Murder at the Opera (11 page)

“Of course. All I can say is that I hope you find who killed Charise, and do it fast. Having some nut wandering around the Kennedy Center killing young women is setting everyone on edge.”

“We’ll do our best. Now, I’d like to see the facility.”

“I’ll be happy to show you anything you’d like, Detective.”

After an impromptu half-hour tour, which included the costume rooms, they ended up in one of the rehearsal spaces, where a young woman practiced an aria, accompanied by a pianist.

“That’s Christopher Warren,” McCarthy told Johnson, referring to the pianist.

“Ms. Lee’s roommate.”

“Yes.”

Obviously Willie wasn’t questioning him. Next thought: What was he doing here playing the piano so soon after his roommate had been murdered?

“I’d like to speak with him,” she told McCarthy.

“I’ll go tell him.”

“No,” Johnson said, “I’ll wait until they’re finished. I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

She and McCarthy took seats across the large space from the performers.

“It’s beautiful,” Johnson said. “I don’t know that song.”

“It’s an aria from Donizetti’s
Lucia. ‘Regnava nel silenzio,’
I believe.”

Like most Americans, Johnson’s exposure to opera was nonexistent, aside from those occasional snippets that managed to slip into the public vocabulary. She closed her eyes and allowed the sheer power and beauty of the singer’s voice to penetrate her senses. She loved music, and had enjoyed the usual teenager’s dream of becoming a rock star. But she didn’t like rock ’n’ roll, nor did hip-hop or rap appeal. Her tastes tended to female jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson and Billie Holiday. But while listening to the opera singer she recognized that this was, indeed, something special. How could anyone, male or female, produce such sounds? Singers like this must be aberrations, physical freaks, their superior vocal apparatus a gift from above. From God? Her mother would claim that, although Matilda Johnson’s daughter wasn’t sure, and probably never would be. It was hard to believe in a God while working Washington, D.C.’s mean streets, on which lives were taken for a pair of sneakers, or over petty jealousies.

Her mind drifted to the reason she was there, the murder. Had Charise Lee sounded like the woman performing at that moment? Would she have become a world-famous diva? Was she better than this young woman in the rehearsal hall, and if so, who would make that judgment? How long could such magnificent voices hold up? The singer sang in Italian. Were all operas written in foreign languages? If so, how could the singers learn all those languages?

She opened her eyes and observed the singer. She was tall and heavy, which fit the stereotypical belief about female opera singers. But Charise Lee had been described in the report as small, perhaps even petite. Asian-Canadian. In Washington to further her career, ending up stabbed to death. God must have had a bad hair day.

Christopher Warren and the singer finished the piece and conferred about the sheet music.

“You said it was an aria?” Johnson asked. “That’s a solo, right?”

“Right, but it’s more than that. Arias give the singers an opportunity to express their inner feelings and emotions musically, like a spoken soliloquy in a play.” She smiled. “A large percentage of opera audiences come just to hear the arias.”

“I see,” Johnson said, wondering whether what she’d just been thinking would qualify as an aria.

McCarthy led Johnson to the piano, where the two musicians were preparing to leave, and introduced the detective.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Johnson told them.

The singer’s eyes misted and her fist went to her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said, and ran from the room.

“I’d better go after her,” Warren said.

“I will,” McCarthy said. “Detective Johnson wants to ask you a few questions.”

Johnson and Warren faced each other. She pegged him at six feet tall, five inches taller than her. He appeared to be in good physical shape beneath his jeans and powder-blue T-shirt with a silk screen of Mozart on the chest. He was good-looking in a conventional sense, facial features where they were supposed to be and of the proper size. More interesting to her were his eyes, as cold as a gray winter’s day, and his hands, large and strong, with long fingers. A pianist’s hands, she decided.

“I have nothing to say,” he said flatly.

“You don’t have a choice,” she said, her tone matching his.

“What kind of a person are you?” he asked. “My best friend has been murdered, and you want me to talk about it? Give me a break.”

“Your ‘best friend’ didn’t catch a break, Mr. Warren. I’d think you’d want to do everything you can to find her killer.”

“That’s your job,” he said. “Sorry, but I have nothing to say.” With that, he angrily grabbed the sheet music from the piano’s music desk and started to walk away.

“Mr. Warren,” Johnson called after him.

He stopped and turned. “Just leave me alone,” he said.

She pointed an index finger at him. “I can detain you as a material witness,” she said. “Maybe you’d prefer that.”

“I told you, I don’t know anything about what happened to Charise.”

“Fine,” she said. “Then you shouldn’t mind answering a few questions.”

“I’m going to call my embassy. I’m Canadian. I’m not an American citizen. I have rights.”

Johnson closed the gap between them. “I’m losing patience,” she said. “Either we sit down and have a nice, friendly chat, or we can have a less friendly talk at police headquarters. Your choice. And don’t pull your ‘I’m not an American citizen’ BS with me. When it comes to a murder, all bets are off. Get it, Mr. Warren? You may be Canadian, but we do speak the same language.”

His face scrunched up as though trying to locate a file or program in his brain that would provide him with an answer. She noticed that his hand not holding the music was curled into a tight fist.

“Time’s up,” she said.

“All right,” he said glumly.

And so they talked.

TWELVE

T
he two o’clock meeting at the Washington National Opera’s administrative offices ended at three, and Mac and Annabel Smith and Ray Pawkins spent a few minutes outside the building.

“I’m glad they gave you what you wanted, Ray,” Mac said. “Unlimited access to anyone and everything.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pawkins said. “The minute someone throws up a roadblock, you know you’re in trouble.”

“Where will you start?” Annabel asked.

“The Kennedy Center,” Pawkins replied. “I have some friends there who might help shed some light. I’ll also make contact with Ms. Lee’s family and friends. By the way, you were interested in what had been stuffed into her wound that kept her from bleeding too much. I said it was a sponge. Turns out to have been a theatrical sponge.” He reached into a briefcase and withdrew the one he’d purchased that morning.

“That’s it?” Annabel asked, incredulous.

“Similar,” Pawkins said, laughing gently. “I’m confident this is very much like the sponge that was actually used. I’ll know more after I’ve seen the bloody one. I’d better get going. See you tonight at rehearsal, Mac.”

“There’s a rehearsal tonight?”

“Afraid so,” Annabel said lightly.

“I thought you might drop out now that you’re investigating the murder,” Mac said to Pawkins.

“To the contrary. I can’t think of a better situation than to be a super at this time. Amazing what you can pick up in a dressing room. You two take care.”

The Smiths watched the tall, lanky detective saunter away, very much like a tourist out for a stroll through an Italian piazza.

“Interesting guy, huh?” Mac said as he and his wife headed for their car.

“Yes, interesting—and strange.”

Mac stopped. “How do you mean ‘strange’?”

“I don’t really know,” Annabel said. “There’s something about him that’s—well, that’s off-kilter, if you know what I mean.”

Mac smiled, and they continued walking. “Have you ever known a Homicide detective who wasn’t off-kilter?” he said. “You have to be a little crazy to work Homicide. Either that, or it
makes
you crazy.”

“Not having known many Homicide detectives, I’ll take your word for it.”

They got into their car and headed without delay for their Watergate apartment. Rufus would be waiting to be walked.

“What
I
find interesting about him, Mac, is the dichotomy between having spent a career investigating grisly homicides, and loving opera and art. He said he’s handled some private cases where rare musical manuscripts have been stolen, and works of visual art, too. There are two very different sides to your Mr. Raymond Pawkins.”

“There are two sides to everyone, Annie.”

“Including you?”

“Sure.”

“What’s your other side, Mac? I only know one, the one I love. Will I love your other side when it emerges?”

“Surely not. That’s why I keep it securely under wraps. If it ever broke loose—well, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Show it to me.”

“Is that an advance, lady?”

“Take it as you will, sir.”

“I intend to.”

Detectives Johnson and Portelain had their own two o’clock meeting, with their boss, Carl Berry.

“Okay,” Berry said, “run it past me. Willie, what did you get from the roommate?”

“Nothing.
Nada.
He wasn’t there. He was—”

“He was accompanying a singer at Takoma Park,” Johnson said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Portelain said.

“I interviewed him,” Johnson said.

“He’s playing the piano right after his roommate dies?” Berry said.

“That’s what I thought,” Portelain said.

“So did I,” Johnson concurred. “Strange guy, Carl. Cold as ice, somber, never saw him break a smile the whole time I was with him. Told me to call his embassy, claims he has rights because he’s Canadian.”

“Cold? Like in cold-blooded killer?”

“Maybe.”

“Alibi?”

“Nothing ironclad. He claims he was out partying the night before last. Hadn’t seen the deceased all day. Claims he was worried about her, but also said she often disappeared for a day or two.”

“‘Disappeared’?” Portelain said. “What did he mean by that?”

“I think he meant she sort of went underground now and then, maybe needing time alone. At least that’s what I took from it.”

“Other people with him when he was partying? Where was the party? Has he got any receipts? From the way you describe him, he’s not the partying type.”

“He said he had too much to drink and can’t remember who he was with or where they went,” Johnson reported.

“The more you talk,” Berry said, “the less he talks, the more I’m interested in your piano player.”

“Might be he decides to go home to Canada,” Portelain said. “I’d haul him in and yank his passport till he checks out.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” Berry said. “What else did he tell you, Sylvia?”

“That he hadn’t seen her for more than a day, that she never came home the night before last. By the way, he was at the Kennedy Center last night when they discovered her.”

“Right. I have his name on the list I took. He’s an extra in the opera they’re rehearsing.”

“He didn’t sound too happy about it,” Johnson said. “He told me it was humiliating for a pianist like himself to be an extra—no, he called himself a ‘super,’ I think—and cursed whoever arranged for him to be in the show.”

“Temperamental, huh?”

“According to the woman I spoke with at the Young Artist Program, they discourage temperament.”

“I’ll go upstairs and see if we can get a judge to issue a hold on this guy to keep him from skipping. Where’s he staying?”

Johnson responded, “He says he’s at the apartment he shared with the deceased.” To Portelain: “You were there, Willie?”

“Yup. Obviously, the kid wasn’t around, because he was with you, but a guy who claims to be their agent was there.” He consulted his notes. “Name’s Philip Melincamp. He’s from Toronto, Canada. Got a partner named Zöe Baltsa.”