I had this sick feeling in my stomach. Guilt.
Sophie was arrested, and it was over. I had been right. My M.J. senses had picked up on something from Ben’s first mention and tension about his office and his admin, and it had made no sense, but hey, welcome to my brain; if I dismissed everything that didn’t make sense it would often be blank.
I’d been right.
But I didn’t feel proud or even satisfied. Because being right also meant destroying lives. Not that it wasn’t her own fault. But I was the one—the literal one single person—who had put Sophie Lemmon behind bars. And I’d met her. And I’d pretty much liked her.
But that is not why I felt guilty.
I felt guilty because I didn’t want the case to be solved. I resented that it has been solved, that my investigations had been cut off in the middle, and they had been so fascinating, so exciting.
The brightest, shiniest thing to ever come my way was over.
The entire world felt muted and gray, even though it was one of those horribly cold yet sunshiney days where the crisp air and brightness make everything hurt your eyes.
The lights I’d turned on in An Event to Remember’s reception/showroom didn’t even cast a warm glow. Through my newly dimmed vision they just, you know, lit the room. Even the Tiffanys were just sources of light instead of sparkling, glowing jewels that had fueled my earliest little dys-girl daydreams.
The Christmas music was all sad. A singer begging someone to please come home for Christmas, a New York fairy tale without a happy ending, blue Christmases, sad Christmases—but when Nat King Cole started singing about that little boy that Santa Claus forgot—
I turned it off so fast, Taz sat up, confused, and barked.
How could the system be set to shuffle and yet only play sad songs?
Once again, I was supposed to man the reception desk—woman the reception desk? Chick the desk. I like that. Chick the desk.
I was chicking the desk while Clara returned to the dentist for a follow-up.
Chicking the desk with my shisa dogs—of course I had them, I always have them when I’m temping somewhere, and that includes downstairs in my own house. Our own house. And admiring them on the front corners of my desk suddenly jerked me back to Ben’s office, to Sophie’s desk, to Sophie.
I shot to my feet. I wasn’t going to sit here where my thoughts could run free. I left the lights and music on, locked the front doors, and if somebody bonged the chimes, I could go down and let them in. This close to Christmas, nobody was likely to ring, anyway.
So Taz and I were upstairs, hanging up all the clothes that had gotten tossed around over the past days of deciding what to wear and changing my mind and then not hanging stuff because it was all too tedious and time-consuming and stomach-churningly unimportant when I was on a case.
Well, at any time, but especially when I was on a case.
I dressed Taz in her warmest clothes and went outside on the back verandah and sat on the steps while she ran circles around the yard. She loves running circles. Then she sniffs, looking for food, and finds it more often than not. I do not even know what she eats half the time, but I’ve seen her eat bugs and hope she’s not finding worse. At some point she takes care of her business—sometimes several times. I didn’t know girl dogs marked territory, but I always know if any dogs have been around, because she promptly has to go cover their scent with her own and then scratch up the ground like she’s kicking dirt in their faces.
She eventually came bounding back toward me—and a Chihuahua running full steam at you is already hilarious, but one bundled in a candy cane sweater complete with hood? Priceless.
We ate an early lunch. Well, we’d been up and had an early breakfast. She ate her kibble and green beans while I ate Marie Callender’s spaghetti, which didn’t hold a candle to any of the lunches I’d had with Ben. Not even the sandwiches.
But maybe the sandwiches only seemed so good because we’d been together. I mean, together-working-on-the-case together.
Right after I’d angered him by telling him that Sophie was a suspect.
You know what’s annoying? When a brain that wants to skip around from idea to idea without pause or direction, that refuses to even think about venues without shutting down, when that brain sits down on the one thing I don’t want to think about and won’t let go.
I knew Ben didn’t really blame me or hold me responsible and that the more time passed, the more grateful he’d be. I knew all the stages. He probably felt like a sucker. That’s one of the stages, too.
Like I said, four offices where they were cleaning up the aftermath of the same kind of thing. I guess I could count five now. If not actually working in the office still counted.
But he had liked her. He had trusted her.
I closed the curtains because you know, my day was dim and washed out already, and why not help it along? And I went back to my bed that I hadn’t bothered making up. Taz, of course, flew up her little dog-steps to join me.
I needed to hear that music again.
The music that had energized me, that had even made me forget I was waiting for a phone call.
I reached for the laptop. I’d listen to Elgar’s version this time. I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. He’d gotten hold of a record like the white one the professor had and had done his total 21st Century makeover on it. Which meant…
Somebody had made a recording of the boys. And it ended up in Stanley’s hands in England. Because…
Stanley made records. He knew people who made records. He had somebody tape the professor—his son—so he could hear.
So by this scenario, Stanley had been keeping tabs on the boy from afar?
Without ever acknowledging him?
Did that make sense?
It did if he had a jealous wife, maybe. Or if he feared his English family and friends might not accept his mixed-race child. Or if he really didn’t want another kid but was fair and responsible enough to make sure he was taken care of.
I’d ask Elgar. Now that I’d come up with a theory, I wanted to see if it was right. The day got a teensy bit brighter. The case was over, but testing my instincts was good practice.
For…
Nope, not thinking about that.
On my laptop, the guitar was circling for a landing in that section I find particularly remarkable when the teenaged professor played it on the piano. This was my first time to stay awake all the way through and hear him play it on guitar.
This performance didn’t sound like kids and didn’t sound like R&B, it was really more like…. Well, some sort of rock. Diggit said the professor had played like Jimi Hendrix, and this would have been why.
They weren’t—oh, okay, what were some of those old school bands? Led Zeppelin or—well, the Billy No-Mates? But they were really, really good.
Especially Diggit. I found myself anticipating the next sax color when the guitar was playing.
The music broke off mid-tone leaving a jagged silence.
I checked the laptop, but the numbers tracked steadily forward, still playing, just playing silence.
“What was your intent when you decided to play this for me?”
A chilly, cultured American voice. Coming from my laptop. Coming from the recording.
“I expect you planned to berate me, beg me, bribe me,” the man continued. “I knew you were too spoiled and filled with delusions of your own exalted status in the world of music to accept our decision without whining.”
“But, Professor, don’t you recognize what was playing?”
Elgar? Which meant—
“What kind of cretin do you take me for, you insolent, puling little worm?”
Chills rolled through me like an icy drumroll.
I knew the other voice, knew the voice I had never heard before.
I was listening to a dead man.
“Of course, I recognize it. I ask again, what was your intent? Exactly what benefit did you anticipate from this?”
“No benefit.” Elgar’s confusion was painful. “Just to show the esteem I have for you. You’ve been like a light in my life from the time I discovered this recording and learned about you. You are the reason I’ve dedicated myself to classical music instead of following my father or my grandfa.”
How yearning Elgar’s voice was. Desperate with yearning. “I felt a connection with you the first time I heard this, and it has only grown stronger. To hear your talent and know of the opportunity you refused because you had a higher calling. That was when I finally learned to appreciate and revere the music of the ages, of the masters, by learning about you. I was humbled and yet inspired not to set my own sights so low. My father’s excesses robbed me of him. I was only—only a small tyke when his weakness for drugs ended his life. I don’t even remember him. You were never so weak, so tawdry. I chose to follow you.”
“Mr. Montgomery. You delude yourself. You humiliate yourself.”
Oh, my tender heart ached as I heard firsthand how Professor Humphreys had earned his reputation.
“How many years did you spend listening to this forty-seven minutes of frozen time stolen from someone else’s life? How many years did you waste listening without hearing?”
“But I did hear. Over and over, as I digitized it. Three different times whenever equipment and technology improved, I went back to the original and I enhanced it. I removed the minute scratches and crackles so that—if you listen, you must not have noticed, it’s as if your younger self—the three of you—are right here in this rehearsal studio—”
“But we weren’t playing in a studio.” The professor’s voice curled on the last word, as if “studio” had a disgusting taste. “You expected me to be grateful? To rejoice in your sublime achievement of chipping away at that performance—” Hissing and heavy breathing. “—until you removed every living, breathing bit that was real? You present me with this modern era’s plastic idea of perfection in its place and think it is an improvement?”
“That’s not—not what I did. Not what I thought I was doing. Please, I beg of you to forgive me for getting it so wrong,” Elgar pleaded, still seeking reassurance if not approval.
“I presume the record was jetsam from my father’s estate—” the professor spat and again, a word disgusted him.
Father.
“Why it was passed down to your father when it would have been better tossed out with the garbage I can’t presume to know. Please tell me he didn’t leave knowledge of my existence for you to find.”
“No, nothing. Not at all. Just enough about the unnamed heir to intrigue me. Just enough to get me started on the Internet. You can’t imagine how challenging. I started when I was still in public school. It took me almost a year.”
“Mr. Montgomery.” The professor’s voice sliced the air with deceptive delicacy.
“Howe. Which should be your name, too. I thought after all this time, you might be happy to find… family.”
“You dare… you dare presume to think I will crumple into abject gratitude because I am allowed to take on a family name I do not even desire?” The professor’s chilly voice was sibilant and lethal, a coiling snake. No rattle to warn. Just slithering. Hissing. “You think me to be humbled and joyous that you—your family—any of you—deign to accept and recognize the poor bastard ‘Grandfa’ left behind?”
“No, no—not that. It’s not like that!”
“What part of ‘I do not desire any connection with you’ does not compute in your inbred brain?”
Elgar’s voice was a mere whisper. “I thought, after all this time, you might be thrilled to hear this recording. I thought perhaps you’d never heard it before, didn’t know it even existed.”
“Of course I knew the recording existed. I was sent a copy by the same firm that handled my inheritance, which was my only connection to a father. They even hinted that a letter of thanks would be in order, as if I had no exposure to proper behavior. But I ignored them. I saw no reason to satisfy someone’s need for me to prove myself honored by the attention. And yet I have cherished it, not for its source, but for the audio proof that the choice I made that night was sound. That record captured those minutes so perfectly. Not only do you hear the life, the movement, even the breathing of the Peel’s audience—you can smell the sweat, the cigarette smoke, the fumes of alcohol.
“And you think making it sound like a studio production is an improvement?”
How could the professor’s soft voice be under such tight control, yet emit palpable threat?
“You’re right, of course you’re right. I see it now. I don’t know what I was thinking, but that is what I want from you, need to learn from you,” Elgar rushed, urgent and foolish.
Elgar, no, no, no. Hush. You’re stoking him hotter.
I wanted to reach through computer speaker and yank him by his dyed black hair and drag him out of that studio before the professor—
Before the professor killed him.
And now I truly couldn’t breathe, and I’d missed it, I’d missed what they were saying. I lunged across the bed, punched buttons, trying to back up, to hear the professor’s words, because all that I’d taken in was murderous, murderous rage.
Finally, I got the right buttons, found the place again.
“—what I want from you, need to learn from you.”
“Could you be any more of a cliché? The poor little rich boy. How inferior your life must have been, if it left you scheming such a long game, living lie after lie so you could sit in my class, offer such money to the university that they insisted‒ insisted!‒ I be your director.
“I knew in the first measure of your audition tape, in the first paragraph of your essay, and in the carefully worded letters of recommendation that accompanied it all that you were talentless. Everything in that submission packet oozed delusion and stank of greased palms.”
Oh, the man was smug as he continued his evisceration.
If even half of what the professor said was true, Elgar... Oh poor Elgar.
“I was subjected to the humiliation of being the pet charity of a pampered, pathetic little punk. You thought by sneaking into my life and then revealing your identity, I would spread my arms wide and clasp you to my bosom. Because of course the poor bastard would be so grateful to be acknowledged, to finally be one of you.”
The danger was so palpable, so present, it had now entered my bedroom. I rocked back and forth with my arms clutching myself, wanting to stop this recording, it made no sense, how could I be hearing these things?
But I couldn’t move.
I waited for the professor’s next words with a dread that pinned me in place and hardly allowed me to breathe. But when they came, they knocked what little air I had out of me.
“If you do not take this abomination you brought to lay on my altar and leave this building within the next sixty seconds, I will summon security.”
“But—but—You can’t simply dismiss me, like a—a child.”
“But I can.” So silken, that low, dismissive voice. “Because now that the committee has agreed to deny your honors, I am not required for even a moment longer to share the air I breathe with you.”
A hoarse, heaving gasp of air ‒
A grunt of exertion ‒
Followed by an almost simultaneous thud and the professor’s groaning gasp and the cracking of his skull.
The squeal of a chair being hit as a body fell to the floor.
“I—” Another grunt followed by a soft thud of a different nature. “—offered—” And another. “—you—” And another. “—everything!”
Elgar was—must be—kicking the professor, kicking him where he lay on the floor, not Elgar, not that shy, diffident young man. Not this, not doing this.
And then, hysterical, broken sobs. “Everything I had to give!”
The professor made no sound. I listened—hard—but could hear no breathing except for that of Elgar, whose frenzied gasps gradually slowed.
Replaced by pacing. Pacing. Rhythmic and... Calm.
Eerily calm.
He was calmly pacing...
Planning?
Bile rose in my throat because I remembered I remembered I remembered the voices I’d dreamed about, the guys arguing next door that I thought were going to kill each other—
Not in the bad, scary neighborhood in LA, the only one I could afford.
No, this very real death scene had played in the dark, dark comfort of my bedroom while Taz and I slept unaware…
I remembered my phone, tapped Ben’s name.
Got his voice mail of course I got his voice mail he’s in court he’s in court and I need to cut it off and call—911?
Sergeant. Sergeant what is her name I know her name—.
Taz went crazy. A frenzy of barking, and I barely snagged her and secured her against my chest before she reached her dog-steps and took off to attack.
Because there.
In my doorway.
[how? how? how?]
With a feral, vicious marmalade cat purring in his arms.
And that hand.
That hand that had hoisted a marble bust and slammed it into a human skull.
That hand now stroked the cat’s head as she strained and arched beneath its touch like a lover.
With head cocked slightly, studying me.
Stood Elgar Britten Montgomery.
Son of Beak Howe.
Grandson of Stanley Howe.
Nephew and murderer of Leonard Stanley Humphreys.