The Beethoven Quandary

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "No, she didn't do it herself. Her ‘pet’ did it—an ex-bass player from her former punk band,” Sean said, a couple of hours later as he faced Elizabeth and David across his desk. “His name’s Malcolm Jordan. He may be musical, but he's also a thug with a record of petty crime and the occasional jail sentence. But there's no question that Melissa set him up to do it, told him he had to do it. She's going to be charged with murder, no doubt about it."

  “Now I’m the one who can’t believe it,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, I had it all worked out and concluded that it could only be Melissa. She was the only one who knew everything and had the opportunity, but still…part of me just can’t believe it.”

  “Well, I thought it was crazy as well, believe me,” Sean said. “And the craziest thing of all was hearing that David had gone to ‘investigate’ on his own. It doesn’t get any crazier than that. He could well have been killed. It was a close call.”

  “Am I getting in trouble for this?” David asked.

  “Probably not as much as you should be,” Sean said. “I didn’t see you actually inside the apartment so I’m not going to go out of my way to charge you with breaking and entering. Something may come up later, but I doubt it.”

  “But have they confessed? Melissa and this Malcolm guy?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No,” Sean said, “but they will. At least he will. He seems quite rattled. Melissa kept screaming at him not to say anything, but this guy just seems confused by the whole thing. He seemed very surprised when I put the handcuffs on him. He’ll talk and he’ll incriminate her.”

  “Amazing,” Elizabeth said. “Did the Beethoven manuscript turn up?”

  “Oh, yes. The manuscript was in the bedroom closet under some laundry. You just hadn’t gotten to that part of the room yet, David.”

  David smiled. “So are your superiors finally going to get off your back?”

  Sean shrugged. “Probably not. They’ll just say I got lucky and the case just cleared itself up without me doing anything. And that’s probably true as far as it goes. But Elizabeth certainly had a lot to do with it.”

  “Hey, how about me?” David said.

  “How about you? Please,” Sean said, shaking his head, a slight smile on his face. “It was still one of the stupidest stunts I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “I know, I know,” David said. “But I still can’t help but think that there’s a lot about all this that is very sad. Poor Jeremy.”

  Sean nodded. “Yes. It’s going to be very hard on him. He seemed to trust Melissa completely. I’m not going to enjoy breaking the news to him.”

  “Sean…about Jeremy,” Elizabeth said quietly. “We’d like to be there when you tell him.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Well,” David said, “we are friends and…”

  “There are other reasons,” Elizabeth said. “I’m particularly anxious to see how he takes the news.”

  Sean raised his eyebrows. “You’re being very mysterious, but I guess we can arrange it. We’ll set up an appointment for him in my office tomorrow morning. He’s going to want answers, but I think I can hold him off that long.”