The Vanishing Violinist

by Sara Hoskinson Frommer

  “Maybe I can help. The kids in Indianapolis are all watching for Camila’s violin.”

  “And for Camila?”

  “I haven’t visited any schools since she disappeared. But I think the ones Bruce and I talked to must be looking for her, too.”

  Joan could believe it, having watched the dollar signs light up in their eyes. Pulling into the familiar parking lot, she felt she should be lugging her viola and the box of orchestra folders. “This is where we’ll come tonight for the rehearsal.”

  “The school sponsors the orchestra?” Uwe looked at the sprawling concrete Alcorn County Consolidated School building.

  “No, we pay to use the auditorium and the timpani. The rest of us bring our own instruments.”

  In the principal’s office, Cathy, a pretty girl who looked about fourteen, was assigned to escort them to the band room. When Uwe shook hands with her, she dimpled up at him and burst into chatter.

  “I’ve been so excited ever since I heard you were coming. I even made Marybeth trade jobs with me in the office. Marybeth didn’t care—she thinks the Beatles are classical music.” She trotted beside him, taking three steps for each of his long ones.

  Joan lagged behind. No question about where she belonged.

  “So, Cathy, do you play the violin?” Uwe asked, smiling down at her.

  “No, but I just love it! And I can’t wait to hear you play for us!”

  Was it possible that she didn’t even noticed his hand?

  Uwe didn’t laugh. “Maybe you’ll help me demonstrate my instrument to the other students, then?”

  “Really? You mean it? Marybeth will just die when she hears.”

  This time Uwe’s laugh burst out in the long, empty hall. “I hope not.” He looked at her seriously. “I heard someone young already died here this week.”

  “You mean Sergeant Pruitt? But he wasn’t young. He must’ve been almost forty—my dad was on the football team with him ages ago. Isn’t it awful? Someone ran over him and just left him there in the street to die. When I get my license, I won’t even do that to—to a rabbit.”

  “I hope you never hit anything,” Uwe said, and had to stop suddenly to keep from running over her when she turned in front of him without warning.

  Don’t count on it, Joan thought.

  “Here’s the band room. Better get in quick.”

  Joan made it into the room just in time to escape the mob of teenagers whose bulging backpacks nearly doubled the floor space they required.

  The orchestra director, a woman about Joan’s age, welcomed them warmly and invited them to follow her to the podium. Although more inclined to hide out at the back of the room, Joan tagged after Uwe and Cathy down the carpeted steps into the well of the funnel-shaped room, reminiscent of European university classrooms and an ideal setup for a band or orchestra, in which it was important for every member to see the conductor. Pictures of the high school band over the years covered the walls, and a shelf of large trophies attested to its success. She watched students handing chairs in from some other room, bucket-brigade style, and others passing music stands back out, presumably to make space for Uwe’s audience. Many of the younger students were already sitting on the floor in front of the chairs, their backpacks on their laps. Maybe it wouldn’t be a total loss to sit down front with Uwe. She’d be facing the audience and could keep her eyes open for a couple of towheads and watch their expressions when he made his speech about helping the cops.

  “It’s going to be pretty crowded in here,” the director said. “I hope you don’t mind. We’re squeezing all our instrumental students in today—winds and strings, starting with the middle schoolers and going on up. They don’t get a chance to meet a professional performer very often. The strings just about never do.”

  “I’m happy to be here,” Uwe said.

  Scanning the faces of the kids who continued to crowd into the room while the noise level increased, Joan shook her head. She’d already spotted a dozen or so boys who met the description Fred’s witness had given of the two boys he had seen. Any attempt to watch them all at once was doomed before it started.

  I suppose I could ask the teacher to put all the towheaded boys in one corner. She swallowed a giggle before it got away from her. And what did Fred’s witness mean by “towheaded,” anyway? The white-blond her mother had saved that word for? Or just any boy with light hair? That would include lots of these kids, not to mention the ones who weren’t in band or orchestra. They could hardly take dozens of boys out of school for a lineup.

  “Mrs. Spencer?”

  She jerked her attention back to see Cathy holding what was surely the only empty chair in the room for her. “Thank you,” she told Cathy, who promptly claimed a spot on the floor next to Uwe and flashed a “look at me now” smile at her schoolmates.

  The bell shrilled again. The orchestra director tapped her baton on a stand for quiet, and got it. She did a good job of introducing Uwe and the violin competition, emphasizing that he had to be one of the best young violinists in the world even to have been allowed to enter it.

  Uwe stood to wild applause. They’re showing off, Joan thought. But he soon had their attention, with an older version of his talk to the little kids.

  “If Cathy, my lovely assistant, will help me here”—blushes from Cathy, whistles from the boys—“I’d like to show you an instrument with hundreds of parts to it. It’s not hard to understand why only a few people can make violins that sound as wonderful as the Stradivarius that was stolen from one of our top competitors last week. Or why they are so valuable, even to people who don’t love music, as I hope all of you do.”

  This time he explained a little about violin making, woods, and varnishes, and discussed theories about how aging and playing could improve instruments, or wear them out. “We don’t know exactly what will happen to any violin in the future, but we do know some simple things we can do to preserve them. Who can tell me why you don’t leave your violin near a hot stove?”

  A boy in the back row waved his hand. “To keep the wood from drying out.”

  “Right. And why you don’t want it to get damp?”

  “That’ll wreck it, too,” said a girl. “I got mildew on my bass once.”

  The give-and-take continued. When it came time to demonstrate the sound of the instrument, Uwe turned to Cathy. “You play the violin, Cathy?”

  “Oh no, not me.” She put her hands behind her.

  “Then we will start with you.” And with some quick tips on how to hold the instrument and the bow, he overcame her embarrassment and had her making acceptable sounds in only a few attempts.

  If his hand doesn’t heal right, Joan thought, he’s a born teacher.

  “Let’s give her some applause for an excellent first lesson,” Uwe prompted, taking the violin back, and they did. He consulted briefly with the orchestra director and turned back to the students. “Is Stan Cracraft here?”

  “Yo!”

  “Come down here, Stan, and show them how Cathy can sound if she studies hard for five or ten years.”

  A slender boy of sixteen or seventeen, Stan trotted down the steps. From the red mark below his left jaw, Joan guessed that he was the star of the high school orchestra. He accepted the violin and bow without hesitation, checked the tuning, and began playing what had to be Bach. Nothing dramatic, but every note clean and in tune. This time Uwe didn’t have to ask for applause.

  “What a great violin!” Stan said when he handed it back to Uwe. “I wish I had one that good.”

  “I’m lucky to have it, but it’s nothing compared to the Strad Camila Pereira lost.”

  “What happened to it? And her? Where did she go?”

  Right on cue.

  “Nobody knows,” Uwe told the room. “All the kids in Indianapolis are keeping their eyes open for her, and her violin. You should, too, if you go up to the city—there’s a big reward.” He described Camila to them. “You know, kids see a lot of things other people miss. So
me kids your age were real heroes right here in Oliver. They called the paramedics when they saw that policeman in the street. Then they disappeared, just like Camila. Maybe they’re afraid. But no one thinks they did it. The police hope they saw something that could help. Tell them that, if you know who they are. And tell your parents or teachers or the police if you see or hear something strange. That’s how they find lost people. And lost violins.”

  Joan saw lots of big eyes, and some kids with eyes half-closed, whatever that meant. Maybe they were sleepy at the end of the school day. Or maybe they were trying to act cool.

  “Okay,” Uwe said. “You see I can’t play for you, and I’m grateful to Cathy and Stan for demonstrating my instrument. But I also brought a tape. So I want to end with some violin music I played before I was so stupid to break my hand playing Frisbee. This is a caprice written by that great violinist, Niccolò Paganini.” He pressed the button, and the music poured forth.

  Again, the students were generous with their applause. The orchestra director thanked them for coming, and then the bell rang. The herd charged for the door, except for a few who hung around asking for autographs.

  Cathy was one of those. “You were so great!” she told Uwe while he signed the notebook paper she’d borrowed from a friend. “Wait’ll I tell Marybeth what she missed!” And Uwe signed another, for the absent Marybeth.

  “That went well, don’t you think?” Joan asked him on the way home.

  “I think young Stan could have a future.”

  “I’ll see what we can do about recruiting him into the symphony.”

  While Joan finished fixing supper, Uwe set out on foot to see the sights of Oliver.

  “Uwe,” she called after him, and was glad to see him stop and turn around. “We have to eat by six or I’ll be late.”

  When he waved his cast at her, she relaxed and checked the inevitable Wednesday messages waiting. Only one cellist had begged off, and her croak sounded like genuine illness.

  Then she heard Fred’s voice, sounding tired. “Joan, I’m staying away tonight. I’d be lousy company again, and I couldn’t make it in time anyway. Maybe we can connect after you take Uwe home. Say hi to him for me.” Nothing personal, but then, Fred didn’t get personal when he didn’t know who might hear him.

  She was sorry not to have some time with him, but relieved not to have to wonder how he’d act tonight. With a light heart, she boiled some new potatoes, skimmed the fat off the meat and reheated it, and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes into a tossed salad.

  Uwe arrived on time, and Andrew moseyed in.

  “How’s the hand?” he asked at supper.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Uwe said. “That’s all I know until the cast comes off.”

  “I never should have thrown that Frisbee at you.” Andrew’s eyebrows scrunched together in the guilty look Joan remembered so well from his childhood escapades.

  Right, she thought. Not to mention at the windows.

  “No problem.” Then Uwe looked at his hand and laughed. “I don’t mean that, do I?”

  “Thanks. I’m really sorry, man.”

  “I know. But the doctor thinks I will play again.”

  “That’s good.” Andrew’s brows relaxed. Was it possible she hadn’t told him Uwe’s good news before now?

  Guilt was still doing good work, though; Andrew volunteered to clean up. With no compunctions about accepting his offer, Joan took off immediately after supper, comfortably on time for a change. At least Uwe wouldn’t hear Alex explode on that score.

  15

  Actually, Alex was more than cordial in her welcome, and Joan didn’t worry about Uwe while she sorted out people’s problems. The missing trombone folder turned up in the midst of the string box. Why did so many people leave the music? Not surprisingly after Alex’s outburst the previous week, the cellos had taken theirs home.

  This time Alex praised their good work.

  “I knew you could do it! Why don’t you practice like that all the time!”

  She gives with one hand and takes away with the other, Joan thought. But it’s better than last week, and the cellos are smiling.

  The rest of the rehearsal went better than usual, and Alex didn’t blow up even once. At a particularly beautiful place in the Unfinished, when the whole orchestra seemed to be responding more to the music than to its technical challenges, Joan felt herself transported, and forgot the observer for whom their efforts had to have fallen far short of perfection. When he crossed her mind again, she relaxed. We are who we are, she thought, and we’re not pretending to be any better.

  Afterward, Uwe waited by the outside door with the boxes of folders while Joan brought the car around.

  “I wish I could help you carry them,” he said, but it was clearly impossible, one-handed as he was.

  She waved his concern aside. “I’m used to it. Besides, they aren’t that heavy, now that more people are finally taking their folders home to practice. I just hope enough of them do before the next concert.”

  “You sounded better than I expected,” he said while she opened the car doors.

  “Really?” Rats, she thought. I wasn’t going to ask for his opinion.

  “Yes. I told you I played in such an orchestra. But yours is better.”

  In spite of herself, she enjoyed hearing it, but she was determined not to fish for more praise. All in all, the drive to Indianapolis passed pleasantly. They agreed that she would drop him at the Osbornes’ house, where she could ask how Bruce’s performance of the Mozart concerto had gone.

  The Osbornes were turning into their driveway when they arrived. At the curb, the blue sedan in Joan’s headlights disgorged Cindy Lloyd and Nate, in a tux and carrying his violin.

  That’s right, she thought, all the finalists played Mozart tonight.

  “Hey, man,” Uwe said. “How’d it go?”

  “He was superb!” Cindy answered for him.

  Even in the dark, Joan was sure Nate was rolling his eyes. He jerked his head toward the house, and Uwe followed him.

  “Joan! I thought you weren’t coming.” Bruce loped toward her, also in formal concert dress, with his violin case on his back, hanging from a shoulder strap. He hugged her. “Didn’t you have a rehearsal?”

  “That’s right. But I brought Uwe back, and I couldn’t resist finding out how your concert went. If the Osbornes are having a party, I won’t stay.”

  “No party. Polly invited Nate and his mom over for a cup of coffee. Come on in. You know she’ll be glad to have you.”

  “How was the Mozart?” They started up the front steps in Cindy’s wake.

  “Okay.”

  “And Camila—any news?”

  “Yes, but not about her.”

  But the news had to wait while Polly welcomed Joan with her usual enthusiasm and seated her on the sofa next to Cindy Lloyd, with a cup of that elegant coffee. Over by the kitchen door, Bruce was chatting amiably with Uwe and Nate. Even from that distance, Joan could see dark circles under Bruce’s eyes, and a drawn look to his whole face. Was he losing sleep? Or was it just his preperformance jitters again? Maybe he hadn’t kept his supper down. Would that affect his eyes?

  “Here you go, boys.” Emerging from the kitchen again, Polly handed Bruce a tray of sandwiches and cookies. “Help yourselves and pass ’em around.”

  “You pass.” Bruce picked up a substantial beef sandwich before handing Uwe the tray. “I’m too hungry to be nice.”

  Like a waiter, Uwe hoisted the tray over his shoulder on the palm of his good hand and began passing it with considerable flair, offering it to each person with a deft spin of his fingers.

  Bruce took his sandwich over to the ottoman and sat at Joan’s feet. “Polly knows I’m always starving after a concert.”

  “Bob told me why. Is it that bad every time?”

  “Just about. And with the pressure in this competition, I don’t even try to eat ahead of time.”

  “I always make Nathan eat before his p
erformances,” Cindy said, beaming in his direction. “He needs his strength, just like an athlete.”

  “I don’t seem to have any choice about waiting,” Bruce said cheerfully between bites. “My mom gave up on me years ago when she saw what happened to her good food before a recital.”

  “Maybe I should try that,” Nate said. Cindy’s mouth pursed.

  Joan changed the subject quickly. “So, Bruce, what’s the news you were going to tell me?”

  “Oh, you haven’t heard our bombshell?” Polly said. “Tell her, Bruce.”

  He snagged a handful of cookies from the plate on Uwe’s tray. “Camila’s family is arriving from Brazil tomorrow. With her boyfriend, no less.” Biting into a cookie, he shook his head. “It was bad enough being interrogated by the police. I can just imagine what it’s going to be like when her folks hear I’m a prime suspect.”

  “You don’t need that now,” Uwe said. “You play Saturday?”

  “No, Friday. But how can I work between now and then? It’s going to be a madhouse around here. Sorry, Polly.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “We’ll do our best to protect you, but you’re probably right.”

  Feeling suddenly shy, Joan hesitated to make the obvious suggestion. But why not? All he had to do was say no. “Would you like to come home with me tonight? Nobody will be home to bother you during the day, and we’ll bring you back tomorrow night if you like, or, if you’d rather, when we come up on Friday. We’re not going to miss that concert!”

  “Good idea,” Uwe seconded. “It’s a quiet little town, Bruce. Nothing to disturb you.”

  “Don’t I owe it to the Pereiras to stay?” Bruce asked, but his eyes begged someone to contradict him.

  Nate obliged. “No! You know you didn’t do anything wrong. You owe it to yourself to give the best performance you can.”

  His mouth curved up in the faintest of smiles. “Then, after I beat you, there will be plenty of time to let them ask you questions.”

  “The Schmalzes have been going a little crazy today,” Polly said. “Violet still doesn’t know whether they expect to stay at her house, and Harry’s sure they’re going to blame him for not protecting Camila. I imagine they’ll stay in a hotel, but of course they’ll want to see where Camila was and where all her things still are.”