Murder at the Opera: A Capital Crimes Novel

by Margaret Truman

  The crowd dispersed. The big man with the white beard insisted that an officer take down his name as a witness to police brutality. As the cop dutifully recorded it in a notebook, thinking all the while that he’d like to practice some brutality on this guy, a homeless man with urine-stained chino pants and carrying a bulging knapsack entered the alley where Chris Warren had been apprehended. The sheaf of sheet music Warren had been carrying with him had ended up strewn over the alley floor. The homeless citizen picked up the loose sheets, examined each of them like a pawn-shop owner evaluating a ring someone was looking to hock, and tossed them one by one on top of the refuse already in the Dumpster. Sometimes you get lucky, he thought. This isn’t one of those days.

  SIXTEEN

  There was a time in Mackensie Smith’s life that taking an afternoon off was anathema. Catching a movie matinee was out of the question, even when there was little to do in his law office on a given day. And to enjoy a sexual episode while the sun still shone was—well, the guilt associated with it wasn’t worth the pleasure. Not guilt for engaging in sex, but for doing it during working hours.

  But he’d changed.

  He and Annabel had returned to their Watergate apartment after the meeting at WNO’s administrative offices and thoroughly mangled the king-size bed they’d so carefully made up that morning. Sated, they made the bed again—both were committed neatniks—and enjoyed a postcoital glass of mango juice on the terrace.

  “Do you know what I thought about while we were in bed?” she asked.

  “Not me?”

  “Of course you. But for a moment, I pictured myself as Delila in Samson and Delila.”

  He grinned. “And I was Samson?”

  “Yes.”

  He placed his fingers on his receding hairline. “Is that what happened to my hair?” he asked. “You cut it off to rob me of my strength?”

  “I had a little help from Mother Nature. By the way, Delila in the opera is pronounced Dah-lee-la, with the emphasis on the final ‘la.’ At least that’s how Saint-Saëns pronounced it.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. So, what’s on our agenda for the rest of the day?”

  “There’s the rehearsal at seven.”

  “I almost succeeded in forgetting about that.”

  “Which I would never let you do. I thought I might go up to Takoma Park and ask around about Charise Lee.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, to get a feel for how and why her murder might have happened.”

  “Now, hold on a second,” he said, sitting taller and facing her directly. “Solving the young lady’s murder isn’t your business.”

  “How can you say that?” she countered. “I think it’s everyone’s business. After all, I am on WNO’s board. We all have an obligation to do whatever we can to help find her killer.”

  “Wrong,” he said, his finger stabbing the air for emphasis. “The police are responsible for that and—”

  “And your Detective Pawkins.”

  “Right. They’re pros, Annie. I’m sure that between them they’ll talk to anyone and everyone who might have something to offer. As for us, we’ve already done our duty. Pawkins is on the case because of you and me. Leave it at that.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll be content to simply sit back and let the so-called pros do the job? What if we can come up with something that would be helpful to them?”

  “If that happens by accident, fine. Aside from that, we have other things to worry about, like my classes and your gallery. And, of course, my debut as an opera star.”

  “That’s right,” she said brightly, as though he’d made a revelatory statement. “Your debut. A star is born. I hope the paparazzi aren’t lurking downstairs.”

  They left the terrace and went their separate ways, agreeing to meet up at the Kennedy Center at seven. He headed for his office at GW to catch up on paperwork, and she said she was going to her Georgetown gallery to do the same.

  “You take the car,” he said. “I’ll walk.”

  “Sure you can?” she asked wickedly.

  As he headed off at a pace health fanatics would term a “power walk,” she climbed in their car in the parking garage beneath the Watergate and pulled out onto the street. But instead of going to Georgetown, she went up 16th Street toward Takoma Park and the Washington National Opera’s satellite facility. Although she knew that Mac was right—that they were not in the business of solving murders—there was a compelling need to touch base with those who’d been affected by the crime. Since joining the board, she felt very much a part of the Washington opera community. Besides, she silently admitted to herself, I’m as curious as the next person when it comes to the murder of an opera singer inside one of the nation’s cultural icons, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

  As she drove, she found herself hoping for one thing, that the person who killed Charise Lee wasn’t one of the young singer’s colleagues in the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. Let it not be someone who would sully the sterling reputation of that program, and of the Washington National Opera itself. But hoping, she knew, was one thing. Reality so often turned out to be damningly different.

  Chris Warren was delivered to the First Precinct, processed at the front desk, and placed in a holding cell until Detective Carl Berry was ready to question him. The young musician had become silent and sullen during the ride in the patrol car and refused to answer questions posed by the desk sergeant, including giving his name. The only thing he would say was “I’m a Canadian citizen. I want a lawyer.”

  “Sure, son,” the dour sergeant said. “The Mounties will be here any minute to rescue you.”

  As the processing took place, Berry was on the phone in his office talking with Sylvia Johnson, who’d called from the hospital.

  “How’s Willie?” Berry asked.

  “Okay, I guess. He’s in the emergency room. They’re running tests.”

  “Looks like a heart attack?”

  “That’s what I thought, but I’m no doctor. I’ll get back to you once I know more. Look, Carl, about the Warren kid. He gave us a hard time, ran off, tried to hide in an alley behind a Dumpster. He made another run for it but ran into Willie’s fist.”

  “Ran into it?” Berry said, his tone mirroring his amusement at the description.

  “Exactly. Willie stuck out his arm and the kid ran into it.”

  “Okay,” Berry said. “Did he say anything before making contact with Willie’s arm?”

  “Nothing incriminating. He just kept harping on the fact that he’s Canadian.”

  “I know. Kowalski at the desk told me that. He’s asked for a lawyer.”

  “He’s not dumb.”

  “We’ll see. You read him his rights?”

  “No. It was too chaotic with Willie down.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it. Maybe he’ll want to talk without counsel. We’ve got his passport. We’ll notify his embassy, like the law says. Are you going to hang in there with Willie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay in touch.”

  His next call was to have Warren brought to an interrogation room—“interview room,” as they preferred to term it. Warren had been allowed to clean up a bit, but his swollen nose and purple cheek couldn’t be washed away, any more than the rust-colored stains on Mozart’s face could be.

  Berry stood outside the room with another detective and observed Warren through the one-way glass. The Canadian sat slouched in a straight-back wooden chair. He was alone in the room. His eyes darted from wall to wall, frequently coming to rest on the mirror. Berry held four pieces of paper in his hand, one the standard Miranda warning; the second a statement to be read to any foreign national being detained or arrested in the United States; the third a series of notes he’d taken during his earlier meeting with Portelain and Johnson; and a standard form, already filled out, to be faxed to the Canadian Embassy alerting it
that one of its citizens was in police custody.

  “He looks guilty as hell,” the other detective commented.

  “He sure acted it,” said Berry. “What’d he run for if he had nothing to hide?”

  “You’ll find out,” the second detective said, slapping Berry on the back. “Want me in there with you, play good cop, bad cop?”

  “No. Too early for that, but hang around. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Berry’s entrance into the room caused Warren to straighten in his chair.

  “Mr. Warren, I’m Detective Carl Berry,” Berry said, taking the only other chair in the room.

  “I want a lawyer, and I want to talk to somebody from my embassy. I’m a Canadian citizen.”

  “I know that,” Berry said. He slid a printed copy of the Miranda warning across the table and asked Warren to silently read it while the detective read it aloud. When he was finished, he pushed a pen at Warren and asked him to sign it. Warren angrily swept the paper and pen off the table.

  “Have it your way,” Berry said. He consulted the second sheet of paper he’d carried in with him. “As a non-U.S. citizen,” he read, “who is being arrested or detained, you are entitled to have us notify your country’s consular representative here in the United States. A consular official from your country may be able to help you obtain legal counsel, and may contact your family and visit you in detention, among other things. If you want us to notify your country’s consular officials, you can request this notification now, or at any time in the future. After your consular officials are notified, they may call or visit you. Do you want us to notify your country’s consular officials?”

  “What do you think I’ve been saying all along?” Warren replied.

  “Had to read it to you,” Berry said, smiling. “For the record.” He showed Warren the fax. “Everything correct on it?” he asked. “We’ll fax it over to your embassy right away. You can see I’ve indicated that you want an attorney assigned to you. I’m sure the folks at the embassy will arrange that.”

  “It looks okay,” Warren said, the defiance in his voice fading.

  Berry let silence dominate for a few seconds.

  “I don’t know why you arrested me,” Warren said softly. “I didn’t do anything.”

  You’ve been warned you don’t have to say anything without a lawyer, Berry thought. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.

  “You haven’t been arrested,” Berry said. “We just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “Then why did you send cops to bring me here?”

  “I’ll tell you why, sir. Detective Johnson asked you questions at that place where you were playing the piano—Takoma Park, right?”

  Warren nodded.

  “And she told me that you weren’t very cooperative.”

  “I had nothing to tell her. I didn’t have anything to do with Charise being murdered.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But you were her roommate, which means you were close to her. We tend to look first at people who were close to a murder victim.”

  “Close? You mean like husbands or wives, or boyfriends and girlfriends?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I wasn’t anything like that with Charise. We roomed together, that’s all.”

  “You’re both from Toronto.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You knew each other there? I mean, before coming here to Washington?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled. Then he said with more animation, “But not well.”

  “She was a pretty girl, as I understand it,” Berry said.

  “She was. Yes, she was.”

  “And talented.” He grinned and spread open hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know anything about opera, but I’m told she had a great future as an opera singer.”

  Warren shrugged. “She was okay,” he said.

  “Just okay?” Berry asked, his interest heightened.

  “Yeah. I’ve worked with better singers.”

  “As I said, I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Where’s my music?” Warren asked.

  “What music?”

  “I had music with me when they arrested me.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, either.”

  The door opened and a detective handed Berry a note.

  “Looks like your embassy is on the ball,” Berry said. “Someone from there wants to speak with you. You can use that phone over there in the corner. I’ll leave you alone.”

  Berry left the room as Warren went to where the phone rested on a low, empty bookcase and picked up the receiver.

  “They’re sending a lawyer,” the second detective said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they are,” Berry said. “I wanted to get into that so-called alibi he said he had before a lawyer got involved.”

  “What’d he claim?”

  “He claims he was out drinking and got drunk, too drunk to remember who he was with or where he was.”

  The other detective laughed. “Maybe he went out to celebrate offing the kid.”

  “Maybe he didn’t go out at all,” Berry said. “He’s no big drinker. I’m sure of that.”

  “Looks like he might have gotten in a fight wherever he was. That’s a mean-looking face.”

  “Willie.”

  “Portelain?”

  Berry smiled. “Sylvia says the kid made a run for it and Willie’s arm happened to get in the way.”

  “Plays for me,” said the second detective.

  “We’ll see how it plays for his lawyer. I can smell a brutality charge on the horizon.”

  Berry looked through the glass. Warren had concluded his phone conversation and retaken his chair.

  “Let him sit there until his mouthpiece arrives,” Berry said.

  Berry had no sooner returned to his office than a clerk delivered the news that a judge had approved the surrender of Warren’s passport, pending any legal challenge that would cause the decision to be overturned.

  “Great,” Berry said, thinking that every once in a while judges do the right thing.

  He took a call announcing the arrival of Warren’s attorney, and met him in the interrogation room.

  “Harlan Kendall,” the attorney said, handing Berry his card. “Our firm is on retainer with the Canadian Embassy. What are you charging Mr. Warren with?”

  “Nothing at the moment,” Berry replied. “He’s a person of interest in the murder of his roommate, Charise Lee.”

  “The opera singer,” Kendall said. He was a sausage of a man wearing a tailored blue suit, white shirt, and regimental tie, which would have draped better on a taller, thinner man. “Looks like you caught yourself a big one.”

  “We’ve caught bigger,” Berry said.

  “Is my client a target of the investigation?” Kendall asked while ruffling through papers from his attaché case.

  “I told you, he’s a person of interest in the case. I should also tell you that he’s been booked for resisting arrest and assault on an officer.”

  “That’s a lie,” Warren said, rising a few inches from his chair.

  “They beat me up.”

  Kendall dropped the papers on the desk. “Judging from his face,” he said, “I’d say he was beaten.”

  “File a charge,” Berry said.

  “Who was the arresting officer?” The attorney asked.

  “William Portelain. He’s in intensive care at the hospital as we speak. He had a heart attack trying to subdue your client.”

  Kendall looked at Warren.

  “He hit me in the face,” Warren said, “and knocked me on the ground.”

  “I’d like to speak with my client privately,” Kendall said.

  “Sure,” Berry said, and left, instructing the uniformed officer on duty outside the room to shut off the concealed microphone.

  After ten minutes, Kendall opened the door and asked Berry to rejoin them. “My client,” the attorney said, “is willing to drop any char
ges of police brutality in return for you dropping all charges of resisting arrest and assault on a cop.”

  “I’ve got a veteran detective in the hospital clinging to life because of your client’s dumb behavior. All we wanted to do was question him, and he takes off like a three-strikes-and-you’re-out felon. Consciousness of guilt?”

  “Can we talk privately?” Kendall asked Berry.

  “Sure.”

  Again outside the room, the attorney said, “Look, this is no killer, and he’s no tough guy who assaults cops. I spoke with the people at the program he’s in with the Washington Opera. He’s a sensitive, brilliant pianist, maybe a little high-strung, like most artists, but an okay kid. No record back in Canada. I checked. He’s minding his own business on a sunny afternoon and two detectives confront him on the street, scare the hell out of him. He bolts. Come on, Detective, let’s be reasonable here.”

  Berry’s response was to hand Kendall the court order concerning Warren’s passport.

  “This’ll never stand up,” Kendall said.

  “I think it will,” Berry said. “We drop the charges on the condition that he reconsiders charging my detectives with brutality and he answers questions concerning the murder. Deal?”

  “He doesn’t legally have to. Answer questions.”

  “Right. He also doesn’t have to leave here as long as the charges are pending against him. A couple of nights in our five-star hotel until a judge gets around to arraigning him might help clear his high-strung head. Of course, we don’t have a baby grand for him to practice on, but…”

  “I’ll encourage him to answer your questions.”

  “Do more than just encourage him, Counselor. If he acts like the innocent person he claims to be, and if he makes sense, we have a deal.”

  Kendall and Warren conferred again in the interrogation room. Kendall emerged and nodded at Berry, who rejoined them around the table.

  “Okay,” Berry said, “let’s start over, Mr. Warren. Tell me where you were the night your roommate, Ms. Lee, was killed.”

  Warren looked at Kendall, who nodded.