Dead Man Waltzing

Chapter 25

After our expedition to the river (where I had a lemon sorbet to keep my calorie intake within the strict levels I stuck with to maintain my weight, while drooling over Maurice’s double scoop of coffee fudge ripple), I left Maurice at Graysin Motion, practicing with one of his competitive students, and headed for the flagship studio of Take the Lead with Ingelido. I had debated calling Marco Ingelido and setting up an appointment, but I decided that surprise might work better. I was going to confront the dancer-turned-entrepreneur with the news of my break-in and see how he reacted. I couldn’t stand to see Maurice so sad and worn-down; I needed to do something to jolt Corinne’s murderer into betraying himself or herself.

Take the Lead with Ingelido was in the Tysons Corner area, and I fought rush-hour traffic around the beltway to get there. Late-afternoon sun streamed through the Beetle’s window, and my air-conditioning didn’t seem to be as cool as usual, so I arrived flushed and sweaty. The dance studio occupied a former skating rink, and the familiar top-hat logo signaled potential dancers from atop a neon sign that towered over the private parking lot. I eyed the lot with envy. In crowded Old Town Alexandria, where my studio was located, students either had to park on the street-a chancy thing-or use the parking garage two blocks down. I knew a fair number of female students didn’t feel comfortable attending our evening events because they didn’t like the parking situation.

A sprinkling of cars populated the lot, and I figured Marco had a class going on. Entering the building, I looked around curiously; I’d never been in here before. The color scheme was all black and gold, like the logo, with flocked wallpaper and gilt mirrors in the entryway. An unmanned reception counter where some pimply kid used to pass out roller skates now held class schedules, brochures, and a selection of dance shoes. A door, half-open, sat just past the counter, waltz music pouring out, and I poked my head in.

The dance floor was huge, the former rink covered with wood flooring, I guessed, noting the waist-high wall that encircled it with gaps for dancers to enter or leave the floor. Approximately fifteen couples circled the floor, and I bit back the envy that surged in me; we were lucky to have six or eight couples at any given class. Clearly, people liked Ingelido’s concept. Marco himself was moving among the dancers, correcting a gentleman’s frame, demonstrating a turn with a flustered woman student. I had watched for three minutes or so, not willing to interrupt the class to speak with Marco, when a familiar voice spoke from behind me.

“Were you interested in lessons, ma’am?”

I spun to see Solange Dubonnet standing behind me. Her expression faded from helpful to sneering when she recognized me. “Come to see how a successful studio operates, Stacy?” she asked with false sweetness.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” I said. Solange was the reason Rafe Acosta became my ex-fiancé four months before his death. I caught them in bed together. Waves of red hair rippled to Solange’s shoulders, bared by a halter-top dress, and her green eyes gleamed with malice. She’d tried to buy Rafe’s half of the studio after his death, but her plan had fallen apart.

“I’ve been teaching here since just after the Emerald Ball,” she said, referring to a ballroom dance competition in L.A. “Working with Marco is fabulous-he’s got such a head for business, and the students love him. What are you doing here?” She eyed me with suspicion, as if I were here to kidnap Marco’s students and drag them down to Graysin Motion.

“I just wanted a word with Marco,” I said, determined not to get into it with her.

After studying my face for a moment, she sashayed onto the dance floor and spoke in Marco’s ear. He glanced toward me, handed the class off to Solange, and headed my way. I had to admit he moved well as he approached me with the gliding motion that had made him famous back in the day.

“Stacy.” He greeted me with lifted brows. “Have you come to find out about our franchise opportunities?” The glint in his eye told me he knew better.

“Actually, I came to tell you someone broke into my house last night.”

His face went expressionless for a moment before he said. “Really? And why would I be interested?”

“Because whoever it was was looking for Corinne’s manuscript.”

Taking my elbow, he guided me toward a small office I hadn’t noticed earlier. I noted dark wood, an excellent sound system, dance trophies, and a sleek laptop before he closed the door and turned to face me. “Did they get it?” His dark eyes searched my face.

“You should know.”

“Are you accusing me?” He seemed caught between astonishment and scorn, and any hope I cherished of getting him to confess dwindled. He snorted and passed behind me to get a cigarette from a box on his desk. “Filthy habit, I know,” he said, lighting up. “I feel it in my wind more and more each year. Yet…” He shrugged.

I tried a different tack. “Sarah Lewis seemed very interested in the scene of the crime. I caught her taking photos of my parlor.”

“Sarah?” Marco took a step toward me. “What was she doing there?”

“Vitaly and I hired her to do our publicity stills,” I said. The tension in Marco’s face unsettled me and I stepped back.

“Leave Sarah out of this,” Marco warned. “It’s got nothing to do with her.”

“Oh, I think it does,” I said. “Your determination to keep Corinne from publishing her memoir-I think it’s got everything to do with Sarah.”

Marco reared back as if I’d slapped him. The cigarette burned down, unnoticed, between his fingers. After a moment, he lifted it to his lips and drew deeply. It seemed to calm him and he turned his head to exhale smoke over his shoulder. “Whatever you think you know, I had nothing to do with Corinne’s death. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. I don’t need to prove anything to you or anyone else: The police already have their man.”

I sensed a deep weariness in the dancer that almost made me feel sorry for him. “Maurice didn’t do it,” I said. “He had no possible motive.”

“Really?” Marco squinted and his voice turned nasty. “Perhaps you should ask him about a certain ruby necklace that ‘disappeared’ during one of his cruises. Come to think of it, that’s a story that might interest the police, if they haven’t already dug it up. And I’m sure it’s a story Corinne was including in her damned memoir, since she was instrumental in resolving the situation.”

The certainty in his tone took me aback. “What are you talking about?”

His gaze mocked me. “Ask Maurice. I’m not one to tell tales out of school on another man. I’ve got a class to teach.” On that note, he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray and ushered me out of the office, leaving me in the entryway as he returned to the dance floor. I knew Solange, eyes bright with curiosity, watched me as I exited.

I pointed my Beetle toward home, troubled by Marco’s insinuations about Maurice. I hoped to be able to talk to him about them when I got back to Graysin Motion, but an accident on the beltway had traffic backed up for miles, and by the time I reached Old Town ninety minutes later, he was gone for the day. I phoned his house, but got no answer. Reluctantly concluding I would get no answers that evening, I called Danielle and talked her into meeting me at the gym for a workout.

“Isn’t that Eulalia Pine something else?” Danielle whispered as we did vicious ab exercises in a Pilates class-Danielle’s choice, not mine.

“She seems to know her stuff,” I said, crunching my body into a vee with my arms extended over my head and my legs almost perpendicular to the floor. “She’s in charge of an estate sale at Corinne Blakely’s house that starts tomorrow. I’m going to show up early to buy Corinne’s old typewriter.”

“Why?”

The women on either side of us shushed us, and Danielle and I exchanged guilty looks and then giggled. The instructor frowned at us, which only made us giggle more.

“I’m not going to be able to walk upright for a week,” I complained to Dani as we straggled out of the class at nine p.m. I rubbed my abused abs.

“You’re the professional athlete,” she said. “Suck it up.”

“Hmph.”

As we showered in the locker room, Danielle came back to the estate sale, and I told her about the typewriter and Maurice’s theory that the cartridge would reveal Corinne’s outline and provide more suspects for her murder.

“An estate sale sounds like fun,” Dani said, squirting shampoo into her hand and massaging it through her thick curls. “I’ll come with you.”

“I have to be there by eight tomorrow morning.”

“Shoot. I’ve got to work.”

I faced the shower spray, closing my eyes and lifting my face to the drumming water. “I’ll call you as soon as I get finished and let you know how it goes. Any luck finding a couch yet? I could keep an eye out for one at the estate sale.”

“I’ve been to a couple more stores, but I haven’t settled on a couch yet. I’m making progress, though: I know I don’t want leather. Sure, let me know if you see something at the sale.”

We toweled off, dressed, and left the gym as the last glimmers of sun faded from the sky. Before we separated outside the gym, I asked Dani whether she wanted to go swimsuit shopping with me on Saturday. “I need a new suit for Jekyll Island,” I said casually.

She eyed me with affectionate scorn. “Is that your subtle way of trying to nudge me into a decision?”

I don’t know why my subtlety was so obvious to everyone. “Maybe.”

She laughed, punched my shoulder, and strode off with a toss of her red curls.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” I called after her.

I arrived at the estate sale the next morning moments after it began, Tav, surprisingly, in tow. He’d shown up at Graysin Motion before heading to his business downtown, hoping to have the talk about our financial situation which we’d postponed from yesterday. He’d caught me shooing out the sweaty ballroom cardio students, anxious to get to Corinne’s house before someone snapped up the typewriter, and had decided to ride along when I told him where I was going.

He let out a low whistle when he caught sight of the mansion. “Ballroom dancing pays better than I thought,” he said.

“Marrying well pays better than ballroom dancing,” I said dryly, maneuvering the car down a side street where arrows indicated we should park.

“Maybe I should try it,” he said with a sidelong look at me.

“Great work if you can get it,” I said, refusing to take the bait.

He laughed and freed himself from the seat belt. “Which way is the house now? I got lost two turns back-I have no sense of direction.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and pointed him in the right direction. The number of cars parked on both sides of the street between here and Corinne’s filled me with dismay, and I found my pace quickening as we approached the house. “I hope it’s not gone,” I muttered, as we came within sight of the house, the lawn crawling with dozens of people pawing through goods set up on card tables outside, while a steady stream of buyers disappeared through the front doors or into the open garage.

A fortyish woman and a man sat behind a six-foot-long folding table with a cash box in front of them and a professionally lettered sign proclaiming PINE ESTATE SALES propped to the side. The woman wasn’t Eulalia Pine, but I approached her anyway. She looked up from making change for a dealer apparently buying several pieces of furniture and gave me a harassed look over the tops of her reading glasses. When I introduced myself and told her I wanted to speak to Eulalia Pine, she shook her head of frizzy brown hair. “Mom tore a ligament in her ankle out appraising some antique farm equipment last evening,” she said with an exasperated sigh.

“She was going to put a typewriter aside for me,” I said anxiously, scanning the boxes and items stacked behind and under the table.

The woman threw open her hands in a “nothing I can do” gesture. “She didn’t say anything to me. Your best bet is to find it in the house. All I can say is we haven’t sold any typewriters today.” She turned her attention to a customer behind me.

I grabbed Tav’s hand. “Come on. Thanks,” I threw over my shoulder to the woman, who was now haggling with a portly man about the price for a life-size ceramic tiger he towed on a child’s sled.

Tav and I threaded our way through the throngs of shoppers; it felt as crowded as Christmas Eve at the mall. “Who knew a garage sale would draw so many people?” I said.

“Estate sale,” corrected a thin woman holding a laundry basket full of what looked like antique linens. “Very different. I don’t do garage sales.”

“You say tomahto, I say tomayto,” I whispered to Tav as we made our way into the high-ceilinged foyer. I thought of all Great-aunt Laurinda’s stuff I wanted to get rid of and wondered whether either an estate sale or a garage sale would net me enough to buy a few new pieces of furniture. Maybe if I combed garage sales for bargains, I thought. I hadn’t been to a garage sale in years; last time I’d purchased an Aladdin VCR tape with a quarter from my allowance. I started for the stairs.

Midway up, a young couple, each toting one end of a rolled-up carpet, bumped into me. Tav’s arm clamped around me as I teetered on the stair. He drew me tight to his side.

“This is more dangerous than playing football”-I knew he meant soccer-“on the highway.”

“The possibility of bargains can drive even usually sane, calm people to hitherto unknown acts of violence,” I said, trying not to show how his closeness affected me. His warmth and the woodsy scent of his shampoo or deodorant made me lose focus for a moment.

“Do you suppose that woman woke up this morning saying, ‘I must have a bronze planter engraved with scenes from an African village, because my life is incomplete without it’?” Tav asked in my ear as an elderly woman tottered past us with just such an item clutched to her chest.

I stifled a laugh and continued up the stairs. On the landing, practically within sight of my goal, I bumped into Turner Blakely. A knowing smile oiled across his face when he recognized me, and I could tell he thought I’d come looking for him. He threw an arm across my shoulders. “Too many people around right now, Stacy,” he said. “But I’m free tonight.”

I wiggled out from under his arm and drew Tav forward. “Tav, this is Turner Blakely, Corinne’s grandson. Turner, Tav Acosta, my partner.” I deliberately didn’t specify what kind of partner.

The men eyed each other with instant, mutual dislike and shook hands briefly. “I am sorry about your grandmother’s death,” Tav said.

“What are you doing here, then?” Turner asked me, suspicion darkening his eyes now that he knew I hadn’t come chasing after his hot bod.

“The same as everyone else,” I said as casually as possible. “Looking for a bargain.”

“They’re not charging enough for Grandmother’s treasures,” Turner said. His face wore an expression of discontent. “I tried to tell the woman in charge that she was pricing things too low, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Told me she knew her business and to butt out.”

I grinned inwardly and wished I’d been present for the confrontation between Eulalia Pine and Turner Blakely.

“I know Grandmother paid twenty times more for some of her things than that Pine woman is asking for them.”

“Things always go cheap at a garage sale,” I said.

“Estate sale.” Turner glared at me.

I suddenly thought of Maurice’s painting. I knew he didn’t have possession of it yet. “Where are the items that Corinne willed to people?” I asked.

“In storage,” Turner said. “Goudge’s staff collected the bequeathed items. They also removed all the good art, Grandmother’s jewelry, and pieces of furniture; it’ll be auctioned off later.” He looked a bit happier at the prospect of making more money.

“Look, Verena, this chest of drawers is only one hundred dollars,” exclaimed a woman’s voice behind us.

“That can’t be right!” Turner brushed past Tav and me and went to confront the women attempting to lift the chest.

As soon as his back was turned, I grabbed Tav’s hand and pulled him down the hall to Corinne’s office. Only a couple of shoppers browsed in the small room. One was standing on tiptoe to take down a clock mounted on the wall. The desk had a “sold” sticker on it. Gaps in the bookshelves showed where buyers had removed books. The desk chair was gone.

So was the typewriter.