Flamenco, Flan, and Fatalities (A Happy Hoofers Mystery) Read online

  “You have duende,” a friendly-looking, shaggy-haired man said, approaching us to stand next to her. He was tall and casually dressed in jeans and a blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He had the kind of face and manner that you trusted immediately. Some people are like that. It’s the direct way they look you in the eye or a mouth that looks ready to smile.

  “You were incredible out there on that floor,” he said. “Hello, I’m Mike Parnell.”

  “Mike’s an old friend of ours from the days when we lived in New York,” Geoffrey said. “I persuaded him to come on this trip with us.”

  “Hi, Mike,” I said. “Are you a lawyer too?”

  “Not a chance!” he said. “I’m an obstetrician—I delivered Michele.”

  He could not keep his eyes off of Mary Louise. “Forgive me for staring,” he said. “But you look so familiar. Have we met?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I had all my babies in New Jersey. Do you ever come to New Jersey?”

  “Not if I can help it,” he said, the laugh lines around his eyes crinkling. “I’m kidding. I’m sure New Jersey is a very nice place. Snooki seems to like it.”

  Mary Louise laughed. She was clearly attracted to this warm, friendly man. “You could have delivered her baby if you had deigned to come there. It’s the Garden State of America, you know.”

  “Must be a rock garden,” he said, causing me to choke on my ginger ale. “I once saw a clip from some show called Real Housewives of New Jersey. They were throwing drinks at each other and knocking tables over. I just assumed that all women in New Jersey were like that.”

  “You have a lot to learn about my state,” Mary Louise said. “We only throw drinks at people if they say bad things about us.”

  “I can see I have a lot to learn,” he said, putting his hand gently on Mary Louise’s shoulder. Will you teach me?”

  Her smile faded. She was looking at the wedding ring on his left hand. “Is your wife with you on this trip?” she asked.

  He hesitated, “No, she . . .”

  “Jenny died two years ago,” Danielle said, putting her arm around Mike.

  “Oh, Mike, I’m so sorry,” Mary Louise said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I still find it hard to talk about her because I miss her so much. You know, you look like her, Mary Louise. Maybe that’s why I thought I’d seen you before. She had the same lovely skin, the same blue eyes you—” he stopped, looking at her left hand. “Is your husband with you on this trip?”

  She touched her ring. “No, he’s in the middle of a trial. I think it’s a relief for him when I go on these trips.”

  “I would think he’d want to be with you all the time. Where does he practice?”

  “In New York. The commute is a killer, but we wanted to bring our children up in the suburbs.”

  “How many children do you have?” Mike asked. It was as if he didn’t want to let her go, as if he wanted to find out everything he could about her.

  “Three—two boys and a girl. My two oldest are in college and the youngest, my daughter, is a senior in high school. How about you?”

  “Twin daughters,” he said. “They’re both seniors in high school too.”

  “Do you live in the city?”

  “Yes, that’s where my patients are. I have to admit, I love being in New York. There’s so much going on all the time. You never know what’s going to happen next in that crazy city.”

  “It must be wonderful spending your days bringing new life into the world,” Mary Louise said.

  His whole face lit up. “You have no idea,” he said. “Every baby is a little miracle to me. I know that sounds trite, but even when it’s a difficult birth, the feeling of adding a new being to the world is always incredibly rewarding. You’d think I’d be over that by now. I’ve been doing it such a long time, but it’s still wonderful.” He looked embarrassed, as if he had said more than he meant to, expressed more emotion that he wanted to.

  “All doctors should feel like that,” Mary Louise said softly.

  They were silent. I saw the rapt look in Mary Louise’s eyes as she listened to this man. I couldn’t blame her. He was the kind of man you wanted to wrap up and take home with you.

  “But you didn’t tell me,” Mary Louise said. “What’s duende?”

  “It’s hard to describe,” Mike said. “It’s a kind of charisma, a sort of force that takes over a performer when she becomes part of the music. I asked a flamenco guitar player about it once. He said it’s when you rise above yourself to become something more than you are ordinarily. I don’t know if I’m saying this right, but you always know when you’ve achieved it. The audience knows too. You and your friends did it tonight up there on that stage.”

  He called to Eduardo, who was talking to some people near us.

  “Eduardo,” he said. “Am I right? Don’t you think these beautiful women had duende when they did that flamenco? Have I used the word correctly?”

  Eduardo hesitated. “Well, they certainly came close,” he said. “But, forgive me please, ladies, the flamenco is so uncompromisingly Spanish. Not even northern Spanish, but southern Spanish. It’s part of the soul of Andalusia. Or actually the soul of gypsies. You did come close. You were very good. But to feel the real duende, you have to see the flamenco sung and danced by gypsies. Especially sung. It’s unique. Deeply felt. Sort of a wailing, an ecstasy, a . . . You have to be there.”

  When I heard Eduardo describe this magic that happens when you know you’ve achieved something exquisitely unique, something you didn’t know you could do, I understood why I love to dance. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it’s immensely moving. It’s as if my body takes over from my mind. I stop thinking and let the music take over.

  Sometimes it happens when I’m filming too. I capture a moment. Not just a scene or a person’s face, but a moment in time that says something important about life. It happened when I was filming the firemen on 9/11. One man came out carrying a young woman who was killed when the plane crashed into her office. There were tears running down his face, making a path on his blackened cheeks. When I took his picture, I cried, too. That photograph captured the grief of that day when so many people died for no reason. Young and old, they were victims of a hatred they had done nothing to cause.

  “Well, at least we came close,” Mary Louise said.

  “Very close,” Michele said. “Your passion was tangible. It was wonderful to watch.”

  I envied this bright, lovely girl her youth. I usually don’t want to be any younger than I am right now, but I saw her smooth skin, her interest in everything going on around her, and I wished—just for a second—to be in my twenties again. I remembered feeling that there was nothing I couldn’t do. Each age has its magic moments. Her whole life was ahead of her.

  Mike started to say something to Mary Louise when Eduardo pulled him aside. He whispered something in Mike’s ear that obviously surprised him. I knew it had to be about Shambless. I was dying to find out what was going on. How could it still be a big secret? Why weren’t the police there? Obviously, Mike knew something we didn’t know, or Eduardo wouldn’t be consulting him.

  “Excuse me, Eduardo needs my help. I have to go,” Mike said. He obviously didn’t want to leave Mary Louise. “To be continued, Jersey girl,” he said.

  Eduardo grabbed his arm and pulled Mike from the room.

  Mary Louise watched him go. I knew exactly what was going through her mind. She saw the look on my face. “Don’t say it, Gini,” she said.

  You know me. I can never not say what I’m thinking. “He likes you, Mary Louise,” I said.

  “I know. And I . . . I can’t help it, Gini. I like him too.”

  “It’s written all over your face,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. “You’re married—remember? You’ve got all those children. And he’s really vulnerable. You remind him of his wife.”

  “Come on, Gini,” Mary Louise said. “I never do anything I’m
not supposed to do. I’m plain old boring, married me, faithful to plain old boring, married George.”

  Mary Louise is so nice we have to yell at her to get her to stand up for herself.

  “You’ve never been boring a day in your life,” I said. I didn’t yell, but I was firm.

  “Oh, look,” she said. “Janice is over there at that table by the window talking to Tom. I didn’t see her before. Let’s go join them.”

  “I’m not sure they want to be interrupted,” I said.

  “I see what you mean. They’re totally into each other.”

  Janice and Tom were talking intently. They might as well have been alone. They seemed unaware of other people walking by their table. Tom reached over and touched her face gently. She covered his hand with her own. He looked as if he were about to kiss her when Sylvia walked up behind him. Her voice was low and angry but loud enough for Mary Louise and me to hear.

  “Don’t let me interrupt anything,” she said. Everything about Sylvia was gray. Her hair, her complexion, her blouse and skirt, her sandals. She didn’t wear any makeup. There were deep frown lines between her eyebrows. I wondered if she ever smiled.

  “Sylvia,” Tom said. “Where did you go after we got back from the restaurant? I looked for you everywhere.”

  “Doesn’t seem like you looked too hard,” she said. “When did you set this little meeting up?”

  “He didn’t set anything up, Sylvia,” Janice said. “We just walked into this car at the same time and started to talk, to catch up.” She stood up and pushed back her chair. “I’m tired. Think I’ll head for bed. Nothing happened, Sylvia. Really.” And she hurried out of the bar car, her face miserable.

  “Why don’t you follow her?” Sylvia said to Tom, her voice getting louder, angrier. “If you want to be with that woman, go ahead. You seem to prefer her over me.”

  People near them moved away, uncomfortable at Sylvia’s anger. Mary Louise and I stayed where we were, but it was impossible not to hear them.

  “Janice and I are old friends, Sylvia,” Tom said. He looked weary, sick of this whole scene. “I like talking to her. That’s all there is to it. Let it go.”

  But Sylvia wouldn’t stop. She leaned closer to him, her face twisted and belligerent. “You looked like more than friends to me.”

  “Think what you want,” Tom said, his voice low and resentful. “You always do. I don’t want to listen to any more of this.” He walked away from her and out of the car.

  Sylvia lit a cigarette and noticed us standing nearby.

  “Tell your friend to stay away from him,” she said. “I mean it.”

  “Relax, Sylvia,” I said. “Janice isn’t after Tom.”

  “She’s not like that,” Mary Louise said.

  “She didn’t look so harmless to me,” Sylvia said. “I’m not a fool. I can tell when somebody is after my husband. I know they were in that play together. She was in love with him then. He’s lucky he didn’t marry her. I hear she’s been divorced three times. She probably would have dumped him too. Just tell her to watch it.” She turned and walked over to the bar and ordered a margarita.

  Mary Louise pulled me away before I could say anything more. “Forget it, Gini. Let her alone. Let’s go see if Janice is okay,” she said. We left the bar car.

  “That woman is angry all the time,” Mary Louise said as we walked down the corridor.

  “Seems like it,” I said. “Poor Tom. Too bad he didn’t marry Janice.”

  “He might have been her third divorce. Jan always says she was a mess back then.”

  We knocked on her door and found Janice staring out the window, a crumpled tissue in her hand. There were tears in her eyes when she turned to greet us.

  “Are you okay?” Mary Louise asked.

  “Not really. I feel sorry for Tom,” Jan said.

  “Me too,” I said. “She’s a witch. And she’s really convinced that you’ll take Tom away from her. If you ask me, Tom’s had enough. You should rescue him.”

  “You know me better than that, Gini. I would never do anything to encourage Tom. He’s a wonderful guy, but he’s married to Sylvia. I don’t know why, but he is. He loved her enough to marry her. That’s it.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “You two would make a great couple.”

  “Troublemaker,” Janice said, trying not to smile.

  I said good night to my friends and went back to the suite I shared with Tina. The room was small. After all, it was a narrow-gauge railroad, but both Tina and I are on the petite side. I’m five feet three and weigh 108 on good days. She’s five feet four and is around 110. Our weight varies according to how much pastry we have for breakfast, how much starch and sugar we cram in the rest of the day, and how strenuous our dance is. After the flamenco I was feeling absolutely svelte.

  There were two single beds in our suite, a fairly big closet, a comfortable couch that seated one and a half thin people, a table to write or eat on, and a small but adequate bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet.

  Tina is the travel editor at Perfect Bride magazine and recommends honeymoon trips to her readers. When we first dumped our stuff in this small room, I asked her, “Tina, think this is big enough for your newlyweds?”

  “They don’t need a lot of room,” she said. “They’re not going to do much in here except rumple the sheets. They get a double bed.”

  Our three friends were crammed into a slightly larger suite next door with a bunk bed for the smallest one.

  “How come I get to room with you and not squashed into the room next door with two other hoofers?” I asked.

  “Because you would have complained the whole trip,” Tina said.

  “I know I can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes,” I said.

  “Sometimes!” Tina said. “How about all the time? But we love you anyway.”

  “Thanks for choosing me to be your roommate, Tina. I hope our friends aren’t too smashed together next door.”

  “They’ll manage,” Tina said. “It’s only for a week, after all.”

  It was one in the morning and I was tired. The high from the dancing was gone. I just wanted to climb into my twin bed and sleep until my body said, “Wake up.”

  Tina was asleep before I finished brushing my teeth.

  Gini’s photography tip: Before you take a

  selfie, put on some makeup!

  Chapter 3

  Murder, He Said

  The next morning we had just finished dressing when we heard people running up and down the corridor. I pulled myself up and peered out the window. There was an ambulance outside the train. Men and women in white coats were boarding.

  I opened the door of our suite as Carlos ran past.

  “What’s going on, Carlos?” I asked him.

  “There has been an . . . an incident.”

  “You mean Shambless’s death,” I said. “Did they find out what he died of?”

  “I don’t know, señora. I have to go. Excuse me.”

  Mary Louise stuck her head out of her suite.

  “What’s up, Gini?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I told her. “Did you see the ambulance out there? Must be for Shambless. ”

  “Yes, I saw it before. There were too many people to see what was happening.”

  I went into her suite. We looked out her window again over Janice’s and Pat’s heads. As we watched, we saw Mike Parnell leave the group near the ambulance and get back on the train.

  Mary Louise stopped him as he walked past our suite. “Mike, what’s the matter? What’s happening out there?”

  “Oh, Mary Louise—hello. That talk show guy—Shambless. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  “I know. Eduardo told us about it before we danced last night. But he wouldn’t tell us what happened. Do you know what he died of? Are you the doctor they called when they found him?”

  “Yeah,” Mike said. “They won’t know what caused his death until after the medical examiner’s report. Carlos found
him. He ran to tell Eduardo, who called me because I’m the only doctor on the train. There’s no way of telling what he died of until they finish their tests. He could have had a heart attack. Or he could have passed out from drinking a whole bottle of wine at dinner last night, then choked to death. He could have died from food poisoning. They didn’t really give me a chance to examine him. ”

  “So, now what?” I asked him.

  “We wait until the police come. The police can’t move the body until they have a chance to make a thorough examination of the room in case his death was caused by foul play. I’m sure they won’t let anybody off the train until they’re through, so we probably won’t get to Ribadeo today.”

  “I was looking forward to that,” I said. “Eduardo told me I would get some really beautiful shots there.”

  “He’s right, Gini. It is incredible,” Mike said. “I’ve been there. It’s the perfect Galician town. You’ll get some great photographs when we finally get there. I’m sure we’ll see it soon, but we won’t be going anywhere until the police talk to us.”

  “What’s going on?” Michele asked, running up to us. “How come there’s an ambulance out there?

  “Shambless died last night, Michele,” I told her. “Carlos found his body. Nobody knows what caused his death yet.”

  “He was a terrible man,” she said. “A lot of people will be glad he’s gone.”

  Eduardo, his face drawn and agonized, got back on the train.

  “What’s happening?” Tina asked him.

  “I can’t really talk about it,” Eduardo said. Then, being Eduardo, always the polite host, he said, “Breakfast will be a little late. I’m so sorry.”

  “What killed him?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure,” Eduardo said, his innate discretion warring with his desire to tell us what he knew. “That is . . . well, the police have asked us not to say anything.”