The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(65)

Clyde sat on the railing bench, looking about as happy as a fourthstring quarterback.

Ruby stood by the hot tub, running water over her hands with a garden hose. She'd been crying. Her hair hung in a stiff red mesh around her shoulders. She was barefoot, and an apron covered her Tshirt and shorts.

I could see why she wanted to wash off. Her apron and her hands were stained with blood.

"Damn you, Tres," she said. "Not now."

I pointed at the streaks of red on her apron. "What the hell—"

She dropped the hose, grabbed a bucket of pink water on the edge of the hot tub.

"We blew it," she told me. "We really blew it, didn't we?"

A big yellow sponge sloshed angrily around the bucket as she stormed off toward the kitchen area.

Clyde stared at me. "She's right, you know. You and that f**king brass casing."

A week's worth of anger surged inside me. I followed Ruby, yelling at her back, "I didn't sell out my own friends, Ruby. I didn't—"

And then I stepped inside and saw the problem.

Most of the room hadn't changed since I'd been here Sunday night. It was still a bare box of walls and windows, the floor littered with odd bits of lumber and power tools.

The far wall, however, looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. The sheetrock was marred with swathes of dark, sticky redbrown—crusty and thick and splattered. It smelled like a rending plant.

Ruby dropped her bucket, tried to wring pink water out of the sponge.

"When did it happen?" I asked.

She ignored me, tried to scrub the blood off the wall. She only managed to turn more of the sheetrock pink.

Clyde came up behind me.

"Wee hours," he said. "Workers didn't go to the upper level all day. They were doing wiring on the bottom floor. Ruby always goes up to the deck when she gets home in the afternoon."

"Somebody knew the workers' schedule," I said. "They wanted Ruby to be the one to find this."

Ruby kept working—rubbing at the stains, cursing, splattering herself with pink water.

"Found the deer about fifty yards downhill," Clyde told me, "gutted with a sharp knife.

My Dobe Miata ain't good for much, but she's got a decent nose. Bastard who did this carried a bucket of blood all the way here. He spilled some on the steps."

"Did you call the police?" I asked.

"The police," Ruby spat. She crushed the sponge in her fists, lines of red leaking down her forearms. "Tres, the police are fitting your brother's neck for a noose. They'd explain how he did this, probably lugged his wheelchair all the way up the stairs."

She kicked the sheetrock, then kept swiping at the blood.

"That's not doing anything." Clyde said it gently.

"My—goddamn—house." Every word was more elbow grease with the sponge.

"Ruby," Clyde said. "I told you I'd deal with it."

She flung the sponge in the bucket. "You will not deal with anything, Clyde. GET.

OUT."

I kept my eyes on Ruby. I didn't so much see Clyde leave as I felt it—his gravity suddenly missing from the doorway.

"Who did this?" I asked Ruby.

She wiped her hands on her apron. Her fingernails were scarlet crescents. "I don't know."

"Of course you don't. You don't know how Matthew Pena got inside Techsan's program. You don't know how Jimmy got shot. You don't know what that damn bullet casing was doing in the lake."

She’ closed the distance between us in two steps, then slapped me across the face. I didn't try to stop her. The sting was the first real sensation I'd had all day.

From somewhere out on the deck, Clyde called Ruby's name.

It wasn't an offer of help. More a warning.

Ruby stared back at her splattered wall, then at all the other places she'd managed to smear pink—the floor, the doorframe, the new kitchen counter.

"This is my house," she murmured. "No one can do this to my house."

"Someone did."

She closed her eyes. Her lips were trembling. "I'm all right. I just have to take care of things."

I tried to cup my hand around her elbow, but she yanked away, wrestled off her apron.

She washed her hands again, gathered up her shoes and purse, held them against her stomach like a melting football.

"Ruby—"

She brushed past me. "I'll fix it. Goddamn if I won't."

Clyde stood motionless at the railing, letting Ruby go.

I followed her down the steps.

When she got to the drive and found my car blocking hers, she headed down the hill, cursing as she stumbled barefoot over sharp pieces of broken limestone.

I followed about fifteen steps behind.

"Ruby," I called. "GO—AWAY!"

She'd made it to the marina parking lot now, started limping toward the docks. She dropped one of her shoes but kept walking— one parking space, two parking spaces.

"You think you can stop him, Ruby? You think he'll allow that?"

Three parking spaces.

"You told me Pena understood people," I called after her. "I guess you're right. He's sure got your number."