Steve’s Shorts: Mayhem, Murder, and Music’s The Tightrope Walker…Part One of Three
[Note from Steve: Today it’s a doubleheader. Here you have part one of a short story. Next you have a book review of a very intense and weird book, but in a good way. The short story is a new one in my continuing series of stories inspired by music. I’ve decided to title this series of short stories as above, so don’t be surprised to see a short story collection later on that sports this title. For now, you can read them for free and find it, along with the others, in “Steve’s Shorts.” This one is inspired by the Second Movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. If you think that dude is an impressionist/jazz “classical” composer, think again. This music is about as romantic as you can get. Enjoy. And don’t forget the review.]
The Tightrope Walker, Part One of Three
Copyright 2015, Steven M. Moore
Yuri Ledovskoy was the son of immigrants. His father had been a doctor; his mother a pianist and prof in a local music school. I accepted the tea she offered. Didn’t like it much, although I’ve heard it’s an Irish staple, but some people even in the U.S. think it’s the civilized thing to offer. Couldn’t much turn it down. I was on duty, but tea didn’t qualify as an alcoholic beverage that would impair my on-the-job performance.
I’d introduced myself to Mrs. Ledovskoy at the ME’s when she came to identify her son’s body. She immediately went from Sgt. Myra O’Connell, NYPD Homicide, to just plain Myra. Made me think she was a good music teacher, at least in making her students comfortable. The situation was worse for her than me.
Not exactly pleasant circumstances; her life would start and end badly. Both she and her husband had been in Nazi camps as very young children. They weren’t Jews, but the SS had also put suspected commies in the camps after Stalin joined up with Churchill and later Roosevelt to defeat the Nazis. We’d agreed to meet at her house because I had some more background questions.
The ME had declared the case a homicide. It was an unusual one. The son was practicing his circus tightrope walk when he fell. He broke many things when he landed, but the ME said he was already dead. Someone had shot him from below—a gun with a silencer, no doubt, because there was a small audience even for a rehearsal—the bullet had entered the base of the neck and out the top of his head, so he was shot on the wire. Every member in the circus was under suspicion.
“If you’ll pardon me saying so, didn’t your son have an unusual profession for someone who has such accomplished parents?”
Evgeniya Ledovskoy eyed me over the brim of her cup. “You don’t have children, I take it?”
As a detective, a person answering a question with another question is problematic. In this case, it was also personal. I eyed the elderly woman a moment. She was pale and wrinkled, but her blue eyes beamed intelligence and good humor.
“Not yet,” I said with a smile. My mother had five by my age. I wasn’t that good of a Catholic. You say Hail Mary and I first think of a last minute pass in a football game, a la Doug Flutie. “Maybe someday.”
“We only had Yuri, but that’s irrelevant. Parents should let their children seek their own futures. We can guide them, educate them, and offer them different opportunities, but they must make their own choices. We have the freedom to do that in this country. It’s an important one. Parents shouldn’t push their children into bad choices. It only can breed resentment in future years.”
I nodded toward the grand piano. “Did Yuri play?”
“He grew out of it. Once we took him to see Cirque du Soleil, he was hooked. He did gymnastics in school, but dropped out of college to join the circus. As a matter of fact, he was quite good at everything acrobatic. He died doing what he loved, I suppose.”
“You probably didn’t know all his associates, but any love interests or friends who might help me?”
“He had a girlfriend named Tara.”
“Another acrobat?”
“A clown.” She reacted to my grin. “It happens. I mean, women can be clowns too. Women can be anything these days, thank God. I saw where two even became Army Rangers. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
Felt we were getting distracted. “Would this Tara know if he had enemies?”
“Probably, at least since she knew him in the circus. His best friend was Arthur Hill. They went to school together; he’s a trader on Wall Street now. I suppose Yuri had many other friends in the circus too. My Yuri was quite sociable.”
“Someone certainly didn’t like him,” I said.
***
Tara Finley was less than five feet tall—a little doll with a perfect figure, she was a miniature version of Botticelli’s Venus. Couldn’t imagine her as a clown, but what do I know?
“Of course Yuri had enemies. We’re performers. Professional jealousies and squabbles often occur. I don’t know anyone who would go as far as to kill him, though.” She dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “He had a fight with Mark once about salary. The GM’s always trying to nickel-and-dime us. It’s tough to make a living in the circus anymore. PETA’s made us get rid of all the animals. Next thing you know they’ll succeed in eliminating the carriage horses in Central Park. People love animals. A circus isn’t really a circus without them.”
The tears seemed real, but aren’t circus performers actors? Certainly clowns were.
I saw strength in that petite figure, and maybe some inner turmoil. Tara was in perfect shape. Imagined being a clown was strenuous, so she had to be physically fit. She wore her auburn hair cut short. Business casual described her outfit. She didn’t look like a clown. She looked like a woman from Madison Avenue.
I’m small too. Not as small as Tara, but I wondered if her size made it more difficult to get ahead in a man’s world. Or, did the circus respect women’s talents more than the NYPD? Female cops are more common than female firefighters, but machismo is present in both professions. It’s better now than it used to be, though.
“But you’re still performing.”
“What else can I do? Go back to school?” She laughed. “Maybe I could become a politician. There are plenty of clowns in politics, especially in DC. One of them is right here leading the charge against the carriage horses.”
She obviously didn’t like New York’s current mayor. “You’re only a bit older than I am,” I said.
“So, would you go back to school?”
“I guess. If I had to. I don’t have to. But back to the enemies and friends. Where can I find this Mark?”
***
Mark Travers wasn’t an ogre. The GM had a business to run. Many like him were caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to balance shareholders’ desire for profits against giving their employees a decent salary. Public service was immune to that for the most part, and I was thankful for it. I put the man low on my list of suspects. Call it woman’s intuition if you like—I just call it a gut feeling. All cops have them. Didn’t know if there were stats on how often we’re wrong.
Arthur Hill, the Wall Street trader, was more helpful.
“That’s a nice piece,” I said.
Hill cocked his head and listened to the music playing in the background. I thought it was pretty awesome to have a sumptuous office with its own sound system. I shared mine with many other detectives, most of them slobs.
“The second movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. That’s Mrs. Ledovskoy playing with the university orchestra. She’s quite good. I can sit and listen to her playing Chopin nocturnes forever.”
“In performances or privately?”
“Both for the Chopin. After-dinner hours were quite high class at Yuri’s home, and I was often invited to stay over for dinner. Loved it. She can cook as well as she plays the piano. A regular Julia Child.”
“You were obviously a good friend. Any idea who might have killed him?”
“Don’t look for culprits in the circus,” he said. “They’re pretty much all friends, near as I can tell, except for having occasional problems with management. I’m betting on Cynthia Brock. She had a thing for Yuri and was practically stalking him. Even at thirty-five, he was still in great shape. She seemed to back off when Yuri started dating Tara, though. Surprised me—he was a confirmed bachelor until then. He was about to take the plunge maybe.” He grinned. “I suppose that’s a bad pun, considering how he died. I mean that he and Tara were getting real serious.”
“How did he meet Cynthia? And who is she? What does she do?”
“Cynthia doesn’t do much of anything. She’s a spoiled daddy’s girl. She went to Barnard and studied something useless, but she’s never worked a day in her life. Her father works here in the bank. He works for me, as a matter of fact, although he’s much older. Won’t retire, but he doesn’t need to work. Never did, because his family’s old wealth. One of the few hundred families that finance GOP candidates—that one-tenth of one percent who think they own the country and have no love for the common man.”
“That’s quite a put-down coming from someone in your position.”
“Oh, please. My parents were dirt poor and instilled in me a work ethic I’ve never lost, in spite of my success. I put myself through college and grad school on my own dime and took longer to do it as a result. I live modestly too. Someday I hope to meet a nice lady and forget all this stress and hassle. Maybe buy a farm somewhere. My family owned one when I was young.”
“But you went to school with Yuri?”
“High school and the start of college, until he bailed for the circus. We were still best of friends, though.”
“Where can I find this Cynthia?”
Hill pulled out his cell phone, checked, and then wrote down an address and telephone number.
“Daddy’s house, naturally. I would have erased the data otherwise. She was stalking me before Yuri. I warned him about her.”
“You didn’t say how she met Yuri.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t. Oh, what the hell, you’ll find out anyway. Most of us were in our second or third year of college and all skinny-dipping in Daddy’s pool. Did it off and on since high school. She bounced from me to Yuri like a steel ball in an old arcade game. He was impressing everyone with his fancy diving. Her too. I warned him about her afterwards.”
“What was the specific warning?”
“That she’s very jealous and possessive about her men,” said Hill.
“I sense there’s more to it than that. Personal experience?”
“As you might expect, it’s all about her needs, even in bed.”
“You obviously slept with her. Did Yuri?”
“They might have that night. Can’t imagine they did much, though. They were both wasted.”
“Drugs?”
“Maybe on Cynthia’s part. Yuri and I never went beyond the occasional stick. Who needs that heavy crap? No three-martini lunches for me either.”
***
I felt inadequate driving up to the Brock mansion in my little squad car I’d checked out of the precinct’s pool. Upstate New York can be beautiful. The mansion was gorgeous. It reeked of old money.
The butler showed me to a living room that was a relic from the Victorian age. A large portrait of a gentleman with serious sideburns graced one wall. It had a frame that was so ornate that it distracted from the dark painting. Besides the sideburns, the old man had his hair parted in the middle and wore one of those fancy ties and a high, starched collar. He had struck a Napoleonic pose, hand thrusted in vest.
“Great-grandfather Hamilton Brock,” said a man entering the room with hand outstretched. “I’m Hamilton Brock the Fourth. I’m afraid the name stops with me, though. I had no sons. The genetic line ends here too. I doubt my daughter will ever have children. She’ll never settle down long enough with one man.”
I shook hands with Brock. Showed him my creds.
“Shall we sit, Detective?” He gestured toward a huge leather wing chair. It swallowed me, and he took a seat on a sofa across from me. “I suppose you’re here about Yuri.”
He seemed pleasant enough. I could see the family resemblance. He was formally dressed. Figured his tailored three-piece suit cost as much as my monthly salary.
“Did you know him well?”
“I knew of him. He and others belonged to a group in high school everyone, including Cynthia, called the nerd herd. As it turns out, I now work for one of them, one of life’s ironies. I’m sure you obtained my name that way.” I nodded. “Arthur’s an up-and-coming trader, smart as a whip, and he was the leader of the pack, so to speak. My Cynthia wanted to be in that group, but she was never the academic type. I’m afraid that some high school boys sullied her reputation too.”
“Were Arthur or Yuri in that group?”
“The despoilers? Maybe. Kids today are pretty wild, and Cynthia was no exception. The nerd herd stayed together pretty well into college, mostly in the summer when the kids were back from school. Arthur and Yuri partied with the rest, but both were working their butts off. I have to admire them for that. My daughter hasn’t done any real work her whole life.”
“So, was her reputation sullied or did she seduce boys?” I said with a smile.
He shrugged. “I see your point. Today it’s hard to tell. Great-grandmother had to be courted by great-grandfather, and they had to be chaperoned right up to their wedding night. That’s all changed. Even in my case, I was living with my bride-to-be before marriage. It’s a different time.”
“Would you say Cynthia is the jealous type?”
“Oh, she can be a real witch. You’re not suggesting she had something to do with Yuri’s death, are you?”
“No, I’m asking whether she was jealous of Tara. Must be hard to lose your man to a clown.”
“Detective, I didn’t even know my daughter and Yuri were close. And I have no idea who Tara is. I suppose Arthur told you Cynthia’s the jealous type?”
“Mr. Hill said Cynthia was stalking Yuri. You didn’t know that?”
“I don’t think it’s true. Her crowd wasn’t the nerd herd. I think she just liked some of the boys in that group—they were here in pool parties enough, from high school into college—but she isn’t a stalker. Isn’t it usually men who are the stalkers?”
“Often, but it can go both ways,” I said. “So, as far as you know, she wasn’t jealous of Tara?”
“If she were jealous of that girl, wouldn’t she have killed her and not Yuri?”
“That’s not the way it usually works. By killing Yuri, she also punishes Tara. Jealousy can also breed complex schemes for revenge.”
“I see. That’s a very dark view of relationships.”
“The genesis of that view lies in experience, Mr. Brock,” I said. “Where can I find Cynthia now?”
“She’s in a convent,” he said and laughed upon seeing my expression. “It’s somewhere in upstate New York. A bunch of theater people come together and put on dramas there during the summer while working and meditating with the religious folk. I can find the address for you, but she’ll be home next week. She’ll want to go to Yuri’s funeral. It’ll be Russian Orthodox I assume, but that’s pretty close to Catholic.”
I asked him to write down the information about the convent, but this early in my investigations, I wasn’t about to run off to upstate New York. I would try to build a case against Cynthia first and keep my eye peeled for other suspects.
***
In elibris libertas…
