“The straight little boys start their pub crawls there,” Tucker explained to me, “because if they don’t manage to get lucky during the course of the night, then at least they’ve got a female form or two to fantasize about in the wee hours.”
I decided to see for myself if there was any truth to that particular rumor—and, unfortunately, there was.
Directly across the avenue from Dance 10 were the tall front windows of Mañana, a little dive of a bar with a fake south-of-the-border motif—the prerequisite sombreros, horse blankets, and piñatas dangled from hooks on its walls and over its stained wooden bar.
Mañana survived for four reasons, according to Tucker:
It caught the overflow from the much bigger Caliente Cab Co., a huge bar/restaurant with its most memorable characteristic being a giant-size margarita glass hoisted over its doorway.It served the cheapest beers in the area. (The stuff tasted like “piss,” so said Tucker, but it got you drunk for far less money.)The name Mañana meant “tomorrow” and was sometimes used among college freshmen who enjoyed showing off their knowledge of high school Spanish. Consequently, “See you Mañana” would confuse their half-drunk friends who hadn’t studied the language and they’d end up stumbling into this eponymous dive. And last but not least—The view.
Standing outside the little bar, I pretended to be a twenty-one-year-old college junior with a frosty mug of urine bought during half-price happy hour. Looking up, I could see a clear-as-crystal view of Dance 10’s large third-floor practice room. In the early evening with the lights blazing inside, I figured those young men probably fogged up Mañana’s front windows pretty good.
This opened up yet another possibility for a motive and a suspect. If college boys were using this vantage to drool from a distance at the beautiful girls in the window of Dance 10, then what were the odds one of them might have become obsessed with Anabelle from afar?
Perhaps one of them had tried to make a pass and failed, and somehow Anabelle ended up falling down the stairs when she tried to get away.
That theory would hold water if the front or back door to the Blend had been left unbolted, but it hadn’t.
No sign of a window escape, either.
Someone had obtained a key—or made a copy. I sincerely doubted that any of Anabelle’s coworkers had any real motive to hurt or kill her. Which sent me right back to Dance 10, where Anabelle rehearsed for hours and a jealous codancer might have slipped the girl’s key ring away to make copies.
I climbed the stairs to the studio, bribe in hand—a cardboard tray snugly filled with four double tall lattes (who doesn’t like lattes?).
According to the schedule posted in the lobby, Jazz Dance had just finished. Anabelle had attended this class religiously. Typically, she would open the coffeehouse at 5:30 A.M., leave at 9:30 to make the 10 A.M. jazz class, and continue taking dance classes for another four to five hours. Then she’d come back to the Blend to put in another three to five hours.
That’s why I’d promoted her to assistant manager. The girl was working the equivalent of a full-time schedule for the Blend, and in the short time I’d known her, she’d been a reliable opener.
“Can I help you?”
A woman in her late twenties with an abundance of good posture spoke to me with the sort of sharp-edged tone that really means, “Who the hell are you? And what do you want?”
She wore a large burgundy sweater over black tights, and her light brown hair had been pulled back into a tight bun. She sat alone at a small wooden desk inside a tiny office covered with schedules, announcements, and show posters. The back wall was lined with old file cabinets and a tall column of stacked chairs.
This must be the second floor “reception and registration office,” I decided. According to the building directory in the lobby, this floor also held practice rooms A, B, and C. I could hear piano music filtering out of one closed door, a hip-hop beat out of another.
“I’m looking for the teacher of the ten A.M. Jazz Dance class,” I told the young woman.
“You can leave your delivery here,” said the young woman. “What do we owe you?”
“I am not a delivery person,” I said with just enough haughtiness to cow her attitude (a fraction anyway). “I’m the manager of the Village Blend, where Anabelle Hart works.”
Her eyes grew wide—as I had expected. Tucker assured me that gossip among show-people traveled “faster than Louisiana lightning.”
“What do you want?” asked the young woman, all curiosity now.
“I told you. I want to speak with the teacher of the ten A.M. Jazz Dance class. The one Anabelle attended daily.”
“You’ll find her in the large recital room. Third floor.”
“And her name is?”
“Cassandra Canelle.”
An array of leotards and leg warmers thundered down the squeaky wooden staircase as my black boots climbed up. Lord, I thought, these girls may have been light on their feet when it came to performing on stage but off they sounded like a herd of buffalo.
Giggles and chatter receded as I stepped onto the landing. The walls were stark white, as they had been downstairs. Framed black-and-white photographs of dancers leaping and posing hung in a level line. I followed that line to a single doorway. Strains of contemplative classical music grew louder as I moved closer, and I expected to find another class in progress.
To my surprise, I found a single dancer in motion.
She was graceful, lithe, and as elegant in appearance and bearing as Anabelle had been, though her skin was mocha rather than milk-pale, and her age was closer to forty than twenty. I didn’t know much about dance, but I knew enough to know her movements were not modern, hip-hop, or jazz. In her violet-blue leotard and skirt, she appeared to be performing the pirouettes of traditional ballet.
Hesitant to interrupt her, I simply watched. The composition accompanying her was tuneful, lucid, and emotional. The opening strings were sad and brooding, the dancer’s movements heavy and posed, then came a flurry of almost manic energy. Leaps and twirls matched the tempo with astonishing speed and grace. A bluebird on the wing. An orchid spinning madly.
She seemed so focused in the dance, I was utterly startled when, amid a final high leap, she looked straight at me and sharply called—“What do you need?”
From the doorway I held up the tray of cups. “I hoped we could sit down and talk about one your students—Anabelle Hart—”
The dancer stopped. Her body sagged. A weeping willow.
In the background, the music played on, reaching an emotional intensity that was almost unendurable.
“That’s Schubert, isn’t it?” I asked.
“What do you want?” The accent had a slight Jamaican lilt.
“I want to know who from this studio might have been angry enough or jealous enough to push Anabelle down my service staircase.”
EIGHTEEN
CASSANDRA Canelle glared at me. Then, with light, even strides, she crossed the polished hardwood floor, placed hands on hips, and inches from my nose, said, “How dare you! What evidence do you have for such a charge? Who of my girls are you accusing?”
“No one. Yet,” I said. “I just know that Anabelle’s fall was not an accident, and I know dancing is a competitive arena. Do you care about Anabelle?”
“Of course I care about her. She is one of my star students! I am devastated she is lying in hospital. How dare you come here and—”
For the next five minutes, the dance teacher balled me out to the strains of Der Tod und das Mädchen (Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”).
Boy, did I feel like a heel.
My blunt approach had yielded me useful information—with the young dancers. But it sure as heck was the wrong approach with their teacher.