Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

The wicked wind picked up as I drew nearer to the office, and a tattered flag on a pole whipped and snapped at me. I knocked on the glass door of the small shack. Across the room, I saw the top of the guard’s unmoving sun-spotted head behind his chair.

I could tell he was watching TV, not only because of the flickering blue light dancing across the ceiling, but because the volume was vibrating the floorboards beneath me. He was watching the USC versus UCLA football game—it was late in the fourth quarter, all tied up.

I let myself in.

“Excuse me, sir,” I called over the front counter. The guy obviously had no peripheral vision left, because he didn’t budge except to scratch himself in some wish-I-hadn’t-seen-them places.

“Excuse me.” I raised my voice even louder. He took a sip of a dark liquid I was sure wasn’t Coke and adjusted his legs on the chair opposite him. Good gracious, was I going to have to give the guy a coronary just to get his attention?

I walked past the desk and rounded him so he could catch me in his peripheral vision. Instantly, his eyes bulged open, his legs and his drink went flying, and the old man overturned his folding chair and landed flat on his back.

“What the…!” he screamed. “Who the P-P-Pete are you?” he stuttered from the floor.

“I knocked,” I said while helping him up. “I’m really sorry—I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“What you d-d-doin’ here, girlie? Making me miss my damn game!” he barked. “We ain’t doin’ no trick-or-treatin’ round here!”

“I’m not here to trick-or-treat. If I could just get some information, I’ll be out of your hair.” Oops, he only had like five hairs left.

“Fine,” he groaned, holding his back as he went over to the desk, motioning for me to evacuate his personal space. “What you want?”

“Could you please tell me where Mr. D. Silver’s boat is docked?” I asked politely.

He blew out a stale-smelling breath and started poking at the computer keyboard with one finger. “What’s the first name, girlie?”

“I don’t know. Everyone calls him D. Silver,” I said casually, not wanting to raise any red flags. Legally, he shouldn’t be offering any information, but something told me this guy wasn’t exactly a stickler for the rules.

“If it will get you out of here sooner…” he muttered, pushing up his sagging bifocals and leaning in to the monitor. “B-16. That’s down the left side here—”

“Really?” I asked, craning my neck to sneak a glance at the monitor. “Do you know him?”

“Know who?” The old man tilted the screen away from me. So it was OK to tell me the info but not to let me see it?

“D. Silver,” I said pointing at the screen. “Have you seen him around? Do you know what he looks like?”

“What’s this about?” He took off his skinny reading glasses hanging for dear life off the end of his nose and gave me a see-here-young-lady look. I could tell he was gearing up to run me off when a staticky voice came to life from the ground. An ancient walkie-talkie.

“So B-16 is empty, then?” I asked as I backed out of the office, glancing out the window in the direction of the slip.

“I didn’t say that.” He bent over to pick up the walkie-talkie off the floor. “But ain’t nobody out there tonight, rest assured.”

“Thanks,” I said, almost out the door already. “Sorry about the fright.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he mumbled as I left.

I turned left and made my way down to the B dock. I was operating on instinct now, not fear and certainly not logic. The guard said no one was out here tonight, so if I went and had a peek around the boat, it might pay off. And if he was wrong and I found any signs of life—lights, noise, or movement on the boat—I’d leave and come back later with backup. Lots of backup.

The wind was getting stronger, pushing me backward, but I was almost to the B dock when I heard a shriek.

A man’s.

My feet—and my heart—stopped.

“Help, help…I’m drowning…please help!” The voice and the splashing water weren’t far away, but I couldn’t see where in the darkness.

I pulled the gun from my pocket and made sure it was cocked and ready.

Damn it. This wasn’t good. I shouldn’t have ever gotten out of Big Black. Or more to the point, I shouldn’t have ever gotten in Big Black tonight. This was a setup. But how? How could he have known I’d come tonight? Was he watching Sammy?

“I can’t…stay up…please!” The voice cut through my thoughts.

I grabbed my cell out of The Cleave. I had a choice to make:

A. Call 911 and go back to the security office, hoping the drunk and feeble old man could move fast enough to help me save whoever was out there;

B. Call 911, go back to Big Black and leave, knowing the police would trace my number and I’d have to explain myself;

C. Call 911 and go save the man myself; or

D. Don’t call 911 at all, because I just remembered I have no effin’ service! I held up my phone to the night, willing the phone gods to send me some little bars of mobile coverage. Curse words I’d never used before came flowing out of my mouth.

What choice did I have at this point but to get out of there, and fast—before it was too late? But if this was Silver’s work, I already knew he wasn’t afraid of putting innocent lives at risk. And what if the person in the water was someone I knew?

I took off toward the cries. Sprinting down the narrow, uneven dock, I nearly fell over some loose ropes. The poor lighting and slipshod care of the dock were dangerous.

In the moonless night, I couldn’t get my bearings. I couldn’t see anything in the water, and the sounds were echoing off the boats in every direction.

Until the light.

Like a spotlight centered just for me, a bright beam shone directly on the side of the old rickety houseboat at Slip B-16.

Its name, Ruby Belle , was painted on the side of the boat.

Time seemed to stand still. Information overload started falling into designated Tetris-like slots: The boat was named after me. It was docked at Silver’s slip. And someone was in the water next to it, calling out for help.

He’d done it again. He wanted to toy with me. And I’d been stupid, impatient, and impetuous enough to walk right into his trap.

“Help,” the voice called again. Whose voice was it? Whose life would I have to save, and whose would I have to take?

I jumped onto the boat—a motorboat with a small cabin—and raised my gun to prevent a surprise attack. The deck floor was wet and slippery as I found the bait in the waters beyond the front hull—the human bait meant for me. My eyes adjusted to find another familiar face, another monster fighting for his life.

Father Michael McMullin. Number three on my Filthy Five list, of course. Without his thick-rimmed 1970s glasses, I almost didn’t recognize the pedophile priest my mom had prosecuted and failed to convict. Still wearing the white collar of God. But now, tied up in the silver chains of Mr. D. Silver. The thin chains tightly wrapped around his neck didn’t look heavy enough to drown him, but the ties binding his wrists together weren’t helping.

“Help!” he cried. “I can’t swim.”

Considering what he’d done to all those children, he deserved to drown. The chain around his neck couldn’t have been more appropriate—several of his victims had been tied up with rosary beads.

As I watched this grown man (who’d never learned the basic skill of treading water but had most definitely mastered the skill of ruining lives) struggle for air, I couldn’t help but marvel at how Silver had outdone himself. If I didn’t save Father Michael, technically it would be me who killed him. I wouldn’t have pulled a trigger, but he would be dead at the bottom of the ocean just the same.