“When did she tell you this?”
“We got together for coffee about two weeks ago.” His face was deeply sad. “We split up more than a year ago.”
Natalie nodded sympathetically. He seemed perfectly sincere—but liars could easily swallow their own bullshit. She crossed her arms and asked, “What else did you talk about over coffee?”
“Oh God. Whenever we got together, we’d have these tortured conversations … I mean she was so raw. So painfully aware of everything, if that makes any sense. Morgan took things too literally. I cared about her very much, but she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with,” he explained, sliding his glasses back up his nose.
Natalie struggled to understand. “Can you elaborate?”
“Morgan and I have very different personalities. She’s overly sensitive, whereas I can be blunt. I pushed her to excel, both professionally and personally, just like I push myself. But she took my honest criticisms the wrong way.”
“What honest criticisms?”
He turned his hands palm side up. “What can I say? She wasn’t the genius her father always insisted she was. It was sad, actually. She wanted to be a violin soloist. That was her dream. Whereas I prefer to face reality. The competition in the field of music can be brutal, and Morgan wasn’t prepared for it. I was trying to help her lower her expectations and be happy with who she was. Get a teaching degree, you know? But she was so hard on herself. She refused to let go of her dream.”
“Is that why you split up?”
He sighed so hard she could smell the peppermint on his breath. “Look, Morgan was very dear to me. But we couldn’t make it work. Living together was impossible. She told me I was the only guy in the world Gandhi would’ve punched in the mouth.” He smiled at the thought, then he caught himself and straightened up. “I admit it. I can be tactless. Some people think I’m cruel. I’m not. I’m reality-based. That’s just the way I was raised. But I’ve always couched my criticisms in loving language.”
“So when you got together two weeks ago, did you end up arguing again?”
“Morgan asked for my opinion, so I gave it to her. She wanted to know what I thought about her musical choice for the contest … you know, spookiest Halloween music or whatever the hell it is. First of all, I told her if she wanted to be taken seriously, she shouldn’t be entering something like that in the first place. But as long as she was going to go ahead with it, I suggested John Williams’s “Dance of the Witches,” but she thought that was too commercial. Then I suggested Berlioz or Mussorgsky, but she called them cartoonish. She said there’s nothing the least bit scary about Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.”
“What did she decide to play?”
“Béla Bartók’s Transylvanian Dances, which he based on these old recordings of peasant folk songs … from Transylvania, of course. Morgan selected the second movement, which I’ve heard her play before. It’s very dark and gloomy, almost a creepy piece of music. I told her she’d do better with Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns, but she’d already made up her mind.”
“Okay,” Natalie said. “Then what happened?”
He shrugged. “She said she had an appointment at the clinic, so we agreed to continue our conversation later.”
“What clinic?”
“At the conservatory. She was having a minor problem with her wrist and she wanted to take care of it before the contest.”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
He shook his head. “That was the last time.”
“No phone calls or text messages?”
“We both got busy.”
“And you didn’t go to Burning Lake for Halloween?” Natalie pressed.
He looked at her with great indignation. “No, I didn’t. Why?”
“Where were you last night?”
He grimaced. “I rehearsed with the chamber ensemble all afternoon. And last night, I attended the department Halloween party here at the conservatory.”
“From when to when?”
Mendoza shot her a resentful look. Paranoia descended. “I went straight from the music hall to the party at six o’clock and stayed until about nine. Then I went home. I slept in late this morning.”
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“In an apartment?”
“I rent a house on the outskirts of town.”
“Did you interact with anyone after nine o’clock last night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I can give you the names of everyone who saw me at the rehearsal hall and the party yesterday, if that’s any help.”
“Thanks.” Natalie took out her phone and showed him the silver necklace. He’d never seen it before. Or the tattoo. “I’ll take that list of names,” she said. “Everyone you interacted with yesterday.”
He found a piece of paper and jotted it all down. After a few minutes of thoughtful scribbling, he handed her the list, then glanced at his watch. “I’m supposed to join my chamber ensemble shortly.”
Natalie nodded. “Look, Josh … is there anything else you can tell me about Morgan that might shed some light on the investigation? Anything at all?”
His shoulders sagged. “Chaste Falls is a small town. Everybody knows her dad, and they know Morgan hasn’t realized her dreams yet, but they can’t stop asking—why aren’t you on tour? Why aren’t you on TV by now? It’s been completely devastating for her. She told me her life was one big ball of ego-crushing freelance gigs and ever-mounting debt.”
“Was she suicidal?” Natalie asked.
He folded his arms. “All I can tell you is that the Morgan I know isn’t into self-harm. She avoided hard drugs. She enjoyed a glass of wine now and then, but she wasn’t a heavy drinker. The last time we spoke, she said she was feeling chaotic internally. She mentioned getting into therapy. She just wanted to find her power again. She said she was sick of feeling like a loser, and she wanted to turn her life around. She wanted to change her lousy luck.”
“Does she know anyone in Burning Lake? Have any friends, colleagues, co-workers, or schoolmates there?”
Josh shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“Thank you.” Natalie got up to leave.
“She was a passionate musician,” he said, standing up as well. “Her bow technique wasn’t exceptional, but listening to her play for the first time was an emotional experience for me. You weren’t just hearing music, you were stepping into the soul of a wounded human being.”
15
Natalie took the curving flagstone path toward the main building on campus, a Gothic behemoth topped with ferocious-looking gargoyles and covered in climbing ivy. Carved into the stone façade was a frieze of famous composers—Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Mozart. Inside were polished hardwood floors, arched doorways, somber oil portraits, and a pervasive sense of history. Natalie headed down the corridor toward the administrative offices. Inside the director’s office, she was greeted by a middle-aged man behind a steel desk piled high with paperwork—his tired-looking eyes peered at her from behind a mess of curly gray hair. “Yes, can I help you?” he said in a petulant voice that didn’t really want to help anybody.
Natalie introduced herself. “I called Director Brock about an hour ago. I believe that she’s expecting me.”
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”
Natalie took a seat on a prickly upholstered chair and glanced at the donor wall with its plaques and framed photographs. There were so many faces she recognized—Burning Lake’s Mayor Arnold Bryden and Chief of Police Roger Snyder; Coroner Barry Fishbeck; Brandon’s father, Kenneth Buckner II; Veronica Manes; Hunter Rose; and many other donors from Natalie’s hometown. It wasn’t surprising. The music conservatory was one of the best in the country, and Burning Lake regularly hired Harrington Brock grads and undergrads to perform at various venues during the busy month of October, as well as the summer months, when tourists flocked to the area.
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br /> Natalie’s gaze finally landed on a large, expensively framed photograph of a pretty young woman posing with her violin. Most striking of all was her long red hair. Natalie asked the assistant, “Excuse me, who’s that?”
He sighed, planted his elbow patches on his desk, and squinted at the wall. “That’s the Maldonado violin scholarship for string players.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
He nodded indifferently. “Elyssa Maldonado. That picture was taken in the late nineties, I believe, shortly before she died in a car crash. Her family set up the scholarship in her honor. Thanks to them, every year, three gifted young students will receive five thousand dollars toward their tuition.”
Before she could ask any more questions, his desk phone beeped, and he picked up.
“Yes? Okay. Certainly.” He hung up and said, “You can go in now.”
The director was seated behind an impressive nineteenth-century mahogany desk surrounded by portraits of former conservatory directors. She was in her mid-forties, Natalie guessed, very attractive in a corporate sort of way, with a fashionable blond haircut, plastered-on smile, and faux-jovial manner that had an edge to it. Natalie suspected the director could be a real bitch if she wanted to. One eyebrow was higher than the other, giving her a look of bemused condescension. She shook Natalie’s hand and said, “Detective Lockhart, so nice to meet you! Although it’s very sad to meet under these circumstances. Let me introduce Sheriff Dressler. I took the liberty of inviting him to join us, I hope you don’t mind.”
Natalie turned to face Sheriff Dressler, a man of indeterminate age with salt-and-pepper hair, craggy features, and parchment-paper lips. It looked as if the sun had aged him, but perhaps it went deeper than that. He studied her with solemn, interested eyes. As they shook hands, he said, “Lieutenant Pittman called a little while ago and gave me the rundown, so I thought we should meet in person and talk about jurisdiction.”
“Of course,” Natalie said, irritated that Luke hadn’t given her a heads-up. “But I’m confused. The body was found in Burning Lake, so…”
“Coffee, Detective?” Hyacinth Brock interrupted.
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” the sheriff told her. “I’m not arguing that point. But Morgan Chambers grew up here, she’s part of our community, her family lives here, she went to the conservatory, you get my drift … it’s just that I’d like to be apprised of the investigation as it unfolds. Regular updates.”
“I’ll keep you in the loop, for sure,” Natalie said, nodding.
“We’re a close-knit family here,” Hyacinth said. A sign on the wall behind her said “Don’t Lose the Forest for the Trees,” and next to that was an oil portrait of the founder of the conservatory with a young girl on his knee, and it dawned on Natalie that Hyacinth was that little girl. Harrington Brock’s great-granddaughter. The man who built this place, one of the best schools for music in the country.
Hyacinth’s smile wasn’t really a smile—it was a polite sneer. “Have a seat, Detective. How can I help you?”
“What can you tell me about Morgan Chambers?”
“She was a good student whose future looked bright. Her expectations may have been set too high, however. You already know her father is a professor here, I assume? His other daughter is exceptionally talented. Poppy has all the makings of a superstar. Anyway, all I know is … two years after graduating from the conservatory, Morgan appeared to have lost her way.”
“That’s what I’ve been hearing,” Natalie said with a nod. “But she succeeded academically and musically at the school?”
“Our students are all dedicated, competitive, and extremely talented,” Hyacinth said. “You have your stars, and then you have your section players. Now here at the conservatory … we see no difference between them. They all work just as hard. But regardless of where our students end up, it takes years of talent, focus, discipline, and versatility. You can’t just sit back and think that an orchestra position is going to fall in your lap. Hard work, and then more hard work. That’s what it takes to succeed in this business.”
“So you don’t think she worked hard enough?” Natalie clarified.
“Oh, please, I’m sorry if you misunderstood.” The director reorganized her face into an affronted expression. “That’s not what I was saying.” It took a moment for her ruffled feathers to settle down. “Morgan had talent. She had advantages. She was gifted. In this business, it’s all about experience, timing, and vision. We attract superbly accomplished musicians from all over the world. We’ve been designated an all-Steinway school, did you know that? We have one hundred Steinway pianos available for our students. Our chamber-music practice spaces are acoustically perfect. This is a state-of-the-art facility. Now,” she went on, “a professional musician’s life isn’t easy. You’re required to audition, and then if you’re lucky enough to be selected, you’ll spend a minimum of three hours a day rehearsing with an orchestra, and many additional hours of personal practice and preparation. There’s a lot of physical stress involved. Musicians must be able to perform well under duress. The audition process is arduous. Grueling, to be honest. Not every student can handle it.”
“I think I know what you’re getting at,” Natalie said. “You’re suggesting Morgan Chambers wasn’t entirely cut out for the competitive world of classical music.”
She frowned. “It’s true you need a certain temperament.”
“And you’re suggesting that her emotional state probably wasn’t the best.”
“Emotional state?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Is there anybody else I should be talking to while I’m here? Teachers, students, staff? Anyone who might shed some light on who Morgan was?”
“I think her father’s the best source of information.”
“I’ve already spoken to him. He pointed me to Morgan’s roommate.”
“About her father…” Hyacinth said in a measured, circumspect tone. “He’s a superb teacher, don’t get me wrong. He sets the bar high for his students, and many have gone on to become successful violin soloists. But I think it’s possible Morgan felt the weight of his outsize expectations on her shoulders. If anything, a lot of the source of her anguish and stress could’ve come from pressures at home. Feelings of inadequacy. But that’s all I can say about that.” The director’s phone rang. “Sorry, I have to take this. Thank you so much for dropping by.” She stood up and shook Natalie’s hand. “If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Here’s my card.”
Natalie thanked them both and left.
The sheriff followed her into the corridor. “Excuse me? Detective Lockhart?”
“Yes?”
He glanced back at the director’s office and said, “Let’s talk while we walk.” They headed down the hallway together. “We’d like to have the body returned home as soon as possible. The Chambers need resolution. They want to bury her. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, sympathetic but cautious. She wasn’t happy with the shortness of the meeting and wasn’t sure what was going on.
“The lieutenant said you haven’t determined cause of death yet?” he inquired.
“No, but it’s suspicious. Possible suicide or OD. Maybe foul play. We’re not sure. We want to be absolutely thorough in our coverage, given the circumstances.”
“I understand,” he said. “But you need to know what you’re dealing with here. The world of classical musicians, especially violin soloists and their enablers … well, it’s like a beauty pageant. There’s a similar mind-set. You might meet with some resistance from the staff, but also from the families. They’re all concerned about protecting the conservatory’s reputation. And this investigation threatens their cloistered world.”
Natalie stopped walking and asked, “How so?”
“What she said about pressure…” He held the front door open for her. “The truth is, a
lot more graduates of this institution fail than you’d think. And the suicide rate for music students is relatively high. Some folks call it the gifted child curse.”
“The gifted child curse?” she repeated.
“It’s true of most classical musicians, but especially of the violinists. A gifted violinist has a special place in an orchestra. They also have higher suicide rates, but the conservatory will downplay the statistics. Nothing illegal, mind you. No cover-ups or anything. But it’s bad for business, so the PR spinners come out in force whenever one of these incidents occur. The conservatory labels them ‘accidents,’ instead of what they sometimes are.”
Natalie nodded. “Death by suicide.”
“Correct. Now my predecessor … the sheriff before me … he was big on putting a positive spin on the situation for the sake of the community, since the conservatory not only brings prestige to the town but it fills the coffers. Tourism, musical events, real estate holdings, contracts with local businesses. Chaste Falls is thriving. You won’t get much help from the kids’ parents, either, because they’re in complete denial about their contribution to the problem. Plus they often have more than one child studying the violin, so they’ll call it an accident, too. They don’t want to admit their kid was depressed or doing drugs. For example, if somebody falls after overdosing, they’ll say it was a slip-and-fall, and the family won’t contest it.”
Natalie nodded, understanding what a bombshell he was dropping.
“Now mind you,” the sheriff continued, “Hyacinth is a good person. She loves her musicians and she loves the conservatory. Her name is Brock, did you catch that? She’s the great-granddaughter of Harrington Brock, and she’s protecting her legacy from slander, is how she sees it. And so, when a graduate of the institute dies by suicide or ‘has an accident,’ she knows how to keep it out of the press. Some of these kids are true geniuses, true prodigies, who’ve won statewide and nationwide competitions, and she’s all about saving face for the institution. And it’s not just Hyacinth who wants this, it’s the mayor and the town council and all the folks who’ve donated and attached their names to the institution for the prestige … you understand? A lot of local business leaders in town are heavily invested in the success of the conservatory, since it attracts tourism and investment. Without it, what’ve you got? Just a lot of woods and boarded-up textile factories. The Brock Conservatory is the lifeblood of this community. And the families of the deceased have financial and emotional investments. These families have sacrificed a lot to see their kids succeed up there onstage, playing the violin to adoring crowds. They dream about Carnegie Hall. You can’t mess with the dream.”
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