The Maestro Murdered

  Chapter Seven

  Auguste Hauptmann glanced quickly at his watch. Eleven o’clock. There were probably still a few people hanging around at the reception but he had decided to duck out early. These things went on forever and he had work to do.

  He looked down at his computer. Hauptmann hated email. He wanted to hear—directly— what people had to say to him. If they said yes to something, he wanted to hear whether they really meant it. If they told him no, he wanted to hear what kind of "no" it was.

  But he had come to realize, particularly in the last few months, that people—especially those whom he didn't know well—weren't always going to return his calls. The recording technicians, for example. He wanted to make sure that the upcoming concert was to be recorded on their finest equipment. And he wanted them to show up for the concert at least a couple of hours early to test their equipment in the special acoustics of their performance hall. He wanted to be very clear about what he expected from them.

  But he had called them twice with no response. His secretary had urged him to send them an email. They’d be sure to answer an email, she said. So apparently he had no choice.

  He turned away from the computer keyboard and sighed.

  He was frustrated. And he was tired. He could still—at his age— conduct a full orchestral rehearsal and have energy left to spare. He could even outlast the young musicians in the orchestra if necessary. He knew he could concentrate longer than they could, and he could keep up physically as well. It took a lot out of him of course—conducting demanded a great deal of physical energy, something only real conductors truly knew. He had been up to the task as a young man and was still up to it now.

  But that reception...that was exactly the sort of thing that fatigued him immensely. Those speeches—cascades of meaningless words from people who didn't themselves mean half of what they said. Listening to endless speeches could sap the life energy out of anyone.

  And then the meaningless chit-chat, always with a glass of cheap white wine as your only defense against people who wanted to get too close. My God! All that was as bad as the speeches. It was that sort of thing he was too old for. Not making music—not conducting. The question was not one of endurance, but one of patience. Did he really have the patience to get back into all this?

  And now these damn technicians would never get back to him.

  As he lifted his fingers to the keyboard, he thought he heard a sound behind him. He turned in his chair.

  "Oh, it's you," he said quietly. "I'm afraid I can't talk right now. I've got to get something settled with the recording technicians."

  He turned back to face his computer and put his hands on the keyboard.

  A shot rang out.

  Hauptmann slumped forward, his head crashing into the keys.