Dead Man Dancing (28 page)

I was just thinking about Kay when she rang through on my cell. ‘Hannah? Is this a good time to talk?'

Fearing the conversation might be a bit tricky, I took a minute to stall. ‘Can I call you back in ten minutes? I've got somebody with me right now.'

I hung up the phone and called Paul, but I could hear his cell phone chirping away on the entrance hall table. Absent-minded professor had forgotten it again. I left a message on his office phone, then called Eva, who picked up on the first ring.

‘Eva, Kay called. I may need you. Where are you right now?'

‘Standing in the checkout at Safeway.' I could hear the
beep
as each item passed over the scanner. ‘As soon as I'm done here, I'll be right over. Can you store my chicken in your freezer?'

‘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.'

Shirley leapt to her feet, her back rigid. She loomed over Kay, still seated on the bench, hands primly folded in her lap. ‘Abuse Tessa?' Shirley screamed. ‘You are out of your fucking mind, lady! Jay wasn't an abuser.'

‘Pimp,' Kay snarled.

‘What?' Shirley paled.

‘You disgust me. Don't you have any pride at all? Using your daughter like that. It's despicable. You're no better than those so-called parents who allowed their kids to spend the night at Neverland and then sued Michael Jackson for the hanky-panky they
knew
was bound to take place.'

‘I . . .' Shirley began, obviously reeling from Kay's full-frontal assault.

Kay seized the advantage. ‘Chance clued me in on the hush money Jay's been paying you.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Does the name Michael Lombardo ring any bells?'

Shirley shook her head, genuinely puzzled.

‘He's Jay's cousin, currently serving five to seven in the Texas State pen at Huntsville for robbing a pawn shop.'

‘So Jay's cousin is a crook. So what?'

‘So why is Michael Lombardo on the J & K Studio payroll, and why is his paycheck being automatically deposited to a trust account in Tessa's name at Bank Annapolis?'

Shirley's eyes widened. ‘Jesus.'

Kay puffed air out through her lips, and turned to me. ‘You watch, Hannah. She's going to pretend she didn't know about it.'

Either Shirley was a consummate actress, or she really didn't know. She took a step backwards, a strategic retreat, as if to gather her thoughts.

But Kay wasn't finished with Shirley yet. She stood up, too, so she could look Shirley straight in the eye. ‘You must be blind. Either that, or an enabler. Melanie told me.'

If Shirley was intimidated by Kay, she certainly didn't show it. She stood her ground, puffed herself up and played her trump card. ‘You're the one who's blind, Kay! Jay didn't abuse Tessa. Tessa was his daughter!'

I grabbed Eva's hand and squeezed. It felt good to be right about Jay. He wasn't a pedophile after all. He was a father.

Kay gasped, put a hand to her chest, staggered backwards, catching her heel on a brick. She would have fallen had she not reached out to steady herself on the rim of the fountain. ‘You're lying!'

I was dumbfounded. ‘Kay didn't know,' I whispered to Eva. ‘I don't know how it's possible, but she really didn't know!'

Shirley took the offensive then, quickly closing the gap between Kay and herself. ‘Why do you think we stuck with your studio all these years when there were other, better studios in the area? Loyalty, that's why. Jay always looked after Tessa.' She paused to draw a breath. ‘Besides, he wanted to spend time with his daughter.'

She fixed Kay with a look of pure venom. ‘It'll all come out in his will, you know. He's leaving his half of the studio to Tessa.'

Kay's face grew dangerously red. ‘The hell he is!'

Shirley folded her arms and glared Kay down. ‘You don't know anything. Jay loved me.
Me!
He loved Tessa. You were too selfish to give him kids.' She smoothed her hands over her narrow hips. ‘Boo-hoo-hoo. Might spoil your figure for dancing.'

Kay stood galvanized, rapidly blinking.

‘When I got pregnant, Jay was overjoyed. He wanted to tell the whole world, but I wouldn't let him. He's . . .' Her voice caught. ‘He was one of the most unselfish men I've ever known.

Kay suddenly revived. ‘I don't believe that Tessa is Jay's child. You'll have to prove it.'

A sly smile crept across Shirley's face. ‘There's DNA.'

Kay laughed out loud. ‘DNA? How? Jay's been cremated. In a couple of hours, I'm taking his ashes back to Texas.'

I was thinking that comparing Lorraine's DNA to Tessa's would probably do the trick when Shirley crowed, ‘We had a paternity test done when Tessa was born. I was married to Link, so we had to be sure.'

Eva breathed into my ear, ‘Sounds like Jay didn't trust Shirley much, either.'

Eva'd said it quietly, but Shirley must have overheard because her eyes darted in our direction. ‘And before you ask, Link knew all about it, but agreed to raise Tessa as his own. Link had a severe case of mumps as a kid, so he could never father children. It was the perfect solution for all of us.'

The perfect solution? I thought back to the day I'd comforted Tessa as she huddled miserably on a cold tile floor, hunched over the commode. Tessa was the glue that held that marriage together, but at what cost?

Kay stumbled to the bench and lowered herself down on it. ‘Melanie was wrong?'

I handed Coco's leash to Eva and moved closer to Kay's bench. ‘I don't know what Melanie thought she saw, Kay, but whatever it was, it was clearly misinterpreted.'

Kay's eyes swung from me to the red bag and back again. ‘That's not Jay's bag, is it?'

‘No, it's not. The police have Jay's bag. They've had it all along.'

Kay rested her head against the back of the bench and closed her eyes. ‘Jay was from a big Catholic family. He wanted children,
lots
of children.' Her eyelids fluttered open and, for some reason, she was looking again at me. ‘I couldn't give them to him. It's complicated, but I just couldn't.'