by Gerald Elias
“And that’s where Vasalin comes in?” asked Malachi.
“It just so happens that Otkar Vasalin was able to buy all his seventeenth-century Cremonese toys after making his fortune in the energy business. Nathaniel found that Vasalin had a rather large investment in the Chernobyl plant that he managed to deposit in Swiss banks just before hightailing it out of the USSR. He ended up living the quiet life in Quito, at least until the day he died, which just so happened to be the day Peter was there on tour with the New Magini String Quartet. Peter blamed Vasalin for everything that happened from the day Chernobyl blew, and I can’t say that I blame him.”
“Lensky denies killing Vasalin,” said Malachi.
“You surprised?”
“He says that name isn’t familiar to him.”
“I guess it just slipped his mind, the same way Vasalin slipped in his shower and accidentally stove his head in.”
“Let’s get to Haagen,” said Malachi. “You were there, as I recall.”
Jacobus felt Yumi tighten her grip on his hand.
“He killed her right after Yumi left the stage,” he said. “He did it quietly and quickly—he’s a strong boy, Peter is—not because he was humane, but because he had to, to avoid detection and knowing Yumi would be at the stage door waiting for the cab. He even made sure that Haagen’s viola didn’t drop on the floor and make noise. He put it on her lap.”
The only response Jacobus heard were Yumi’s quiet sobs.
“I am sorry, Yumi. Very sorry.
“To finish up, Malachi, it was Kortovsky’s libido compared to Lensky’s own impotence that gnawed at him. That’s why Kortovsky went first. But then there was Haagen. It also gnawed at Peter that she swung both ways and he swung neither.
“I have to admit that for a while I really thought Haagen was complicit in Kortovsky’s disappearance, but I didn’t know whether she was a culprit or a co-conspirator. On one hand, she bore him a grudge as heavy as a sledgehammer: He didn’t give a shit about their kid, who she loved. He was a philanderer, which she claimed didn’t bother her until it got too close for comfort. On the other hand, they apparently worked together to beautify the image of the quartet, getting rid of Short in the process, and then both, of course, had to defend themselves against him. The idea that Kortovsky was going to sell his Amati violin to Vasalin wasn’t all that far-fetched, especially after that scene at Dedubian’s with Haagen trying to up the appraisal on her Gasparo viola.
“But then, when Nathaniel confirmed that Prince Rupert had accompanied his mother to South America and they had gone on vacation together, it just didn’t seem to me that Haagen could be that cold-blooded. The clincher, of course, is that Annika couldn’t have broken her own neck.”
“How did you figure out where Lensky took Yumi?” Malachi asked.
“I wasn’t sure. That’s why I sent Nathaniel to follow Short. I knew you had the other places covered. But I figured, what better place than a soundproof room in a vacant building, so I went there.”
“Why do you suppose he didn’t try to kill Yumi onstage, like Haagen, during the Anderson film?”
“Dammit, Malachi! You expect me to know everything. The damn film is only five minutes long! Maybe he got nervous. How the hell do I know?”
“Sorry. What do you know about the deaths of Ivan Lensky and his mother?” asked Malachi.
“Nothing. Only heard about it from Oro last night. Why?”
“The two of you. You and Yumi. If not for Oro … You’re lucky. Very lucky.”
“Some luck.”
“What creates your understanding that Señor Peter murdered his brother and mother?” Oro asked Malachi.
“They were killed in Pravda’s living room. No forced entry. Nothing stolen. They had their concert dress on, presumably on their way to Carnegie Hall. So Jacobus’s theory and all the facts make a fit. Someone as strong as Ivan Lensky would’ve put up a struggle if it had been a stranger. Peter had flipped. He had done everything he could to prevent the performance from happening, but it hadn’t worked. Maybe he tried one last time to talk them out of playing. When that didn’t work either, the knife did.”
“I can’t believe he could kill his brother and his mother,” Yumi said. “Even after last night.”
Malachi responded. “Two months ago we had a mother drop her three little kids out of a twentieth-floor hotel room window. She said she had a headache and the air-conditioning wasn’t working. Don’t underestimate the human capacity to be inhuman.”
“That is the way of the world, is it not?” said Oro.
“What’s Peter saying about everything?” Jacobus asked.
“Cy Rosenthal’s representing him,” Malachi said. “Once he arrived, Lensky’s denying everything.”
“Figures.”
“But before that, he told me to give you a message. He wrote it down. Maybe you can tell me what it’s all about.”
“Read it.”
“Oh dear Art, during how many gray hours,
When life’s savage cycle traps me,
Have you lit my heart with warm love,
And placed me in a better world!”
TWENTY-SIX
One by one, Jacobus shook the bottles of bourbon to hear which ones had anything left in them. He pulled the cork on the bottle with the distinctively almost flat contour—that would be the Woodford Reserve—encouraged by its level of sloshing.
It had been a long and somber day. Oro’s departure had been an anticlimax. For some reason he had been in a hurry to get to the airport and take the earliest flight possible back to Peru. He offered polite, if somewhat curt apologies and then was gone.
Nathaniel had picked up Yumi and Jacobus after Malachi released them, and they went somewhere for a breakfast that they didn’t eat. Yumi was torn between staying in the city or going with Nathaniel and Jacobus. In the end she decided to stay and help Lipinsky and Greunig with the funeral arrangements.
“Hey, now that there’s no quartet left, I’ve got plenty of free time, don’t I?” Yumi joked with an absence of mirth. “Poor Crispin, though. After he gets my violin and apartment, he’ll still come up a few million short.” She escorted Jacobus and Nathaniel to the curb, gave them a cursory hug, and thanked them for their performance the night before.
“And Jake,” she said.
“Yeah?”
Yumi paused. “Have a good drive,” she said, and walked away.
Jacobus already had one leg in Nathaniel’s VW Rabbit when he heard Yumi call him.
“Jake!” she said, running up to the car.
“Yeah?” he asked again.
“I just want to tell you. I heard what Power Ramsey said to you yesterday. I think he was wrong. I don’t think you’re absolutely incorrigible. Sometimes I actually think you’re corrigible.”
Jacobus reached his hand out the car door and found Yumi’s cheek. He let his hand linger on it for a moment, feeling its warmth and vitality.
“Don’t bet on it,” he said, smiling.
* * *
When Jacobus and Nathaniel left the city, after having stopped at Dedubian’s, the sun was trying to come out, as New Yorkers like to say when they’re sick of the rain, but by the time they stopped at the Collective Reference Academy near Mt. Kisco on the way back to the Berkshires, it had turned blustery. They had met with the school psychologist, a Ms. Fogent, who had previously been informed by the police that Prince Rupert’s mother was dead and his father missing and presumed dead.
“Has the boy been told?” Jacobus asked.
“He has been told that he’ll be visiting his maternal grandparents in Finland soon. For a holiday. They agreed to pay for his ticket. The paternal side expressed their wish to discontinue further contact with the child, and we are going to honor that.”
“Where’s the boy now?”
“He’s out playing with his friend Epifany,” said Ms. Fogent. “Would you like to speak with him?”
“Nah, no need,” said Jacobus. �
�I’d just scare the kid.”
Jacobus explained to Ms. Fogent that he had taken the liberty of giving Haagen’s beloved Gasparo viola, which the police had decided was not needed as evidence, to Dedubian for temporary safekeeping and eventual sale, subject to the instructions in Haagen’s will, as yet undisclosed. He had Dedubian put their agreement in writing, along with an updated appraisal for $400,000, which, though no guarantee, would help it fetch a higher price. He also had pressed Dedubian to pay the substantial insurance premium on the instrument for as long as it was in his shop. Regarding Kortovsky’s Amati, Cy Rosenthal conjectured that until Kortovsky’s death was legally verified, the instrument trunk would remain unopened. If in fact the violin ultimately was found in the trunk, then it would in all likelihood transfer to Prince Rupert, assuming those were the instructions in Kortovsky’s will, which of course would not be disclosed until it was established he was dead. Lawyers, thought Jacobus, as he handed the letter to Fogent.
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobus,” she said. “Have a good Labor Day weekend. I’m sure the family will appreciate this.”
“Well, whatever,” he said.
* * *
Jacobus opened the flimsy cupboard doors above the shelf of bourbon bottles—one of these days those damn hinges were going to fall off—and extracted two large glasses.
“Want one?” he asked Nathaniel.
“I guess you’ve decided for me. Just one, though. Then I’ve got to hit the road. It’s already dark, and who knows what’s with this weather. They say if you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait five minutes.”
“They say if you don’t like the weather in Seattle, just wait five minutes, then commit suicide. Say when.”
Jacobus poured. Nathaniel added a little water into Jacobus’s glass, the way he knew Jacobus liked it. Trotsky shifted his bulk under the table and exhaled. Jacobus and Nathaniel drank in silence, and though the alcohol relaxed and warmed him on this chill, rainy evening, Jacobus was still troubled by the unsatisfying conclusion to his efforts and the three—actually four—phone calls he had received earlier in the day.
As if reading his thoughts, Nathaniel said, “Malachi will find him. Then they’ll figure out what charges will stick. He can’t hide forever.”
“Hmm,” said Jacobus.
* * *
The first call came before they had even entered his house. Trotsky almost knocked the door down in order to attack the ringing phone. There was no preamble.
“Carino,” repeated Jacobus. “Lew Carino. Cy Rosenthal asked me to call you.” There was tension in Carino’s voice. “Crispin’s looking for someone new to sue, now that there’s no more quartet?”
“Crispin Short won’t be suing anyone.”
“And that’s bad news?”
“He killed himself. Hanging. He left a very precise note, not the typical rambling manifesto. He blamed the quartet for ruining his life, and the dissolution of the quartet by their deaths for ending it.”
Jacobus laughed bitterly. Carino continued through it.
“He felt that in the public eye he would have been forever tied to the deaths of the members of the quartet, however wrongly. That he would henceforth always be an outcast and never again be able to ply his trade. In other words, his life was, for all intents and purposes, over.”
“For once I agree with him,” said Jacobus.
“But if I can confide in you, Mr. Jacobus, between you and me, I think it had more to do with guilt over his inordinate influence over Peter Lensky, which catalyzed Lensky to do what he allegedly did. Crispin didn’t want anyone dead. He just wanted his fair due. Though not much good has come of this entire episode, with my client’s death at least your former student, Ms. Shinagawa, is now off the hook, there no longer being any impetus to continue the lawsuit.”
“You mean no one to pay your fee.”
Carino didn’t take the bait, so Jacobus, seething, continued.
“Off the hook, huh? I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. But yes, other than her colleagues being dead, and she being hospitalized, traumatized, and unemployed, in part because of your former client’s alleged ‘inordinate influence,’ she’s off the hook. That’s great news.”
“That’s not how I meant it, Jacobus. You’ve taken my words and—”
Jacobus put the receiver on the table, and though Carino continued talking, Jacobus didn’t listen to a word. Finally the talking stopped and Jacobus hung up the phone.
He was brought back to the present by the sound of Nathaniel placing his empty glass on the table with just the right amount of extra emphasis for Jacobus to know that he was finished, but not so loud as to insult his sensitivity to being blind. A thoughtful one, that Nathaniel.
“Sorry about Short. I feel like maybe I spooked him.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Well, when I followed him and Carino out of Carnegie after Annika was killed, they were getting into a taxi. I didn’t want to lose them and since we still thought Short might be a suspect, I went up to them and asked if they had been together the whole time during the concert. Short was pale as a ghost and didn’t say a word—I think he was in shock. Carino said, ‘Yes, explicitly so,’ and I believed he was telling the truth, but then later on I thought, How could he be sure during the blackout and all that dancing and goings-on? They got into the taxi, and that’s the last I saw of them.”
“Well, not your fault. You can’t be held accountable for someone’s bad conscience. According to Dedubian, Short also made a deal with him to buy Haagen’s viola at a low cost, and he offered Dedubian a higher commission, which is why he gave Haagen such a low appraisal. He wanted to get her coming and going. So Short was a scumbag no matter how you look at it.”
* * *
The second call, from Cy Rosenthal, had come at two o’clock. Trotsky was outside, chasing leaves in the gathering wind, so Jacobus didn’t have to worry about damage to the phone when it rang.
Having been retained to represent Peter Lensky, Rosenthal notified Jacobus that Lensky had undergone a thorough psychiatric evaluation and had been released on bail in the alleged attempted assault on Yumi.
“Alleged! Attemped!” Jacobus sputtered. “He kidnapped her and tried to kill her!”
“My client, admittedly, had been under a great deal of stress, what with his late mother’s and brother’s situation in the quartet, and is quite remorseful over the means by which he obtained Ms. Shinagawa’s presence at the studio—he openly expressed to the judge his willingness to pay the price for that misunderstanding—but he only wanted to perform ‘Death and the Maiden’ for Yumi the way he thinks it should be performed. He’s quite the purist when it comes to music and does not like to see great music devolve into mere entertainment by the application of tangential media. I gather that sentiment is one that the two of you share.”
Jacobus ignored the implication.
“But he threatened her,” Jacobus said. “If I’m not mistaken, he proclaimed he was Death incarnate.”
“Did you not also tell Ms. Shinagawa at a recent lesson that she too was Death?”
“How do you know that?”
“I just had a long talk with her. She tries to protect you—why, I can’t fathom—but in her honesty and openness she is very revealing.”
“That bit about Death was just a metaphor, dammit.”
“Well, there you have it.”
“But Lensky attacked her. And me and Oro. He would’ve killed her, if not for—”
“If not for the three of you—three of you!—subjecting my client to physical and emotional harm, and involuntarily restraining him after you baited him into a frenzy by falsely accusing him of a whole assortment of deaths and disappearances in which he played no part, and furthermore by preying upon his personal physical tragedy as his motivation, and insulting his masculinity in the process. You should stay away from playing doctor, Mr. Jacobus. It could get you in trouble. Even though someone suffers from testicular can
cer, rendering him sterile, it does not necessarily render him impotent. Far greater can be the emotional suffering from that illness—not ever being able to have a family, or feelings of inferiority, for example—to all of which you exhibited not one iota of sensitivity when you confronted my client.”
“But what about Haagen’s murder? Picture that for a minute, Rosenthal, before you give me your sob story about Lensky. Someone—someone strong, someone who knows how the staging works—goes up to her from behind, breaks her neck while we’re sitting there in the dark listening to Anderson singing ‘Death and the Maiden,’ and knows enough to prevent her viola from falling and making noise, leaving it on her lap. And at the same time, Yumi gets abducted, which you admit was by Lensky, and you’ve got the gall to tell me that’s a coincidence?”
“As you just said, Mr. Jacobus, ‘at the same time.’ How could those things have happened at the same time? Are you suggesting my client broke Ms. Haagen’s neck, then immediately sashayed over to Ms. Shinagawa and whispered in her ear? Is that what you’re saying? I would say it’s more likely someone else killed Ms. Haagen. Your friend Mr. Williams was sitting right next to her. He’s a strong—”
“Fuck you, Rosenthal!”
“I’m sorry. I take that back. I shouldn’t involve myself in mere speculation, as you have. After all, I’m an attorney. As I say, there has been a series of tragic events, all of which need to be thoroughly investigated. In your confused state you see my client as a perpetrator, but according to the law, he is, if anything, an unfortunate victim.”
“So what are you telling me about the murders of Kortovsky and Vasalin and Haagen and Ivan and Pravda? That they’re all coincidences?”
