“Can I offer you some coffee? Tea? Mineral water?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” I replied.
She motioned toward two seats in front of her desk, and as Tony and I sat, she moved behind the desk in one beautifully facile movement. I was instantly envious. I’ve always had to think out nearly every move I make, especially when I’m onstage. Sometimes stage movement gets in my way so much my singing suffers. It used to be far worse, but even after many years, it’s still a more of a consideration than it should be. It used to make Gerhard so angry.
“No, no, no! Marta, you cannot broadcast your every movement to the audience! What you do, this stage business, must seem natural, unforced — and with you it does not. I watch you and I always see the little wheels turning in your head.” He made gyrations with his index fingers on either side of his head. “Always we see that you are play acting only. If you are Lucia, then you must make us believe that you are Lucia. Same with Tosca, Violetta. Same with —” Gerhard’s arms flew up in the air in a motion of extreme frustration. “Same with all of them!”
That was the closest Gerhard ever brought me to complete despair.
“Ms. Hendriks?” Shannon O’Brien’s voice broke through my unintentional reverie.
I noticed another quick flick of her eyes, this time toward Tony.
“You’ll have to excuse my wife,” he said. “Her situation has her somewhat … distracted.”
She made a welcoming gesture across the desk.
“Please, start your story from the beginning. Tell it at your own speed.”
I realized some conversation had gone on while I had zoned out.
“I, ah …” My thoughts were hopelessly jumbled.
They both looked at me encouragingly.
“I’ve already told Ms. O’Brien a bit about the bouquets,” Tony offered helpfully.
I grew more embarrassed. I had been really far away this time.
O’Brien gave me time to collect myself by taking a sip from a mug of coffee she had at her elbow.
“I believe someone is stalking me,” I said in a rush and then stopped, unsure what to say next.
“When and where did this stalking begin?” O’Brien asked as she picked up a pen. “Take your time and tell me everything you can remember about what’s happened to you.”
“May I have some water, please?”
While she filled a glass from a carafe that had been on top of a low bookcase behind her, I gathered my scattered wits. Once I’d taken two large sips, I felt more ready to begin.
“I am an opera singer,” I began, but she held up her hand.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you so soon, but you need to know that I always research my clients before they arrive on my doorstep. I am well aware of who you are and what you do for a living. Consider that I already know everything about you that can be found on the Internet. It will save time.”
“Do you know anything about opera?”
“Not a thing, to my shame, but I do know something of backstage life. Now, please continue.”
It took over an hour to get through the interview even though I was getting more polished at relating my tale of woe.
It was soon evident this detective was a highly skilled interviewer. She drew out of me many details that I didn’t even realize I knew.
By the end, we all had a much clearer picture of just what had been happening to me.
Spread across her desk were all the notes from the stalker that I had, five of the ten. Tony and I waited a few minutes while she examined each closely with a magnifying glass, causing us to smile over her head.
“Have you ever dealt with a situation like this before?” I asked when she’d sat up again.
“Once, when I was still a member of the police force, but it certainly wasn’t this involved. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble.”
“And a lot of expense,” Tony added unnecessarily.
“So what do you think?” I asked. “What should I do?”
She looked closely at me for a moment before speaking. That last question had come out a lot more emotionally than I wished.
“Okay. I know a fair bit about handwriting analysis, and I’m nearly certain your ‘admirer’ is male. There are a number of indicators that point to this and not a female imitating a male’s handwriting. He is intelligent, driven, and very meticulous. He is a creature of habit. He also thinks a lot of himself, probably that he’s smarter than those around him. Of course some of these observations stem from what he’s done rather than just his handwriting.” She indicated the cards spread across her desk. “Which is the most recent one?”
I looked through them for a moment. “This.”
Again the long observation and comparison with other examples.
“You may have noticed these are all written using a fountain pen. They’re sensitive writing instruments and reveal a lot more. The nib of the pen flexes depending on pressure. If you write faster or more, shall we say, emotionally, it shows up. This most recent one definitely shows more stress.”
“Do you think it’s because he’s angry with me?”
“Hard to say. For that you need to speak to a forensic psychologist. Based on my knowledge and experience, I can say that he was either rushed, excited-slash-angry, or both. Certainly something was different about his state of mind.”
Now came the big question. “Should I be worried?”
She took a deep breath. “Perhaps. I would need to know a lot more than I do now to give you an unequivocal answer.”
Tony leaned forward. “We want to hire you. My wife is going out on the road again and I’m concerned.”
“My current engagement is in Rome,” I added. “I must be back for a Monday performance. Then I go to Venice before returning home again.”
“What do you want to hire me to do?” Shannon O’Brien asked. “We can certainly try to find out the identity of this person for you.”
I looked over at Tony. His expression clearly told me, Your choice, dear.
I took a deep breath, keeping my eyes where they were. “Yes,” I answered. “Maybe if we find out who this person is, he’ll give up and go back under the rock he crawled out from.”
“Would you be willing to take this to court if he doesn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“It might take a restraining order to get someone like this to back off. The reason I ask is that it would affect the way we would go about doing our investigation.”
That set me back on my heels. Stupidly, I hadn’t thought about court, even though cases like mine often wound up there. I was still aware the “damaged goods” label wasn’t very far in my past and that debacle in Paris two years ago was still reverberating through my professional life.
“You think it could come to that?”
Shannon O’Brien shrugged. “You need to be prepared for the possibility.”
Tony, true to form, asked the next most important question. “What are we looking at cost wise for your services?”
That took five minutes of explanations about retainers, reporting, blah, blah, blah. Tony has a better head than I for this sort of thing. I just caught the really relevant things like “five thousand dollar retainer,” small stuff like that. The numbers being bandied about were pretty hair-raising.
As my pen floated across the bottom of some forms, I thought about the end-game here. What was I really after?
Chapter Six
Our personal detective service certainly wasted no time getting on the job.
Tony and I arrived home and received a call shortly after, asking if we’d be there at four. O’Brien had already dug up a glass expert who would take a look at the remains of the suspect shelf and give us his opinion. She also wanted to bring over an additional person.
“Our surveillance expert, very experienced. I want him to do a complete sweep of your condo.”
“What’s he going to tell us?”
“Depends on what he finds. In fact,
for your sake, I hope he doesn’t find anything.”
I couldn’t avoid looking around the living room, wondering whether someone had burrowed his way this far into our privacy. It felt as if my life was coming apart. Taking a deep breath, I willed my heart to slow down. It didn’t work.
Shannon was right. I hoped to God she didn’t find anything.
Perhaps in an effort to distract me, Tony asked what I would like to do for dinner.
“What about taking Lili out?”
“Great idea. Phone her up.”
Uncharacteristically, she answered on the second ring. Generally one had to leave messages, which she would answer between coachings. I questioned that.
“I cancelled a few days of work because I’m feeling so tired.”
I asked, “Is your leg bothering you?”
“Not particularly. My arms are aching from these zatracený crutches.”
My concern deepened. Lili didn’t shift to Czech when she knew the other person didn’t understand it.
“We’d like to take you out to dinner tonight, dear.”
“I don’t think I would be very good company.”
“It would do you good to get out of the house. When was the last time you were outside?”
She ignored my question. “I appreciate your offer, but no. I would rather stay home.”
“Then we’ll bring dinner over.”
“No. I am not fit for company.”
“Nonsense!”
The discussion went back and forth for several minutes and I grew more concerned. This was very unlike Lili.
Eventually, I wore her down. I couldn’t get her to tell me what she wanted to eat, but that was typical of her. The only place the woman ever dithered was over a menu.
Tony and I kicked ideas around for awhile and came up with a great solution: order from a Czech restaurant we’d heard of in the extreme east end of the city. We could pick up the food and reheat it at Lili’s. Tony was on it in a moment. We’d order all Lili’s favourites. It would cost us, but what the heck. Czech food is in short supply in T.O.
Not knowing how long the detective crew would need to be in our apartment, Tony decided he would make the run out to Scarborough for the food and I’d man the home front. If they weren’t finished by the time we had to leave for Lili’s, then they’d just have to come back later.
Shannon O’Brien arrived promptly at four with her two specialists. The glass guy was a little old man from Holland whose English was nearly incomprehensible even though he’d lived in Canada for half his life. From what I gathered, he’d been born into the glass trade and Shannon assured me that what he didn’t know about the stuff wasn’t worth knowing. He was sloppily dressed and the green sweater he wore was decidedly threadbare.
“Where did you find him?” I whispered as he shuffled over to the shelf remains still spread out on the dining room table.
“He came highly recommended by someone I know in the Ontario Provincial Police forensics unit. They use Hans whenever they have a question about glass.”
The white-haired man’s sole tools consisted of a large magnifying glass, calipers, and a steel ruler. I had to supply a desk lamp so he could see what he was doing. He quickly shooed us away so he could work undisturbed.
The surveillance expert, on the other hand, brought in two of those flight-case things, the size of large suitcases and very pro-looking.
“Dan Hudson, and I’m pleased to meet you.”
Removing his ski jacket, Hudson quickly flipped open the equipment cases. They had compartments in the lids and bases and each was filled with gadgets and cables, all neatly labelled and impressive as hell.
“What’s all this for?” I asked.
Shannon motioned for silence by holding her index finger to her lips, then crooked her finger for me to follow her out to the hallway.
“We don’t know if your apartment has bugs,” she told me in a low voice, “but let’s make the assumption it does. It’s safer to talk out here. We don’t want your stalker to know that we may be onto him.”
“I see. Are you confident your expert will find anything that’s there?”
“Oh yes. He used to work for the government.”
“He’s a spy?”
Shannon looked as if she wished she hadn’t told me. “I suppose you could say that.”
“Cool.”
She looked at me oddly, then said, “We’ll go back in, but watch what you say. Just remember that someone could be listening. Okay?”
I sat on the sofa in the living room, trying to stay out of the way, and watched in fascination as Dan and Shannon went over the apartment. From the dining room I could hear Hans, our glass expert, mumbling to himself. I found it all highly amusing. The whole thing was completely out of the realm of my experience.
It was clear Hudson was in charge, but Shannon knew her way around this stuff as well.
Dan had given his boss a small black box with a strap that she slung over her shoulder. Connected to it was a cord with an antenna at the end that she held in her right hand and headphones she slipped over her ears.
She began pacing around the condo moving the antenna slowly back and forth as if searching for buried treasure — or looking for land mines. Her eyes were glued to the control panel at one end of the black box and her face held a look of extreme concentration. Twice in the living room she stopped, retraced her steps, and came back, after which she pulled a small notebook out of the back pocket of her jeans and scribbled a line or two.
In the meantime, Dan was crawling around the floor in a quite undignified manner, moving furniture (even flipping chairs over), peering at the baseboards, sweeping his hands in wide arcs over the broadloom. He spent the most time examining the large bookcase and stereo unit that filled one end of the living room.
When they moved to the bedrooms, I followed, but it was more of the same and I was losing interest. There were no eureka moments to prove I was correct in my assumption that this creep stalking me had invaded our living space. I only stayed in case they had any questions. It’s tough watching someone go through your undies, even if they do it gently and dispassionately.
Tony arrived back shortly after six in a great mood from his mercy trip to the Czech restaurant. Over the time we’d known each other, he’d become as fond of Lili as I.
I’d introduced them early on in our relationship. Lili had taken Tony under her vocal coaching wing, at first undoubtedly for my sake, but as he began improving by leaps and bounds, more for the pleasure of working with a talented singer. Now she saw him far more than I did.
“What’s up with the sleuths?” he asked as he flopped down next to me on the sofa.
“You saw Hans on your way in, I assume.”
“Little old guy in the dining room, examining small chunks of glass as if they were the Holy Grail?”
“That’s him. Shannon and her other expert are in the second bedroom.”
“Have they told you anything?”
“Not a word, but they’ve consulted in whispers several times. It’s all a little unnerving to tell you the truth.”
When Tony started to ask a question about bugs, I put my hand over his mouth and my lips to his ear. “Shannon told me not to talk about anything that touches on this. Assume we’re being listened to.”
Tony nodded. “We’ve got to leave for Lili’s soon. I’ve left the food in the car.”
“I’ll ask them how much longer they’ll be.”
Again, Shannon took me out into the hall to talk.
“We’re almost done, but Dan wants to come back tomorrow.”
“Have you found anything?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Oh Christ …”
Shannon looked at me searchingly. “I want to be clear with you. It’s now a matter of how much, not if.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
Shannon considered for a moment. “I’d rather not. My two experts will give me full repo
rts and then I’ll discuss it with you.”
“Was the glass shelf broken on purpose?”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Hans wants to talk to another colleague, but it’s his opinion that it was deliberately broken.” She patted my shoulder. “I will call tomorrow and tell you what we have so far.”
At that point Dan stuck his head out the apart-ment door.
“Could I borrow your cell phone and laptop for the night? I want to check them for creepy-crawlies. Your husband’s too, if I may.”
“I’ll have to ask Tony, but sure, you can have my stuff.”
“Great. I’m just packing up now.”
He disappeared inside again.
I stood there for a moment, trying to wrap my brain around Shannon’s news when Tony stuck his head out.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Talking, because we can’t inside.”
Tony grasped the full meaning immediately. “Oh.”
“Shannon’s surveillance expert wants to check our cells and laptops. I told him he could take mine, but I didn’t want to speak for you.”
“I’d rather get someone at work to check mine. If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”
As Tony went in, I looked at Shannon. “What the hell should we do?”
“Carry on as if nothing has happened.”
“How can I do that knowing someone is listening to me?”
“You must. We want to catch this guy. The less he suspects, the better. Opera singers are actors as well as musicians, aren’t they? Just act.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Shannon the acting part was the facet of my craft that I struggled with the most.
Our evening with Lili was just the tonic I needed after the disturbing events of the day. Tony did his very best to cheer us up, being in turn solicitous and funny. The food, even reheated, was excellent, and by the time we got to dessert, vanilla crescent cookies called vanilkove rohlicky, I swear Lili was near swooning.
Masques and Murder — Death at the Opera 2-Book Bundle Page 34