Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [113]
I stare at the horses for a long while and, for the first time in days, I let myself think of Darwin. I feel tears come into my eyes. I know the little guy is probably fine, but I don’t have any way to keep tabs on him now and that breaks my heart.
I’m standing like this, staring into the field, trying to keep the tears inside, when a woman starts talking to me. She’s speaking French and at first it doesn’t occur to me that she’s speaking to me. Finally, she lightly touches my shoulder and I turn my head toward her. She’s a middle-aged woman with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s wearing a bottle green wool cape and she has a very fancy-looking camera strapped to her neck.
She says something in French and I shake my head at her.
She tries some other language which, I suspect, is Italian.
I say, “No, I’m sorry, I only speak English.”
“Ah,” she says in unaccented English, “you are American? I would not have guessed.”
I am strangely flattered by this.
“Do you live here?” the woman asks.
“I’m thinking about it.”
The woman smiles. She has the strangest eyes, brown flecked with bright gold. They’re friendly eyes though, they hold no traces of contempt.
“Where are you staying in Versailles?” she asks.
“Nowhere. I just got here. I don’t know. I was just walking and I saw these horses and had to stop and look at them,” I say. “I love horses.”
“Horses should be loved,” the woman says. “I come here at least once a week to photograph them,” she adds.
“I’d like to get a job taking care of these,” I say.
“But you should,” the woman says enthusiastically.
“I’ve worked with horses before,” I tell her, as if she’s interviewing me for the job.
“I thought so, yes,” she says. “Your hands.” She motions at my weather-beaten hands. Although they could just as easily look ravaged from almost any sort of outdoor work, this woman has apparently taken them for horse-work hands. Again, I’m flattered.
I smile, finding that I like this woman better than I’ve liked any human in quite a while.
“Of course there are stables just over there,” she says, motioning vaguely ahead.
“Oh?”
“Yes. There’s a school for the horse circus.”
“Horse circus?”
“Yes, the dancing horses.” The woman smiles.
“Maybe I’ll go over and ask them for a job taking care of the horses.”
“You should,” the woman says. “It was nice to meet you.” She adds then, “Good luck to you.” She smiles, tightens her cape around her shoulders, and walks off.
I stand there, my dog at my side, staring at the horses.
RUBY MURPHY
40.
Grace
It’s late morning and the Long Island Railroad train is mostly empty. I don’t suppose there’s much call for going to Floral Park at eleven A.M. on a Thursday in late March. Admittedly, I’m not particularly thrilled at the prospect myself. It’s been difficult to be interested in much of anything these last weeks. The moment I start feeling a little bit better, I picture Attila again. When I’m not picturing his dead body, I’m remembering him full of life, running half naked through the parking lot of the Woodland Motel. And it breaks my heart again and again.
They’ve all been trying to rescue me. Violet all but forced me to go see Dr. Ray, an acquaintance of hers who’s a shrink. I actually like going to sit in Jody Ray’s well-appointed office over in Chelsea but I can’t say that it’s helped much. I’ve had three sessions with her but the images of Attila’s and Ava’s bodies are burned into my head and don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Jane and her husband, Harry, have made it their business to try helping me too. The day after it all happened, they came by my place to try forcing some life into me. I hadn’t found a reason to eat or get dressed yet when they called to say they were downstairs. I put my robe on and went to let them in.
They stood at the door wearing matching