County Line (27 page)

Grammy stirred. “Ruby, I want to give you something.”

“But it’s not officially Christmas for another half hour.”

Her grandmother stood up and patted Ruby Jane’s folded hands. “This isn’t a Christmas present.” She crossed the room to her suitcase. When she returned to the bed and sat down, she offered Ruby Jane a small black box.

“What is it?”

“Open it.”

The box was soft and worn, with rounded corners: a jewelry box. Ruby Jane lifted the lid. A gasp escaped her lips. Inside, nestled in velvet, was her grandmother’s emerald ring. The large, square-cut green stone was surrounded by diamonds and set in gold. Her grandmother wore it on special occasions.

“This is … you can’t mean this for me.”

“It’s always been meant for you.”

“But … not now.”

“No, not until I die. It’s in my will.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“Oh, sweetie, don’t fret about that. I just wanted to tell you about the ring. It’s been in my family for a long time, passed down from mother to daughter. But I don’t have a daughter and, well, you and me both know your mother barely puts up with me. Anyway, your daddy would probably sell it. So I’m passing it to you.” She smiled. “Would you like to hold it?”

She’d never known Grammy to let anyone else touch the ring, legacy of better times for the Whittakers. Now only Grammy, and this lone heirloom, remained of what Ruby Jane had heard was once a large and wealthy clan. She reached out her hand. “Yes, please.”

“Put it on.”

“It’s loose.”

“My old, arthritic knuckles, that’s why. You can get it resized when the time comes.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“That it is, sweetie, even more beautiful on your hand.”

The ring felt warm on Ruby Jane’s finger.

“It’s like it was made for you.”

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to say anything more than that. All I ask is that you pass it on to your own daughter.”

Ruby Jane blushed. She’d never thought about having a daughter, let alone imagined herself part of a legacy. She knew nothing of her grandmother’s past, but as green gem flashed on her hand, she felt the sudden weight of history stretching out behind her.

“Objects have memories, you know. This ring carries the memories of all those who have worn it, the good and the bad. I hope you give it lots of good memories.”

“Me too, Grammy.”

“Now come here and give me a kiss, and then go get some sleep. Early comes early, you know. And that brother of yours is all in a tizzy at the possibility there’s a Walkman under the tree.”

“Is there?”

“Oh, probably.”

Ruby Jane returned the ring to her grandmother’s hand. She kissed Grammy’s cheek, then went downstairs to the couch. Under the glittering light of the Christmas tree Ruby Jane thought about the ring and all the Whittaker women who’d worn it. Soon she drifted off, never dreaming this would be her grandmother’s last Christmas, or Grammy’s plan for the ring would fail.

Or, more than a year later, Detective Pervert would give a rat’s ass about it.

Grabel glanced out the window. Sunlight filtered by high clouds cast a pall across the landscape. “The day’s getting away from us.”

“You want to speed things up, be my guest.”

His lips twisted. “The ring? Any thoughts?”

“No one knows what happened to the ring.”

“It disappeared shortly before your grandmother died.”

“How do you know that?”

“She filed a police report. Accused her son of taking it.” Grabel dug through the folder and pulled out one of his ubiquitous sheets of paper, a fax, curly and smudged. She could make out WHITTAKER, MAE typed in a box near the top.

“I didn’t know she reported it.” Many times the previous spring, her father denied taking the ring, but everyone knew better. When Mae Whittaker died, the subject of the ring died with her. One more thing lost.

“You were close to your grandmother?”

“Sure.”

He laced his hands under his chin, squashing his wattle into a patty between his thumbs. “You must be upset about the ring.”

“I’m upset my grandmother is dead.”

“And the missing ring.”

He wasn’t very subtle. “I’d take my grandmother over some dumb ring any day.”

“Of course you would. But it was still a very nice ring.”

Ruby Jane didn’t know what else to say.

“You want to hear my theory?”

“Not even remotely.”

“I think your father ran himself a little scam. When his mom got sick, he rooted around the old homestead. Got hold of her checkbook, wrote himself a few checks.”

Ruby Jane couldn’t imagine her father doing that. Not because he wasn’t a thief, but because he was too much of a coward to try a stunt so easily discovered.

“Maybe he told himself he’d pay the bills while your grandmother was in the hospital. Help his old mom out. But, he didn’t pay many bills. And she never noticed. Her illness didn’t leave her with much energy for balancing her checkbook or reading her monthly bank statements.”

Ruby Jane thought about her grandmother those last weeks. She’d kept her illness secret until she couldn’t hide it any longer. By then, she was too weak for chemo, barely survived the surgeries which removed first a couple feet of bowel, and then half her stomach.

“We believe your father stripped his mother of her life savings because he discovered she left everything to you and your brother.”

“There was nothing to leave to us. Her house was all she had, and it was worth less than the outstanding hospital bills.”

“Medicare doesn’t pay for everything, does it? Still, your grandmother didn’t have to die poor.”

“She lived poor.”

“Maybe she didn’t have a lot of luxuries, but she saved some money. You must not have known.”

“My parents had to pay for her funeral.”

“I’ve reviewed her bank statements. In December of 1987, she had over three hundred thousand dollars banked. From what I can tell, she’d saved steadily for forty years, a little bit each paycheck. It didn’t make her rich, not by your Grandfather Denlinger’s standards, but it was a nice piece of change. It was supposed to see her through her retirement, or go to you and your brother.”

“Nothing was left.”

“Where’d it go?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Tell me this then. What happened to your father?”

“I don’t know.”

He waggled his fingers and smiled. “First the ring, then the money. That might piss someone off.”

“I didn’t know about the money.”

“But you knew about the ring.”

“Grammy said it would come to me when she died. She told everyone.”

“And instead your father took it.”

“If you know that, why wasn’t he arrested? You say Grammy made a report, but she died in April, months before he disappeared.”

His fingers untangled from each other. The wattle swung like a flag in the breeze. More shuffling, more pages. “He was questioned on March tenth of last year.”

“I’m shocked he didn’t confess. Did you make the mistake of letting him pee?”

Another grim smile. “Without the ring itself, and with only your grandmother’s word against his, we couldn’t do much. An effort was made to canvas pawn shops in the Dayton area, but there are a lot of pawn shops. One emerald ring, even if it was worth a couple grand, didn’t merit the kind of commitment necessary for a rigorous investigation.”

“So now you’re hassling me? I don’t have it.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“I have to use the bathroom.”

“Not yet.”

Nash put his hands on the table and tilted his head at Grabel. “Coby, maybe we ought to—”

Grabel’s jaw flexed with restrained rage. “Christ, you people have no spines.”

“I think we could all use a break.”

Grabel hip-checked the table as he got to his feet. “Fine.”

“Hey, what about me? Bathroom?”

“You keep your mouth shut, chippie.” The door opened and slammed, and she was alone.

The clouds had broken outside. Clear blue skies stretched to the east. The leaves of the maple trees swayed in a gentle breeze. A gull landed on the top of a telephone pole. Ruby Jane checked her watch. Almost one o’clock. They’d been in the tight conference room for hours. She slipped out of her chair and moved to the door. She was afraid to risk opening it a second time, but she didn’t have to. They were right outside.

“Coby, what the hell is going on in there?”

“I’m conducting an interview.”

“You’re all over the place.”

“I’m keeping her off balance. If we let her settle into a rhythm, she won’t tell us anything.”

“The way things are going, nothing she says will be admissible.”

“I wouldn’t say that. For one thing, we have her mother’s permission—”

“A drunk’s permission is what you mean. It’s a small miracle the state hasn’t intervened in that household. Any defense attorney worth his salt is gonna have you for lunch.”

“—and for another, I was going to add before you interrupted me, what do you think I’m after here anyway?”

Nash was quiet for a long time. She heard the rustle of paper changing hands. “Christ, Coby.”

“Have a little faith.”

“How about you have a little trust? This isn’t the time for me to be finding this out.”

“I’m used to working in a different environment. Where I come from, patrol officers observe.”

“Where you are now is nothing
but
patrol officers. We work cases together.”

“Fine, fine. Untwist your titty, Werth. We got work to do.”

“I’m going to take her to the restroom.”

“Hurry it up then.”

She wore an expression of weary indifference when Nash entered. He led her across the office to a recess in the far wall, two doors tucked to either side of a water fountain.

“Be quick.”

“After you made me wait half the day?”

He grunted as she pushed the door shut behind her.

The bathroom smelled of pine cleanser. Thank god for small favors. She peed from a crouch, unwilling to let her skin touch a surface which may have served as throne for Grabel or the chief. Then she washed her hands and splashed water on her cheeks. The face in the mirror bore only a faint resemblance to the girl she thought she was. Pale skin, sickly green shadows under her eyes.

“I look like I have leprosy.”

Her voice sounded tinny in the small tiled room. She wanted to get away. Huck would take her in, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to go down that path. Something twisted low in her stomach as she thought back to Saturday night and for a moment she feared she would throw up. She let the water run, wet her face again. Her nausea subsided. Someone knocked on the door, a tentative rap. Nash. Grabel would have kicked the door in. She dried her hands and went out.

“How are you holding up, Ruby?”

“I’m fine.”

He studied her face, his eyes bouncing up and down, back and forth. “It’s been a tough day.”

“Don’t bother. I won’t fall for some kind of
secret friend
routine.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” A niggle of worry stirred in her stomach as she thought of the story he could tell Grabel about that night on County Line Road.
I passed his truck earlier, further up the road … Dale do something to you?
Grabel would love to hear that tidbit. For reasons she couldn’t guess, Nash had kept it to himself.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge even this small gift. “Whatever.” She tried to move past him toward the conference room door, but he stopped her.

“You ask me, Sergeant Grabel has taken this too far.” His hand felt hot on her forearm, or perhaps that was the heat of her own skin reflected back against her. “I’ll be talking to the chief about it, for what it’s worth.”

What was it worth? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know if she cared. She felt herself blinking back tears for the umpteenth time that day; she refused to let him see her cry. She bit the inside of her lip and drew air through her nose. Then she looked at Grabel, who sat in the chief’s office with his back to the open door. He said something and the chief laughed.

“Don’t we have an interrogation to get back to?” She spoke through her teeth.

“There’s someone here to see you first.”

“Who?”
Please don’t let it be Huck
. She couldn’t think of anyone else, except perhaps her mother, but that was so unlikely as to feel like a bad joke.

“In the conference room. You can go in. I’ll bring you something to drink if you want. Some water, or a pop. What would you like?”

“Nothing.”