Tutu Deadly Page 2

  Epstein was mentally unstable at best, downright loony tunes at worst, and last week we’d had our final blowup. After Taylee had shown up for class a half hour late, with only one shoe and a pair of tights that were missing an entire leg, I’d kicked her out and told her to come back when she was ready to be serious. Of course, I was really mad at her mother, because Taylee was just a kid. I think she clued into that, because she just stared at me with those big, mournful eyes, and I immediately felt like a total creep.

  “Do you need me to get you some new tights and shoes, Tay?” I’d asked her gently, dropping the harsh tone. I could hardly afford to buy anything—including food—on my income, but something about the little girl just spoke to me.

  “No. Mom can do it,” she’d answered quietly.

  Her mother had stormed in shortly after that, calling me an imbecilic moron and a joke of a dance teacher, and I said a few things I’d rather not repeat. Hey, I’m a redhead. Everyone knew how fiery we were. I also mixed up a few clichés, something I always did, too, but it resulted in me telling her that I was going to stick her head where the moon doesn’t shine and . . . well, it’s best not to go there. I was very ashamed of my behavior.

  “What is she saying now? She filed charges against me? I didn’t touch her. She’s whacko. She grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. Look, I still have a bruise.” I thrust out my arm toward him.

  “I did mention I’m with homicide, didn’t I?” Detective Wilson asked.

  “Homicide?” Horror slowly dawned over me. Someone had killed Sandra Epstein, or worse, her daughter? And they were questioning me? “I’m sorry, but who was killed?”

  “Sandra Epstein,” he explained patiently, talking slowly as though I were an imbecile. Right now, I felt like one.

  “Was it an accident?” I asked, feeling faint, the blood rushing from my head.

  “No,” he patiently explained again. “I’m with homicide. Mrs. Epstein was poisoned. In the course of our investigation, we discovered that the two of you had a recent altercation, and so I need to talk to you if you don’t mind. It would be best if we went to the station.”

  “To the station?” I repeated, like a parrot. “Poisoned? But, but . . .”

  Next thing I knew I was on the floor, and Amber was kneeling over me, fanning my face with her hands. James knelt next to her, his big blue eyes trained on Detective Wilson, who stood above all three of us, staring down at me. I tried to scramble to my feet. Big mistake.

  “Oh, man, the room is spinning. Did I land in the pee?”

  “No, you cleaned it up, remember? Take it slow. Should I call the paramedics?” Amber asked, helping me to my feet.

  “No, no! No paramedics, I’ll be fine.” Dance teachers don’t have insurance, at least not those of us barely scraping by, and I knew I had fainted only from shock. And probably lack of food. Tuition wasn’t due for another five days, and all I had in my fridge was some old bologna I was saving for a dire emergency—such as the immediate threat of starvation—and two light beers.

  I knew why Detective Wilson was here. I knew someone had told him what I’d yelled at Sandra Epstein right after she grabbed my arm and gave me an Indian burn, and just before she stomped out of my studio dragging Taylee behind her like a small, forlorn rag doll.

  “You better watch out or someone is going to give you what you deserve!” I’d yelled.

  And someone had, although I wasn’t entirely sure she deserved to die. What I was entirely sure of was that someone hadn’t been me. But the police weren’t, and now I was probably their main suspect.

  Detective Wilson might be passionate about me, all right. Passionate about seeing me in jail! This was not good. Jail clothes were orange, and everyone knew that orange was not a good color for a redhead. Especially a redhead who needed Mary Kay concealer to cover her freckles. I doubted there would be a Mary Kay distributor in jail, anyway—they mostly hung out in upper-class neighborhoods wearing pink clothes and driving pink cars. Another color that wasn’t good for me. Pink.

  Good Lord. This was bad.

  TWO

  I left Amber in charge of the Mini class, and sent James off into exile to wait for the Seniors and Petites. I swear he said, “Yum, spicy hot,” as I left with the homicide detective who, it was entirely possible, wanted to put me behind bars.

  James Marriott was one of my best friends. He felt the same way about me, although he constantly bemoaned my lack of fashion sense. He was also a very talented dancer, a great teacher, a patient angel with young children, and a flaming queen. Despite the fact that his every mannerism screamed “gay,” his mother remained blind to the fact that her only child, a son—a late-in-life baby—liked men as much as I did. Because of his Mormon heritage, and the fact that he loved his mother dearly, James pretended to be something he was not. I had no idea how Sister Marriott (she insisted on being addressed this way—James said it was best not to argue) could possibly not know her pride and joy was playing for the other team.

  James and I had danced together with the Camelot Dance Troupe in Salt Lake City, and our professional careers had ended around the same time. Mine because I suffered a knee injury that took months to recover from, and James’s because he stole the director’s boyfriend.

  Somehow I became his cover. Whenever James required a date of the female persuasion, I got dragged along. This meant I had been to way too many Mormon weddings and get-togethers, where they did not serve alcoholic beverages, thereby preventing me from numbing my pain, but where the food was usually pretty good and always plentiful.

  That’s how I became addicted to potato salad, but that’s another story. Thinking of potato salad, I heard my empty stomach rumble, and I quickly coughed to try and hide the noise. Since I was riding with Detective Wilson down to the police station in his blue Ford Taurus, and since I was trying to impress him, even as I feared he’d be throwing me into jail, I did not want my bodily noises to drive him off. I’d thrown a jacket over my leotard, tights, and dance shorts, but I was still woefully underdressed for the cold late-November wind that was blowing, and I shivered uncontrollably until the officer took pity on me and turned on the heat full blast.

  “Look, Detective, I didn’t kill anybody, okay? I mean, the woman was a wretch, but you see a lot of that in this business.”

  “Let’s save it for your statement, okay?”

  “I have to make a statement?” I felt faint. “But, isn’t that what you have suspects do? Which means you seriously think I might have done this . . . Oh good Lord.” I felt the blood drain from my face again and Detective Wilson kept giving me short, nervous glances while trying to keep his attention on the road. It was starting to snow—big wet “hey-it’s-winter-in-Utah-flakes,” and they were sticking to the windshield.

  “Lady, you seriously need to relax. This is routine. I’m not arresting you, nor am I accusing you of anything. I just need you to answer some questions. If you aren’t guilty, then you’ll be fine. You must watch too much TV.”

  “Don’t call me ‘lady,’” I muttered under my breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” My cell phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. A dance mom. I didn’t answer it, nor did I speak again—a world record for me, by the way; I almost always had something to say—until we were sitting at a table in a small conference room at the Ogden City Police Department. Detective Wilson and another detective he introduced only as Benson were sipping coffee from foam cups. I had not been offered any. Could this be considered police brutality? Judging from the grimaces each cop made as he took a sip, I decided it was probably a favor, although some hot cocoa would go a long way toward making me feel better—and warmer. I glared at Detective Wilson. Where were his manners? My mother would be appalled. I bet his mother would be appalled.

  My cell phone rang again, and I looked at the ID. Another dance mom.

  “I just have to read you your rights, okay? It’s standard procedure, so don’t
freak out on me.”

  “My rights?” The words squeaked out of me, barely audible, as my day went from totally rotten to almost as bad as it gets, in just a pulse of my rapidly beating heart. Somewhere in my twisted psyche I heard his words and registered that he now knew enough about me to understand that being read my rights was going to cause me to freak out. My heart did a weird little flutter at that thought. I was seriously twisted.

  “Now, we’re going to record this, just to make sure we get it all right, okay?” Wilson said, pointing to the video camera that had not escaped my notice. I nodded nervously, willing my heart to slow down, and he flipped it on, and then sighted it in on me. I felt like a deer in the spotlight—or maybe a deer in the scope of a rifle.

  “Now, Mrs. Partridge . . .”

  “Ms. Partridge, please.”

  “Okay, Ms. Partridge, now for the record, where were you yesterday evening . . .”

  My cell phone rang for the third time, and Detective Wilson got an extremely pained look on his face, while Benson’s eyes hardened in suspicion. I turned it off. My phone never stopped ringing. Dance moms were neurotic.

  “Where were you around seven o’ clock yesterday evening?”

  I wasn’t about to own up to the carton of Häagen Dazs I had been devouring in front of the television while I watched The Bachelor. Some guilty pleasures were not to be shared. It had taken all the spare change I could find under my couch cushions and on my car floor to buy that Häagen Dazs, but it had been worth it. Pralines and cream. Yum.

  “Ms. Partridge?”

  “I was home watching television.”

  The two detectives looked at each other, and I almost groaned. Isn’t that what all the guilty people said? At least on television . . . Ack! I needed a life. If I didn’t get sent to prison for a murder I didn’t commit, I was going to do something . . . save the starving children, or maybe build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

  “And can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

  “No, I live alone.” So far, I hadn’t done a lot to disprove my guilt. Bring on that hammer: I was ready to construct.

  “So no one saw you and you didn’t talk to anyone?”

  “Well, I did buy some ice cream at the 7-Eleven. The one on 40th? The clerk might remember me.” The time had come to be honest about my ice cream addiction. Embarrassment about my junk-food habit in front of the hunky cop and his partner was better than prison. Again, my only experience with women’s prison had been television, but it had to be close to the truth, didn’t it? I didn’t particularly want to be a woman named Bertha’s bitch.

  “And what time was this?”

  “Seven, seven thirty?”

  “And what did you do after that.”

  “I went home.”

  “And?”

  “And I watched television.” I was still hoping The Bachelor could stay my little secret, but the way things were going, I knew the chances of that were slim.

  “And no one saw you after that? Did you talk to anyone on the phone?”

  “No, I pretty much just watched TV and then went to bed. My phone rang a lot, but I didn’t answer it.”

  “Hmmph,” Benson snorted. He didn’t sound like he believed me. Who would have known that my pathetic life would get me sent to prison?

  “So you are saying that around 8:30 p.m. last night you did not deliver two cartons of cookie dough to Mrs. Epstein’s doorstep?”

  Cookie dough? Good Lord, our cookie-dough fundraiser! I’d been out all day delivering the dough that had been ordered, and had just finished when I stopped at 7-Eleven for ice cream. “I . . . I . . . well, I delivered cookie dough, but not to Sandra. See, she and I had sort of a small disagreement, and I asked one of the other dance moms to take her order to her. I didn’t want to see her.”

  “And does this woman have a name?”

  “Well, yes. Her name is Emma Anderson. She’s Sandra Epstein’s neighbor. This all happened before Emma got mad at me over the Sugar Plum Fairy incident today. But that’s nothing new. She’s always mad at me.”

  “The Sugar Plum Fairy incident?” Benson asked, his eyes narrowing, confusion tingeing his voice.

  “Yeah, right before Ella peed on the floor.”

  “Who is Ella?”

  “She’s Emma’s daughter, and she’s a little bit short and chubby to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. Plus she can’t dance and when she—”

  Wilson rolled his eyes and I shut up immediately. When cops roll their eyes, it means trouble. Everybody knew this—at least everybody who watched television.

  “Well, see, here we have a problem,” Wilson said, his eyes back in a normal position. I bit my lip to keep from telling him if he kept doing that his eyes were going to stay that way. “We talked to Mrs. Anderson this morning, and she says you didn’t give her the cookie dough for Mrs. Epstein. In fact, she says you told her that you were going to personally deliver it even though she offered. And deliver it you did, right? Left it on her front porch, but added a little something extra to make it special?”

  “Whoa, hold on there, cowboy. I told you, I didn’t deliver the cookie dough to Sandra. I delivered it to Emma. She said I didn’t? She’s lying!” Oh no! It was the big “if you don’t” warning. This was what she meant. She was going to get me back for not making Ella the Sugar Plum Fairy. But was it really necessary to frame me for murder? This was worse than I thought. Much worse.

  “Cowboy?” Wilson said, interrupting my frantic rambling thoughts. He had one eyebrow raised higher than the other, and he wore a smirk on his lips.

  “It’s just something I say. I’m eccentric, okay?” Everyone knew that artists were expected to be a little bit off, after all. And I was an artist of a sort—a starving one, even. My art was dance and choreography. My biggest fault was I couldn’t shut up. “Just what is it you think I added to the cookie dough?”

  “Arsenic.” Benson spoke dully, with little expression on his face. Nevertheless, the pronouncement gave me a major case of racing heart and high blood pressure.

  “Arsenic? Are you kidding me? I don’t even know where you would get arsenic!” I felt like I’d fallen asleep and woken up in a B movie. I shook my head and closed my eyes tightly then opened them again, praying I’d be looking at a group of little girls in a ragtag line, hopping around on one leg as they tried desperately to hold up their heel extensions. No luck. Still impossibly gorgeous Detective Wilson and his morose, crew-cut partner Benson.

  “So, you’re saying you have no knowledge of who might have delivered the fatal cookie dough to Mrs. Epstein?” Death by cookie dough. This was surreal.

  “Hell no, I mean, no! I promise you, I gave that dough to Mrs. Anderson. I don’t know why she’s lying except she wants her daughter to be the Sugar Plum Fairy in our production of The Nutcracker, and I won’t give in to her manipulations. Maybe she thinks if she holds out on telling the truth I’ll cave and give Ella the role, to keep myself from going to prison.”

  The two detectives glanced at each other and fought to keep from laughing. Even morose Benson had a twitch at the corner of his mouth where his lip was trying to smile, something I just knew was against his nature.

  Could this be any more over the top?

  “So, you have no alibi, you have motive, you had access to the murder, uh, weapon, and the one person who can absolve you says you didn’t give her the dough. You did have the cookie dough in your possession before you allegedly gave it to Mrs. Anderson, correct?”

  I could see the court case now. I could see the news media. I’d be tagged the Cookie Killer for the rest of my life. Other criminals at least had cool or frightening crimes. Not that I was guilty, but if I was going to go to prison, I’d prefer it would be for something other than killing someone with a fundraiser. I doubted that would hold a lot of weight with the prison crowd. I felt tears threatening to spill over and fear took hold, causing me to breathe in deep, ragged pants. “I’m telling you right now I didn’t kill her. I didn’t
kill anyone. I don’t know how to find arsenic, and even if I did, I wouldn’t do it. I can’t even kill spiders or bugs. I’m just a dance teacher, okay? That’s all I do is teach dance.”

  To my embarrassment, the tears couldn’t be held back and I began to sob helplessly. Detective Wilson watched me closely, occasionally handing me a tissue, and Detective Benson looked away as though uncomfortable with the emotions of a killer. Except I wasn’t a killer. I was a dumb dance teacher who was just trying to make a living doing the thing I loved most.

  When the tears subsided Detective Wilson handed me the last tissue and threw the box in the garbage. I was pretty sure it had been full when I started crying.

  “I normally don’t cry this much. I think it’s because I’m hungry. Tuition isn’t due for five days.”

  Wilson gave me an odd look before saying, “All right, Ms. Partridge, that’s all for now. I’ll take you home, but I have to warn you not to leave town.” They said that on television all the time, too.

  He didn’t talk much on the way to my small apartment, and I was surprised when he pulled over into a Burger King drive-through that was a few blocks from my home and turned to ask me what I wanted. My mouth stayed open but no words came out, so he just turned and ordered a Whopper combo meal and then drove forward and paid for it. After the teenager at the pickup window handed him the food, he passed it to me and without another word reentered Harrison Boulevard headed in the direction of my apartment, located on the corner of Monroe and 26th Street.

  The food smelled so good I couldn’t help but inhale, and I closed my eyes as the aroma of French fries and hamburger grease wafted up around me. My stomach rumbled in response, and I opened my eyes to see we had stopped in front of my little apartment building. Detective Wilson stared at me with a huge grin on his face, and my face went hot. I knew from experience it matched the color of my hair.

  “Thanks for the, uh, dinner,” I said hastily, embarrassed that every time I turned around this man was seeing my worst side. Little girls who pee on the floor, clothes with holes in them, neurotic dance moms, a tearful crying jag, and a junk-food addiction were everyday occurrences for me. Although I’d never been a suspect in a murder before. In the space of three hours, I’d managed to cram a lot of eccentricity into the detective’s knowledge of me. I could kiss that passionate future with him good-bye.