A Measure of Murder

by Leslie Karst

  “Well, that would explain why she got the pleading paper part wrong, I guess, if she did draft the will. But I’m guessing you guys have a will template you use, don’t you?”

  “Sure, we have a couple different ones. I used one to do my own will. They’re on the office server, in the same file as all the other templates for forms and pleadings and stuff.”

  “So Lydia would know about that will template, even though she’s not in the probate department?” I asked.

  “I would assume so,” said Margaret. “Look, I gotta get going or I’ll be late for my depo. But if you e-mail me that will, I’ll take a look at it and get back to you.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.” Curiouser and curiouser, I thought as I replaced the phone in my pocket.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I got to chorus that night, the men’s sectional was still going on, so I waited outside with all the other women while Marta finished up with the guys. At five minutes to seven, the director finally released the tenors and basses so they could rush to get a drink of water or use the restroom before regular rehearsal started.

  The women streamed into the church hall, and I dropped my music on a chair and draped my denim jacket over the one next to it to save a place for Allison. Then, spotting Jill coming through the door, I followed her over to the soprano section.

  “Robert sent me a copy of Kyle’s will,” I said as she fetched a music stand and set her black folder on it.

  “Oh yeah? What do you think? Did you find anything interesting?”

  “Maybe.” I sat down in the empty chair next to her and explained my suspicions regarding Lydia and the will.

  “So you think she did it for him but made it so it was invalid on purpose?”

  “I can’t know for sure,” I said, “but if it does end up that the document was generated by her law firm, then I think there’s a pretty good chance that’s what happened. I’m hoping to hear back from my friend at the firm tomorrow.”

  Jill thought a moment. “But she could have just made a mistake. Maybe she didn’t know about the witness thing.”

  “Maybe. But even though I get that a legal secretary who doesn’t do any probate work might think a will should be on pleading paper, I’d be surprised if Lydia didn’t know that a printed will needed witnesses. And I know for a fact that her law firm even has a will template, which would have had signature lines for the witnesses, so she could have just used that if she wanted to make sure it was going to be valid.”

  “So she cheated me and Kyle’s brother out of our inheritance,” Jill said, making fists with both hands, “to make sure her son would get it all.” I could hear her breathing as she slowly flexed her fingers open and then closed again.

  “If she did it,” I added. “We don’t even know for sure that the will came out of her firm. But if she did in fact prepare that will for Kyle, knowing it would be found invalid, well then, I’d say she also had a pretty strong motive for his death, don’t you think?”

  Jill turned to me with a frown. “Lydia? I hadn’t even thought of that. But yeah, I guess you’re right. Duh. An ex would of course be an obvious suspect.” With a fierce shake of the head, she opened her music folder and extracted her Requiem score.

  “There’s actually one more thing I wanted to ask about real quick before rehearsal starts,” I said, observing that Marta was busy talking to the tenor who had replaced Kyle as section leader. “I don’t want to upset you or anything, but if we’re going to find out what happened to Kyle, I figure it’s best to leave no stone unturned, as they say.”

  Jill waited, her frown now back, while I tried to come up with a good way to phrase my question. “It’s about that trip to Europe last summer. Eric said something that made me wonder if maybe Kyle was, uh . . . having a little fling with someone during the trip.”

  “Kyle?” she asked, voice sharp. “Who with?”

  I was almost scared to answer, knowing how Jill felt about her fellow soprano. “Uh, Roxanne,” I managed to say.

  But to my surprise, Jill merely laughed. “Ohmygod, that is too funny. Kyle so would never be involved with Roxanne. He was always going on about how the only thing that matched her massive voice was her massive body.”

  Marta was now making her way to the podium, and everyone hurried to find their seats. But I could still hear Jill chuckling as I headed back to the alto section.

  We spent the first part of rehearsal on the Dies irae and then moved on to the Confutatis. This is the one that Salieri transcribes for Mozart on his deathbed in Amadeus (“You go too fast, you go too fast!”).

  And it’s a zinger: the sizzling strings and menacing tenors and basses create the perfect contrast to the sublime, soaring soprano and alto part that immediately follows. As Marta worked us through the movement, I couldn’t shake the image that the men’s part was the devil on Mozart’s left shoulder, scaring the daylights out of him with threats of being cast into the devouring flames, while the women were the angel on the other shoulder, soothing the dying composer with assurances that he would soon be called to heaven with the blessed.

  When break was announced, I wandered over to the back of the hall and stood for a minute by the door leading into the church office building. Carol and Brian were both at the dessert table, passing out slices of chocolate cake and cups of coffee and tea, and Marta and the four section leaders were all engrossed in conversations. The coast was clear if I wanted to go upstairs to that storage room for a quick peek around.

  During high school, I’d hung out with this guy named Alvin who used to sneak into concerts and movies all the time without paying and almost never got caught. “The key,” he told me, “is to act like you belong. You simply stride through the door with a smile and wave at the ticket seller as if to say, ‘Of course I’ve already paid,’ or ‘I have official business here, so I’m just going to go straight on in.’ It’s the furtive expressions and glances over your shoulder,” he cautioned, “that’ll immediately peg you as an interloper.”

  I’ve never been one to sneak into movies—mostly since it’s unethical, but also because I’m way too chicken. But I’ve always remembered what Alvin said, as it seemed sage advice with regard to non-nefarious activities as well. Doing my best to exude self-assurance in front of the jury, for example, when I was sure I had a dog of a case. Or smiling confidently as I set down a dish of pasta that I knew damn well had been overcooked.

  So right now, instead of glancing guiltily over my shoulder and then dashing through the door, I simply turned and made my way slowly and confidently down the office building hallway, as if I had every reason to do so. It was deserted at this time of night, and most of the doors I passed were shut.

  About halfway down the hall was a door leading outside. Interesting. So there was a second entrance—a way up to that storage room other than through the rehearsal hall. Which meant it could have been someone besides a chorus member who killed Kyle.

  Nobody seemed to be paying any heed, but nevertheless, when I reached the stairway at the end of the hallway, I paused to see if anyone had followed. After waiting about ten seconds, it seemed safe, and I headed upstairs. There were only three rooms up here, two of which were locked. Slipping through the one open door, I let my eyes adjust to the dim light. The room had two windows, but the larger, arched one had been boarded up from the outside. I was in the right place.

  Although dusk was now well upon us, enough light still came through the intact window that I was able to see fairly well. The room contained several tables stacked with cardboard boxes that, upon inspection, contained sheet music, black music folders, and packets of sugar and coffee creamer. About a dozen folding chairs leaned against one wall, and in front of them sat a clothes rack full of pale-blue choir robes. Against another wall stood a large shelf crammed with cleaning supplies, paint cans, and tools.

  Pulling my cell out of my pocket, I switched on the flashlight app and used it to examine the boxes more closely and poke around
the maintenance supplies on the shelf. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Next, I swept the light across the hardwood floor. What was that under the boarded-up window? I bent to retrieve a small, crumpled paper and smoothed it out. It was a green-and-white candy wrapper with the words “Elixier Herb.”

  Ah. The German herb-infused cough drops favored by singers the world over to soothe their throats. I’d have to ask Jill if Kyle had used them. I tucked the wrapper in my pocket and continued my sweep of the floor.

  When the floor search uncovered nothing further, I turned my attention to the boarded-up window. A two-by-four support ran along the bottom, where the frame had sat before falling out. Shining my flashlight on it, I saw that it too was badly rotted and full of pits and crevices. I swept the light slowly across its surface and was rewarded by the glint of metal in one of the crevices.

  Aha! What could that be? Fishing a Kleenex from my back pocket, I used it to grab hold of what appeared to be a small medallion of some sort and carefully wrapped the object in the tissue.

  As I was stashing the prize in my pocket, I heard footsteps coming up the hardwood stairs. There was just enough time for me to switch off the flashlight app and crouch behind the rack of choir robes before a tall man stepped into the doorway. He stood there and looked around the room but didn’t turn on the light. Then, after a moment, he turned and headed back downstairs.

  Was that Brian? Although he’d been backlit, and my view had been mostly obstructed by the robes, the guy did have Brian’s height and lanky build. Had he seen me come upstairs and followed me to the room?

  I waited until the footsteps had receded and then waited another thirty Mississippis for good measure before creeping from the storage room. All was quiet. I hurried back down the stairs and the hallway, then stepped out into the rehearsal hall, acting as nonchalant as I could.

  Brian was standing behind the dessert table, exactly as he’d been before I’d gone upstairs. He was talking with one of the sopranos, who was sipping from a paper coffee cup and laughing at something he’d just said. He didn’t even glance my way when I emerged from the office building doorway.

  Okay, I’m just being paranoid, I thought as I headed for the alto section. Whoever came up to the room was obviously looking for someone besides me, and when he saw nobody was there, he left. And even if it was Brian, that still didn’t mean anything. He had every reason to go up to the room, since he helps run the desserts. And then, noticing that Carol was no longer at the dessert table, I realized if it had been him, he’d probably just been looking for her.

  Marta clapped her hands for everyone to get seated, and I took my place with the altos. I was dying to have a look at that medallion I’d found but didn’t want to risk getting my fingerprints on it. Plus, it was probably best not to be flashing the thing around the chorus, given my hunch that it could be a clue to Kyle’s death. So I’d have to wait till I got home.

  After a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” for one of the basses, Marta had us turn to the Rex tremendae, or “Big Fat King,” as Allison and I had taken to calling it. We sang through the movement once and then returned to the top.

  “I want a double-dotted figure here,” the director told us, referring to the dotted eighth note all four parts had in the sixth measure. “It’s a baroque-style composition, so we’re going to follow the tradition of that era and double the length of the first note.” Marta sang the soprano’s part—“reeeex . . . tre-meeee . . . ndae”—demonstrating the rhythm for us, but then she began to cough.

  “Scusi,” she said with a quick smile. “I’ve been having some problems with my throat the past few weeks.” She picked up the water bottle at her feet on the podium, unscrewed it and took a sip, and set it back down. And then, as if in slow motion, I watched as she reached into her pocket, withdrew a small pastille, removed its green-and-white wrapping, and popped it into her mouth.

  It was an Elixier throat lozenge.

  * * *

  The rest of rehearsal seemed interminable. After finishing up the Rex tremendae, we continued, without stopping, straight on to the Confutatis once more, and as I sang, my mind was racing. I knew it was irrational—that lots of people used those Elixier lozenges. But I couldn’t stop wondering, What if Marta was the one? Could there in fact be a connection between that rumor she’s so upset about and Kyle’s death? I ended up getting such a severe case of the jimmy leg that Allison finally reached over and grabbed my thigh to stop my incessant heel tapping.

  I stared at the choral director, who was talking about something called “enharmonic progressions,” and tried to imagine her shoving Kyle out of that window. It seemed completely farfetched, but then again, imagining anyone in the chorus—or from any other walk of life, for that matter—doing such an act was hard for me to fathom. I had to talk to Jill to see what she thought.

  When Marta turned to work with the basses on their line, I took the opportunity to slide my phone partway out of my pocket and check the time: nearly a half hour to go. Would rehearsal ever end? I was still fidgeting, though trying to keep it to a minimum for Allison’s sake, when a couple minutes later, I saw Jill gather her things, whisper something to the woman next to her, and slip out the back door of the hall. Damn. Now I’d have to wait till Wednesday to talk to her.

  I turned my attention once more to Marta, who was lecturing the basses about their intonation. “Your entry note here, the E-flat, it is not in tune. But I will not be too hard on you this one time, because it is a difficult interval—a tritone, coming in after the A the sopranos and altos have just sung. And you know what they call the tritone, don’t you? They call it the devil in music.” Marta flashed a wicked grin, and the chorus all laughed.

  Everyone but me, that is. For I couldn’t help imagining the possibility of genuine evil behind the smile.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, I called Eric as soon as I’d made a pot of coffee and taken Buster for his morning constitutional. I’d tried to grab him after rehearsal, but the basses are lucky enough to sit nearest the door, and he’d obviously scooted right out; his black Lexus was gone by the time I made it out to the parking lot. I’d left a message for him on his phone, but it had been vague: just that I wanted to talk.

  He picked up after three rings. “Hey, Sal. What’s up?”

  “How come you didn’t call me back last night?”

  “I went straight to bed when I got home. I don’t feel so hot. Didn’t you see me sitting at the back during rehearsal?” Eric broke off with a hacking cough and then cleared his throat. “I don’t want anyone else in chorus to catch whatever crud I’ve got.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t notice. I was kind of preoccupied.”

  “Uh-oh. What now?”

  “Well, is this a good time to talk? You at work?”

  “I’m taking a sick day. Right now I’m on the couch with a cup of ginger tea, zoning out on Benadryl and watching SpongeBob SquarePants. It’s pretty damn funny, actually.”

  “No doubt the drugs help.”

  “No doubt,” Eric agreed. “So what has you so preoccupied? Lemme guess: something to do with Kyle.”

  “You got it.” I told him about the invalid will and my suspicions regarding its creation.

  “But why the hell would this Lydia chick, or whoever did it, use pleading paper? If they worked at a law firm, surely they’d know better.”

  “I’m thinking it had to be someone who did general litigation, not probate or trusts and estates, which is why they thought it should be on pleading paper. Or maybe they just thought it would look more ‘legal’ that way, you know, for Kyle.”

  “Hrumph,” was Eric’s response, or something with a similar spelling.

  “But that’s not all,” I went on, undaunted by his lack of enthusiasm for my theory. “And this is what I wanted to tell you after rehearsal. I searched that storage room at break last night.”

  “Oh lord.” I could envision Eric’s disapproving look but fig
ured it had to be tempered some by his pseudoephedrine-addled brain. “Please tell me you’re joking, Sal. And do remember you’re talking to an officer of the court.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad, Mr. DA. It’s not like it’s somebody’s private office or something. You yourself said the room was basically just like a broom closet, so what’s the big deal?”

  “Whatever.” I could hear Eric take a drink of his tea and then blow his nose.

  “Anyway, when I was up there, I found this medallion stuck in a crevice where the window frame fell out. I’m thinking it might have come from the person who pushed Kyle. It couldn’t have been there before that, ’cause there wouldn’t have been a hole yet.”

  “What kind of medallion?”

  I’d finally examined the metal disc when I got home and had recognized it at once. “It’s one of those St. Christopher medals,” I said. “Silver with a turquoise-colored center and a hole for a chain.”

  Eric was silent, and if I hadn’t been able to hear the drone of the TV in the background, I would have worried that we’d been disconnected. Finally, after about five seconds, he said, “You know, a lot of surfers wear those. I guess it’s because he’s the patron saint of the water or something.”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I looked it up online last night, and he’s associated with helping travelers cross the water, hence the surfer tradition. So anyway, since you surf, I thought maybe you’d know if anyone in the chorus wore a St. Christopher medal.”

  “I can’t think of anyone offhand. I used to have one, but it was silver all over—no blue.”

  “So you’re off the hook, then.” I took a sip of coffee and set the mug down on the dining room table. “I found something else up there, too. An Elixier throat lozenge wrapper crumpled up on the floor.”

  “And now you’re trying to figure out who in the chorus uses them.”

  “I am. And I did see someone with one last night.” I paused, suddenly aware of a reluctance to say what I’d seen, as if speaking it aloud would somehow make it more real.