CHAPTER TEN
Pratt found a casually dressed gray-haired man waiting by the security desk. His foot tapped impatiently.
“Officer Pratt?”
“I am Detective Lieutenant Pratt,” was the curt reply.
“James Norris. I heard what the sergeant here said to you, so you know who I am. I demand to know what’s going on.”
The best way to handle this joker would be in private, Pratt knew. “Perhaps we could talk in your office?”
Using the elevator, they arrived back upstairs at the opposite end of the corridor from Spadafini’s office. Right in front of the elevator doors was a desk for a secretary. Pratt would have expected Browne to be there. Instead, they found the orchestra manager in his boss’s office.
The boss was clearly not pleased.
“What are you doing in here, Browne?” Norris demanded.
“The police have thrown me out of my office and I need the use of a computer and the Internet.”
“My secretary’s desk is perfectly adequate for that.”
Browne’s face was carefully wiped of any emotion as he got to his feet. “I judged it would be better to work on the official press release in private.”
“You judged wrongly. Now please leave. The detective is going to bring me up to speed on how his investigation is going.”
Pratt caught the deep scowl on Browne’s face as he shut the door.
“Tell me what you’ve found out about this tragedy,” the president said as he took his seat behind the desk. He motioned the detective into another in front of it.
Pratt sized the man up for a moment. Clearly, he was used to people jumping on command. Maybe it would be good for Norris to jump for someone else for a change.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions first, if I may,” Pratt began.
“I suppose that’s understandable,” was the answer as Norris leaned back in his chair. “All right. Ask away, Detective.”
Pratt flipped open his notebook. “Give me your impressions of Spadafini.”
“Let’s see…A musical genius, absolutely brilliant. Hardworking. Difficult at times. The man knew what he wanted and wouldn’t take second best for anything. The orchestra has really flourished under him.”
“Even though they didn’t like him?”
“Yes, I suppose that has to be taken into account. As I said, he wouldn’t take anything but the best- especially in performance. Confidentially, the board encouraged him to get rid of the deadwood. We had a lot of musicians who were well past their best-before date.”
“Would that include the two musicians who died last year?”
Norris looked up sharply. “Not so much with the Lee woman, but that timpani player certainly needed replacing.”
“And hounding someone is an appropriate way to get rid of them?”
“The orchestra has a pretty ironclad contract. It’s something our current board would like to get better control of. Presenting classical music is a very costly undertaking. We want only the best.”
“What was your personal relationship with Spadafini like?”
“Cordial and professional. Occasionally, I’d be forced to step in when he went a bit overboard. The man had very little sense about what things actually cost.”
“There was no, ah, friction?”
“Not really. No.”
Pratt tapped his pencil against his notebook for a moment. “I understand his contract was coming up for renewal. How was that going?”
“Very well. Due to Spadafini, our ticket sales have been much stronger, especially since he’s had a bestselling cd-with our orchestra on it.”
Norris looked away as he answered, and Pratt was certain he was lying.
“So you’re confident that you would have re-signed him?”
“That was the board’s feeling, yes.”
Again a lie. “Would it surprise you then to find out that he’d been talking to another orchestra and had in fact agreed to jump ship?”
Bingo! A direct hit on that. Norris’s face turned a heavy crimson.
“Who told you that?”
“The chairman of the other orchestra. Spadafini spoke to him as recently as this morning, minutes before he was murdered, I might add.”
“How did you find that out?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. And you knew nothing about this?”
“Spadafini made the intimation that he would leave if we didn’t meet his price. Frankly, I thought it was just a ploy to get more money out of us.”
Pratt mentally crossed his fingers with the next question. He really needed it answered. “And the contract renegotiations, how was this handled?”
“Spadafini had no manager. He didn’t trust them. I, of course, represented the board.”
“Would you have matched the offer this new orchestra made?”
“Detective, how can I answer that without knowing the dollar amount?”
“You would have let him go, then, if you felt it was too high?”
Norris hesitated a moment before saying, “Of course, we would have tried to retain his services! But we have to keep our bottom line in sight too. We owe that to our community.” Norris sat up straight and leaned forward. “But this is all beside the point now that he’s dead, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.”
“Now could you please tell me what progress you’ve made on discovering who murdered our conductor?”
Pratt was about to answer when his walkie-talkie squawked again.
Two people were trying to talk to him at once.
One was the detective he’d left in charge on the interview detail with the orchestra. “You’d better come down here. We’ve got something interesting.”
The other was Ellis. “Where are you? I’ve got some things you need to know.”
“Pratt here. Both of you meet me in the hallway outside the rehearsal room.” Then the detective turned to Norris. “Sorry, sir, but as you can see, there are developments. Will you be around later?”
“Possibly.”
“I’ll catch up with you then.”
As Pratt hustled for the elevator, he thought about the three times he was certain Norris had lied to him. Experience told him that people most normally looked away when they were lying. The only decorative thing on Norris’s desk was a framed photo of a beautiful young woman. A daughter, perhaps, or maybe a second wife? Each time the man had lied to Pratt, he’d looked at that photo. The last time had been the longest. It had followed Pratt’s question about Spadafini leaving the orchestra.
The detective was pretty sure Norris didn’t want the horny conductor anywhere near that woman.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Food was being delivered into the rehearsal room when Pratt arrived at its doors. He looked longingly at the boxes. All he’d had that morning was a cup of dispenser coffee. Still, a missed meal would cut down on the gut he’d
