Joan had a hard time picturing Camila hopping when anyone snapped his fingers. “Maybe,” she said. “But she seemed to take her career pretty seriously. It’s no rinky-dink contest, either. The first prize is something like thirty thousand dollars. And in addition to the money, the winner gets concert bookings and the kind of prestige that can jump-start a solo career. It means far more than the prizes. Besides, I can’t believe even a wealthy Brazilian would leave a Stradivarius behind.”
“If she left it behind at all,” the army man said. “If you want my opinion, it flew south ahead of her.”
“You think it’s a scam, then,” Alvin Hannauer said.
“Hell, yes. Pardon my French, ladies, but I wouldn’t trust a Brazilian as far as I could throw him. If this one’s disappeared, that’s all the more reason to think there’s something phony about her missing violin. And I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure. If I handled their insurance, it would be a cold day in hell before I’d pay out on that claim.”
It wasn’t anything Joan hadn’t heard before, but it left a bad taste in her mouth. She wished now the subject had never come up.
“Look who’s here, Joanie,” Annie said from her seat near the window.
Joan looked out to see Fred coming down the sidewalk. She headed him off at the door. “Do you want to come in? Or talk outside? They’ll be all over you this morning.”
“Part of the job.” He followed her into the center, and the questions rained on him as if he were a politician arriving at a press conference.
“Lieutenant, any word from the hospital?”
“How is he?”
“Is he still alive?”
Fred waited until they stopped. “He’s alive,” he said quietly. “That’s all I know.” He rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes for a moment.
He’s been up all night, Joan thought. Leave him alone. Can’t you see how he feels?
She needn’t have worried. These folks didn’t follow up with a dozen useless questions. They nodded and murmured to one another as if the center had turned into a hospital, or a funeral parlor. The bridge players sat down at their tables, and Annie carried her knitting to a good kibitzing spot behind them.
“Come on in, Fred,” Joan said, and held the door to her tiny cubicle. He dropped onto the sturdy chair she kept for him. “Want me to find you a cup of coffee?”
“I’m floating in coffee.”
“You up all night?”
“No, but I didn’t sleep much. We canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses, but we didn’t find anyone who saw or heard a thing. It’s hard to believe nobody was on the street at that hour, but it happened down at the end, toward the arboretum. The few folks who live down there were watching the news or eating supper, if they were home. I doubt that it made the kind of noise a two-car collision would. No skid marks.”
She got it. “No screeching brakes.”
“Exactly. And one side of the street is classroom buildings. Not much open at that hour except the library, farther away.”
“No students walking around?”
“If they were, they’re not coming forward. The dorms are on the other side of campus. So’s the pizza place.”
“You think the driver stole the bike? Or the kids?”
“Or a third party, who may even have seen the accident.” Again, he rubbed the back of his neck. This time he yawned.
“Can you get some sleep?”
He shook his head and looked into her eyes. “So, tell me about yesterday. Bruce okay?”
“I guess. But we had some more excitement up there last night. Camila—”
Fred’s pocket beeped. She passed her phone to him across the mail cluttering her desk. He hit the numbers, said his name, and listened.
“I’m on my way.” Without another word, he kissed her once, hard, and left.
Her lips still tingling, Joan watched him stride past the bridge tables and out the door.
I’ll have to get used to it, she thought.
12
The phone was ringing when Joan walked into the house with a handful of junk mail. She recognized Bruce’s voice even before he identified himself.
“Bruce, are you all right? Has anything happened?” What a dumb question, she thought. But he answered as if it made sense.
“I’m fine. I’m calling to tell you that I made it into the finals.”
“That’s wonderful!” Dropping the mail on the table by the door, she tossed her shoulder bag into the corner, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet underneath her on the sofa. “Tell me all about it.”
“There isn’t much to tell. We’ll start the last part of the competition tonight. The good news is that all the finalists win substantial prizes.”
“Who are the others?”
“You know Nate.”
“Oh, good. I thought he deserved to make it.”
“I agree. I don’t think you heard Vivienne Rambeau or Hannah Weiss. Vivenne’s from Montreal—you met her at the picnic—and Hannah’s from Tel Aviv. Oh, and Katsuo Tanaka, from Kobe.”
“No, I didn’t hear any of them. Isn’t there one more finalist?”
“Camila, of course, if she shows up in time to play. The police still haven’t found any sign of her. Everybody is so concerned about her that the judges have promised to let her play both her concertos last, out of order, if it turns out that she’s been absent for some reason she couldn’t control.”
“And if she doesn’t show up in time?”
“Then she loses out, except for the stipend she’ll get as a finalist.”
“Would someone else take her place?”
“No, they’re just rearranging the schedule. Vivienne plays Mozart tonight, and she was scheduled to play the Tchaikovsky on Friday. But if Camila doesn’t surface by tomorrow, Vivienne will have to play her big concerto tomorrow night, after Nate and I play Mozart, and I’ll play the Brahms on Friday night instead of Saturday. They’re bending over backward for Camila. It won’t make much difference for me, but it’s going to be hard on Vivienne.”
“Hardly a picnic for Camila, either.”
“Of course. That’s why we all understand.”
“One of my old ladies at the center said this morning she hoped you’d beat their pants off.”
Bruce laughed. “I’ll try. Can you come to hear me? I can get you tickets.”
“Any night but tomorrow. Orchestra night.”
“That’s when I’ll play the Mozart, but the Brahms will be Friday or Saturday, depending on Camila.”
“I’ll be there for that, at least. I don’t know what to tell you about Fred and Andrew, though. I never know about Andrew, and Fred’s working on a hit-and-run—someone hit one of his sergeants when he was out riding a bicycle.”
“Did the sergeant see the car?”
“I don’t think he can talk. He may not make it.”
Bruce was silent. Then he said, “Tell Fred I’m sorry. And let me know if you want more tickets.”
Joan promised, and they hung up. What a week this was turning into. Uwe would indeed arrive Wednesday afternoon—that was only tomorrow. His Indianapolis driver would bring him down, and Joan would escort him around Oliver, feed him supper, and take him back after the orchestra rehearsal.
“I would very much like to see an American orchestra at work,” Uwe had told her.
“This is just a little community group, Uwe,” she’d said. “Not a professional orchestra like the Indianapolis Symphony.”
“I used to play in a little one like that in Germany. They have a charm of their own.”
Alex, charming? Uwe would find out soon enough. And now she realized that she’d better plan what to feed him. Not that she could live up to the level of food he’d probably been getting at his host family’s. She’d have to put something in the slow cooker. Maybe her never-fail pork roast, with onions and dry mustard. Or beef. She’d check what was on sale. Too bad she couldn’t ask Fred to bake some of his sourdough
oatmeal bread. Unless, just maybe, he’d already baked on Sunday, before Sergeant Pruitt was hit, and had frozen a loaf or two. A German would appreciate that dense, flavorful bread. She’d ask.
Her eyes traveled to the things she had tossed on the table and floor, and the mess she hadn’t picked up when she’d hurried off to work in the morning. And to the viola she hadn’t touched all week. At least he won’t hear me alone tomorrow night. The viola jokes aren’t all wrong: How do you get a violist to play a passage pianissimo tremolando? Mark it “solo.”
There were leftovers for tonight, at least. She could take the next hour to practice, not for Uwe, but for her own sake. No, she’d better go pick up the meat for tomorrow first—it would have to cook all night, so that she could let it cool tomorrow and skim off the fat. And she needed some milk.
Joan slid back into her shoes, picked up her bag, and with an apologetic glance at her instrument, took off again. In the grocery store, she was surprised to find the mood low. Even the usually cheerful checkout clerk was somber.
“Did you hear about Kyle Pruitt?” she said as she slid Joan’s roast past the scanner and typed in the code for onions.
“Hear what?”
“He died this afternoon. It just came over the radio. It’s a darned shame, that’s what it is. I don’t know why those fraternity boys can’t wait till after dark to start partying. And after twenty-one. All that underage drinking—dumb kids don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t care.” She slammed the plastic gallon of milk onto the end of the counter.
“Is that who hit him?”
“You watch, it will be.”
So they still didn’t know, she thought.
13
The plastic loops dug into the fingers of Joan’s left hand while the fingers of her right grew cold from the handle of the milk. She hadn’t been able to stop at three pounds of onions when the price on five was so much better, and the pork roast had looked so good that she’d bought a large one. By the time she reached her little house, she almost wished she’d driven to the store.
Andrew greeted her at the door. “Mom, Sergeant Pruitt died. It was on the radio.”
“I know. The checkout clerk told me.”
“You think Fred’ll be here tonight?”
“I doubt it. We’ll hang loose.” I’m not about to call him now, she thought.
“What did you bring? I’m starved.” He relieved her of her load and peered into the plastic bag.
“That’s for tomorrow, except the milk.”
“Tomorrow?” He put the milk in the refrigerator.
“Uwe Frech is coming to supper before orchestra. So we’re eating early.”
“What’s Uwe doing in Oliver?”
She explained about the school and the senior center while she started the roast in the slow cooker and warmed up the leftover stew. Andrew set the kitchen table for two without further comment, and they ate quickly, getting it out of the way rather than savoring the food.
“You need me for anything, Mom?” he asked, carrying his dishes to the sink.
“Thanks, Andrew, I’m fine.”
“I’m off, then.” And he was, lifting his bike from the back porch to the driveway and pedaling off. By the time he came home, it would be dark. Good thing he had a bike light.
“Be careful!” she called, but then hoped he hadn’t heard her. Turning her back on the door, she stashed the remains of the supper in the refrigerator and plunged her hands into hot sudsy water. She wasn’t about to turn into a hover mother just because she sort of knew the victim of one freak accident.
Or was it an accident? Bad enough that it was a hit-and-run. What if someone took advantage of the fact that Pruitt was vulnerable on his bicycle to kill a cop? Had he been investigating someone who didn’t want to be found out? Or had he made enemies in the past? Or did someone just hate cops? Maybe the checkout clerk wasn’t wrong. Maybe it was fraternity boys, out on a bender. Or maybe they’d had problems with Pruitt before. Surely no one would go out after men on bicycles in general.
Joan realized suddenly that she’d been washing the same plate over and over. She rinsed it, stood it in the drainer, and reached for the next.
Stop thinking, she told herself. He’ll be fine.
But she scrubbed the pot in which she’d warmed up the leftovers with more vigor than it needed, and left the stove the cleanest it had been in a week.
She was rosining her viola bow to practice when the phone rescued her from her own good intentions.
“Fred! Are you all right? Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. We’ve been kind of busy. You still want to feed me?”
“Sure, come on over.”
Retrieving the last of the stew from the refrigerator, she cut a couple of potatoes and an onion into it and sliced a plate of pears and one huge King Luscious apple from the local orchard while Fred’s supper cooked and the coffee brewed. Not fancy, but he wouldn’t starve.
He didn’t seem to notice what he was eating, and said little until he had finished. Finally, though, he leaned back in her old kitchen chair and looked at her with tired eyes.
“What a day. You heard about Pruitt?”
“Yes. Was that the call you got this morning?” No, she remembered, that couldn’t be right. They’d said the sergeant died this afternoon.
“No. This morning the officer who was watching him thought he was about to tell us something.” He shook his head.
“But he didn’t?”
“I don’t think he ever regained consciousness. Not really. Officer Root was in love with him, and she heard her name in the first sounds he made.”
“Poor girl.” Joan remembered Jill Root. “It must be dreadful for her.”
“I feel worse for his parents. They won’t find another son to take his place.”
She winced, thinking of Andrew.
“He died at half past four. So now we’ve got a homicide. That’s bad enough, but he’s one of our own, and we don’t have the first scrap of evidence. Not so much as a broken headlight. Nothing from the vehicle on his clothing, either. I don’t think it even touched him. I’m convinced his injuries came from the momentum of his fall. He left blood on the curb, and there was gravel and dirt in all his wounds, but that’s all. If there’s any other physical evidence, it’s on that damn bicycle.”
“Which you don’t have.”
“Which disappeared into thin air, along with the witnesses, if there even were any. Today we reinterviewed all the residents in that area and buttonholed every passerby from noon to seven, and got zip. Tomorrow we’re going back into the school with the college student who saw those kids. We’ve got to find them.”
“Nobody’s answered your appeals?” Dumb question, she thought.
He shook his head. “It’s human nature to be scared of getting involved. But this isn’t New York or Chicago. I thought when I came to Oliver things would be different. I was wrong.” He stared morosely into his empty coffee cup. She held out the pot, but he waved it away. “Gotta go back. There’s not a damn thing I can do, but I can’t just sit around.”
“Oh, Fred.”
“Cut it out!” He stood up abruptly. Halfway to the front door, he turned back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
The door closed on her words. She cleared the table automatically and washed up for the second time, while her thoughts churned.
I know he’s upset. But he didn’t have to take it out on me.
Grow up, Joan! He’s feeling terrible. He even apologized. Just don’t push him. Be there for him when he feels like this, that’s all. Give him some space.
Sure. And who’s going to be there for me? I don’t want to feel more alone married than single.
When her alter ego didn’t come up with any good retort for that one, she didn’t feel that she’d won an argument, but that she’d lost … what? Fred? Or only a fairy-tale image of him?
Not wanting to brood in silence, she flipped on the colle
ge radio station and recognized the last measures of the slow second movement of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, which she had occasionally attempted at home with a violin-playing friend. For a few moments more, the music matched her low mood exactly, and then the third movement’s Rondo danced it out of her. She turned the radio off again and opened her viola case to practice, beginning not with the viola parts in her orchestra folder, but with the music she had just heard.
An hour later, she came up for air. Her arm and back ached, but her spirits had lifted considerably. She wiped the rosin off the viola and the strings, loosened the bow, and packed them both back in the case, covering the viola gently with the viola-shaped blue silk top Rebecca had quilted and sent her for Christmas.
As awful as it would be if someone took my instrument, she thought, I could find another one this good. But how desperate would I feel if I lost one as good as Camila’s? What would I be willing to do to get it back?
14
On Wednesday, Uwe wowed them at the Senior Citizens’ Center with his European charm and a tape of himself playing the Paganini caprice Bruce had performed in the classroom. Joan found unexpected tears in her eyes and turned away, hoping no one would notice.
But after accepting thanks from a number of the old people, Uwe asked her, “Are you all right?”
“I was just sad for you. This was the first time I heard you play. I didn’t have any idea how good you were. Now it seems that much worse that you were kept from competing.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “And now, do we go to the children?”
“Oh, Uwe, I hope that goes as well here as it did up in Indianapolis. They may be a little distracted. In fact, they may already have had a visit from the police.”
On the way to the school, she told him about Kyle Pruitt’s death, and the disappearance of the boys who had called 911.
“You think those boys will come to hear me?”
“It’s possible. There’s only one school in the county now. I don’t know what grades will be in your audience today, though.”
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