Emmy? Nobody hated Emmy, okay?” Delgado gave a sour laugh. “Except maybe my dear wife. And the only dance she can do is The Waltz of the Elephants’ with our refrigerator.”
Chapter 6
If Nate Richmond had been, as Elaine Albee suggested, a laid-back version of California dreamin’, Wingate West was, by contrast, practically comatose. In fact, Mick Cluett, sent to fetch West, was on his way backstage to tell Lieutenant Harald that their third male dancer had skipped out on them when he spotted West dozing peacefully on one of the side pews.
Awakened and pointed toward the office, West appeared before Sigrid with tousled sandy hair, sleepy brown eyes, and a succession of such wide infectious yawns that Albee and Peters were soon unconsciously yawning along in unison.
Sigrid fought off her own subconscious tendency to make it a chorus and told Cluett to send out for coffee all around; but long before it arrived, she realized that Wingate West was not going to contribute much to their investigation.
Between yawns, the young man at first denied the existence of any tensions within the troupe. He did dredge up a memory of David Orland’s dismay at being replaced by Eric in Emmy’s affections last spring, and when pressed for information on current rivalries, sleepily admitted, "Yeah, I guess Cliff did have the hots for her.”
"Ginger Judson, too?”
"Probably. Everybody liked Emmy.”
Peters pointed out that like and lust were two differing emotions but West was yawning too deeply to answer.
He couldn’t recall if Emmy had seemed preoccupied when he saw her that morning, he denied knowing that she and Eric had quarreled, and he professed complete ignorance as to why anyone should have wanted to kill her.
Sigrid was left with the impression that personal relationships passed right over West’s head and that the actions of his colleagues probably registered very faintly unless they were choreographed to music. He didn’t stop yawning until describing the first dance that afternoon and then told them more than they wanted to know about the dynamics of the scene, exactly how he’d covered when Cliff and Ulrike screwed up near the end and threw Ginger and Eric off, and how disappointing it was that they didn’t get to perform the goblin dance. “Emmy and Rikld and I had an incredible passage near the end like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Rikki? Ulrike Innes?”
He nodded.
“Then you must have recognized the dancer who killed Miss Mion,” said Sigrid, momentarily encouraged by such specific observations.
He shook his head regretfully. “Somebody’d been messing with my things in the dressing room and I couldn’t find my mask at first so I didn’t get downstairs till the last eight bars of their piece. I got to my place just as he lifted her and after that, everything happened too damn fast. Before I got a handle on what was going down, he slammed her onto those spikes; then the lights went out and I felt somebody rush past me.”
The three police officers took turns asking the same questions in different words, but to no effect. Although wide awake now and no longer yawning, Wingate West claimed that he couldn’t begin to guess who had rushed by him or which direction that person had taken, once past.
They let him go as Cluett returned with their coffee and West looked at the white foam cups disapprovingly as he passed. "Caffeine’s not good for you,” he said, drawing back from the cup which had been ordered for him. "Causes breast cysts. I’ve got a box of herbal tea bags. Want some?” ^ "We’ll take our chances with the caffeine,” muttered Bernie, already kiting the snap-off lid of his steaming cup toward the wastebasket.
Ulrike Innes, last on their list of 8th-AV-8 dancers, was twenty-five, a tall slender Valkyrie with fair, almost silver hair that fell to her shoulders and was held back from h er smooth forehead by a wide black elastic band. Except that the tip of her thin nose was pink
Chapter 6
If Nate Richmond had been, as Elaine Albee suggested, a laid-back version of California dreamin’, Wingate West was, by contrast, practically comatose. In fact, Mick Cluett, sent to fetch West, was on his way backstage to tell Lieutenant Harald that their third male dancer had skipped out on them when he spotted West dozing peacefully on one of the side pews.
Awakened and pointed toward the office, West appeared before Sigrid with tousled sandy hair, sleepy brown eyes, and a succession of such wide infectious yawns that Albee and Peters were soon unconsciously yawning along in unison.
Sigrid fought off her own subconscious tendency to make it a chorus and told Cluett to send out for coffee all around; but long before it arrived, she realized that Wingate West was not going to contribute much to their investigation.
Between yawns, the young man at first denied the existence of any tensions within the troupe. He did dredge up a memory of David Orland’s dismay at being replaced by Eric in Emmy’s affections last spring, and when pressed for information on current rivalries, sleepily admitted, "Yeah, I guess Cliff did have the hots for her.”
"Ginger Judson, too?”
"Probably. Everybody liked Emmy.”
Peters pointed out that like and lust were two differing emotions but West was yawning too deeply to answer.
He couldn’t recall if Emmy had seemed preoccupied when he saw her that morning, he denied knowing that she and Eric had quarreled, and he professed complete ignorance as to why anyone should have wanted to kill her.
Sigrid was left with the impression that personal relationships passed right over West’s head and that the actions of his colleagues probably registered very faintly unless they were choreographed to music. He didn’t stop yawning until describing the first dance that afternoon and then told them more than they wanted to know about the dynamics of the scene, exactly how he’d covered when Cliff and Ulrike screwed up near the end and threw Ginger and Eric off, and how disappointing it was that they didn’t get to perform the goblin dance. “Emmy and Rikld and I had an incredible passage near the end like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Rikki? Ulrike Innes?”
He nodded.
“Then you must have recognized the dancer who killed Miss Mion,” said Sigrid, momentarily encouraged by such specific observations.
He shook his head regretfully. “Somebody’d been messing with my things in the dressing room and I couldn’t find my mask at first so I didn’t get downstairs till the last eight bars of their piece. I got to my place just as he lifted her and after that, everything happened too damn fast. Before I got a handle on what was going down, he slammed her onto those spikes; then the lights went out and I felt somebody rush past me.”
The three police officers took turns asking the same questions in different words, but to no effect. Although wide awake now and no longer yawning, Wingate West claimed that he couldn’t begin to guess who had rushed by him or which direction that person had taken, once past.
They let him go as Cluett returned with their coffee and West looked at the white foam cups disapprovingly as he passed. "Caffeine’s not good for you,” he said, drawing back from the cup which had been ordered for him. "Causes breast cysts. I’ve got a box of herbal tea bags. Want some?” ^ "We’ll take our chances with the caffeine,” muttered Bernie, already kiting the snap-off lid of his steaming cup toward the wastebasket.
Ulrike Innes, last on their list of 8th-AV-8 dancers, was twenty-five, a tall slender Valkyrie with fair, almost silver hair that fell to her shoulders and was held back from h er smooth forehead by a wide black elastic band. Except that the tip of her thin nose was pink
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