Chapter 17 #2
“A simple ‘please’ would have done the trick. Fine, I’ll get you a San Francisco–Warsaw flight. I can’t promise it’ll be direct, but I’ll make sure you get there on time. And you, you’d better play like a god, jet lag be damned.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Arrogant to boot! I hear you slipped up at Pleyel last Friday. The conductor was not pleased.”
“Bad workmen blame their tools. If he had done a better job conducting, he wouldn’t have had anything to complain about.”
“Right, it’s his fault. Of course. Well, since I’m now apparently a travel agent as well as your music agent, I will take care of your problem and then get back to work.
I’ll send you an email with the details.
Don’t miss that plane, Thomas. Warsaw is expecting you, and the concert is fully booked. ”
Thomas promised and hung up. He kept his phone in his hand to type a message, which he sent just before going back in to see his father.
Manon looked at her phone and smiled as she reread the message.
I missed my plane. Is your invitation to dinner still open?
How did you manage that?
It doesn’t take off until this afternoon.
How do you know that?
I have a gift.
So do I. Mine’s missing planes that haven’t left yet.
Okay.
***
Okay to dinner!
Where would you like to go?
Pick me up at the bookstore at 7.
On Geary Boulevard?
Good memory. See you later.
Thomas put his phone away and walked into the living room.
“Are you ready?” his father asked.
“I’m not leaving.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re still here. I’ll stay with you until the end. That’s what it means to be a son.”
Raymond turned around and smiled. “I’m so glad to have one.”
Then he returned to his episode.
Pilguez arrived at Mr. Bartel’s home around noon.
His long career had taught him to pay special attention to the way people reacted when they first saw his badge.
Surprise, distrust, or goodwill—each one said a lot.
Mr. Bartel’s reaction, however, didn’t fit any of these categories.
In fact, he seemed to have been waiting for the detective. It was almost like he was relieved.
“Ah, so they’ve decided to file charges. I was just about to do it myself.”
“Is the urn yours?”
“Of course, it’s my wife’s.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“In the library.”
“With Colonel Mustard?”
“Excuse me?”
“If the urn contains your wife’s ashes, why did you steal it?”
“I didn’t steal anything at all. What are you talking about? The manager of the Columbarium knows very well why I couldn’t let him keep her.”
“I’ve come straight from his office, and he didn’t seem to be in the know.”
Pilguez studied his surroundings. Wainscoting, crown moldings, fine oak detailing, antique furniture, paintings by master artists on the walls—luxury in all its forms. It occurred to him that his entire salary wouldn’t be enough to purchase the pair of wing chairs in front of him.
“Something doesn’t make sense. A man of your circumstances would have called his lawyers instead of breaking a window. What came over you?”
“I don’t understand a single thing you’re saying. Someone tried to open my wife’s urn after the funeral. I assumed it was the work of an unstable person and asked Dignity Memorial to give it back to me to prevent him from doing it again. I signed a form and brought Camille back home.”
“Your deceased wife, I assume.”
“What window are you talking about?”
Pilguez didn’t answer. Instead, he asked Mr. Bartel if his daughter was in.
“Manon? What does she have to do with any of this?”
“Your wife isn’t the only one to have left the Columbarium. An urn was stolen last night, and the only lead I have—if it’s even a lead at all, I have my doubts about that—is a gardener’s claim that he saw a suspicious man in the park with your daughter.”
“Come in,” Bartel ordered. “I might know who he is.”
Pilguez followed Mr. Bartel to his office.
The splendor of the first room was nothing compared to the ostentatious luxury he found in this one.
A Louis XVI desk with matching marquise chairs, Persian rugs—even the wallpaper and curtains looked priceless.
The detective gawked at a Picasso and a van Gogh.
“Do you like art?” Bartel asked.
“I do when it’s in a museum. Might I ask what you do for a living?”
“If you think it will help with your investigation.”
“No, I’m just curious. You said you knew the suspect?”
“I said I think I might know who he is. That’s not exactly the same thing. But before I say more, I need to know you’ll leave my daughter out of all this.”
“I promise to do my job. We’ll see about the rest.”
The two men sized each other up, then Bartel turned his computer screen around.
“Are you going to a concert tonight?” Pilguez asked as he studied the poster on the screen.
“This is your criminal.”
Pilguez leaned in and examined the features of the pianist posing in front of a grand piano at Stockholm’s opera house.
“What makes you so sure? Sweden isn’t exactly next door.”
“He was there yesterday, at the Columbarium. I recognize him.”
“But, just moments ago, you corrected me, saying you didn’t know him. So, how did you identify this person as Thomas Saurel?”
“By looking up ‘pianist,’ ‘French,’ and ‘concerts.’ It’s not rocket science. I’ll be sure to donate some money to your precinct so you can replace your typewriters with computers,” Bartel joked bitterly.
Pilguez stared at the bereaved man, a fiery look in his eyes.
“You’re arrogant, just like every other person who’s never had to struggle.
But your show of money doesn’t impress me.
You couldn’t pay me to spend a single night in this house.
You’d better change your tone if you want this conversation to continue. ”
Bartel looked at his feet and, after a brief silence, apologized, blaming his behavior on the pain of having lost his wife.
“Who told you he was French?” Pilguez asked as he sat down on the corner of the desk.
“Manon.”
“So, she knows him well, then?”
“No,” Bartel protested. “She met him the day before yesterday at the mausoleum. They ran into each other, and he told her he was a musician. When she learned yesterday morning that our organist was unable to perform, she asked him to perform in his place.”
“And he accepted.”
“Just to have an in, I’m sure of it.”
“But he could have just walked right in, couldn’t he? The Columbarium is open to visitors.”
“I mean he wanted to get access to Camille!”
“Maybe, but why would a renowned concert pianist want to open an urn? It’s a bit morbid.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Manon doesn’t know most of what I’m about to tell you. And I need it to stay that way.”
Pilguez listened patiently as Mr. Bartel told him all about what had brought him to the United States over twenty years earlier.
“All right, so let’s imagine this young man wanted to see what his father’s mistress looked like.
Actually, he was a little late for that, wasn’t he?
But let’s imagine it was him anyway. What you’re suggesting is a misdemeanor, but not a serious crime.
That still doesn’t link him to the robbery case I’m working on. ”
“Of course it does. That troublemaker wanted to damage my wife’s urn, despite the fact that she never even became the mistress of that sneaky surgeon.
Since he missed his first chance, he came back at night, found Camille’s cabinet empty, guessed the manager had put the urn in a safe place, and broke into his office to find it. Only, the idiot took the wrong urn.”
“A postmortem vendetta. It’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? In any case, I don’t buy it.”
“But it’s so obvious. He wanted to succeed where his father had failed by kidnapping my wife!”
“To do what, take her on a date? Be reasonable, Mr. Bartel. I know you’re going through a difficult time, but you have to admit that it doesn’t make any sense.
How old is this man, in his thirties? If he’s performing for the Queen of Sweden, he must be doing pretty well as a pianist. Do you really think he’d cross the Atlantic and risk ruining his life just to get revenge for his father?
By stealing ashes? I don’t know a single prosecutor in town who would agree to file charges against someone with such a crazy motive. ”
“A man tries to steal my wife, then his son turns up at her funeral. And you think that’s a coincidence?” Bartel shouted as he pounded his fist on the desk.
“Your wife was not a Louis XVI desk. And since she followed you here, no one stole her. Besides, all this took place so long ago. Did the son even know your wife?”
“Of course he knew her. Camille and Raymond used our children as an excuse to be together. They met on the sly next to the merry-go-round, by the swings, or at the beach. That’s where I caught them.”
“But it was so long ago that your daughter didn’t even recognize the child she used to play with. Did this boy maintain any sort of relationship with your wife? Did they see each other after you moved?”
Clearly outraged by the question, Bartel loudly replied that that was obviously impossible.
“Let me suggest a slightly more believable version of the facts. Our pianist, in San Francisco—maybe for a concert—learns that your wife’s funeral will take place during his stay.
If we suppose he knew anything about his parents’ love lives—which, need I remind you, your daughter didn’t—he decides to attend, out of curiosity.
When his childhood friend, who doesn’t recognize him, asks him to help out by replacing the organist, he agrees, maybe even to make up for his father’s mistakes.
All I see is a strange but poetic twist of fate.
I’ll question him, on principle, but believe me, he’s not the culprit. ”
“I don’t know where you’ll find him,” Bartel replied, now more convinced than ever that his version of the facts was the right one.
“I’ll call Immigration Services and have an address by this afternoon.”