On the Rocks

by Mia Gold

  Ruby felt surprised. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  Elaine looked confused. “Why not?”

  “Well, I mean, the memories.”

  Elaine’s face darkened. “The memories of my husband cheating on me? Drinking and gambling and taking magic carpet rides to the seediest part of town to watch people beat the crap out of each other? Yes, I’m going to have memories. Those are the memories he left me.”

  Ruby sighed. “I’m sorry I had to tell you all that. I hesitated about telling you all of it, but I figured you should know.”

  “I’m glad you told me, Ruby. Now I know what kind of man he was. And you know it too.”

  “Yes, well, I hope you can put it all behind you and …” Something Elaine had said rose like a kraken out of the ocean of her emotions. Ruby paused, then asked in a hushed voice, “What was that you said about magic carpet rides?”

  Elaine waved her hand. “You know, that taxi driver who drove Richard to the fights.”

  Ruby blinked. Bimini said that Silver didn’t have a car, so while he may have escorted Richard to the fights, he would have had to get someone else to drive.

  Who better than Goldtooth and his “Magic Carpet Taxi”?

  Except Ruby never told Elaine that detail, because it hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that Goldtooth might have been the driver. Until Elaine had mentioned something she shouldn’t have known.

  Could Richard have left one of Goldtooth’s distinctive cards in the suite and Elaine found it? If so, why hadn’t she mentioned it? It would have been an obvious clue to show her.

  Then another thing Elaine had said hit her.

  I haven’t set foot out of the resort except for a couple of trips run by the management.

  But Ruby had seen keys to a rental car the last time she had been in her suite.

  A deep, icy chill blotted out the tropical warmth.

  Elaine had lied about her knowledge of Richard’s activities, and she had lied about leaving the resort.

  And what had Leonard Chipman said?

  I was passing by and saw a car peeling out from next to the alley.

  Ruby had dismissed that as a lie, especially after he had been found with Richard Wainwright’s Rolex.

  But he hadn’t been lying, at least not about that. He had plundered the dead body, but he didn’t kill Richard.

  Elaine had.

  It was the only explanation that made sense.

  Ruby sat frozen, unable to feel anything but utter shock. Unable to think of anything except this unavoidable fact.

  She had been played. Elaine had outsmarted her at every turn with that weeping widow act.

  Elaine sat opposite her, looking content and sipping her orange juice. She had just polished off a fruit salad too. Her appetite had returned, as had her peace of mind.

  That really was all an act, wasn’t it?

  “How did you find out about Goldtooth?” Ruby demanded, her thoughts and emotions suddenly coming into sharp focus. No longer stunned, all she could feel now was rage.

  Elaine blinked. “Who?”

  “Goldtooth. Magic Carpet Taxi. The guy who drove Silver and Richard to the fights in the Maze.”

  Elaine’s facial muscles looked like they were trying to go a dozen different directions at the same time.

  “I-I … don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The taxi man who will take anyone anywhere for a price. Of course you didn’t need his services. You have a rental car. You’ve been driving around Nassau. Perhaps you followed your husband. You certainly did the night you slit this throat and put him in the dumpster behind my bar.”

  Elaine slumped a little, an ironic smile playing across her lips.

  “It’s looks like I underestimated you, Ruby. You seem to have a natural talent for getting to the bottom of things.”

  “So you did it,” Ruby stated, the last of her denial fading away like morning mist.

  “Of course I did it!” Elaine shrieked. “You think I’m stupid? You think I didn’t wonder about the giant bottle of Listerine he bought? You think I couldn’t smell the booze on his breath anyway? If you’re married to an alcoholic, you become like a bloodhound for that sort of thing. And yes, I’m a heavy sleeper, but I began to wonder what was going on when I was out. Oh, he fooled me the first couple of nights. I realized he was going out and drinking and probably gambling, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was. Until I started counting condoms. He’d make love with me and then go out and get some cheap harlot. On our honeymoon, no less! Like I wasn’t enough for him!”

  “That’s no reason to kill him,” Ruby said, shocked to her core.

  “Isn’t it? Maybe for people like you it isn’t. Working where you do, drinking like you do, you probably hop into bed with a different guy every week. I was raised better. A man should be loyal to his wife. So I rented a car without telling him. Pretended I was asleep until he left and then followed him. You should have seen some of the floozies he picked up. They must have all sorts of diseases. I’m going to have to get myself checked. The humiliation he put me through!”

  “Then divorce him. You slit his throat and dumped his body like he was trash.”

  “He was trash. The worst came when he went to that awful valley with the shantytown. I followed his taxi all the way there, but I didn’t dare get out myself. I thought those people were going to turn over the car and burn me up inside it. But that taxi had a free pass, it seemed. So did the other cars coming at the same time. I just got in the column and rode with them. When I saw Richard and a local—I guess that was Silver—go into the warehouse, I hopped out of the car and talked to the taxi driver. Goldtooth. He gave me one of his cards. Said he’d drive me anywhere, get me anything. That’s when I knew how low Richard had sunk.”

  “But still … killing him.” Ruby was at a loss. None of this added up to murder.

  Elaine leveled a stare at her. “You may be smart, but you’re an innocent. In less than a week he went from sneaking a few drinks in a casino to watching fistfights in a shantytown. What else would he have gotten into? Did you see how young some of those streetwalkers were?”

  “So you killed him the second night he went there?” Ruby whispered. She could barely make herself form words. Elaine had transformed. Her eyes had become hooded, as if she were talking to herself, and she spoke in a matter-of-fact, almost emotionless tone. She spoke of her husband’s blood gushing out onto the sand as if talking about a science experiment she saw on the Discovery Channel.

  “Not next to the warehouse. I didn’t dare. I followed him back. I thought he was heading to the resort. He’d always have a final drink at one of the neighboring resorts before sneaking back to the suite, so I knew I had the time to park the car and get into bed. But this time he had Goldtooth drop him off at the beach nearby. I guess he wanted some air. It was late. No one was around. I saw my chance. I waited until Goldtooth left and I parked my own car. Then I followed him onto the beach. He was so drunk he didn’t even know I was right behind him. I grabbed him by the hair, pulled back his head, and slit his throat.”

  Elaine smiled as she imitated the motion. Then she let out an amused chuckle that frightened Ruby more than the worst fight she had ever been in.

  “I didn’t realize I had the strength. Gosh, that knife was sharp. And it cut so deep. His blood spilled out like a waterfall. Amazing how absorbent sand is. And the tide was coming in. It would all be washed away. I tossed the knife in the surf and dragged him back to the car. I was so hyped up I managed it with no difficulty at all. He was a little man anyway, little in so many ways. It’s amazing how much strength I had though. I never realized until that night how strong I was. How good I am at getting rid of people who cause me trouble.”

  Elaine grabbed the spiky metal sculpture on the coffee table and lashed out at Ruby, going for her eyes. At the last instant, Ruby managed to grab her wrist and twist. Elaine cried out, falling onto the coffee table and cracking the
glass. The sculpture thudded to the ground.

  Ruby got her to the floor and put her in the same hold as she had with that mugger.

  “Enough! Stop, it hurts!”

  “Does it hurt as much as getting your throat slit, you freak!” Ruby growled.

  “I can give you money. Lots of money! Tens, no, hundreds of thousands!”

  “I don’t want your damn money. I want my life back!”

  “Any amount you want. Just let me go. He deserved it.”

  “Why did you dump him behind my bar?” Ruby whispered.

  Elaine relaxed and let out a little chuckle, calm and collected once more. The transformation was almost instantaneous. Ruby shuddered, felt like she was holding a giant snake instead of a human being.

  “Why your bar? No reason. It was in a neighborhood he had been prowling, and it was a rough neighborhood. There are probably lots of murders there. What’s one more? Plus people might have recognized him as having been there. That would help set the police off on the wrong trail.”

  “Did you come back after that?” Ruby was wondering about the token disappearing. Had she come back to retrieve it?

  Elaine looked confused. “No. Why would I do that?”

  So maybe Leonard Chipman taken it, thinking it was a coin, then cast it away once he saw what it was. Or some drunk stumbling through there kicked it into the street. It was even possible for a rat to have picked it up. It was an unimportant detail that Ruby had focused on while missing the big picture.

  “So you just threw him in the dumpster and let someone else take the blame.”

  Elaine gave a little shrug. “I knew the police would go off on the wrong track.”

  “They sure did,” Ruby said with sudden heat. “They arrested an innocent man. They almost arrested me!”

  “Innocent man? Come on. He tried to mug you. He has a long list of crimes. This is simply punishment for all the crimes he got away with. And you? Well, I’m glad you didn’t have to go to prison. You seem all right. A bit of a loser, sure, but not evil.”

  “Yeah, well this loser is going straight to the cops,” Ruby growled. “You’re going to jail, you psycho.”

  Elaine smiled. With her face pressed to the floor like that, she almost looked like she was asleep and having a pleasant dream. “Come on, Ruby. They told me about you. Hiding away here. You’re obviously running from something. You embezzle money? No, that’s not it. You’d be living better. Maybe you killed a husband too. So many of them deserve it. But anyway, the police suspect you’re a criminal. And you’re little people. I’m staying here. Who’s going to believe you over me?”

  The front door of the suite opened.

  “I believe her,” a man’s voice intruded.

  Ruby looked over her shoulder. Detective Anderson stood at the door, a gun in one hand and a room key in the other. Behind him stood Detective Pinder, a uniformed policeman, and a wide-eyed bellhop.

  Detective Anderson strolled over, holstering his gun and pulling out a pair of handcuffs.

  “Allow me,” he said to Ruby, who moved aside.

  Elaine did not struggle as the detective cuffed her and lifted her to her feet.

  “Thank you very much for that full confession. We had the suite bugged,” he said. “We suspected you from the start. Most married people are killed by their spouses, and I detected a certain hysteria in you.”

  “Wait. What’s this?” Elaine stared down at her manacled hands.

  “It’s you going to jail,” Ruby said.

  “Quite correct,” Detective Anderson said. He motioned to the uniformed officer, “Please put her in the car.”

  “B-but, don’t you see? I’m the victim here. He was at fault.” Elaine said this smiling, shaking her head, like she was explaining it to a slow child. “He was the bad one. I can’t go to jail for getting rid of someone like that.”

  “Come on,” the officer said, leading her away.

  “But I’m the victim, Richard is the criminal,” Elaine said as they walked off. She did not struggle. She didn’t even raise her voice. She just kept on trying to explain.

  Ruby watched her go, mouth open. “Incredible, it’s like she can’t even see what she did wrong.”

  “She can’t,” Detective Anderson said. “I’ve seen this before. She’s insane. Probably always was, and her husband’s philandering pushed her over the edge. Elaine Wainwright is so convinced of her own victimhood that she can justify anything she does. If Mr. Chipman or even you had gone to jail for the rest of your life for her husband’s murder, she would have gone back to America in perfect conscience.”

  Ruby shivered. “She was even planning on finishing her holiday here.”

  “I heard.”

  “So all those tears and sleepless nights, they were all lies? All an act?” Ruby asked. It hardly seemed possible.

  The detective shrugged. “Perhaps not. Perhaps she was crying and losing sleep over self-pity. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  They walked out and got into the elevator together. Ruby felt grateful that Detective Pinder, after one final suspicious scowl, did not follow.

  Ruby shook her head as the elevator took them down the side of the building, the glimmering sea spread out before them. “She picked me because I worked in the bar. She knew I’d be a suspect. She played a double game. Either I find someone to pin it on, or I get pinned with it myself. And she didn’t mind spending ten grand to do it, either.”

  “Oh yes, I need to return that money to you.”

  “Thanks,” Ruby said without feeling. The money was the last thing on her mind right now. “She could have put me in jail for life.”

  “What’s the old quote, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?”

  The sliding doors whooshed open and they walked across the huge marble foyer, the air conditioning chilling Ruby further.

  “Shakespeare, right? He also called women the ‘weaker vessel.’”

  Detective Anderson smiled at her. “Well, Mrs. Wainwright certainly proved that.”

  “Watch it, buster. I tracked down Richard’s movements with no training and no resources. And step into the ring and we’ll see who the weaker vessel is.”

  The detective looked her up and down, more amused than anything else. “Hmmm. Yes. You do show a natural talent for investigation. And I do believe you’re a trained fighter. Does that have anything to do with your laying low in the Bahamas?”

  Ruby bit her lip. She had shot off her big mouth again.

  “Don’t worry,” Detective Anderson said, pointing toward a car parked in front of the resort. “I’m no longer interested in whatever it is you’re doing here. Consider it a gesture of appreciation for helping crack the case. I’ll tell the health authorities to quit bothering your boss too. I was leaning on him hoping he’d testify against you. All that will go away. Except for the toilets. Those have to be fixed before they cause another murder.”

  Ruby laughed, a little too loudly. Tears of relief welled up in her eyes. “You know? For an asshole, you’re not all that bad.”

  They got in the car and Detective Anderson pulled out. Ruby settled into the seat, relaxation easing her muscles for the first time since this whole thing began. She was free. Free to go back to her quiet life.

  Except things weren’t so quiet anymore. She had the King hounding her to be a fighter. He wouldn’t go away so easily, and telling the police on him would probably put her in more danger. Then there were all the things she’d seen that she couldn’t put out of her mind.

  Like a sweet little girl headed for disaster.

  What was it Elaine had said?

  Did you see how young some of those streetwalkers were?

  Elaine shuddered. Maybe that ten grand could do something about that. Maybe she could help those kids a little.

  But there are so many of them.

  So what? You’ve done the impossible plenty of times before. In fact, you just did again.

  Team Wayne!

&nbs
p; Ruby smiled, knowing her father would be proud of her right now.

  I’ll just have to make him even prouder.

  They drove down a wide avenue in Nassau’s business district. Banks and large office buildings lined the road. Expensive cars were parked in the lots, and well-dressed people walked on tidy sidewalks. Ruby had never been down this street before. It wasn’t her kind of neighborhood.

  Ruby idly watched the scene go by when something made her sit up and pay attention.

  They were passing a bank that sported a big logo on the front of the building. A logo showing a pair of keys crossed above a palm tree.

  The same logo as the one on the card Senator Wishbourne had slipped her just before she was assassinated.

  The bank’s name was Caribbean Palm Securities.

  Ruby turned her head as they passed. Was the card for something in there? A safety deposit box, maybe?

  “What’s so interesting?” Detective Anderson asked.

  “Oh, I thought I recognized someone.”

  “In this neighborhood?” the detective said with a chuckle.

  Ruby didn’t reply, thinking hard.

  She might just be on the verge of solving a second mystery in one day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The bank was modern and immaculate, with a hushed atmosphere that spoke of confidence and discretion. Ruby felt massively out of place amid the well-heeled businesspeople and professional-looking attendants. That despite having cleaned herself up, finally done some laundry, and put on her best clothes. She had even followed the advice of that old boyfriend and bought some new shoes.

  Sure enough, the teller glanced at her shoes as she approached the gleaming counter.

  Not sure what to say, Ruby simply showed her the card.

  The woman nodded. “Right this way, madam.”

  She led Ruby down a side hall past a security guard. The hall ended in a heavy steel door. The teller swiped a card and punched in a code and the door clicked open. She opened it, and they passed down another featureless hallway that ended at an identical door, which the teller opened with a different card and, Ruby supposed, a different code.