Quickstep to Murder (23 page)

“Where is my wife?” Bazán asked conversationally.

I stared at him.

“Victoria. Where is she?”

“I don’t—”

He slammed his hand on the table, making me jump. “I’m not in the mood for game-playing or lies. I know she was at the dance competition. I’ve had men watching Acosta’s condo and this studio for two weeks now; one of them showed initiative in checking out the competition, thinking she might try to link up with Acosta there if she hadn’t heard about his untimely demise. So where is she?”

“How would I know?” My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat and said more forcefully, “If she came looking for Rafe, she would’ve found out he was dead and left, right?”

Bazán studied my face, his gaze drilling into first my right eye and then my left. I tried to keep from fidgeting.

“You’re lying,” he said. “Just tell me. It’ll be easier on both of us. And you’ll be doing Victoria a favor.”

I raised my brows and made a skeptical sound.

“Really. My wife is a sick woman, Miss Graysin.”

I stopped myself from saying, “She didn’t look ill to me.”

“What story did she tell you?” His eyes scanned my face. “That I’m involved in mysterious criminal activities and won’t let her leave because she knows too much? Or was it the one about me institutionalizing our child because of birth defects? We’ve never had a baby. Or—”

“She showed me the bruises,” I said.

“On her stomach?” When I nodded, he said, “She was in a car accident two weeks ago and her stomach and chest got badly bruised when the air bag drove her purse into her torso. She had it on her lap, looking for a lip gloss, I believe.” Mingled sadness and weariness pulled his mouth down. He didn’t look threatening at the moment.

Not sure what to believe, I said, “I really don’t know where she is.”

“But you talked?” His eyes lit up.

Reluctantly, I nodded.

He grabbed my left hand with both of his. “Please. Tell me what she said.”

His hands were callused and hard. “Not much. We were going to talk after I danced, but she was gone from my room by the time I finished. She stole my wallet.”

“I will reimburse you,” Bazán said instantly. “Unfortunately, it is not the first time something like this has happened. I need to find her before she gets herself in serious trouble, or ends up hurt.”

“I wish I could help,” I lied. I wasn’t sure I believed anything Victoria had told me, but her husband hadn’t exactly won my trust by breaking into my house.

He narrowed his eyes. “Surely she said something.”

“Nope.

He slapped my face with his open palm, not hard, but it stung.

Surprise, as much as pain, made me cry out. No man had ever struck me. Even my father had never spanked me. I put my hand to my cheek.

“I don’t have time for your flippancy. Tell me what Victoria said and where she went. It’s for her own good.”

“Go to hell.”

The next slap was harder, almost knocking me from my chair. “She didn’t say anything!” I yelled through incipient tears. “She was staying at Rafe’s cabin, in West Virginia. Maybe she went back there.” I was darned sure Victoria hadn’t returned to Rafe’s isolated man cave. “And before you ask, I don’t know where it is. Somewhere outside a town called Canon-something.”

“If you are lying . . .”

“I’m not.” I stared at him defiantly. “Although I wouldn’t tell you where she was, even if I knew.”

“Then you’d be doing her a great disservice,” he said, standing. “Victoria is a menace to herself.”

“Not as big a menace as you.”

“Acosta knew what he was doing when he dumped you,” Bazán observed. “No man wants to live with a sharp-tongued wife. If you were my wife, I’d be tempted to cut it out.”

He said it with so little emotion that it froze me to stillness. He crossed to the door. “I’ll be back if I find out you’ve lied to me.”

Scrambling to my feet, I lifted my chair and held it in front of me, not sure if I meant it as a weapon or a shield. “The police might have something to say about that.”

He laughed, genuinely amused. “I’ve got two words for you: diplomatic immunity. Besides which, it’s your word against mine. I don’t think I need to worry very much about the police. You, on the other hand, have a lot to worry about.” He opened the door, looked both ways, and stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him.

The chair dropped with a clatter, landing on my toe. I dropped cross-legged to the floor, massaging my toe and bawling my eyes out. I cried for at least ten minutes, knowing the tears were more about fear and tension release than pain. Shoving myself upward, I hobbled to the fridge and pulled a chunk of ice out, wrapping it in a dish towel and holding it against my toe. I followed that up with an aspirin and a call to the police.

 

Monday morning found me trotting awkwardly after Detective Lissy as he inspected the exterior of my house, peering at windows and doors. My toe hurt like the dickens and the nail was a lurid purple that told me it would fall off eventually. Dancing would be excruciating for a few days, at least. I thought evil thoughts about what I’d do to Bazán if the opportunity presented itself.

“But I told you he didn’t break in,” I said for the third time. “He waited until I unlocked the door and then pounced.” The uniformed officers who came by last night had apparently misreported what I’d said, or Lissy was deliberately misinterpreting it.

“I’m not looking for evidence of a break-in,” Lissy said damply. “I’m looking for proof someone waited out here. Cigarette butts, beer can, candy wrapper.”

“He threatened me and you’re looking for proof he’s a litterbug?”

Lissy eyed me, his pale gray eyes assessing. “It’d be nice to have something to corroborate your story.”

I held out my bare foot. “What about this?”

“You said you dropped a chair on it.”

“Yes, but only because I picked it up to protect myself.”

Lissy nodded, somehow managing to convey that he thought I was either an accomplished liar or a delusional conspiracy theorist who would shortly be accusing Bazán of being behind the Gulf oil leak and the subprime mortgage fiasco.

We had made our way around to the front of the house, not spotting a single thing that helped prove Bazán had forced his way into my kitchen last night and threatened me. The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky and already my skin prickled with sweat. It was going to be a scorcher. Lissy flipped a page on his steno pad. “So you say Mrs. Bazán forced her way into your hotel room and then Mr. Bazán”—he consulted his notes—“ ‘pounced’ on you here?”

“She didn’t force her way in,” I said, frustrated. “I invited her in. But then she stole my wallet, which I already reported to my credit card company.”

“But not to the police.” Lissy’s inflection made my omission sound suspicious.

In truth, I hadn’t called them because I couldn’t spare the time from the competition to hassle with the paperwork and I didn’t think they had a prayer of recovering it. Some part of me, too, felt I deserved what I’d gotten for being so foolish as to leave a stranger alone in my hotel room. In hindsight, I should have taken the time to report the theft, if only to the hotel management. “I didn’t want to bother the police,” I said lamely.

We stood on the shallow brick portico outside my front door, which I noticed needed repainting. Its glossy forest green had dulled and was flaking near the bottom. One more expense. Maybe if I went at the knocker with some brass polish, that would spiff up the door. I pushed the thought aside.

“What is it, exactly, you want me to do, Ms. Graysin?” Lissy asked, finger-combing his dishwater-colored hair from left to right.

“Arrest Héctor Bazán! At least talk to him, not just about last night, but about Rafe’s murder. Now that we know that Rafe was helping Victoria Bazán—”

“We don’t know this,” Detective Lissy said. “You
say
that Victoria Bazán
said
. . . You see where I’m going with this?”

I ignored his interruption. “—it makes sense to think that her husband might have gone after him.”

“With your gun?”

“Yes! I told you that Rafe told Victoria he could get her a gun. It’s obvious that he stole my gun, intending to give it to her. Whoever killed him got the gun away from him somehow and shot him.”

“Ms. Graysin, in policing we like to rely on a little thing called ‘evidence.’ And you don’t have any.” He held up a thin hand to forestall my protests. “I’m going to talk to Héctor Bazán and see what he has to say.”

“What about his story? About his wife having mental problems and being in a car accident. He said it was just a couple of weeks ago, so you can look that up, can’t you? See if he’s lying?”

“As I might have mentioned before, I’ve been doing this job for twenty-seven years.”

With that not-so-subtle reminder that he didn’t need my help, he clomped down the steps and headed for his car.

I hurried after him. “Just one more thing, Detective,” I said, my eyes pleading with him. “Did you check on Sherry Indrebo’s whereabouts the night Rafe was shot?”

Lissy eyed me with something like fascination. “A diplomat’s not enough for you? Now you want to accuse a congresswoman?”

“I’m not accusing—”

“Who next? The Pope?”

“Was she—”

“Ms. Indrebo was at a fund-raiser at the Corcoran, in full view of assorted Republican movers and shakers and a photographer who has dozens of photos of her from when the party kicked off until they turned off the lights. Satisfied?” He yanked open the car door, rubbing at a smudge on the mirror.

Frustrated was more like it, but I thanked him and watched him drive away. Then I went inside and called Phineas Drake.

 

I spent the morning restoring order to my life and house after the competition weekend. I sorted through my costumes and put aside those that needed a trip to the dry cleaner, stowed my makeup and hair accessories, and cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen. With only minutes to spare before Drake arrived, I polished the knocker, kick plate, and doorknob on the front door with a crusty bottle of brass polish I found under the kitchen sink. I stepped back to admire the gleaming brass when I was done, liking the way they shone in the sunlight, but disappointed that their brightness actually made the door’s paint look shabbier in contrast.
Drat
.

Drake’s limo nosed up to the curb as I stood there and I hastily tucked the brass polish and rag into the house and gave my hands a quick sniff. They smelled a bit chemically from the polish, but not too bad. I hurried down the walkway as the chauffeur opened the door. Drake’s secretary had said he could spare me only fifteen minutes on his drive to the courthouse and I didn’t want to waste a second. I slid onto the slick leather seat and found Phineas Drake gazing at me, a tall glass foaming with a tan concoction in his hand.

“Protein drink,” he greeted me, hoisting the glass a couple of inches. “Doctor says I have to lose a few pounds or I’m going to keel over before I’m sixty.” He laughed and patted his hefty paunch covered by a tartan vest of blues and greens with a thin yellow stripe.

Since I’d already pegged him for past sixty, I didn’t comment.

Running his huge hand down his beard when he finished drinking, he fixed his sharp eyes on me. “You said you discovered something about Acosta’s murder this weekend?”

“Yes, and the police aren’t taking me seriously, so I thought you . . . that you might be able to look into it.”

“Tell me.”

I gave him the unedited version of the weekend, from Leon Hall’s attack on Sawyer, to bumping into Victoria in the hall and our conversation followed by her disappearance, to Bazán’s attack at my house, to my theory about Rafe stealing the gun. I looked at Drake anxiously when I finished, trying to read his expression. The luxuriant facial hair made it tough, especially in the dimly lit limo.

“That’s good—the bit about Acosta having your gun with him. That’s the kind of creative thinking that makes a good criminal defense lawyer. Any interest in giving up ballroom dancing for the law?” He chuckled.

Was he saying he didn’t believe me? “It’s not ‘creative thinking’—it’s what must have happened,” I said indignantly. “And, no, I can’t see myself as a lawyer.” Working in an office all day, wearing rigid suits, responding to someone’s beck and call. I shuddered.

“You’re more the creative type,” he said indulgently. “My wife’s that way, too—scrapbooking is her thing. That and eBay.”

Great. He clearly dismissed my career as a hobby on par with his wife’s interest in scissors that cut wavy patterns and colored cardstock. I held on to my temper. “Do you have a way to check out Bazán’s story?” I asked. “And maybe find out more about Leon Hall?”

“A diplomat, huh?” Drake said, looking thoughtful, calculating the angles. “If the police were convinced he did it, they’d stop looking at you, and they wouldn’t have to worry about enough evidence for ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ because the case would never see the inside of a courtroom. The State Department might PNG Bazán if the cops built a good enough case, but that’s about it.”

“PNG?”

“Make him persona non grata—boot him out of the country.”

“That’s not right,” I said, appalled. “If he killed Rafe he should go to prison for the rest of his slimy life.”

Drake shrugged, dismissing my outrage as too naive to bother with. The limo glided to a stop at the courthouse curb and Drake shifted his bulk toward the door. “I think it’d be useful to locate this Victoria gal again. She sounds like a wily one.” His tone was admiring.

A shaft of sunlight penetrated the car as the chauffeur swung the door open. Drake got out, then bent over to peer in at me. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about anything. Since the police haven’t moved on you yet, chances are they won’t, at least not without new evidence. I’ll be in touch.” Giving orders to his driver to take me back to the town house, he strode up the courthouse steps, fending off reporters as he went.