Dead Man Waltzing Page 7

  “I’m perfectly happy with my income now,” I said.

  His smile said he knew I was lying. “If you change your mind…”

  “She won’t changing her mind,” Vitaly said. “Stacy and Vitaly is buildings most successful studio on East Coast.”

  I appreciated his positive thinking and shot him a smile.

  “An ambitious goal,” Ingelido said in a voice that suggested he thought we’d have more chance of winning a Nobel Prize. “If-”

  Before he could finish the thought, Maurice entered the ballroom, stopping abruptly at the sight of the other dancer. “Ingelido,” he said in a cold, un-Maurice-ish voice.

  “Goldberg,” the other man replied, equally cool.

  The temperature in the room went down to levels a penguin would enjoy, and Vitaly and I glanced at each other, wary of the animosity between the two men.

  “Shouldn’t you be making license plates or something? I read that you’d been arrested. I debated sending a congratulatory note to our men and women in blue.”

  “To paraphrase: ‘Reports of my incarceration have been greatly exaggerated,’” Maurice said. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Ah, well.” Ingelido loosed a dramatic sigh. Giving Maurice a considering look, he added, “You and Corinne went back decades. She must have known where all your skeletons were buried.”

  Maurice flinched almost imperceptibly, and I was startled to see fear skate across his eyes before he banished it. An uneasy thought crossed my mind: Could Maurice have something to hide?

  He rallied. “At least my skeletons-if I had any-are decently buried. Some of yours are still walking around, hm?”

  Ingelido flushed red and then paled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me know if you want more information about the franchise opportunity, Stacy.” He handed me a business card with the stylized, top-hatted logo of Taking the Lead with Ingelido, and left.

  Vitaly followed on his heels, exclaiming, “I am late for meeting John.”

  Left alone with Maurice, I raised my brows and asked, “What in the world was that about?” Before he could answer, I said, “You can tell me while I work. I’ve got to clean the bathroom.” Since our bottom line was a little shaky, we saved money by doing the cleaning ourselves. It wasn’t too onerous, but I looked forward to the day we could hire a janitorial service again.

  Maurice followed me to the powder room and watched as I liberated cleanser, a sponge, and rubber gloves from the under-sink cabinet. I squirted cleanser under the toilet rim and motioned for Maurice to start talking. “Marco Ingelido is a cad,” he said. “He hurt Corinne very badly some years ago. She was in love with him-why, I’ll never know, except she had unfortunate taste in men-”

  “Present company excepted.”

  A slight smile eased his frown. “Thank you, Anastasia. Anyway, Corinne loved him and he threw her over for Marian, the woman he’s married to now.”

  “Is that what you meant when you said his skeletons were still walking around?” I looked up from scrubbing the sink to see a crease appear between his brows.

  “He has a niece, Sarah. Sarah Lewis. She’s a photographer… must be almost thirty now. Marco dotes on her. They’ve always had a close relationship, much closer than your average uncle and niece. Anyway-”

  “He had an affair with his own niece? How very Woody Allen of him. No, that was his stepdaughter, wasn’t it?” I wrinkled my nose, sloshed the brush around the toilet, and flushed away the foamy water. I’d had a crush on my cousin Tom when I was fifteen or so and he was nineteen. We’d sneaked a few kisses (okay, it was really several hours’ worth of nonstop, volcano-hot kissing) during a family reunion at a lake in the Poconos, and I’d had a hard-to-explain case of bristle burn that made my chin, lips, and cheeks raw. We’d returned to our separate states and Tom had moved on to an eighteen-year-old girlfriend before we got too serious, but I’d moped about him for several months. I sighed at the memory.

  “He-”

  Clicking noises from the hall approached quickly. Moments later, Hoover skidded to a stop with a woof. He wedged his head between Maurice’s leg and the doorjamb, nearly knocking Maurice over as he wriggled into the small bathroom. I patted his heavy head as Mildred Kensington’s voice fluted, “Hoover, you bad dog. How many times have I told you it’s not polite to interrupt someone in the loo?”

  Hoover ignored her, nosing at the minifridge’s door in an attempt to open it. “Hello, Mildred,” Maurice said, backing out of the bathroom doorway.

  “Maurice! Oh, I came as soon as I heard. Thank goodness you’ve been released.” She threw her plump form at him and embraced him, almost knocking him off his feet. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall.

  She released him, her eyes bright. Dabbing at them with a lace hankie she pulled from her sleeve, she said, “It makes me so emotional. To think of you cooped up in a prison cell with no room to dance.”

  I could think of a lot worse things about being imprisoned than that, but I didn’t mention them. A slurping sound brought all our heads around, and we saw Hoover lapping happily from the toilet. Thank goodness I’d already flushed the cleanser down. He looked up when Mildred shrieked his name, slobbering on the toilet seat and tiled floor. So much for my clean bathroom.

  “Hoover, dear, that’s a nasty, nasty habit,” Mildred scolded. “How many times have I told you that?”

  The Great Dane’s tail thumped against the fridge. Stripping off my gloves, I joined the others in the hall, and Hoover followed me.

  “It was kind of you to stop by, Mildred,” Maurice said, “but-”

  “Oh, I didn’t just stop by. I’ve come to tell you that I’m starting a legal defense fund for you.” Mildred beamed. “I’ve already put out collection jars at many of the businesses around here, with that lovely photo of us from when we competed at the Emerald Ball a couple of years ago. And I’ve sent an e-mail to all my correspondents, explaining the situation and asking for donations.”

  Maurice looked appalled. “Mil-”

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to thank me.” She held up a beringed hand sparkling with diamonds, rubies, and platinum. “You know you’re so much more than a dance instructor to me, Maurice, and I couldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t do what I could to make sure you don’t end up incarcerated for life. Or worse. Do they have the death penalty in Virginia?”

  “Indeed they do,” Maurice said grimly. “One of the guards ‘joked’ that when I got convicted and put on death row, I could be known as ‘dead man waltzing.’ Apparently the phrase ‘dead man walking’ refers to a condemned prisoner on his way to be executed.”

  “That’s horrible!” I said.

  “We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t come to that,” Mildred said, patting his arm. “Don’t you worry. I’m all over this like stink on excrement, as my grandson says.”

  When I choked back a laugh, she twinkled at me. “Well, that’s not exactly how he says it. Come on, Maurice.” She hooked her arm through his. “I’m taking you to lunch. It’s a wonder you didn’t waste away on that nasty prison diet.”

  “I was only there one night,” he said, letting himself be dragged away.

  “Perhaps Hoover could stay here with you, Miss Graysin?” Mildred called over her shoulder. “For some reason they don’t appreciate him at Giuseppe’s.”

  Imagine that. “Sure.”

  They exited through the door by my office. Hoover sat in front of the closed door, cocking his head. When it didn’t reopen, he raised one great paw and scratched at it, looking over his shoulder to invite me to let him out.

  “Sorry, buddy. You’re stuck with me for the moment.”

  He stared at me disbelievingly. When it dawned on him that Mildred wasn’t coming back immediately, he threw up his nose and let loose with a mournful whoo-wooo-ooo.

  “I think I have some peanut butter crackers in my drawer,” I said, coaxing him into my office. He snarfed down the six crackers, snuffled around the desks
, then clambered onto the love seat, resting his head against the back of it so he could see out the window.

  * * *

  Maurice and Mildred returned more than two hours later. Hoover leaped off the couch at the sound of their footsteps on the outside stairs and dashed to the door to greet them. The three of them crowded into the office moments later, Mildred looking distinctly disgruntled.

  “That Turner Blakely is a nasty young man,” she announced.

  “Did you run into him at the restaurant? What did he do?”

  “It was my idea,” Mildred admitted, patting Hoover as he nosed at her hand. “When Maurice filled me in on your search-so brave of you, dear-I thought up a wonderful scheme for getting the typewriter cartridge from Corinne’s house. ‘Tell Corinne’s grandson you want the typewriter for sentimental reasons,’ I told Maurice. ‘Tell him it’s special to you because Corinne used it to write you letters.’”

  “I thought it was worth a try,” Maurice said, “but Turner turned me down flat. His insurance adjustor was there, and someone to fix the broken window-”

  “Courtesy of Marco Ingelido,” I put in.

  “-and an alarm company representative to install a security system, so he was distracted.”

  Mildred took over. “Even so, he told us quite nastily that we were trespassing and that he wouldn’t give Maurice the time of day, never mind anything from Corinne’s house. ‘My inheritance,’ he called it.”

  Maurice shrugged. “It was a long shot anyway.”

  I made commiserating noises, and said, “The agent may yet come through with the outline.” Fat chance.

  “It’s best not to rely on other people’s efficiency or memory,” Mildred said wisely. “Things get done better and faster if you do them yourself. We’re off to Maurice’s now to come up with a new plan,” she added. “Ta-ta. Come, Hoover.”

  I wondered briefly how Hoover would get along with Gene and Cyd, Maurice’s cats, but decided it wasn’t my problem. “Keep me posted,” I called after them.

  My watch said it was closing in on three o’clock. I didn’t have to be back in the studio until time to teach a tango class at six thirty. Now would be a good time, I decided, to kill two birds with one stone.

  Chapter 11

  I took the Metro yellow line from the King Street station to Gallery Place, changed to a red line train, and got off at the Woodley Park station, not far from Lavinia Fremont’s small boutique. In addition to designing ballroom dance costumes, she did one-of-a-kind special-occasion dresses and the occasional wedding gown. Vitaly and I needed new costumes for the upcoming Virginia State DanceSport Competition, and Lavinia had already started on them. I’d called to make an appointment for a fitting and figured I’d work in a few questions about Corinne Blakely.

  Walking the few blocks from the Metro station to Lavinia’s made me glad I’d grabbed a hat on my way out the door. Mature trees arching over the root-heaved sidewalk cut some of the sun, but enough of it got through to make the sidewalk sizzle. Lavinia’s design studio was tucked into a row of shops that formed the ground floor of what started out as a girls’ school before an enterprising developer converted the buildings into trendy lofts. Lavinia had one lavender satin-and-chiffon gown in the narrow display window, its bodice encrusted with sequins.

  Pushing through the glossy black door, I entered the cool of the shop. Bolts of fabric lined one wall, and a citrusy scent drifted from a glass bowl heaped with apples, pears, and lemons set on a high table cluttered with sketchbooks, pencils, shears, pins, and snippets of cloth.

  “Coming,” Lavinia called from somewhere in the back. She emerged moments later, while I was flapping my blouse to circulate some air-conditioning to my sweaty tummy. She was dressed all in black, which I might have taken as a statement of mourning for Corinne, except Lavinia always wore black. Today’s version was a narrow dress that fell to her ankles, cinched at the waist with a gray-and-silver sash that hung to her knees. Her hair, an unlikely auburn for a woman of seventy, swung in a razor-cut bob around her thin, lined face. “Lovely to see you again, Stacy,” she greeted me, moving forward stiffly with hand outstretched. “The dress is ready to try. And you said something on the phone about needing an exhibition costume?”

  “Yes.” Her fingers were long, her palm cool against mine when we shook.

  “Good. Then we can be creative. No need to please a bunch of rigid judges.” When she crossed the room to sort through bolts of fabric, her skirt swished from side to side, giving glimpses of the prosthetic foot that made her gait a bit stiff. “With you and Vitaly both being so blond, we need a strong hue that will contrast with your coloring, but not overwhelm you. Not this,” she said, moving aside a bolt of cream satin, “or this.” She pushed past a pale yellow velvet I quite liked. “I’m thinking maybe this red”-she pulled out a bolt of dark red fabric-“or this green. With flesh-colored inserts-or maybe midnight blue?-and stones. Lots of rhinestones.”

  She passed me, thin arms laden with bolts of fabric, and laid them on the cutting table in the middle of the room. “But first, let’s try the other dress.” With a gait that was surprisingly graceful despite the limp, she disappeared into the back and emerged a moment later, holding a hanger high. I could vaguely make out the shape of the carnation-colored dress under a plastic bag. Unzipping the bag, Lavinia freed the dress, removed it gently from the hanger, and passed it to me. I ducked into the tiny changing room outfitted with only a couple of hooks and a curtain instead of a door.

  Slipping out of my clothes, I carefully dropped the new gown over my head and smoothed it into place. I loved the way the salmon pink made my skin glow and set off my blond hair. It was a strong color and would be distinctive on the dance floor without being harsh or garish. I brushed aside the curtain and stepped out for Lavinia’s inspection.

  “Hm.” She pinched a fold of fabric at my waist. “You have lost weight.”

  “Maybe a pound or two,” I admitted.

  Her deft fingers inserted a couple of pins.

  “I was so sorry to hear about Corinne Blakely,” I said. “I know you two were friends for a long time.”

  She hesitated, her face hidden from me as she bent to measure the distance from the floor to the hem in several places. “She was my best friend for many, many years,” she said, straightening. True sorrow lined her face.

  “How did you meet?”

  She draped a spangled length of tulle several shades lighter than the dress around my shoulders and stepped back to survey the effect. “I grew up on a ranch in Montana, but I was always more interested in dancing and fashion than cattle or corn. I ran away to New York when I was seventeen, convinced I’d be starring in Broadway shows within minutes of my arrival.”

  “That was brave of you.”

  “‘Stupid’ is the word you’re looking for. Anyway, I was doing telephone sales selling newspaper advertisements by day, auditioning every chance I got, and taking acting and dancing classes at night. I shared a one-bedroom apartment with three other gals and lived off canned tuna and peanut butter. The building super was out to get in my pants, and the rats outnumbered the tenants three to one. I’m pretty sure they were better fed, too.” She gave a grim little smile. “But I was too proud to go home, take up again with William Denney, who’d been hoping to marry me since we were in junior high, and live out my days as a Montana rancher’s wife.”

  I turned to face the mirror, in obedience to the pressure of her hand on my shoulder.

  “Too much,” Lavinia announced, removing the scarf. “We’ll keep the neckline simple.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “one night I went to a tiny dance studio in the Village that a friend had mentioned. I’d heard a big-shot producer was casting an off-Broadway musical that required waltzing, and I was determined to impress them with my dancing ability, since my singing voice was only so-so. Well, I walked up four flights of stairs to this studio, and was huffing and puffing by the time I got t
o the top. I was a smoker in those days. We all were-it’s how we kept our weight down. When I got to the top, there was Corinne, dressed in an aqua gown and elbow-length gloves, twirling with her partner. She looked like a princess or a fairy queen. Titania, maybe, if I remember my Shakespeare correctly, or Queen Mab. I was captivated.

  “Halfway through the piece, Corinne broke away from her partner with a few choice words about his dancing-she could cuss like a ranch hand, even though she looked so dainty-and said that someone who had never waltzed could dance more gracefully than he did. Before I knew what was happening, she grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the dance floor. People-there must have been eight or ten students standing around, most of them older than Corinne and me-were laughing, and Corinne’s partner was sulking, and I wanted to sink through the floor. But then I got caught up in the music and the rhythm and let myself dance. That was it for me; from then on, it was ballroom dancing or nothing.”

  “Did you get the part?” I asked.

  A reminiscent smile lit her face. “I did, actually. But the show folded after only a couple of performances. I ditched my telephone sales job and studied ballroom dancing with Corinne and a couple of others. What a time that was. Think Rent set in the sixties, with booze and cigarettes instead of drugs, and without the AIDS, and you get a feel for how close we were-those of us who were serious about ballroom dance-and how passionate about our art. Corinne and I became roommates and best friends. We did everything together-double-dated, went to competitions, taught dance. She even came out to Montana with me one Christmas.” Lavinia laughed at the memory. “I don’t think she’d ever seen a cow in person before. Anyway, competitive Latin dancing was just coming into its own in the early 1960s and I fell in love with it. My partner, Ricky Marini, could have made it in the movies-he was easily as good as-and much better-looking than-Astaire or Kelly. Together… we set the dance floor on fire.”