Set in 1964, we find a series of crime scenes in Los
Angeles, from a fire in a warehouse where a ballet dancer
practises, to another young dancer being attacked and left
for dead in garbage. Is there a link? Esther Charlemagne
and her partner Mac have left the police force to become
private investigators but THE NIGHT SHADOW will challenge
them beyond imagining.
Rich detail brings the tale to life for us: Esther has
experienced personal tragedy and survived cancer, and her
raw feelings about marriage make her unwilling to continue
with the bread and butter infidelity cases. The pair take
on the assignment of finding out whether the dancer Jane's
death in the fire was accidental or malicious. The girl's
grieving mother is sure someone trapped her in the
building. Why? The trail leads to New York, where the
ill-
fated ballet artiste had just accepted a role in a corps.
Simone, the girl left for dead, grew up here and has
bravely returned to her art. Esther loves attending ballet
and the chance to poke around behind the scenes appeals,
even in such tragic circumstances.
Both Esther and Mac have to come to terms with their pasts
and move forwards, to stop themselves being shadowed by
regret. The danger they face now helps them to understand
what they mean to each other. They, not the investigation,
are the focus of this book for me, though the twists of
the
ballet mystery are fascinating and well worth a read for
mystery lovers.
THE NIGHT SHADOW by Chéri Vausé is a well-
written period piece which I hope will be the first of a
series. This author has also written an FBI crime story,
The Truth and Nothing but Lies.
The first four years of the 1960s have been filled with
tragedy and violence for Esther Charlemagne; divorce from
her abusive, alcoholic husband, the death of her thirteen
year-old son, the assassination of President Kennedy, and
her battle with breast cancer. None of these events,
however, have prepared her for the investigation of her
life, into the circumstantial death of a talented young
ballet dancer, killed in a mysterious fire. Teamed with
her
former partner on the New York City Police, Aiden "Mac"
McManus, the case will be the first that their fledgling
private investigation firm will take on, engaging all the
skills learned while detectives on the elite homicide
squad
of the NYPD. Amid the deception and danger, Esther and
Mac
are thrown together and forced to face their own demons
and
their long-buried feelings for each other.
Excerpt
September 23, 1964...
A cool breeze blew in from the ocean and out across the
landscape of Los Angeles in an attempt to chill the heat
off the early autumn night. Then, it just died. Dead.
Autumn never made it past Highway 101, the road running
like a black, glassy snake along California’s craggy
coast. It, too, was dead on arrival.
When the ocean wind died, the heated damp air was left
behind, and floated lazily through the bowels of the Los
Angeles warehouse district, like it fell asleep. It
managed to stick to everything like flypaper, making any
physical activity uncomfortable. One particular
warehouse, converted into a dance studio, was lit up at
the late hour, the old glass and wooden walls expecting
to hear the clunk of ballet slippers across its hardwood
floor. A young dancer, sat on a bench in the dressing
room, ready to change into her leotard and tights. Sweat
began to form in huge beads at her hairline and on her
upper lip. She wished that the cool of autumn would
finally get the upper hand and kill its predecessor.
Summer should have been finished, should have died, just
like the wind, but it hung on, passively suffering in its
excessively long-lived existence. Rehearsing in the heat
was just one of the sacrifices a dedicated dancer had to
make if they were to star in a company like the New York
City Ballet. She sighed, and dabbed with the tips of her
fingers at the sweat on her upper lip.
She stood, stepped out of her heels, feeling the cool
cement on the bottom of her feet, then slid out of her
sleeveless Yves St. Laurent dress, hanging it in a
locker, along with her stockings. The converted closet
was only large enough to accommodate three at-a-time
changing out of their clothes. Fortunately, she was
alone. She should have been at home packing for her plane
trip to New York, but her muscles felt cranky and she
needed to stretch, in spite of the sultry air. It would
be good to leave Los Angeles behind, with its pitiable
peculiarities, and all the emotional entanglements that
seemed to be unresolvable. She paused for a moment,
thinking, conjuring up a picture in her mind. The future,
any further contact, had died away with love unuttered
between them. She knew leaving would not solve the break-
up. It would only make it more tragic. A tear broke free
and traveled down her cheek, joining with the sweat
already gathering for a full scale assault. Even her
tears weighed in, knowing intimately the inconsolable
grief of unrequited love. She must learn to live with it,
however painful it was, and focus on her fledgling career
in New York.
She brushed the thoughts from her mind and quickly
slipped on her tights and leotard, then she lowered
herself to the bench and laced up her toe shoes. The
picture in her mind returned, and she sat immobile, fixed
to the bench. Curiously, she could hear someone walking
across the boards toward the men’s dressing room; a
hurried, uneven step, someone probably more interested in
a quick workout, rather than mastering a movement.
Disappointment traveled through her, and she stared at
her hands, laying like two limp fish in her lap, her
shoulders slumped forward.
She assumed the studio would be empty, that it was late
enough at night that no one else would be there. With the
summer workshop ended, classes wouldn’t begin for another
month. She had already stayed several weeks beyond the
workshop to study with the teacher, one-on-one, in order
to learn what Ballet Master Balanchine expected of her
upon her arrival in New York City. The only sound she
wanted to hear was the thud of her toe shoes when they
hit the floor, the steady rhythm of her breathing, and
the tympani of her heart, while she mastered her
technique. All emotion would disappear in her movements,
and she could lose the consciousness of that monster…
time.
Dancing cleared her mind. Dancing helped her breathe.
Dancing sorted, categorized, and filed all the craziness
into neat little compartments, minus all the passion.
And things need sorting in her life. Everything had gone
wrong this summer. Absolutely everything. Except
Balanchine’s invitation to dance in the New York City
Ballet Company. Dancing was the only thing that made any
sense. And she had been so hopeful about her move to LA.
She sat immobile, listening to whoever was out there, as
they tinkered with items on the shelves outside her
dressing room door. Then, she heard music begin. A
Beatles song, Hard Day’s Night. It blasted through the
doldrums in a burr, igniting the air with its relentless
drumming.
Rising to her feet, she stepped toward the door, and
turned the knob. It wouldn’t budge.
“How stupid,” she said.
She unlocked the door and pushed, but it had swelled in
all the wet heat, and it wouldn’t open.
“Hello? You out there,” she called, raising her voice
over the din of the song. “Could you help me out? The
door’s stuck.” No one answered. “Pull on the knob, while
I push.” Silence. “Hello?” She put her ear to the wooden
panel. Something was wrong. A definite smell of smoke
wafted into the room.
“Hello?” Her voice rose while she beat on the door.
“Whoever is out there, this is not funny.” She beat on
the door, again.
The music started over, “It’s been a hard day’s night,
And I’ve been working like a dog…”
“Whoever you are, you better open this door,” she
demanded, pounding and kicking with her fists and feet.
“Open this door, now!” She paused to listen. “What’s
going on?” she said. Banging one more time on her wooden
trap, she felt fear cover her like a thick wool blanket.
This time she would appeal to their humanity. “Help me!
Please, help me!” But her voice seemed to hang in the
thick air, making no progress from the room, no matter
how loud she yelled, as if it hit a huge, humid wall,
imprisoning her pleas in that closet dressing room.
She stopped to listen for footsteps. She could hear
nothing but the music blaring.
“Don’t leave me in here,” she pleaded again. “Help!” She
continued to pound and kick, ramming her side and
shoulder into the door to knock it free, but it was
locked in place. “Help me! Help me!” she screamed, her
voice rising into a shrill panic.
The music continued its clamorous assault, the Fab Four
still belting out their number one hit song, muffling her
pounding. Suddenly, loud popping noises exploded outside
the door, followed by the crash of dozens of items when
they hit the floor, with glass shattering and wood
snapping apart. She envisioned the shelving unit next to
the door had fallen over, trapping her inside the room.
Underneath the music, and the popping sounds, and the
crashing chaos, she thought she heard a door slam.
Oh, my god. Could it be possible they want me to die?
Her head bolted from one side to the other in a frantic
attempt to find a way out. She glanced up at the window
above the lockers. She could try to open it and climb
through, or break through it, her reed-thin body just
managing to slip through the opening.
Smoke began to curl under the door, the scent causing
fear to engorge her limbs, her heart thudding in her
chest. She threw open one of the locker doors and climbed
to the top. She stared in horror at what she saw before
her. The window was nailed shut.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, her voice warbling in stark
fear.
Her eyes darted about the room until she settled on her
shoes. She jumped down and grabbed one of her heels on
the fly, then scrambled back up to the top. She grasped
her shoe firmly in her hand and hammered on the glass
with the three-inch heel hoping to break the glass. The
sound of her heel hitting the window seemed dull and not
sharp like she’d expected. She set the shoe on top of the
locker and ran her hand over the smooth surface. Flicking
it with her finger, she realized that it wasn’t glass. It
was plastic. She also noticed the putty around the window
was new. Someone had replaced the window recently and
nailed in new stops because they weren’t painted like the
frame around the window.
She glanced back at the door. The bottom of it was
outlined in a golden glow, and the smoke slipping in
around the door had turned an ominous black. Her lungs
were beginning to hurt, a clear sign she was in trouble
unless she managed to get the window opened, and soon.
She coughed hard while she drove the heel of her shoe
into the putty to pry off the first stop.
Again and again, she jammed her heel into the edge of the
wood, pushing into it with all her strength. The heel
suddenly snapped off in a loud crack, and flew behind the
lockers. She climbed down and tried to focus her eyes
through the black smoke, searching wildly for the other
shoe. She spotted it and snatched it off the floor. One
more time, she scrambled back to the top and began to jab
the heel into the plastic and along the edge of the stop.
The hardened tip on her heel split and fell away. She
pushed into the edge of the window to raise the stop up
just enough to wedge the heel under it and pry the wooden
piece off. Shoving the heel under the stop, she yanked
upwards and the wooden piece flew off, joining her heel
from her other shoe behind the lockers. Her plan was
working. Then, she attacked the second one, jamming her
heel into the wood with all her strength.
She began to feel like her head was spinning, and that
she was about to pass out, her eyes burning and tearing
making it almost impossible to focus. Coughing violently,
her chest hurt so badly she couldn’t draw in a good
breath, but she persevered. She pushed and pushed on her
heel, making a huge gouge in the plastic. Slipping her
heel in behind the stop, she pried the wood off and
watched it fall away into the blackness.
But something was wrong. Her lungs felt as though they
were on fire with each breath. She started gasping and
coughing and her head was reeling in horrific pain.
Stopping was not an option, she had to finish, or she
knew she would die.
She dug her heel into the edge of the rigid plastic, but
it held tight. She shoved the heel in as hard as she
could to pop the edge up. It was no use. It still held
tight. The third stop had to come off and there was a
nail used to wedge the corner. She would have to move the
nail and pry the third stop off to open an edge of the
window and snap it away. She punched the heel into the
putty and the edge of the stop again, and again.
Her breathing was becoming labored, shallow, and the pain
was almost unbearable. She was coughing wildly, drawing
more smoke than air into her desperate lungs. She beat on
the plastic with her fist and gouged the heel into the
wooden frame to get some play in the plastic, until
everything went black. She jerked back to consciousness,
but she could no longer breathe.
The thick smoke curled, wound its way around her like a
great, black dragon, and flew through the slit she had
made in the window frame, escaping into the night air
like she wanted to do. She gasped for air, feeling like a
fish at the bottom of a boat, drawing more smoke into her
already oxygen deprived lungs. Her strength abandoned
her, and she dropped from her perch above the lockers,
hitting the bench on the way down, the bone in her arm
snapping in two. She tried to form a single word, but she
slipped into the blackness as the light bulb burst
overhead.
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