Chapter 13 Luca
Chapter thirteen
Luca
Irotated the label maker cartridge twice before it seated properly.
The walk-in closet off Dominic’s study was narrow enough that if two people stood in it, one of them had to leave before the other could turn around.
Years ago, when Dominic finally admitted he had too many boxes in the salon and not enough patience for institutional creep, I had taken over the closet and turned it into a personal archive for him.
It wasn’t the orchestra’s records or foundation’s files.
It was his things. Annotated scores he no longer needed within arm’s reach but refused to surrender to outside storage.
Old programs. Correspondence from conductors and soloists he still cared about.
Everything in the closet had a place I’d made for it.
Sunday afternoons were for maintenance when the week ahead looked ugly.
Dominic was in the study pretending not to review the upcoming program notes I had already left on his desk.
He had made one penciled correction to a date range and was now reading an essay on adaptive reuse in postwar Europe. Thiago was downstairs.
I relabeled one archival box, shifted another half an inch to the left, and reached automatically for the shelf of personal music materials from the 1990s. The box marked Saints / Arrangements / Private Use felt wrong as soon as I lifted it.
It wasn’t heavier. Just different.
I set it on the narrow counter I’d installed along one wall and removed the lid.
The top folder was where it should be. It was Dominic’s early rehearsal copy from a regional festival in Baton Rouge.
Under that sat a marked reduction that he used for educational work after Katrina.
Beneath those, the full score from the early 1990s he had annotated for a charity performance long before Jackson Square made “Saints” belong to every camera in the city.
I pulled it out. The paper was too smooth.
Dominic’s original copy had a faint tooth to it, not rough exactly, but older, slightly weathered stock.
This one was cleaner. Heavier. Newer. It was a precise reproduction of the cover, including the slight fading in the upper right corner and the small coffee ring at the bottom left.
Someone had even copied the wear and tear.
I opened to the first page. The markings were Dominic’s. Narrow pencil with a slight forward slant. Breath marks above a choral cue near the second page turn. Whoever did this had gone beyond copying a score. They had copied Dominic.
I turned pages more quickly. Nothing. Nothing. Then, the last movement.
Someone had re-marked the crescendo building into the final page turn as a diminuendo. Not clumsily. It was a precise, musically literate alteration. Instead of opening to a moment of cathartic release, the passage folded inward.
I sat down on the floor with my head on my knees. The score lay open beside me. Shelves rose behind me. The little climate unit hummed in the wall above the door. Someone had been in this closet.
They had walked to the correct shelf, identified a specific box among a dozen similar ones, and replaced one particular score with a forgery.
That was bad enough on its own: access, timing, knowledge of the house.
The rest was worse. The closet was mine.
I maintained it. I knew what lived there without checking.
I closed the score, stood, and carried it out.
Dominic looked up from his desk when I crossed the study.
“What happened?”
“I need to speak to Thiago.”
He looked directly at the score under my arm. “Is it one of mine?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“Yes.”
He set down his pen. “Do I want details yet?”
“Not until I’ve shown him.”
A pause. Then, with the same composure he used for hospital calls and board resignations: “Very well.”
I went downstairs.
Thiago was in the kitchen with Michael’s notes spread across the table in a fan of paper and his tablet resting beside them.
He wore the pale blue shirt he had bought the day before.
One forearm rested on the table. In the opposite hand, he held a thick slice of bread from the loaf I had bought that morning on Magazine Street .
The loaf came from the little bakery near Sixth, the one that sold out by noon if the weather was decent. Dominic liked the crust and claimed the interior needed more salt. Thiago had taken one bite earlier, said nothing, and then cut himself three more slices.
He looked up the moment I entered. “What is it?”
I set the score on the table and opened it to the last movement. “Look.”
He put the bread down and wiped his fingers on the napkin beside his plate before looking over the page.
“It’s not original?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“The dynamics. The orchestra fades instead of expressing joy.”
“When did you last handle it?”
“Thursday.” I kept one hand on the score. “Routine maintenance. I checked the shelf, not the contents. The box was in the correct place.”
He glanced up. “The walk-in off the study?”
“Yes.”
“Walk me through the box. Position, order, what you expected.”
I did. He listened without moving. When I finished, he said, “They worked from photographs.”
“That was my conclusion.”
“And they knew the exact box.”
“They knew the exact box and its position on the shelf.” I paused. “They also knew which score Dominic would never check, and I would never discard.”
Thiago looked at the changed markings again. “No other disturbance in the closet?”
“None.”
“Anything else out of place in the study?”
“Not that I saw. I’ll check again.”
“Are you certain the box is original?”
I sighed.
“Right,” he said. “Sorry.”
“I am very certain it was the original box.”
He nodded once. The score lay open on the table beside Michael’s financial report on Henri Fontenot.
Thiago had marked several lines in pencil.
On his legal pad, he had sketched a rough timeline of the threats so far: the shot, sheet music, baton, watch, and podium placement.
Outward escalations and inward violations, two lines moving in parallel toward the concert date.
“It changes the frame,” he said.
“The watch stopped at 8:14 should have changed it.”
“Who knows that closet exists?”
“Anyone who’s spent enough time in the study and pays attention. That doesn’t narrow it as much as I’d like.”
“Who knows how you organize it?”
“That narrows it considerably.”
“Walk me through.”
I took a breath and explained. Board files and orchestra records were kept elsewhere, mostly in the Orpheum’s archive room. This closet was personal, but not secret. A handful of other people had seen the interior.
Fewer would know I arranged by period rather than strictly by composer or genre. Fewer still would know “Saints” materials occupied the middle shelf because Dominic could reach there without stretching.
Thiago watched my face while I spoke.
At the end he said, “This isn’t someone testing access.”
“No. They already know they have it.”
“It’s vandalism,” he said.
“In a sense. They’re revising history.”
Thiago reached for the bread, tore off a corner, and ate it while looking at the altered marking.
“I want to recheck the study side entrance and the second-floor interior cameras,” he said.
“I’m going to Bywater.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“To see my cousin, Camille. You stay here with Eamon and Dominic.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and I braced for disagreement. Instead, he said, “Text me when you get there.”
***
By the time I reached Camille’s café in the Bywater, my adrenaline had mostly burned off, leaving me thinking clearly about the archive violation. She was behind the counter tallying a vendor invoice with her reading glasses low on her nose. I stepped inside.
“You look awful,” she said.
“I look like someone who needs coffee.”
“That, too.”
She immediately poured me a cup. It was mid-afternoon, and the café was nearly empty. Two men in Saints caps sat near the window, sharing a plate of beignets. A woman at the back table was marking up a manuscript and arguing with someone on her phone.
I took the cup and stood at the end of the counter. “Long week.”
“Tell me about the bodyguard.”
I gave her the look her question deserved.
“What? You bring him up twice in one week and then stand in my café with that face? I’m family. This is what I’m here for.”
“First, he’s a security professional, not a bodyguard. He’s good at his job.”
Camille’s eyebrows rose.
“He is,” I said.
“Is he cute?”
I took a long sip of the coffee.
“There it is,” she said.
“I did not answer that question.”
“No, you stalled, and that is an answer to that question.” She folded her arms. “What actually brought you down here?”
I set the cup down. “Someone got into Dominic’s private archive and replaced a score.”
“Replaced it with what?”
“A copy. Modified at the end.”
“How?”
“Changed a crescendo to a diminuendo on the last page.”
Camille stared at me for half a beat, then exhaled. “That’s hateful.”
“Yes.”
“Musician hateful, too. Very niche.”
“Unfortunately.”
She thought about it, tapping one nail against the counter. “You mentioned the Orpheum the other night.”
“I did.”
“My neighbor, Rodney, catered a fundraiser there in the spring. Preservation people and donors. It was the usual crowd with opinions about restoration and no experience carrying anything heavier than cutlery.”
“That sounds right.”
“He said there was an older man not on the guest list who spent a long time in the lobby with the facilities manager. Long enough that Rodney noticed. The man wasn’t drinking or circulating. Rodney said he held himself like someone doing arithmetic in his head.”
I sipped again.
“What did Rodney mean by that?”
“He didn’t say exactly. Only that it didn’t feel social. That made him stand out in the crowd.”
“How long was he there?”
“Forty minutes. Possibly more.”
“Did Rodney describe him?”
“She did. Short, white hair. Dark jacket. Do you know who it is?”
“I could make an educated guess.”
“Do you want the facilities manager’s name?”
“I think I know him.”
“Luca.” Her voice softened. “Is Dominic in danger? Are you?”
I considered softening my response and decided not to. “Yes.”
She tensed. “And the security professional?”
“Is doing his job.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
No one in my family ever let a deflection pass if they could help it. I hated and respected it in equal measure.
“He leaves when the job ends,” I said.
Camille studied me. “Well, that’s a different danger altogether.”
I finished the coffee and kissed her cheek on my way out.
Two blocks down the street, I called my mother. She answered on the second ring from the funeral home office. I heard paperwork shifting in the background before I heard her voice.
“You sound tired,” she said.
“I’ve earned it.”
“What happened?”
I told her about Henri again. I shared what I’d seen at the donor reception: the controlled cough into a handkerchief and how he conserved movement throughout the evening.
She was quiet for a moment.
“That’s a man who’s running on a timeline,” she said.
I set out walking toward Canal Street. “Do you think he’s ill?”
“I think he knows something about his body that he’s decided is nobody else’s business.” Papers shifted on her end. “In my experience, he’s likely to be counting the days or weeks left.”
“I grew up in your office,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I know what that looks like.”
“I know you do.”
She asked, “How is the bodyguard?”
I glanced at the three spires in Jackson Square. “Professional. Steady. Calm in a way that would be insufferable if he were less often right.”
“Mm.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“It sounded like one.” She paused. “Are you giving yourself permission here, or are you already finding reasons not to?”
I should have moved on to another topic. Instead, “He leaves when the job ends.”
“Then you need to figure out what happens after.”
“Mama.”
“I didn’t say make a permanent decision by Tuesday. I suggest that you don’t build the wall before you’ve stood in the room. You know the difference.”
“I have a job,” I said.
“So does he. And yet here you both are.” She let that settle for a moment. “Your grandmother’s pouch is in your pocket.”
I stopped. “How did you know that?”
“Because you carry it with you when you’re trying to sort something out.”
“I have to go,” I said.
“Eat something.”
“I always do.”
I hung up.
Before I reached Canal Street, I turned toward the river. I chose a bench facing the Mississippi where it curved broad and brown past the levee, higher than the streets behind it, carrying its usual freight of silt and commerce. Two container barges were moving downstream.
I sat there long enough for my pulse to even out. Then my father called.
“Luca.”
“Hi, Papa.”
“You mentioned Henri Fontenot the other day.”
“Yes.”
“I was in the CBD this morning checking a warehouse lot. Canal Street reminded me of a project, and I decided to call you. Henri co-funded it through the Preservation Alliance back in ninety-two. It was a community music space. I salvaged ironwork from the building before a partial demolition. It’s still in my warehouse. ”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because that building ultimately turned into something else. The community use got stripped out. Henri fought for three years to stop it and lost.” A pause. “That was one building. I’ve heard his name on three or four others, going back decades.”
“Are you saying his investment in this city is older than I would understand?”
“I’m saying a man like that has been watching things he built get turned into other things for fifty years. You asked me once what that does to a person.” He paused for a few beats. “Depends on whether they properly grieve it or keep count.”
A towboat pushed against the current on the river, engine audible across the water.
“He kept count,” I said.
“That’s my guess.”
We said goodbye, and I sat another minute watching the river move. Then I stood and walked the rest of the way home.