Tutu Deadly

by Natalie M. Roberts

  “Yes. No. There might be.”

  Marlys finally laughed, and the mood lightened up a bit. “Jenny, Tate is just trying to keep you safe. If I seem like I’m taking his side, it’s because I’m worried about you.”

  “Marlys, how do you know he’s trying to keep me safe?” I asked, as Marlys pulled her car into the parking lot of the dance studio. She drove a Subaru wagon, just right for the busy soccer/dance mom, and entirely too practical for me.

  “He’s a good guy, Jenny, and have you somehow missed he’s entirely all fired up for you?”

  I blushed, and felt my face get warm. “He’s not hot for me. If he wants anything, it’s just sex, and I don’t have enough time and energy to comply. And he’s trying to find Taylee, and so far, I’m the only lead he has. I don’t trust him or Andrew.”

  “Andrew?” she asked, as we got out of the car. I glanced up at the studio door. My heart dropped. There was yellow police tape in front of the door, and some piece of paper stuck on it. I vaulted up the stairs two at a time, and read the notice on my door. What it told me was something I did not want to hear. My building was closed—closed?—by order of the fire marshal. This could not be happening. I had a performance. I needed to collect tuition. My building couldn’t be closed. “Let me use your phone,” I ordered Marlys, and she handed it over.

  I called the number listed on the notice and a chirpy young voice answered, “Ogden City Offices, Fire Marshal McGowan’s office. How can I help you?”

  “Yes, someone has put a ‘closed’ notice on the door of my studio. I realize there was a bomb that went off in here, but the damage was minimal, and I really don’t . . .”

  “Hold, please.”

  Soon I was listening to elevator music, and watching as Detective Tate Wilson pulled up. He got out of the driver’s side of his car, and U.S. Marshal Andrew Fallon exited out the passenger side.

  They walked up the stairs and Marlys greeted them, giving Fallon a sideways glance. She hadn’t really met him yet. I didn’t feel like proper introductions were necessary, anyway, since this wasn’t really a social situation.

  “My building is closed,” I said to both men, as I held the cell phone to my ear, waiting for the receptionist to get back to me.

  “I can see that,” Andrew replied.

  “Does it say what for?”

  “No, it just says closed by order of the fire marshal.”

  There was a voice in my ear and I jumped, and put a finger up to indicate I needed to take this call . . . Oh boy, did I. “Thank you for holding, can I help you?” the same chirpy voice said.

  “Yes, as I just explained, someone has put a ‘closed’ notice on the door of my dance studio, and as I need to open up and get ready for a performance that I have coming up, I really need to find out . . .”

  “Hold, please.” Elevator music in the ear again.

  “Wow, she’s getting pretty mad. Her face is turning red,” Tate said, smiling.

  “Yeah, it practically matches her hair.” Andrew had to get his shot in, too.

  “You two are a regular laughfest,” I said, holding the grating music away from my ear.

  Tate grinned and my heart did a little beat-skipping thing.

  “Thank you for holding, can I help you please?”

  “Are you really going to make me explain this again? I need to find out who put a ‘closed’ notice on my building, and I’ve already explained that twice, and now . . .”

  “Hold please.” This time, I couldn’t hear the elevator music over the roar in my ears, and I chucked the phone out and over the stairway and it hit the parking lot and shattered into pieces. Have I mentioned I’m hard on phones?

  “Gonna be hard for Taylee to contact you on that phone,” Tate commented drily.

  “Well, she kept putting me on hold and this is a serious situation. I need to get into my building. I can only cancel dance for one night. We have to practice tomorrow. I have a performance on Friday. And I don’t have time for this.”

  “No reason to worry, because Taylee won’t be trying to contact you on that phone, now will she, Jenny? After all, it belonged to me!” Marlys said, with more than a little bit of irony and anger. Oops. I had just destroyed Marlys’s phone, which was unforgivable, especially since she had rescued me from the mortuary, not to mention all the other things she did for me daily.

  “I’m sorry, Mar, I sort of forgot, what with all the things that have happened. Can you forgive me? I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “No, you won’t, Jenny, because you don’t have a pot to piss in!”

  Boy, Marlys was steamed. And what kind of saying was that, anyway? A pot to piss in? That gave me some seriously warped mental images.

  “Mar, I really am sorry, and I will pull whatever funds I have to from the Nutcracker proceeds to buy you a new phone. Please don’t be mad at me. I’m just so upset about my building being closed. It makes absolutely no sense that it’s closed! It was just a little bomb.”

  “Well, since the entryway to the tunnel was blown open, the building no longer meets earthquake codes. That’s probably why they closed it,” Tate said.

  My eyes narrowed. “You seem to know an awful lot about this,” I said through grated teeth.

  “Common sense,” he said.

  “Or a desire to make sure I don’t put on my performance?”

  “Uh, Jenn, you’re getting a little irrational here,” Marlys interjected. “First you destroy my phone, then you accuse Tate of . . . well, whatever it is you are accusing him of. What possible reason could Tate have for not wanting you to put on your performance?”

  I tried to think of one, but came up blank. Yes, I owed him money for the cookie-dough loan he had floated me, but he assured me that was being taken care of, and that he believed the owner of the cookie-dough company would come through. Still, he hadn’t even known the tunnels existed until I showed them to him, so . . . When it hit me, it was almost physical, and it also made me a little weak-kneed. Was it possible he wanted to keep me in debt to him in order to control me? But why? What possible reason could a man have to keep a woman in control . . . except sex. Or house-cleaning, but Tate wasn’t that deluded. Even the biggest lunk in the world wouldn’t want me as a housecleaner.

  So, sex? Of all the sexist, raunchy, nasty, and frighteningly appealing things . . . I needed more sleep. Tate blowing up my studio so he could keep me as a sex slave? I needed more than sleep. I needed medication. And why wouldn’t he want me as a sex slave, huh?

  “Why are you suddenly glaring at me like I’m a can of bad tuna fish?” he asked.

  “I’m not glaring.”

  “Actually, yes, you are,” Marlys interjected unhelpfully. If I didn’t need her so bad, she would find herself out of one jack-of-all-trades job. Oh, and now I owed her a phone.

  I decided to ignore all the whack jobs standing behind me, especially the one living inside my brain (sex slave, Jenny? Good God!) and turned to look at the door. Technically, there was no lock on the door. And technically, I still had the key. What was a piece of paper, really? I mean, how serious could they really be, with some yellow tape and a piece of paper?

  “I can tell you are thinking about just ignoring the order, and I want to point out that you have an entire passel full of psycho dance moms who are not going to want to endanger their darling daughters,” Tate Wilson said, right into my ear. I could feel his warm breath on my neck, and a shiver wracked my body from head to toe. I hated that he could do that to me. I really did. And, of course, I couldn’t help but wonder what else he could do to me.

  “So, what exactly do you suggest?”

  “Well, I have some contacts at the office of the fire marshal, and I can give them a call. Probably, you are going to have to get an engineer in here, and have them determine whether or not the building is safe.”

  “Engineer? But that would cost money. And you already know I don’t have any. And I don’t even own this building. I rent it, but Jack and Marco are
in Mexico fishing, so I can’t even get ahold of them. Oh God, why me?” I felt like someone had just drained all the blood out of my body, and I supposed, in a way, they had. My lifeblood. I was fighting a battle I couldn’t win. Without being conscious of it, I slowly sank to the ground, my butt pressing against the cold, hard metal of the balcony entrance to my studio. It really would be easier to just give up. I was hardly a raging success at this, and now someone was making it nearly impossible just to get through a day—alive. Maybe it was time to give up this dream and join the real world. Maybe 7-Eleven was hiring.

  “Jenny, are you okay?” Marlys asked.

  “Hell, what do you think, Mar? The one thing I count on all year, the one money-earning performance I do, the one thing that keeps me barely bobbing afloat the rest of the year is now in danger, because my studio is shut down. I can’t practice with the girls. Without practice, and with a new Sugar Plum Fairy who desperately needs the practice, I’m screwed. Up shit creek without a sail.”

  There was a moment of silence, during which I considered the fact that while most of the time I appeared mostly eccentric, today I must seem just plain nuts, and then Tate said, “I’m sure there must be something you can do.”

  Before I could think of a good retort to that, I heard a honk and I looked down to see Auntie Vi’s 2006 Cadillac cruise into my parking lot. Great. This was all I needed.

  Auntie slowly got out of her car and made a production of telling her yapping dogs to quiet down and “wait for Mommy like good little poo-poo dogs.” As usual, Auntie’s voice carried like thunder during a storm.

  Yikes.

  She slowly walked toward us, and no one spoke as she headed up the stairs, grasping at the handrail as she stomped up. She was at least a hundred pounds overweight, and each step she took shook the metal staircase with a pounding metallic thrum, which made me feel as though she was telegraphing a message to me with each step. “When. I. Reach. The. Top. You. Will. Be. Sorry. You. Were. Ever. Born. In. This. Family.” Or something like that.

  When she finally reached the summit of the stairs, she was breathing heavy. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and I could hear each exhalation as she struggled to regain both her breath and her composure.

  I waited for the axe to fall.

  After a moment, when she could finally speak, she opened her mouth, and I almost found myself physically cringing. My butt had gone numb, both from sitting on the hard metal latticework balcony and from the cold. I didn’t care anymore. Numb was good. Numb might get me through this extremely dark day.

  “Jennifer, I came . . .” Huff, huff. “I came because . . .” Huff, huff. “I came because I have an idea. I heard your studio was closed, and I know you need a place to practice.” Huff, huff, huff. “I called my bishop, and he was very, very kind and he agreed that as long as your dances meet the church’s standards,” huff, huff, huff, “you are welcome to use our ward house to practice, and get ready for your Nutcracker performance. They have the basketball court in the cultural hall. So it will be the hardwood floors you need. He assures me that he and his wife buy tickets every year, and they are not willing to ruin family tradition. They will do whatever they have to do to help.” She took a couple of deep breaths and then looked at me expectantly.

  I was floored. I shouldn’t have been. Of course she knew my studio was shut down. She had too much time on her hands, and she knew everything that happened in Ogden, especially when it involved someone she was related to, in any way.

  But this? To have gone out on a limb and found me a place to practice—a place with the very essential hardwood floors that dancers need, mind you—was beyond belief to me. Of course, immediately the wheels started spinning in my head. What would be required of me in return? Would I have to give my firstborn child, should there even ever be a firstborn child, to the Mormon Church, in exchange for this . . . gift?

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “She’s thrilled,” Marlys said, apparently deciding I needed some help. Damn her. She was right, as usual. “We’ll be there tonight at six for a group practice. Will that work?”

  “Yes, dear, of course. I already told you that I had it all cleared. Do you know where it is?”

  This last comment was delivered sweetly, without a hint of malice, at least in her voice, but I’d known Auntie Vi for a lot of years. She knew damn well I did not know where her particular ward house was, mostly because there was a Mormon church on every corner in Utah. Sometimes two, right across the street from each other. With the plethora of ward houses available, I had no idea which particular one was Auntie’s.

  My savior was quickly turning into my Judas. Wow. I was pretty sure I got that right. I actually referenced the Bible correctly. That was really amazing, wasn’t it? I couldn’t believe . . .

  “Jenny? Jenny! Are you okay?”

  “Nope, not okay. Definitely have had enough of this crazy turn my life is taking.”

  “Yes, dear, I understand,” Auntie Vi said. “I hear Telegenix is hiring. Kim works there, and she just got her second raise. Eight-fifty an hour to start, Jennifer. You can’t beat that. And they are so willing to work with you when you have your babies. Why, they told Kim that since she’s already been there three years, she can get three months paid maternity leave and then come back part-time. They would welcome her back with open arms. What a family-friendly organization that is!”

  “Uh, Auntie Vi? Kim’s not married. Pretty sure she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. Isn’t it a little odd she’s asking about maternity leave?”

  “Planning for the future, Jennifer. Something you have never bothered to do.”

  I felt my blood begin to boil, but refused to let my temper get the best of me. I’d already destroyed Marlys’s cell phone. Who knew what I’d decimate if I let Auntie Vi get me in a dither, and then, of course, she might rescind her offer of the church to practice in.

  I really needed my girls to practice. I rose from the hard, cold metal and winced as my butt started to come back to life.

  “Where’s your church, Auntie?”

  She gave me the address, and Marlys, ever ready, pulled out her pen and wrote it down, then copied it again and handed it to me.

  “Well, you better get going, Auntie Vi. Here, let me help you down those metal stairs.”

  I reached out my arm and grabbed hers, firmly. I knew she wouldn’t willingly walk away from the Jenny T. Partridge Disaster Show, but I wasn’t in the mood to perform for her today.

  I led her down the stairs, and heard the metallic tromp and reverberation as Marlys, Tate, and Andrew followed behind. Auntie was getting older and arthritic, so it took us a bit of time to get down the stairs. I started to feel like I was descending Mount Everest, until we finally reached the bottom, and I escorted my aunt to her car, making sure she got in and drove away.

  Then I turned back to my little entourage. Gee, what fun my life had become.

  “I’ll start calling all the dance moms, and make sure they call a few, too,” Marlys said. “I’ll also let Amber and James know. Six o’clock, right?”

  I nodded, and she turned to leave, then stopped. “Wait. You came with me. You don’t have a ride.”

  “Yes, she does,” Tate said, uttering the first words he’d spoken since Auntie Vi appeared. He and Andrew had watched the entire proceedings with great interest, and more than a hint of amusement. If a woman wasn’t dead, and a little girl missing, I would have suspected them of setting this whole thing up, just because they were bored. Of course, they’d never met before it happened, and the bomb thing was kind of out of whack for law-abiding police officers. And the attacks on me, of course.

  “Jenny, I’ll make sure everyone brings their tuition checks tonight, so we can get that money in the bank. Nobody gets in the door until tuition is paid,” Marlys said.

  “You won’t let them in if they don’t pay tuition?” Tate asked. “Wouldn’t some of them just not come, or go home? People practice all kinds of avoidance in o
rder not to pay things. It’s why there are so many warrants issued.”

  “These are psycho dance moms. Not paying means your daughter doesn’t dance, no one sees her huge potential, and the world comes to an end. They’d rob banks before they’d let that happen,” I explained.

  Tate just shook his head, and Andrew smiled. Not at Tate, of course, but at me. Yowza.

  I suddenly realized I didn’t know when we would get back in the studio, and this might be our last practice. “We’re going to have to make it a dress rehearsal, Marlys. So make sure everyone brings their costumes.”

  “Okay, I will. Well, I’m off.” She gave me a glance as if to say, “If you want to go with me, you’d better come now.”

  “Really, Marlys, if you would just drop me off at . . .” Where? The cops were staked out at my house, waiting for Taylee to call or for the bad guys to attack me again. Even if I didn’t ride there with them, they’d be there right behind me. My studio was closed, by order of the fire marshal. The only place I could feasibly go was my parents’ house. And I wasn’t in the mood for that. My mom was kind of a “delicate flower” type. She didn’t handle adversity or conflict well, and bodily harm sent her over the moon. She’d probably resort to wringing her hands and crying tears that leaked sneakily out of the corners of her eyes, trying all the while to pretend like absolutely nothing was wrong. I wasn’t feeling strong enough to deal with that. And it was easier for my mom if she didn’t have to confront the way I’d turned out.

  “We’ll take Jenny home,” Tate said, his voice insistent and firm.

  “Well, okay. Jenny?”

  “Okay.” I had to agree, because Marlys needed to get going and call all those moms and get them directions to the ward house where we would be practicing. It was going to take a while. I had no choice but to let her go. She didn’t have time to deal with me.

  Marlys left, and we loaded up into Tate’s car, me in the backseat. Andrew slid in next to me, and Tate turned to glare at him. One point for Andrew. He ignored Tate’s nasty look.

  “Actually, I need to go back to Monica’s, to make sure she is awake and alert now, and finishing up my costumes.”