Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

I took the case from her, noting that she seemed a bit stiffer than when we’d last met. She broke eye contact almost immediately to shift the strap around her neck.

“Vitaly and I will look at them and let you know,” I said. I hesitated, wanting to ask her about Marco, but feeling awkward about it.

“Look,” she said as I was on the verge of leaving. Her head snapped up and her eyes met mine squarely for the first time. “Marco told me about your visit yesterday.”

“Um.”

“He said you know.”

“I didn’t know you knew.”

“Since I was eighteen.” She tossed her head so her dark braid slipped over her shoulder. “He and Mom took me aside to tell me that I wasn’t my father’s daughter, that I was Marco’s daughter. They thought I should know the truth for medical reasons and what have you. Great birthday present, huh?”

“It must have been hard to hear.”

She met my gaze, unsmiling. “The hardest. Not only did I have to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t who I thought I was, but my mom wasn’t the person I thought she was either. All her blather about integrity and living authentically was just so many words. Great for spouting in the classroom but without any applicability to real life. We didn’t talk for a couple of years.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling intensely uncomfortable in the face of her anger and grief.

“Yeah, well, a lot of therapy has gotten me-us-through the worst of it. But then Corinne Blakely told Marco she was publishing her memoir, and that she was including the story of their romance and why she broke it off.” Sarah popped the lens off the camera and stowed it roughly in the duffel. She was silent for a moment, searching for a new lens and fitting it to the camera body. She mumbled something I didn’t catch.

“What?”

“I said I didn’t want Dad to find out that way. He loves my mother; he still thinks I’m his biological daughter. It would break his heart.” She looked up, her chin tilted a bit, defiantly. “That’s why when Marco told me you had the manuscript, I broke into your house to find it.”

My jaw dropped. “Say what? It was you?”

She nodded. “It wasn’t hard. I bought a crowbar at a hardware store and waited till I thought you’d be asleep. The waiting was the hardest part. I pried the door open and started searching, but then you woke up.” She loosed a long sigh. “I’m sorry I knocked you down. I hope you weren’t hurt?”

“I’ll live.” This conversation felt surreal. This woman had broken into my house with burglary on her mind, and now she was looking at me with concern. I tried to muster some anger, but the fact that it was my own lie that led her to break in kept me from working up any righteous indignation.

“Were you telling the truth when you told Marco you don’t really have it?”

I nodded.

“Then what am I to do?” Tears filmed her eyes.

“I think it’s totally possible there isn’t really a manuscript,” I said, relating what Mrs. Laughlin, Corinne’s housekeeper, had told me.

“Really?” Sarah stood a little straighter. After a beat, she added, “So someone killed Corinne for nothing?”

“Why would you assume Corinne was killed over the memoir?” I asked.

“Because the thought crossed my mind. And if it occurred to me, chances are someone else thought of it, too.”

I stared at the woman in front of me, so like me in many ways: She was close to my age; she worked for herself in an arts-related field; she was single (I thought) and childless. Had she just confessed to planning a murder?

“I didn’t do it, of course,” she said, perhaps reading my face. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t kill someone, not even to save Dad pain and keep my parents from divorcing. But I can’t really blame whoever did it-Corinne was asking for it.”

The tight expression on her face dared me to contradict her. Tap-tapping and a muffled “Damn!” floated over the nearest panel, and I started at the reminder that we weren’t alone.

“Do you suppose it crossed Marco’s mind?” I asked.

There was a barely perceptible hesitation before she burst out, “He wouldn’t! Marco’s a good man.”

Evidence of a daughter fathered on his wife’s sister to the contrary. I raised my brows.

“Sex is different from murder!”

No argument there.

“Just because he and my mom had an affair thirty years ago doesn’t mean he killed Corinne to keep it secret. Or that my mother did, either,” she added.

Hm, now there was a suspect I hadn’t thought of. Would Sarah’s mother kill to protect her marriage… or her job? It might be worth learning more about Phyllis Lewis. Except how would she have put epinephrine in Corinne’s pills? I decided Phyllis didn’t get a priority rating on my suspect list, although I might mention her to Phineas Drake.

“Are you going to tell the police?” Sarah asked in a low voice.

My thoughts were jumbled; I didn’t know what was best. “My concern is Maurice Goldberg. He’s my friend, and I’m not going to sit by and watch him go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

I hadn’t really answered her question, but she nodded. “Fair enough. Look, I know it’s costing you time and maybe money to get your door fixed and all. Just pick the photos you want and I’ll get you another disk that’s not copyright protected-you don’t owe me anything.”

I regarded her somewhat cynically, recognizing a bribe when I heard one. “I’ll let you know.” I wasn’t sure what I’d let her know, but it sounded good.

We eyed each other awkwardly for a moment, not sure how to part, but then she half nodded and turned away to fiddle with the light stand again, and I slipped silently around the nearest panel. Out of sight of Sarah, I took a deep breath, blew it out, and hurried for the door, raising a hand in acknowledgment when the gallery owner called, “Don’t forget! Friday evening. There’ll be wine and cheese, and you can meet the artist in person.”

Whoop-de-do.

Seven o’clock that night found me at the Fox and Muskrat watching Maurice compete in a darts tournament. Anxious to get the typewriter cartridge to him, and to find out what Marco Ingelido had been referring to when he talked about a necklace disappearing on one of Maurice’s cruises, I’d finally gotten hold of Maurice and asked him to meet me for dinner. He’d countered with an invitation to the darts tournament. “I’ve been signed up for weeks, Anastasia,” he said. “I can’t back out now.”

Accordingly, clad in slim-fitting jeans and the red shirt I’d worn earlier, only with an extra button undone, I cheered for Maurice while he tossed darts at the target. Clumps of people gathered around the competitors aiming at two well-lit targets set on age-darkened beams. The rowdy participants included men and women and people of all ages, from a girl in a GWU sweatshirt who was maybe twenty, to a man who looked like he could have swabbed decks on the Titanic . Pretty much everyone was wearing jeans and sucking on a beer. Even Maurice had dressed down for the occasion, leaving his blazer at home to compete in a blue-and-yellow-striped rugby shirt and pressed jeans with loafers.

I’d been tickled to see that he had a little case containing his own darts. “You take this seriously,” I observed.

“There’s a lot riding on it.” By his tone, he might have been talking about the first space launch or the D-day invasion or a heart transplant. But then he winked at me and I laughed.

The “lot riding on it” turned out to be a free six-pack of English ale for the winner, and a free beer for Maurice, who came in second. I’d had no idea he was doing so well, since the scoring system totally mystified me. I clapped my hands as he rejoined me at a high-top table near the dartboards after collecting his winnings. Setting his beer on the table, he pulled out my chair. “Come on, Anastasia. It’s time you learned how to throw darts.”