Dead on Her Feet (An Antonia Blakeley Tango Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

Eduardo held her tighter. “You must not convict him without a trial.”

“How do I know what really happened when his parents died? The social workers said he was an innocent victim but the police have gotten things wrong before. Look what they did when I tried to get the restraining order against Rux. They called him to get “the other side of the story” and the marshal wouldn’t serve the court order.”

“
Tranquila
.
I tell you there is nothing seriously the matter with Christian other than youth, which will pass without your help. Your personal history is clouding your judgment.”

 She shook her head, feeling her forehead grind against the fine knots in his sweater. “He picked up Barbara’s dagger and now I don’t know where it is.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

***

Antonia glanced at her watch: one forty-five a.m. Roland, clinging to what remained of his good-guy self-image, had refused to let Eduardo shame him out of the house, while Eduardo, equally determined to claim the moral high ground, had resolved to stay. Barbara wouldn’t budge as long as Nathalie and Roland seemed to be having a good time, and Bobby wouldn’t go without Barbara who by this point was too drunk to drive. All the other guests had left. She longed to do the same but she wasn’t about to leave her best friend alone with the Pan-American standoff.

Bobby had succeeded in getting Shawna out onto the dance floor for a milonga. He trotted around the floor with her while she clutched her Japanese fan and hung on for dear life. The votive candles lit them from below and cast unnatural shadows on their faces. Roland was pulling out every flashy move with Nathalie regardless of whether it was right for the music, doing everything he could to give Eduardo the metaphorical finger. At a dramatic moment in the music Roland actually led an
arrastre
and dragged Nathalie across the floor.

Eduardo and Barbara had taken two of the folding chairs at the edge of the dance floor. Barbara alternated between giving Roland and Nathalie voodoo looks and hissing in Eduardo’s ear.

Christian picked at the fronds of one of Shawna’s sprawling potted plants. Antonia caught his eye and cabeceoed him. If he wouldn’t speak to her he might at least dance. He hesitated and finally shambled over.

I hope Eduardo’s right, she thought as she closed her eyes and settled into Christian’s arms. But what if he isn’t? No matter how well you think you know someone, you don’t. Everybody thought Rux was such a nice guy. What if the costumes are the key to people’s true characters? Wizards cast spells, for good or evil. Which are you, Christian? And what happened between you and Nathalie?

She walked through the milonga, trying to divine Christian’s mood. His chest had completely collapsed. The cheerful music should have energized her but instead it left her with an unaccountable feeling of dread.

Obstacles

STRANGELY ENOUGH, BOBBY FOUND
he was enjoying himself. “Milonga de mis Amores.” Step. Step. Step. Step. He felt surprisingly light on his feet. Dancing without his glasses was helping. It forced him to pay more attention to his other senses. Funny how he’d mistaken Shawna for Barbara earlier. Barbara always felt warm. Shawna felt a little clammy. She couldn’t touch her cheek to his because of her makeup so he was missing some of their normal connection but it didn’t seem to affect her ability to follow him. The lead was supposed to come from his entire body, in any case. He’d gotten rid of the ice tray, naturally, but not the sign and when he turned too quickly he could feel it flap against his back.

No obstacles on the dance floor. No posts disguised as palm trees. Roland and Nathalie a good distance off. Antonia and Christian further ahead. Nobody else on the floor. Candles everywhere but out of harm’s way. His eyes had adjusted, more or less, to the dim light. West wall: nothing but windows and four unoccupied folding chairs. What looked like an empty plastic glass under that last one. Watch out. It could roll. South: archway to living room and entrance to hallway, clear. East: CD player safely abutting the wall. The vague outline of a palm tree tucked into the corner. A
Chrysalidocarpas
? North: no one in the doorway to the kitchen. Seven folding chairs. Eduardo and Barbara sitting in the two middle ones.

He tried to sharpen his awareness of the others in the room; that was part of his responsibility as a leader. People teased him about his poor eyesight but he noticed more than they appreciated.

Roland and Nathalie—two feet ahead. Roland alternated between walking and leading
molinetes
, having Nathalie walk around him while he turned in place. Still a wide safety margin. Christian and Antonia—further up ahead near the CD player. Christian muttered something in Antonia’s ear. They stopped dancing. She headed for the kitchen.

Passing Barbara and Eduardo, Bobby saw they were deep in conversation. Eduardo had his arm around her but he was honorable. Unlike Roland. The sooner Roland was out of the picture for good, the better. He said to Shawna as they rounded the corner, “When is Roland getting married?”

“Not now,” she answered tersely and he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk while dancing.

Step, step, step, step. Antonia was right: dancing without his glasses was helping him hear the music better. Roland was leading another molinete, not going anywhere, so Bobby started a series of rock steps, turning in place while he waited for Roland to advance along the line of dance. He tried closing his eyes and sensing like a bat. Barbara told him how the Incas wore clothing made from vampire bat wool. Man could learn much from the animal kingdom. He wondered if pterodactyls had once had sonar powers like bats. He rocked back expecting the space to be empty but instead found himself slamming into something solid.

“Oh!” Nathalie and Shawna cried out simultaneously. Bobby felt Shawna shudder.

He opened his eyes and realizing he was about to lose his balance pivoted and stepped with the full force of his weight onto his right foot, which unfortunately landed directly on Shawna’s left. She cried out. The worst had happened. He’d collided with another couple and stepped on his partner.

“Jesus, Bobby.” Roland felt his forehead. Nathalie groaned and felt hers as well. Evidently they had knocked them together.

Nathalie finally caught her breath. “What is it with you? Can’t you look where you’re going?”

Somehow he’d gotten turned around and stepped backwards in the line of dance. Antonia had warned him never to do that. He’d closed his eyes as well so he was doubly to blame. “Sorry, sorry. My fault, entirely. Apologies all around.”

Shawna rubbed her foot. “It’s nothing. Nothing, really.” She sounded out of breath and Bobby realized he must have trod on her instep pretty badly.

“Let me see,” he said. “Hold up your foot.”

“No, no, thanks, please don’t bother. Let me just change my shoes.” Shawna limped off.

Roland led Nathalie to a folding chair and helped her sit. He put his arm around her shoulders and she sank against his chest. The cortina played. Barbara pulled at Eduardo’s arm and he followed her to the pista. Bobby, realizing he was in the way, went to stand next to the CD player. Shawna shuffled back into the dining room a moment or two later, still in her kimono but now wearing a pair of fuzzy slippers. Three incapacitated women in one evening, of which at least two were his fault.

He realized Roland was signaling for him and Shawna to come over. They both approached.

Shawna said, “What is it?”

Roland said, “It’s Nathalie. She doesn’t look good.”

Shawna knelt down to speak to Nathalie. “Are you all right?” Bobby saw Roland’s two lovers side by side, both white-faced: one from nature, one from artifice.

Nathalie shook her head. “I can’t … I feel faint.”

Shawna opened her fan and fluttered it in Nathalie’s face.

Roland said, “She needs to lie down.”

“Bring her to the bedroom,” Shawna said.

“I’m so sorry. All my fault. Allow me.” Bobby took Nathalie by one arm and Roland took the other and together they half-carried, half-escorted her out of the dining room and down the hall to Shawna’s bedroom.

Shawna pointed to a large armchair, upholstered with an old-fashioned pattern of what looked like roses. “Put her here. Let her rest for a minute.”

Bobby helped Roland ease Nathalie into the chair and prop her feet onto the ottoman while Shawna knelt by Nathalie’s side and loosened the fringed scarf that was knotted around her neck.

“Roland,” Shawna said, “get some ice and wrap it in a towel and bring it to me. Bobby, everything’s under control here, thanks.” Her calm authority reminded him she was a flight attendant and used to dealing with problems.

He decided to check on Barbara. She’d been drinking all evening. He’d lost track of the number of glasses—hard to measure exact ounces consumed when people kept abandoning half empty cups around the place and pouring themselves fresh ones. Time to drive her home as soon as he could remember where he’d left his spectacles.

He was halfway to the dining room when he heard a woman screaming.

Salida

Exit.

In tango, an opening move

IT TOOK ANTONIA A MOMENT
to realize the screams were serious. Not the delighted shrieks of teenagers pulling a Halloween prank on an unsuspecting friend or the indignant screeches of ladies going at each other in a garment-rending, face-clawing, hair-yanking brawl.

Real trouble.

She dropped the plastic cup she’d been rinsing out at the kitchen sink and turned towards the noise. It seemed to be coming from the bedroom but with the Pugliese blasting away in the next room she couldn’t exactly tell.

Roland stood in front of the open freezer about to reach for a tray of ice. He hesitated. He turned. Their eyes met briefly. She turned towards the bedroom, each staccato accent from Pugliese’s violins and bandoneon punctuating her feelings of mounting fear.

“Help! Oh, God. Somebody help!” Shawna staggered into the kitchen, her face, chalk white with geisha makeup except for the scarlet daubs on her lips, contorted into an expression of horror. Her formal Japanese wig had shifted back on her forehead, revealing a margin of auburn hair against the black. She clutched a dark bundle of fabric to her chest. She looked frantically around but didn’t appear to realize anyone was in the kitchen. Hampered by her costume she tottered into the dining room.

Shawna’s hurt, Antonia thought. “Wait!” She followed her friend.

Shawna stopped dead center on the dance floor and held up the cloth away from her body like a priestess conveying an offering. She brought her left hand in front of her face and began to keen. Antonia saw the glitter of gold threads and matted silk fringe and realized she was looking at Nathalie’s flamenco dancer’s shawl.

“No!” Antonia raced back through the kitchen to the bedroom trying not to trip over her toga. When she crossed the threshold all she could see at first was the flickering light from the votives. She fumbled for the light switch and flipped it on.

Nathalie had collapsed in Shawna’s armchair. She was no longer beautiful. Her legs had slipped off the ottoman to rest akimbo under the folds of her flowing black skirt. Tendrils of blonde hair had escaped from her chignon and left damp wisps across her pale face. Her breaths came in harsh, fitful rasps.

Antonia knelt down, felt for Nathalie’s wrist and for a few heartbeats couldn’t distinguish the woman’s feeble pulse from her own. She threw her arms around Nathalie to raise her to a sitting position and, looking over Nathalie’s shoulder for a cushion, saw that blood had seeped into the faded upholstery. A lot of blood. Her stomach lurched.

She became aware of the others crowding into the bedroom.

“What’s going on?”

“Santo Dios!”

“What’s happening?”

“Jesus!”

Only Roland hung back in the doorway, a cringing superhero in his bullfighter’s cape. He let the dishcloth he’d been holding fall open. Ice dropped out and skittered across the wooden floor.

Antonia fought back her panic. “Call 9-1-1. Shawna, get the first-aid kit.” She remembered she wasn’t supposed to move an injured person so she lowered Nathalie back to her original position. She took Nathalie’s limp, clammy hand in hers and squeezed it lightly but there was no answering pressure.

Cabinet doors banged open and shut. Shawna, in the kitchen, called out, “I can’t find it.”

Eduardo stooped over and touched two fingers to the side of Nathalie’s neck, cursing under his breath in Spanish.

Antonia ran her hand under Nathalie’s back. She had to find where the bleeding was coming from. Nathalie needed a bandage. A tourniquet. Something. Antonia’s fingers traced a warm, wet patch just below Nathalie’s left shoulder blade. She brought out her hand and when she saw fresh blood on it the bile rose in her throat. “She’s been stabbed. Call 9-1-1, somebody.” She stuffed the end of her toga behind Nathalie’s back to staunch the blood before realizing it would tether her to the injured woman. “Roland. Give me the towel.”

He stood, transfixed.

“Roland!”

He just stood there.

“Dammit, Roland, do something. Call 9-1-1! Now!”

Eduardo grabbed her elbow. “The telephone. Where does she keep it?” Before she could answer he’d disappeared.

“I got it.” Shawna returned at last from the kitchen carrying the first-aid kit. Her fingers scrabbled against the metal case. It flew from her grasp and struck the floor. The lid sprang open and Band-Aids and bandages spewed onto the carpet.

Barbara cried out, “She’s going to die!”

Nathalie suddenly opened her eyes. One of her contact lenses had slipped, leaving one green eye and one brown eye staring out in fear. The muscles in her neck strained as she struggled to raise her head.