Played to Death (5 page)

Scott

When Kevin and his partner left, Scott cleaned up his breakfast mess then started going through the refrigerator, throwing out everything that had been Brent’s. He looked through the cabinets and removed every nonperishable thing that was there because Brent liked it and tossed it all into a box. He took the box to the front door then went to the bedroom with a roll of garbage bags and started bagging up Brent’s clothes.

It took a while. Brent worked at Neiman-Marcus; he had a lot of clothes. He’d be unhappy because Scott had more or less wadded them up into the bags, but Scott didn’t give a shit. He returned to the bathroom and found a few more bottles of hair and skin product that were Brent’s. Once he was sure he’d found everything, he piled it all by the front door then got the elevator. He held the elevator door open with the box from the kitchen and loaded everything else, then rode downstairs with it and reversed the process.

The concierge’s eyebrows went up, but the guy was nothing if not discreet. “Is someone moving out, Mr. Deering?”

“Yes. My now ex-boyfriend, Brent Fogerty. He’ll be coming by for these things. Make him show ID. If he hasn’t come in a week, donate it to your favorite charity.”

The concierge didn’t blink an eye. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.” Scott made a mental note to tip the concierge well at the end of the month. He went back to his condo, leaning back against the door after he closed it behind him and blew out a long breath.

Hard to believe it had been less than twenty-four hours since everything went to hell. He pushed away from the door and climbed the stairs to his music loft.

Scott had begun cello lessons at age three, on a child-sized cello that he could barely reach around. He didn’t remember the first time he’d drawn a bow across strings. He didn’t remember a time when the cello didn’t feel like an extension of himself. Without it, he always felt incomplete and exposed.

He played every day. He didn’t consider it practice. It was as necessary to him as breathing.

He found the score for Benjamin Britten’s
Cello Suite No. 1, Op. 72
, and began to play.

Jamie

Pete and I left Kevin’s, picked up Thai takeout and went home. It was getting on towards evening when Kevin finally returned my text.
Thanks. You home now?

Yep. Coming over?

Just for a few.

K
.

He arrived about twenty minutes later, rumpled and exhausted. When Pete let him in he flopped onto the loveseat and laid his head back on the top. “God, what a day.”

I took him a bottle of water. “Beginning with Scott, I understand.”

“Yeah.” Kevin took the bottle, cracked it open and drained half of it. “Thanks. Scott couldn’t help much.”

“He didn’t know those kids.”

“No.” Kevin snorted softly. “Yesterday when I asked him what the kids were like, he told me how well they played. Or not.”

“That’s how he thinks. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. But it wasn’t entirely useless. Everyone else we’ve talked to has told us what a wonderful young woman the vic was, what a talent, blah blah. Scott said she was a mediocre player with a bad attitude.”

“The unvarnished truth.”

“Yep. He’s also the only person who remembered what her bag looked like.”

“Her bag? Like a purse?”

“More like a beach tote bag is how he described it. We didn’t find it with her. The other two kids vaguely remembered a bag. Scott remembered it was a Hello Kitty design.”

Pete said, “This wasn’t a simple robbery, though.”

Kevin shook his head. “No. There were far more valuable things to steal on that property. Why take the bag?”

Pete answered. “There was something important in it.”

“That’s our assumption.”

I said, “Any decent leads yet?”

“Not really.” Kevin finished his water and rubbed his face. “No one was allowed onto the property without an invitation. Even the caterers and valets had been sent invitations. Branigan and Lester questioned all the hired help extensively yesterday. There were three PCC students on the catering staff, but they all claimed not to know the musicians. We’ll check into that further, but no one twitched when they saw Elena’s picture, and Branigan didn’t detect any liars in the bunch.”

“I remember Officer Branigan. She was there the day I found Austin Sharp’s body.”

“Yeah. She’ll make detective soon. She’s like Pete was, good at spotting the liars. If she says everyone was telling the truth, they probably were.”

Pete said, “But you still have to get the list of names and check them all.”

“Yeah. We went back today and walked the entire perimeter of the property. Eight-foot wall with spikes all the way around, no other openings in it. Seems like it had to be someone with an invitation.”

I said, “Why all the security?”

Kevin shrugged. “Kirtley’s a divorce lawyer. He’s likely to have pissed a lot of people off over the years.”

Pete added, “Kent was kind of paranoid about safety, back in grad school. I never knew why.”

I asked softly, “What did the girl’s parents say?”

Kevin closed his eyes and shook his head. “Devastated, of course. They couldn’t answer any questions last night, but they did let us search her room. We took her laptop for our computer guys to look at but didn’t find anything else. Today, they were able to tell us that she had a boyfriend that they hadn’t met. She kept making excuses for not bringing him home. They figured he must be someone they wouldn’t approve of.”

Pete said, “There’s your suspect.”

“Yeah, normally you’d like the boyfriend, but if he didn’t have a way onto the property - maybe not. Tomorrow we have to see if we can track down some of her friends, see if any of them knew who this guy was. Another complication - Brian Dalziel, the viola player, wouldn’t talk to us. First thing he said to Jon was, ‘I’m a minor and my dad’s a lawyer.’ He called his dad to come get him; Dad let us search his belongings but wouldn’t let him answer questions. We tried again today - same deal. Scott told us Brian and Elena didn’t like each other.”

I said, “Did you get a chance to talk to Scott’s friend? Cameron Wiley?”

“Yeah, on the phone. He was - not devastated, but certainly upset. He blames himself for not being there.”

“What could he have done?”

“That’s what we told him.” Kevin smiled wryly. “I did tell him that Scott wasn’t impressed with her musical skills and asked him why she was in the quartet. He said she needed the confidence boost.”

I shrugged. “So learning experience is more important to him than quality. He’s a teacher, not a Philharmonic member.”

“I guess.” Kevin yawned and stood up. “Thanks for buying groceries for me. What do I owe you?”

I waved that off. “Consider them a housewarming gift. I made your bed, too. You can go home and fall right into it.”

Pete said, “You need some furniture.”

“I know. I don’t know when I’m going to have time to shop for it.”

“Buy it online. I’m done for the summer a week from Tuesday. I can be there for delivery.”

Kevin’s eyes lit up. “That’d be great. Thanks, Pete.”

“You’re welcome. Glad to do it.”

We saw Kevin out and resumed our positions on the sofa. I said, “This case is a tough one. A mysterious boyfriend and a missing purse. Maybe the boyfriend will turn out to be one of the caterers.”

“Or maybe the parents wouldn’t approve because the boyfriend was a minor.”

I said, “Brian?”

“He had means and opportunity. If they’d had a falling out, he may have had a motive.”

Monday, June 8

Jamie

First thing Monday morning, every week, we had a meeting of all the librarians at the Young Research Library - Research and Instruction librarians, like Liz and me, and the Special Collections librarians. We kiddingly referred to each other as Upstairs, Downstairs - Special Collections was in the basement.

I slipped into the room and sat beside Kristen Beach. Kristen was our journalism and communications librarian, in her usual work outfit of white blouse, black pencil skirt, and stilettos that matched her red lipstick. Her dark hair was twisted into a bun and she wore black-framed hipster glasses. Sexy librarian, indeed.

She grinned at me. “How was the wedding?”

Kristen knew Graham Kirtley; he’d been her divorce lawyer several years ago, successfully winning her Bel Air home and a couple of million dollars. I said, “It was over the top.”

“As I’d expect.”

“And there was a murder.”

Not much surprised Kristen, but that made her jaw drop. She hissed, “
No
.”

“Yes.” I gave her a quick summary.

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah. And Kevin and Jon caught the case,
and
Scott Deering was there playing in the string quartet.”

“Good God.” She started to say something else, but the door opened again and the bosses came in.

Dr. Madeline Loomis was my boss, the head of Reference and Instruction. Dr. Conrad Huffstetler was the head of Special Collections. They usually ran the meeting. But it seemed that this morning was going to be unusual.

With Dr. Loomis and Conrad was Dr. Laura Madorsky, the University Librarian - at the top of the org chart for UCLA Libraries. She rarely came to our meetings. Also with them was Dr. Marianne Fleming, the director of UCLA’s music library. I knew her by sight but had never had a reason to speak with her.

What was she doing here?

Dr. Loomis was still at the door, guiding one more person into the room - a woman who reminded me of Kristen, in a way. Slender, stylish, dark hair in a bun. She was wearing a tailored navy suit - but the shoulders were cut more broadly than you’d expect.

Unless you knew enough to recognize that the tailoring had been done to disguise a shoulder holster.

Cop.

What the hell?

Dr. Madorsky stood at the front of the room and held up her hand. Silence fell immediately. She said, “Thank you. I’ll get right to the point. Over the weekend we discovered that there has been a theft from the Music Library. Dr. Fleming will tell you more about the missing item.”

Dr. Fleming cleared her throat. “We’re missing a score for a solo cello piece by a composer named Jeremy Isaacson. It’s a moderately valuable piece, as it was the only solo piece this composer wrote before his untimely death. We believe the theft occurred at some point last week. The call number for the piece is M52 .I761a 1987.”

I made a note of the call number on my phone; several other people wrote it down as well. Dr. Fleming said, “It’s an original score, handwritten by the composer. It’s sewn into a heavy cardboard folder with binding tape on the spine. The bar code and call number are on the cover, so if the cover is removed, the piece will have to be identified by looking at the music itself.” She stepped back.

Dr. Madorsky stepped forward and gestured to the cop. “This is Detective Donna Aguilar from LAPD’s Art Theft Unit. She is coordinating with the UCLA Police Department in the investigation.”

Aguilar handed a stack of business cards to Dr. Loomis and Conrad, which they began to distribute. Aguilar said, “This is my card; if any of you have any information about the missing piece of music, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Anything you tell me will be held in strictest confidence.”

It sounded like Aguilar thought the theft must be an inside job. I wasn’t the only one who thought that, apparently; a few of the others looked unhappy. I’d never been to the music library and didn’t know how tight their security was. If they were locked down like Special Collections, it would have to have been an inside job - Special Collections was harder to get into than Fort Knox. But if they had open stacks like we did, it might be possible for a student to steal a piece of music.

I wondered vaguely if Scott was familiar with the missing music. But I felt sure that if Aguilar had any questions about it, she’d be contacting the Philharmonic. I didn’t need to offer up Scott’s name.

Besides, he had enough problems, what with the murder at the wedding.

After Aguilar’s announcement, she left with Dr. Madorsky and Dr. Fleming. The rest of us stayed for our regular meeting. Afterward, I was standing to leave when Dr. Loomis said, “Jamie? Dr. Madorsky would like to see you in her office.”

Oh, shit. What had I done? “Yes, ma’am.”

I went back into the university libraries offices and presented myself to Dr. Madorsky’s assistant, who knocked on her door and announced my arrival. Dr. Madorsky came to the door; I saw that Dr. Fleming and Detective Aguilar were still with her. “Jamie, thanks for coming.”

Like I had a choice. I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Aguilar said, “I understand that you have some experience with police work.”

Oh, God. Liz and I had written a paper on librarian-police cooperation, and the word had gotten out. I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And your brother is West LA Homicide?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Madorsky said, “Please. Have a seat.” She dragged a third chair over into the grouping across from her desk.

Aguilar said, “I’d like to ask for your assistance in the investigation of this theft.”

At least I wasn’t in any trouble. I said, “How can I help?”

Aguilar and Dr. Fleming looked at each other. Dr. Fleming said, “The chance that this theft was an inside job is a strong possibility.”

Aguilar said, “Unfortunately, people don’t always tell the police everything they know. They may be more forthcoming with someone they see as a colleague.”

I said, “You want me to poke around asking questions.”

“Essentially, yes.” Aguilar smiled. “Are you familiar with the music library?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve never been there.”

Dr. Fleming said, “But you must be friends with some of our staff.”

I said, “Mark Gladwell’s still with you, right?”

“He is.”

“Mark and I were in library school together. We were friendly, although we haven’t seen much of each other lately.”

Aguilar said, “Then this seems a good time to renew your acquaintance.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I glanced at Dr. Madorsky. “Is this considered official library business?”

She chuckled. “It is. I’ve cleared it with Dr. Loomis.”

“Thank you.”

Aguilar asked, “Did you get one of my cards?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great.” She stood. “I’m going to the music library from here with Dr. Fleming. I’d appreciate a call from you whether or not you learn anything.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Aguilar and Dr. Fleming left. Dr. Madorsky said, “I hate to put you in this spot, Jamie, but I thought you might be an asset to the investigation.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s all right. At least there are no bodies involved this time. It’s just a theft.”

“Yes. And not a particularly high-value theft, at that.”

“What is the value of the piece?”

“Dr. Fleming estimated it at approximately $1,500.”

I whistled softly. “Why isn’t it in special collections?”

She shrugged. “You’re asking me? My second masters is in geography.”

I laughed. “I didn’t know that.”

She grinned and seemed far less intimidating. “Maybe to musicians, this piece isn’t special enough for special collections.”

“Maybe.” It occurred to me that Scott would know the true value of the score of a cello solo. “I’ll see what I can find out.”