Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

My near-accusation didn’t faze her; in fact, amusement bloomed on her face. “I didn’t kill Corinne.”

“It would have been easy for you to tamper with her medication.”

“Maybe so, but I didn’t do it. However, that doesn’t mean I was going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The manuscript,” she said when I looked confused. “Corinne left me enough to live on in her will, but do you have any idea what taxes are like in England? And the VAT?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Besides which, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days trapped in that cottage with Abigail. We didn’t get along so well as teenagers, and I doubt that old age has increased our tolerance for each other. I want to be able to get away, to travel. The advance for the book-I negotiated a new one when I explained to the publisher that they’d never get the manuscript if they didn’t deal with me-will pay for a little holiday in Majorca. And when the royalties start coming in, I expect I’ll be able to manage the safari in Botswana I’ve always dreamed of, and maybe a tour of Cambodia.” She gave me a serene smile.

“Turner will sue you,” I predicted.

“Let him try.” Steel threaded her tone. “I’ll claim the manuscript was one of the mementos I chose in accordance with dear Corinne’s will.”

Whew . If she hadn’t been so thoroughly English, I’d’ve thought she had an ancestor named Machiavelli.

Getting to her feet, she said, “Now, dear, I’m afraid I have to shoo you out. I need a nap before my dinner date this evening.”

Date? This octogenarian on the verge of moving back to England had a date when I hadn’t had a date in over half a year, not since Rafe and I broke up?

She primmed her mouth. “Mr. Jonathan Goudge has invited me to dine with him,” she said coyly.

Corinne’s lawyer. I couldn’t help it: I laughed. “Well, have a nice evening,” I said, scooping up the typewritten pages. They weighed more than I anticipated.

“You, too. I expect I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow.”

I arrived back at the studio midway through the ballroom aerobics class and immediately took over for Vitaly, who was leading the class with verve. The students seemed to be enjoying him, even though he had them doing spins until they staggered around the room like drunks, since they didn’t know how to spot properly. I waved good-bye to Vitaly as I got the women started on some quickstep footwork sequences guaranteed to raise their pulses.

As soon as class ended, I went downstairs to shower and change. Refreshed, and dressed in a minidress with a mod floral print straight out of the sixties, I tucked the manuscript in a tote and lugged it to a copy place. Once I’d made myself a copy, I drove to the police station and asked for Detective Lissy. A young admin type escorted me back to his office, and I looked around with curiosity while Lissy finished a phone conversation. My prior experience of the police station included only a grim interview room; it was interesting to scope out Lissy’s private space.

As I would have expected, the place was scarily neat, with case folders stacked precisely, papers in his in-box aligned so their edges touched the top and right-hand sides of the box, white mug centered on a ceramic coaster. What caught my attention, though, were the photos. All in identical black frames, and all lined up with the front edge of the credenza behind his desk, they featured kids ranging in age from infanthood to adolescence, smiles on most of their faces. Somehow, I had never pictured the neat-freak Detective Lissy with children. Unless he had them trained to military standards, they must drive him insane with clothes dropped on the bedroom floor, makeup left on bathroom countertops, and mud tracked into the house.

When Lissy hung up and gave me a long-suffering look, I asked, “Are they yours?”

“You think I keep photos of someone else’s grandkids in my office?”

“Grandkids?” Wow . My mind was busy processing this hitherto unknown side of the persnickety detective and I missed his next remark.

“What do you have to show me, Miss Graysin?” he asked impatiently. “The desk sergeant said you had new information related to the Blakely murder.”

“Oh, this.” I hefted the tote onto my lap and dug out the manuscript. Proudly, I deposited it on his desk. It looked out of place there with its dog-eared pages ever so slightly offset.

Lissy poked at it with a stiff finger. “‘This’ would be…?”

“The manuscript,” I said. “I discovered that Corinne had completed it after all, and I managed to retrieve it.” I waited for his words of praise.

“Oh, that,” he said dismissively. “We’ve already got a copy. One of my officers is reading it, but I don’t expect any revelations.”

“You’ve already got a copy?” My face fell.

Sensing my disappointment, perhaps, he smiled maliciously. “Why, yes. Angela Rush, the agent, faxed it to us yesterday.”

I bit back the words that sprang to mind. Damn. Double damn. I’d thought I could curry favor with Lissy by bringing him the manuscript, but it was old news to him.

“I’ve been doing this job for twenty-seven years, Miss Graysin,” he said. “I’m better at it than you think.” He used the backs of his fingers to edge the manuscript closer to me.

I wanted to point out that if he were really good at it, he wouldn’t have arrested the wrong man. However, I just stood, tucked the pages back into the tote (instead of strewing them around his psychotically neat office, as I was tempted to), and said with as much dignity as I could muster, “Thanks for your time. I’ve got to hurry if I’m going to drop this at Phineas Drake’s office before they close for the day.” I gave him a sweet smile.

The mention of Drake’s name gave Lissy a dyspeptic look, as if he had tummy troubles, but he didn’t say anything besides, “I’ve told you before: Stick-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Stick to dancing.”

I dropped a copy of the manuscript off with Phineas Drake, getting a few minutes with the lawyer himself, even though I told his receptionist I didn’t need to see him. His smile was partly hidden by his beard as he came forward to greet me. When I told him what I had, he gave me all the praise Lissy had denied me, extolling my initiative and my cunning. He laughed, a sound like rolling timpani, when I told him about Mrs. Laughlin and Mr. Goudge.

“That’s one way to create conflict of interest and ensure Goudge won’t be able to represent the estate if the grandson sues her for theft of the manuscript,” he said admiringly. “Sounds like my kind of gal.”

I raised my brows, wondering whether Mrs. Laughlin’s liaison with the lawyer was as deliberate as Drake was suggesting, and decided it probably was.

Drake riffled the manuscript’s pages and plunked it onto his massive desk. “I’ll get one of my associates on this right away. I have high hopes that it’ll provide me fodder for creating reasonable doubt, my two favorite words in the English language.” Still chuckling, he escorted me back to the elevators and I rode down, anxious to get home and read the book myself. I called Maurice on the way, telling him what Mrs. Laughlin had said and about giving the manuscript to Drake.

“Good thinking, Anastasia,” he said. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you find something useful in the book.”

“I can make another copy, if you want one,” I offered.

“Thank you, but no. I’m sure I’ll read Corinne’s book one day, but I don’t think I can deal with the memories right now.”

“I understand.” The melancholy in his voice subdued me. “I might have some questions for you, though, as I read.”