Murder at the Opera

THIRTY-SIX

Willie and Sylvia arrived with the two detectives who’d originally caught the case. Two uniforms, who’d been waved down in their car by the doorman, were already at the scene, one standing guard just inside the door to the room, the other in the hallway keeping the curious away.

The four detectives stood in the middle of the room now, their eyes registering initial impressions. Zöe Baltsa’s lifeless body was slumped on the floor at the foot of the king-sized bed, her back against it, her legs akimbo in front of her. Her head flopped to one side; drying blood seeped from the downward corner of her mouth onto the red carpeting. She wore yellow Capri pants and a fuzzy gold sleeveless shirt. She was barefoot.

Because Willie was the senior detective, he took charge of the crime scene. “You were the first in here?” he asked one of the cops in uniform.

“Right. A chambermaid discovered the body and notified the desk. We were driving by. A doorman-maybe he’s a bellhop-hailed us.”

“Nobody’s been in here since you arrived?”

“Right. The maid who found the body is downstairs in the manager’s office. She was pretty shaken up.”

One of the detectives lit a cigarette. “Hey, put that out,” Willie said. “This is a crime scene, man.”

The detective, a tall, gangly young man, said, “Sorry,” and went into the hall to find a receptacle.

Sylvia slowly approached the body, her eyes scanning the carpeting before stepping on it. There were slight indentations, but nothing that would provide substantial evidence of the shoes, or the feet inside them. She went to one knee and placed two fingers on the side of Baltsa’s neck. The talent agent’s eyes were open wide; the corneas had become milky, indicating to Sylvia that she’d been killed at least eight hours earlier. A gentle manipulation of the rigid jaw also pointed to an approximate time of death, between eight and twelve hours ago. Sylvia was fascinated with forensic science and had taken every course offered by MPD. She looked down to Baltsa’s torso, where a small amount of blood had seeped through a tear in the front of her gold shirt from an area between her breasts. Sylvia leaned closer. She turned and motioned for Willie to join her. “Look,” she said, pointing to the bloodstained edge of a sponge that had been wedged into the wound.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Maybe our killer is SpongeBob.”

“She died between eight and twelve hours ago,” said Sylvia. “Her skin’s clammy, cold.”

They turned at the arrival of white-coated evidence technicians, and an assistant medical examiner. Sylvia told the doctor her conclusions, and she and Willie went to where the original two detectives stood. “Check out everybody with rooms on this floor,” Willie ordered. “Maybe somebody heard or saw something.” To one of the uniformed cops: “Keep everybody away, and that means everybody. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Come on,” Willie said to Sylvia, “let’s go downstairs and talk to the maid.”

The hotel’s manager was in his office, along with the chambermaid, a middle-aged Hispanic woman who wept into a handkerchief, and two other hotel employees. Portelain and Johnson introduced themselves. Willie asked, “Is this the lady who discovered the body?”

“Yes,” the manager replied. “Mrs. Cruz.” He gave his own name and those of his employees. Sylvia asked the other two employees to leave, and she and Willie took the maid’s statement. She spoke good English, and managed to pull herself together well enough to give a cogent account: She’d gone to the room to service it. There was no sign on the door indicating that the guest didn’t want to be disturbed. She let herself in with her master key, and saw the woman on the floor.

“Did you do anything in the room?” Willie asked.

“No, señor. I run from there to here as fast as I can run.”

“That’s good,” Willie said, patting her arm. He noted her name and the time she said she’d entered the room, and told her she was free to go.

“Who was on duty last night, say between midnight and six this morning?” Sylvia asked the manager.

“Our usual night staff,” he said. He was a young man, dressed in a nice suit, and he had a boyish, freckled face. “Mr. Galberth was in charge of the desk.”

“Galberth?”

“Yes. He was just in here. One of our morning desk clerks called in sick, and he volunteered to work a second shift. He told me something that you might find interesting.”

“Would you get him back in here, please?” Willie said.

“You were on duty last night?” Sylvia asked the clerk.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your manager says that you have something that we might be interested in hearing.”

“Yes, ma’am. Around midnight, a man came here to see Ms. Baltsa.”

“You say it was around midnight?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’re always a little more interested in who comes and goes at that hour.”

“That makes sense,” Sylvia said. “He came to see Ms. Baltsa. How do you know that? Did he ask for her?”

“No, ma’am. He came in and went to the house phone by the desk. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, but I couldn’t help but hear him on the phone.”

“What did he say?”

“He said-let me see, now; I want to be accurate-he said, ‘Zöe, this is Chris.’”

“You knew who Zöe was?”

“Sure. That’s Ms. Baltsa’s first name.”

“And you’re sure he said his name was Chris?”

“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

“Did he say anything else?” Willie asked.

“No, sir. He hung up and went to the elevators.”

“Did you see him come down?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So you don’t know how long he was up there in her room.”

“No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“And you never saw him leave.”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“What did he look like?” Sylvia asked.

“Gee, I don’t know. Kind of average, I guess.”

“Black? White? Hispanic?” Willie asked.

“White. Pretty tall, maybe six feet. He had on a T-shirt, a white one. It had some sort of music on it.”

“Music?”

“You know, like sheet music, lines and little notes. It was on his chest.”

“You’d recognize him again, wouldn’t you?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure I would. He was standing pretty close to me when he was on the phone, no more than a few feet away.”

“Thank you,” Sylvia said. “I’m sure we’ll want to talk with you again.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

They returned upstairs to ensure that the crime scene was sufficiently secured, gave further instructions to the others, and went to their car, where Sylvia called Carl Berry.

“It’s that talent agent, right?” were the first words out of Berry’s mouth.

“Right. Ms. Baltsa.” She gave him their initial findings and impressions. “That client of theirs, the pianist, Christopher Warren, evidently visited her last night at about midnight. Willie and I are on our way to pick him up. Baltsa’s partner, Melincamp, is supposedly on his way back to Toronto. I suggest you dispatch officers to the airport to pick him up, too.”

“Which airport?”

“I don’t know, Carl. National, Dulles. I’m a cop, not a travel agent.”

There was silence on his end, and she wished she hadn’t responded so flippantly.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get on it.”