Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

A phone call to the Post ’s switchboard hooked me up with McDill the following morning, Tuesday, and he agreed to meet me for breakfast. He insisted on a holein-the-wall Mexican diner not too far from the Post ’s offices on 15th Street. I arrived ten minutes late, having gotten turned around when I exited the Metro at the McPherson Square stop. The diner smelled of cilantro and refried beans as I pushed through the smudged glass doors. What sounded like a Spanish love song played from the kitchen and a handful of Latinos, all men, sat at a counter eating burritos, drinking coffee, and arguing loudly but amicably with one another in Spanish. The man I took to be Kevin McDill lounged at a tiny, chrome-rimmed table in the corner, newspaper open, mug of coffee steaming in front of him.

I approached and stopped three feet away. The paper stayed up. The Wall Street Journal , I noted. “Mr. McDill?” I finally said.

“Yeah.” A gravelly voice spoke from behind the newspaper.

“I’m Stacy Graysin.”

“You’re late.”

Impatient with his rudeness, I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat.

After a moment, the paper dipped slightly and a pair of bushy brows and eyes framed by reading glasses appeared over the top edge. “You said you wanted to talk about the Indrebo story.” He had skin the color of old walnuts and dark eyes with slightly yellowed corneas. He was older than I’d expected, in his sixties.

“That’s right. I was wondering where you got the documents you referred to in your story.”

“You want information from me?” He hacked a laugh and I figured he’d been a smoker back in the day. “That ain’t the way it works.”

“I just need to know who you got the thumb drive from.”

Laying the paper on the table, he eyed me cynically. A toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth and it jumped up and down as he talked. “What makes you think I’ve got a thumb drive? I don’t compromise my sources, Miz Graysin.”

He folded the newspaper and I got the feeling he was headed out. I reached across the table and put a hand on his forearm, bared by rolled-up sleeves. “Wait. Can you at least tell me when you got the thumb dr-the information? Was it this week?”

After a moment’s thought during which the toothpick wiggled mightily, he said, “I don’t see what that would hurt. I acquired the information last week. The story only broke yesterday because we had to get corroboration on some of the details. And that, Miz Graysin, is all I’m prepared to tell you.” He stood, revealing a thick trunk and short legs. Something in my expression grabbed his attention because he paused, looking down at me, reporter’s nose all but twitching at the faint scent of a story. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”

I hesitated, unsure whether it would help or hinder my investigation to have him poking around, too. I decided it couldn’t hurt. “I’m just wondering if there’s any tie between Rafe Acosta’s murder and your story.”

His thick brows climbed, wrinkling his forehead like a bloodhound’s. “Why would you think that? What’s the connection?”

He seemed genuinely intrigued and I began to wonder if Rafe had, in fact, gone to him with the thumb drive. Maybe I had added two and two and come up with five. Math never was my strong suit. Surely a seasoned reporter like McDill would’ve recognized his source’s name when it popped up in a murder story? “You don’t think it’s a bit coincidental that Rafe was murdered a couple days after giving you the political story of the year?”

“If-and I say ‘if’-I had interviewed Mr. Acosta, the fact that he was killed shortly thereafter could be nothing but coincidence. And, believe me, sweets, the Indrebo scandal will be superseded within a month by a politico selling influence some way he shouldn’t or sleeping with someone she shouldn’t. It’s just the same old, same old.”

I rose, tired of craning my neck to look up at him. We were the same height. “She left-” The connection suddenly hit me and I almost dropped into the chair again. When Rafe found Sherry’s thumb drive stuck in his computer, was his immediate thought “reporter”? No. Much as I hated to think he would stoop so low, he must have tried to sell it back to Sherry, perhaps after looking at the contents so he knew what it was worth to her. She’d refused to buy it-why?-and he’d looked for another market. I wasn’t sure if legitimate news reporters could ethically pay for source information, but I knew Sherry’s opponent would have no such restrictions. Rafe had taken the flash drive to the enemy camp, so to speak, and the contender for Sherry’s seat, or someone on his staff, had bought the drive and then turned it over to the Washington Post . It all tumbled into place as neatly as three cherries lining up on a slot machine.

“I’m sorry I bothered you, Mr. McDill,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

His reporter’s instincts now thoroughly aroused, he blocked my path. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?” His eyes searched my face. The world-weary air had dropped from him and I could feel the energy vibrating off him, like a Thoroughbred loaded into the starting gate.

I moved around him with a forced smile. “Nothing important.” I hurried toward the door, not even stopping for an egg and potato burrito to appease my growling stomach.

“I’m going to find the connection, you know,” he called after me.

I didn’t doubt it.

The Metro car sped into a curve and I gripped the underside of the molded plastic seat to keep from leaning into the woman on my right. My brain chewed on the idea that had come to me while talking to McDill and I barely noticed the trees leafing out in spring green as they flashed past the window, or the silver-blue of the Potomac surging under the Metro rail. If I was right, and Rafe had tried to sell the flash drive back to Sherry Indrebo, then why hadn’t she paid him off? Constitutional dislike of being blackmailed? Confidence that she could get the drive another way? Conviction that he was bluffing about selling it elsewhere? Had she threatened him? Confronted him at the studio Monday night, pointed a gun at him-my gun-and told him to hand it over, not knowing it was already too late and he’d sold it to her opponent? Had he laughed at her or jumped her, and gotten shot?

I shook my head. Sherry had been at the studio that day; she could, conceivably, have snuck down to my bedroom and stolen my gun. Where had she been Wednesday night? She’d said she was going to a dinner, but had the police checked to see if she was really there? As the train slowed for my stop, I let go of the murder puzzle momentarily and wished sadly that Rafe had confided in me. I knew he’d needed money, but I hadn’t known how badly. What could possibly have been so important to him? I couldn’t ever recall him talking about a dream or a passion that he was saving money to finance. Dancing was his passion. The studio. Once upon a time, me. I was ninety-nine percent convinced that his need for money had sprung up recently, most likely about a month ago when he started hounding me to expand Graysin Motion’s offerings, turn the studio into a recital mill. Maybe he owed someone money-like a gambling debt-and they killed him when he didn’t pay up. That sounded good until I remembered that the murderer had used my gun. I found it hard to believe that a bookie’s enforcer would go looking for a gun in my bedroom.

I muttered, “Damn,” and the woman beside me inched as far away as she could on the narrow seat. If Rafe hadn’t confided in me, and he hadn’t confided in Tav, who might he have told about his money woes? Why, his main squeeze. Solange. It was time to have a heart-to-heart with the Samba Queen.