet’s.”
Elliott looked sheepish. “Violet send you to find me?”
“No, though she is wondering why you took off. But I’m actually looking for Jody Ray.”
“Oh,” Elliott said again as he turned back to wiping the bridle down. He was a nice-looking guy. Thin but strong looking. Big dark eyes.
“She’s with you, right?” Ruby asked.
“Yeah,” Elliott shrugged and met Ruby’s gaze. “Flamethrower’s here.”