Murder of the Maestro

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have an answer for you. I’ll ask, but let’s see what else I can dig up about her first. It’ll help to have more context or a bit of leverage to use when I ask why she was so interested in keeping an eye on us after we’d left her office.”

  “Since she’s going to so much trouble, let’s make it worth it for her to spy on us. What do ya’ say, Copper? You want to curl her hair for her?” When I’d reached out to tug on Jack’s tie and pull him closer, he was way ahead of me. Jack had crushed me to him and kissed me in a way that would have been a fitting end to any film noir romance scene. Even now, as I sat in my office, I reached up expecting to find a few new ringlets in my hair.

  My ruminations ended abruptly when I realized I needed to speak to Carol right away. In addition to asking her to locate the corporate video and photo coverage of Dave’s retirement gala, I had another task in mind. Carol’s skilled at prowling for Cat Factory “back alley” chatter, as she likes to call it. Her “go to” place for all the latest “mews and views,” including those not fit to print.

  Jennifer’s not a Cat Factory employee, but she’s well-known to company associates given her ties to the corporate bigwigs. I don’t use her firm’s services because my father was an accountant and I’d long ago chosen an accountant he’d recommended. Like the maestro, many others in middle and upper management at Marvelous Marley World do. I hoped Carol could follow up and find something enlightening about my hunch that Jennifer and Dave had a personal as well as a professional relationship at some point.

  Before I could act on my intention to speak to Carol, she dashed into my office. The petite, thirty-something woman stood in my doorway, almost vibrating with excitement.

  “Georgie, you’re going to want to hear this. I’ve got Teddy Austin on the phone and he’s a talker!” Carol motioned for me to follow, and then took off.

  “She can really move in those Princess Christiana high-tops!” I muttered as I followed her at what felt like a lumbering pace compared to the way she’d zipped down the hall to her office. Carol must own every pair of sneakers Marvelous Marley World has ever made. She often showed up in a pair even on formal occasions—the ones with sparkles and spangles.

  “I know Dave had trouble before he got to Chicago. His name wasn’t always Dave Rollins, either,” Teddy Austin said once I’d introduced myself and Carol had put him on the speaker phone.

  “What was his name before that?” Carol asked. I slipped her a note with the name, Daniel Devereaux, written on it.

  “Wow!” she mouthed the word, rather than interrupting Teddy.

  “I can’t be sure. When I asked him about it, he said, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Dave Rollins is my name now and I’ve got a court decree to prove it. From now on, I do everything by the book.’ The way he said it I believed him, and it didn’t much matter to me anyway. Dave was Dave.”

  “Did that ‘from now on’ part mean he’d had trouble with the law?” I asked. Surely, if he’d had legal problems, Skip would have discovered that, too.

  “Could be. Everybody makes mistakes, and whatever happened he seemed to have learned his lesson, so I never asked. It didn’t matter to me.”

  “Well it might matter now since your friend has been murdered,” Carol said with a bit of an edge in her voice.

  “I heard about it. When Marvelous Marley World’s maestro dies, it’s big news.”

  He was so right! Despite Max’s best efforts to keep the lid on the foul play angle, the word was out. In less than forty-eight hours, “Murder of the Maestro” was already “big news,” as Dave’s old bandmate had said. Retrospectives of his life and career had started to appear with lightning speed on entertainment television news shows.

  “That makes me the last living member of our old band. I guess that’s what I get for being the runt of the litter. You can probably see that if you have those old photos.” What he said was true. Even though Carol had called Dave a scrawny kid, Teddy Austin had been even skinnier.

  “We didn’t eat much back in those days unless we had a gig at a place that fed us. We made more by eatin’ than what they paid us in cash!” Teddy laughed recalling those days.

  He rattled on for a couple minutes reminiscing about the places they’d played, their music, and the jazz music scene in Chicago. I enjoyed hearing the stories, but nothing in them appeared to have any bearing on Dave’s old troubles or his recent demise.

  “I’m sorry Dave’s gone. He was a fine man—kind and funny. Generous to a fault. Over the years, he bailed out each one of us old band members at one time or another. What an awful way to go. I wish I could tell you something that would help you figure out who killed him.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Did Carol already ask you about being part of the memorial event we’re planning?”

  “Yes, she did. I’m going to come out there for it. Maybe I’ll look up a few people I used to see when I visited more often. If you want to know more about Dave’s family, you need to talk to his Aunt Meg. She was the only family member who kept in touch with him back then. When she was in town and we had a gig, she’d come to the club where we were playing. She was a fine-looking woman—black hair and startling gray-green eyes that changed color depending on what she wore. A magnetic personality to go with the gorgeous smile and beautiful face.” He paused. “Mm, mm, mm! She was a woman you could never forget. If you really want the scoop about Dave’s life before Chicago, ask Aunt Meg.”

  “I’d love to do that, but I heard she’s no longer alive.”

  “Who said? I got a birthday card from her a few weeks ago from out there where she stays in some place called Mission Viejo.” I almost fell off my chair when I heard what he had to say next.

  “I don’t know exactly where that is since I don’t travel much anymore myself and I haven’t been to California for years. Dave or that sweet, foxy assistant of his would have told me if Aunt Meg had died.”

  “You mean Pat?”

  “Yeah. I got a birthday card from her, too. It said it was from Dave, but I knew Pat really sent it.” Teddy laughed again. “She never let Dave forget his old friends. If something happened to Aunt Meg, I’d know about it.”

  I was speechless. Fortunately, Carol wasn’t. She thanked Teddy. Then she made sure he knew how to contact us about the memorial service or anything having to do with Dave’s life in Chicago or California, for that matter. I managed to say goodbye.

  After that I got through my meeting with Carol, but I had a hard time concentrating. Pat’s puzzling behavior kept intruding into my thoughts. I wasn’t the only one who’d figured something odd was going on with Pat. When our meeting ended, Carol asked me a question I could not answer.

  “I know Teddy meant it in a different way, but why is Pat being foxy with us about Dave’s family and friends?”

  13 Catty Critics

  All the way home I stewed about Pat. I reran our lunch conversation hoping I could come up with an answer to Carol’s question. I’d broached the subject of Dave’s past, starting with his Chicago days. Things had gotten off to a good start.

  “Wow! The Windy City Jazz Quartet,” Pat had said in a soft voice as she sat across from me. “When I first met Dave, he and the members of that group were in frequent contact. Once they all visited for a reunion. They piled into that tiny beach cottage he rented, and I don’t think they stopped talking or joking except to play music.”

  “It sounds as if they were all on good terms.”

  “Oh, yes, as far as I could tell. Dave hadn’t made it big yet, but his career was in lift off. Dave was almost finished with his degree, had made the switch to violin as his instrument of choice. He’d signed on as an intern at Marvelous Marley World, and held court with his old bandmates about the work he was doing with composition, orchestration, and arranging.”

  “Had he left jazz behind?”

  “Not completely, although that’s when I first heard someone call him Mae
stro. They used it as a nickname in place of his old one—the Jazz Man. He still had a bass—an electric bass guitar rather than the huge acoustic stand-up bass he’s playing on the cover of the albums the band recorded in Chicago.”

  “They made records, as in vinyl?”

  “Yes. Several albums. They never sold many copies. Dave has a couple of them at the Malibu house and donated others to the Marvelous Marley World archive. It’s too bad, though, that once he had enough money to build his big house in Malibu with lots of guestrooms and a high-end home studio, the band never visited again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dave had settled down. I don’t know for sure since Dave and I parted ways for a time. When I started my job as his PA, it was clear to me that Marla would have had a fit if he’d wanted to have a bunch of his old bandmates turn their house into a hotel. The guys in the band had families and careers, too. Barry Midland died the year he turned fifty. That was shortly after I began working for Dave. Dave was so devastated he couldn’t even attend the funeral, although he paid for it.”

  “How did the surviving bandmates take that?”

  “I’m not sure, but he remained on speaking terms with the other two men. Teddy Austin came here for a visit not too long ago, but Handley Jones died several years ago.”

  “Do you still know how to reach him?” I had asked. That was the first point at which Pat had turned “foxy” on me, to use Carol’s word for it.

  “I’m sure I have contact information for him somewhere. I’ll look for it.”

  “If it’s easy to find, text it to me, okay? If not, Carol’s working on it. I doubt she’ll have much trouble tracking him down.”

  “Sure. He ought to be invited to the memorial event.”

  “Did Teddy Austin ever say anything about how Dave ended up in Chicago or where he came from?”

  “You mean along the lines of Marla’s insistence that Dave had a lurid past with women that nearly got him killed?”

  “Yes, you sounded as though you believed her when you brought it up on Saturday.” Pat hadn’t responded right away.

  “With Marla, you just never know, do you?”

  “She told us she had it on good authority from a relative that Dave was in enough trouble that his family disowned him. Dave’s lawyer made it sound worse than that. He says Dave picked the wrong married woman and ended up in the hospital before he took off for Chicago.”

  “That could be true, but I don’t like the idea of airing Dave’s dirty laundry. I’m more inclined to believe if Dave’s murder has something to do with a woman, it’s about the present, not the past. If anyone’s vengeful enough to want to punish Dave for his old sins, it’s Marla.”

  “Marla claims you’re the most likely person to know about Dave’s past sins. Or at least, about any ties he still has to a couple of old family members, his Aunt Meg and a brother named Bill.” Pat hadn’t made eye contact as she spoke. After speaking to Teddy Austin, I now realized that Pat had come as close to deception as someone could without lying!

  “That’s possible. When I look for Teddy Austin’s number, I’ll check.” Then she’d changed the subject and we’d moved onto plans for the memorial event. Why had I just let it drop like that? Pat had sounded so matter of fact, not like she was hiding a thing!

  “Georgina Shaw, you are going to get to the bottom of this today!” I vowed as I walked into the kitchen. Marched into the kitchen was more like it, and right into a cat ambush. Despite the fact there are only two of them, it felt as if there were cats everywhere! Miles bellowed with Ella echoing her more muted and melodious call. Jumping up onto the side table by the door leading from the garage, they demanded that I pet them. I did as they commanded.

  Then they were off to the races, doing this wild rampage through the kitchen, into the great room, up over the back of the couch, under the coffee table, and back into the kitchen.

  Normally, their zaniness would have made me laugh out loud. Today it was over the top and made me realize how tired I was after a long day of poking my nose into someone else’s life. I felt a little down, too, about the loss of a colleague in a stupid, senseless fashion. Not to mention my inability to get to the bottom of Pat Dolan’s dodgy behavior.

  “Cool it, will you guys? Let me get a cup of tea before you wreak your havoc, okay?” Miles bellowed in reply. Whether in sympathy or reproach, I couldn’t tell, but he wasn’t holding a grudge. Cats can do that, as I’ve learned. Not today. Ella brushed against my legs, chattering sweetly.

  Whatever else he’d tried to tell me with that booming communique, curiosity overtook Miles as I set down the items I’d carried in from my car. Miles levitated up onto the side table and sniffed a manila folder full of printed pages Carol had given me. I’d just slipped out of my jacket when Miles’ curious sniffing turned into an effort to mark the folder. Despite my appeal for him to cool it, he tilted his head back and issued a Miles Davis like trumpet blast that I bet Teddy Austin would have appreciated.

  “Good grief, Miles, Carol’s given me stuff to bring home before. What’s the problem?” He went at it again—a little more vigorously, and this time knocked the folder onto the floor. In among the printed pages scattered everywhere were photos taken of Dave as he exited the gala. Ella gurgled with delight as she pawed at them. Maybe it was the shiny surface of the glossy photos in the mix that attracted her. She has a passion for anything that glitters, gleams, or sparkles.

  “I got the glossies from PR,” Carol had explained as she’d shoved the photos into the folder. “They planned to have Dave sign some of them for fans as his last official publicity photos. I doubt they meant that quite so literally, did they?” Carol had asked as she handed me that file folder.

  “I’m sure they didn’t,” I’d replied and sighed then as I did now seeing Dave’s smiling face in those photos.

  “What part of cool it did you not understand?” I asked as I tossed my jacket over the back of a barstool freeing both hands to retrieve the photos. Miles and Ella inspected each one in that tenuous way cats do when they’re spooked because new items have appeared in their territory or old ones are out of place. I smiled since they appeared to be viewing the photos as I’m sure the folks in PR had done before settling on the ones to be used as publicity shots.

  “Everybody’s a critic,” I said as Ella pawed at one of the glossy pics. Then she grabbed the photo and rolled over onto her back with it. Grasping it in her front paws, she kicked at it with her back ones.

  “Give me that, Ella!” She mewed at me in a tone I recognized as unhappy griping. “I’m sorry, but who knows what chemicals could have been used to process that photo? That’s not something cats should eat. Treats!” I hollered as I stood and shuffled the stack of photos back into a neat pile.

  When I placed the folder on the large granite island in the kitchen, I unwrinkled the one Ella had singled out for special attention. A little tingle ran through me. In it, a stylishly-dressed, attractive young woman stood next to Dave. Her eyes weren’t fixed on Dave, though, nor were they looking directly into to the camera. Instead, she gazed at an older woman in the semicircle of smiling people in the photo. I recognized Connie Forsythe immediately. She’d played the starring role in one of Marvelous Marley World’s longest running series, Family Manners. Connie Forsythe’s notoriety hadn’t caused the tingling sensation I’d felt. It was the fact that she was wearing one of those diamond brooches Pat had told us about.

  “Hmm,” I said aloud as I studied that picture trying to make sense of the story it told. “Connie Forsythe’s obviously an old flame of Dave’s. Why is that young woman so interested in the pin?” I stole a sideways glance at Ella who stood on the barstool beside me with her front paws on the kitchen island peering at that photo once again. Surely that pin wasn’t the reason she was displaying such an interest in the photo.

  No way, I thought as I leaned in to look more closely at the image. Ella loves shiny objects, but she couldn’t have spotted that pin give
n how small it was. It had to be the glossy, shiny surface of the photo that had attracted her to it. Now, though, not one, but two nosy cats had taken up positions on either side of me. Drawn by my fixed gaze, I suppose, they were taking no chance on missing something. I used a finger to trace the path of the young woman’s gaze and it sure seemed like she was fixated on that brooch. The cats’ eyes followed the movement of my finger. When I stepped back abruptly, they did too. They didn’t abandon their perches on the barstools, but their tails were bushed and switched back and forth.

  “Sorry to spook you,” I muttered. I’d reacted quickly when it suddenly dawned on me that Pat was in that semicircle, too. Standing there with a pleasant smile on her face. Perhaps she’d observed some interaction between the younger woman and Connie Forsythe as they mingled in that small clutch of partygoers.

  “She might at least be able to identify the younger woman. Maybe I can get to the bottom of her evasiveness about Aunt Meg and Bill, while I’m at it,” I said grabbing my phone from my bag. I took it with me as I dashed around to the other side of the enormous kitchen island. In a hurry to keep my promise to the cats that treats were coming, I pulled sliced turkey from the fridge, broke it into a few pieces, and dropped it into the kitties’ snack bowls. I swear those two Siamese did a double take—looked at me and then at each other before diving off the barstools. Sliced turkey isn’t just a treat—it’s a super treat.

  “Pat, it’s Georgie.”

  “Please don’t tell me Max has changed his mind about the venue. I just placed an order to print several thousands of invitations to the memorial service.”

  “No, it’s not that. I have a couple of questions for you about things that came up when Jack and I spoke to Skip and Jennifer. Before that, though, I hope you can help me identify someone from a photo taken at Dave’s retirement party. She’s a petite blonde with shoulder length hair, blue eyes, and she’s wearing a clingy little lacy number that says Oscar de la Renta to me. I’m asking you about her because you’re in the photo, too. She’s standing between Dave and Connie Forsythe.”