by Sarah Fox
“I figured it must be new,” I said as I sat down next to him. “It’s not something I’d ever forget after hearing it.”
“You like it?”
I caught the slightest hint of hesitation in his voice and realized that my opinion really mattered to him.
“Like it? I absolutely love it.”
His shoulders lowered an inch, a sign that he’d been worried about my reaction.
“Seriously, JT.” I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a quick squeeze. “It’s incredible. In fact, it might be my favorite of all the songs you’ve ever composed, and that’s saying something.”
He smiled. “I’m glad.”
“What’s it called?”
As soon as I voiced the question, the front door opened.
“Your student?” JT guessed.
I glanced over my shoulder as Tricia, one of my adult students, stepped into the foyer.
“Yes. Hi, Tricia,” I said, getting up from the bench. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
As Tricia disappeared into my studio, I wrapped my arms around JT’s neck, giving him a hug from behind.
“I really love it, JT. I hope I’ll get to hear it again.”
“You will,” he assured me.
I crossed the foyer to my studio while JT and Finnegan headed toward the back of the house. JT’s latest composition had so thoroughly captured my attention that it wasn’t until two hours and two students later that I remembered my plan to talk over the murder case with him. When I had a half-hour break between students, I wandered into the kitchen, hoping to find JT and Finnegan there. The room was empty. The door leading to the basement was open and the light in the stairwell was on, but I didn’t descend the stairs. There was a good chance that JT was working in his studio, and I probably didn’t have enough time to share all my thoughts with him before my next student showed up.
So instead of going in search of my best friend, I fixed myself a vanilla latte to drink with the granola bar I’d packed in my bag that morning. When my latte was ready, I perched on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, my phone on the granite countertop. Since I had a few minutes to kill, I decided to do a bit of research into Cameron’s life. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find—if anything—but I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. Maybe he had a history of committing thefts, or maybe he was known by everyone as a stand-up guy who could always be relied on. Whether the Internet would reveal any of that to me, I didn’t know, but I was determined to find out.
Opening the Internet browser on my phone, I typed the name “Cameron Rask” into the search bar and scrolled through the results that popped up on the screen. Ten minutes later I’d finished the granola bar but I hadn’t found anything useful online. While I’d found a couple of social media profiles belonging to the right Cameron, they provided nothing illuminating. I was about to give up when I clicked on a final search result. It took me to a short news article, and I sipped the last of my vanilla latte as I read the item.
When I reached the end of the short article, I set my cup on the countertop with a clunk, lost in thought. Apparently Cameron had been involved in a fistfight outside a bar eighteen months earlier. He’d been charged with assault as a result, although the article didn’t mention whether the case had gone to trial or whether Cameron had received a conviction and sentence.
That information wasn’t of great importance to me, however. I was most interested in the fact that he’d resorted to fisticuffs with another man to settle a dispute over a hockey game they’d watched at the bar. Okay, maybe he’d been influenced by alcohol at the time, but that didn’t change the fact that the fight had happened. Was it an isolated incident for Cameron, or did he make a habit of settling disputes with violence?
If he did have violent tendencies, had I made a mistake by focusing on him solely in relation to the theft of JT’s recording equipment? He was, after all, present at the theater on the night of Pavlina’s death. Perhaps he should have had a spot on my suspect list for that crime as well.
I tugged on my left earlobe as I stared off into space, following that line of thought. I’d have to check with JT if there was any time during the second half of the concert when Cameron wasn’t within his sight. If there was such a time, then Cameron could have had the opportunity to murder Pavlina.
But why the heck would he want to? As far as I knew, he’d never met Pavlina. But what if he had?
I recalled his behavior on the night in question and considered another possibility. I’d seen him in the midst of an urgent phone call, one he’d hastily ended as soon as he saw me approaching. He’d been just as jumpy about text messages he’d sent that evening too. So even if he’d never met Pavlina, could she have overheard something that made Cameron view her as a threat? Even if he’d simply thought she’d overheard something, that could have been enough to push him over the edge, if whatever it was that made him so jumpy was significant enough to drive him to murder.
If, if, if.
That was the problem. Too much supposition and not nearly enough facts.
Yes, Cameron was jumpy that night at the theater, but maybe that was because he’d planned the theft ahead of time. Nervous behavior didn’t automatically make him a murderer. Still, I couldn’t completely rule out his possible involvement in the murder. Not yet, at least.
The first thing I needed to do was find out if he’d had the opportunity to kill Pavlina. If not, I could strike his name from my list of murder suspects, leaving him only on the list of suspects for the theft.
JT held the answer I needed, but seeking it out would have to wait. As I closed the browser on my phone, my next student entered the house through the front door and I got up to greet him. The next four hours would be spent teaching violin lessons, but after that I’d talk to JT and get the information I needed.
BY THE TIME I finished teaching my last lesson of the day and had eaten the sandwich I’d picked up at the grocery store that morning, JT was loading his borrowed and spare recording equipment into his truck. After washing down my dinner with a glass of water, I grabbed a couple of microphone stands from the basement and carried them outside. As JT loaded them into the back of his truck, I decided to bring up the subject of Cameron.
When I told him about the assault charge from eighteen months ago, JT gave me a suspicious, sidelong look.
“So?” he said. “Getting into a fistfight doesn’t automatically make him a thief.”
“I know that. But it does mean he’s resorted to violence in the past.”
JT shut the truck’s tailgate, locking it before we headed back to the house for more equipment. “What does violence have to do with anything?”
“Murder is a violent crime.”
JT halted at the base of the porch steps. “Hold on. Now you’re accusing Cameron of murder?”
Finnegan barked at us from where he sat next to the front door, trying to hurry us along.
“I’m not accusing him of anything.” I started up the steps, much to Finnegan’s joy, and JT followed a second later. “I’m just saying that I can’t yet rule him out.”
“That’s insane, Dori. It’s bad enough to suspect him of stealing. What possible reason would he have to kill someone he didn’t know?”
I stepped into the house and waited for JT to join me in the foyer. “First of all, we don’t know for certain that he didn’t know Pavlina.”
JT opened his mouth to cut in, but I hurried on before he could stop me.
“Second of all, I can think of a possible motive, but that doesn’t matter if he didn’t have an opportunity to commit the crime.”
JT shut the front door, and I could tell he was mulling over what I’d said. Finnegan sat down at his feet and looked up at him expectantly, his tail thumping against the hardwood floor.
“The murder happened during the second half of th
e concert?” JT checked.
“Yes.”
Dismay flickered in his eyes and I pounced on its significance.
“He wasn’t with you the entire time, was he?”
Stepping around Finnegan, JT strode off down the hallway. Finn and I scurried after him.
“JT . . .”
He yanked open the basement door. “Just because I can’t give him an alibi for the entire time, that doesn’t mean he killed the girl.”
“Of course it doesn’t. But it does leave him on the suspect list.”
“Your suspect list.” JT descended the stairs to the basement. “The police don’t view him as a suspect, do they?”
“I have no idea.” As I followed him, I recalled the detectives’ interest in Elena and her cousin, and their attempt to follow that line of investigation. “But if they haven’t questioned him since that night, then probably not.”
“Likely for good reason.”
“Look,” I said when we reached the bottom of the stairs, “maybe Cameron had nothing to do with the murder, but he was acting jumpy that night.”
“I don’t remember him acting jumpy.” JT grabbed a couple of microphones and tucked his laptop under his arm.
“Is that everything?” I asked.
“Should be.” He headed for the stairs again, pausing to let Finnegan dash up ahead of him.
“I remember him acting jumpy,” I said as we made our way back up to the kitchen.
“Are you sure you weren’t imagining things?”
“Positive.”
JT stopped in the middle of the kitchen and let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, fine. But even if he was acting jumpy, that could mean anything.”
“Sure it could, including the possibility that he planned the theft ahead of time—probably with someone’s help—and was nervous about getting caught.”
“Cameron’s not a killer, Dori.”
“Maybe not,” I conceded. “But even you think he’s a thief.”
He clearly wanted to deny it, but although the muscles in his jaw moved, he said nothing.
“I don’t want him to be guilty, JT. But I can’t ignore the possibility that he is, especially when it comes to the theft.”
“But we can’t prove it. We can’t prove anything.”
“Not yet,” I admitted.
“Then it’s better left alone. My equipment’s probably long gone and the police will catch the killer. We should leave it at that.”
“Should, maybe,” I said. “But you know me better than that.”
“Yes,” he said with another sigh. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Twelve
AFTER I’D CHANGED into my black concert clothes and had said goodbye to Finnegan, I set off in my car for the theater, JT right behind me in his truck. Once we’d both parked in the theater’s lot, JT assured me that he didn’t need help moving his equipment inside, so I headed straight for the musicians’ lounge. Since I had some time to spare, I tucked my violin away in my locker and looked around for someone to chat with. I spotted Dongmei on one of the couches, her eyes darting here and there, her fingers picking at the nails on her opposite hand.
When I claimed the seat next to her, she gave me a wavering smile.
“Nervous?” I asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“Nervous. Excited. Terrified.” She swallowed. “What if everyone hates my piece?”
“No one’s going to hate it,” I assured her.
My words seemed to bounce off of her without reaching her ears.
“What if everyone thinks I’m a terrible composer?”
“Dongmei,” I said firmly, “you didn’t get to be a finalist in this competition by being a terrible composer.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right. It’s just . . . This is the first time such a large crowd will hear one of my works.”
“And they’re going to love it. You’ll see.”
Another tremulous smile appeared on her face for half a second. “I hope you’re right.” She closed her eyes briefly and took another deep breath. “I need to think about something else. Have you heard anything new about the police investigation?”
“Not much.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“It could have been one of a number of people.” I lowered my voice before continuing. “But I’m more than a little suspicious of Ethan.”
“Me too.” She glanced around before adding in a hushed voice, “You’d think he and Pavlina would have bonded over what happened in the past, but instead it only seemed to divide them.”
“What did happen?” I asked, my curiosity perking up.
“Remember how I told you that the first time I met Pavlina was at a music and composition retreat in Banff a few years ago?”
I nodded.
“Ethan and another girl, Tiffany Alphonse, were also on the trip. All three of them were longtime friends. On the last morning of the retreat, Tiffany was found in a nearby lake. She’d drowned.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It really was. But then things got even worse. Her death was ruled accidental—apparently she’d been drunk—but Pavlina, Tiffany, and Ethan had all been up for a prestigious scholarship that was going to be awarded at the end of the retreat. Tiffany wasn’t much of a drinker and Ethan accused Pavlina of getting her drunk on purpose so she’d look bad to the scholarship committee. Pavlina accused him of the same thing.”
“Who won the scholarship in the end?”
“Pavlina.”
No doubt that had given Ethan’s dislike of Pavlina a firm footing to build upon.
“So they’ve hated each other ever since?” I said.
“Yes. At first I thought it was just the shock of Tiffany’s death that made them accuse each other of getting her drunk, and I figured maybe they’d get over it. But they never did. Of course, there was other stress after Tiffany’s death, so that probably didn’t help.”
“Other stress?”
“I heard that Pavlina and Ethan were both harassed by Tiffany’s brother, Alexander, for a while.”
I absorbed that information. “He thought both of them got her drunk on purpose?”
“Maybe. He claimed that Tiffany was so terrified of water that she never would have gone in the lake voluntarily. I guess he thought someone got her drunk to make it easier to get her in the water and drown her. The rumor was that he accused both Ethan and Pavlina of murdering Tiffany because they thought she was their toughest competition for the scholarship. But for that to make sense, I guess maybe he thought one or the other was responsible, but didn’t know which so he tried pointing the finger at both of them.”
“And nothing came of that?” I asked, wondering if killing Pavlina wasn’t the first time Ethan had committed murder, if indeed he had killed her.
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they both had alibis for that night. As far as I know, the police always considered Tiffany’s death an accident. I don’t think that ever changed. All I know for certain is that Pavlina and Ethan ended up despising each other.”
That had been more than evident, and their animosity toward each other made more sense now. But did the past have anything to do with recent events? Had Ethan doubted Pavlina’s alibi and the official ruling on Tiffany’s death? By finding themselves in close competition again, had their acrimony boiled over, driving Ethan to seek delayed revenge for Tiffany’s death while also eliminating his fiercest competition?
It was something to consider, and it strengthened his motive. He’d already been my prime suspect, but now I figured he deserved to have his name underlined and highlighted on the suspect list. While Cameron was still my number one suspect in relation to the theft, it seemed more likely now that he wasn’t the killer.
“Do you think the p
olice know about any of this?” I asked Dongmei.
“I told them about it the other night when they talked to me, but they didn’t seem all that interested.” She considered her words for a moment. “Well, Detective Chowdhury took notes, so at least he was paying attention, but the big one—what’s his name?”
“Detective Van den Broek,” I supplied.
“Right. He didn’t seem all that interested in anything I said. He just wanted to know if I had a reason to want Pavlina dead.” She resumed picking at her fingernails, her anxiety evident on her face again.
I rested a hand on her arm. “I wouldn’t worry about that. You have an alibi, remember.”
She switched to rubbing her cuticles instead of picking at them.
“And Detective Van den Broek was the same with me interest-wise. I hope he’s more keen on solving the case than he lets on, because he didn’t seem to care one whit about anything I told him.”
“I hope so too,” Dongmei said. “If they don’t find the killer . . . That would be horrible. I don’t want it to be someone like Ethan, someone I know, but I’d rather he be arrested if he’s guilty than have him in our midst. I mean, if he’s killed once, what’s to stop him from killing again?”
That was a valid concern.
I searched the room, wondering if Ethan was present. He wasn’t, but a shiver still traveled up my spine. If he was determined to win this competition, and if he was as uncertain about the outcome as I believed him to be, were the other finalists in danger?
“Dongmei,” I said in little more than a whisper, “I think you should make sure you’re never alone here in the theater.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you think Ethan might want to kill me?”
“If he’s desperate enough to win this competition, who knows what he might do. I think you and Sherwin should both be careful.”
“I’ll tell Sherwin,” she said. “But, Midori, I’m terrified.”
That was clearly written on her face, and I realized I’d only added to her jitters, but I wanted her to be on alert.