Chapter Twelve
“So how often do you come here for breakfast?” Elizabeth asked as she looked over the somewhat untidy-looking diner.
“Not often,” Jeremy said, pouring over the raggy-looking menu. “I don’t usually get up early enough for breakfast unless I have some special makeup lessons scheduled for the early morning. And fortunately my students seldom seem all that interested in crack-of-dawn piano lessons. As a result, I usually skip breakfast.”
“But when you do eat breakfast, you eat it here? That almost boggles the imagination.”
“Oh please, Elizabeth. It’s not a bad place. It’s not cookie-cutter. It’s not a chain. It’s got character.”
“Really? I’m not sure I’d call it character. I’m a little surprised that the Board of Health calls it sanitary.”
David folded his arms over his chest with mock indignation. “If I knew you were going to insult the place, I would’ve invited you over to my apartment and you could have insulted that some more. Why did you come anyway?”
Elizabeth smiled and patted his hand across the table. “I came to help you get a fresh new start on the day. And the week. And the rest of your career. From now on, it’s up early every morning and over to the piano.”
“And how about my hands?”
“If they bother you, you take a break for half an hour. Read a book. Improve your mind.”
David sighed. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to ask what I’d do without you.”
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. “It wouldn’t be a bad time for it.”
“Okay, I’m going to go along this one time. I…hold it for a minute. Text coming in.” David pulled out his phone and glanced down at the screen. He paused, blinked a couple of times and refocused his eyes. His face turned white.
“Oh my God!” he blurted. “Melissa’s been attacked!”
“Attacked? Where? How?”
“In Jeremy’s apartment. Last night.”
“Is she badly hurt? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s at St. Joseph’s Hospital and he wants me to meet him there as soon as I can.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Come along! I don’t know if any of us will be allowed to see her, but at least you can lend Jeremy some moral support. But first I’ve got to call Sean. I think he should be in on this. Maybe he can meet us there.”
Detective Sean McGill walked quickly down the hospital hallway with David hurrying to keep up.
“Remember, David,” he said. “I’ve never met this woman. Can you give me a quick overview of what I’m going to be up against? I’ve heard her described as ‘difficult.”
David shook his head. “Well, Melissa is difficult to categorize. I don’t know her well of course. But when I’ve seen her, it’s almost like she’s acting a part. Like she’s always on stage.”
“And what is her act all about?”
“Classic Goth I guess, but more aggressive than some. Sings in a punk band, or used to, anyway. That’s how Jeremy met her.”
“I didn’t know Jeremy went in for that sort of stuff.”
“Maybe he was bored. Who knows? Anyway, he went up to her at a club when her band was on a break.”
“Okay. More on Jeremy later. Back to Melissa Hiller.”
“Right. Well, she seems angry a lot. Highly cynical. Always on her guard against insults—real or perceived.”
“Charming,” said Sean as they both rounded a corner quickly.
“Of course she’s had a traumatic experience now. She’s lying there in a hospital bed. You may get more of the real Melissa. Assuming there is a real Melissa.”
“Okay, there’s the nurses’ station. Wish me luck.”
The nurse strode briskly into Melissa’s hospital room. "Miss Hiller, the detective I told you about is here. He'd like to ask you a few questions if you feel up to it."
Melissa sat up straighter in her bed. "Sure, why not?"
"Also, Miss Hiller,” the nurse said, “the other gentleman who was here this morning is back with a couple of friends. Would you like to see them as well, when the police officer is finished with you?"
"They can all come in right away if they want to. I've got no secrets."
Sean walked quickly into the room. "Good morning, Ms. Hiller. I’m detective Sean McGill. I think you'll just have me to put up with for the time being. We might have the others join us a little later.”
"So it's just you then," Melissa said as she looked Sean over. "All the same to me. You know that I’ve already given a statement about this, don’t you? A couple of hours ago."
“Yes, Ms. Hiller. I know one of our uniformed officers has already spoken to you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you a few things again. It’s just standard procedure.”
“Seems like a waste of time.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it does to a lot of the people we have to question. But this is a serious business, Ms. Hiller. You’ve been subject to a potentially lethal assault and it’s important that we get all of the facts straight. Sometimes we have to approach those facts from several different angles.”
“I was hit on the head. It wasn’t that bad.”
“But the doctor tells me that you may have a concussion and that’s why they have to keep you here and watch you for a while.”
“I told him I was fine.”
“I think I’ll just let you and the doctors work that one out. But I do want to know a little more about the assault that took place last night. About when did it take place?”
“Around 9:00 p.m. I suppose. I wasn’t really paying any attention.”
“And you were alone?”
“Yes. Jeremy had gone to a concert. He goes to a lot of those.”
“I see. So you had been left alone.”
“I wasn’t left alone. I was just alone. Women don’t always have to have men around to protect them.”
“Yes, I see. And while you were alone, did you notice any strange activities going on outside your apartment? Hear any strange noises?”
“I heard nothing. I was watching some TV but it was all garbage so I turned it off. I might have been looking at a magazine.”
“So there were no suspicious sounds?”
“Nothing. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. All I heard was a knock on the door. I answered it and got clubbed over the head. I woke up later in the ambulance bringing me to this hospital.”
“Are you accustomed to just opening the door for any stranger?”
“I didn’t think it was a stranger. I had ordered pizza and I was expecting the pizza guy.”
“Did the pizza guy ever come?”
“How would I know? I was unconscious. It was Jeremy who found me.”
Sean paused and collected his thoughts. “Did you get even the briefest glance at your assailant”?
“I said I saw nothing. The hallway was dark. It’s always dark. The damn landlord refuses to keep it lit because light bulbs use electricity and he’s cheap. The whole place is a dump.”
“Okay, so you saw nothing. If in fact your assault was linked to a robbery, can you think of anything a thief would want to steal?”
“There’s nothing to steal there. Jeremy’s apartment is a dump too. There’s nothing there. There are a bunch of magazines and a bunch of CDs. There’s my mp3 player. There’s a crummy television. That’s all. There’s nothing to steal. Why? Is something missing?”
Sean searched quickly through a small pad of paper. “According to this preliminary report, Jeremy West did a search of the apartment last night after you were taken to the hospital. He reported that a number of drawers had been gone through, but it wasn’t apparent that there was anything missing.”
“I told you there wasn’t anything worth stealing.”
Sean paused. “How about the Beethoven manuscript? I was told that a valuable Beethoven manuscript was being held there.”
“You were told wrong,” Melissa snapped. “Jeremy took the pa
rt of the manuscript he still had to some expert on old manuscripts a few days ago. The guy’s going to run some tests on it. If the manuscript is any good, he’s going to help Jeremy sell it.”
“I didn’t realize that. I just assumed…”
“Jeremy’s still missing the first two pages of the manuscript,” she said abruptly. “He told the police about it days ago but they haven’t done anything about it. Stolen out of a coffee shop when his back was turned. The police haven’t done a damn thing about it.”
“I know about that, Ms. Hiller. We checked on a few places where the missing pages might have turned up, but no luck.”
“How much time did you spend on it? Twenty minutes? But of course Jeremy isn’t rich. I’m not rich. So what do you care if we get something stolen from us?”
Sean sighed. “Look, Ms. Hiller. I did what I could to help. The Philadelphia police department doesn’t have all the time in the world to go chasing after a couple of pieces of paper that may or may not be valuable. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the matter at hand.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve told you all I can. Somebody slugged me. He probably hoped to find something worth stealing in the apartment. But he didn’t. So I guess he won’t bother us anymore. Case closed.”
“Mind if we pop in?” came Jeremy’s voice from just outside the door.
Sean turned around. “Jeremy! Just the person I wanted to talk to. Maybe you can shine a little light into some murky corners.”
“Murky corners?” Jeremy said. “That sounds awfully mysterious.” He smiled. “What has Melissa been telling you?”
“Basically that she doesn’t remember much,” Sean said.
“Who can blame her, with a knock on the head like that?” said Jeremy, walking quickly to Melissa’s side. He then turned and looked back at David and Elizabeth, gesturing for them to enter the room.
“Nobody blames Ms. Hiller for anything,” Sean said. “But since we have no idea who attacked her, I’m trying to focus on why someone would break in the apartment. She said that there is really nothing of value in the apartment.”
“Sad but true,” said Jeremy.
“And Melissa said the manuscript wasn’t there. Is that right?” Sean asked.
“That’s correct,” Jeremy said. “It’s been sent off to be tested.”
“Alright,” Sean said, “but isn’t it possible that whoever broke into the apartment was after the manuscript, figuring it was still there.”
“That’s always possible, I suppose,” Jeremy said.
David stepped forward. “And yet,” he said,” the other day when Jeremy and I were delivering the manuscript to this Morgenstern guy—he’s the one who sent it out for testing—I could have sworn we were being followed.”
Jeremy smiled. “Now David, let’s not blow that out of proportion. I was probably being over-dramatic.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” David said. “But if someone was following us and saw us go into Morgenstern’s office, then he would probably figure that we don’t have the Beethoven manuscript anymore, so it couldn’t be in Jeremy’s apartment.”
Sean nodded his head. “So presumably he— whoever that might be—would not waste his time looking there. And he certainly wouldn’t risk an assault on someone staying in the apartment when he wouldn’t gain anything by it.”
“Unless,” Jeremy said slowly, “we’re talking about two different people, or two different groups of people.”
“So we’re back to where we were,” said David. “Whoever lifted those two pages of the Beethoven manuscript in the coffee house may or may not have known what they were after. And those people who hit Melissa on the head and searched the apartment last night may or may not have known that a valuable manuscript was hidden in that apartment.”
“But it wasn’t hidden in the apartment,” Jeremy said. “It’s in Morgenstern’s hands and by now probably in the hands of the guys doing the scientific analyses.”
“Okay,” said Sean wearily. “Enough for now. We’re going around in circles. I’ll make a full report of all this, although I’m not sure I can make any sense out of it. And we’ll leave Ms. Hiller to rest in peace.”