Dark Turns

by Cate Holahan

  “You found the body?”

  Battle’s cell rang. He put up a finger before digging into his pants pocket. “This must be the dean.”

  The cop stared at Battle, as though willing him to hang up. Nia doubted he had the authority to demand it. Police on private campuses were akin to security guards. They observed and reported, not enforced.

  “I saw the girl’s hair in the water and then my boss ran to pull her out.”

  The officer shuddered. He looked over his shoulder, up the hill.

  “Aren’t you going to check on her?”

  “I’m just here to secure the scene. Make sure that you don’t leave. The police will want—”

  A siren interrupted. Blue-and-red lights flashed atop two gray cruisers with “State Police” emblazoned on the side. Another blue sedan, without the lettering, followed the police vehicles down the road leading to the boathouse. The cars each rolled to a stop beside the campus officer’s golf cart. The big guns had arrived.

  A pair of male officers exited the first car. Badges adorned their hats, sleeves, and even belt buckles. Guns pressed against blue button-downs. More cops stepped out of the other cars. Their uniforms didn’t match. Two men sported cargo pants and hard plastic briefcases. Notepads, larger than the guns hitting their hips, protruded from side pockets. The other two men wore straight-legged pants and ties.

  The campus cop moved to the side, a small kid giving the football team free reign of the lunchroom.

  “Where is the body?” one of the men in cargo pants asked. Nia and the campus cop simultaneously pointed toward Battle.

  Officers brushed past them to the water. A man in a suit brandished a badge and waved Battle over. Battle slipped the cell into his pocket. “Dean Stirk is on her way.”

  The officers didn’t seem to care. They surrounded him, blocking Nia’s view of her boss.

  The other plainclothes officer stood in front of her. Gray hair sat atop a rugby player face, complete with the broad forehead and crooked nose. A large chest filled out the baggy material of his shirt. He spoke with a Massachusetts accent.

  “Hi. Detective James Kelly. You placed the call?”

  “Yes. My boss and I were walking—”

  He put up his hand like a stop sign. “Let’s start with a name.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Antonia Washington. I’m a new dance teacher here and a resident advisor. My boss, Ted Battle, was taking me on a tour of the campus. He stopped to show me the lake. I saw the hair floating in the water. He ran in to get the girl’s body.”

  “And you immediately called nine-one-one?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said she wasn’t breathing.”

  “It seemed like she’d been in the water awhile. And there are these marks on her throat, about the size of thumbs—”

  “Did anyone try CPR?”

  “There wouldn’t have been a point. I think she’s been strangled—”

  “Officer! Officer!” A middle-aged woman slipped down the embankment. She wore low heels, a pencil skirt, and a sunny tweed jacket, fit more for high tea than a murder scene. Nia recognized Dean Martha Stirk from the high school brochures. The woman reminded her of someone’s proper English grandmother, the kind of older lady who wouldn’t leave the house in sneakers and jeans—even in an emergency.

  “I’m the dean here and I would like to know what’s going on.” Stirk strode toward Nia. One of the officers in a more elaborate uniform stepped in front of her.

  “Ma’am, could you step back, please? We are assessing the situation.”

  “Ted,” Stirk called over the officer’s shoulder. “Is it one of our students?”

  “Ma’am, again, could you step back?”

  The policemen made a tighter circle around Battle.

  “I am the dean.” Stirk folded her arms across her chest. “I demand to know what is going on.”

  “There’s a girl’s body,” the campus cop piped up. He pointed to Nia. “This girl says she was strangled.”

  Stirk’s hand flew to her mouth, as though trying to keep something from escaping. She shook her head. “No. An accident? She must have fallen. Maybe it was dark and she was on the dock by herself. It gets slippery.” Stirk turned her attention to Nia. “Who are you to speculate?”

  The words, or rather their scolding delivery, snapped Nia to attention. “I’m the new dance teacher. The girl has marks—”

  “We don’t know yet how the girl died or if she is a student,” Detective Kelly said. “And no one will start any rumors.”

  “I should hope not.” The dean gestured toward the officers on the lake’s bank. The motion implicated the group rather than indicated the crime scene. “We can’t have anyone making this tragedy worse—”

  “Ma’am, please follow me.” The officer with the wide-brimmed hat brought Stirk and her accusing stare up the hill.

  Nia watched them walk out of earshot, toward the dance building. The ballet studio overlooked the lake. How would she teach tomorrow?

  “Did you have any contact with the body?”

  The question returned her attention to the detective standing in front of her. A small spiral notebook lay in his left hand. A pen was pinched between his right thumb and forefinger.

  “No. My boss pulled her from the water. I didn’t touch her.”

  “So you could tell she was dead?”

  Nia’s eyes fell to her feet. The girl could have been alive, and she hadn’t tried to help. She’d been too busy recoiling from the body. “Not until I saw the bruises. The hair frightened me. I fell backward.”

  Kelly scrawled notes onto his pad. “And did you know the deceased?”

  “No. I just started a few days ago. I don’t really know any of the students yet.”

  Kelly continued writing. He looked at her sideways, keeping his chin pointed toward the paper. “So you’ve never seen her before?”

  “No. Never.”

  Nerves tightened her muscles, sharpening the pain in her heel. She shifted her weight onto her good foot. Detective Kelly seemed to note her uncomfortable body language. He scratched his cheek.

  Nia read the gesture as skeptical. She mentally cursed her heel. The pain had made her seem shifty.

  “When did you arrive on campus?”

  “Saturday morning.”

  “Where were you before that?”

  “My mom’s apartment in Queens.”

  “After arriving on campus, you were here the whole time?”

  “Yes. In the dorms, mostly.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  The barrage of questions felt like an interrogation. Did she need a lawyer? She dismissed the idea. Cops didn’t offer condolences and coffee to people at crime scenes. The detective’s lack of warmth didn’t mean that he thought she had anything to do with the girl’s death.

  “A few kids stopped in to say hello.”

  “Names?”

  “Um, I don’t know full names. Natalie and Jennifer, I think. They’re roommates. And another girl with reddish-brown hair. Sara, maybe? It definitely started with an S. Suzie. Sally. Something like that.”

  The corner of Kelly’s mouth turned down. His expression seemed to admonish her.

  “I would remember her face,” she added.

  Detective Kelly withdrew a business card from his wallet. He held it out to her. “Call us if you think of anything else. And, please, use discretion until the family is notified.”

  Nia slipped the card into her pocket. The detective then asked for a number where she could be reached, in case any more questions occurred to him.

  “And, just to be clear, you’re living in the dorms?”

  His eyebrows slanted toward his nose as though he found something offensive about her living arrangements. She tried to stand up straight, but her injury forced her to adopt the leaned-back posture of a teenager.

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “Right.” He scribbled something on his pad. “We will be in touch. You
’re free to go.”

  Nia glanced back toward Battle. The police still surrounded her boss. They wouldn’t want her to wait for him.

  She limped up the hill, wishing she could run—away from the crime scene, away from Stirk, maybe all the way back to New York.

  3

  Leçon [luh-SAWN]

  Lesson. The daily class taken by dancers throughout their career to continue learning and maintain technical proficiency.

  The students flitted into the room, more starlings than swans in the school’s navy leotards and white tights. They chittered to one another, oblivious to the new assistant teacher waiting to greet them. Perhaps they thought her a classmate who didn’t have the uniform. Unlike the students, Nia wore dance pants snipped at the most unattractive part of the leg, just below the knee. A loose cardigan covered her tank. Battle had urged against the typical leotard in order to avoid “distracting the young men in the room.”

  Only two male students stretched in front of her. Both sported navy spandex pants with fitted white tanks, hemmed at the navel. Their dress emphasized large-limbed bodies, pulled like taffy by teenage hormones. One boy smacked his heel against his butt and grabbed it, stretching out his hamstrings. The move belonged on a soccer field, not in a studio.

  The girls possessed better proportions. Nia examined the young women, determined not to think about what lay beyond the wall of windows behind her. The idea of the lake made her nauseous. She couldn’t risk a glance outside.

  She stacked each student’s body against the ideal type, the way so many teachers had unfavorably compared her own frame. Dance companies required a certain “look.” Ballerinas that didn’t fit the willowy Balanchine aesthetic had a hard time getting into major companies, no matter how talented. She knew all too well how the wrong silhouette could sink a career.

  The girl seated on the floor, clasping her toes, was the antithesis of the Balanchine body. She looked more rower than dancer, with broad shoulders and bulky arms that boasted strength but not grace. If the kid wanted to go pro, she would have to trade weight lifting for Pilates. A pear-shaped student at the barre needed to shave fat from her thighs to achieve the sought-after appearance. Additional leg lifts would do the trick.

  One girl needed to lose significant weight—as much as twenty pounds. The young woman’s leotard fought against her belly as she bent in an off-balance plié and stared out the picture windows. As she rose, she put her hand on her lower back, perhaps aware that her spine had curved to hide the weight of her stomach.

  An Asian student lowered into a split. She possessed the preferred petite body but lacked sufficient muscle. Matchstick legs jutted from her leotard. How would she jump? Nia would encourage strength-building exercises and protein shakes. Two more girls joined the waif, falling into splits that seemed to stretch from wall to wall. Each topped five foot nine at least, too tall for most—if not all—companies.

  Shame forced Nia to look away. She knew her criticism was unfair. There were some things you just couldn’t change.

  A blue glimmer outside the window sneaked into her vision. Stringy dark hair came back to her. She shuddered and rubbed her eyes, erasing the mirage with the pressure of her fingertips, forcing herself to focus on the tall girls.

  So what if the girls would tower over any partner once on their toes? Skill could trump body type, occasionally. Nia’s nonwaif appearance had pluses. When her Achilles wasn’t inflamed, she could jump higher, spin longer, and leap farther than most dancers. She also looked pretty good when the leotard came off—not that anyone had noticed lately.

  Only one young woman fit the Balanchine mold: delicate frame, sloping shoulders, small torso and head, long limbs, flat chest, and little body fat. The ideal type tipped onto her toes, rising four inches to about five foot eight, the perfect partner for the average male dancer. She placed a curved leg onto the barre. Her arms rose above her and bowed outward, as though she held a glass ball above her head. Her hands fell to her hair. She twirled her long mane into a dark cyclone, which she gathered at the nape of her slender neck. She slipped a black rubber band over the bun. The smoothness of her movements made the simple act seem choreographed.

  A shiver shook Nia’s shoulders. She could feel a presence behind her, intense and focused. She turned to see a latecomer standing in the doorframe. The young woman resembled a life-sized doll with a pixyish face and porcelain complexion. A blond bun coiled atop her head like a golden rope. The teen’s eyes reinforced the doll impression with their saucer size and surreal, electric-blue color.

  The girl was staring at something as though willing it to catch fire. Nia followed her eyeline to the prima-in-training.

  She welcomed the young woman into the room with a broad smile. “Come on in. We’re just about to get started.”

  The stare transferred to Nia.

  “I’m the new assistant teacher, Nia—um, Ms. Washington.”

  “Aubrey Byrne.”

  “Why don’t you warm up with your classmates? The teacher will get things started in a moment.”

  Aubrey strode toward the barre. A faint scent of seawater trailed her, as though she’d mixed salt water with her soap. She lifted a gazelle leg to her chin and then placed it atop the wooden pole. She arched her back, dropping her head to waist level. Ribs jutted from her leotard. She reached behind her toward one of the boys in the class, hand bent like a beckoning lover. The young man stopped stretching to stare. Aubrey closed her eyes, as if too lost in her own movements to notice the attention from both the boy and her new teacher.

  The teen’s combination of flexibility and appearance impressed Nia. Aubrey’s body nearly matched the ideal. She was a touch tall, a hair over five foot seven if Nia hazarded a guess. With luck, the teen had finished growing. Most girls leveled off at sixteen.

  A bell sounded. The students lined up at the barre and stood in first position—all except one. The dark-haired ideal surveyed her classmates and then dropped her leg from the barre and copied their stance.

  Ms. Vishnevaskya stepped into the studio from an adjoining office. A fist-sized golden bell dangled from her fingertips. She glided over the hardwood, settling in the center of the room. Her lithe body belied her sixty years, but her movements possessed a control that could only have come from decades of study. She walked like a whisper one moment and a shriek the next, all sharp turns and stabbing elbows.

  “Welcome back, class.” The teacher spoke in a Russian accent that tried for French. “I trust summer has treated you all well. Some of you have clearly kept up with your studies.” She gazed at Aubrey. “Others . . .” Her coal eyes shifted to the overweight girl and rested there. “Others need to get back into shape. Quickly.”

  The instructor curved her arms in front of her as if cradling a beach ball. The students imitated her stance. “As you all know, this class is for preprofessionals, dancers who aspire to join companies after graduation or, at least, to dance as though they belong in one.” Her attention fell on the dark-haired ideal. “I am happy to welcome a new student. Miss Lydia Carreño. Lydia trained at the Miami Ballet Conservatory. She is transferring here as a junior. She—”

  “I’m looking forward to dancing with you all.”

  Ms. Vishnevaskya tilted her head, a gesture Nia couldn’t quite decipher. Annoyance at the interruption? Acknowledgment of her new student? Aside from the reintroductions before class that morning, she had met the instructor only once before, at the interview. Nia had butchered the teacher’s last name. She still wasn’t sure she could pronounce it. In her head, she referred to her as Ms. V.

  “MBC is run by graduates of the School of American Ballet,” Ms. V continued. “I am pleased to say we have a new assistant teacher this year who hails from the School of American Ballet, Ms. Antonia Washington. Ms. Washington studied at SAB for nearly a decade. Since you were ten?”

  Nia nodded, unwilling to voice agreement and risk the same head tilt.

  “She is taking time off from performing t
o be close to family. I suggest you make as much use of her while you can. Her experience in today’s dance world will be invaluable.”

  Nia refrained from her usual wide smile, bestowing a reserved one instead that she hoped fit a woman with an illness in her immediate family. Her real reasons for needing some time off were far less sympathetic: damaged foot, broken heart—both her own fault.

  Ms. V clapped her hands. “Okay. Let’s begin.”

  Nia had hoped the instructor would introduce all the students. Apparently, Ms. V felt no need. She’d have to learn the roster another time.

  Nia stepped to the laptop on a small side table tucked behind the door. She turned on the music. It slipped through speakers embedded in the walls, surrounding the students with a lazy waltz.

  “Adagio.” Ms. V commanded. “And plié.”

  The students bent in painstaking precision, holding each pose in time with the protracted tempo. They extended and retracted their arms, slow motion swans struggling for flight. Mrs. V marked the beats by counting. She alternated between English and French: One, two, three. Un, deux, trois.

  Nia inspected the line of young women like a drill sergeant. For the most part, their form looked good. The heavyset student was off-center, as if unaccustomed to the weight of her belly. Nia touched her back.

  “Straighten up a tad,” she said, smiling to soften the criticism. The girl flushed and adjusted her posture.

  Demi-pliés turned into grand pliés, which morphed into arabesques. The students extended their legs behind them as Nia corrected angles. She refrained from telling the overweight girl that her leg fell too low. The teen’s grimace showed that she recognized her problem.

  By the song’s end, Nia had critiqued every girl except Aubrey and Lydia. They looked practically perfect, though different. Lydia’s motions displayed a softness that Aubrey’s lacked. The blond ballerina attacked positions. Nia preferred Lydia’s gentleness, but there was value in a more technical, intense style.

  Ms. V clapped her hands for a music change. Nia switched to a faster waltz.

  “Aujourd’hui nous étudions fouettés,” Ms. V said. “Today, we learn fouetté turns. Ms. Washington, if you would demonstrate.”