Quickstep to Murder

by Ella Barrick

  A thought crossed my mind: Could Sherry Indrebo have hired or coerced Solange into searching the office to find her missing thumb drive? Maybe she suspected I’d found it and was keeping it for my own purposes. If that were so, why was Solange rifling through my desk and not Rafe’s? I stared at his desk. Maybe she’d looked in Rafe’s first. I shut my drawer more forcefully than necessary and the photo of me and my first ballroom partner hoisting a trophy slapped face downward. I righted it, taking a moment to smile at my gap-toothed grin and the self-conscious expression on Bobby’s tenyear-old face. Last I heard, he sold hot tubs outside Newport News.

  Opening the folder with all the paperwork related to this weekend’s competition, I went over everything from the hotel and meal arrangements to the heat times, sending my clients reminder e-mail about what to bring and what time their events took place. I was convinced scheduling and logistics at a ballroom dance competition made D-Day planning look like a walk in the park. Vitaly came in after half an hour and I went over it all with him, too. “You’ll meet Sherry this evening,” I told him, sliding him a page with Sherry’s heats highlighted.

  He lounged on the love seat, sipping bottled grapefruit juice. “For the regularities,” he said, noting my glance at the bottle. “Is this Sherry dancing better than that one?” He nodded his head toward the small studio and, presumably, the partner he’d just been practicing with.

  I nodded reluctantly. “Sherry’s pretty good,” I said. “You can see she’s competing in the gold divisions.”

  “Da. Good. She is having money?” He looked up from under the blond hair flopping across his brow.

  “Lots,” I assured him.

  “Good,” he said again. “Vitaly is liking this studio with the many rich womens. Perhaps Vitaly is buying.” He beamed at me.

  “What?”

  “Rafe is no longer. Pfft.” He flicked the fingers of both hands open like little starbursts. “Vitaly is hearing that Rafe’s share is for selling.”

  “Where did you hear that?” I stalled, not sure how I felt about the possibility of Vitaly buying Rafe’s half of the studio. I couldn’t do much better for a dance partner, but I didn’t know a thing about him as a businessman.

  Vitaly shrugged and rose. Vowing once again to talk to Tav today about his plans for the business, I wrote his name and number on a purple sticky and passed it to Vitaly. “That’s Rafe’s half brother,” I said. “He’s the one you need to talk to.”

  Vitaly left with a flash of his new teeth and I ran downstairs to get ready for my early-afternoon workout with Danielle. We tried to meet twice a week at the health club on King Street, about half a mile from here. Nondancers don’t realize how demanding a sport ballroom dancing is; I trained as many hours as a Redskins lineman did, I’d bet. In addition to the time I spent teaching or practicing, I took a weekly ballet class and a biweekly jazz class, weight-trained at least four times a week to give my arms and legs some definition, and did Pilates for my core, which was critical for balance and posture.

  Jogging to the gym because it was quicker than finding a parking space, I pushed through the glass doors just as Danielle emerged from the locker room. “Back and chest today,” she announced. We went into the weight room, a huge space crammed with Nautilus and Cybex machines, weight benches, racks of dumbbells, stacks of mats, and exercise balls. Mirrors lined two walls and windows looked out to the parking lot from the wall opposite the door where we stood. Early-afternoon exercisers crowded the room and the sounds of conversation and groans of straining weight lifters drowned out the TVs.

  While we bench-pressed, Danielle told me her boss’s wife had been in the office that day and she had hopes that they were getting back together. “She keeps him in line,” Danielle said.

  “You still need to talk to him and let him know that hounding you for a date is way out of line.” I racked the bar.

  “I hate those kinds of confrontations,” Danielle confessed, taking my place on the bench. “It’s much easier to tangle with an out-of-line boss on someone else’s behalf.”

  “Man up, sister-mine,” I said.

  “Hmph.” She cut off any more elder-sister advice I might have been planning to offer by asking if Phineas Drake and Uncle Nico had framed anyone yet. I’d called her when I’d gotten home from the police station and she’d been fascinated to hear about Phineas Drake swooping in to liberate me.

  “Not as far as I know,” I said, using ten-pound weights to do biceps curls. My goal was lean and defined, so I used light weights and did lots of reps. “But Taryn Hall is missing.”

  “You don’t think maybe she’s gone off for an abortion or something, do you?” Danielle suggested when I told her about my meeting with the girl and Leon Hall’s invasion earlier this afternoon.

  I hadn’t thought of that. “I hope not,” I said. I had no idea where one would even go to get an abortion. But I suspected a resourceful-and desperate-woman could find out easily enough. “I’m sure the police will take action if she hasn’t shown up by tonight.”

  “Hey,” Danielle said, glancing up at the TV mounted over the water fountain. “Isn’t that your congresswoman?”

  “My congresswoman?” I followed her gaze to see Sherry Indrebo being interviewed on the Capitol steps. Wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a maroon blouse and a serious expression, she faced a wall of microphones and reporters. Still clutching my dumbbells, I moved closer so I could read the closed captioning.

  “Allegations of fund-raising improprieties and of inserting an undercover spy into her opponent’s staff have surfaced in regard to Congresswoman Sherry Indrebo’s reelection campaign.”

  “I guess the thumb drive turned up,” Danielle observed, reading the text alongside me.

  “The congresswoman denies any wrongdoing and says she has no intention of resigning. She says she will continue to serve her constituents and is staying focused on the upcoming vote in the House Armed Services Committee, which could decide the army’s helicopter acquisition strategy for years to-” A commercial broke in before the scrolling type could catch up with what had happened in the interview, replacing Sherry with a mother applying a stain treatment to grass-stained jeans. I didn’t figure any product made would get the stain out of Sherry’s reputation if the allegations proved true.

  A livid Sherry Indrebo burst into the ballroom at six o’clock, vibrating with anger in stretchy pants and a workout top showing sinewy arms and prominent collarbones.

  “I will ruin you, Stacy Graysin,” she said between gritted teeth, stalking toward me like a barn cat focused on a mouse. Her face was gaunt, her lips drawn into a thin line. She didn’t give Vitaly, standing behind me by the stereo, a glance. “You found my flash drive and sold it to the Washington Post. I hope they paid you a lot because-”

  “Hey! I had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I didn’t find it.” I tightened my grip on the CD cases I held, ready to fling them at her if she pounced. “And if I had, I’d have given it to you.” Probably after I checked it for anything incriminating about Rafe bribing judges. At any rate, I wouldn’t have sold it to a reporter. I didn’t even know any reporters.

  She bit out a laugh. “Ha! Then how did the Post come up with the documents that were on that drive?”

  “I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Politicians is having many enemies,” Vitaly put in, moving forward. “In Russia, peoples is shooting politicians.” Reaching for Sherry’s hand, he lifted it to his lips. “But our politicians is not so beautiful as American politicians.”

  I stared at him in astonishment as his lips brushed the back of Sherry’s hand. I thought I caught the barest hint of a wink as he released her hand. “I am Vitaly Voloshin,” he proclaimed, “and we must practicing so we are winning the competition this weekend, yes?”

  “Yes,” Sherry said, anger melting from her in the face of Vitaly’s charm and flattery. She stood straighter and cast me a sidelong look. “Don’t think this is over, because it�
�s not,” she said, moving toward the middle of the floor with Vitaly.

  Under the pretense of putting a CD into the stereo, he glided back to me and whispered, “You are not leaving Vitaly alone with this-” He used a Russian word that I didn’t attempt to translate. The way he snapped his white teeth together made it clear what he thought of her.

  By the time the session ended, with Vitaly announcing loftily, “You are not totally disgracing Vitaly this weekend,” we were all drained. I escaped into my office as Sherry, lacquered hair drooping, trudged to the door. I had to be grateful to Vitaly for exhausting her to the point where she couldn’t harangue me anymore. As soon as she had gone and I had turned off all the lights and locked up, I nipped downstairs to the convenience store on the corner, paid for a Washington Post, and brought it back to the house with me. The story about Sherry Indrebo was on the second page and I zeroed in on the name of the reporter: Kevin McDill. It had occurred to me that perhaps McDill had gotten the flash drive not from someone who found it after Rafe died, but from Rafe himself. I wanted to talk to the man and find out. If he’d met with Rafe, maybe he could tell me something that might point to why Rafe was murdered.

  A phone call to the Post’s switchboard hooked me up with McDill the following morning, Tuesday, and he agreed to meet me for breakfast. He insisted on a holein-the-wall Mexican diner not too far from the Post’s offices on 15th Street. I arrived ten minutes late, having gotten turned around when I exited the Metro at the McPherson Square stop. The diner smelled of cilantro and refried beans as I pushed through the smudged glass doors. What sounded like a Spanish love song played from the kitchen and a handful of Latinos, all men, sat at a counter eating burritos, drinking coffee, and arguing loudly but amicably with one another in Spanish. The man I took to be Kevin McDill lounged at a tiny, chrome-rimmed table in the corner, newspaper open, mug of coffee steaming in front of him.

  I approached and stopped three feet away. The paper stayed up. The Wall Street Journal, I noted. “Mr. McDill?” I finally said.

  “Yeah.” A gravelly voice spoke from behind the newspaper.

  “I’m Stacy Graysin.”

  “You’re late.”

  Impatient with his rudeness, I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat.

  After a moment, the paper dipped slightly and a pair of bushy brows and eyes framed by reading glasses appeared over the top edge. “You said you wanted to talk about the Indrebo story.” He had skin the color of old walnuts and dark eyes with slightly yellowed corneas. He was older than I’d expected, in his sixties.

  “That’s right. I was wondering where you got the documents you referred to in your story.”

  “You want information from me?” He hacked a laugh and I figured he’d been a smoker back in the day. “That ain’t the way it works.”

  “I just need to know who you got the thumb drive from.”

  Laying the paper on the table, he eyed me cynically. A toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth and it jumped up and down as he talked. “What makes you think I’ve got a thumb drive? I don’t compromise my sources, Miz Graysin.”

  He folded the newspaper and I got the feeling he was headed out. I reached across the table and put a hand on his forearm, bared by rolled-up sleeves. “Wait. Can you at least tell me when you got the thumb dr-the information? Was it this week?”

  After a moment’s thought during which the toothpick wiggled mightily, he said, “I don’t see what that would hurt. I acquired the information last week. The story only broke yesterday because we had to get corroboration on some of the details. And that, Miz Graysin, is all I’m prepared to tell you.” He stood, revealing a thick trunk and short legs. Something in my expression grabbed his attention because he paused, looking down at me, reporter’s nose all but twitching at the faint scent of a story. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”

  I hesitated, unsure whether it would help or hinder my investigation to have him poking around, too. I decided it couldn’t hurt. “I’m just wondering if there’s any tie between Rafe Acosta’s murder and your story.”

  His thick brows climbed, wrinkling his forehead like a bloodhound’s. “Why would you think that? What’s the connection?”

  He seemed genuinely intrigued and I began to wonder if Rafe had, in fact, gone to him with the thumb drive. Maybe I had added two and two and come up with five. Math never was my strong suit. Surely a seasoned reporter like McDill would’ve recognized his source’s name when it popped up in a murder story? “You don’t think it’s a bit coincidental that Rafe was murdered a couple days after giving you the political story of the year?”

  “If-and I say ‘if’-I had interviewed Mr. Acosta, the fact that he was killed shortly thereafter could be nothing but coincidence. And, believe me, sweets, the Indrebo scandal will be superseded within a month by a politico selling influence some way he shouldn’t or sleeping with someone she shouldn’t. It’s just the same old, same old.”

  I rose, tired of craning my neck to look up at him. We were the same height. “She left-” The connection suddenly hit me and I almost dropped into the chair again. When Rafe found Sherry’s thumb drive stuck in his computer, was his immediate thought “reporter”? No. Much as I hated to think he would stoop so low, he must have tried to sell it back to Sherry, perhaps after looking at the contents so he knew what it was worth to her. She’d refused to buy it-why?-and he’d looked for another market. I wasn’t sure if legitimate news reporters could ethically pay for source information, but I knew Sherry’s opponent would have no such restrictions. Rafe had taken the flash drive to the enemy camp, so to speak, and the contender for Sherry’s seat, or someone on his staff, had bought the drive and then turned it over to the Washington Post. It all tumbled into place as neatly as three cherries lining up on a slot machine.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you, Mr. McDill,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

  His reporter’s instincts now thoroughly aroused, he blocked my path. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?” His eyes searched my face. The world-weary air had dropped from him and I could feel the energy vibrating off him, like a Thoroughbred loaded into the starting gate.

  I moved around him with a forced smile. “Nothing important.” I hurried toward the door, not even stopping for an egg and potato burrito to appease my growling stomach.

  “I’m going to find the connection, you know,” he called after me.

  I didn’t doubt it.

  The Metro car sped into a curve and I gripped the underside of the molded plastic seat to keep from leaning into the woman on my right. My brain chewed on the idea that had come to me while talking to McDill and I barely noticed the trees leafing out in spring green as they flashed past the window, or the silver-blue of the Potomac surging under the Metro rail. If I was right, and Rafe had tried to sell the flash drive back to Sherry Indrebo, then why hadn’t she paid him off? Constitutional dislike of being blackmailed? Confidence that she could get the drive another way? Conviction that he was bluffing about selling it elsewhere? Had she threatened him? Confronted him at the studio Monday night, pointed a gun at him-my gun-and told him to hand it over, not knowing it was already too late and he’d sold it to her opponent? Had he laughed at her or jumped her, and gotten shot?

  I shook my head. Sherry had been at the studio that day; she could, conceivably, have snuck down to my bedroom and stolen my gun. Where had she been Wednesday night? She’d said she was going to a dinner, but had the police checked to see if she was really there? As the train slowed for my stop, I let go of the murder puzzle momentarily and wished sadly that Rafe had confided in me. I knew he’d needed money, but I hadn’t known how badly. What could possibly have been so important to him? I couldn’t ever recall him talking about a dream or a passion that he was saving money to finance. Dancing was his passion. The studio. Once upon a time, me. I was ninety-nine percent convinced that his need for money had sprung up recently, most likely about a month ago when he started hounding me to expand
Graysin Motion’s offerings, turn the studio into a recital mill. Maybe he owed someone money-like a gambling debt-and they killed him when he didn’t pay up. That sounded good until I remembered that the murderer had used my gun. I found it hard to believe that a bookie’s enforcer would go looking for a gun in my bedroom.

  I muttered, “Damn,” and the woman beside me inched as far away as she could on the narrow seat. If Rafe hadn’t confided in me, and he hadn’t confided in Tav, who might he have told about his money woes? Why, his main squeeze. Solange. It was time to have a heart-to-heart with the Samba Queen.

  Chapter 11

  Solange wasn’t at the studio when I got back, so I called her. She was surprised to hear from me, but when I told her I needed to talk about her teaching schedule for Graysin Motion, she agreed to meet me. Her notion of twenty minutes was considerably longer than mine and I had given up on her and was pushing the dust mop around the ballroom, working up a gritty sweat, when she finally showed. Doing the cleaning ourselves to save the cost of janitorial services had been one of Rafe’s cost-cutting ideas. In a gold lamé halter top and cream linen shorts, Solange looked like a model ready to saunter down the runway and I looked like Cinderella, prefairy godmother.

  The comparison put me in a crabby mood, but I refrained from griping about her lateness. You catch more lions with zebra meat, Great-aunt Laurinda always said. Whatever that meant. “Thanks for coming,” I said. “I appreciate your being willing to help with the classes.”

  “It’s what Rafe would have wanted me to do,” she said.