I leaned forward, chin propped on my hands, and watched all the skaters whiz past. I knew that Marcus was just doing his job, but he was wrong. I’d seen Ruby’s face in that alley. I’d seen how stricken she was, knowing that Agatha was dead. That reaction wasn’t faked.
I’d grown up with actors. I’d seen them practice. I’d seen them perform. I’d seen every emotion from joy to depression to grief acted out. I’ve seen it acted well and unbelievably badly. Nothing about Ruby’s grief was made-up.
Maggie waved at me from the far end of the rink. In the clump of people behind her one head stuck out.
Marcus.
For a moment I thought about skating down to him and telling him how wrong he was about Ruby. Because of course once he knew he’d apologize and let her go. It was a nice fantasy. Still, I wanted to talk to him.
Maggie was almost level with me now. I struggled to my feet and, legs wobbling, waved my mitten at her to get her attention. She stopped in front of me with a spray of ice chips, just as Mary had done. I teetered toward her.
“You want to go back out?”
“Yes,” I said, arms flapping as I stepped over the low barrier between the ice and snow. My feet were seesawing in and out. I grabbed Maggie’s arm as though it were a rope and I was going down for the third time.
“Just skate,” I said, through clenched teeth. I willed my feet to go forward and they did. Sort of.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
We started along the ice. I scanned the crowd ahead of me, looking for Marcus. I couldn’t see him, and I knew if I turned around I’d be flat on the ice again. A skater slipped past me on the outside, turning in a smooth arc in front of me.
“Hello, Kathleen.”
Of course it was him. He was skating easily, almost lazily backward, and of course at that moment my feet slid out to the sides and I lost my grip on Maggie. I pitched forward, grabbing air, realizing as I went down that I was going to slide through his legs as if we were playing a game of reverse leapfrog.
Crap on toast!
He was grinning, which added insult to injury. Then just before I hit the ice he reached out and caught me under both arms, the momentum pulling me in against him.
Of course.
14
My hands were flat against his chest and out of instinct I clutched his jacket.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
“Kathleen, are you okay?” Maggie asked. She had both of her hands out, as though I were a basketball and Marcus was going to toss me back to her.
“I’m okay.”
“Can you stand up?” he asked.
I tipped my chin so I could look at him. “If I could stand up I wouldn’t have fallen on you in the first place.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me so I was on his left side. “Bend your knees and lean forward,” he said. “Just a little bit.”
Gingerly I followed his instructions, and my legs stopped quaking as I found my balance.
He looped my left hand around his arm, holding it securely with his other hand. “Better?”
I nodded.
“Okay, now lean on me just a little and push out and back with your outside foot.”
We moved forward and I didn’t fall down. I tried another push.
“Keep your blade flat on the ice,” he said. He turned his head. “I’ve got her,” he said to Maggie, who just raised a hand and smiled as she skated away.
I was skating. I pushed with my outside foot, and feeling brave and fancy, did the same with my inside foot. I was definitely skating. Someone had a weird sense of humor to make this happen because of Marcus.
I waited until we made one circuit around the ice before I spoke. “You’re wrong about Ruby,” I said.
He didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what I was talking about. “You heard.”
“I heard. Ruby didn’t kill Agatha.” I loosened my grip on his arm. “I was there with her, with the body. She was grief-stricken. She wasn’t faking that.”
“I can’t do my job based on feelings,” he said. “I look at the facts, at the evidence.”
I took a breath and let it out. It was important to make my case without sounding like a crackpot. “That she was distraught is a fact. Ruby isn’t a killer. Look at all the work she does with kids. She was inspired to do that by Agatha.”
I took my eyes off the ice for a second to search his face. It was unreadable. I continued. “The piece of glass that I gave to you. Can you prove it came from the headlight of Ruby’s struck? Can you prove how it ended up in that alley? Or when? Or how it got stuck in my pants? Can you even prove Ruby was driving her truck that night?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. I know you can’t tell me any of that,” I said.
Maggie was sitting on the bench now. She waved merrily as we went past her.
“No, I can’t.” His cheeks were red from the cold.
I pictured Agatha in the restaurant, clutching that old brown envelope so fiercely. I hadn’t seen it with her body. “Can you at least tell me if you found an old report-card envelope with Agatha’s body?”
He frowned, then recovered and shook his head. “I can’t—”
“I know. You can’t tell me that, either.” And I didn’t need him to. That frown was as good as a no.
“It’s an open case,” he said.
“I’m guessing Ruby didn’t have an alibi,” I said. “Well, neither did Maggie; neither did I.” I stumbled over a divot in the ice, and his hand automatically tightened its grip on my arm.
“Oh, wait a minute. I do have an alibi. Owen and Hercules.”
He sighed. From the corner of my eye I saw his jaw work like he was grinding his teeth. “This is a complicated case, Kathleen,” he said. “Don’t get involved in it the way you did in Gregor Easton’s death last summer.”
Anger did a slow burn in my stomach and I struggled not to let it into my voice. “You’re the one who got me involved in that, because you thought I was having an affair with the man solely because we both lived in Boston at the same time. You were wrong about that, and you’re wrong about Ruby.”
We were turned away from where Maggie was standing, talking to Rebecca. Anger got the best of me. “You didn’t listen to me then and you’re not listening to me now,” I snapped. I let go of his arm, determined to glide away in melodramatic fashion. Except my glide was off by several feet.
I was heading for a snowbank when Susan grabbed my arm. We spun in a circle, but I managed somehow to keep my balance as Susan stopped me.
“You all right?” she asked. We were face-to-face, Susan holding both my upper arms. “It looked like you were arguing with Detective Gordon about something.”
I couldn’t see him anymore. “Not exactly arguing,” I said. “More like discussing.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Vigorously.”
She almost smiled.
“I was trying to point out that his reasons for arresting Ruby weren’t very good ones.”
The color drained from Susan’s face. “The police arrested Ruby? Why?”
She didn’t know. How could she not know? I looked at the ice for a second, then looked back at her. “Because they think she killed Agatha.”
I thought she couldn’t get any paler.
I was wrong.
Susan’s mouth moved but no sound came out.
“Susan, I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought it was common knowledge by now. I shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that.”
She shook her head “Oh, no, it’s okay. We’re a bit out of touch because we’ve just kind of been staying close to home this weekend. You know, colds and stuff.”
Her face was still sickeningly white. “When did they . . . when did they arrest her?”