Never slowing her stride, she glanced in his direction, but didn’t appear to see him. Her eyes held no expression and she seemed to look through Crockett, the way someone would gaze at an endless expanse of ocean or snow, not searching for or recognizing details. No intent, no curiosity, no true awareness that anything was in her line of sight. She was lovely.
She passed the edge of the building and Crockett lost sight of her as he got to his feet. When he reached the sidewalk, not more than five or six seconds later, she was gone. The walk and street were empty. Crockett hustled to the door and checked the entryway. Nope. He opened the door and barged into Ruby’s waiting room. She and a small man with a badly receding hairline were standing just inside. He squeaked and levitated about a foot and a half, fluttering a bit. Quickly, Crockett checked out the area. Nobody.
Ruby glared at him. “Mister Crockett,” she said, “may I offer you assistance?”
The door slammed as the little man fled.
“Shit!” Crockett said.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Ruby spat. “You come barging in here, covered in God knows what, looking like the Wild Man of Borneo, scaring the crap out of a client who, by the way, does not need the crap scared out of him at this delicate point in his life and–”
“Did you see her?” Crockett said.
“What?”
“Did you see her!”
“Who?”
“The woman!”
“What woman?”
“The one from yesterday, Goddammit! She was right here!”
Ruby folded her arms and walked away from him to look out the window for a moment. Her heels thunked on the hardwood floor. She turned around, shifted hair back from the left side of her face with a casual headshake and removed her glasses. Ruby never wore contacts while working.
“The woman from yesterday,” she stated.
“Yeah. Yes. The woman from yesterday. The lady who wasn’t there. She came back.”
“You saw her.”
“As plainly as I see you, Ruby.”
She looked at him for a moment, then seemed to reconcile something.
“Okay,” she said. “That poor man, who is probably still running, was my last client of the afternoon. You go clean up. I’ll change and be over. We’ll sip single malt, you can rub my feet, and we shall discuss the events of the day.”
Crockett was beginning to feel very tired.
“Great,” he sighed.
Ruby wrinkled her nose and looked around the room. Her brow furrowed.
“What’s that scent?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Crockett said. “It’s hers. It was here yesterday. I’ve smelled it before but I can’t pull it up.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Ruby mused.
Crockett walked downstairs out of the bedroom to find Ruby slouching on his couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table beside an insulated carafe and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Wearing a pale blue fleece exercise suit and immense fluffy slippers over sweat socks, she struck a sloppily seductive pose as he entered the room.
“You like?” she asked, giving him a toothy grin.
“Duck want,” he growled. “Lay down, raise knees, brace self.”
“Smooth talker.”
“Where’s the booze?” he asked, flopping beside her.
“I decided against it. Comfort is more to our purpose at this point than alcohol. Hot cocoa in the pot, freshly baked cookies from the freezer on the plate. Lots of sweets, chocolate, and thou, Crockett. Everything a girl could possibly want. Kiss me, you fool.”
Crockett assaulted her ear.
“Yuk!” Ruby complained, bolting to an upright position. “No wonder that woman disappears!”
“I swear,” Crockett said, “I never laid a glove on her.”
Ruby poured two cups of hot chocolate and handed him a cookie.
“Chew on this while my ear dries out and talk with your mouth full. Who do you think this mysterious stranger is?”
“I dunno,” Crockett said, spraying only a few crumbs.
“Ever seen her before?”
“Nope. I’d remember if I had.”
Ruby perked up. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Pretty, huh?”
“Not just pretty. Lovely. Really lovely. Striking actually.”
“Uh-huh. When she shows up here delivering a pizza or something, are you gonna run away with her and abandon me?”
“It could happen. She’s a little too young for me though.”
“How too young?”
“About thirty years too young. And about forty years too old.”
“Huh?”
“That’s one of the reasons this is so strange. The way she dresses. 1940’s. Her clothes, her hair, her makeup, her shoes, even her hose. She’d fit right in with the Andrews sisters, for chrissakes. She looks like she’s ready to serve donuts to World War Two servicemen at the local USO. I’ve seen pictures of my mother and her sisters dressed the same way when they were in their teens. Weird.”
They sat quietly for a while as Ruby thought. Crockett ate another cookie. The hot chocolate was spiked with Bailey’s.
“And you’ve been how close to this woman?” Ruby said.
“Ten or fifteen feet.”
“So you’d recognize her if you saw her again.”
“If I could draw, I’d do a portrait for you.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“I tried but she ignored me. I even yelled at her today and she turned, but she looked right through me. It was like I wasn’t even there. I don’t think she could see me. Now that sounds strange.”
“Yes, it does,” Ruby said.
“And then there’s the smell,” Crockett said. “You noticed it, too.”
“It’s not a smell, you troglodyte,” Ruby sneered. “It’s a scent.”
“Jesus!” he blurted, the light coming on.
“What?”
“Of course it’s a scent. It’s Avon, Ruby. My grandmother used to sell the stuff door to door when my mom was growing up. Hell, she still sold it when I was a kid. It’s an Avon product. It wasn’t only perfume or cologne, it was a powder, too. My grandmother and her cronies all wore it. She had a little blue and white sachet box of it on her dresser. Kind of a cameo thing. It’s called To a Wild Rose. That scent has got to be one of my earliest memories.”
“I don’t recall ever smelling it before,” she said.
“Maybe they don’t make it anymore. The only person I associate with it is my grandma. That was a long time ago. Probably fifty years.”
Ruby re-filled his cup. “So,” she said, “we have this woman you’ve seen twice that smells like your grandmother and looks like an Andrews Sister–”
“Dresses like an Andrews sister,” Crockett said. “She’s probably the most striking woman I’ve ever seen.”
“This incredibly striking woman,” Ruby said.
Crockett could feel the feathers of her vanity ruffle a little.
“This amazingly attractive, young woman,” Ruby continued. “This vision, this heart-stoppingly lovely, outstandingly beautiful, avalanche of marvelous feminine perfection who seems to mysteriously vanish every time she shows herself to you. That about it, Sport?”
She was looking at Crockett as if he were something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
“Jealous?” he said.
Ruby’s eyes softened and she stared at her lap for a moment.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Aw, Ruby. That may be the nicest thing you ever said to me.”
She looked at him and Crockett could see doubt in her eyes.
“What?”
“I find it to be a huge compliment that you would be jealous of how I felt about another woman.”
“I’m not the jealous type, Crockett.”
“I know you’re not.”
“As I told you once before, for a while I was jealous of the rela
tionship you had with Rachael, but I was never jealous of the two of you.”
“I know, Ruby,” he said, resting his hand on her thigh.
“Then you and Spike had your fling. Hell, I encouraged that!”
“That you did,” he said.
Spike was the physical therapist that got Crockett back on two feet.
“Then there was LeAnn that used to come by,” Ruby said. “What ever happened to her?””
“She thought Red Lobster had good seafood.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t jealous of her. Or Brenda.”
“Belinda.”
“Belinda. What was wrong with Belinda?”
“Drank rum and Coke.”
Ruby grinned. “Festering whore,” she said.
“Poor misguided child.”
“Christ, Crockett, I even try to fix you up!”
“Bailey Carson.”
“Carson Bailey.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“So why do I feel jealous about this vanishing woman?”
“Are you asking me, or was that a rhetorical question?”
Ruby paused for a moment, dropped her head to his shoulder, and bent her knee so her leg lay partially in his lap.
“I’m asking,” she said.
“I think because I showed an interest in her that I usually don’t exhibit. That her appearance struck me so vividly.”
“And–”
Crockett marshaled his courage.
“And,” he said, “you carry a certain amount of guilt because you choose not to participate in a more, shall we say, conventional relationship with me. I think that you’re afraid that someday I’ll get fed up, call you names, and do the boogie. You’re not worried about any other women, Ruby. You’re worried about yourself.”
“Zat right?”
“That’s my opinion. In no way does it alter the fact that I love you, or the fact that I am in love with you.”
She looked up at him. “You are the strangest man, Crockett.”
“Faint praise coming from a female faggot.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know you do. We can’t choose who we love, Ruby. Most of us can’t even choose how we love.”
“And you think I can?”
Crockett touched her gently on the chin and smiled.
“I think you have,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Le freak
By the end of the week Crockett stopped checking the sidewalk every five minutes for the mysterious stranger. When she didn’t show up again, he relaxed and actually got some work done. By late Friday afternoon he had the trees all bedded and mulched, the landscape timbers placed for the walkways, the pad framed in for the gazebo. Ruby had okayed the structure, claiming she wanted Crockett to have an erection outside where everyone could see it. All the weed barrier was in place and ready for the gravel and the redwood bench was sitting prettily next to the trees. The nursery installed several large stones on Thursday and promised to bring and assemble Crockett’s erection on Monday, as well as deliver and spread three truckloads of gravel. His work, with the small exceptions of mowing, clipping, weeding, trimming, watering and raking, was done. Better Homes and Gardens hadn’t called yet, but it looked pretty good to him. Ruby was so impressed, she actually walked across the grass to offer congratulations.
“Ooh, my big strong handsome man!” she gushed, throwing her arms recklessly around Crockett’s neck and sloppily kissing his face. “From the cruel wilderness you have hewn such loveliness. I am all a-twitter!”
“You’re all a twit,” Crockett said. “It’s gonna look real nice once the big kids get done with it. A lot different than the weedy lot it was when we bought it.”
Ruby rubbed his back and snuggled into his side.
“I want a fireplace,” she said.
“A what?”
“A fireplace. You know, one of those clay or metal thingies?”
“You want a fireplace.”
“Yeah. We can put it over by the bench and sit out by the fire on cool fall evenings.”
“You? Ruby LaCost?”
“Sure. Wouldn’t that be romantic? Sitting in the growing dark by the flickering blaze?”
“Oh. Like a campfire!”
“No, not like a campfire. A campfire would imply camping. I don’t camp. This would be more like a fireplace.”
“An outside fireplace, amid all the glories of nature. Sparks rising into the night sky, bugs crawling across the gravel, mosquitoes whispering tenderly in your shell-like ear. I gotcha.”
“Could we put it inside the gazebo?”
“Not unless you want to cancel our order and get one made out of marble.”
“But I want a fireplace,” Ruby pouted.
“You already have a fireplace, Darling,” Crockett said. “There’s one in your bedroom.”
“But I want us to enjoy it together, Davey.”
“Your enjoyment means everything to me, Ruby,” Crockett said. “You could break a taboo and actually allow me access to your bedchamber.”
Ruby batted her eyes. “Or we could both use the one in your bedroom,” she said.
“Now there’s an interesting possibility. Could be the perfect compromise.”
“Why don’t we discuss it further over a nice filet. Let’s get all gussied up and I’ll take you out for a garden celebration dinner.”
“Only if I can drive. I want to have an appetite when we arrive.”
“Deal,” Ruby said. “Hereford house. I’ll get us a reservation for around eight. Make yourself beautiful. You could get lucky.”
Crockett smiled at her. “Every moment I’m with you is lucky,” he said.
“For me, too,” Ruby said. “Every one.”
Crockett unsuccessfully attempted to minimize his growing baldness, trimmed his ‘stash, fluffed his ponytail as much as possible, and put on his best suit for the occasion, the dark gray double-breasted number with the cranberry pinstripe he got with Ivy’s money when Ruby and he were working on Rachael’s murder. With it went an eggshell dress shirt with French cuffs and a silk tie in deep cranberry to pick up the pinstripe. He was still fifteen pounds or so lighter than when he last wore it, but it draped nicely and didn’t appear too large.
It was about a quarter to eight when Ruby walked out of the closet. Her nearly black hair was coiffed in careful shining disarray over her shoulders, she wore a spaghetti strapped black silk sheath that stopped three inches above her knees, and had a black shawl draped over one arm. Dark seamed nylons graced her legs, black suede heels made her nearly two inches taller than Crockett’s six feet, and a choker of gray pearls caressed her neck. She gave him a single finger wave and smiled. A butterfly took off in the pit of his stomach.
“Jesus,” Crockett said.
“Thank you, Crockett. An honest compliment if I ever heard one.”
“I meant every word.”
“And look at you. You could definitely turn a girl’s head. You already turn my heart.” She held out her car keys. “Wanna drive the Jag?”
“Only to save you from having to climb in and out of my truck in that dress.”
She handed him the shawl and showed him her back.
“Always the gentleman,” Ruby said. “Let’s go.”
Crockett draped the shawl over her shoulders and held her biceps for a moment before they headed out the door.
The Hereford house is a Kansas City tradition. They don’t serve the absolute best steaks in town, but they always serve one of the very best, and the quality never changes. Crockett and Ruby drank, they ate, they drank, they had dessert and coffee, and they wandered out to the parking lot a little tipsy after spending nearly two hours over dinner. As Crockett opened Ruby’s door she giggled.
“God, Crockett,” she said, “this feels like a date.”
“I shoulda gotcha a corsage.”
“An orchid for my wrist would have
been nice,” Ruby said. “Fading memories of the prom.”
“How long since you’ve been on a date with some strapping young buck, Sparky?”
Ruby thought a minute while he got in the car.
“Jesus, Crockett. It has been over twenty years. Not since high school.”
“That long! You must be feeling very constricted. This could be my big chance. Wanna go watch the submarine races out at the forest preserve?”
“Let’s discuss it on your couch,” Ruby said, kissing him on the cheek.
Ruby came directly to Crockett’s living room when they got home and posed artfully on the sofa, leaning on one hip with her knees drawn up. Damn butterfly.
“Wine, Davey,” she extorted, “and be quick about it. I thirst for the grape!”
Crockett opened a dusty bottle of Australian Shiraz, grabbed two glasses out of the cabinet, made his way to the couch, sat beside her, and poured. Ruby held up her glass for a toast.
“To possibilities,” she said.
“Anything’s possible,” Crockett said.
After they sipped, she snuggled into him a little.
They sat that way for a time, then watched Nudge enter the room through his cat door and walk over in front of the couch. He peered at them in that blank cat way, sat, and began to methodically clean his fur as if he were totally alone.
“Nudge doesn’t seem impressed by the fact we’re getting drunk on his sofa,” Ruby said.
“Not much impresses him,” Crockett admitted. “A thirty-five pound tomcat can afford to–”
Nudge hissed with such volume that both of them jumped. He was crouched on the floor looking at something in the middle distance of the room. There was nothing there. The cat laid his ears back and began a low throaty growl that actually vibrated the floor, all the while watching something move through the room that neither Ruby nor Crockett could see. He began to spit and snarl, then screeched and bolted through his cat door into Ruby’s side, a wail trailing in his wake. Crockett was on his feet.
“Jesus!” he said.
Ruby was beside him. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I don’t know. You see anything?”
Grave Promise Page 7
