Corpse de Ballet (16 page)

“How's the production been going?” Landis interrupted. “Any special tensions? How do the dancers like your friend Ruth?”

Over the past few years, due partly to luck of the draw, partly to the rich supply of museums, concert halls, and theaters within the confines of his precinct, suspicious deaths involving cultural institutions had become a kind of specialty for Detective Landis. He had worked on a case of homicide at the Museum of Natural History and another concerning a prominent curator of American folk art. He knew the personal mechanics of the New-York Historical Society, the security system at the Metropolitan Opera House, and the chain of command in several off-Broadway theaters. Ballet was new to him, but he was well aware that any kind of collective, creative endeavor brought friction.

“I guess they like her well enough,” mumbled Juliet.

“Come on, 'fess up. I'm not going to charge her with murder just because you say she's hard to work with. More likely someone would murder her. How's it going? What's she like?”

Juliet gave a large sigh. In for a dime, in for a dollar, she told herself. If she wanted to clear this thing up, she would have to be completely honest.

“Well, she's awful,” she began. “I mean, the dancers admire her work very much, they respect her, they're all crazy to dance for her in
Great Ex,
but she's—let me put it this way, when it comes to picking up the nuances in other people's attitudes toward herself, Ruth's got two left brains. She's brusque, demanding, driven, infuriating—I think I might have killed her myself.”

“But you don't think someone killed Anton Mohr just to give her a headache, do you?”

“I don't think anyone meant to kill Anton. If all he took was Ecstasy, why should he die?”

Landis nodded, admitting the logic of this. “The M.E. doesn't know. She's doing an autopsy to see. But it can happen—it's happened a couple dozen times at raves in England, apparently. A person takes Ecstasy and dances for hours in a hot room, doesn't drink enough water—some of them overheat, some recover and some just don't. But that's dancing for hours. This—” He spread his hands. “This is a little different.”

“Exactly. And what I'm thinking is maybe someone meant to make Ruth look like a fool by causing Anton to go haywire. This was Ruth's moment to prove her worth, to triumph. Instead, it was a fiasco. Now there's a dancer named—well, you already have her name, Lily Bediant. She apparently wanted to dance the role of Estella. Are you familiar with
Great Expectations?
”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So instead, Ruth cast her as Miss Havisham.”

“What, the crazy old lady?”

“Right. Crazy middle-aged lady, by modern standards. Anyway, Lily seems to be rather hot-tempered. And I understand she was quite annoyed.”

“Hot-tempered like violent?”

“Oh, I don't know that. But prickly and—not a forgiving nature, that's for sure.”

“And who told you she was peeved?”

Juliet explained.

“And you trust this Teri Malone person?”

“Yes.”

“She doesn't have her own axe to grind?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Tell me who else you trust. You trust Ruth?”

“Oh, absolutely. She's a mensch, a person. I don't mean to make her sound any less. She's just a—a little dense sometimes about human beings.”

“And you like her? You wish her well?”

“Like her? I just told you, she's one of my dearest friends.”

“You wouldn't want to put a spoke in her wheel professionally, by any chance?” he asked, smiling slyly. “Believe me, I understand. I'm an artist myself. You know what they say, it's not enough for you to succeed, you also need your friends to fail.”

Juliet's resentment got away from her. “What the hell is the matter with you? Don't you believe anything I say?”

“Not particularly,” he said calmly. He didn't appear to have taken offense. “I'm a police officer. I'm investigating a case.”

“Well, you sure take your job seriously,” she sputtered.

“You would like me to take a possible homicide frivolously?” he asked.

Quelled, Juliet conceded, “Of course not. I just don't quite get why you have to talk to me like I'm Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Landis's nostril twitched again, but all he said was, “Maybe we should get back to the matter at hand. Who else can you tell me about? What about this Victoria, the woman who came with him into the E.R.?”

“Oh, Victorine. She's the chief dance instructor there.” Juliet considered. “She's a pretty tough bird, but I doubt—Well, she was very angry about Lily Bediant,” she amended. “So Teri said. Lily is her protégée.”

“So that's a motive.”

She shrugged. “Ruth did say Victorine wanted to choreograph this project herself. But I can't see her drugging Anton. She lives for dance, and he was a great dancer at the start of a great career. Anyway, she's not the felonious type.”

“And who is?”

Juliet said nothing, but she felt uncomfortable. Evidently, her discomfort showed in her face. Landis uncrossed his legs and leaned forward again.

“Look, if you really think a crime was committed, if you really want it solved,” he said bluntly, “you've got to help me, Juliet. There's going to be another crime come along that's fresher—some robbery, some rape—and I'm going to have to jump on that, that's the way it happens. Unfortunately, time is of the essence.”

“All right. I don't know why he should wish Anton harm, or Ruth, but the Magwitch is a guy named Ryder Kensington,” Juliet said reluctantly. “He's in the corps. He's married to Elektra Andreades, one of the principals—she dances Estella in the second cast. Olympia Andreades is her sister. Ryder's a big man, with kind of a savage look—and I don't know, there's something nasty about him. Olympia told me he's—” she hesitated, “moody, even brutal with his wife. Very hard to get along with. I can believe it.”

“His sister-in-law told you this?”

“Yes. They seem close. They spend a lot of time together.”

“You think they have something going on the side?”

“I have no idea. It never occurred to me.”

“Really? What a sun-dappled forest clearing your mind must be. And who else? Anton was the star, right? So who's going to be the star now?”

“I don't know that either. Ruth is deciding this morning.”

“And your guess—?”

“Well, the logical choice is Hart Hayden. He's the second Pip, the Pip in the second cast.”

“Was he in the room when Mohr went down?”

“We all were. All these people were in the room.”

“And this Hart Hayden, he's good?”

“He's marvelous.”

“So why wasn't he the star in the first place?”

Juliet shook her head. “I hate to keep saying ‘I don't know.' Ruth's assistant told me he doesn't have the look she wanted. Not grounded enough, too up in the air, I think he said.”

“But you figure he'll get the part now?”

“I don't see who else.”

“Was he pissed he didn't get it in the first place?”

Murray had sat back and crossed his legs once more. His left foot, balanced over his right knee, began to bounce. It occurred to Juliet he had probably retained his Brooklyn accent on purpose. It was disarming and doubtless useful for getting along with many people. And indeed, as she was later to learn, he was perfectly capable of dropping it and speaking unexceptionably at will. In the matter of accents, he was bilingual. He reminded Juliet of her Puerto Rican friend, Camila, who would sometimes slip from English to Spanish and back in mid-sentence.

His friendliness of the last few minutes seemed authentic. Yet she did not believe he'd stopped suspecting her. For the first time, it occurred to her that good acting skills were probably necessary to a good detective.

She shook her head again. “I really have no idea. He doesn't seem so. He has leading roles in several other ballets this season, I think. And he was a wonderful teacher with Anton.”

“He taught Mohr?”

“Well, there were things Hart knew how to do that Anton didn't. Anton doesn't—didn't have as strong a classical training as Hart. And Hart is very smart about dance; he's unusually intelligent in general, I think. So at times, Ruth would have Hart show Anton things—how to handle a lift, how many steps to take where in a little transition.”

“And he was good at this.”

“Wonderful. Very patient and—delicate.”

“Delicate which he needed to be because Anton was touchy.”

“I think any artist is touchy who has to be shown how to do something, don't you? In public?”

Now Landis shrugged. “How did you like Anton?” he asked, leaning forward and staring into her eyes until Juliet felt impaled by his gaze.

“As I said, I barely knew him,” she said, struggling to meet his look.

“You ever alone with him?”

“No. Yes,” she corrected, “for a few minutes once, the first day I met him. He tried to flirt with me. At least, I think he was flirting.”

“Oh yeah? How'd he do?”

Juliet gave an involuntary half-smile. “Considering we were alone for under two minutes, pretty well, I'd say.”

“Sleep with him?”

At this, she broke eye contact and laughed outright. “Murray, it was two minutes alone in the studio. Less than that. And I had just met him.”

“And that was the end of things?”

“That was the end of things. There were no ‘things' to end.”

“Mm.” The detective sat back and nodded his head for a bit, as if putting all this information together. “Mm,” he said. He looked at his watch, although a domed clock on the mantelpiece clearly showed it was 9:45. “Well, the M.E.'s doing the autopsy at ten-thirty. I'll go over there to watch now, then stop in at the studio and poke around—”

“Oh!” Juliet jumped to her feet. “Don't forget to take his things.”

She hurried out to the front hall and returned with a small black canvas bag made in Germany.

“This is Anton's stuff,” she said. “The Coke is in it. You should check it.”

“You really think someone drugged him?”

“I don't see what else could have happened. He was fine when the session started.”

“But he could have dropped the Ecstasy anytime, couldn't he? Even before he came into the studio?”

Juliet remained standing. “No, I don't think so,” she said firmly. “He wasn't like that. He cared too much about his career. You ought to have this analyzed.”

Murray snorted as if stifling a laugh. “You truly believe someone mickeyed the Coke.”

Juliet's gaze went cold and hard. She had stopped enjoying her interview with Detective Landis.

“Until yesterday, I didn't even know the word ‘mickeyed' was still in use in the English language,” she said, as starchily as possible. “I'm a citizen, I'm a witness, and I think the Coke would be worth checking. Half a dozen people came within reach of it before the run-through, and I'm sure I saw at least three touch it.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

Without hesitation, “Lily Bediant, Ryder Kensington, and Hart Hayden,” she reeled off. “And Elektra Andreades, Victorine Vaillancourt, and Gregory Fleetwood were near him too. Any one of them might have done it. I wasn't watching him every second.”

“The ones who did touch it, you see any of them really take hold of it? Drop something in?”

Reluctantly, “No,” Juliet answered. “They just moved it from here to there, so they wouldn't knock it over. I almost knocked it over myself, when I went to pay him a compliment.”

Murray raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” he said. “Did you?” He was silent a moment or two. Finally, “Listen, I understand they were serving Champagne at this shindig yesterday,” he said. “You have any?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, did you have any Champagne at the studio before the run-through yesterday?”

“I had a small glass.”

He smiled tightly. “And what did you have for lunch? You weren't drinking on an empty stomach, were you?”

To her annoyance, Juliet felt her cheeks go red again. “I had lunch,” she said stiffly.

“Have a beer with it?”

“A glass of Chardonnay. But it surely didn't affect my ability to observe what went on.”

“Oh, surely not,” said the detective, his intonation and the Brooklyn accent making a mockery of the words. Nevertheless, he bowed his head and picked up the dance bag. “I'll take this with me to the M.E.'s lab. You want prints, too?”

“Yes, I think that would be appropriate.” Juliet struggled to beat down her blush and regain her dignity. “If they find that the Coke was spiked.”

“Right.” Casually, “Have you opened this at all since you closed it up at the studio?” he asked.

“Certainly not.”

“Okay,” he said, standing at last.

But Juliet felt he did not believe her. Giving in to an overwhelming impulse, she burst out suddenly: “Listen, Murray, you don't really think I tried to harm Anton Mohr, do you? Or tampered with possible evidence?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I keep an open mind. I never put anything past anyone.”

“Thanks.”

“You know, living in a fancy apartment doesn't automatically exclude a person from suspicion of murder,” he said.

“Excuse me?” squawked Juliet. “If I may say so, I'm not sure you did get over that money thing.”

Murray raised his eyebrows and laughed, not meanly, but as if at himself. “You could be right there,” he agreed. “But take it easy. If I thought you were guilty, we wouldn't be chatting tête-à-tête in your cozy little pad. We'd be down at the station house with a tape recorder and a pal of mine having a formal interrogation.”