The Dance (2 page)

He stopped laughing, glanced at the floor, back up at her—still grinning. “That’s why you came in here, isn’t it? I saw you looking for me.”

She smiled slowly, faintly. “I was looking for you?”

“Yeah. I think you were.”

“I was looking for a can of Spam,” she said flatly.

He lost his grin. “Sara, there’s nothing wrong with—”

“Stop,” she said, taking another step back, her hand feeling for the edge of the freezer door. “Just stand perfectly still and don’t say another word.”

His eyes darted to her hand, panic twisting his face. “Wait! The inside lock—”

She slammed the door in his face. On the way out, she picked up a can of Spam in aisle thirteen. She had decided to have it for dinner.

Yet she shook as she drove home. She wasn’t worried Russ would freeze to death—if worse came to worst he could always chop his way out—she was worried he had been right about her.

Only much later did she realize she had left her purse in the store.

The sound startled Michael Olson. Standing in the middle of his garage beside his homemade telescope, he paused to pinpoint its source, then laughed out loud at his foolishness. He had made the noise himself; he had been whistling. He used to whistle all the time, but this was probably the first time since the McCoy’s’ party. He had forgotten what it sounded like to be happy.

Am I? I can’t be.

The truth of the matter was that he felt fine, not overflowing with joy, but pretty good. And with that realization came a flicker of guilt. He had promised himself at Alice’s funeral that he would never let himself feel again, that he would never give pain such a clear shot at him. But that had been childish, he saw that now. He had actually seen that for a couple of weeks now, although he had not stopped to think about it. He reached out and touched his twelve-inch reflector telescope, the hard aluminum casing, the well-oiled eyepiece knob. To a certain extent, the instrument was to thank for his comeback.

For two weeks after his blowup with Jessica, he had stayed away from school. During that time, he had done nothing: he had not cried; he hadn’t thought about who had killed Alice. Indeed, he had hardly thought about Alice at all, or rather, he had thought about nothing else, but without the comfort of allowing her sweet face to enter his mind. He had blocked every happy thought associated with her, picturing only her coffin, the gun, the weight of her dead body when he had accidentally kicked it in the dark bedroom. He had censored his thoughts out of shame—not just because he felt partially responsible for her death.

All his life people had told Michael what a cool guy he was. And in his immense humility—what a laugh—he had always lowered his eyes and shook his head, while at the same time thinking that he must, in fact, be quite extraordinary. He excelled in school. He worked hard. He helped his mother with the bills. He helped lots of people with their homework. He did all kinds of things for all kinds of people who weren’t quite so neat as himself.

That was the crux of the matter right there. He performed these good works, but he did so mainly to reinforce his image. This did not mean he was a completely evil person—only a human being. The day of the funeral had made that all too clear, although it had taken him a while to assimilate the full meaning of his behavior. He had handled every sort of emotion since he was a child by bottling it up. But grief—crushing grief—had shattered Mr. Far-out Michael Olson. He hadn’t been able to handle it at all. He had lashed out like a baby, attacking Jessica just when she was hurting the most. Yeah, he was human all right, and still in high school.

Exactly two weeks after the party, he’d had a sudden urge to drive out to the desert. The evening had been clear, the orange sand and rocks sharp and warm. When the sun had set and the stars came out, he lay on his back on top of a hill, miles from the nearest person, letting his thoughts wander the course of the Milky Way. Perhaps he had dozed. Maybe he had dreamed. He remembered lying there a long time, enjoying the first real rest he’d experienced since Alice’s death. A calm, solid strength seemed to flow into him from the ground, and it was as if
something
else had touched him, something deep and powerful. He would have said it had come from above, from the stars, had it not touched so close to his heart. To this day, he couldn’t say what had happened, except that for approximately two hours he had felt loved, completely loved.

By
whom
or
what
he didn’t know.

Michael had never thought much about God. At a fairly early age, he had come to the conclusion that there might be one, but that it would be a sheer waste of time trying to prove it. He still held that opinion. But now he did feel there was
something
wonderful out there in the cosmos, or inside him—either place, it didn’t matter. His feeling was more intuitive than logical. Then again, it could have been a desperate invention of his overly grieved heart, but he didn’t care. It gave him comfort. It allowed him to remember Alice as she had been, without feeling pain.

When he had finally returned home that night, he dreamed of the girl he had dreamed about a couple of weeks before Alice had died. He had been on the same bridge, the same blue water flowing beneath him, the identical desert in front, the forest at his back behind the girl. Again, she had not allowed him to turn to see her, again saying something about a veil. But she had leaned close to his ear, to where he had felt the brush of her hair against his cheek. It had been the touch of her hair that had awakened him. He wished it hadn’t. She had been on the verge of revealing something to him, he was sure, something different.

He had started on his telescope the next day, buying the grinding kit for the mirror from a downtown shop, purchasing other accessories as he went along: the aluminum tubing, the rack-and-pinion casing for the oculars, the eyepieces themselves—constructing the stand and clock drive from scratch. This was by no means his first experience at building a telescope. He had put together a six-inch reflector in eighth grade. But doubling the size of the aperture had squared the complexity of the undertaking. Yet working on it did give him much satisfaction.

He returned to school, and the telescope became central to his MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors) project. He designed it with an unusually short focal point, making it poor for high-resolution work—such as would be required for studying the moon and the planets—but giving it a wonderfully wide field of view, ideal for examining huge star groups. He explained to his project adviser that he was looking for comets. That was only a half-truth.

He was actually searching for a
new
comet.

It was a fact that the majority of comets were discovered by amateur astronomers working with fairly modest equipment. The odds against his making such a discovery, however, even after a dozen years of careful observation in the darkest desert nights, should have been a thousand to one. It was a strange universe out there.

Then just two weeks ago, searching from the top of the hill where he had begun his comeback, he charted a faint wisp of light close to the star Sirius that had—as far as he could tell—never been charted before.

He had followed the light for several days, and “followed” was the word for it; the light was moving. It wasn’t a nebula or a galaxy or globular cluster. It was definitely a comet. Perhaps it was
his
comet. He needed to complete a more detailed positional record before he could submit a formal application to a recognized observatory requesting verification of his discovery.

Unfortunately, the recent poor weather was frustrating his efforts. It had been cloudy in the desert the whole past week, and there was no way he could see the sky clearly in the city with all the background light. He was anxious to get on with the next step, but he was learning patience. It had been out there for billions of years—it would wait a few more days for him.

If it was a new comet, he would have the privilege of naming it. Probably that was why he had been whistling while cleaning his telescope. The weird thing was that when he had started building his new instrument, he had known he would find a comet.

He had also gone out for the basketball team. Their Old Coach had moved onto bigger things in the college ranks and their new coach was a bimbo, but Michael was having fun. Their first league game of the season would be a week from Friday. And the next game, the Friday after that, would be at home, right before the homecoming dance. It would be a good opportunity to show off his new jump shot.

Yet with all this new outlook on life, Michael had not given in to the common consensus that Alice McCoy had committed suicide. He could understand how others believed so, and he no longer blamed them for holding such a belief, but he was, if anything, more certain than ever that she had been murdered. Perhaps it was another intuitive conviction. Or maybe it was the product of dwelling too long on an idea that had come to haunt him:

Whoever had murdered once, could murder again.

Michael left his telescope in the garage and went into the kitchen. There was a call he had been meaning to make. Last night, while falling asleep, he suddenly remembered something very important about the way Alice had painted.

He dialed the police station, identified himself, and asked for Lieutenant Keller. He had not spoken to the detective since the day of the funeral.

“Mike,” Keller said with a note of pleasure, but without surprise, when he came on the line. “How have you been?”

“Very well, sir, thank you. How are you?”

“Good. What can I do for you?”

“First I’d like to ask if there have been any new developments on the McCoy case?”

Keller paused. “I’m afraid not, Mike. As far as this department is concerned, Alice McCoy’s death has officially been ruled a suicide.”

The news was not unexpected, but nevertheless disappointing. “Does that mean you’ve completely closed the book on the matter? I think I might have another lead.”

“Did you obtain the full name of that boyfriend of Alice’s you mentioned?”

“No, I haven’t. No one seems to know anything about him. But I haven’t given up trying. I think long enough has gone by that I can talk directly to Alice’s sister, Polly, about the guy.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Keller was being polite, that was all. Michael knew he still thought he was dealing with a distraught teenager. It bothered Michael, but not that much.

“What’s your lead?”

“Do you have a CRT on your desk?” Michael asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you access the autopsy report on Alice McCoy?”

“Yes, but as I’ve already explained, I cannot divulge that information without written permission from the family.”

“I understand. But I’m not asking you to let me look at it right now, I’m just asking you to look at it.”

Keller chewed on that a moment. He seemed to sigh beneath his breath. “Hold a minute and I’ll punch up the record.” Michael listened as the detective tapped on a keyboard. It took Keller three or four minutes to get to the autopsy, an unusually long time. He was probably rereading it first. Finally he said, “I’m looking at it.”

“Who performed it?”

“I told you, I can’t—”

“How can the doctor’s name be confidential?” Michael interrupted. “The list of the city’s coroners is public knowledge.” Poor logic, but his tone was persuasive. Keller admitted something significant.

“As a matter of fact the autopsy wasn’t performed by a city coroner, but by a paid consultant.”

“Why?”

“Our own people -were probably busy at the time. Look, if it will make you happy, the gentleman’s name was Dr. Gin Kuwait.”

Michael jotted down the information. “Do you know his phone number?”

“Mike—”

“All right, never mind. But let me ask you some-thing else. You said that Alice’s, Nick’s, and Kats’ fingerprints were all on the gun. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Does the report state which hand the fingerprints were from?”

“It does.”

“Which hand was Alice holding the gun in?”

“You were there. She had it in her right hand.”

“Were any fingerprints from her left hand on the gun?”

“Not that I can tell from this report. What’s your point?”

“Alice McCoy was left-handed.”

Again Keller paused. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I remembered last night how she used to paint. She always held the brush in her left hand. Interesting, don’t you think?”

Keller sounded slightly off balance. “Yes, yes, it is. But it doesn’t prove anything. She could just as well have held the gun in her right hand and put it in her mouth.”

“Are you right-handed, Lieutenant?”

“I am, yes.”

“If you were going to kill yourself, which hand would you hold your gun in?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“I know it sounds morbid,” Michael said quickly. “But think about it for a moment. Even if a girl is about to commit suicide, she would still handle the gun carefully. She would be worried about getting off a clean shot, of doing it right the first time. She would be nervous. She wouldn’t hold the thing in her weak hand.”

“Now you’re getting into the psychology of someone suffering from depression. For all either of us knows, she could have intentionally done everything backward.”

“She wasn’t depressed!” Michael snapped, before catching himself. “When you go home tonight, think about it for a while. That’s all I ask.”

“All right, Mike, I’ll do that. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Could I swing by and pick up that permission form you keep saying I need?”

“I have to go in a few minutes, but I can leave it at the front desk for you.”

“I’d appreciate that. One last thing. Was Alice’s right hand dusted for prints?”

“I can’t tell from this report. But during the party, she could have shook hands with any number of people. Such prints would have been meaningless.”

“I wonder,” Michael said.

They said their good-byes, both sides promising to be in touch. It was four o’clock; the sun set early this time of year. Michael dialed a number that gave up-to-the-minute weather reports. The word was that it would be raining again in the desert. He decided to finish cleaning his telescope and put it away.

The garage was somewhat stuffy. He pushed open the door, deeply breathing the crisp evening air. It was then he noticed the car parked up the street.

Michael had never seen Jessica leave school in her car, but he remembered the silver-blue Celica in her driveway the evening of their date. This car appeared to be the identical make, and someone was sitting in the front seat. Because of the lighting, however, he couldn’t tell who it was, whether it was a male or female even. Well, he had just the thing to solve the mystery. He positioned his telescope in the driveway behind a bush. With a little maneuvering, he was able to see the person between the branches without being seen. A moment of focusing presented him with a clear view of every detail on Jessica Hart’s face.