Chapter Twenty-Four
Sean McGill threw himself into an overstuffed chair as David and Elizabeth took seats across from him. "I am definitely not looking forward to meeting with Chief Inspector Simmons tomorrow morning."
"How bad could it be, Sean?" Elizabeth said. “He knows you've been working hard on this case. You've left no stone unturned."
"And it's accomplished very little," said Sean.
"Well, that's not quite true," David said, passing Sean a cup of coffee. "You have eliminated some people."
"Actually, I've eliminated almost nobody. Most of the so-called alibis are proving difficult to confirm. And I'm as fuzzy as I was the first day about who might have a reasonable motive to kill both conductors. I’ve cleared up the robbery of the old violins but that was mostly luck. And the only other thing I might have uncovered is some dubious bookkeeping practices that I just know the chief inspector is not going to want to hear about.”
David shrugged. “You know it wasn't the secretary, Linda Eggert. She was almost a victim herself yesterday when you were trying to chase down that intruder in the orchestra building.”
"Well, that might be a little bit of a stretch. The whole thing could have been staged as far as I know. And I showed bad judgment by not immediately going after the intruder. I was being clutched at by a very upset young lady at the time, but I should have found some way to get to that elevator sooner. I might have wasted a big chance there.”
“You did the right thing, Sean. How were you to know whether it was a trick or not? It could have been a diversionary tactic, just as Linda feared. What if you had left her standing there and the intruder came back to attack her while you were chasing an empty service elevator?”
Sean nodded. “That’s true.”
“And you found the murder weapon, right?” David said.
“It does look like it. It’s being checked on now, but there’s a good chance that Loreen Stenke was dispatched with a heavy Beethoven bust.”
“Ooh,” Elizabeth said. “Somehow I find that particularly disturbing.”
“I know. I don’t know why, but I think we’re conditioned to think that being shot is somehow a cleaner, less brutal death than being bludgeoned by a heavy object. In the end, I’m not sure how much it mattered. The examiner said that death would have been nearly instantaneous in both cases.”
“But the fact that the murderer just happened to pick up a nearby heavy object,” David said, “doesn’t that suggest that it was spontaneous? I mean, for the first murder, whoever did it brought a gun.”
“It’s certainly something to consider,” Sean replied.
“So maybe a different murderer?” Elizabeth suggested.
“Maybe,” replied Sean, “but I still don’t think so. It staggers the imagination to think that two different conductors of the same orchestra have two different enemies who show up to dispatch them both in the space of two weeks.”
“A reasonable point,” said David. “But if it’s a single murderer, why was the first murder planned in advance and the second seemingly spontaneous?”
“We can’t really be sure it was spontaneous, of course, although I’ll admit that there’s a good chance it was.” Sean said. “I think that the one thing we can be sure of is that the situation was different.”
“But different in what way?” David asked. “Are you suggesting that the murderer had a different relationship with the two conductors?”
“Possibly,” replied Sean. “If the act was spontaneous, and the killer didn’t walk into the room knowing in advance that he was going to kill Loreen Stenke, it may be that he had some business to conduct with her.”
“And it went badly?” Elizabeth said.
“Exactly. Something happened that he didn’t expect, or that upset him…”
“Or her…” David interjected
“Or her…and as a result he or she lashed out.”
Elizabeth shook her head gently. “I more or less understand what you’re saying here, but I don’t see how it gets us anywhere in terms of narrowing down the list of suspects.”
Sean nodded. “I agree. I’ve got a lot more leg work to do.” He rose to his feet. “And I just remembered there was something that I was supposed to do yesterday that I never did.”
“At the orchestra building?” David asked.
“Right. I was so pleased with myself for discovering the murder weapon—the reappearing Beethoven bust—that I forgot the main reason that Linda Eggert and I were going back into Loreen’s office.”
“Which was?”
“To check if we could find any record of the appointments she herself made. Ms. Eggert reports that Loreen had a bad habit of scrawling down her own appointments on miscellaneous scraps of paper and then losing track of them.”
“A typically unorganized artsy type, I guess,” David said.
“I’m not sure about that,” replied Sean. “She was organized enough in other facets of her life, but apparently she could be careless with recording appointments. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to her office and try to see what I can find. I’d appreciate it if you could come with me, David, because I might run into some names I wouldn’t recognize.”
“Do you mean orchestra members?” David asked. “I know some of them of course but certainly not everybody.”
“Well, you’re more familiar with those people than I am.”
“Sure, happy to help. When do we go?”
“I’ll meet you outside the orchestra building tonight at 8:00. First, I’ve got to have a meeting with the chief inspector to update him on my progress.”
“I hope it goes well.”
Sean grimaced. “It would make a nice change.”