Quickstep to Murder

by Ella Barrick

  Refreshed from my shower and with new Band-Aids on my knees, I sat at my desk with a spreadsheet open on the computer, a Peggy Lee song lilting from my computer speakers. I’d only recently learned how to play radio stations from my computer and I was enjoying the novelty. I scowled at the spreadsheet. Rafe was the one with the business brain; now that he was playing leastin-sight, I had to spend a lot more time with the bookkeeping and it made my head hurt. The oldies station went to news-“Crucial House Armed Services Committee vote on acquisition of next-generation helicopters for… Lady Gaga appearing at… Cherry blossoms blooming at Tidal Basin…”-and I closed its window. The sounds of an altercation from the ballroom gave me an excuse to leave my desk and see what was going on.

  A shaky soprano voice cried, “But it’s my turn! Maurice waltzed with you last week, Edwina. You can’t expect to have him to yourself-even if you do need the most instruction.”

  “Ladies, please.”

  I peeked into the room to see Maurice Goldberg, our other male instructor, holding up his hands to calm the two octogenarians glaring at each other. Two couples of similar vintage practiced a stiff waltz pattern around the combatants. A handsome Great Dane splotched with black and white snoozed under the window, heavy muzzle resting on his front legs, one ear twitching. Ballroom dancing apparently wasn’t as interesting as reminding cats who was boss or terrorizing the squirrels in the park. We didn’t really have a pet policy and sometimes women brought their Yorkies or Malteses tucked into tote bags, so I felt it was only fair to allow the Great Dane to observe classes. I didn’t want to be guilty of size discrimination. As long as the pets were well behaved, I didn’t mind having them around; in fact, I liked it.

  Maurice, who admitted to being sixty but who I guessed was at least a decade older, had been a dance host on a cruise ship for many years before coming to work for Graysin Motion not long after we opened. His smoothed-back white hair, furrowed where the comb plowed through it, and perpetual tan reminded me a bit of George Hamilton. With his suave air, practiced charm, and natty double-breasted blazers, he brought in a ton of business from moneyed women of a certain age who were looking for a little tingle with their tango.

  As I watched, the taller woman with thinning hair who probably remembered voting for FDR shoved a shorter, well-padded dowager who clung to Maurice’s arm. “You take back that snide remark about my needing more instruction, Mildred Kensington.”

  “At your age, you should be grateful you can still walk. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in not being able to waltz any better than Hoover.” The pseudosweet words came with an equally false smile.

  The Great Dane raised his head and cocked it at the sound of the quarreling voices.

  “Hoover? The president? What are you going on about, Mildred?” Edwina flapped her hand dismissively, a multicarat diamond on her gnarled finger catching the sunlight. “You’re gaga. Your grandchildren should have insisted you stay in that home they found for you last year. Of course, being incontinent does get you kicked out of some-”

  “Hoover, my Great Dane,” Mildred said, nodding toward the massive dog.

  There was a gasp from the other couples who had abandoned all pretense of dancing and were watching the Edwina and Mildred show as avidly as if they were sitting in Ford’s Theater.

  “Ladies, please,” Maurice said again, stepping between them as Edwina wound up to throw a punch at the smug Mildred. No genteel slaps for her, apparently.

  The dog lowered his head to his legs again, apparently deciding his intervention wasn’t necessary, that Maurice had things under control.

  “Did you need me to help demonstrate?” I asked, deciding it was time to break it up. Visions of our insurance skyrocketing if one of the old dears broke a hip moved me forward.

  “Thank you, my dear Anastasia,” Maurice said.

  No matter how many times I asked him to call me Stacy, he insisted on using my full name and treated me like I was deposed Russian royalty.

  “We were just about to embark on a waltz.”

  He used the remote to cue up the music and took my hand. We circled the floor several times-I enjoyed waltzing with Maurice because of his gliding step and strong lead-and finished with a flourish.

  “Thank you,” Maurice said, kissing my hand with oldfashioned gallantry.

  “Let’s talk when you’re done here,” I said with a meaningful look.

  I struggled with the accounts for another half hour before I heard Maurice call, “Au revoir, ladies. Until next time.” Moments later he stood in the doorway.

  I had hired Maurice almost two years ago, and we’d developed a relationship that seemed more like greatuncle with favorite niece than employee-employer, despite the fact we never socialized outside the studio. I didn’t know much about his personal life other than that his wife had died of an aneurysm in her early fifties. He’d never remarried, although I was certain he’d had plenty of opportunities, if the women in his classes were anything to go by. Speaking of which…

  I gestured for him to sit. “Maurice, what is it with those women? We need to find a way to keep interactions more… more amicable. We can’t have students mistaking your class for a boxing match and breaking their osteoporotic bones. Plus, we can’t let a couple of scrappy senior citizens make the atmosphere so bitter that we lose clients. Lord knows, we can’t afford that.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, Anastasia.” He cocked his head a bit to one side, clearly asking me how to fix the problem. One ankle rested on the opposite knee and his hands lay on his thighs.

  “What did you do when these sorts of problems arose on your cruise ships?”

  “Threw them overboard,” he said, straight-faced.

  His deadpan humor never failed to catch me off guard and I gaped at him for a moment. Then I started laughing. His mouth twitched at the corner, and he leaned across the desk to hand me a pristine handkerchief as tears leaked from my eyes.

  “Wouldn’t work here,” I finally said. “No ocean. Although the Potomac’s not that far…” I mused.

  His blue eyes twinkled.

  Damn, if I were fifty years older-make that thirty-I’d probably be fighting Edwina and Mildred for him.

  “If it concerns you, Anastasia, I will fix the problem.” He opened his hands like a magician performing a trick. “I shall recruit two gentlemen of my acquaintance to attend the classes-perhaps I may tell them the classes are complimentary?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, relieved to have such an elegant solution to the dilemma. “Thank you, Maurice. The real problem, you know, is that you’re much too charming. Do you think you could dial back the sex appeal a notch?” I smiled at him as he rose.

  “Impossible, my dear Anastasia.” A look of mischief lit his face. “It’s a curse.”

  Moments after Maurice left the office, I heard the outside door open and the click of high heels stop at my doorway. I looked over to see a woman posed in the opening. In that nebulous range between fifty and sixty, she had a flawlessly made-up face that had probably been lifted at least once. Her hair was an ashy blond cut to jaw length and expensively styled. A pink raw-silk suit clung to her lean curves and she wore matching stilettos that undoubtedly said Blahnik or Choo on the label. If her long neck was a bit scraggy and the skin on her hands a tad mottled, she was still a very attractive woman. Sherry Indrebo, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. And a talented amateur ballroom dancer who paid Rafe to dance with her at competitions, like Mark Downey did with me. I’d heard rumors that maybe she got more than dancing for her money, but I’d never believed them.

  “Stacy,” she said with a tight smile. “Tell Rafe I’ll just be a minute, would you? I need to change. Thanks.”

  Uh-oh. “Rafe’s not here, Sherry.”

  Her perfectly arched and penciled brows snapped together. “He’s not? Well, I’m sure he’ll get here any minute. He wouldn’t forget. Not with the Capitol Festival so close.”

  I didn’t tell her Rafe had
been forgetting a lot of things recently.

  “He’d better not forget.” The corners of her mouth tightened. “I had to completely rearrange my schedule and miss a floor vote to get here on time.”

  “If he said he’ll be here, he’ll be here,” I lied. “He probably got caught in traffic somewhere.”

  With a dubious look, she sailed into the bathroom to change. I was back at my computer when she poked her head in ten minutes later, dressed in a few strips of orange fluff that passed for a salsa dress and showed off her excellent legs.

  “Is he here?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “I’ll give him precisely five more minutes and then I’m out of here.”

  I’d hoped she’d do her waiting in the studio, maybe stretch to warm up, but no such luck. She sat in the wing chair by the window-the better to watch for Rafe, I guessed-and crossed her legs. “I’d kill for a cigarette,” she said, swinging one foot.

  I didn’t respond to the hint. This was a strictly nosmoking building. Smoking killed your wind. And it stank. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I finally blurted.

  The corner of her mouth crooked up in a wry smile. “Never where my constituents can see me.” She popped a piece of gum into her mouth.

  I wondered what else she indulged in out of the voters’ sight. I tried to think of something to say to Sherry as the seconds ticked past and the tension grew thicker. Nothing came to me. Truth to tell, Sherry intimidated me. With money (from a rich defense contractor husband who spent at least half his time in St. Paul), looks, and power, she was a formidable woman. Even Rafe had mentioned once, half joking, that she scared him. At five minutes to the second, she rose to her feet and fluffed her orange feathers.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” she said, her voice dripping ice. “My husband and I are attending a thousand-dollara-plate fund-raiser tonight and I can’t be late. Please tell Rafe that I was here for our practice.” Her anger was way out of proportion to being stood up for dance practice, and I wondered uneasily about their relationship. “I’ll expect him to call me with an explanation. And it had better be good.”

  “I’ll let him know,” I said and breathed a sigh of relief when she swept out of the office.

  Without bothering to change, she charged out the side door. I went to the window and watched as a driver held the door of a black Lincoln Town Car for her. It wasn’t quite a limo, but it was certainly a more luxurious mode of transportation than my yellow Beetle. An orange feather dangled out of the door, but the car moved off anyway.

  I hoped Rafe knew what he was doing. But I doubted it.

  At eight thirty I sat at the dinette table in my breakfast nook, eating a late dinner of spinach and water-packed tuna, wishing I could have a cheeseburger and fries. But Blackpool was only six weeks away and I didn’t need an extra pound or two straining the seams of my fitted costumes. Rafe had complained during a lift last week that I was gaining weight and although I denied it, I was counting every calorie. Winning trophies at the big competitions was excellent advertising for the studio and the prize money was nothing to sneer at, either.

  And now the studio’s very existence was at issue. Clearly, Rafe was going to push for some decisions if he showed up tonight, which was beginning to look doubtful. Trouble was, I didn’t see a solution that we could agree on. I wanted to build Graysin Motion into one of the country’s most respected ballroom-dance training centers and that took time. I was willing to live on the bare minimum while we grew the business. Rafe, for whatever reason-expensive new girlfriend? Bad investments?-wasn’t.

  I sipped my mineral water and downed a handful of vitamins. How had things disintegrated so quickly? A few short months ago we’d had similar goals for our relationship and our business; now… well, I’d rather shave off my hair than turn Graysin Motion into a kiddie recital mill. If Rafe insisted on taking more money out of the business, I’d have to do something drastic. I cleared my place and tried to decide what “drastic” would be. There was really only one answer and I shied away from it: borrow money from Uncle Nico to buy Rafe’s share of the business.

  The banks weren’t lending to small businesses-I’d already approached eight of them-and my parents, divorced, weren’t in a position to invest in a ballroom dance studio. My brother and sister had less money than I did, and my lottery picks never seemed to win. Uncle Nico, my mom’s brother and an entrepreneur with his fingers in many pies (not all of them strictly legal, I suspected) would happily lend me the money. The problem was, what would he expect in return? He’d loaned me a hundred bucks in high school to buy the bicycle I needed to get to dance lessons, and told me I could just do him a favor someday in return. The favor turned out to be going to the prom with the son of one of his business associates. I was a senior and the kid was a pimply sophomore who laughed in little snorts, tipped a bottle of Southern Comfort into the punch bowl, and tried to feel me up during the slow dances. Gag me.

  I was trying to decide whether to call Uncle Nico now, so I could have a solid offer for Rafe, or wait until after I’d heard what Rafe had to say, when a thump overhead brought my gaze to the ceiling. Someone was in the studio. My watch read 8:45. The last class had let out at eight-Maurice taught it-and those students were long gone. A car backfired out front and then another noise, like something heavy landing on the floor, thudded through the centuries-old boards. What the-?

  I ran to the stairs and pounded up them in my bare feet, impulse taking over once again. Pushing open the door that led into the upstairs hall, I expected lights, but it was almost totally dark. Slivers of moonlight, stippled by passing clouds, provided faint illumination. The studio that was like an extension of my home, a cocoon that gave me comfort, suddenly seemed eerie and alien. I hesitated before stepping into the hall. I held my breath and listened. Nothing. I took a deep breath. This was silly. I didn’t need to slink around my own studio. I slid my hand along the wall to the light switch and flicked it. The sconces in the hall lit up, casting a warm glow on the wooden floors. The hall was empty.

  “Hello?” I called. “Anybody here?” I was pleased my voice didn’t tremble. “Hello?” I said again, louder. Nothing.

  The rooms opening off the hall still lay in semidarkness, with the small studio, the powder room, and my office to my left and the ballroom running the length of the house on my right. Standing in the hall, I reached my right hand around the jamb of the small studio door and felt for the light switch. The overhead fixture sprang to life, illuminating the emptiness of the wood-floored room with its windows that looked on to my courtyard. Gaining confidence, I marched down the hall to the powder room and turned on the light. Small mosaic tiles in white and blue, white ceramic sink and toilet-that needed cleaning, I noted-framed dancing prints on the wall, humming fridge. Nothing out of place.

  As I approached my office, a thin whistling raised gooseflesh on my arms. I slowed my pace and peered around the corner of the short hall that led to the stairs. The door to the outside stairs gapped slightly and a breath of wind soughed through. With shaking hands, I pushed it closed and turned the dead bolt. Could Maurice have forgotten to lock up? I leaned back against the door for a moment, then pushed away to continue my search. I was confident by now that there was no one here… no intruder waiting to jump out at me. It just didn’t feel like there was anyone here.

  I scanned the office: desks, chairs, computers, Oriental rug I’d bought in Turkey-all untouched. The brightness of the lights I’d left on as I progressed toward the front of the house infused me with courage and I entered the ballroom without a qualm. What is it in our DNA that seeks light, feels safer in the glare of sunlight than hidden in dark crannies? Maybe because we relied on our vision and had lost our senses of smell and hearing, relatively speaking. Our ancestors could see the saber-toothed cat stalking them but couldn’t smell or hear it. Although if the tiger house at the National Zoo was anything to go by, any Neanderthal downwind should have smelled the big kitty coming. I sho
ok my head at the goofy direction in which my thoughts had drifted.

  The glow from headlights and streetlights out front illuminated the northern end of the room and a trickle of moonlight from the back windows cast shadows along the south side. A broad stripe of light fell into the room from the hall. My eyes went to the stereo system; if someone were going to rob Graysin Motion, it was about the only thing worth stealing. Present and accounted for. About to return to my office to wait for Rafe, I sniffed. Something didn’t smell right. I gazed around the room more deliberately, scanning each section in turn.

  Nothing by the front windows. The curtains were too sheer for anyone to hide behind. Nothing in the center of the floor. The odor grew stronger as I stood there and my legs started to tremble. Beneath the southern windows, one of the shadows was strangely static, not shifting as clouds and tree limbs skipped through the moonlight. I groped for the switch on the wall, my eyes never leaving the immobile shadow.

  Light drenched the room and I slid down the wall until I squatted on my haunches, unable to approach Rafe where he lay under the window. I felt like I’d just plummeted into a death drop, but Rafe was not there to catch me. The beach ball-sized pool of blood congealing like a macabre halo around his shattered head told me it was too late for bandages or CPR. Too late for kissing and making up. Too late for… Forcing myself to move, I crabbed sideways on my hands and feet until I reached the door. Pulling myself up by the doorknob, I staggered into the bathroom and threw up.

  Chapter 3

  The police arrived within minutes of my 911 call, in a swirl of strobing lights, staticky radio transmissions, and general confusion. A quick inspection of Rafe’s body and the first two officers on the scene called for detectives and crime scene investigators. One of the patrol officers escorted me downstairs and waited with me in my living room while the other looped yellow crime scene tape around the house and kept gawkers away. I watched the goings-on from the front window, my hands laced around a mug of hot tea liberally dosed with honey and a shot of bourbon from a bottle Rafe had left behind. An unmarked car parked illegally out front, and two men I assumed were the detectives strode toward the stairs. My ears tracked their progress as they clomped up the stairs and walked heavily into the studio where Rafe’s body lay, just above my head. When I realized the cop-Officer Suarez, I read from his name tag-and I were staring at the ceiling, I wrenched my gaze away.