Without a word, Pratt stood, and the musician collapsed to his knees.
“I did not kill Spadafini! You have to believe me. Much as I wanted to, I didn’t do it!”
“I’d like to believe that.”
“You have to. I…I was with someone during the entire break. I didn’t leave this floor.”
“Who?” the detective asked.
“Leanne Shapiro. I was with her the entire time. Other people saw me too.”
Now they had something to run with. “Ellis!” he barked into the walkie-talkie. “Where are you?”
“On my way down the stairs. What’s happening?”
“Just double-time it, okay? I need you.”
Pratt walked over to Detective Cooper, who was standing in the doorway, and said in low voice, “This Shapiro woman, if she’s already been questioned, find out what she said. If she hasn’t, do it now. Don’t tell her anything about what’s going down. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve gotten lucky.”
“Got it.” The detective angled his head. “What about this guy?”
“Move him to an empty room. I think I’ll let Ellis have a shot at him.”
Ellis arrived, breathless and looking eager. “I’ve got some news.”
“Not now. Things are moving a bit fast at the moment.”
“There’s a break?”
Pratt couldn’t help smiling. “I hope so. It’s too soon to know.” He filled the young man in on what had been happening. “You question Harvey more thoroughly. I didn’t have time to go into why he has his cousin’s cello. It may have something to do with the case, it may not, but we need to know.”
Ellis hustled Harvey out. Pratt closed the door and leaned against it to catch his breath-and think.
In his twenty-eight years as a detective, he’d never had a case like this. In one way, it was a dream. Unless there was something he was missing completely, the murderer was still here. Any evidence was still here.
The silliness of the orchestra’s massconfession aside, the big problem was that any one of them could have done it. That meant questioning a really huge pool of suspects.
Spadafini had obviously been a bastard of the first water. His womanizing alone was outrageous, but his treatment of the people he worked with was contemptible. Pratt felt sure that was the reason for his death.
So, who did it? Pratt was looking for a crowbar, that bit of information he could use to pry the truth loose. The real issue was being able to pick out the important clues from the mass of information they were collecting.
His biggest enemy was time. All these people couldn’t be kept here forever. Getting them fed and watered was only buying him a bit more time. Would the murderer give it up under questioning? He doubted it. For the moment he or she could hide in plain sight.
The tired detective shook his head. And that indeed was the problem: how to smoke out the murderer.
Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed the captain.
“Pratt! What have you got for me?”
The situation was quickly outlined.
“I could really use more people,” Pratt told his boss. “We’re stretched too thin, and time is running out. I can’t keep the orchestra here forever.”
“I’ll have to shake someone else’s tree. You’ve got everyone from here.” The captain changed the subject. “Did you talk to El Presidente of the symphony’s board?”
“Yeah, Norris was here. He may still be around, as a matter of fact. He wanted an update on where we stood. I got called away.”
“Not a nice man to cross, I would think. When I got called up to the chief ’s office, he was there with the mayor to turn up the heat on us.” The captain chuckled. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Norris said he was going to go down there to personally shake things up. On his way out he was grumbling that it was his second trip down of the day and he had better-”
“What did you say? Pratt interrupted. “He was here already this morning? When?”
“Norris said he’d had to come down to thank the orchestra for coming in for the extra rehearsal. He talked about what a sensitive bunch they are, how they needed to be stroked all the time. Didn’t he tell you about that?”
“No, he didn’t,” Pratt growled. “And I’m going to find out why.”