Dead on Her Feet (An Antonia Blakeley Tango Mystery Book 1)

by Lisa Fernow

  “That’s what I thought,” Sevedra agreed gravely.

  “Any other possibilities?” Morrow asked Jackson.

  “I noticed a metal ice tray in the dining room,” Jackson said. “Could the metal inserts have made those cuts, sir, if the fabric had rubbed against it the right way?

  An ice tray, Morrow thought. Give me strength.

  Jackson said, “I’ll make sure Forensics sees it just in case. What do you want to do about the witnesses?”

  “Conduct a quick walk-through of the scene then let them go. We have their statements. We’ve got Sanchez’ passport and the others have ties to the area. We’ll interview them again later at their homes.”

  “Not at the station?”

  “Sometimes you need to improvise. I find I get better results when my suspects feel really comfortable.”

  ***

  Antonia woke from a convoluted M.C. Escher–like dream to find herself crammed into a semi-fetal position in Shawna’s rocking chair on the porch. The whole left side of her body had gone to sleep. She stretched, working through the tingling, and wriggled into an upright position. The others seemed equally miserable.

  Detective Morrow stood in the doorway to the house looking as fresh as he had when he’d first arrived. He probably cross trained for long nights. “As many of you may have already guessed, Nathalie LeFebre was stabbed. We have a possible weapon.” Morrow’s eyes met hers. “A steak knife.”

  “What?”

  “Does that mean something to you, Ms. Blakeley?”

  “No. I mean yes if it belongs to Shawna, they’re a set. We all had access to them.” What happened to the dagger, then, she wondered. And why is he telling us?

  Detective Morrow closed his notebook and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “We’re releasing you on the understanding that you make yourselves available later in the day to be interviewed in more detail about last night’s events.”

  Eduardo asked, “How long do you expect your investigation to take?”

  “You’ll be needed in Atlanta for the duration. We have your local address down as the Ritz Carlton, Buckhead. That right?”

  Eduardo nodded. “But I’ll have to move. I can’t afford to stay there.”

  “What about my house?” Bobby said. “You can camp out as long as you like.”

  “It would not inconvenience you?”

  “Visiting professors stay with me all the time.”

  “In that case, thank you Roberto. I would be honored.”

  Bobby bowed. The comb-over that normally flapped when he moved remained plastered to his scalp.

  Detective Morrow said, “You may go.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. No one leaves town without permission, is that clear?”

  Officer Jackson made follow-up appointments. And that was it. They were dismissed.

  Antonia shuttled Shawna and Christian out of the house, down the drive, and across the street to where she’d parked. It took a few minutes for her to settle them in and start the engine. As they pulled away from the curb she turned back for one last look. The sun was coming up. The neighbor’s house had been toilet papered.

  Shawna’s home had also been marked: yellow Do Not Cross tape sealed off the house.

  CHAPTER 27

  Grunt Work

  11/1. 0715. Shawna Muir’s house.

  WITH THE WITNESSES DISMISSED it was time to hear from the more trustworthy evidence. Halloween was a big crime night in Atlanta. Forensics was backed up and Sevedra had been called away to another incident, leaving Morrow alone with Jackson.

  Morrow slipped a pair of booties on over his shoes. “Let’s start with the bedroom. Sevedra’s shot everything but we still don’t want to disturb evidence without documenting it first.” The scene was already contaminated but there was no point in rubbing it in.

  Jackson held up both of his gloved hands like a surgeon before an operation. “Yessir.”

  They headed down the hallway towards the back of the house. Just outside the doorway to Shawna Muir’s bedroom, out of the path of traffic, Morrow found a crumpled dishtowel. Explanation, demonstration, application. Tell, show, do. He photographed it. “What does this tell you? Okay to touch now. Just don’t swab the deck with it.”

  Jackson, eager to make up for his missed performance earlier with the knife, squatted and nudged the towel gingerly with his forefinger. “Still damp. Must be the towel Roland Guest was holding. He lied about going back into the room then, didn’t he, sir?”

  “Yep. A stupid lie, which is interesting—he’s no fool. Let’s see what else.”

  They stepped into Muir’s bedroom. The overhead light was still on from the night before. The room was shipshape with the exception of the area where Nathalie LeFebre had collapsed. Bobby Glass’ white oxford shirt, rumpled and discolored, lay at the foot of the chair.

  Blood had saturated the upholstered armchair and spotted the floor around it but for the most part had missed the ottoman. Various feet, hands, and knees had tromped through the blood, leaving a Grand Central Station of overlapping tracks. Forensics would have fun with those.

  Morrow pointed to the floor. “What do you make of this? Stains on the floor on either side of the footrest but little on it.”

  “The victim was sitting on it? Or leaning over it?”

  Morrow took several photographs. “Something like that.”

  As in the rest of the house there was little clutter. The bed was a simple platform without a headboard. Muir had folded her Japanese tabi socks and left them on the floor when she’d changed into her bedroom slippers. The fan from her Halloween costume lay on the pillow. Morrow picked it up and flicked it open. The rising sun of the Japanese flag was crudely rendered but the piece was solid enough to knock someone senseless, in the proper hands.

  Muir’s night table held a reading lamp and a few books which appeared to be regular reading matter—Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night, Le Petit Prince, and a paperback of John Donne poems. He picked up the last book, opened it, and let the pages fall open naturally. He recognized the last line: “… since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.” Pretty dark stuff.

  Jackson called out, “There’s a cardboard sign on the floor near the door to the library. Says ‘Titanic 0, Iceberg 1.’”

  “Think that’s part of Glass’ costume. He must have jettisoned it when he took off his shirt. Leave it for now.”

  An ornately carved secretary stood to the left of the bed, its honeyed wood encrusted with ebony. Morrow was no antiques expert but he could tell it was well made. He opened the roll top. No personal correspondence.

  He carefully went over the rest of the room. No convenient occupational dirt to signal the presence of a visitor who shouldn’t have been there. “Nothing else, for now,” he said to Jackson. “Let’s see where our steak knife came from.”

  Shawna Muir had renovated her kitchen with no expense spared, judging from the German appliances and the custom tiled counters. Under other circumstances it would have been a nice place to hang out in. The center island held a cutting board with the remains of a pitted, crumbling wheel of cheese and a few browned apple slivers. A serrated knife, tacky from use, lay next to it. Same type as the one Jackson had found in the potted plant.

  Morrow looked to see where Muir might have stowed the rest of the set. He opened the top drawer near the sink. Six mates to the knife lay peacefully in rows in their box, leaving two empty slots. As Blakeley had pointed out earlier, all the guests would have had access to them. But she’d seemed surprised to hear a steak knife had been the weapon.

  Jackson, seeing what he’d found, asked, “Does this mean the act was unpremeditated?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Oh, right. The guests might have known where they were.”

  “Exactly.”

  Morrow inspected the tiled counters next to the sink and found finger marks clearly visible on either side along with a partial of a woman’s left hand where
Shawna Muir had supported herself as she’d supposedly lost her lunch. He sniffed the kitchen drain. She had. He stepped aside. “You use all five senses in this job. Take a whiff.”

  Jackson stuck his nose in the sink and recoiled. “Do you ever get used to the smells, sir?”

  “Wait till you get a case where the victim’s stewed for a few days.”

  They tackled the dining room next. The candles had burnt out but he could still make out the faint aroma of vanilla. The potted palm where Jackson had found the knife sat in the corner next to the stereo cabinet, easily accessible from both the kitchen and the living room. Morrow felt the soil, avoiding the spot where the killer had sheathed the knife. The plant had been over-watered.

  Teak folding chairs lined the north wall. Underneath one an empty plastic glass had toppled over. Forensics would print everything to confirm who’d been where but judging from the shade of lipstick on the rim it probably belonged to Wolfe. If so, she’d sat with Sanchez within arm’s length of where the collision must have taken place.

  “Want to hear something funny, Jackson? I actually saw Nathalie LeFebre. Alive.”

  “No way.”

  “Sanchez and Guest were fighting over her in a tango nightclub.”

  “These dancin’ folks sure are odd.”

  “Everyone’s a little off when you get to know them. In our profession we’ve got front-row tickets to the best show on Earth.”

  “You know that’s right.”

  The living room coffee table was littered with used paper plates, napkins, and empty and partially empty plastic cups. Judging from their number the partygoers had probably gone through at least a case of wine.

  Sevedra had already shot it all but Morrow photographed the scene for the hell of it. You’re trained, you practice.

  Jackson tiptoed around the perimeter of the room checking for anything else of value. He poked his head behind one of the sofas. “Matador’s hat’s back here.”

  “Good. Leave it.”

  Entering the hallway Morrow paced its length to time the seconds needed to cross from the library to the bedroom. No time at all. The hall runner would have muffled any footsteps had someone tried to sneak past. Looking at the cabinet at the end of the hall he paused to check out the weapons collection and noticed a smudge on the glass at roughly eye level. He called Jackson over. “Test your knowledge on this.”

  Jackson peered at the mark. “Looks like someone pressed his or her forehead against the glass. Staring at the weapons?”

  “Yep.”

  Jackson held his hand up to the same height as the smudge, eyeballing a measurement. “Assuming it’s recent, Bobby Glass and Christian Cookerly are about that height. Roland Guest and Eduardo Sanchez are taller but they could have stooped. Barbara Wolfe was wearing heels but the other women would have been too short.” He pointed at the middle shelf. “What are those? Looks like my wife’s mixer blades.”

  “You’re not far off. Those are shuriken. Japanese throwing stars.”

  “Are the swords Japanese, too?”

  “Those are katanas. A samurai family would have owned those.” On the shelf above Morrow noted an indentation in the velvet display where a long thin object had recently lain. He remembered again how surprised Blakeley had sounded when he’d mentioned the steak knife. “We may have another weapon on the loose. Keep an eye out.”

  Shawna Muir’s only bathroom had little to offer forensically but held some interesting cues to its owner’s character. Sleeping aid prescription dating back to July but no aspirin or painkillers. Insomnia wasn’t okay apparently, but suffering was. Embossed leather manicure case but no nail polish. Bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume. High-end brand of super-restorative face cream. Zippered case containing tube of SPF 20 liquid foundation, brown eye shadow, brown mascara, one red lipstick, one clear gloss, and a set of makeup brushes. Except for a newly opened jar of clown white, a sponge, and a black eyebrow pencil that Shawna Muir had used for her geisha makeup, everything appeared to be of top quality.

  They tackled the library last. Morrow started by inspecting the pocket doors from the library to Shawna Muir’s bedroom. More fingerprints and what appeared to be the imprint of someone’s cheek and part of a lip. Only one guest had admitted to being there, he remembered. Cookerly.

  Shawna Muir’s literary tastes ran the gamut. Jorge Luis Borges’ fictional essays, tango coffee table books in English and Spanish, a paperback copy of Imagining Argentina, Lonely Planet Argentina, Insight City Guides to just about everywhere, home improvement books, philosophy, Japanese art, a battered English-Japanese dictionary, more Dorothy Sayers, more poetry.

  Jackson, standing next to the piano, poked at the keys with one latexed finger. He yawned and idly lifted the lid of the piano bench. “Sir! Look! I won’t touch it.”

  Morrow went to see what his partner had found and was rewarded with the sight of an antique silver dagger with an elaborately carved hilt and a gleaming, tapered blade.

  “You have a real talent for finding things, Jackson. And our Ms. Blakeley has some explaining to do.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Traspie

  To stumble or trip.

  In tango, to step on the same foot twice

  ANTONIA HUNCHED UNDER the bedcovers, listening for the morning noises that would reassure her she still lived in a normal world. A leaf blower droned a few houses away and a few seconds later she heard the neighbor’s infant launch into his prefeeding siren.

  She emerged groundhog-like from beneath the sheets. The doors to her grandmother’s Victorian chest stood ajar, pantyhose overflowing in a jumbled cancan from one of the shallow drawers: black opaques, black fishnets, black sheers. One red leg seemed to be trying to make a getaway.

  When she saw the clothing she’d borrowed from Shawna heaped on the floor the events of the previous night returned with stomach-churning clarity. Nathalie LeFebre was dead. Thank God Christian had an alibi. But until they found her killer the whole tango community would suffer.

  Detective Morrow was due at ten. All she had to do was tell it like it was. She sat up and dangled her legs over the side of the bed, kicking to free them from her pajama bottoms which had crept up on her in the night and tried to constrict her—not unlike their original owner, she thought, pleased with her little joke.

  She didn’t know what people normally wore when interviewed about a murder so she decided in favor of comfort and climbed into her usual leotards and army surplus pants. She went downstairs to the kitchen, ground some French Roast and brewed a pot of coffee. The aroma soon filled the house.

  Detective Morrow arrived on her doorstep promptly at ten. He’d shaved and changed into a fresh shirt, jacket, and tie. No dark circles or tired lines in his chipper freckled face despite the fact he’d probably pulled an all-nighter. She, on the other hand, felt like the subject of a sleep deprivation experiment.

  “Good morning, Ms. Blakeley.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Thanks.” He followed her to the kitchen and stood next to her at the sink gazing out the window at her backyard. She hadn’t raked, on the theory that if she left the leaves alone she wouldn’t have to mow again until spring. “How’s Ms. Muir?”

  “Still asleep.” She passed him a mug of coffee. “Milk or sugar?”

  “Got any nondairy creamer?”

  “Yuck. You’ll have to make do with real milk.” She offered up the carton of nonfat from the fridge and as he poured some into his coffee she saw she’d given him the Taylor and Ng mug with the rabbits going at it. How embarrassing. Hopefully if he noticed he’d think it was funny. He looked like he might actually have a sense of humor, off duty. “So, Detective S. Morrow,” she said, “what does the S stand for?”

  “Secretive.”

  “I see.” He was going to pull some sort of a police power play, apparently.

  Sure enough, Detective S for Secretive Morrow led her into her own living room and invited her to sit down, as if it were his pla
ce. She took her favorite spot on the couch and put her feet on the coffee table to show him who was boss. He put down his coffee, took his miniature digital recorder out of his jacket pocket, set it upright on the coffee table, and switched it on. Then he made himself comfortable in the adjoining armchair which put him about a head higher than her, so she took her feet off the table and sat up straight, putting their eyes back on the same level. Détente.

  He pulled out his notebook and flipped through it to find a fresh page. “We’re trying to clear up one or two points, Ms. Blakeley. Barbara Wolfe apparently hit Roland Guest earlier in the evening. Did you happen to see the incident?”

  “Did I ever.” She told Detective Morrow how Nathalie had flashed her engagement ring at Barbara, how Barbara had then turned on Roland, doused him with wine and pitched her empty glass at him like a gunslinger out of bullets, and how, running out of things to hurl, she’d finally come at him with her bare hands, thankfully forgetting she was carrying Shawna’s dagger on her until it dropped out of her garter. Antonia finished with Roland cringing in his matador’s costume, a priceless moment she would treasure forever.

  Detective Morrow looked up from his notes. His mouth twitched and she could swear he was working to keep a straight face. “So she actually drew blood?”

  “Not nearly enough if you ask me.”

  He flipped back through his notes. “We found a dagger. Ornate hilt. Collector’s piece.”

  “That’s the one. Where was it?”

  “Last night when I said we’d found a weapon—a steak knife—you seemed surprised. Why?”

  “I did?”

  “Were you expecting something else?”

  It really didn’t matter anymore but if it didn’t matter, why was he asking? And why wouldn’t he tell her where they’d found it? She’d totally forgotten she was being taped.

  “All right, yes,” she said finally. “When I realized Nathalie had been stabbed I remembered the knife and …” Christian had been the last person to handle the dagger but she couldn’t say that to Detective Morrow.