“Pat said they hadn’t heard from him in several months. It is odd the letters he wrote to Dave are one of the few items Pat has identified as missing after the break-in. Maybe he was the intruder in Dave’s house that night and he searched the place to find those letters.”
“Or someone wants us to believe Dave’s life has been turned upside down by the guy who wrote them. Something about this just seems too theatrical to me. A wolfman who mixes in pieces of sheet music with Latin phrases on it and who signed his letters with a florid initial ‘M’ seems like a cheesy script for a bad ‘B’ movie. I’d give it a title like ‘M’ as in Murder not Mozart.”
“Here’s another odd incident involving the letter ‘M.’ Maggie had a compact with her today. Dave gave Margaret Landry that compact when he first fell in love with her. It’s exquisitely etched with an ornate letter ‘M.’ That’s ‘M’ as in Margaret, not Mozart or murder.”
“Oh, good grief, that has to be a coincidence, doesn’t it?”
“Curiouser and curiouser, huh?” I asked stealing a line from Lewis Carol.
“Yes, I’d say so. There are plenty of Alice in Wonderland moments in a murder investigation, but this one seems to have more than most. I can’t even blame it on the Marvelous Marley World connection since there’s not a cartoon character mixed up in this anywhere. Even Max has kept his nose out of it.” As Jack uttered those last words, I was overcome by a wave of superstition in a “speak of the devil” way.
“Let’s count our blessings. If my suspicions are correct, Max is busy pulling strings from behind the scenes. I’ll bet you Max not only knows about Maggie but helped her get a break with her career today.” I explained what I meant by sharing the news Maggie received during our lunch today.
“Good for him. He’s better off doing that than trying to huff and puff his way into the investigation of Dave’s murder.”
“Hey, he’s succeeded in doing that already which is why both of us are up to our necks in this mess. Let me tell you the rest of what went on at lunch. Meg Landry gave me a few more details about Dave’s past as Daniel Devereaux.” I gave Jack a quick overview of our discussion, surprised at how quick it went. Meg’s story had such an impact on me at the time, but little of substance had come from it.
“I can draw a couple of conclusions from Meg’s story. First, despite the fact Meg has this uneasy feeling she and Maggie triggered events that led to Dave’s death, she came up empty. No motive. No person from his past. Her only suggestion was to speak to his brother Bill.” I explained what she’d told me about his past and the circumstances in which “Brother Bill” lived as a retired man.
“Okay, so if Dave’s death has nothing to do with anyone or anything that happened in Louisiana, why is she concerned that showing up in his life led to his death?”
“That’s related, maybe, to the second conclusion I reached from our conversation. Meg is more concerned about Dave’s relationship with associates here in California than any from his past. She asked me, pointblank, who Maggie could trust and raised concerns about several people in Dave’s life. She didn’t come right out and say it, but maybe she feels the trouble she and Maggie caused has to do with one of them.”
“I’ve told you before, my love, until you have a solid lead on a suspect, everyone looks guilty. Tell me why Meg asked you that question.” I did that, detailing our conversation, and set off a bout of the heebie-jeebies when I repeated Dave’s lament that “people aren’t always as they seem.” Jack must have had a similar reaction.
“That does sound like Dave had stumbled into some trouble, doesn’t it? You know Georgie, in his own clumsy way, Nick was just trying to keep Nora from getting herself killed.” I heard a wistful tone in his voice as if he might be longing for the good old days when men like Nick Charles could lock up the woman he loved to keep her safe.
“I know that. I don’t want some treacherous, two-faced rat in Dave’s life to pen a requiescat in pace note for me. Come home soon.”
“I will.”
21 A Brother’s Tale
The next morning, I planned to call Bill using the phone number Pat had texted me. I was a little discouraged because along with Bill’s phone number her text contained an answer to my question about Adam Middlemarch.
No tattoo that I’ve seen
“Do you think she’s being dodgy again with her ‘that I’ve seen’ qualifier? Why can’t she ever just give us a simple yes or no?”
“Don’t worry. I plan to speak to Middlemarch again anyway. I’ll have him show me his arms just to be on the safe side in case she’s missed it.”
“How could she miss something like that? He’s a handyman, for goodness’ sake. Are you telling me she’s never seen his arms exposed while he was wearing a t-shirt or no shirt at all?”
“I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you that whoever Emily ran into wasn’t affiliated with Dave’s security service. The service did a patrol by car around the time Dave arrived home, but no foot patrols.”
“When did you have time to check with them?”
“There’s lots of standing around time at a crime scene, especially while waiting for the CSIs to do their thing. I not only called the security service, but the limo company too. The limo driver was at the house a few minutes after the security patrol. He verified Emily’s story that he dropped her off and then went back to pick her up less than fifteen minutes later.”
“She did make a quick exit, didn’t she? Did the limo driver see the security guard?”
“He saw someone, but only for a few seconds. A ‘shadowy hulk’ were his exact words. These limo drivers for the rich and famous talk like they’re writing themselves into a movie script. No details—he wasn’t even sure the figure was a man.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe, you’ll get something new from Emily that will help you figure out who she ran into. Or from questioning Adam if he was impersonating a security guard. Why he did that makes no sense, since he can come and go as he pleases in his handyman role.”
“He was better off dressed as a security guard when he bumped into Emily than trying to explain why a handyman was roaming around the grounds after midnight.”
“I’m sure you’re right. That took forethought, don’t you think? If he was in on the murder and mayhem Friday night, he planned to be there if he showed up in costume.”
“True. Let’s see what happens when I speak to him. Hank is trying to coordinate interviews with Emily and Adam. It’s a little trickier now that Emily’s lawyer’s involved. In the meantime, maybe the insurance adjuster will come through with the reports I’ve asked for or the CSIs will come up with something new from one of our crime scenes. We’ve got lots of irons in the fire, something’s bound to move this investigation forward soon. Exciting, huh?” I got a big grin from my hale and hearty detective. When he left minutes later, he was whistling! How he does it, I’ll never know, but it gave my spirits a boost. Or maybe it was the goodbye kiss that went with it.
As soon as I got to work, I called Bill Rollins and left a voice mail. I’d barely settled into my office when he returned my call.
“Way to go, Meg,” I said as I picked up my cell phone.
Brother Bill had a quiet, even tone in his voice. I introduced myself, explained I was Dave’s colleague, and helping to plan a company tribute to his brother. We chatted for a minute or two about his situation as a retired teacher who had become a member of the religious community on the grounds of the private school and served as a chaplain to local groups in the area. His voice bore more of a Southern Louisiana accent than Dave, Meg, or Maggie. Maybe he’d ditched some of those elocution lessons. I didn’t ask. I did ask, as gently as I could, if he’d heard about the circumstance surrounding his brother’s death.
“Yes. When Pat called to tell me he was dead, she also said the police were investigating his death. I understand he was murdered.”
“As impossible as that is to believe.”
“I don’t find
it impossible to believe at all. We’re both lucky we weren’t killed long ago. Take too many chances, and your luck runs out before you get as old as Dave and me. Dave figured that out before I did, but that doesn’t mean he’d wised up enough to stop taking risks altogether.”
“Are you talking about the trouble he had in Louisiana when he became involved with Margaret Landry?”
“Yes, that’s some of what I’m talking about,” Bill replied wearily. “Nothing I ever did was for love like Dave. That’s not to say he didn’t live on the wild side for other reasons. We took pleasure in tormenting our parents by preferring friends who weren’t from Louisiana’s grand old families. That wasn’t a sin. We met some good people. It was all the ratty stuff that went along with our unbridled rebellion. I thought Robert Landry’s choice to be an outlaw was more authentic than our family’s wretched heritage—which is old but not so grand as they’d have you believe. Eventually I saw firsthand where Landry’s path led. Lots of people got hurt, like Dave. Some were even killed, like Robert.”
“Hard lessons are often learned in a hard way,” I offered, responding to the misery in Bill’s voice.
“I’ve spent the past twenty years trying to make up for the hurt I caused. Dave’s life took a turn for the better when he discovered music, and then, love. Good choices, although he didn’t consider the consequences of ignoring the bond of matrimony. Especially when the bond Meg had made was to a man like Robert Landry. ‘The heart wants what it wants,’ to borrow an insight from Emily Dickinson.”
“He gave her up.”
“On some level he did—for her sake not his. There’s an ‘or else’ with that Dickinson quote about the heart: ‘or else it does not care.’ I don’t believe my brother ever cared about a woman in the same way again.”
“You’re not the first one to suggest that as a reason behind Dave’s desperate pursuit of women. Even after Meg came back into his life and he learned that they shared a granddaughter, he didn’t stop.”
“True. In some ways when they reentered his life, he became more keenly aware of all he’d missed by leaving Louisiana and Meg behind.”
“I don’t see what choice he had. Even now, decades later, Meg’s concerned she and Maggie may have had something to do with Dave’s death.”
“I don’t believe there’s anyone from Louisiana still out to get Dave or me. We both carried a load of guilt and plenty of damage from those old choices we made. In Dave’s case, because he was never able to commit to a woman doesn’t mean he didn’t care about them. Too much, perhaps.”
“Okay, can you explain what that means?”
“Dave called me a few weeks ago. ‘Why is no one ever as they seem?’ were the first words out of his mouth. He was obviously upset.”
“Why?” I asked, recalling that, according to Meg, Dave had spoken almost the exact words to Maggie after a meeting with Skip and Jennifer.
“Someone was stealing from him. At first, it was small stuff, like a couple of gold medallions his boss had given him for an anniversary or a special occasion.”
“I know them well. I sit on the Executive Committee at Marvelous Marley World that commissioned a whole series of them over the years in his honor. They’re lovely pieces that are worth more than the gold used to make them. Their value has to do with his notoriety, too.”
“Whatever their value in a monetary sense, he expressed more distress about their sentimental value.”
“I take it he didn’t report this to the police?”
“No. He just let it go. Lately, though, he’d discovered what he believed to be theft on a bigger scale. A valuable item—a piece of original sheet music attributed to Mozart—turned up missing from among items he thought had been sent to the Marvelous Marley World archives. Then, a few days before he was killed, he discovered that a set of small art pieces he intended to hang in the hall upstairs was missing.”
“No!” I gasped. A jumble of information Jack, and Carol, and I had discovered over the past few days tumbled through my mind. A sick, dizzy feeling crept over me.
“Did he tell you who was behind the thefts?”
“No. ‘Someone close,’ is all I could get him to tell me. He was more sad than angry, and unwilling to turn the matter over to the police even when he learned how big a loss he’s suffered. He had plans to install video surveillance in his home and hired someone to do a new inventory of the art and collectibles kept in his home. He also intended to pay to have the items he’d sent to the archive cataloged, so he’d have a better idea of what all was missing. I’m certain he hoped all the new scrutiny would discourage the person who was stealing from him.”
“He must have felt awful about having to resort to such efforts.”
“We’ve spent most of our old age feeling awful, usually about how many people we hurt. It’s also been discouraging to learn how many people there are in the world with no better values than the ones we possessed when we were younger. I wish I’d tried harder to get him to go to the police, maybe he’d still be alive.”
“I hope you’re not blaming yourself. Dave has never been shy in the past about using the legal system to seek justice. He was protecting someone. I doubt anything you could have said would have changed his mind. Besides, I have it on very good authority that the only one to blame for a crime is the person who commits it.”
“I’ll try to hang onto that idea when I watch them bury my brother. I’m flying out tomorrow for his funeral even though I dread having to face Dave’s ex-wife. Not very charitable of me, is it? I tried to talk some sense into Dave about her, but he believed in the old ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ I heard Robert Landry say that once, too, not long before friends who were also enemies killed him.”
“Do you think Dave was speaking about her when he said someone close?”
“It could be. To be perfectly honest with you, I couldn’t ever quite figure out if she was friend or foe. Meg said you’re putting a memorial together for my brother at Marvelous Marley World. I’d like to join you.”
“That would be wonderful! Would you be willing to deliver a invocation at the start of the event?”
“Sure. It’s the least I can do. My brother bailed me out, literally, when I got into legal trouble and paid to hire lawyers who put those troubles behind me. Then he set me up with a new life, that included changing my name to Rollins, like his, and getting an education. Despite his weaknesses, my brother was a talented man who yearned for decency.”
“I suppose that’s about the best any of us can do, isn’t it?” The moment I hung up the phone, I called Jack.
“Isn’t that interesting?” Jack commented once I’d shared Bill’s story. “I wonder who he was protecting? Here’s another bit of news for you. Would it surprise you to hear Pat went to dinner with the insurance adjuster?”
“No!”
“Yep. They’ve been friends for years, according to Roger Winters, and recently began seeing each other.”
“How did you get him to tell you that?”
“I called him to find out when we could get our hands on the reports he’s putting together. Then I asked how he ended up at Dave’s estate as quick as he did and on a Sunday. He told me he’d done it because Pat was so upset at dinner the night before. That’s when he spilled the beans about their budding romance.”
“Well, if Pat was stealing from Dave, having Roger Winters eating out of the palm of her hand was clever. She claimed sending in the packing and storage team was Jennifer’s idea. Did Pat make that up?”
“Oh, no, that was Jennifer’s doing. Remember the passing remark she made about the redesign of Dave’s beach cottage putting her in touch with her ‘artsy’ side?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“She was speaking the truth. Her major in college was art history. Before she trained as an accountant, she worked as an art appraiser.”
“Wow, I’m sure she must have been a real asset to Dave in his selection of art and collect
ibles.” There was a note of sarcasm in my voice, since I wasn’t sure how much help she might have been. Art appraisal is tricky and it’s not uncommon for buyers to pay more than they should if they’re fed misinformation about the provenance or market value of a piece.
“But wait! There’s more! One of her old colleagues from her ‘artsy’ days happens to be an appraiser with the packing and storage company she sent out there on Sunday. The owner tells me they’ve handled Dave’s artwork for years and the ‘usual appraiser’ would update the value of his holdings as part of an inventory Dave ordered recently. Did you know guys like Dave rotate art pieces throughout the year?” Jack asked.
“Sure, if the collection is too large for all of it to be displayed at once. That past association between Jennifer and her appraiser better be disclosed on whatever form the firm has employees fill out about potential conflicts of interest. If not, she could have some explaining to do.”
“I’m going to sound like a copycat, now, but if Jennifer was stealing from Dave, having the appraiser eating out of the palm of her hand was clever. Remember when I promised to have another Q & A session with her? It’s time! I’ll set up an appointment at her office tomorrow. Then I’m going to track down Pat Dolan and ask her why she didn’t say anything to us about the missing medallions even if they went missing before the break-in.”
“That Pat or Jennifer would do such a thing makes me sick. I even kind of wish they shared Marla’s self-serving psychopathic ability to see the virtue in not killing the golden goose.”
“Avarice often gets the best of people, especially if they feel aggrieved about what they regard as an old injustice like being dumped by the maestro. I wouldn’t rule Marla out yet.”
“If the thief got wind of Dave’s plans to make it more difficult to steal from him and feared he was going to call in the authorities, I suppose killing the goose that laid the golden egg was preferable to prison.”
22 Begging to be Caught
Murder of the Maestro Page 18
