Chorus Lines, Caviar, and Corpses (A Happy Hoofers Mystery) Read online

  Kick Up Your Heels For the First Happy Hoofers Mystery!

  “A fun book! It has a little bit of everything, from tongue-in-cheek travel tips to romance and recipes (and, oh, are they good).”

  —Carole Bugge, author of Who Killed Blanche DuBois?

  “If you can’t afford a Russian cruise up the Volga, this charming murder mystery, which mixes tasty cuisine and a group of frisky, wisecracking, middle-aged chorines, is the next best thing.”

  —Charles Salzberg, author of the Shamus Award–nominated Swann’s Last Song

  “The Happy Hoofers bring hilarity and hijinks to the high seas—or in this case, a river cruise across Russia on a ship where murder points to more than a few unusual suspects.”

  —Nancy Coco, author of All Fudged Up

  “A page-turning cozy mystery . . . The cast of characters includes endearing, scary, charming, crazy and irresistible people. Besides murder and mayhem, we are treated to women who we might want as our best friends, our shrinks and our travel companions.”

  —Jerilyn Dufresne, author of the Sam Darling mystery series

  “A huge treat for armchair travelers and mystery fans alike . . . Vivid description and deft touches of local color take the reader right along.”

  —Peggy Ehrhart, author of the Maxx Maxwell mystery series

  Also by Mary McHugh

  Cape Cod Murder

  The Perfect Bride

  The Woman Thing

  Law and the New Woman

  Psychology and the New Woman

  Careers in Engineering and Engineering Technology

  Veterinary Medicine and Animal Care Careers

  Young People Talk About Death

  Special Siblings: Growing Up with Someone

  with a Disability

  How Not to Become a Little Old Lady

  How Not to Become a Crotchety Old Man

  How to Ruin Your Children’s Lives

  How to Ruin Your Marriage

  How to Ruin Your Sister’s Life

  Eat This! 365 Reasons Not to Diet

  Clean This! 320 Reasons Not to Clean

  Good Granny/Bad Granny

  How Not to Act Like a Little Old Lady

  If I Get Hit by a Bus Tomorrow, Here’s How

  to Replace the Toilet Paper Roll

  Aging With Grace—Whoever She Is

  Go For It: 100 Ways to Feel Young, Vibrant,

  Interested and Interesting After 50

  Chorus Lines, Caviar, and Corpses

  A Happy Hoofers Mystery

  Mary McHugh

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Kick Up Your Heels For the First Happy Hoofers Mystery!

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Keeping On Our Toes

  Chapter 2 - Cruising and Schmoozing

  Chapter 3 - Make ’em Laugh

  Chapter 4 - Can I Buy You A Drink?

  Chapter 5 - Add a Russian Accent

  Chapter 6 - From Russia With Murder

  Chapter 7 - Privyet, Stranger

  Chapter 8 - Wake Up and Smell the Bacon

  Chapter 9 - Nesting Dolls and Fur Hats

  Chapter 10 - Samovars and Underwear

  Chapter 11 - What’s Behind Door Number Two?

  Chapter 12 - How’s Your Pojarski?

  Chapter 13 - Just Your Name and Social Security Number

  Chapter 14 - Surprise Party!

  Chapter 15 - One Desperatador, Please

  Chapter 16 - Happy Birthday, Caroline!

  Chapter 17 - You’re the Beef in My Stroganoff

  Chapter 18 - Now You See It, Now You Don’t

  Chapter 19 - The St. Petersburg Diet

  Chapter 20 - Sugar Plum Fairies and Snowflakes

  Chapter 21 - Tigers And Jugglers and Bears—Oh My!

  Chapter 22 - Who Took My Lysol?

  Chapter 23 - Tina’s Travel Tips You Can Really Use

  Chapter 24 - Home Sweet Home

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  To Earl, the light and love of my life

  Chapter 1

  Keeping On Our Toes

  It all started when Mary Louise decided we needed to exercise. We are five close friends, who’ve all managed to stay fit over the years. Still, when we moved into our fifties, we knew we had to watch what we ate and become more active.

  We considered all the ways there are to exercise. What we really loved was dancing, especially tap dancing, so we took a class and worked out some routines. Before long, we were asked to perform at a local senior center . . . and then at a community service luncheon . . . and one gig led to another. Pretty soon the word was out about the fabulous five fifty-somethings with the high kicks, smooth moves, and bright smiles. Our video on YouTube got hundreds of hits.

  Who knew we’d get to be so good that someone would hire us to dance on the Smirnov, a Russian ship sailing up the Volga from Moscow to St. Petersburg? That we would encounter a stern German cruise director named Heidi, a disgruntled British chef who loved to drink but wasn’t fond of cooking, and a motley crew that never did master the art of graceful service?

  We thought we would eat some good food, meet some nice people, see things we’d never seen before, and get paid for it. What could go wrong?

  Plenty, as it turned out. If I’d known ahead of time that we’d get mixed up in a couple of murders and that my own life would be endangered on this so-called pleasure trip, I would have stayed happily at home in Champlain, New Jersey, commuting to New York to my job as a travel editor at Perfect Bride magazine.

  Let me tell you a bit about us.

  Just briefly, there’s me, Tina Powell, who for better or worse is the leader of our little group because I’m the most organized. Like our whole gang, I’m in good shape because of our dancing. I weigh 110 pounds and am 5′4″ tall. I don’t mention that I’m over fifty to strangers because I can read their minds: Drives a gas-guzzling SUV. Wrapped up in her kids. Belongs to a book club that reads Jane Austen and never gets around to discussing the book. Botox.” I loved telling my coworkers at Perfect Bride magazine, where I’m the travel editor, that my friends and I were hired to dance on a cruise ship in Russia. Their usual reaction was, “You mean they’re actually going to pay you?” I would just nod and smile. Besides dancing on this trip, I’m also writing an article for newlyweds who might want to honeymoon on this cruise.

  Janice Rogers is an actress and director of shows in community theaters in our town. Since her divorce, she’s been busier than ever, especially after her daughter went off to college. She’s tall and blond and has an unlined face that never seems to age. Her skin has a glow that makes her look far younger than she is. When we ask her how she keeps her complexion like that, she says, “Neglect. I only wash it once a day. Soap is bad for your skin.” She is a fierce friend, always there when you need her. I met her when she moved next door to me just after she and her husband split up.

  Janice has long legs and, in black tights, they are stunning. “The legs are the last to go,” she says. Actually, we all have great legs—it’s just genetic, nothing we did or didn’t do. And black stockings hide a multitude of sins.

  Pat Keeler, a family therapist, our mother hen, watches over us. She’s on the phone whenever she thinks it’s necessary to make sure we’re all right. She always remembers the tap routines. If we forget, we just look at Pat and do whatever she’s doing. She is our rock. Her face
is beautiful, with a few worry lines on her forehead. She’s usually very serious, but when she smiles, it warms all of us. She’s taller than the rest of us. Oh, and she’s gay. It’s just a fact of life with her. She doesn’t flaunt it or hide it. Many of her clients are gay; she understands what they’re going through. The rest of us are straight. Pat helps us with our problems too.

  Mary Louise Temple has been my closest friend for over thirty years. We met when we both worked at Redbook magazine and became best friends. She has one of those Irish faces, with porcelain skin, dark hair, and blue, blue eyes. She somehow managed to keep a great body after three children and she thinks if you’re not Irish, you should at least try. She’s the only one who still has a husband, George, who believes it’s his job to correct all the mistakes her parents made when they were bringing her up. I never could find any mistakes.

  Finally, there’s Gini Miller, a fierce redhead with a temper to match. She’s a prize-winning documentary filmmaker, small and pretty. She’s divorced. “We just wanted different things,” she says of her ex-husband. “He was happy sitting on a couch with a beer watching football.” She wanted to see the world. She filmed an oral history of the people who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She made a documentary about an orphanage in India, where she fell in love with a little girl she hopes to adopt when regulations ease in that country.

  We call ourselves the Happy Hoofers—that’s with an f.

  I love these women. The easy intimacy that the five of us enjoy has certainly helped to prepare us for life after fifty. We’ve been through everything together—miscarriages, sick children, husbands’ affairs, cancer, widowhood, teenagers, divorce. None of us could have done it without the other four cheering us on, lending a shoulder to cry on, saying just the right words to make everything better.

  We are all different, all great-looking, and fierce friends forever.

  Tina’s Travel Tip: Talk to as many people as you can on a cruise—some of them might actually be interesting.

  Chapter 2

  Cruising and Schmoozing

  I knew this wasn’t going to be one of your Love Boat cruises the minute I opened the door to our cabin.

  “Mary Louise, look at the size of this room! How can we change into our costumes in here?”

  “Wait until you see the bathroom,” she said. “There’s no bath and I’d hardly call it a room. If we hadn’t dieted ourselves into near nonexistence, we wouldn’t be able to wash during the whole trip.”

  I looked over her shoulder and groaned. There was a basin, a toilet, and enough floor space for a very small three-year-old to take a shower.

  “Where’s the shower?” Mary Louise asked.

  “I think you take the faucet off the basin and hang it on that hook up there, pull this curtain around you, and very carefully take a shower without breaking any of your movable parts.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “There’s only two feet of floor space between the beds to change our clothes in. We’ll have to dress in shifts.”

  “Too bad—I forgot to pack mine,” I said, and we fell on the narrow beds laughing hysterically.

  “Remind me again why we decided to take a Russian river cruise,” she said.

  “Because somebody actually hired us to tap dance on a ship sailing from Moscow to St. Petersburg,” I said.

  “What were they thinking!” she said.

  “What were we thinking?” I said, and that set us off again. We couldn’t help giggling at the absurdity of this whole situation. We’ve been friends for such a long time, we can read each other’s thoughts. Ever since we met at Redbook magazine, where we both worked as editors before we were married, we’ve been good friends.

  We’ve helped each other through babies—three for her and two for me—marital fights, and musicals at the community theater where she and I danced and sang our way to local stardom and total disdain from our teenagers. And the death of my husband a year ago. I could never have made it without her.

  Now, at the age of fifty-two (Mary Louise) and fifty-three (me), we are on another adventure with our friends Gini, Janice, and Pat.

  “Remember that time we drove across the country with Gini and Pat in that old Pontiac?” Mary Louise said. “Some of the places we stayed had smaller bathrooms than this.”

  “Can you believe we were still friends after four weeks crammed into that ten-year-old car, with a water hose that leaked—”

  “And we patched it with bubble gum! You always had to sleep on the rollaway because you were the smallest, Tina. You must have weighed ninety pounds in those days. What do you weigh now?”

  “None of your business. Why do you think I took up tap dancing? Let’s see if we can unpack our stuff.”

  “Wait,” said Mary Louise, pulling an aerosol can out of her tote bag. “Let me spray the drawers with Lysol first. You never know what might have been in there.”

  “OK, Ms. Germ Freak,” I said. We often tease Mary Louise about her fastidious habits. She’s the only person I know who actually sings the entire “Happy Birthday” song while washing her hands.

  After unpacking in our crowded little stateroom, somehow finding room to put everything, we collected our friends and headed out to get some breakfast.

  The Smirnov’s dining room was a bright and cheerful space, with windows all around. The tables were set with linen tablecloths, blue and white china, crystal glasses, and sparkling silverware. Comfortable yellow wicker chairs complemented red roses, freshly cut and fragrant in a vase in the middle of each table. We sat at a round table for five and waited for a waitress to come and take our order.

  Gradually the other tables filled up, but there was still no one to take our order. A little jet-lagged and really hungry, I waved to a large dark-haired woman wearing some kind of naval uniform, who seemed to be in charge.

  She strode over to our table and said in a deep voice, “Ja?” Her highly polished shoes seemed oversized as they reflected the light.

  Hmm, I thought. A German wearing a uniform on a Russian ship? Oh well, just play along.

  “Hello,” I said. “We were wondering if we could get some breakfast.”

  “May I see your room keys?” she said, not smiling, looking at us as if we somehow turned up on this ship illegally.

  We handed her the little cards that opened our doors and she nodded.

  “Ahhh. You are the entertainment,” she said. “You dance, ja?”

  I almost saluted but stopped myself in time.

  “Yes, we are the Happy Hoofers and we’re really looking forward to this cruise.” I hesitated and then timidly asked, “Could I ask who you are?”

  She looked annoyed, as if we should certainly know who she was, and said, “I am Heidi Gorsuch, the ship’s director of activities. You vill dance tonight after dinner, yes?”

  “We’re looking forward to it,” I said, dredging up my best party hostess smile. “We’re so glad to have the chance to perform on your lovely ship. Is there anything else you would like us to do before our performance?”

  “Like vat?”

  “We could do lap dances for all the men on board,” Janice said, and I could see she was just getting warmed up.

  I faked a laugh and glared at Janice. “Oh, Ms. Gorsuch, she’s just joking. We thought we’d mingle with the other passengers and get to know them. Sort of goodwill tap dancers.”

  “Is gut,” she said, and I could swear she clicked her heels together before moving to the next table.

  “Good going, Tina,” Gini said. “We’re stuck on a Russian ship with a cruise director who talks like a drill instructor, a cabin the size of a broom closet, and no food in sight.”

  Gini always says exactly what she thinks about everything.

  “Relax, Gini,” Pat, our peacemaker, said. “We just got here. Things will get better. Don’t make such a big deal about it.”

  “Listen, happy face, I’m tired and hungry and in no mood to—”

 
; “You want food,” a sullen, blond waitress said, appearing from nowhere. Her name tag identified her as Olga.

  “Do you have a menu?” Janice asked, smiling as only Janice can.

  “No menu,” the waitress said, and was about to leave.

  “Please,” I said. “How do we get something to eat?”

  She pointed to a long table on one side of the room that was now covered with food and platters, baskets and samovars.

  “You go get what you want,” she said. “You want drink?”

  “I’d like some orange juice,” I said, and my friends ordered the same.

  “Could you put a little vodka in mine?” Pat asked.

  Olga looked at her as if she had ordered a hit of heroin, then walked off.

  We got in line at the buffet table, which was loaded with croissants, muffins and breads, scrambled eggs kept warm in a metal container, jams and butter and bacon, sausage, and waffles. A man stood behind the table ready to whip up any kind of omelet you wanted.

  I was behind a woman wearing a pale pink sweater over a rather plain beige dress. Because I have this habit of talking to people wherever I go—it used to drive my husband Bill crazy—I said to her, “Looks really good, doesn’t it?”

  She didn’t turn around, but said with a very pronounced British accent, “I’mnotveddygood-inthemorning.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, leaning forward to hear her better.

  She exhaled a long-suffering sigh, and said more slowly, “I’m not veddy good in the morning. Pahdon me.” She picked up her plate of toast and a boiled egg and walked to her table.

  I felt boorish, crass, like an ugly American.

  “I see you’re making friends in your usual effective way,” Mary Louise said, laughing.

  “Oh, shut up,” I said, recovering my dignity and asking the man behind the table for a salmon omelet.

  We were just digging into the first food we had eaten in twelve hours when a loud whistle startled us and made us turn. Heidi, lips still pursed from her ear-splitting signal, stood at the front of the room.