Authors: Ella Barrick
Chapter 9
I rose early Thursday morning to do a private lesson with a student who was preparing for his first ballroom dance competition. We would compete in the bronze division as a professional-amateur couple. He was a fiftyish, divorced man who initially signed up for a dance class to meet women, but found himself liking it so much he decided to try his hand at competition. He liked to practice early, before work, so we were finished shortly before eight o’clock. He left for a day in cubicle-ville and I went downstairs to shower and dress.
The ringing phone yanked me out of the shower just as I turned off the taps. Grabbing a towel, I trotted to my bedside table to answer, hoping it was Maurice calling to say he had been released.
“Stacy?”
It was my mom’s voice, clear and a bit reserved, as always. Mom was not one to show a lot of emotion. “Hi, Mom.”
“Have you talked to your sister?” She also wasn’t much of one for beating around the bush or wasting time with small talk. I conjured an image of her thin, angular body and graying red hair. From the whuffling horse sounds behind her, I knew she was standing at the wall phone in her small barn, probably wearing old jodhpurs and rubber boots for mucking out. Bird, her twenty-two-year-old gelding, whickered behind her; I’d learned to ride on him and would recognize his “voice” anywhere.
“Hi, Bird. Yes. She told me about your invitation. Sounds like fun.”
She sighed. “I’m glad you think so. Danielle clearly wasn’t enamored of the idea, even though it’ll be my treat.”
“It’s the Jekyll Island thing. It’ll bring up a lot of memories of our last vacation, all of us together.”
From her silence, I knew she hadn’t previously made the connection. “That was years ago,” she finally said, as if old memories didn’t carry much weight. In my experience, sometimes they carried the most weight.
“Yeah, well.”
Another silence fell. I finally broke it. “What dates did you have in mind?”
She told me and I checked my mental calendar. “That should work. It’s the weekend after the Virginia State DanceSport Championships. Count me in.”
“Thank you, Stacy.” She hesitated. “And if you could talk your sister into it, I’d be very grateful. I hate it that things are so awkward between us.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Of course not.”
Of course not. I hung up a few minutes later, mentally shaking my head. My mom could practically read a horse’s mind, could communicate with the big beasts telepathically, but she had no clue what her own daughter was thinking. I’d do my best to talk Dani into the vacation, because it would be fun for all of us.
I headed upstairs to work on choreography for a husband-and-wife amateur team who were competing at the Virginia state competition with the Graysin Motion team. I worked in the small studio at the back of the house, liking the view of my tiny courtyard from the studio’s window. I’d worked up most of a samba routine for the pair when someone knocked on the doorjamb and spun me around.
Tav stood there, newspaper in hand, a less-than-thrilled expression on his face. “You did not think I would be interested in the fact that Maurice was arrested?”
“It made the newspaper?”
He flipped through a couple of pages and read, “‘Alexandria police announced the arrest of Maurice Goldberg, a ballroom dance instructor with Graysin Motion, for the murder of Corinne Blakely, his former wife and also a professional ballroom dancer.’ It goes on to give details about her career.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“As you say.” His mouth quirked up on one side. “Have you talked to Maurice? Is he okay? Does he have legal representation?”
I smiled, wanting to hug Tav. Even though he was worried about the studio’s reputation, he was concerned about Maurice, a man he barely knew. “I got hold of Phineas Drake and he took Maurice’s case.”
“Do I need to worry that Drake will frame me for the Blakely woman’s murder?” He looked over his shoulder in an exaggerated way and I laughed. He was well aware that Drake had offered to set someone up for Rafe’s murder when the police thought I did it.
“I don’t think so. As I understand it, Corinne had five other husbands; I’d think any of them would make a better murderer candidate than you, well, except the one who died. And she was apparently writing a tell-all memoir that was making a variety of people nervous, according to her housekeeper.”
“When did you talk to her housekeeper?” Tav asked.
“Last night.” I bent to grab my water bottle and my notes, hoping he wouldn’t dig any deeper.
“She happened to drop by the studio?” he asked in a politely skeptical voice.
“I might have stopped by Corinne’s house,” I muttered.
“Stacy—”
“Okay, I got the key from Maurice’s house and went to Corinne’s to find the manuscript,” I said all in a rush. “Maurice thinks someone murdered her to keep her book from getting published. I thought I’d find it and . . .” What had I planned to do if I’d come across the manuscript? “. . . and turn it over to the police.” Well, I might’ve.
He didn’t berate me for my stupidity. “Did you find it?”
I shook my head. “No. Mrs. Laughlin—the housekeeper—thinks she hadn’t written it yet, that all she had was an outline.”
“Can one get a contract on a book that is not even written?”
“How would I know?” I remembered that I had the names of Corinne Blakely’s agent and editor. “But I know how we can find out.” I ran downstairs to retrieve the phone numbers from my dresser. I didn’t realize Tav had followed me until I turned and saw him standing in the doorway, surveying the rumpled pink sheets—I wasn’t much of one for making my bed—the litter of jewelry and cosmetics on the dresser, and a periwinkle bra draped over the chair. Something in his eyes made me sure the thought uppermost in his mind didn’t have to do with my untidiness.
Blushing slightly, I brushed past him, too aware of his warm male scent, saying a bit breathlessly, “Here’s the number.”
I thought for a moment he was going to reach for me, but then he stepped aside with a quiet, “Pardon,” and followed me to the kitchen—much safer territory—where I picked up the phone and dialed a New York City number, holding the phone out a little so Tav could hear. I had to wade through two layers of assistants before the agent picked up the phone. “Angela Rush,” she said with a brisk New York accent.
When I asked my question, she laughed. “We sell nonfiction books all the time off no more than a chapter outline and a marketing plan. It’s all about the
platform
.”
“Platform?”
“The author’s credentials. Her fame, or notoriety as the case may be. How hot is her topic? How likely is media attention? And, darling, Corinne Blakely was hot. What with the popularity of
Ballroom with the B-Listers
and the International Olympic Committee about to vote on ballroom dancing—excuse me, DanceSport—as an Olympic event, and her charisma, well, let’s just say we had a
major
deal in place. Her death is a tragedy for the arts community in America.”
And a tragedy for Angela Rush’s pocketbook, I suspected. “So you don’t even have an outline?”
“Oh, I have one of those.” Ms. Rush’s voice turned cagey.
“You do? Can you fax it to me?”
“I’m afraid not.” She didn’t sound remotely sorry. “We’re still going forward with the project, and I don’t want any details leaking before publication. This book is going to be an
NYT
bestseller. I have an instinct for these things.”
Excuse me? How could she go forward with a memoir when the memoirist was dead? “How—”
“We’ve been in contact with someone we’re sure can do justice to the book,” Ms. Rush said coyly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a meeting at FSG.”
Tav and I stared at each other for a moment after Ms. Rush rang off. “Well, that raised more questions than it answered,” I finally said.
“Indeed.”
Conscious that Tav was still standing close enough to listen in, close enough to make my skin flush with a desire I had no intention of giving in to, I moved toward the sink and poured myself a glass of water, adding a couple ice cubes for good measure.
“Perhaps if you shared this information with the authorities . . .” Tav suggested.
“Detective Lissy could chisel the outline out of Ms. Rush. My thought exactly. Great minds think alike.” I smiled.
Tav’s answering smile suggested that our two great minds were thinking alike on an entirely different topic. “Stacy—”
The doorbell rang. I started, jolting cold water onto my shirt. “Coming!” I headed toward the front door and opened it to see Maurice.
“Maurice!” I hugged him hard. After a startled moment, he returned the hug. “You’re free.”
“For the time being,” he said. He looked as immaculate as ever in a crisply ironed button-down shirt and tan slacks, and smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower. I remembered spending a half hour in the shower after being hauled down to the police station for an interview. It must be a thousand times worse to actually spend the night in jail.
“That very competent young lady you sent got me released on bail first thing this morning. Then she and her father—he seems like a force to be reckoned with—grilled me more intensely than the police.” A faint smile showed he appreciated their thoroughness. “I’m meeting with them again Friday evening, after they’ve had a chance to check on a few things. Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” I said, dragging him into the hall. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Food would be appreciated,” he said.
Tav walked in from the kitchen and Maurice’s white brows soared as he looked from me to Tav. “We just called Corinne Blakely’s literary agent,” I said.
Tav shook hands with Maurice. “I am glad the police released you,” he said. “I would like to talk more, but I have an appointment I cannot miss. Please be assured that I will do whatever I can to help prove your innocence. Although Stacy has a head start on that task.” With a grin, he left, saying he’d catch up with us later in the day, and reminding me about the bridal fair that started tomorrow.
Dragging Maurice into the kitchen, I started putting together some French toast while I told him about looking for the manuscript, talking to Mrs. Laughlin, avoiding Marco Ingelido, and tracking down Angela Rush. As the egg-soaked bread sizzled on the griddle, Maurice poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. “You’re amazing, Anastasia,” he said. “I can’t believe you searched Rinny’s house last night alone.”
I shrugged. “What are friends for? I’m only sorry I didn’t get anything useful.”
“Maybe you did,” he said. “Didn’t you say she had an electric typewriter?”
“Yes, a Smith Corona. So?”
“So, you wouldn’t realize this, probably never having operated anything as antiquated as a typewriter, but those typewriters had cartridges that snapped into the machine to provide ink. The keys struck the tape and transferred letters to the paper.”
My interest in typewriter mechanics was limited at best. I put a plate of French toast in front of Maurice and set a syrup bottle beside him. “So?”
“So, the keys leave an impression on the ribbon. The last . . . I don’t know—twenty? fifty?—pages Corinne wrote will be on the cartridge.”
“We could reconstruct her most recent outlines,” I said, finally catching on. “But how do we get the typewriter? Turner’s probably back from his stag party by now.”
“I’ll think of something,” Maurice said. He ate breakfast with appreciative murmurs and looked at his watch. “Don’t you have the Ballroom Aerobics class to teach?”
My gaze flew to the clock over the stove. Ten to eleven. “See you later,” I said, racing toward the stairs and taking them two at a time up to the studio.
Chapter 10
Students were already starting to trickle in, and I greeted them as they lined up in the ballroom. The hour flew by and I felt invigorated by the exercise. The tension of the last couple days drained out of me as I led the class.
Vitaly came in as the students left and immediately asked about Maurice. “Has he breaked out of the jails?”
“They let him go, yes.”
“Vitaly is glad. I will helping prove his innocence.” He thrust his chin up, looking like a gladiator about to enter the arena.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, Vitaly,” I said. “Tav said he’d help, too, so between us we ought to be able to come up with
something
.” I told him about Marco Ingelido breaking into the mansion, sure that Vitaly had come across Ingelido at some point during his career.
Vitaly wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “Ingelido is asking me if I want to own a Taking the Lead with Ingelido studio. I laugh in his face.”
“Tactful.”
“His methods is a joke . . . is only fitting for the sociable dancers, not for competing.”
“Well,” I said, “ballroom dancing is becoming a much more popular social activity. The numbers of dancers have grown a lot in the last five years.” I bent to pick up a stainless-steel water bottle one of the women had left. “If Ingelido’s methods help—”
Vitaly, facing the door, drew in his breath with a hiss. “Speaking of the devils—”
I spun around to see Marco Ingelido on the threshold, surveying the ballroom with an expression that hovered between appreciative and assessing. In his early sixties, he was beginning to put on weight around his middle, but was still a good-looking man, with thick, dark brows over deep-set eyes and an aquiline nose. He’d been balding for years and had finally shaved his head, telling people that if it was good enough for Kojak, it was good enough for him. He’d been moderately successful as a professional ballroom dancer but gave up competing five or six years back, shortly after I started winning, to concentrate on expanding his business.
“I heard you two partnered up,” he said, his gaze going from Vitaly to me. “Anya dump you, Voloshin?”
Vitaly bristled. “I am moved to Baltimore and Anya is not wishing to leave Russia,” he said.
“And of course we all know what happened to your partner, Stacy,” Ingelido said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since Rafe died. Didn’t I hear something about you being arrested for his murder?” Malice gleamed in his dark eyes.
I chose to ignore his question. “Can I help you with something, Marco?” I asked, convinced his showing up like this was not a coincidence. Not after last night.
“You can give me what you found last night,” he said, his voice flat. “At Corinne Blakely’s.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ingelido smiled coldly. “My son-in-law is a cop. He ran your license plate for me.”
Oops.
“I saw you break into Corinne’s house,” I said. Two could play the intimidation game.
“Your word against mine.”
“Hm, I think your credit card says otherwise.”
He thinned his lips, clearly wishing he’d taken the trouble to retrieve the snapped credit card. “I didn’t come here to quarrel with you. I can’t imagine what Corinne had on you—you’re so young—but I know you were after her manuscript. I want it. Or”—he held out a placatory hand—“I want your assurance that it’s been destroyed.”
“What is Corinne having on you?” Vitaly asked, eyes bright with curiosity.
Ingelido hesitated, then finally said with an air of great honesty, “We were lovers. I was in my late thirties. Corinne was . . . older. I was between wives, so it’s only . . . embarrassing. I’d just as soon not have the affair publicized. We were discreet at the time. I don’t know why she decided to go public with it now.” His voice was a growl of frustration.
“How did you know she was going to write about you?” I asked.
“She told me!” He paced like a trapped tiger: three steps away, three steps back. “I had the impression she was giving everyone she was writing about ‘fair warning.’ That’s what she called it when she told me.”
“I didn’t find the manuscript,” I said, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Ingelido. “And her housekeeper said she never wrote it, that she only had an outline.”
Ingelido’s chest expanded as he took a deep breath and held it. He blew it out. “That’s that, then.” His shoulders sagged with relief. I debated telling him what I’d learned from Angela Rush, but before I could say anything, he said, “This is a nice little studio you’ve got here. If you signed on with Take the Lead, we could turn it into a profitable enterprise. My franchisees are seeing a twelve percent return on their investment in the first year and up to thirty percent in the second year.”
“I’m perfectly happy with my income now,” I said.
His smile said he knew I was lying. “If you change your mind . . .”
“She won’t changing her mind,” Vitaly said. “Stacy and Vitaly is buildings most successful studio on East Coast.”
I appreciated his positive thinking and shot him a smile.
“An ambitious goal,” Ingelido said in a voice that suggested he thought we’d have more chance of winning a Nobel Prize. “If—”
Before he could finish the thought, Maurice entered the ballroom, stopping abruptly at the sight of the other dancer. “Ingelido,” he said in a cold, un-Maurice-ish voice.
“Goldberg,” the other man replied, equally cool.
The temperature in the room went down to levels a penguin would enjoy, and Vitaly and I glanced at each other, wary of the animosity between the two men.
“Shouldn’t you be making license plates or something? I read that you’d been arrested. I debated sending a congratulatory note to our men and women in blue.”
“To paraphrase: ‘Reports of my incarceration have been greatly exaggerated,’” Maurice said. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Ah, well.” Ingelido loosed a dramatic sigh. Giving Maurice a considering look, he added, “You and Corinne went back decades. She must have known where all your skeletons were buried.”
Maurice flinched almost imperceptibly, and I was startled to see fear skate across his eyes before he banished it. An uneasy thought crossed my mind: Could Maurice have something to hide?
He rallied. “At least my skeletons—if I had any—are decently buried. Some of yours are still walking around, hm?”
Ingelido flushed red and then paled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me know if you want more information about the franchise opportunity, Stacy.” He handed me a business card with the stylized, top-hatted logo of Taking the Lead with Ingelido, and left.
Vitaly followed on his heels, exclaiming, “I am late for meeting John.”
Left alone with Maurice, I raised my brows and asked, “What in the world was that about?” Before he could answer, I said, “You can tell me while I work. I’ve got to clean the bathroom.” Since our bottom line was a little shaky, we saved money by doing the cleaning ourselves. It wasn’t too onerous, but I looked forward to the day we could hire a janitorial service again.
Maurice followed me to the powder room and watched as I liberated cleanser, a sponge, and rubber gloves from the under-sink cabinet. I squirted cleanser under the toilet rim and motioned for Maurice to start talking. “Marco Ingelido is a cad,” he said. “He hurt Corinne very badly some years ago. She was in love with him—why, I’ll never know, except she had unfortunate taste in men—”
“Present company excepted.”
A slight smile eased his frown. “Thank you, Anastasia. Anyway, Corinne loved him and he threw her over for Marian, the woman he’s married to now.”
“Is that what you meant when you said his skeletons were still walking around?” I looked up from scrubbing the sink to see a crease appear between his brows.
“He has a niece, Sarah. Sarah Lewis. She’s a photographer . . . must be almost thirty now. Marco dotes on her. They’ve always had a close relationship, much closer than your average uncle and niece. Anyway—”
“He had an affair with his own niece? How very Woody Allen of him. No, that was his stepdaughter, wasn’t it?” I wrinkled my nose, sloshed the brush around the toilet, and flushed away the foamy water. I’d had a crush on my cousin Tom when I was fifteen or so and he was nineteen. We’d sneaked a few kisses (okay, it was really several hours’ worth of nonstop, volcano-hot kissing) during a family reunion at a lake in the Poconos, and I’d had a hard-to-explain case of bristle burn that made my chin, lips, and cheeks raw. We’d returned to our separate states and Tom had moved on to an eighteen-year-old girlfriend before we got too serious, but I’d moped about him for several months. I sighed at the memory.
“He—”
Clicking noises from the hall approached quickly. Moments later, Hoover skidded to a stop with a woof. He wedged his head between Maurice’s leg and the doorjamb, nearly knocking Maurice over as he wriggled into the small bathroom. I patted his heavy head as Mildred Kensington’s voice fluted, “Hoover, you bad dog. How many times have I told you it’s not polite to interrupt someone in the loo?”
Hoover ignored her, nosing at the minifridge’s door in an attempt to open it. “Hello, Mildred,” Maurice said, backing out of the bathroom doorway.
“Maurice! Oh, I came as soon as I heard. Thank goodness you’ve been released.” She threw her plump form at him and embraced him, almost knocking him off his feet. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall.
She released him, her eyes bright. Dabbing at them with a lace hankie she pulled from her sleeve, she said, “It makes me so emotional. To think of you cooped up in a prison cell with no room to
dance
.”
I could think of a lot worse things about being imprisoned than that, but I didn’t mention them. A slurping sound brought all our heads around, and we saw Hoover lapping happily from the toilet. Thank goodness I’d already flushed the cleanser down. He looked up when Mildred shrieked his name, slobbering on the toilet seat and tiled floor. So much for my clean bathroom.
“Hoover, dear, that’s a nasty, nasty habit,” Mildred scolded. “How many times have I told you that?”
The Great Dane’s tail thumped against the fridge. Stripping off my gloves, I joined the others in the hall, and Hoover followed me.
“It was kind of you to stop by, Mildred,” Maurice said, “but—”
“Oh, I didn’t just stop by. I’ve come to tell you that I’m starting a legal defense fund for you.” Mildred beamed. “I’ve already put out collection jars at many of the businesses around here, with that lovely photo of us from when we competed at the Emerald Ball a couple of years ago. And I’ve sent an e-mail to all my correspondents, explaining the situation and asking for donations.”
Maurice looked appalled. “Mil—”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to thank me.” She held up a beringed hand sparkling with diamonds, rubies, and platinum. “You know you’re so much more than a dance instructor to me, Maurice, and I couldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t do what I could to make sure you don’t end up
incarcerated
for life. Or worse. Do they have the death penalty in Virginia?”
“Indeed they do,” Maurice said grimly. “One of the guards ‘joked’ that when I got convicted and put on death row, I could be known as ‘dead man waltzing.’ Apparently the phrase ‘dead man walking’ refers to a condemned prisoner on his way to be executed.”
“That’s horrible!” I said.
“We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t come to that,” Mildred said, patting his arm. “Don’t you worry. I’m all over this like stink on excrement, as my grandson says.”
When I choked back a laugh, she twinkled at me. “Well, that’s not exactly how he says it. Come on, Maurice.” She hooked her arm through his. “I’m taking you to lunch. It’s a wonder you didn’t waste away on that nasty prison diet.”
“I was only there one night,” he said, letting himself be dragged away.
“Perhaps Hoover could stay here with you, Miss Graysin?” Mildred called over her shoulder. “For some reason they don’t appreciate him at Giuseppe’s.”
Imagine that.
“Sure.”
They exited through the door by my office. Hoover sat in front of the closed door, cocking his head. When it didn’t reopen, he raised one great paw and scratched at it, looking over his shoulder to invite me to let him out.
“Sorry, buddy. You’re stuck with me for the moment.”
He stared at me disbelievingly. When it dawned on him that Mildred wasn’t coming back immediately, he threw up his nose and let loose with a mournful
whoo-wooo-ooo
.
“I think I have some peanut butter crackers in my drawer,” I said, coaxing him into my office. He snarfed down the six crackers, snuffled around the desks, then clambered onto the love seat, resting his head against the back of it so he could see out the window.
* * *
Maurice and Mildred returned more than two hours later. Hoover leaped off the couch at the sound of their footsteps on the outside stairs and dashed to the door to greet them. The three of them crowded into the office moments later, Mildred looking distinctly disgruntled.
“That Turner Blakely is a nasty young man,” she announced.
“Did you run into him at the restaurant? What did he do?”
“It was my idea,” Mildred admitted, patting Hoover as he nosed at her hand. “When Maurice filled me in on your search—so brave of you, dear—I thought up a wonderful scheme for getting the typewriter cartridge from Corinne’s house. ‘Tell Corinne’s grandson you want the typewriter for sentimental reasons,’ I told Maurice. ‘Tell him it’s special to you because Corinne used it to write you letters.’”
“I thought it was worth a try,” Maurice said, “but Turner turned me down flat. His insurance adjustor was there, and someone to fix the broken window—”
“Courtesy of Marco Ingelido,” I put in.
“—and an alarm company representative to install a security system, so he was distracted.”
Mildred took over. “Even so, he told us quite nastily that we were trespassing and that he wouldn’t give Maurice the time of day, never mind anything from Corinne’s house. ‘My inheritance,’ he called it.”
Maurice shrugged. “It was a long shot anyway.”
I made commiserating noises, and said, “The agent may yet come through with the outline.”
Fat chance.