The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3

by Alexie Aaron

  “When did she call 999?” I asked.

  Detective Moore flipped through his papers. “20:15.”

  “When will you have an exact time of death?”

  “Tomorrow, but it will be within ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “That would clear Mrs. Roberts.”

  “Should. We didn’t consider this a murder till Mrs. Roberts played the Dictaphone. The tape pretty much tells the story.” CSP Browning stopped the tape and turned to talk to us. “What went on here this evening?” he asked me.

  I did my best to tell him everything that had happened from the moment I entered the building till the time I left Michael, Angie and Constable Core to get into a cab to go to the hospital.

  “Let me get this correct, He was adamant that Bentley Hughes could not be a murderer?” Browning asked.

  “Yes, Michael disagreed but Maurice held firm.”

  “What about the attempted murder of Michael Sherborn? We have Bruno, and you yourself are one of the witnesses.”

  “Michael was never a target of Bruno’s. Bruno was probably supposed to shoot at whoever was closest to Michael. Michael knew that Angie was alive before we told him because he was in Cornwall, maybe with Ivana. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps, looking for any trace of Donald that may throw suspicion on himself? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t be looking for proof that he wrote ‘Spring Water Music’ because he gave permission for Maurice to use it. There must be something else there. What about Angie? Father Michael?”

  Detective Moore checked his notes. “Father Michael disappeared from the hospital between 18:00 and 19:00. The nurse discovered him gone when she came in to take his vitals. No one has seen him. Angie Bathgate was last seen at 19:55 when she and Constable Core finished a television program. She went into her room and closed the door. The Constable stayed in the living room reading until Inspector Fitch’s call relayed Ms. Fin-Lathen’s request. She looked in and found Angie gone.

  “The window was jimmied from the outside. The latch broke under the pressure of what looks like a pry bar forcing the window. The bushes are broken under the window and someone had clawed at the dirt, we assume this was Miss Bathgate. She also scratched a heart with an X over it in the dirt close to the wall of the house. It looks as if she may have been forced through the window. She fell into the bushes and was able to leave us a clue before she was dragged away.”

  “Why take Angie? The heart is obvious. Michael broke her heart somehow. I’d say dragging her from her bed is a good reason. I understand that Brighton is missing a constable?”

  More pages were flipped as Sergeant Moore searched for information.

  “They found the constable dead. He was strangled and locked in the trunk of his car. Ivana Penny is missing.”

  “Is she dead or an accomplice?” CSP Browning thought aloud.

  “This is wild, but I always talk my wild ideas out,” I said as I rubbed my tired eyes. “Ivan Bendonovich meets Michael Sherborn at Bathgate. They are mates and got along wonderfully. I doubt that Ivan came out of the closet there, but the two had a very strong friendship. In or around 1960 Ivan escapes from Eastern Europe and comes to Michael for sanctuary. The two of them start an intimate relationship, and Michael uses his money that Maurice gave him to pay for Ivana’s operation. She probably has been living with Michael on and off since. Michael carried her picture because she/he is his girlfriend.

  “Both of them were cheated of their glory over their music. They hold Bentley and Maurice responsible. Bentley may have been innocent or guilty in this. Bentley’s reputation is the single most important thing in his life. Michael and Ivana set out to ruin it by this elaborate frame-up. Maurice needed to die because he wasn’t exactly convinced of Bentley’s guilt. But what set them off now?”

  “The knighthood?”

  “Maybe. But he had already declined it. Hold on, Michael killed Donald probably in 1945. Nothing happened until April of this year. First Horace Beaufort. Wait a minute. Didn’t Maurice say that Horace met with Bentley, and they had an argument? What was the argument about, and why did Ivana send her henchman after him? What did Horace know?”

  I sat back in frustration. My brain was fried. Maurice was dead. Angie and Father Michael were missing. Everything was spiraling out of control.

  “Excuse me.” Mrs. Roberts was in the doorway.

  “Yes, Mrs. Roberts. Come in,” CSP Browning beckoned.

  “I’m tired, and the constable out there said I could go. I wanted to give Ms. Fin-Lathen the clarinet before I go.”

  The men looked at each other and CSP Browning shrugged.

  “Sure, go ahead. I’m sorry we have put you through so much,” Sergeant Moore said.

  Mrs. Roberts walked over to the credenza behind the desk, being very careful not to look at the stains on the wall. She took out a key and opened a cabinet. Bending down she reached in and pulled out a very old leather-covered box with brass appointments. She walked over and gave me the box. I opened the box and inside was a beautiful rosewood clarinet.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Roberts,” I said and held her eyes.

  She smiled a sad little smile and bade the gentlemen a good night and left. She had performed her last requested duty and it was time to go home.

  I opened the case and was amazed by the quality of the instrument. On impulse I started to put the five pieces together. I put the two middle pieces together and added the bell, but when I turned it to put on the barrel I spotted something inside the top section. I took off both the bell and the bottom section, and taking a pencil from the box on the desk I pushed the pencil in and pushed out a rolled up piece of paper.

  “Look,” I said in amazement as I unrolled the paper. “It’s a note from Maurice. Handwritten this time.” I reached into my purse and found my reading glasses, vanity be damned, I put them on and read aloud:

  Dear Ms. Fin-Lathen,

  Please accept this token of my esteem. I have enjoyed this instrument for several years now. Don’t let the greed and hatred of us old men cast a pall on your love of music. I know you will enjoy playing this clarinet. This gift comes with, how do you Americans put it? Yes, a catch. This gift comes with a catch. If I haven’t given this to you personally please go to the file cabinet and extract the file “Tax Accountant Referrals” and give it to the police.

  Yours in music,

  “Its signed, Maurice Sherborn.” I put the clarinet back in its case and got up. “May I?”

  They nodded and watched me as I went to the beautiful wood four-drawer cabinet and pulled open the T thru Z drawer. It was marked as he said. I pulled out a closed manila folder and shut the drawer. I completed my task by handing it to CSP Browning. I sat back down, picked up the clarinet case, adjusted the sections, and closed it and put it on my lap. I felt better holding it. My hands didn’t shake so much that way.

  CSP Browning laid the contents of the file out on the small conference table by the window. He called out the contents and Detective Moore wrote them down.

  “Sealed letter to Angela Bathgate; sealed letter to Bentley Hughes; sealed letter to the family of Donald G. Williams, US Airman; last will and testament; and a journal with a letter attached.” CSP Browning asked me to read the letter as he had left his spectacles at home. He gave the journal to Sergeant Moore to leaf through.

  To Officers of the Met and legal counsel,

  I Maurice Sherborn have participated in crimes against the musical world and against my friends. In an interview this evening, I gave false information. I gave this information under duress, as my brother Michael Sherborn was present. I wish now to set the record straight.

  I was the sole conspirator in the acquisition of the manuscripts from the Bathgate files. My hopes were to deliver them to the composers or their families. I sent a letter to each student in 1946. Horace Beaufort asked for his compositions, and I sent them to him. Ivan Bendonovich’s letter was returned as undeliverable. Bentley Hughes was puzzled as to why I had taken them from Bathgate. He
took the time to locate me and council me on my action. This brought about a good friendship that I value today.

  I never sent Donald William’s copy because he had visited my brother and me in 1945. He wanted to return his work to Bathgate. He felt it was Edward Bathgate’s, and he would request to have them from him in person. Michael offered to escort him there. Michael returned, Donald didn’t. I did not suspect anything until I read about a body being found in the bog behind the school. I cannot tell you that my brother did kill Donald, but I am comfortable casting suspicion on him.

  My brother Michael Sherborn went missing during the last months of the war. My family hired an investigator to sift through the mess of war records in order to locate his body and bring him home. He was found alive and living with a former student of Bathgate, Ivan Bendonovich. In those times homosexuality was thought of only as a bad behavior trait, a mental condition. Little was done to understand Michael's feelings. He was an embarrassment to the Sherborns. My father journeyed there and forcefully brought him home and put him under the care of a respectable psychiatric hospital.

  I had previously told Angela Bathgate of my brother’s demise and felt that under the circumstances it would not be wise to tell her otherwise. I told my brother that she had been killed and went to the pains of having a headstone erected. I did this to protect the daughter of the teacher I so loved. Because of the misguided treatments at the hospital my brother had become a cruelly perverse man.

  To finance Michael's medical treatments, my father instructed me to publish his work under my name. Being of a weak nature I did so. Bentley Hughes had no knowledge that this was not my work.

  I took Donald’s hymns and worked on them and published them under my name. I have invested the royalties and kept an accounting of everything in the journal. My intention was to notify his family of the moneys after my death. I leave it up to their discretion as to what they want done with the small fortune that has amassed.

  In 1960, Ivan Bendonovich escaped from the Soviet Union and came here to London. Since my parent’s death, Michael had been released from the hospital and was earning a living as a gardener. Ivan and my brother lived together as lovers. They needed money to pay for Ivan's treatments and sex-change surgery. I offered to buy his opera from him. I paid him a fair price, and with Bentley’s help I worked it into a fine piece of music.

  This last April I was visited by Horace Beaufort. He and I had worked together in the past to develop my jazz charts. He, Michael, Bentley and I had a small reunion to celebrate the announcement that I was up for knighthood. We ate, drank and shared our remembrances of Bathgate. Horace brought up the subject of Aaron Copland. He talked about how the centennial celebration of his life had filled the concert halls and classical stations with his work. The United States was quite proud of their son. There was an article that mentioned that there were a few of his early works that were never published and were still unaccounted for. Scholars speculated at the high value of any of these manuscripts, if they still existed.

  Michael remembered seeing Aaron’s picture in the first class of students at Bathgate. He voiced the question, “What if we went back and found an unpublished work of the master?” Bentley laughed and dismissed the idea. I had a dreadful feeling that this talk could turn into actual activity with Michael’s insistence. I tried to squelch the conversation by saying that if a manuscript was found, it belonged to Copland’s heirs and the finder’s fee would be too small to bother with.

  I had thought the idea dead and gone when Horace returned to Montreal. Early this year, Bentley had called me to relate a phone conversation he had with Horace concerning the possibility of marketing a Copland piece to private collectors. Bentley was very upset at the very idea of Horace blackening his doorstep with such a proposition.

  It was his integrity that forced me to think long and hard about my life and the improprieties of my musical career. If I had not let myself be bullied and had left my vanity to my clothing and not my professional life, I would have felt worthy of the Queen’s sword. But I had not. It was at that very moment that I decided to turn down the knighthood without an explanation to Bentley.

  Michael seemed happy with his gardening position, and I could support both of us so I relaxed until last evening. My brother is still involved with Ivan Bendonovich who is now known as Ivana Penny. I fear for the safety of Angela Bathgate and anyone that has any knowledge of the contents of Bathgate. I fear that Michael’s hatred of Bentley for not going in on the Copland treasure hunt has twisted his mind. I think that he will stop at nothing to hurt Bentley and scandal will be his weapon. Horace was probably killed to reduce the shares in the profit of Copland’s music, if it does exist.

  As to Ms. Fin-Lathen’s question “Why now?” Horace was the catalyst. I tried to buy Bathgate with all its contents so I could control what happened to the music, to keep it away from my brother. Michael found out about it and joined forces with Ivana to clear the playing field. In my trying too late to have scruples, I have turned my brother against me. His hatred was plain. I am writing this in fear that I will not be able to express my thoughts in person to the authorities.

  The journal has all the secret entries of money and thoughts that I dared not share with anyone. I leave you with a verse of Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Ode.”

  We are the music-makers,

  And we are the dreamers of dreams,

  Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

  And sitting by desolate streams;

  World-losers and world-forsakers,

  On whom the pale moon gleams:

  Yet we are the movers and shakers

  Of the world for ever, it seems.

  May God have mercy on my soul,

  Maurice Sherborn.

  “It’s dated and signed.” I got up and handed the letter to Detective Moore.

  “Where are they now?” he asked the room.

  “They’re headed for Bathgate. Michael thinks Angie knows the location of the manuscript,” I offered.

  “Does she?”

  “Well, I do. I just now figured it out. And Angie is at least as smart as I am. After she finds out what Michael and Ivana want, she will no doubt figure it out as I have.” I looked at CSP Browning.

  “You want to go there now, don’t you?”

  I nodded my head.

  “They have a head start. If they have taken to the roads we stand a chance going by air. I will arrange the flights. You’re putting yourself in extreme danger. Bruno isn’t a factor, but two incensed people can be worse than any hit man. Unpredictable, violent ... I see that I’m not going to be able to convince you. Come along.”

  I picked up my phone and pushed number one. Peter answered, and I told him that I was going to Bathgate. I had a date with Aaron Copland.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  From car to plane to helicopter I crossed the morning sky heading westward. I caught myself reaching for the Kernow Daa forgetting that I had given it to Noelle. My old and new possessions were in the care of others: my home, Alex had laid claim; my car I was sure was seeing most of south Florida with him; and the rosewood clarinet I asked Detective Moore to hold for me.

  These were just things. The loss of things was nothing compared to the loss of friends and family. I thought about Father Michael’s aunt Diane. She lost her brother so many years ago, and now she may have also lost her nephew. Blame. I could place it on either the priest or myself. We were both so sure that we needed to know answers to questions that have kept for over a half-century. We rushed in, and one of us got hurt and then had gone missing. I spent some time crying inwardly for the waste of it all.

  We left the helicopter and got into the police car that was waiting for us. I sat in the back looking at the landscape not quite seeing it.

  I tried to focus my thoughts to brighter things. I thought about music. I love music. I love performing it. I love hearing it performed. Music was one of the first joys God gave us humans. We used it for his g
lory. We marched into battle with it. We cooed our children with it. But now it was the commodity that brought forth an old evil, greed.

  The landscape started to look familiar, and I prayed silently that we would be in time. Not to save Copland’s music but to save the innocent humans in the way of Michael and Ivana’s acquisition.

  We approached Bathgate in silence. Constable Cayne had been kept out of the loop until now. He followed us with four other officers. Their job was to secure Bathgate. My job was to secure the Copland manuscript. If it were out of the picture than maybe, just maybe Michael would see the impossibility of the quest and let Angie go. Father Michael was unaccounted for. He may also be a captive, or dead.

  We pulled into the driveway and my eyes took in the scene. “The barn door is open, but we left it closed. They’re already here,” I said.

  He got on his radio and notified the others. The three officers from the Met left the car and began a search of the immediate area. One of them had seen activity at the music school and radioed back. I was instructed to stay put, so I waited until Browning had left before getting out and cautiously approaching the house. Before I reached the side door the ginger cat blocked my way. I’m one of those few that believe that the intelligence of animals is underrated. I stopped and followed the cat back around the front of the house.

  It went up the tree, and so did I. I followed it out onto a thick branch that worked its way alongside the northwest side of the house. I saw Angie had left a window open probably for the purpose of letting the cat in and out. I leaned over and looked through the window. Angie lay still, battered and bleeding on the floor of her room. I reached over and carefully eased the window open. I didn’t look down at the two-foot gap between the house and me. I just grabbed a hold of the window frame and moved. I was in. The ginger cat waited until I moved from the sill and gracefully followed me.