Murder at the Opera (4 page)

Naturally, there was some resentment of Warren and Lee’s situation. Most of the other students were expected to pay their own rent and buy their own food out of their $1,900 monthly stipend. It wasn’t a secret that Melincamp and Baltsa were picking up their two clients’ tabs, which left the young Canadians with spare cash with which to enjoy the city’s abundant nightlife.

“There’s no answer at the apartment,” Harriet said. “Thanks for being on time,” she told Warren. “If you see or hear from Ms. Lee, please urge her to call me. I’m under enough pressure without having to deal with no-shows.”

Later that night, as she sat in her living room with her husband, Harriet felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning.

“Something wrong?” he asked, noticing that she’d wrapped her arms about herself.

“No,” she said. “I just have a bad feeling.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

Her husband frowned. Over the twenty-three years of their marriage, Harriet had displayed occasional moments of what she called “visions,” premonitions of misfortune befalling others, family members, friends. She’d been right on at least two occasions, awaking in the middle of the night with a vision, then receiving a call the following morning confirming it.

“Like a little brandy?” he asked, touching her hair as he passed on the way to the kitchen.

She grabbed his hand, looked up, and smiled. Her husband’s answer to almost everything was a little brandy.

“That would be nice,” she said.

He continued into the kitchen, leaving her alone with her chilling vision.

FOUR

T
he 600 Restaurant, at the base of the Watergate complex, was bustling as Mac walked in. The vast, three-sided bar was lined with stagehands, electricians, carpenters, basses and baritones, cooks and painters, and sopranos and mezzos from the performing arts center across the street, and Watergate residents for whom the restaurant was a neighborhood haunt. Ulysses, the bartender, was a large, gregarious man wearing a large, gregarious green-and-white-striped shirt and a flamboyantly colored tie and suspenders. He moved with a dancer’s grace as he took drink orders, mixed, stirred and shook, delivered the concoctions, and engaged in a nonstop dialogue with his customers without missing a step.

Mac spotted Annabel at the far end of the bar chatting with another woman. He joined them and was introduced to Genevieve Crier. “Genevieve is in charge of supers for the Washington Opera,” Annabel told her husband.

“Aha,” he said. “So you’re to blame.”

She feigned dismay, laughed, and said, “Guilty as charged, although I’m incapable of demonstrating remorse.” Her accent was British, her easy laugh universal. “No matter, I’m absolutely delighted that you’ve joined the cast for
Tosca.
” She took a step back and slowly, deliberately looked him up and down. “You’ll make a fine monk, Mr. Smith, and we all know that monks get by on very little money, which is good because we pay our supers very little.”

“I get paid, too?” he said.

“A fortune for a monk. Twenty-eight dollars a performance, eight dollars per rehearsal. There’ll be eight rehearsals. Eight times eight is sixty-four dollars. Egads, you’ll be the richest monk in the monastery. Of course, a whole world of college kids ate off the two bucks they were paid as supers at the Met years back.” To Annabel: “The money will make up for your darling hubby’s commitment to celibacy, I’m sure.” She scooped an oversized purse off the bar. “Must run. See you at seven. Delighted to meet you, Mackensie Smith. Your wife is one of my favorite people in the world.”

“I like your friend,” Mac said, taking a stool next to Annabel.

“She’s a dynamo. Used to be an actress in London and Hollywood.”

“We’d better get something to eat,” Mac said. “I’d hate to make my stage debut on an empty stomach.”

Genevieve Crier had instructed all supers to enter through the Opera House’s stage door, just inside one of the main entrances to the Kennedy Center. Annabel gave their names to an older gentleman manning the door, who dutifully checked them off against a list on a clipboard and told them where the supers were congregating. This turned out to be a large dressing room one level below the theater itself. Genevieve was already there with two men, whom she introduced to the Smiths. The rest of the supers drifted in over the next fifteen minutes—a navy commander; an orthopedic surgeon; a Department of Agriculture auditor; two housewives from WNO’s vast corps of volunteers; a nightclub bouncer; a retired botanist; Mac’s college colleagues; Christopher Warren, the Canadian pianist from the Young Artists program; and someone Mac hadn’t seen in a couple of years, Raymond Pawkins, a retired Washington MPD Homicide detective.

Their paths had crossed a number of times when Smith was representing criminal defendants, and Pawkins had been the lead investigator in those cases. Of all the Homicide detectives Smith had run across in his previous career, Pawkins stood out from the crowd. A tall, beanpole of a man with a prominent hooked nose beneath which a dark gray moustache was carefully trimmed, he wore khaki slacks with a razor-sharp crease, a blue button-down shirt, a white linen sport jacket, and loafers shined to a mirror finish. Smith remembered only too well those times when Pawkins testified against his criminal clients, always impeccably dressed and well spoken, terse or almost effete at times, answering Mac’s cross-examinations with deliberate care, never exaggerating and always on-message. He was impossible to fluster on the stand, not only because of the impressive image he presented to juries, but because he’d gone by the book in his investigations, missing little in the way of evidence and organizing his findings with exquisite attention to detail. After shaking hands and introducing Annabel to him, snippets of Pawkins’ life came back to Mac. They’d had lunches and dinners together at the conclusion of a few cases, the outcome now a matter of public record, their opposing views left back in the courtroom.

Pawkins had never married, as far as Mac knew, and was deeply interested in the arts, his erudition in stark contrast to most detectives. The last time they’d been together, Pawkins was finishing up a master’s degree in 19th century art at Georgetown, and was an enthusiastic member of the National Cathedral’s chorus. Unusual pursuits for a cop.

“I didn’t know you were an opera buff, Mac,” Pawkins said in a slightly pinched voice. He’d often complained about his sinuses, Mac recalled.

“I’m not,” Mac said. “Annabel is on the board and roped me in.”

“Actually,” Annabel added, “it’s a public relations project cooked up to get some press for the company. I take it you’re no stranger to opera.”

“One of my passions,” Pawkins replied. “I’ve been going to the opera since I was a little boy, thanks to a mother who believed in exposing her only son to culture. I claimed to have hated it then, but secretly loved every minute of it. I’ve been a super in dozens of productions over the years, much to the amusement of my friends in law enforcement.”

“I think that’s wonderful,” Annabel said, “seeing stereotypes debunked.”

Pawkins smiled, savoring the thought. “At any rate,” he said, “the counselor here and I butted heads on plenty of occasions, didn’t we, Mac? How nice to see us on the same side this time around, or should I say on the same stage? Actually, it’s not called a stage in opera.”

“Oh?” Mac said. “What is it, then?”

“A deck. The earliest stagehands were seamen who were used to climbing ropes and riggings to high places. It seems that—”

Genevieve interrupted their conversation. “Time to meet our director,” she said in her lilting voice. “Follow me.” She led them from the dressing room up to the cavernous main stage, where the production’s director, Anthony Zambrano, was conferring with assistants. Surrounding them was the half-finished second act set, a palatial apartment in the Farnese Palace used by Baron Scarpia, the chief of the Roman police, and one of opera’s most infamous villains.

“Tony,” Genevieve announced with a flourish, “your supernumeraries are here.”

Zambrano, a short, wiry man with sharply defined facial features, a full head of steely gray hair, and wearing a pale yellow, light-weight cardigan over the shoulders of his navy T-shirt, turned and displayed a toothy smile.

“Ah, yes,” the director said, hands on his hips and head cocked as he scrutinized these men and women who would be his monks and soldiers. Zambrano, who’d been brought in from Italy to direct this production of
Tosca,
walked past each super, frowning and making small grunting sounds, a commander inspecting his troops. Mac found himself becoming increasingly uncomfortable at having his physical attributes so brazenly evaluated. Zambrano turned abruptly on his heel and motioned for Genevieve to accompany him to a remote area of the stage.

Annabel, who’d been watching from a distance, came to her husband and gave him a reassuring smile.

“Cocky little guy, isn’t he?” Mac whispered.

“They say he’s immensely talented,” Annabel said, “on a par with Menotti, Zeffirelli, and Guthrie.”

“That may be, but I get the feeling he’s not happy with us,” said Mac.

“You’re imagining things,” she said.

“Interesting,” Mac said.

“What is?”

“The stage floor. The deck. It gives.” He bounced up and down on the surface, which appeared to be constructed of some sort of rubber.

“They could use better housekeeping,” Annabel said casually.

“What do you mean?”

She pointed to a small, irregular, maroon stain on the floor.

He crouched to see it more closely. “Looks like somebody had a nosebleed.”

Genevieve came to them.

“Everything all right?” Annabel asked.

“Not really. Anthony is unhappy with a few of my supers.”

“I don’t handle rejection well,” Mac said, adding a laugh.

“You passed muster,” Genevieve said.

“Whew,” Mac said, wiping imaginary perspiration from his brow.

Genevieve lowered her voice. “He’s not happy with your boss, Dr. Burns.”

Mac looked across the stage to where Wilfred Burns, president of George Washington University, chatted with professors from the other schools who’d agreed to appear as supers.

“I told Anthony that he couldn’t dismiss certain supers like Dr. Burns because—well, because of who they are.”

“If you need a volunteer to bail,” Smith said, “I’m available.”

“Not on your life,” Genevieve said. “Tony described you as ruggedly handsome.”

“Isn’t he though?” said Annabel.

“He may not like certain supers who are here,” Genevieve said, “but I have my own problems. I’m still missing a woman.”

“Oh?”

“Charise Lee, from the Young Artist Program. They pressed her into duty for one performance, but she’s not here. She didn’t show up for her costume fitting, either.”

Zambrano clapped his hands and called everyone to form a semicircle around him. He welcomed the group and said he intended to walk everyone through the basic blocking that would be used during the performance, to give them a feel for the stage on which they’d be working, although most rehearsals would be held at Takoma Park. He’d just started arranging the supers into groups when a burly middle-aged man, coveralls over a white T-shirt, came through a gap in the scenery, a backstage worker of some sort, an electrician or grip. He stood a dozen feet back from everyone and seemed unsure of what to say, or how to say it.

Zambrano noticed him. “I’m in the middle of a run-through,” he said. “I insist upon a closed stage.”

The intruder looked around for someone with whom to speak. Not seeing anyone, he blurted loudly, “She’s dead.”

“What?” Zambrano asked.

“Who’s dead?” asked someone.

“The young woman,” the stagehand said. “She’s dead. Upstairs.”

“What young woman?” Zambrano demanded.

“Oh, good God,” Genevieve said, her hand going to her bosom. “I have this feeling that…”

Mac and Annabel looked at each other as Genevieve went to where the stagehand had now been joined by Zambrano, the Opera House’s manager, and the head of Kennedy Center Security, who’d been called by the stagehand immediately after discovering the body. He spotted Ray Pawkins and crossed the stage to him.