"SPRING"ING AHEAD... Better days? (Part 170j)

“SPRING”ING AHEAD… Better days? (Part 170j)

The next thing I remember doing was rushing back to my car. I’m not sure I said anything to the lady. The next thing I remember is almost hitting an oncoming car as I pulled out onto the road. It was only a matter of a couple of minutes before I turned back into Ruthe’s driveway. The only thing on my mind at that point was to find out if she was alive. I rushed through the kitchen to the doorway to the living room and stopped. I really didn’t have a plan. I could see Ruthe had moved. No longer on the couch she was now on the floor. Not only that but I could hear some sounds coming from where she lay. I moved towards her, slowly, because I’d not expected to see her battered face the first time and hadn’t taken a close look but this time, even though expecting it, didn’t really want to believe it. I had taken but a few steps when I heard a car door slam. I stopped and in what seemed like no time had passed at all, felt someone bodily move me to the side. I watched as a cop bent down and tried to talk with her. All I heard as answers were a series of moans. Then the cop got up, looked at me and told me to get out into the kitchen and stay there as he went out to the patrol car. I watched him talk on whatever device they were using to communicate in those days and then saw another patrol car pull up. That cop got out and went to the other car for a few seconds and then came up to me and demanded to know who I was and why was I there. The one who’d been on the phone went back inside and as he passed announced that an ambulance was on the way.

I was asked all kinds of questions most of which I couldn’t answer other than to tell him who the woman inside was. He wanted to know if Ruthe was married and I told him I thought she was divorced. I’d not kept up with her situation other than to know it was “ugly”. Then, he wanted to know who her ex-husband was and if she had kids. I knew the guy’s name was Eddie. I also knew, but didn’t add, the fact that he was the son of a prominent local farmer and that he’d been in trouble, on and off. I figured the police would know the facts rather than hear me pass on what I’d heard, kept my mouth shut. After telling him that her two kids were with her mother it turned out that the most pressing question was what was her name. I had absolutely no idea. It was about then when the ambulance arrived.

Back in those days there were no EMT’s and ambulances were privately owned and staffed. The one that showed up was owned and operated by the largest undertaker in town. I remember hoping that it wasn't an 'omen'. The cop left me but told me not to leave. That would’ve been an impossibility as I was now blocked in by three vehicles. I’d been outside for well over a half hour and although it wasn’t bitterly cold, just standing there, not moving, it was beginning to get to me. Right after the ambulance pulled away another car pulled up and it was more policemen only without uniforms. I had to go through some of the same questions with them before I was told I could go… and that they’d be in touch with me again. Before I could move my car the two uniformed cops had to move their cars and when they did they just drove off. I looked at my watch as I finally started my car and it was around 10am.

Even though it would only take me about ten minutes to get to work there was one thing I knew I had to do and that was to tell Bill, her boss and the brokerage manager, about Ruthe. Just down the road, about a mile and half, was a small restaurant that had quite a reputation for home baked goods and I’ve written about it on occasion. I knew they had a pay phone so stopped and dialed up Bret at the bank.  All I told him was that I was involved in ”an incident” and hoped to be in by 11am. He, of course, wanted more information but I put him off. The next stop was to the stock broker’s office. As I’ve written in a number of posts about it, the building originally housed two small retail establishments. All they did was to remove the wall between the two stores to meet their needs. They chose to leave both doors operational, as they'd been, with the one on the right leading to where Ruthe and Bill worked and the other to Lynda and Stan’s area. I always entered through the left door as Stan was my broker. On this morning I walked in the right side door. Bill was on the phone with his back to me. I walked past him and made some sort of animated motions with my hands to get his attention. I heard him say “I’ll get right back to you” and then saw him hang up. By then both Stan and Lynda could see that my state of mind was anything but normal. As I started telling Bill that Ruthe was in the hospital I could see Stan slide his chair over towards the low partition that separated him from Bill. I was in the process of telling him how I’d found her when I heard Lynda scream out “THAT SONOVA BITCH!” and slam her hand down on her desk.

Bill immediately got up, grabbed his coat off the coat tree, and went out the door. It only took Lynda a few seconds to move from her work area into Stan’s cubicle and to be pressed against the partition separating Bill’s and Stan’s work space. She almost demanded to know what had happened and I couldn’t tell her much of anything other than finding Ruthe all bloody on the couch. Lynda was shaking her head as I tried to describe the scene as I’d found it and then interrupted saying that she’d warned Ruthe that her ex-husband would “do something”. After seeing Ruthe lying there I had no thoughts whatsoever as to who might’ve beaten her. I’d avoided talking about personal stuff with Ruthe on our rides in to work. I’d been told that she’d had problems with her ex-husband and that had left her somewhat fearful of men in general and that it was the reason for her stand-offishness when I first started going the the office. I also remembered reading about him in the newspaper as being a big football star in high school. But, standing there listening to Lynda, some of the mystery of her beating was being erased.

I didn’t stay at the brokerage all that long but it was after 11am when I got to my desk. When I left Lynda and Stan I asked for either one to call with any news about Ruthe’s condition. Bret was like and ‘old woman’ wanting to know about the "incident" I’d alluded to in my call to him. I knew Bret knew Ruthe’s husband because he’d been the quarterback when the high school team had won their last championship. I figured that Trish, Cara and Lorie had also been in school with him at the same time but I didn’t know that much about Ruthe’s background. So, I started off slow explaining that I’d been stopping to pick Ruthe up on Fridays for a while and when I got there earlier I found her all bloodied up and semi conscious. As soon as I told him he started shaking his head and blurted out something like “I always knew he was crazy!”. It was sort of like confirmation of what Lynda had said only a few minutes before.

To be continued…