Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

“I’m going to the King’s Arms,” I said. I pushed to my feet, my muscles stiff after sitting cross-legged for so long on the hard floor. I was getting old.

“I’ll go with you,” Maurice said.

Shaking my head, I started for the door. “Uh-uh. She lied to me . I’m going to have it out with her. I’ll give you a call when I get back. Can you cover the ballroom aerobics class for me if I’m not back in time?”

When Maurice looked like he would have followed me anyway, Vitaly put a hand on his arm. “No one is doing anythings with Stacy when she is making up her minds. Much smarter to keep away and take cover.” He mimed ducking and covered his head with his arms.

Everyone laughed, defusing the tension. Hoover barked, and I hurried out, not bothering to debate Vitaly’s assessment of me. I might be impulsive now and then, but I didn’t create chaos, for heaven’s sake.

Pausing only to toss a lemon-colored T-shirt over my sweaty workout top, I grabbed my keys and slammed the back door on my way out.

The King’s Arms, when I finally found it-I should have taken time to MapQuest it before driving off-was a two-story, Tudor-style home on a quiet cul-de-sac in nearby Arlington. It was all whitewashed walls, dark beams, and mullioned windows; it looked old and out of place next to the brick, 1960s-era ranch house beside it. Flowers frothed in the classic English garden that fronted the home, roses spilling open so bumblebees could get drunk on pollen. I recognized lavender and daisies and petunias, but I couldn’t name most of the blooms. A carved wooden sign announced, THE KING’S ARMS, EST. 1805, BED AND BREAKFAST. Crunching up the oyster-shell path to the front door, I paused. Did one ring the bell or just walk into a B and B? Playing it safe, I knocked. When no one answered, I pushed the door open and peeked in.

“Hello?”

A small reception desk with old-fashioned cubbies for keys was four paces in front of me, but no one staffed it. A rag rug covered the floor, and an iron chandelier hung low, providing dim light from curly CFL bulbs that didn’t have near the ambience that candles would have. A broad staircase ascended to my right, and I could see a door with the number one affixed to it just off the landing. I had one foot on the stairs, determined to knock on every door if I had to, to locate Mrs. Laughlin, when a thin teenager came around the corner, steadying a pile of pink towels with her chin. She looked startled to see me, but then smiled. “Hi.” The towels muffled the word by not giving her enough space to open her mouth properly.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Laughlin,” I said.

“Number four,” she said.

“Thanks.” I trotted up the stairs, not pausing to inspect any of the botanical prints arranged on the wall.

Number four was the last door on the right. I rapped with one knuckle.

“Come in, Shelly,” a voice called.

I turned the black metal doorknob that might have been original to the house, and pushed the door open. Mrs. Laughlin, still looking as sweet and gentle as a Hallmark-card grandma, had a suitcase open on the bed and was placing folded clothes into it. “Just leave the towels on the dresser,” she said without looking up.

“You lied to me,” I said, stepping in and closing the door.

Mrs. Laughlin didn’t exclaim or scream, but the pile of utilitarian undies she was tucking into the suitcase tumbled out of her hands, spilling on the bed and the floor, when she jerked her head toward me. “Oh, my goodness, you gave me a start,” she said, right hand pressed to her chest. She peered over the red-framed bifocals. “Stella, right?”

“Stacy.”

She bent to retrieve a pair of undies from the floor. “I wasn’t expecting… Why are you-”

“I think you know.” I’d been scanning the room, and I’d spotted a stack of paper on the antique oak washstand by the window. Crossing the room, I studied the top page, which proclaimed Step by Step: A Memoir . Corinne’s name appeared next, followed by a list of some of the ballroom dancing titles she’d won.

Mrs. Laughlin watched me riffle through the pages, doing nothing to stop me.

“This is Corinne’s memoir. Why did you lie to me and tell me it wasn’t finished?”

She sighed and stretched for a pair of undies that had drifted half under the bed. Her girth got in the way, and I bent to pull them out for her. “Thank you.” She folded them precisely and laid them gently atop the others in her old-fashioned, hard-sided suitcase. It looked battered enough and antique enough to have been the one she packed her clothes in when she came from England half a century earlier.

“Well, I really didn’t think it was any of your business,” she said at last, turning to face me. A look of resolution stiffened her seamed face. “I lived all this with Corinne,” she said, gesturing toward the manuscript pages, “and I helped her write and organize the book. When she died, it seemed only right for me to continue where she’d left off and see the book through to publication.”

“It’s part of the estate,” I pointed out. “It must belong to Turner.”

“Pish.”

She turned back to her packing and I watched for a minute. “Corinne’s agent said they were working with someone to finish the book-that was you?”

She nodded. “I got in touch with them immediately after learning Corinne was dead. I’ve added a chapter about her death-the editor says it’s quite moving-and I mailed off the completed manuscript Monday. That’s a copy.” She indicated the pages on the dresser.

“The police should have this,” I said, laying a hand on the manuscript.

“There’s nothing in there that will help them,” she said, “but by all means, take it to them if you want.”

“What do you mean, there’s nothing that will help them? So many people were worried about what Corinne was saying and were angry at her for revealing their secrets.”

“Maybe so, dear,” Mrs. Laughlin said with a world-weary air, “but do you really think Marco Ingelido would kill to keep his illegitimate daughter a secret?”

I did, actually.

“Or that Greta Monk would do murder to keep Corinne from spilling the beans about a spot of embezzlement twenty years ago?”

Possibly. Or her husband might.

“Or that one of her ex-husbands might do away with her in order to keep sexual inadequacies a secret-Lyle; or keep the world from hearing how he beat his son from his first marriage-the Reverend Hamish; or conceal his past as a gigolo accused of theft-your friend Maurice.” Her gaze gently mocked me. Giving me her back, she hauled on the suitcase, pulling the top half up and over so she could latch it. A gap of about eight inches made closing it unlikely. “Could you just press down on this, dear?” she asked.

Obligingly, I moved to the bed and leaned all my weight onto the suitcase while she fumbled with the latches. They snapped shut after a moment’s struggle. Breathing heavily, Mrs. Laughlin sank onto the coverletted bed, and I swung the suitcase to the floor, nearly dislocating my shoulder. What was she taking back to England with her-her bowling ball collection?

“People don’t kill out of embarrassment,” she said after catching her breath.

Hm, wasn’t there more to it than shame? I wasn’t so sure that the prospect of humiliation, divorce, loss of income or prestige, or a prison sentence didn’t make good motives, but I let her continue.

“People kill out of greed or for revenge,” she said with the air of a teacher instructing a student.

Where had she gotten her degree in the psychology of murder? “If greed’s a motive, you stand to make a lot of money off of this,” I said.