A Song for the Asking Page 14

  Travis lowered his eyes at this rebuke. “But …”

  “I’m not saying you’re not an accomplished pianist. Quite the contrary. But there’s some essential, defining quality missing in your music, something holding you back from the promise of genius I know is within you. You’re hiding behind technique, disguising the absence of genuine emotion with facile virtuosity. Years ago, when you began with me, I could excuse your lack of depth because of age. No more, Travis. No more.”

  “I’m sorry. If you’ll just tell me—”

  “Tell you!” Petrinski exploded. “I can’t tell you how to feel! That has to come from your heart!” Then, more calmly, “I’m sorry, Travis, but I can’t teach you something you’re not ready to accept. In that respect the art of teaching is sadly overrated. The time has to be right, and even then all I can do is help you become a better musician, not a great one. That can’t be taught. The elements of discovery must come from within, and I’m beginning to think you’re afraid to look inside yourself, afraid of what you’ll find. Is that it? Is it fear?”

  I’m not afraid.”

  “I think you are. I think you’re terribly afraid.” Petrinski regarded Travis closely. “Tell me something, Travis. Define music.”

  “It’s the art of combining melody and harmony and rhythm.”

  “That’s like saying literature is the art of combining letters and words and phrases.”

  Travis thought hard. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “Okay, listen. Granted, music springs from mathematics and other measurable elements. Its component parts, the nuts and bolts of our musical prose—frequencies, decibels, durations, intervals, rhythms—are combined to form a metaphorical language, but the resultant whole is far more than the sum of those parts. Through music a composer, and later an artist interpreting his work, communicates with an audience on a wordless level, asking questions like: Have you ever experienced this shock, this mystery, this surprise, this anxiety, this release? How is music able to do that, Travis?

  “I … I don’t know. Maybe our ability to perceive harmonic relationships is something that’s hardwired into our brains at birth?”

  Petrinski leaned forward, seeming pleased. “You’re still talking nuts and bolts—words, phrases, and punctuation instead of meaning—but you’re getting there. You’re saying we humans have an innate capacity to perceive the harmonic interdependencies present in tonal music.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now you’re wondering what all this has to do with you, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go back to my original question: What is music? I’ll tell you what I think it is. Although music can be many things, in its truest incarnation, at its deepest core, music is the power to command emotion.”

  Travis felt himself beginning to sweat.

  “But if you don’t feel what you play,” Petrinski said quietly, “neither will anyone else.”

  “No, sir.”

  “When we started this discussion, I said I thought you were afraid of something. Do you want to know what?”

  Travis sat without answering.

  “I think, for some reason, you’re afraid to feel. I don’t know about other aspects of your life, but in music you’ve used your talent to isolate yourself, substituting technique for emotion. Why?”

  Still, Travis remained silent.

  “Are you afraid to let yourself feel? Or are you just afraid of being yourself?”

  Despair descended like a weight on Travis’s chest. “I don’t know.”

  Petrinski regarded his student for what seemed an eternity. Finally he spread his hands. “I’m sorry, Travis. But until you do know, I don’t see any purpose in going on with the Bronislaw pieces. Instead, I’m going to give you something else to work on.”

  “But, sir, I—”

  “No, I’ve thought about this long and hard. I know the competition is coming up and your mother will be disappointed, but this is more important.”

  Petrinski rose and walked to an alcove across the room. After withdrawing several pages of sheet music from a thick folder, he returned and handed them to Travis. “Here.”

  Travis numbly took the pages. “What is it?”

  “Chopin’s Étude No. 3 in E Major. Are you familiar with it?”

  Travis thought carefully, sensing much depended on what happened next. He remembered Chopin had written twenty-seven études, or practice pieces. In them he had demonstrated the uttermost limits of the piano’s resources, each exploring some particular aspect of piano technique, while at the same time creating a profound music filled with subtle and diverse emotional challenges. “Yes, sir,” he said at last. “I’ve heard it, of course. I don’t remember it, though.”

  It’s one of Chopin’s early works, and one he considered among his most beautiful. He asked that it be played for him on his deathbed.” Petrinski placed his hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Learn it. I think you’ll find things in it that may surprise you. Don’t listen to anyone else’s version; I want yours, only yours. Come back when you can tell me how you feel when you play it, and not until then. In the meantime, think about what I’ve said.”

  “Yes, sir.” Woodenly clutching the sheet music in his hand, Travis rose and walked to the door.

  “And Travis?”

  Travis turned in the entry, looking back at the white-haired man standing by the piano, the man who had guided his progress for the past ten years, the man who had been his friend for almost as long as he could remember, and the man who was now questioning the very ties of their relationship.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I’ll be waiting. Don’t take too long.”

  10

  Tuesday afternoon, after witnessing the postmortem examination performed on Angelo Martin at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, Kane returned to the West L.A. station. Shortly after arriving, he received a phone call. “Kane,” he said, lifting the receiver.

  “Detective Kane, this is Gary Street. I was the officer who—”

  “Yeah, Street. I know who you are. What’ve you got?”

  “Well, sir, remember you suggested that I check yesterday evening to see whether anyone was living in those bushes? You know, inside the fence?”

  “Yeah. Turned out to be a dead end.”

  “Yes, sir. But I went back again around midnight. Guess what? This time somebody was home.”

  “You went back on your own time?” asked Kane, deciding to do more than call the kid’s sergeant. Patrolman Street deserved a letter.

  “I just thought—”

  “Never mind, Street. I like that kind of initiative. What did you find out?”

  “Well, sir, an old lady’s living there. Says she stays away till late and leaves early so nobody’ll know she’s there. When I rousted her, she was upset about getting discovered. After I got her calmed down, I asked if she’d seen anything the other night. Turns out she did. Just before sunrise she was getting ready to leave when she heard somebody pull up. She looked out and saw two guys dumping a body from the trunk of a car. After that she got scared and ducked back into her box.”

  “Did you get a description?”

  “No, sir. This lady, well, let’s just say she won’t make much of a witness if it ever comes to that. She says there were two of them, though.”

  “Black? White? Hispanic?”

  “She couldn’t tell.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She got a look at the car. Says it was dark-colored, navy blue or black with one of those fancy bird symbols painted on the hood. Sounds like an old Pontiac Firebird to me. And mag wheels. She was definite about that. It’s not much, but …”

  “It’s better than nothing, Street. Good work. I’ll see that the right people hear about it.”

  “Thanks, sir. If there’s anything else, let me know.”

  “As a matter of fact, there is. Bring this lady in. I want to talk to her, show her some pictu
res of magnesium wheels and see whether we can nail down a description.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kane hung up, thinking about Street. The young officer had shown real initiative in running down a witness, the same kind of desire that had enabled Kane to move up to plainclothes just four years from the day he’d graduated from the academy. A smile creased his face. For the first time since Monday, he had a feeling the case might just possibly get closed.

  But by noon the next day—after interviewing the bag lady, recanvassing the neighborhood for anyone else who might have seen the car, and spending fruitless, frustrating hours trying to run down Angelo Martin’s associates and determine his actions during the final hours before his death—Kane was forced to admit he had made little progress. Clearing a space on his desk, he hunched over the lab report on Martin that had come in earlier that day, beginning his review with the serological examination. Not surprisingly, traces of cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana had shown up in the serum samples from Angelo taken at autopsy. He had also tested positive for HIV—not particularly startling in light of the needle tracks present on his arms, but the possibility of sexual transmission couldn’t be ruled out. Kane made a mental note to have CRASH check Angelo’s sexual preferences.

  Continuing, Kane perused the rest of the report. He had almost finished when he sensed someone peering over his shoulder.

  “That the stuff on the Martin kid?”

  Kane glanced up. Arnie’s ponderous form partially blocked the glare from the overheads. He looked tired. Kane noted absently that catching up on the cases shelved during the Bradley kidnapping was taking its toll on everyone, including Arnie. “Yeah,” he said. “Just came in.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  Both men knew it was unlikely that the various forensic reports would prove critical, but two neighborhood canvasses had been unproductive in locating a witness other than the bag lady, no latent prints had been recovered from the corpse, and a grid search of the crime scene had turned up nothing—currently leaving the autopsy and forensic workup their best bet.

  “Give me a minute,” said Kane. He quickly finished scanning the microscopic and chemical analysis of materials taken from the body and crime scene. Then, without referring to the report, he gave Arnie a detailed summary, citing tests, lab and autopsy protocols, and pertinent details. Aware of Kane’s surprising memory, Arnie listened without comment.

  Once he’d finished, Kane rocked back thoughtfully in his chair. “Bottom line, we’ve got three things,” he said. “Ballistics tagged the projectile recovered at autopsy as a .22-caliber short. It’s deformed, but enough for a comparison if we find the gun. The grease smudges on the leg and shirt are identical, the composition consistent with that commonly used in light automotive applications—axle grease, car jacks, that kind of stuff. The fibers we got off the kid’s face are acrylic, probably from a rug or mat.”

  “Like from the trunk of a car.”

  Kane nodded. “That’s how I have it figured. They took Angelo off the street, killed him, stuffed him in the trunk, and dumped him early the next morning. We find the car, we should be able to match the fibers, maybe the grease.”

  “Still think this is tied to the Bradley kidnapping?”

  Kane shrugged. “With the gang connection it’s looking less and less likely, but I don’t know, Arnie. It still seems too coincidental. I phoned the Bureau again today. Sylvia Martin still isn’t talking.”

  Arnie shuffled through the report, checking for something Kane might have missed. “Any progress finding the car?”

  “Some. I called car dealers and learned that the model with the bird on the hood is a Firebird Trans AM—you know, like Burt Reynolds drove in those old Smokey and the Bandit movies. They came out in ’69. Pontiac discontinued the eagle emblem when they changed the body style in ’82, so that narrows it down. With a classic car that old, there can’t be that many of them still on the street. DMV’s checking for me, and Moro’s had his CRASH guys working overtime compiling a list of every known member of the Sotels, PBGs, Rolling Sixties, and shoreline Crips who are old enough to drive.”

  “How about the Eighteenth Street Crips?”

  “Culver City’s a little far. We’ll widen the net if necessary, but if this murder turns out to be gang-related, my money’s on the PBGs. Angelo Martin was a local, and word is the PBGs are muscling in on Sotel drug distribution.”

  “It fits.”

  “I ran all the gang names turned up so far through DMV, checking vehicle registrations of ’69 through ’81 Pontiacs. One of the Venice Shoreline Crips—a punk named Willie Cesko, calls himself Raman—owns a classic ’79 Trans Am. Unfortunately, Cesko’s car is light green, no mag wheels. Speaking of which, I pulled in the bag lady and showed her about ten zillion pictures of magnesium wheels. She couldn’t recall the design. She was positive about the bird on the hood, though, and the dark color. Anyway, I’m thinking about widening the search, but before that I’m having CRASH haul in every local gangbanger they can find for a little show-and-tell—see whether we can locate the car around here first.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “You doing the interrogations?”

  “I’ll tag-team it with Morro.”

  “Okay. Keep me informed.” Arnie glanced around the squad room, then settled his considerable bulk on the corner of Kane’s desk. “One other matter,” he said, lowering his voice. “Your pal Lieutenant Snead from Internal Affairs wants you to drop by his office.”

  “What the hell for?” said Kane. Despite initial fears in the mayor’s office that Martin and Escobar’s charges of racial prejudice and police brutality would generate a scandal, sympathy for the Bradley boy’s family had taken precedence in both media and public opinion alike, and the projected firestorm had never materialized. As a result, the LAPD brass had lost interest in pursuing Escobar’s spurious charges, dousing Snead’s investigation before it had a chance to ignite.

  “IA may have officially lost interest in you, but Snead hasn’t,” Arnie warned. “I think you should go in.”

  “Not likely.”

  “You have nothing to hide. Why not cooperate? Granted, the guy’s a hump, but he can cause you a whole shitload of grief somewhere down the line if you don’t.”

  Kane unconsciously began cracking his knuckles, starting with the little finger of his left hand and working methodically toward the thumb. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Do that,” said Arnie. “Oh, one more thing,” he added as he rose to leave. “Kate phoned while you were at lunch. Wants you to give her a call when you get a chance.”

  “How’d she sound?” Kane asked nervously.

  “She sounded fine to me,” said Arnie. “But then I’m not a pigheaded Irishman like you. Not to say I’m not thrilled at having you hanging around messing up my house, but why don’t you just apologize to her and get it over with?”

  “You’re full of advice today,” said Kane. “For your information, things aren’t that simple.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Arnie sighed. “Well, good luck, amigo. And think about talking to Snead.”

  After Arnie departed, Kane grabbed the phone, set it down, hesitated, then picked it up again. After another hesitation, he punched in his home number. Catheryn picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “I’m, uh, trying to locate a big ugly troublemaking jerk named Dan Kane,” said Kane, with an abortive attempt to disguise his voice. “You might try looking for him in the doghouse.”

  “Dan Kane? Would that be the Dan Kane who makes himself scarce every time a family disagreement needs straightening out?” replied Catheryn, her tone frosty and reserved.

  “That would be the one. Sorry about not coming home, Kate. I thought we could both use some time to cool off.”

  “You may have been right about that,” said Catheryn, thawing slightly, “but I still think we should be able to discuss our problems like adults without one of us
disappearing for days.”

  “Haven’t we done all the discussing about Sunday that’s necessary?”

  “No.”

  “Look, I realize I took things way too far with the boys, but what’s there to discuss?”

  “Plenty. And we’re going to, whether you want to or not. When are you coming home?”

  “Uh, tonight,” Kane answered. “If that’s okay.”

  “What’s the matter, Arnie getting tired of your charming personality?” Catheryn asked with a gentle laugh.

  Kane felt a surge of relief as he heard the change in her voice. “Something like that,” he admitted. “Plus I really miss you, sugar. Tell you what. I’ll cook something special on Friday—try to make things up to the troops.”

  “That would be nice. And how do you plan on making things up to me?”

  “I’ll think of something. That’s a promise.”

  “All right. I’ll hold you to it.”

  Later that afternoon Moro’s CRASH detectives started bringing in local gang members, concentrating on the PBGs, the Sotels, and the Shoreline Crips. At Kane’s suggestion they were sequestered in groups of three and held in several interrogation rooms adjacent to the detectives’ squad room, with the overflow when things got busy diverted to a number of holding cells on the first floor.

  Kane had worked out his interrogation system for this type of case years before. Every interview room and cell in the Butler LAPD station house was wired for sound; even the softest whisper in any of these areas could be picked up and recorded. Before and after the initial questioning Kane would monitor what went on in his absence, developing new ground to explore on the next round of questioning. Although information uncovered in this manner was not generally considered admissible in court, it had often proved invaluable for generating new leads in difficult, dead-end cases. Kane thought of it as a fishing trip.

  A fishing trip, but one that necessitated the cooperation and coordination of a team of highly trained individuals. Contrary to the image perpetuated by the entertainment industry of a lone homicide detective tracking down a killer, Kane estimated that already over sixty men and women—patrol officers, communications staff, homicide detectives, SID technicians, members of the district attorney’s office and the medical examiner’s office, detail officers, forensic-lab technicians, CRASH detectives, secretaries, and clerks—had been actively involved in the investigation of Angelo Martin’s death. The present interrogation would probably add a half dozen more.