Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

I’d been through it fifty times in my mind and I knew I was right. Frustrated with what I saw as Lissy’s deliberate obtuseness, I started, “Detective-”

“Ssh!” His grandson had come up to bat. I resigned myself and watched as the kid whiffed the first pitch, fouled the second one, and then connected with the third one to send the ball skittering between first and second bases. When he arrived, panting, at first base, he turned to grin at his grandpa, and Lissy gave him a thumbs-up. If I’d thought his pleasure in his grandson’s accomplishment would soften him up, I was in for a disappointment.

“Go away, Ms. Graysin,” Lissy said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for your friend, but you have no evidence. Nada. Nothing but a story made up of speculation and wishful thinking.”

“But-” I stopped. “What if I had proof?”

“If you had evidence, we could talk.” His tone made it plain he didn’t think we’d be conversing anytime soon.

Without giving a lot of thought to what I was going to do next, I pointed my Beetle toward Washington, D.C. At this hour on a Friday evening, most of the traffic was crawling out of the city, so I didn’t hit any major traffic jams. As a result, I slid into a curbside parking space a block from Lavinia Fremont’s shop at half past seven. The sun was low on the horizon, still providing plenty of light, but stretching shadows halfway across the street. A Middle Eastern restaurant offered sidewalk tables, and the scent of falafel mingled strangely with exhaust. Diners laughed, and a belly dancer emerged as I made my way toward Lavinia Fremont’s studio.

The door was locked, and a “closed” sign hung in the window. I bit my lip. I’d rushed over here without a real plan, in my usual impulsive way, and now I didn’t know what to do. I stepped back on the sidewalk and craned my neck. A light shone from the windows above the shop; I thought Lavinia lived up there. A taupe-painted door to the left of the shop had a sign above its doorbell that read, PRIVATE RESIDENCE. NO SOLICITATION. I wasn’t a salesperson. I rang the bell.

Nothing happened for several minutes. I was about to give up and go home to formulate a better plan-heck, any plan-when I heard footsteps descending the stairs. “Yes?” Lavinia called from inside the safely closed door.

“It’s Stacy Graysin, Lavinia. May I talk to you for a moment?”

The door eased open a crack, stopped by a chain, and half of Lavinia’s face appeared. She was makeupless, and her severely red hair made a stark contrast with her pale, tissue-frail skin. “Stacy!” She sounded astonished to see that it was really me. “What on earth-”

“I know it’s late, and I shouldn’t bother you at home, but it’s about Corinne. May I come in?”

She hesitated long enough for me to know she considered my appearance on her doorstep an imposition, and then pulled the door wider after removing the chain. “I suppose so.” Her voice was querulous; she sounded a lot like my Nana Graysin did once she decided she was old and decrepit, not like the vibrant Lavinia I was used to.

She wore a gray chenille robe, and I followed her up the stairs, conscious of her one bony, blue-veined ankle bare above a black, moccasin-style slipper, and the hard, too-uniform flesh color of the prosthetic. Her apartment door stood open, light spilling onto the landing, and she gestured for me to precede her inside. I looked around curiously, noting a sofa and love seat covered in pale green velvet, with striped pillows and a patterned rug providing contrast. Framed photos were the only art on the walls. I moved closer to study them, smiling at the 1960s hairdos and fashions of the ballroom dancers. An auburn-haired dancer in an ice blue gown caught my eye. I half turned to Lavinia, who stood watching me. “You?”

She nodded. “Me and Ricky.” I realized with a start that there were no dance photos in her design studio, no photos of her at all. Glancing at the collection on her walls, I also realized that all the displayed pictures predated the attack in London. Suddenly uncomfortable, I backed away. A dining nook beyond the seating area held a round table and four chairs in a warm wood of some kind, and a single bowl of soup and glass of wine sat on the shiny tabletop.

“I interrupted your dinner,” I said, feeling worse and worse about my invasion. “I’m sorry.”

Lavinia shrugged as if to say, You’re here now , and offered me some soup. “Chicken barley,” she said. “A family recipe.”

“It smells delicious,” I said, accepting.

Limping into the galley-style kitchen, she ladled soup into an eggplant-colored bowl and handed it to me. “Wine?”

“I’m driving.”

Without asking, she poured me a glass of water, carried it to the table, and seated herself. “I assume you’re not here to talk about dresses?” she said with a hint of asperity. She sounded more like the usual Lavinia, and I relaxed a tad.

“No. I wanted to talk about Corinne.”

Lavinia nodded. “There’s something about a funeral that brings out the need to tell stories, isn’t there?”

That wasn’t exactly it, but I nodded. “You were best friends.”

Lavinia spooned up soup and didn’t reply.

“It’s amazing what she did for you after your accident.”

“I wouldn’t call it an ‘accident.’”

“The attack.” I let the words sit, trying to prod her into saying something. No joy. We ate for a moment in silence, and I glugged some water, beginning to wish I’d accepted the wine. Finally, I said, “I read Corinne’s manuscript.”

That brought Lavinia’s head up. She observed me through narrowed eyes. “I heard she never finished it.”

“Oh, she did,” I said. “Her housekeeper-Mrs. Laughlin-took it over after Corinne’s death.”

“Stole it?” Lavinia wasn’t one to pussyfoot around with euphemisms.

“I guess so. She finished it up, added a bit, and sent it off to the publisher. I guess the book’ll come out in time for the holidays.”

“Merry Christmas,” Lavinia said in an unjolly voice.

“She’s got a whole chapter about the trip to London,” I prodded.

Lavinia downed the rest of her wine and rose to fetch the bottle, her limp more pronounced than earlier. “What does she have to say about it?”

“I think you know.” There. I said it. I kept my eyes fastened on Lavinia; her gaze flitted to my face and then refocused on the wine bottle as she poured the last of the straw-colored liquid into her glass.

“I suppose I do know,” she said, and I felt a brief flare of triumph before she continued. “I was there, after all.” Did her steady gaze hold a hint of mockery?

I expressed my frustration by dropping my spoon into my bowl with a clatter. “She admits to paying some thug to attack you.”

Lavinia drew her breath in sharply and said, “Oh, my.”

“‘Oh, my’? You learn your best friend was responsible for an attack that cost you your foot, your ability to dance, and you say, ‘Oh, my’?” Scraping my chair back, I got to my feet. “I think you knew. I think she told you.”

Lavinia faced me calmly, only her whitened knuckles around the wine bottle’s neck betraying tension. “I’m just surprised that she confessed to it in writing,” she said. “I’ve known for years.”

“I don’t believe you.” I knew I sounded like an eight-year-old on the playground, but I couldn’t help it. She was skillfully, deftly, cutting the ground from under my feet. By saying she’d known for years, she was building a defense based on Lissy’s logic: Why would she seek revenge all these years after the fact? “I think she told you not long ago, like she told everyone else about what she was writing. I think you felt angry, stunned, betrayed. I think you went off the deep end, that you…” I found I couldn’t utter the accusation out loud.