Murder at the Opera

FIVE

As Pawkins and Jacoby waited for a small backstage elevator to take them partway up to where the body had been found, Pawkins spoke with the stagehand.

“You just discovered the body?” the former detective asked.

“Yes, sir.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I never go up there, no reason to. Nobody does.”

“Why did you go up this time?”

“We have some cable up there. We needed it for Tosca. Mickey sent me up.”

“Mickey?”

“My boss.”

The elevator arrived and the three men squeezed into its confined interior. After ascending two flights, the door opened and they continued their journey to the highest recesses of the house, more than a hundred feet directly above where thousands of opera lovers would sit in comfortable seats waiting to be transported by the soaring voices onstage. It was necessary to walk carefully along the narrow steel catwalks to avoid items stored on them, and to hunch over in certain areas to avoid low-hanging wires and other backstage paraphernalia. Eventually, they emerged into a round space approximately thirty feet in diameter. Thick spools of cable and rope were neatly lined up along one arc of the circle. In the center, on the cold, bare, gray concrete floor, was the body. A uniformed Kennedy Center security officer stood a dozen feet from the deceased, his body language saying that to get any closer would infect him with a disease, or perhaps wake the girl from her nap.

Pawkins went directly to the body. He brushed away unseen dirt from a small area of the floor, tugged up his pants leg, lowered one knee to that clean spot, and examined the girl more closely. He observed that she was slight in stature and was either Asian or the product of a mixed marriage. She was on her back, her arms folded up, allowing her hands, one atop the other, to rest on her chest. She wore white pants cut off just below her knees-Were they called Capri pants? Pawkins wondered. Her top, made of some silky fabric, was shiny red with the hint of a pattern in the cloth. She wore one shoe; the other foot was bare, toenails the same red as her blouse. A black fanny pack covered her groin.

Pawkins ignored the first rule of coming upon a homicide scene; make sure that she was dead. No need to check for signs of life. Her eyes were open; the pupils were of different sizes, one of three basic signs of death, along with cessation of breathing and lack of a pulse. He gently tried to move her arm. Stiff as a rake handle. Rigor mortis was complete, although he judged that it might have begun to disappear, which would mean the time of death was at least eighteen hours earlier. Her small, thin body would have hastened the onset of stiffening. He’d seen obese bodies that never did become rigid. He tried to move her arms again and succeeded in lifting them just enough to see what was beneath her clasped hands. “Oh, my,” he muttered to himself. He took a second look. “Hmmm.”

With Jacoby looking over his shoulder-the Kennedy Center security chief had spent most of his MPD career in a special unit assigned to protect VIPs; murder investigations were foreign to him-Pawkins pulled a notebook and a pen from the inside pocket of his sport jacket, and jotted notes.

“How’d she die?” Jacoby asked.

Pawkins stood and continued making notes. “It appears she was stabbed in the chest, judging from that circle of blood beneath her hands. That’s for the ME to decide.”

Sounds coming from outside the area caused Pawkins to turn and see a pair of uniformed MPD officers and two detectives emerge from the shadows. Pawkins recognized one of the detectives; they’d worked a number of cases together.

“Hey, Ray,” the familiar one said, breathing heavily and wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “Hell of a climb to get up here.”

Pawkins nodded.

“How come you’re here, Ray?”

“I happened to be downstairs when this gentleman discovered the body.” He indicated the stagehand, who’d joined the original cop at a respectful, safe distance from the body.

The lead detective was Carl Berry, fifteen years on the force, twelve of them in Homicide-or as it had been renamed by some highly paid consultant, Crimes Against Persons.

“Nice to see you again, Carl,” Pawkins said, returning the notebook and pen to his jacket. “Stay in touch.”

“Sure, Ray. I’ll want to get your take on this, you having been here so soon. Any idea who she is?”

“Her fanny pack probably contains that information.”

Berry opened the bag and withdrew a wallet, a set of keys, and assorted makeup items. He perused the wallet, looked up, and said, “Her name’s Lee.” He held the card he read from at arm’s length and squinted in the dim light. “Charise Lee.” Consulting another card from the wallet, he said, “Young Artist Program? What’s that?”

Pawkins sighed. He was very familiar with the Domingo-Cafritz program and had attended their recitals. He’d not seen her before. “An opera singer,” he said sadly. “She’ll sing no more.”

He followed Jacoby down the torturous route to the main stage and looked out over the house, where Mac and Annabel Smith and the others sat. Genevieve Crier was with the Smiths. Pawkins went to them and slumped into a chair between Annabel and Genevieve.

“Well?” Genevieve asked. “Was someone murdered?”

“Yes,” Pawkins replied, not looking at anyone in particular.

“Who?” Genevieve asked, a lump in her throat catching the word as it came out.

“Evidently a Ms. Charise Lee,” Pawkins said.

Genevieve gasped, clamped her hands over her face, and sobbed. Annabel put her arm over her shoulder and whispered comforting words.

“I knew it,” Genevieve managed. “I just knew it.”

“How was she killed?” Mac asked.

“Stabbed,” Pawkins said, “but that’s unofficial. Happened a while ago, perhaps last night. Certainly not this afternoon or tonight.”

Zambrano appeared from backstage and came to the stage apron. “What is taking so long?” he asked loudly.

Mac stood. “There’s been an unfortunate incident somewhere upstairs. The police will want to talk to everyone who was here.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Zambrano said, and stormed back into the wings.

The laconic Pawkins chuckled softly. “I was a super here at the Kennedy Center, Don Giovanni directed by him a few years back,” he said. “He’s volatile, but he has a wonderful creative sense. I was looking forward to being in another one of his productions.”

“Do you think what’s happened tonight will cause Tosca to be postponed?” Annabel asked.

“I’m sure not,” Pawkins said. “They put on a production right after September eleven, which was the right thing to do. Baseball and football teams played, and life went on, as it should.”

“Much of life,” Mac corrected softly.

It was an hour before Detective Berry and his partner came downstairs. The group were told they were free to go, but their names and contact information were collected: “We’ll want to be in touch with you in the next few days,” Berry announced.

Genevieve pulled herself together before all the supers departed. “This changes nothing,” she told them. “Rehearsals will go on as scheduled. Sorry about tonight, but the show must, and will, go on.”

The Smiths and Pawkins had started up the aisle toward the doors when Mac suddenly stopped and grabbed Pawkins’ arm. “There’s something the police should see,” he said. “Back in a minute, Annie.”

He led the former detective back onto the stage-he doubted if he’d ever call it a deck-and pointed to the stain on the floor.

“Blood,” Pawkins said.

“I wonder…,” Smith started to say.

Pawkins finished his thought. “Wondering if she was killed here and moved upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“A good possibility,” Pawkins said.

Mac’s eyes followed a route from the stain to the nearest exit into the wings. “No blood aside from the stain,” he said, “no trail.”

“I might have an answer for that,” Pawkins said. He waved over a uniformed officer, pointed out the stain to him, and suggested he inform Detective Berry of it.

“Drink?” Mac asked Pawkins as they rejoined Annabel and left the Kennedy Center ’s air-conditioned coolness. It was an oppressively humid night.

“Love it,” the retired detective replied, “as long as food accompanies it. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I’ve lost any appetite I might have had,” Annabel said as they agreed to meet in fifteen minutes at the bar on the lobby level of the Watergate Hotel, decidedly more quiet and conducive to serious conversation than the 600 Restaurant.

Pawkins’ laugh was rueful. “The only thing that sets my stomach on edge is a bad performance of a favorite opera. I’ve seen and, worse, heard a few of those, and the thought of food is anathema then. A nice, clean homicide? As effective an aperitif as there ever was.”