HIS GOLD PINKY RING
He never knew she was following him. Wherever he went, she was close behind, quickly ducking into shops, turning down side streets or hiding around bushes if he ever glanced back. She just knew he was up to something, but she couldn’t prove it yet.
What Linda did know was that he was a liar, and he was probably gay. Always talking about a fiancée who had died from a rare neurological disease that no one had ever heard of before, others felt really sorry for him. So did Linda at first. But when she happened to meet a mutual friend of theirs who told her that Jake hardly knew the woman who had died, Linda began to ask more questions. The more she asked, the more he buried himself in lies. According to him, they were engaged to be married when she got the bad news. He was devastated, of course, but faithfully stood by her until the sad end. Then something about how he is now caring for the cat she adored and that it’s the cat who is helping him the most with his grief. This didn’t sound right to Linda either because from what she could see, Jake didn’t like animals at all. He hardly glanced at her own cat the one time he met her and never stopped to pet any of the dogs they would pass on the street. So when she went back to the mutual friend to confirm, she found out he had lied about that as well. There was a cat, but it was poisoned to death soon after the woman herself had died. That’s when Linda began to follow him and what she discovered could fill a book.
The first night she watched from across the street when Jake approached a boy that looked no older than thirteen and was leaning against an apartment building clearly waiting for someone. He whispered something in the boy’s ear, and then the two disappeared down a side alley … returning about 5 minutes later. At first, Linda suspected a drug deal until a few nights later when he visited the alley again (this time with a different boy) but was zipping his pants up when he was back in her line of vision. It wasn’t until she followed him the next afternoon to a middle school that she put two and two together and realized that his volunteer work for an after-school program with the photography department was where he made all his connections.
But it wasn’t just boys that Jake was interested in, and Linda soon figured this out when she watched his interaction with some of the fathers who would pick up the boys after school. It was as if they all knew each other and were in some sort of secret club together. Although Linda was too far away to actually hear what they were saying, they stood too close to each other and nothing looked natural about their conversations. Where were the mothers, she wondered, and should she try to approach one of the boys herself to learn more? Or go to the school principal and express her concern? In the end, she decided to stay quiet and keep following him for a few more days. She still didn’t have the proof she know she needed … or the rest of the story that she wanted.
It didn’t take long, though, before she was able to piece together that this group was meeting each other at different venues throughout the week. She kept seeing the same ones over and over again, and there were even a few women that kept popping up with them. Some of the events they attended were open to the public and held at the local library, town hall and art museum. But other times, they were going into homes, private clubs or meeting at different churches. Once, she even followed him to a mosque in a nearby town and hid in her car for almost an hour until he came out again. Although she tried to find out what their connection was and what they all had in common, the only thing she observed was that they ALL wore a gold ring on their pinky finger.
When she could no longer stand it any longer, Linda finally found a way to get into his home one night when she was certain he would be away for several hours. Taking her camera with her, she went from room to room (including the garage) documenting what she discovered but carefully putting it all back in its place later so he would never suspect. Picture after picture of naked boys, bags of rat poison, bottles of chloroform, ropes and gloves. Then two passports, one from Ukraine and one from Saudi Arabia, each with his photo but with names and addresses that she didn’t recognize. What actually surprised her the most, however, were the books she discovered in one of his suitcases. Written in simple English with many photos, they were all about life in the United States and how to act American. That’s when it dawned on her that the man she had been dating was a spy.
Copyright © 2015 (Michelle Parsons, Getting Back on Your Path). All Rights Reserved.
