by Cynthia Lott
“I’m sure attendance at this academy is going to be on the steep decline now. Who wants to practice on a barre where someone had his throat slit? Seriously. Maybe Paula realized this and it was part of her mental breakdown,” I said into the air, for anyone who was listening.
Glancing over the remaining photos, I recalled my former ballerina aspirations so many years before, a path I gave up after reaching pointe. My father enrolled me in ballet classes when I was a child, because he figured that’s what young girls liked to do. I fell in love with the dances, The Nutcracker, the tutus, and the ballet shoes…tiny, pink ones that were still in the top drawer of my dresser. My father attended all of my performances, becoming one of those parents who always gave their children standing ovations. Occasionally, I found myself performing a pirouette, an arabesque or a fouette in my living room before I even realized what I was doing.
“We got the guy’s clothes in here,” Jake called from the other room. “Looks like someone took the liberty of folding them and piling them nicely on top of the piano.”
The adjoining room had a few shelves of books on dance, ranging from Twyla Tharp and Balanchine to Dame Margot Fonteyn and Martha Graham. Folded neatly – with precision – David’s clothes lay next to a few pictures of Paula DeFrancis with dancers from the New Orleans Ballet. I sighed and delicately placed the clothes and shoes in a large plastic bag, handing it to Jake when I was finished.
“Have McGuire call his mother if you don’t mind.” I felt defeated.
“Already taken care of.” Jake took the bag from my hands.
I returned to the dance room and leaned against the wall as Roy continued dusting a particular spot over and over. I looked up at the ceiling where a large globular light fixture hung from a medallion that resembled plaster oak leaves. Roy was known to dust over spots that had already been covered by the criminal analysts, sometimes to both my and Jake’s chagrin. But for the most part, I was used to it.
The time Roy and I spent together was usually at his high-rise apartment in the business district, a one-bedroom beauty with floor-to-ceiling windows. Roy’s disdain for my messy lifestyle made the decision to stay at his home an easy one. With Roy, everything had its place; towels were always folded, dishes washed and put away. His two rescue dogs, Ben and Sasha, were always well groomed with fur shaven closer to the skin in summer and clipped nails to protect the hardwood floors. Even though he claimed to accept the unkempt surroundings at my apartment, I still found him folding my strewn clothes, washing my plates in soapy water, and cleaning the litter box – even if I have just cleaned it.
Despite all of this, Roy was a consummate professional at crime scenes. He resisted the urge to clean a bloody mess, upright fallen furniture, or straighten crooked paintings. Where he gave his fastidiousness free reign was when he dusted and re-dusted a portion of a room until he felt he covered it in entirety or when he caught himself arranging and re-arranging his office to where not even a paperclip was out of place. All of the cans of food in his pantry were labeled with a black marker designating the expiration dates lest he forget to throw them away.
When he couldn’t tolerate an unfolded kitchen towel, a half-drunk glass on a table or too many folders piled on his desk, I knew his vulnerabilities and anxieties were bubbling up beneath his cool facade. It also showed me how he saw an ideal world: one filled with matching placemat patterns, groceries bagged together by size and temperature, and all things placed back exactly in their right spot.
“It makes sense, Brenda. Next time I want to use this, I’ll know where it is. And you can’t fold that away with this…it doesn’t match.”
Roy was simply not drawn to chaos, with one exception. He was drawn to me.
He stood up from his task, placed the tools back into their large black box near his briefcase, walked towards me, and stood with his feet between my own.
“Brenda, look at me. Is all of this too much?” He stroked my back and pulled me away from the wall.
“No, it’s not too much, Roy…maybe I’m just feeling some apprehension. It’s coming up on the anniversary of my father’s death and maybe this is all bad timing.”
“Yeah, I know about your dad’s anniversary. February twentieth. I thought about that. I guess I was hoping work would keep your mind off of it…make you occupied, but maybe I’m wrong. Let me know if you want to bail and I can assign someone else in your place. You always said you wanted to handle challenging cases. This one is proving to be quite the unusual one. But I’m not a sadist, Brenda. I’ll handle the interviews with Paula and the janitor, yes?”
“Three years I’ve been doing this. But in the last year it feels like I’ve never even done it before. Sometimes I feel like a rookie all over again, you know? It’s not a great feeling. Things have changed.”
“Yes, you have changed. It’s to be expected. You’ll never see this job the same way after what happened last year. I assure you of that and I understand it. Believe me. All I ask is that you keep it together for me until we find this guy and then I think you should take some time off…visit your friends in New York and Atlanta. Leave New Orleans for a while. I want that for you.”
“I want that for me, too.”
I want a lot of things for me.
When we returned to the station, Roy sat down with Paula DeFrancis’ janitor of ten years, Troy Lamont. He was a scruffy man around fifty-five years old with reddish brown hair, green eyes and a light scattering of stubble on his chin. His hands were chapped, and as he held a Styrofoam cup of coffee, I could see from behind the mirrored wall that his fingernails were nowhere near “foxy.”
“I close the place down. I open it up. That’s what I do. And clean the damn place. These kids are there till two in the morning sometimes…hell, it’s not my school. I just got a job to do, you know?” Lamont looked down at the large scratches on the white metal table.
“Mr. Lamont, I know this is difficult for you but I need to know when you last saw David the night of his murder?”
“Last time…must’ve been around 10:20 or so. I’m almost certain that was the time, because I had to be somewhere at 10:45 and I was anxious to lock up. I was meeting some old friends at Sammy’s Lounge near the river. I actually didn’t see David, but I heard him in the other room…I hate to say it but David was kind of prissy…he was fussy about things, and I didn’t want to bother him, you know? The kid had some big ass audition coming up, and the last thing I wanted was to get in his way. These dancers can be a piece of work, Detective. So what did I care? Hell, let him dance all night if he wants, let him hang out with whoever. I got things to do, you know?” He sipped from the cup slowly, looking around the room.
“You were at the studio last at 10:20. Was David alone then? Was anything out of the ordinary?” Roy handed him a sesame bagel. Lamont pulled a piece off, dipped it into the chicory coffee and placed the other piece back onto a napkin.
“Yeah, there was something strange. There was someone in the other room with him….the small room next to the rehearsal one. I never saw the person either, but I heard them in there and I saw a black jacket on the coat rack. I figured it was a guy, a friend of David’s. I’ve caught those kids having sex in there before Detective….one girl just last week, screwing right there on the rehearsal floor. Janet Summers. Ridiculous. I never say nothing about it. It’s not my school, you know? I’ll tell you another thing that was odd. I don’t know about you but I didn’t see the moon much last night…it was so damn dark like God spat out tobacco and covered it like a Tootsie Roll pop. Weird but yeah, I heard him all right….the guy with that jacket. I heard him.”
“You heard him? What was he saying? Was he talking to David about something?”
“Say? He didn’t say a damn thing. No, I didn’t here nobody talk. I mean I heard him play.”
“You heard him play?” Roy watched the janitor bite another piece of the bagel, pulling a sesame seed out of his tooth.
“Yeah, play. He was playing th
e piano in the other room. Pretty damn well, too, I might add. Really well. I figured he was there to help David or something. I knew that kid didn’t know how to play the piano, so I assumed it must’ve been the guy with the black jacket. Listen, it’s not my fault the kid goes and gets himself hacked up. Jesus. It’s terrible, but I don’t babysit these kids, you know? I mean I don’t even get paid enough for what I do, much less be some chaperone to these kids. I left them and went to Sammy’s lounge. I got my own life to live. I can’t be worrying about who these kids are hanging out with. If he wants someone there playing a piano, it’s none of my business. I didn’t know the guy was a lunatic.”
“Do you mind if I have a word with one of my colleagues, Mr. Lamont?” Roy gently guided him out of his seat.
“No, not at all. Can I take this with me?” He pointed at the bagel. “Of course…please do. I’ll be with you again in a short while.” “I hope you find the bastard that did this to him. He was a good kid…kind of loose in the wrist but you know… I liked him. That’s all.”
“I know you did. Thank you, Mr. Lamont. We will do our best.”
As Lamont wrapped up his remaining piece of bagel, grabbed his coffee cup and moved to another room, Roy walked into an adjoining room where I sat behind the mirrored wall.
“He was playing the piano, Brenda? I don’t understand this. He didn’t play at Claire’s. He claimed he was a violinist. What was he doing there playing the piano?”
“He never gave Karen and Carmen the impression that he was a pianist. But then again they never heard either of them play that night, remember? It was as if something told them to drown out the noise, to be unaware of Claire. Carmen said that Carpenter left their house around 11 pm.”
“Troy left at 10:20 pm. That would have given Carpenter time to kill David by what…around 10:40 maybe? What did the coroner say was Claire’s time of death?” He leaned against the wall.
“According to my notes it was around 10:35. Yeah, I see what you’re saying…there could be a pattern in the time of death.”
Roy put his hand on the side of his neck, looked past me and through the mirrored wall, towards the watermarks and their yellowish stains.
As Roy re-entered the interview room, Jake brought in Paula DeFrancis.
“Hi, Detective.” She was soft spoken this time as she sat across from Roy. Her tousled hair was pulled into a loose ponytail.
“Please do call me Roy.”
“Roy, how can I help you with this? I’m devastated about it all. David was one of my favorite students. He was proactive, talented…wanted to take on new projects and ideas. I adored him. I honestly don’t know how anyone could be so brutal. He had his share of boyfriends here and there, but no one crazy. He had a bright future…very determined young man. His mother put a lot of her savings and earnings into his training. He was an only child, you know. She was so proud of all of her investment in him.”
“I am truly sorry about David. I know it can’t be easy for her or you. We’ll do all we can to find this suspect and we’ll update you as the process goes along. I have no doubt David was an exceptionally talented young man. A real loss. I need to ask…do you have a pianist at your school…someone who comes and plays for the students while they practice?”
“Yes, his name is Daniel Luther. But he’s not here. He’s out of the state visiting his mother. She’s not well. Why do you ask?”
“Someone was playing your piano last night when David was killed. Someone was there with him. Do you have any idea who that might be?”
She looked at Roy for a few moments before answering.
“David had been practicing late for his audition, a modern dance piece combined with ballet. The New York Ballet likes variety in their final audition pieces – they want to see the scope of the dancer’s performances. We had been anticipating the arrival of someone from their audition committee but I was informed the other day that no one was going to be able to visit…that they were going to wait until they met David in New York. I hadn’t been able to tell him yet. But to answer your question, David didn’t need a pianist…the piece he was practicing was from a pre-recorded tape. I should know. I ordered the tape myself from New York, and it wasn’t cheap. He had been practicing with it for three weeks now. No one should have been there with him. No one.”
* * *
Chapter Six
David J. Savoy
David had practiced this piece many times before. Ad nasuem. As he stretched along the barre, he went over the whole production in his head: a contraction here, a release there, and an arm extension afterwards. It was all pure repetition, the body going through the motions. He bent down and touched his strong and muscular calves, massaged a small cramp that was beginning to form. He was proud of his body and what he had accomplished. It was bloody hard work and he had every right to be vain.
He started dance lessons late – eleven years old: the same year his father died in a motorcycle accident. After that, dancing became a catharsis for him and he chose to throw himself full on into its development. He had been thinking about his father as it was approaching the anniversary of his death. No one ever came forward to claim the “hit and run” that occurred on a late February afternoon. Not a witness or a culprit.
Right when we were getting close…why did this happen? We could have had years together and you left me with her. I needed you. You would have been proud of me.
He sighed and stretched both of his arms high above his head, thinking how his mother would once again light the candles of his father’s shrine like she did every year. Year after year. He could repeat verbatim the standard prayers she said, still pleading for the salvation of his soul after nine years. David hoped that after such a long time, his father’s soul had already ventured on to a much happier place.
Why would he still want to hang around in the New Orleans suburbs?
Christ, I don’t even want to.
There was tension in his right shoulder when he thought about his mother. She had always been a worrier, prophet of doom, giving him her daily grief report about all that was wrong with the world. And it was usually due to lack of morals or Catholicism.
Surely she knows I’m gay…by now? Damn, I’ve left her enough clues over the years.
He was massaging his sore shoulder when he heard someone knocking on the front door of the studio.
Even though his music had been at a low volume, he turned it all the way down and listened again. As he stood there, he wondered who would be visiting the studio at ten o’clock in the evening. He heard the knock a second time. A small heat rose in his face as he remembered reserving the studio exclusively for himself that night. He didn’t care that some of the other dancers called him “precious” and “spoiled.” Paula’s opinion was his main concern and, as it stood, she adored him and there was nothing they could do about it. Besides, he couldn’t see any of them making the final cut of the New York Ballet auditions the way he had…his accomplishments were beyond their petty jealousies.
“Dammit.” He made his way through the lobby.
Honestly, who would be bothering me at this hour knowing good and well what pressure I am under for this upcoming final audition?
He hoped that the dancers with the New York City Ballet had a maturity about them that outweighed his fellow classmate’s ridiculous behaviors. “Jonathan, I told you yesterday...”
He made his way to the front door, swinging it open with gusto.
Fuck all if Jonathan Evans is going to practice the same night as me, especially after flirting with Greg Stemple.
He couldn’t stand that prissy little show-off, always wearing loud colors and mouthing off about things he knew nothing about. And no one was going to date Greg Stemple but him. Period. He opened the door but there was no Jonathan to be found. Instead there was a man standing in front of him wearing a bird mask and holding a black briefcase.
“Who the hell are you?” He stepped backwards, biting his lip.
&nb
sp; “I think I’m the person who wants to see your last practice.” The man tilted his head to the right and spoke with a smoky Italian accent, melodic.
David stood transfixed in shock, a mixture of fright and intrigue. “And who might you be?” David’s palms were damp, cold. But this man remained calm, at ease in David’s presence, as if he knew him.
“My name is Thomas Carpenter.”
“Are you one of Paula’s friends?”
“Paula? Yes, Paula. I’m a close friend of hers and can be a close friend of yours if you like.”
“Jesus. She must’ve asked you to come around and check on me before my audition, I thought she might do this.” David cracked his neck in both directions.
“You’re absolutely right. She asked me to come around and see how your last practice was coming along. I know it’s terribly late but I’m tightly connected to the New York City Ballet. I’m aware of your deadline here at the studio and I would hate to waste any more time. Yours or mine.” Carpenter stepped forward.
David remembered Paula mentioning these potential surprise appearances by members of the New York Ballet’s audition committee. They were a tight group and often sent people to observe prospective dancers in their element. It was a way, Paula said, of seeing what culturally surrounded a prospect, what made up a “person,” not just a “dancer.” He hadn’t encountered any of them so far, but would they arrive late at night on his last practice before his trip to New York?
Anything’s possible.
“Does Paula know you’re here? What’s with the mask?”
“Paula and I know one another well. She’s told me a lot about your dancing…you’re lucky to have such a supportive person in your life. My mask is important as it enables me to remain incognito. I wouldn’t want for you to see me in the audition room in New York and recognize my face, would I?” He laughed as he stepped closer to David, allowing the scent of rosemary and lavender to fill the space between them.