“It’s funny how quickly the narrative can change,” she says. “No longer is he the good man who was stalked by an obsessed home-wrecker. Now he’s the pedophile who molested his own daughter, the powerful man who assaulted the women who worked for him.”
“You realize that both those things can be true,” Drew says. “He can be a sexual predator, and you can be the psychopath who murdered him when he tried to end your affair.”
Ruby pauses, then shrugs. “Whatever. There’s nothing to be done about it now. Charles is dead.”
“Because you killed him.”
She eats another chip.
“How did you convince the parole board to let you out?” Drew asks.
“I didn’t,” Ruby says. “Lexi did. She came to my parole hearing and spoke out in support of me. She told the board that while her father’s murder was not okay, she understood the rage behind it. She said as far as she was concerned, her father was a criminal himself, and were he alive today, he would most certainly be in prison. She said I deserved compassion, and that twenty-five years behind bars was long enough. She was very compelling.”
She gives Drew a wide smile. “The whole thing was very dramatic. Suzanne Baxter stood up and called her daughter a liar. Lexi then accused her mother of being complicit. And then, as Lexi was walking out, Suzanne spit on her. Imagine that? Horrible mother.”
Takes one to know one.
“Is all this going into your podcast?” Ruby asks. “Because I’d be happy to say it again, if you ever want to record it.”
“Maybe some of it,” Drew says. “But let’s be honest. Enough has been said about you.”
She frowns. “Then why are you here?”
“I want to talk about your daughter, Joey.”
“Wait a minute.” Ruby puts down the potato chip bag and cocks her head. “I know who you are now. My sister told me that after Joey left Maple Sound—and stole all their money, by the way—that she moved back to our old neighborhood. That she was living with some Black guy and his girlfriend.”
Drew raises a hand. “Some Black guy.”
“So were you two fucking?”
Ah. There you are. The first real glimpse of the Ice Queen. It’s strangely satisfying, and Drew can’t resist a smile.
“My girlfriend? Yes.”
“What about you and Joey?”
“We were just very good friends.”
“Friends who fucked.”
“Never happened.”
“But you wanted it to.”
“Why wouldn’t I? She was beautiful.”
Ruby stiffens. “So you must have been really sad when she died.”
“Devastated.” Drew holds her gaze. “Weren’t you?”
“Of course I was.” She looks away briefly. “No mother wants to outlive her child.”
Please. You’d have thrown Joey overboard if the two of you were in a leaky canoe and only one of you could make it to shore.
“No matter what you think about me, I loved my daughter,” Ruby says.
“You had an interesting way of showing it.”
“I wasn’t perfect,” she snaps. “But neither was she.”
“She was a kid. She didn’t need to be.”
She appraises him. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? I’m always going to be the villain in her story.”
“You’re the villain in everyone’s story. Ma’am.”
A pause. “You know how I found out she died? My sister sent me a condolence card, with a clipped newspaper article folded inside, about the fire. Flora was always such a cold bitch, even when we were kids.” Ruby reaches for the chips and resumes eating. “Is it true that Joey was working as a stripper?”
“For about a year.”
“Was she any good?”
“She was incredible,” Drew says, because he knows it will bug her.
It does, and her face darkens. “So you’re going to sit here and tell me that you weren’t fucking the stripper who lived in your apartment?”
“We weren’t living together by then.” Drew leans forward. “And you seem awfully interested in your dead daughter’s sex life, ma’am. Why is that?”
Ruby doesn’t respond.
“You abused Joey her whole childhood.” He speaks evenly, trying to keep his emotions in check. “You should not be getting out of prison.”
Ruby’s lips flatten into a thin line. “I spanked her, so what. Nothing that happened to her was anything different from what happened to me. The police and the courts made a big deal over nothing. When I was growing up, it was normal to discipline your children. My mother used to do it with a belt. You know what they say. Spare the rod, spoil the child.”