She held his eye. “No, I don’t.”
Laura said, “Can you tell me the nature of your relationship with Ruby Ballantine?”
“We’re together.”
“Together?”
“Let me spell it out for you. We’re lovers. We love each other.”
“So you knew Sean Perrin through Ruby?”
“Ruby asked me to keep an eye on him. She was worried about him.”
“Worried?”
“Yes. She heard he was in Madera Canyon and he wouldn’t come see us.”
“Did Sean know you knew his sister?”
“Ruby didn’t want him to know. She’s touchy about that. He didn’t know she was gay.”
Laura nodded. Pretty neat. She guessed that everything was pretty neat in Alex World. “You lied to me.”
“No, I gave you one of my names.”
“And your friend in Continental?”
“What about her?”
“Her name was Alex Williams, too?”
The girl smiled. “Is it illegal to have two names? Or make stuff up? I know you’re a cop and everything but what are you going to do? Are you going to arrest me for lying? Is that what the government is doing these days?”
Laura matched her smile with one of her own. “Of course not. I just want to know why you were playing that game with me.”
“Because I felt like it.” She opened the door and escorted them out.
She remained there in front of her apartment as they walked down the steps and threaded past the caged pool and under the palm fronds and out to the car. At the car, they looked back.
Williams remained where she was, still smiling. And then she waved.
19: Down and Out and Out of Leads
Laura and Anthony continued to work the case whenever leads came in—most of them dead ends. Laura was convinced that Alex Williams and Ruby Ballantine were responsible for Sean Perrin’s death.
There were more pressing homicide cases, important ones that the powers that be wanted worked, and there weren’t enough hours in the day. Still, Laura would often drive out on West Speedway and look at the house on the hill. She took the case home on weekends and tried to push it forward, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried every angle, but other than surveilling the two women, there was little she could do—and she didn’t have time for that.
Laura had been here before. She was dead sure Ruby Ballantine and Alex Williams were involved in Sean Perrin’s death, but there was no way to prove it.
She kept the file on her computer and went back to it once in a while. Nothing changed.
Five months after she and Anthony stopped actively working on the case, Arthur Ferris Ballantine, Ruby Ballantine’s father, passed away.
Laura and Anthony attended the graveside ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery on Oracle Road.
It was a small knot of people, and from their ages, Laura guessed that they were mostly friends of Ruby. Alex Williams was there, looking carefree.
Ruby looked distracted. It seemed to Laura that Ruby spent a lot of her time looking around for Alex, who seemed to work the crowd like a bumble bee. She was popular with the small gathering, and so easy on the eye.
Ruby seemed a little lost, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. Laura was watching Ruby when Alex talked to the preacher. The preacher bent his head to listen to Alex and there was an expression of yearning on Ruby’s face. Alex looked in her direction and Ruby looked away.
For her part, Alex spent little time with her lover. She was too busy enjoying her position as co-hostess—if you could call a funeral something you’d host.
The coffin was lowered and the prayers were said as an electric mower droned in the background.
Laura watched Ruby and Alex at the gravesite. Alex’s expression betrayed nothing, even though she recognized Laura. A normal person might feel strange, having lied to a detective about her identity. But Alex didn’t care.
Once, while in a conversation with a friend of Ruby’s father, Laura caught Alex’s eye. Alex smiled at her as if she were an old friend.
Ruby seemed a little out of it, acknowledging words of sympathy, but oddly detached. In shock?
She didn’t act like someone whose plans had come together with the efficiency of a Swiss watch.
Maybe Alex hadn’t told Ruby about her stay in Madera Canyon.
Maybe Ruby didn’t know about Alex’s involvement in her brother’s death. Maybe Alex had been freelancing.
Laura didn’t know why she’d want to take one last crack at Alex Williams. Maybe just to remind Williams that she knew. Maybe it was hubris.
Or maybe it was just a warning to Alex that she wasn’t about to give up on this case.
Williams was alone for a moment and Laura took the opportunity to waylay her.
“I am so sorry for your loss,” Laura said.
“Thanks.”
“Of course, it was more of a gain than a loss, wasn’t it?”
Alex’s smile turned rigid. “I think we’re done here.” She turned away.
Laura put her hand on the girl’s arm and Alex spun around to face her. “You may be done,” Laura said. “But I’m not.”
Alex smiled. “Oh, I’d say we’re done. If you’re the best they’ve got, I’m home free, aren’t I?”
She turned on her high heel and walked away.
20: Second Saturday
One evening in September, everything changed.
It was Second Saturday again. Laura and Anthony had moved on to other cases. Many of them were easy to put to bed—domestics that turned deadly, a drive-by shooting, a fight outside a bar that escalated into a fatal stabbing. No real solving, Sherlock Holmes style, to be done. Just brutishness spilling over. Whether it was jealousy, or alcohol, or drugs, or stupidity, or defiance—these killings made up the warp and woof of her job. And sometimes it got to the point where the plain stupidity of it wore on her like an emory board on a fingernail, wearing down her empathy and (sometimes) diminishing her skills—just a little bit.
She had to recommit from time to time. Realize that these stories, while sordid and low and depressing, involved real people. People who had lost their lives, sometimes for the stupidest of reasons. People left behind whose lives would never be the same.
So many pointless deaths. So much abject stupidity. So much gratuitous cruelty. She had to remember to fight for the victims. She had to remember to help the people left behind, even when they themselves were mean and low and cruel.
There were the heartbreakers, too. Like a boy who shot his little brother with the rifle he got for his birthday. And a child who went missing—just disappeared one day—and was never seen again.
She was ready for a Second Saturday, ready for a few carefree moments with Matt.
So they ate at one of the open-air restaurants. The evening air was cool—September was a furnace during the day but nice when the sun dropped down below the horizon.
There were a lot of people out. Mostly kids from the U. of A. or kids from just about anywhere, both sides of 4th Avenue streaming with people. It was a fair-like atmosphere that Laura loved. Matt’s partner, Dave, held down the fort at Tucson Fire Supply, doing demonstrations on fire safety. Dave had spelled him so they could enjoy dinner at Delectables.