Swift Edge (2 page)

Gigi’s desk is to the left of the door, while mine runs perpendicular to it in the back right corner of the office. Our different styles have resulted in a schizophrenic decor. Think Oscar and Felix, or maybe even Turner and Hooch. Her desk is littered with kitschy doodads, while mine is organized, uncluttered, and clean. She has a poster of kittens hanging behind her and a life-sized plastic and fake fur bison head named Bernie, a memento from her first undercover job with Swift Investigations. I have a window with wooden blinds. I missed the no-nonsense air the office exuded before I was forced to accept Gigi as a partner five months ago but had to admit the place seemed warmer somehow.

“Where’s Kendall?” Gigi asked, apparently noticing her daughter’s absence from the card table we’d set up as her desk.

“Not here.” And thank God for that. School would start up again a week from today, and I was counting the minutes. I was also busy thinking up reasons why the girl couldn’t work here over the summer.

Gigi dialed the phone and reached her daughter, issuing a gentle command to “Hurry in to the office, sugah. Did your alarm not go off again?”

That would put the fear of God into a lazy teen, all right. I refrained from rolling my eyes and switched on my computer to see what it could tell me about Dmitri Fane. When I’d asked Dara Peterson for a picture of Dmitri, she’d said, “Can’t you Google him?”

Apparently, I could. Hundreds of articles and photos popped up. I clicked on one at random and studied the photo of a handsome man—Dara had told me he was seven years her senior at twenty-six—with dark hair and a blazing white smile. Tall, with broad shoulders and slim hips in his form-fitting skating costume, he balanced Dara over his head with one hand. She didn’t even look scared. Okay, maybe pair skating was more dangerous than I’d realized. Personally, I’d’ve been scared just to gad about in public in a gauze and sequins costume like the red one spray-painted on Dara.

I skimmed the article, which seemed to be about a judging controversy, but didn’t learn any more about Fane than Dara had already told me. He was born in Russia, she’d said. His mother was a figure skater and he didn’t know who his father was. He got the name Fane when his mother married an American skater, Stuart Fane, who adopted the four-year-old Dmitri and moved them all to Detroit. Irena and Stuart Fane opened a skating school, and young Dmitri was an early standout. His first partner wasn’t up to his level, though, and he agreed to give Dara a tryout when her coach approached him. He moved to Colorado Springs at age eighteen to train with the eleven-year-old Dara. Their success as a pair team was the stuff of legend (according to Dara). An Olympic gold would be the icing on the cake (and bring in big sponsorship bucks, Dara admitted). Dmitri worked part-time as a waiter and bartender for a catering company to help fund his training costs.

I’d start by interviewing the coach, Yuliya Bobrova, I decided, then follow that up with a swing past Fane’s condo—maybe he’d answer the bell when I rang—and a conversation with his employers, Czarina Catering. Sounded Russian. If none of that gave me a lead, I’d call up Mama Fane and see if maybe Dmitri had returned to the family homestead. Detroit in January sounded miserable, so I hoped I wouldn’t have to travel there to hunt for the skater.

I had tucked my notepad into my purse and was reaching for my jacket when the door opened and Little Miss Tardy sauntered in, wiping pink booted feet on the mat.

“Kendall, baby, I was worried,” Gigi said, coming around her desk to give the petite blonde a hug.

Kendall avoided the hug by shrugging out of her coat. She mumbled something that might have been “Whatever” and plopped into the folding chair set up at her card table desk. Her skintight jeans and tight pink sweater made her look older than fifteen. “Something stinks,” she observed.

“That would be the coffeemaker you ruined,” I said, gesturing toward the trash can.

My acid tone got me narrowed eyes from Kendall and a reproachful look from Gigi. “I’m sure it was an accident,” the latter said.

“Yeah, the third accident in three weeks.”

“I don’t like coffee anyway,” Kendall said.

“It was for the clients, sugah,” Gigi said.

“Haven’t seen too many of those.” Snide triumph colored her voice.

“As a matter of fact, we got a new client this morning,” I told Gigi, turning my back on Kendall.

Gigi clapped her hands together but stopped short of saying, “Oh, goody!” “What’s the case?” she asked instead, grabbing up her steno pad.

“I’m—we’re—looking for a man named Fane,” I said. “He’s an ice-skater.”

“
An
ice-skater?”

The exclamation came from behind me, and I turned to face an animated Kendall, a version of the girl I hadn’t seen before. Her pretty blue eyes were alight with interest, and her porcelain complexion—no zits for this teen—was becomingly tinged with pink. She was going to be a heartbreaker when she lost the braces and the attitude.

“Calling Dmitri Fane
an
ice-skater’s like saying Miley Cyrus is just
a
singer or”—she paused, obviously grasping for a comparison someone as old and dim as I might get—“Eisenhower’s just
a
scientist. He’s—”

“I think you mean Einstein.”

“Kendall has a poster of him on her wall,” Gigi put in.

“Einstein?” I couldn’t resist.

“Mo-om.” Kendall tossed her long blond hair. “He’s like the most awesome pair skater
ever
!”

“He gets some help from Dara Peterson, doesn’t he?” I asked, amused by her reaction.

“She’s a bitch.”

“Kendall!” Gigi gasped. “I don’t like to hear—”

“She’s our client,” I said. “Where do you know—” Then I remembered. Kendall was a figure skater, and a pretty good one, according to Gigi. She trained at the World Arena Ice Hall, where Dara had said she and Dmitri practiced. “Do you know them?” I asked.

“Of course.” Only a teenager talking to an adult could infuse two words with that much scorn. A speculative look crossed her face. “I know someone who will be happy if Dmitri stays gone, too.”

“Who?”

“Trevor Anthony,” Kendall said. “He was Dara’s partner before Dmitri came on the scene. Dmitri totally stole her away. He skates with Angel Pfeffer now, but she falls all the time on the throw triple salchow. They’ll make the U.S. team, though, if Peterson and Fane aren’t at Nationals.” Changing tactics, the girl smiled at me—a first—revealing pink and white bands on her braces. “Can I help with the case?”

“No,” her mother and I said in unison.

“It might be dangerous,” Gigi added.

To our reputation, I thought. “I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late for my interview,” I said, happy to cede Gigi the task of quelling her daughter’s newly found ambition to be a PI. “I’m meeting Fane’s coach in half an hour.”

“Bobrova?” Kendall’s smirk was knowing. “Good luck with that.”

2

A skater clad in leggings, a turtleneck, and gloves twirled in the middle of the ice when I arrived at the World Arena Ice Hall, where the Broadmoor Skating Club trained. A low building with squat sculptures of Zamboni ice-making machines out front, it had a reception area with a cheery fireplace, a reception desk—unoccupied—and a store selling skating gear and souvenirs. I’d turned right out of the reception area and found a rink, only to be told by a hulking skater with a Jason mask and a hockey stick that I needed the Olympic rink. Silly me, thinking an ice rink was an ice rink. Finding the correct rink on the other side of the lobby, I’d circled around to a swinging gate that barred access to the ice. Now, gazing across the sheet of blue-white ice in the arena smelling of cold metal and damp, shivering, I watched the skater reach behind her to grab the blade of her skate and pull her foot up toward her head. Ow. Auburn pigtails stuck out from either side of her head, making her look like Pippi Longstocking. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. She was amazing.

“Dat is not a spin! Dat is a disaster,” croaked a Russian-accented voice.

The skater returned her foot to the ice, slowed, and hung her head as a dumpy figure stomped toward her across the ice, leaning heavily on a cane. What seemed to be a black cape obscured most of her shape and swirled around calves that disappeared into fur-trimmed ankle boots.

“Lengthen your spine, so.” She prodded the girl in the back with the tip of her cane. The girl stood up straighter. “Your line must be elegant. Elegant! Again, from the transition.”

The girl nodded and skated toward the far corner of the ice. Seizing the opportunity, I called over to Bobrova. “Excuse me, I’m—”

She turned her head and glared. Her eyes seemed black from this distance, set under heavy, almost straight brows, drawn together in a frown. “Dis is a private training session. You go.” She turned back to study the skater, now gliding on one foot with the other leg stretched out behind her, never doubting that I’d obey. Well, she might be Empress of the Ice Rink, but she wasn’t the boss of me, so I pushed through the metal gate and made my way onto the ice. Whoa! My right foot threatened to slip out from under me and I windmilled my arms to balance myself. When I felt steadier, I slid one foot forward cautiously, then the other. In this shuffle-step manner I made it to within a couple of feet of Bobrova. She was turned away from me, focused on the skater who was doing some fancy footwork on a diagonal line across the rink.

“Deeper knees,” Bobrova called, thumping her cane for emphasis.

Resisting the temptation to say “Boo,” I got her attention with a moderate “Ms. Bobrova?”

She pivoted to face me, scowling. “I told you to go.” Up close, her face was deeply lined and framed by hair as gray as a Moscow winter cut bluntly at jaw length and threaded with white. She was about Dara Peterson’s height, but stout around the middle with short arms and legs. I was pretty sure she was a hobbit, only not so happy, and that her flat-heeled boots hid hairy toes. My imagination couldn’t stretch far enough to see her in spandex and sequins, doing loop-de-loops around the ice with a handsome partner. Yet Dara had told me in an awed voice that Bobrova and Petrov had dominated pair skating in the sixties and seventies and that Bobrova had trained more world and Olympic champions than any other coach in the business.

I tried a smile. “My name’s Charlotte Swift. I’m a private investigator. I’m here about Dmitri Fane.”

She ignored my proffered hand, saying only, “Bah!” Having assessed me with one acute look, she returned her gaze to the young skater.

I let my hand fall. “Does that mean you’re not worried about him?”

“Why should I worry about Dmitri?” A trace of her native Russia gave the words a guttural feel, but her English was excellent.

“Hasn’t he been missing since Saturday?”

She shrugged. “He is a grown man. It is not for me to keep track of him. What’s the saying? It is not my day to watch him.”

Despite her words, I caught an undertone of tension in her voice and the tautness of her jaw. I wished she would look at me so I could read her expression, but she kept her eyes fixed on the skater.

“You seem strangely unconcerned about the possibility of him missing the Olympic trials next week,” I said.

“Dmitri will be here. He always turns up. I told Dara not to worry, but that girl does not listen. On the ice—nerves of steel. Off it—” She made a fluttering gesture with a surprisingly dainty hand.

Dara hadn’t seemed nervous or flighty to me. In fact, she’d come across as determined and at least as angry as she was worried. “When you say ‘He always turns up,’ does that mean he’s gone missing before?” I asked.

“Outside edge,” Bobrova called to the skater, who landed a jump so close that bits of ice sprayed my brown wool trousers. “Sometimes a man has things to take care of,” she said. “Merely because he is out of touch for a few days does not mean he is missing.”

“What kind of things does Dmitri have to take care of?”

“
Da, da!
The Ina Bauer is beautiful, Nicole,” she said, swiveling to keep the skater in view as she glided across the ice with her front knee bent and her foot turned to the left with the other leg behind her, the foot facing right. Her back arced deeply. My ankles ached just watching her. Suddenly, my ankle hurt for real as something whacked it, knocking me off balance. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of Bobrova’s cane and the swirl of her cape’s hem as she stepped back so I wouldn’t take her down with me. I landed on my tailbone with a crack that jolted up my spine to my head. Fighting to keep back tears, I lay still for a moment, until the cold and wet seeping through my clothes prompted movement. Gingerly, I pushed myself to a sitting position. Damn, I felt shaky.

“I am so sorry. Such an unfortunate accident,” Bobrova said, shaking her cane as if to punish it. “Here.” She reached down her free hand and hauled me to my feet with a strong grip for a seventy-year-old. “Did you hit your head?” She peered into my eyes, looking for signs of concussion.

I let go of her hand as Nicole skated to a stop beside me. “Are you okay?” the girl asked with far more concern than Bobrova. “Let me help you to the side.”

“Nyet,”
Bobrova said. “Your short program needs work.”

Nicole looked at me, then at her coach, clearly torn. A gentle swell of breasts under her turtleneck told me she was closer to Kendall’s age than the twelve I originally took her for, but she seemed kind, totally lacking the attitude and insecurity of Gigi’s daughter.

“I’m fine,” I told her. I took two steps to demonstrate. “But thank you. Should I have heard of you?” I asked before she could skate away.

With a shy smile, she said, “I’m Nicole Lewis.”

“Current world junior ladies champion,” Bobrova said, shooing Nicole away with a brisk flick of her hand. “Soon to be U.S. senior ladies gold medalist if she will focus, focus, focus.” Her voice rose on each repetition, and the girl ducked her head as the words bombarded her.

“You go now,” Bobrova told me. Without waiting to see if I complied, she stalked across the ice toward Nicole, as sure-footed as a polar bear on the slick surface—and just about as friendly.