Orchestrated Murder (7 page)

“If you're referring to Annabelle Lee, I had no idea that anything was going on until she took her own life.”

“That's not what I've been told.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
he expression on the orchestra manager's face was confused. Then he flushed angrily as the comment sank in.

“What exactly are you trying to say, Detective?”

Pratt pretended to soothe him. “It's natural that you would want to protect the organization's most valuable asset. Keeping things running smoothly is part of your job, isn't it? And so is loyalty.”

Browne leaned back in his chair. “I suppose I wasn't completely forthright with you at the beginning, and for that I apologize.” He sighed heavily. “Sometimes I feel like the father confessor around here. I have to listen to the board's complaints, the conductor's, the soloists', the guest conductors', and always the musicians'. It gets pretty wearing. Everybody expects me to sort out their problems.”

“I understand completely. So what exactly did you know about Spadafini's, ah, indiscretions?”

“Well…pretty much everything. A number of people in the orchestra, older women actually, complained about Spadafini's carrying-on almost from the moment he arrived. I think they were bitter they couldn't attract his attention, if you want to know the truth.”

Pratt chuckled. “I think I've met one of them.”

“Eliza Wanamaker?” When Pratt nodded, Browne added, “Damn woman thinks she's the conscience of the orchestra.”

Someone knocked softly on the office door.

It was Ellis, as planned. “Sir, you wanted to see me?”

Pratt turned. “Yes. You take notes faster than I can, so come in here and take notes.”

Ellis sat on one of the chairs around a low table in a corner of the office, an informal meeting area. Crossing his legs, he pulled out his notebook. Pratt hoped he would play his part well.

The older detective continued, “So Spadafini confided in you?”

Browne noticeably swelled. “All the time.” Then he pursed his lips. “Luigi also constantly asked me to help clean up his little messes, as he called them.”

“Such as?”

Michael Browne considered for a moment. “I suppose it doesn't make any difference now…Annabelle Lee gave me a letter to pass on to the orchestra's board. It was after the last rehearsal she attended. She knew there was a board meeting the next day. On her way home, she jumped in front of the subway train.” He sighed. “I'm afraid I opened that letter. I, ah, never gave it to the board.”

Pratt leaned forward to speak. “What happened to it?”

“I gave it to Luigi and he tore it to shreds. Wouldn't even look at it.”

“Just like the letter you told me she sent to him.”

Browne nodded. “Looking back, I guess it's not my proudest moment.”

“What did it say?”

“She went on and on about how he'd seduced her, almost raped her after he took her out to dinner the first time. How he'd lied about his feelings for her. I don't know if any of that was actually true, but she was obviously a very naive and hurt young woman. But what she was saying could have been very damaging for the orchestra.”

“Did she ever accompany Spadafini to a public function?”

“What?” A smile came over his face. “Oh, I see where you're going with that. No. Everyone in the orchestra knew they were involved, just like that silly piccolo player he was boinking recently. There were a number of others in and out of the orchestra too, soloists, even an usher. Let's just say he was an alpha male.”

“So you covered for Luigi Spadafini, smoothed the way for him over rough waters.”

Browne looked suddenly wary. “My job is to help make this orchestra run smoothly. Public scandals involving our conductor would not have been good for the orchestra. I did nothing illegal.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Spadafini?”

“Cordial. I got along with him better than most.”

“And he relied on you.”

The orchestra manager nodded. “I helped him a lot.”

“What did you get out of it?”

“The satisfaction of a job well done,” Browne replied almost smugly.

“Somehow I think that there was more to it than that.” Pratt turned to the younger detective in the corner. “Ellis, were you able to get more information about what we were talking about earlier?”

“Certainly.”

“And could you tell Mr. Browne about it? We don't need the exact words. Just sum it up.”

Ellis consulted his notebook (for show), then cleared his throat. “At twelve eighteen, I was in the orchestra's rehearsal hall and noticed a cell phone on the floor partially under the conductor's podium. Further examination showed that it belonged to Luigi Spadafini. It must have fallen from the pocket of his overcoat. On its call history was a record of a dozen phone calls to Mr. Browne's cell over the past two weeks. I also found a number of incoming calls, all from Mr. Browne's cell phone, as—”

“How can you possibly find that suspicious?” Browne interrupted. “We were consulting about next season's programming.”

“Why would you be using a cell phone at all?” Pratt asked. “Some of those calls came in the middle of the day when you were both here. We've checked. Why wouldn't you just stroll down the hall to talk to him? If you were both that lazy, you could have used your office phones. Why talk on a cell every time? That's what made us suspicious.”

“I don't know. I'm just so used to using my cell, I suppose. I reach for that first, that's all. Luigi too.”

“Really?”

“Yes, goddammit!”

Ellis got up and handed a scrap of paper to Pratt, who pushed it across the desk toward Browne.

“Recognize that phone number?”

“No. Should I?” Browne's forehead now had a light sheen of sweat.

“We also found that number in the call history of Spadafini's cell phone. Being curious, we dialed it. The person at the other end told us some very interesting things. Luigi Spadafini was planning on jumping ship. You agreed with my statement that he relied on you. Surely you knew about this.”

Browne looked at his watch. “James Norris told me about this not half an hour ago. It came as a very great shock. Luigi never said a word about it.”

“I'll come back to this. Just before I came up here, I spoke with Eliza Wanamaker. I was curious as to why you told the orchestra about the murder. I think you told me you just blurted it out.”

“That's correct. I was very upset.”

“Funny. Eliza got the feeling that you didn't seem at all upset. She described you as outwardly calm and in control.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, Detective. Surely I shouldn't have to tell you that.”

“Why then did you pick up Spadafini's overcoat before you left the room? Ms. Wanamaker remembers that clearly. Everyone was in a panic, and you caused that. Were you trying to distract them so you could search for Spadafini's cell phone?”

Now Browne was definitely sweating.

Pratt continued. “I think you wanted it to disappear along with the record of all those calls.”

“That's a lie!” Browne shouted.

Pratt was about to hammer another nail into the coffin when the office door opened. Norris stuck his head in, and Browne used the interruption to leap to his feet.

“James! How fortunate you've shown up. The detectives here seem to want to drag me into this mess. Please come in. I want a witness to hear the outrageous accusations.”

Browne came around the desk and opened the door wide. Grabbing his boss by the arm, he whipped him into the room, directly where Pratt was seated. The two men collided hard, knocking over Pratt's chair. In a flash, Browne was through the doorway. Equally fast, Ellis jumped right over the low table in front of him and disappeared out the door.

As he struggled to get up, Pratt heard a loud cry followed by a crash. By the time he got out to the hall, it was all over. The orchestra manager lay on his stomach with the youthful Ellis on top of him.

“Get off me! Get him off me!” Browne shouted.

Ellis grinned up at Pratt. “You wouldn't happen to have any handcuffs, would you?”

He did. Handcuffs were his good luck charm and he always had his pair in a jacket pocket. Ellis placed them around the orchestra manager's wrists with a satisfying
click
. They pulled Browne to his feet.

“Why did you do it?” Pratt asked calmly.

“Because Spadafini was a complete bastard! He deserved to die. When he told me he wasn't taking me to the new orchestra, he laughed! I wasn't going to let him screw me just like he screwed everyone else.”

As they led their prisoner to the elevator, Pratt said with a laugh, “Let me guess, Ellis. You were also a star on your high school track team. Hurdles, right?”

The young detective nodded. “Got it in one, sir…I mean, Pratt.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A
ll the six o'clock news showed was someone being led out the stage door, an overcoat pulled up over his head. There were a lot of loose ends to tie up, so all Pratt would say to the crowd of reporters was that someone had been arrested for the murder of Luigi Spadafini. There would be a news conference the next morning.

As the film clip played on the tv in the corner of the captain's office, Pratt, Ellis and McDonnell were watching it carefully.

“Pretty slick bit of detecting, Pratt,” the captain laughed. He'd enjoyed telling the chief and mayor that the crisis was over.

“It's because our young Detective Ellis is a nosy bastard with good instincts. He's also a dab hand with a computer—and fast on his feet.”

The captain leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about it, Ellis.”

“It actually was lucky that I decided to use Browne's office because that gave me access to his computer. I only needed his connection to the Internet for my laptop. I did happen to turn on his computer, though, since I was there. It had a password, but I figured that out on the first try. It was his wife's name, and that was on the family photo on his desk. Amazing how many people do something that simple.”

When the captain started to say something, Pratt held up his hand.

“The lad knows how illegal that was. But it got us some important information. With that warrant they're hopefully getting signed now, we can ‘officially' find the information Ellis uncovered. It will make our case even stronger.”

“Which was?”

“Browne kept copious notes. There's a ledger, I guess you could call it, that tracks who he helped, why and what he expected to get out of it. Spadafini had promised to take him to the new orchestra and become its manager. It was supposed to be payback for all the crap Browne had shoveled for him. Unfortunately, the conductor was a lying bastard. Last night he told Browne he'd never even told the other orchestra about their deal—and he wasn't going to. The girl Spadafini was with last night heard one end of that argument. When we arrested Browne, he had his cell phone in his pocket. Since it was now evidence, we checked. Sure enough, in its history there was a phone call to Spadafini at precisely that time.”

“I interviewed the girl a second time,” Ellis added. “And she'd heard more than she'd told Pratt originally. She thought from what she heard that it was an orchestra member on the phone. After the murder, she didn't want to rat on any of her colleagues. She didn't think that would go down well.”

“Nice girl,” McDonnell said. “And getting lied to about a new job was enough to push Browne over the edge?”

Pratt let Ellis answer again.

“Seems as if Browne had done more than cover up Spadafini's indiscretions. There were some illegal things.”

“Like what?”

“We're not sure yet. He alluded to something involving an underage girl. About that time, a lawyer showed up and turned off the tap. We'll get it out of him somehow.”

The captain shook his head. “So why did the orchestra pull that ‘we're all guilty' stunt?”

Pratt answered. “Because they were all convinced that one of them had done it. It worked perfectly for Browne. He'd known all the scuttlebutt going down among them, how they'd been jokingly coming up with ways to kill their conductor. This morning he just gave it a little push.”

“If Browne had recovered Spadafini's cell phone after the murder,” Ellis added, “he only needed to lose it. We might never have thought to check the phone company's records and connect up the dots. Browne might actually have gotten away with it.”

The captain shook his head again. “Maybe you won't complain about cell phones anymore, eh, Pratt? One of them saved your sorry ass today.” McDonnell got to his feet. “Good job, both of you. Now I'm going home to persuade my wife she isn't mad at me for being down here on my day off.”

The two detectives were headed for home too.

As they stopped to get their coats, Ellis turned to Pratt. “You said earlier that you'd heard Spadafini conduct several times. What was he like as a musician?”

“Incredible. He could make you hear a piece of music as if it was the first time. I don't think I've ever been to more exciting concerts.”

“And he was such a…well, a scumbag as a person.”

“Yeah, kid. Welcome to our world. You'll find when you dig below the surface, a lot of people are pretty ugly. In my experience, the more ability a person has, the greater the ugliness.”

Ellis held out his hand to Pratt. “Thank you for letting me work with you today— and for trusting me.”

“Thank the captain. He dumped you on me. Remember?” Then Pratt clapped Ellis on the shoulder. “How about if we go out for a couple of beers and a good steak dinner with all the trimmings? My treat.

Got anything on?”

“I'm in—just as long as the restaurant's background music isn't classical.”