by Mia Gold
As if guessing her thoughts, Helen said, “My husband will be back any minute.”
“No, he won’t. You told me he liked going to the green early, and I think he’s just enough of a callous bastard to get in another round of golf in before coming back to his wife, dead friend or no dead friend.”
“My husband is a good man!”
“Didn’t leave his golfing when one of his friends went missing. Neither did Aaron. I’m thinking your marriages aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, that you take vacations together but spend the time apart. What for? Appearances for the folks back home?”
Helen sputtered, both angered and frightened, still backing away as Ruby moved relentlessly forward.
“I would have thought that Aaron did it,” Ruby went on. “Or maybe even Bob, over an affair or something. But they’re in the clear. They were on the other side of the island when Bridget went missing. That leaves you.”
Helen had retreated as far as she could. She hit her back against the wall, knocking down a picture of a sailboat with a bang that made her jump.
Ruby got into her face. “You killed Bridget. Why?”
Ruby still wasn’t entirely sure she was correct. She just wanted to play this hunch and see where it led. The anger she showed sure wasn’t fake, though. She had no use for people like Helen.
Helen turned red.
“How dare you!”
Helen brought up her fist in what she intended to be a devastating uppercut, probably learned in some cheap self-defense class years ago.
Ruby caught her wrist, twisted it behind her back, and flipped her.
She kept just enough control of her emotions to drop Helen on the bed and not the floor.
“All right, now talk.”
Helen struggled a bit, found she was securely pinned and then, to Ruby’s surprise, burst into tears.
“It’s all my fault!” she wailed.
Ruby’s heart sank. So now it all comes out. This selfish, stupid woman really was the murderer.
But then Helen said something that changed it all.
“I left her! I acted like a coward and left her.”
“What? Left her where?” Ruby asked, now thoroughly confused.
Helen pressed her face into the comforter and sobbed. Ruby kept holding her in the pin, not because she posed any threat, but because this dominant position seemed to be getting the truth out of her at last. She gave Helen a little shake.
“Talk.”
“We went to that lounge,” Helen said through choked sobs. “Dirty Dancer was with us. We were really ripped by then. They got rid of Dirty Dancer.”
“Wait. You’re not making sense. Who got rid of Dirty Dancer?”
“The women in the parking lot.”
Ruby gave her another shake, losing patience. “Start at the beginning. You were at Caribbean Dreams. You took some coke in the bathroom and left to meet Dirty Dancer outside. Then what?”
“We met these two working girls in the parking lot,” Helen sighed, pulling herself together a little. “Real class. Very good looking. We were ripped from that coke. When Bridget saw them her eyes just lit up. Even I kind of got kind of turned on. That’s more Bridget’s thing but I was interested in them, you know? Interested in their life. I talked with Lollipop about her work. Always fascinated me. You know, just a fantasy. I’d never actually do it.”
“You’re babbling. Get to the point.”
“These were expensive girls, I could tell that right away. Had better clothes than our nicest. Said they’d take us to a real high-end place. Bridget got all excited. Dirty Dancer got jealous, though. Said she’d take us to a better place. There was an argument in the parking lot. It’s a bit hazy. All I remember was that in the end we all piled into a taxi. Dirty Dancer started sulking, angry at the other two women, while Bridget kept reassuring her. I got the impression, although I can’t really remember, that Bridget had insisted to the two girls that Dirty Dancer come along.”
“So you went to the Moonlight Lounge?” Ruby asked, releasing her grip. Helen had stopped struggling. She sighed and sat up in the bed, wiping her eyes and rubbing her shoulder. Defeated.
Ruby stood before her, hands balled into fists.
“I guess that’s what the place was called.” Helen couldn’t bring herself to look at her.
“Dark, quiet place with the bar right at the entrance? Attached to a hotel of the same name?”
Helen nodded, sniffling. “Yeah, that sounds like the place.”
“Then what?”
“More drinks. At some point Bridget disappeared and came back, saying, ‘It’s all ready.’ I guess she meant a room, because the next thing I remember we were entering a hotel room.”
“All five of you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Helen said, rubbing her temples and trying to remember. Ruby felt pretty sure she had stopped the playacting. “I think Dirty Dancer was gone by then.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
Helen thought for a moment more and shook her head. “I don’t remember. Sorry. I really don’t. I think those two prostitutes got rid of her. Told her to get lost. They had been glaring at her the whole time, like she was some low-class tramp intruding on their play.”
That made sense. Dirty Dancer hadn’t been allowed into Caribbean Dreams, and those two probably worked there. Lollipop had mentioned that the working girls at The Tropical Twerker could turn their tricks off the property as long as management got a cut. The same probably held true at Caribbean Dreams. Considering how those slimy brothers worried about liability, that might be the only way they worked.
“So you went to the room. What happened next?” Ruby asked.
Helen started crying again, softly this time, her face in her hands as tears slowly ran between her fingers. It took her a long time to reply.
“Bridget started getting it on with one of the girls. Bridget got naked. The working girl kept her clothes on. I didn’t understand why at the time. Now I do.”
“Go on.”
Helen slumped. “It was a setup. I got uncomfortable seeing Bridget getting a naked massage, so I went into the bathroom for more coke. The other girl went with me. We took a line and then I heard Bridget shouting from the other room. ‘Get out of my purse! Get out of my purse!’ I ran out of the bathroom and found Bridget fighting the prostitute, like really going at her. Pulling her hair and scratching her. I’d never seen her like that. She was shouting that she was being robbed. She got really angry.”
Play with fire and you’re going to get burned, Ruby thought.
Helen went on.
“Bridget’s purse was on the floor. That’s all I got to see before the other one threw me against the chest of drawers and started ripping off my jewelry.”
“That’s how your watch ended up behind the furniture.”
Helen nodded. “Tore it right off my wrist. Got my necklace too. Told me if I didn’t give her my earrings, she’d rip them out of my earlobes.” She sobbed once more. “I was so scared. I’d drank and snorted so much I could barely stand. I couldn’t fight them. But Bridget fought like a tiger. As I gave up my earrings, the prostitute on Bridget clamped her hand over her mouth and pinned her to the bed to keep her from screaming. Must have been afraid someone would hear. I kept telling them to let us go, that we’d give them everything we had, but Bridget kept on fighting. She managed to push that woman off her and start screaming again.”
Helen paused, shivered, and said in a quiet voice, “That’s when they pulled knives on us.”
Ruby got a queasy feeling, remembering the bloody body on the bed.
“Did you see them stab Bridget?”
Helen nodded, looking at the floor. “One came for me too, so I ran out of there as fast as I could. I left her. Left my friend. Things got blurry after that. I stumbled along for a while and I guess I must have passed out. I woke up in the alley.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this from the start? Why didn’t you tell th
e police?”
Helen grimaced. “I was so hammered I couldn’t remember everything. The hotel room only came back to me later. Plus, I felt ashamed. I left her. And I didn’t want to inform the police because of the illegal stuff we did. I hoped that maybe you could find her and we could put it all behind us. I was a coward, leaving her like that.”
“You would have only gotten yourself killed,” Ruby said, not out of any pity for her, but because it was the truth.
“We have to tell the police,” Helen said with a sigh. She sounded like a condemned woman walking on her own to the gallows.
“Can you give a good description of those two women?”
Helen shook her head. “No. They’re just a blur.”
Ruby bit her lip, thinking. Even if they did find the women, Helen’s testimony wouldn’t be worth much. Drunk and high, and with a different statement than the one she first gave the police, a defense attorney would rip her apart on the witness stand.
Plus, there was no objective evidence that Helen or the two hookers had even been there. They had checked in under Bridget’s name. And they had entered the lounge first, where no camera would spot them. The two prostitutes no doubt knew about the camera arrangement and would have taken the connecting door between the lounge and the hotel so there would be no record they had ever come onto the property.
And even if the cops could hunt down Dirty Dancer, assuming she was alive, her testimony wouldn’t be worth much either. She wasn’t at the scene of the crime and a defense attorney could say she was a rival to the other two and wanted to get them in trouble.
So while Ruby felt she had finally dug out the truth, it wouldn’t bring justice for Bridget Hansen.
It wouldn’t make Ruby safe either. Detective Pinder would love to make her an accessory to this crime somehow. Even if that didn’t stick, Ruby faced a boatload of other charges, all backed by heaps of evidence.
But Detective Anderson had dropped charges against her before, when she had helped on a previous case …
“Let me handle this,” Ruby told her.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go on over there tonight and beat the truth out of them. If the police talk to you, tell them the story you first told me.”
Helen looked concerned. “Wouldn’t they charge me with perjury when they find out the truth?”
Back to your old self again, eh? That was quick.
“Claim you were too drunk to remember. I believed it,” Ruby snapped. “Or say whatever you want. It won’t make a difference. The head of homicide isn’t an idiot. He’ll ferret out the truth sooner or later.”
And if I don’t want him ferreting out the truth about me, I need to solve this case before he does. Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll get out of this.
Helen put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I should have trusted you more. Thank you for doing this for me and Bridget.”
I’m not doing it for you, you piece of trash, I’m doing it for Bridget. And for me.
Because now that you’ve roped me into your drama, it’s the only way to save my skin.
But she couldn’t do anything until that night. In the meantime, she had a whole bunch of her own brushfires to put out.
She headed back to Madame Lawrence’s. The King and Bob Marley had been sniffing around, and she had to make sure Madame Lawrence, and that little girl, were safe.
She had a sneaking suspicion they were not.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Just a few minutes’ drive away from Helen’s hotel, Ruby’s phone rang. Javon.
“What’s up?” she asked, realizing this was the first time a drug dealer had ever called her. Life was taking her down some strange paths to say the least.
“I got that laptop you wanted.”
“Already?”
“I work fast.”
“That’s what your girlfriend told me.”
“I do you a favor and you diss me?”
“You got a hundred bucks. That’s not a favor.”
“Jesus, girl you don’t mention money on the phone. I gotta school you. You ain’t cut out for this shit.”
“So I’ve been told. Can I meet you?”
“Sure.” He named an address that wasn’t too far off.
“I’ll be right there.”
For the ten minutes it took to drive to the corner that acted as one of Javon’s “offices,” Ruby could think of nothing but possible passwords. The thought of having her own laptop made her unconscious mind bubble with ideas. They popped into her head one after another. She opened up the notebook and scribbled them down as she drove.
Javon stood right where he said he’d be in a corner parking lot in front of a convenience store. At the moment, though, he was leaning through the window of a parked car. Ruby cursed and drove around the block. By the time she came back, the customer had left.
She pulled up. “Got something for me?”
Javon grinned. “Hey, girl. I only sell weed, but for you I could get some molly. We can go clubbing.”
“How about an untraceable laptop?”
“I think I might have one in stock,” he said, patting a laptop bag slung incongruously over his shoulder. He handed it over, along with her change and a receipt.
That surprised Ruby, and she instantly felt sorry. He may be a drug dealer, but he had always played straight with her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Anything for my favorite bartender. Now get moving. I don’t want you scaring away the customers.”
With a wave, she drove off.
All right. One problem solved. Now to figure out the password. Capitol? Beltway? Oh, what was that restaurant in the Hamptons she always talked about? Some Italian place. I’ll have to look it up.
A car behind her started flashing red and blue lights from its dashboard.
“Damn it!”
She pulled over. She had only made it a city block.
Detective Pinder and another woman, no doubt a plainclothes officer, stepped out.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Detective Pinder ordered.
Ruby raised her hands, fuming.
“I don’t have time for this,” she grumbled as her least favorite homicide detective came up to the window. The other officer took position on the passenger side of the car.
“Show me that bag. What did that man hand off to you?”
“He’s a friend. I had him buy me a laptop because he knows more about computers than I do.”
“And he hands it off to you on a street corner?”
Detective Pinder searched through the bag, finding only a laptop and a receipt. Growling with frustration, she turned it on. Ruby supposed she wanted to check if it actually contained electronics instead of drugs.
Ruby worried about Javon. Would they hassle him? Much as she disapproved of drugs, she didn’t want him to get in trouble for her sake.
Then something else to worry about occurred to her. Had they seen her visit Helen?
As she waited for Detective Pinder to finish messing around with her new computer, she noticed the other officer writing out a ticket.
“What’s that for?” Ruby asked.
“Driving with a broken sideview mirror,” the officer said without looking up.
Ruby groaned.
“Is this your vehicle?” Detective Pinder asked as she handed back the laptop.
Ruby handed over the rental papers. “Helen Pierce lent it to me so I could search for her friend. As you can see, I’m on the documentation.”
Detective Pinder could see that, but she didn’t like it.
The officer handed her the ticket. “You’re still responsible for this, though.”
“Can I go now?”
“Sure,” Ruby’s personal nemesis said with an arrogant smile. “Go wherever you want.”
And lead you everywhere? Wonderful.
Ruby pulled out. To her surprise, Detective Pinder and her lackey didn’t fo
llow.
Was someone else on her tail?
She gave Javon a call.
“Get out of there.”
“I’m going,” he said, and hung up.
Didn’t even ask why. That guy’s more used to the life than I’ll ever be.
Ruby’s next stop was a gas station. Her oil gauge was already on half. As the guy filled her up, she looked around nervously, studying every car that passed. She didn’t see anyone who looked like a tail, but of course she had missed the last tail.
She started trying to memorize the cars to see if any circled around to pass the gas station a second time. Again, she came up empty. Why did so many people have to drive similar cars? It was like standing at the luggage carousel in the airport trying to distinguish your black suitcase from the other two hundred black suitcases.
Javon’s right. I’m really not cut out for this.
Her phone rang. Javon again.
“Whoever you were worried about didn’t come after me.”
“Glad to hear it,” Ruby said, and meant it. “You’re not still in the same place, are you?”
“Hell, no. You all right? You need me to send in the cavalry?”
Ruby had no idea who or what he meant by the cavalry and decided not to find out.
“I’ll be all right. Thanks.”
“I don’t believe that for a second, girl.”
“Neither do I,” Ruby grumbled, and hung up.
* * *
After half an hour zigzagging across Nassau, hoping to throw off any tails and sweating all the while, she pulled up in front of Madame Lawrence’s Tea and Sundries, fairly sure she hadn’t been followed. That didn’t end her troubles, though. Before she got out, she scanned the street for any young punks. Once she felt her car would be safe for a few minutes, she got out, taking the laptop bag with her. No way she’d leave that unguarded.
Madame Lawrence sat at her usual post. Tucked in a corner, drinking orange juice and eating a muffin, sat the little girl Ruby had met the first time she had been here. She looked about eight, with cornrows that needed fixing and a simple print dress that needed washing and patching. On her feet she wore a pair of plastic sandals that looked about to disintegrate.