Just in Time

by Suzanne Trauth

  I needed another visit to Ruby’s neighborhood.

  11

  We lounged on stools at the center island in Bill’s kitchen. “You outdid yourself.” I swallowed the last bite of his Mediterranean omelet.

  Bill peered over the top of the front page of the New York Times, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “No big deal: eggs, some tomatoes, scallions, feta cheese, black olives, a dash of oregano.”

  Our Sunday ritual had become a regular event: brunch at Bill’s where he’d captivate me with a gastronomic treat, while we shared the NYT and hashed over the latest Etonville antics or crime spree. “Did you see my horoscope for today?” It was a not-so-subtle hint that my birthday was right around the corner, and Bill had yet to offer any sort of plan for the big day.

  He stuck his face back into the paper. “Nope.”

  “Nice to have a day off. Glad the Windjammer’s closed on Sunday and the show is dark today.”

  “Me too. I need a break from the greasepaint.”

  “I don’t know. You might be going all rogue on me. Looking pretty comfortable up on that stage chasing the teenagers of Sweet Valley, Ohio. I like that bit where you catch the mayor’s wife as she faints at the end.”

  “Yeah. Edna gets a kick out of it too,” he said wryly.

  “How about Walter’s curtain speech?” I chuckled.

  “The cast sure enjoyed his tribute. Walter has a knack for bending the truth to serve his needs.”

  “Bending Shakespeare too.” I moved to the counter to retrieve the coffee pot, ruffling Bill’s already ragged, bed-head on the way. “At least the standing ovation at the end of the show was well-deserved.”

  “I need a haircut.” Bill tugged on his brush cut.

  “Why don’t you stop by Snippets? I could give Carol a call.” Bill would rather tread on hot coals than step foot inside the gossip center for a trim. “Vernon gets his hair cut there.”

  Bill groaned. “That’s all I need. To listen to that crew offer opinions on everything from Ruby’s murderer to the dangers of carbon monoxide to potential suspects.”

  “Are there any? Suspects?”

  His face took on a guarded police-chief-expression. “We’re working on it.”

  “Working on it” likely meant both the Etonville and Creston forces were stumped at the present. “Did I mention that I visited the Maynard Institute yesterday?” I asked casually.

  Bill looked perplexed. “Maynard Institute?”

  “Where Ruby went to school.”

  He dropped the newspaper on the table. “No, you didn’t. Why did you go, and what did you find out? You’re out of the investigative business. We agreed—”

  “Rein it in! I’m not investigating anything. I’m wondering about her, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced.

  I poured us both a second cup of coffee as I recounted my trip to New York and conversation with Boris Yurkov. “I can’t get over it—how someone so talented could throw away a career.”

  Bill shrugged. “It’s been done before. Someone walking away from a lucrative contract. I’ve seen plenty of NFL players choose to call it quits at the height of their careers.”

  “Okay, but that’s not the same.”

  “Why not? Because football players aren’t talented?” he asked, testing me.

  “No, because football is a dangerous game. Playing the piano is a lot safer profession.”

  “Really?” Bill said.

  I got his drift. To quote Walter, were Ruby’s “nimble fingers plying her trade at the piano” connected to her death?

  “Anyway, don’t get carried away about Ruby,” he warned, shaking a finger playfully in my face.

  “Fine but if you need my instincts…” I let the offer hang tantalizingly in the air.

  “I’ll let you know. Besides, there is enough growing evidence to investigate persons of interest.”

  “Really? Who—?”

  Bill stood and stretched. “I have to run into work. I’ll catch up with you later. Making my spaghetti carbonara for dinner.”

  “Oooh…you forgot. Tonight’s poker night at my place. Last month I decided that we needed a girls’ club. We were looking for something looser than a book club so we settled on poker.”

  “Poker? I know you can play…

  Bill and I had taken a day trip to Atlantic City in April. I shocked him by winning at blackjack and three-card poker.

  “…but what about—”

  “Lola, Carol, Mildred, and Edna? I’m teaching them. Anyway, we only play for pennies and nickels.”

  “I was looking forward to cooking for us. Cracking open a nice red wine, and catching up on Netflix.” He pouted like a little kid.

  “You could always broaden your horizons to include the poker crew—”

  “No,” he said hastily.

  “It’ll be fun. Like being in Snippets without the dryers and hair spray. Maybe you’ll learn something about Ruby,” I said.

  Bill chuckled. “You’re going to owe me.”

  “Mmmm…I can taste the calories already.”

  “I’ll need a lot of wine,” he added.

  “My treat.”

  Bill showered and left for the Etonville police department. I lingered over my coffee, texting Pauli to see if he could come to my place for internet reconnaissance later. I doodled in the margin of the Arts and Leisure section of the Times. Whatever became of the young man who argued with Ruby in the quad near Boris Yurkov’s window? It sounded like a significant fight. Did they ever make up? Were they a couple while Ruby was on tour for the next six years or so? Did they marry? Is it possible Ruby had a love life before she exited the concert scene? My cell pinged. Pauli: Hey. I’m in.

  * * * *

  “Any update on Janice?” I asked as Pauli went to work at my kitchen table, Slurpee and a bag of barbecue potato chips in hand.

  He flipped open his laptop. “Nah.”

  I tiptoed into sensitive territory. “Is she still coming to your graduation party?”

  “Dunno. Would be epic if she did.”

  “I hope you’re not letting that kid from Creston cramp your style.”

  “Nah. He’s like kind of a bozo.” He looked in my direction. “You think he can act?”

  Actually, yes. “He’s okay. You have other talents. Photography, digital forensics…” I poured myself another cup of coffee.

  Pauli sipped his Slurpee. “Like, yeah. So what about Ruby?”

  “Right. I want to dig into her background.”

  “Awesome,” he said. “Like what do you want to know?”

  It all boiled down to her abandoning her talent. Why was I fixated on that? Never mind. “She had this great concert career. Traveled around the world. Met celebrities here and abroad.”

  “Sweet.” Pauli’s brow puckered. “You sure that’s the same Ruby who played the piano for Bye, Bye, Birdie?”

  “I know what you mean. But yes, same person.”

  I explained to Pauli that I’d checked phone listings for Greenburg, Indiana looking for relatives to no avail, except for one. And that Ruby had had no social media presence that I could find, which was odd. Mostly everyone was on Facebook these days. My parents joined to keep up with my brother Andy, and to see photos of his wife, Amanda, and son, Cory.

  There were, of course, the newspaper clippings in the scrapbook, but they dated from the sixties. It was as though the young Ruby vanished at the age of twenty-nine, only to emerge in New Jersey as a seventy-something older woman who played for the Creston Players.

  “We gotta think outside the box,” Pauli said.

  “Right. A deep Internet search? One of those lesser known search engines or databases you’ve used before? Here is some info on her: full name, age, place of birth, last known address in Cre
ston.” I placed a sheet of paper in front of him.

  Pauli cracked his knuckles. His fingers hovered above the keyboard. “Yeah. Gotta dive deeper.” He paused. “But like we have to do some lateral thinking.”

  Lateral thinking? Where did the kid come up with his ideas? “Like what?”

  “Like we had this creativity class at school last month, and we worked on stuff that challenges preconceptions.” He waited for me to catch up.

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, so like we solved puzzles by spinning problems around. You know like here’s one. It’s about a murder,” he said knowingly. “The police come to a house to arrest a suspect named John. They don’t know anything else about him but he’s definitely in the house. They bust in and see a truck driver, a firefighter, a mechanic, and a carpenter. They’re all playing poker. The cops arrest the firefighter. They totally got their man.” He stopped.

  “I’m supposed to solve this by thinking laterally…” The poker playing comment reminded me I was hosting the game tonight, and needed to spruce up my home before everyone arrived. My place wasn’t as large as my house down the shore, but its five rooms suited my lifestyle: small enough to keep presentable; large enough to entertain friends, like tonight’s poker party.

  Pauli slouched down in his seat.

  “Don’t tell me!” I played with several possibilities, then conceded. “I give.”

  “The firefighter’s the only man. The rest of them are women.” His eyes sparkled in triumph.

  “I see what you mean. We come at Ruby from another direction?”

  “Like what if you forgot about Indiana and focused on New Jersey or other places? Like what if she was living here all the time after her career tanked or whatever?”

  The hairs on the back of my necked tingled. “Like hiding in plain sight.” I had been so stuck on Indiana I hadn’t entertained the possibility that Ruby had been living in other locations—including the New Jersey area—during the past decades. My great aunt Maureen would be proud. Many years ago, when my middle school science fair project bombed—my lab partner and I were measuring the effects of Coke on raw meat, when her puppy saw his chance for an early dinner and devoured our experiment in one bite—she said, “Dorothy dear, if you can’t change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails.” We did a poster board on photosynthesis and won third prize.

  “Yeah or like what if she had jobs playing the piano for other places?” he said enthusiastically.

  My mind was buzzing. The kid was onto something. I jumped up and planted a kiss on the top of his head. “Pauli, you’re a genius!”

  He ducked his head and blushed. “Whatever.”

  Pauli never ceased to amaze me. “Maybe we should check those search engines with New Jersey in mind?”

  Pauli was way ahead of me. I left him to his own devices—crosschecking obscure databases with Ruby’s information—and prepared a couple of chip dips. I planned to leave the culinary heavy lifting to Bill. I needed to text the poker players and tell them about dinner. They would be thrilled to taste test Bill’s recipe.

  “Awesome!”

  I gazed at Pauli, shaggy brown hair hanging over his forehead.

  “What?”

  He shoved his laptop across the table so that I could see the screen. There was a picture of a younger Ruby from 1990. She was not quite fifty, but her facial features were shocking for a young woman: deep lines around her mouth, sagging eyelids. Pauli’s lateral thinking was close, if not exact. Ruby hadn’t been living in New Jersey at the time the photo was taken. She was living in a town in western Ohio, and the article described a high school choral performance accompanied by Miss Veronica Passonata.

  “Pauli that’s great work!” Finally, something concrete. Ruby had lived in Ohio after her touring ended. She’d gotten work as an accompanist.

  “And like, yeah, her real name was Veronica. Believe that?”

  There was no mention of “Veronica” in the scrapbook. I guessed that name was relinquished in favor of Ruby when she was growing up.

  My cell phone chirped. It was Carol texting to see if Pauli was here working on the Windjammer website. Our cover, whenever I needed Pauli for some covert digital detective work. “Better call home,” I said. “Your mom’s checking in.”

  Pauli grunted, tapped Carol’s number, and carried on a monosyllabic conversation with his mother. “Uh…yeah…okay. Now?” He handed his cell phone to me.

  “Hi Carol.”

  “Dodie, I’m so excited. I’ve always wanted to learn poker. What can I bring?”

  I thanked Carol for the offer. I explained that Bill had agreed to serve as chef tonight, and was serving one of his favorite pasta dishes. Carol gushed over Bill’s thoughtfulness and insisted she contribute dessert. I agreed, and told her I’d send Pauli on his way soon. I clicked off. “Time for you head home.”

  “Yeah. Gotta bounce. Want to do more searches tomorrow?” he asked. “Like there are some cool police and government databases I can access.”

  Pauli was raring to go! “I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, let’s keep quiet about our discovery.”

  “Like, I never forget the first rule of digital forensics,” he said.

  “Confidentiality. Thanks Pauli.”

  “Yeah, cause like even dead people deserve their privacy.”

  Sensible words from someone barely legal.

  * * * *

  “I call it Captain Jack’s spaghetti carbonara. The recipe came from an old precinct buddy of mine from Philly.” Bill laid out the ingredients for his dinner, and politely accepted the oohs and aahs of the poker gang as they observed him working.

  “I’ve wanted to make this dish for years, but Vernon has high cholesterol,” said Mildred.

  “I’d love the recipe…Bill,” Edna said and tittered. The others snickered. Edna was off duty, as was Bill, and calling him by his first name was a new experience—one that made her slightly self-conscious.

  Bill was undoubtedly rolling his inner eyes, but all he said was “Sure.”

  “What’s the secret, Bill?” asked Lola brightly.

  “Two kinds of bacon.” He cut the Canadian variety into thin strips. “And whipping cream.”

  “Yummy,” Carol said.

  I felt certain Bill needed a break from the admiration society, but to my surprise, he seemed both amused and flattered by all of the attention. Who was this guy and what had he done with my boyfriend? “Let’s go into the dining room and I’ll explain the basics of poker until the food is ready,” I said easing my way into the center of the group. No one budged; all of them were consumed with Bill separating egg yolks from egg whites.

  “I had this dish once. It’s kind of like bacon and eggs on pasta,” said Penny, who had joined us at the last minute to replace Jocelyn who’d heard that Walter, a realtor when he wasn’t presiding over the Etonville Little Theatre, had an open house this afternoon in Bernridge. Pretending to want to purchase a home was a good way to get Walter to notice her, or so she thought. How Walter would react when he caught wind of what Jocelyn was up to was anybody’s guess.

  “…you fry both until they’re cooked, but not crusty.” Bill lifted the skillet and poured bacon grease into a can. “You want to keep about three tablespoons in the pan.”

  “Just three?” asked Carol.

  “Uh-huh, and then you add whipping cream and simmer. Keep one eye on the pasta.” He scanned his audience.

  Had I created a cooking class monster? I finished setting the table. I’d splurged on an expensive bottle of red wine. I’d thought Bill might deserve extra consideration tonight. Although judging from the concentration of his rapt spectators, extra consideration was the last thing he needed.

  * * * *

  “Simply delicious,” said Mildred and the others nodded, mouths full.

  I passed the bre
ad and poured the wine. “So I’ll explain basic poker rules while we eat. That way we can get into the game sooner.”

  “I’m going to need something a little more physical after this,” said Carol, taking a bite of her spaghetti.

  “Me too, but it’s worth every calorie,” said Lola.

  “I’d say the chief has performed a 10-61,” said Edna. “Miscellaneous public service!”

  Everyone agreed.

  “So O’Dell, what’re we playing? I say five card draw, jacks or better to open, progressive,” Penny said.

  The group looked startled.

  “We’ll begin with easy games, Penny. Dealer’s choice. The buy-in will be a dollar—”

  “Is that all?” said Mildred. “I expected to lose my shirt,” she giggled.

  “You can always buy more chips later.” I shuffled the cards. “We’ll play seven card stud. That’s three cards down and four up.”

  “Low spade in the hole splits the pot?” Penny asked.

  “Let’s keep it simple for now—”

  “Can you pass me the cheat sheet?” asked Carol.

  I’d written out the list of hands in order from a single pair to a straight flush. Little chance of that.

  “How’s the meal, ladies?” Bill stuck his head into the dining room.

  “Delicious!” Mildred said, and the rest of the table chimed in.

  “Join us?” asked Lola.

  “No thanks. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the game. I’ll eat in the bedroom.”

  There was a beat as everyone registered Bill’s familiarity with the layout of my house. He must have realized how it sounded, and his normally ruddy face turned a deeper shade of crimson. “I’ll just go…there,” he mumbled and beat a hasty retreat.

  As soon as he was out of sight, everyone focused on me.

  “Such a nice guy.” Carol.

  “So thoughtful.” Mildred.

  “And hunky.” Lola.

  “You are one lucky gal.” Edna.

  “O’Dell, you know what they say...” Penny.

  I couldn’t imagine.

  “Love makes the world go underground.”