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Peabody huffed out a breath. "This place doesn’t make much of a statement, personal or otherwise."
"Let’s toss it anyway. Then we’re going dancing."
* * *
The Gill School of Dance was on the third floor of a stubby post-Urban War building on the West Side. It boasted a large, echoing room with a mirrored wall, a barre, a huddle of chairs and a decorative screen that sectioned off a minute desk.
The space smelled of sweat heavily covered with floral air freshener.
Fanny Gill herself was skinny as an eel, with a hard, suspicious face and a lot of bright blond hair tied up with a red scarf. Her pinched face went even tighter as she set her tiny ass on the desk.
"So somebody killed the rat bastard. When’s the funeral? I got a red dress I’ve been saving for a special occasion."
"No love lost, Ms. Gill?"
"Oh, all of it lost, honey. My boy out there?" She jerked a chin toward the screen. On the other side, a man in a sleeveless skinsuit was calling out time and steps to a group of grubby-looking ballerinas. "He’s the only decent thing I ever got from Rad the Bad. I was twenty-two years old, fresh and green as a head of iceberg."
She didn’t sigh so much as snort, as if to signal those salad days were long over.
"I sure did fall for him. He had a line, that bastard, he had a way. Got married, got pregnant. Had a little money, about twenty thou? He took it, invested it." Her lips flattened into one thin, red line. "Blew it, every dollar. Always going to wheel the deal, strike the big time. Like hell. Cheated on me, too. But I stuck, nearly ten years, because I wanted my boy to have a father. Finally figured out no father’s better than a lousy one. Divorced him - hired a fucking shark lawyer - excuse the language."
"No problem. Cops hear words like lawyer all the time."
Fanny barked out a laugh, then seemed to relax. "Wasn’t much to get, but I got my share. Enough to start this place up. And you know, that son of a bitch tried to hit me up for a loan? Called it a business investment, of course. Just a couple months ago. Never changes."
"Was this business investment regarding Number Twelve?"
"Yeah, that’s it. Like I’d have anything to do with that place - or Rad."
"Could you tell us where you were last night, Ms. Gill? From say midnight to three?"
"In bed, asleep. I teach my first class at seven in the morning." She sniffed, looking more amused than offended to be considered a suspect in a homicide. "Hey, if I’d wanted to kill Rad, I’d’ve done it twenty years ago. You’re going to ask my boy, too, aren’t you?"
"It’s routine."
Fanny nodded. "I sleep alone, but he doesn’t."
"Dead? Murdered?" Cliff lowered the towel he’d used to dry his damp face. "How? When?"
"Early this morning. The how is classified for the moment. Can you give us your whereabouts between midnight and three?"
"We got home about one. We’d been out with friends. Um… give me a second." He picked up a bottle of water, stared at it, then drank. He was a well-built thirty, with streaked blond hair curling in a tail worn halfway down his back. "Lars Gavin, my cohab. We met some friends at Achilles. A club uptown. We went to bed right after we got home, and I got up about seven, seven-thirty. Sorry, I think I want to sit down."
"We’re going to need names and contact information on the people you were with, and a number where we can reach your cohab."
"Yeah, sure. Okay. How? How did it happen?" He lifted dazed eyes to Eve’s. "Was he mugged?"
"No. I’m not able to give you many details at this time. When’s the last time you had contact with your father?"
"A couple months ago. He came by to try to hit my mother up for some money. Like that would work." Cliff managed a half smile, but it wobbled. "Then he put the line on me. I gave him five hundred."
He glanced over to where Fanny was running another group through barre exercises. "Mom’ll skin me if she finds out, but I gave him the five."
"That’s not the first time you gave him money," Eve deduced.
"No. I’d give him a few hundred now and then. It kept him off my mother’s back, and we do okay here. The school, I mean. We do okay. And Lars, he understands."
"But this time he went to your mother first."
