Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes (7 page)

“The thing is,” continued Brant, trying to keep the conversation on track, “Mrs. Digby felt Sabina was taking Consuela’s side — she’s very high-strung.”

Ruby was by now standing in the doorway quietly observing. The detective was writing something in his notepad, obviously thinking very hard.

“What is it?” asked Sabina.

“Could just be that your Mrs. Digby is somehow involved in all this — have you thought of that?” He waved his arm to indicate the now furnitureless house.

“Oh, now, come on, Detective! Nat, you’ve seen Mrs. Digby — you really think a little old lady is capable of stealing every stick of our furniture?” Brant was appalled by this suggestion.

“Well, as it happens, I don’t. But as the detective says, we have to follow up every lead.”

“Maybe she wasn’t acting alone,” said the detective.

“Oh, you must be out of your mind — Mrs. Digby practically raised me!” exclaimed Sabina. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

“Maybe I am, and maybe it is, but you have to admit it’s quite a coincidence her disappearing at the same time that you lose all your million-dollar stuff, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Redfort?”

“Well yes, but — but —”

“I’m just saying, we need to look into it,” said the detective, closing his notepad. “Thanks for your time.”

He left by the back door.

“Sorry not to come with better news,” said the sheriff.

Just then his radio crackled.
“Nat, you there? We got a problem at the City Bank.”

The sheriff sighed and spoke into the radio. “Not again. OK, I’ll get over there right away.”

He looked up at the Redforts. “Darn it, this gold delivery’s causing mayhem. The new alarm system keeps triggering. It better be fixed before that shipment arrives.” He smiled reassuringly. “Look, I’ll let you know if I get any more leads. You take care. Remember, get those locks changed!”

“What’s left to steal?” said Sabina, closing the door.

Ruby glanced over at Hitch. He looked far from the suspicious character Clancy wanted him to be; he was busy making cocktails and seemed not the slightest bit interested in this latest development. Was he listening? It was hard to be sure. He seemed a lot more concerned about squeezing limes than he did about a little old lady who was missing and presumed a felon. Maybe there was nothing sinister about him at all. Maybe he was just a bit dumb.

Handsome but probably not a lot going on upstairs,
thought Ruby.

Brant caught sight of his daughter. “Hey, Ruby honey, what happened at basketball?”

“Oh, you know, bounced a ball, shot some hoops, came home. What’s going on?”

“Well that . . .
detective
fellow wanted to interview Mrs. Digby about the robbery, but no one can find her.”

Ruby took a breath. “Do you think it’s possible . . .” her voice was hushed so her mother wouldn’t hear. “Do you think it’s possible that Mrs. Digby was stolen, you know, along with all our stuff?”

Brant Redfort smiled, “That’s a good one, Rube!”

But Ruby wasn’t joking.

“I’m serious, Dad. Perhaps she was kidnapped?”

“If she was kidnapped then we would know about it,” said Brant.

“Not necessarily, the kidnappers might be waiting a while before they make contact — you know, to build up the tension.”

“You know what?” said Brant conspiratorially.

“What?” said Ruby.

“You watch too much TV.” He laughed, patted his daughter on the head, and walked into the living room. Ruby sighed as she straightened the barrette in her hair.

“And you guys probably don’t watch enough,”
she muttered under her breath. This kind of situation was always coming up in
Crazy Cops
. Ruby had learned a lot about the workings of the criminal mind from watching this show. It was on tonight, and if Mrs. Digby were here they would be watching it together — side by side on the couch. Except there
was
no couch. Wherever Mrs. Digby was now, Ruby wondered, was she watching Crime Night?

Ruby’s sleep was fitful that night. She had a hard time dozing off, and when she did, she dreamed dreams that gave her no rest. Dreams where the telephone rang and the voice on the other end spoke in riddles. Dreams where her mother was taken hostage by a dangerous toast-eating butler and her father was shot at by crazy furniture thieves, and all the while the voice of Mrs. Digby called out to her from some faraway prison cell. She was woken by her own voice calling,
“Where are you, Mrs. Digby?”

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Mrs. Digby a criminal? That detective was a prize bozo. Mrs. Digby would never commit a crime — well, not a crime against the Redforts anyway. Ruby’s mind began sifting through worries, exploring solutions, hitting dead ends, and doubling back to square one. She consoled herself with
RULE 33 : MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THERE IS A VERY ORDINARY EXPLANATION FOR THE “EXTRAORDINARY” HAPPENING.

But it was no use, she was wide awake.

She got up, pulled on a sweatshirt, and quietly made her way downstairs — she didn’t want to wake Bug. But Bug was already awake and staring intently at the man sitting in the kitchen. Ruby froze: from her vantage point she could see Hitch, perched on a stool, his right shirtsleeve rolled up high to reveal a bandage at the top of his arm, which he slowly began to unwind.

She held her breath and became as still as the walls.

She watched as gradually all the gauze was removed to reveal what could only be a gunshot wound.

Mrs. Digby was crawling out of a flotation tank. She emerged in a polka-dot bathing suit, somewhat dazed and disoriented, finding herself not quite in the Redforts’ spa gym. Certainly most things were familiar, but at the same time everything was very, very unfamiliar. All the furniture was the same, all the objects were the same, all the art was the same, what was odd was that there was no house.

“Where in all heaven have the darned walls gone?” she exclaimed.

She appeared to be in an enormous aircraft hangar containing just about everything the Redforts had ever owned.

The last thing Mrs. Digby had been aware of was climbing into the flotation tank at three o’clock the previous day — she had been suffering from angry thoughts concerning her rival in the kitchen, Consuela, and thought she could do with some isolation time — or who knew what she might do.

Sabina Redfort had had the flotation tank installed only the other month, having taken advice from her personal healer, who had persuaded her that she needed more time with herself.

Mrs. R. always finds it very calming — what harm could it do? I guess it prunes the skin a little but at my age what’s a little pruning?

Mrs. Digby had thought these thoughts as she climbed in, lay down, pulled the door shut, and instantly fell into a heavy sleep.

Boy, had she slept!

What
was
the day, she wondered?
Better not be Tuesday
, she thought, catching sight of the Redforts’ kitchen clock.
If it is, I’m missing Crime Night, and I never miss Crime Night.

BY DAYBREAK RUBY WAS UP,
showered, and pulling on her clothes despite the fact that there was no one to nag her. Ruby was no early bird, everyone knew that. In desperation her parents had given her an alarm clock which showed a bird pecking at a worm. It made a pleasant tweeting sound if set for any time before 7 a.m. — later than that and it made a sort of strangled squawking noise. Ruby walked into the bathroom and was surprised to see, laid out in neat piles, jeans, T-shirts, over-the-knee socks, and other essentials. On closer inspection she saw that these garments were more than acceptable; in fact, they were exactly the clothes she might have chosen herself. There was even a T-shirt printed with the words,
keep it zipped.

This could not be the work of her mother.

She spotted a typed note next to a pair of size 5 Yellow Stripe sneakers.

Hope you approve. Had my stylist friend Billie pick these things out for you — she’s good at that kind of thing. Hitch.

Airhead he might be, but he was certainly good at his job. Ruby moseyed downstairs to say thanks and found Hitch examining a piece of toast very closely, almost as if he were reading it.

He looked up, startled, and immediately began to spread it with peanut butter.

“Toast?” he said.

Not just an airhead but a weirdo too
, thought Ruby.

Today, Ruby felt like taking the bus. She made it to the stop in plenty of time, clambered aboard, and sat down, barely acknowledging her friends Del and Mouse. The two girls tried to get her attention.

“Hey, Rube,” called Del.

Ruby didn’t even look up.

Del looked at Mouse. “Was it something I said?”

Ruby was staring at the card she’d picked up in Organic Universe and chewing furiously on her pencil — what was it she wasn’t seeing? What was there to see? Just the words
Don’t call us we’ll call you
and the simple decorative border — nothing to give any indication as to where the meeting would take place.

“Tomorrow night at eight for eight”
was all the voice on the telephone had said.

What am I missing?

“So Ruby, I see your toe is all mended,” said Del.

Ruby looked down at her foot — she had forgotten all about her fake injury. “Oh, yeah,” she answered.

Mouse looked at Del and sort of widened her mouth and rolled her eyes — this was her silent way of suggesting that all was not right with Ruby Redfort. Even Clancy Crew couldn’t get any sense out of her — and when Vapona Begwell dared to suggest that Ruby’s “recovered” broken toe was either a miracle or she was some cowardly faker who had chickened her way out of the basketball game, she barely even blinked.

“Hey, Redfort,” sneered Vapona. “Did those burglars steal your guts along with the furniture?”

Clancy couldn’t believe it. “You gonna let her get away with that, Rube?”

“Look, my mind’s got bigger concerns than Bugwart right now.”

“Has something else happened?” said Clancy eagerly. “More burglars? Something else go missing?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“What?” said Clancy.

“Mrs. Digby,” replied Ruby

“Mrs. Digby?” mouthed Clancy.

Ruby nodded. “She isn’t at cousin Emily’s and she isn’t back home. We don’t know where she is.”

Clancy’s eyes were saucers. “Do you know what I think? I think the butler who isn’t a butler took her.”

“And why would he do that, Clance?”

“So he could get her job — get her outta the way.”

“My mom didn’t
give
him the job because Mrs. Digby had
gone
— she didn’t even
know
Mrs. Digby had gone when she hired him.”

“Yeah, well, I still think he’s bad news,” Clancy said firmly.

“Yeah, well, maybe you’re right ’cause guess what? I saw his injured arm — he doesn’t know I saw it but I did and I am telling you. Clance, that’s no housemaid’s elbow he is suffering from — more like gangster’s shoulder.”

“So I was right,” marveled Clancy. “He
was
in a shoot-out.” His face lit up. “You know he’s probably on the run, hiding out at your house, stealing your stuff and selling it.”

“Clance, that brain of yours never ceases to amaze.”

But she couldn’t help thinking he might not be so far from the truth.

Ruby pretty much sleepwalked through her morning classes, so distracted was she by the puzzle she needed to solve. And then at 2:30, during History, she suddenly saw what it was she couldn’t see before.

Mrs. Schneiderman was giving a very tedious lecture about the ancient Greeks, and those students who weren’t staring out of the window were busy painting their fingernails with Wite-Out and generally working hard to keep from falling asleep. It wasn’t that anyone didn’t
want
to be interested, it was just that Mrs. Schneiderman was one of those people who managed to make even the most interesting things sound very dull indeed. It was something to do with her delivery; she tended to ramble. Ruby was brought out of her thoughts and back into the classroom by the sound of one hundred thumbtacks falling to the floor. Ruby looked across the room and saw the ever accident-prone Red Monroe frantically trying to scoop them back into their container.