I waited until he left the conference room, and then I groaned. “Darrell. Are you kidding? Me and Ajax?”
“You’re going to have to learn to live with him sooner or later. You might as well start now.”
That was true, but I did a lousy job of hiding my annoyance. In the office, I shrugged on my coat, then followed Ajax out of the courthouse building, trying to keep up with his long strides. The Christmas snow lingered on Main Street and on the roofs of the buildings, but the day was bright and clear. Ajax slipped Foster Grants over his eyes as he slid behind the wheel of his cruiser. I kept a stony silence as I took the passenger seat next to him. He squealed his car into a U-turn and sped out of town like a Ferrari driver at Le Mans. Somehow I think this was supposed to impress me.
Ajax shot a sideways glance across the car and saw my mouth bent into a sour frown. “Jesus, lighten up already.”
“Lighten up?” I fired back. “Do you really have the balls to say something like that to me?”
“What’s eating you?”
“You know what. What did you say to Ricky? Did you tell him we were sleeping together?”
He chuckled. “Hey, we were just kidding around. Everybody knew it was a joke.”
“Everybody?”
“Sure, the whole gang at the movie. That’s what we do, you know that. We drink, we shit on each other. Hell, Ruby was right there. She heard everything I said, and she knew I was kidding.”
My fists clenched. “Don’t do it again. Don’t joke about me and you. Not to Ricky, not to anyone. Got that?”
“Got it,” he replied with a sarcastic salute. Then he shoved his sunglasses down to the end of his nose like Tom Cruise. “But just so you know, anytime you want more than what Ricky’s packing, I’m happy to help out.”
“Oh, shut up, Ajax. Just shut the hell up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We didn’t speak for several minutes after that. I fumed in the passenger seat. We headed into the nowhere land that occupies most of the county, past miles of white-flocked evergreens hugging both sides of the highway. Eventually, Ajax got to a lonely T-intersection, where the 126 crossed with a dirt road that I knew well. Going left led toward Norm Foltz’s house, which was next door to the house where Darrell and his family lived. On the other side of Darrell was the house where I’d grown up with my father and brother. Almost a quarter-mile separated each of the lots, but we were all neighbors.
However, Ajax turned in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I need to stop home first. I forgot my lunch.”
“Can’t you skip it?”
Ajax shook his head. “Man, are you on the rag, or what? Give me a break. It’ll take five minutes.”
He drove fast enough to get a little skid on the rear tires. The unplowed road was rutted with tracks in the snow. Three miles from the highway, we got to his house, which was a freshly built two-story big enough for a large family. The yard had been cleared, but there were still a few dozen tree stumps jutting out of the drifts. It was more house than you’d expect from a thirty-year-old deputy, but we all assumed that the sheriff had kicked in cash for his nephew.
“Want to come in?” Ajax asked.
“No, I’ll stay out here.”
“Suit yourself. I won’t be long.”
He got out of the car and marched up to his front porch. I saw the door open, and his wife, Ruby, came outside to greet him. He gave her a peck and then slapped her ass as he went inside. She glanced at the cruiser, which was when she spotted me. Her mouth pushed into a thin, unhappy line. I got the feeling that Ruby wasn’t convinced that her husband had been kidding around at the 126.
Ruby had a lush shag of deep mahogany hair that hung well below her shoulders. She was bony and small, except for the basketball-sized bump in her stomach. After she’d left the mine, they’d had two kids back to back, and the third was due in the next month or so. Her face was Barbie-doll pretty, in the same Ken-doll way that Ajax was handsome. She had fair skin, a sharp little dimpled chin, and big green eyes that could turn from sweet to ferocious in a blink. The genetic combination of Ruby and Ajax was undeniably impressive. Their kids were gorgeous.
She tramped through the snow. It was cold outside, but she wore no coat, just a holiday sweater and jeans. I knew she was coming to talk to me, so I got out of the car and lit a cigarette as I leaned against the door.
“Hi, Ruby.”
“Rebecca.”
“How are you? Feeling okay?”
“Fine.”
“Number three won’t be long now, huh?”
“No, not long.”
“Good.”
That was all we said, but I heard a different, unspoken conversation going on between us. Ruby knew what her husband was like. She knew that Ajax cheated on her every chance he got, because you couldn’t keep that kind of thing quiet in Black Wolf County. But Ruby was also intent on making sure that no matter who Ajax slept with, he always came home to her and her kids. She’d mess up any woman who tried to get in the middle of her marriage, and the look in her green eyes told me that she thought I was exactly the kind of woman who might try to do that. I was trying just as hard to tell her that nothing was going on between me and Ajax.
Finally, Ruby got more pointed.
“So where’s Darrell? Don’t you usually ride with him?”
“He asked me and Ajax to do an interview.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Gordon Brink got killed,” I added.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“So that’s all it is,” I told her, which was as close as I could get to saying out loud that I wasn’t trying to steal her husband.
“I suppose you’re talking to Norm,” Ruby said.
I covered my surprise that she’d guessed right. “Well, we’ll be talking to everyone who knew Brink. That’s how these things go.”
“You should start with Norm, that’s all I’ll say.”
“Why?”
“Ajax didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“About Norm and Gordon.”
“No, what about them?”
Ruby glanced over her shoulder at their house. Ajax was still inside. I could see her weighing whether to say anything, but I think she loved the idea of lording a secret over me. “I had a deposition with Norm at Brink’s house a few days ago. Norm was trying to get me to say the men were harassing Sandra and the others at the mine. He kept pushing hard for X-rated details.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said the worst sexual harasser I ever saw at the mine was Sandra.”
“So what does that have to do with Norm and Gordon?”
“We took a break midway through,” Ruby explained. “I had to pee. I have to pee like every twenty minutes with this kid sitting on my bladder. When I was done, I passed the back door to the house on my way back. I saw Norm and Gordon out in the yard, and I could hear they were having an argument. It was really hot, like they might go after each other. Gordon was shouting at Norm.”
“Was it about the deposition?” I asked.
Ruby shook her head. “No. It didn’t have anything to do with the lawsuit. They were arguing about Gordon’s son. Jay.”
Chapter Eight
Norm met us at the door before we even had a chance to knock.
I’d been in his house many times over the years, going back to when I was a girl. My father wasn’t as close to Norm as Darrell was, but any neighbor quickly becomes a friend around here. Our families had spent a lot of time around the firepit in Norm’s backyard, eating homemade Swedish potato sausage, playing Jarts and volleyball, and telling ghost stories. It was Norm who’d first told me the legend of the Ursulina when I was six years old.