Quickstep to Murder (4 page)

Solange narrowed her eyes and looked from me to Rafe and back again. “Sure. Call first, if you’re going to come over. I might be going out.” She flung her head, swishing her hair over her shoulders, and stalked away.

Before Rafe could resume his arguments about the business, I cued up our quickstep music and turned the volume high enough to make conversation difficult. A sweaty two hours later, we’d made solid progress on our new quickstep routine and added a nifty turn series to our foxtrot. Rafe had been checking his watch the last twenty minutes of our practice time and when we finally quit he said, “I’ve got an appointment I can’t miss. Let’s talk this evening, Stacy. Please? It’s important.”

“Sure,” I said, using much the same tone as Solange had earlier. I grabbed a small towel and blotted my forehead.

He caught my arm and I looked at him in surprise. His face was unusually serious. “I mean it. I’ll come over.”

“Call me and I’ll meet you in the office,” I agreed, not wanting him in my house, evoking memories of our good times, leaving a trace of his scent on the couch cushions. This would be a business meeting, not a cozy reunion. The thought crossed my mind that maybe he was looking for a reconciliation. If his relationship with Solange was over already, he might be having some regrets. I hardened my heart, letting my mind replay the moment I opened our bedroom door and found him with Solange. Skin, gasps, rumpled bedclothes. I threw those sheets away, even though they were almost new. I headed downstairs for a shower. It was too late for kissing and making up.

 

Refreshed from my shower and with new Band-Aids on my knees, I sat at my desk with a spreadsheet open on the computer, a Peggy Lee song lilting from my computer speakers. I’d only recently learned how to play radio stations from my computer and I was enjoying the novelty. I scowled at the spreadsheet. Rafe was the one with the business brain; now that he was playing leastin-sight, I had to spend a lot more time with the bookkeeping and it made my head hurt. The oldies station went to news—“Crucial House Armed Services Committee vote on acquisition of next-generation helicopters for . . . Lady Gaga appearing at . . . Cherry blossoms blooming at Tidal Basin . . .”—and I closed its window. The sounds of an altercation from the ballroom gave me an excuse to leave my desk and see what was going on.

A shaky soprano voice cried, “But it’s my turn! Maurice waltzed with you last week, Edwina. You can’t expect to have him to yourself—even if you do need the most instruction.”

“Ladies, please.”

I peeked into the room to see Maurice Goldberg, our other male instructor, holding up his hands to calm the two octogenarians glaring at each other. Two couples of similar vintage practiced a stiff waltz pattern around the combatants. A handsome Great Dane splotched with black and white snoozed under the window, heavy muzzle resting on his front legs, one ear twitching. Ballroom dancing apparently wasn’t as interesting as reminding cats who was boss or terrorizing the squirrels in the park. We didn’t really have a pet policy and sometimes women brought their Yorkies or Malteses tucked into tote bags, so I felt it was only fair to allow the Great Dane to observe classes. I didn’t want to be guilty of size discrimination. As long as the pets were well behaved, I didn’t mind having them around; in fact, I liked it.

Maurice, who admitted to being sixty but who I guessed was at least a decade older, had been a dance host on a cruise ship for many years before coming to work for Graysin Motion not long after we opened. His smoothed-back white hair, furrowed where the comb plowed through it, and perpetual tan reminded me a bit of George Hamilton. With his suave air, practiced charm, and natty double-breasted blazers, he brought in a ton of business from moneyed women of a certain age who were looking for a little tingle with their tango.

As I watched, the taller woman with thinning hair who probably remembered voting for FDR shoved a shorter, well-padded dowager who clung to Maurice’s arm. “You take back that snide remark about my needing more instruction, Mildred Kensington.”

“At your age, you should be grateful you can still walk. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in not being able to waltz any better than Hoover.” The pseudosweet words came with an equally false smile.

The Great Dane raised his head and cocked it at the sound of the quarreling voices.

“Hoover? The president? What are you going on about, Mildred?” Edwina flapped her hand dismissively, a multicarat diamond on her gnarled finger catching the sunlight. “You’re gaga. Your grandchildren should have insisted you stay in that home they found for you last year. Of course, being incontinent
does
get you kicked out of some—”

“Hoover, my Great Dane,” Mildred said, nodding toward the massive dog.

There was a gasp from the other couples who had abandoned all pretense of dancing and were watching the Edwina and Mildred show as avidly as if they were sitting in Ford’s Theater.

“Ladies, please,” Maurice said again, stepping between them as Edwina wound up to throw a punch at the smug Mildred. No genteel slaps for her, apparently.

The dog lowered his head to his legs again, apparently deciding his intervention wasn’t necessary, that Maurice had things under control.

“Did you need me to help demonstrate?” I asked, deciding it was time to break it up. Visions of our insurance skyrocketing if one of the old dears broke a hip moved me forward.

“Thank you, my dear Anastasia,” Maurice said.

No matter how many times I asked him to call me Stacy, he insisted on using my full name and treated me like I was deposed Russian royalty.

“We were just about to embark on a waltz.”

He used the remote to cue up the music and took my hand. We circled the floor several times—I enjoyed waltzing with Maurice because of his gliding step and strong lead—and finished with a flourish.

“Thank you,” Maurice said, kissing my hand with oldfashioned gallantry.

“Let’s talk when you’re done here,” I said with a meaningful look.

 

I struggled with the accounts for another half hour before I heard Maurice call, “Au revoir, ladies. Until next time.” Moments later he stood in the doorway.

I had hired Maurice almost two years ago, and we’d developed a relationship that seemed more like greatuncle with favorite niece than employee-employer, despite the fact we never socialized outside the studio. I didn’t know much about his personal life other than that his wife had died of an aneurysm in her early fifties. He’d never remarried, although I was certain he’d had plenty of opportunities, if the women in his classes were anything to go by. Speaking of which . . .

I gestured for him to sit. “Maurice, what is it with those women? We need to find a way to keep interactions more . . . more amicable. We can’t have students mistaking your class for a boxing match and breaking their osteoporotic bones. Plus, we can’t let a couple of scrappy senior citizens make the atmosphere so bitter that we lose clients. Lord knows, we can’t afford that.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Anastasia.” He cocked his head a bit to one side, clearly asking me how to fix the problem. One ankle rested on the opposite knee and his hands lay on his thighs.

“What did you do when these sorts of problems arose on your cruise ships?”

“Threw them overboard,” he said, straight-faced.

His deadpan humor never failed to catch me off guard and I gaped at him for a moment. Then I started laughing. His mouth twitched at the corner, and he leaned across the desk to hand me a pristine handkerchief as tears leaked from my eyes.

“Wouldn’t work here,” I finally said. “No ocean. Although the Potomac’s not that far . . .” I mused.

His blue eyes twinkled.

Damn, if I were fifty years older—make that thirty—I’d probably be fighting Edwina and Mildred for him.

“If it concerns you, Anastasia, I will fix the problem.” He opened his hands like a magician performing a trick. “I shall recruit two gentlemen of my acquaintance to attend the classes—perhaps I may tell them the classes are complimentary?”

“Absolutely,” I said, relieved to have such an elegant solution to the dilemma. “Thank you, Maurice. The real problem, you know, is that you’re much too charming. Do you think you could dial back the sex appeal a notch?” I smiled at him as he rose.

“Impossible, my dear Anastasia.” A look of mischief lit his face. “It’s a curse.”

 

Moments after Maurice left the office, I heard the outside door open and the click of high heels stop at my doorway. I looked over to see a woman posed in the opening. In that nebulous range between fifty and sixty, she had a flawlessly made-up face that had probably been lifted at least once. Her hair was an ashy blond cut to jaw length and expensively styled. A pink raw-silk suit clung to her lean curves and she wore matching stilettos that undoubtedly said Blahnik or Choo on the label. If her long neck was a bit scraggy and the skin on her hands a tad mottled, she was still a very attractive woman. Sherry Indrebo, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. And a talented amateur ballroom dancer who paid Rafe to dance with her at competitions, like Mark Downey did with me. I’d heard rumors that maybe she got more than dancing for her money, but I’d never believed them.

“Stacy,” she said with a tight smile. “Tell Rafe I’ll just be a minute, would you? I need to change. Thanks.”

Uh-oh. “Rafe’s not here, Sherry.”

Her perfectly arched and penciled brows snapped together. “He’s not? Well, I’m sure he’ll get here any minute. He wouldn’t forget. Not with the Capitol Festival so close.”

I didn’t tell her Rafe had been forgetting a lot of things recently.

“He’d better not forget.” The corners of her mouth tightened. “I had to completely rearrange my schedule and miss a floor vote to get here on time.”

“If he said he’ll be here, he’ll be here,” I lied. “He probably got caught in traffic somewhere.”

With a dubious look, she sailed into the bathroom to change. I was back at my computer when she poked her head in ten minutes later, dressed in a few strips of orange fluff that passed for a salsa dress and showed off her excellent legs.

“Is he here?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“I’ll give him precisely five more minutes and then I’m out of here.”

I’d hoped she’d do her waiting in the studio, maybe stretch to warm up, but no such luck. She sat in the wing chair by the window—the better to watch for Rafe, I guessed—and crossed her legs. “I’d kill for a cigarette,” she said, swinging one foot.

I didn’t respond to the hint. This was a strictly nosmoking building. Smoking killed your wind. And it stank. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I finally blurted.

The corner of her mouth crooked up in a wry smile. “Never where my constituents can see me.” She popped a piece of gum into her mouth.

I wondered what else she indulged in out of the voters’ sight. I tried to think of something to say to Sherry as the seconds ticked past and the tension grew thicker. Nothing came to me. Truth to tell, Sherry intimidated me. With money (from a rich defense contractor husband who spent at least half his time in St. Paul), looks, and power, she was a formidable woman. Even Rafe had mentioned once, half joking, that she scared him. At five minutes to the second, she rose to her feet and fluffed her orange feathers.

“I can’t wait any longer,” she said, her voice dripping ice. “My husband and I are attending a thousand-dollara-plate fund-raiser tonight and I can’t be late. Please tell Rafe that I was here for our practice.” Her anger was way out of proportion to being stood up for dance practice, and I wondered uneasily about their relationship. “I’ll expect him to call me with an explanation. And it had better be good.”

“I’ll let him know,” I said and breathed a sigh of relief when she swept out of the office.

Without bothering to change, she charged out the side door. I went to the window and watched as a driver held the door of a black Lincoln Town Car for her. It wasn’t quite a limo, but it was certainly a more luxurious mode of transportation than my yellow Beetle. An orange feather dangled out of the door, but the car moved off anyway.

I hoped Rafe knew what he was doing. But I doubted it.

 

At eight thirty I sat at the dinette table in my breakfast nook, eating a late dinner of spinach and water-packed tuna, wishing I could have a cheeseburger and fries. But Blackpool was only six weeks away and I didn’t need an extra pound or two straining the seams of my fitted costumes. Rafe had complained during a lift last week that I was gaining weight and although I denied it, I was counting every calorie. Winning trophies at the big competitions was excellent advertising for the studio and the prize money was nothing to sneer at, either.

And now the studio’s very existence was at issue. Clearly, Rafe was going to push for some decisions if he showed up tonight, which was beginning to look doubtful. Trouble was, I didn’t see a solution that we could agree on. I wanted to build Graysin Motion into one of the country’s most respected ballroom-dance training centers and that took time. I was willing to live on the bare minimum while we grew the business. Rafe, for whatever reason—expensive new girlfriend? Bad investments?—wasn’t.

I sipped my mineral water and downed a handful of vitamins. How had things disintegrated so quickly? A few short months ago we’d had similar goals for our relationship and our business; now . . . well, I’d rather shave off my hair than turn Graysin Motion into a kiddie recital mill. If Rafe insisted on taking more money out of the business, I’d have to do something drastic. I cleared my place and tried to decide what “drastic” would be. There was really only one answer and I shied away from it: borrow money from Uncle Nico to buy Rafe’s share of the business.

The banks weren’t lending to small businesses—I’d already approached eight of them—and my parents, divorced, weren’t in a position to invest in a ballroom dance studio. My brother and sister had less money than I did, and my lottery picks never seemed to win. Uncle Nico, my mom’s brother and an entrepreneur with his fingers in many pies (not all of them strictly legal, I suspected) would happily lend me the money. The problem was, what would he expect in return? He’d loaned me a hundred bucks in high school to buy the bicycle I needed to get to dance lessons, and told me I could just do him a favor someday in return. The favor turned out to be going to the prom with the son of one of his business associates. I was a senior and the kid was a pimply sophomore who laughed in little snorts, tipped a bottle of Southern Comfort into the punch bowl, and tried to feel me up during the slow dances. Gag me.