Murder at the Opera (21 page)

The pressure was on, the date of the gala rapidly approaching. Adding to the sense of urgency was the murder, the tragic nature of Ms. Lee’s death, and rampant speculation about who’d killed her. Since Mac Smith had arranged for the private detective to investigate the crime, Annabel was a target of probes into what progress her husband was aware of.

“I really don’t know any more than you do,” Annabel replied. “I just know that Raymond Pawkins, who used to be a Homicide detective, has agreed to work with us, and that the police are vigorously pursuing it, too.”

“Oh, come on, Annabel,” one woman said, “I just know that you and that handsome husband of yours already know who the murderer is and are just waiting for the right time to announce it.”

Annabel was tempted to educate her questioner about why that scenario was unlikely, at best, but instead simply denied it. Another member of the committee who’d overheard the exchange said, seriously, “It would be wonderful if it could be announced prior to the ball. That would make the evening especially meaningful.”

Another woman disagreed: “I don’t think it would be wonderful at all. It would only deflect attention from the ball.”

As with any undertaking of the scope of the Opera Ball, there were bound to be mishaps, and thorny issues to be resolved. On this day, the ongoing and nettlesome chore of seating arrangements topped the agenda.

The festive evening would begin with sit-down dinners at more than thirty foreign embassies, hosted by their ambassadors. Five hundred leaders of Washington’s diplomatic, corporate, government, and arts communities would pay handsomely for the privilege of attending these relatively intimate, pre-ball dinners featuring food indigenous to each embassy’s home country. Some couples lobbied for seats at the British, French, and Spanish embassies as hard as professional lobbyists fought for pet bills in Congress. Others, who prided themselves on an appreciation of ethnic food, happily signed up for dinners at less popular venues. But no matter where you ended up sitting, the Opera Ball was a yearly social event not to be missed. As Thorstein Veblen’s seminal work on status in America,
The Theory of the Leisure Class,
had proffered, we’d gone from hunting and fishing skills as signs of social standing to what he termed the “modern-peaceable barbarian” stage, in which social status now involved signs of affluence, tuxedoed men arriving at galas in large, expensive cars with ladies in designer fashions on their arms. See and be seen. It was a lot better than being skilled with a crossbow, Annabel thought when first reading it.

Following those private dinners, everyone would head for the main event, the ball itself, hosted this year by the Brazilian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, where Brazilian desserts—
Manjar Branco,
a coconut flan with prune sauce; Cream Sago, tapioca pudding with red wine; and Peach Mousse—would be savored, and couples would dance the night away beneath a massive tent to the music of one of D.C.’s favorite society orchestras. Later, as whiskey and wine and heat and humidity loosened lips and lacquered hair, two Brazilian samba bands would send the revelers home filled with fond memories, and with the Washington National Opera’s coffers fatter as well.

The seating charts for the various embassy dinners were displayed on a large easel, with problem ones circled in red on the master layout.

“The Zieglers insist upon being seated next to the Carlsons at the Colombian Embassy,” the woman in charge of seating said. “Ken Ziegler has a deal pending with the bank where Carlson is CEO.” She threw up her hands. “I simply can’t juggle this anymore.”

“You have to accommodate the Zieglers,” ball chairwoman Nicki Frolich said. “He’s funding the Mexico vacation door prize.”

“Fine.
You
call Dr. Federman and tell him we’ve changed his seats. I’m tired of being growled at.”

“All right, I will,” Frolich said.

Another board, on which personal likes and dislikes were listed, was placed on the easel as a reminder of how such details must be honored—nothing with peanuts on a certain senator’s meal, keep a certain journalist far away from a member of the administration who’d been savaged in a piece written by the journalist, and other admonitions that, if ignored, could result in unhappiness for those involved.

The woman in charge of party favors reported that the manufacturer of the custom-designed velvet bags in which an assortment of donated goodies would be placed had suffered a wildcat strike and might not be able to fulfill the order in time. A subcommittee, one of many, was formed on the spot to come up with a contingency plan, including driving to New York to pick up substitutes.

As the meeting wound down, Annabel, who’d agreed to be on the subcommittee exploring other sources of favor bags, sat back and reflected on this ambitious undertaking of which she’d chosen to take part.

There were those who viewed the Ladies of the Balls as dilettantes, wives of wealthy men, who clamored to serve on fundraising committees to advance their social status within the community. But Annabel knew that was flippant and often inaccurate. Yes, there were such women, but Annabel had observed that they were generally shunned by those in charge. It was serious business, this mounting of a major social event in the nation’s capital, with a lot at stake, and the women with whom she’d been working closely were anything but dilettantes. They put in twenty-hour days, and their painstaking planning would make any military commander about to launch a major invasion proud. Huge society events like the Opera Ball, and others, didn’t just happen. They resulted from the hard work and creativity of countless volunteers, and Annabel was proud to play a role, no matter how inconsequential.

Detective Carl Berry also had more meetings on his agenda.

He left the Holiday Inn after his introduction to Charise Lee’s parents and went directly to the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, where Ray Pawkins sat nursing a mug of Irish coffee minus the Irish. The Round Robin was Pawkins’ favorite D.C. bar, which put him in good company. Looking down upon him were the photographs of former distinguished guests—Abraham Lincoln, whose first presidential paycheck went to pay his bill there; Mark Twain, whose white-suited forays from the bar into the hotel were, as his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine put it, “…like descending the steps of a throne room, or some royal landing place, where Cleopatra’s barge might lie”; Charles Dickens; Buffalo Bill Cody; John Philip Sousa; and Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist who prompted management to place a sign above the bar:
ALL NATIONS WELCOME EXCEPT CARRIE
.”

Berry slid onto a stool.

“Drink?” Pawkins asked.

“Too early for me,” Berry said. He ordered a tomato juice. “You’re buying, of course,” he said with a playful tap on Pawkins’ shoulder. “This place is too rich for my blood.”

“True,” Pawkins agreed, “but the drinks are large and the ambience agreeable. Besides, we’re surrounded by the ghosts of Washington history. So, tell me what’s going on at the great law enforcement agency in the sky.”

“There’s never anything new over there,” Berry replied, “but you know that.”

“Still working the Lee case?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Nothing new on that, either?”

“I just spent an hour with her parents. They’re in from Toronto.”

“And?”

“They had nothing to offer, except that the father—he’s a lot older than his wife—he’s not a fan of the pianist who roomed with the victim, or the two talent agents she hooked up with.”

“The Melincamp-Baltsa Artists Agency,” Pawkins said.

“You know them?”

“I did some research. She could have done better. They’re third-tier agents. Melincamp has been accused of pocketing client money. He was down-and-out when the moneyed Ms. Baltsa bought her way into the agency.”

“Tell me more,” Berry said.

“Not a lot more to tell, Carl.”

“He can’t be all take, no give,” Berry said. “He’s paying for the apartment here in D.C. that Lee and Warren were staying in.”

“I’m not surprised. From what my opera friends tell me, Charise Lee had one hell of a future as a soprano. Of course, she’s from the new school of soprano-lite singers, smaller voices in smaller bodies, that seem to have displaced singers with traditionally big voices, the kind that can fill a vast opera house without miking. They’re certainly pleasant to listen to, and to look at, but they lack that palpitating, bigger-than-life presence that the truly great opera singers possess. Still, if what I hear is true, this now very dead soprano-lite might have become the darling of the opera world in a few years, which could pay off in spades for Melincamp down the road. Laying out some rent money early on in her career might have been a smart move.”

Berry sipped his juice and thought before offering, “If she promised to be a meal ticket for him, that would pretty much rule him out as her killer. No motivation to have her dead.”

“On the surface. But Melincamp’s a whore. Maybe he was stealing from her and she got wind of it, threatened to blow the whistle.”

“Doesn’t play,” Berry said. “She was a young singer getting started. How much money could she have been making? Hell, she was just a student here.”

“Wrong, my friend. Anyone accepted into the Young Artist Program here at the Washington National Opera is more than ‘just a student.’ They’re very special talents who had to prove their mettle to none other than the maestro of maestros, Plácido Domingo. No, Carl, anyone accepted here has a bright future, indeed.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Berry said. “Tell me more about Melincamp and his partner.”

“Melincamp’s a low-life. He talks a good story but is always looking for a buck. He and Baltsa aren’t exactly copacetic partners, like Rogers and Hart, or Ben and Jerry. The way I hear it, he’d kill his mother for a lot less than you or I would.”

“I wouldn’t for any money,” Berry said.

“You always were too serious, Carl. I was joking.”

Pawkins reached into his small, leather shoulder bag and handed Berry the sponge he’d purchased at the theatrical supply shop. “Like this one?”

Berry’s fingers made indentations in the sponge. “Where did you get this?”

“A store. I offer it to dissuade you from jumping to the conclusion that the killer had to have been someone involved with theater, specifically the opera. Anyone could have bought it the way I did.” He laughed and checked his watch. “Almost time for a real drink. Here I’ve been telling you everything you need to know about the Lee case, as well as what’s wrong with opera singers today, and nothing from you. Where does
your
investigation stand?”

“I’ve got people questioning the agents. We brought in Warren. Dumb kid bolted and got a faceful of Willie Portelain’s fist.”

“And he has an airtight alibi, I assume.”

“Anything but. We’ll start interviewing everyone in that Young Artist Program. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come up with somebody who had it in for the victim, a guy she jilted, another singer who was jealous. I understand that opera singers can get pretty jealous of one another. In the meantime, we’re still at square one. Hey, Ray, I saw the article about you. Pretty nice.”

“My fifteen minutes of fame. I wasn’t pleased with the photograph. I’m a lot younger and better-looking than the picture shows.”

Berry cocked his head and exaggerated his scrutiny of Pawkins’ face. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, Cole wasn’t happy when I told him we’d be getting together on the Lee case, but he didn’t say no. I can use your help.”

“And you’ll have it.”

Pawkins paid with a credit card.

“Let’s stay in touch,” Berry said as they stood on the sidewalk.

“Absolutely. I may have to run out of town for a day or two, but I’ll let you know. Not sure I can get away. I’m in
Tosca.
”

“So I read. You really enjoy being in operas, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. Take care, Carl.”

As Pawkins began to walk away, Berry said, “Hey, Ray.”

“What?”

“I almost forgot. Remember the Musinski case you worked on six years ago?”

“Sure.”

“They’re reopening it.”

“Oh?” Pawkins said, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah. Forensics has come up with something that might link that grad assistant to the scene.”