Deadly Overtures: A Music Lover's Mystery (4 page)

Cameron seemed even more anxious to leave. While Mikayla, JT, and I settled on one of the lounge’s couches, he paced around, checking his cell phone every minute or two. His edginess was getting on my nerves when, thankfully, the door opened and Constable Ryan reappeared with three other uniformed officers.

All the conversations going on died off and everyone’s attention fixed on the police officers.

“We’ll start talking with each one of you now,” Constable Ryan announced. “We’d like to start with those of you who were first on the scene.”

Mikayla and I stood up and a teary-eyed Janine stepped away from the group of musicians she’d been huddled with in one corner. I exchanged a quick glance with JT and headed toward the officers with Mikayla. One officer remained in the lounge, gesturing to the musician standing closest to him, and the other three led me, Mikayla, and Janine out into the corridor. Once out of the lounge we split up, with one officer each.

Constable Ryan stayed with me, and led me a short distance down the hallway where he paused, a notebook and pen in hand. Once I’d given him my name and told him about my connection to the orchestra, he asked me to fill out a witness statement form, relating everything I could remember about finding Pavlina’s body. That wasn’t a whole lot, and it didn’t take long to write down all the information I had. As I signed the form, Fred came around the corner and hovered a few feet away from us.

“Officer?” he said, his tone hesitant.

Constable Ryan looked up. “Yes?”

Fred stepped forward and offered his hand. “I’m Fred Marsh, a maintenance worker here at the theater. Is it possible that the young woman’s death wasn’t an accident?”

Constable Ryan’s eyebrows drew together. “We haven’t ruled out anything yet. Why?”

Fred swallowed, his age-creased face tinted a sickly shade of green. “Because if there’s a chance foul play could be involved, I think there’s something you need to know.”

The constable’s attention sharpened. “What’s that?”

Fred swallowed again and seemed to brace himself to speak his next words. “A few minutes ago I went to fetch my tools to fix a loose screw in the backstage area and I noticed . . .” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I noticed that there was blood on my hammer.”

Chapter Four

“
B
LOOD?”
I
ECHOED,
my voice faint.

Constable Ryan took charge before I had a chance to say anything further. “I’d like you to show me those tools, if you would, Mr. Marsh.”

Fred nodded. “Of course. This way.”

He started to head back the way he’d come. I moved to follow him, but Constable Ryan put out a hand to stop me.

“Thank you, Ms. Bishop. You can head home now, if you’d like.”

The message behind his words was clear. I was to mind my own business.

“Also, if you’d please keep this development to yourself, I’d appreciate it. There’s no need to start a panic when we don’t yet know the facts.”

I nodded numbly. I’d heard his words but I was still focused on Fred’s discovery. If the blood was Pavlina’s, then that could only mean one thing—she’d been murdered. But I knew the constable was right—all the facts weren’t known yet and there was no point in jumping to conclusions. Perhaps the blood had been on the hammer for some time, a result of some minor accident, like a cut finger. It could have nothing to do with Pavlina. I certainly hoped that was the case. As tragic as Pavlina’s death was, an unfortunate accident was far less alarming than a violent death at the hands of a killer. A killer who might still be in the theater.

Suppressing a shudder, I vowed to do as Constable Ryan had requested and keep Fred’s discovery to myself for the time being. As the two men disappeared from sight, I turned around and saw that Janine had already finished giving her statement and was returning to the lounge. Mikayla too had finished speaking with the other police officer, and she joined me as I left the corridor for the musicians’ lounge.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, trying to rein in my thoughts. I didn’t want to let on that I’d heard some potentially unsettling information.

“At least we can head home now.”

I hesitated by my locker, my eyes going to JT where he still sat on the couch, chatting with one of the orchestra’s bass players. “I think I’ll wait for JT.”

“Okay,” Mikayla said as she headed for her own locker. “I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

“See you,” I echoed.

I was about to join JT on the couch when one of the police officers gestured to him to go and provide his statement. So instead of sitting down I changed my route and approached Dongmei where she stood across the room, on her own, her eyes red-rimmed.

She tried to smile when she saw me approaching, but she was only partly successful. “Hey, Midori.”

“Hi. How are you doing?” I asked.

She shrugged and blinked back tears. “Okay. It’s just upsetting, you know?”

“It is,” I agreed. “Is your family here tonight?”

“No, I’m on my own. But my parents and sister will be here for the next concert.” She drew in a deep breath. “How are
you
doing? Didn’t you find Pavlina in the washroom?”

“Yes, my stand partner and I did.” The first seconds after finding Pavlina’s body replayed in my memory. “It was disconcerting, but I’m all right.” I once again noted Dongmei’s red-rimmed eyes. “Did you know Pavlina well?”

“Not really,” she replied. “But we’ve been acquaintances for a few years. We were at a music and composition retreat together in Banff three years ago. That’s when I first met her. Even then it was obvious she’d be a successful composer.” She blinked against a welling of tears. “Except now she won’t be, will she?” A single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.

“No,” I said with a heavy heart. “She won’t.” I thought of Pavlina’s loved ones, and the loss they would now have to endure. “Do you know anything about her family?”

Dongmei wiped a tear off her cheek. “She mentioned that her parents still live in Toronto where she grew up. They weren’t able to come out here for the concerts. But other than that, no, I don’t know anything. This will be terrible for them.”

I nodded, a sharp pang of sympathy cutting through me.

Catching sight of JT returning to the lounge, I gave Dongmei a hug. “I’ll see you next week.”

Again she tried to smile, but it was weighed down by sadness.

Leaving Dongmei, I met up with JT in the middle of the lounge. “All done?” I asked him.

“Yep. There really wasn’t anything I could tell them.”

“That’s probably true of most people who were here,” I said.

I was about to tell him about the blood on Fred’s hammer, but then remembered that Constable Ryan had asked me to keep quiet about that news. It would be tough to keep the information from JT, but I’d do my best. At any rate, even if I did end up telling him, the musicians’ lounge wasn’t the place to do so. The crowd had thinned out significantly over the past half hour or so, but there were still several people lingering in the room, either because they were waiting to give their statements to the police or because they were talking over the terrible events of the evening with their friends.

“Ready to go?” JT asked.

“Yes.” I turned in the direction of my locker. “I’ll just grab my things.”

Once I’d donned my coat and gloves and had gathered up my instrument case and tote bag, I waved goodbye to a couple of my friends who were still in the lounge and headed for the door with JT. Cameron fell into step with us and I realized that I’d temporarily forgotten about him. He’d spent much of the past half hour in a corner of the room with his phone, but if he was leaving with us he must have spoken to the police at some point.

“Did you already pack up all the rest of your equipment?” I asked JT, eyeing his laptop and the recorder in Cameron’s charge.

“Yep. It’s all in the truck.”

JT pushed open the stage door and held it while Cameron and I passed through. The three of us walked down the short side alley to the parking lot at the back of the theater, our breaths forming little clouds in the cold night air. Although my coat and gloves warded off the worst of the chill, I still shivered as I walked, and I looked forward to getting home so I could snuggle up beneath some warm blankets.

When we reached the parking lot Cameron veered off to the left, in the direction of JT’s truck, while JT and I continued on straight ahead to my blue MINI Cooper. After years of riding the bus everywhere I was still getting used to the fact that I owned a car. But after a scare a couple of months earlier when a man grabbed and threatened me while I was walking alone at night, I no longer felt comfortable making my way to and from bus stops after dark.

With some encouragement from JT, I’d looked into getting a secondhand car. Fortunately, I didn’t have to look far. My cousin—who went through vehicles at what I considered a ridiculous rate—had wanted to offload her five-year-old MINI Cooper so she could get something new. She’d offered me the car for a somewhat decent price and I’d taken her up on it. It certainly made my life easier to have a car, and I knew JT was less anxious about my safety now. He still watched out for me, though, like he was at the moment, walking me to my car.

I was grateful for that, and his concern for me always made me happy. Not for the first time, I wished I could express my true feelings for him, wished I could let him know how much I appreciated everything he did for me, how much I loved him. But as always, a terrible fear of ruining our friendship—the most important thing in the world to me—held me back.

Letting out a quiet sigh, I unlocked my car. I was about to say some parting words to JT when Cameron swore loudly, his voice slicing through the cold night air.

“What’s wrong?” JT called to him.

Instead of responding, Cameron swore again, stepping away from the back of JT’s truck, one hand running through his hair, his every move agitated.

JT jogged across the parking lot toward him. Still holding my violin, I locked the car door before following after him. The tailgate of JT’s truck was down, but I assumed Cameron had lowered it, until JT took one look in the back of the truck and echoed Cameron’s cursing.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I stepped closer so I could see into the covered bed of the truck.

“Everything’s gone.” JT was more bewildered than I’d seen him in a long time.

I took in the sight of the empty truck bed. He was right. Whatever equipment he and Cameron had stored there was gone, not even a single cable left behind.

“But how?” I asked, my stomach sinking.

“Did you lock it the last time you were out here?” JT directed the question at Cameron.

“I thought I did but . . . I must not have.” Cameron looked as though he might be sick.

JT checked the tailgate. “There’s no sign that the lock was jimmied.”

Cameron swore again. “I’m so sorry, man.”

JT didn’t respond, and I knew he had no idea what to say. I could tell from his expression that he was still shocked by the theft. He’d not only lost hundreds—maybe even thousands—of dollars’ worth of equipment, he needed that equipment to finish the job at the theater.

I put a hand on his back. “We should tell the police.”

Still dazed, JT nodded.

I took his arm and led him back down the alley to the stage door. Cameron followed several feet behind us, not saying a word. By the time we’d reentered the theater, JT had recovered enough to shake himself out of his daze. He approached Constable Ryan and told him what had happened.

While JT spoke with the police officer, my gaze drifted past them, down the hall to where two men in suits were speaking with Olivia Hutchcraft. As I watched, the two men showed her their identification and Olivia put one hand to her throat, clearly upset. Even though I couldn’t see the men’s identification from my vantage point, I didn’t doubt for a second that they were police detectives.

Would they have arrived on the scene even if Fred hadn’t found blood on his hammer? Or had the focus of the investigation shifted from a routine review of what was believed to be an accident to a possible homicide case?

I knew it would take time for the police to find out if the blood on the hammer belonged to Pavlina, but I wondered if the investigators had found any other signs that pointed toward murder. As that thought wandered through my head, a man and a woman dressed in crime scene coveralls appeared from the direction of the women’s washroom and caught the detectives’ attention.

The two men in suits excused themselves from their conversation with Olivia and moved farther down the corridor to join their colleagues. I wished I could overhear what they were saying, to know what they’d discovered by examining Pavlina’s body and the scene of her death, but I couldn’t hear a single word.

Disappointed, I returned my attention to JT and his predicament. Sympathy for my best friend and anger at the unknown thieves battled for dominance inside of me. A flicker of annoyance at Cameron also made an appearance, but I did my best to extinguish it when I saw how upset he was. He’d made a dumb mistake by forgetting to lock the truck, but it was a mistake anyone could have made.

Still, I worried about the effect the theft would have on JT, especially while he waited for his insurance claim to be processed. He needed his equipment to finish the job at the theater and to take on any similar jobs in the future. He could use his studio to record his own music and for sessions with other musicians, and luckily he hadn’t lost that night’s recordings since he had his laptop and recorder, but the loss of his expensive equipment was still inconvenient.

As JT stepped away from the police officer, I moved to his side.

“What did Constable Ryan say?” I asked.

“He and the others are tied up with Pavlina’s death, but he’s going to call in another officer to deal with my problem.”

I glanced Constable Ryan’s way, and sure enough, he was speaking into his radio.

“Hopefully we won’t have to wait long,” I said.

“You don’t have to stick around,” JT told me. “You should head home and get some sleep.”

“I can’t leave you here after what happened,” I protested.

JT smiled, the first relaxed expression on his face since he’d found out about the theft. “I’ll be fine, Dori.”

I still didn’t want to leave, even though he’d have Cameron there for company while he waited for the police.

JT noticed my reluctance and rested a hand on my shoulder. “You really don’t need to stay. I’ll walk you to your car, okay?”

I relented, only because I was suddenly aware of how late it was and how tired I’d become. “All right.” I let him guide me toward the stage door. “But call me tomorrow and let me know what happens?”

“I will.”

With that assurance, I climbed into my car and drove off, waving to JT as I turned out of the parking lot. On my way home I marveled at the unexpected turns the evening had taken. In the space of only an hour or two there’d been a death and a theft. At the moment only one of those was considered criminal, but I had a funny feeling that would soon change. The more time that passed since Mikayla and I had found Pavlina’s body, the more I suspected that her death was the result of something far more sinister than an unfortunate accident.