Digging Up the Dead (14 page)

When he’d heard the instrument’s odd, tinny tones coming from the basement floor of a dilapidated New York apartment building next to where he lived, he’d stood transfixed. He was fifteen years old and had a passion to play music since he was seven. His father, Taylor “Tinky” Blair, was a literary agent whose major client was Fuller Sanderson, at the height of his fame as an author. Tinky refused to let his boy take lessons, planning his son’s future as a lawyer.

When he was nine years old, Blair had stolen a guitar from his school band’s closet and taught himself to play without knowing how to read sheet music. He had the gift of playing by ear. After listening to a tune he could copy it almost instantly. He secreted the guitar in the basement of one of Manhattan’s lower East Side’s abandoned buildings and spent most of his free hours after school over the next few years hanging around music stores on Seventh Avenue. A few years later he became friends with some old-timers, most of them retired musicians who sat on battered chairs on the sidewalk outside the music stores. The men were pleased with the attention and happy to talk to the talented teen. Blair would bring his guitar and pluck the strings, enjoying comments from admirers and learning as much as he could.

At eighteen he got a job in a music store, much to his father’s chagrin. They soon parted ways. After a while Graydon tired of the contemporary rock, rap, hip-hop, and techno-pop that blared through the store’s loudspeakers all day and half the night. His heart lay in the classics, and he’d sneak into the tradesmen’s doors at concert venues, at times hidden in a vendor truck or dressed as a delivery boy, to gain entry into Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House. He’d find a hiding spot and listen, entranced. Even when locked, the doors had been relatively easy to open for a young man used to breaking and entering to steal the musical instruments he coveted.

Blair Sr. relocated to California to be nearer his famous client, author Fuller Sanderson. In an effort to reunite with his son, Blair Sr. invited him to join him but was refused. Not until his father died six years later did Graydon visit the West Coast and realize how lucrative the agency was, thanks to its famous client.

After burying Tinky Blair, the young Blair took over the business and for the next several years enjoyed his large percentage of profits from the Sanderson book royalties. The money allowed him to maintain his father’s house on Isabel Island and buy the Riviera boat, even traveling to Australia to meet the boat builder and designer; but eventually Sanderson’s books became less and less popular, and Blair’s income dwindled to almost nothing.

With second mortgages already on his house and the Riviera, he knew that his dire financial straits would soon force him to surrender both to the banks for foreclosure unless his new plan was successful.

The most precious and highly valuable possessions he owned were the five rare musical instruments that formed his collection. He vowed they would never be sold. He prized the elongated, pear-shaped, fifteenth century rebec; the guitar-like eighteenth century chitarra battente; and the rectangular, thirteenth century, harp-like Welsh crwth. He took great pride, too, in owning the medieval Italian ottavino spinet with its magnificent hand-painted illustration on the inside of the lid. Then there was his ancient Israelite harp whose strings, he knew, should be plucked very gently. In modern Hebrew the instrument was referred to as a Kinnor harp, placing it in the category of Western violins, and Blair often used the name to clarify its origin.

He lavished tenderness on the instruments, stroking their fine old wood when he wasn’t playing them and obsessively checking the strings and parts. Blair was talented enough to play all five and could have joined a regional orchestra or played informally with a local group, but he knew if he brought any of his treasures along with him to perform, should such an opportunity arise, it would trigger too much comment. No, he’d gone to plenty of trouble to build the collection, and besides, he didn’t want anyone else asking to play or even touch any of them.

The theremin was a different case. He’d bought it himself, and he considered it no great possession. The earliest instruments dated back only to the 1920s, much too recent to have any significance for a serious collector, Blair believed. Nevertheless, what had caught his interest in owning a theremin was its uniqueness, its application as a musical instrument that had evolved from the research of a Russian physicist, Leon Theremin.

Testing proximity sensors, the scientist was startled to hear the electronic instrument emit strange sounds when he moved his hands in the vicinity of its two antennae without actually coming into physical contact with them. Musicians were drawn to the theremin’s potential, and it became part of concert symphony orchestras and pop bands and morphed into the Moog synthesizer.

High on Blair’s list of favorites was the small spinet he had just been playing. Barely two feet long, it nevertheless overlapped the boat’s galley table because of its triangular shape. Blair was forced to stand up or sit on a high stool to play it. An alternative he’d considered was to acquire an even smaller one, but he decided he didn’t really need it. To his knowledge, which was extensive as far as collectors of ancient musical instruments went, there was no one who owned an ottavino spinet that was earlier than the seventeenth century. He’d looked into spinet kits, thinking to build his own just for kicks, but his excitement came from old, rare instruments and the thrill of ownership. Knowing he had wrested his away from its rightful owner added to his satisfaction.

Loud laughter and the sound of tinkling glasses from the large yacht at the adjoining slip interrupted his reminiscences. He turned around to the bar in his galley, poured a generous half-glass of bourbon and went onto the deck. To the west the setting sun was a soft orange, almost hidden as it prepared to sink below the horizon. He looked at his watch and realized it was way past the cocktail hour.

Blair climbed the cherry-wood ladder to the flybridge and flung himself into the captain’s chair, almost spilling his drink. Thank God that stupid moron Sally was gone, he thought. There would probably be turmoil at her floundering publishing house for a while, but eventually it would be closed down. Sally had neglected the business as she aged and had been on the brink of bankruptcy for months, maybe years. Only her secretary remained at the office.

Now, at last, Blair had the opportunity he’d been seeking to take Sanderson’s works to another publisher and earn a lot of money. Sally had never bothered to make an audio book recording of the titles or even allow e-books to be formatted and sold. Once Karma signed a new contract, giving him control, he could mine those outlets alone for tens of thousands of dollars. Reissuing all of the books individually, as well as packaging them into three-volume printings and designing new, more up-to-date covers, presented even more potential.

There was still Swenson to deal with, but Blair knew he could easily be bought off or intimidated. The Tubby Ghost, he called him, although the man was far from a wisp. Strange, Blair always thought Scandinavians, even those born in the U.S., would be tall and skinny. He had to admit, though, that Swenson sure could write up a storm.

The noise from the neighboring boat increased as six people appeared from the stateroom, chatting and holding drinks. Two of them waved to Blair, who hoisted his own glass in salute.

“Come on over,” said a young man, approaching the rail nearest Blair. Like the others, he wore swimwear. He had an arm around a leggy brunette whose red bikini barely covered her generous curves.

“Thanks, Joel, not today.”

“Aw, come on, Gray. Bring one of those weird guitars of yours. My Dad’s tired of listening to my hip-hop.”

“Thanks again, but I’m celebrating something elsewhere.” He forced a smile. Blair disliked being called Gray, and he had a feeling Joel knew it.

“Hey, we’ve got plenty of champagne. Celebrating what?”

Blair shook his head and didn’t answer. He climbed down, holding his drink, and entered the cabin. He rinsed out his glass, picked up the spinet in its carrying case and slid the wide strap over his shoulder. Then he stepped onto the dock and headed for his A-frame house four blocks away.

With the plan already in place, he assured himself he’d be solvent and safe within weeks. Maybe he’d better go to the bank and explain the new circumstances so that his house and boat would not suffer foreclosure.

He also hoped that the others realized Sally’s demise was most fortuitous for all concerned.

Tosca bade Thatch goodnight and climbed the steps to J.J.’s apartment to find her daughter listening to music.

“That’s an old one, must be the mid-1990s, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said J.J. “Abba. Don’t you remember I almost wore their CDs out when I was twelve?”

“I do indeed. You wore me out, too. Are you having a nostalgic moment?”

“No. Yes. It has to do with the visit to the Alzheimer’s patients’ homes I went to with Christine while you were off with her dad doing your thing in San Diego. I told you that there’s been a breakthrough using music to reawaken memories, didn’t I?”

“Vaguely. Sorry, love, but there’s been a lot going on these days. Tell me more.”

J.J. explained that current research by neuroscientists had proven that when some Alzheimer patients listened to their favorite music from the past, their brains responded by remembering the lyrics and even the circumstances of the time.

“It can help those with dementia reconnect to the world, unlocking their emotions. Some of the patients who have not spoken in years begin singing the words, regaining the ability to talk once again.”

“I know music is a universal language,” said Tosca, “but this sounds amazing.”

“It is. I did some research about music and the brain and found a book called
Musicophilia
that says response to music is preserved, even if dementia is very advanced, stimulating cognitive powers, among others, because musical perception, sensitivity, emotion and memory can survive long after other forms of memory have disappeared. The author, Oliver Sacks, points out that music is not just auditory and emotional but motoric as well.”

“Motoric?” said Tosca. “Is that one of your racing terms? It’s certainly not a musical one.”

J.J. laughed and shook her head. “Wrong, Mummy. It boils down to the notion that we listen to music with our muscles as well as our ears and brain. Most people involuntarily start tapping, moving their feet or their whole body when they hear rhythm. The Alzheimer’s patients did exactly that.”

J.J. explained that Oliver Sacks, a physician and the author who also wrote the book
Awakenings,
later made into a movie, discovered music has a powerful effect on the brain, which was proved when she and Christine talked to the patients at the homes.

“Must have been a heartwarming experience,” said Tosca. “I’ve often wondered if music, the language of the universe, should be blared out into space to look for aliens like it was in that movie,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. Remember the five-tone scale the pianist kept playing to communicate with the spaceship?”

“Come back to earth, Mother, I want to tell you more about this program. One problem is funding. The patients need iPods or some other digital audio device to listen to the music with. One of the saddest parts of our visit today was to learn from the social workers that many of the people at the home are poor. It’s a state facility, and, of course, they never have enough money. No way can they afford to supply iPods, so I’m going to organize a fundraiser for them.”

“Admirable, dear. Perhaps you can donate a portion of your next race winnings.”

“Already arranged, Mum.”

“How about asking teens to donate their iPods? I assume they can be wiped clean? Be a blessing in disguise. Must be thousands of mothers who’d thank you.”

“That’d be like condemning the kids to prison,” said J.J. “There have been crimes committed for less. Well, I’m off to bed. Goodnight, Mother.”

Her daughter’s last words about crimes brought Tosca’s thoughts back to Sally’s sudden death. It was now common knowledge that she’d been poisoned. I suppose that Parnell chappie is in charge of the investigation, she mused. He needs my help.

“You still don’t have the flash drive?”

Karma and Blair were at her house, drinking coffee after she returned from the hospital. Unkempt as ever, the living room was dark. Only a few shards of sunlight pierced the half-closed shutters

“No, I told you already. Oh, by the way, I’m keeping this,” said Karma, picking up the locket that had fallen from Sally’s purse and twirling the pendant around by its long, silver chain.

“It must be Grandmother Abigail’s, although I never saw her wear it. Not really my style. The chain’s too thin, and the locket’s real small, but I suppose it has some value, if I decide to sell it.

“Karma, please focus. Where is the flash drive, if you don’t have it? If Swenson bails on us or gets hit by a truck, we won’t have anything!”

Karma slipped the locket chain over her head. “I bet Fuller gave this to Sally as a gift after grandma died,” she said. “Sally shouldn’t have accepted it. It’s a family heirloom. I’ll take it to the police today, but I want it back. I guess they’ll know what to do with all her other stuff. Oh, yes, the flash drive. Are you sure Sally had it?”

Blair told her he’d been at the publishing house two weeks earlier when Swenson had come in and handed the drive to her. Sally had asked him if it was the only copy, and Swenson had assured her it was. Then Blair said he watched Sally open a desk drawer, drop the small black device in and lock the drawer. She’d thanked Swenson for bringing it along, and he left.

“I went back there again after Sally died,” said Blair, “and asked Nancy, that secretary of hers, where it was. She said she had no idea. I asked her to check the locked drawer, but she refused. I went to Sally’s desk myself and opened all the drawers. None of them were locked. Sally must have taken the flash drive out. Maybe it’s at her house.”