Baby Doll Games by Margaret Maron Read Free Book Online Page B

dancer.
“TTiat's David Orland,” said Kee and, as he stood there balanced between tabletop and bookcase and looked around at the many images of Emmy Mion upon the walls, that impassive, deliberate mask dropped over his features again.
“I grabbed a drink of water, visited the john, then went immediately to my place between the front curtain and the first masker,” said Cliff Delgado, pacing before the desk, too keyed up to sit in the chair they had offered him. “And no, I didn't see any of the others and I certainly didn't speak to them, okay? We screwed up at the end of the first dance. I was supposed to do a back roll over Ulrike and our timing was off. It was such a stupid mistake I could have killed her!”
His passionate words hung in the air. He flinched and added uncomfortably, “That's just a figure of speech, okay?
My God! If men were sent to the gallows every time they felt like strangling a clumsy bitch-”
"Sit down, Mr. Delgado,” said Sigrid, in a cold voice that brooked no argument.
Delgado threw up his hands in exasperation, but did as he was told.
“Were you in place when the jack-o’-lantern appeared onstage?”
“Yes, yes, but don’t ask me whether it was Eric or Wingate because I didn’t give a damn who the showboater was. It was supposed to be a solo, for God’s sake! A delicate, wistful interlude, okay? And that jackass was turning it into such a farce, I couldn’t watch.”
“That fence and scaffold’s less than ten feet from where you were standing,” snorted Bernie Peters. “You had to see him.”
“And I tell you I didn’tl ” Delgado shrilled, springing from his chair to glare down at Peters.
Cliff Delgado had been Elaine Albee’s first candidate for the role of murderer, and the young man did radiate a near-psychotic intensity and impulsiveness, thought Sigrid. His dark blue eyes shot sparks; his short, punk-clipped yellow hair stood on end as with static electricity; and his dancer’s body seemed poised for motion even when he was standing rigidly defiant.
“Sit down, Mr. Delgado,” she said patiently. “You must surely understand that the only way we can discover who killed Miss Mion is by a process of elimination and that-”
“Okay, okay\” he snapped and sat down with a long- suffering sigh. “Just no goddamned lectures, okay? Truth is, okay, yeah, it had to be Win or Eric. The moves were familiar and yet they weren't. I didn’t catch on at first. I figured it was Eric, rubbing our noses in it. But then-I don’t know-it was more like somebody dancing Eric, okay?”
“Copying his style, you mean?”
"Yeah. But what the hell? Eric’s a smart-ass. He’s capable of dancing somebody dancing himself, okay? So it probably was Eric because Win’s brains are in his feet.”
“What did you mean about Eric rubbing your noses in it?” asked Sigrid, although she suspected she knew the answer.
“Just talk, okay?”
She leaned forward on her elbows, her strong chin resting again on her laced fingers, and waited. It was a test of wills which Cliff Delgado was too impatient to win.
“Okay, okay,” he said sulkily when the silence stretched too uncomfortably. “Eric couldn’t quit gloating that he was the only one in Emmy’s bed these days.”
“So according to you, he had no reason to kill her?”
“Who knows what goes through the inscrutable Oriental mind?” Delgado sneered.
“What about David Orland?” asked Elaine Albee. Delgado raked her deliberately with those intensely blue eyes, but Albee had been mentally undressed by subtler men than he and did not rise to his bait by showing either embarrassment or irritation. If anything, she seemed openly amused and the dancer was left to stew in his own impotence.
“He’s been in and out enough lately to know the moves,” Delgado admitted at last. “And he probably hates Eric enough.”
“Did he hate Emmy enough, though?” asked Bernie Peters. “That’s the real question.”
“Hate