Aria for murder, p.20
Aria for Murder, page 20
When Julia arrived in the pit, she noticed Katie eyeing the gold cross nestled at Julia’s throat.
“I’m glad to see you’re still wearing my protective amulet,” Katie said. “You never know when vampires are going to attack.”
Julia was glad for a bit of Katie’s wry humor to distract her. “I’m happy to know you have faith in my ability to take care of myself.”
“I have it on good authority you’re going to find whatever you’re looking for in Abel’s song tonight,” Katie said. “Speaking of which, how’s Charlie?”
Julia ignored Katie’s innuendo, opened the music on the stand, and gazed at the title: Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini. Now, involved with the leading man, the opera had taken on a whole new meaning. She just wasn’t sure what that meaning was. Yet.
Julia glanced at the bug mashed into the top of the page. Someone had drawn an arrow pointing to it and labeled it “Mario,” after the tenor lead in that evening’s opera. She smiled with nostalgia, remembering the person responsible.
“There’s the mosquito Sid squashed at the Parks concert, K. Remember?”
Katie grinned and nodded but didn’t comment. Julia appreciated that. Right now she just needed a friendly ear when it came to the subject of Sidney. She and Katie had both sat with him enough times during the outdoor concerts the Met played every summer in the parks in and around New York City to know how bored and antsy he became.
Sidney didn’t consider sitting on a stage behind a row of solo singers in searing heat and relentless humidity to be a lot of fun, and as a result, he fidgeted nonstop. In his non-playing moments, he alternated looking out into the audience seated on the lawn for interesting faces with searching the sky for low-flying airplanes—or flattening any errant insects unfortunate enough to cross his path.
“He always complained about the bugs dive-bombing us in the great outdoors…”
Julia’s voice trailed off. She didn’t want to dissolve into tears. Instead, she decided to practice a passage in the music. But when she reached over to turn the page, she didn’t notice the paper clip attached to the top corner and caught her finger on the sharp metal edge. The finger began to bleed, and she sucked on it, murmuring under her breath.
The last thing I need is something else to keep me from playing the violin.
But the finger was beginning to hurt, and her muttering became more vocal.
“Ouch! The librarians know they’re not supposed to put paper clips in the music. What were they thinking? Damn!” Julia saw Katie cringe. “Oh, sorry, K. I’m swearing an awful lot these days. Not that you’re all that virtuous.”
“Maybe, but cursing is discouraged in my church group.”
“I know. I’ll try to be more careful.”
Then Julia glimpsed the typewritten note attached to the clip.
“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. OR NEXT TIME YOU’LL BE SQUASHED LIKE A BUG.”
Julia gasped. Katie regarded Julia’s shocked expression. “What is it, Jul?”
“Nothing,” Julia replied with little conviction. “I…I’ll be right back.”
Not wanting to alarm Katie, Julia grabbed the note and raced out of the pit. She approached the officer stationed at the pit entrance and told him what had occurred. Together they went in search of Larry. When they found the detective in the wings, Julia showed him the note.
“Where did you find this?”
“It was attached to my music.”
“Any idea where it came from?”
Julia shook her head.
Larry placed the note in a plastic evidence bag. “I’ll send it down to the station for analysis right away. Maybe the lab can get some prints off it.”
Larry nodded to the officer, who escorted Julia back to the pit and resumed his position at the door. Still shaken by the less than veiled threat, Julia re-entered the pit, sat down, took out her violin and put on a brave face for Katie.
Katie studied Julia’s grim expression. “I’ve never seen you leave the pit so close to curtain time. It’s bizarre, even for you. What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later, K.”
“But—”
At that moment, the concertmaster stepped onto the podium, halting any further discussion. The first oboist gave the “A” for the orchestra, and Julia and Katie tuned along with the other musicians. But sensing Katie’s burning stare, Julia felt obligated to make idle chitchat while she struggled with her cantankerous violin pegs.
“I spent all afternoon on Abel’s song. Still can’t make sense of it.”
“You’ll figure it out, I know you will. Abel had faith in you.”
“But time’s running out for Sid.”
Julia was forced into silence, as the audience became hushed for the conductor’s entrance. By the time he reached the podium, Julia’s brow was still furrowed with anxiety.
Katie held her bow close to Julia’s. “To Sidney.”
They clicked the bottoms of their bows together. Julia returned Katie’s encouraging smile. “Sidney. And hope.”
The conductor raised his baton to give the upbeat, and the musicians blasted their way through the dramatic, high-octane opening bars of Tosca. Julia willed herself to concentrate, but when Charles made his first entrance she allowed her eyes to stray to the stage. As a result, she missed a note. In response to Katie’s mock chastising look, Julia smiled sheepishly, went back to her music, and made an extra effort to concentrate.
But Julia could not hide her overall distress from Katie, who saw the distracted look on Julia’s face out of the corner of her eye. Despite Charles’s impressive singing, Julia sat motionless as she played, not even mouthing the words of her favorite passages as she usually did.
* * *
Larry, meanwhile, had found a niche in the wings in view of the stage, which replicated an enormous Baroque Roman church. He had never been so close to the mammoth sets, even when he had watched Tosca rehearsals from the first row of orchestra seats. Other than that, he had only seen the sets from a sky-scraping perch in the Family Circle or in HD in a theatre.
He gazed in wonder at the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, its lofty ceilings, huge pillars, and magnificent artwork reproduced in gorgeous detail, which he imagined must have duplicated the real one in Rome. He tried to envision himself as the painter Cavaradossi, balanced precariously on that towering ladder toward the back of the stage.
That thing is high enough to give anyone a serious case of vertigo.
Thoughts of vertigo reminded him of Julia. He made a mental note to ask her details about her childhood trauma on the Staten Island Ferry. Then he turned his gaze back to the monitor, which showed the conductor and the musicians in the pit, and made sure Julia was there. Once he established her presence, Larry diverted his attention to the action onstage.
He thought back to the rehearsal he had attended, when he had asked Julia to play for him, and remembered her arrogant reaction. At the time, he thought she was a snob, but realized now she had been responding to the pressures of her situation.
She’s really a nice girl at heart.
He reflected on the exquisite Thaïs excerpt she had played for him in his apartment and smiled to himself.
Guess I’ll have to sing for her at some point. How the heck am I going to manage that?
Charles’s first entrance brought Larry back to attention, as the tenor’s appearance elicited a fit of enthusiastic audience applause. Larry listened as Charles sang his exchange with the Sacristan, admiring the star singer’s self-confident air.
Got to admit the guy has stage presence out the wazoo.
The performance went smoothly through the first two acts. When Charles and several other singers, Dorothy included, returned to the wings from their Act Two curtain calls, Larry couldn’t help staring at them. He wasn’t surprised that Dorothy ignored his presence. But Charles’s friendly smile of acknowledgment made Larry feel like he was “in the loop,” or at least on its fringes.
Larry eyed the tenor’s blood-red stage makeup. “Very lifelike, Charles. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were tortured for real in that last act.”
“What a way to make a living, right?”
“For sure,” Larry said. “The great diva Beverly Sills knew what she was talking about.”
Charles grinned and made his way to the exit. Larry smiled to himself. This nonchalant little “what a way to make a living” quote was about to become permanently engraved in his personal lexicon of quips.
Coming from a rising star in his hour of glory, that’s very cool.
Before he became involved in all the hubbub at the Met, Larry had no idea how integral the individual personalities were to the workings of the theater. In tandem with the adversity he had witnessed behind the “golden curtain,” he also had become privy to an insider’s view of the place he had worshipped since he was a child. He blessed his luck in being chosen for this assignment.
How many people experience that during a lifetime?
But Larry knew his happy moment was only temporary when he saw a breathless Buddy, iPad in hand, headed straight toward him.
Buddy opened the device, fired it up, and held it out to Larry. “I downloaded these at H.Q., boss. Results from the flashcard you sent over.”
Larry studied the screen, quickly scrolling through reproductions of photos and newspaper articles, dating back to past decades. Once he had gone about halfway through, he eyed Buddy, puzzled. “What does a drowning at a music camp decades ago have to do with anything?”
“Read on, boss.”
Larry continued and whistled in surprise. “This is unbelievable.”
“Yep. Read it out loud.”
Grabbing Buddy by the arm, Larry led him to a far corner of the hallway outside the entrance to the wings. He waited for the always-beleaguered stage manager to pass by before he read aloud from the iPad.
“‘July, Nineteen Eighty-Two: Trudeau Brothers, Abel and Carl, brilliant young pianist-singer duo, perform at prestigious Upstate Willowstream Music Camp under guidance of renowned music pedagogue Haim Ghent…’”
Larry turned to Buddy in disbelief. “Wait a minute. ‘Trudeau…brothers?’”
With a sober nod, Buddy motioned to Larry to continue.
“‘August, Nineteen Eighty-Two: Mysterious Death of Camper at Summer Music Festival Goes Unsolved.’”
Larry peered at a photo of a stocky young Asian boy. His mouth dropped in astonishment.
“Don’t stop there, boss.”
Larry read on. “‘After a detailed inquest, the County Coroner’s Office has ruled the drowning of nine-year-old camper Patrick Wu, a vocal student at Willowstream Music Camp, an accident. The sole witness, camper and vocal student Carl Trudeau…’ Wait. What?”
“It gets better,” Buddy said. “Keep going.”
“‘…Vocal student Carl Trudeau told Police that Wu ignored camp rules prohibiting swimming without supervision and went by himself to the lake. Carl noticed Patrick missing and arrived just as the boy went under. Carl’s twelve-year-old brother, camper Abel Trudeau…’” Larry was stunned. “Abel’s brother was a singer?”
* * *
The two boys frolicked in the crystal-clear lake water, splashing each other playfully. The slender one, Carl, mischievously pushed the stout one, Patrick, under the water. When Patrick came up for air, both boys giggled.
Then Carl shoved Patrick under again, but this time he held Patrick down. Patrick surfaced, laughing, and they grinned impishly at each other. But when Carl shoved Patrick under again and intensified his grip, Patrick struggled, barely managing to come up for air—and regarded Carl with horror.
Carl plunged Patrick under once more and held him there. When Patrick disappeared for the last time, Carl paddled to shore and leapt onto the sand, his expression evilly triumphant. He started to sprint toward camp when an older boy confronted him.
“My God, Carl, what have you done?”
Carl stared at the boy in alarm. “Swear you’ll never tell, Abel.”
“Why would you do this to Patrick?”
“They gave him the singing role I wanted. The one I deserved.”
“And for that you’d…drown him?”
“If you tell, Abel, you’re an accomplice. You didn’t call for help.”
“No, no, I’m not!” Abel was panicked. “I got here just in time to see you hold him under!”
“It’s your word against mine, Abel.”
Smiling deviously, Carl broke into a run. Too terrified to move, Abel just watched him go.
* * *
“‘Renowned music pedagogue Haim Ghent.’ Is this guy still alive, Buddy?”
“He’s old but still going strong,” Buddy said. “And waiting for you at the Ansonia.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ore di morte e di vendetta…ormai t’affretta! Incancellabile il fato ha scritto:
l’impresa compier deve il delitto poichè col sangue s’inagurò
Hours of death and of vengeance…come swiftly now! Immutable fate has writ:
the enterprise by crime must end, since with blood it was begun.
—Verdi, Macbeth, Act I
Having witnessed his spectacular showing in the first act, Julia felt overjoyed for Charles. She couldn’t wait to see him afterwards and lavish some well-deserved praise on him. During the second act, she diverted herself from troubled thoughts of Sidney by speculating on just what she would say to Charles.
Meanwhile, I’ve still got to get through Acts Two and Three.
During the first intermission, Julia was too exhausted to do anything but crumple onto the sofa in the ladies’ locker room. She needed some time to chill out before discussing the details about the threatening note and figured Katie would understand. By the time Act Two ended, however, Julia felt Katie would want an explanation.
Onstage, Dorothy, as Tosca, was placing a crucifix on the chest of the character of Scarpia—played by the ubiquitous Roberto—who was lying prostrate on the floor, and whom she had just assassinated. She uttered her final line of the act in solemn tones.
“E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma.” And before him, all Rome trembled.
At that moment, it dawned on Julia that the parallel between this stage drama and the events that had occurred since Abel’s murder was astonishing. At the Met, Abel had been the power behind the throne, at least from a musical perspective. Patricia had tried to usurp Abel’s authority and made every pretense of dominating their operatic world.
But Julia knew the opera house revolved around music, and in this sense, Abel was the undisputed ruler—at least until his murder. In Tosca, the fiery diva reigned over the villainous police chief Scarpia for only a brief part of the action, just as Patricia was doing.
She must be involved in Abel’s murder somehow.
Then, with a shudder, Julia returned to reality.
Dear God, what was I thinking? None of this makes any sense. I’ve got to hold on to what’s real.
One way to do that was to focus on the tangible elements in her life.
Like helping Sid. Or appreciating Katie’s friendship more. Or…Charles?
Act Two ended with roaring applause. By this time, Julia’s anxiety about finding the secret she was convinced lay within the notes of Abel’s song was at full tilt. Balancing violin and bow in one hand and the song in the other, she headed for the exit, where she was greeted with, “Act Three of Tosca in twenty-five minutes, ladies and gentlemen,” from the P.A. system.
Katie caught up with Julia at the pit entrance. “Are you sure you want to spend the intermission practicing?”
Julia fixed Katie with a determined look. “I’ve got to give the song one more go. If I’m going to find answers, it’s now or never. Otherwise, there’s no way I’ll ever get through the damned last act of Tosca.”
“There you go, swearing again. We’ve got to have a heart-to-heart once the present insanity is all over and done with,” Katie declared. “Anyway, it’s just a short intermission, Jul. You won’t have much time.”
“It doesn’t matter, K. Now that I’ve unearthed that…whatever it was, hidden in the violin pin, I’m going for every note in Abel’s song, big time.”
Julia acknowledged the officer standing guard at the pit entrance. He accompanied both women into the hallway. She informed the officer of her plan to sequester herself in a practice room during the intermission. He escorted Katie as far as the women’s locker room and followed Julia to the practice room, where she had labored before the performance.
“I’ll be right outside, Miss Kogan.” The officer smiled at her, adding, “You must be pretty devoted to your music to want to practice while everyone else is swigging coffee in the cafeteria.”
Julia returned his smile, stepped inside the room, and closed the door.
* * *
The grand piano took up most of the space in the small parlor of Dr. Haim Ghent’s Upper West Side apartment in the Ansonia, an historical landmark on 73rd Street, just off Broadway. Larry had heard the eighteen-story Beaux Arts building was the last bastion of New York’s former musical and artistic glory, housing famous musicians of all generations whose names evoked renown. Now converted to condos, most of the rent-controlled tenants had moved out. Haim Ghent was one exception.
In the case of Dr. Ghent, a benevolent relic of a man, the notoriety involved was from times long past. That’s what Larry gathered, as he gazed at the ancient photographs covering the walls: Dr. Ghent at various ages, with Pablo Casals, Arturo Toscanini, Jascha Heifetz, and other luminaries of the music world who had long since passed away. The old professor himself was a rarity, an artifact, one last remaining vestige of a golden generation of performers who could never quite be replaced.
Dr. Ghent squinted with difficulty as he perused the screen of Larry’s iPad. Larry understood the old man was of an age where a small computer screen reproduction of newsprint must be a real bear to read, but it was all he could do to remain patient. He needed to find out something, anything, to fill in the gap in his existing chain of information—and soon. That missing link was preventing him from solving two murders, and possibly avoiding a future one. And he hated to be so far away from Julia when she could be in danger. He finally moved things along by increasing the screen to its largest size.
