Dead Man Waltzing

Chapter 23

The morning brought some clarity of mind, but no insight into who had broken in last night. My headache had diminished, but I was achy and bruised in several places, probably because the intruder had knocked into me hard. Dressed in pink shorts and a tank top for my first class, I inhaled the steam from my first cup of coffee and made a mental list of intruder candidates. Greta Monk and her hubby topped the list, since not only did they think I had the manuscript, but they clearly wanted it badly-fifteen thousand dollars badly. Good thing I didn’t have it, I thought ruefully, because that sum would tempt me to sell it, even though it wasn’t mine. Fifteen thousand would keep Graysin Motion solvent for a couple of months, at least.

Marco Ingelido also knew, because he’d overheard Monk. I thought about Marco. His reaction yesterday had surprised me. He was angry, yes, at discovering I had (as he thought) the manuscript. But in addition to the anger, he’d shown real fear, almost despair. And he’d been pleading with me to destroy the manuscript. I felt a pang of compassion. Whatever Corinne had planned to write about Marco, it was something much more damaging than an affair with an older woman.

Besides Marco and the Monks, who might suspect I had the manuscript? Anyone they’d told, I decided after a moment. I had no way of knowing whether any of the three of them had passed the word along; if so, almost anyone in Corinne’s circle might have heard the rumor. Including, I realized, Ingelido’s niece, Sarah, who was due here at one to take pictures of Vitaly and me. Forcing myself to stop thinking about the break-in, I trotted up the interior stairs to the studio, where I saw with mingled relief and disappointment that Tav wasn’t there. After the drama of last night, I wasn’t up for going over our financials, anyway.

Mildred Kensington greeted me with, “Any luck getting hold of that typewriter, Stacy?” and Hoover put his paws on my shoulders and gave me a lick when I walked into the ballroom. I told a disappointed Mildred that we hadn’t yet come up with a way to get Turner to give up the typewriter, and introduced the elderly class members to the foxtrot. Many of them had danced it socially in the 1940s and 1950s, and memories of fraternity dances and wedding receptions lit their faces as they relearned the steps. After they left, I practiced with a student I competed with in professional-amateur divisions at ballroom competitions. Most pros make the bulk of their money off students who pay them to compete as their partners at such competitions. This man was a self-employed plumber who particularly enjoyed the Latin dances. After we worked up a sweat with the jive-me reminding him to kick sharper and faster throughout-he left and I went downstairs to shower again. Some days I showered three or four times, depending on my schedule.

The doorbell rang before I was fully dressed, and I scrambled into a tiered cotton skirt and matching knit top. I opened the door to find a strange woman on the doorstep. Sixty or so, and an inch or two under five feet tall, she had dark hair in a little Dutch-boy haircut, the kind that looks like someone put a bowl over your head and then cut around it. A blue shirtwaist dress topped with a red cardigan wrapped a wiry figure. Bright red Converse high-tops matched the sweater and made me blink. Dark eyes peered at me from behind fashionable glasses, assessing me. “Stacy, right?” Her voice was deep and gravelly, incongruous coming from her petite frame.

I nodded, automatically taking the hand she held out. “Uh, yes.”

“Good. I’m Eulalia Pine, as you must have guessed.” She handed me a business card that read, PINE ESTATE SALES AND APPRAISALS, EULALIA PINE, PROP. “Shall we get started?”

“Started?”

“With the furniture.” She arched her brows an inch above her glasses, which made her look like she had two sets of eyebrows. In the face of my continued incomprehension, she said impatiently, “Didn’t the other Miss Graysin tell you? She said you had some early to mid-twentieth-century pieces you wanted appraised.”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” Danielle must have contacted this woman about Great-aunt Laurinda’s furniture. “I didn’t know today- Please come in.” Mentally blasting Danielle for not giving me a heads-up, I remembered I hadn’t checked my phone for messages last night or this morning.

With a sniff, Eulalia Pine stepped into the foyer, her gaze darting immediately to the grandfather clock and then into the parlor. A clipboard appeared from the tote she carried and she began taking notes.

“Would you like some coffee, Miss Pine?” I asked.

She declined with a single jerk of her head and moved into the parlor. A sharp exhalation through her nose let me know what she thought of the papers and magazines littering the room. She made to tuck her pen under the clipboard’s clamp. “If this chaos is indicative of the care you give your pieces-”

“I had a break-in last night,” I explained, feeling like I was failing an inspection of some sort. I straightened my spine. I didn’t need to apologize to Ms. Eulalia Pine for my inadequate housekeeping. “In fact, today’s not a good-”

“No need to get pissy,” Eulalia Pine said, grasping the pen again. “I’m the best appraiser in northern Virginia, and I’m booked solid for the next month-I’ve got a major estate sale starting later this week-so it’s now or never.” She ran a hand over the sofa’s arched back and grimaced. “Dust.” She reminded me of Detective Lissy.

After that last syllable, she was all business as I trailed her through the house. She studied the matched chairs in the living room, the ones with the periwinkle blue upholstery and the arched backs I’d always thought were hideously uncomfortable. “Art moderne,” she pronounced. “Textured wool frisée upholstery in excellent condition. Solid maple frames.” She peered underneath them, rattled them gently, and examined a scratch on one leg. She jotted notes and took several photos before moving on to a lamp on the end table. “Hm.” I could sense excitement under her noncommittal “hm” and wondered what there was about the ceramic lamp with its green and white jagged stripes to interest her. It was ugly with a capital U.

“Hedwig Bollhagen,” she said in an awed voice after carefully lifting the lamp to examine the base. “With an original paper shade. Pity about the watermarks, but still.” More notes and photos. She seemed less interested in the three-tiered mahogany table the lamp sat on, and muttered something about “Michigan Furniture Company” and “post-1950.” We moved into the dining room, a room I’d barely set foot in, and she was dismissive about the table, but said she could have a buyer in minutes for the “art deco oak sideboard” with its low backsplash and brass hinges. “It’s French.” I couldn’t tell whether she thought that enhanced its appeal or cut its price by half. I ran a hand over the silky wood as Ms. Pine marched back into the hall, wondering whether Great-aunt Laurinda had acquired the piece in France, and whether she’d bought it on a whim or saved for months to afford it. I suddenly wondered whether I wanted to sell this furniture steeped in memories and history.

“Miss Graysin!” The appraiser’s impatient call cut through my thoughts, and I joined her by the staircase. She seemed disappointed when I told her nothing upstairs needed appraising. “It’s my ballroom dance studio,” I said.

“Ballroom dancing? Really?” Her mobile brows flew up again. “How bizarre. The estate sale I mentioned is for the heirs of a woman who used to be a ballroom dancer. Maybe you knew her? Colleen Blakely.”

“Corinne,” I corrected her, a little shiver running through me. “Her grandson told me he was selling the house. I didn’t realize he was getting rid of all her stuff.”

“A feckless young man,” Eulalia Pine said, apparently having no qualms about dissing her employer. “When Mr. Goudge hired me-I’ve worked many an estate sale for his firm-he warned me about him.”

Ah, so she was working for the lawyer, not Turner Blakely. A brilliant idea lit up my mind. “Are they selling everything?”

“As I understand it.”

“I happen to know that Corinne owned a Smith Corona electric typewriter. I’m most interested in acquiring it for a friend.”

“Collects typewriters, does he?” She nodded as if she ran across typewriter collectors every day. Maybe she did.

Conscious of the consequences of my last lie, I hedged. “He wants this particular typewriter pretty badly. If you are conducting the sale, would it be possible to put that aside for me?”

She eyed me shrewdly. “Perhaps. The sale starts Wednesday at eight. The dealers’ll line up early and get a number for entry, but I’ll let you in. Stop by early and I’ll have it for you.”

“Sooner would be better,” I hinted.

She shrugged. “You could approach Mr. Turner Blakely about it.”

Been there, done that. I gave in gracefully and thanked her.

Eulalia Pine pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll have an appraisal report for you later this week. Say Thursday or Friday?”

“That’s fine,” I said, anxious to tell Maurice about the imminent arrival of the typewriter with, hopefully, the cartridge that would reveal some, at least, of the manuscript’s secrets.

After Eulalia Pine left, I called Danielle to thank her for setting up the appointment, and then Maurice to tell him about the typewriter.

“Excellent work, Anastasia,” he said.

“I think you were right about the manuscript being the key to Corinne’s murder,” I said, and told him about the break-in.

After a few questions about my well-being, he hung up, saying he had an appointment with Detective Lissy. “Don’t worry,” he forestalled my next comment. “Mr. Drake is going with me.”