by Tom Fowler
I stared at the expanse of white for at least five minutes, but no breakthrough came. I went back to the case file, looking up at the timeline as I came across significant events. After about a half-hour, I grew tired. I rose early to meet Hess and have him waste my time, and I hadn’t slept well since my parents finally revealed their deception. I didn’t expect a rush of insight, so I went upstairs and lay in bed. Within a couple minutes, I fell asleep.
My ringing cell phone jolted me awake an indeterminate time later. I picked it up and glanced at the time; I’d napped almost two hours. I didn’t recognize the number calling but answered anyway. “
“C.T.?” said a woman’s voice my tired brain couldn’t marry to a face.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Ruby. Remember me?”
How could I forget? I hoped her stalker situation would sort itself out. A distraction from Samantha’s case was something I didn’t want right now. “Of course,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is the son of a bitch is back.”
“Your stalker?”
“I just saw him.”
“In the daylight?” I said, surprised.
“I never said he was a genius. Can you come down here?”
“Ruby, it’s daylight. He can’t stalk you in secret if you can see him. Are you sure it’s him?”
“It’s his car,” she said.
“Can’t you see inside?”
“He has the windows tinted really dark.”
“License plate?” I said.
“Didn’t catch one. I don’t think he has a front tag.”
“Look, I’m in the middle of something else. You have a million places to go to lose someone in the daytime. If he’s still bothering you tonight, let me know.”
“You’re blowing me off.” She sounded miffed but also not surprised. Ruby didn’t strike me as very old, but she’d obviously grown used to disappointment.
“I’m telling you I can be more help to you tonight,” I said in an effort to placate her while I hoped she wouldn’t call back. So yes, I was blowing her off.
“Whatever,” she said and hung up.
With any luck, I’d gotten the boot from the Ruby stalking case. It was a boring one from the start, and now I was immersed in something much more important. Rollins could deal with a stalker. He didn’t have to know who the guy was to beat him up when he came around. I sat up in bed. Samantha’s file wouldn’t make any more sense to me now than it did when I came upstairs. I changed into lighter clothes and went out for a run. A few laps around Federal Hill Park would help clear my head. If nothing else, I might run into a pretty jogger.
* * *
I walked back inside my house about forty minutes later, having sweated my way through four miles and zero attractive runners. I needed a shower to wash away the exertion and the disappointment. After putting on clean clothes, I went back downstairs, frowned at the state of my refrigerator, and made a long overdue trip to the grocery store. An hour later, I walked back inside with a dozen Harris Teeter bags and a ravenous hunger.
I put rice on to boil while I oiled a skillet for a fantastic piece of salmon I bought at the market. I sprinkled the skillet with Old Bay and a pinch of dill as the oil heated. When it crackled, I put the salmon filet on. While it cooked, I finished with the rice and steamed some broccoli. About ten minutes later, I had a plate packed with a salmon filet, brown rice, and steamed broccoli so green it would make the Hulk jealous.
While I scarfed down my lunch, my thoughts drifted to Samantha’s murder. My thoughts drifted few other places these days. Today, rational people kept their guard up online. Thousands of faux Nigerian princes duped people out of money, funny cat pictures bore malicious payloads, and too many children met way too many pedophiles. Thirteen years ago, the Internet had not facilitated so much mistrust. Samantha was a smart girl, and she knew enough to be careful online, but if she found someone else with a passion for the same causes, she could have revealed too much.
After lunch, I focused on the electronic component of the investigation. I would find Rondel even though I possessed no idea how to go about it at the moment. He’d talked to Samantha on many occasions, both in email and in chat rooms. The BPD collected a good amount of the email traffic. They seized Samantha’s computer and printed any chat logs she archived. Many unsaved conversations could have been missing, however. How many important details did I now not have because my sister didn’t save all the logs?
I earned a college education. Along the way to a master’s in computer science, I took a few psychology and sociology classes—the former because it interested me and the latter because girls who majored in sociology tended to be easy. I wasn’t a criminal profiler, but I might be able to pore over these emails and chat logs and glean a few things about the man who killed Samantha. I gathered all the printouts, got a legal pad, poured my third cup of coffee for the day, and got to work.
Sometime later, I heard the front door open. “Hello?” Gloria called from the foyer as she closed and locked the door.
“In the office,” I said.
She walked in. I hoped she would still be in her tennis outfit with its tight top and tiny skirt. No such luck, however: Gloria wore a polo shirt and khaki capris. “I went back to my house for a while,” she said, sitting in a guest chair. “Then I had a tennis lesson. Now I’m here.” She smiled.
“Here you are.”
Gloria looked at the whiteboard and my many scribblings. “I see you’ve been busy today.”
I nodded. “Having a visual timeline will help me. I can stop rummaging through the file for the basics.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Reading emails and chat logs to see if I can learn anything about the killer.”
“Any luck?”
“I’ve made a couple notes,” I said. We’ll see if they turn into anything.”
“How did it go with the FBI this morning?” I gave her my impressions of Hess and the meeting. “Sounds like a waste of time,” she said.
“Looks like one now. Who knows? Maybe I’ll uncover something and be able to go back to them with more evidence in hand.”
“You think they can help you find this guy?”
“I think I have better odds with them than I do trying to brute-force an answer by myself.”
Gloria sat in silence for a few minutes as I scanned another file. “You taking a break soon?” she said.
“I might,” I said. “Why?”
She fixed me with a lascivious stare and licked her lips. “I’m a little wound up after the tennis lesson.”
“I think we’ll have to get you nice and relaxed.”
“I think we will.” She stood. “Come upstairs when you’re ready for a break.”
I finished the chat log I’d been reading, put it back in the box, and headed to the second floor. Gloria had already changed into a small nightgown unfit for network television. She grinned at me as I walked through the door and sat beside her on the bed.
“You’ve been working too hard,” she said.
“I think we’ll have to get both of us nice and relaxed,” I said.
“I think we will,” Gloria concurred.
* * *
Later in the day, I cooked dinner. Gloria managed to distract me from Samantha’s file for the better part of the afternoon. As I settled in to preparing our food, I realized I needed some distance from the file. It had consumed me ever since I carried it out of BPD headquarters. All I could show for it was a new whiteboard, a bunch of aborted theories, and some eye strain. I would keep at it, but I didn’t need to hammer away at it nonstop in the stubborn hope of a breakthrough.
We’d barely finished eating chicken marsala when my phone rang again. I recognized the number this time: Ruby. I had blown her off earlier; the least I could do was talk to her now. “Hello?”
“You gonna blow me off again?” said Ruby.
“What’s going on?”
“He’s here again.”
“Does he know you’re on the phone?” I said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Where are you now?”
“Near the Gold Club,” she said. “He’s in the parking lot watching me.”
“I’ll be there shortly. Stay put unless you’re in trouble. Call me if something changes.”
“I will. Thanks, C.T.”
“Sure.” I hung up and grabbed my keys.
“Dining and dashing?” Gloria said.
“I always look dashing,” I said. “But duty calls.”
* * *
I called Ruby when I got close to the Gold Club. “Is he still there?” I said.
“Hasn’t moved.”
“Describe the car.”
“Silver, four doors. Looks like a Benz, I guess. He’s on the side of the parking lot near the empty site. You know where I’m talking about?”
“Yes,” I said. “It used to be a shipping company of some sort, I think.”
“Yeah. I’m in what was their parking lot, talking to a couple of other girls and some guys in a blue SUV.”
“OK. I’m going to drive to where you are. Let’s see what happens.”
I wheeled past the Gold Club. The lot was too crowded for me to pick out a specific car. The abandoned shipping company stood farther down Route 40. Ruby and a few other working girls gathered in the parking lot of Christian’s Tires across Mapleton Avenue from the Gold Club. All of them wore skirts sized more like belts, heels tall enough to make my calves ache in sympathy, and tight tops leaving nothing to the imagination. Good thing we were having a warm late autumn. I pulled up next to Ruby.
“Where did you get this car?” she said.
“My first car came with a bumper sticker saying ‘my other car is an Audi,’” I said. “I figured I should make it true.”
She leaned into my open passenger’s window. Her top loosened up around her breasts, and she showed me a lot more of them than I’d expected. At least it was a nice view unobstructed by a bra. “You see him?”
In the Gold Club parking lot, I saw a row of cars. Among them was a silver Mercedes with no front plate. “I see the car you mentioned, but I don’t know if anyone’s inside it.”
“We haven’t seen him get out of it. He’s up there, watching.”
“I wonder how he would react if you got into my car,” I said.
“I’d rather just go kick his ass.”
“If he thinks you’re onto him, he’s going to drive away.”
Ruby nodded. “We’d better get going, then. Transactions don’t take this long to negotiate.” I unlocked the doors, and she got in. As I pulled onto Mapleton, the front lights of the Mercedes lit up.
We had a pursuer.
Chapter 9
The silver Benz pulled out behind us and stayed there, not even trying for subtlety. “Now what?” Ruby said.
“If he’s smart, he’s not going to follow us forever,” I said. “We need to find a plausible place to go soon.”
“Why not the motel?”
“Why not indeed?”
A few blocks later, I turned into the parking lot of the Deluxe Plaza Motel. They were still guilty of false advertising on two counts. “We getting a room?” Ruby said.
“You think he’d wait in the lot for you?”
“I don’t know.”
“We need to be careful not to spook him yet,” I said. “Stick to the routine.”
“Let’s get a room, stud.” Ruby gave me a playful pat on the thigh.
I paid for two hours of a room. The guy behind the desk, someone I hadn’t seen here before, gave Ruby a key. She smiled and winked at him as she took it and led me down the walkway. The silver Benz sat at the back of the lot. Ruby unlocked the door to number eight, and we went inside. The room featured drab carpeting someone should have replaced years ago and paint deserving a similar fate. A queen bed took up one wall with a nightstand on either side of it. The furniture, which included a small desk, was all the same boring shade of brown. To my surprise, the room smelled fresh, though I shuddered to think about what nasty surprises lurked in the bedding.
Ruby sat on the edge of the mattress. I stood near it with no intention of sitting on the bed. The blue curtains were drawn, and I didn’t want to look nosy by peeking out. “How long are we gonna wait?” Ruby said.
“How much time are you normally in a room?” I said.
“Depends what the john pays for.” She looked at me askance. If she went for sexy with the look, it worked. “How long can you last?”
“I don’t get any complaints.”
Ruby smiled. “We have some time. Wanna fuck?”
“No thanks.”
“You sure?” She pulled her top off, revealing first a toned stomach and then a nice pair of breasts no longer held in check by her shirt. I took a deep breath and steeled myself.
“It’s tempting,” I said. “But no.”
“I’m clean. I get tested all the time.”
I gave her a smile I hoped looked gentle. “I’m helping you because you seem like someone who needs it, not because I want you to trade sex for it.”
She looked about to say something, but I got the feeling she didn’t know how to respond.
“When’s the last time someone wanted something from you other than sex?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “I guess I figure that’s what everyone wants from me.”
“I want to help you, and while I quite enjoy looking at you with your shirt off, you don’t have to stay undressed on my account.”
Ruby flashed a sheepish grin and slid her shirt back over her head. I hid my disappointment as her breasts once more vanished behind the white fabric wall. “Thanks, C.T. Not many people want to do things for me.” Her voice cracked.
“Don’t get all sentimental on me,” I said. “How do you want to handle this asshole in the parking lot?”
“I figured that’s your department.”
“All right. He parked a distance from my car. If we went running after him, he’d just drive away.” I remembered the parking lot. “There are two entrances, though. If I pull out of the back one, I might be able to do a quick loop and get behind him. Then we’re the ones following him.”
“I like it,” Ruby said, nodding quickly. “Let’s go.”
I looked at my watch. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want your stalker to think I’m a three-pump chump.”
She laughed. “Fine. We’ll go when your pride is sated.”
“We could be here a while, then,” I said.
* * *
We waited about ten more minutes and left arm-in-arm. I told Ruby to ignore the Benz, which remained in the same spot. We didn’t need to let him know we knew he was there. I opened the door for Ruby—and wondered how many johns even drove her anywhere afterward, never mind opened the door for her—then let myself in. We went out the exit on the left, closer to where the Benz was parked. Traffic was light on this stretch of Pulaski Highway. The Benz pulled out behind us as we approached the second entrance to the Deluxe Plaza parking lot.
I stepped on the gas, turned hard, sped to the next exit, and pulled out behind the silver car. To my dismay, he only showed a temporary rear license plate. Years ago, Maryland shifted to paper temporary tags. If they get wet, they become illegible. This one was illegible. The Benz picked up speed as the driver realized he’d become the followee. I matched him. Ruby smiled in my peripheral vision.
The speedometer lurched above seventy as we blew past Moravia Road, then Moravia Park Drive. The Audi let out a supercharged hum as I downshifted for some more muscle on the hill. The Benz put down a good pace. I stayed about five car lengths behind in case of any shenanigans. The stalker swerved around a slower car whose driver laid on the horn in response. I followed suit. The horn persisted. We approached Chesaco Avenue going almost ninety. The light turned yellow. The
Benz blew through it. So did a tractor trailer, making a left across Pulaski Highway, between the Benz and my Audi. I stomped on the brakes. The tires shrieked, and I felt the anti-lock brakes pulsating under my foot. We skidded to a stop barely in time.
I let out a deep breath. Ruby did the same. My heart thumped in my chest. Neither of us needed to say anything. The light turned green. I took off at a more reasonable pace, but we never saw the Benz again. At Rossville Boulevard, past the remnants of what used to be Golden Ring Mall, I turned around so I could take Ruby back.
“He got away,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Do you think he’ll come back?” I said.
“If he doesn’t, then he scares easily. That would mean you did your job.”
“I’m guessing he’ll be the type who doesn’t get spooked. He’ll probably leave you alone for a couple days, though. Counts for something.”
“You can’t be around in your fancy car. He knows it now.”
“Unfortunate,” I said. “I prefer my fancy car to the other one.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Ruby.
“I’ll keep an eye on you periodically. Rollins probably will too, but call me if you see this bastard again. He knows you know about him now. I hope he doesn’t ramp up from being a simple creep.”
Ruby nodded. “I will.”
I dropped her off in the same place I picked her up. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. I smiled and waved as I drove off. In spite of myself, I actually liked the girl. Looking past the fact she took money to have sex with strangers in a shitty motel, she was very nice. On the drive home, I thought about the aborted chase of the Benz. We didn’t need to tip our hands so soon. We could have merely driven back, and I could have watched Ruby and her stalker. Instead, we spooked him, he ran, and he might come back angry now.
