Murder at the Opera: A Capital Crimes Novel

by Margaret Truman

  Before Portelain and Johnson had arrived, he’d been reading that morning’s paper, including a long article about the production of Tosca. According to the writer, a relatively new addition to the Post’s Entertainment section, the dress rehearsal she’d been invited to attend gave promise of a spectacular production the following night.

  Aside from a few rough spots that I’m sure the director, Anthony Zambrano, will smooth out before the opening, this particular reincarnation of the Puccini classic has all the trappings of greatness. The Washington National Opera has slowly but surely worked its way into the top tier of American opera companies. This Tosca will go far to cement its well-earned, lofty position.

  “You read this?” Berry asked his detectives, pointing to the article.

  “I don’t read that section,” Willie said.

  “I read it,” said Sylvia. “I’d like to see the opera.”

  “I’ll call Ray Pawkins and see if he can arrange for a comp ticket.”

  “See if he can come up with two,” she said.

  “Got another date?” Willie asked.

  “No, but I—”

  “Take me,” he said, grinning. “Like Carl says, we might get discovered and end up singin’ those arias together.”

  “You’ll be missed here,” Berry said. “The opera world’s gain, MPD’s loss. I’ll see what I can do. If Ray doesn’t pan out, Public Affairs gets freebies from the Kennedy Center now and then.”

  He opened a thick file folder and passed out sheets of paper from it. “Here’s everybody who was at the Kennedy Center the night Ms. Lee was killed. The check marks indicate they’ve been interviewed.”

  “A lot of missing check marks,” Sylvia commented as she quickly went through the pages.

  “Another case of supply and demand. We narrowed down the list into priorities, and ruled out certain people. They’ll still have to be questioned, but we’ve left them for last.”

  “Wilfred Burns, the president of GW, huh?” Willie said. “I don’t figure him for a killer.”

  “Or the other supers on there from universities,” Berry said. “There’s also a half-dozen people from the opera company we haven’t talked to.”

  “Who’s this Mackensie Smith?” Sylvia asked.

  “One of the supers. Teaches law at GW. His wife’s listed there, too. She’s on the Opera board.”

  “Ray Pawkins,” Sylvia muttered, still going over names.

  “I’ve spoken with Ray a few times,” Berry said, “but we should do a formal interview, cover all the bases.”

  “Cover all the butts, you mean,” growled Willie.

  “If you say so. I’ve got others tracking them down. I want you to interview those two agents again, Melincamp and Baltsa.”

  “What in hell for?” Willie said. “We’ve already questioned them twice.”

  “Maybe the third time will be the charm,” Berry said.

  “Does this have to do with that dispatch from Homeland Security?” Johnson asked.

  “No,” Berry said. “I ran it by Cole. It’s strictly an FBI matter. Maybe if they lived here, we’d get involved, but not our job. You said they claim that the woman, Baltsa, took Ms. Lee in after her father had abused her. But Melincamp debates that. Right?”

  “That’s what he said,” Johnson replied.

  “And he lied about when he came to Washington. Right, Willie?”

  “I don’t know if the dude actually lied. Maybe he got a little mixed up.”

  “Yeah, well, getting a little mixed up in a murder investigation might mean something bigger. Check in with me this afternoon about the tickets, Sylvia.”

  Johnson and Portelain first stopped at the Hotel Rouge. Their call to Zöe Baltsa’s room went unanswered. Willie asked the desk clerk whether he’d seen Baltsa that morning. Answer: no.

  “Let’s try the apartment,” Sylvia suggested, heading for their car.

  “Who’s there?” Melincamp asked through the intercom.

  “Police,” Johnson said. “Detectives Johnson and Portelain.”

  “Just a moment.”

  Melincamp buzzed them in, and stood in the doorway to the apartment. He was dressed in a blue summer-weight suit, a blue-and-white checkered shirt, and a maroon tie.

  “How are you?” Willie asked as they walked past Melincamp.

  “I’m all right,” he answered, not sounding at all sure. “Why are you here?”

  “Just checking back, that’s all,” Willie said, his eyes taking in the room, where two suitcases stood in a corner.

  “Taking a trip?” Sylvia asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” Melincamp said. “I’m going back to Toronto.”

  “You and your partner?” Willie asked.

  “No. I mean, she’s already left.” He wiped perspiration from his upper lip with the back of his hand.

  “Is that so?” Willie said. “We just left the hotel. Nobody said she’d checked out.”

  “She probably hasn’t yet. Her flight is later today. She’s probably running last-minute errands. I don’t know where she is. Look, I have to leave.”

  Johnson ignored him. “The reason we’re here,” she said, “is to see whether you’ve had any additional thoughts about Ms. Lee’s murder, came up with anything you might not have told us the last time we spoke.”

  Melincamp screwed up his face in exaggerated thought. “No,” he said, “I can’t think of anything. Maybe I should ask you the same question. Have you come up with anything new about her murder?”

  “We’re making progress,” Willie said. He grunted, and swung his left arm in a circle.

  “You okay?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, just some arthur-itus.”

  “We’ve been going back over the notes of our previous conversations, Mr. Melincamp,” Johnson said, “and there’s a discrepancy we’d like to clear up.”

  “A discrepancy? What do you mean?”

  “Well,” she said, “when Detective Portelain first interviewed you—I believe it was here at the apartment—you said that you’d flown to Washington the day of the murder. But Ms. Baltsa said you came a day earlier than that.”

  “She did? I don’t understand. What difference does it make when I arrived?”

  “It could make a lot of difference. What did you do that first day in town?”

  He forced a laugh. “How can I remember? There’s always so much to do, so many people to see.”

  “Well, maybe you can try to remember,” Willie said. “You know, put your mind to it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Melincamp said, “but it’s all a blank. Look, I’ve stayed here in Washington because I wanted to be of help in solving Charise’s murder. But now it’s time for me to get back to Toronto and my work. I don’t want to miss my plane, so unless you have a reason for me to stay, I have to go.”

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Melincamp,” Johnson said. “Is something bothering you? You seem uptight.”

  “No, I’m fine. Excuse me.” He grabbed the luggage.

  “We might have to contact you again with follow-up questions.”

  “Good. That will be fine. I wish you both well in solving this horrific thing that’s happened to Charise.”

  They followed him outside, where he looked for a taxi.

  “Where’s your other client, the piano player?” Willie asked.

  “At Takoma Park, naturally, rehearsing the chorus for tonight’s opening of Tosca. The director wants some last-minute changes.”

  A cab turned the corner and headed for them. Portelain and Johnson watched Melincamp toss his luggage in the backseat and climb in beside it. He waved as the driver pulled away.

  “Waste of time,” Willie grumbled.

  “Most of what we do is a waste of time, Willie. But this wasn’t. The guy’s a nervous wreck.”

  “Those artsy types always are” was Willie’s take on it.

  Her cell phone rang. It was Carl Berry. “Where are you?” he asked, his voice tinny throug
h the small speakerphone.

  “At Warren’s apartment, talking to Melincamp. He’s on his way back to Toronto, just got in a cab.”

  “Yeah, well, you might as well head back here. We’re on call. Oh, Sylvia, Ray Pawkins came through with a couple of tickets for the opera tonight.”

  “That’s great. Thanks.”

  “Thank him when you see him.”

  “Well?” Willie asked after she’d clicked off.

  “Well what?”

  “The man says Pawkins got you a couple a tickets. That means two. How about it, you take your favorite partner along? I’ve never been to an opera.”

  Sylvia knew what was coming. She didn’t have a date that night; her latest romantic interest was out of town on government business.

  “Sure, Willie, we’ll go to the opera together.”

  His white teeth glowed against the contrasting blackness of his round face. “Damn,” he said, “now I’ll have to stay awake. I saw an opera once on TV. Can’t remember what it was, but I know I fell asleep before the first act was over. And those suckers can be long, real long.”

  “I’ll keep you awake, Willie,” she said as they got in their green, unmarked MPD car. “And if you do fall asleep, and snore, I’ll shoot you dead right there in the theater.”

  He insisted on stopping on their way back to headquarters for a take-out sandwich from Subway, which he started to eat during the ride. They parked in the lot reserved for MPD vehicles, then entered the station through a rear door as two detectives were exiting.

  “What’s up, man?” Willie asked one of them.

  “Homicide over on 16th, Northwest. Hotel Rouge.”

  “Hotel Rouge?” Willie and Sylvia said in concert.

  “That’s what the dispatcher said.”

  “Let’s go, Willie,” Sylvia said, leading him and his half-eaten sandwich back to their car.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Willie and Sylvia arrived with the two detectives who’d originally caught the case. Two uniforms, who’d been waved down in their car by the doorman, were already at the scene, one standing guard just inside the door to the room, the other in the hallway keeping the curious away.

  The four detectives stood in the middle of the room now, their eyes registering initial impressions. Zöe Baltsa’s lifeless body was slumped on the floor at the foot of the king-sized bed, her back against it, her legs akimbo in front of her. Her head flopped to one side; drying blood seeped from the downward corner of her mouth onto the red carpeting. She wore yellow Capri pants and a fuzzy gold sleeveless shirt. She was barefoot.

  Because Willie was the senior detective, he took charge of the crime scene. “You were the first in here?” he asked one of the cops in uniform.

  “Right. A chambermaid discovered the body and notified the desk. We were driving by. A doorman—maybe he’s a bellhop—hailed us.”

  “Nobody’s been in here since you arrived?”

  “Right. The maid who found the body is downstairs in the manager’s office. She was pretty shaken up.”

  One of the detectives lit a cigarette. “Hey, put that out,” Willie said. “This is a crime scene, man.”

  The detective, a tall, gangly young man, said, “Sorry,” and went into the hall to find a receptacle.

  Sylvia slowly approached the body, her eyes scanning the carpeting before stepping on it. There were slight indentations, but nothing that would provide substantial evidence of the shoes, or the feet inside them. She went to one knee and placed two fingers on the side of Baltsa’s neck. The talent agent’s eyes were open wide; the corneas had become milky, indicating to Sylvia that she’d been killed at least eight hours earlier. A gentle manipulation of the rigid jaw also pointed to an approximate time of death, between eight and twelve hours ago. Sylvia was fascinated with forensic science and had taken every course offered by MPD. She looked down to Baltsa’s torso, where a small amount of blood had seeped through a tear in the front of her gold shirt from an area between her breasts. Sylvia leaned closer. She turned and motioned for Willie to join her. “Look,” she said, pointing to the bloodstained edge of a sponge that had been wedged into the wound.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Maybe our killer is SpongeBob.”

  “She died between eight and twelve hours ago,” said Sylvia. “Her skin’s clammy, cold.”

  They turned at the arrival of white-coated evidence technicians, and an assistant medical examiner. Sylvia told the doctor her conclusions, and she and Willie went to where the original two detectives stood. “Check out everybody with rooms on this floor,” Willie ordered. “Maybe somebody heard or saw something.” To one of the uniformed cops: “Keep everybody away, and that means everybody. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Come on,” Willie said to Sylvia, “let’s go downstairs and talk to the maid.”

  The hotel’s manager was in his office, along with the chambermaid, a middle-aged Hispanic woman who wept into a handkerchief, and two other hotel employees. Portelain and Johnson introduced themselves. Willie asked, “Is this the lady who discovered the body?”

  “Yes,” the manager replied. “Mrs. Cruz.” He gave his own name and those of his employees. Sylvia asked the other two employees to leave, and she and Willie took the maid’s statement. She spoke good English, and managed to pull herself together well enough to give a cogent account: She’d gone to the room to service it. There was no sign on the door indicating that the guest didn’t want to be disturbed. She let herself in with her master key, and saw the woman on the floor.

  “Did you do anything in the room?” Willie asked.

  “No, señor. I run from there to here as fast as I can run.”

  “That’s good,” Willie said, patting her arm. He noted her name and the time she said she’d entered the room, and told her she was free to go.

  “Who was on duty last night, say between midnight and six this morning?” Sylvia asked the manager.

  “Our usual night staff,” he said. He was a young man, dressed in a nice suit, and he had a boyish, freckled face. “Mr. Galberth was in charge of the desk.”

  “Galberth?”

  “Yes. He was just in here. One of our morning desk clerks called in sick, and he volunteered to work a second shift. He told me something that you might find interesting.”

  “Would you get him back in here, please?” Willie said.

  “You were on duty last night?” Sylvia asked the clerk.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your manager says that you have something that we might be interested in hearing.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Around midnight, a man came here to see Ms. Baltsa.”

  “You say it was around midnight?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re always a little more interested in who comes and goes at that hour.”

  “That makes sense,” Sylvia said. “He came to see Ms. Baltsa. How do you know that? Did he ask for her?”

  “No, ma’am. He came in and went to the house phone by the desk. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, but I couldn’t help but hear him on the phone.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said—let me see, now; I want to be accurate—he said, ‘Zöe, this is Chris.’”

  “You knew who Zöe was?”

  “Sure. That’s Ms. Baltsa’s first name.”

  “And you’re sure he said his name was Chris?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

  “Did he say anything else?” Willie asked.

  “No, sir. He hung up and went to the elevators.”

  “Did you see him come down?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So you don’t know how long he was up there in her room.”

  “No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “And you never saw him leave.”

  “No, sir, I didn’t.”

  “What did he look like?” Sylvia asked.

  “Gee, I don’t know. Kind of average, I guess.”

  “Bl
ack? White? Hispanic?” Willie asked.

  “White. Pretty tall, maybe six feet. He had on a T-shirt, a white one. It had some sort of music on it.”

  “Music?”

  “You know, like sheet music, lines and little notes. It was on his chest.”

  “You’d recognize him again, wouldn’t you?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m sure I would. He was standing pretty close to me when he was on the phone, no more than a few feet away.”

  “Thank you,” Sylvia said. “I’m sure we’ll want to talk with you again.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  They returned upstairs to ensure that the crime scene was sufficiently secured, gave further instructions to the others, and went to their car, where Sylvia called Carl Berry.

  “It’s that talent agent, right?” were the first words out of Berry’s mouth.

  “Right. Ms. Baltsa.” She gave him their initial findings and impressions. “That client of theirs, the pianist, Christopher Warren, evidently visited her last night at about midnight. Willie and I are on our way to pick him up. Baltsa’s partner, Melincamp, is supposedly on his way back to Toronto. I suggest you dispatch officers to the airport to pick him up, too.”

  “Which airport?”

  “I don’t know, Carl. National, Dulles. I’m a cop, not a travel agent.”

  There was silence on his end, and she wished she hadn’t responded so flippantly.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get on it.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Willie and Sylvia found Chris Warren at Takoma Park, where he accompanied Tosca’s chorus as it ran through the changes dictated by Zambrano. Their unexpected presence, one at each door to the vast rehearsal space, caused the chorus director, a rotund man with a shock of snow-white hair, to stop the run-through and approach Sylvia. “I’m afraid this is a closed rehearsal,” he said.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but we’re here on police business.” She showed her badge. “We need to speak to Mr. Warren.”

  The director turned and looked at Chris, who sat stoically at the piano.

  “Can’t it wait?” the director asked. “We’re almost finished. We can’t continue without him.”