The Beethoven Quandary

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Sean, I’m sorry to bother you but I absolutely had to call and tell you this. David’s going over to search Melissa’s old apartment. He already left.”

  “What do you mean he went to Melissa's apartment?” Sean said angrily. “Why the hell would he do that?”

  “His plan was to break in and find the manuscript,” Elizabeth said. “I told him not to do it, but he was determined.”

  “Why? Why Melissa’s apartment?” Sean demanded.

  “We're pretty sure she's got the missing Beethoven manuscript.”

  “I don't care if she does have it. That's a job for the police. Why didn’t he contact me?”

  “He figured you wouldn't be able to really do anything. We have no proof.”

  “So that's an excuse to do something incredibly stupid, not to mention illegal? When did he leave?”

  “Only a few minutes ago...maybe you can catch him.”

  “Your God-damn right I'm going to catch him. I'm going to catch him before he does something stupid and I have to arrest him.”

  David slowly walked up to the second landing in Melissa’s apartment building. Did anybody live here? The place seemed totally deserted. The apartments on the first floor seemed completely abandoned. The door to one of them was wide open with no sign of life within. There was no sound coming from anywhere. Maybe it wasn’t surprising. From the outside the building looked like it was falling apart. He was surprised that the whole thing wasn’t condemned. Maybe it was.

  The mailbox downstairs had listed Melissa as the tenant for apartment 2-C. David stopped and looked up and down the entire floor. It seemed as deserted as he had hoped it would be. According to Jeremy, Melissa hasn’t come here for a while, David thought. And God knows he’s doing his best to keep his eye on her 24/7 now.

  Still, now that he was here, he was beginning to think that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. With all of the things that had happened, it had never before occurred to him that Melissa had been involved in any way. But he had to admit that Elizabeth had made a great case for Melissa being the one behind all of this. The way Elizabeth had laid it all out, who else could it be?

  Besides, he wouldn’t take any chances. He’d make sure that there was no one around before trying to get into her place. If she was there, he’d think up some lame excuse for dropping by. He’d say that all of a sudden Elizabeth was worried about her, and had begged him to go and check on her. He would say that he had gone to Jeremy’s apartment first, but she wasn’t there. But that was stupid, he thought. What if Jeremy is just sitting in his apartment right now and she calls him up to find that out?

  Oh well, he thought. If it happens, it happens. He’d think of something. And he’d wasted too much time already. It was time to go in there and find out once and for all.

  David knocked on the door of 2-C lightly. No response. He waited a full two minutes and then turned the knob lightly. He could feel that the door was very flimsy. The lock seemed loose. He shook the lock, which rattled loudly. He waited again for two minutes. Nothing. He put his shoulder to the door, gently at first. I don’t want to do any permanent damage, he thought. I don’t want anyone to know I’ve been here.

  He began to press his shoulder against the door while he jiggled the door knob. Everything seemed loose but nothing would yield. He stepped back from the door and looked around once again. The he shoved his shoulder up hard against the door. It stuck for a second and then swung open!

  David held his breath while he checked to see if the lock had been broken. Thank God, no. He had just pushed it free from the door jam. These apartments were in terrible shape. The building should be condemned.

  He stepped inside the apartment quickly and gently closed the door behind him. He scanned the room swiftly. Melissa knew that Jeremy would never come here, so if she had the manuscript hidden here, she probably wouldn’t have to get too tricky about it.

  For one thing, he thought, there just weren’t that many places to hide a bulky manuscript. There just wasn’t that much furniture, at least in the living room. He stuck his hand under the cushions of the one decrepit sofa. Nothing. I guess nobody would be that obvious, he thought. There was what looked like an old roll-top desk in the corner of the room, but the roll-top had apparently been torn off of it. There were four fairly deep drawers in it and it took him a while to examine the contents. Most of the stuff in the drawers seemed like junk. There were a couple of receipts, an outdated map of Philly, a menu for a Chinese take-out restaurant. In a different drawer there was a stack of computer paper, more receipts.

  So far he had seen nothing to suggest that a desperate criminal lived here. But who knew what stuff a desperate criminal might have?

  He walked into the kitchen. Filthy, he thought. How long have those dirty dishes been sitting here? Did she ever even eat there anymore? But he looked over to the small kitchen table and saw a couple of placemats. Does Jeremy ever come over here with her, he wondered?

  There was an old dishwasher with the front handle broken off. An unlikely place, but he looked inside it anyway. No, and there was nothing else in the kitchen to look at. On to the bedroom.

  It wasn’t much. Small, very untidy. A double bed with a cheap-looking end table on each side. Two equally chintzy ginger jar lamps on either side. He quickly walked over to one of the two dressers. He had just opened the top drawer in the first when he thought he heard a noise.

  He straightened up and became very quiet. Was there someone in the hallway?

  David heard the apartment door open. Two people came inside, speaking quietly. One was Melissa. He couldn't recognize the other voice. The killer! he immediately thought. The one who actually killed Morgenstern. David was frozen with fear.

  He thought of hiding under the bed but then thought, no, I don't want to die under somebody’s bed. He forced himself to creep closer to the door to listen to the two talking. Melissa was doing most of the talking. The man only answered in short choppy sentences.

  He listened harder. What was Melissa saying? He couldn't be sure but he thought she was talking about leaving town. She mentioned a plane ticket—two plane tickets. She had already bought them. They would leave that night. By then she would have disposed of the manuscript. She said something about the money they were going to make, but David couldn't quite make out what she was saying.

  Eventually they’re going to come into this bedroom and find me, he thought. And then they’re going to kill me. David couldn’t see him, but he was sure it was the short man he had first seen in the long black coat and then later in the gray hoodie. The one they had chased down the alley. The one who had a gun.

  I can’t just sit around and wait, he thought. I’ve got to do something. He edged closer to the door, as silently as possible. The old floor creaked a little. Could they hear that? Probably not. They were still talking and wouldn’t be paying attention. I could just make a dash for the door, he thought. But he couldn’t even tell where they were standing in the room. Maybe they were standing right in front of the door. He just didn’t know.

  He glanced back at the bed and the two end tables. I’ve got to distract them, he thought. He snuck over and disconnected one of the lamps and carried it over to the other side of the room. He snuck a peak out the bedroom door. He could see a little bit of Melissa. Her back was turned and she seemed to be heading into the kitchen. He couldn’t see the man, the one who had been wearing the hoodie.

  After Melissa disappeared into the kitchen, David decided. It’s now or never, he thought. He pulled back his right arm and heaved one of the ginger jar lamps as hard as he could—out through the bedroom door, across the living room, and through the kitchen doorway.

  “What the…” Melissa bellowed from the kitchen. “Malcolm!” she yelled. “What’s going on?”

  In that second, David dashed from the bedroom door across the living room toward the apartment door. Malcolm looked confused for a split second. Meliss
a looked out of the kitchen doorway. “Get him! Shoot him!” she demanded.

  But David already had his hand on the doorknob. He pulled the door open as hard as he could but the door seemed to catch. They had fastened the chain lock! David fumbled desperately for a few seconds trying to undo the lock. Malcolm grabbed his gun out of his overcoat. He raised his gun.

  Just then, David managed to unfasten the chain lock, swing the door open, and throw himself out the door just as the gun roared.

  He hit the floor hard and felt numb for a few seconds. But he heard Melissa and Malcolm yelling behind him and tried to scramble to his feet.

  Suddenly, Sean was there, his gun in his hand. His face was grim. He walked purposely past David and into the apartment. “Hold it right there!” he shouted.

  Malcolm again looked confused. Melissa, now standing in the middle of the living room, cursed violently. Malcolm dropped his gun.