John Lutz - Dancing with the Dead

It was a very long time before he answered, then there was a change in his voice, a weary disillusionment. “You’re not from the press, are you?”

“Me? God, no! I absolutely despise what the press is doing to you!”

“What are they doing to me?”

“Not taking you seriously when you say your wife’s murder had something to do with dancing. And they keep badgering you; at least that’s the impression I get from the news.” And they see you as a suspect.

“They really haven’t been all that bad,” Verlane said. “It’s the police I can’t stomach.” His southern accent made them poh-lice. “They play their little mind games, keep their secrets. You can’t imagine what they can be like till you actually get involved with them the way I have. Sweet Lord, they’ve even suggested… Well, never mind.”

“When Martha Roundner was murdered, was there a ballroom dance competition about that time in Seattle?”

“That’s one of the things I’m going to find out. I only got here last night and haven’t had a chance to do much. The Roundner murder was three months ago; do you recall any kind of competition then anywhere at all in this part of the country?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any. Ballroom dancing’s really getting popular, and there’s almost always a competition going on somewhere. If there was a competition in or around Seattle at that time, it oughta be easy enough to find out about it.”

“Should be,” he agreed. “Do you enter dance competitions?”

“Sometimes,” Mary lied. “My next one’s the Ohio Star Ball in November.”

“That’s an important one, isn’t it? I remember Danielle talking about it, but she never danced there.” A catch in his throat. “Never had the chance.”

Pity swelled like a balloon in Mary. “You danced sometimes, too, didn’t you?”

“Never in competition,” Verlane said. “I only got good enough so I could keep up with Danielle at social dancing.”

“She was beautiful. I mean, I don’t say that because we look something alike-It’s just such a shame, what happened.”

“Did you and Danielle ever dance in the same competitions? Do you remember her?” Something sad and eager in his tone now, as if he yearned for more memory to hold onto.

“No, but some of the dancers at my studio recognized her photograph and remembered her dancing. They said she was terrific, especially in the smooth dances.”

“What studio do you dance at?”

“Romance Studio. Part of the chain.”

“It just occurred to me I don’t even know what city you’re calling from.”

“St. Louis.”

“Ah, I was there about three years ago. A bond fund convention. I’m a stockbroker.”

“I know you are. It was mentioned more than once on the news.”

“You must watch the news a lot.”

“I do. And I read a lot.” She decided to take a chance. Her heart double-clutched and began to race. “Listen, if you ever need to know anything about ballroom dancing, I mean how things work with competition or anything, you can give me a call anytime and I’ll try to help.” She realized her words to Verlane were almost exactly those of Victor offering to help her with Angie.

“All right, I might well do that. Thanks, Mary.”

She suddenly didn’t know what to say. Several slow seconds passed. Thick silence built in the line, clogging it like cholesterol in a vital artery.

“I guess I’ll hang up now,” she finally managed to stammer. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“About your wife and all.”

“I see. Thanks for that, too.”

She told him her phone number. He didn’t ask her to repeat it, or excuse himself to find a pen or pencil. She hoped he was really writing it down. Well, hotels usually had stationery and pens handy by the phone, didn’t they?

He thanked her again for calling, then told her good-bye.

“Good luck,” she said, and hung up.

She sat with her fingers lingering on the phone, her blood racing. Her mind was whirling somewhere above her and seemed to circle back to where and who she was with infinite slowness. What a thing to have done-to call the husband of a murdered woman!

Now that she’d spoken with Rene Verlane and he was real and not simply another image on TV, it bore down on her with new and unexpected weight that he was not only the widower of a homicide victim, he was suspected of committing the crime. She’d actually talked to a murder suspect. How many people ever did that?

How many people were crazy or desperate enough to try?

She considered phoning Helen and telling her what had happened. She even started to lift the receiver. Then Mary decided she didn’t want to share any part of her and Rene Verlane’s phone conversation.

Why should she? It was private. It was intimate.

Seattle had changed things.

Morrisy sat before his half-finished eggs Benedict at Brennan’s and stared at the fax sheets he’d been carrying around in his pocket. The similarities in the Roundner and Verlane homicides couldn’t be discounted, and it did seem that ballroom dancing figured into whatever psychosis the killer carried in his sick mind. Morrisy had seen Schutz about it, and Schutz had agreed, but he’d said there wasn’t enough data or insight to determine just how the dancing fit in, or even if it did for sure.

Fingering the smooth meerschaum pipe in his shirt pocket, Morrisy thought about how he hated to dance. Bonita had dragged him out on the floor a few times, forcing him to do his awkward box step. Finally he’d deliberately stomped on her toe and she’d believed he was no dancer. It took something like that with a woman like Bonita.

The waiter wandered by and refilled his coffee. At the next table another waiter had touched flame to liqueur and some kind of fancy breakfast dish blazed. It had always struck Morrisy as ridiculous to set food on fire. He enjoyed eating at a place like Brennan’s, though, with its high-toned atmosphere and its lush garden; it was one of the perks of his position and if he continued to put on weight the hell with it.

He stared into the flames until the waiter extinguished the fire. Then he gazed into the dark depths of his coffee cup, thinking. The Roundner woman’s body had been decomposed to the point where determining time of death was difficult, but she was probably killed on a weekend. Rene Verlane claimed to have spent that time at home, but it was possible he could have taken a flight to Seattle under an alias, committed the murder, and returned home. Only his wife, Danielle, would know for sure, and Danielle was dead. Maybe that was why she was dead.

And Verlane was in Seattle now, had even announced on TV he was going there. Snooping around, as if an amateur could uncover something the police had overlooked. Like goddamn Rockford or something. It was all an act, anyway, Morrisy thought. Verlane was playing the bereaved husband to the hilt, trying to get the media on his side and divert suspicion away from him. The guy did have brass nuts, Morrisy would give him that. But that’s all he’d give him other than a shitpot full of trouble.

Morrisy sipped coffee, wondering about the dance connection. Maybe there really wasn’t any except for the fact the killer figured women wrapped up in ballroom dancing were kind of natural victims from the beginning. They literally yearned to be swept off their feet, to give themselves up to music and whoever they were dancing with. Vulnerable romantics of the sort who made work for Morrisy. At least that was how Morrisy saw it. He figured most men regarded that kind of dancing as nothing more than an opportunity to cop a feel, find out where they stood for the rest of the night with their partners when the dancing was over.