Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [108]
“She’s got a new man,” Elsie added.
“Thanks,” I winced, “I heard. But that new man’s in a bad spot and I think he brought Ruby into it with him.”
“She’s in trouble?” Elsie ventured, looking to Ramirez.
Ramirez shrugged, “I ain’t seen much of her since you been away. She called me yesterday though, right before I went to pick you up at the airport. Asked could I feed her cats and I actually forgot”—he hung his head a little—“I didn’t think about it too much, I was on my way out, but she didn’t tell me where she was or why. She was a little rude too, hung up on me.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” Ramirez said, hanging his head again.
“Didn’t say where she was calling from?”
“Nah. Some cell phone though. Number came up on the caller ID. Wasn’t a number I’d seen before.”
“So it’s still on your caller ID box?”
“I guess,” Ramirez shrugged and, after a little nudging, invited me in to look at the number on the box.
I put in a call to Carlo to have him trace the number. Told him it pertained to the jockey. He said he’d get on it and call me back. I guess neither Ramirez nor his girl wanted me in Ruby’s apartment. Elsie brewed up some tea and begrudgingly asked what I’d been doing with myself. In spite of being eaten with worry, I found myself telling Elsie about Gulfstream. About Clove in particular. I watched Elsie warm to me as I detailed Clove’s story. Not that I was telling it to win points. I loved that mare and I loved talking about her to anyone who’d listen. What’s more, it took my mind off Ruby.
Eventually Carlo got back to me. Ruby had called Ramirez from a cell phone belonging to Attila Johnson’s wife. They were still working on tracing where the phone had been when Ruby had used it.
I figured I’d overstayed my limited welcome by then and I was about to head back to the motel when Ramirez’s phone rang.
The man stared at the phone like it was a weapon.
“You mind answering that in case it’s her again?”
“I don’t know that number,” he said, indicating the caller ID box.
“May I?” I said and, without waiting for an answer, picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” It was her voice.
“Ruby? Are you all right?”
“Who’s this?”
“Ed.”
“Ed?”
“Yeah, remember me?” I said, somehow finding it within myself to attempt a touch of levity in what was a distinctly unfunny situation.
“Where’s Pietro?”
“Who?”
“Ramirez, where’s my fucking neighbor, Ed,” she said, hysteria coming into her voice.
“Right here, Ruby, he’s here, but where are you, are you all right?”
“No, I’m not.”
By then Ramirez had taken the phone away from me and it wasn’t until one hour and fifty-odd minutes later, when I had driven the compact car at breakneck speed up the New York State Thruway to retrieve my girl from the Saugerties police station that I got any details of what had happened to her.
I found her sitting in a chair in the main hall of the station, holding her head in her hands, looking down at the floor. She seemed so tiny.
“Ruby,” I said softly.
She glanced up. Her face was so pale it was nearly blue. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying. She looked into my eyes for a second then bent her head back down, as if it weighed too much to be held up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down next to her. I could hear the police scanner bleeping from an office down the hall. We sat in silence for ten minutes. It was a low-key police station. No one was brought in while we were there. Eventually, I went to speak to the captain. The man seemed to be in shock, too. Murder in Saugerties was uncommon. Particularly a murder that attracted the FBI. Some of my cronies had already come and talked to Ruby. They were up at the house now, looking at the crime scene.
I LEFT RUBY to her thoughts as we made our way to the car and began the trip back down to the city. I thought maybe we’d pass the whole time in silence but about an hour down the thruway, she started talking.
“He was a good man,” was the first thing she said.
“I’m sure he was,” I said, though I didn’t really believe it.
“Really. He was. I can’t believe