Murder at the Opera (34 page)

Genevieve gently punched his arm.

Mac said, “Annabel and I have to run. That dinner I mentioned.”

“I’ll walk you out,” she said.

As they headed up the aisle, Pawkins fell into step with them.

“You’ll miss the best part,” he said cheerily. “The cover has real
pastoso.
She sings
‘Vissi d’arte’
better than the lead.”

“‘Pastoso’
is an Italian term for singers with a warm, mellow voice,” Genevieve translated for Mac and Annabel’s sake.

“Thanks,” Mac said. “Sounded like lunch.”

They reached the exit and stepped out into a night illuminated by a full moon. A lone taxi stood waiting at the curb across the street.

“I enjoyed that,” Annabel said. “I hope the soprano feels better.”

“She will,” Pawkins said. “But if she doesn’t, her cover will do just fine. I’ve heard her before. She’s wonderful.”

The cab did a U-turn and pulled up to them. Mac opened the back door and Annabel climbed in. As he started to join her, he asked Pawkins, “Will you be around tomorrow?”

“Plan to be. Why?”

“I may want to catch up with you.”

“Oh? What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing specific. I’ll call.”

As the cab pulled away and Mac gave the driver the name of the restaurant, Annabel said, “Okay, we’re alone. Tell me what this is all about.”

Mac gave her a thumbnail sketch of Josephson’s call. “The last thing he said to me was, ‘The scores are no longer missing.’”

“Wow!”

“I’m not sure what he means by it—whether he actually has them in his possession, or knows where they are. At any rate, I couldn’t resist taking him up on his suggestion to have dinner.”

“Of course not. Did you mention it to Ray?”

“I almost did a few times, but thought better of it. Let’s see what’s really going on before we do.”

The lower floor of Kinkead’s was bustling, elbow-to-elbow patrons at the bar, their conversations livened up by jazzy tunes from a spirited pianist. The restaurant had consistently been considered among Washington’s finest, a seafood mecca that always ranked high on reader polls. Josephson, who sat on a chair by the entrance, saw them, and got to his feet.

“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” he said, extending his hand. “How wonderful to see you again.”

Josephson was a slight man with a deeply lined, chiseled face, his sparse, unruly hair tinted a rusty red. He wore a tan, black, and pale green plaid sport jacket, a white shirt, and a small, Kelly-green, clip-on bow tie. He carried a large, bulging manila envelope with myriad scribbles on it.

“It’s our pleasure,” Mac said. “We have a table reserved upstairs. It’s less noisy there.”

Bob Kinkead, the owner and an old friend of Mac’s, greeted them at the top of the stairs and led them to a prime table. Once seated, and the initial exchange of pleasantries completed, Mac said, “I have to admit, Marc, your call came as quite a surprise.”

“I didn’t mean to call like that at the final minute before boarding my flight, but I’d been trying to summon the courage for some time now.”

Annabel laughed. “Summon courage to call Mac? He’s the most accessible person I know.”

“Oh, I can see that,” said Josephson. “I knew it the time we met at my shop in London. But this is—Well, how shall I say it? My reason for calling is a bit unusual. I’m here to ask a rather large favor.”

Mac thought for a moment, glanced at Annabel, and said, “A favor concerning the Mozart-Haydn musical scores?”

Josephson nodded, his eyes fixed on the table. He looked up, smiled at Annabel, and asked Mac, “You’ve told Annabel about it?”

“The little I know,” Mac said. “You said that—”

A waiter took their drink orders and left menus in front of them.

“Mac said that you told him the scores are no longer missing,” Annabel said.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Josephson’s response disappointed Mac. For some reason, he almost expected that Josephson would have the scores with him. What was in that full envelope he’d placed on the empty fourth chair?

“I’m not sure where to begin,” Josephson said.

“Why don’t we order,” Annabel suggested. “Let’s get that out of the way first.”

They shared a platter of fried clams—“The best Washington has to offer,” Mac said—and pepita-crusted salmon over a ragoût of crab, shrimp, corn, and chilies for the three of them. The drinks and the succulent food cast their comforting spell, and conversation touched upon everything except the missing scores. Finally, after coffee and crème brûlée, Annabel brought the topic back to the reason they were there in the first place. She was aware that Josephson was edgy. Although he willingly participated in the small talk during dinner, he fidgeted a great deal, and a tic on the left side of his face, not evident earlier, was now constant.

Josephson glanced about the room. Confident that he could speak without being overheard by others, he began to explain, a clearing of his throat preceding his lengthier comments.

“You see, when Aaron—he was a close friend and a colleague, of sorts—when he first told me of string quartets that had been written by Mozart in collaboration with his idol, Franz Joseph Haydn, I was naturally excited. I’d not heard of them before but had no reason to question Aaron’s belief that they existed. He was, after all, an acknowledged expert on Mozart and his works.”

“How had he learned of their existence?” Annabel asked.

“Through sources. He had many around the globe. Of course, there was also his disciplined academic research.”

“Why had he decided to work with you?” Mac asked. “Surely he could have sought the scores himself using his sources.”

Josephson smiled self-effacingly. “I have my sources, too,” he said, “in the world of rare manuscripts. Aaron felt that between us we stood a better chance of successfully finding the scores.” He looked at Mac, his eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my expertise in this area?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Mac said. “I just want to fully understand.”

“Well,” Josephson, said, “Aaron could be a generous man when it came to friends.”

Not from what I’ve heard,
Mac thought.

“I read,” Mac said, “that you and Dr. Musinski found the manuscripts quite by accident, at a tag sale.”

“Where did you read that?” Josephson asked.

“An interview you gave to a British publication,” Mac replied, smiling. “The joys of the Internet.”

Josephson cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s precisely the way it happened. Life is funny. You work for months, years, seeking something, and there it is, right under your nose, in an unlikely place. Sheer good fortune.”

Annabel indicated she wasn’t aware of the story, and Josephson recounted it for her.

“Remarkable,” she said when he’d finished.

“It certainly was remarkable,” Josephson said. “I couldn’t contain my glee when Aaron and I left that yard sale and returned to my shop with the scores in hand. Aaron was—well, Aaron was more stoic than I. He was anxious to get back to Washington and start the authentication process in his laboratory at the university. That’s the last I saw of the scores, or of Aaron. Dreadful what happened to him. Such a cruel way to die. They’ve never found the murderer, have they?”

“No, but they might be getting close.”

Mac’s comment caused Josephson to straighten in his chair. A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Do you know who killed Aaron?” he asked.

“No,” Mac said, “but there might be new evidence that will help the police solve the case. But wait, we’ve come up to the point where Dr. Musinski returned to Washington with the scores and was killed. You told me on the phone that you’ve found the scores. We’re listening.”

Josephson drew a breath and sipped his coffee, which had gotten cold. Annabel ordered a fresh pot and Josephson continued.

“In the months after Aaron’s murder and the disappearance of the scores, I was in a state of shock. My friends were concerned for my health and well-being. I was numb. Not only had my friend and associate been cruelly killed, rare manuscripts worth a million dollars, perhaps more, had vanished. It took me years to gather my senses and decide to pursue those Mozart-Haydn masterpieces.”

“If they were,” Mac said.

“If they were what?” Josephson asked.

“Masterpieces. Dr. Musinski hadn’t had a chance to examine them to ascertain their provenance.”

“Oh, no,” Josephson said, slowly shaking his head. “I never doubted for a moment their validity, nor did Aaron.” He sounded angry at Mac’s comment. “Verifying their origins was necessary, of course. Potential buyers would expect no less than authentication by someone of Aaron’s stature. No, they were what we believed they were. Do you doubt that?”

“Not at all,” Mac said, now taken slightly aback at Josephson’s apparent anger at being challenged.

“All right,” Annabel said. “Let’s assume the scores are authentic. You say you woke up, in a matter of speaking, and started to pursue them. What did you do?”

Josephson sat back, his hands laced on his small potbelly, and gathered his thoughts. He came forward again. “I began by making inquiries of friends around the world. Those of us who deal in rare manuscripts form a tight-knit fraternity, as you can imagine. Of course, no one knew at that juncture that we’d unearthed the string quartets. Everything had happened so fast. Many of my friends were flabbergasted when I told them what Aaron and I had found. Some were skeptical, especially those who also have an interest in missing musical material. They doubted whether Mozart and Haydn had ever collaborated on string quartets. Others accepted that those two towering geniuses had, indeed, written together, but were cynical about my tale of having uncovered the material in a yard sale. I suppose I can’t blame them. It was an unlikely scenario. But a true one!” He slapped his hand on the table.

Annabel said, “You saw those manuscripts, Marc, and they looked to your trained eye as though they came from the period in which Mozart and Haydn were known to have been together.”

“Yes, they did. I had only a cursory look at them on that table in the yard, but when we returned to my shop, I had the opportunity to sit down with a magnifying glass and study them closely. Of course, I’m not a musician or musical scholar, so their musical structure escaped me. But from the standpoint of the paper on which they were written, the ink used, and other factors, they were definitely of that era.”

Mac finished his second cup of coffee and suggested they go back to their apartment to continue the discussion. A half hour later they sat in the Smiths’ living room. Rufus, their blue Great Dane, took a liking to Josephson. “Lovely animal,” he said, not sounding as though he meant it.

Mac poured them snifters of cognac. “So,” he said, “where did you leave off?”

“The manuscripts and their authenticity,” said Josephson.

“I suggest we accept that they are what Marc and Musinski believed they were,” Annabel offered. “Let’s get to the reason we’re here. You told Mac the scores are no longer missing. Where are they? How did you find them? Why are you sharing this with us?”

Mac laughed. “Annabel has a talent for getting to the point.”

“Yes, I see that,” Josephson agreed, but not sounding particularly pleased. “As I said, I contacted friends around the world once I’d come out of my doldrums. Surely, I thought, someone would become aware of the manuscripts being sold on the black market, perhaps even have them offered to them as potential buyers. No such luck. That’s when I hired Mr. Poindexter.”

“Who’s he?” Mac asked.

“A private investigator, and a very good one, I might add.”

“In London?”

“The firm for which he works is London-based, but they have offices in other cities around the world. I contacted that firm and was assigned Mr. Poindexter as my investigator.”

“I’m sure he didn’t come cheap,” Mac commented.

“No, he certainly didn’t. I invested my life’s savings in his services, but I reasoned that it was worth it when compared to the value of the manuscripts.”

“Go on,” Annabel urged.

Josephson picked up the manila envelope from where he’d perched it on the floor next to his chair, opened it, and withdrew a sheaf of papers. He looked through them until finding the one he sought. “Ah, here. We can start here,” he said. “Mr. Poindexter used his firm’s vast network of investigators to identify certain individuals who in the past had shown keen interest in such material. One in particular stood out from his report, a wealthy gentleman in Paris, Georges Saibrón, who was known to have purchased valuable Mozart scores, some legitimately, some not so legitimately. Using a fellow investigator in Paris, Mr. Poindexter closely monitored Mr. Saibrón’s activities over a four-month period.” He dropped that sheet of paper to the floor and replaced it with another. “Something interesting developed toward the end of the investigation into Saibrón. He was visited by someone, an American, who claimed he had the scores and was willing to sell them.”

“How did this investigator, Poindexter, learn about this?” Mac asked.

“It’s my understanding that he’d enlisted the services of an individual who worked for Mr. Saibrón. Saibrón is a successful exporter of French wines and has quite a large staff. I gather it wasn’t difficult to find someone on that staff willing to exchange information from inside the company for a fee. I learned while working with Mr. Poindexter to not question his methods.”