Murder at the Opera

by Margaret Truman

  The cocktail hour was to begin at seven. But at six, the president and Prime Minister Bruce Colmes met in a hastily scheduled session in a small room off the family quarters, a meeting arranged at the last minute by their staffs.

  “I appreciate you taking the time to meet like this on the spur of the moment,” Montgomery said to his counterpart.

  “No inconvenience,” Colmes said. “I’m here at the White House anyway, thanks to your hospitality, Arthur. Let’s just say that this lovely evening has started a little earlier.”

  Colmes was a large, rough-hewn man with red cheeks, a shock of red hair, and the beefy, calloused hands of a working man, which he wasn’t except for well-publicized outdoor chores on his ranch when on vacation. He wore his tuxedo like a sack.

  These two governmental leaders had forged an easy, comfortable relationship since taking office, and enjoyed a first-name relationship when out of the public eye. Roughly the same age—Colmes was a few years younger than Montgomery but looked older—they shared, but only in private moments like this, a reasoned, albeit cynical view of politics, politicians, political consultants, political commentators, political pundits, political bosses, and everything else to which they’d successfully devoted their adult lives. Their bond, of course, was strengthened by the geographical and cultural boundaries of their two nations.

  “The family is good?” Montgomery asked.

  “Very much so,” Colmes replied. “Yours?”

  “Fine. Our youngest son is giving us a hard time, but that’s just his hormones erupting. He hates living here in the White House, but someday he’ll look back and appreciate the experience, probably by writing a scathing exposé of my administration. I’m sure you’re aware, Bruce, that our press has been making hay out of the tragic murder of your young opera singer from Toronto.”

  “I’ve been kept abreast,” Colmes said, his sizable frame filling a crimson armchair. “The spotlight seems to be focused on another of our citizens, also a student at your opera school.”

  Montgomery, who consumed less of the matching chair, nodded. “I’ve had some briefings on the case from our Justice Department. One thing we don’t need is for the press to make an international incident out of it.”

  Colmes laughed heartily. “They are capable of that, aren’t they? Before we know it, one of your television commentators will find something untoward about our meeting like this before the dinner.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. I do want you to know that our local police are doing everything possible to find the murderer and bring him to justice. I’m told the young lady was quite a promising singer.”

  “My understanding, too. You enjoy opera, don’t you, Arthur?”

  “Yes, I do, not to the extent Pamela does, but I respond to the spectacle onstage, the incredible voices, the drama of it all. It’s a little like politics, I suppose.”

  “I’ve never developed a taste,” Colmes said. “I prefer country-and-western music. At least I like the voters to believe that’s my musical choice. The common man and all.”

  “That was the problem with Adlai Stevenson when he twice ran for president,” Montgomery said. “Maybe if he’d played the fiddle, he would have done better.”

  “I’m sure he would have,” Colmes said, eliciting a smile from the president, who was well aware that his Canadian counterpart was a lot more sophisticated than he let on.

  Montgomery checked his watch. “Let’s get to the meat of this little get-together, Bruce. My intelligence people tell me that this latest al-Qaeda threat has what they’re terming ‘a Canadian connection.’ What the hell is that all about?”

  “We’re trying to ascertain the same thing on our end,” Colmes said. “Our people have been in close contact with your intelligence agencies, unlike the way your FBI and CIA function together.”

  “We’re getting better at it,” Montgomery said, knowing that the jibe was without barbs. They’d discussed this subject on earlier occasions.

  “So I hear. I was briefed on the situation this morning before coming to Washington. It’s the considered opinion of our intelligence that al-Qaeda has decided to forgo large, bigger-than-life strikes, as happened on your nine-eleven, and concentrate on smaller but symbolic targets—namely, people like you, Arthur.”

  “I should be flattered.”

  “And concerned.”

  “The president is always a target. History proves that. Goes with the job. Security is good around here, and has been enhanced since the latest raising of the threat level.”

  “Still.”

  “I know, I know. If someone really wants to get you, they probably will. But I’m not concerned. Have they named me specifically?”

  “What do your people say?”

  “Nothing so specific, except…”

  “Except that the threat might come by way of Canada,” Colmes said.

  “That’s what I’m told,” the president said. “Makes me wonder whether an assassin will come riding into the White House wearing a red Mountie uniform and pronouncing ‘roof’ funny.”

  “Pronouncing it differently, Arthur. Differently.”

  Montgomery laughed. “I stand corrected.”

  “Obviously,” Colmes said, “we need more specifics. Hopefully, there’ll be additional intelligence to provide it. Right now, all your people and ours know is that al-Qaeda plans to assassinate high-profile leaders here in the States rather than attempt to hijack airplanes again. I suppose they could coordinate such an attack for maximum impact—you know, target a dozen government leaders for a simultaneous strike, one or two of your governors here or there, a few of your senators, a cabinet member.” He hesitated. “The children of a prominent figure.”

  Montgomery’s eyes narrowed and his jaw worked. That same scenario had been presented to him only a few days earlier during an intelligence briefing, a what-if? exercise, one of three offered by his briefers.

  “The British have been helpful,” Montgomery said.

  “They sometimes are,” Colmes said.

  “Our Homeland Security people have been briefed by British go-betweens,” Montgomery said. “The border with you has been beefed up. In the meantime, life goes on.”

  “As it must. I want you to know that we’re doing everything we possibly can to ferret out potential assassins from our Muslim population. That’s what makes it so damn difficult, distinguishing madmen from good, decent, law-abiding Arab folks. They’re good at assimilating into those communities.”

  Montgomery stood and checked his bow tie in a mirror. “We’re making an interesting, and possibly fatal, assumption, Bruce,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “That these assassins, if they exist and this plan exists, are of Arab extraction. I’m sure you have as many homegrown nuts in Canada as we do here in the States.”

  “Sometimes I think we have even more,” Colmes said, rising from his chair and slapping Montgomery on the back. “In the meantime, Mr. President, our better halves await us. And if you insist on having your usual martini when so much excellent Canadian whiskey and wine is available, the press will have another sinister plot to conjure.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Ray Pawkins awoke with a start. A shaft of light had managed to find a slit in the drapes and hit him in the eye like a laser.

  He turned away from the brightness with the intention of dozing off again. But the body next to him moved, causing him to push up against the headboard and to rub sleep from his eyes. He glanced over. The woman snored softly and wrinkled her nose. He’d forgotten she was there.

  They’d enjoyed dinner together following the supers rehearsal and had returned to his house to sample a new port that had been touted by a salesman at Rodman’s, Pawkins’ favorite wine shop, and to listen to opera. They’d argued, but only briefly, over which opera to choose from his expansive collection. She preferred a recording of Bizet’s Carmen with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli, which she’d heard and enjoyed before. But Pawkins sai
d, “If we must listen to Carmen, I prefer the Callas version with Georges Prêtre conducting. Frankly, though, I’m not in the mood for Carmen tonight.” He chose instead Satyagraha, written by Philip Glass and performed by the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

  “I don’t know that one,” she said, the corners of her mouth turned down at having her selection dismissed.

  “A gorgeous work,” he said. “It deserves a better recording than this one, although the singing is first-rate. Unfortunately, the orchestra sounds uninspired, thanks to a lackadaisical conductor. Come. Sit next to me on the couch. Your lesson is about to begin.”

  Now, he continued to look down at her in bed. Her hair was long, and cascaded over the delicate yellow pillowcase. Pawkins was always impressed with the inky blackness and luxurious texture of Asian women’s hair. Her eyes fluttered open and closed immediately. Her hand went to her nose to swipe away an itch. Pawkins noted her fingers, tipped with polish the color of castor oil. Too short, he thought, referring to her fingers. The rest of her was longer. She stood as tall as he did.

  They’d first met at a record store, where he purchased the latest opera CDs while she selected from the classical section. Their initial conversation confirmed that she knew something about opera, but only in a popular sense, familiar arias and the biggest names—“La donna e mobile” from Rigoletto; “Un bel di, vedremo” from Madame Butterfly; “Che gelida manina” from La Boheme; and Domingo, Anna Moffo, Brigit Nilsson, Richard Tucker, Caruso, Kiri Te Kanawa, and, of course, Pavarotti. But that was enough for him. So few women he met had ever even attended an opera, let alone had a working knowledge of that most elegant and complex of entertainments.

  Their date last evening had been their second; the first involved dinner and a movie, and Pawkins had been certain that an encore would result in sex.

  He slipped out of bed and walked naked to the bathroom. When he returned wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, she still slept. He sat in a chair by the window and parted the drapes. It was gray outside, as gray as his mood. He looked across the room at the yellow hills and valleys her body created beneath the sheet and sighed. This was the trouble with bedding a woman. They were there in the morning. He’d considered driving her home after their lovemaking, but by that time he wasn’t of a mind to get dressed, let alone end up in an argument. She’d said with a knowing smile as she was about to fall asleep, “It feels so good in the morning.”

  Actually, she’d fallen asleep much earlier, a half hour into the playing of Satyagraha, which annoyed him. He’d been telling her about the opera and Mohandas Gandhi’s influence on the composer; how “Satyagraha” was the name Gandhi had given to his nonviolent resistance movement; and how Glass’s first opera, Einstein on the Beach, had been a success but had left the composer broke and driving a New York City taxi. He wanted to tell her these things—educate her—but she’d nodded off on his shoulder. He especially enjoyed the opera’s final scene and wanted her to appreciate it with him, but she was long gone, her small guttural sounds in his ear not enhancing the musical score.

  She was wide-awake, though, once they’d undressed and were beneath the sheets, skin to skin, electrical pulses jumping the gaps, male and female sounds of sexual bliss creating their own aria.

  “Good morning,” she said now, propping a pillow behind her and pulling the sheet up over her breasts.

  “Good morning. Sleep well?”

  “Very. You?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  She smiled and motioned with her index finger for him to join her in bed.

  “Love to,” he said, standing and tightening the robe’s sash, “but I have to get to an early appointment downtown. Sorry. We must do this again sometime.”

  She showered first. When he emerged from the bathroom, she was dressed and watching the news on TV.

  “Can you believe it?” she said. “Terrorists are planning to kill American big shots, maybe even the president.”

  Pawkins stood behind her and watched the TV report. An anonymous but “highly placed” source in the government’s intelligence apparatus had leaked the news of al-Qaeda’s alleged plan to assassinate American political leaders. The reporter, whose breathlessness was a little too over-the-top, continued the story as BREAKING NEWS flashed at the bottom of the screen. Everything these days on cable news shows seemed to be “breaking news.”

  “Intercepts of terrorist chatter have, according to this highly credible source, indicated that al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups have decided to forgo large, spectacular targets like September eleven and focus on symbolic assassinations of American political leaders. In addition—and this has not been confirmed—there appears to be a connection between al-Qaeda and unspecified Jihadist cells in Canada. Stay tuned for further developments as they unfold.”

  “You’d never think Canada would be involved,” she said as Pawkins used the remote to turn off the television. “They’re our friends.”

  “He didn’t say Canada was involved,” Pawkins said. “And there’re terrorist groups in every nation in the world. Come on, I’m running late.”

  He drove her to her apartment building, where a chaste kiss on the cheek sent her from the car. “I’ll call,” he said, not sure he would. No pox on her. She was attractive and sexy, aside from short fingers, and their bedtime tussle had been satisfactory.

  But at the moment he had other, more pressing things on his mind. He had work to do.

  He’d called a friend in Toronto a few days ago, a private detective for whom he’d done a few favors over the years, including having rescued a small Raphael still life that had been stolen from a Canadian collector, who’d hired Pawkins’ Toronto buddy to get it back. The thief, a barbarian with no appreciation of art, had cut the painting from its frame on the wall, which in Pawkins’ mind raised the crime to a capital offense, punishable by lethal injection. Pawkins traced the painting to a fat cat in Bethesda known to have a particular fondness for Raphael. Pawkins confronted the Bethesda collector and cut a deal: Give back the painting or face jail time. He delivered the work to his Toronto colleague and split a hefty fee with him. Of course, this was after Pawkins had retired from the MPD. It would have been a dicey deal had he still been a D.C. cop.

  Pawkins had asked his Canadian friend to dig into the background of Charise Lee. He’d learned over his years as a Homicide detective that it was usually the victim who gave up the most useful clues. Know the victim and you know why someone would want him—or in this case, her—killed.

  “Ms. Lee was an interesting young lady,” his friend reported on the phone. “Little girl, big talent—and a fiery disposition.”

  “Fiery? How so?”

  “Big on causes. Hung around with a group of like-minded wackos. Attended protests, carried signs, wants world hunger ended, protested your government’s invasion of Iraq. By the way, Ray, I agree with that.”

  “Go on.”

  “Had her share of boyfriends, none of whom she was likely to bring home to meet Daddy. Had a thing going with a piano player who, I’ve learned, went with her to Washington to study in this opera program you’ve got down there.”

  “Christopher Warren.”

  “Right. Anyway, after she played footsie with this Warren guy, she hooked up with an Iranian student at McGill U. He’s been linked to some organization that our government considers a possible terrorist sympathizer, fundraiser—feed the children but make sure there’s a little left over for belts that blow up. Of course, our government still hasn’t figured out what to do with mad cow disease, so its so-called war on terror is suspect.”

  Pawkins was silent.

  “Ray? You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’m trying to process all this. What the hell is a beautiful, young future opera star doing with that bunch of losers?”

  “Hey, I don’t analyze. I just report. Just the facts, ma’am, like your TV guy Webb used to say on Dragnet. I loved that show.”

  “So did I. What a
bout the agents I told you about, Melincamp and Baltsa?”

  “I’m working on that. I only have two hands, you know.”

  “Was Christopher Warren involved with these wackos, too?”

  “Evidently. By the way, you made this Charise Lee out to be a young kid. Young, hell. She was twenty-eight.”

  “That’s young from my vantage point,” Pawkins said.

  “I mean,” said his friend, “it’s a little old to still be marching for old left-wing causes.”

  “No it’s not,” Pawkins said. “Lots of domeheads and guys with artificial knees marching these days. Gives them something to do, I suppose, makes them forget they have one foot in the grave. Thanks, buddy. Get back to me when you check out the agents.”

  “They’re both coming!”

  “Who?”

  “The president and first lady.”

  “We already knew that.”

  “No, no, no, I don’t mean opening night for Tosca. They’re both coming to the ball.”

  Annabel was one of a dozen women that morning attending a meeting of the Opera Ball committee, at which the announcement was made by chairwoman Nicki Frolich.

  Frolich’s enthusiasm wasn’t shared by everyone else in the room. One spoilsport was the chair of the executive committee, Camile Worthington. “I’m not sure I’d be so excited about it,” she said. “Do you realize what it will mean having the president there? It was enough of a security nightmare with the first lady making an appearance. The president? It will be chaos, sheer chaos.”

  “We can handle it,” Frolich said.

  “We’d better handle it,” Laurie Webster, the opera company’s PR director, chimed in. “This is great. No president has ever attended the ball. We’ll get tremendous press out of it.”