Chapter 65 Ruby

65

Ruby

Flynn was throwing questions at her, but Ruby didn't mind.

It was time to tell the truth.

Not all of it.

But enough.

‘Why did you frame John Jackson for the victim's murder?' asked Eddie.

There was a simple answer.

‘Because I needed them to leave the house,' said Ruby. ‘I had spent many nights lying awake, trying to think of ways to get them out. I thought about a fire, but that wouldn't work. It might come back to bite me. I had to get them to leave somehow. Shame is a powerful weapon, Mr. Flynn. I needed them out of the street, and I knew if John was accused of murder then the residents would do everything they could to get him out. It's hard to walk down a street knowing everyone there hates you and wants you out. I did everything I could to pressure them to leave. I got the neighbors to write to them and tell them they were no longer welcome. I wrote MURDERER on their front door. I turned everyone against them . . .'

‘Why? Why did you need them out of the house?'

‘Because I was running out of time. Alison Jackson had arranged for construction work to be done on the house. And I couldn't allow that to happen.'

‘Ms. Johnson, last night Detective Chase and I saw you in the Jackson's house after they left and checked into a hotel. You had a hammer in your hand. Do you remember?'

‘I do.'

‘What did you do with that hammer?'

‘I swung it.'

This was hard. This was so, so hard for Ruby. Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice scratched and broke.

‘You swung the hammer at something, didn't you?'

‘I swung it into the stud wall. Breaking it.'

‘Ms. Johnson, you confirmed earlier you used to live on this street with your mother and father. Just to be clear, you used to live in the house the Jacksons live in right now?'

‘It was our house.'

Why did you swing that hammer into the stud wall?'

‘I had to break the wall down before the construction work began on the house.'

‘Why is that, Ms. Johnson?'

‘Because I had to move my father's body out from behind the wall before the construction workers found it.'

The gasp from the jury, and the rest of the courtroom, sounded like someone switching on a vacuum cleaner.

‘Last night you confessed to your father's murder, to Detective Chase?'

And, as soon as Ruby had told him what she had done, the red priest stopped whispering. The voice inside her head, the red priest, with the voice of her father , stopped talking.

Ruby, at last, had silence. She was free from the red priest. Free from her father.

And that was the best kind of freedom.

‘It was me. I killed him and buried him in the wall. My mother had nothing to do with it. Nothing . It was all me. She didn't know. She thought he'd run away. Alison's mother, Esther, she saw right through me. She knew I was up to something with the painting. I couldn't risk her getting me fired from working for the Jacksons. I needed Alison to trust me, and I needed everyone out of that house. I needed Althea gone too. Esther turned against me. So I had to kill her,' said Ruby.

Alison howled in pain, and John got up from the defense table, went to his wife sitting behind in the gallery and put his arms around her.

Ruby's own mother was dying, and Ruby had been given a choice last night by Flynn and Detective Chase. She could tell the truth, and her dying mother would have immunity.

Ruby always did what she had to do to protect her mother.

Even lie for her.

Josef had attacked her mom that night, before he left. She fought him off – finally she had fought back. And Ruby had taken a knife from the kitchen drawer, and put it in her father's neck. Together with her mom, they had pulled down part of the stud wall, put him inside it, and repaired it, plastered it.

Covered it up.

Flynn sat down, and the judge began speaking to the jury.