Murder at the Opera

TWENTY

The meeting of the Opera Ball committee was spirited, and at times contentious.

The pressure was on, the date of the gala rapidly approaching. Adding to the sense of urgency was the murder, the tragic nature of Ms. Lee’s death, and rampant speculation about who’d killed her. Since Mac Smith had arranged for the private detective to investigate the crime, Annabel was a target of probes into what progress her husband was aware of.

“I really don’t know any more than you do,” Annabel replied. “I just know that Raymond Pawkins, who used to be a Homicide detective, has agreed to work with us, and that the police are vigorously pursuing it, too.”

“Oh, come on, Annabel,” one woman said, “I just know that you and that handsome husband of yours already know who the murderer is and are just waiting for the right time to announce it.”

Annabel was tempted to educate her questioner about why that scenario was unlikely, at best, but instead simply denied it. Another member of the committee who’d overheard the exchange said, seriously, “It would be wonderful if it could be announced prior to the ball. That would make the evening especially meaningful.”

Another woman disagreed: “I don’t think it would be wonderful at all. It would only deflect attention from the ball.”

As with any undertaking of the scope of the Opera Ball, there were bound to be mishaps, and thorny issues to be resolved. On this day, the ongoing and nettlesome chore of seating arrangements topped the agenda.

The festive evening would begin with sit-down dinners at more than thirty foreign embassies, hosted by their ambassadors. Five hundred leaders of Washington’s diplomatic, corporate, government, and arts communities would pay handsomely for the privilege of attending these relatively intimate, pre-ball dinners featuring food indigenous to each embassy’s home country. Some couples lobbied for seats at the British, French, and Spanish embassies as hard as professional lobbyists fought for pet bills in Congress. Others, who prided themselves on an appreciation of ethnic food, happily signed up for dinners at less popular venues. But no matter where you ended up sitting, the Opera Ball was a yearly social event not to be missed. As Thorstein Veblen’s seminal work on status in America, The Theory of the Leisure Class, had proffered, we’d gone from hunting and fishing skills as signs of social standing to what he termed the “modern-peaceable barbarian” stage, in which social status now involved signs of affluence, tuxedoed men arriving at galas in large, expensive cars with ladies in designer fashions on their arms. See and be seen. It was a lot better than being skilled with a crossbow, Annabel thought when first reading it.

Following those private dinners, everyone would head for the main event, the ball itself, hosted this year by the Brazilian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, where Brazilian desserts-Manjar Branco, a coconut flan with prune sauce; Cream Sago, tapioca pudding with red wine; and Peach Mousse-would be savored, and couples would dance the night away beneath a massive tent to the music of one of D.C.’s favorite society orchestras. Later, as whiskey and wine and heat and humidity loosened lips and lacquered hair, two Brazilian samba bands would send the revelers home filled with fond memories, and with the Washington National Opera’s coffers fatter as well.

The seating charts for the various embassy dinners were displayed on a large easel, with problem ones circled in red on the master layout.

“The Zieglers insist upon being seated next to the Carlsons at the Colombian Embassy,” the woman in charge of seating said. “Ken Ziegler has a deal pending with the bank where Carlson is CEO.” She threw up her hands. “I simply can’t juggle this anymore.”

“You have to accommodate the Zieglers,” ball chairwoman Nicki Frolich said. “He’s funding the Mexico vacation door prize.”

“Fine. You call Dr. Federman and tell him we’ve changed his seats. I’m tired of being growled at.”

“All right, I will,” Frolich said.

Another board, on which personal likes and dislikes were listed, was placed on the easel as a reminder of how such details must be honored-nothing with peanuts on a certain senator’s meal, keep a certain journalist far away from a member of the administration who’d been savaged in a piece written by the journalist, and other admonitions that, if ignored, could result in unhappiness for those involved.

The woman in charge of party favors reported that the manufacturer of the custom-designed velvet bags in which an assortment of donated goodies would be placed had suffered a wildcat strike and might not be able to fulfill the order in time. A subcommittee, one of many, was formed on the spot to come up with a contingency plan, including driving to New York to pick up substitutes.

As the meeting wound down, Annabel, who’d agreed to be on the subcommittee exploring other sources of favor bags, sat back and reflected on this ambitious undertaking of which she’d chosen to take part.

There were those who viewed the Ladies of the Balls as dilettantes, wives of wealthy men, who clamored to serve on fundraising committees to advance their social status within the community. But Annabel knew that was flippant and often inaccurate. Yes, there were such women, but Annabel had observed that they were generally shunned by those in charge. It was serious business, this mounting of a major social event in the nation’s capital, with a lot at stake, and the women with whom she’d been working closely were anything but dilettantes. They put in twenty-hour days, and their painstaking planning would make any military commander about to launch a major invasion proud. Huge society events like the Opera Ball, and others, didn’t just happen. They resulted from the hard work and creativity of countless volunteers, and Annabel was proud to play a role, no matter how inconsequential.

Detective Carl Berry also had more meetings on his agenda.

He left the Holiday Inn after his introduction to Charise Lee’s parents and went directly to the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, where Ray Pawkins sat nursing a mug of Irish coffee minus the Irish. The Round Robin was Pawkins’ favorite D.C. bar, which put him in good company. Looking down upon him were the photographs of former distinguished guests-Abraham Lincoln, whose first presidential paycheck went to pay his bill there; Mark Twain, whose white-suited forays from the bar into the hotel were, as his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine put it, “…like descending the steps of a throne room, or some royal landing place, where Cleopatra’s barge might lie”; Charles Dickens; Buffalo Bill Cody; John Philip Sousa; and Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist who prompted management to place a sign above the bar: ALL NATIONS WELCOME EXCEPT CARRIE.”

Berry slid onto a stool.

“Drink?” Pawkins asked.

“Too early for me,” Berry said. He ordered a tomato juice. “You’re buying, of course,” he said with a playful tap on Pawkins’ shoulder. “This place is too rich for my blood.”

“True,” Pawkins agreed, “but the drinks are large and the ambience agreeable. Besides, we’re surrounded by the ghosts of Washington history. So, tell me what’s going on at the great law enforcement agency in the sky.”

“There’s never anything new over there,” Berry replied, “but you know that.”

“Still working the Lee case?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Nothing new on that, either?”

“I just spent an hour with her parents. They’re in from Toronto.”

“And?”

“They had nothing to offer, except that the father-he’s a lot older than his wife-he’s not a fan of the pianist who roomed with the victim, or the two talent agents she hooked up with.”

“The Melincamp-Baltsa Artists Agency,” Pawkins said.

“You know them?”

“I did some research. She could have done better. They’re third-tier agents. Melincamp has been accused of pocketing client money. He was down-and-out when the moneyed Ms. Baltsa bought her way into the agency.”

“Tell me more,” Berry said.

“Not a lot more to tell, Carl.”

“He can’t be all take, no give,” Berry said. “He’s paying for the apartment here in D.C. that Lee and Warren were staying in.”

“I’m not surprised. From what my opera friends tell me, Charise Lee had one hell of a future as a soprano. Of course, she’s from the new school of soprano-lite singers, smaller voices in smaller bodies, that seem to have displaced singers with traditionally big voices, the kind that can fill a vast opera house without miking. They’re certainly pleasant to listen to, and to look at, but they lack that palpitating, bigger-than-life presence that the truly great opera singers possess. Still, if what I hear is true, this now very dead soprano-lite might have become the darling of the opera world in a few years, which could pay off in spades for Melincamp down the road. Laying out some rent money early on in her career might have been a smart move.”

Berry sipped his juice and thought before offering, “If she promised to be a meal ticket for him, that would pretty much rule him out as her killer. No motivation to have her dead.”

“On the surface. But Melincamp’s a whore. Maybe he was stealing from her and she got wind of it, threatened to blow the whistle.”

“Doesn’t play,” Berry said. “She was a young singer getting started. How much money could she have been making? Hell, she was just a student here.”

“Wrong, my friend. Anyone accepted into the Young Artist Program here at the Washington National Opera is more than ‘just a student.’ They’re very special talents who had to prove their mettle to none other than the maestro of maestros, Plácido Domingo. No, Carl, anyone accepted here has a bright future, indeed.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Berry said. “Tell me more about Melincamp and his partner.”

“Melincamp’s a low-life. He talks a good story but is always looking for a buck. He and Baltsa aren’t exactly copacetic partners, like Rogers and Hart, or Ben and Jerry. The way I hear it, he’d kill his mother for a lot less than you or I would.”

“I wouldn’t for any money,” Berry said.

“You always were too serious, Carl. I was joking.”

Pawkins reached into his small, leather shoulder bag and handed Berry the sponge he’d purchased at the theatrical supply shop. “Like this one?”

Berry’s fingers made indentations in the sponge. “Where did you get this?”

“A store. I offer it to dissuade you from jumping to the conclusion that the killer had to have been someone involved with theater, specifically the opera. Anyone could have bought it the way I did.” He laughed and checked his watch. “Almost time for a real drink. Here I’ve been telling you everything you need to know about the Lee case, as well as what’s wrong with opera singers today, and nothing from you. Where does your investigation stand?”

“I’ve got people questioning the agents. We brought in Warren. Dumb kid bolted and got a faceful of Willie Portelain’s fist.”

“And he has an airtight alibi, I assume.”

“Anything but. We’ll start interviewing everyone in that Young Artist Program. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come up with somebody who had it in for the victim, a guy she jilted, another singer who was jealous. I understand that opera singers can get pretty jealous of one another. In the meantime, we’re still at square one. Hey, Ray, I saw the article about you. Pretty nice.”

“My fifteen minutes of fame. I wasn’t pleased with the photograph. I’m a lot younger and better-looking than the picture shows.”

Berry cocked his head and exaggerated his scrutiny of Pawkins’ face. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, Cole wasn’t happy when I told him we’d be getting together on the Lee case, but he didn’t say no. I can use your help.”

“And you’ll have it.”

Pawkins paid with a credit card.

“Let’s stay in touch,” Berry said as they stood on the sidewalk.

“Absolutely. I may have to run out of town for a day or two, but I’ll let you know. Not sure I can get away. I’m in Tosca.”

“So I read. You really enjoy being in operas, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. Take care, Carl.”

As Pawkins began to walk away, Berry said, “Hey, Ray.”

“What?”

“I almost forgot. Remember the Musinski case you worked on six years ago?”

“Sure.”

“They’re reopening it.”

“Oh?” Pawkins said, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah. Forensics has come up with something that might link that grad assistant to the scene.”

“That’s interesting,” Pawkins said.

“Cole said he’ll be wanting to talk with you about it.”

“Anytime.”

At approximately the time that Annabel Lee-Smith met with the Opera Ball committee, and Berry and Pawkins conferred, Milton Crowley wearily exited the plane that had brought him from Amman, Jordan, to Washington. He hated flying, especially long trips that crossed time lines, and found airport security procedures to be unnecessarily burdensome and most likely ineffective. Most of all, it was the flights themselves that turned his mood foul, the dispirited flight attendants, uncomfortable seats that seemed deliberately designed to cause discomfort, and what passed for food served in-flight. As he tried to sleep-he was tired, but also wanted to avoid talking with his seatmate, a gregarious woman whose voice was like a cracked bell-he thought of better days in air travel, when he was younger, when flying to exotic lands was a special privilege and people dressed properly for their flights and…

He went through Customs and stood in a line of people waiting for taxis. His turbaned driver drove a vehicle that reeked of stale tobacco and whose rear seat was lumpy and confining; he thought of spacious London cabs and their intelligent, gentlemanly drivers and…

And he thought of his cottage in Dorset, where he would soon retire and flip a bird at the whole bloody world of intelligence, politics, and governments, and the insane men who governed them. Always, it was the vision of the cottage that salved his otherwise cranky disposition.

He handed the driver a slip of paper on which he’d written the address of a building on Ward Circle, closed his eyes, and prayed that the ride would be quick.

It wasn’t.

He was eventually deposited outside a gate and fence. The driver was told to leave. Crowley showed his identification to a military guard, who placed a call. Crowley was allowed to pass through the gate and enter the building. The soldier at the desk reviewed his credentials, and he, too, made a call. A few minutes later, with a visitor’s pass hanging from his neck, he was escorted by a uniformed young woman to a staircase. He had to stop halfway. His right hip had been acting up and a stabbing pain caused him to wince and to let out a small verbal protest. He’d been told he should have the hip replaced, but he wasn’t about to let any surgeon cut into him, thank you very much, unless it became an absolute necessity. It flared up only now and then. Once he was at the cottage, things would be better.

“Sorry,” he told his escort, who stood a few steps above him and looked unhappy at the delay.

She led him to a room at the end of a long corridor. Two armed, uniformed young men stood watch. The female officer said something in a guarded voice, which prompted one of them to open the door. Crowley entered. The room was a rectangle. Large windows had been sealed and painted, the color a slightly different pale green from the walls. A man in a three-piece suit seated at a long table in the center of the room stood and shook Crowley’s hand. “Good trip?” he asked.

Why do people always ask that? Crowley wondered.

“Yes, quite, thank you, Joseph.”

“Please, sit down,” Joe Browning said, indicating a chair to his left, which Crowley gratefully took, relieving the pressure on his hip. “I appreciate your coming here on such short notice.”

“It seemed necessary,” Crowley said.

“That’s an understatement,” Browning said, underlining it with a chuckle. “So, fill me in. As you can imagine, our people are anxious to be brought up to speed on what you and your colleagues have uncovered in Jordan.”

Crowley cleared his throat and looked to where a window once was. He wished it were still there. The room was claustrophobic. “I’m afraid we’ve gotten only so far,” he said. “I don’t know whether you are aware that our source in Amman was killed.”

Browning nodded.

“Without that source, we’ve reached a bit of a standstill, I’m afraid.”

“Sorry to hear that. Actually, we’ve been receiving intelligence through other sources that helps fill in some of the gaps.”

“That’s good,” Crowley said.

“Interesting, the way terrorists’ minds work, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is, although I prefer to think of their so-called minds as more depraved and immoral than interesting.”

“Of course. What our people found especially probative was this shift in their thinking. What’s your take on it?”

“I’m really not paid to analyze information, Joseph. I simply arrange for it to be gathered. But off the record, I would say that there is a certain wisdom to their new approach. It will certainly be easier to carry out, and the impact could be substantial.”

“If it’s what they’re really intending. Tell me, Mr. Crowley, did your source in Jordan-I understand he had a pretty direct line into the insurgents through a family member-”

“That’s right.”

“Was there any hint as to the sort of high-profile target they might choose?”

“That’s what we were hoping to find out,” Crowley replied. “According to the source, they were in the process of drawing up their hit list. I suppose it had to meet with bin Laden’s approval.”

“If he’s still alive.”

“Yes, if.”

“But it was ascertained that it would be centered here in Washington.”

“That was our information, which we passed along.”

“Yes, and we appreciated that. The secretary made an announcement right after we received that info. We’ve raised the terrorist alert level to Orange-Plus.”

A tiny smile crossed Crowley’s lips. Americans and their fondness for anything technological, colorful-and useless. A vision of sitting on a white wrought-iron bench at riverside in Dorset came and went.

“Do you have anything else to report?” Browning asked, opening a file folder on which TOP SECRET was stamped in red.

“Only one thing,” Crowley said.

“Which is?”

“I met with the source’s handler in Amman before coming here. He mentioned something about a Canadian connection.”

“Canadian connection? That’s intriguing. What sort of connection?”

“I don’t know, nor did the handler. He hadn’t mentioned it in previous messages. I assume it was simply an oversight.”

“Oversights, like loose lips, can get us killed,” said Browning.

Crowley said nothing. He wanted the meeting to be over.

“Well,” Browning said, “this was a long way for you to come with so little new to offer.”

Criticism or sympathy?

“I wish I had more.”

Browning walked him to the door. “Will you be staying in Washington long?” he asked.

“A day or two. I can be reached through our embassy.”

“I thought you might enjoy taking in a baseball game while you’re here. We have a new team, the Nationals. I know you don’t have baseball in the U.K. and thought it would be a new experience. Have you ever been to a game?”

“No, I haven’t.” Nor do I have any interest in doing so.

“Give me a call if you’d like to go. They’re playing at home tomorrow night.”

As Crowley headed for his hotel, where he intended to order a bottle of good Scotch and have it and dinner sent to his room, Joe Browning met with his superiors at Homeland Security.

“So he had nothing new to offer,” his boss said.

“Right, except for some vague reference to a Canadian connection.”

“We’ll follow up on that.”

“All we know at this juncture,” said Browning, “is that the terrorists, presumably with bin Laden’s blessing, have decided to forgo hitting big targets and concentrate on assassinating top political leaders here in D.C.”

“Maybe claiming that Washington is the focus is a red herring. Maybe they intend to strike elsewhere.”

“Where else?” Browning said. “If you’re out to kill top political leaders, this is the place to do it.”

“I’ll run it past the secretary. Are you impressed with Crowley?”

“He’s old.”

“I mean, does he seem to know what he and his sources are talking about?”

“I suppose we’ll see,” Browning responded. “Right now, he’s pretty much our only conduit to this new initiative by the terrorists. He still has someone in Amman, who’s working on developing new sources. The original was assassinated.”

“Unfortunate. See me later.”

It had been a long, tough day for M.T., whose undercover code name was “Steamer.” He’d spent the day supervising the installation of boilers in an Amman factory. He was hot and dirty, and wanted a hot shower and a hearty dinner at one of Amman’s fancy restaurants, preferably with a member of the opposite sex. It wasn’t easy making connections with attractive females. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, and his belly-which hung over his belt, no matter how hard he tried to suck it up-was a turnoff, he knew, to many women. Maybe if he could reveal his second, clandestine life, he’d have more appeal.

The problem this night was that he had an appointment to keep, and it wasn’t with a ravishing, dark-eyed Jordanian, or a buxom, redheaded employee of the British Embassy or British companies doing business in Jordan. Tonight’s rendezvous was with an Iraqi he’d begun cultivating as a source to replace Ghaleb Rihnai.

He hadn’t told Crowley about this new potential source of information from inside Iraq, or the terrorist cells that existed in Amman. This Iraqi, whom M.T. had met on one of his boiler installations, professed to suffer shame for the acts of Arab terrorists, and claimed to have contacts within Iraq who were privy to the insurgency’s inner councils. M.T. wasn’t sure whether to pursue the relationship. Rihnai’s brutal murder had shaken him. Maybe it was time to sever ties with Crowley and the others who’d recruited him with the lure of money and an appeal to his innate sense of patriotism and decency.

He left the job site and grabbed a fast bite from a sidewalk vendor before driving out to the appointed meeting place, a deserted, dilapidated barn on an abandoned farm. The Iraqi was there when he arrived. Inside the barn, the smell of decaying wood and fermenting grain was pungent. Steamer suggested going outside, but the Iraqi said he felt more secure inside.

They discussed what M.T. expected of the Iraqi. He wanted to know everything that was discussed by the terrorists, especially their future plans. The Iraqi assured M.T. that he could, and would, deliver.

“How much will I be paid?” the Iraqi asked.

“That depends on how much useful information you deliver.”

“I want money now,” the Iraqi said.

M.T. had started to explain the realities of how money was paid for such information when a sound from behind caused him to stop in mid-sentence and to turn. Four young men wearing stocking masks leaped on him. One wielded a long, curved knife that he plunged into Steamer’s thick neck. His assailants, slight of build, had a difficult time subduing the large and strong Brit, but as blood poured from his neck, he weakened and fell helplessly to the hard dirt floor. The Iraqi whom he’d befriended-or thought he had-pulled a small, silver revolver from his waistband and fired two shots into Steamer’s forehead.

The Brit was dead, and the five young men left the barn to celebrate their coup.