“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?”
Being disciplined musicians, all chatter stopped immediately. Several moved to their regular seats and sat.
“I am Detective Pratt and-”
“When are we going to be able to leave?” someone called out. “I have students this afternoon.”
“When is someone going to tell us what’s going on?” said a voice from the back.
Pratt put his hands up. “I only just arrived. Surely you understand how serious this matter is.” Then he stopped and fixed them with a stare. “And just how seriously your behavior is being taken.”
“What do you mean?” a younger man near the front asked.
“I know you’re doing this to protect the murderer. It won’t work. We will find out who did this. My best suggestion is for that person to come forward now. Then the rest of you can go home.”
Pratt really didn’t expect someone to just leap to their feet-but it would have been nice.
CHAPTER FOUR
As he spoke and answered the few questions he could, Pratt’s eyes never stopped moving. The killer was somewhere in the room, and a telltale glance just might give him or her away. But there was nothing.
Browne, who had accompanied him from upstairs, picked up the dead conductor’s overcoat, which had fallen off the back of his chair.
Pratt was momentarily distracted. “Put that down, please.”
“Detective?”
His head turned right, where the cello section sat. An older woman had spoken. Rail thin with gray hair, she reminded Pratt of one of his grade-school teachers.
“Yes?”
She got to her feet. “I’d like to speak with you.”
Pratt noticed that every eye in the room had turned to the woman. Not all were friendly.
It was best to keep his response as short as possible. “Yes, certainly. Would you come with me, please?”
Leaving the rehearsal room, the detective realized he didn’t know where to take this woman. So he asked her to suggest someplace.
“I suppose the Green Room or one of the artists’ dressing rooms.” She strode through a doorway and up the stairs, forcing Pratt to keep up. “You’ll need my name.”
“Yes.”
“Eliza Wanamaker.”
Pratt realized this interview would be difficult. The woman was a “force of nature.” This is what he called people who were hard to control and direct when being questioned.
Arriving at stage level, Eliza gestured left and right. “Green Room or dressing room?”
“What’s a Green Room?”
She looked at him with pity. “It’s the room where everyone waits before going on stage. And before you ask, it’s very seldom actually painted green.”
It was just to the right, bright and airy with large windows overlooking the loading dock for the stage. Sofas and chairs dotted the room, but they took their seats near the door.
The Wanamaker woman began speaking before Pratt could dig his notebook out of his inside jacket pocket.
“The first thing you must understand is that Luigi Spadafini was a first-class shit.”
Pratt couldn’t help blinking at the unexpected comment. “Pardon me?”
“There’s no doubt about his musical gifts. The man was a bloody genius with a baton. But as a person, he deserved to die.”
She sat back, crossing her arms. Her expression clearly dared Pratt to disagree.
“You’re confessing?”
Eliza Wanamaker’s guffaw filled the room. “Heavens no! I just thought you should know how the orchestra feels about our late conductor.” She leaned forward again. “For months we’ve entertained ourselves with increasingly ridiculous ways to do him in.”
“Sort of as a way to break the tension?”
She blinked in a surprised way. “Why, yes. I just never thought anyone would actually do it.”
“But you do have some suspicions?”
“No idea.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, obviously, it had to be one of us.”
“All of you felt that way?”
Disgust crossed Eliza’s face. “There are always a few ass-kissers.”
Pratt decided to switch channels. “You’ve made a pretty damning statement about Spadafini. Care to say more?”
Her face went hard. “Got a few hours?”
“Frankly, no. But I need some idea of what you mean.”
“Tell me, Detective, have you ever even heard an orchestra play?”
Wanamaker’s tone of voice made it clear she thought cops weren’t capable of understanding classical music.
“I get to a half dozen of your concerts a year-when work doesn’t get in the way. And I also enjoy opera. You really need to widen your views about the police.”
She smiled for the first time. “Touche!”
“Now tell me what you know-or guess.”
“Many of us hold Spadafini responsible for two deaths that have occurred in the orchestra since he took over.”
“Two deaths?” Pratt got his pen busy in the notebook.
“Yes, last year, in a vendetta none of us understood, Spadafini rode our timpanist, Mort Schulman, until he had a heart attack from the stress.”
“And you blame your conductor for this?”
“You weren’t there! Everything Morty did was wrong. Spadafini took every opportunity to belittle him, to question his musical ability. Morty was only two years away from retiring. If it was so damned important, why didn’t they just give him some money and let him go early?”
“And the other death?”
“Annabelle Lee, one of our cellists. She jumped in front of a subway train four months ago.”
“Just how was Spadafini connected with this?”
“Everyone knew he was screwing her.”
Pratt had heard of the unfortunate death. Every witness, and there were many, stated she had been alone at the end of the platform and clearly jumped. There had been no suicide note that he’d heard about.
“Really. You have proof of this?”
“It stands to reason. Within a week of a new piccolo player joining the orchestra, Annabelle was dropped, humiliated in front of the orchestra, and Spadafini was off pursuing his next conquest.”
“Was he successful?”
Eliza Wanamaker glared at Pratt. “Why don’t you ask the little fool yourself?”
CHAPTER FIVE
