Stuart Kaminsky - Poor Butterfly

“We won’t,” he said. “You’ll see me soon. Ah, wait. A present before I take my leave.”

Something whirled from the darkness under the boxes across from where I was standing. Whatever it was flew toward me. I moved to my right and the thing hit the wall of the box and clattered to the floor. I got up and looked over the railing. I thought I saw a figure, black against black. I know I heard a door close.

I considered getting out, down the stairs and after him, but I knew I had no chance. Instead I reached down and picked up the ax Erik had thrown. The light was bad, but even in the dimness I could see there was something wet and sticky on the blade. I had a few guesses about what it might be.

It was late afternoon when Lundeen and I and a young woman named Gwen, who seemed to have no lips and eyes twice the size of normal behind thick glasses, put together the notes on where everyone in the building said they were when Lorna Bartholomew was attacked. Gwen, in addition to having no lips, had no breasts and no sense of humor. She was, Lundeen explained, a volunteer, a graduate student of music history at the University of San Francisco. Gwen was wearing a green dress with puffy shoulders and ruffles around the collar.

We were sitting in Lundeen’s office at his conference table. Lundeen needed a shave and a new tie or a thinner neck. He kept shaking his head at the pile of papers. I had already called Los Angeles and told my “team of agents” to get to San Francisco by the next morning.

“Gwen,” I said.

She looked up from putting the scraps of paper into neat piles.

“Yes,” she said, giving me her full attention.

“You know what to do?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m checking alibis. And you want me to see who, if anyone, doesn’t have reasonable corroboration, an alibi, for the period in question. You’d like me to do the same for the period in which Mr. Wyler the plasterer died. In that case, I am to determine who was at the rehearsal.”

Lundeen looked at the girl hopefully. Perhaps she would solve all of his problems. The police had certainly failed to solve any of them.

After Erik had heaved the ax, Lundeen had insisted on calling the authorities. About twenty minutes later a pair of cops were ushered by Raymond into the mezzanine box where Lundeen and I were waiting. On the main floor, about forty people were gathered, waiting to find out why they had been called. The workers weren’t complaining. They were paid by the hour. Some of the opera staff were grumbling. There were no musicians around. Lundeen assured me there was no way he could have kept any musicians sitting around waiting for the police.

The two cops asked who we were, where they could get more light, and why the auditorium was full of people. Raymond shuffled off to turn on the lights.

“Old guy’s nuts,” said one of the cops, who identified himself-when urged by me-as Sergeant Preston. Sergeant Preston had a craggy face and a thin body with a little cop gut. He wore a suit and the suit was clean, but it should have been turned in to the Salvation Army for rags.

“Nuts,” agreed his partner, a big man with a constant smile and rapidly thinning blond hair who introduced himself as Inspector Sunset. Sunset’s suit had a few years left in it.

They listened to our story. Sunset took a few notes, enough to keep us from claiming he wasn’t paying attention. Preston listened but with no real interest. He was looking over the railing at the people below. After he’d listened to our story, Sunset looked down at the ax.

“Never been to an opera,” Preston said.

“I have,” said Sunset. “On the carrier Forrestall . Don’t remember what it was. We thought it was going to be scary, about bats. Fat guy sang in German.”

“That fat guy was me,” Lundeen said. He had been sitting on one of the plush but dusty chairs. Now he stood.

Sunset looked over at him as the full lights went on.

“Fact?” he said.

“You can put it in your notebook,” Lundeen assured him. “And I weighed no more than two-twenty when I gave that performance.”

“None of my business,” said Sunset with a smile, looking down at the ax and seeing it now in better light. “Looks like blood all right.”

“Take it in for Grunding,” said Preston, still looking over the railing. “And get their statements. Standing here looking down makes you want to give a speech. You know, I did a little singing when I was just starting on the force?”

“Yeah?” said Sunset with genuine interest.

“Crooning,” said Preston, turning from the railing, looking at Lundeen. “No opera.”

“No opera?” Lundeen said. “Pity. Then we have less in common than I had hoped.”

“Just for the police shows, kids-even got on the radio once.”

“You think we might talk about murder, attempted murder?” I interjected.

Preston gave me a sour look and glanced at Sunset, who shrugged as he picked up the ax with a handkerchief.

“A man named Wyler was killed here a few days ago,” I said. “And today someone tried to kill me with that and strangle Leopold Stokowski’s assistant, Lorna Bartholomew.”

“So you said,” sighed Preston. “Voices, butterflies, phantoms. I saw the movie. Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy. Now that’s a great singer.”

Lundeen groaned. “Nelson Eddy is a flat baritone,” he said.

“Sounds fine to me and the wife,” said Preston.

“You and your wife …” Lundeen started, but I interrupted him.

“You have witnesses, Sergeant,” I said, knowing where we would get before we got there.

“Witnesses,” said Preston, moving back to the railing. “The plasterer fell. No one was there. The Bartholomew woman might be having her period or something and you, you’re getting paid to hear voices and find murder weapons. Five will get you ten that’s not human blood on that ax.”

“It’s not,” Sunset agreed.

“Show business people have imaginations,” said Preston. “I’ll give you that.”

That was about the time Raymond returned and asked, “I miss anything?”

“The 1930s,” I said.

Preston chuckled. “You got a sense of humor,” he said. “I like that Let’s go, Al.”

“Let’s … that’s it?” asked Lundeen, looking at me. “What about protection? Investiga … Why don’t you go down and question everyone?”

“Not the way it works,” said Preston, nodding to Sunset to head for the door. “Put a little evidence together here. A body or two with a bullet or knife wound and we’ll talk business. You,” he continued, pointing at me. “Come with us for a second.”

I followed the two cops out into the hall. Raymond started to follow but was waved back in by Sunset, who closed the door with one hand and held the ax with the other. He didn’t seem to be worrying about blood or fingerprints anymore. He lifted the ax up like a bat and began to swing at pitches from a Yankee down the hall. Preston came close enough so that I could smell his Sen-Sen.

“Peters,” he said. “Cut the shit. Tell these people to get their publicity some other way besides finding phantoms.”

“No shit here, Preston,” I said.

“We wouldn’t even be here if the Captain wasn’t afraid Stokowski would raise a stink,” he said. “And I don’t want to come back. We understand each other?”

“You want a murder,” I said.

“It helps,” he agreed. “Aren’t you a little old for this kind of garbage?”

“Aren’t you a little old to still be a sergeant?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Wife thinks it’s the name. You know, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Thinks the Captain won’t put me in for a promotion because he likes making the joke. I don’t contradict the wife, but the truth is I’m a mediocre cop waiting to collect pension. That’s just between you and me, right? I don’t want trouble.”