Dancing with the Dead

26

Two days later he called. Mary was in the kitchen, about to insert a frozen lasagna dinner into the microwave, when the phone rang. She quickly wiped her hands on a paper towel, then lifted the receiver from the extension phone mounted on the wall near the refrigerator. Said hello.

“Mary Arlington?”

She recognized his voice at once, the Southern accent, but for a moment she couldn’t answer. She’d been expecting Angie to call.

“Yes, it’s, uh, me,” she said, feeling awkward, not knowing quite how to respond. She needed time, a few seconds to gather herself. She noticed the front of her blouse was vibrating with her heartbeat.

“You told me it’d be okay if I called,” Rene said. “This a bad time?”

“No, not at all. I was just about to defrost something for supper.” She forced a laugh, as if she’d made a joke and usually she prepared elaborate meals. Stupid, stupid to mention supper! Now he’d think she was hungry and hurry the conversation.

“You said you might help me, Mary, and I think maybe there’s a way you can.”

She started to speak but the words lodged painfully in her throat. Everything in the kitchen, the microwave oven with its door hanging open and its light softly glowing, the glistening drop of water poised to plummet from the mouth of the sink faucet, the gleaming chrome toaster smudged with fingerprints, all seemed more vivid than they had before the phone rang. The sharp scent of bacon grease rose from the skillet Jake had used and left on the stove.

“Still feel that way?” he asked.

“Sure. I mean, of course I meant it when I told you I’d help.”

“I’m calling from a pay phone,” he said, “because I think the police might have my home phone tapped, and I don’t want to involve you in this to the point where you might get hurt or embarrassed.”

That seemed reasonable to Mary. This was something like a film noir movie on late-night cable TV-intrigue and shadows and romance. “Did you find out anything in Seattle?” Barbara Stanwyck asked in black-and-white.

“I visited the studio where Martha Roundner trained. Talked to some of the people in the Seattle dance community. They told me Martha Roundner was a regular at quite a few night spots where there was dancing. Not unusual for somebody as far into ballroom dancing as she was. But I guess you know that. You go out dancing often?”

“Sometimes, not often.”

“There’s a good chance Martha Roundner went dancing the night of her death, though nobody at any of the dance clubs remembers seeing her.”

“They wouldn’t, necessarily,” Mary told him. “Those places are full of activity and usually very noisy. Sometimes the lighting’s low, or tricks are done with it. Strobe lights, colored beams, moving shadows, that sorta thing.”

“I know. It doesn’t mean much to me, either, that nobody remembers for sure she was out dancing that night. It was her roommate who said she thought that was where Martha mentioned she was going. Said Martha danced three or four nights a week. Her favorites were the Latin dances, especially tango.”

“That’s my favorite, too,” Mary heard herself say.

“They found her car in the airport parking lot, miles from where her body was discovered. Seems obvious the killer drove it there, then flew out of town.”

“Maybe that’s what he wanted everyone to think,” Mary suggested.

“That’s what Martha’s parents said, despite the fact there are no fingerprints other than their daughter’s in the car. Poor old people are getting no more satisfaction outa the police investigation than I am. Sweet Lord, you talk to them and your heart almost tears in half.”

“I bet her parents are right, though, and the police are wrong.”

“Uh-huh. A certain deviousness accompanies whatever compels somebody so mentally twisted. Which is why the police make no headway; they’re looking for the usual criminal type with a penitentiary IQ.” He was quiet for a moment, but she could hear his breathing, in counterpoint time with her own. “What I need, Mary, if it’s not too much trouble, is some old dance programs from the various competitions in different cities. I want to check the names of the entrants against police homicide records. Maybe Martha Roundner and Danielle aren’t the only victims of this psychopath.”

Romance Studio subscribed to most of the trade magazines, and competition programs tended not to be thrown away. Mary thought about the stack of magazines and dance programs on a bottom shelf in Ray Huggins’s office.

“Don’t say yes if you have the slightest reservation,” Rene told her. “I probably shouldn’t have called.”

“I was only trying to think of the best way to go about it,” Mary said. “I’m pretty sure I can at least send you copies of the registration lists from some of the competitions.”

“That’d be terrific. But, listen, don’t mail them to my home. I wouldn’t be surprised if the police are watching my mail. I rented a post office box in Baton Rouge. I’ll give you the number and zip code. Address the envelope to Roger Lane. Can you remember that?”

“I think so.”

“Good. You don’t think I’m paranoid, do you? About the police?”

“No. I can understand why you feel the way you do.”

“They keep their secrets, play everything so tight. They still probably haven’t told the news media everything about the murders.”

Mary said, “It’s just the way they are, I guess.”

“I don’t wanna cause you any trouble. Don’t want anybody to know you did this.”

“Me, either,” Mary said. “But really, I don’t mind.”

“It’s kind of you to help me. You’ve got your own life, your own problems. When something like Danielle’s murder happens, it leaves the husband so… alone. More alone than I’ve ever been, or than I’d wish on anybody else.”

“Well, nobody’s got a corner on loneliness.”

“Misery doesn’t love company, in this case. Misery just hates misery.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Why? You’re not miserable, I hope.”

“Only sometimes.”

“Oh? Is there some way I can repay? Some way I can help you?”

“No, no, it’s mainly my mother. She’s not in good health.”

“What’s wrong with her? I can afford the best doctors.”

“We don’t know exactly what’s wrong. Then there’s…”

“What?”

“Jake.”

“A guy named Jake’s a problem?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid sometimes he is.”

“He somebody you’re romantically involved with?”

“He lives with me.”

“And it’s not going well?”

“No.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No. Or maybe yes. God, I don’t know.”

“It can’t do any harm if I play Dear Abby. So what’s the trouble between you and Jake?”

“He… gets physical at times.”

“You mean he beats you?” Rene didn’t sound surprised.

“Not very often.”

“They say men like that don’t change,” he told her softly. “Abby says it. I say it.”

“So’s Angie say it.”

“Angie?”

“My mother. She’s forever trying to talk me into breaking away from Jake.”

“Maybe mother knows best.”

“Yeah, maybe she does.”

“Mary, why don’t you leave him?”

“I don’t wanna face my world without him in it, I guess. It’s more than just insecurity, though I admit that’s part of it. Maybe only a woman’d understand completely.”

“I know some women are that way about some men.”

“Was your wife like that?” She immediately wished she hadn’t asked. God, what a question!

“Sometimes, but not with me.”

Mary wondered what that meant.

“I better let you get to your supper,” Rene said. “They can suspect me of murder, but never of bad manners.”

“It’s okay, really. I’m not even hungry.”

But he was insistent. He gave her the Baton Rouge address, and she jotted it down on the flap of the cardboard box that had contained the lasagna.

“It might be a few days,” she said.

“That’s okay. Honestly, I can’t tell you what this means to me, that somebody out there understands and is willing to help.”

“Why don’t you call again when you get the stuff,” Mary said, “so I can be sure it reached you okay.”

“I will, Mary. And thanks again.”

He hung up.

She immediately phoned Romance and booked a lesson with Mel for the next evening. Ray Huggins wouldn’t mind if she took or copied some of the old dance programs in his office. She could say she wanted to look them over in preparation for the Ohio Star Ball. And if he did mind, well, she’d think of some way to copy them on the machine in the corner of his office. To help Rene. That, suddenly, was of supreme importance.

After all, he was battling odds in trying to find his wife’s killer, and maybe to prevent similar murders.

A list containing possible victims might be of immense value to him.