Bantam of the Opera

by Mary Daheim

  “Money, money, money,” chirped Renie, who had chosen this night of reunion and celebration to switch to Harvey Wallbangers. “Amina got piles of it, but so did Schutzendorf—from the insurance policy he’d taken out on Pacetti. I finally tortured Madge Navarre into telling me the amount. It was ten million dollars, with half again as much more because death was externally caused. There was a rider or some such clause.” Her voice faded as she got off into technical jargon beyond her understanding.

  Bill Jones frowned over his old-fashioned. “I suppose that would have saved Cherubim Records from financial disaster. If Pacetti had lived, and yet had not been able to fulfill his contract, would Schutzendorf and his company have had to bite the bullet?”

  Judith nodded. “That’s right. Pacetti had had an insurance physical back in December. The throat condition didn’t show up. Schutzendorf very likely wouldn’t have got any more recording sessions out of Pacetti. It was a ten-year contract. Cherubim would never have made up the millions they’d paid to sign him. That,” said Judith, sipping at her scotch, “would have been pretty hard for Bruno Schutzendorf to—excuse the expression—swallow. But with Pacetti’s death, he got more than his money back. And he planned on getting Amina, too.”

  The waiter arrived with another tray of drinks. Joe promised they’d consider perusing the menu very soon. Their table overlooked the airport. A 747 soared off into the clouds. A DC-10 taxied along the runway, coming to rest at the south terminal. The sun, which had appeared after almost two full days of rain, was going down behind the mountains to the west. It was a perfect autumn evening, typical for the Pacific Northwest. More rain was in the forecast for Sunday.

  “So,” said Joe, hoisting his second martini, “Amina was using Plunkett to cover up her affair with Schutzendorf. Why bother?”

  Judith gave her husband a little smile, not so much for his question, but for the sheer pleasure of having him back at her side. “Who could take an affair with Plunkett seriously? Besides, Mario depended on Plunkett as much as he did on Amina. But Schutzendorf was another matter. Pacetti could have signed with any major recording company in the world. Schutzendorf wanted him badly. I suspect he begged Amina to keep their relationship quiet.”

  “Now just a minute,” said Bill, who liked his information free of clutter and without obvious holes. Bill Jones tended to think not only clinically, but analytically. “Explain the part about the Strophanthin. And the thermos.”

  Judith took a deep breath. “Schutzendorf did in fact have a mild heart condition. He alluded to it once or twice. I suspect he kept the stuff with him. Maybe he originally intended to use it, but he saw those lily-of-the-valley pips in the refrigerator, and it gave him a better idea.”

  “Whoa,” interrupted Joe. “Why two bottles? One was enough to throw everybody off the track.”

  Judith nodded, and brushed lint off Joe’s navy blazer. “That was really puzzling. Schutzendorf put the vial in the floral arrangement. He didn’t want to make it too obvious, just in case the medical people really believed Pacetti died of a heart attack. Why draw attention to the possibility of unnatural death? And the flowers might have been thrown out, plastic liner and all. If the medicine was traced back to him, he could say it was stolen. Which, as it turned out, was true.”

  Renie gave a little snort. “Talk about cross-purposes! Plunkett, Tippy, Justin, and Inez all thought they were doing the right thing when in fact they were only confusing the issue.”

  Bill Jones gave his wife a skeptical look. “Are you two saying they knew it was Schutzendorf who killed Pacetti?”

  Again, Judith nodded. “They were pretty sure. Plunkett and Tippy were aware of Pacetti’s vocal condition. They also knew about the huge amount of insurance. And both had dealt with Schutzendorf before—Plunkett via Pacetti, and Tippy when she was with the Boston Pops. In fact, the Pops refused a big Cherubim recording contract because Tippy recommended against it. She knew that under that jolly German exterior he was a very ruthless man. But they didn’t dare go to the police. First of all, Justin might not get his own contract if Schutzendorf was out of the picture. Cherubim will survive without Schutzendorf. Secondly, they might have been wrong about him. If they made an unfounded accusation, think how Schutzendorf would have reacted! All of them—Justin, Tippy, Plunkett, Inez—had plenty to lose by riling Bruno Schutzendorf. So instead, they made their desperate attempt to point the police in the right direction by swiping his Strophanthin after the murder and having Tippy leave it on the prop table. Then the other bottle turned up, and chaos reigned. Not to mention the quantity of Strophanthin in the thermos.”

  “But originally it was the pips that were in the tea?” Joe was looking uncharacteristically puzzled.

  “Not exactly.” Judith smiled at her husband. “That’s where the wilted flowers came in.” She paused just long enough to let Joe hold his head. “Mario would have noticed the pips. Schutzendorf took them out of the fridge and trotted them upstairs to soak in the bouquet I’d placed in his room. In a few hours, the water would turn toxic. Then he probably poured the lethal liquid into one of those big tumblers he was using to guzzle his Sekt out of, and brought it back to the kitchen and poured it into the teakettle. I saw him fiddling with the teakettle and trying to get Amina out of the way, but of course I just thought he was being his usual bumptious self. Pacetti bolted his food and gulped his beverages. If he noticed an odd taste to his tea, it would be too late. But of course Schutzendorf had to get the thermos back, rinse it out, put the Strophanthin in—and ditch it in a place where it just might be found to further throw everybody for a loop. The giveaway—which didn’t hit me until I noticed the wilted rose in our bedroom—was that his dahlias and asters had died. Nobody else’s had. It meant that Schutzendorf had emptied the vase and not bothered to refill it. Why? The answer was very simple.”

  “Sheesz!” Joe rubbed vigorously at his high forehead. “What are you trying to do, Jude-girl? Make the rest of us look simple?”

  “Gosh, Joe,” Judith said innocently, “how can you say that? You and Woody are the ones who solved the fortune-teller murder, remember?”

  “What?” Joe’s green eyes hardened slightly.

  Judith bit her lip. “Never mind.”

  Bill was looking askance. “Don’t tell me Schutzendorf was some sort of plant expert! The man ran a recording company.” If Judith relied on logic, Bill’s byword was reason.

  “He was, as a matter of fact.” Judith darted an amused look at Renie, who was squirming a bit. “Schutzendorf told me early on that his great-uncle was the famous Emil Fischer. We’d been talking about music—at least I had—and when Renie told me Emil Fischer was a well-known German opera singer, I assumed that’s who Schutzendorf meant. But something bothered me—somewhere along the line, I’d heard that name, but it had nothing to do with opera. Finally, I looked it up the other night and discovered there were two Emil Fischers who lived at the same time. One was a singer specializing in Wagnerian roles—the other won the Nobel Prize for chemistry by synthesizing simple sugars. That’s the august relative in whose footsteps Bruno’s papa wanted him to follow. Schutzendorf admitted to studying his great-uncle’s work but said he had no aptitude for it. I thought he was talking about singing, but he was referring to chemistry. He did, however, learn enough from Uncle Emil’s plant research to know that flower pips can be deadly.”

  Bill Jones adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses; Joe Flynn entwined his fingers over his budding paunch; Renie gazed up at the ceiling with its tiny lights made to look like twinkling stars; Judith burst out laughing.

  “An honest mistake, coz. The point is, Bruno took the pips—and maybe some more from the yard, where Phyliss Rackley noticed that somebody had been digging by the living room window. The stuff can take a bit of time to work. Then he took the Strophanthin to the opera house and after Pacetti collapsed, he put the vial on the table.”

  Joe was making a face. “And nobody saw him running around on stage?”
/>   “Oh, yes,” Judith replied. “Everybody probably did. But he was helping Inez. She was in a minor state of shock. All eyes would be on her, the great soprano. Who would pay any attention to some minor gesture on Schutzendorf’s part? The important thing was that Inez shouldn’t pass out, too. After all, at this point, nobody knew what was going on with Pacetti.”

  Joe gave a little shake of his head. “It was after that when he swiped the thermos?”

  “He put it under that big cape. It was easy to do, I imagine, in all the confusion,” Judith said, noticing that the waiter was attempting to hover. “He buried it outside, just to create confusion and spread suspicion around. He was the only one who had not been backstage before the opera, remember? Everyone would assume that the vial of Strophanthin had been put there before the performance. Meanwhile, Schutzendorf discovers that his backup bottle of medication has disappeared. I don’t know what he made of that, but I presume he had to scoot back to Bayview Hospital and get them to write him a prescription for something similar.”

  “Proof,” said Joe, suddenly looking very official. “I don’t see anything solid. It’s all circumstantial.”

  Judith gave her husband a jab in the arm. “Hey, he tried to kill me! What more proof do you need?”

  But Joe didn’t relent. “Big deal. Attempted assault with a walking stick. Schutzendorf could walk. What I really don’t get is why he panicked and tried to kill you in the first place. He could have taken that plane and got away with everything.”

  Judith nodded. “In retrospect, maybe. What are the keys to finding a killer? Motive, opportunity, means.” Judith ticked the trio off on her fingers. “Schutzendorf bailing out his company, Schutzendorf in the kitchen when Amina Pacetti prepared Mario’s lunch, Schutzendorf knowing about poisons, discovering the pips, taking Strophanthin under doctor’s orders. Tippy seeing him in the garden. And the decorations from that damned hat. Woody found it mashed down inside the briefcase. The feather and the medallion can be traced back to Bruno Schutzendorf. Tyrolean hats are often custom-made. The feathers are chosen individually, the medallions are sometimes engraved with a family crest. Check it out, Lieutenant Flynn, even if you have to call Salzburg or Innsbruck. Now what else do you need? Polaroids of Bruno Schutzendorf rearranging my dahlias?”

  “That would help,” Joe agreed. But his expression conveyed grudging acceptance. And not-so-reluctant admiration. “I still find it strange that Schutzendorf didn’t take a chance and just get the hell away from Heraldsgate Hill.”

  But Judith gave a firm shake of her head. “He didn’t dare. Not after he overheard my phone conversation with Corazon. He figured the police must be after him. Amina probably told him the thermos had been found. Schutzendorf couldn’t bury the thing the night of the murder because he was still at the hospital. Then it was raining—he was afraid of leaving footprints. Woody and his crew showed up Monday night, the squad car kept going by, and Schutzendorf had to plan his move very carefully. He didn’t count on Tippy’s taking off, especially so early Tuesday morning. It had stopped raining, but it was still dark. She saw him digging around while she was waiting for Justin, but she couldn’t be sure of what he was doing. Naturally, it confirmed her suspicions, which she had already shared with the others. That’s what that triangle doodle of Plunkett’s meant—Inez and Tippy and Justin were in fact a triangle, but Plunkett put his own initials in the middle because they were all part of the group that suspected Schutzendorf. Tippy is very sharp, not the least like the goofball she pretended to be. She seems to think that some of those recent ‘accidents’ might have been staged.”

  Joe remained intransigent. “Tippy isn’t one-hundred-percent sure of what she saw. Schutzendorf could have been digging for gold or chasing gophers. None of this will stand up in court. And Schutzendorf knew it. His reaction doesn’t make sense.”

  Judith fanned herself with her linen table napkin. “Now, now—it does if you’re more afraid of an insurance company than you are of the local police.” She threw her husband an arch little glance.

  “Wait a minute…” Joe began, but Judith shushed him with a wave of the napkin.

  “I overheard Schutzendorf talking to the insurance people in New Haven. He had to wait six months to get his money.

  “That’s right,” Renie chimed in, fully recovered from her embarrassment and trying to get the waiter’s attention. “Madge Navarre says that with a big payoff like this—especially since it was a fairly new policy with not that many premiums paid in—the insurance investigators would make you guys down at headquarters look like amateurs. No offense, Joe. But when was Madge ever wrong?”

  Madge Navarre’s reputation for being both astute and accurate bordered on the legendary. “She should have been a cop,” muttered Joe, finally allowing the waiter to present himself.

  Renie ordered six hors d’oeuvres, presumably to share. Judith wasn’t quite sure what her hungry cousin’s intentions really were, but Bill Jones was checking his watch. It was perilously close to six o’clock. His recurrent ulcer had to be fed on time. Renie passed him the bread basket; she’d only eaten half of its contents so far.

  “What you’re saying then,” Bill said, buttering a crust of sourdough bread, “is that Schutzendorf didn’t dare take any chances. If he’d actually”—Bill had the grace to grimace at Judith—“managed to kill you, would Tippy have been next?”

  Judith shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’d have figured that her testimony didn’t have any weight without mine. About the hat, I mean. And Skjoval Tolvang had no idea that the leavings he picked up in the yard could nail a murderer.” Judith paused, sighing a little. “If it hadn’t been for that tea being an antidote…or for Edna Fiske realizing that the pips could be lethal…or Tolvang digging up the backyard for the toolshed renovation…”

  “The what?” Joe had set his martini glass down very carefully.

  It was Judith’s turn to look up at the star-studded ceiling. “Uhhh…Ummm…Gee, didn’t I mention that part?” She turned to Renie in an apparent appeal for help.

  “Crime prevention,” said Renie firmly. “You do believe in stopping homicide before it happens, don’t you, Joe?” She beamed at the waiter, who was placing several dishes of hors d’oeuvres, both hot and cold, before her.

  Joe was looking puzzled. “It depends,” he replied, snatching a Teriyaki chicken wing away from Renie.

  “It’s like this,” Renie explained through a mouthful of mushroom stuffed with crab. “Our mothers are about to kill each other. We could put them into a Home. But that costs too much and then we’d all have to visit twice a week. Or we could let one of them do the other in. Then you’d have to arrest one and bury the other. Very embarrassing. And also costly. Of course we could keep Aunt Gertrude in the apartment and move my mother in with us.” She paused just long enough to see Bill Jones start to turn purple. “Here, have a prawn.” She shoved the nearest appetizer plate at her husband. “But we don’t want to see Bill have apoplexy before our very eyes, do we?”

  “What about me?” demanded Joe, whose color almost matched Bill’s.

  “Joe…” Judith’s voice held a pleading note. “Mother is old. She’s crippled. She wants to hang on to her independence. She’ll be completely separated from the main house. But at least she’ll be on her own…ah, turf. Don’t be so selfish.”

  Joe sipped at his martini, his green-eyed gaze drifting off across the crowded dining room. “First Herself, now Itself. What will become of poor Joe?”

  Judith gave his arm a little shake. “You’ve got me. Myself. Isn’t that what you swore you always wanted?”

  Slowly, Joe turned to look at his wife of four months. His color had returned to normal; the gold flecks sparkled in his magic eyes. “Did I say that? Hmmmm.” He leaned over and kissed Judith lightly on the lips. She kissed him back, harder.

  Renie turned to Bill. “Did you eat all those prawns?”

  “Why not? It’s past my dinner hour.”

&nb
sp; Renie gave an exasperated toss of her head. Bill stole her last stuffed mushroom. Judith and Joe stopped kissing. The waiter went into reverse and a moment later, showed up with champagne.

  “Who ordered this?” asked Bill.

  “Not me,” Joe replied.

  From across the room, someone waved a hand. All four heads turned. Two people sat at a corner table. They lifted their glasses in a toast.

  It was Tippy and Justin Kerr.

  Judith grinned; Renie clapped.

  Joe nodded approval at the label. The waiter uncorked the bottle. Glasses were produced, Joe took a sample sip, and nodded again.

  “Libiamo!” cried Renie. They all drank, and Verdi refrains danced through their heads.

  Four days later, Gertrude returned to Hillside Manor with Sweetums growling at the foot of her walker. Gertrude didn’t quite allow her daughter to see how pleased she was, but Judith knew from the sparkle in her mother’s eyes that this was a happy day. Joe was still not reconciled to the idea of installing his mother-in-law in the remodeled toolshed, but at least he felt the timing of her return was appropriate.

  It was Halloween.

  About the Author

  Seattle native Mary Daheim began telling stories with pictures when she was four. Since she could neither read nor write, and her artistic talent was questionable, her narratives were sometimes hard to follow. By second grade, she had learned how to string together both subjects and predicates, and hasn’t stopped writing since. A former newspaper reporter and public relations consultant, Daheim’s first of seven historical romances was published in 1983. In addition to Avon Books’ Bed-and-Breakfast series featuring Judith McMonigle Flynn, Daheim also pens the Alpine mysteries for Ballantine. She is married to David Daheim, a retired college instructor, and has three daughters—Barbara, Katherine and Magdalen.