The Homicide Hustle (7 page)

Chapter 11

I gave a private, forty-five-minute lesson at seven Friday morning to one of my reshuffled
students who had generously agreed to come in before work for his lesson, so I was
glowing with the joy of dancing (and perhaps a bit of perspiration) when the film
crew arrived. Vitaly bounced in moments after the camera guy and Ariel arrived, and
Phoebe and Zane arrived together, both clutching large coffees and looking like they
would have preferred an extra two or three hours’ sleep.

Ariel whisked me into makeup in the small powder room before I had a chance to do
more than exchange “Good mornings” with Zane. Wearing her usual tight white T-shirt
and faded jeans, she complained that makeup would slip off my sweaty face.

“I thought this was a ‘reality’ show and we were supposed to look natural,” I countered
as she swept damp toner pads over my skin.

She grinned and her red hair spilled over her shoulders as she dabbed foundation on
my cheeks and forehead. “Trust me—you’ll look natural, only better,” she said. “There
are varying degrees of ‘reality,’ don’t you think?”

“That’s way too profound for this early in the morning.”

She laughed and made me close my lids so she could dust them with a pale taupe powder
and lightly line them with a brown pencil. She added just enough mascara to darken
my lashes and stepped back, surveying the effect. “There. Natural, but better. Not
so . . .”

“Washed out? Death warmed over? You can say it, Ariel; I know what I look like in
the morning.”

Laughing again, she began getting out the shades that would look good on Phoebe. “Can
you tell Phoebe I’m ready for her?”

“Sure,” I said, unwrapping the bib-length smock draped around my neck. “Hey, that
night you all went to Club Nitro, did you hitch a ride with Tessa King?”

If she thought my interest was strange, she didn’t show it. Sadness settled on her
face. “No, we were supposed to go together, but Phoebe needed a ride and Tessa only
had a two-seater, so Fred gave me a lift. He works publicity.”

I went in search of Phoebe and found the action star warming up by marching in place.
“Ariel’s ready for you,” I said.

“Thanks.”

Before she could leave, I asked, “You don’t know where Tessa’s car is, do you? I understand
you rode to Club Nitro with her Tuesday night. Did she take you back to the hotel,
too?”

Phoebe gave me a wary look. “What’s it to you?”

“Stacy’s investigating Tessa’s death,” Nigel broke in. “I think it’ll be ratings gold.”

Wincing, I turned to see him come out of the ballroom, trailed by the camera guy who
had clearly filmed my short interaction with Phoebe. She looked from me to Nigel,
a frown gathering on her brow. “What the hell for? Wasn’t it an accident?”

Wishing I could strangle Nigel, and wishing I’d been more discreet, I fumbled for
an explanation. “The cops don’t seem to think it was an accident,” I said, “and I
wanted . . . well, after Rafe was shot here . . .”

“Who? What? Someone was shot here?” Phoebe pointed to the floor, her face a mask of
astonishment.

I nodded. “My former partner, Rafe Acosta, was shot to death in the ballroom. The
police suspected me because we’d had some business arguments and recently broken off
our engagement, so I had to find the real killer.”

“Did you?”

I nodded again.

“Damn, girl,” Phoebe said admiringly.

“And is only little whiles since Stacy is finding who killed Corinne Blakely,” Vitaly
added, emerging from the ballroom in time to hear the end of our conversation. “Stacy
is bull on scent of the murderers.”

Phoebe, Nigel, and Larry looked puzzled, but Zane guessed, “Bulldog?”

“
Da
. The bulldog.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to go looking for killers?” Phoebe asked.

“I don’t—”

“She is getting shooted by Rafe’s murderer,” Vitaly put in. “And the studio was arsoned.
Poof!” he threw his arms over his head to indicate the flames.

“Damn, girl,” Phoebe said again.

“Rafe’s killer didn’t set the fire,” I said, anxious to get away from this discussion.
“Look, you can still see some of the charred boards.” I led them into the ballroom
and pointed out some of the blackened spots. I’d asked the floor refinisher to keep
as many of the singed planks as he could since they were original to the house, historic,
and I liked to imagine various Founding Fathers and their wives doing a Virginia reel
the length of this room, their feet sliding and clomping on these very boards.

Ariel appeared then, looking for Phoebe, and everyone went back to doing their jobs.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief, beginning to regret I’d ever asked question number
one about Tessa’s death. Beginning, in fact, to regret I’d ever signed on to do
Blisters
. I crossed to the stereo to slot in the CD that held our music, shoving it in a bit
more forcefully than necessary. The machine spit it out. I growled low in my throat
and Zane took the CD from my hand, inserting it gently.

“What was—” he started.

“Let’s just dance,” I said, too mindful of the camera rolling and Nigel lurking. We
worked for two hours without more than a five-minute water break and I eventually
relaxed, caught up in the music and the challenge of teaching a neophyte so much in
such a short time.

“You’ve got to be conscious of your lines, our lines,” I told Zane. “Look how your
hands flop. The line extends through your hands, through your fingers.” Bracing his
wrist, I told him to extend his fingers like he was reaching for the far wall. He
tried it, stiffly.

“Exactly! See how when I extend my leg, like so”—using my core to stabilize myself
I raised my right leg to above head height and pointed my toe—“and you grab it, we
form an inverted ‘V’? The judges are looking at our lines. Let’s try the whole dance
again.”

Zane groaned. “Do you practice this long every day? My quads are sore, my glutes are
sore, and my shoulders are so sore from holding this damn frame that I won’t be able
to lift my hands over my head tomorrow.” He ran his fingers through the damp strands
of hair sticking to his forehead. “Be careful, or I’ll get rid of you on Trade Day.”

Blisters
had a gimmick where the celebs could swap partners after the first night of competition
but before they knew how the viewing audience had voted. They were allowed to offer
any incentive they wanted—cash, a percentage of their audience votes, an onstage appearance
at their next concert or walk-on part in their next movie—to persuade a competitor
to trade pros. What was grossly unfair about the process, in my humble opinion, was
that the pro didn’t get a say in it. If the celebs wanted to swap, it was a done deal;
the pro had no more voice than if the stars were trading earrings or time-shares.
What was really, really unfair was that on Saturday night’s kickoff, if the celeb
was voted off, his or her new partner—not the original one—went, too.

“Oh, please.” I dismissed his whining with a wave of my hand. “I teach a couple of
group classes every day and usually have at least six or seven private lessons with
my competitive students. Vitaly and I practice maybe ten to twelve hours a week and
spend another couple hours with coaches. We’d do more, except it costs us two-fifty
for a forty-five-minute “hour” of coaching. Then, I weight train, do jazz and ballet
classes, and try to work in a yoga class or two for flexibility.” I ticked the items
off on my fingers. “Running the studio—scheduling classes, payroll, enticing new students,
cleaning, getting the floors refinished, and more—is separate from the dancing and
training. On top of that, we compete in twenty or twenty-five competitions a year,
which means we’re on the road, dancing, almost every other weekend.”

“I had no idea a ballroom dancer worked so hard,” Zane said.

I smiled. “It’s not all false eyelashes and sparkly dresses. I’m an athlete and a
small businesswoman in one; it’s hard work.”

“You make me feel like a slacker,” Zane said, pulling me closer than the dance required
and smiling into my eyes. “Although when I hold you like this, I feel—”

A tingle danced through me, but I put the proper distance between us. “Concentrate,”
I demanded, in a mock-stern voice. We went through the dance another three times and
Zane’s frame was becoming more consistent and he had learned the choreography when
a loud thud came from the small studio where Phoebe and Vitaly were practicing. Looking
at each other, Zane and I hurried down the hall. We slid to a stop at the open studio
door.

Vitaly and Phoebe lay side by side on their backs, breathing hard. Larry stepped in
close with the camera to film their expressions while Nigel clapped. “Excellent!”

“What happened?” I asked Vitaly.

He got to his feet, brushed off his slacks, and gave Phoebe a hand up. “We is trying
lift, but Phoebe is not trust Vitaly, so she fall,
splat
.” He looked wounded by Phoebe’s lack of trust.

“You dumped me on my nose,” Phoebe said heatedly, “so I returned the favor.”

When Zane and I looked puzzled, Nigel explained delightedly, “She swept his legs out
from under him. Brilliant! Larry got it all. That’s a wrap, Lare.” He and the cameraman
walked out, discussing potential setups at Take the Lead later that day.

At my horrified expression, Vitaly leaned in close to whisper, “We is stage it all.
Nigel wanted us to have fight, so we choreograph, just like dance. Is not much real
about this reality TV, I am thinkings.” The thought didn’t seem to trouble him. His
eyes sparkled and his long face was lit up the way it was on the dance floor, with
the kind of vibrancy that made him stand out, even though off the floor he usually
faded into a crowd.

Phoebe scrambled to her feet and winked at me. “Vitaly’s a good sport and he is
strong
.” She turned to him. “How’d you like to come to Hollywood for a small part in my
next film? It’s called
Flashback
and we can rewrite one of the scenes so me and my costar, Chuck Norris, are taking
ballroom dance lessons from you when the villains burst in, trying to kill us, and
we have an amazing fight scene—sort of
Crouching Tiger
meets
The Matrix
.”

“I will stick with the dancing,” Vitaly said firmly. “I cannot leaving Lulu for a
Hollywood career. She will miss me too muches.”

“Lulu? I thought you were gay.”

“Lulu’s his boxer pup,” I explained, laughing.

“See?” Vitaly brought up a photo of the dog on his smartphone and Phoebe and Zane
made the appropriate noises.

“I’ve got a German shepherd—Max,” Zane said. “He’s staying with my sister while I’m
out here. I wish I could’ve brought him.”

“I’m a cat person,” Phoebe announced.

Zane and Vitaly squinted at her with distrust, then Zane looked enquiringly at me.
“No pets,” I said, evoking the kind of “what’s wrong with you?” looks that made me
explain, “When I’m gone practically every other weekend for competitions, it wouldn’t
be fair to kennel a dog that often. I’ve got kind of a part-time dog, though.” I told
them about Hoover.

Zane said he was meeting his mom and agent for lunch, but would be back in the afternoon
for more practice. Phoebe said she had a conference call, and Vitaly had errands to
run. Left on my own, I decided to demonstrate forgiveness, be the bigger person, and
call my sister. Kicking off my shoes, I padded barefoot into the office and picked
up the phone. When I asked Danielle if she wanted to meet me for lunch, her first
question was, predictably, “Is Zane coming? We had such a lovely time at lunch the
other day.”

I rolled my eyes, glad she couldn’t see me. “Zane’s meeting his mom,” I said. “She’s
a piece of work.”

“He introduced you to his mother already?” Danielle’s screech made me hold the phone
away from my ear.

Heaving a sigh, I explained about Kim Savage stopping by the studio.

“Oh.” Silence emanated from her end of the line.

I could hear part of a conversation in the background—her coworkers at the union office,
I assumed. “Do you want to lunch or not?” I asked testily.

“Have you seen Zane outside the ballroom?” she asked. “I mean, other than the night
you were photographed at his hotel?”

My momentary hesitation was the same as an admission.

“Not.” Danielle hung up.

Grrr.
Why did God make sisters the most frustrating species on the planet? She didn’t want
to accept my olive branch? Fine. She could make the first move now. Her combative
attitude made me want to marry Zane only so I could ask her to be my maid of honor.
I’d make her wear a puce-colored gown because it would look dreadful with her red
hair. Hah!

Recognizing that my own response was less than mature—although totally justified!—I
was on the verge of descending to my living quarters for an exciting lunch of Greek
yogurt, strawberries, and leftover bulgur wheat when Maurice and Hoover came through
the door.

“Come walk this mutt with me, Anastasia,” Maurice said, looking a bit less dapper
than usual with a strand of white hair on his forehead and a smudge on his loafer.
“I need moral support. He nearly dislocated my shoulder earlier when he saw a cat.
Ripped the leash right out of my hand! Then, he almost caused an accident when he
dashed across the street after the poor thing. He made an almighty ruckus when the
cat went up a tree. He leaped up it, barking his damn-fool head off; you’d have thought
he’d treed a bear. One man threatened to call the police about ‘noise pollution’ if
I didn’t make him stop. Not ten seconds later, when I hauled him away from the tree
and scolded him, a woman said she was calling the SPCA to report animal abuse.”

Laughing so hard tears came to my eyes, both at Maurice’s story and Hoover’s innocent
expression, I fondled the dog’s ears, asked Maurice to wait while I put on walking
shoes and sunblock, and met them out front. Maurice willingly handed over Hoover’s
leash when I offered to take it, and strolled beside me toward the waterfront. Hoover,
welcoming the opportunity to expand his territory, lifted his leg on almost every
tree we passed. He must have a bladder the size of an RV’s gas tank. The Great Dane
wanted to check out the hot dog vendor when we arrived at the river’s edge, but I
hauled on his leash and pulled him toward the path that paralleled the Potomac.