The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (31 page)

“Why don’t we meet at the theater at one?  I’ll let the
theater manager know so he can have the doors open.”

“One is fine.  Night, Detective.”

“Goodbye, Cindy Fin-Lathen.” 

I hung up the phone.  I stared at it awhile and was in the
process of standing, which was very difficult due to the lack of ice and
abundance of whiskey, when it rung.

“Hello?”

“Curtis, here,” I heard him breathe deep before continuing,
“Cin, are you going to remember this in the morning?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Whiskey seems to be flowing at your place.”

“Unfortunately, Detective, I remember everything very
vividly when I drink.”

“Sorry about that.  Try to get some sleep.  I will be at
theater at one with your music and some aspirin.”

“What a guy.  Night,” I hung up the phone, and it stayed
quiet.  He didn’t seem so bad after a couple of drinks.  I rolled the remaining
fluid in the bottle.  Maybe I had had more than a couple drinks.  I think I was
going to need that aspirin.

The September weather was splendid that morning in Palm
Beach County.  Not too warm, and an ocean breeze brought movement to the palm
trees, which tempted me to put the top down on the roadster, but I knew my
curls wouldn’t take the high speed of the turnpike, so I left it up.  I arrived
ten minutes early and was surprised to see an unmarked cruiser already there. 

Detective Curtis met me at the stage door with a cup of
Starbucks coffee.

“Black.”

“Yes, good memory.”  I greedily grabbed the brew.

“It’s a prerequisite for brain trusts.”  He smiled.   This
morning he didn’t seem as imposing.  He was clean-shaven, and I could hear the
starch of his shirt crackle as he moved.  “I wanted to check into your idea
this afternoon, but first I have some questions that came up while I was
watching the video last night.”

“So there was a video?”

“Yes, it was still taping when Miles and I went to get it
out of the machine.”  He looked rather sheepish.  “I want to first apologize
for the way you were treated last evening.  I don’t think that Officer Dudley
will have another homicide detail anytime soon.”

“It was a rather ghoulish evening, no hard feelings.”

“That’s pretty charitable of you.”  He led me to the stage
manager’s cue monitor.

I stopped as we crossed the middle of the stage.  Something
didn’t seem right.

“Problem?”

“I just can’t put my finger on it.”  I turned slowly and
closed my eyes.  Memories of the evening before haunted me as they fell into
place.  In the light of day I could feel the ordinary wood beneath my feet.  My
eyes snapped open to see the detective looking at me - scrutinizing, judging,
writing reports in his head.  “Why me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not a police officer.  I suspect I’m, well, a suspect. 
Why am I here?  Why did you call me?”

The man shifted his weight from foot to foot as he formed
his carefully chosen words.  “I had you checked out.  This isn’t your first
murder.”

“I was cleared of their deaths,” I protested.

He put up a hand to stop me.  “Ms. Fin-Lathen, I had several
interesting phone calls this morning.  Chief Superintendent Browning finds you
a very capable investigator and tells me you are way too smart to dispatch a
person on your turf.”

I didn’t know whether to thank the man or kill him.  I
remembered fondly how he had stood up in court and professed my innocence of
any premeditation.

“However the Met wasn’t so pleased with you.”

“Not surprised there.”

“What I gleaned from the conversations was that this isn’t
your first dance, and you can be relied upon to provide, to the best of your
knowledge, a truthful account.”  His face hardened.  “I don’t have to tell you
that I will not put up with any amateur detection on your part in my town.”

It was my turn to put up a hand.  “I have no intention of
doing anything but gathering all these music folders and getting the hell out
of here as fast as possible.”  I narrowed my eyes and said acidly, “I came here
on your request.”

He nodded.  “Well, let’s get this over with.”  He turned and
walked over to the front of the stage. 

The college theater was a new, state of the art facility. 
Just inside the left side of the stage was a desk with a monitor showing the
performance area.  There was a video tape player on top of the monitor. 

“I want to run the beginning of the tape.  If you could give
me a rolling commentary as you view the tape as to what’s going on, this may
answer some of my questions.  But I may need to interrupt you.”

“Do you know how to use this thing?”  I said as I pulled a
stool over.  I offered it to the Detective and he declined.

“No, but there’s a student around here somewhere that the
college has at our disposal,” he explained.

“I guess that’s my cue,” said an excited voice behind me.  I
turned around and looked into the eyes of a very familiar face.

“Harry, so good to see you!”

“Alex’s mother!  So you’re suspect number one.  Always knew
that hanging around with the community band was going to get you into trouble.”

“How’s your mom?”  I said reaching forward and pushing the
errant blue-black lock out of his eyes.  His nearly black eyes held mine for a
moment.  Ignoring my question, he put himself between Detective Curtis and me.

“Detective Curtis, hold off the handcuffs, I can vouch for
this lady,” Harry said, putting a bit too much acting into the role.  “She ran
the best flop house in town.”

“What he means is, my son Alex’s friends were always welcome
to use the guest room when things got a bit heavy at home.”

“No, she did more than that.  One night she overheard that I
was going to sleep in the park because I was too upset to go home.  She made
Alex tell her what was going on. Then she drove over and demanded I get into
the car.  Remember that?”

“I remember you singing ‘Mrs. Robinson’ all the way home.” 
I glanced over at an amused Detective.  “Harry, let’s get on with this before I
get arrested for kidnapping and child abuse.”

“Sure thing.”

Harry started the tape and showed Curtis how to start and
stop it.  He offered to hang around in case we got into trouble.  The tape
started with the band entering the stage.

“This is about ten minutes before we start.  Prior to this
we would have set up the stage.  We bring in the equipment we don’t keep here
from the back loading dock.  See that large, Lord, garage door thingy?  It
rises and the band president pulls the trailer up outside, and we move in the
equipment through there.  Then we put our instrument stands up.  The stage
manager drops the appropriate curtains once the setup is finished.  The band is
scheduled to warm up half an hour before the audience is let in.  Last night it
was 6:30.  The band reassembles in the coffee room and continues to tune.  The
conductor may or may not run through the program highlights with us.”

“Did he last night?”

“No, he came in just before it was time to go out and asked
the concert master, first clarinet Gus , to give us a Bb concert note, and we
tuned to his note.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Tuning?”

“No, the conductor waiting to the last minute to tune the
band?”

“I don’t know.  I would have to think about it.”

“Was Carl in the coffee room?”

“Not that I remember, but there were fifty-five people in
that room.  I was pretty absorbed in warming up my instrument.”

“I notice that you aren’t on the stage yet.”

“No, see, there I am.”  I pointed to the screen.  “I’m
guiding Bernice over the cables in the back by the percussion.  She had a fall
once, and I didn’t want it to happen again.  We walk around the back of the
band to avoid getting bumped.  See, I just sat her down and squeezed between
the stands to get to my seat.”

The screen showed the band adjusting their stands and
seats.  The French horns were begging for more room, the second row adjusted
their chairs accordingly.  Detective Curtis stopped the tape.  He pulled out of
the pile of papers a concert program from last night.

“Can you go down this list and show me who is who?”

“No problem.”

We worked back and forth from the paper to the screen.  Four
people were missing: Carl, Doctor Sanders, Tim Warring (trombone player) and
Edith Baker (3rd clarinet player).

“Tim is in the hospital, and Mrs. Baker is in Colombia,
South Carolina visiting her daughter, who just gave birth to Edith’s first
granddaughter.  The conductor won’t come out till they announce the band.”

As the tape continued, we viewed the announcements and
Doctor Sanders entering, bowing and giving the cue to start the timpani drum
roll for the National Anthem.  Carl’s seat was the only empty chair.  It sat
there empty in the second row at the front of the stage.  I noticed we weren’t
the most professional looking group, talking between numbers and dropping
music.  We came to the first scream in
Phantom
.  Detective Curtis
stopped the tape and pulled out a copy of the score.

“Show me where we are in the music.”

I flipped the pages, and following the line in the score that
was my part, I put my finger on the moment.  He rewound the tape, and I used my
finger to follow the music until I signaled him to stop the tape.

“See the baffled looks.  Sally is supposed to do the scream,
back in the percussion section. She’s looking around.  Bernice is off her
chair.  And Doctor Sanders is glaring back at the percussionists.”

“All I can see is his back.”

“I was in a direct line to the percussion section.  Believe
me, there was a glare.”

He rewound the tape, and we ran by the scream again and
again.  I was shaking my head.

“What’s wrong?”

“You know, on this tape the scream doesn’t sound like Carl
would have made it.  I don’t know if it’s the quality of the recording, but it
sure doesn’t sound like him.  I can’t see anyone in the band screaming.  If he
screamed behind the curtain then why isn’t it muffled by the backdrop?”

“Good point.”  He looked around him before calling, “Harry!”

Harry came up onstage from his eavesdropping spot.

“Can you show us where the microphones were set last night?”

“They wouldn’t have been changed.  We were told this morning
not to touch anything onstage till we got the all clear from the cops.”  Harry
reached over and flipped a couple of switches.  The lights came up.  He walked
over and pointed to the front center.  “It’s balanced so that the flute section
has the highest level.  Those two hanging microphones pick up the band.  The
announcer’s microphone would be turned off during the performance.”

“Any other microphones on the stage?” Detective Curtis
asked.

“Just the one by the stage manager’s cue area.  We have use
of it if we need to make any emergency announcements.”  Harry walked back over
and showed us the button, how to lock it on and off, and the small pickup
microphone over the ledge that the monitor was on.

“Where was Miles last night?”  I looked at the detective.

“Miles was...” He thumbed through his notes.  “Up in the
lobby.  They had a problem with an outside door that wouldn’t close.  Let’s
see, yes, a security guard confirmed this.”

“So, if this microphone was left on.”

“You would hear everything that was going on back here
during the performance,” Harry supplied.

“Can we run the tape to the start of the intermission?”

Detective Curtis shook his head.  “Cart before the horse,
cart before the horse.”

“Cart before the mule more likely,” I said impatiently.

He started the tape from the first scream and ran it forward
through Sally’s shriek.  At the end of the piece he slowed it down.  I looked
at him questioningly.

 “I want to see if anyone left the stage, even briefly.  I
already checked for that last night.  No one did, but it doesn’t hurt having
another set of eyes.”

“How late were you up working?”  I asked.

“Two maybe three in the morning.”  He shrugged.  “Let’s get
back to the tape.”

Nothing remarkable happened till the intermission.

“See, there’s Art pointing out the wet stage. He dabs at
what I thought was water, it bright red.  It was blood, I assume?”

“Yuck,” Harry supplied.

“Harry, are you still here?”  Detective Curtis swung around.

“You didn’t ask me to leave.”

“Leave.”

“K.”  Harry slowly walked off.

“Where were we?”

“Yuck.”

“Ignore the yuck.”

“K.”

“So that’s where he got it from.”

“Indeed.  Slow the tape down.  All right, here I… wait a
minute.  Why is the tape still running?  They stop it at intermission and start
it again when we return.”

“I don’t know.  I will find out though.”  He jotted down the
question.

“Run it back to the end of that last number and turn the
sound up.”

He did so.  We heard the applause and the musicians leaving
the stage, we heard some of them pass by the stage manager’s cue microphone,
and then we only heard the sounds from the stage again.  I motioned to have it
run back again.

“Listen, the microphone was on.  Who turned it off?”

“Miles?  No, if he turned off the microphone. Wouldn’t he
have paused the tape till after the intermission?”

Detective Curtis jotted down some notes.  He picked up a
folder and leafed through it.  Finding what he was looking for, he scanned it
and read it aloud.  “Officer Walker asked Art what happened after he and
Bernice left the stage.  Art said, Miles escorted Bernice and him to the
refreshment room and left them there.”