Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

Spotting me, Maurice said something to the baron and edged toward me, only to be intercepted by Turner Blakely. The young man looked svelte and sophisticated in a black suit with a black-and-gray-striped tie. His dark hair was brushed straight back from his forehead, revealing a pale, narrow brow.

“Goldberg.” He planted himself in front of Maurice and pulled an envelope from an inner jacket pocket.

Maurice cocked his head slightly, waiting for Turner to explain himself.

“I’m contesting the will,” Turner said, thrusting the envelope at Maurice, “and in particular the painting that you tricked Grandmother into leaving you.”

“There was no trickery involved, Turner, as you well know,” Maurice said calmly. “However, it’s your prerogative under America’s right-to-sue-and-be-sued legal system to contest the will, so contest away.”

The tips of Turner’s ears reddened at the light contempt in Maurice’s tone. “Murderers can’t benefit from their crimes,” he spit. “When you’re convicted, the painting will revert to the estate anyway.”

“Then if you’re so sure of my guilt, save your money and wait for the justice system to grind its wheels. It shouldn’t take more than eight or ten years, what with appeals and everything.” Maurice gave Turner a pseudo-sympathetic smile. “Who knows? Maybe by then the painting will have appreciated in value. Or maybe I will have sold it to pay my legal bills.” With a nod, he left Turner fuming and walked to me, saying under his breath, “Get me out of here, Anastasia, before I really am guilty of murder.”

I could tell by his ragged breathing that maintaining a facade of calm while talking to Turner had cost him, and I took his arm to lead him back toward the car, distracting him by telling him about having discovered the identity of the mysterious blonde who had visited Randolph. Tav joined us and, summing up Maurice’s state of mind in one comprehensive glance, offered a quiet comment on the funeral and what a lovely tribute the crowd was to Corinne. Maurice responded in kind, and his breathing had slowed by the time we neared the car.

The car parked in front of mine was a black limousine, and a chauffeur opened the door for Randolph Blakely, Alanna Vincent, and-to my surprise-Hamish MacLeod as we approached. The reverend was still sobbing into his hands, and Alanna was murmuring soothingly to him. The chauffeur stood stiff as a fence post, perhaps used to ferrying blubbering passengers around the city.

“It’ll be okay, Hamish,” Randolph said bracingly. “You made a good decision to admit yourself to Hopeful Morning. They’ll help you. Look what they did for Alanna and me.”

The chauffeur clunked the door shut behind them, and I couldn’t hear any more. My gaze flew involuntarily to Tav, and he gave me a smug “I told you so” look that I couldn’t even get mad about. Apparently Hamish’s presence at Randolph’s cottage was completely innocent, as Tav had suggested. He’d been considering admitting himself to the rehab center. I smiled sheepishly and walked around to my door.

Maurice slid into the passenger seat and shut the door, and I looked at Tav gratefully over the hood of the Beetle. “Thanks. So, how does the swan wrangler get them back?” I guessed he’d gone to talk to the man when I went to find Maurice.

He grinned, confirming my guess. “They fly home,” Tav said, “like homing pigeons. And in case one gets the idea of escaping, they have got GPS devices on their collars.”

“The wonders of technology,” I said.

His expression grew more serious, a bit uncertain. The wind riffled his dark hair. “Stacy, will you have dinner with me one evening? Not this weekend-I must fly to New York on business-but next weekend?”

My breath caught in my throat. “Are you asking me for a date at a funeral?”

A wry smile slanted his mouth. “Is that bad?”

“It’s a first for me.”

“Me, too.”

I fell silent, biting my lip. I’d been attracted to Tav all along, but I was afraid to get involved again, especially with a business partner. If we dated and then broke up, it would be messy, awkward, like it had been after I caught Rafe cheating and ended our engagement. But we weren’t talking about “getting involved,” my free-spirit self argued. We were talking about a single date. Ha! my sensible side said.

“I’m not sure I’m ready,” I told Tav, brushing a wisp of hair off my face.

“I know. I promised myself I would wait six months before asking you, but my willpower is not up to the task of waiting.” The rueful awareness in his eyes, the crooked smile, the memory of that almost-kiss Monday night made my chest feel tight.

Maurice rolled down the window and said, “Are you coming, Anastasia?”

“Yes,” I answered both men.

Friday afternoon I locked up Graysin Motion, shut off my cell phone, and took Corinne’s manuscript into my kitchen. Making a big pot of coffee, I sorted the pages back into order and sat down to read. The tale of Corinne’s life, her excitement as she fell in love and married, only to find herself restless and unsatisfied soon after; her love for baby Randolph, and her anguish as the son she loved turned into someone else under the influence of drugs; her dislike of the daughter-in-law Randolph brought her, a girl ten years his junior who was more interested in partying than in mothering the child who came along six months after they married; her ballroom dance successes and her drive to win more titles and recognition; and the stories about people she met along the way kept me glued to the manuscript as the level of coffee in the pot steadily declined.

Greta Monk’s story was here, along with Corinne’s confrontation with her about the embezzlement. Conrad Monk, Corinne said, had repaid the money his wife embezzled and spread hush money around liberally to keep her from being indicted. Corinne had gone along only to keep scandal from tainting the dance scholarship foundation and its good work. Marco Ingelido’s sordid story was here, a cautionary tale of lust run amok. She’d loved Marco, Corinne admitted, and had hoped to marry him before he got Phyllis, Sarah’s mom, pregnant. When he’d become engaged to Marian, Phyllis’s sister, Corinne had warned Marian, told her that Sarah was, in fact, Marco’s child. My eyes opened wide at that. So, Marco’s wife had known all along and never let on. I wondered whether the knowledge that her husband had slept with her sister, had fathered a child with her, had eaten at her over the years.

I made notes as I read, planning to pass my ideas along to Detective Lissy (whether he appreciated it or not) and Phineas Drake. Corinne gave Maurice’s story of cruise ship romance gone bad a humorous spin, and I wondered how he’d react to that. It didn’t seem to me, even forty-some years after the fact, that he found anything funny about the incident. I knew Detective Lissy would have latched onto the story already, so I didn’t include it in my notes. There were a couple of stories I hadn’t heard before, one featuring a ballroom dance judge who was a closet homosexual in the early 1970s who had been blackmailed by a former partner. Since he had died of AIDS in the late 1980s, I didn’t put him in my notes either. The other tale I was unfamiliar with involved Turner and cheating. He’d done more than cheat himself, according to his loving grandmother; he’d run a cheating racket that involved buying copies of tests, hacking professors’ computers, and selling the tests themselves and/or answers to a startling number of students. I wondered whether he could be prosecuted for the hacking; even if not, having the tale publicized was likely to ensure he never got admitted to another university. Not that failing to get a degree would matter much to his future, now that he had inherited Corinne’s millions.