by Claire McNab
“Ms Brooks says that you favored Corinne as a singing partner for your son.”
“This is of no importance now, but I was looking to the future. I believe Corinne will reach the very top.”
Bourke opened a folder. “Edward Livingston told us Alanna Brooks was a bankable star who could be guaranteed to pull the fans. Considering the financial state of your family company, wouldn’t it be wiser to stay with the tried and true?”
Raeburn seemed to be expanding with arrogant anger. His neck bulged over his tight white collar. “What have you got there? What have you been prying into?”
Bourke passed him the papers without a word.
Raeburn leafed through them, then said, “All right. There’s a temporary cash flow problem. Nothing to worry about, as it’s only short-term.”
Pursing his lips, Bourke said, “Your son know about it? Could have preyed on his mind if he did…”
“He wasn’t interested in the financial side of things. Left everything to me. As I said, it was a short-term problem anyway.”
“I’ve had an accountant look these papers over,” said Bourke cheerfully. “Says you were up the creek without a paddle…”
Madeline called as Carol and Bourke were reviewing the case. “Carol, could you drop in on your way home? Something’s happened you should know.”
“Can you tell me on the telephone?”
“No, I can’t. I’ll be here all afternoon, so call by any time.”
“Madeline Shipley,” said Carol in explanation as she replaced the receiver. “I’ll call you if she’s got anything important.”
“We’ve still got nothing on the photo, but it’s Saturday night when the boys come out to play, so I’ve got a couple of men checking the bars in Oxford Street.” He grinned. “Not being sexist, Carol, but this is a man’s job.”
Carol leaned her chin on her hands. “Okay, let’s get this over and done with, and we can both go home.”
He passed her a neatly ruled sheet. “Time of death is so vague that it seems almost any of his nearest and dearest could have helped him on his way, not to mention his enemies.” They went down the list together, stopping to discuss each one.
Kenneth and Nicole Raeburn had agreed that they were both at home most of Saturday and Sunday. “They’d alibi each other, anyway,” said Bourke, “so that means very little.”
“Motives?”
“Kenneth Raeburn’s in real financial trouble, and rumors persist that his son was about to dump him, audit the company and then bring in a professional manager. A verdict of accidental death will get him Collis’s eight hundred thousand insurance, the embarrassment of HIV hushed up and the company assets to play with.” He made a face. “As for his sister, strikes me she’s nuts about her brother, in more ways than one. Still, the way he died seems too disciplined for her-she’s the sort who’d lose her marbles, shove him off a building and then say, Ooops, he slipped…”
Corinne Jawalski had claimed to be at the Town Hall in the audience for Elijah, although, as Anne Newsome had pointed out, she had plenty of time to go to Collis Raeburn’s room and then return before the end of the oratorio.
“How about bitter pique for a motive?” said Bourke. “She thinks she’s got head diva sewn up, then he reneges and says he’s staying with Alanna and it’s just too bad for her.”
“Doesn’t seem enough motive for a murder.”
“How about,” said Bourke grimly, “he infected her with AIDS? Wouldn’t that be a reason to kill him?”
Graeme Welton was working alone all weekend on final touches to Dingo and had ignored phone calls, so he had no alibi. Bourke was jocular. “Welton’s a friend of Nicole’s, though God knows what’s in it for him. Maybe he killed her brother on her behalf to save daddy’s bacon, as well as to punish Collis for saying his new opera was going to go belly up.”
His smile faded when Carol said, “He had a sexual relationship with Raeburn, and we don’t know what his HIV status is…”
On Saturday night Edward Livingston had been at the Opera House gladhanding a group of society matrons who formed the influential fund-raising committee of a national charity. The cocktail party had ended with a harpsichord recital starting at eight in the tiny Playhouse Theater. “Livingston would have had no probs,” said Bourke. “He could have slipped out, walked to the hotel, dealt with Raeburn, then been back in time to smile at the ladies as they trotted off into the night.”
“And he might want Collis dead because he was about to lose him. Even if Livingston held him to his contract, there’d be a debilitating legal battle, expensive and embarrassing.”
Both Alanna Brooks and Lloyd Clancy had been guests at a function honoring an ancient but still prolific artist at the Museum of Modern Art at the Rocks, which was very close to Raeburn’s hotel. “Pat was there, too,” said Bourke, “and she remembers speaking to both of them at different times, but she’s vague about when. People came and went from seven-thirty on, and it was very crowded. Didn’t end until well after eleven, and I’m still chasing up a guest list to see if I can get anything more concrete.”
“All right, Mark-Alanna Brooks kills him because she’s about to be supplanted as prima donna… and maybe there’s a love triangle there too, with either Corinne Jawalski or Graeme Welton at the other point.”
Bourke yawned. “Sorry Carol, had a late night-we went through the wedding rehearsal a hundred times, it seems. Now, who’s left? Lloyd Clancy and Mr. X.” He yawned again. “Clancy has a motive because Raeburn’s career was eclipsing his. Something like that wouldn’t worry me, but then, I’m not an opera singer.”
“A mercy,” said Carol.
“Cheer up,” said Bourke, “if none of these motives attract you, there’s always Mr. X-the guy Raeburn told his singing teacher he’d get even with. Maybe Mr. X got in first.”
Carol frowned. “Doesn’t have to be a Mr. X who infected him,” she said. “Could be a woman.”
Madeline, wearing a russet shirt, tight white jeans and an incandescent smile, opened the door. Carol said, “I’ve got to pick up David and my Aunt Sarah from Sybil’s house, so I can only stay a few moments.”
She had deliberately dropped the clue, and Madeline immediately picked it up. “At Sybil’s house? Has she left you, Carol? Or did you throw her out?” Then, immediately contrite, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why did you want to see me?”
Madeline seemed chilled by Carol’s tone. “Are you coming inside? Please…”
Carol followed her down the short hall to a charmingly furnished sitting room with plate glass windows opening onto a landscaped garden. Stingingly conscious of Madeline’s physical presence and of her heavy musk perfume, torn by fresh anguish over Sybil, Carol gazed resolutely at the greenery tossed by the wind.
“Amos Derringer’s disappeared.”
Carol looked at her. “Something’s happened to him?”
“No. He’s gone to ground. I think he’s been paid off to keep him quiet.”
“Any ideas?”
Madeline’s heavy copper hair shone as she shook her head. “Thought your people’d be able to turn up something. I suspect it might be the father trying to hush things up, but then again, Collis could have been moving with some pretty heavy characters we know nothing about.” She took a leather folder from a side table. “These are statements, notes, the report from a private detective we had check Berringer out-everything we collected.” She gave a small smile. “I’m cooperating with the police, Carol. Won’t you cooperate with me?”
“In what way?”
“Have you and Sybil separated?”
Carol stood. “This isn’t a topic for discussion.”
“It’s important to me.”
“Why?”
“You know why, Carol.”
Checking her watch, Carol said, “I have to go.” Madeline laughed as though she’d won a victory. “Go,” she said.
When Carol, David and Aunt Sarah came back f
rom Sybil’s, darkness was falling. While Aunt Sarah organized David into a bath before dinner, Carol listened to the one message on the answering machine.
The same whispered voice as before admonished her: You haven’t been paying attention, Carol Ashton. It was an accidental overdose. Why not just say that or do you want everyone to know what you and Sybil Quade do in bed? Collis Raeburn’s death was an accident. Make sure your report says that.
Sounds of enthusiastic splashing from the bathroom preceded Aunt Sarah, who came hurrying back into the kitchen area. “Who was that?”
Her aunt always moved with unsettling energy, towing less enthusiastic people along in her wake. She also had a tenacity that made prevarication pointless. Carol was horrified to hear a shake in her voice as she said, “It’s just a rather well-mannered anonymous call trying to persuade me that Collis Raeburn accidentally killed himself.”
Aunt Sarah squeezed her hand in unspoken comfort, obviously realizing that Carol was struggling for control. She said prosaically, “Why well-mannered?”
It helped to be objective. “Anonymity often encourages people to swear, describe in graphic detail violence or sex… this one’s polite to an extraordinary extent, considering that he, or she, is threatening me.”
Aunt Sarah looked alarmed. “Threatening you with what? Physical harm?”
It was hard to say the words. “Just exposure as a lesbian, Aunt. Just that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait,” said Carol with bitter resignation. “There isn’t anything else I can do. It may come to nothing. If not… I’ll worry about that if it happens.”
If it happens? What about my career? And Sybil-have I sacrificed our relationship for an illusion of safety?
Aunt Sarah swooped on the electric kettle. “Tea, Carol. You’ve got to stop drinking coffee-I’ve told you what it does to you, so why do you persist?”
“I’m incorrigible?”
Abruptly serious, Aunt Sarah put her hand on Carol’s arm. “Carol, I love you. I want you to remember you can talk to me about anything. You know that, don’t you?”
Resigned, Carol said, “Has being with Sybil brought this on?”
“No, although she did talk to me about you.”
“Oh, great!”
Aunt Sarah pursed her lips. “You don’t really communicate, Carol, that’s the problem. How does anyone know what you’re thinking and feeling behind that cool exterior of yours?”
“You don’t seem to have any trouble.”
Aunt Sarah grinned at the resentment in Carol’s voice. “I’ve known you since you were a baby, that’s why,” she said with a hint of complacency. “You’ve always been as transparent as glass to me.”
She handed Carol a mug of tea. “And don’t ask for sugar. It isn’t good for you.”
“I don’t take sugar.”
“Good thing, too.”
Carol ran her finger around the rim of the mug. “Aunt Sarah, what do I tell David?”
Her aunt didn’t dissemble. “Tell him the truth.”
Carol sighed. “Justin’s pressuring me. Says David has to know about me and Sybil, about what I am.”
Showing both impatience and concern, Aunt Sarah said, “What you are, my dear, is very important to him. You’re his mother and his friend and he trusts and loves you. Tell him what he needs to know-no more and no less.”
“How much is that?”
Aunt Sarah threw up her hands. “I don’t know. How can there be a hard and fast rule? You’ll have to play it by ear, Carol. There isn’t any other way.”
Sipping her tea, Carol thought, Do I really need to say anything, now that Sybil’s gone? She was immediately ashamed. Coward, she accused.
CHAPTER NINE
Corinne Jawalski was not impressed by an early Sunday morning visit from Carol. She yawned as she pushed the heavy brown hair back from her face. “I was hoping to sleep in. I’ve had a very heavy week.”
“There’s one little matter I’d like to clear up.”
“Oh, yes?” said Corinne, unimpressed.
Carol looked around the apartment. The flatmate was nowhere to be seen, but piles of magazines, empty bottles, and one high-heeled shoe next to a saucer with several lipstick-stained butts indicated her presence.
“No, I don’t smoke,” said Corinne, following her glance. “And I’ve told Beth not to, but she’s too selfish to stop.”
“May I sit down?” asked Carol, convinced that it would be pointless to wait for ordinary courtesies from her.
Corinne nodded ungraciously. “All right, but you won’t be long, will you?” She began to pace impatiently.
“I imagine you were angry after Collis Raeburn’s call on Saturday night,” said Carol conversationally.
A shrug. “Nothing to be angry about.”
“He told you that Alanna Brooks was to continue as his singing partner for the foreseeable future, didn’t he?”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s been corroborated.”
Carol’s confident tone convinced Corinne. “All right, ” she said sulkily. “So he said that. So what? He’d have changed his mind the next day.”
“He was dead, then.”
The intentionally brutal words brought tears to Corinne’s eyes. As she turned her face away, Carol said gently, “Were you lovers?”
The truculence had gone from her voice. “Yes-until the last month or so, when he wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
Appalled, Carol thought, He didn’t tell you that you could be HIV-positive… She said, “Do you know why he changed?”
There was pain in her voice. “I couldn’t get him to talk to me. He said he’d tell me later, but he never did.”
Carol was torn between the desire to warn her, and relief that she couldn’t. She said, “You didn’t leave the concert and go to see him at the hotel to discuss why he’d changed his mind?”
Corinne sat down, putting her face in her hands. “What was the use? He wouldn’t discuss anything… I think he’d begun to hate me…”
Carol resisted the impulse to comfort her. She murmured a few platitudes, then escaped into the warm Sunday morning, her thoughts about Collis Raeburn savage. Guilt had made him cruel; pride and arrogance had kept him silent.
She went into work to find Mark already there, looking incongruously young in a sports shirt and shorts. He followed her into her office waving the photograph of Raeburn in the gay bar. “Bingo,” he said. “Turned up two of these guys last night.”
“And?”
“And Collis Raeburn was a regular. Called himself Col and, I gather, was regarded as being a risk-taker. Sniffed a bit of cocaine, but wasn’t a heavy user. He’d try any new designer drug that was around, just for kicks. Lot of sexual partners-as long as they were good-looking and young, he didn’t care who they were.”
“Graeme Welton ever on the scene?”
Bourke grinned. “We think as one, Carol, but in this case to no avail. Had Welton’s photo shown around the bars last night, but no one recognized him. Any relationship he had with Raeburn was strictly private.”
“And Amos Berringer?”
“Madeline Shipley was absolutely right. We couldn’t find him, but he’s still around, trying to keep a low profile. The little prick’s too stupid to keep totally quiet, but all he’s saying is that he’s got some money for keeping his mouth shut and he knows where to get some more.”
“Bring him in, Mark.”
“The payoff’s probably from Kenneth Raeburn, trying to plug the leaks.”
“It could be someone else. Let’s find out.”
“Almost forgot,” said Mark. “You haven’t had time to read the Sunday papers, I suppose? No? Well you’re going to be very interested in an item of gossip. Hold on, I’ll get it for you.”
Mark had circled it in heavy black ink. Under the heading SINGING AND SUING? the columnist declared, “An impeccable source tells me that all is not well in the Eurek
a Opera Company. Hit by the tragic loss of Collis Raeburn last week, the company is reeling as top prima donna Alanna Brooks threatens legal action against her leading man, Lloyd Clancy, citing defamation and slander. Is this the end of Edward Livingston’s dream of an opera company for the twenty-first century?”
“It’s all that deep breathing when they sing,” said Bourke. “It drives them mad.”
Carol sent Mark home, went out for a brief lunch, then spent the best part of the afternoon wading through the paperwork that had all but buried the in-tray.
Aunt Sarah called to say that David had inveigled her into taking him to a movie: “I’m just a pushover for your son, Carol. He’s promised me popcorn and a movie about a big dog, so how could I resist?”
Carol was quite aware she wouldn’t have resisted either, but she said, “Don’t let him talk you into anything else, Aunt. He’ll be demanding McDonald’s next. I think you’d better put him on so I can straighten him out.”
She grinned at David’s elaborately casual tone. “Yes, Mum? We’re leaving in a minute.”
“You’re spending the money I gave you, aren’t you?” she said with mock severity. “You’re not letting Aunt Sarah pay for everything?”
“Oh, Mum!”
Suddenly feeling weak with love for him, she said softly, “Darling, have a good time. I wish I were going with you.”
A few minutes later the phone rang again. “You work too hard, Carol,” Madeline Shipley said. “I just caught your aunt and she said you were there. I’m at home, alone. Will you call in? Have a drink with me?”
Carol felt an unsettling combination of wariness, grief, indefinable longing, and sexual hunger. “I’m tired, Madeline, and I’ve got another hour here, at least.”
“You’re not that tired. It’ll only be for a while…”
“You just won’t give up, will you?” said Carol, with a reluctant smile.
“Never. Carol-”
“Okay. I give in.”
Carol’s light tone disguised the jolt of excitement that made her hands unsteady as she replaced the receiver. What was it that made her so cautious? Her natural reserve? Allegiance to Sybil? Suspicion that Madeline could get under her defenses?