Quickstep to Murder

by Ella Barrick

  “Shit!” Sawyer blurted. “Uh, sorry, Miss Stacy. What’s that smell?”

  “You didn’t hear?” I told them about the fire. “The only thing damaged was the ballroom floor, so it’s perfectly safe to be up here.” I ducked into the bathroom and opened the fridge. It seemed less crowded than usual and I stared into it for a moment, the cool air chilling my bare feet, and realized all Vitaly’s grapefruit juice was gone. Huh. I tried to remember if he’d taken them with him when he got sick. I didn’t think so. I sighed. It must be time to post a little reminder about the honor system. Pulling out the lone Mountain Dew, I crossed the hall to where Taryn and Sawyer hovered on the ballroom’s threshold, looking at the floor stripped mostly bare by the refinisher. It looked naked, defenseless without its shiny coats of polyurethane, and I hugged my robe more tightly around myself.

  “Geez,” Taryn said.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t burn up in your sleep, Miss Stacy,” Sawyer said, pulling at the hoop in his ear.

  “Sawyer!” Taryn punched his shoulder.

  “What? All I said was-”

  “Let’s go back down,” I said, interrupting the squabble and handing Sawyer his soda.

  The teens sat side by side at the kitchen table, perched on the edges of their chairs, obviously ready to go. I busied myself dumping Kona coffee into the machine and adding water. When the strong scent began to filter through the room, I joined them and said, “So, what’s this about good-bye?”

  “I’m taking Taryn down to South Carolina today,” Sawyer explained. “She’s going to live with the people who are adopting the baby until it’s born.”

  “What’s your dad think of that?” I asked Taryn.

  She shook her head and I wasn’t sure if she meant he didn’t know or he wasn’t in favor of the plan.

  “He kicked her out,” Sawyer said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

  “I think he was really hurt that I thought he might have killed Rafe,” Taryn said in a small voice. “When we got home from the competition, he marched me down to the Holborns’ house-they live down the block-and Mr. Holborn told me they were playing poker the night Rafe got killed, until past midnight. Daddy told me I was disloyal, and a liar. He called me an ‘ungrateful whore’ and… and-” She began to weep quietly and Sawyer stroked her hair.

  I sighed inwardly, not knowing what to say. I looked at Sawyer. “And you?”

  “I’ll come back and finish high school. I graduate in June, you know. Then I’ll get a summer job in Sumter-my folks are okay with that-and then we’ll see.”

  “I need to finish high school; I’m hoping I can earn my GED over the summer,” Taryn said. “And then we both want to go to college, but I won’t have any money, so I may have to work awhile first.” The resolute look on her face made me think she’d carry through.

  “We’re going to look into all the financial aid options,” Sawyer put in. “And my folks say they might be able to help Taryn some. They really like her and they’re pissed about the way her dad’s treated her.”

  “Marriage?”

  They both shook their heads. “Not now,” Taryn said, reaching up to squeeze Sawyer’s hand where it rested on her shoulder. “We’re too young. Maybe later.” She gave the youth a shy smile.

  “Well, if you end up back in this area, you could always come teach at Graysin Motion,” I said.

  “Really?” Taryn’s eyes sparkled. “Thanks, Miss Stacy.”

  Sawyer rose and helped Taryn to her feet. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of his tenderness with her.

  I walked them to the door. “Good luck.” I hugged Taryn tightly. Sawyer, looking teenage-boy awkward, leaned down to give me a hug. I waved from the portico as they climbed into Sawyer’s Honda and drove away. Somehow feeling both sad and inspired, I headed back into the house to get dressed, giving a cheery wave to a neighbor heading off to cubicle hell.

  After showering, dressing, and breakfasting, I marched upstairs, determined to get some work done in my office. I had students to contact, arrangements to make for temporary lesson locations, calls to make related to Blackpool, and a host of other tasks I’d ditched yesterday for the abortive trip to West Virginia. Throwing open the windows in my office, I hesitated only briefly before crossing the sanded floor of the ballroom to open all the windows in there, too. At one window, the sheers were nothing but burned strips of fabric and I pulled them down easily, leaving them in an ashy pile on the floor. The familiar scents of Old Town-car exhaust, the Potomac, and the sweet fragrance of blooming fruit trees-began to chase away the odors of fire and restoration.

  A clanging noise behind me made me whirl, but it was only the cleaning team clanking their metal buckets up the stairs. “You need to see about the lock,” the white-overalled supervisor said after we exchanged good mornings. “It doesn’t latch properly.”

  “That’s because the fire department had to bust the door in,” I said. “I’ll call a locksmith today. Thanks.”

  With a nod, she herded her team into the ballroom while I returned to my office and got to work. I took a break at noon to attend my ballet class-rarely had I needed to dance more-and was walking home, pleasantly tired and sore, when a familiar white limousine glided to the curb beside me. Phineas Drake. The rear window purred down and I was surprised to see not the lawyer, but Victoria Bazán.

  Chapter 19

  I stopped dead, causing the man behind me to bump into me. He shouldered past with an annoyed grunt.

  “Miss Graysin. Stacy,” Victoria said. “Do you have time to talk to me for a minute? Mr. Drake loaned me his limo so that we could have a chat.”

  “You stole my wallet,” I said from the sidewalk.

  “I’m sorry.” Her dark eyes pleaded with me.

  “Oh, all right,” I said ungraciously, curiosity more than anything else propelling me to the limo’s door.

  Victoria sat on the back bench usually occupied by Drake, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, her dark hair loose. A suited man I didn’t recognize sat beside her, short hair and a stern face making him look like Hollywood’s idea of a federal agent. He gave me a sharp glance as I climbed in, then returned to contemplating the view out the side window.

  “My minder,” Victoria said.

  That didn’t exactly clarify things, but I sat opposite them, feeling compelled to apologize for my sweaty leotard and tights. “Ballet class,” I explained.

  Victoria waved my apology aside. An awkward silence fell, as if she didn’t know where to start, so I prompted: “You were going to tell me what the heck is going on. How did you hook up with Drake?”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “He caught up with me last night when I tried to use your credit card at a hotel in Richmond. His investigator, a woman named Mary-”

  “Pearce. We’ve met.”

  “She found me and… kidnapped me!”

  “Really?” I said, politely disbelieving.

  “Well,” Victoria amended, “she fingerprinted me and made me go with her to see Phineas. He’s something else,” she said, admiration and disgruntlement mixed up in her voice.

  It hadn’t taken her long to get on first-name terms with the lawyer, I noted. “What did he do?”

  “He told me that my fingerprints were on the gun that killed Rafe-”

  “What!”

  “Stop interrupting,” she said pettishly. “I guess I didn’t tell you the whole story the other night. Rafe tried to give me a gun on Wednesday when he drove me up to the cabin. He handed it to me, so my prints were on it, but I didn’t want it, so I gave it back to him.”

  “Really?” I let my disbelief bleed into my voice.

  “Yes, really!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was afraid. Afraid I’d kill Héctor. I didn’t want to be tempted.”

  “How did Phineas Drake know your fingerprints were on the gun?”

  “He faxed my prints to the police.”

  I was sure that even if her prints hadn’t been on the gun, he’d hav
e found a way to incriminate Victoria anyway. Phineas wasn’t above lying or manufacturing evidence, in my opinion. But Victoria had lied, too, at least by omission. I didn’t know whether or not to believe her, so I made a “go on” motion.

  “Phineas said he could use the prints on the gun to prove I’d killed Rafe. I wouldn’t end up in jail because of diplomatic immunity, but I’d be deported to Argentina, where Héctor would find me within minutes. I’d be dead within two hours of landing at the airport.”

  “I’m assuming there’s an ‘or’ in here.”

  She nodded. “Or I could talk to your DEA”-she nodded toward her minder-“and provide details about Héctor’s business dealings, and they would help me reestablish myself somewhere else, maybe in Canada or Australia.”

  “The witness protection program?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So your husband’s a drug dealer?”

  “He has many business interests,” Victoria waffled. “He-” She stopped as her minder shook his head sharply. “You’re safer not knowing the details.”

  The sincerity in her voice made me shiver. That’s all I needed-an Argentinean drug lord thinking I was clued in on his smuggling routes or something. “I don’t want the details,” I said hastily. “What does all this have to do with me, other than I assume you’re going to return my wallet?”

  “Phineas has your stuff,” Victoria said. “Part of the deal is that he’s sharing my fingerprints with the police. Since I can’t be tried here, anyway, and I’ll be set up somewhere else, it can’t hurt me and it will get you off the hook for Rafe’s murder.”

  I leaned back against the cushy leather, stunned. “But… did you kill Rafe?”

  “Of course not!” Victoria’s eyes flashed.

  “If the police think you did, they’ll stop hunting for the real killer.”

  “Phineas seemed more concerned with ensuring the police don’t arrest you than with hunting down the murderer,” Victoria said.

  “So the murderer gets to wander around, scot-free? I don’t think so.” I didn’t try to hide my indignation.

  Victoria shrugged. “Take it up with Drake.”

  “I certainly will.”

  The minder tapped his watch and Victoria grimaced. “Time’s up.” She looked forlorn, and I tried to place myself in her shoes: betraying her husband to the cops, going into exile alone, leaving behind her family and friends. Her situation had echoes of Taryn’s, but at least Taryn had Sawyer. Both women were object lessons on how one bad decision-not pausing for a condom, saying “I do” with the wrong man-could totally alter the course of your life.

  “Take care,” I told Victoria.

  She smiled ruefully. “Always.”

  As I stood in a semicrouch to climb out the door the chauffeur had opened, the man beside Victoria spoke for the first time. “Is it true you’re a champion ballroom dancer?” he asked, leaning forward to look at me around Victoria.

  Startled, I nodded. He had rather attractive blue eyes when he wasn’t concentrating on looking grim and threatening.

  “Cool. Can my girlfriend and I come for lessons? She wants to learn the West Coast Swing like they do on Ballroom with the B-Listers.”

  “Sure,” I said, bemused. I pulled a slightly dented business card from my bag. “Here.”

  Alone on the sidewalk, I hitched my dance bag onto my shoulder and headed for home, intending to have a heart-to-heart with Mr. Phineas Drake.

  Mr. Drake was in court, his secretary politely informed me when I called. She’d let him know I was interested in a meeting. I could hear “brush off” in her voice, but I thanked her and hung up gently, rather than slamming the phone down like I wanted to. Picking the phone up again immediately, I dialed Tav Acosta’s number.

  “I just talked to Victoria Bazán,” I announced before he could even say hello. “Drake has set it up so the police think she killed your brother, but I don’t think she did, so the killer’s going to get away with it.”

  To his credit, Tav didn’t say, “What the hell are you babbling about?” Instead, he said, “I am on my way over. Give me forty-five minutes.”

  Feeling antsy, I returned to the studio, where the whir of the refinisher’s sander practically deafened me. The cleaning crew had gone and I was impressed with how much lighter the walls looked, now that they had removed the film of smoke and chemicals. Spotting me, the refinisher shut down his machine and pulled off the white mask that covered the lower half of his face. “It’s coming along,” he observed. “I’ll do the first coat of polyurethane tomorrow and another couple coats by the end of the week. Let it cure over the weekend and you should be good to go early next week.”

  “Thanks,” I said, relieved that we could resume classes in the ballroom so soon.

  “Oh, here.” He dug in his pocket. “I found this wedged between the baseboard and the floor when I removed the baseboards. It probably got pretty wet, but it doesn’t look burned. I don’t know if you can get anything off it, though.” He handed me a small red item with a metal piece at one end.

  It took me half a second to recognize it as a flash drive. My fingers closed over it. “Thanks,” I managed.

  I was sitting at my desk, newly showered and changed, turning the flash drive over and over in my hand, when Tav arrived. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to see if there was anything on it, and I hadn’t yet called Sherry Indrebo… I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because it felt like a last link with Rafe; he must have had it on him the night he was killed. That alone made me think I should be careful with it. I slid it into my jeans pocket and rose to greet Tav. He kissed me on both cheeks, Continental style, and a little buzz hummed through me.

  “What is this about Victoria?” he asked.

  We sat on the love seat, where I could look down at the street, and I told him everything Victoria had told me. I ended my summary: “So she’s off to Canada or someplace and Bazán gets to run around doing his thing until the feds get together enough evidence to throw him out of the country, I guess, or turn him over to your country’s authorities, and whoever killed Rafe gets a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

  “Victoria’s fingerprints were on the gun?”Tav frowned.

  “Yes, but I kind of believed her explanation. I don’t think she killed him.”

  Tav tapped his fingertips together. “I have known her family a long time. It is hard for me to believe she could shoot Rafe in cold blood, or to believe that he would do anything that would prompt her to kill him in the heat of the moment.”

  “If Victoria didn’t kill him, then who did? Bazán?”

  “Possibly.” Tav nodded, and sunlight streaming through the window made his hair glint blue-black. “Say Bazán had some inkling that Victoria had turned to Rafael for help. He comes here, looking to get the truth out of Rafael. Rafael feels threatened-”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I put in, remembering Bazán’s quiet menace.

  “-and pulls the gun. Either they struggle for it and it goes off accidentally-”

  I snorted and finished, “Or Bazán grabs it from him and kills him.”

  We fell silent, picturing the scene. After a moment, Tav said, “Is Bazán the only one with a motive for killing Rafael?”

  “I liked Leon Hall for it, because he thought Rafe got his daughter pregnant. But it turns out he’s got an alibi.” I told Tav about Taryn and Sawyer stopping by on their way to South Carolina.

  “What kind of man kicks a sixteen-year-old out of the house?” he asked, his face darkening. “Not one who deserves the title ‘father.’ ”

  “And I wondered-” I stopped.

  “What?”

  I told him the questions Mark Downey had raised in my mind with his behavior at the competition.

  “I met him, yes? The man with the light brown hair?”

  I nodded.

  Tav looked doubtful. “He seemed intelligent; surely he would realize, since you and Rafael were going to sever your partnership after the competit
ion in England anyway, that killing my brother would be an unnecessary risk. Did many people know you and Rafael were splitting up your dance partnership?”

  “Everyone,” I said, impressed and relieved by his logic. “And there could be someone else.” I fingered the flash drive through the denim of my pocket. “I’m not sure what Rafe’s relationship with Sherry Indrebo really was. The floor refinisher found a flash drive. I think it’s the one we were looking for, the one Sherry wanted me to find.” I pulled it out of my pocket. “Rafe must have had it with him that night.”

  Tav took it from me. “What is on it?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing, what with the fire and the water and all. And it doesn’t have its cap.”

  Eagerness lit his eyes. “We can check.” He stood in one fluid motion and moved toward Rafe’s computer.

  “Are you sure-?” I didn’t know why I was so hesitant, why I felt like Pandora about to open the fateful box.

  “Why not?” He powered up the computer and tapped his fingers impatiently as the machine booted. I moved to peer over his shoulder as he slid the thumb drive into a USB port. He double-clicked on the drive’s icon. I held my breath.

  An error message popped up. I let my breath ease out as Tav’s shoulders sagged slightly. He switched the flash drive to another port with the same result. “I guess it is damaged,” he said finally. Pulling the drive out of the port, he pressed it back into my palm, his fingers warm on my skin. I slid the drive into my jeans pocket.

  “That’s that, then,” I said, partially relieved that we hadn’t accessed incriminating documents or photos.

  “Maybe not,” Tav said thoughtfully. “Congresswoman Indrebo does not know the device is damaged. If you told her you found it…”

  “I could-what? Trick her into saying something incriminating? I just can’t see her shooting Rafe. Besides, she was at a fund-raiser that night. Dozens of people saw her, Detective Lissy told me.”