Our Husband (a humorous romantic mystery) (31 page)

"B-But
we
didn't."

"Sure." Hairy gave her a big wink, like in cartoons. "Well, don't worry, doll. My sister did some time in the state pen for

stabbing her roommate and she said it wasn't so bad. At least you'll have a TV. And cable. See ya."

"See ya." Ruby stood in the doorway and watched the van plow through the mudhole that was her front yard. Two days of

rain had chased away bothersome reporters who had trampled her pink begonias, but left six inches of muck that gooped up her

shoes when she walked back and forth to her Camaro. With their finger, someone had written WASH ME on the side of the

blue car.

"Hey, Ruby!"

She turned to see Dudley Mays, her neighbor who owned only half a wardrobe—the bottom half. She guessed she should

be thankful it wasn't the other way around.

"I hear you're single again," he said, grinning and rubbing his white belly.

The man reminded her of Ham—big and shaggy and greasy. A bad taste backed up in her mouth. "You might want to keep

your distance, Dudley. My husband was murdered, you know."

It was a really ugly thing to say, but worth it to see the scared look on Dudley's face.

Ruby slammed the door behind her, then teared up at the sight of the living room, practically bare with the computer
and

the television gone. She dropped onto the couch, still holding Mame. What a crummy week. Well, except for the baby moving

—that was cool. She'd known the cops would be ticked when she admitted to lying about killing Ham, but she hadn't expected

them to slap her with an additional charge of conspiring to kill
Ray
, too. Billy Wayne said that if she were convicted on both

charges, she could probably serve the sentences con—... at the same time, and that they were likely to go easy on a pregnant

woman.

But she wasn't so sure. And the three hours she'd spent in a jail cell after being arrested Sunday was enough to convince

her she didn't want to go back, cable TV or no cable TV.

It had taken her hours to straighten up after she returned home—the police had messed up the place something awful.

According to the form they'd left taped to the inside door, they were conducting a search for computer files, syringes, and heart

medications. They'd taken the PC, a bag of syringes, and the calendar she kept on the refrigerator.

Mame squirmed out of her arms and Ruby sighed, already bored to death. Six hours to kill before going to the club. She

guessed she might as well take a look at the mail that had piled up since the week Ray had died. There was lots of it. She took

her time separating the heap into four categories: catalogs, missing children flyers, bills, and other stuff.

The catalogs were always neat. Lillian Vernon was her favorite, full of clever monogrammed items like bath mats and

pencil holders. And Frederick's of Hollywood was a dancing girl's best friend—great shoes.

She squinted at the missing children flyers, studying the face of each little person, searching her memory in case she'd seen

them on the playground in the trailer park. She couldn't bear the thought of tossing the slips of paper when she might be the one

to help find one of them. No luck today, though.

Bills. Yuck. But she'd developed a system to make the job as fun as possible. First, she used a steak knife to slice open the

envelopes, all of them. Then she opened the envelopes, and peeked at the bottom-line figure with one eye closed. Finally, she

sorted the bills into three piles: doable, hopeful, and impossible. Since most of the impossible pile was credit cards that Ray

had acquired in her name, he always took care of those. At least he was
supposed
to. Now that she thought about it, she
had

been getting a lot of calls from people saying she owed them money. Each time, she'd passed the info to Ray and he said he'd

take care of it.

She stared at the ring she'd thought was a real diamond when Ray gave it to her. He'd told her a whole pack of lies. Had he

lied when he told her he loved her?

Of course he lied, Ruby Hicks. Why would a man like Ray be in love with you, a little hick?

Ruby blinked back tears and added up the bills due with a big-button calculator. The sum was so humongous, she had to

add the entire pile again just to be certain. When the same number came up, she covered her mouth with her hand. She made

decent money at the club, but it would take her years to pay off this amount. Ray had bought clothes, dinners, concert tickets,

golf clubs, so many things.

Her stomach churned from the pressure—she had to make sure Mac was going to let her waitress when her pregnancy was

beyond hiding onstage. She picked up her phone and dialed, repeating to herself that everything would be all right, as long as

she could keep working at the club, as long as her baby was healthy, as long as she stayed out of prison, as long as she was

allowed to collect Ray's life insurance.

Jocko answered the phone and went to find Mac. Music played in the background while she studied her nails. The bubble-

gum pink polish had been ruined when she'd tried to remove the black fingerprinting ink. She'd have to polish them again

before the weekend.

"What's up, Ruby?"

Uh-oh. Mac sounded cranky. Maybe she'd better wait and talk to him in person. "Um, I was just checking in."

"Checking in? You've never checked in be—never mind, I needed to talk to you anyway."

"Okay."

"I hate to do this, Ruby, but I gotta let you go."

Her heart plummeted. "Why?"

"Oh, come on, Ruby—you're under arrest, for Christ's sake. The police came here and searched your locker. It's bad for

business, and it has the other girls shook up. Besides, pregnant strippers aren't as much in demand as they used to be."

"I can wait on tables, Mac. That's what I called to talk to you about."

"Forget it, Ruby. You're a swell gal, and I'll give you two weeks' base pay, but that's the best I can do."

Alarm numbed her, like cough syrup. "Please, Mac, I need the work."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Put me down as a reference. Gotta run."

"But—" He'd already hung up.

Ruby replaced the handset and sat silent while cold fury stirred inside her. Men. They thought they ruled the world. Using

her. Telling lies. Discarding her like a piece of trash. Well, she hadn't survived poverty as a child to settle for poverty as an

adult. Hugging her tummy, she whispered, "We're going to be all right, princess. We have to be."

She would think of something, even if she had to sit there for a half-hour. After all, desperate means called for desperate

measurements. Or something like that.

Chapter 29

"How'd the polygraph test go?" Tony asked before Natalie could clear the back door. He did take the time to lean out and

shoot the bird at a couple of reporters who lingered by the street.

"It didn't," she said, dropping into the first vacant chair. "My luck—the polygraph examiner had a court appearance, so

they rescheduled me for next week." She laughed, a bitter sound to her own ears. "I can't believe the lengths a person has to go

to in the legal system simply to tell the truth."

"So, where have you been?"

She rubbed her temples, thinking it might help the morning's news to sink in. "Want a good laugh? I drove to my office on a

misguided mission to offer a hand to Dr. Skinner."

"And?"

"And I braved the reporters only to have Skinner hand me a letter from the state medical board." Natalie closed her eyes.

"They've suspended my license to practice, pending outcome of the charges."

"I'm sorry, sis."

"No matter. Being a doctor was only the center of my existence." She blinked back fresh tears, wondering what kinds of

new trades she might learn in prison—woodworking... auto body... flag-making. A fellow med student had once remarked that

the worst thing about being a doctor was being able to recognize when you were losing your mind. Sometime during the past

several days, she had at the very least misplaced hers, evidenced by her concession to have lunch yesterday with Brian Butler.

The meal hadn't been wholly unpleasant, but that was, she kept telling herself, because she'd forgotten how good a chili

cheese hot dog could be. Which had nothing whatsoever to do with Brian Butler's imposing company, or his unexpected kiss,

or even with the hot dog, for that matter—she'd simply worked up an appetite from all that kissing, er, gardening.

She realized Tony was staring at her, and straightened. "Did you come home for lunch?"

"Not exactly."

At his sheepish expression, an alarm sounded in her head. "What is it?"

"I brought a visitor to see you." He nodded toward the front of the house.

She scowled—Brian Butler's presumption was absolutely galling. "You can
tell
your boss that I have
enough
on my mind

without dealing with his
inept
attempts to win me over."

"It isn't Butler."

"Oh." Her scowl deepened.

"Who then?"

"Beatrix."

"Excuse me?"

"It's Beatrix. She came by the pawnshop about an hour ago, then asked if I would bring her to see you."

"Why?"

"She didn't want her car to be spotted in front of the house."

She sighed. "I meant why does she want to see me?"

"She wouldn't tell me, except to say it was important."

"I don't think she and I are supposed to talk."

Tony shrugged. "Tell her. She's in the library."

Nothing fazed her anymore, Natalie decided as she pushed herself to her feet. Not even entertaining her husband's wife in

the library.

The bookroom, as Rose Marie had always called it, was on the front of the house, a left turn from the short hallway off the

foyer. A black hand-tied wool runner softened her footsteps, and well-oiled hinges silenced her arrival. Beatrix stood with her

back to the doorway, a streaming cigarette in one hand, a hardback book from an open moving carton in the other. From behind,

she could easily pass for a woman in her thirties, Natalie acknowledged. Black continued to be the mainstay of the woman's

wardrobe, probably unrelated to the fact that she was mourning her husband. Her blond hair was a convincing shade,

precision-cut just above her collar in a chic pageboy. A woman of power, a woman in control, despite her arrest. Envy knifed

through Natalie.

She must have made a noise because Beatrix turned, her eyebrows raised. A flat smile crossed her lips before she took

another drag. "Sorry," she said, then dropped the cigarette into a Styrofoam cup, eliciting a sizzle. "I seem to have taken a

liking to these things again."

"They're bad for you."

"Yeah, well, everything that feels or tastes good is bad for you." She held up the hardback volume, the green cover hand-

worn. "Edgar Allan Poe. Raymond's favorite."

"I know."

"Think it should have been a warning sign?"

"Maybe, in hindsight."

Beatrix caressed the book with a glassy expression. Natalie tried to imagine her sitting down to plot out Raymond's death,

and the image chilled her.

"Are you moving?" Beatrix asked, gesturing to the boxes.

"Um, no. I hadn't gotten around to unpacking them all." Ironically, so many of her aunt's gardening books had been

confiscated during the search, the shelves were now empty enough to accommodate Raymond's volumes. "We only moved here

from St. Louis six months ago. My aunt left the house to me when she died."

"You and she must have been very close."

"We were."

Beatrix returned the book to a carton. "You've had to deal with much loss recently."

Natalie nodded carefully, spooked by the woman's calm demeanor.

"My mother used to say that tragedy comes in threes."

She managed a little smile. "Frankly, over the past several days, I've lost count."

Beatrix's dry laugh caught her off guard. "True. Natalie, we need to talk."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Because I was arrested for murdering Raymond?"

"Yes."

"Well, you were arrested for murdering Raymond, what's the difference?"

"The difference is that the cops didn't find a blueprint for murder under my mattress."

Beatrix dismissed her concern with a wave. "All that proves is that I
wanted
to kill him, not that I did." She quirked a

brow. "And don't tell me the thought never crossed
your
mind."

Natalie blinked. It had. When Butler had revealed the extent of Raymond's indebtedness, his betrayal had stirred a passion,