Dead Ringer (18 page)

 

Chapter 19

I
SPENT THE
afternoon teaching my students, and didn't have much time to think about murderers or break-­and-­enter suspects. My burn didn't hurt quite as much as the day before, and that pleased me. Any progress was more than welcome. I still avoided playing my violin with my students, wanting to save any use I might get out of my injured hand for that night's rehearsal, but I could move my hand more easily, and I'd done away with my bandages. A red mark still marred my palm, but not as angrily as before.

After my last student of the day left the studio, I chomped my way through an apple, said a quick goodbye to JT and Finnegan, and set off for orchestra rehearsal. I wondered how much damage the fire and smoke had done to the church. Hopefully not too much, although I was quite certain the women's washroom would need gutting and a complete do-­over. That wasn't all bad, considering that the room probably hadn't been updated for at least thirty years, but I didn't know how much money the church had for such endeavors.

If funds were scarce, perhaps they could hold a fund-­raiser. If they did, I'd be willing to contribute. Even though I hadn't set the fire, I felt a bit guilty about the damage it had caused. Maybe that was silly, but the possibility that the arsonist had directed the fire at me was at the source of my guilt.

I entered the church through the same door as usual, the door through which Susannah and I had fled the fire with Ray's assistance three days earlier. As soon as I stepped inside, I detected the smell of smoke, dulled now but still clinging to the walls. For a second, panic threatened to well up inside me, to send me crashing back out the door and into the fresh air. But I was safe, I reminded myself. The fire was in the past, the lingering smell of smoke nothing more than an acrid but harmless memento of Saturday's terrifying experience.

I took in a deep breath to steady my nerves and sever my remaining threads of panic. The hallway leading to the washrooms was cordoned off with red tape, so I continued forward, passing the doors leading to the nave on my left and the bench where Susannah and I had spoken on my right. I followed the far hallway down to the basement auditorium, the clashing sounds of the instruments of the few early birds already on stage helping to calm me.

I stopped in the backstage room and barely had a chance to set down my violin and shoulder bag before Bronwyn and Katie closed in on me from either side.

“Midori! Is it true you were caught in the fire?” Katie asked, her eyes wide.

Bronwyn didn't give me a chance to respond. “Oh my God. Look at your hand. Can you even play tonight?”

Katie took my right hand in both of hers and gently turned it palm up to get a look at my burn. “Oh no. Does it hurt?”

“Yes, I think so, and not as much as before,” I said, answering all three questions at once. “How did you find out that I was here when it happened?”

“Mikayla,” Bronwyn replied, flicking a lock of her thick, crinkly brown hair over her shoulder.

“She's here?”

“Not yet. I ran into her yesterday.”

Katie gave me a quick hug around my waist. She was so petite that she only came up to my shoulder. “We're glad you're okay.”

“Thanks.” I glanced around the room. Three more orchestra members had arrived behind me, and the time for rehearsal to begin drew nearer. I knew there was something I needed to do, as much as I didn't want to do it. “I'd better go talk to the maestro.”

I excused myself from my fellow violinists and navigated my way out onto the stage. My steps faltered as I emerged from the wings. Hans was in conversation with Elena, both of them speaking in low voices. My stomach clenched at the sight of them together, but as Elena said one last word and turned away, I drew in a deep breath and forced myself onward, catching Hans's eye.

I steeled myself for our encounter as he wended his way through the chairs and music stands to meet me. Talking to him at the reception hadn't been easy, but I needed to be able to hold a normal, civil conversation with him if I was to keep up my end of our agreement to maintain a professional relationship.

“Midori, I heard what happened. Are you all right?” His blue eyes searched me, as if checking for injuries.

I thought I detected genuine concern in his face and voice but quickly put up a wall to fend off any ghostly flutterings of my old feelings. “I'm fine. Except for a minor burn.” I held my hand out, palm up, for him to see.

He moved to take my hand in his. I jerked it away before we made contact and cradled it against my stomach, more as a form of protection from him than because of any pain.

Hans sighed but dropped his hand. “I'm glad you weren't hurt any worse.”

Again he seemed sincere, but that sincerity only wedged my throat with hurt and disappointment.

We could have had something good
, a voice deep inside of me cried.
Why did you have to turn out to be a lying jerk?

I swallowed hard and silenced my inner voice. I was better off without Hans. I knew that.

“Can you play tonight?” His question helped me refocus on the present.

“I'm not sure, but I want to try.”

“Do what you can, but don't push it.” He gave me one last, searching look before turning away.

I put my unburned hand on his arm to stop him, snatching it away again as soon as I had his attention. “Have the police questioned you again?”

His blue eyes clouded with anger or annoyance. I didn't think it was directed at me. I hoped it wasn't.

“They wanted to know my whereabouts on Saturday at the time of the fire.”

So the police did believe the fire and the murder could be connected. “And?” I asked, my throat dry. “What did you tell them?”

“The truth. I'd already left the church and met up with Elena for a late lunch. She confirmed that.”

My stomach clenched for the second time in the last few minutes. I didn't want to hear about him having lunch with Elena.

Hans narrowed his eyes. “You don't really think I was involved in any of this, do you?”

“No.”

He didn't miss the hint of uncertainty in my voice. His features hardened and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Midori, failing to tell you about Elena and committing crimes are wildly different things. I didn't kill Jeremy. I didn't set the fire. And I certainly never would have harmed you.”

“You already did.”

Hans held his tongue and forced his face into a neutral expression as two violists passed by. “That's not the same thing,” he said once they were out of earshot.

Easy for him to say. “Can you blame me for having a hard time trusting you?”

He let out a frustrated sigh but kept his voice low. “I'm not a criminal, Midori. Hopefully, the police will figure that out and get busy tracking down the real killer. And I hope you'll come to believe I'm innocent too.” He was about to turn away again but he stopped, his face softening. “Take care of your hand, all right?”

I nodded, and he returned to the stage.

I wandered toward the backstage room where I'd left my belongings, an internal battle brewing in my mind. As much as I knew I was better off without Hans, I still wanted to believe his claim to innocence. I didn't want to think him capable of even attempting to physically harm me, even if he didn't seem to care much about hurting my heart.

But he'd fooled me before. I had to remember that.

A whole week had passed since Jeremy's murder, and I was no closer to knowing who was responsible. I still didn't know if one of my fellow musicians was a dangerous criminal. Worst of all, I didn't know if the person who had broken into my apartment still wanted to harm me.

I didn't have time to dwell on those thoughts, which was probably for the best. I had to answer several more questions about the fire from my fellow musicians while I fetched my violin and bow. Within minutes of settling in on the stage, the rehearsal began.

Although my burn protested about holding my bow, the pain wasn't too bad, and I was able to play through it at first. We started rehearsing the Brahms pieces, and the familiar act of creating music helped to soothe me and ease the tension that had crept into my shoulders during my conversation with Hans.

All of the combined sounds of the various instruments knitted together into beautiful strains that washed over me and made my brain and body hum with a gentle peacefulness. This was why I loved playing in the orchestra. Making music on my own was wonderful, but working together with so many others to create something with so much depth and so many layers, that was something else altogether.

I was so happy to be doing what I loved and so into the music that it took me until the break midway through the rehearsal to realize that the pain in my hand had gone from easily ignored to more insistent. I considered whether I should continue playing after the break or give my hand a rest. I was distracted before I came to a decision.

Hans had only signaled that we should take a break seconds before, and while I thought about my hand, my eyes roved over the orchestra. ­People stood up from their seats to stretch or head for the washroom, but not before I made note of who was there and who wasn't.

Clover was present, over in the bass section, and of course Hans was accounted for as well. But one person of note was absent.

Ray.

I tried not to jump to any conclusions, but I was already getting air time.

Was Ray missing from rehearsal because the police had him in custody?

Maybe he was sick, or maybe there was some other perfectly innocent explanation for his absence, though that seemed too coincidental.

First the oboe player had shown an odd interest in whether Jeremy's place had been searched by the police. Then someone had broken into Jeremy's basement suite, not once, but twice, and the person responsible—­for the second break-­in, if not the first as well—­was currently enjoying the accommodations Chez Police. And that would make him or her unavailable to attend any sort of function or event, including an orchestra rehearsal.

Way too coincidental for my liking.

And since the person in custody had been caught in the act of breaking into Jeremy's suite, there wasn't much in the way of doubt with respect to his guilt for that crime. But that didn't necessarily mean he'd killed Jeremy or set the fire.

Sure he had the opportunity to set the fire, and possibly even to murder Jeremy, but I still couldn't come up with a solid motive for him to commit those crimes. As JT had pointed out, simply because someone might be involved in drug trafficking to some degree, that didn't mean they had a reason to kill anyone.

I remained in my chair, holding my violin propped on my leg with my bow set on the rim of the music stand. I stared off into space, unable to reconcile what Ray's absence indicated with my deep suspicions of Reverend McAllister.

I was missing something. Probably more than one something.

I needed to find out more about McAllister.

Mikayla, already on her feet, poked me in the ribs with her bow. “Earth to Midori.”

I blinked and realized I was one of the few ­people still in my seat.

“What's up?” Mikayla asked. “You were a million miles away there.”

I retrieved my bow from the music stand and got to my feet. “My hand hurts. I'm not sure I can play through the rest of rehearsal.”

She nodded in Hans's direction. “You'd better let the maestro know. Unless you're trying to avoid him.”

I shook my head. “I'll talk to him.”

Avoiding Hans would have been easier than dealing with him, but that option wasn't really available to me. As soon as I'd taken the first step down the nonprofessional path with him, I'd known there were risks involved. I'd accepted those risks, and now I would deal with the consequences, because he certainly wasn't worth giving up my place in the orchestra. It was awkward talking to him now, but it would get easier as time eased the pain he'd caused me. At least, I hoped it would.

As it turned out, I didn't need to have another conversation with him. I caught his eye when I was still more than ten feet away from him and simply held up my injured hand. He nodded in understanding and I took that as permission to leave. I could have remained for the rest of the rehearsal, listening to his comments and any discussions within my section about bowing changes or other details, but I decided not to. There was something else I wanted to do with my time.

I packed up my instrument as everyone else trickled back onto the stage. Then, with my bag over my shoulder and my instrument case held in my left hand, I set off in the opposite direction from my peers. When I reached the narthex on the main floor, I paused.

Several ­people milled about outside the nave. Three men of varying ages and a teenage girl hung off the edges of the group. The men looked as though they wanted to be anywhere but at the church, boredom hunching their shoulders and pulling at their faces. The teenage girl was oblivious to everything going on around her, her face hidden by a cascade of dark hair as she texted away on her phone.

A grandmotherly figure and two middle-­aged women were busy attempting to calm a woman in her mid-­twenties with her hair dyed a garish shade of red.

“Where
are
they? They should have been here ten minutes ago!” the redhead screeched.

“I'm sure they'll be here any minute,” one of the middle-­aged women said in a soothing voice.

Red didn't even seem to hear. “If they don't show up they're going to ruin
everything
!” She dug a phone out of her purse. “I'm texting them again. And they'd better respond or I swear . . .”

She didn't finish her threat, at least not verbally. Judging by her scowl and the way her eyes flashed, I doubted that she was holding back in her text message.