Luca introduced us. Micah assessed me briefly. “Whatever you need.”
“Walk me through the conductor placement.”
He did, and his explanation was clear and economical. He would center the podium on the stage, four feet from the front edge, elevated six inches on a two-level platform. He’d already marked the position, and it would remain unless Dominic called for a change, possibly based on acoustic feedback from the house. Micah’s sole responsibility was the conductor’s podium.
“Who else handles it?”
“Just me.”
“The floor mark. Who placed it?”
“Me. Working from Dominic’s spec.” He glanced at Luca. “Same position as the last two seasons.”
I looked at the mark. It was an X in pale gold spike tape, eighteen inches in each direction, centered on a point that placed Dominic’s feet precisely within the balcony’s cleanest sightline. I crouched and looked along the deck at the angle .
I photographed it.
Micah watched without asking why.
I read his background check while he worked with Luca through the rehearsal schedule. Seven years with the Orpheum across multiple productions. Union member, local, with no criminal record.
He had access, and he had a deep working knowledge of Dominic’s habits. He had been present for every session in which the podium position had been established, and he would also be present at the concert. Micah had full access with his credentials. No one would look at him twice.
Luca finished with the schedule and returned his attention to me. “You examine people like furniture.”
“Furniture doesn’t move.” He smiled.
The trumpet player had stopped running his figure. Then the orchestra tuned. It rose in sections, each instrument finding the pitch the oboe offered and locking onto it.
I thought about the minor-key “Saints” on the piano bench. Someone transposed the city’s anthem into a funeral key and delivered it to the man who had become a symbol of the city’s recovery.
The structure of it was almost elegant.
Dominic walked out.
He came from the stage-left wing with baton in hand, the replacement. The orchestra stopped tuning at once, and the room redistributed its energy around him.
I moved to the stage-right wing, my back to the brick, and watched.
Dominic stood in clear relief against the house, silver hair and dark jacket. I looked up at the balcony and followed the clean, unobstructed sightline down to the spike tape mark.
The shot fired at the mansion was not the main event. It was the overture.
Whoever had carried that sheet of music through Dominic’s door had already stood in this theater. They’d already walked the sightline and understood precisely what the balcony offered and exactly where the spike tape mark placed the man below it.
Dominic raised his baton.
I kept my eyes on the balcony and stood very still. The music began.
Chapter five
Luca
“Dominic,” I said, “your watch has stopped. I don’t hear it ticking.”
He drew it from his waistcoat pocket, clicking the case open in a motion I’d watched on a thousand mornings. He set it on the table beside his coffee mug and looked down.
The hands read 8:14.
