Dead Man Waltzing by Ella Barrick Read Free Book Online Page A

thought she’d been alone for days rather than just the hours since Maurice’s arrest. “You must be Cyd,” I said. “As in Cyd Charisse.” I stooped to scratch under her chin. The cat purred, intimating that I could call her anything I liked as long as I kept scratching. Another cat, bigger and darker, with white markings like eyebrows over his green eyes, and a white-tipped tail, jumped from a plant ledge to a console table in the hall, knocking something off with a clink. I squatted to stroke both cats and pick up whatever Gene—named for Gene Kelly, Maurice had told me—had knocked off.
    It was a key. I was about to put it back on the table when a thought came to me. It looked like the key Maurice had used at Corinne Blakely’s house, brass-colored and a bit larger than your standard house key. I weighed it in my hand, thinking. Thought one: Finding the manuscript was important to Maurice. Thought two: Turner Blakely had mentioned he was off to Virginia Beach, two and a half hours away, for a bachelor party. He’d drink too much, put the moves on the stripper—he was the kind of guy whose friends would definitely have a stripper or two at a bachelor party—and crash at a friend’s house for the night. Thought three: This evening would be a perfect time to search Corinne’s house for the manuscript. There might not be another chance.
    Dismissing thought four, which had to do with arrest, trial, and imprisonment for breaking and entering, I fed the cats, locked up, and pointed my Beetle toward home. I’d have to postpone my debut as a housebreaker until after the Latin dance class.
    * * *
    Twilight stretched shadows across the yard and gave the unlit house a somewhat forbidding aspect when I arrived at nearly eight thirty. An accident on the parkway made the drive that had taken twenty minutes in late morning take three times that long. One of the joys of living in the greater D.C. area. I had plenty of time to question my impulsiveness on the drive, but I didn’t turn around. If there was the slightest chance that the mysterious manuscript would help erase Maurice from the police’s suspect list, then I had to do what I could to find it.
    Getting out of my car, I climbed the steps to the front door and slid the key into the lock. I looked over my shoulder, feeling furtive, and saw nothing and no one except my yellow Beetle looking lonely on the circular driveway. I eased the door open. Darkness greeted me. I pulled out the small flashlight I’d had the forethought to bring along and clicked the “on” button. Nothing happened. I shook it and tried again. More nothing. Shoot . Next time I’d have to be forethoughtful enough to check the batteries before setting out on a house-searching expedition. I reminded myself that there were no nearby neighbors and felt along the wall for a light switch. My fingers touched a rheostat and I turned it slightly. The chandelier glowed to life, bulbs half-lit like fireflies surrounded by sparkly crystals.
    I’d had time to develop a strategy on the drive, and I set out in search of an office. No way could I search every room in this mansion—I’d lived in apartment complexes that were smaller—so I’d decided to look in Corinne’s office and her bedroom. Then I’d leave, even if I hadn’t found the manuscript. On the ground floor, I poked my head into rooms filled with antique tallboys and silk-covered sofas too fragile to sit on, a dining room table long enough to seat the Redskins’ starting offense and defense, oil paintings in heavy frames, and a kitchen with an oversize farm sink and cabinet-front appliances. I suspected most of the parlors, drawing rooms, music rooms, and sitting rooms—or whatever they were called—went largely unused. Nothing looked remotely like an office.
    I climbed the curving staircase to the second floor, my footsteps muffled by the expensive-feeling carpet lining the steps. A wide hallway extended on either side of me, and I