Dead on Her Feet (An Antonia Blakeley Tango Mystery Book 1)

by Lisa Fernow

  “I’m so-oo-oo sorry.” Barbara turned back and Bobby saw the corners of her mouth twitch. “Let’s sit the rest of this out.” She started for their table.

  Bobby felt torn between escorting Barbara off the floor, as convention demanded, or staying to attend to the injured party. Roland was on the scene so Bobby decided Nathalie didn’t require further assistance so he followed Barbara back to their table. As he held out her chair he surveyed the room to see if anyone had noticed the collision. Apparently no one had. He watched Roland deposit Nathalie at their table and head back to where he and Barbara were seated. Bobby prepared to apologize.

  “Darlin’, don’t you know better than to do a high voleo on a crowded floor?” Roland admonished Barbara as soon as he got within earshot.

  Barbara gazed at Roland with what Bobby privately thought of as her “little rascal” look. “Roland, honestly, I didn’t know she was so close. My eyes were closed the entire time. I thought you were farther away or I would never have taken such a long step. You know you taught me to always be aware of who is nearby.”

  It was the first Bobby had heard Barbara was practicing with Roland. He didn’t like the idea at all.

  When Nathalie arrived at the table, carrying her purse, he tried a second time to apologize but Barbara interrupted him. “Oh, Nathalie, I’ll pay for the pantyhose.”

  “They’re Fogals, from Brussels, and I doubt you could afford them. Roland, I’ll be in the lobby when you’re ready.” Nathalie flipped her hair back, pivoted with as much grace as she could muster, and limped off.

  Roland looked at his watch. “I’m going to find Nathalie a taxi,” he addressed Barbara in a stern voice, “and when I return I’m going to show you how to do a proper voleo.” He strode away.

  Bobby turned back to Barbara and was astonished to see her shoulders heaving with stifled mirth. Had she engineered the whole accident? He knew women could be manipulative but somehow he’d not expected it of her. “What exactly are you up to?”

  Barbara clamped her palm over her mouth. Tears of merriment filled her eyes.

  ***

  Bobby calculated his progress. He’d managed to get dances with Antonia, Barbara, two other women from class, and one visiting gal from Macon. Five acceptances. Of the two rejections—Barbara not wanting to dance earlier counted as a postponement—one had previously engaged to dance with someone else and the other turned out to prefer open style, so that was no great loss. All in all an acceptable success rate. He’d sat out the Piazzola and alternative sets as the music was too advanced. He’d hoped to dance the traditional last song, “La Cumparsita”, with Barbara, but Roland preempted him, so he decided to step outside.

  It had rained. The air smelt fresh rather than crisp. October could be a tricky month for weather in Atlanta. That night, it felt closer to sixty. Pleasant.

  Eventually the dancers began to trickle out. Antonia tried to persuade him to join her and Christian at the diner for scrambled eggs but the hour was late and he had a twenty-minute drive to Druid Hills which would put him home at one thirty. While his first class wasn’t until the afternoon he had papers to grade. He watched Antonia drive off in her battered Audi and went to find his car.

  His Volvo was stationed at the end of the row closest to the exit. He had a little trouble locating it because he’d not paid attention to where he’d parked, and the streetlamp had burned out, leaving his section of the lot in darkness. He remembered Barbara had come to Sanctuary alone. It wasn’t safe for her to be in a dark parking lot, unescorted. He walked back and finally sighted her Toyota a few feet from the entrance. He recognized it from the “Archaeology: no, we don’t dig up dinosaurs” and “What happens in the field, stays in the field” bumper stickers. He couldn’t read them in that light but he had seen them often enough. She must still be inside the nightclub. He tramped back to his car.

  Barbara finally emerged from the club with Roland, teetering on her high heels, her purse swinging back and forth on its chain from her narrow shoulder. Roland placed his hand on the small of her back to steady her.

  She’d drunk quite a bit of champagne. Perhaps he ought to stay around to make sure she was sober enough to drive and, he had to be intellectually honest, to make sure Roland didn’t try to take advantage of her. Lotharios made passes at attractive young women. Roland was a Lothario; ergo, Roland might make a pass at Barbara.

  Bobby knew he had no official standing. He wasn’t a father or a brother or a—he considered whether to go up to them, to casually let Roland know Barbara was not without … without … connections? Protectors?

  Before Bobby could advertise his presence Roland drew Barbara into his arms and placed his lips on hers in a lecherous kiss. She didn’t pull away. On the contrary.

  Bobby watched, transfixed, as Roland’s hand traveled down Barbara’s spine, passing over her posterior. Roland’s fingers caressed the back of her thigh and then reversed direction, creeping under her dress. Barbara squirmed.

  Bobby looked down and found his hands had clenched into fists.

  CHAPTER 15

  Discovery

  NATHALIE FUMED. Roland had a lot of nerve putting her into a taxi instead of escorting her home to his place.

  She knew exactly why he stayed at Sanctuary. He wanted to get even with her for not sleeping with him earlier. Well, if he expected to touch her tonight he’d better have a damn good apology. Struggling a little with the lock, she let herself into Roland’s house.

  She tossed the key and her evening clutch onto the hall table. She unbuckled her dance shoes, kicked them off, stripped off her stockings, balled them up, and pitched them into the corner. She unhooked her garter belt and cast it off, not caring where it landed. She inspected the back of her leg for the second time. The hallway was dimly lit with torchieres but even in the half-light she could see the gouge in her calf.

  The bitch, Barbara Wolfe, had done it deliberately.

  Nathalie hobbled into the kitchen where after a short, frustrated search for an ice pack, she eventually made do by filling a plastic bag with ice cubes. She then retired to the library couch to elevate her leg and plan what to say when Roland came crawling back.

  He’d make excuses. She’d force him to apologize. He’d beg to make it up to her. She’d extract her concessions and, eventually, allow herself to give in to his caresses. It was just another dance. It would be worth it. Roland was her ticket. And not a moment too soon. Everyone knew it was downhill after thirty-five and she didn’t have the nerve to go under the knife.

  Everything about the library confirmed Roland’s social and financial status. The antiques had been carefully chosen. The Victorian reverse breakfront bookcase in burl walnut and the nineteenth-century hunting prints were in pristine condition. The green and burgundy color palette was a little masculine, but she’d see to that, after. The only false note in the room was the Regency mahogany and ebony drum table. The escutcheons were wrong. Definitely reproduction.

  She imagined the different ways the making up might play out until the ice in her pack had almost completely melted and the sequins from her gown began to prick her skin.

  If she was going to seduce Roland she’d better shower. She went to the master bathroom, stepped out of her dress and turned on the taps, adjusting the settings to spray both from above and from the sides. When the spa had completely steamed up she wrapped a towel around her hair and slipped in. She let the hot water massage the soreness from her body, all the time keeping her ears tuned to the front door. She didn’t want Roland to walk in on her before she was ready.

  After toweling off she smoothed lotion on her skin and brushed her hair. Restored and ready for battle, she wrapped herself in her dressing gown and resumed her position on the couch.

  She didn’t like the changes she’d seen in Roland since he’d asked her to move to Atlanta. He seemed less eager. She’d tried to make him jealous once by reading him one of Christian’s pathetic attempts at poetry – not telling Rolan
d who’d written it, naturally:

  Locked inside,

  My passions are declared to no one

  You hold the key to my heart

  If only you knew how I see you.

  Remote and beautiful,

  You are the lodestar I steer by

  But I am a fearful navigator

  If I follow

  Where will you take me?

  Be there dragons?

  But Roland hadn’t risen to the bait at all.

  It was a good thing she hadn’t broken it off with Eduardo yet, just in case. It was such a pity his family didn’t have money anymore. Their visit to BA had made that abundantly clear. But marrying an aristocrat was still better than life as a decorator. If one more horse-faced WASP insisted on toile wallpaper she’d scream.

  The grandfather clock in the library chimed the half hour. Twelve-thirty. Where was Roland? She stretched and yawned. She’d left him at Sanctuary just before eleven. The nightclub wasn’t that far away.

  Of course Roland might have decided to stay on until the end of the milonga. Barbara Wolfe would have certainly done her best to arrange that. Roland had mentioned practicing with her. What exactly were they practicing? The more Nathalie thought about it, it would be smart to find out precisely how much time Roland was spending in Barbara’s company.

  She made her way over to the desk and pulled the center drawer open, looking for Roland’s date book. There wasn’t much there except a manila file of invoices. The one on top was from an antiques shop in Buenos Aires, a San Telmo establishment she didn’t recognize. She flipped through them. One from Klement Antiguedades described, in Spanish, the sale of one Colombian emerald; two-point-one-five carats.

  Her heartbeat quickened. Emeralds were her birthstone. They bestowed faithfulness, unchanging love, and the ability to forecast events. Was Roland actually going to come through?

  She gathered her negligee closer to her body and scanned the invoice again, trying to contain her excitement. The stone had come from a mine in Muzo, Colombia. The best emeralds in the world came from there. The price was recorded in Argentine pesos. She calculated from pesos to dollars and gasped: Roland had paid an exorbitant amount. The stone must be spectacular.

  She simply had to see it.

  There didn’t seem to be a safe in the office. If the emerald was at his home where would he have hidden it? Most likely the office since that’s where the invoices were.

  She pulled the center desk drawer open further and felt around, hoping to find a jewelry box or brocade pouch that might contain a loose stone. She tried the other drawers. She went back to the center drawer, wriggled her hand further into the corner and her fingernails brushed something that felt like a stiff piece of paper. She pulled the drawer completely out of its runners and set it on top of the desk. That was when she saw the baronial envelope lodged in the far corner.

  It was all she could do to keep from ripping open the packet. She finally worked her nail under the flap and succeeded in loosening it. She tipped the envelope upside down and something smooth and hard tumbled into her palm: a beautiful emerald with a glorious leaf-green color. She held it under the light to admire it more closely and stopped short.

  For such an expensive stone it didn’t have much brilliance. She searched for a blank piece of typing paper, placed the stone on it and brought the desk lamp closer. She tilted the stone from facet to facet to get an oblique look at the surface. The clarity didn’t look very good either.

  She took the stone back to Roland’s bathroom and inspected it again under the fluorescent lights. Then she washed it carefully with soap and water. Just as she’d suspected: a fissure, in the crown. The stone had been oiled to make it appear better than it was.

  She returned to the library and sat down at the desk to look at the invoice again.

  There had to be some mistake. Roland would know better than to overpay for a cheap stone. He would have gotten an expert opinion. It couldn’t be the same emerald as the one in the invoice.

  She opened the other drawers again and sorted through their contents, this time more carefully. No other packages, no other gemstones. She read through the entire set of invoices. All were from Argentina. The majority from Klement Antiquedades in Buenos Aires. Roland had paid in pesos for some transactions, which wasn’t unusual in itself, since many art and antiques dealers operated on a cash basis. But why hadn’t he paid in US currency? In Argentina the almighty dollar was powerful. He could have gotten much better terms.

  Nathalie reread the invoices one last time. She was having a little trouble translating from Spanish but one of the inventory descriptions sounded familiar. A Regency mahogany and ebony drum table in museum quality condition with all its original fittings: the same drum table that was sitting in Roland’s library, right there in front of her.

  He’d paid for an original but the piece in his house was clearly a reproduction. When Roland tried to resell that merchandise surely he would find out what a bad deal he’d made.

  Roland was in the business. He had to know what the market prices were. But he’d somehow grossly overpaid for both the table and the emerald. It didn’t make any sense.

  Unless …

  Nathalie collected the invoices and folded them carefully in half. Then she picked up the emerald and let it rest in her open palm.

  She smiled.

  Roland was going to get more than he bargained for.

  CHAPTER 16

  Halloween Preparations

  BOBBY HAD ARRANGED WITH BARBARA to meet at his house at five-thirty p.m. for him to help her put the final touches on her Halloween costume for Shawna’s party. He’d quite enjoyed helping to research the dress habits of the 1930s milongueras, even down to the fabrics they used. It had been quite a learning experience. He had previous acquaintance with silk and satin but chiffon sounded more like something one ought to eat.

  Crimson becomes her, he thought. It would be easy to find her in a crowd, too.

  Barbara tore open the side of the dress with her seam ripper to expose an additional several centimeters of smooth, milk-white thigh. “That’s better.”

  She twisted to get a full view of herself in his hallway mirror and wrinkled her nose at her reflection. Bobby had a hard time averting his eyes as she pulled the stray threads through. He wanted to tell her she looked dazzling, that she shouldn’t go out looking like that, that it would attract the wrong sort of attention, but he was caught between Scylla and Charybdis. He couldn’t let Barbara know how he felt, or that he had seen Roland molest her. And he had no business objecting, for that matter. Instead, he confined himself to asking, “Are you sure they showed that much leg in those days?”

  Barbara turned away from him, humming to herself, and pulled on the first stocking. It seemed too loose for her slim ankle but she hiked up her skirt, coming tantalizingly close to giving him a glimpse of her panties, and secured the stocking with an old-fashioned elasticized garter. She turned around. “Tell me if my seams are straight.”

  The coarse weave and the thick seam down the back looked very pleasing but what passed through his mind was the galling possibility he might be dressing Barbara, in a manner of speaking, for Roland’s enjoyment. “Looks like everything is in order,” he said, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray him.

  Perhaps it would be prudent to forget what he had seen in the Sanctuary parking lot. Barbara had drunk too much and let her natural high spirits carry her away—nothing more. She probably felt embarrassed at letting herself be pawed by Roland. That is, if she remembered. She’d had a lot to drink.

  “I hope these stay up. How did anyone dance with garters?” Barbara pulled on the second stocking. “So what did you decide to go as?”

  “Me?” This would be the first time he attended one of Shawna’s famous annual Halloween milongas. He had spent so much time helping Barbara with her costume that he’d paid no attention to planning his own. “I’m still thinking.”

  “If you don’t come up
with something in the next few hours you’ll have to go as an absentminded professor.”

  Halloween was an illuminating holiday. A chance to express one’s alter ego. He was curious to see his dancing colleagues in costume. Since he’d toured the High Art Museum’s mask exhibit he’d become aware of how disguises served not only to conceal but to reveal character. He’d found the African masks especially stimulating. Blood lust was never far from the surface in any culture, of course, and in fact might be necessary for survival. He’d certainly heard enough gore from Barbara on her beloved Incas. The story of Atahualpa beheading his enemy and turning his skull into a cup was a prime example.

  Barbara turned back and posed in front of the mirror, parting her skirt to expose her garter. “Roland thinks I should show off my legs more.”

  “He has no business saying that,” Bobby said, realizing he’d raised his voice.

  Barbara stared at him. “What’s gotten into you? Your face is as red as my dress.”

  Bobby put his hand to his forehead. It did feel strangely hot. “Sorry.”

  “Where’s Shawna’s dagger?”

  Couldn’t lose that. Shawna had kindly lent it from her collection. He looked around, disconcerted, trying to remember where he’d seen the puñal last. On the bookcase somewhere. Ah, there it was, next to the encyclopedia. Many tangueras from that period carried them for protection. Barbara certainly needed protection.

  He handed Barbara the dagger and she slid it into her garter which immediately sagged from the weight.

  “Ouch!” She giggled. “That sucker’s sharp.”

  While Barbara disappeared into his bathroom to change back into her street clothes Bobby paced the hall. The whole situation was highly irregular. He paced around some more and found himself in the kitchen. He realized he’d left the dishes in the sink from breakfast and forgotten to put the trash bin back in its place. He had meant to clean up before Barbara came over.