by Phil Swann
"I guess it doesn't matter if I should say I don't like this arrangement. You've got me, don't you?"
Finally, lord Depriestiano spoke, "The moment you took the half-million."
Winfield got up and walked toward the door. He turned. "You'll be in touch?"
"We will. Good day, Winfield," Old Nick said.
Anthony added. "It’s a pleasure finally meeting you, Thurman."
Winfield glared at Anthony, opened the door, and left.
Old Nick smiled. "You were very good."
Anthony turned to his uncle. "Thank you, sir."
"Don't you think he told him too much?" Jimmy scowled.
"I think he told him just enough," Nicholas countered.
"And I do once again apologize for California," Anthony added.
Nicholas waved his hand. "It's forgotten. So, now that all that unpleasantness is out of the way, what's next, Tony?"
Anthony sat in Winfield's former chair. "David Webber."
"The piano player they arrested for Shoewalter's murder?"
"Yes, he's also an old acquaintance of mine, sir."
"Really? Can he help us?" Nicholas asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.
"I believe so, sir. You see, as well as being a piano player, he's somewhat of a Mozart authority. I believe that's why Shoewalter was out there."
"Tony, do you think this Webber really killed Shoewalter?"
"I don't know, and I don't really care. It would make it easier if he did."
"Yes, I see what you mean. You're, of course, following Webber?"
"We were, but my intention now is not to."
Nicholas's eyes got wide. "Why not? Don't you think—”
"I said we weren't going to follow him any longer. I didn't, however, say anything about my wife. You see, sir, they used to be very close."
∙•∙
Thurman Winfield got in the passenger side of the black Escalade parked in front of Depriestiano's house. The man behind the wheel started the car.
"Everything go okay?"
Winfield buckled his seatbelt. "They were patronizing, condescending, and downright threatening."
“So it went well?”
Winfield smiled, “Perfect.”
Chapter Seventeen
David dialed the phone number written on the slip of paper that Bowen had given him. The outgoing message was simple.
"This is Joshua Bowen, please leave a message."
"Bowen, it’s Webber. I'm going to DC to meet this Dr. Parsons face to face. I'll call you tonight. Call me if you hear anything, Bowen. Okay? Bye."
David hung up. He took another look around the room, picked up his briefcase, a small leather duffel bag, and Ravel.
∙•∙
"He's leaving, and he's got a suitcase."
"What do you think we should do?"
Sanchez lowered the binoculars. "Follow him. Call the lieutenant."
David looked down Coldwater. Three minutes later a taxi pulled up.
As the cab pulled away from the curb, Sanchez started the car and followed. "Tell him I think he's headed to Burbank Airport."
"Lieutenant, Sanchez thinks he's heading to Burbank Airport."
Gilbert listened as Sanchez kept a three-car separation from the taxi.
"Okay, Lieutenant, you got it. See you there." Gilbert shut off the phone. "He wants us to call for black-and-whites and to stay on him, but no contact—he'll meet us at the airport. Then he said something really weird."
"What?"
"He said we should get ready to get our names in the paper."
∙•∙
"Hey, wake up," the woman said, tossing her cigarette out the window.
The man beside her sprung forward rubbing his eyes. "What?"
"He's moving, and he's got a tail," the woman said.
"No surprise there. Let’s join the convoy?"
"Ten-four, good buddy."
The car pulled away, following Gilbert and Sanchez.
»»•««
Ryan finished his call and looked again at the printout—so much for a quiet weekend. He stuffed the paper in his pocket and picked up the phone again.
"It's me. I might be late tonight. Best you don't hold dinner. I know…" Ryan closed his eyes as he listened. How much more could one marriage take? Last weekend it was supposed to be a family weekend at Magic Mountain. Before that, his son's little league baseball game, before that…he couldn't remember, but he knew it was something. "We'll talk when I get home. I'm sorry, but I really have to go. I love—” the line went dead.
Ryan came out the rear exit of the Van Nuys Division. He'd parked on a residential street behind the police station on purpose. Traffic on Van Nuys Boulevard was a nightmare on Saturday afternoons, and the only exit out of the police garage dumped you right in the middle of it.
As he approached his car, he saw a homeless man sprawled against the front tire. The man was obviously wasted. "Come on, pal. You can't be lying around back here.” The wretch mumbled something as Ryan assisted him to his feet. “Don’t you know leaning against cars in L.A. is a capital offense?"
The homeless man stumbled away. Ryan unlocked the car door and got in. As he buckled his seatbelt, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the man was already gone. He put the key in the ignition and turned. He heard no sound; the engine didn't turn over, but he did smell sulfur. At that moment, he thought of his wife and a little league game he wished he hadn't missed.
The explosion was deafening. Chunks of stucco were ripped off the Spanish-style house across the street from the vehicle. The windows on the east side of the police station shattered like peanut brittle from the violent crush of air. Black smoke billowed, and shards of metal and glass rained down.
As screams began echoing through the neighborhood, the homeless man reappeared from behind a cinder block wall. He looked upon the destruction, nodded approvingly, and casually walked away.
Chapter Eighteen
Anthony moved the golden Grammy statuette to one side. He felt behind the shelf, and with little effort, found the button on the back of the bookcase. A moment later the etched mirror on the opposite wall slid to the right, disappearing into the wall and revealing a gray steel door to a safe. Anthony crossed the room and sipped a whiskey as he entered a series of numbers on the keypad. The red LED light on the left of the pad went out, and the green one on the right came on. He turned the latch and opened the safe.
A thick, brown, accordion-like folder was all that was in the safe. Anthony removed it and took it to the piano in the middle of the study. His eyes were emotionless as he pulled out a photocopied letter beginning Dear Kathryn. The letter was signed, Sincerely, Henry. There was another photocopied letter. This one began Dear Henry and was signed, Kathryn. Next, he pulled out a stack of legal size papers resembling a report, yet another photocopy. On the top of the first page it read:
Research Notes on Mozart 1778
By: Kathryn Depriest For: Dr. Henry Shoewalter
Anthony laid the bundle on top of the envelopes and went back to the folder. "Ahhhhh," he moaned softly with a grin. He slid a photocopied sheet from the packet and placed it on the music holder of the piano. He looked lovingly at the composition and waved his right hand in a triangle. He closed his eyes, lowered his hand onto the keyboard, and without reading the music, played the piece perfectly from memory.
Kathryn opened the door to Anthony's study and saw her husband in his satin robe sitting at the piano.
"I'm turning in," she said with no inflection.
Anthony opened his eyes and saw his wife in her nightgown. He apathetically glanced at his watch and spoke to her through the open lid. "Little early for you, isn't it?”
"I'm exhausted. I'll see you in the morning—or are you going out tonight?"
Anthony smiled. "Good night, dear."
∙•∙
Kathryn shut the door to the study and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. But she wasn’t turni
ng in—not yet. There was something she needed to see again.
The bedroom’s walk-in closet was a room to itself. With over three hundred outfits and two hundred pairs of shoes, it had to be. She found what she was looking for in the corner tucked behind two dozen or so hatboxes.
On her knees, she pulled the boxes away, revealing a stack of photo albums. One by one she flicked through the pages. In the middle of the third album, she stopped. The eight by ten was cracked in the middle and had suffered some discoloration. A tear ran down her cheek as she ran her fingers over the picture of the three young faces and one older one. The picture was of her, David, Anthony, and Henry on graduation day.
»»•««
Dani turned on the computer with her toothbrush still in her mouth and entered her password. Hemingway, a challenged-looking dishwater-brown mixed terrier, was all-fours-in-the-air on the couch. Dani was spitting into the sink in the bathroom when it occurred to her what she didn't hear.
She went back to the computer sitting on a table in the corner of her small living room and sat down.
Hemingway stumbled off the couch, trotted over, and leaped onto her lap.
"Oh lord, boy, do you have to do that?"
Hemingway responded with a lick to her face.
"I should have mail, Hem. I know I saved them as new." Dani clicked on the mailbox icon. Indeed, there was nothing. "Well, frigg. What happened?"
She thought for a moment and then moved her cursor to the icon "old mail.” She clicked, and there it was—the one from her college roommate, the two from the Internet clothing company, and the four from her father, all of the emails from earlier in the day she hadn't read or responded to. "How the heck did that happen? Stupid computer."
With Hemingway on her lap, Dani settled back in her chair and opened the first email from her father.
»»•««
Three hours into the flight, David surrendered to the ache in the back of his neck. He'd gone over every inch of the sketch, searching his memory banks for knowledge learned and forgotten. There was a time when doing this, composition study, getting into the composer's head, was as easy for him as playing a C scale. But that seemed like a lifetime ago.
He laid down his pen and viewed the notes he'd written in the red spiral notebook he'd purchased in the airport before boarding the plane. The significance of the red notebook didn't occur to him until the plane was in the air. The purchase of a red spiral notebook was a ritual he always employed at Juilliard before beginning a new research project. David rolled his head in both directions and then began to read.
Notes on Mozart sketch:
Autograph in upper right corner appears authentic. In DC confirm watermark dating is correct. Check major works in 1791, omitting dances, minuets, songs, etc… Look at “Concerto for Horn in D,” “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling,” “Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica,” “Adagio in C for Glass Harmonica,” “Cantata,” “Die ihr des unermeßlichen Weltalls," “Contrapuntal Study,” “La clemenza di Tito,” “Die Zauberflöte”—The Magic Flute—“Concerto in A for Clarinet,” “Freimaurerkantate”, Requiem in D minor. In DC confirm list—see if you forgot anything. Reconfirm sketch does not match these works.
Analysis
Key: Bb major
Time signature: 3/4—but too complex to be a Minuet.
Expression markings
Up lt-corner notation—adg.—must mean adagio
Up rt -corner instrument notation interrupted
Middle rt—doodles, pictures, errant ink drippings
Lower rt-corner marking—More doodles, letters CKF—unknown
Lower lt-corner—errant ink drippings, more doodles
Treble clef: Melody Very legato—predominately whole and half notes. Surprise in measure 4. Uncharacteristic suspension.
Bass clef: interesting contrast to treble clef—staccato—probably pizzicato cello and/or contrabass.
Summarize:
Sketch appears to be for symphony or concerto. Lack of any libretto notations makes it doubtful that it's for an opera—however could be a Mass. The missing mass for his mother? Could it be? NO, DATE DOESN'T WORK! Mozart's mother died at least a dozen years earlier. Must reconfirm watermark date and reread Time mag. article.
David closed the notebook and put it and the music back into his briefcase. Brother, have I been out of this world for a while, he thought. He raised the tray table and turned out the overhead light.
It was dark now. The plane wasn't even half full, and the ride was smooth. He looked in the small crate sitting on the empty seat beside him and saw Ravel sleeping peacefully. He looked out the window and saw nothing but blackness. He guessed he was somewhere over the Midwest by now. As he looked into the void, it occurred to him he hadn't ventured out of California since his self-imposed exile landed him there. When he decided to escape to the West, that meant everything, and everyone, in the East would no longer exist. His plan was to disappear, and he felt he could safely dub the plan “mission accomplished.” But have I forgotten to stop running? The question had been eating at him all day. Ever since looking at the picture of Kathryn. Am I over it? It felt strange even to consider. He wondered if he'd gotten so used to feeling lousy it had become habit? What if he'd gotten over Kathryn years ago but had plain forgotten how to be happy? He remembered the night J.P. picked him up at the jail. When she mentioned how different, sadder he was, what were her exact words? "It's like there’s no joy in life for you at all anymore, David." He was too embarrassed to tell her that it was a stupid celebrity magazine article that brought it on. Anthony Depriest: one of the ten sexiest men in America. Complete with full color photo of Depriest and Kathryn. Under the picture was the caption, THE MAESTRO AT HOME—A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. God was I an asshole to J.P. that night, he remembered. "I’m sorry, Jeep," David whispered as he reclined his seat and closed his eyes.
»»•««
The room was dim. The only light being that of a nearby neon sign trickling through the bottom of the drawn curtains. It was furnished with a single end table, a couch, a chair, and a bed. In the bed, a woman tossed restlessly, mumbling indistinguishable phrases.
A man sat by the woman and ran his hand over her forehead. "Shhh, relax.”
The woman moaned, blinking furiously in an attempt to open her eyes. Her breath became hard and labored, and her mumbles grew louder.
"Shhh, help is coming."
The man opened the drawer of the end table and removed a small vial and syringe. He placed the needle into the bottle and withdrew the clear liquid. He tapped the syringe and then opened the woman's arm flat onto the bed. He rested his knee on top of her forearm.
"Here we are, just what you need. Sleep, we're going on a little trip."
The needle was inserted into the vein and the plunger compressed, dispensing the fluid into the woman's bloodstream. He wiped the blood from the needle and placed the syringe and the vial back in the drawer.
It was quick. Her breath became slow and regular, and her body became still. Within thirty seconds of the injection, J.P. was once again unconscious.
Part Two
Chapter Nineteen
Thomas Liam Fowler hated working on Sundays, and after thirty-two years with the Bureau, he seldom had to. But during communion at the Hillcrest Methodist church, he got a text. The message was direct. Needed immediately at office. So, during the singing of “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” he kissed his wife goodbye, asked his grandson to drive his grandmother home, and quietly slipped from the second pew and out the side door of the church. Twenty minutes later, Fowler was at Pennsylvania Avenue and Tenth Street, the J. Edgar Hoover building.
Fowler got off the elevator on the sixth floor and walked directly to the office of Assistant Director Robert Greenfield. He gave three short raps on the door and entered without invitation. Robert Greenfield looked up from behind his desk. The two men sitting across from him stood as Fowler walked in.
"Tom," Greenfield s
aid, "sorry to pull you away from your family. Let me introduce you. Agent Thomas Fowler, this is Scott Douglas from State."
"Agent Fowler, pleasure," Douglas said, extending his hand.
"And this is Conrad Woo from Central Intelligence.” Fowler shot Greenfield a look as he extended his hand to the young Chinese-American.
"Good morning, Agent Fowler, pleasure."
"Likewise," he said, shaking the man's hand. "Berkeley?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Your class ring," Fowler said, pointing at the man's finger. "My youngest daughter is graduating from there this year—architecture."
"Congratulations, very good program—one of the best in the nation."
"Yeah, that’s what they say. Thank God for scholarships."
"Indeed," Woo replied with a smile.
"Bob, what's Central Intelligence doing here?” Fowler said without segue.
Greenfield leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "Gentlemen, you've just been introduced to the famous Fowler tact. He's legendary around here for it. He should be sitting in this chair except for the fact he's as lousy at politics as he is brilliant at criminology."
"I don't want your job, Bob," Fowler came back. "You work Sundays."
Greenfield smiled. "Okay, have a seat, Tom, we'll get right to it."
The three men sat down. Greenfield leaned forward in his chair.
"We've got ops colliding, Tom. That's why CIA is here. Now that you know that, it should be obvious why State is interested."
"They want to coordinate," Fowler said, with an edge of contempt.
"No," Douglas interrupted, "not coordinate, just observe. State has no interest in interfering with your operation or the one at Central Intelligence, but for national security reasons, the Secretary thinks it would be prudent if we stayed up to speed."
Fowler said nothing but looked doubtfully at the formal man from the State department. He then looked at Woo. He wasn't sure, but he thought he detected a look of doubt on his face as well.