Dead Man Dancing (29 page)

‘Kay . . .' Shirley began.

Kay waved a tired hand, cutting her off. ‘About the will.'

Shirley went on alert. Had she been Coco, her ears would have quivered. ‘The will? What about the will?'

Kay's head lolled slowly to the other side until she was looking directly at Shirley. ‘Tessa's not getting the studio. The studio comes to me.
Everything
comes to me.' She drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. ‘But I guess where I'm going, there won't be any need for a studio, or a house, or anything else.'

‘But the will?' Shirley wouldn't let the matter drop.

Kay smiled blandly. ‘Jay intended to make a will favoring Tessa, but I found a draft on his computer and put a stop to it. I thought you found out about the abuse and were blackmailing him.' Her head lolled back. ‘I made a mistake there, too, didn't I?'

Something rustled the ornamental hedge behind me, and suddenly he was there: Don Fosher, a mountain in cammies, waving a dull gray pistol. ‘Move away from her, everyone. I have no beef with you.'

I stood rooted to the bricks. ‘Don . . .'

‘I'm sorry, Mrs Ives. I came back for my stuff, and I overheard you arranging to meet this, this . . .murderess!' He steadied the weapon with his left hand, and pointed the barrel directly at Kay's head. At a distance, Don could probably shoot the eyebrows off a fly. At close range, Kay didn't stand a chance.

Tears coursed down Don's face, but his grip on the gun didn't waver. ‘Why did you kill her? Why? Tell me why?'

I would have been petrified, but Kay didn't even blink. ‘Melanie said . . . oh, what does it matter? It's a little late for me to be sorry about it now.'

That wasn't the right answer.

Deep down, the horrible scream began, rumbling up through Don's chest and out through his mouth, a cry of such agony, such desolation that my heart nearly broke. His finger twitched on the trigger.

‘Stop!' someone yelled.

We all froze as a figure shot past, tripped over Coco's leash, and dived like a missile at the feet of the gunman. Big as he was, Don Fosher went down, his gun bouncing and skittering along the bricks.

‘Thou shalt not kill!' Kay's rescuer shouted.

Over Coco's frantic barking, Eva yelled, ‘Sweet Jesus, it's Jeremy!'

‘Get the gun!' Jeremy screamed, but Don's arm clamped over his throat, cutting off his air. Don was trained in hand-to-hand combat; Jeremy was no match for him.

Yet somehow Jeremy squirmed free, and fell on Don's back like a human cinder block. Don rolled over, throwing the smaller man off, while Coco nipped at his heels.

While the two men wrestled, I searched frantically for the gun, but it must have slipped under one of them. First Don was on top, and then Jeremy. Don roared, flipped Jeremy like a pancake, straddled him, and pinned him to the bricks.

‘It's over,' said the big man, back in control of the gun and pointing it at Jeremy's head.

Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut. ‘“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he makest me to lie down . . .”'

‘Shut
up
!' Don screamed, and clipped Jeremy in the temple with the butt of the gun.

Jeremy's glasses flew into the air, the Lord's Prayer silenced. Blood began to pour from a gash in his head and puddle on the bricks.

Don reared back in horror. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?'

I took advantage of the lull to push firmly on Don's shoulder, catching him off balance and causing him to topple sideways, unresisting.

I knelt at Jeremy's side. He was still breathing, but his pulse was ropey. I found a wad of tissue in my pocket left over from Jay's funeral, and I used it to press against Jeremy's wound, staunching the flow. Time had slowed; seconds became minutes, minutes, hours.

Behind me, I could hear the beeps as Eva dialed 9-1-1.

I heard Shirley say, ‘I've got the gun,' and didn't feel anything but relief, until a few seconds later when the explosion of a gunshot deafened me.

Keeping the tissue firmly pressed to Jeremy's head, I twisted around.

Kay lay slumped on the bench, a dark stain beginning to leak between the buttons of her camel hair coat. Don Fosher bent over Kay. First her mouth moved, and then his. I couldn't hear a word, but after a moment his body language said it all.

Kay Giannotti was dead.

It seemed obvious at first. Don had killed her.

Then I saw it was Shirley Douglas who held the gun.

I
t took a while for the dust to settle. First, I had to apologize to Paul a million times for pig-headedly (his word, not mine) undertaking a dangerous mission with only my spiritual advisor along for support.

Shirley Douglas got out on bail. Link's connections on Capitol Hill had netted Shirley a hotshot criminal lawyer with a win-lose record of sixty and nil, who wore his hair in a ponytail. Word was, she'd get off light.

Alas for Tessa, production of
Tiny Ballroom
was postponed indefinitely following a boycott of the show's sponsors by Citizens Against Childsploitation. As a diversion, Tessa's father enrolled her in a gymnastics class. Tessa excels on the parallel bars and hopes to be ready for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Shirley's victim's ashes were flown to Texas by a second cousin once removed, where they were interred in the Giannotti plot next to her husband of twenty-five years, Jerome Ignatius Giannotti.

Everyone agreed it was Don Fosher who'd brought the gun – unregistered – to the park, but the sergeant remembered nothing about the incident until he ‘came to' and found himself scuffling with a total stranger for control of the weapon. Post-traumatic stress was mentioned. After counseling at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC, Sergeant Fosher was back in Iraq. He has extended for another year.

In March, Ruth's attacker, Kenneth Parks, a sixteen-year-old student from Annapolis High was apprehended. Fresh out of Ruth's cash, he attempted to use her cancelled VISA to buy a laptop computer on the Internet, asking that it be shipped to his home address. Needless to say, Kenny's parents' car didn't sport a ‘My child is an honor roll student at . . .' bumper sticker.

Eventually, we learned that lab analysis had identified the formulation of the thallium contained in Jay's talcum powder as identical to Jardines Rat-a-Tué which hadn't been sold in the US since 1978.

I was thinking about this one day while staring at Eva across her kitchen table.

Eva raised any eyebrow. ‘What? Do I have spinach on my teeth?'

‘Not your teeth. Your hair. I'm remembering your roots.'

‘Roots?' She tugged on a lock of silver bangs and stared up at it, cross-eyed. ‘Thanks to Wally, I don't have any roots.'

‘But when you did, wasn't it because you used some off-brand hair dye that was years past its sell-by date?'

Eva laughed. ‘In Stanley, Utah, rotating stock was an alien concept. They never took stuff off the shelves in the stores. I saw thirty-year-old merchandise gathering dust, still wearing their original price tags.' She grinned. ‘Never know when you're going to need a tube of Ipana toothpaste.'

‘Maybe Hard Bargain, Texas has some old-fashioned farm supply stores, too,' I mused.

I made this suggestion to the nice detective who'd given me his card when he drove all the way down from Baltimore, Maryland to relieve me of Jay's gym bag. He'd said, ‘Thank you, ma'am,' which I figured was nicer than ‘buzz off'. Nevertheless, he called later on to report that a clerk at Finkel's Fair Store in Hard Bargain, Texas, had said yes-indeedy-do, Miss Kay Giannotti had bought some of that there Rat-a-Tué for her mother-in-law's mouse problem, why it must have been over a year ago now, and they only had two cans left at $2.95 and should he hold them?

I paid a call on my spiritual advisor at her home in the parsonage to report on this interesting development. Eva invited me into the kitchen, and together we rustled up some tea while the gray Chartreux watched with round, copper eyes from her basket near the stove. ‘Hello, Bella,' I said, kneeling down to give the animal a good scratch behind the ears.

‘I've changed her name,' Eva told me. ‘She now answers to Magnificat.'

‘Certainly appropriate for a church-going cat,' I said, getting to my feet, ‘but quite a mouthful. I can't see you standing in the back yard calling, Here Magnificat, here Magnificat!, can you?'

Eva shook her head. ‘That's why she'll be Cat for short, although her breeder in Fulton, Maryland might think the name's a bit undignified for such a fine, blue-blooded feline.'

As Eva poured hot water into our cups, she asked, ‘I know you talked to Don recently, and I'm curious. What was it that Kay said to him just before she died?'

‘It was a line from the movie,
Dirty Dancing
. “Nobody sticks Baby in a corner.”'

Eva plopped a teabag into her cup. ‘Poor thing. Thinking her husband was having an affair must have gnawed at her, but being told he was a pedophile would have sent anybody over the edge And I should know.'

‘Jay didn't exactly win any prizes for faithfulness, but from everything I hear, he really loved her. And speaking of love,' I continued with a grin, ‘how's Jeremy?'

‘Fully recovered. He emails that during his hospital stay God came to him in a dream and suggested that he might not be cut out for life in the fast lane with a priest for a wife.'

Eva set the kettle back on the stove, and sat down. ‘Looking for guidance, Jeremy opened his Bible, closed his eyes and stabbed his finger down at Solomon 2:16: “My lover is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies.” Believe it or not, Jeremy's now dating a lovely girl who works as a sales associate in the greenhouse at Homestead Gardens. God has spoken, what more can I say?'

‘That reminds me.' I opened my purse and pulled out a narrow box. ‘Now that you're back in the parsonage, I think you'll be needing this.' I slid the box across the table.

Eva tipped up the top and peeked in. ‘Pastor Barbie! I don't believe it!' Tenderly, she withdrew from the box a Barbie doll decked out in full priest regalia. It had been made as an ordination gift for Eva by her sister. I'd rescued Barbie from the trash can where a despondent Eva had tossed her when she left St Cat's on sabbatical. For the past several months, Barbie'd slept on a bookshelf at my house.

Tears trickled down Eva's cheeks as she stroked the doll's hair. ‘Poor Pastor Barbie, I treated you very shabbily.' She smiled across the table. ‘Thanks, Hannah, for saving her for me.'

Eva tucked Barbie back in her comfortable bed of bubble wrap. ‘It's back to the office for you in the morning.' And almost in the same breath, she said, ‘Want to stay for dinner?'

‘I can't tonight, sorry. Ruth's got her cast off, so Hutch has invited us to Dance Night at the Davidsonville Dance Club. Cast of thousands, but I haven't been dancing since . . . well, since Jay was still alive. I find I'm looking forward to it.'

Later that evening, seated in a family group at the end of a long table at the popular dance hall in Davidsonville, Hutch stood up, raised a glass of wine and shocked us all. ‘A toast! To my wife, Mrs Gaylord Hutchinson.'

Hutch winked, and shot me a goofy grin. ‘I told you I was going to do something constructive with the time I set aside for
Shall We Dance?
'

‘What? When?' Daddy sputtered.

‘Ruth and I were married this afternoon at the County Courthouse.'

Ruth beamed at her new husband, and then turned the brights on us. ‘I said the hell with the flowers, the cake and the dress. Screw the hotel and the band! I have everything I need right here.'

Remembering the Bridesmaid's Dress from Hell that I was obliged to wear when Connie married Dennis, I couldn't have been happier about the dress part, either.

‘And Maya Tulum was more than happy to move up our reservations, so in two days, we're off to the Yucatan!' Hutch added.

Hutch took Ruth's hand, raised her gently to her feet, and led her out on to the dance floor. I watched them waltz happily away.

I listened to the music for a bar or two. ‘I don't recognize that tune. Do you, Paul?'

Paul slipped his arm around my shoulders. ‘It's called ‘Lost in the Darkness' from the musical
Jekyll & Hyde
. Come on.'

He grabbed my hand, tucked it under his arm, and led me out to join the others on the floor. While we waltzed, Paul hummed and dum-de-dummed along with the music as if he were unsure of the words, but toward the end of the song, he began to sing softly in my ear, ‘I'll never desert you, I promise you this, Til the day that I die.'

I smiled up at him, and his lips found my mouth, and for one magic moment we danced completely alone.