Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

My alarm went off way too early and it took several layers of concealer to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. The gold pro-am heats were this morning-“gold” being the division for advanced students, some of whom were good enough to turn pro-and I donned the limegreen Latin costume with the fringe, for competing with Mark Downey. After calling my credit card company to report the stolen card and to arrange for a replacement, I scuffed into my slippers, tucked my shoes under my arm, and went down to breakfast, grateful I could charge it to my room since I had no money.

Usually, I can spot Danielle’s red mop across a crowded room. In the dining room full of flamboyant dance costumes and hairstyles, however, it was her taupe sweater and charcoal pants that stood out. Over a bowl of oatmeal (me) and a plate of eggs Benedict with hash browns (definitely not me), Danielle exclaimed over yesterday’s events.

“So this Taryn girl’s dad tried to kill her dance partner?”

“Looked like it to me,” I said.

“And then you met this Victoria person and she told you Rafe was helping her escape from her husband?”

I nodded, pouring skim milk over my oatmeal and mixing in a spoonful of raisins. On a Saturday morning, the hotel didn’t have much in the way of business clientele, so almost everyone in the dining room was involved with the competition in one way or another. I scanned for Mark Downey but didn’t see him yet.

“Did you believe her?”

“About what?”

“Any of it.” Danielle gestured impatiently with her fork. “Doesn’t it seem a bit unlikely that she hadn’t heard about Rafe’s death? I mean, come on. No one’s that out of touch in this day and age.”

“She seemed surprised and upset.” Was I a gullible idiot for buying her story about no TV, no phone? No, I’d heard Rafe talk about the cabin-it was primitive with a capital P.

“Yeah, just like she seemed helpless and confused… right up until she stole your wallet and disappeared on you.”

I shrugged slightly, conceding the point. “I still think she was genuinely scared of her husband.”

“Yeah, well, from what you’ve told me, he sounds like a nasty guy. But killing her because she wants to leave him? Doesn’t the guy have any pride? He needs to man up and pretend he doesn’t care. Have you considered the possibility that this chick killed Rafe?” Danielle gave me a serious look over a forkful of dripping eggs Benedict.

I’d considered every possible contender for Rafe’s murder during my sleepless hours last night, from Victoria to Héctor to a time-traveling assassin from the future. “I considered it,” I said, “but I don’t know why she would. He was helping her.”

“So she says,” Danielle said significantly. “Maybe he was going to tell Bazán where she was.”

“Why would he do that?” I frowned at her. “That wouldn’t be like Rafe. And it doesn’t mesh with him scrounging around for money.” And selling Sherry Indrebo’s flash drive to her opponent, I thought. “Listen to this, though: Victoria told me that Rafe knew a place to get her a gun.”

Danielle’s blue eyes opened wide. “You think he meant your gun?”

I nodded. “Yup. I think Rafe took my gun, planning to give it to Danielle. The jerk. I’d have loaned it to him, if he’d asked. Anyway, I think it’s possible that he had it with him the night he was killed.”

“So the murderer got the gun away from Rafe and used it on him? Cold.”

“ Uh-huh . But the important thing is that it means whoever killed him didn’t have to know I had a gun, and didn’t have to sneak into my place to steal it.”

“That must make you feel better,” Danielle said.

“Marginally. But it also means that anyone could’ve killed Rafe, even people I assumed couldn’t have because they wouldn’t have known about the gun. Like Leon Hall.”

“So the killer really could have been a thief that Rafe walked in on,” Danielle said, “and not someone he knew at all.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” I said slowly. She’d hit on the one possibility I hadn’t thought of last night. “But it doesn’t seem likely. What thief would want to rob a dance studio? There’s nothing worth stealing. He’d be better off knocking over a convenience store or even a fast-food joint. No, I still think it was someone Rafe knew, someone he planned to meet, or someone who knew he’d turn up at the studio eventually.”

“You need to tell that Detective Lissy about Rafe having the gun,” Danielle urged. She pushed aside her empty plate and drew her coffee cup closer. “Maybe then he’ll stop considering you Public Enemy Number One.”

“Good idea,” I said. “As soon as-”

“Hey, Stacy, are you ready to rumba?” Alert and smiling, Mark Downey approached with a cup of coffee, seating himself at our table without asking. His form-fitting Latin costume had lime green accents to match my dress and his sandy hair flopped rakishly across his forehead. “Hi, Danielle,” he added. “Good to see you again.”

“Hi, Mark. Good luck today.”

“Thanks. I’m thinking this may be my last competition as an amateur.”

I smiled at him. Amateurs who won out in the gold division frequently made the jump to professional status, assuming they wanted a career of teaching and competing. “Let’s do it,” I said, giving Danielle a look that said we’d continue our conversation later. She accompanied us to the ballroom and took a seat at the studio table, chatting with a tense-looking Sherry Indrebo. She was husbandless this morning. She and Vitaly would be competing against Mark and me, and I knew that regardless of who won, we’d have a very unhappy loser on our hands.

I found myself looking at the older woman with her wiry muscles and tight body, clad now in an orange costume, wondering if she had it in her to shoot Rafe. She’d told me politics was her life; if she knew Rafe had sold her out to her opponent in the House race, just how mad would she have been? Livid, I imagined. If she and Rafe had met that night and Rafe had told her what he’d done, she could have snapped. Before I could work out the scenario any further, the announcer called us onto the floor and Sherry rose with a flutter of feathers and took Vitaly’s arm with a practiced smile. Mark offered his arm to me and the competition got under way.

Mark and I won. Which is to say, we won the “Overall” title for the Pro/Am Scholarship-International Latin-Gold Division. The uninitiated would need the Rosetta stone or a code-breaking book to read ballroom dancing score sheets; suffice it to say that Mark and I were ranked number one in three of the five dances and no lower than third in any of them. Sherry and Vitaly took a second and a third and landed as low as fifth in the cha-cha. That really wasn’t surprising considering they’d had only a couple of practices while Mark and I and several of the other pro-am couples had danced together for years. At any rate, Mark was ecstatic and I was pleased; our success might (hopefully!) attract more students to Graysin Motion.

Mark grabbed me around the waist and twirled me around, pressing a fast kiss onto my lips. “We did it!” He set me down and accepted congratulations from various other dancers, including Sherry, who looked like her cheeks ached from the effort of maintaining her smile. She disappeared immediately after congratulating Mark, not staying for the celebratory bottle of champagne Vitaly graciously purchased.

After a few minutes, Mark bounded over to where I sat at the studio’s table, watching the Pro/Am Scholarship Open Nite-Club competition in which Graysin Motion had no entries. As couples demonstrated their West Coast Swing, Mark leaned close. “I won out in gold,” he exulted.