Ella Barrick - Quickstep to Murder

“I heard about the fire,” Indrebo said in his mild voice. “What a shame. Do they have any idea how it started?”

“Arson. The police arrested a guy.” I didn’t feel like going into the details; it made me uncomfortable to admit that a student I’d known well had done such a thing. Let the Indrebos read about it in the paper when Mark Downey came to trial.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Indrebo asked, surprising me with a focused stare. His eyes hovered between blue and slate and I felt some of the force I was sure had propelled him to business success.

“No, not really.”

“I’d think you’d be nervous to dance in here, what with your partner being murdered here.” He pointed with his cane to a spot eerily close to where Rafe had lain.

“I guess I’m not the nervous type,” I said lightly, closing the door. “Look, I don’t mean to seem rude, but I’ve got a dinner thing.” At least, I hoped my meeting with Tav would turn into a dinner date. “Let me get that flash drive for you.”

“Where did you find it anyway?” he asked. “In there?” He nodded toward the ballroom. “Or maybe you’ve had it all along.”

I gave him a startled look. “No, of course not. The floor refinisher found it wedged under a baseboard in the-” I bit off the words, suddenly realizing that he knew too much. How did he know where I’d found Rafe? All the paper said was “at a dance studio in Old Town, Alexandria.” And why would he think I’d found the flash drive in the ballroom? Unless-My heart rate seemed to double, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard I was afraid Indrebo would hear. I stopped just outside the office door. “You know,” I said, trying to sound mildly frustrated, not scared witless, “I left it downstairs on my dresser. Wait here and I’ll be right back with it.”

“I don’t think so.” His voice didn’t get louder, but steel threaded through the words. A gun appeared in his hand, aimed at my stomach, and I gaped at him wordlessly. “You must think I’m a fool, Miss Graysin.”

“No, no, I don’t,” I stuttered. Killer, yes. Fool, no.

A smile played at the corners of his mouth, like I amused him. “Your partner made the same mistake of underestimating me. When he tried to blackmail my wife, he took on me, too, little though he understood that at the time.”

“Rafe tried to blackmail Sherry?”

“Don’t play dumb,” he said wearily. “I’m sure you were in on it with him.”

“I wasn’t! I didn’t know that-”

“No matter. Step back.”

I took a giant step backward, happy to have a couple more feet between me and the gun. Not that a few feet would make much difference if he shot me. I needed to get out of the confines of the hall to someplace where I could maneuver. I rubbed suddenly damp palms against my jeaned thighs. Surely I could outrun a man with a cane? Maybe, but I couldn’t outrun a bullet.

I played for time, hoping Tav would walk in, preferably with a SWAT team in tow. “What’s on that drive, anyway? I mean, the Post already broke the story, so what’s the big deal?”

“As you well know, the Post only had one story,” Indrebo said, “the one that Acosta sold them, trying to get my wife to pay more for the return of the flash drive. She’d have paid it, too, if I hadn’t told her to leave it to me. It’s not just her political future at stake,” he said, “it’s my business. And as I explained to her when she was reluctant to have me meet Acosta in her place, it’s my business-my money-that keeps her in politics. It’s a symbiotic relationship-I have financed her campaigns and she’s finally on the right committees-do you have any idea how long it took to maneuver her onto the House Armed Services committee?-to nudge business my way or pass certain laws that make the business climate more… favorable.” He laughed, a mellow, grandpa-ish sound that didn’t even hint at his ruthlessness. “There’s a vote on the next-gen army helo coming up next week and it’s vital for my company that she be at the HCAS meeting to cast her vote and sway any of her compatriots who seem to be waffling.”

“You build helicopters?” I tried to keep him talking.

“Avionics for helicopters,” he corrected me. “Never mind. But we’re talking about hundreds of millions. And now that reporter, that McDill, is sniffing around, trying to connect his story about Sherry planting a spy in the Democrats’ campaign office with Acosta’s death, and I’m told he got the lead from you.” His face hardened and he glared at me. “We’re wasting time. Just give me the drive.”

“It’s downstairs,” I said. “On my dresser.”

He studied me, assessing my truthfulness, then stepped aside and waved me past him with the gun. “You go first. And don’t try anything stupid because I’ll be right behind you with this gun aimed at your spine. I don’t think you’d do much dancing with a backbone shot to splinters.”

The very thought made my calves and feet tingle. I moved as slowly as possible toward the interior door that opened to the stairs. “Why’d you use my gun to shoot Rafe?” I asked, turning slightly to face him.

“That was serendipitous,” Indrebo said. “I had this gun with me, of course, but Acosta pulled out his gun at the very start of our conversation. It seems he didn’t trust me.” He chuckled again.

Rafe was smarter than I was, I thought.

“He wasn’t really prepared to use it, though. It’s harder than most people think to stand face to face and fire a gun at another human being. Shooting someone is a huge mental leap for most people, but physically it’s just one quick step, a slight tightening of the forefinger.” His finger tensed on the trigger and I flinched.

Indrebo laughed, reading my fear. “I smacked my cane across his wrist”-he tapped my shoulder with the cane to demonstrate-“and he dropped it. I recovered it and the rest, as they say, is history. Unfortunately, the thumb drive went flying when I shot him, and I couldn’t find it. Not enough light, not enough time.”

He prodded my shoulder with the cane and I opened the door, gesturing for him to precede me.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, smiling. “Ladies first.” He pointed with the gun and I started down the stairs, deliberately not flicking the light switch on the wall. Darkness favored me, I figured, since I knew every inch of these stairs.

“And Sherry had no trouble with you killing Rafe and wrecking her competition career?”

“My wife doesn’t know I killed him,” he said, a touch of irritation in his voice.

“Sure she doesn’t.” I rolled my eyes.

“She’s good at not seeing what she doesn’t want to see,” he said drily. “An invaluable skill for a politician. I told her he didn’t show for our meeting, that the studio was locked tight. If I’d told her the truth, maybe she wouldn’t have sent you on a wild-goose chase for the damn flash drive and we wouldn’t be here now.”

A cheery thought and an excellent argument for total truthfulness between marriage partners. We had reached the landing with its pretty oriel window and I looked out, hoping to see someone I could signal. A red Jaguar I thought belonged to the neighbor two doors down nosed past and I half lifted a hand-not that the driver would have seen me or recognized my distress-but Indrebo poked the gun hard between my shoulder blades and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

I took another reluctant step down. The front door was tantalizingly near the foot of the stairs. I thought about hurtling down the last stairs, lunging for the door, and escaping through it. That plan relied on Indrebo being partially immobilized by his limp (so he couldn’t catch me while I opened the door) and a lousy shot (so he couldn’t shoot me while ditto). I decided to take the risk; once he got the flash drive, he was going to shoot me-I knew too much-so I didn’t have much to lose by forcing the issue now. I was tensing my muscles for the leap when the cane’s rubber tip dug into the small of my back and nudged me forward so I stumbled down the last three steps, landing hard on my knees and hands. The hardwood floor sent jolts up my arms to my shoulders and the pain in my knees brought tears to my eyes. I scrunched my lids together, determined not to let Indrebo see me cry.