Murder of the Maestro

by Anna Celeste Burke

  I couldn’t help thinking that went for Dave, too. Some men might have learned to be more judicious in matters of the heart after being disinherited and driven from home by scandal and a beating. Not Dave Rollins.

  “Who took care of their daughter, Maggie?” I asked.

  “Her grandmother, for whom she was named. Margaret Landry passed away recently which may explain why Maggie looked up her granddad after all these years. Her biological grandfather, I guess I should say, since she grew up believing Robert Landry was her grandfather. Dave and Maggie didn’t say how she found out about Dave, but Margaret Landry wouldn’t have been the first person to reveal a family secret on her deathbed.” Skip shrugged.

  “What about Robert Landry?” Jack asked. His mind must have ventured down the same path as mine. If Dave’s granddaughter had tracked him down, why not someone with an old grudge to avenge?

  “He was killed years ago. In true mob boss fashion, Robert Landry was gunned down in a warehouse near the docks in Gulfport. Maggie was still just a toddler when that happened so I’m not sure how much she remembers about him or his death. Given the circumstances surrounding the way in which he died, it was big news at the time,” he added.

  “Did Dave ever say any of that old news had intruded into his life before his granddaughter showed up?” Jack asked.

  “No, but I was his accountant and friend for more than twenty years. He revealed little to me about his past life until Maggie’s arrival on the scene recently. I’m not sure if that’s because he was trying to spare Marla and the kids embarrassment about his past, or if he was still concerned about revenge.”

  “It’s hard to believe anyone else cared enough to kill him decades later if Robert Landry’s dead.” I wondered aloud.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Skip interjected. “When Dave grabbed the spotlight as the maestro, he was a much older man than he’d been when he left town as Daniel Devereaux. Maybe no one noticed or made the connection. Robert Landry’s buddies in the Dixie Mafia, or whatever moblike group they were affiliated with, were all on the same flameout career path to an early death. Besides, Dave wasn’t the kind of guy who would stand by and allow himself to be threatened by someone wanting to settle an old score or a new one. A rich, high profile figure like Dave Rollins was often targeted by one louse or another, and he was quick to act when that happened.”

  “Targeted how?” Jack asked, now on alert.

  “By people charging him with copyright infringement or otherwise stealing intellectual property. That included some who claimed he stole music or lyrics from them. Breach of contract claims, too, from younger people in the entertainment industry who said he promised to make them a star or otherwise advance their careers and failed to do so. Mostly jilted girlfriends, but others he’d mentored or worked with—male and female. None of his disgruntled or disappointed complainants ever delivered heavy-handed threats like having his knees broken or anything so unsightly as the beating he took in his youth. No threats that I know of to extort money or blackmail him, probably because it wouldn’t have worked given how much scandal Dave created for himself over the years. I’m referring to what I’d call ridiculous claims and ‘frivolous lawsuits.’ Dave often settled out of court to end the dispute, a commonplace practice among the rich and famous.”

  “How about threats from overzealous fans or stalkers?”

  “Yeah, those too. By mail or email, as far as I know. He never complained to us about anyone confronting him in a hostile way in a public setting or sneaking into his house or onto the grounds of his estate. An incident like that would have been primetime gold for the entertainment news if it had happened. Once he married Marla and they knew they were going to have a baby, Dave had the grounds of his estate enclosed and gated. Pat tried to get him to add video surveillance, but I don’t believe he ever followed through.” Skip stopped speaking and searched Jack’s face as if waiting for my husband to confirm or disconfirm the existence of video footage. “If you had video of someone entering his house that night you’d have a suspect in custody by now, wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s never quite that easy,” Jack responded in a noncommittal way that left the matter open. Having been on the scene, I knew better. One of the responding officers told Jack and Sgt. Bardot there were no cameras.

  “All you have to do is follow the money and you’ll see how much Dave spent over the years defending his rights to the music he wrote or fending off claims that he stole a melody or lyrics from someone. I often thought the deals he cut were unnecessary and partly to assuage his guilt about not being a nice guy in certain areas of his life. He could be woefully insensitive toward the women in his life when his infatuation with them ended. The media badgered him constantly about his womanizing.” Jennifer scowled as though there was a bad taste in her mouth. “Not always undeserved, I should add.”

  Her expression and the way she spoke made me wonder how close a friend Jennifer had been to Dave. Maybe it was the depth of conviction in her voice when she uttered those words about Dave’s insensitivity toward women. Had she learned that through personal experience rather than simply observing him as his accountant?

  “I doubt the claims that he stole other musicians’ work would have held up even if they’d gone to court. The settlement agreements brought issues to a close more quickly. They included nondisclosure clauses, too, so whoever was making accusations had to shut up about it. There won’t be much in the public record about them. Dave didn’t take legal action against all the kooky claims. The media might have been unable to resist the idea that to some poor self-proclaimed Mozart, Dave was Salieri. The guy harassed him from time to time,” Skip added.

  “Are you talking about the sort of rivalry portrayed in the movie, Amadeus?” I asked.

  “Yes. Pat and Dave seemed more amused than disturbed about the situation. Apparently, the letters looked as if they were written in ink with an old-fashioned quill pen. I never saw them, but from Pat’s description it sounded like calligraphy rather than typical handwriting with lots of flourishes. The rambling notes were always signed with an elaborate letter M.”

  “Does that mean there were no threats in them?”

  “None that I ever heard about. If anything, the writer was the one who felt threatened. There were warnings that the would-be Mozart was wise to Salieri’s poisonous intentions or some nonsense like that. If this matters to you, you’ll have to ask Pat—keeper of the Mozart letters.” Skip shrugged.

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned it,” I muttered wondering once again about Pat’s reluctance to share details about Dave’s life.

  “Pat’s not always as forthcoming as she appears to be. At least not when it comes to her role as Dave’s Personal Assistant,” Jennifer replied.

  “What do you mean by that?” Jack asked.

  “Let’s just say that Pat can go overboard in her efforts to protect the maestro.” Skip jumped in almost cutting Jennifer off.

  “Jennifer and I disagree about this, but she believes Pat sometimes discouraged Dave from bringing matters to us or taking legal action when he should have done it. I doubt Dave ever let a woman tell him what to do. Like I said, Pat and Dave found their Mozart wannabe more laughable than threatening,” Skip added.

  “Are you saying no one was ever angry enough to refuse to settle or threatened to take matters into their own hands because of a professional rivalry, real or imagined?” Jack asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Skip replied.

  “Maggie Knight’s arrival is proof that Dave hasn’t been open about everything that’s gone on in his life, isn’t it?” Jennifer asked, tapping her pen on the yellow pad in front of her. Her agitation had me wondering if she was being less than candid with us.

  “Jennifer’s too polite to tell you how to do your business, Detective, but you could ask the same question about his relationships with women. He sometimes settled those disputes with money, too. Does that mean there aren’t women out there who
are happy to see him dead? I’m sure there must be. Who? I can’t tell you that.”

  “The entertainment media might be more help to you on that front. They’ve kept track of every relationship that went sour in a public way.”

  “Thanks, Jennifer,” Jack said. “We have someone who’s been looking into the media stories about Dave.” He meant Carol, of course, since I’d already mentioned the results of her research into Dave’s social media presence involving his troubles with women.

  “Have there been any new or recent allegations against him or any changes in the money the maestro paid out in relation to his old settlements—to disgruntled women, mentees, songwriters—anyone?”

  “Nope! Nothing he discussed with me,” Jennifer responded quickly. “If it was a small matter, he could have taken care of it from the household fund Pat manages for him. I’m not privy to his use of those funds, nor would I have become involved unless he needed a substantial amount of money, like he needed to purchase and renovate an old beach cottage last year. If the terms of an old agreement changed, the lawyers would have become involved too, right, Skip?”

  Hmm, a household fund. That’s interesting, I thought. Over lunch, Pat and I had discussed several tasks on her to do list that involved keeping Dave’s house up and running until his estate could be settled. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask how she could do that without access to funds. She’d made such a point about the fact that Jennifer handled the money, I assumed the accountant paid the bills.

  “That’s true about any formal agreements Dave had made. I can check just to be sure I haven’t missed an update of an old settlement. Jennifer’s making another important point, though. We tried to help Dave understand it was best to take all the complaints he received through our formal process rather than deal with them on his own. I’m afraid his artistic, impresario temperament worked against him. That not only got him into jams, but I suspect sometimes kept him from cleaning up matters in a transparent way. Good luck figuring all this out!”

  “When did you last speak to Maggie Knight? Does she know Dave is dead and does she know his death is being investigated as a murder?” I asked.

  “Only if she’s picked up something via the media. We haven’t spoken to her since she first came in here with Dave a few months ago,” Jennifer replied. “I’ve provided two addresses for her, as you can see. One in Louisiana, but another in Ventura Beach. Skip and I didn’t want to cross wires with the police investigation or the effort you and Pat are making, Georgie, to reach out to friends and family. In case you’re wondering if she might have shoved him off a cliff to speed up her inheritance, she didn’t need to do that since Dave had already set up a trust fund for her. That’s how she can afford her beachside condo. She stands to inherit more, but she’s set as it is.”

  I caught a sideways glance from Jack and could almost read his thoughts. “Set” is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? He had a point. For some people, waiting to inherit more might not cut it. Was it purely a coincidence that Maggie Knight showed up, and not long after Dave changed his will to make her a beneficiary, someone kills him?

  12 Dave was Dave

  When I returned to my office, Carol was at her desk speaking to someone on the phone. I waved as I walked by where she sat in an office adjacent to mine. As luck would have it, one of Dave Rollins’ sweeter tunes was playing in the background. Nostalgia washed over me as I settled in at my desk as the last bars of that song ended. Anger, too.

  After we’d left our meeting with Jennifer and Skip, Jack shared a bit of shocking news as we returned to our cars. He’d received a copy of the statement issued by the coroner. The preliminary examination indicated Dave died between midnight and two a.m. Saturday morning. Someone had hit him on the back of the head. A forceful blow that might have killed him even if it hadn’t propelled him off the cliff and onto the rocks below.

  “How horrible!” In my mind, I’d run through the names on that list Jennifer and Skip had prepared for us. I didn’t know everyone on it, but it was impossible to imagine any of the people I did know doing such a thing. I couldn’t picture Jennifer bashing Dave over the head in a fit of rage even if their relationship hadn’t always been a strictly professional one. I even had a hard time figuring Marla had done it now that we’d learned about her role as a board member at Music Man Enterprises and the provisions Dave had made for her in his will. They must have been closer than I realized, despite Marla’s nastiness about having to pick up her check from him each month.

  “The coroner believes that fall finished him off given the way he landed.”

  “You can skip the gory details, Detective.” As I’d said that, I took his arm wondering how a man as wonderful as Jack could deal with such horrors on a regular basis. Violence of one kind or another, however, is a routine matter for the team he heads. Not murders, per se, since they don’t happen that often in the OC where he works. Trust me, and my affiliation with Marvelous Marley World, to drag him into another one from another county altogether!

  “I’m happy to let the forensics specialists deal with those details, too. What matters to me is that they’ve established he didn’t just fall or jump.”

  “What about a murder weapon? Does the coroner have any idea what was used to strike that blow?”

  “My guess is it was a piece of wood lying around up there. They found wood fragments in the wound.”

  “Oh, yuck. Sorry I asked.” Jack had reached out and put an arm around me.

  “Good luck finding it. The beach below is littered with driftwood that’s washed ashore as well as branches deposited on the beach when rain washes them down onto the sand from the hillside. A quick toss off the cliff and it’s well-hidden even if it’s lying right out in the open!” Jack had demonstrated what he meant by gesturing as if he were flinging an object.

  “The choice of weapon makes it seem more like a make-do kind of murder by an amateur, don’t you think?”

  “Not the work of a hitman paid for by the Dixie Mob, you mean?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s what I mean.”

  “I agree. A professional would have come better prepared and would have worked harder to make it look like an accident. Point a gun at Dave, get him to back up close enough to the cliff, and he falls or goes over the edge with a helpful shove. There’s no need to bash him over the head.” Jack had acted it out for me.

  “Yeah, I get it. Maybe you were right that Dave’s dream date turned into a nightmare. If he misjudged the woman with him, made his move, and she wasn’t interested in romance, maybe she picked up a big stick to fend him off.”

  “A slap in the face for getting fresh probably would have brought the maestro to his senses given Pat’s characterization of him as a cad rather than a predator.”

  “It was late and dark. She could have been scared. I guess if she started whacking him in a confrontation like that, he’d have injuries on his face or the front of his body, not the back of his head.” It had been my turn to act out what I was saying, flailing my arms as though warding Jack off with a stick!

  “You do have a point, wild woman!” Stepping closer, he’d wrapped his arms around me. “It’s also possible someone was waiting for him or followed him on his moonlit walk and assaulted him. I wish we knew what happened to his romantic partner.”

  “You’re not suggesting she was a murder victim, too, are you?” Jack let me go and shoved his hands into his pockets. That was a gesture I’d come to recognize as one he makes when he’s feeling frustrated. Almost as if his hands were tied rather than shoved purposely into his jacket pockets.

  “Let’s hope not. It’s more likely his date took off.”

  “Before Dave was attacked or after?”

  “That’s the first question we need to ask her if we can track her down, presuming she’s still alive.”

  “It’s odd she hasn’t come forward now that the media frenzy has begun. She could be hiding out if she witnessed such a brutal assault.”

&
nbsp; “Hiding out won’t necessarily keep her safe. Even if she got away unseen by the killer, the media is bound to figure out Dave had company at his home that night. I hope we find her before the reporters do and reveal her identity.”

  “Have you questioned the valets that were on duty that night? As I recall, there were people helping to manage the crowd as we all streamed out of there. Didn’t any of them have anything to say about who was with Dave when he left?”

  “We’re working on it—give us a little time, will you?”

  “Well, if you ask me, there are lots of people who should be coming forward who aren’t doing it. The same people you’re worried about who are likely to squawk to reporters ought to be offering to help the police.”

  “Let’s hope people are just in shock. The media hasn’t said a word yet about the fact that he wasn’t alone Friday night. Maybe no one considered it important since wherever Dave went there was a woman or women with him. There had to be plenty of media coverage of the maestro’s ‘getaway’ that night.”

  “That’s a great idea, Jack! Marvelous Marley World had a videographer and photojournalist there, too, I’m sure. I’ll get Carol to find out more for us.”

  “Maybe the paparazzi or local television news reporters caught something helpful on film and they’re stalking Dave’s woman friend as we speak.” Jack’s mention of stalking had suddenly given me the willies, and I began to turn around to look behind me.

  “Stay put, Georgie,” Jack said. “We’re not in any danger, but we are being watched.”

  “Who? Where?”

  “Jennifer’s been keeping an eye on us. She’s also been on the phone since she stepped over to her office window to observe our fascinating journey to the parking lot.”