Dead Man Waltzing

Chapter 24

I didn’t have time to worry about what Lissy might want with Maurice, or to straighten up the mess left by the intruder, because Vitaly would be arriving any moment for the photo shoot with Sarah Lewis. I applied makeup in record time, then brushed my long blond hair and secured a fake hibiscus above my left ear. Slipping into the lime green samba costume with the halter top and the fringed pants, I made it upstairs moments before Vitaly arrived in a matching outfit, with a green shirt open to his navel and black slacks. I filled him in on the night’s excitement while he slicked his hair back with gel, all the while grinning at his reflection in the mirror.

“You are stayings with Vitaly and John,” he announced when I finished.

I was touched by his concern, but said, “I can’t come to Baltimore, Vitaly. I’ve got too much to do here. Besides, I can’t imagine the intruder will come back.”

“He is not searching your bedroom yet, da?” Vitaly leveled an unusually serious look at me.

The thought made the hairs on my forearms prickle; no, the intruder hadn’t gotten to my bedroom.

A knock at the outer door signaled Sarah Lewis’s arrival, and I went to let her in. She wore jeans again, and a photographer’s vest whose pockets bulged. She carried a bag with lots of zipped compartments, and her braid swung forward as she bent to set it down. “Hi, Stacy. You look great. That green is a wonderful choice. Where do you want to do this?”

I led the way into the ballroom, and she looked around curiously, greeting Vitaly with a smile. “Good light.” She peered out each of the windows, stripping the drapes as far to the side as she could to let in more light. “We’ll do a few shots in here, and then I think it might be fun to get some down there.” She pointed out the rear window to the tiny courtyard. “That tree would look marvelous in the background. And it would be a bit different from the standard ballroom backgrounds.”

“You is being the expert,” Vitaly said agreeably.

At her command, we posed and danced and smiled while she moved around us, finding different angles. My smile started to feel stiff by the time she said, “Okay, let’s go out back. Did you want to use a different costume?”

We nodded, and Vitaly ducked into the bathroom to change while I whisked down the interior stairs. I donned the red dress with plunging neckline and the black ruffle that detached to become a cape. My hair had to change, too, to match the character of the paso doble, and I quickly twisted it into an updo, sticking an elaborate enameled comb into it. Most of my makeup was okay as it was, but I slicked a dark red lipstick onto my lips before hurrying out of my bedroom.

I stopped so quickly I stumbled. Sarah Lewis stood at the threshold to the parlor, camera raised to take photos of the mess within. She must have followed me down from the studio. “What are you doing?” I asked, my brows snapping together.

She whirled at the sharp note in my voice. “Taking photos. For your insurance company. Vitaly told me about your break-in. That must have been scary.”

I eyed her, uncertain whether to believe her or not. Her expression was guileless. She couldn’t be interested in the manuscript, I reminded myself; she was far too young to feature in any of Corinne Blakely’s memories. “Thanks,” I said. “It was scary.” I moved toward the kitchen and she followed me. “Oops.” I’d forgotten the table blocked my back door. Together, Sarah and I heaved it out of the way and exited through the back to find Vitaly waiting in the courtyard, his matador costume a dramatic splash of black and red against the green grass and blue sky of the late-spring day.

“I love photographing trees,” Sarah said as she positioned Vitaly and me under the draping limbs of the old magnolia. “I like to think about all the history they’ve seen. Who knows what this old guy might have observed in his day?” She patted the tree’s rough trunk. “Slaves washing sheets on laundry day in this very courtyard, British soldiers occupying the town during the War of 1812, a midwife slipping through the night to help a scared sixteen-year-old wife give birth.”

I stared at her. “You sound like a historian,” I said.

“Smile. I was a history major at William and Mary before I got bitten by the photography bug. My mom-she’s a history professor at Georgetown-got me a job as a tour guide at Christ Church one summer. George Washington used to go to services there, you know.”

I was pretty sure everyone in Old Town Alexandria knew that bit of trivia, but I said only, “A history professor, huh? Not a dancer like her brother?” I dropped into a deep lunge, looking up into Vitaly’s face with simulated passion. He steadied me when my foot slid off an exposed root.

Sarah lowered the camera and stared at me. “My mom doesn’t have any brothers.”

I was confused. “But your uncle Marco-”

Understanding dawned and she laughed. “No, no, he’s my uncle by marriage. He’s married to Mom’s sister, my aunt Marian.”

“But you look-” My eyes widened and I gasped. Vitaly, thinking I’d hurt myself, hauled me upright. I leaned into him for a moment to hide my face.

“Is it hurting, your head?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, plastering a fake smile on my face. “Just dizzy for a moment.” I resumed the pose.

It seemed like Sarah hadn’t heard my last half-comment, because she didn’t react. My mind raced, and I knew none of the photos she took in the last five minutes of our session would be usable, because my head wasn’t in the paso doble. I was mentally back in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president, disco was king, and Sarah Lewis and I were infants. We wrapped things up minutes later, and Sarah packed up her equipment, promising to have proofs for us to review the next day. Vitaly dashed off to meet John, and Sarah followed me back upstairs to the studio so I could write her a check for the sitting fee. I was saying good-bye to her, trying to catalog her features without seeming to stare, when Maurice pushed through the door. He and Sarah exchanged greetings, and he held the door for her as she slipped out, descending the stairs bolted to the house’s exterior.

I grabbed Maurice by his blazer lapels and dragged him into my office. “Maurice! Could Sarah Lewis be Marco Ingelido’s daughter, rather than his niece? I always thought she looked like him, but I thought that was because his sister was her mother. But her mom’s not his sister; her mom’s his wife’s sister.”

Surprisingly, Maurice didn’t look surprised. I took him through it again. “But you can see she’s related to him by blood,” I finished. “She’s got his coloring, his facial structure.”

“I tried to tell you about their relationship,” he said, “that day Mildred and I went to get the typewriter from Turner.”

I stared at him in astonishment. “I thought you meant they-Ingelido and Sarah-were having an affair. So it’s common knowledge that she’s his daughter?” So much for Marco’s being desperate to stop the memoir’s publication to keep his secret.

“By no means,” Maurice said. “I happen to know because Ingelido was dating Corinne at the time. I found her sobbing her heart out one evening. She told me she had to break up with him because he had gotten another woman pregnant. He’d been acting strangely, and she suspected he was cheating on her. She wasn’t proud of it, but she’d hired a private detective and managed to piece it together.”

“Why didn’t he marry Sarah’s mother?”

“She was already married,” Maurice said.

Oh, the tangled webs we weave… “Would Corinne publish something like that?” I asked. “Making a scandal like that public would hurt a lot of people-Sarah, her mother, and Ingelido’s wife, just to name a few.”

Maurice gave it some thought, shrugging out of his blazer as if it were suddenly too warm. “I just don’t know,” he said, clearly troubled. “I would hope not, but…”

I flashed on Sarah Lewis taking photos of my front parlor. “Do you suppose Sarah knows? What about the man who’s married to her mom?” I couldn’t call him Sarah’s “father,” since it seemed clear he wasn’t.

Maurice rubbed a finger along his lower lip. “I don’t know him well; I’ve met him at a few functions when he and his wife-Phyllis, I think her name is-came to watch Ingelido dance. He’s a university professor. Physics. Marian, on the other hand, I know pretty well. I attended their wedding about six months before I signed on with my first cruise line. She comes from money. If I’m not mistaken, her money bankrolled Take the Lead with Ingelido.”

We exchanged significant looks. “So if she found out her husband fathered a child with her sister…”

“She might pull the rug out from under Ingelido’s business,” Maurice finished.

“That certainly gives Marco a strong motive for not wanting Corinne’s book to get published,” I said.

“I don’t like Ingelido much,” Maurice said, “but I can’t see him sneaking poison into Corinne’s pills. How would he have gotten access to them, for one thing?”

“Good question.” Crossing to the window, I looked down onto the street, twiddling with the blinds’ cord. “I think you should at least mention him to Phineas Drake, though. One of his investigators might turn up something more.”

At the mention of Drake’s name, Maurice’s face sagged, and I remembered he’d had another session with Detective Lissy and his merry band of interrogators.

“What? Did the police…” I didn’t finish the question.

“They didn’t spring any new evidence on us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Maurice said, sinking onto the love seat. I sat beside him and put my hand on his. “We covered the same old ground, several times. It’s clear they think I’m their man, that I killed Corinne. The worst part is that since they’ve arrested me, they’re not even looking at anyone else.”

“But I’m sure Phineas Drake is,” I said, remembering the way the lawyer dug up other suspects when the police thought I had killed Rafe.

“He’s got investigators on it,” Maurice said with a shrug that said he thought it was hopeless.

“Then they’ll turn something up that will exonerate you,” I said with hearty cheerfulness. I stood and tugged at his hand. “Come on.”

He looked a question at me but got obediently to his feet.

“I’m taking you down to the river and buying you an ice cream.” I knew ice cream couldn’t fix Maurice’s situation, but my dad took me for ice cream when I didn’t do well at a competition or a teen boyfriend dumped me, and it always made me feel a bit better, at least temporarily. And temporarily was better than nothing, I thought, following Maurice down the stairs.