Dancing with the Dead Read Free

was the sort to pay attention. “You okay, Mary Mary?” It was her habit to make Mary’s name into an affectionate nickname.
    “Sure, fine.”
    “Looks like somebody took a poke at you.”
    “No,” Mary said, “that’s not what happened.”
    “My daughter, Ann,” Helen said, “her ex-hubby used to pound on her all the time.”
    “Why?” Mary asked. “What’d she do?”
    “Do? Why, she didn’t do a thing to deserve it. He’d beat on her just for the pure hell of it. Make up a reason, if she asked him. Finally he put her in the hospital and she got smart and left him. It took Ann three years in therapy before she realized none of it was her fault. Sounds odd, but that’s the way it seems to work. It’s a power play, really, something that’s just in some men, like it’s hormonal.”
    “They should help themselves, get that kinda thing outa the way they think. Or get professional help.”
    “They don’t change, Mary Mary. Not ever. They’ll lie their ass off to you, but they won’t change.”
    “None of that’s got anything to do with me,” Mary said. And it didn’t. Not anymore. Finally and forever, she’d cut Jake out of her life.
    “ ’Course not. Hey, you see this?” Helen picked up a folded newspaper that was lying on the table near the bench. “That girl got her throat cut in New Orleans was in a dance competition I went up to Chicago to see. I remember her ’cause of the hot pink dress she had on when she won first place in cha-cha.”
    Mary glanced at the brief news item about a woman who’d been found murdered in a vacant lot. Her photograph appeared above the simple caption, “Victim.” She was a pretty, dark-haired woman, about thirty. Danielle Verlane was her name. The newspaper mentioned nothing about her being a dancer.
    “You sure it’s the same woman?” Mary asked.
    “Oh, yeah. I remember her name ’cause it’s kinda unusual. Her, all right. Did a helluva tango, too. You never know what’s gonna happen, huh? I mean, maybe her husband did that to her. Started out beating her, love taps or some such shit, then it led to that. It happens.”
    “God, no!” Mary exclaimed. “That’s silly. And if that’s how it was, the police’ll find out.”
    “Won’t do her much good now, though, will it?” Helen did a practice rumba step and grinned.
    Air stirred around Mary’s ankles as three other students, two men and a woman, pushed through the door. The men were Curt and Willis. Curt was a two-hundred-pounder who’d been taking lessons about six months and was constantly apologizing for stepping on his partners’ toes or giving them the wrong lead. Willis was a wiry little gray-haired man who danced almost well enough to be an instructor. He was going to Miami with his instructor Brenda and would probably return with a trophy. The third student was Lisa Burrows, a twentyish woman who was tall and bony and reminded Mary of a beautiful thoroughbred racehorse. Lisa had been dancing for several years but had only been coming to this studio for about a month. Mary didn’t know her very well.
    Hellos were exchanged, and Lisa and Willis sat down to change shoes. Curt danced in leather street shoes, which was part of his problem. Lisa began brushing the suede soles of her shoes vigorously with a wire brush, to raise the nap and decrease friction so her steps would glide. The muscles in her lean arms were corded like a man’s.
    “Remember a girl named Danielle who competed in Chicago?” Helen asked Willis.
    He shook his head no, watching Lisa brush her soles, or maybe studying her improbably long legs. Shoosh! Shoosh! went the brush, sending flecks of suede flying. She seemed genuinely unaware of his scrutiny, which appeared to intrigue him all the more.
    “Well, she was murdered in New Orleans,” Helen said.
    Lisa handed her brush to Willis to use on his shoes and said, “So what was she doing in New Orleans?”
    “She lives—lived—there.”
    “I was there once,