Changing of the Guard Dog

by Lane Stone

  Lady Anthea pulled my arm. “Let’s go.”

  I was more than happy to go back to Buckingham’s. Though we wasted no time getting to the door, we were a few seconds too late.

  One minute the violin bows were moving up and down in unison, then they were at every height. The timpani player was first to revolt. He yelled to a group of musicians in the string section, “Are we or are we not playing the 1812 Overture?” Some of the musicians in the string section responded to his assault with rolled eyes and others with grumbling. Then his supporters in the percussion section began stamping their feet. Emboldened he went on, “Then can we perhaps play it at the proper tempo? If anyone knows what that is!”

  A cellist came back with, “You were there, so I’ll defer to you!” His string section compatriots cheered and stamped their feet.

  A young woman whose one job was to operate a metal triangle picked it up and furiously ran the wand around the three sides over and over, leaning closer to the timpani player’s face with each lap. The less aggressive musicians lowered their instruments to their laps and looked about in confusion.

  All the musicians were yelling. No, not everyone. Cordy sat poised and silent. She ducked her head to study the sheet music on the stand she shared with her neighbor violinist, staying above the fray. Her curly hair fell forward and she tucked it behind her ear, giving me a view of her face. The smirk she was trying to hide spoke a symphony. “She could stop this if she wanted to,” I said.

  I motioned to Lady Anthea to go out to the porch. She pulled the door closed behind us, but turned back to look through the glass and check on her brother.

  “I have never seen anything like that and I can’t unsee it,” I said. We could still hear the brawl but at half the volume. I turned my back to the door and looked up at the sky.

  “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often with that many egos in one room,” she said. “Since these musicians are with a major orchestra, they are the best of the best. They’ve played the 1812 Overture numerous times and would naturally have their own interpretation. It’s up to the conductor to, uh, convince them to conform to his or her preference for how the piece should be played.”

  “Do you think your brother knows how he wants it played?” I asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Do you think he would be able to influence those musicians if he did?” I asked, pointing to the group.

  She shook her head. “Sadly, no.”

  “They were mad at each other, not at him. Why was that?”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” she said. “Even a guest conductor is held is high esteem—”

  Suddenly the room went quiet. She and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  “You think it’s safe to go back in?” I asked.

  She nodded and inched the door open.

  Cordy was standing, facing Albert. “The Ocean, Our Original Opus from the beginning.” She turned to the oboist and nodded. He produced that all important A note. By the time she was seated, it seemed all was forgotten and forgiven. “Maestro?” she whispered.

  Albert looked at her and she motioned to his stand with her bow.

  He looked down and exclaimed, “Oh!” A baton had been left on the stand and he picked it up. He tapped it quickly and the musicians readied themselves. Albert tapped again.

  The opening notes were slightly hesitant, like someone walking very slowly. I imagined someone who had never seen the ocean drawing near the surf.

  “I need to get back to Buckingham’s. We’re not learning anything to help with the case,” I said. Before I could ask Lady Anthea if she wanted to stay there with her brother, or return with me, the music changed. Now most of the instruments were called in and for a second the music became motion, or at least that was my perception. I looked around at the concentration evidenced by the musicians’ strained facial expressions. Some raised their eyebrows, some lowered theirs. Lips were either flattened into a tight line, or pursed in a pout. Cordy alone remained unruffled.

  I stood transfixed in the open doorway. I experienced the ocean the way I felt about it before my attack. Then I felt someone’s gaze. The bus driver stared at me from his post at the wall behind the orchestra. His look said I understand.

  Albert shuffled some of the papers in the score and two fell to the floor at his feet. As proof that meaningless conducting was better than none at all, the orchestra once again fell apart. The few musicians still valiantly playing had their own tempo in the cacophony. Just like that, the spell was broken.

  Chapter 21

  “Margo Bardot is holding for you. She says it’s urgent,” Shelby said, from my office doorway.

  “After an hour of paperwork, I could use a little excitement,” I said. “I’m tempted to ask what isn’t crucial for her, but come to think of it, the last time she was hysterical was when she learned she had a dead conductor and no one to lead her symphony orchestra.” I reached for the blinking light.

  “Sue, I’m here with Cordy and Bess. You’ve got to help us!”

  Does Cujo have you trapped in your car? “How can I help?”

  “It’s about this morning’s rehearsal….” She let her voice drift off.

  They had me on speaker. I, however, held the receiver tight to my head since I was expecting Lady Anthea and her brother back from lunch any minute. “It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

  Shelby was behind the reception desk and in my line of sight. She waved her arms and mouthed, “They’re coming.” I nodded.

  “It was a disaster!” Maggie said.

  Bess spoke up. “We don’t want to cause any offense to His Grace.”

  “This has put all of us in an awkward position, hasn’t it?” I hadn’t heard the doors open, but I kept my voice down.

  “Exactly!” Cordy agreed. “It’s not too late to cancel the concert.”

  “Now, Cordy, we’ve been through all that,” Maggie cooed.

  The door opened. “That was a delicious lunch!” Albert said.

  “I’m glad you liked it.” Shelby had recommended the neighborhood seafood restaurant.

  “At home, I would take a nap about now,” he said.

  I turned to face the window behind my desk. “Could you come to Buckingham’s to brainstorm? I’m sure we can think of something,” I whispered.

  “Of course,” Bess and Maggie said at the same time. “Can we come now?”

  The duke was talking again. “Perhaps instead of a nap, I could have a tour of the facilities?”

  Shelby cleared her throat and coughed. I nodded to show that I got the message.

  “On second thought, could I come to you?” I casually offered, though I was really pleading.

  “Huh?” Maggie said.

  “Would you like to come to my house?” Bess asked.

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Cordy, should I bring Marin Alsop to see you?”

  The pet parent was about to answer, but Bess interrupted. “Oh, I’m afraid not.” I knew sorry-not-sorry when I heard it.

  I told them I’d see them in a few minutes and went out to the reception desk.

  “Sue!” Lady Anthea said, like she hadn’t seen me in years. “Albert was just saying he’d like a tour. There’s no one better for that than you!”

  “Me? I was just headed out.”

  “I can do it,” Shelby said.

  “Allow me,” Mason said in a smarmy tone I knew better than to trust. He walked around the corner. “Sue, I need to look at something in your office before the guided tour.”

  He walked around me and nodded. I took the hint and followed him back. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I have a few minutes before my next client so I’ll give him a tour. Maybe he’ll say something about why he wants information on Buckingham’s financials. Why did he and Lady A want to have lu
nch alone? Whose idea was it?”

  “I don’t know who suggested it, but I assume they wanted to discuss that rehearsal debacle. It was obvious he didn’t know what he was doing and he’s embarrassed,” I whispered.

  Mason chuckled and shook his head. “Shelby told me what happened.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the lobby, then asked, “Does he seem even slightly humbled? No. He’s trying to get her on his side.”

  I thought about how he’d sounded and had to agree with Mason’s assessment but not his conclusion. “I think you are confusing obliviousness with cunning,” I said.

  “What did he say when you told him that he couldn’t see our records?”

  “I haven’t told him. He hasn’t asked me for them,” I whispered.

  “Ugh, I was going to be good cop, but if you haven’t been bad cop, how can I?” He brushed his black hair away from his face with a heavily tattooed arm.

  “So be in-between cop,” I suggested.

  “That’s not a thing.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’ll still be good cop,” he said. “I’m not sure how to be bad cop to someone you call Your Grace and Sir.” As he turned to go back to the lobby, he bumped into Lady Anthea.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked.

  Mason apologized for almost knocking her over and gave her his secret-handshake-bow, then went to Albert. “Sir, let’s tour.”

  The rest of us watched them walk away. “Lady Anthea, Bess and Margo want to talk about this morning. Would you like to go with me?”

  “That’s only fair, I’d say.” She motioned down the hall. “Since he’s here because of me.”

  I looked down at Abby, so innocent on her dog bed. “No, Mason doesn’t need your help with the elevator button.”

  Mason was saying, “So how does this duke business work?”

  “Well, there are royal dukedoms and nonroyal dukedoms. Mine is the latter.”

  “Ya don’t say.”

  “The first nonroyal dukedom was created in 1448…”

  Chapter 22

  Margo stared at me in disbelief. Then she looked at Bess and waited for her to weigh in, but it appeared she wasn’t ready to commit.

  “Cordy, what do you think?” I asked the phone in the middle of the table. The four of us sat around the tan wicker table on the Harpers’ balcony. I had been surprised to find that Cordy wasn’t with the others when we got to Bess’s house. Margo had told us she was at the hotel resting.

  Lady Anthea said, “This just might work.” During the drive along Savannah Road I had laid out my plan. The shock had finally worn off and she had recovered the ability to speak. “I thought it was crazy, too, when I first heard it.” I didn’t know if that tepid endorsement warranted my gratitude or not. I doubted it.

  “I know you usually rehearse for two and a half hours four times before a concert, and this is asking a lot,” I said.

  Finally Cordy spoke. “You want us to rehearse in the morning with her brother, and then again at night?”

  “With you leading the second session,” I added.

  “This just might work,” Maggie said, echoing Lady Anthea. “But, of course, Cordy, only if you agree. Of course, it’s not unheard of for a concertmaster to conduct an orchestra.”

  We waited for the concertmaster to tell us whether or not she’d go along with the plan. If she had been there with us, we could have gone inside and the purple walls would have worn her down.

  Maggie continued, “Having Georg Nielsen conducting his new piece would have given the PSO new life. Next year our orchestra will celebrate our seventieth! If we can pull off this concert we can fundraise—” She stopped and looked at Bess. “I mean, friend-raise by showing our patrons that we can still surprise them!”

  Bess gave her a smile of appreciation and asked, “Would the night rehearsals be at the same venue?”

  “That would be too close to us and Albert might hear you,” I told them. “I was thinking of the library if they will allow us to be there after-hours. They close at eight o’clock. Lady Anthea and I can go there now and reserve one of their meeting rooms.”

  “Do they have one large enough?” Margo asked.

  “This morning you had, what, fifty musicians?” I asked.

  “Yes. We have one hundred permanent members, and we brought fifty-two,” she answered.

  “I guess now that we’ve had the press conference, it’s too late to cancel,” Cordy said.

  Maggie leaned over to speak closer to Bess’s phone. “Why would we want to, now that we have, uh, a solution to our problem?”

  Lady Anthea’s face colored and I spoke up. “Albert’s intentions were good. He was trying to help.”

  Finally Cordy relented. “Looks like I need to let everyone know we’ll be rehearsing tonight.”

  Margo and Bess sighed in relief. We hung up just as Roman pulled into the driveway and Bess waved down at him. “Hi, darling,” she called over the railing before we went inside.

  He gave her a peck on her cheek and said, “I’m looking for Ty. I got us a tee time.” He picked up the phone she had just placed on the dining room table and gave its gold case a disgusted look. He then dialed, not thumb speed-typing, but stabbing the numbers with his index finger. “He’s not answering.” He hung up and sent the phone skidding down the table.

  The walls were starting to get to me and I headed for the stairs. “We’ll let you know if we have any trouble reserving the space.”

  * * * *

  Lady Anthea and I drove through downtown Lewes to the library, taking the fork in the road to the left off Savannah Road at the Zwaanendael Museum.

  She said, “Do you really think the library will let us hold the rehearsals after they close?”

  “I’ve been texting the library director. She’s a friend of mine. Look at all these cars! I wonder what’s going on?”

  We found a parking spot near the back of the lot and made our way to the entrance.

  “What is speed dating?” Lady Anthea asked. She’d stopped and pointed to a large sign. The Check-out, it read. Literary Speed Dating.

  “I’ve heard of libraries hosting these. It’s for singles to meet. You talk to someone for a few minutes, then you move on to the next person. They write down the names of anyone they want to see again and turn it in. If it’s reciprocal the host shares the info—” I stopped when I saw the three long rows of tables, each consisting of four six-foot tables placed end to end. So many men were talking and using hand gestures! They waved, reached, and pointed.

  “Would you care to register?” a young woman who had come up behind us asked. She was conservatively dressed in black slacks and a white sleeveless top but wore a delicate gold nose ring. She wore no eye makeup but you could almost see your reflection in the thick layer of red lip gloss.

  “Oh my, no,” Lady Anthea said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ll register, too,” a baritone voice behind me said. I turned to see Chief John Turner. We each took the form the librarian handed us and moved to the counter to complete them. No one spoke.

  “I’m here to look at all these hands. I know I’ll recognize his hands when I see them,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, you won’t. You have no idea how fallible human memory is.”

  “I’m not saying my memory is as good as, say, Abby’s. But it’s not bad. What are you working on?” I asked.

  “I got the ballistics report on the bullets. I’m working on that. From your description of the gun, he was using a suppressor. That helped.”

  “My description?” I had to laugh at that. About all I knew was that it was a gun. John and Officer Statler hadn’t pressed me, which might have made me remember what I never saw. My drawing of the firearm was only slightly more detailed than a stick figure.

 
“Suppressor? What is that?” I asked.

  “Same as a silencer.”

  “But I heard the shots,” I said. “They weren’t silent.”

  “It’s not like on TV. A suppressor reduces the sound by a few decibels. That’s all.”

  “What about the electric-blue electric car?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m looking for the car, too. You were just at Bess Harper’s house. Did you learn anything?”

  “How did you know that’s where we were?” Lady Anthea asked. She was rarely unhappy with John—actually, she was quite a fan of his—and encouraged our relationship when I dragged my feet.

  Instead of answering her question, he said, “And I’m keeping an eye on Ms. Galligan. I either do that or I bring her in to ask about her relationship with Georg Nielsen,” he answered. He saw the looks on our faces and said, “Not for his murder. I don’t think she could have held him down to drown him, even though he was intoxicated. Just for information.”

  “You sure about that? Have you seen her arms?” I asked.

  He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Can I see you tonight?”

  “I’m busy,” I said. I would have said more but suddenly there was a disturbance at the end of the middle table, and it included a bark and a growl. In a library?

  So-Long was on Charles Andrews’s lap and the dog was sending a message to someone in the front of the room. I turned back to John, but he’d gone. The young librarian was back. “If you’re going to participate, you’ll need to sit down. There are a couple of openings at the first table.” She pointed to the first chair at that table. A man was waiting there looking around for someone to date for four minutes. There were two empty seats for females.