Marcia Talley - Dead Man Dancing

‘First your cat, now your chicken! I’ll store a whole side of beef, if you have it.’

I returned Kay’s call. She must have been waiting by the phone because she picked up on the first ring. She was leaving soon for Texas. Would I be a dear and bring Jay’s gym bag over now?

While her tongue dripped with honey, mine was abject with apology. Mannered, stilted, overly-polite, like conversation in a bad novel. ‘Golly, I’m sorry, Kay, but I’m dog-sitting this afternoon, and my car’s in the shop. It’s inconvenient, I know, but can you come to me?’

‘I’ve got a very small window, but I think that can be arranged. Where shall we meet?’

‘I’ll be walking Coco at Quiet Waters Park. Do you know it?’

‘Near Hillsmere. Where the symphony plays in the summer?’

‘Exactly. I’ll meet you at the Blue Heron Center. Is three o’clock good for you?’

‘Ideal. See you then, Hannah. Goodbye.’

Then I made a second phone call and invited somebody else to the party.

While I was still on the phone, Eva let herself in the back door and leaned against the door jamb, listening to my half of the conversation.

‘Are you out of your mind!’ she cried when I hung up the phone.

‘Maybe.’

‘Shirley Douglas?’

‘If Melanie’s right about Jay abusing Tessa, maybe I’ve been barking up the wrong tree all along. Maybe Shirley poisoned Jay. If she found out about it, who would have a better motive for murdering an abuser than an enraged mother?’

I invited Eva to sit down at the table and shoved a plate of chocolate chip cookies at her. ‘Thallium, the perfect revenge. A slow, agonizing poison, just atonement for the long-term sexual abuse of her little girl.’

Eva waved away the cookies as if they were laced with thallium. ‘But why would she keep coming to J & K Studios, exposing her daughter…?’

‘You’d have to be there to see it, right? To witness the man’s deterioration inch by painful inch, to revel in the gradual loss of his ability to dance.’

‘That’s sick.’

‘So’s pedophilia.’ The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them, but Eva didn’t flinch.

We sat silently for a while, listening to the icemaker shuck cubes into the bin. After a bit, I told my friend, ‘I’m having a hard time processing the idea of Jay as a pedophile,’

Eva smiled grimly. ‘They don’t come ready-made with a big red “P” branded on their foreheads.’

‘I know,’ I said, remembering Eva’s late husband who in his own way had been just as charming as Jay. But then, charm had to be an essential part of any successful pedophile’s toolkit.

‘Hannah,’ Eva began in a tone she might use with a wayward child, ‘what do you hope to accomplish by throwing Kay and Shirley together in the same pot?’

‘I hope to stir things up a bit, and arrive at the truth.’

‘An admirable goal, truth. But the path along the way could be dangerous.’

I smiled. ‘That’s why I invited you along.’

Eva frowned, apparently considering her options. When she spoke again, I knew I’d have her support. ‘Who’s going to be around Quiet Waters Park in the middle of February?’

‘More people than you’d think,’ I replied. ‘I’m meeting them at the Blue Heron Center which adjoins the Visitors’ Center, so the employees are there, and today – I checked – they’re opening an art show in one of the galleries. There’ll be plenty of folks hanging around.’

I took Eva’s grocery bag, moved aside some potatoes, and tucked it into the vegetable crisper. ‘And another plus. Unless they have season passes, they’ll have to check in at the gatehouse to get in. There’ll be a record of that.’

Eva shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Hannah. It sounds pretty hare-brained to me.’

I rested my fists on my hips. ‘What is anybody going to do to me in public with you standing by my side?’

‘Probably nothing.’

‘There you go.’

Eva checked her watch. ‘How much time do we have?’

I checked the digital read-out on the microwave: two fifteen. ‘About forty-five minutes. And Eva?’

‘What?’

‘I know where I can get the dog, but where the heck am I going to get the gym bag?’

In the end, we parked at Emily’s, collected Coco and jogged to the park carrying a red gym bag that I’d picked up at a management conference six or seven years before and had stashed in the basement. I held the side with the AMAC logo next to me – it’d been so long, I’d forgotten what AMAC stood for – and prayed it would stand up to Kay’s inspection, at least from a distance.

‘What do you plan to do, Hannah?’

‘Get one of them to confess, of course.’

‘And how will you manage that, pray tell?’

I shrugged. ‘If I make Kay mad enough, it might happen. She’s going to be pissed off big-time when she finds out that I lied about the bag.’

‘Can I ask you something, Eva?’ I paused on the path while Coco strained after a squirrel, tugging at the leash, jerking my arm up and down. ‘After Roger was outed on NBC by PredatorBeware, did you ever feel like killing him?’

Eva had jogged a few feet ahead, but she stopped and turned to face me. ‘I felt sickened and betrayed, but I can truthfully say I never once thought about murder.’ A bird sitting on a bare branch chose that moment to warble a greeting, and Eva smiled. “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.” Romans 12.’

‘I know, I know,’ I said as we continued down the path together. ‘But sometimes I wish he’d hurry up and get around to it.’

‘Hah!’ said Eva. ‘I’m going to steal that line.’

‘I’m convinced the Baltimore cops are going to nail somebody sooner or later for Jay’s murder,’ I said a little breathlessly, thinking about the evidence that might have turned up when they analyzed the contents of Jay’s gym bag. ‘But, I am not going to let anyone get away with Melanie’s, and the local cops seem clueless.’ I told Eva about my conversation with Don, then added, ‘Accident, my foot! A spot on Shall We Dance? A husband who adores her and vice versa? That girl had everything to live for.’

As we hurried on two cars drove by, but neither belonged to Kay. I had no idea what Shirley drove. We passed various pavilions named for trees – Red Maple, Sassafras, Sycamore, White Oak – trotted through the formal gardens, and up the stairs to the patio.

I checked my watch. It was two fifty-nine.

Kay was already sitting on one of the teak, Chippendale-style benches that surrounded an elaborate Victorian, three-tiered cast-iron fountain that looked like it should be flowing with wedding champagne rather than water.

Sitting on the bench next to Kay was Tessa’s mother, Shirley Douglas.

‘Well…’ Kay flashed a smile like the snake in the Garden of Eden. ‘I see you’ve brought a friend along, and so have I.’

Shirley glanced nervously at me. ‘Kay and I are not friends, not exactly. I’m not sure why she asked me here.’

I fessed up. ‘Kay didn’t invite you here, Shirley. I did.’

Kay turned a cool eye on her ‘friend’ Shirley. ‘Hannah probably wants me to tell you about Jay and about Tessa.’

Oh, oh, I thought. Now the shit is really going to hit the fan.

Shirley laced her fingers and flexed them nervously. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Kay.’

The look Kay sent Shirley dripped with malevolence. ‘Of course you do, Shirley. Melanie told me all about it.’

‘Melanie? What does Melanie have to do with anything?’

‘Melanie noticed Jay talking to Tessa. She watched them for a long time.’ Kay’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘That’s how Melanie found out that Jay was abusing your daughter.’