Orchestrated Murder Read Online Free Page B

gave her some time to regain control.
    â€œDid you come to this morning’s rehearsal together?”
    â€œOf course not! I took a cab from his place around nine o’clock and went home to change clothes.”
    â€œThen you came here.”
    She just kept from rolling her eyes. “We had a rehearsal.”
    â€œDid you speak to him at all after you left his apartment?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou had no communication whatsoever? You didn’t, for instance, go up to his office during the break?”
    She looked really horrified. “Are you suggesting I murdered him?”
    â€œI’m only trying to find out what happened. You were intimate with the man. It’s a logical question.”
    â€œNo! I didn’t go to his office. Luigi was in a very bad mood. I stayed in the rehearsal room to practice. Ask anyone in the orchestra. I was there for the entire break.”
    â€œWe will be asking.”
    â€œEveryone stayed either in the rehearsal room or the corridor outside. Some would have used the restrooms, I suppose. The break was only supposed to be a short one. We all stuck close by.”
    â€œNo. One of you was up in Spadafini’s office, strangling him.”
    Sofia Barna put her hand to her mouth and bolted from the stage.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    P ratt stood in the doorway to the dead conductor’s office again. In the hall behind him, the ambulance crew was waiting impatiently. It was nearly time to remove the body.
    The Scene of Crime team had marked a number of things too small to see on the floor. With numbers beside each one, a team member was busy snapping photos. Two more were dusting the window frames for prints. The gray powder they used completely covered the desk. The team leader was crouched over the body watching the medical examiner do his thing.
    Pratt called to the team leader, a man he knew well. “Frank, can you spare a minute?”
    Frank Johnson walked to the doorway. “What can I do for you, Pratt?”
    â€œHow far have you gotten?”
    Pratt braced himself. Johnson, known as a bit of a wiseass, liked to answer questions with song titles. He didn’t disappoint.
    â€œWell, I’ll tell ya, it seems to be a case of ‘Nothing from Nothing Leaves Nothing.’ Whoever did the deed didn’t leave much behind as far as we can see.”
    â€œNo fingerprints?”
    â€œNot many. Mr. Conductor Man over there seems to have been a bit of a neatnik. According to that guy Browne, the office would be cleaned at least once a day.”
    â€œNot many? I suppose you’re going to have to fingerprint that whole crew in the basement, aren’t you?”
    Pratt sighed. “I suppose it will come to that. How about the body and the murder weapon?”
    â€œWe’re not going to get anything out of the murder weapon, if I know my job. I found a few smudges consistent with gloves. Hard to tell what kind. We’ll check for residue, but it will take time.”
    â€œAnd the body?”
    â€œThere’s a bruise in the center of the guy’s back consistent with somebody leaning on him with one knee and pulling back. That metal cable—”
    â€œCello string,” Pratt added absently.
    â€œRight. Your young assistant told us that’s what it was. Anyway, the cello string dug into the guy’s throat pretty deeply. A lot of bruising there.”
    Pratt and Johnson were joined by the medical examiner. “Death would have been pretty quick with that type of ligature,” he told them as he peeled off his latex gloves. “Just the amount of time it took the victim’s lungs to run out of oxygen.”
    â€œAnd those drum mallets used to secure the ends of the cello string?” Pratt asked both of them.
    The medico answered. “It would have been hard to hold a small cable like that really tight with bare or even gloved hands. Quite ingenious to use those sticks, actually. The murderer could make