Quickstep to Murder

supplies under my sink. All I could see was her broad rear end in unflattering uniform slacks.

“Autopsy results,” she said. She withdrew from the under-sink cabinet and turned to look at me, brushing a strand of brown hair out of her eyes.

An image of a saw cutting through Rafe’s skull flashed into my mind and I shook my head to clear it. “Oh,” I said in a small voice.

“You could call someone to be here with you,” the woman suggested. “It’s got to be hard having us invade your home like this.”

Her compassion surprised me and I smiled at her. “Thanks. I think I’ll do that.” I dialed Danielle’s number and learned she was only a couple of miles from the house, picking up deli salads at a grocery store. I explained about the search. “Get some ice cream, too,” I suggested, after she promised she’d hurry over.

“Ice cream?” Danielle’s astonishment came through loud and clear. “You never eat ice cream.”

“I do. Every time the police tear my house apart trying to prove I killed my fiance,” I said.

“Ex-fiance.”

“Triple Caramel Chunk.” I covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “Do you want some ice cream?” I asked the cop who was now shifting cans in my pantry to see if I’d squirreled a gun behind the bag of petrified marshmallows or in the rice canister.

“Can’t,” she said, “but thanks.” She shot me a half smile over her shoulder and then turned back to hefting my cereal boxes.

Danielle and I had finished dinner, half a bottle of Riesling, and most of our pints of Ben and Jerry’s when the police finished up. Lissy’s disgruntled expression told me they hadn’t found anything and I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Buh-bye,” I said cheerily as the four of them filed out the front door. Lissy sneezed as he passed me and grudgingly told me I could resume classes the next day.

I closed and locked the door behind them and turned to see Danielle surveying the mussed-up living room, hands on her hips. “You’d think they’d at least pick up after themselves,” she said.

“I’m just glad they’re gone and I’m not spending the night in jail,” I said, bending to shove the sofa cushions back into place. Danielle straightened books on the shelves near the fireplace.

We worked for some minutes in silence before Danielle said, “He asked me out again.” Her voice was muffled as she bent over to pick up a book.

I knew “he” was Danielle’s boss, a portly man in his early forties who was separated from his wife. He’d been after a date with Danielle since his wife moved out. I was actually grateful to be able to talk about something besides Rafe’s death and my status as chief suspect.

“Did you tell him about Coop like we talked about?”

“Yes, and I put a photo of Coop and me on my desk and everything, but Jonah doesn’t care.” She slotted a dictionary onto the shelf with more force than necessary.

“You need to talk to HR.” I’d suggested this at least six times since Jonah started coming on to her.

“I can’t.”

“What would you tell an administrative assistant who came to you with the same situation?”

“Talk to HR,” she admitted reluctantly, “and document everything.”

“Sooo…?”

“I need this job.” She’d recently bought a new Prius and the payments were killing her.

“How about a nanny cam, then?” The idea came to me in a flash of inspiration. “Set it up in your office and videotape Jonah the next time he suggests a romantic dinner for two.”

“Be serious,” Danielle said huffily. “You’ve never had a real job, so you don’t understand.”

“Ballroom dancing is a real job,” I said heatedly, turning to face her with my hands on my hips. “And running a small business of any kind takes more work than the average union employee puts in in a year. And there’s no one looking out for my interests, making sure I get health benefits and regular coffee breaks and safe working conditions.” She started to interrupt, but I talked over her. “And I have to get students to toe the line while we’re rumba-ing romantically or while I’m shaking my assets in a costume that’s more fringe than fabric. So don’t tell me I don’t know about real jobs or workplace harassment.”

“Fine,” Danielle said, her lips a thin line.

“Fine.”

I thought she might walk out, leaving me to cope with the rest of the mess on my own, but she continued to help, moving with me into my bedroom once we’d finished straightening the living room.

“You could kick Jonah in the cojones,” I suggested after another ten minutes of “you pissed me off” silence.

She made a mrmph sound that might’ve been a stifled laugh.

“Or cut a photo out of Playgirl and leave it on his desk with a pair of scissors stabbed through the model’s Mr. Happy.”

She laughed aloud at that and flung a pillow at me. “You are warped.”

Grinning with satisfaction at having gotten her to laugh, I told her about Sherry Indrebo’s call and my visit to Rafe’s condo.

“Did you tell the police?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I was grateful to get out of Rafe’s without running into them. I was hardly going to call them up and say that while I was sneaking around his place I found out someone else was sneaking around his place.”

“I can see how that would be awkward,” Danielle admitted. “But you had a key, so it’s not like you broke in.”

“I didn’t see any signs that the other person broke in, either,” I said, “so maybe she had a key, too.”

“Who do you think it was?”

I stopped closing dresser drawers to give it some thought. “A woman,” I said, “since there was lipstick on the mug. I don’t see how it could’ve been Sherry Indrebo’cause I practically went straight to Rafe’s after talking to her. She couldn’t have beaten me there. Solange, maybe? They were dating, after all.”

“Or some other girlfriend,” Danielle said.

“Taryn, maybe, or-” My thoughts flew to the limo that had lurked out front.

“Taryn?”

I realized I hadn’t told Danielle about Leon Hall’s visit and his accusation.

“A sixteen-year-old?” Danielle asked doubtfully when I finished filling her in. “That doesn’t sound like Rafe.”

I was relieved that she agreed with me. It was bad enough that my character judgment was so poor I’d gotten engaged to a man whose concept of “fidelity” began and ended with investments, but I hated to think I’d been in love with a guy slimy enough-criminal, really-to seduce a sixteen-year-old. I ducked into the roomy closet Great- aunt Laurinda had created by knocking down a wall into the adjoining room, originally a tiny nursery, and began pairing my shoes up and returning them to the shoe rack. Really, how did the police think anyone could hide a gun in a size-eight satin sandal?

“It had to be Solange,” I said.

When Danielle didn’t answer, I left the closet to find her stacking towels in my bathroom, a space not much bigger than the pantry, with a wooden-seated toilet, a clawfoot bathtub surmounted by a shower head that drizzled rather than sprayed, and the glass shelves I’d installed myself and thus they slanted just a tad so the towels slid off after a couple of days.

“Why do you suppose Solange was there?” Danielle asked when I told her the conclusion I’d reached. She answered her own question. “I suppose for the same reason you were, to remove incrim-personal things before the police arrived.” She cast me a guilty look from under her bangs.

I let the word “incriminating” slide past. “I’m going to have it out with her tomorrow,” I announced, “and find out just what she was up to.”

Friday morning found me mopping the floor in the main studio where Rafe had lain, dressed in a paint-stained green T-shirt, short shorts, and with my hair up in a messy ponytail. The police had given me the name of a