up without calling.” Really, I didn’t think about it. As usual. I just charged up the stairs.
Lissy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped it across the face of the clock ticking behind him on the mantel. “Go on.”
I teared up when I came to the part about finding Rafe’s body and didn’t mention throwing up.
“Did you touch the body?” Lissy asked, apparently unmoved by my emotion.
“No.” I sniffed and groped for a tissue.
“Do you own a gun?” Lissy asked.
I stopped, tissue halfway to my nose. He didn’t seem to be watching me; he was staring into the fireplace as if wishing he had a dustpan and broom to sweep up ash traces. His question posed a problem. I owned a gun-a graduation gift from Uncle Nico-but it wasn’t registered. Uncle Nico had advised against it, warning that when the Democrats came to power, which he predicted they would, they’d confiscate registered guns. “You don’t want the crooks to be the only ones with firepower, Stasia,” he’d said. “Keep this loaded and keep it where you can get to it. If you ever need to use it, you call me afterward and I’ll help with the cleanup.”
I’d consciously avoided thinking about what the cleanup might entail, reluctantly accepted the gun, shot it at a range a couple of times under Uncle Nico’s supervision, and tucked it into the bottom drawer of my bedside table. What were the penalties for having an unregistered gun? Did Virginia law require registration? I didn’t know, but I bet that getting caught lying to the police had worse consequences.
“Yes, I own a gun.” I knew I’d taken too long to answer by the way both detectives stared at me. I bit my lower lip. “It’s just a little one. A.22. My uncle gave it to me. Years ago. For self-protection. He thought the Democrats-” Shut up, I told myself as the line between Lissy’s brows deepened again.
“When did you last fire it?” Detective Troy asked.
“I don’t know… Seven, eight years ago?”
“You wouldn’t mind letting us have a look at it?” Lissy said in a tone that said it didn’t matter if I minded or not.
“Sure.” I unfolded my legs and pushed out of the wing chair, relieved to be able to move, to escape the room and the inscrutable detectives. The rug felt good under my bare feet. “It’ll just take a-”
“We’ll come with you.” Lissy gestured me toward the door as Troy rose to his feet.
“It’s in my bedroom.” I hadn’t made my bed this morning and I was pretty sure yesterday’s clothes, including bra and panties, were still in a heap on the floor. How come Mother never told me to keep the house spotless in case homicide detectives might go prowling through it one day?
“Best place for it,” Detective Troy agreed, either not getting the hint that I didn’t want strange men in my bedroom or deliberately ignoring my embarrassment. “That’s where my sister keeps hers.”
I padded down the hall to my room, both detectives trailing behind. Troy whispered something to Lissy, but I didn’t catch it. Pushing the door wide, I marched straight to my bedside table, a three-foot-high walnut chest of drawers that used to hold Great-aunt Laurinda’s embroidered hankies and purses carefully wrapped in tissue paper. My knees sank into the carpet’s deep pile as I knelt and yanked open the bottom drawer. I used it for the lingerie items I needed once in a blue moon: the slip that went with a skirt I wore only to funerals, the cami I used under a blouse that never made it back from the cleaners after the last time I wore it, the mint-green hose I’d had to wear as a bridesmaid once. I patted the slippery fabrics, feeling for the hard, alien shape of the gun. When I didn’t feel it, I started tossing the filmy underthings onto the floor, uncaring now about the detectives’ scrutiny. Without looking, I could sense them standing just inside the door, watching, breathing.
My hand panned fruitlessly against the wooden bottom of the drawer. I flushed with heat; then the blood receded and I shivered. Reaching for my slippers beside the bed, I drew them on. Maybe I’d put the gun in the other drawer. I knew I hadn’t. But I opened it, digging through notebooks, condom packets-probably expired-hand lotions, a sewing kit, and other miscellany. No gun. I tried to remember when I’d last seen it, but couldn’t. I rocked back on my heels and looked over my shoulder. Was it my imagination, or had the detectives inched farther into the room? Their faces were impassive as they stared at me in my nest of lingerie.
My mouth felt dry, like I’d been eating baby powder, and I used my tongue to moisten my lips. “It’s not here.”
“I know the police think I killed Rafe,” I told Mark Downey Thursday morning at seven o’clock. We’d had a dance practice set up and I’d been too distracted by the night’s events to cancel, although I’d called the instructors and put a sign on the door saying classes were canceled for the day. Mark had arrived for our practice session, had seen the crime scene tape strung across the doors to the ballroom, and had sought me out in my office.
“My God, Stacy,” he’d said, rushing in without even knocking and jolting to a stop at the sight of me behind my desk. “I thought-I saw the tape and thought that you-” His light brown eyes glowed with concern and relief.
“Not me. Rafe,” I said, thrusting my fingers through the unwashed hair I had scraped back into a utilitarian ponytail. I knew my eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep, and I frankly was surprised Mark didn’t run screaming from the room at the sight of me. I could’ve had a walk-on part in the latest zombie movie without needing special effects makeup. Instead, he pulled me up into a comforting hug. I clung to him for a second-he smelled like deodorant soap-but broke away as I started to sniffle again.
“Sorry,” I said, reaching for a tissue. I felt like I’d been crying nonstop since detectives Lissy and Troy finally left me alone at around two this morning. They’d pokered up and exchanged a meaningful glance when I discovered my gun was missing, and the questions had gotten a lot more pointed. They’d swabbed my hands with little towelette thingies, had taken my fingerprints-for elimination purposes, they said-and had asked if I knew if Rafe had a will. I gave them a copy. I could only be grateful they hadn’t hauled me off to jail.
“Rafe! What in the name of God happened?” Mark straddled the straight-backed chair facing my desk and rested his chin on its back.
Normally, I wouldn’t have considered Mark a confidante-he was a client more than a friend-but nothing about this morning qualified as “normal.” I slumped into my chair and told him what I knew about Rafe’s death-murder- which wasn’t much, and finished with my conviction that the cops considered me the prime suspect.
“Of course they don’t,” Mark said. “No one could possibly think you had it in you to kill someone.”
“That’s sweet of you,” I said. Deluded on at least two counts-the cops clearly thought I was more than capable of shooting my ex-fiance, and pretty much everyone is able to kill under the right circumstances-but sweet. “I’m sorry, but I’m not up to-”
“Of course you’re not,” he said, rising immediately. “Just give me a call when you’re ready to practice. If there’s anything I can do… I know you and Rafe were close, that is, that you used to be-Oh, hell.”
He looked young and confused and earnest and I gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Mark. I appreciate it. I’ll call you later in the week.” If I wasn’t being fitted for a lurid orange prison jumpsuit.
He left and I rose to make sure the door had closed after him. I felt less secure than usual in the studio-big surprise-and gave into nerves by turning the dead bolt. Returning to my office, my gaze fell on the crisscrossed crime scene tape that barred the way into the ballroom where I’d found Rafe’s body. As if compelled, I walked to the open door and stood on the threshold, wondering how I’d ever dance in there again. Except for a stain-smaller than it had seemed last night-where Rafe had lain under the window, the room looked like it always did: sunny and serene. I frequently imagined ghostly Colonial-era dancers bowing and curtsying as they minced their way through a gavotte or quadrille; now there’d be another ghost dancing in the ballroom. At least, I hoped he’d be dancing.
I turned away, fighting back tears again. Maybe Danielle was right and I hadn’t been completely over Rafe. Wanting to distract myself from my incessant tears, I hurried into the studio, which the police had not put off limits, and turned on the stereo, not caring what music was cued up. A song from
“You bitch.”
The venomous words caught me midleap and I half turned in the air, stumbling as I landed. Solange stood in the doorway, fury in every stiff line of her body. Even her red hair seemed to bristle with electric anger. She aimed the remote at the stereo, cutting Kristin Chenoweth off midsyllable.
“How did you get in here?”
She flung a key at me and it bounced off my cheek. “You killed him!”
“I did not!”
She stalked toward me, clearly intent on beating a confession out of me. I squared up to her but held up my
