Dead on Her Feet (An Antonia Blakeley Tango Mystery Book 1) (12 page)

But Roland hadn’t risen to the bait at all.

It was a good thing she hadn’t broken it off with Eduardo yet, just in case. It was such a pity his family didn’t have money anymore. Their visit to BA had made that abundantly clear. But marrying an aristocrat was still better than life as a decorator. If one more horse-faced WASP insisted on toile wallpaper she’d scream.

The grandfather clock in the library chimed the half hour. Twelve-thirty. Where was Roland? She stretched and yawned. She’d left him at Sanctuary just before eleven. The nightclub wasn’t that far away.

Of course Roland might have decided to stay on until the end of the milonga. Barbara Wolfe would have certainly done her best to arrange
that
. Roland had mentioned practicing with her. What exactly were they practicing? The more Nathalie thought about it, it would be smart to find out precisely how much time Roland was spending in Barbara’s company.

She made her way over to the desk and pulled the center drawer open, looking for Roland’s date book. There wasn’t much there except a manila file of invoices. The one on top was from an antiques shop in Buenos Aires, a San Telmo establishment she didn’t recognize. She flipped through them. One from Klement Antiguedades described, in Spanish, the sale of one Colombian emerald; two-point-one-five carats.

Her heartbeat quickened. Emeralds were her birthstone. They bestowed faithfulness, unchanging love, and the ability to forecast events. Was Roland actually going to come through?

She gathered her negligee closer to her body and scanned the invoice again, trying to contain her excitement. The stone had come from a mine in Muzo, Colombia. The best emeralds in the world came from there. The price was recorded in Argentine pesos. She calculated from pesos to dollars and gasped: Roland had paid an exorbitant amount. The stone must be spectacular.

She simply had to see it.

There didn’t seem to be a safe in the office. If the emerald was at his home where would he have hidden it? Most likely the office since that’s where the invoices were.

She pulled the center desk drawer open further and felt around, hoping to find a jewelry box or brocade pouch that might contain a loose stone. She tried the other drawers. She went back to the center drawer, wriggled her hand further into the corner and her fingernails brushed something that felt like a stiff piece of paper. She pulled the drawer completely out of its runners and set it on top of the desk. That was when she saw the baronial envelope lodged in the far corner.

It was all she could do to keep from ripping open the packet. She finally worked her nail under the flap and succeeded in loosening it. She tipped the envelope upside down and something smooth and hard tumbled into her palm: a beautiful emerald with a glorious leaf-green color. She held it under the light to admire it more closely and stopped short.

For such an expensive stone it didn’t have much brilliance. She searched for a blank piece of typing paper, placed the stone on it and brought the desk lamp closer. She tilted the stone from facet to facet to get an oblique look at the surface. The clarity didn’t look very good either.

She took the stone back to Roland’s bathroom and inspected it again under the fluorescent lights. Then she washed it carefully with soap and water. Just as she’d suspected: a fissure, in the crown. The stone had been oiled to make it appear better than it was.

She returned to the library and sat down at the desk to look at the invoice again.

There had to be some mistake. Roland would know better than to overpay for a cheap stone. He would have gotten an expert opinion. It couldn’t be the same emerald as the one in the invoice.

She opened the other drawers again and sorted through their contents, this time more carefully. No other packages, no other gemstones. She read through the entire set of invoices. All were from Argentina. The majority from Klement Antiquedades in Buenos Aires. Roland had paid in pesos for some transactions, which wasn’t unusual in itself, since many art and antiques dealers operated on a cash basis. But why hadn’t he paid in US currency? In Argentina the almighty dollar was powerful. He could have gotten much better terms.

Nathalie reread the invoices one last time. She was having a little trouble translating from Spanish but one of the inventory descriptions sounded familiar. A Regency mahogany and ebony drum table in museum quality condition with all its original fittings: the same drum table that was sitting in Roland’s library, right there in front of her.

He’d paid for an original but the piece in his house was clearly a reproduction. When Roland tried to resell that merchandise surely he would find out what a bad deal he’d made.

Roland was in the business. He had to know what the market prices were. But he’d somehow grossly overpaid for both the table and the emerald. It didn’t make any sense.

Unless …

Nathalie collected the invoices and folded them carefully in half. Then she picked up the emerald and let it rest in her open palm.

She smiled.

Roland was going to get more than he bargained for.

Halloween Preparations

BOBBY HAD ARRANGED WITH BARBARA
to meet at his house at five-thirty p.m. for him to help her put the final touches on her Halloween costume for Shawna’s party. He’d quite enjoyed helping to research the dress habits of the 1930s
milongueras
, even down to the fabrics they used. It had been quite a learning experience. He had previous acquaintance with silk and satin but chiffon sounded more like something one ought to eat.

Crimson becomes her, he thought. It would be easy to find her in a crowd, too.

Barbara tore open the side of the dress with her seam ripper to expose an additional several centimeters of smooth, milk-white thigh. “That’s better.”

She twisted to get a full view of herself in his hallway mirror and wrinkled her nose at her reflection. Bobby had a hard time averting his eyes as she pulled the stray threads through. He wanted to tell her she looked dazzling, that she shouldn’t go out looking like that, that it would attract the wrong sort of attention, but he was caught between Scylla and Charybdis. He couldn’t let Barbara know how he felt, or that he had seen Roland molest her. And he had no business objecting, for that matter. Instead, he confined himself to asking, “Are you sure they showed that much leg in those days?”

Barbara turned away from him, humming to herself, and pulled on the first stocking. It seemed too loose for her slim ankle but she hiked up her skirt, coming tantalizingly close to giving him a glimpse of her panties, and secured the stocking with an old-fashioned elasticized garter. She turned around. “Tell me if my seams are straight.”

The coarse weave and the thick seam down the back looked very pleasing but what passed through his mind was the galling possibility he might be dressing Barbara, in a manner of speaking, for Roland’s enjoyment. “Looks like everything is in order,” he said, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray him.

Perhaps it would be prudent to forget what he had seen in the Sanctuary parking lot. Barbara had drunk too much and let her natural high spirits carry her away—nothing more. She probably felt embarrassed at letting herself be pawed by Roland. That is, if she remembered. She’d had a lot to drink.

 “I hope these stay up. How did anyone dance with garters?” Barbara pulled on the second stocking. “So what did you decide to go as?”

“Me?” This would be the first time he attended one of Shawna’s famous annual Halloween milongas. He had spent so much time helping Barbara with her costume that he’d paid no attention to planning his own. “I’m still thinking.”

“If you don’t come up with something in the next few hours you’ll have to go as an absentminded professor.”

Halloween was an illuminating holiday. A chance to express one’s alter ego. He was curious to see his dancing colleagues in costume. Since he’d toured the High Art Museum’s mask exhibit he’d become aware of how disguises served not only to conceal but to reveal character. He’d found the African masks especially stimulating. Blood lust was never far from the surface in any culture, of course, and in fact might be necessary for survival. He’d certainly heard enough gore from Barbara on her beloved Incas. The story of Atahualpa beheading his enemy and turning his skull into a cup was a prime example.

Barbara turned back and posed in front of the mirror, parting her skirt to expose her garter. “Roland thinks I should show off my legs more.”

“He has no business saying that,” Bobby said, realizing he’d raised his voice.

Barbara stared at him. “What’s gotten into you? Your face is as red as my dress.”

Bobby put his hand to his forehead. It did feel strangely hot. “Sorry.”

“Where’s Shawna’s dagger?”

Couldn’t lose that. Shawna had kindly lent it from her collection. He looked around, disconcerted, trying to remember where he’d seen the
puñal
last. On the bookcase somewhere. Ah, there it was, next to the encyclopedia. Many
tangueras
from that period carried them for protection. Barbara certainly needed protection.

He handed Barbara the dagger and she slid it into her garter which immediately sagged from the weight.

“Ouch!” She giggled. “That sucker’s sharp.”

While Barbara disappeared into his bathroom to change back into her street clothes Bobby paced the hall. The whole situation was highly irregular. He paced around some more and found himself in the kitchen. He realized he’d left the dishes in the sink from breakfast and forgotten to put the trash bin back in its place. He had meant to clean up before Barbara came over.

He opened the freezer door and felt the frosty air blast his face. Roland wasn’t honorable. In another age he would have been called a rake. Something really had to be done about him.

Whatever he decided for his costume he couldn’t wear a mask, that was obvious. He had to be able to see what he was doing.

***

Nathalie had set up a makeup station in Roland’s master bathroom arranging a palette of eye shadows on one of his hand towels. She watched Roland in the mirror as she darkened one eyebrow with a black pencil. Although they were due at the party in less than an hour he was still in his boxer shorts.

She penciled in her other brow. “I want you to announce our news tonight.”

Roland selected a cuticle clipper from his manicure case. “I told you it’s not a good time.”

“I’m sick of your friends looking at me like I stole the Mona Lisa or something.”

Roland trimmed away a nearly invisible hangnail from his ring finger, replaced the clippers, and zipped up the manicure case. “It’s not fair to say anything at Shawna’s. I treated her badly enough as it is.”

“She took the news without throwing herself out the window.”

“That’s not the point.”

“You sound like you’re still in love with her.”

“At least she’s not a blackmailer.”

If he thought that would get to her, he was wrong. Nathalie formed her mouth into an “O” to create a taut canvas of skin and added a beauty mark under one cheekbone. Finally she inserted the brown contact lenses. Except for her hair, which she planned to leave its normal color, the transformation was complete. “Well, it’s too late now,” she said. She rose from the cushioned stool, drew open her dressing gown, and pressed her naked body against his. “You’ve made your bed, haven’t you?”

“Nathalie, no,” he said, and she heard the desire and the self-loathing in his voice.

She reached for him. “Don’t you like it when I do that?”

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face away from his.

She laughed, ignoring the pain shooting through her scalp. “I’ll make you a model wife. And marriage surely beats prison.”

“Don’t push me.” He thrust her away, turned, and stormed out, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

She slipped the engagement ring back on her finger. Too bad she couldn’t have chosen one more to her taste. She turned her hand to catch the lights from the vanity mirror, admiring the effect against her freshly manicured nails. The diamond cast rainbows everywhere. At least the stone was good, she thought. Much better than the soi-disant Colombian emerald.

***

Shawna examined her face in the bathroom mirror. She hadn’t been sleeping well since she returned from Japan. She looked at the fresh tub of clown white that she had bought at the costume shop. The makeup would conceal the dark circles under her eyes.

Everything was ready for the evening. She’d burned the music and loaded it into the CD player. The food was in the refrigerator and Pearson’s had delivered the wine that morning. She’d had the dining room furniture moved into the library to make room for dancing and placed fresh votive candles around the house. She’d drawn the line at Halloween decorations.

The guests were due in half an hour. Time to become Japanese.

The clown white makeup would feel clammy and get under her nails but she forced herself to scoop up a measure with her fingers and rubbed it between her palms to warm it to the right temperature. She dabbed determinedly at her face, using her palms and the tips of her fingers, working quickly to apply an even film. She covered her eyebrows and mouth with white then, after cleaning her hands, used dark lipstick to draw lips in a shape foreign to her real mouth. After a few strokes the geisha’s traditional cupid’s pout leapt from the stark, chalky background like a wound. Her eyes looked out through the inert mask of her makeup and she was satisfied to find no expression in them.

***

Antonia sprawled on her living room couch sipping tepid water out of a dented Evian bottle, resting up in the final minutes before leaving to pick up Christian for Shawna’s Halloween party.

The room felt stuffy, despite the vaulted ceilings and the huffing of the fan. It was so hot the sap from the pine beams overhead was beading up. She’d thrown open both sets of French doors but the crosscurrent was too weak to stir the air.