Dead Man Dancing

Twenty-Six

After a restless night, with Paul insisting that my imagination was running away with me when I knew darn well that it wasn’t, I showed up early at Hutch and Ruth’s to ask Hutch for advice.

Ten minutes before the police.

Ruth and I were having coffee in the sun room at the back of the house, and I’d barely said, ‘Hi,’ when the doorbell rang.

Hutch went to answer it. ‘Come in and sit down, officers,’ I heard Hutch say. ‘We’re just having coffee. Would you care for some?’

‘Yes. Thanks. It’s a long drive from Baltimore,’ the older of two detectives said as he followed my future brother-in-law into the room.

While Hutch got everyone settled on the chintz-covered furniture he’d inherited from his grandmother, I gracefully fetched the coffee.

When I returned to the sun room from the kitchen and introductions and mugs were passed all around, the older detective fixed his attention on Hutch and said, ‘We understand you were at the Hippodrome at the time Mr Giannotti collapsed, is that correct?’

‘Yes it is. My partner and I were auditioning for the Shall We Dance? TV show. Jay and his wife, Kay, are our teachers. They had been invited to dance an exhibition…’ Hutch paused. ‘But you’re probably well aware of that.’

The young detective had taken a notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped it open but so far, he hadn’t written anything down, so I figured they already knew what Hutch had just told them.

‘Yes, sir.’ The detective set his mug down and continued, ‘When you were at the theater, did you share a dressing room with Mr Giannotti?’

Hutch looked thoughtful. ‘Not a dressing room, exactly. They had several generous spaces cordoned off in the rehearsal area backstage – one for the men, one for the women – where contestants could change, put on their make-up and so on. Jay and I shared that space with a lot of other guys.’

With a glance from his superior, the younger officer finally spoke up. ‘Did Mr Giannotti have anything with him, like a clothing bag, or a suitcase, or a duffel?’

‘Yes, he did. He’d brought his costume in a plastic garment bag, but when he changed, he stuffed his jeans and toiletries into a gym bag.’ Hutch got up from his chair, walked to the window, then turned around to face the officers again. ‘I presume from your questions that you’ve interviewed the staff at the Hippodrome, and that you’re aware that I took the bag away from the Hippodrome after Jay was taken ill. But you’ll have to ask Jay’s widow about the bag. It’s been returned to her.’

From my seat by the window, I began to squirm. I’d completely forgotten about Jay’s bag. Bright red, with a blue International Dance Sport logo, it was still in the trunk of my LeBaron. With Hutch’s and my fingerprints all over it.

‘Uh, Hutch?’

‘Not now, Hannah.’

‘Can I see you in the kitchen for a minute?’

Hutch fixed me in a steely glare, guessing (correctly) why I wanted to speak to him. ‘Jesus Christ, Hannah! You didn’t return the bag to Kay?’

‘I’m sorry, no. I put the bag in the trunk of my car, then Paul took the car in for an oil change. With all that’s happened, I simply forgot.’

Suddenly I became the unwelcome center of attention.

‘Do you still have the bag, ma’am?’

I glanced quickly from the detective to Hutch, and when Hutch nodded, I said, ‘I think it’s still in my trunk. Shall I get it for you?’

‘Please.’

‘It’s got our fingerprints on it,’ I added helpfully.

‘That’s to be expected,’ the detective said. ‘Look, none of you are under suspicion at this time. We appreciate your cooperation with our investigation.’

Across the room, Ruth let out an audible sigh of relief.

When I returned with Jay’s bag and handed it over to the senior detective, he thanked me and said, ‘We’ve been asking everyone if they knew anyone who had a reason to want Mr Giannotti dead.’

I do, I thought, but decided for the moment to keep it to myself.

After yesterday afternoon, I was deeply suspicious of Kay, but somewhere in the middle of the night, Paul had convinced me that an old photograph constituted the flimsiest of evidence, everyone is supposed to have a doppelgänger, and that if the proverbial jury wasn’t still out, it sure as hell ought to be.

After Kay, Tom and Laurie’s fear of exposure sprang immediately to my devious mind, but no way was I going to out them unless I had to.

Then there was Shirley, but I hadn’t worked out exactly why. I disliked the woman intensely, so it was probably just wishful thinking on my part.

Were there thugs in the dance franchise business, I wondered? According to Google, Saddam Hussein had favored thallium to rid himself of potential rivals. Maybe a rival studio head had taken Jay out.

Suddenly I realized that everyone had stopped talking and were once again staring at me. Hutch’s elbow shot into my ribs. ‘Your turn, Hannah.’

‘Everyone loved and respected Jay,’ I added helpfully. I felt my face grow hot. ‘Except for his killer, of course.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The detective and his sidekick rose to go. ‘Thank you for coming forward with the bag, Mrs Ives.’

‘You’re welcome. I’m sorry that I didn’t think of it myself, but I really and truly forgot.’

The detective passed Jay’s bag to his associate. ‘It happens to the best of us,’ he said. ‘If necessary, we’ll be in touch.’

For some reason he handed me his business card. ‘And if you think of anything else…’

After the police left, I apologized again to Hutch. ‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of the police.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘it’s probably a good thing I didn’t give the bag back to Kay before Jay died.’ I described what had happened at the Giannotti home in Gingerville the previous afternoon. ‘If we had returned the bag and there was evidence of thallium poison in it, and Kay is involved, like O.J.’s bloody knife, that bag would have been history by now.’

Hutch sighed and reached for his mug, sipped the liquid, probably cold by now, and made a face. ‘The cops won’t be happy about chain of custody issues – anybody could have added to or taken from that bag between the time it left the Hippodrome dressing room area and today. But it’s better than nothing.’

From her chair across the room, Ruth bristled. ‘You two are taking this awfully calmly. Kay is supposed to be doing your choreography for Shall We Dance?, Hutch. What if she gets arrested? What if you get arrested?’

Hutch smiled benignly. ‘Cool your jets, Ruth. This is still February. The competition isn’t until April. Surely things will be settled by then.’

‘Maybe you need a lawyer, darling.’

‘I don’t need a lawyer, I am a fucking lawyer!’ Hutch raised a hand. ‘I know, I know. You don’t have to say it. A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.’

‘I’m just worried, that’s all.’ I recognized the tone. Ruth was struggling to remain cheerful. ‘This is your big chance, sweetheart. Maybe we should hire another choreographer to work with you and Melanie.’ Ruth patted the arm of her chair, and Hutch, like an obedient little fiancé, closed the distance between them, settled his lawyerly buns on the spot she’d indicated, and snaked his arm behind her shoulders. Hutch examined the top of Ruth’s head, located a spot where the gelled-up spikes might prove less lethal, and planted a conciliatory kiss there. ‘And here I thought I was going to make my name in wills, trusts and estates.’

I blinked. ‘Surely you’re not giving up the law?’

Hutch chuckled. ‘Of course not. But I’ve been scrambling to settle what I can settle, and reassign ongoing matters to my long-suffering associate so I can be free for a couple of months. She hates me now, but it’ll be character-building for her to fly solo.’

‘What happens if that Market House thing blows up?’ I asked. ‘There was something about it in the Post again this morning.’

Hutch represented one of the heirs in a never-ending battle over the historic Annapolis market, built in 1784, and deeded to the city on the condition that unless the property be used ‘for the reception of sales and provisions’ it would revert to the heirs of the original owners. The gourmet market sat on valuable property at water’s edge and was now being run, unprofitably it seems, by an out-of-town management company. There was talk – again – of tearing it down.

‘That market’s been putting shoes on the children of lawyers for three hundred years, and it’s not going to stop now. Any attempt to tear it down will be blocked by Hysterical, er, Historical Annapolis,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m not worried.’

‘To change the subject for a moment,’ Hutch continued. ‘I have information for you, Nancy Drew.’

‘You do?’

‘I talked to my buddy up at the Medical Examiner’s…’ He paused, I swear, just for the dramatic effect.

‘Stop it! You are making me crazy!’

He raised his free hand. ‘OK. The autopsy’s done.’

‘So soon?’

‘Homicide put a rush on it. The report won’t be official for a couple of days, not until it’s typed up and the M.E. signs off on it, but they did a segmental analysis of Jay’s hair, and it turns out that his exposure to thallium had been going on for quite some time, perhaps more than a year.’

‘Oh my God! Well, that shoots my thallium in the Tylenol capsules theory all to hell.’

‘Exactly.’

Hutch drained his mug and set it down on the end table. ‘What was in Jay’s gym bag, Hannah? Do you remember?’

‘You didn’t look into it?’

‘I didn’t see any reason to.’

I stared at the bright floral drapes and tried to picture the bag’s contents. ‘Clothing, running shoes, socks, hair goo, talcum powder, bottled water…’

Hutch looked thoughtful. ‘Could have been in the water, I suppose, the dose that sent him over the edge.’

‘Or…’ Several thoughts were niggling the back of my brain: Jay’s powdery footprints on the floor of the studio, and something I’d read on the Internet. I sent my cerebral messenger down to retrieve them, and a few seconds later, the little fellow came up trumps. ‘I think I know how it could have been done!’

Hutch stopped toying with Ruth’s fingers, and sat up straight. ‘How?’

‘Thallium is a white powder. Somebody put it in Jay’s talcum powder.’

Ruth made a face. ‘You don’t have to swallow it?’

I shook my head. ‘Thallium can also be absorbed through the skin. Even more quickly, I would think, through hot, sweaty dancer’s skin.’

‘How would anybody know that?’ Ruth wondered.

‘The same way I do, from reading about it on the Internet.’ I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees. ‘Two articles come to mind. Back in the sixties, the CIA hatched a plot to discredit Castro by putting thallium in his shoes when he set them outside his hotel-room door for a shine. They didn’t want to kill him, just embarrass him silly by making his trademark beard fall out.’

‘Makes me proud to be an American,’ Hutch quipped.

‘The other side in the Cold War wasn’t so bright, either. Not long ago, a group of Russian soldiers discovered an unlabeled bin of the stuff lying around a dump in Siberia, so they said, what the heck, rolled it up in their cigarettes and used it to powder their feet.’

‘Not much in the way of entertainment in Siberia, I’d guess. No USO.’

Ruth punched her fiancé on the arm. ‘Be serious for once.’ She turned to me and asked, ‘Did the soldiers die?’

I shook my head no. ‘They became desperately ill, but eventually recovered.’

Hutch regarded me seriously. ‘It’s an interesting theory, Hannah, but it’s simply that, a theory.’

Personally, I thought my theory was brilliant and fit the facts as I knew them, but far be it from me to say so. ‘Will the cops let us know if they find anything suspicious in Jay’s bag?’

Hutch snorted. ‘We’ll probably read it first in The Sun, but I have a couple of contacts in Homicide who owe me favors, so perhaps we can get a head’s up.’

I smiled at the two of them snuggled up like teenagers and said, ‘Well, for what it’s worth, lovebirds, I’m betting all my money on the grieving widow.’