Read 4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4 Online
Authors: Frederick Ramsay
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #Mystery, #tpl, #Open Epub, #_rt_yes, #Fiction
The sun hovered over the mountains to the west, poised to make its daily plunge beyond the valley’s western horizon. Thin cirrus clouds drifted across the sky promising a spectacular sunset. Ike had the grill lighted and generous burgers wrapped in waxed paper ready on the counter when Ruth drove up. She struggled up the steps of the A-frame dragging a heavy suitcase.
“You planning on moving in?”
“Would you object if I did?”
“Nope, but that isn’t just an overnight bag, I think.”
“Very observant, Ike. That’s why you’re such a good cop.”
“Thank you, I think.” He reached out and took the handle and lifted the case to the landing. “What’s in here, your rock collection?”
“You must be getting weak in your old age, Hon. I carried this down a flight of stairs, across a parking lot, and put it in my car.”
“Hon? Where did that come from?”
“I spent an hour on the phone with a distant cousin from Baltimore.”
“Gotcha. So the case is…?”
“We said we’d try to be discreet, remember. No more sneaking around the President’s house, my house, in the middle of the night and so on. You remember, we had a conversation—”
“I remember. The case…what’s in the case?”
“Okay, so here is the place we meet from now on, weekends, whenever possible. But that’s it. I brought some casual clothes, toothbrush, that sort of thing. I’m going to leave them here.”
“Good thinking. I like it.”
“Be careful, it’s a serious move, Ike, a step toward permanency, a foot in the door, the…”
“Camel’s nose in the tent?”
“Whatever. Are you sure you are okay with that?”
“I bought a car yesterday.”
“Good move. A Chevy?”
“Even more unobtrusive, a five-year-old Buick.”
“A retirement community special. I’m impressed.” Ruth dragged her case across the floor. “I can’t remember…you do have closets around here, right?”
“Closets, dresser drawers, you name it. Just move my stuff aside if you need to.”
Ruth looked through the glass sliders at the deck that faced the down slope at the rear of the house. “I’m going to do something about this winter pallor this weekend. I’m going to lie out on that deck and…what did we used to say…catch some rays.”
“You brought a bathing suit?”
“I don’t need one.”
“You don’t need…oh…umm. I’ll start cooking now. Be five minutes.”
“Make it ten, I want to shed this power suit and get into something comfortable.”
Twenty minutes later Ruth reappeared in an acid-washed tee with a picture of Natural Bridge across the front, worn jeans, and Birkenstocks. She’d scrubbed her face and gathered her hair back in a ponytail.
“Nice,” Ike said.
“You like? Consider this, Lover, this could be what you’d be looking at over the breakfast table someday.”
“What a person may or may not look like over toast and eggs is not the test you want to make, if you’re thinking of getting serious.”
“No? What is the test?”
“What will she or he look like when you are trundled into an ambulance during a heart attack, or when you’re diagnosed with cancer, or when you are rendered helpless by a stroke? Who the hell cares about style and grace then?”
Ruth gazed at Ike with something close to tears in her eyes. “You are a ‘keeper,’ Schwartz.” She looked at the dinner on the table. “And you can cook, too.”
“Burgers from the frozen food section, salad in a bag, and I nuked the potatoes. If you call that cooking, you really are easy.”
“No dessert?”
“For you, mocha latte ice cream. For me—you.”
“You’re on. So, have you decided on your vacation?”
Ike tonged salad into two wooden bowls, plopped the burgers into buns, and hot fingered the potatoes onto plates. “Sour cream is in that little plastic tub. I’m thinking beach. Do you want to come?”
“Catsup? Who’ll watch the store when you’re gone? Is Karl Hedrick going to stay?”
“Here,” Ike shoved the catsup bottle across the table. “Karl needs to find out if his indiscretion cost him a career so, no, at least not for now. If he returns it won’t be for six months or more.”
“Who then? Not the cowboy.”
“Billy? No, but you’re close—his brother Frank. What almost happened to Billy upset his mother enormously so Frank decided to transfer from the State Police to the Picketsville Sheriff’s Department. It allows him to be closer to home.”
“Very convenient. How’s it going to be with two Sutherlins working for you?”
“Three Sutherlins. Billy is marrying Essie Falco. He’ll be moving out of the house and Frank isn’t married and will move in, so that works out fine. I figure in three months or so, he can take over temporarily.”
“What’s the wine?”
“Tuscarora Red, from that place out near Raphine where Agnes got the ice wine.”
“It’s good. Four months from now will be too late for the beach.”
“The beach is best after Labor Day, off season, quiet, and peaceful. Only you and Frank will know my phone number. Would you be interested in finishing your tan in September at the beach?”
“No way. I will be up to my you-know-what then. Maybe I’ll catch up on a weekend, but don’t count on it. Holy cow, look at that sunset!”
***
The moon, at full, lighted the loft and painted their bodies silver. Ike rolled over on his side to admire the view, that is to say, Ruth, and that’s when he saw it. He did a double take and peered closer. It was small but unmistakable, between her breasts.
“You have a tattoo.” He looked again. “Good Lord, it’s a tattoo of Tweety Bird.”
Ruth began to giggle, one of those throaty ones that seem to bubble up from somewhere down deep. “I bought a whole book of transfers at the drug store. I saved all the Sylvester the Cats for you.” She propped herself up on one elbow, faced him and punched him on the arm. “I taught I taw a puddy tat!…”
Ike flopped back on his pillow with a hoot.
“Now that was a classic movie.”
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