Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [61]
Ruby lit 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