The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (8 page)

Angie was already in the kitchen when I came down.  She was
moving about more spryly.  I plopped down at the table, and she poured coffee
in a cup before I had a chance to say, “Good morning.”

“Ah, it will be a better morning once you eat the breakfast
I’m preparing.”

“Should I wake the girls?”

“No need, they are up and looking for berries for me.”

“I don’t know how you do it.  I can imagine the face Noelle
would give me if I asked her to pick berries.”

“It’s the way you ask.  Noelle is a dear, but Paz is a bit
spastic.  She flits here and there. Like a...”

“Fairy?" I ventured.  "I know there is something
other-world-ish about her.  Noelle says she has a lot of blokes, that she calls
friends. She calls them about this and that.  One of them loaned her his car. 
She never seems to have a lot of money on her but manages all the same.”

“Well here comes our fairy and Noelle.”  Angie spotted them
from the kitchen window.  “Oh oh, looks like they’ve had a row.”

“If you would just stop talking for a moment,” Noelle was
saying as they entered the kitchen, “I would have told you that you were
backing into a picker bush.”

“Here I have pickers in my ars...behind and all you can do
is laugh.”  Paz stuck out her behind for all to see.  

I walked over and sure enough there were thistles on her
behind.  I carefully removed them and tossed them in the garbage.

“There, now you can sit.”

“Yer Mum’s got a heart.  What ‘appened to yours.”

“HHHa Happened, not ‘appened.  You’re not from the east
end.”

“Girls, sit down and eat,” Angie ordered.

Noelle put the gathered berries on the counter, washed her
hands in the sink and motioned for Paz to do the same.  Paz rebelled, stuck out
her tongue and wiped her hands on her pants.  It was very quiet at the table
that morning.  There wasn’t any talking because we were all eating.  I think
Angie's breakfast rivaled my mother’s.  My mother won out because when we visited
her in Michigan the breakfasts lasted until lunch.  Angie’s fare was thick
Cornish bacon, free range eggs, coffee, and thick slabs of oven-toasted bread
and jam.  I ate till my stomach rebelled.

We all helped with washing up.  And soon we were following
Angie to the music school.

“I thought I would tell you a bit about how all of this came
to be," Angie swept her arm to take in the hillside of buildings,
"before we go in.  My father was a Professor of Music.  We lived on campus
during term and here during the summer.  This was my father’s family farm.  My
father loved his work and was always bringing home his ‘pets’ during the
summer.  This not only created more work for my mother, but also infringed on
the peace and quiet she so craved after the long semesters at the university.  After
one of their biggest arguments, my parents agreed to turn the outbuildings on
the hill into a school.  That way my father could have a place for his
students, and they would be out from under my mother’s feet.  They would sleep
in the house, but the music making would be done out here.

“He also had a big bathroom with two showers put in after
one bad summer when my mother never got a hot bath.  She wasn’t a bad woman. 
She just thought that after cooking all day she should be able to soak in the
tub.

“There was always music here.  I grew up with the sound
always around me.  Sometimes I still hear music that shouldn’t be.”  Angie
shook her head as to shake away a memory.  “Anyway, my father had students here
between the wars.  You know he was responsible for launching many a career. 
His last group he felt was his finest.  It broke his heart when they all went
away because of the war.”

“Did anyone come back to visit?” I interrupted.

“Some of the early students but not that last class.”  There
was a new sadness to her voice.  She seemed to be lost in thought for a
moment.  We stood there uncertain of our next step when she pulled the keys
from her pocket and opened the door to the largest building.  “This is the
performance room.”

We carefully stepped inside, and as Angie added the electric
lights to the sunlight that streamed in through the windows the room leapt to
life.  A large grand piano stood majestically in the corner playing peek-a-boo
under a dust cover.  Faded but sound red curtains hung across an elevated
stage.  Various dust covered chairs and couches formed the audience.

Angie guided us past the couches and a bathroom to a door
that opened out into one of the covered walkways.

“This leads to one of the two practice buildings.  Each
building has three practice rooms and one storage room.  The instruments are in
the next building’s storage room, and the music and other papers are in the
back building’s storage.”

She took out the ring of keys, pointed out the one to the
instrument building and turned the key in the lock.  The building was amazing. 
It had three rooms cut out of it.  Each was lined ceiling and wall with
acoustical tiling.  Each room had an upright piano.  Paz tried each one.  All
the pianos were out of tune but intact. 

“The rooms were supposed to be made so you couldn’t hear
what was going on from room to room.  It didn’t really work, and there were
fights sometimes.  Especially when Father had the march lads working.  Oh dear
me, what a racket.  Back here is where the remaining instruments are kept.”

She opened the door and turned on the light.  I knew we
would be spending a lot of time in there doing inventory.  The room had
shelving from the floor to the ceiling, and not one inch was spared from a
string or wind instrument.  There weren’t any windows in the room, and the
light was dim at best. 

“I think we’ll have to move these out of here to get a good
look at them,” I said.

“Some of those cases look pretty heavy,” Angie fretted.

“No problem, we American girls have good strong muscles.”
Noelle flexed her arm.

“I guess all the tea drinking has made me weak,” Paz
grumbled as she tried to make something resembling a muscle of the flesh and
bone of her tiny arm.

“Do what you have to do.  Don’t expect anything too
priceless.  Bobby already picked over the room years ago.”

Angie unlocked the back door, and we walked to the last
building.  She didn’t have to get a key out because the door was ajar.  She had
already pushed the door open before I could warn her that someone may be in
there.  I did manage to grab her just as she put on the lights.

This building was laid out just like the previous one.  We
only glanced in the three practice rooms. We would examine them more closely
later.  What held our interest and fear was the storage room at the back of the
building and what or who we might find in there.  I reached in and fumbled
around until I found the light switch.  File cabinets, some wood and some metal
hugged the walls. The majority of the drawers were open with their locks pried
off.  Splintered wood and bent metal held the newly formed scars of the forced
intrusion of these cabinets. 

Group pictures were hung on the free wall space above the
cabinets.  A nail and a vivid square of color was all that indicated that one
group picture was missing.

Angie moaned, “Someone has been in here.”

“When was the last time you checked on this building?” I
asked.

“I swept the floors the morning before you arrived.”

“So the intruder was here the day or night you were shot.”

“He would need more than a torch to see what he was looking
for.  He would have to use the electric lights, and we would have seen them
from the farmhouse.  He must have been here during the day.”

“But why would he shoot you if he already got what he came
after?” Noelle asked.

“Maybe he thinks Angie is still a threat,” Paz said
interrupting her present occupation of rifling through each file drawer. 
“Nothing is missing here, papers in files, all looks orderly.  Oh wait. Look at
this space.”

Noelle walked over and looked.  “Angie what were in these
files?”

Angie walked over.  She looked in the open drawer and pulled
out a file here and there before answering.  “They’re just some copies of
manuscripts that were left behind by some of the students.  My father sometimes
kept copies to work on.  He collaborated with quite a few students, though he
never took credit.  Most of them gave him credit anyway.  They are kept by
year.  See on the wall the pictures.  Each is of the students that attended
each summer.  And see in here the dates correspond to the pictures.  The names
of the students are here on the manuscripts.”

Paz and Noelle worked back and forth.  Paz crawled up on the
cabinets and read off the dates and names and Noelle looked in the files. 

“Cin, there’s an Aaron Copland in the first picture.”

“Really, do you think it really is Copland?”

I crawled up to see a young thin man arm and arm with some
other students.

“I’m not an expert, but I heard he may have been here. 
Noelle, what’s in the file under his name?”

“Copland, Aaron – American – presently studying in France. 
There isn’t any music, but there is a note.  It says," Noelle mumbled some
unintelligible words.  She threw up her hands complaining, "Man, the
writing is wretched.”

Angie walked over and looked at the paper.

“It’s my mother’s writing.”. Squinting she read, “Writing
final copy.  Anna.”

“What does that mean?” Paz asked.

“My mother rewrote the scores for some of the students.  In
those days they were hand done.  She passed her skill on to me.  I wonder why
it didn’t get filed?”

Angie looked weak.  I pulled a chair in from the other room
for her to sit on.  She sunk down in the chair.  I was just about to ask the
girls to stop so I could get Angie to the house and to bed when Noelle called
out. 

“They’re all here.”

“But there is a picture missing,” Paz pointed out.

“Angie, do you know what picture is missing?” I asked
gently.

“Noelle dear, are there any years skipped?”

“No.”

“What is the date of the first year?”

“Nineteen twenty.”

“Then it’s the last year.  The last year is missing.  My
Michael is missing,” Angie said as all the life in her seem to drain out.  “The
last class is where I met the love of my life, Michael.  He and his brother
came here together.  I fell in love with Michael.  He was older and Father
would have had a fit if he knew.  Bobby knew and so did the other chaps, but we
kept it from Father.”

“What happened to Michael?” I asked quietly.

“He died in the war.  Maurice, his brother, came and told
me.  After that I didn’t want to live.  My parents had to put me in a
hospital.  I came out of it alright, but I never wanted to have anything to do
with music after that.”

“I’m sorry, Angie.  I hate to press, but do you know who
else was here that summer with Michael and Maurice?”

She thought a moment.  Wrinkling her brow she said, “I
remember that redheaded American, Donald something, and well the rest is a
blur.  Bobby would know.  Ask Bobby.”

“Donald Williams?”

“Yes, I think so.  Ask Bobby.”  Angie got up. “Do you think
we need to call the Chief Superintendent about the break in?”

“We do need to tell him, but let us work a little while and
see if we can sort out what else has been taken.  First, though, I’d better
take you to the house.  Your color doesn’t look too good.”

“Must be the dust.  Thank you.  I don’t think the girls are
in danger, do you?”

“I think he got what he was looking for.  I’m more concerned
about you being alone.  I want one of us to be with you at all times. Girls,
let’s go back to the house and get organized.”

Noelle got to her feet and rescued Paz whose arm was stuck
in a file drawer.

“Hey Noelle, I guess all of this disproves that old joke”

“What joke?”

“The one about what happens to a composer’s work after he
dies?  It decomposes.”

Noelle mouthed a very funny to Paz.

“I find all this a bit too creepy at the moment,” I
confided. Angie nodded as we left the room.  I think it was safe to say that
each of us searched every corner with a wary eye as we walked out of there.

~

Angie put in a call to the Chief Superintendent.  He said he
would be by after lunch.  We calculated the hours and figured we would wait
until after tea before calling Bobby in Florida.  I fixed her a cup of tea, and
the girls went up to their room to bring down the computer equipment.

“So many years ago,” I heard Angie say.

I stuck my head in the living room.  “Did you say
something?”

“I’m sorry, dear, I was thinking aloud.  So many years ago
it was.  I was just in my teens when Michael walked into this house.  He
weren’t a tall lad, but he was handsome.  I didn’t talk to him.  I didn’t
dare.  My mother and my father agreed the male students should be kept from
me.  Musicians had reputations even in those days.  Plus these were older
boys.  I sometimes helped them copy their handwritten scores.  I would go to
the performance building where I had a box for them to put the music they
wanted me to copy.  And when I was finished I would put it in the box beside it
so they could pick up the manuscripts.  My father thought this was a very
efficient way for me to spend my summer without too much contact with the
lads.  This is how I first talked to Michael.  His manuscript was in the box,
and the notes he had written were beautiful.  I didn’t know why he wanted me to
put my hand to it.  Then, I saw he had written something between the
instrumentation.  In between the cello and the bass violin lines he wrote.  ‘Hello,
you are beautiful as the morning.’