Perfect Sax

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  Before we could begin our discussion of the birthday party she wished to host, a quiet young Hispanic woman brought in a large pitcher of lemonade and left.

  “Thank you, Graciela,” Connie said before she called out for her son to join us.

  Ryan appeared at the sunroom door, looking awkward and skinny and just about thirteen. Surf camp had bleached his long stringy hair blond. Adolescence had left his skin in a muddle. “My birthday is not until August twentieth,” Ryan said in a sort of a whine.

  “But we’re going to France in August,” Connie said to him.

  “That’s what you keep saying,” Ryan replied. “I don’t want to go to stinking France.”

  “You’ll love it,” she answered patiently.

  “So my mom wants me to have my party now.” Ryan Hutson’s hands found the pockets in his long, baggy shorts and settled there.

  “You’re inviting all your musician friends?” I asked him, opening my notebook.

  “Sure. The kids who are still in town. I told my mom we should wait until school starts and more of my friends are here,” he began again, addressing his mother.

  “I need to get this over with,” she said, in a measured way.

  Ryan’s eyes darted down and I bit my lip. I’m sure Connie didn’t hear how it sounded. And I had learned never to jump to judgment with parents of teenagers. Never.

  “We want you to have something nice,” Connie coaxed. “And this is our last open weekend in three months, sweetheart.”

  “Right,” Ryan said under his breath.

  His mother gave him a penetrating look and he sulked back to her. Oh, lovely. Another happy family.

  “I’d love to help plan Ryan’s party,” I said. “But you do realize we are limited in what we can provide with such little time to prep. What sort of food did you want?”

  “Nothing dorky, Mom.”

  “How about In-N-Out?” I suggested to him. He smiled at me, suddenly a kid again, and happy. “We can get a truck to come to your house.”

  “Awesome.”

  “That sounds fine,” Connie said, easily agreeing to the fast-food burgers the kids all loved. The popular restaurant chain had a few mobile lunch trucks in which their cooks grilled up fresh fries and cheeseburgers to order.

  “I just have to see what strings I need to pull to get a truck here this Saturday. They book up at least six months in advance. We may be asked to pay a fairly steep premium, if it’s available at all.”

  “Mom?” Ryan was now on board. “Please.”

  “Oh, fine,” she said, happy to see her son get into the party spirit. “Don’t worry about the money.”

  “I can’t promise,” I said to Ryan, “but I usually get what I’m after.”

  “Cool.”

  “Entertainment?” I asked.

  “Wynton Marsalis is coming,” Connie informed me. I was stunned to hear her casually drop the name of one of the world’s most famous jazz greats. “Dave invited him and he had a day free. That’s why Saturday is the date we must have, you see.”

  “Wynton Marsalis is going to play for Ryan’s party?”

  “And his jazz ensemble. Oh, yes. Dave took care of it.”

  “So you’ll need a sound system and chairs set up for…how many?”

  “Just a hundred,” Connie said firmly. “We’re calling friends and doing it all very impromptu and fun. Don’t worry about invitations.”

  “Can I get a contact number for Mr. Marsalis’s people?” I asked, scribbling notes quickly. “We’ll want to arrange to have everything he needs.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Connie said.

  “And for the adults,” I asked, “would you like us to do a small buffet? A few salads, some fresh fruit, desserts, coffee?”

  “Yes, whatever you think would be appropriate is fine with me,” Connie said, looking pleased.

  “Or we could bring in sushi?” I said, thinking aloud.

  “That’s perfect,” she said. “Absolutely perfect. My husband, Dave, loves sushi.”

  I wrote more notes. In-N-Out burgers and sushi. Ah, yes. Another eclectic kids party. However, this was all doable. We’d get my favorite sushi restaurant to deliver on Saturday. I’d pull in a big favor with the burger people and get the truck to cook up fresh Double-Doubles right in the driveway out front. The biggest challenge would be getting the staging and audience section set up. I needed to get a plan of their backyard. I asked and Connie Hutson agreed to have it faxed to my office.

  “What about the cake?” I asked Ryan.

  His mother answered. “We’d like a large cake, Madeline. One that will serve all the teens, so make it for a hundred and fifty, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Chocolate,” Ryan said. “With whipped cream.”

  “Sounds great,” I said, writing.

  “And how about in the shape of a saxophone, Ry?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “A tenor?”

  “Sure,” his mom said. “Ryan has been begging to move up to a tenor sax. He currently plays alto. We’re trying to get the Woodburn to let him change instruments, but his instructor there, Mr. Braniff, has been reluctant.”

  That was interesting. I thought again about all the fuss that had been made over the great Selmer Mark VI saxophone that had disappeared from the Woodburn after the live auction on Saturday night. I couldn’t help but wonder if the wealthy dad who had arranged for Wynton Marsalis to play at his boy’s party hadn’t also thought a spectacular instrument like the Selmer might make the perfect birthday gift.

  We talked over a few more essential details, and although I knew Mad Bean Events was cutting things close on too many events, I said we’d do it.

  Ryan quickly slipped out of the room, relieved to escape the grown-ups, to get back to his waiting Xbox.

  Connie walked me to the door.

  “Thanks, Madeline. This is going to be fun.”

  “I’ll fax the budget to you later,” I said. “We need approval and a deposit before we can start renting chairs and ordering food. I’ll begin lining up vendors and contact the Marsalis people, but we have to move quickly.”

  “No problem. I’ll have Dave run a check over to you tonight, if that’s okay.”

  “Fine.” I looked at Connie, who was taller than me, even standing in her flats. “By the way, I’ve been curious about the Woodburn auction. Did it do well?”

  “Well! We did fabulously well,” she said, her face all smiles. “We outearned every damn benefit ever thrown for the school in forty-two years of fund-raising. We surpassed our goal of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Wow.” That was an incredible amount of money.

  She nodded happily.

  “Even after losing the money for the sax?”

  “We didn’t lose any money,” Connie said.

  “Bill Knight still paid you the money?” Stranger and stranger!

  “Uh, no.” We both chuckled at the idea. “It was insured, sweetie. We wouldn’t have risked bringing such a priceless instrument to the event without insurance.”

  “That’s so lucky.”

  She winked at me. “It’s smart. One of our members took care of it for us.” And in an instant, Connie’s face changed from sunny to cloudy. “Oh, dear. It was Al Grasso who took care of it. You know about what happened to him?”

  I stared at her. Grasso was connected to the stolen saxophone. He’d arranged for the insurance. How did this add up?

  “Connie, I have to ask you a question. Was your husband terribly disappointed to have lost out on the bidding for the sax?”

  “Of course not,” she said, her face completely composed. “He didn’t really want it at all.”

  I looked at her. She had to be the best liar I’d ever met. Or perhaps what she was saying was true. “Really? I thought he was bidding it up against Bill Knight.”

  “Yes, well…” She winked at me.

  “What?”

  “We were doing it for a good cause, you understand. T
hat made it all right.”

  “What made what all right?”

  “Before the auction, Bill Knight asked Dave to keep the bidding going on the sax.”

  “No way!” I looked at her, but she was grinning. Not a sign of guilt on her.

  “We wanted to raise the pot, you see? Bill said he was going to buy it, but he wanted to get the price high, make a big donation, and get a big write-off. He thought it would make for good drama, and we wanted to inspire other bidders on other objects to be really generous. We thought it was a sweet idea. So Dave played the game.”

  “Played the game?”

  “Well, okay. It got way out of hand. Bill was hamming it up, scuffling with Dave at the table during the bidding. That was outrageous, but that’s Bill Knight. He’s larger than life, sometimes.”

  “Excuse me, Connie, but are you absolutely sure about all this? I was in Bill and Zenya’s car the night of the Black and White Ball. Bill was screaming about Dave. My goodness, he actually rammed into your car. You and your husband looked appropriately horrified. What was that all about?”

  “Bill can be a real asshole when he’s drunk,” she said flatly. “What we have to put up with from our men, sometimes. If I knew Zenya better, I’d tell her to watch that guy.”

  “So you forgave him for plowing into your car?”

  “We were shocked when he hit our car. But Bill can be a cowboy. Dave says Bill is going through a midlife crisis to end all. I mean, you’ve seen it yourself. Bill’s been drinking too much. He’s been loud. He chased us after the party. He’s even been seen with…Well, that’s not important. We realize Bill can get a little unstable at times. He sent us an apology the next morning, along with a case of Dom Pérignon and a large check to fix our car. It’s in the shop right now.”

  I shook my head. “Then why was Bill saying Dave stole the Mark VI?”

  “What?” Connie put her hand on my arm, looked in my eyes. Her face drained of color, leaving only dark coral lips and red-stained cheeks. “He said Dave stole the sax? He’s insane.”

  I looked at her, not knowing what to think.

  “Maddie, who do you think donated that saxophone in the first place?”

  Oh ho.

  “Dave found it in a bankruptcy auction in Milwaukee. He bought it for under five thousand dollars. We didn’t think such a fine instrument should go to a child, or we would have kept it for our Ryan. We were hoping to make this auction the best one ever and we did. The rest of this is all ridiculous.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m a fool. I should have known. It was such a shock to be in Bill Knight’s Hummer and watch him attack you like that. He was just raging.”

  “Well, Zenya must be used to it,” she said, quieting down. “Between you and me, no one would blame her if she took the kids and left him.”

  “I see.”

  “But I refuse to get dragged down by the Knights or anyone else, Maddie, and you shouldn’t either. The important thing to remember is we raised a good deal of money for the Woodburn last week, and that means many more children will have a chance to study music and develop their art.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I’m sorry Bill Knight had a tantrum, I’m sorry the saxophone has been misplaced or whatever happened to it, but the insurance covered that and the Woodburn will get its money.”

  I looked at her, suddenly curious. “Did you insure the Selmer for five thousand dollars?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, the policy was written to insure each item for its full auction value, and since we had already held the bidding, we had the current auction value on the Selmer Mark IV established.”

  “You mean the Woodburn gets a hundred thousand for a five-thousand-dollar instrument?”

  She nodded.

  “Boy, that was lucky,” I said.

  “Smart,” Connie corrected, her natural color coming back once more.

  “Jeeps Blues”

  A few days passed as Holly, Wes, and I got down to work, planning the two parties we had squeezed into our already well-booked lineup. Frankly, it was hard to concentrate on burger trucks and flowerpots. I had begun to believe that someone was watching me. I was convinced that the chain of shootings hadn’t ended.

  Each night I lay in Wesley’s spare bedroom, thinking of the loaded revolver I had put in the nightstand drawer, getting up several times to check on it, eventually leaving the drawer open all night, fearful that someone was out there in the dark, waiting to catch me off guard. Each morning, I closed the drawer again, wondering if any of this effort was necessary or if I was going nuts, wondering if I would ever feel completely safe again.

  By Friday, the police were no closer to naming a suspect, as far as we knew, in any of the crimes that had plagued us. There were no breaks on the murder of Sara Jackson. No breaks on the murder of Albert Grasso. After three days of empty dramatic announcements that there were “still no arrests in the linked murders in Whitley Heights,” even our local news channels had let the story cool down. And no one but me seemed to give much thought, any longer, to the theft of the vintage tenor saxophone, even though I had dutifully called Detective Baronowski and reported what I had learned from Connie Hutson about the insurance. The policy had been obtained properly, high premiums had been paid, and the Woodburn didn’t seem to be out a dime on that one, so perhaps no one was still upset over it. No one except Bill Knight, I thought.

  So life went on in that way it always does. After the police allowed us back into my house, it was only a matter of hours before Wes had his crew over there, tearing out the upstairs rooms. I knew I could never sleep in my bedroom again. I didn’t even want to climb the stairs. Demolition, Wes had often maintained, was good for the soul. It fulfilled the classic cycle, he said. Death and rebirth. Destruction and rebuilding. He could get pretty Zen over the demo stage of his projects.

  Wes had drawn up plans several years ago when I first purchased the property. At the time, we went ahead with construction on the commercial kitchen and office area downstairs but put a hold on spending any more money. Now, however, I was seriously thinking about selling my home. Despite all of Wesley’s good intentions, it had been violated in a way no remodel could fix.

  I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t even think about it. Wes and Holly didn’t know what was going on with me, but the truth was I felt guilty for grieving. My pain was nothing compared with the real suffering around me, of the people who had died and the people who had lost them. Of course I knew that. But this had been my first house. I had thought I’d stay here forever. I had loved this house.

  So the demolition stage went on with Wes leading the assault. And the odd thing was, it got a little better after that. Like Wes, I am a fixer and a salvager. It felt like the right thing to do, to repair the house. All this looking over my shoulder and worry was definitely not like me. A redesigned second story, rebuilt from the studs out, might help me to recover my equilibrium. It was possible. And if not, the remodel would make it easier to sell the house quickly and move on.

  And then, sometimes, I couldn’t even believe the murder of Sara Jackson was real. As I worked with my friends in the large, white-tiled kitchen, the violence that had occurred upstairs six nights before seemed utterly impossible. We had hardly known Sara. How had she come to die in my room?

  My mind would wander like that. Off to the unknown and the deadly. And then I snapped back to the present. Holly was laughing about how her hair had turned out. Her straight white-blond hair was gelled back off her forehead with magenta-colored gel. She hadn’t intended to get the streaked look, she was saying, but she was philosophical. Holly was always willing to sacrifice herself in the exploration of a new fashion edge.

  Wes looked up at me. “You thinking about what happened here?”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “I’m becoming obsessed. I feel responsible for Sara being here Sunday morning. And yet…”

  They had that patient look. It wasn’t the first time I had made th
em listen to this.

  “And yet, what am I doing now to help? There must be something I can do.” I trusted my instincts. I could see connections. I had a great track record for spotting liars and understanding motives. None of these alleged gifts had helped me this time.

  “Did the police ever find her boyfriend?” Holly asked as we unpacked the vases we had selected for the Woodburn luncheon. They were fluted cement urns, heavy, classically designed, with a ten-inch diameter.

  “I am not getting regular updates,” I answered. “The detectives on the case don’t return my calls. And Honnett may know something, but he and I are in a transitional period.”

  Wes looked up at me across the center island where we were working. “Transitioning in or out?”

  “I can’t tell,” I said, opening several large boxes with my box cutter. “It’s a mess. His wife is going through a rough time. He’s had to help her more than he was expecting, I have been told.”

  Holly looked up at me. She was on her knees, pulling planters out of the boxes and lining them up on the floor. “A rough time?”

  “Mastectomy. Chemo.”

  “Oh,” Wes said.

  “I mean, if she really needs him, how can he abandon her?”

  No one, it seemed, could argue with cancer. My friends looked worried but said nothing and I began to open boxes of oasis foam and other floral supplies.

  “So you never found Sara’s boyfriend,” Holly prompted again. “Did she just make that up? I can’t believe she was lying to me on Saturday night about having to get home to him. She had this whole story down, you know? How he was at home waiting for her. How he was freaking over his Ph. bloody D. What was up with that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. But I had learned that if one is not expecting to be lied to, one often misses a whopper.

  “Oh, Mad. I picked up your Wagoneer,” Wes said, suddenly remembering. “You know they were bugging us to come and get it.” He sounded apologetic.