Played to Death

by Meg Perry

  Scott snorted a laugh. He was starting to like this Eckhoff guy, in spite of himself. “Usually that’s the way it works. Not in this girl’s case.”

  “Okay. Other than rushed, how did she seem when she got to the wedding yesterday?”

  Scott paused momentarily while folding the beaten egg whites into the batter and tried to remember. “She was - pissy. I told her to get ready to play and she gave me attitude.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “No, just the dramatic teenage eye roll.”

  Kevin said, “She didn’t respect you.”

  Scott spooned batter onto the hot waffle iron, and it sizzled satisfyingly. He closed the lid. “I’m not sure she knew who I was. Although it may not have made a difference.” He put away his ingredients and got out a plate. “Would you like a waffle?”

  Eckhoff looked tempted. Kevin said, “Thanks, we ate already. Did she say anything to either of the other kids at all?”

  “Not that I heard. We tuned, she got her music ready and we began to play.”

  “No talk while the wedding was going on?”

  “No. You learn that in middle school orchestra. When someone else has the solo, you sit still and keep quiet.”

  “What happened at the break?”

  “Like I told you yesterday. We played the recessional, then we had a ten minute break. I made the kids check their watches. Stacy left for just a minute then came back. Brian came back right at ten minutes.” The waffle iron light went out, and he turned to it. “Elena didn’t come back.”

  Eckhoff said, “Stacy told us that Elena had a big bag with her. Do you remember that?”

  “Yeah.” It had caught Scott’s attention. “It was one of those oversized, soft-sided things like you’d take to the beach. Big enough to hold a day’s worth of crap. She’d carried her music in it.”

  “What color?”

  Scott produced his own teenage-style eye roll. “It was Hello Kitty.”

  Eckhoff and Kevin both laughed. Eckhoff said, “That’s a serious breach of etiquette right there.”

  Scott grinned, in spite of himself. “No kidding.” He spooned raspberry preserves onto his waffle and took a bite. “Mm. Sure I can’t interest you in one of these?”

  “No thanks.” But Eckhoff was nearly drooling.

  Kevin said, “Did she take the bag with her on break?”

  “Yeah.” Scott didn’t think Kevin would answer any questions, but he was curious. “What’s up with the bag?”

  Kevin folded his arms. “It’s missing.”

  “Oh.” Scott tried to think of what that might mean, and couldn’t.

  Kevin said, “Did you take a break?”

  “Hell, no. I wasn’t going to leave my cello unattended.”

  “The kids left their instruments, though?”

  “Stacy asked me to watch hers. Brian put his in its case. Elena left hers out on her seat.” He shrugged. “They knew I was staying.”

  Eckhoff and Kevin exchanged a look of some sort, then Eckhoff reached into his inner jacket pocket. When he did Scott got a flash of his shoulder holster, and he swallowed hard on his last bite of waffle. Eckhoff held out his card. “If you think of anything else that might help, no matter how trivial - give me a call.”

  “Sure.” Scott took the card, glad he wouldn’t have to call Kevin.

  Kevin and Eckhoff stood. Eckhoff said, “By the way. Kevin tells me that you might know my girlfriend.”

  Scott couldn’t think of any reason that he’d know a cop’s girlfriend. “Who is she?”

  “Liz Nguyen.”

  “Oh.” Liz was Jamie’s bestie at work. He’d liked Liz. That could explain the Dolce and Gabbana. “Lucky you. Liz is great.”

  “Yep.” Eckhoff looked like he knew he was lucky.

  “Does Kristen Beach still work there?” When Scott and Jamie had been together, Liz and Kristen had come with Jamie to a lot of Scott’s concerts. He’d liked Liz, but he’d loved Kristen.

  “Yes, she does.” Eckhoff grinned. “I’ll give her your regards.”

  Jamie

  It was warm Sunday morning, with the warning from the weatherman that it would be hot by mid-day. Pete and I rolled out of bed early, ate cereal for breakfast and drove to Ali and Mel’s to move Kevin’s belongings.

  Liz was already there; she and Mel were carrying boxes from Kevin’s closet to the garage, where Ali’s large pickup truck was backed up. Ali herself was at work; her xeriscaping crew often had to do commercial jobs on weekends while the establishments were closed.

  Pete and I pitched in, and soon we had the truck and Pete’s Jeep full. Fortunately, Kevin didn’t have a huge amount of stuff. In two trips, we had everything moved into the condo. We spent another half-hour getting all the boxes moved into the proper room. As we finished, Liz got a text. She read it and chuckled. “Jon and Kevin just left Scott Deering’s apartment.”

  I groaned. “What a way to start the day. For everyone involved.”

  Liz and Mel left to do other things, and Pete and I stayed to unpack. After the ladies left, we looked around for a minute. Pete said, “I didn’t notice while we were carrying boxes. This is a nice place.”

  “Definitely.” It was a corner unit. Two bedrooms, two and a half baths, a third smaller room that Kevin was going to use as an office. A large open-plan great room; one long, wide balcony opening off both the great room and the master bedroom; another shorter balcony opening off the other bedroom and the office. The kitchen wasn’t huge but it was big enough for Kevin, who didn’t cook much. The master bath featured both a whirlpool tub and a shower stall.

  Kevin and I, along with Jeff and seven others, had inherited $38 million each from a man whose son had killed our mom in a drunk driving crash. We’d gotten the money four weeks ago. It had allowed Kevin to pay off the mortgage on the house that he’d bought a year and a half ago with Abby and to pay cash for this place.

  I hoped he’d be happier here.

  Pete stood with his hands on his hips. “Okay. How do you want to do this?”

  “Why don’t you take the office and living room? Get his computer set up and get his books and stuff out of the boxes. I’d like to get all the boxes out of here today if we could. I’m going to take his bedroom and bathroom first, then the kitchen.”

  “Okay.” Pete disappeared into the office. I heard him begin to pull boxes open.

  I went into Kevin’s bedroom. His new bed stood against the wall to my left, facing out across the balcony toward the east, the green swath of the Los Angeles Country Club in the distance. Nice view. I wondered how long it would remain green under our water restrictions.

  I sorted out the bedroom and bath, then went to the kitchen, where I found Pete looking in the fridge. He said, “It’s empty. Should we go to the store for him?”

  “Yeah.” I’d lived with Kevin long enough to know what he liked. We went to Trader Joe’s and stocked up, making sure to include beer and Cokes. And plenty of raisin bran.

  We made one last trip back to the condo and unpacked the groceries. Pete said, “When I’m done for the summer, I can be here to wait for deliveries once he starts getting furniture.”

  “One more week, right?”

  “Yep. Graduation is a week from Tuesday.”

  “Good.” I looked around, satisfied that we’d done everything we could, then texted Kevin. Got you unpacked, bought some groceries. Leaving your place now.

  He didn’t answer immediately. Probably still interviewing people.

  Scott

  When Kevin and his partner left, Scott cleaned up his breakfast mess then started going through the refrigerator, throwing out everything that had been Brent’s. He looked through the cabinets and removed every nonperishable thing that was there because Brent liked it and tossed it all into a box. He took the box to the front door then went to the bedroom with a roll of garbage bags and started bagging up Brent’s clothes.

  It took a while. Brent worked at Neiman-Marcus;
he had a lot of clothes. He’d be unhappy because Scott had more or less wadded them up into the bags, but Scott didn’t give a shit. He returned to the bathroom and found a few more bottles of hair and skin product that were Brent’s. Once he was sure he’d found everything, he piled it all by the front door then got the elevator. He held the elevator door open with the box from the kitchen and loaded everything else, then rode downstairs with it and reversed the process.

  The concierge’s eyebrows went up, but the guy was nothing if not discreet. “Is someone moving out, Mr. Deering?”

  “Yes. My now ex-boyfriend, Brent Fogerty. He’ll be coming by for these things. Make him show ID. If he hasn’t come in a week, donate it to your favorite charity.”

  The concierge didn’t blink an eye. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you.” Scott made a mental note to tip the concierge well at the end of the month. He went back to his condo, leaning back against the door after he closed it behind him and blew out a long breath.

  Hard to believe it had been less than twenty-four hours since everything went to hell. He pushed away from the door and climbed the stairs to his music loft.

  Scott had begun cello lessons at age three, on a child-sized cello that he could barely reach around. He didn’t remember the first time he’d drawn a bow across strings. He didn’t remember a time when the cello didn’t feel like an extension of himself. Without it, he always felt incomplete and exposed.

  He played every day. He didn’t consider it practice. It was as necessary to him as breathing.

  He found the score for Benjamin Britten’s Cello Suite No. 1, Op. 72, and began to play.

  Jamie

  Pete and I left Kevin’s, picked up Thai takeout and went home. It was getting on towards evening when Kevin finally returned my text. Thanks. You home now?

  Yep. Coming over?

  Just for a few.

  K.

  He arrived about twenty minutes later, rumpled and exhausted. When Pete let him in he flopped onto the loveseat and laid his head back on the top. “God, what a day.”

  I took him a bottle of water. “Beginning with Scott, I understand.”

  “Yeah.” Kevin took the bottle, cracked it open and drained half of it. “Thanks. Scott couldn’t help much.”

  “He didn’t know those kids.”

  “No.” Kevin snorted softly. “Yesterday when I asked him what the kids were like, he told me how well they played. Or not.”

  “That’s how he thinks. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know. But it wasn’t entirely useless. Everyone else we’ve talked to has told us what a wonderful young woman the vic was, what a talent, blah blah. Scott said she was a mediocre player with a bad attitude.”

  “The unvarnished truth.”

  “Yep. He’s also the only person who remembered what her bag looked like.”

  “Her bag? Like a purse?”

  “More like a beach tote bag is how he described it. We didn’t find it with her. The other two kids vaguely remembered a bag. Scott remembered it was a Hello Kitty design.”

  Pete said, “This wasn’t a simple robbery, though.”

  Kevin shook his head. “No. There were far more valuable things to steal on that property. Why take the bag?”

  Pete answered. “There was something important in it.”

  “That’s our assumption.”

  I said, “Any decent leads yet?”

  “Not really.” Kevin finished his water and rubbed his face. “No one was allowed onto the property without an invitation. Even the caterers and valets had been sent invitations. Branigan and Lester questioned all the hired help extensively yesterday. There were three PCC students on the catering staff, but they all claimed not to know the musicians. We’ll check into that further, but no one twitched when they saw Elena’s picture, and Branigan didn’t detect any liars in the bunch.”

  “I remember Officer Branigan. She was there the day I found Austin Sharp’s body.”

  “Yeah. She’ll make detective soon. She’s like Pete was, good at spotting the liars. If she says everyone was telling the truth, they probably were.”

  Pete said, “But you still have to get the list of names and check them all.”

  “Yeah. We went back today and walked the entire perimeter of the property. Eight-foot wall with spikes all the way around, no other openings in it. Seems like it had to be someone with an invitation.”

  I said, “Why all the security?”

  Kevin shrugged. “Kirtley’s a divorce lawyer. He’s likely to have pissed a lot of people off over the years.”

  Pete added, “Kent was kind of paranoid about safety, back in grad school. I never knew why.”

  I asked softly, “What did the girl’s parents say?”

  Kevin closed his eyes and shook his head. “Devastated, of course. They couldn’t answer any questions last night, but they did let us search her room. We took her laptop for our computer guys to look at but didn’t find anything else. Today, they were able to tell us that she had a boyfriend that they hadn’t met. She kept making excuses for not bringing him home. They figured he must be someone they wouldn’t approve of.”

  Pete said, “There’s your suspect.”

  “Yeah, normally you’d like the boyfriend, but if he didn’t have a way onto the property - maybe not. Tomorrow we have to see if we can track down some of her friends, see if any of them knew who this guy was. Another complication - Brian Dalziel, the viola player, wouldn’t talk to us. First thing he said to Jon was, ‘I’m a minor and my dad’s a lawyer.’ He called his dad to come get him; Dad let us search his belongings but wouldn’t let him answer questions. We tried again today - same deal. Scott told us Brian and Elena didn’t like each other.”

  I said, “Did you get a chance to talk to Scott’s friend? Cameron Wiley?”

  “Yeah, on the phone. He was - not devastated, but certainly upset. He blames himself for not being there.”

  “What could he have done?”

  “That’s what we told him.” Kevin smiled wryly. “I did tell him that Scott wasn’t impressed with her musical skills and asked him why she was in the quartet. He said she needed the confidence boost.”

  I shrugged. “So learning experience is more important to him than quality. He’s a teacher, not a Philharmonic member.”

  “I guess.” Kevin yawned and stood up. “Thanks for buying groceries for me. What do I owe you?”

  I waved that off. “Consider them a housewarming gift. I made your bed, too. You can go home and fall right into it.”

  Pete said, “You need some furniture.”

  “I know. I don’t know when I’m going to have time to shop for it.”

  “Buy it online. I’m done for the summer a week from Tuesday. I can be there for delivery.”

  Kevin’s eyes lit up. “That’d be great. Thanks, Pete.”

  “You’re welcome. Glad to do it.”

  We saw Kevin out and resumed our positions on the sofa. I said, “This case is a tough one. A mysterious boyfriend and a missing purse. Maybe the boyfriend will turn out to be one of the caterers.”

  “Or maybe the parents wouldn’t approve because the boyfriend was a minor.”

  I said, “Brian?”

  “He had means and opportunity. If they’d had a falling out, he may have had a motive.”

  Monday, June 8

  Jamie

  First thing Monday morning, every week, we had a meeting of all the librarians at the Young Research Library - Research and Instruction librarians, like Liz and me, and the Special Collections librarians. We kiddingly referred to each other as Upstairs, Downstairs - Special Collections was in the basement.

  I slipped into the room and sat beside Kristen Beach. Kristen was our journalism and communications librarian, in her usual work outfit of white blouse, black pencil skirt, and stilettos that matched her red lipstick. Her dark hair was twisted into a bun and she wore black-framed hipster glasses. Sexy librarian, in
deed.

  She grinned at me. “How was the wedding?”

  Kristen knew Graham Kirtley; he’d been her divorce lawyer several years ago, successfully winning her Bel Air home and a couple of million dollars. I said, “It was over the top.”

  “As I’d expect.”

  “And there was a murder.”

  Not much surprised Kristen, but that made her jaw drop. She hissed, “No.”

  “Yes.” I gave her a quick summary.

  “Holy crap.”

  “Yeah. And Kevin and Jon caught the case, and Scott Deering was there playing in the string quartet.”

  “Good God.” She started to say something else, but the door opened again and the bosses came in.

  Dr. Madeline Loomis was my boss, the head of Reference and Instruction. Dr. Conrad Huffstetler was the head of Special Collections. They usually ran the meeting. But it seemed that this morning was going to be unusual.

  With Dr. Loomis and Conrad was Dr. Laura Madorsky, the University Librarian - at the top of the org chart for UCLA Libraries. She rarely came to our meetings. Also with them was Dr. Marianne Fleming, the director of UCLA’s music library. I knew her by sight but had never had a reason to speak with her.

  What was she doing here?

  Dr. Loomis was still at the door, guiding one more person into the room - a woman who reminded me of Kristen, in a way. Slender, stylish, dark hair in a bun. She was wearing a tailored navy suit - but the shoulders were cut more broadly than you’d expect.

  Unless you knew enough to recognize that the tailoring had been done to disguise a shoulder holster.

  Cop.

  What the hell?

  Dr. Madorsky stood at the front of the room and held up her hand. Silence fell immediately. She said, “Thank you. I’ll get right to the point. Over the weekend we discovered that there has been a theft from the Music Library. Dr. Fleming will tell you more about the missing item.”

  Dr. Fleming cleared her throat. “We’re missing a score for a solo cello piece by a composer named Jeremy Isaacson. It’s a moderately valuable piece, as it was the only solo piece this composer wrote before his untimely death. We believe the theft occurred at some point last week. The call number for the piece is M52 .I761a 1987.”