Dead Man Waltzing

by Ella Barrick

  “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.”

  The nearest neighbor would have to use binoculars to spot us, but I didn’t argue. “Let’s get it over with,” I agreed.

  Maurice reached for the ornate doorknob, but the door swung inward before he could touch it.

  Chapter 4

  Maurice sprang back, bumping into me, and I almost toppled down the steps. Only my dancer’s reflexes and core strength saved me. I regained my balance in time to see Maurice slip the key into his pocket as a beautiful young man appeared in the doorway, dark brows arching high and an expression of surprise on his face. Pale skin and silky black hair set off intensely blue eyes. He wore jeans and a rugby shirt, but looked like he should have been dressed in an ascot and spats, like a character from an Evelyn Waugh novel. Not that I’d ever read Waugh’s books, but I’d seen the miniseries. The young man spoke, spoiling the effect with a blatantly mid-Atlantic accent and a scornful tone.

  “Maurice! What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We were just about to knock,” Maurice lied. “What are you doing here, Turner?”

  “I was staying with Grandmama when she-” He broke off, pressing his lips together as if overcome by grief.

  “Thrown out of another school?” Maurice asked with spurious sympathy. I looked at him; I’d never heard him sound so contemptuous.

  “No,” Turner spit. “It’s summer break. Duh. Who’s she?”

  “This is Anastasia Graysin,” Maurice said. “Anastasia, Turner Blakely.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand. “It’s Stacy.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, running appreciative eyes over my figure and holding on to my hand too long. A smile that would have been charming if he hadn’t been so conscious of its effect curved his sculpted mouth.

  I almost laughed; he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two. I tugged my hand away forcefully and he jolted forward a half step. He covered it up by descending the stairs past us and walking partway down the driveway to pick up the newspaper. He returned, slapping it in one hand.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” His suspicious gaze tracked from me to Maurice.

  “Last time I was here, Thursday night,” Maurice said smoothly, “I left a pair of reading glasses. I was going to ask Mrs. Laughlin if she’d found them.”

  “I fired the judgmental
old witch this morning,” Turner said, stepping back into the foyer. Behind him I glimpsed a magnificent chandelier dangling with thousands of crystals, rounded walls painted a pale salmon, and a Chinese rug. “I’ve got to hit the road. Bachelor party for a buddy down in Virginia Beach tonight.” He started to close the door without even a polite good-bye, but Maurice stopped the door with his hand.

  “When will the funeral be?” he asked.

  I heard the sadness in his voice.

  Turner looked like he wasn’t going to answer, but then said, “Friday. Ten a.m. First Presbyterian.” He shoved the door closed.

  I resisted the juvenile temptation to call, “Nice to meet you, too,” at the impassive doors. Instead, I turned and descended the steps. “Mrs. Laughlin?” I asked Maurice.

  “The housekeeper,” he said, keeping pace with me as we returned to the car. “She’s been with Corinne for years. Decades. I can’t believe Turner fired her before Rinny is even buried. She must be devastated. She’s my age, at least, and it’s unlikely she’ll get another job. I hope Rinny left her enough to live on.”

  “You were pretty quick, coming up with an excuse for our being here,” I said.

  He smiled. “I’m lucky he didn’t ask why we were there when he first opened the door. I would have stuttered and given the game away. Corinne didn’t mention that he had moved back in with her. It must have been over the weekend, because he wasn’t here Thursday night.”

  I almost asked, Or Friday morning? but didn’t for fear of embarrassing Maurice. I was getting the distinct impression that he and the unconstant Corinne had been close friends. Friends with benefits, even.

  “Why didn’t you ask him about the manuscript?” I asked as I pulled back onto the Mount Vernon Parkway going north.

  “He and his father are among the people who may not come off so well in Corinne’s memoirs,” Maurice said. “If Turner knew Corinne had a book deal, he’d probably do what he could to destroy the manuscript.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s got a little problem with cheating,” said Maurice, “which is why he’s been to three colleges in as many years. His father, Corinne’s son, Randolph, is addicted to painkillers. He broke his back in a skiing accident some years back and has had troubles with prescription drugs since then. I know Corinne’s paid for a couple of stays in rehab programs, but Randolph can’t seem to stay clean.”

  “A Charlie Sheen type,” I said. “His dad’s had no luck helping him, either.”

  Maurice looked at me blankly, apparently not a devotee of People magazine or gossipy entertainment shows.

  “Never mind.”

  I mulled over the situation as Maurice stayed silent. He’d been lunching with Corinne Blakely when she died-possibly poisoned-and the police considered him a suspect. He was convinced the real killer was someone afraid that Corinne’s book would expose a secret the murderer preferred to keep secret. That seemed far-fetched to me; I suspected that if Corinne was murdered, it was for a more concrete reason, like money. Pulling up in front of Maurice’s house fifteen minutes later, I asked, “Who inherits Corinne’s estate? Her son?”

  Maurice shook his head. “No. She wrote him out of the will two years ago when it became clear his last stint at rehab didn’t ‘take.’ She was afraid that if she left him all her money he would use it to feed his addiction and eventually kill himself. No, I think the bulk of her estate goes to Turner. At least, that’s the direction she was leaning last time we talked about it.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Will you inherit anything?” I was worried that if Corinne had left him a substantial bequest, the police would consider it motive.

  He chuckled. “She used to joke about leaving each of her husbands something to remind us of our time with her. If she did, I’m sure it will be no more than a token, a memento.”

  “Okay.” I glanced at my watch. “Look, I’ve got to go. Are you okay?”

  Patting my cheek, he said, “I’ll be fine, Anastasia. Thanks for springing me from the pokey. I’ll see you this evening for the Latin class.”

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t feel up to it,” I said. “I can call Vitaly.”

  “I’ll be there.” Maurice got out of the car. “Ciao.”

  * * *

  I arrived late to the furniture store, where I had promised to help my sister, Danielle, pick out a new sofa. The old one had collapsed under her and her boyfriend, Coop, when they were, she alleged, simply watching Jeopardy! a couple nights ago. The store was a freestanding building on Lee Highway, surrounded by a gymnastics place, a restaurant, and an oil-change garage. Traffic whizzed by. Dani was pacing the concrete walkway in front of the store, curly red hair billowing around her, frown etching her pretty face.

  “Sorry,” I started as I came up to her, thinking her uncharacteristic anger was directed at me.

  “Have you talked to Mom today?” she asked, ignoring my apology.

  Ah, now I knew where her anger was coming from. She and our mother had had a difficult relationship since Mom chose to follow her passion for horses and dressage rather than stick around to be a wife and mother. Dad had given her an ultimatum-him or the horses-and she’d chosen the nags. I’d been fifteen when she left and I’d sorta, kinda, maybe understood her choice. By then, I’d been ballroom dancing for several years and knew I wouldn’t be me if I couldn’t continue. Danielle, a couple years younger, had never forgiven her.

  “No, I haven’t been home. Is she okay?”

  Danielle snorted. “‘Okay.’ That’s one word for it.”

  I moved into the air-conditioned cool of the store and Danielle trailed after me. We waved away the saleswoman charging toward us like Yogi Bear after a pic-a-nic basket.

  “She wants us to join her on a vacation,” Danielle said, clearly incensed.

  “So?”

  “So, she’s going to a dressage competition in Georgia and she wants us to meet her afterward on Jekyll Island. Her treat.”

  “Oh.” The reason for Danielle’s anger became plain: Jekyll Island was the site of our last vacation as a family, before Mom moved out.

  “She wants to ruin our memories of our last vacation together,” Danielle said, plopping down onto a brown plaid sofa. “Too hard.” She popped up again and punched the pillows of a beige microfiber conversation pit.

  “Not beige,” I objected, drawn to a red leather sofa.

  “Beige blends,” she said.

  “There’s such a thing as too much blending.” I admit I was biased; I’d rather go naked than wear beige or brown or any of the other “blendy” colors Danielle stocked her closet with. As a union negotiator, she thought a “nonthreatening” wardrobe helped her connect with the employees she was helping. I didn’t think that perspective needed to extend to her living environment. “Don’t you want something that pops?”

  “Not really.” Checking the price tag, she added, “You’re not going, are you?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t even talked to Mom. It would depend when it is, I guess.”

  “Well, I’m not going.”

  “Did you tell Mom that?”

  She bit her lip. “I told her I’d think about it.”

  I sighed. For a woman who dealt with confrontation day in and day out in her job, Danielle was strangely loath to lay things on the line in her personal life. “Well, if you said you’d think about it, why not think about it? It might be fun… a girls’ weekend at the beach, mani-pedis, piña coladas, shell collecting.”

  “Daddy should be there.” She put on a little-girl-lost face, eyes wide, mouth trembling.

  Sheesh. Getting all maudlin wasn’t going to help. “Dad? With Beryl, I presume?” His second wife, a woman he’d married five years ago, after Dani and I had already left home. “They could have a room that adjoined ours, and Mom and Beryl could compare notes while they had their toenails painted.” I put on a New Jersey voice like Beryl’s. “‘Didn’t you just hate the way Ronald tossed his socks near the
hamper but never in it, Jean?’”

  “Not like that!” Dani tried to suppress a laugh but failed. “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah. You meant you want to turn time back a dozen or so years. Not possible, baby sister.”

  “I don’t see why not,” she grumbled.

  I wisely left that unanswered. Instead, I distracted her by telling her about Corinne Blakely’s death and Maurice’s involvement.

  “I can’t see Maurice poisoning someone,” she said.

  “We don’t know that she was poisoned,” I cautioned, even though I had told her that poison was my guess for the murder weapon, since Maurice would have noticed a gun, knife, or garrote.

  “Poison’s a woman’s weapon.”

  “How sexist.”

  “It is,” she insisted. “I read it somewhere. Who does Maurice think did it?” Crowding me onto an ottoman as she passed me, she fingered the fringe on a pillow.

  “Someone whose secrets Corinne was going to reveal in her new tell-all memoir.”

  Danielle stopped examining furniture to look at me. “Really?”

  I nodded. “But I think it might have been her grandson. He struck me as the kind of whiny rich kid who expects to have things-everything he wants-handed to him on a platter. Immediately.”

  “Was he at the restaurant?”

  “Not as far as I know. Good point.” Danielle’s question made me think: Were there slow-acting poisons someone could have administered to Corinne earlier in the day/week/month that resulted in her death at the Swallow? My knowledge of poisons was severely limited. I knew better than to drink household cleaners or splash them in my eyes, and I thought oleander leaves were poisonous to animals-and maybe humans?-but that’s where my expertise stopped.

  “What about this?” We had wandered halfway around the store and I pointed at an olive green sofa with puffy cushions and a faint red stripe thinner than angel hair pasta. Not too bright, not too boring. Best of all, it was on sale. Dani sat on it, leaned back, and reclined with her feet hanging just off the edge.