Tutu Deadly

  “Maybe you can sell the trophies and earn a little money.”

  I snorted. I wanted to be irritated at his comment, but the quirk of his lips highlighted a strong dimple in his right cheek, and I found myself fanning the flames of attraction instead. Damn, why did I snort? That was not attractive.

  “Artichoke dip,” singsonged our waiter, setting down a tray carrying the dip and our drinks. He put the dip before us, and then placed Tate’s beer in front of him and my foo-foo drink in front of me. “Gave you two umbrellas,” he whispered loudly, and I blushed. Then he pulled out his notepad and said, “Have you made a decision about your entrées?”

  I already knew what I wanted. I’d had it a few months before, when James treated me to a birthday celebration. The Pacific Coast bisque was to die for. Ack! Needed to watch those clichés. But it was seriously good food. It even had a creamy mound of mashed potatoes in the middle. I’d been craving it since about three hours after I stuffed myself the first time. Potatoes were my crack. Was there a twelve-step program for a complex-carb addiction? Thinking of potatoes only reminded me how hungry I was.

  “I’m ready,” I said loudly, so my stomach rumble would not be audible. I ordered the bisque, snapping shut my own menu to drown out the second stomach rumble. I had voices in my head, and now my stomach was talking. What was next? I was not going to go there. I figured I’d better start stuffing that artichoke dip into my mouth before my stomach rumbling disturbed everyone in the restaurant.

  “What do you recommend?” Tate asked the waiter.

  “Well, do you like steak? My favorite is the center-cut tenderloin.”

  “I’ll take it.” Tate slapped shut his menu and handed it to the waiter, who then asked us for our side and soup or salad choices, and then left us alone again.

  The dip was warm and flavorful, and I hoped I wasn’t drooling. I forced myself to eat slowly and act like this was not my last supper—even though it might be. You never knew in my world. After I swallowed my dip and bread, I said, “This is nice. So peaceful and quiet. No ringing phones, no dead bodies . . . No . . . hey, where is my phone?” I pulled my purse off the seat next to me, where it had been resting, and dug through it, looking for my phone. Nothing but a bunch of junk. I really needed to clean this purse out.

  “No phone?”

  “Nope, must be at the studio. I hope.”

  “You don’t seem too worried.”

  I sighed, wondering whether to tell the truth or just make something up. Considering he was a cop, I decided on the truth. Grandma Gilly would be so proud. “I lose it about every other day. It usually turns up. Once or twice it hasn’t and I’ve had to get a new one. Good thing it’s tax deductible with my business. Although the IRS might start to wonder if I lose it one more time before the end of the year.”

  “How many times have you lost it this year? A few more than one or two?”

  “Um, I think six. Maybe seven.”

  He shook his head and an amused grin lit up his sometimes stern countenance. “Maybe if you didn’t have to buy so many new phones, your finances wouldn’t be so tight.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, trying to interpret what he thought of me, and coming up short. It was probably not good, so I figured I shouldn’t think about it too hard. “Um, I’ll try harder?”

  He laughed again, and then my stomach rumbled and I put a hand to it to try and disguise the noise. Didn’t work.

  “You are really hungry. Do you know your stomach rumbles a lot?”

  My faced turned a bright red, aware that my attempt at camouflaging my gastric noises had not worked.

  “I do without a lot. But it’s okay. I love what I’m doing.” I didn’t want to talk about my stomach anymore, so I changed the subject. And it was one that had been weighing on my mind for quite a while. “I’m really worried about Taylee. I’m such an awful person, I haven’t even asked where she is. Does anyone have any idea?”

  “No, not really,” he said.

  “Um, are you even looking for her?”

  Detective Wilson—Tate—was looking around the restaurant, classic evasive tactics. This I had not learned from cop shows on television but from watching my costume designer Monica avoid answering my questions about costumes that were supposed to be ready months before they actually were. If he knew, he wasn’t going to tell me. Or he was going to wait for me to own up to the fact that I had stolen her.

  “This is getting really annoying,” I said, reaching over and pulling my piña colada toward me and taking a big slurp. It was only a few seconds before the brain freeze hit. Why the hell did I order a frozen drink in the middle of winter, anyway? Furthermore, why did I order an alcoholic drink? I was already seriously worried about my common-sense skills. I suspected I did not need to tamper with them further by drinking. I slapped my hand to my forehead, unable to control my actions, and through the fog of pain located in the front of my head, heard Tate chuckle.

  When the pain dissipated, I pushed the foo-foo drink away and tried to focus on him again. “I’m serious about this. Where is Taylee, and why are you being vague? And do you and Marshal Fallon seriously believe that I could have taken her or”—I shuddered—“hurt her?”

  “Well, I don’t think that.”

  Hmm. More vague answers. He wasn’t including Fallon in that declaration.

  I sighed heavily, just as the waiter came back with our main dishes. I decided I was getting nowhere with Tate, at least as far as finding out Taylee’s location, so I might as well just shut up and eat. I was starving.

  I closed my eyes as the first bite of the warm, flavorful bisque dripped down my throat. “Mmmm.”

  “Looks good.”

  I opened my eyes to see Detective Tate Wilson watching me closely, ignoring the steamy, fragrant steak sitting in front of him. Instead, he was looking at me like I might be his dinner. Or at the least, a midnight snack.

  Ulp! I swallowed hard.

  He watched me for a moment, a bemused and sensual look on his face, and then he picked up his fork and knife and started carving his steak.

  Three days before, my life had been crazy boring, frantic, stressful, and lonely. Now it was just plain terrifying.

  ELEVEN

  DESPITE the looks Tate had been giving me during the meal, he only walked me back to the studio, watched as I scoured the place for my phone—which I finally located on the desk of my office under a mountain of invoices for the cookie-dough fundraiser—and then helped me lock up before driving me to my car, which was still parked on Emma Anderson and Sandra Epstein’s street.

  He watched silently as I unlocked the door, and then commented, “Pink. Should have guessed.”

  I’d had the Volkswagen Bug painted last year, at one of those cheap ninety-nine-dollar paint places, and in a fit of whimsy, had decided on pink. I couldn’t wear the color, but no fashion dictates said I couldn’t drive it. Of course, as so much in my life had been, it was a huge mistake. My car looked like a misshapen large Pepto-Bismol tablet. Even worse, I was identifiable from a hundred yards out . . . two hundred on a clear day. Everyone knew when I was coming. Good thing my business didn’t rely on stealth as a key factor to success.

  “Does it work when you have indigestion?” he asked.

  Lovely. Everything about me was a joke. I turned on the engine and let it warm up, knowing if I tried to take off before the engine was comfortable with itself I’d look like a sixteen-year-old taking her driver’s test, lurching and peeling out. Why I was worried about impressing him, I didn’t know. Since giving me that bemused and, I thought, sensual look over dinner, he had done nothing more to indicate he saw me as anything other than a suspect, and a pretty strange one at that—although he did pay for my dinner.

  It was hardly a date. And I was hardly dating material. A murderer was on the loose, and he probably still wasn’t sure it wasn’t me. Was I the only one who knew I didn’t do it?

  After a few moments, I knew the Bug would cooperate and so I dro
ve off, sneaking glances at Detective Tate Wilson, standing on the street, arms crossed, watching me leave.

  When I reached my street, I coasted into an open spot in front of my apartment building, shut off the car engine, and sat there for a moment. Where was Taylee? Honestly, even if I did go to jail, that was more important. Was she hurt? Kidnapped? Terrified? Crying for a mother who would never answer?

  “God, please let her be okay,” I muttered. I never ever learned my lesson. No good ever came of praying, at least for me. Was it because I had not chosen a religion to stick with? “I’m sorry, God. Just let Taylee be okay.”

  I opened up my door and grabbed my purse off the front passenger seat, then scooted out and snapped down the lock before shutting the door. I headed toward my apartment and was almost there when I was suddenly aware of slight—very slight—but very definite noises behind me. Being a dancer, even an older one, I was still pretty agile, so I spun around and stared at the empty sidewalk in front of me—no sign of anyone around. But the hair rose on my arms and I felt all my muscles tighten. I had my keys in my hand, and I carefully slid each separate key into my fingers as I had seen people do on television. One day, all this TV watching was going to pay off. I hoped today was that day. I still saw no one, so I slowly backed toward my door, my left hand behind me feeling for it, my brain quickly plotting out how I would turn, jam the key into the lock, and rush inside, locking the villains of the world outside.

  I glanced around. Still no one. But I couldn’t relax. Every nerve was screaming danger at me. I figured I better listen. “Is someone there?” I called, trying to sound tough and confident. No sooner did those words leave my mouth than I heard a rustle in the bushes and a large, dark-clothed figure jumped out at me, grabbed me, and twisted my arm behind my back, while a hand covered my mouth.

  My scream was muffled by the gloved hand, but I had not survived for thirty years, barely eking out a living teaching other people’s children to dance, just to see myself die tonight. It was not going to happen. I rammed my elbow into my assailant’s stomach and heard a muffled “ooomph,” and the grip on my arm loosened. I wrenched myself away and turned to face the masked man, using the maneuver I’d been waiting all my life to try. I had taken assault classes. I had learned how to incapacitate a man. My knee connected solidly with groin, and there was a high-pitched squeal, and then the assailant ran off. I jammed my key into the lock, having to push it in three different times, my shaking hands making it hard to get the metal into the small keyhole. When I finally got inside my apartment, I slammed the door shut, locked the dead bolt and then the chain, and leaned against the door, sobbing.

  A rap-rap-rap on my door made me jump and scream again, and I turned and peered frantically out the peephole, just as a somewhat familiar voice said, “Jenny, open up. It’s me, Andrew Fallon.” My eye finally focused on his face, worry dotting his features, and I could hear the wail of sirens in the background. In the back of my mind, questions raged. Why was he here? How had he arrived so quickly? More sirens wailed, and I knew that it was safe.

  I undid the locks and opened the door to see Marshal Fallon followed by four or five uniformed police officers and another man in a suit.

  “Are you okay?” he asked gently.

  I was not okay. Tears started to run down my face and I felt his strong hands support me and guide me to my couch, which was so old it had the tendency to swallow people whole. I sat and sank, nonetheless. I wasn’t able to stand right now. I shivered there, my arms held tightly around my body. Why was this happening to me?

  I looked up at the concerned face of Marshal Fallon and I wondered about him again. “Why were you here so fast?”

  A grimace crossed his face, and he turned away.

  “You were watching me, weren’t you? You were outside my place and saw the whole thing happen.”

  “It went down really quickly,” offered the man I had not seen before tonight, obviously another marshal, judging by his suit and the bulge under his jacket. “You move really quick for someone your age.”

  Someone my age? My age? Okay, he was only about twenty-five, but I had maybe five years on him. Someone my age? I did not like him, nosiree. “I’m a dancer,” I told him by way of explanation, aware that my tone was not friendly. Maybe he’d just write that off to the fact that I’d just been assaulted. I turned to Fallon. “But why are you watching me? Never mind, stupid question. You are watching me because you think I killed Sandra Epstein and I have Taylee somewhere, or maybe even that I killed her, too.” I was filled with a mixture of emotions I could only vaguely identify as anger, disgust, despair, and a deep, deep exhaustion.

  “You’re not the prime suspect,” Marshal Fallon said from between clenched teeth, his compassionate persona from a moment ago gone. “However, we do not have a clear suspect or motive, and so we have to follow what we have. Because it all revolves around you; you are all we have. It only makes sense we would be watching you.”

  And it only made sense that is why Tate had taken me to dinner, and was acting interested in me, if that in itself wasn’t a figment of my lonely imagination. He was watching me, too.

  Sadness took over all the other emotions and I wanted to climb into my bed and never get out again. “Can I just go to bed, please?”

  “We need a statement,” said one of the officers.

  “Well, do it quickly, and then we’ll leave Jenny alone,” Marshal Fallon said. Alone. Did I dare be alone? Not really.

  “I’ll give you my statement in a minute. First I need to call someone.”

  I picked up my phone and dialed Alissa’s number. “Can you come over? Somebody just tried to attack me, and I don’t want to be alone.”

  After making sure I had called the police, that I was following proper procedure, and that I would allow an officer to stay there until she showed up, Alissa said she would arrive in twenty minutes.

  I gave my statement to the police and then waited for their questions. There wasn’t a lot to tell.

  “Can you remember anything about your attacker, anything more, such as his face? You said his build was short and stocky, but did you see any part of his body, any identifying marks?”

  “No, no identifying marks,” I said, “but you have the sex wrong. That was no man. I’ve never kneed anyone in the nuts before, but I can guarantee you that this person had no nuts. I was attacked by a woman.”

  TWELVE

  AFTER Alissa arrived and the officers left, she showed me her friend, Mr. Smith and Wesson, which she kept in her purse, and which, I suppose, she thought would make me feel safer. It just terrified me more.

  I was experiencing a strange sense of loss and hurt, and I knew part of it was because Tate Wilson had not shown up at my house, when he had to have known I was attacked. It emphasized even more what I already knew. He was only interested in me to solve this crime. Still, I felt like crying, and I had the feeling ice cream or funeral potatoes weren’t going to make this one better. Thinking of the hot, gooey, cheesy potatoes commonly served at Mormon funerals made images of Sandra Epstein dance through my head, like troglodyte sugar plum fairies. Ugh. Not good thoughts. But who was going to bury her? Especially with Taylee missing. And was anyone even concerned about it? Should it concern me that I was concerned about it?

  “What do you think will happen to Sandra’s . . . uh, remains?” I asked Alissa.

  “Whoa, where did that come from?”

  You’d think she would have been used to me by now.

  “Well, I was just thinking about funeral potatoes, and that made me think of funerals and from there . . .”

  Alissa laughed and shook her head, something she did a lot when she was around me. “Well, normally, after an autopsy, the body would be released to the family so they could give it a proper burial. And without family hanging out anxiously waiting for the body, I guess she’ll be cremated.”

  The only one who cared about Sandra Epstein here in Utah was her daughter, and nobody knew where
she was. And now Sandra was going to be turned into ashes and dust.

  I felt like crying again.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Alissa said. “Like the fact you are obviously in some danger here, and we didn’t realize it. Or at least more danger than we realized.”

  “At least I won’t look as much like a suspect as I did before. I think.”

  “Do you have any idea at all who might have attacked you? I’m guessing you didn’t get a look at his face.”

  “It wasn’t a he. I finally got a chance to use all that self-defense we were taught for years, and I kneed him, only to discover there was nothing there to knee. I’m sure it still hurt. But that was no guy.”

  Alissa was silent as she digested the information that a woman had attacked me. “Well, I suppose it makes sense, in a crazy, warped, Jenny T. Partridge kinda way. You spend all your time around psycho dance moms. Remember that time one of them tried to run you off the road, and said it was just because she needed to discuss her daughter’s performance spot?”

  “Yep, people have nearly died for front-row fifty. Up until now, though, I just never thought someone would want to kill me. I mean, usually, don’t they go after the rivals of their darling daughters, like that crazy cheerleader mom in Texas? Killing the dance teacher seems to defeat the purpose. You’d just have to find another dance teacher to harass.”

  “I’m guessing that, despite the fact a woman attacked you, this isn’t about the front-row fifty,” Alissa answered. I knew she was right. I just wished I knew what it was about.

  “This is so frustrating.”

  “I know. Just remember that somehow it does tie in with your studio and your students’ crazy parents. To Sandra. I mean, she didn’t know anyone else here in Ogden, as far as we can tell. So let’s go over the facts.”