Dead Man Dancing

Twenty-Five

I was up early that morning, eyes red, lids puffy. Paul had already made coffee – fresh ground Columbian, I love that in a man – and I inhaled the first cup gratefully.

As I stood barefoot at the kitchen counter shivering in my pink-flamingo nightshirt, pouring cream into a second cup, Paul came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and nuzzled my neck. ‘I have to go to class, sweetie. Are you going to be all right?’

‘I’m going to lay low today and busy myself with a little research. Maybe some righteous indignation will keep the tears from coming back.’

Paul reached over my shoulder, lifted the mug out of my hand, turned me around and pulled me close, resting his chin against the top of my head in a way that always gives me goose bumps. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything dangerous or foolish.’

I promised. I didn’t plan to take the face I’d glimpsed in the mirror that morning out anywhere; it would startle the pedestrians or frighten the horses.

After the phone call, I had talked to Paul about my growing suspicion that Jay had been murdered, and in a cruel, calculated way. I could almost understand strangling someone, I’d said, or shooting them, or clobbering them with a baseball bat in a fit of jealous rage, but what kind of monster feeds someone a poison so lethal that it slowly, ever so slowly, shuts down all the body’s organs? So painful that even touching the hairs on the back of the victim’s hand can cause exquisite pain? Disfiguring, too, and by the time your hair falls out, and you go bald, it’s almost always too late. Even if you survive past that point, you can have paralysis or neurological problems for life.

‘Jay could have been poisoned accidentally,’ Paul suggested, continuing our conversation of the night before precisely where we left off when he started snoring and I, comfortable in his arms, eventually dropped off to sleep. ‘There was the recall of pet food from China, remember? Where the manufacturers added melamine to artificially up its protein content and ended up killing a lot of dogs and cats.’

‘Jay wasn’t eating cat food, you dope.’

‘That’s just an example. Who knows where our food comes from these days.’

‘Or our medicines,’ I added. ‘I wonder if Jay was popping any Chinese herbal remedies. I read an article-’

Paul clamped a playful hand over my mouth. ‘Hannah, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, but do you ever listen? You do not. Butt out, and let the police do their job.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ I teased.

Years ago, when my younger sister, Georgina was in a spot of trouble, I’d had my first encounter with the Baltimore homicide detectives made famous on the HBO series Homicide: Life on the Street. I own all seven seasons on DVD – 122 episodes plus a made-for-TV movie. Don’t know why I always got the serious, no-nonsense-ma’am ones rather than the callous, smart-mouthed cops who always made me laugh, but maybe cops were only funny and irreverent on television. Maybe this time it’d be different.

‘I’m serious.’ Paul tipped my chin up so I was looking right into his dark, luminous eyes. ‘But you’re not going to listen to me, are you?’

‘If I hadn’t been an avid reader of mystery fiction, Jay’s doctors would still be scratching their heads and saying “huh?”.’ I started to cry. ‘But he’d be just as dead, wouldn’t he?’

Using his thumbs, Paul wiped away the tears that began trickling down my cheeks again. ‘I’m glad you’re staying home today.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll visit the kids,’ I said, changing my mind. ‘I can wear dark glasses. Take Coco for a walk in Quiet Waters Park. That always clears my head.’ Coco is a labradoodle, the sixth member of the family living at my daughter’s on Cedar Lane in Hillsmere Shores, a quiet waterfront community of modest homes that adjoined the popular county park.

‘Do that.’ He kissed me gently on the forehead. ‘And don’t bother to cook tonight. I’ll take you to Galway Bay.’

I like that in a man, too.

Paul had taken my LeBaron for an oil change, so I had to drive his Volvo to Cedar Lane. The kids were still in school and Emily and Dante at the spa, so I used my house key to let myself in. I cheerfully fended off Coco’s energetic, slobbery, face-licking leaps, attached her to the lead and took her outside.

It was a bright sunny morning, one of those rogue February days where the temperature soars into the seventies and the crocuses, totally confused, pop up their tiny yellow heads and say, ‘Hello spring!’ only to be smothered by snow and frozen to death the following morning.

With a friendly wave to the park ranger on duty, Coco and I jogged by the gatehouse, past the pavilions, all the way to the South River overlook, scene of many an Annapolis wedding. On the return loop, I took Coco off the lead and let her frolic free within the fenced-in area of the dog park. At the dog beach – no humans allowed – Coco sniffed hopefully at the water’s edge, tried the mushy ice with a tentative paw, then gave it up as a lost cause, bounding back happily when I called. Before she could show her appreciation by decorating me with muddy paw prints, I washed her feet at the pet rinsing station, then headed back to Emily’s, both of us in much better spirits.

By mid-afternoon, back home, I decided it would be friendly-neighborly to take dinner to Kay’s. I kept a supply of home-made casseroles in the freezer, so I was always prepared for unexpected guests, like when Paul took pity on a homesick midshipman and invited him or her to our place for dinner. We’d sponsored two plebes a year in the recent past, but the new regime at the Naval Academy had cracked down on off-campus time with a humorless draconian hand – ‘we are a nation at war on terror’ – so I hadn’t seen as much of ‘our’ mids as usual. The new admiral’s seriousness of purpose was illustrated by renaming all the sandwiches in the Dahlgren Hall snack bar after weapons systems, rather than professors or coaches. Can your stomach handle a ‘Sidewinder’ or a ‘Tomahawk?’ Jeesh.

For the mids, too, it was something of a joke. ‘Well,’ one had commented to me on a rare evening out, ‘at least we can still order a submarine.’ We’d had a good laugh, and I fed the famished boy a steak.

Still thinking about silly sandwich names, I peered into the basement freezer and selected a nine by thirteen pan of turkey tetrazini I’d made during a marathon cooking session before Thanksgiving. I’d never been to the Giannotti’s, so I looked up Kay’s address in the telephone book and found that they lived in the upscale Gingerville community a half mile south of Annapolis Harbor Center, just off Route 2.

I set the casserole on the floor of the Volvo, drove out Rowe Boulevard to the Route 50 exit, took the Route 2 cut-off, whipped into Whole Foods for a loaf of Tuscan bread and some salad, then drove south to the Giannotti house, squinting at house numbers as I drove through the quiet neighborhood.

The Giannotti’s turned out to be a neat Dutch colonial nestled on a well-landscaped corner lot where Tarragon crosses Thyme. Several cars were already in the drive, including Jay’s Audi, I noticed with a pang, so I parked on the street.

When I rang the bell, Lorraine answered the door. She was olive-skinned like her brother – statuesque, attractive, full-lipped, and impeccably groomed in a Miss Texas of 1985 sort of way.

‘You must be Lorraine,’ I said. ‘I’m Hannah Ives. We talked on the phone early this morning.’

She brightened at this, like a well-mannered Southern woman should. ‘Oh, yes,’ she drawled. ‘Do come in. Kay will be so glad to see you.’

‘I don’t want to disturb her if she’s resting.’

‘She’s up and about.’

‘Did she get any sleep at all?’ I asked as I held out the casserole and the plastic bag containing the bread and the salad.

Lorraine took the dish from my hands and smiled wearily. ‘Not so you’d notice. I imagine she’ll crash tonight. Jay’s doctor gave her a blister pack of Ambien to help her sleep, but she’s refusing to take any. Always was a stubborn little miss.’

‘I’m so sorry about your brother,’ I said, as I followed her into the sparkling, sunlit kitchen.

Lorraine put the casserole on the counter, popped the bag into the side-by-side, and then turned to face me. ‘Thank you. It’s been quite a shock. Daddy died several years ago, but Mom’s still with us. I haven’t decided whether to tell her or not.’ I must have looked puzzled, so she explained, ‘Mom’s in a nursing home in Corpus Christi. Her memory kind of comes and goes, if you know what I mean.’

I nodded. ‘That’s so hard. Were you and Jay their only children?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have two sisters, and I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose one of them.’ I reached out and touched her arm.

Lorraine smiled sadly. ‘Would you like to see some family photos while you’re waiting for Kay? I brought some picture albums from home, helping get things together for the funeral.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a Catholic tradition, you know, at least where we come from. Pictures of the deceased on display at the mass.’

I smiled back. ‘I’d like to see them very much.’

Lorraine led me from the kitchen through a swinging door into the dining room. Spread out on the polished mahogany table I saw a half-dozen photographs, mostly of Jay, but some included other family members. What drew my attention, though, was an 18 x 24 color photograph of Jay and Kay propped up on the table like a centerpiece. It had apparently been taken at a dance competition; the couple posed in mid-banderilla wearing the same stunning paso doble outfits they’d chosen for their exhibition at the Hippodrome.

‘They look gorgeous,’ I commented. ‘And so happy.’

‘That was taken at the Internationals,’ Lorraine told me.

Other pictures showed Jay as a much younger man, posing in dance costumes with a woman I didn’t recognize. When I asked about her, Lorraine said, ‘That’s Jay’s first partner, Deborah Drew.’

‘Oh, right. One of the instructors at the studio told me that Jay had started out with another partner before he teamed up with Kay.’ Still holding the photograph of Jay with Deborah Drew, I glanced up at Lorraine. ‘Was Jay always interested in dancing?’

‘Oh my, yes. Mother taught dance, you see. She converted our two-car garage into a studio. She had quite a few students, too. There isn’t much else to do in Hard Bargain, Texas.’

‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

When she nodded, I said, ‘I’ve always wondered about the name Giannotti. It sounds Italian. I don’t usually associate Texas with Italy.’

Lorraine laughed, a husky, resonate sound that would have made even the sourest of pusses smile. ‘Believe it or not, Italians are the sixth largest ethnic group in our state. We originally came from Sicily, settled down in the Brazos Valley to grow cotton and corn on the bottom land that nobody else wanted. After the Galveston flood, a number of our forebears moved to west Texas and eventually ended up working in the oil fields.’

‘Where exactly is the glittering metropolis of Hard Bargain?’ I smiled at the name.

‘About halfway between Odessa and Pecos, a little town about as beautiful as the name sounds.’

‘I’ve never been west of San Antonio,’ I told her.

‘What would be the point?’ she replied with a mischievous grin.

I set the photo down and picked up another one of Jay posing with a trophy several inches taller than he was. Looking over my shoulder Lorraine said, ‘Jay was twelve when that picture was taken.’

‘Did you dance, too, Lorraine?’

‘I tried ballet, but I just hated it. Not like Jay. Practically from the day he was born, he loved all dance… ballet, tap, ballroom.’ She turned to the buffet and picked up a 5 x 7 size photo album that had been lying there, balanced it on her left forearm while she leafed through it. ‘Here it is!’ She slid a photo out of its protective plastic sleeve and handed it to me. ‘Isn’t he the cutest thing?’ she cooed, slipping back to her roots and pronouncing the word ‘thang’.

The photograph showed a teenage Jay dressed in dancing tails, his dark hair trimmed short all over, with the exception of a rat-tail – a few strands braided in the back, like a Star Wars Jedi knight. Posing with him was a younger girl dressed in a Chiquita Banana costume. ‘You?’ I chuckled, tapping the elaborate headdress.

‘Guilty!’

There was something strangely familiar about the face of the young Lorraine in the picture, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. ‘You’re a couple of years younger than your brother, right?’

‘Two.’ She smiled sweetly and sadly. She handed me the photo album. ‘Here. Make yourself comfortable, Hannah. I’ll go look for Kay, then maybe I’ll rustle up some tea. Kay may be hiding out in the hot tub. She was all spun up this morning. The police showed up with a search warrant looking for the source of the thallium that killed Jay. They scooped everything out of both medicine cabinets and dumped it all into baggies. They rummaged under the sink. They even searched the tool shed, and went away with a bunch of stuff in paper bags.’

‘That must have been upsetting.’

‘Damn right!’ Kay appeared out of nowhere wearing a white terry-cloth robe, her fair hair nearly invisible under a turban-like towel. ‘They even took away my bath salts. Neanderthals!’

‘Lorraine was just showing me your family pictures,’ I explained. ‘I didn’t realize that Jay started dancing at such an early age.’

‘It was his passion,’ Kay said. ‘And mine, too. Now I have to figure out a way to go on without him.’ She pulled out a dining-room chair and lowered herself into it. Her eyes caught mine and stayed there, unblinking, as if challenging me to come up with an instant solution.

‘I really admired Jay,’ I said after a moment. ‘He made dancing lessons seem like fun. I’m glad I got to know him.’ As Kay watched, I paged backwards in the album, observing as Jay and his sister grew progressively younger. ‘Seeing these photos, I wish I’d kept up with my dancing when I was little, but my dad was in the navy and we moved around a lot, so dancing lessons and piano lessons were kind of catch-as-catch-can.’

I glanced up from the album to see Kay still looking at me intently, so I babbled on. ‘In my first dance recital – we were stationed in San Diego then – I danced the role of William Tell’s apple. I was only six, but I looked in a mirror at myself wearing that stupid apple costume, and I knew even then that some people don’t belong in leotards no matter what color they are.’

Kay managed a smile.

I paused at a picture of Jay and his sister dressed in dance tuxedos and top hats, leaning theatrically on canes, their fresh-scrubbed, pre-teen faces wreathed in smiles. Young Jay resembled the handsome man he had become, but little Lorraine had changed since then, metamorphosing over the intervening years from cute-as-a-bug child to Junior League matron with a dark helmet of Lady Bird Johnson hair. Nine-year-old Lorraine (or so the handwritten caption said) had an unruly tumble of dark curly hair, bright blue eyes, a slightly tip-tilted nose just like… my heart did a quick rat-a-tat-tat in my chest.

Little Lorraine was the spitting image of Tessa Douglas.

I swallowed hard, hoping Kay didn’t notice, and kept my eyes down. Had Kay ever seen these early family photos? If so, she could hardly have failed to notice Lorraine’s resemblance to the young Douglas girl. I leafed back a few more pages, casually, very casually, struggling hard to keep my voice even, my face blank. ‘I’ll bet,’ I said brightly, ‘that if I turn to the beginning I’ll see little Jay dancing a rumba in his diapers!’

Kay laughed. ‘Believe it or not, there are home movies something like that. Jay dancing a tarantella for St Joseph Altar. I think he was four. Jay’s mother dragged the movies out the Christmas just before we were married.’

‘St Joseph Altar? Help out a poor Episcopalian.’

‘Sorry. March 19, St Joseph’s feast day. It’s an old Sicilian custom. You decorate a table in the church and lay out pasta, cakes and breads to thank God for His blessings.’

I closed the little album, rubbed my hand over the embossed flower on the cover, and set it back in place on the buffet. ‘Do you find looking at the photos comforting or upsetting, Kay?’

‘A bit of both, I suspect, but I’m going to let Lorraine take care of it. I’m just too tired, and my brain isn’t functioning properly.’

‘I’m sure the police visit today didn’t help.’

‘You know what the cops told me? As little as a quarter of a teaspoon of thallium can kill a person. Did you know that?’

I did, but I wanted Kay to think that apart from what I read in Agatha Christie’s works, I didn’t follow the thallium issue all that closely. ‘My gosh.’

She nodded with authority. ‘It can. That’s why they took everything away, even the itsiest-bitsiest canister. I don’t know what I’m going to use to clean my sink because they even took away the fucking Comet.’

‘You can buy more Comet,’ I said reasonably.

‘I know, but it makes me so damn mad! Anyone would think the cops suspected me of giving Jay the poison myself! And if I did, it’s not likely I’d have left the evidence lying around the house, now, is it?’

With my blood beginning to gel in my veins, I agreed that it wasn’t.

‘I don’t want you to think that I don’t want to know where Jay picked up the poison, Hannah. Until we find out, other people could be in danger, too. Remember the Tylenol poisonings back in the eighties? Somebody filled Tylenol capsules with cyanide and put them back on the store shelves.’

I stopped breathing. Really, I did. Was Kay a copycat killer? Had she papered Walgreens and CVS with adulterated drugs that she later fed to Jay in order to set up her alibi?

Then I remembered the last box of SinusTabs I’d bought and began to breathe again. A legacy of the Tylenol scare – the year we lost our innocence – was tamper-proof packaging so secure that I had to use a pair of scissors, an ice pick and some extremely bad language in order to extricate the capsule from its container.

‘It’s after the fact now, anyway,’ Kay continued, ‘and it’s not going to bring Jay back, is it?’

Again, I agreed.

At that moment, Lorraine reappeared looking very Betty Crocker in a floral apron and carrying a tray with the wherewithal for tea. ‘Will you join me in the living room?’

I left the dining room and its accusing photos, followed Lorraine into the living room where I sat on the sofa and gratefully accepted a hot cup of Earl Gray. I needed reviving.

‘Cookie?’ Lorraine asked, offering the plate up in my direction.

I selected a chocolate bourbon crème and bit in. From an armchair opposite me, Kay refused a cookie, but sipped her tea. I hoped it was just my imagination, but she seemed to be staring at me suspiciously.

I’d been to Catholic funerals before, and if Jay’s ran true to form, one of two things was going to happen. Shirley would attend the funeral with her daughter Tessa, and Lorraine would see Tessa, recognize the resemblance, and suspect, as I had back there in the dining room, that Tessa could be Jay’s daughter. Everyone else in the congregation might notice it, too.

But, Lorraine had brought the photo album from Texas with her, and Kay had been busy, so there was a slight chance that Kay hadn’t seen the early photographs, and wasn’t aware of the resemblance between Tessa and the young Lorraine. But she’d seen Jay dancing in diapers, so Mom had most likely showed her the photo album, too.

Had Kay suspected all along that Tessa was Jay’s daughter, or had she just found out and killed him for it?

Any way I turned it around and looked at it, I figured that all hell was about to break loose.