The Dance Read Online Free PDF Page B

squeezed his hand just before she drove away. He decided she had changed her mind about studying with Julie.
    He didn’t know what was the matter with him. He could never sit around and enjoy a happy moment. His brief conversation with Lieutenant Keller suddenly came back to plague him. He hadn’t had enough information to challenge the detective. He needed more. He needed to study that autopsy report.
    He got into his car, drove to the police station. There he picked up the permission form. The sooner he got it back to them, the sooner he might clear Alice’s name. He headed for the McCoy residence.
    Polly answered the door. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and the rest of her features looked drawn and tired. She had lost a great deal of weight, particularly in her face. He had never realized how pretty she was, or how much she resembled her sister.
    “Hi, Mike,” she said. She had on dark wine-colored pants, a white blouse, a red scarf around her neck. “How are you?”
    “I’m all right. How about you?”
    “Fine. Would you like to come in?”
    “Yeah, thanks.” He stepped inside, bracing himself involuntarily. Even twenty years from now he doubted that he would feel comfortable in this mansion. The plush carpet, the high white ceilings—he remembered it all too well. There was, however, a slight stale odor in the air he did not recall. Polly led him toward the couch in the living room where he’d been sitting with Nick and Maria when the gun had gone off.
    “I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d stop by and see how things are,” he said as they sat down.
    “That was nice of you.”
    He glanced about. “It’s amazing how neat you’re able to keep this place.”
    “Polly.” A thin voice sounded from the direction of the hallway. Polly immediately leaped to her feet, but stopped at the start of the hall.
    “It’s a friend from school, Aunty. Do you need anything?”
    “No, dear, talk to your friend first.”
    “First? Do you need anything?”
    “Go ahead and talk to your friend,” the old woman said.
    Polly shook her head, mildly irritated, and returned to her place beside Michael on the couch. “She’ll probably call out again in a minute,” she said.
    “How is she? Someone told me she’d had a heart attack?”
    She nodded. “Yeah. The doctors say it was mild, but she’s so old. She hasn’t really got her strength back. She has to stay in the downstairs bedroom. The climb upstairs is too much for her.”
    “Do you have a nurse?”
    “I can take care of her. If she’d tell me what she wants. She doesn’t know half the time.” Polly shook her head again and then looked at him, smiling, pain beneath the smile. He almost decided right then and there not to bring up the reason for his visit. “I’m glad you stopped by,” she said. “It gets kind of boring sitting home every night.”
    “You should try to get out.”
    Polly glanced toward the front hall, or was it up, toward the bedroom where they had found Alice. That was one room he’d like to look at again. “Not yet,” she said.
    He cleared his throat. “Polly, I have a confession to make. I did have another reason for stopping by. I have a few questions I want to ask you.”
    “Would you like something to eat?”
    “No thanks. What I wanted—”
    “How about something to drink?”
    He smiled. “Sure. Juice would be nice.”
    She jumped up. “What flavor? We have pineapple-coconut?”
    “That would be fine.”
    She was back in a minute with a huge ice-filled glass, a slice of orange stuck on the rim. She hadn’t bothered about one for herself. She sat on the couch a little closer this time, her expression now more alert than hurt. “Is it good?” she asked.
    He took a sip. “Great.” He set it in his lap, stirred the ice with the straw she had provided. “I wanted to ask about Alice,” he said carefully.
    “We can talk about her,” she said quickly. “Jessie and Sara—they think I’ll break down