Dead Man Waltzing (22 page)

“I’ve been doing this job for twenty-seven years, Miss Graysin,” he said. “I’m better at it than you think.” He used the backs of his fingers to edge the manuscript closer to me.

I wanted to point out that if he were really good at it, he wouldn’t have arrested the wrong man. However, I just stood, tucked the pages back into the tote (instead of strewing them around his psychotically neat office, as I was tempted to), and said with as much dignity as I could muster, “Thanks for your time. I’ve got to hurry if I’m going to drop this at Phineas Drake’s office before they close for the day.” I gave him a sweet smile.

The mention of Drake’s name gave Lissy a dyspeptic look, as if he had tummy troubles, but he didn’t say anything besides, “I’ve told you before: Stick—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Stick to dancing.”

* * *

I dropped a copy of the manuscript off with Phineas Drake, getting a few minutes with the lawyer himself, even though I told his receptionist I didn’t need to see him. His smile was partly hidden by his beard as he came forward to greet me. When I told him what I had, he gave me all the praise Lissy had denied me, extolling my initiative and my cunning. He laughed, a sound like rolling timpani, when I told him about Mrs. Laughlin and Mr. Goudge.

“That’s one way to create conflict of interest and ensure Goudge won’t be able to represent the estate if the grandson sues her for theft of the manuscript,” he said admiringly. “Sounds like my kind of gal.”

I raised my brows, wondering whether Mrs. Laughlin’s liaison with the lawyer was as deliberate as Drake was suggesting, and decided it probably was.

Drake riffled the manuscript’s pages and plunked it onto his massive desk. “I’ll get one of my associates on this right away. I have high hopes that it’ll provide me fodder for creating reasonable doubt, my two favorite words in the English language.” Still chuckling, he escorted me back to the elevators and I rode down, anxious to get home and read the book myself. I called Maurice on the way, telling him what Mrs. Laughlin had said and about giving the manuscript to Drake.

“Good thinking, Anastasia,” he said. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you find something useful in the book.”

“I can make another copy, if you want one,” I offered.

“Thank you, but no. I’m sure I’ll read Corinne’s book one day, but I don’t think I can deal with the memories right now.”

“I understand.” The melancholy in his voice subdued me. “I might have some questions for you, though, as I read.”

“By all means.”

I hung up, thinking about what a weird thing a memoir was. Was it possible, I wondered, for Corinne, or anyone, to write a wholly truthful memoir? Not, I decided, thinking about how Danielle’s and my memories of our last trip to Jekyll Island differed. Nothing told from one person’s perspective could be more than one facet of truth, if that. I amused myself the rest of the way home imagining how my life story would differ if written by me or Danielle or an “objective” author like a reporter.

Chapter 29

I couldn’t dive into the manuscript right when I got home, since I had back-to-back private sessions with two of my competitive students. As I said good-bye to the second one, Danielle breezed in, still in her work “uniform” of gray suit, pale blue blouse, and low-heeled black pumps. Dullsville. Only her red curls saved her from a blandness that would make Muzak look innovative. “I thought we’d get dinner somewhere first,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the sight of my sweaty, grubby self.

“First?”

“Aren’t you the one who invited me to go swimsuit shopping?”

“You didn’t take me up on it,” I said, releasing my ponytail from its elastic.

“Well, I must have, since I’m here.” She grinned unrepentantly.

“Fine. Let me shower,” I said, resigned. I didn’t want to go swimsuit shopping now; I wanted to read the manuscript. However, if there was a chance of getting Danielle to agree to vacation with me and Mom, I had to take it. Sisters.

An hour and a half later, me showered and both of us fed, we descended on the swimsuit department at T.J.Maxx. They had a large selection of suits and were relatively uncrowded in the early evening. Danielle and I each selected eight or ten suits and headed to the fitting room to try them on. We emerged from our dressing rooms simultaneously to inspect our first efforts in the three-way mirror. I wore a tomato red bikini with ruffles, and Danielle had on a black one-piece.

Danielle glared at me balefully. “No woman in her right mind goes swimsuit shopping with a professional dancer.”

I grinned and pirouetted, letting my hair fly. “Oh, come on. You’re in good shape, too; you’re just hiding your great bod under the world’s most hideous suit.”

Looking down at her tank-style suit, Danielle said, “You don’t like it? It fits well.”

I made a raspberry. “Let me pick one out for you.” Ducking into her dressing room, I sorted through the suits she’d selected. “Black tank, black tank with a zipper, navy tank—ooh, going out on a fashion limb there—another black tank, black tank with shirring,” I said, tossing them aside. “Boring, boring, boring! Stay here.” I marched out of the fitting area and back to the racks, forgetting I was still wearing the red bikini until I noticed people staring, especially a middle-aged man buying golf shirts who got tangled up in the spinning clothes rack. Ignoring the attention, I pulled three suits off the rack and took them to Danielle.

“Here.”

She took the suits reluctantly. “They’re so . . . unblack.”

“They’re bright, colorful, happy. Try them on.”

When Danielle came out in the first suit, a one-shoulder number in dark green with pink and coral flowers splashed across it, I gave her a wolf whistle. With her red hair tumbling over her shoulders, she looked like a tropical siren. Turning to and fro in front of the mirror, she gave a tentative smile. “You don’t think it’s too noticeable?”

“There’s no such thing,” I said with all the positivity of almost twenty years of dancing in skintight outfits spattered with sequins or rhinestones, or slit up to
here
and down to
there
, or with sheer illusion panels that skirted the FCC’s decency guidelines, or all of the above. “You look hot. Buy it.”

“Okay.” She giggled and tried on the other suits, and we walked out of the discount house an hour later, the happy owners of two new suits each. Deep dusk had settled over the parking lot, but plenty of traffic still zipped by on Highway 50. Late rush hour—the commuters who worked late to avoid the worst crush of traffic. With the possible exception of midnight until three a.m., every hour of the day in the greater D.C. area was rush hour of some kind.

“Does this mean you’re coming to Jekyll Island?” I asked.

She gave me a “don’t push me” look. “It means I’m planning for all eventualities, keeping my options open.”

“Spoken like a true union negotiator.”

* * *

Tucked up in bed an hour later, I started in on the first page of the manuscript, even though my eyelids were drooping. The first chapter consisted mainly of introductory-type comments—why Corinne was writing the memoir and a bit of ballroom dance history. The second and third chapters concerned her childhood and I skimmed those, even though her accounts of her father’s harshness (verging on abuse, it seemed to me) and her younger brother’s death from pneumonia at age four were riveting. The following chapters dealt with the way she fell in love with ballroom dance by watching all the old musicals in the local theater on Saturday afternoons, and her earliest dance lessons, paid for by the money her mother made sewing for neighbors in the evenings after her day’s work was done.

Corinne had just moved to New York City when I must have drifted off, because I awoke the next morning, one manuscript page crumpled under my cheek, the rest of them scattered on the floor where they’d fallen during the night.
Great
. A glance at the clock told me I didn’t have time to sort them out; Maurice would be here in half an hour to pick me up for the funeral. Hastily scooting the pages together, I stuck them in my bedside table and dashed for my closet. I didn’t have a single outfit anyone would call “solemn,” so I had to settle for a zebra-striped sheath dress that went almost to my knees, with black hose and strappy black sandals. I twisted my hair into a simple chignon and, thinking it was kind of Corinne-ish, added a small black hat with a wisp of veil that I’d worn when Rafe and I performed a foxtrot on the
Ballroom with the B-Listers
results show a couple years back. A slick of light makeup and I was waiting in the front hall when Maurice pulled up.

When we arrived at the Presbyterian church, Maurice deserted me with an apology to join the other ex-husbands in a front pew, across the aisle from Randolph and Turner Blakely. “Corinne drew up the seating charts,” Maurice explained in a low voice before he headed toward the altar, “and selected the music and the scripture passages for reading, and the flowers. It looks like Turner’s done a nice job of fulfilling her wishes.”

I gave Turner a silent apology for assuming he’d been the one determined to turn Corinne’s funeral into a spectacle; rather, it was Corinne orchestrating the drama from beyond the grave. I shivered and slotted myself into a pew near the back, where the scent of lilies and carnations wasn’t too overwhelming. I could just glimpse the oiled mahogany of the casket. I didn’t think I’d feel compelled to draw up a script for my funeral when the time came.

We were a few minutes early, and I watched as other mourners trickled in. Mrs. Laughlin entered on the arm of Jonathan Goudge, and they were ushered to the pew behind the ex-husbands. Marco Ingelido and his wife arrived and followed an usher to a pew only two in front of where I sat. I guessed they hadn’t made Corinne’s A-list. Lavinia Fremont arrived soon after in a beautifully cut black linen suit and a wide-brimmed hat with enough veil to hide Jimmy Hoffa. I recognized her by her limp, and by the fact that she was shown to the pew Mrs. Laughlin occupied.

I recognized many, many of the other mourners, dancers I’d competed against, or ballroom dance legends I’d revered—Corinne’s contemporaries. My pew was filling up, and I looked up in semiannoyance when a newcomer squeezed in beside me. My annoyance turned to pleasure when I recognized Tav.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” I whispered. I’d mentioned the funeral to him a couple days earlier, but he’d been unsure about getting away from his business long enough to attend.

He scanned the church with slightly lifted brows. “Judging from the crowd, I wouldn’t have been missed.”

“I’d have missed you.”
Oops
. I hadn’t meant to say that.

He gave me a warm smile that elicited all sorts of feelings not appropriate for a funeral. I resolutely faced forward as the service began, but I was conscious of his muscled thigh pressed against mine and his every movement as he flipped a page in the program or stood for a hymn. A photographer—not Sarah Lewis—took pictures discreetly, and if people had been wearing brighter colors and the music had been a bit more up-tempo, I’d have thought I’d stumbled into a wedding rather than a funeral.

We were spared any eulogies, and the service itself was mercifully brief and tasteful. The interment was in the cemetery attached to the church, and we all filed outside while the organist played a dirge-y piece I didn’t recognize. I was grateful for my sleeveless dress as we emerged into the swampy heat. Tav stayed beside me as we angled toward the grave site, his arm lightly draped over my shoulders. Something black moved under the awning set up to shade the mourners, and I took a closer look as Tav asked, “Is that—”

“Black swans,” I said, suppressing a giggle. Six of the large birds were corralled in a roped-off area to the left of the grave opening. A scrawny man in black jeans and a black T-shirt with
SWAN WRANGLER
stenciled across the back cast seed for them and headed off an aggressive bird that pecked at the patent-leather shoes of a woman who walked too close.

“Now I have seen everything,” Tav said in a wondering voice. “I have seen doves at weddings a couple of times, but this is my first experience of swans at a funeral.”

“Something to keep in mind for when your own time comes,” I said with an impish smile.

“Absolutely not.”

He said it forcefully, and a couple in front of us turned to glare. I buried my head in his shoulder to stifle my giggles and felt him shaking with laughter, too. “This is a solemn occasion,” I managed to squeak after a moment, straightening up. The minister was saying something, but we were too far back, and a breeze was blowing her words away, so I couldn’t hear. What we did hear was a sharp
yap-yap
. I looked around, thinking a stray dog might have wandered into the graveyard, but didn’t see one until Tav poked me gently and directed my attention to a furry mop of a dog sticking his head out of a woman’s purse to tell the swans what he thought of water fowl at a funeral.

The dog’s owner tried to silence her pet with a hand around his muzzle, but the dog continued to
mrrf
and growl. People nearby began to smile or frown, and a wave of muffled laughter and comments spread through the crowd. The lowering of the casket caught the dog owner’s attention, and the pooch seized the opportunity to leap to the ground. Threading his way through people’s legs, he beelined for the swans. Despite the fact that they were three or four times his size, he dashed under the rope and stood barking at them. The minister spoke louder to compensate. A couple of the swans waddled away uneasily, more disturbed by the shrill yapping, I was convinced, than by any threat the tiny dog represented, but another swan moved toward the pup, hissing.

Before the swan wrangler could shoo the dog out of the enclosure, the aggressive swan fanned his wings wide and snaked his head toward the dog. With startled yips, the mop dog turned tail and ran, the swan chasing him. People backed away as the angry swan sailed over the rope and the wrangler cried, “Not yet, Ebony, dang it!”

The other swans, apparently taking Ebony’s departure as their cue, beat their wings heavily and took to the sky, a dark phalanx rising over the cemetery. It was stirring in its way, I had to admit, but slightly undermined by the first swan still chasing the hapless pup. I had to think this wasn’t quite what Corinne had in mind when she requested swans at her funeral. The dog’s owner had entered the chase as well, wailing, “Gumdrop!” as she trailed the pair, staggering on her high heels. The dog had reached the lip of the grave, and I was afraid that the farce was going to turn really ugly, but Corinne’s son, Randolph Blakely, leaned forward and scooped up Gumdrop before he could barrel into the gaping hole. With a smile, he restored the dog to her grateful owner. A blond woman about Randolph’s age laid her hand on his arm and smiled. My investigative antennae pricked up, and I wondered whether she was the “girlfriend” Randolph’s neighbor had told us about. She carried a few extra pounds and had a long face, but she was attractive in a comfortable, middle-aged sort of way.

Randolph looked more alert today, and his expression was lighter, in marked contrast to his son, who scowled at Gumdrop as if wanting to drop-kick him into the next county. “That was well done of Randolph,” I whispered to Tav.

Ebony, deprived of his prey, flapped his great wings and followed his buddies into the sky.

“I wonder how the swan wrangler catches them again,” Tav said, his gaze following the elegant bird.

With a determined look on her face, the minister began a rousing chorus of “Nearer My God to Thee” and we all chimed in.

As the service ended and people began wandering off, I excused myself to Tav and angled toward where Randolph was accepting condolences, the blond woman still by his side. I made it to the front of the line and offered my hand to Randolph, saying sincerely, “Your mother meant a lot to all of us in the ballroom dancing world. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

He nodded his acceptance of my condolences and turned to the older gentleman behind me. I stuck out my hand to the blond woman. “I’m Stacy Graysin. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Alanna Vincent,” she said with the gratitude that spouses and girlfriends frequently betray when someone pays attention to them at their husbands’ or boyfriends’ events.

“How did you know Corinne?” I asked.

“I didn’t, really,” she admitted with a small smile that crinkled the skin at the corners of her eyes. “Randolph and I met at Hopeful Morning. I’m an alcoholic, and we overlapped there for several months.” She said it with no trace of self-consciousness. “When I left this past February, we stayed in touch. Things are progressing.” She gave me a sweetly mischievous smile and squeezed Randolph’s arm. Still conversing with the elderly gentleman, who seemed to have an inexhaustible flow of reminiscences about Corinne, Randolph patted her hand where it lay on his arm.

“That’s lovely,” I said. “I hope things work out for both of you. It was very nice meeting you.”

“You, too, Stacy.” Alanna smiled.

A bit bemused by this evidence of Randolph’s romantic life, I went in search of Maurice to see how he was holding up. He stood near the grave with the other ex-husbands. Lyle was apparently demonstrating a golf swing, and the Reverend Hamish was bawling, while the fifth husband, the African-American whose name I couldn’t remember, patted his back. I assumed the short, dumpy man I hadn’t seen before was Baron von Whatever, and I studied him curiously. I was somewhat disappointed to see that he was ordinary in every respect, except for a gray mustache waxed and twirled into points that looped up against his pudgy cheeks.