A Measure of Murder Read online

  Also available by Leslie Karst:

  Dying for a Taste

  A Measure of Murder

  A Sally Solari Mystery

  Leslie Karst

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Leslie Karst.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-018-1

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-019-8

  ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-68331-020-4

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-021-1

  Cover design by Louis Malcangi.

  Cover illustration by Hiro Kimura.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: February 2017

  For all of my band, orchestra, and choral directors over the years—in particular, Peter Schartz, Gerald Anderson, Robert Zachman, and Cheryl Anderson—whose passion for the music truly changed my life.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Grilled Cheese Sandwich With Spinach and Red Onions

  Sally’s “Real” Caesar Salad

  Spaghetti Alla Carbonara

  Grilled Salmon With Papaya and Avocado Pico de Gallo (Gauguin)

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  When the baritone finally came to the end of his song, I could sense the tension slipping from every shoulder in the room. The five judges seated at a long table next to the piano ceased fiddling with their pencils, hair, and other items to give the singer a polite round of applause. Bobbing his head in response, the rotund young man smiled quickly and turned to face the table. His eyes registered a combination of apprehension and release.

  Marta, the choral director, pocketed the quarter she’d been turning over in her hands during the baritone’s number and whispered something to the woman next to her. As the singer waited, he wiped a trickle of sweat from his right temple. Almost immediately, however, another replaced the first, and I was not surprised. Though a cool breeze carrying the sharp tang of the ocean flowed through the open door, the air in the musty church hall felt warm and stifling.

  The nervous man once again mopped his brow as the director stood and came toward him. “So,” she said with a glance at the sheet of paper in her hand, “it is Jeem, no?”

  “That’s right, Jim,” he replied.

  “Tell me, Jeem, how long have you been singing?”

  “Uh . . .” The baritone cleared his throat. “I was in a chorus in high school; that was a couple years ago. But this is the first time I’ve ever had to do an actual audition.”

  “Well, I have to say, you do make for an enthusiastic toréador. And it was brave of you to attempt a piece in French. A language that for singers can be molto irritante—how do you say in English?”

  “Exceedingly vexatious?” offered one of the men at the table, who’d gone back to flipping a pencil back and forth between his fingers. He sported a bushy Van Dyke beard and gold-rimmed glasses and, notwithstanding the stuffiness of the room, was enveloped in a thick sweater and wool scarf.

  The singer let out a short laugh, more in relief, no doubt, than at their attempted witticism. And I have to admit that I, too, laughed just that bit louder than was called for. Like the baritone, I was also there to audition and was easily as nervous as this young man had been. But it now appeared that our judges—the four section leaders and the choral director—weren’t going to be as hard on us newbies as I’d feared.

  “Anyway,” Marta cut in, “thank you for the Bizet aria. Go ahead and sit back down now, and once everyone has finished their audition piece, we will get to the sight-singing.”

  The portly singer started for his chair but was stopped by a deep voice: “Wait. I have something to add.” It was the guy with the beard again. The baritone turned back and waited while the man set his pencil down on a pad of paper and then looked up with a thin smile.

  “First, I too want to thank you, for it was indeed immensely courageous of you to come out and sing for us all tonight. And with such an original choice.” He chuckled to himself and then went on. “But just for future reference, a word of advice: you need to remember that once you bring a note into this world, you are responsible for it. So, well . . . you might just want to try to get in the habit of singing in tune, is all.”

  My gut tightened about six notches. So much for them being easy on us.

  The woman next to the bearded man slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be such a jerk, Kyle,” she said, and the choral director also directed a frown his way—but did not, I noticed, say anything.

  After an uncomfortable silence, the young baritone slunk his way to the back of the hall, and the rest of us victims shifted uncomfortably in our seats, waiting to see who would be called next.

  Marta picked up a sheet from the pile on the desk before her. “Sally Solari?” she read, looking around the room.

  Oh no.

  I stood slowly and shuffled to the piano. After handing a copy of my sheet music to the slender Russian accompanist—Nadia, she’d said her name was—I took my place at the black metal stand that had been set up at the front of the church hall. The pianist waited, hands in her lap, while I fussed with my music and struggled to keep my breathing even and deep.

  At my sign, she commenced the introduction, and I cleared my throat and concentrated, following along in my head with the melody in her right hand: “Santa Lucia, San-taah Lucia.” Nadia looked up with a smile and nodded, indicating my entrance. Straightening my shoulders, I opened my mouth wide to sing.

  Nothing emerged. Not a sound. Unless you count the pounding of my heart, which I was certain everyone in the room could distinctly hear.

  Fighting the panic that threatened to overtake me, I stared back at Nadia with pleading eyes, as if she could somehow miraculously transport me from this rehearsal hall to the depths of my warm, secure bed. My head began to swim, and I was afraid I was going to pass out.

  But then I spotted Eric, and the sight of him sitting there at the table with the three other section leaders, pencils poised to take notes during my song, infuriated me enough to send a surge of blood back to my upper body.

  Because this was all his fault, really.

  Eric’s my ex-boyfriend, and he was the one who talked me into auditioning for his damn chorus. “You should really sing with us this summer,” he’d said a few weeks back. �
�It’s just a short session and . . .” Dramatic pause. “We’re doing the Mozart Requiem.”

  That was all it took. I’ve had an itch to sing that piece ever since high school, when my best friend, Allison, and I were gaga over the movie Amadeus. Eric, well aware of my obsession, had followed up his remark with a poor imitation of Wolfie’s annoying, high-pitched laugh from the movie.

  Well, he sure wasn’t laughing right now. He looked pretty much the way I felt—like he’d just eaten a bad mussel and needed a sturdy paper bag in a big way.

  I glanced back at Nadia, who’d managed to maintain her bright smile and was segueing seamlessly into a repeat of the intro. Cool as a bowl of iced borscht with sour cream, she was. A real pro. Unlike me.

  Exhaling, I took another deep breath, and she nodded again. You can do it, her earnest expression said. This time the words spilled out:

  Sul mare luccica

  L’astro d’argento,

  Placida l’onda

  Prospero il vento . . .

  At the conclusion of my song, everyone clapped politely again—just as they had done for the hapless baritone—and I made a quick bow.

  Well, I suppose it could have been worse. Other than the false start, I figured I’d done well enough. Okay, so I had cracked on that high D-sharp, but the only music I’d been able to find for the song had been the soprano part, for chrissake.

  Marta stood and walked toward me across the scuffed hardwood floor. “So you choose a canzona napoletana to sing. Do you know that is where I am from, Napoli? Trying to butter me up?” Checking the list in her hand again, she smiled. “Ah yes, Sally Solari. So you are Italian, too. Now I understand.”

  “Fourth generation,” I said. “But sure, you could say so. I haven’t sung in a chorus in a long time and didn’t have any prepared piece like an aria to perform, so my nonna suggested I do a Neapolitan love song. ‘Santa Lucia’ is one of her favorites.”

  “Well, your accent is quite good. As for the singing, maybe a little weak on the top, but I think perhaps you are an alto, not a soprano, non è vero?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, and I was about to tell her that’s what I’d sung in high school. But then I glanced over at the table with the section leaders and stopped. The two women and Eric were busy scribbling on their pads, but Mr. Van Dyke was leaning back in his chair, snickering and rolling his eyes.

  “Bene,” the director said, oblivious to what was going on behind her. “You can go sit down again, and we will get to the sight-reading in a little bit. Now let’s see, who’s next . . . ?”

  Face burning, I collected my music from Nadia and returned to my seat.

  * * *

  An hour later, I was seated at Gauguin, a much needed bourbon-rocks before me. I took a long drink and set the glass back down on the starched white tablecloth. Brandon finished taking the order at table seven and then stopped by to see how I was doing.

  “Still waiting on my friend,” I said, “but could you bring me an order of potstickers to tide me over? I don’t know how long—oh, here she is.” I waved to the woman by the hostess desk, who gave a little shriek when she spied me. “But you can still go ahead and fire the app,” I added. “I’m starved.”

  The woman scampered across the restaurant and held out her arms. “Ohmygod, Sally, I can’t believe how good it is to see you in the flesh again after all those Skype dates!”

  I bent down to hug her diminutive figure, which only came up to about my armpits. “Is it really you, Allison? I barely recognize you in your nonpixelated format.”

  She collapsed into the chair across from me and exhaled. “Oh boy, am I beat.”

  “You only got back yesterday morning, right? You must be totally jet-lagged.” Allison is an English lit professor up at the university and had just returned to Santa Cruz from a sabbatical year in England.

  “I’m actually only just starting to finally wake up for the first time today. It’s, what, about four or five in the morning in Oxford right now?”

  “Sounds like the perfect time for a Bloody Mary.” I picked up my bourbon and took a sip.

  “I think I better just stick with some wine with dinner, or I may not make it back home tonight.” Allison reached for the menu. “So what should I order? I’m guessing you know what’s best, since this is, after all, your place now.”

  “As a matter of fact, I am privy to the fact that we got in some excellent salmon today, caught just this morning in our very own Monterey Bay. Javier’s doing it grilled with a pico de gallo of papaya, red onion, avocado, lime, and green chiles. That’s what I’m having.”

  “Sounds good to me. And I’m way too out of it to try to read through all these choices.” She set the menu aside just as Brandon arrived with the appetizer and a pair of small plates. He took our dinner orders and then returned with the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I’d chosen and poured us each a glass.

  “So,” Allison said, selecting one of the crispy potstickers and dunking it into the ramekin of soy sauce and sesame-chili oil, “tell me how you’re doing. I was so sorry not be here while you were going through all that horror about your aunt.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty awful.” I reached for my cocktail and, focusing on the beads of condensation that had formed on the glass, tried to excise from my brain the image that had persisted in haunting me for the past three months—that of my Aunt Letta lying dead in a pool of blood in the Gauguin kitchen.

  “I really miss her,” I said with a shake of the head. “Especially when I’m here at the restaurant, which seems like all the time these days. It just doesn’t seem right, Letta not being here. Sometimes I feel like such an imposter, trying to step into her shoes.”

  Allison laid her hand on mine. “I’m sure she would be so proud of you for taking on Gauguin like you have. And it seems like you’re doing a great job. I mean, look at all the people here on a Wednesday night. But it’s got to be an incredible amount of work, running a place like this. And you’re still at Solari’s too, right?”

  “Uh-huh, but just a few days a week.” I drained my bourbon and set the glass back down. “I’m training the head waitress there, Elena, to run the front of the house. So hopefully I’ll be able to cut down even more one of these days. Which is good, because carting around heavy plates and bus trays has not been great for my arm.”

  “How’s it healing?” Allison asked with a nod at my left forearm.

  Flexing my hand, I examined the small scar running along the inside of my wrist—a memento of my surgery after the “accident” I’d suffered investigating my aunt’s murder several months ago. “Pretty well, actually. The doctor even gave me approval to start cycling again a few weeks back. Thank God for that, ’cause I was going bonkers not getting to ride for all that time, not to mention starting to put on the pounds from lack of exercise.” I patted my belly and then reached for one of the panfried dumplings. “So how about you? And Greg and Eleanor? You guys happy to be back in Santa Cruz again after so long?”

  “Well, Greg’s thrilled to be home, where he can finally watch his beloved American sports on TV again and eat real hamburgers. But Eleanor had to leave a new best friend from her school in Oxford, so she’s still in the pout phase. Which I suppose is pretty normal behavior for a twelve-year-old.”

  “Tell her I understand. I wasn’t all that thrilled when you announced you’d be gone for a whole year. And what about you? You glad to be home?”

  “Yes and no. It’s wearing on a body, constantly being a foreigner. You know, ‘the Yank’ at the dinner party. So part of me is relieved to be back on my own home turf.” Allison speared another potsticker and took a bite. “But I didn’t get as much work done as I’d hoped,” she continued after swallowing. “So on the other hand, I would have liked to have been able to stay a little longer.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t ask about the book, then?” Allison had been in England researching the identity of the person who wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. She’s an “
Oxfordian”—a proponent of the theory that “the bard” was not the man from Stratford-upon-Avon but was instead Edward de Vere, a.k.a. the seventeenth earl of Oxford.

  She shook her head and groaned. “No, please don’t. I’ll bore you with it all some other time.”

  Seeing Brandon approaching, I snagged the last potsticker and set it on my plate. He removed the appetizer dish and told us our main course would be right out.

  “So what else is going on with you these days?” Allison asked after he’d left. “How’s Eric? I don’t suppose you finally came to your senses while I was away and got back together.”

  “No, we did not,” I said, stuffing the entire potsticker into my mouth.

  Sometimes I got the feeling Allison was more upset by our breakup than Eric and I were. She’s convinced we could have worked out our problems if only we’d tried a little bit harder and points to our current close friendship as proof of her theory.

  But what she doesn’t get is that Eric makes a way better buddy than a boyfriend for me. For one thing, we bicker far less these days than we used to. And even more important, now that we’re living apart, he rarely insists that I try to “analyze my feelings” about every damn thing that comes up. Of course, even as a friend, I still have to endure his annoying need to constantly be such a know-it-all.

  “We have been hanging out a fair amount lately, though,” I added, prompting a raised eyebrow from Allison.

  “Oh yeah? Do tell.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just that ever since Letta’s death, I guess I’ve needed him more than usual. And I’ve gotta say, he’s really been there for me.”

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  “Although right this instant, I’m actually a little ticked at the guy.” I told Allison about how Eric had talked me into auditioning for his chorus and the near fiasco when I completely choked at the beginning of my solo piece. “I think I did okay with the foreign language reading, though, and passable with the sight-singing. So we’ll see if I get in or not.”