Quickstep to Murder

Chapter 15

I have never been so happy to see my house as I was Sunday night when I got home from the competition. The usual euphoria I had after competing had leaked out of me like helium from a three-day-old party balloon. The dancing itself, combined with the sprint and grapple with Hall, had left my body worn out, my feet throbbing. I was mentally worn out, too, from the emotional ups and downs of the weekend, including Victoria’s appearing/disappearing act, the brouhaha with Taryn and Sawyer, dancing with a new partner-Vitaly and I hadn’t won an overall title, but we’d won some of the individual dances, which was good enough for our first competition together-and Mark Downey’s tantrum. After his blow-up Saturday, Mark had returned to dance his International Standard heats with me, but he was cold and uncommunicative and we didn’t do nearly as well. If anything else had been needed to convince me not even to consider him as a professional partner, that did it. A pro’s got to be able to divorce his or her personal life from the dancing. You’ve got to be able to smile and look like you’re enjoying yourself, or be tender and romantic-whatever suits the character of the dance-even if you recently caught your lying son-of-a-bitch partner cheating on you.

Despite my weariness, I forced myself to lug all my costumes into the house; I couldn’t afford to have them stolen-they each cost upward of $2,500. Holding the hangers high above my head to keep the garment bags from dragging on the ground, I plodded from my car to the back door and fumbled with my key in the lock. As the door eased open with a squeak, an impression of motion to my left had me half turning in that direction. Before I could spot anything, a hard forearm pressed against my throat and the man’s other hand clamped over my mouth and nose.

“Quietly,” a gruff voice whispered into my ear. “Let’s go inside quietly.” He bumped me forward with a rude knee to the back of my thigh.

For a split second, I was most worried about the dresses, still gripped awkwardly in my upraised hand, their weight making my arm go numb. Then common sense reordered my priorities and my mind seized up with images from news stories of horrific home invasions where whole families were beaten and/or shot; the serial rapist who was supposed to be operating on jogging routes in Arlington, but who might have changed his hunting grounds; and of Rafe, bloody and dead, in the ballroom upstairs. The man pulled his arm painfully tight against my throat, cutting off my airway, and I reluctantly stepped into the house. I automatically reached for the light switch with the hand not holding the dresses, but the man knocked my arm down with his elbow. “No lights.”

Once inside, the arm across my throat eased up and he nudged me toward a chair. “Sit.”

My arm trembling with fatigue, I asked in a disgustingly shaky voice, “May I put the dresses down?” Some part of me hoped that with two free hands, I might be able to escape my attacker. My gaze flitted to where I knew my knives sat in a block on the counter, even though I couldn’t see them in the dark. And on the end of the counter nearest me was Great-aunt Laurinda’s ugly ceramic rooster that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to trash or donate; given the opportunity, I could grab it and smash it into my assailant’s skull.

“On the table.”

I laid the dresses gently across the kitchen table and wondered if I should lunge for the knives. As if reading my mind, my assailant, dressed entirely in black I realized now that my eyes were adjusting, stepped between the counter and me. “Sit.”

I sat. Every muscle tensed. I would go down fighting. Instead of ripping my clothes off, though, or demanding that I hand over my valuables, the man turned away. I heard a faint click, then the whirr of the vent fan, a muffled “Damn,” and then the light in the stove vent came on.

“Just a little light so I can see if you’re lying to me,” Héctor Bazán said, moving back toward the table. “But not enough to attract attention from your neighbors.” He prodded a chair away from the table with his foot and sat adjacent to me, crossing his legs with one ankle on his knee.

Knowing my attacker’s identity both relieved me-it wasn’t the serial rapist-and made me more nervous. Hadn’t I heard somewhere-maybe a movie?-that if a kidnapper let you see him it meant he was going to kill you? Not that this was a kidnapping, exactly, but maybe the same principle applied. I stared into Bazán’s dark, expressionless eyes, easily believing now that he had killed a migrant worker on his ranch and maybe dozens of other people. He wasn’t brandishing a weapon, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one.

“Where is my wife?” Bazán asked conversationally.

I stared at him.

“Victoria. Where is she?”

“I don’t-”

He slammed his hand on the table, making me jump. “I’m not in the mood for game-playing or lies. I know she was at the dance competition. I’ve had men watching Acosta’s condo and this studio for two weeks now; one of them showed initiative in checking out the competition, thinking she might try to link up with Acosta there if she hadn’t heard about his untimely demise. So where is she?”

“How would I know?” My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat and said more forcefully, “If she came looking for Rafe, she would’ve found out he was dead and left, right?”

Bazán studied my face, his gaze drilling into first my right eye and then my left. I tried to keep from fidgeting.

“You’re lying,” he said. “Just tell me. It’ll be easier on both of us. And you’ll be doing Victoria a favor.”

I raised my brows and made a skeptical sound.

“Really. My wife is a sick woman, Miss Graysin.”

I stopped myself from saying, “She didn’t look ill to me.”

“What story did she tell you?” His eyes scanned my face. “That I’m involved in mysterious criminal activities and won’t let her leave because she knows too much? Or was it the one about me institutionalizing our child because of birth defects? We’ve never had a baby. Or-”

“She showed me the bruises,” I said.

“On her stomach?” When I nodded, he said, “She was in a car accident two weeks ago and her stomach and chest got badly bruised when the air bag drove her purse into her torso. She had it on her lap, looking for a lip gloss, I believe.” Mingled sadness and weariness pulled his mouth down. He didn’t look threatening at the moment.

Not sure what to believe, I said, “I really don’t know where she is.”

“But you talked?” His eyes lit up.

Reluctantly, I nodded.

He grabbed my left hand with both of his. “Please. Tell me what she said.”

His hands were callused and hard. “Not much. We were going to talk after I danced, but she was gone from my room by the time I finished. She stole my wallet.”

“I will reimburse you,” Bazán said instantly. “Unfortunately, it is not the first time something like this has happened. I need to find her before she gets herself in serious trouble, or ends up hurt.”

“I wish I could help,” I lied. I wasn’t sure I believed anything Victoria had told me, but her husband hadn’t exactly won my trust by breaking into my house.

He narrowed his eyes. “Surely she said something.”

“Nope.

He slapped my face with his open palm, not hard, but it stung.

Surprise, as much as pain, made me cry out. No man had ever struck me. Even my father had never spanked me. I put my hand to my cheek.

“I don’t have time for your flippancy. Tell me what Victoria said and where she went. It’s for her own good.”

“Go to hell.”

The next slap was harder, almost knocking me from my chair. “She didn’t say anything!” I yelled through incipient tears. “She was staying at Rafe’s cabin, in West Virginia. Maybe she went back there.” I was darned sure Victoria hadn’t returned to Rafe’s isolated man cave. “And before you ask, I don’t know where it is. Somewhere outside a town called Canon-something.”

“If you are lying…”

“I’m not.” I stared at him defiantly. “Although I wouldn’t tell you where she was, even if I knew.”

“Then you’d be doing her a great disservice,” he said, standing. “Victoria is a menace to herself.”

“Not as big a menace as you.”

“Acosta knew what he was doing when he dumped you,” Bazán observed. “No man wants to live with a sharp-tongued wife. If you were my wife, I’d be tempted to cut it out.”

He said it with so little emotion that it froze me to stillness. He crossed to the door. “I’ll be back if I find out you’ve lied to me.”

Scrambling to my feet, I lifted my chair and held it in front of me, not sure if I meant it as a weapon or a shield. “The police might have something to say about that.”

He laughed, genuinely amused. “I’ve got two words for you: diplomatic immunity. Besides which, it’s your word against mine. I don’t think I need to worry very much about the police. You, on the other hand, have a lot to worry about.” He opened the door, looked both ways, and stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him.

The chair dropped with a clatter, landing on my toe. I dropped cross-legged to the floor, massaging my toe and bawling my eyes out. I cried for at least ten minutes, knowing the tears were more about fear and tension release than pain. Shoving myself upward, I hobbled to the fridge and pulled a chunk of ice out, wrapping it in a dish towel and holding it against my toe. I followed that up with an aspirin and a call to the police.

Monday morning found me trotting awkwardly after Detective Lissy as he inspected the exterior of my house, peering at windows and doors. My toe hurt like the dickens and the nail was a lurid purple that told me it would fall off eventually. Dancing would be excruciating for a few days, at least. I thought evil thoughts about what I’d do to Bazán if the opportunity presented itself.

“But I told you he didn’t break in,” I said for the third time. “He waited until I unlocked the door and then pounced.” The uniformed officers who came by last night had apparently misreported what I’d said, or Lissy was deliberately misinterpreting it.

“I’m not looking for evidence of a break-in,” Lissy said damply. “I’m looking for proof someone waited out here. Cigarette butts, beer can, candy wrapper.”

“He threatened me and you’re looking for proof he’s a litterbug?”

Lissy eyed me, his pale gray eyes assessing. “It’d be nice to have something to corroborate your story.”

I held out my bare foot. “What about this?”

“You said you dropped a chair on it.”

“Yes, but only because I picked it up to protect myself.”

Lissy nodded, somehow managing to convey that he thought I was either an accomplished liar or a delusional conspiracy theorist who would shortly be accusing Bazán of being behind the Gulf oil leak and the subprime mortgage fiasco.

We had made our way around to the front of the house, not spotting a single thing that helped prove Bazán had forced his way into my kitchen last night and threatened me. The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky and already my skin prickled with sweat. It was going to be a scorcher. Lissy flipped a page on his steno pad. “So you say Mrs. Bazán forced her way into your hotel room and then Mr. Bazán”-he consulted his notes-“ ‘pounced’ on you here?”

“She didn’t force her way in,” I said, frustrated. “I invited her in. But then she stole my wallet, which I already reported to my credit card company.”

“But not to the police.” Lissy’s inflection made my omission sound suspicious.

In truth, I hadn’t called them because I couldn’t spare the time from the competition to hassle with the paperwork and I didn’t think they had a prayer of recovering it. Some part of me, too, felt I deserved what I’d gotten for being so foolish as to leave a stranger alone in my hotel room. In hindsight, I should have taken the time to report the theft, if only to the hotel management. “I didn’t want to bother the police,” I said lamely.

“Mm.”

We stood on the shallow brick portico outside my front door, which I noticed needed repainting. Its glossy forest green had dulled and was flaking near the bottom. One more expense. Maybe if I went at the knocker with some brass polish, that would spiff up the door. I pushed the thought aside.

“What is it, exactly, you want me to do, Ms. Graysin?” Lissy asked, finger-combing his dishwater-colored hair from left to right.

“Arrest Héctor Bazán! At least talk to him, not just about last night, but about Rafe’s murder. Now that we know that Rafe was helping Victoria Bazán-”

“We don’t know this,” Detective Lissy said. “You say that Victoria Bazán said… You see where I’m going with this?”

I ignored his interruption. “-it makes sense to think that her husband might have gone after him.”

“With your gun?”

“Yes! I told you that Rafe told Victoria he could get her a gun. It’s obvious that he stole my gun, intending to give it to her. Whoever killed him got the gun away from him somehow and shot him.”

“Ms. Graysin, in policing we like to rely on a little thing called ‘evidence.’ And you don’t have any.” He held up a thin hand to forestall my protests. “I’m going to talk to Héctor Bazán and see what he has to say.”

“What about his story? About his wife having mental problems and being in a car accident. He said it was just a couple of weeks ago, so you can look that up, can’t you? See if he’s lying?”

“As I might have mentioned before, I’ve been doing this job for twenty-seven years.”

With that not-so-subtle reminder that he didn’t need my help, he clomped down the steps and headed for his car.

I hurried after him. “Just one more thing, Detective,” I said, my eyes pleading with him. “Did you check on Sherry Indrebo’s whereabouts the night Rafe was shot?”

Lissy eyed me with something like fascination. “A diplomat’s not enough for you? Now you want to accuse a congresswoman?”

“I’m not accusing-”

“Who next? The Pope?”

“Was she-”

“Ms. Indrebo was at a fund-raiser at the Corcoran, in full view of assorted Republican movers and shakers and a photographer who has dozens of photos of her from when the party kicked off until they turned off the lights. Satisfied?” He yanked open the car door, rubbing at a smudge on the mirror.

Frustrated was more like it, but I thanked him and watched him drive away. Then I went inside and called Phineas Drake.

I spent the morning restoring order to my life and house after the competition weekend. I sorted through my costumes and put aside those that needed a trip to the dry cleaner, stowed my makeup and hair accessories, and cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen. With only minutes to spare before Drake arrived, I polished the knocker, kick plate, and doorknob on the front door with a crusty bottle of brass polish I found under the kitchen sink. I stepped back to admire the gleaming brass when I was done, liking the way they shone in the sunlight, but disappointed that their brightness actually made the door’s paint look shabbier in contrast. Drat.

Drake’s limo nosed up to the curb as I stood there and I hastily tucked the brass polish and rag into the house and gave my hands a quick sniff. They smelled a bit chemically from the polish, but not too bad. I hurried down the walkway as the chauffeur opened the door. Drake’s secretary had said he could spare me only fifteen minutes on his drive to the courthouse and I didn’t want to waste a second. I slid onto the slick leather seat and found Phineas Drake gazing at me, a tall glass foaming with a tan concoction in his hand.

“Protein drink,” he greeted me, hoisting the glass a couple of inches. “Doctor says I have to lose a few pounds or I’m going to keel over before I’m sixty.” He laughed and patted his hefty paunch covered by a tartan vest of blues and greens with a thin yellow stripe.

Since I’d already pegged him for past sixty, I didn’t comment.

Running his huge hand down his beard when he finished drinking, he fixed his sharp eyes on me. “You said you discovered something about Acosta’s murder this weekend?”

“Yes, and the police aren’t taking me seriously, so I thought you… that you might be able to look into it.”

“Tell me.”

I gave him the unedited version of the weekend, from Leon Hall’s attack on Sawyer, to bumping into Victoria in the hall and our conversation followed by her disappearance, to Bazán’s attack at my house, to my theory about Rafe stealing the gun. I looked at Drake anxiously when I finished, trying to read his expression. The luxuriant facial hair made it tough, especially in the dimly lit limo.

“That’s good-the bit about Acosta having your gun with him. That’s the kind of creative thinking that makes a good criminal defense lawyer. Any interest in giving up ballroom dancing for the law?” He chuckled.

Was he saying he didn’t believe me? “It’s not ‘creative thinking’-it’s what must have happened,” I said indignantly. “And, no, I can’t see myself as a lawyer.” Working in an office all day, wearing rigid suits, responding to someone’s beck and call. I shuddered.

“You’re more the creative type,” he said indulgently. “My wife’s that way, too-scrapbooking is her thing. That and eBay.”

Great. He clearly dismissed my career as a hobby on par with his wife’s interest in scissors that cut wavy patterns and colored cardstock. I held on to my temper. “Do you have a way to check out Bazán’s story?” I asked. “And maybe find out more about Leon Hall?”

“A diplomat, huh?” Drake said, looking thoughtful, calculating the angles. “If the police were convinced he did it, they’d stop looking at you, and they wouldn’t have to worry about enough evidence for ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ because the case would never see the inside of a courtroom. The State Department might PNG Bazán if the cops built a good enough case, but that’s about it.”

“PNG?”

“Make him persona non grata-boot him out of the country.”

“That’s not right,” I said, appalled. “If he killed Rafe he should go to prison for the rest of his slimy life.”

Drake shrugged, dismissing my outrage as too naive to bother with. The limo glided to a stop at the courthouse curb and Drake shifted his bulk toward the door. “I think it’d be useful to locate this Victoria gal again. She sounds like a wily one.” His tone was admiring.

A shaft of sunlight penetrated the car as the chauffeur swung the door open. Drake got out, then bent over to peer in at me. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about anything. Since the police haven’t moved on you yet, chances are they won’t, at least not without new evidence. I’ll be in touch.” Giving orders to his driver to take me back to the town house, he strode up the courthouse steps, fending off reporters as he went.

Halfway back to the house, my cell phone rang. Tav Acosta.

“How did the competition go this weekend?” he asked.

His voice, rich and dark and lightly accented, sent a little tingle through me. I stomped it down. Business. This was only business.

I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “Some wins, some losses. Better than I thought it would, actually, without Rafe.”

We were silent for a moment, thinking about Rafe; then Tav said, “The police have released his body. I can take him back to Argentina.”

“Oh.” I was surprised by how sad I felt at the thought of him leaving. “When?”

“As soon as I can make arrangements with the airlines-probably two or three days.”

“Oh. Well, it was nice meeting you. I hope you have a good trip back.” The inanities were a defense against the surprisingly strong stab of disappointment I felt at the news he was leaving.

“That’s not why I’m calling.”

“Oh?” If I said “oh” one more time, I was going to slap myself. The limo jolted into a pothole and I bobbled the phone, missing what Tav was saying. “Sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”

“I said I have had a couple offers for my share of Graysin Motion and I need to talk to you about them.”

“Oh!” I slapped my face lightly and the chauffeur eyed me doubtfully in the rearview mirror. “Who from?”

“I’d rather talk about it in person. Do you have plans for this afternoon?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“Good. Would you mind if I played tourist while we talked? I have not had the chance to see anything of your nation’s capital-too busy working. I would really like to see the Air and Space Museum before I go back.”

His tone was half-sheepish, as if wanting to visit one of the world’s great museums was embarrassing in some way. With rare exceptions, every man I knew preferred the Air and Space Museum to any other museum on the Mall. I laughed. “You shouldn’t miss it. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”