Quickstep to Murder

by Ella Barrick

  At least an hour passed before the thumpings and noises overhead slowed. I’d drunk two more mugs of tea, skipping the bourbon but going heavy on the honey.

  I’d read somewhere that sugar was good for shock. Officer Suarez resisted my attempts at conversation and I moved from feeling sick and shaky to feeling sad and worried. Sad about Rafe’s fate, worried about my own. It hadn’t taken much thought to realize I would be suspect numero uno. Maybe numero only. I might not have any legal training, but I’d watched enough Law & Order episodes to know the spouse or significant other was always a suspect. Especially if he or she had recently caught the deceased cheating, had broken their engagement, and had fought-sometimes loudly-about business disagreements. Double especially if he or she had something to gain from the death: Unless Rafe had changed his will after we broke up (I hadn’t yet changed mine), I’d inherit his share of Graysin Motion.

  A knock on the door broke into my thoughts. Officer Suarez answered it and returned a second later to usher in two men before rejoining his partner outside. The one in the lead looked like a fifty-year-old geek with an attitude. His head seemed too heavy for his scrawny neck and was capped by thinning, dishwater-colored hair. He had stretchy, too-red lips and gray eyes behind blackrimmed glasses Clark Kent might have worn in the 1950s. An incongruous cluster of freckles spattered the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, and even his earlobes. He wore a navy suit with a spotless white shirt and precisely knotted navy-and-green-striped tie.

  “I’m Detective Lissy,” he said, shaking my hand briefly. “This is Detective Troy.” He nodded at the other man, a stocky bodybuilder type in his midthirties.

  Detective Troy also shook my hand, his palm callused, his brown eyes taking in the details of my appearance. I didn’t want to think what I looked like, clad in a vomitflecked blue T-shirt and stretchy exercise pants-Officer Suarez had refused to let me change-with my hair straggling out of its ponytail and my feet bare. I gestured for them to be seated on the lavender velvet-covered settee my great-aunt Laurinda had placed by the marble fireplace. When she’d left me the house and its contents in her will three years ago, I’d planned to replace most of the fusty furniture, but I hadn’t had the time or money to do it yet, so sitting in the living room felt like emigrating to the 1930s. I returned to the wing chair by the window and sat, curling my feet up under me. Cold, I rubbed my hands together, but then thought it might make me look nervous and forced them to be still in my lap.

  Detective Troy plopped onto the settee, releasing a puff of dust from the fabric, and pulled out a notebook. Detective Lissy remained standing, his back to the fireplace.

  “Tell us about your relationship with Mr. Acosta,” he said, his voice neutral, his gaze roaming the room, lingering on the faded drapes, the tarnished silver-plated bowl on the end table, the portrait of Great-aunt Laurinda done when she was a seventeen-year-old debutante in 1923. He crossed to the painting and tapped it with his forefinger to straighten it.

  When he returned to his post by the fireplace, I said, “We were partners.”

  “In the business sense or the romantic sense?”

  “Business,” I said firmly. Maybe too firmly.

  The line between his brows deepened slightly.

  “We used to be engaged,” I admitted in reluctant response to that semifrown, “but we broke it off a while ago.”

  “When?” he asked, his gaze returning to the tarnished bowl.

  I half expected him to whip out some silver polish and have a go at it. “Four months ago.” My eyes slid to Detective Troy, but he didn’t look up from his note-taking.

  “Tell us what happened tonight,” Lissy said. His gaze fixed with unnerving intensity on my face and I realized his eyes weren’t gray as I’d originally thought, but the palest blue.

  I told him about Rafe and me planning to meet, about hearing the noises upstairs, about running up to investigate.

  “You thought there was an intruder upstairs and you went up on your own?” No skepticism sounded in his voice, but those speaking brows rose a fraction.

  “I wasn’t sure it was an intruder-I thought it might be Maurice”-I explained who Maurice was-“or Rafe showing up without calling.” Really, I didn’t think about it. As usual. I just charged up the stairs.

  Lissy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped it across the face of the clock ticking behind him on the mantel. “Go on.”

  I teared up when I came to the part about finding Rafe’s body and didn’t mention throwing up.

  “Did you touch the body?” Lissy asked, apparently unmoved by my emotion.

  “No.” I sniffed and groped for a tissue.

  “Do you own a gun?” Lissy asked.

  I stopped, tissue halfway to my nose. He didn’t seem to be watching me; he was staring into the fireplace as if wishing he had a dustpan and broom to sweep up ash traces. His question posed a problem. I owned a gun-a graduation gift from Uncle Nico-but it wasn’t registered. Uncle Nico had advised against it, warning that when the Democrats came to power, which he predicted they would, they’d confiscate registered guns. “You don’t want the crooks to be the only ones with firepower, Stasia,” he’d said. “Keep this loaded and keep it where you can get to it. If you ever need to use it, you call me afterward and I’ll help with the cleanup.”

  I’d consciously avoided thinking about what the cleanup might entail, reluctantly accepted the gun, shot it at a range a couple of times under Uncle Nico’s supervision, and tucked it into the bottom drawer of my bedside table. What were the penalties for having an unregistered gun? Did Virginia law require registration? I didn’t know, but I bet that getting caught lying to the police had worse consequences.

  “Yes, I own a gun.” I knew I’d taken too long to answer by the way both detectives stared at me. I bit my lower lip. “It’s just a little one. A.22. My uncle gave it to me. Years ago. For self-protection. He thought the Democrats-” Shut up, I told myself as the line between Lissy’s brows deepened again.

  “When did you last fire it?” Detective Troy asked.

  “I don’t know… Seven, eight years ago?”

  “You wouldn’t mind letting us have a look at it?” Lissy said in a tone that said it didn’t matter if I minded or not.

  “Sure.” I unfolded my legs and pushed out of the wing chair, relieved to be able to move, to escape the room and the inscrutable detectives. The rug felt good under my bare feet. “It’ll just take a-”

  “We’ll come with you.” Lissy gestured me toward the door as Troy rose to his feet.

  “It’s in my bedroom.” I hadn’t made my bed this morning and I was pretty sure yesterday’s clothes, including bra and panties, were still in a heap on the floor. How come Mother never told me to keep the house spotless in case homicide detectives might go prowling through it one day?

  “Best place for it,” Detective Troy agreed, either not getting the hint that I didn’t want strange men in my bedroom or deliberately ignoring my embarrassment. “That’s where my sister keeps hers.”

  I padded down the hall to my room, both detectives trailing behind. Troy whispered something to Lissy, but I didn’t catch it. Pushing the door wide, I marched straight to my bedside table, a three-foot-high walnut chest of drawers that used to hold Great-aunt Laurinda’s embroidered hankies and purses carefully wrapped in tissue paper. My knees sank into the carpet’s deep pile as I knelt and yanked open the bottom drawer. I used it for the lingerie items I needed once in a blue moon: the slip that went with a skirt I wore only to funerals, the cami I used under a blouse that never made it back from the cleaners after the last time I wore it, the mint-green hose I’d had to wear as a bridesmaid once. I patted the slippery fabrics, feeling for the hard, alien shape of the gun. When I didn’t feel it, I started tossing the filmy underthings onto the floor, uncaring now about the detectives’ scrutiny. Without looking, I could sense them standing just inside the door, watching, breathing.

  My hand panned fruitlessly against
the wooden bottom of the drawer. I flushed with heat; then the blood receded and I shivered. Reaching for my slippers beside the bed, I drew them on. Maybe I’d put the gun in the other drawer. I knew I hadn’t. But I opened it, digging through notebooks, condom packets-probably expired-hand lotions, a sewing kit, and other miscellany. No gun. I tried to remember when I’d last seen it, but couldn’t. I rocked back on my heels and looked over my shoulder. Was it my imagination, or had the detectives inched farther into the room? Their faces were impassive as they stared at me in my nest of lingerie.

  My mouth felt dry, like I’d been eating baby powder, and I used my tongue to moisten my lips. “It’s not here.”

  “I know the police think I killed Rafe,” I told Mark Downey Thursday morning at seven o’clock. We’d had a dance practice set up and I’d been too distracted by the night’s events to cancel, although I’d called the instructors and put a sign on the door saying classes were canceled for the day. Mark had arrived for our practice session, had seen the crime scene tape strung across the doors to the ballroom, and had sought me out in my office.

  “My God, Stacy,” he’d said, rushing in without even knocking and jolting to a stop at the sight of me behind my desk. “I thought-I saw the tape and thought that you-” His light brown eyes glowed with concern and relief.

  “Not me. Rafe,” I said, thrusting my fingers through the unwashed hair I had scraped back into a utilitarian ponytail. I knew my eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep, and I frankly was surprised Mark didn’t run screaming from the room at the sight of me. I could’ve had a walk-on part in the latest zombie movie without needing special effects makeup. Instead, he pulled me up into a comforting hug. I clung to him for a second-he smelled like deodorant soap-but broke away as I started to sniffle again.

  “Sorry,” I said, reaching for a tissue. I felt like I’d been crying nonstop since detectives Lissy and Troy finally left me alone at around two this morning. They’d pokered up and exchanged a meaningful glance when I discovered my gun was missing, and the questions had gotten a lot more pointed. They’d swabbed my hands with little towelette thingies, had taken my fingerprints-for elimination purposes, they said-and had asked if I knew if Rafe had a will. I gave them a copy. I could only be grateful they hadn’t hauled me off to jail.

  “Rafe! What in the name of God happened?” Mark straddled the straight-backed chair facing my desk and rested his chin on its back.

  Normally, I wouldn’t have considered Mark a confidante-he was a client more than a friend-but nothing about this morning qualified as “normal.” I slumped into my chair and told him what I knew about Rafe’s death-murder-which wasn’t much, and finished with my conviction that the cops considered me the prime suspect.

  “Of course they don’t,” Mark said. “No one could possibly think you had it in you to kill someone.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” I said. Deluded on at least two counts-the cops clearly thought I was more than capable of shooting my ex-fiancé, and pretty much everyone is able to kill under the right circumstances-but sweet. “I’m sorry, but I’m not up to-”

  “Of course you’re not,” he said, rising immediately. “Just give me a call when you’re ready to practice. If there’s anything I can do… I know you and Rafe were close, that is, that you used to be-Oh, hell.”

  He looked young and confused and earnest and I gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Mark. I appreciate it. I’ll call you later in the week.” If I wasn’t being fitted for a lurid orange prison jumpsuit.

  He left and I rose to make sure the door had closed after him. I felt less secure than usual in the studio-big surprise-and gave into nerves by turning the dead bolt. Returning to my office, my gaze fell on the crisscrossed crime scene tape that barred the way into the ballroom where I’d found Rafe’s body. As if compelled, I walked to the open door and stood on the threshold, wondering how I’d ever dance in there again. Except for a stain-smaller than it had seemed last night-where Rafe had lain under the window, the room looked like it always did: sunny and serene. I frequently imagined ghostly Colonial-era dancers bowing and curtsying as they minced their way through a gavotte or quadrille; now there’d be another ghost dancing in the ballroom. At least, I hoped he’d be dancing.

  I turned away, fighting back tears again. Maybe Danielle was right and I hadn’t been completely over Rafe. Wanting to distract myself from my incessant tears, I hurried into the studio, which the police had not put off limits, and turned on the stereo, not caring what music was cued up. A song from Wicked came on. I warmed up with some pliés and relèvés and then flung myself around the room in a whirling dance with no precision and little grace, intent on wringing the pent-up tension out of my muscles.

  “You bitch.”

  The venomous words caught me midleap and I half turned in the air, stumbling as I landed. Solange stood in the doorway, fury in every stiff line of her body. Even her red hair seemed to bristle with electric anger. She aimed the remote at the stereo, cutting Kristin Chenoweth off midsyllable.

  “How did you get in here?”

  She flung a key at me and it bounced off my cheek. “You killed him!”

  “I did not!”

  She stalked toward me, clearly intent on beating a confession out of me. I squared up to her but held up my hands placatingly. Heaven knows there’d been a time when nothing would have given me more pleasure than scratching Solange’s smug face or pulling her hair out of her scalp, but I didn’t think a catfight was a dignified way of grieving for Rafe. “How did you find out?” I asked.

  “The police were on my doorstep first thing this morning,” she said, slitting her eyes. “They told me Rafe was dead, that he’d been shot! How do you think it felt to hear my fiancé had been killed?” She managed a little sob.

  Fiancé! I saw her lying face through a red haze. “About like it felt to find him in bed with a morals-free trollop.” Whoops. That comment wasn’t going to do much to head off a catfight. But, damn, it felt good to say it.

  Solange stopped dead for a moment, then resumed pacing toward me, looking for an opening. I figured I could take her: She was fit, with killer abs bared by a crop top and skintight jeans that just cleared her pubic bone, but I was taller, with a longer reach, and I wasn’t wearing gladiator sandals with four-inch heels. I wasn’t recovering from an ankle injury, either.

  “Let’s not do this, Solange,” I said. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “I’ll make you sorrier.”

  Without warning, she kicked at my knee. Her stiletto heel grazed the side of my leg. “Ow!” Before she could pull her leg back, I grabbed her ankle with both my hands. Her eyes widened as she hopped on one foot.

  The temptation to upend her was almost overwhelming. Instead, I backed up a step and watched her teeter precariously as she was forced to hop toward me. “I didn’t shoot Rafe.”

  “Liar. Lying bi-”

  I jerked her foot an inch higher, almost to my shoulder, and she didn’t even wince. Ballroom dancers have to be darn flexible. “Stop saying that. I didn’t kill Rafe. And I don’t know who did. Although-” The key she’d thrown glinted as a sunbeam stroked it. “How long have you had that key?”

  “Rafe gave it to me a few months back so I could use the studio to practice when I needed to.”

  Great. How many other people had Rafe given keys to? I was having the locks changed today.

  “Would you let me go? You’re going to hurt my ankle.” Exasperation beat out anger in her voice and I could see she’d calmed down. I dropped her foot. She bent to fuss with her sandal strap.

  “I don’t see a ring,” I said, my gaze on her left hand.

  She knew immediately what I was saying. She straightened and her face was rosy, either from bending over or from my question. “We were more, like, engaged to be engaged. We were going ring shopping this weekend.”

  Sure they were. Talk about being a liar. I felt better knowing Rafe hadn’t proposed to her. I don’t know why i
t made a difference to me, but it did. “Look, the studio’s closed today. I’ll keep this”-I stooped to retrieve the key-“and I’ll call you later this week to let you know what the studio schedule is going to be. What with Rafe-” I stopped, suddenly realizing that we would be short a teacher. And the Capitol Festival! I’d just lost my partner for the upcoming competition and for Blackpool, too. How could I dig up a new partner on such short notice? All the good dancers were already committed and-

  “I said I could teach Rafe’s classes for a couple of weeks.”

  I tuned back to Solange to see her looking at me strangely. “You could?” A helpful Solange was new to me… and suspect. “Why would you?”

  “To… to honor Rafe’s memory,” she said with a pious, self-sacrificing air.

  She didn’t fool me for one second. She had an ulterior motive. Which didn’t mean I wouldn’t take her up on her offer because she had teaching experience and I was in a bind. Not wanting to make a decision on the spot, I said, “I’ll let you know, okay? Right now-”

  Heavy footsteps thudded in the hall. “Acosta!” a man bellowed from just outside the studio door. Solange and I turned as one to see a man burst into the room with such force that the door banged against the wall. Emotion twisted his face and inflamed a bulbous nose. “Where is he?” the man asked loudly. “Where’s that cowardly spic who got my daughter pregnant?”