Chapter Twenty-Five
Chief Inspector Simmons offered a thin smile as McGill sat down across from him. “I’m pleased that you’ve been able to clear up the orchestra theft problem. You say that there are a couple of people in custody?”
“There are. It turns out that Samantha Gibbons, the part-time music librarian who works for the orchestra, got fed up with what she considered insufficient hours and poor pay. She hired a street person and small-time crook to do a little mischief in the music library and he got a little carried away.”
“So this Gibbons person hired somebody to break in?”
“Right. The idea was somehow to make the orchestra more appreciative of the job she did or perhaps to give her more hours to straighten out the mess.”
“That’s ridiculous. The girl sounds unbalanced.”
“It was certainly a stupid thing to do, something she readily admits to at this point. But in her defense, I should say that, when she gave this guy his instructions, there was no mention of pilfering the violins.”
Simmons grunted. “Still sounds like an idiotic thing to do. So the missing violins turned up in a pawn shop?”
“Pretty close by, as it turned out. The thief even gave them his real name and that’s how we traced it back to Gibbons.”
“He’s not much brighter than she was.”
“No, sir.”
“Any chance that this young lady is involved in anything more serious?”
“The murders? I really don’t think so. I’d be very surprised if she had anything like that in her.”
“But if she blamed the two conductors…?”
“She seemed more angry at the business manager, Jonathan Clemens, who was insensitive to her plight, or at least so it seemed to her.”
“I see. So in reference to the major issues, we’re not much further along…other than the discovery of the murder weapon.”
“I’m afraid not, sir, but there is another matter I’d like to bring to your attention.”
“And that is?”
“Ms. Gibbons told me that she overheard a rather heated exchange between Clemens and Ray Ridgway, who works as a fund-raiser for the orchestra.”
“So?”
“Well, trying to pursue any possible lead, I went to talk to Ridgway, who—by the way—is no longer employed by the orchestra after that heated exchange.”
“And the significance of that is what?”
“Ridgway said that the cause of their argument, which he admitted became quite nasty, was that he accused Clemens of failing to report a number of donations that Ridgway himself was involving in securing. In other words, Ridgway was pretty much accusing him of embezzling the funds or, at the very least, cooking the books to hide somebody else’s improper behavior.”
“Really? And why do you think this information is relevant to our case?”
“If there really is some financial funny business going on, whether it’s on Clemens’ level or higher up, and either or both of the conductors found out about it, that might be a motive for murder—to silence them before they could make a fuss about it.”
Simmons frowned. “That seems like a huge stretch.”
“It could be nothing, of course. Ridgway’s charges may not be valid, although I can’t see how it would serve his interests to invent them out of nothing.”
“Maybe, but really…I still don’t see how this leads us to our murderer.”
“There may not be a direct link, sir, but if there is some illegal activity here, shouldn’t we pursue it and see where it goes?”
Simmons shook his head slowly. “And how do you think that would work? We get the court’s permission to look through their financial documents? Because I’ve got a pretty good idea that they’d scream bloody murder if we just ask for them politely.”
“If necessary, sir.”
“I’m surprised at you, Sean. Why would you want to go on a wild goose chase that would probably end up nowhere when you’ve got two unsolved murders at your doorstep?”
“But we've been stymied throughout this whole investigation because we haven't been able to come up with any possible motives. We've got one now. If the orchestra’s business manager has been fixing the books, maybe even embezzling funds, and if first Hauptmann and then Stenke found out about it…”
"Is there any indication that either of them had discovered anything of that sort? I mean, is there even a hint that either of them gave any serious thought to the orchestra’s budget?”
“Well, no. But they didn't live in some artistic vacuum.”
“Really? Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. But the point is that we don’t have any evidence to proceed on this, other than speculation by a disgruntled former employee. These things do get audited, you know.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that auditors had looked the other way.”
“I’m just not buying it, Sean, and I don’t want you to waste any more time on it. Look, you said you found what you think is the murder weapon. What does forensics say?”
“The Beethoven bust was wiped pretty clean, but very small traces of blood were found on it. They’re pretty sure that it’s the object that killed Loreen Stenke.”
“Okay, well, that’s your starting point. Who was in there to grab that statue in the first place? And more importantly, who would have been able to get in a locked building to return it?”
“That part turns out to be less of a mystery than we originally thought. There aren’t that many keys to the backdoor, but one of them was almost always just hanging out there on a hook in Alan Winston’s room. And Winston often didn’t lock his door.”
“And everybody on the staff knew that?”
“Apparently.”
“Alright, at this point you have to focus almost exclusively on the staff. I realize that we haven’t determined yet why one of them would hate Hauptmann and Stenke so much he would kill them, but it seems clear to me that the staff members are likely the only ones who had a clear opportunity to do the deed in both cases.”
“Yes sir.”
“So that’s it then. I want you to re-interview every one of them…multiple times if necessary. These are not hardened, career criminals, Sean. One of them is going to crack.”