Dead Man Waltzing (3 page)

“I don’t think so, although she’d ordered a bottle of champagne.”

“Quite the ritzy lunch,” I observed.

“She wanted to celebrate. She’d signed a contract for her book on very favorable terms, and she wanted to celebrate.”

“What book?”

“A memoir. I believe she was calling it
Step by Step
.”

“So what happened then?”

“I kissed her and sat and we had some champagne.”

“Both of you?”

He nodded.

Scratch the champagne as the poison source, I thought.

Without further cue from me, Maurice continued. “We talked for a while before ordering—and then I ordered the ginger-squash soup and the portabella-spinach ravioli. Corinne had a salad and an asparagus–goat cheese quiche, if I recall correctly. We shared a slice of a flourless chocolate torte for dessert.”

Sharing a dessert . . . It sounded like Maurice had been considerably more intimate with Corinne Blakely than I realized. How interesting. I left that thought for the moment. “And she ate some of everything before she . . . she had her attack?”

“Yes.” He set his glass in the sink. “I really can’t believe she was murdered, Anastasia, much less poisoned. Maybe the police have simply got it wrong?”

I didn’t figure Detective Lissy would waste his time looking for a murderer unless he had unambiguous evidence that a murder had been committed. “Did Corinne leave the table at any time?”

“She left to visit the ladies’ room before dessert.”

“How long was she gone?”

“Good grief, Anastasia, I wasn’t timing her.”

“Long enough to bump into someone and chat?” I persisted.

“Maybe ten or twelve minutes?”

Maurice smoothed a weary hand over his hair and I realized he must be exhausted. “Let’s sleep on it,” I said, handing him the extra pillow and a blanket I’d taken from the linen closet. The air-conditioning kept it chilly. “I even changed the bed for you.”

That got a small smile before worry cloaked his face again. “Perhaps I should visit the police station now and get this straightened out.”

“In the morning,” I said. “When you’re sober. With a lawyer.”

Chapter 3

I wanted to accompany Maurice to the police station in the morning, but he refused.

“I’ll be in and out in under half an hour,” he said with a confidence brought on by a good night’s sleep, a handful of painkillers with an oatmeal breakfast, a washed and ironed shirt (I’d tossed his shirt in the wash after he’d gone to sleep), and his white hair slicked back as usual, with a handful of my mousse. He complained the vanilla scent wasn’t manly, but lodgers at the Graysin Motel can’t be too choosy about their complimentary toiletries.

“Don’t go without a lawyer,” I said, already dressed in my dance clothes to teach my Ballroom Aerobics class. It was the only class at Graysin Motion that didn’t teach competition-type or social ballroom dancing and, wouldn’t you know it, it was our most popular class. I had a full studio every Wednesday and Friday at seven a.m., and on Tuesday and Thursday over lunch.

“That won’t be necessary,” Maurice said with a wave of his hand. “I’m innocent.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “That’s not enough for Detective Lissy.” I handed him the business card I’d dug up earlier. “Here. Take this. Drake is a high-powered criminal defense lawyer. He’ll—”

“I am not a criminal!”

“He’ll help you.” My uncle Nico had sent Phineas Drake to rescue me when the police thought I killed Rafe. Drake made me nervous—he’d hinted that he could set up anyone I wanted as Rafe’s murderer—but he got results. “He’s expensive, though.”

“Money isn’t an issue.” Maurice waved the card away and I jammed it into the key pocket of my spandex shorts.

I wished I could say, “Money isn’t an issue.” Could be that cruise lines paid more than I realized. “Good, then. Call me as soon as you’re finished with the police, okay?”

Maurice smiled and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, Anastasia.”

“Sure.” I shrugged it off, embarrassed by his gratitude. “What are friends for?”

* * *

An hour and a half later, sweaty from the high-voltage class, I walked into my office to find Tav sitting at his desk. I smiled involuntarily at the sight of his dark head bent in concentration over a spreadsheet. Octavio Acosta, Rafe’s half brother, had inherited Rafe’s share of the business. Instead of selling out, he had elected to stay on as my partner, for a while at least, and he handled the numbers end of the business that I hated. In his “real” life, he owned an import-export company in Argentina and was spending a year in the States to set up an outlet or branch or outpost in the northern Virginia area. It kept him busy, and he didn’t spend much time at his desk here.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked.

He looked up with a smile. His lean face with its strong nose and brows, dark eyes glinting with humor, and sensuous mouth was disturbingly attractive. His black hair was a bit longer than it had been when he arrived almost two months ago, curling halfway down his collar; maybe he hadn’t found a good barber yet.

“Stacy. I looked into the ballroom, but you did not see me. You were leading the ladies around the room in a circle, doing a leg exercise of some sort.”

His sexy Argentinean accent, so like Rafe’s, made me tingle. “Tango lunges,” I said. Nodding at the papers spread on his desk, I asked. “So, are we solvent?”

“Barely.” His brows twitched closer together. “The trip to Blackpool took a big bite out of our cash on hand.”

The Blackpool Dance Festival in England was the most prestigious international professional dance competition of the year. Couples competed by invitation only, and wins at Blackpool could significantly boost ballroom dancers’ reputations and, thus, their bottom line via increasing numbers of students, endorsement deals, invitations to perform on
Ballroom with the B-Listers
, and the like. When Rafe got killed, I’d had to find a new partner quickly. I’d been lucky that Vitaly Voloshin had left his dance partner in Russia when he moved to nearby Baltimore to be with his life partner. We’d paired up, practiced like demons, and won trophies for our waltzing and quickstepping. Given that we’d had only a few weeks together, I was happy with the outcome and looking forward to next year’s festival.

“We had to go,” I told Tav.

“I know. But some belt-tightening measures are in order now.”

I wasn’t fond of belt tightening. I liked buying new competition dresses, bling, and accessories. I plopped onto the love seat by the window, idly watching tourists crowding the sidewalks of Old Town.

“Possibly you could share a hotel room with someone at the Virginia DanceSport competition.”

I wrinkled my nose with distaste. Rafe and I had shared a room when we went to competitions. Vitaly and I didn’t bunk together, of course, so the studio’s hotel bill for competitions had doubled. I sighed. “If I have to.”

“There is a huge bridal show coming up,” Tav said.

“Thinking of getting married?”

“
Por Dios
, no!”

His expression was comical, and I laughed. I realized I didn’t know whether Tav had ever been married. We’d met under intense circumstances and gotten to know each other on some levels pretty quickly, but once we became coowners of Graysin Motion, a certain awkwardness had come in. Having learned my lesson about being involved with a business partner from the difficulties that resulted when Rafe and I broke up but still had the studio to run together, I was reluctant to become too close to Tav. Dating was out of the question, although something about him—his scent, his intensity—made me far too aware of him. Not that he’d ever asked me out, I thought with irrational pique.

“Why the interest in bridal shows, then?”

“I thought that Graysin Motion might purchase space and use the convention as an opportunity to advertise ballroom dance lessons. Encourage brides and grooms and their attendants to learn to waltz for their wedding receptions.”

“We could even offer a gift registry, where people could buy the happy couple dance lessons,” I said, enthused by the idea. “That’s very clever, Tav.” We’d always had a trickle of business from engaged couples hoping to shine on the dance floor at their receptions, but I’d never thought of specifically going after wedding business.

He grinned, teeth very white against his tanned skin. “Advertising is one of my gifts. Like soccer and—”

I stopped myself and him before I could speculate about his other possible gifts. “Did you hear about Corinne Blakely’s death?”

“No. Who is she?”

I gave him the twenty-five-words-or-less summary of her career. “There’s no one bigger in ballroom dance circles,” I finished.

Tav looked a question at me, clearly wondering why I was giving him the life story of a woman he’d never meet.

“She died yesterday,” I said.

“I am sor—”

“The police think she was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Dismay clouded his brow. “Stacy, please do not tell me—”

“Maurice was with her when she died,” I blurted. “He’s at the police station now.”

Running a hand down his face, Tav said, “That is all the studio needs—more publicity related to murder.”

“I’m sure the studio won’t be drawn into it,” I said, hoping I was right. “Maurice will tell the police about lunching with Corinne and taking her to the hospital, and they’ll thank him and wave good-bye.”

The phone rang.

Happy for the interruption, I lunged for it. “Graysin Motion.”

“Anastasia?”

I winced at the distress in Maurice’s voice. “Are you okay?”

“Perhaps you could call your lawyer friend for me?”

* * *

I put in a call to Phineas Drake, but his secretary said he was in New York for the day. Asking her to have him call me as soon as possible, I said a hurried good-bye to Tav, who was headed into D.C. to look at spaces-to-let for housing his new store, and ran downstairs to shower and change.

Seeing the brick police building on Mill Street again made my tummy flutter nervously. Reminding myself that no one suspected me of anything this time, I climbed the shallow stairs and pushed into the crowded waiting room. I avoided eye contact with the people waiting to submit forms for background checks, get fingerprinted, or report crimes, and marched straight to the counter to ask the bored-looking officer for Maurice Goldberg. In the event, Maurice exited through a door to the left of the counter before the officer could pick up the phone to locate him.

“Maurice!” I hurried to him and gave him a big hug. He looked worried, but not like he’d been beaten with hoses, stretched on the rack, or forced to listen to Justin Bieber albums. “They’re letting you go?”

“For the time being.” He sounded like he thought the police would drag him from his bed at midnight and toss him into jail.

“Did they read you your rights?”

He nodded, a little dazed. “Just like on television.”

Not good. Detective Lissy must consider him a real suspect.

“Let’s talk elsewhere, hm?” He herded me toward the door; I knew just how he felt, since I’d been in his shoes.

We emerged, blinking, into bright sunlight and energy-sapping humidity. Old Town Alexandria is a lovely area with a fascinating history, but situated as it is, smack-dab against the Potomac River, the summer air is frequently heavier than a wet towel. By the time we’d walked the half block to where I’d parked my yellow Beetle, we were both sweating. I leaned my face into the stream of air-conditioning after starting the car, letting it dry my damp hairline.

“Home?” I asked, pulling away from the curb.

“I’d rather stop by Rinny’s place, if you don’t mind, Anastasia,” Maurice said.

I darted a quick look at him. “Why?”

“I did some thinking while waiting for the police officers to interview me,” he said. “And it crossed my mind that
if
Corinne were murdered, it might have something to do with her new book.”

“Really?”

“She was laughing about it, but nervous, too, when we lunched. ‘Maury,’ she said, ‘I’ve been keeping secrets for fifty years and it’s time to speak up. I’m not getting any younger, you know. I could pop off any day.’ She laughed like it was a joke, but look what’s happened.” Maurice tapped a nervous finger against his thigh.

“You think she was murdered over a book?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice.

“Stranger things have happened, Anastasia.” The tension vibrating in Maurice’s voice told me he was pinning his hopes on this new theory.

“I suppose so,” I said, figuring it couldn’t hurt to play along for a bit. “Which way?”

He gave me directions to Corinne Blakely’s house off of the Mount Vernon Parkway. As we sped south with the Potomac glinting on our left, I asked, “What kind of secrets?”

“The usual,” he said, with a ghost of his insouciant grin. “Infidelity, skullduggery, crimes of passion.”

“Related to ballroom dance? You sound like you’re describing the action on Tortuga Island.”

“Ah, Anastasia. You find pirates in all walks of life.” He pointed to the right and I turned, thinking the road he indicated would lead to a neighborhood. Instead, it turned out to be a driveway leading to a mansion—there was no other word for it—that occupied what Realtors called a “parklike setting” and had, I imagined, splendid views of the Potomac River from the front windows.

“Corinne Blakely lived here?” I cut the engine.

“She married well. And more than once. This house belonged to her first husband, who died only two years after they got married. Some tropical fever. His money came from hotels.” Maurice unfolded himself from the front seat and strode toward the door, seemingly completely at home.

“Wait.” I hurried after him, hampered by my strappy sandals. “What are we going to do—knock on the door, hope someone answers, and say we want to come in to—what?—search for a manuscript?”

“Corinne lived alone,” he said, unperturbed by my gentle sarcasm. “There won’t be anyone here, unless the housekeeper’s around.”

“So we’re going to break in? That’s so much better.” I’d ditched the “gentle” and moved on to unadulterated sarcasm.

“I thought we’d use the key,” Maurice said, producing one from his pocket.

“Wha—? How?” I eyed Maurice uncomfortably. He hadn’t lifted the key from Corinne as she lay unconscious on the restaurant floor, had he?

“Tut-tut, Anastasia,” he said, reading my expression. “I would never. No, I neglected to give this back.”

“Give it back?” I gaped at him. “You used to live here? You and Corinne—”

“Were married for about ten minutes in 1964,” he said.

I stopped at the base of four marble steps that led to the double front doors inset with stained glass. Maurice kept climbing. “You were married to Corinne Blakely?”

He looked over his shoulder at me. “I was twenty-two. She was twenty-four. I was her rebound relationship after Charles died. Or so she told me when she divorced me eight months later.”

I kept staring at him. A flush warmed his tanned cheeks and he turned away to fumble with the key. “I never knew,” I breathed.

“It’s ancient history . . . as relevant as the Phoenicians and the Assyrians or some such. A few people knew, but it wasn’t common knowledge. It was over so fast. . . .” He shrugged. The lock clicked.

I mounted the steps to stand beside him and he paused with his hand on the knob. “The police?”

“Yes, they know.”

“That’s why they’re looking at you so hard. The divorced husband with a grudge.”

“The divorce happened in the Dark Ages, and I never had a grudge against Rinny.” Maurice sounded unusually testy. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We were too young. I was too young.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean
I
thought you held a grudge, just that the police—”

“We stayed friends,” he said, tacitly accepting my apology, “throughout her marriages. She shucked husband number six some twelve or fourteen months back. Constancy was never Rinny’s strong suit,” he said with a reminiscent smile.

“I’d think the police would be more interested in her last husband than in you,” I said.

“He’s a Hungarian count or Latvian baron or something. He returned to Europe after Corinne tossed him over.” Maurice looked around. “Let’s go in, Anastasia, before the neighbors start to wonder.”