Murder at the Opera

Margaret Truman

Murder at the Opera

Book 22 in the Capital Crimes series, 2006

To Sam Vaughan, who set the editorial bar high,

and who has always been there to boost me over it.

You are, Sam, simply the best editor a writer

could ever hope for.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As an honorary trustee of the Washington National Opera, I look with great pride upon the wonderful men and women who have guided it into the top tier of American opera companies. It’s only fitting that Washington should join other world capitals as being home to an outstanding opera company.

I thank Maestro Plácido Domingo, Washington National Opera’s general director, for allowing me to set this, my twenty-second book in the Capital Crime series, against the soaring splendor of his productions at the Ke

And a special thanks to Je

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Fifty years ago Day Thorpe, music critic of the now defunct Washington Star, decided along with a few like-minded souls that Washington, D.C., needed an opera company, and founded the Opera Society of Washington, later changed to the simpler Washington Opera, and in 2000 renamed the Washington National Opera by an act of Congress. This Congressional name change was not inconsequential. Not only did America now have its own official opera company, all fifty states had a stake in it, giving those who raise necessary funds for the company a broader potential source of financial support.

The Washington National Opera (WNO) has evolved and grown over the past five decades from a regional company into one of international acclaim. Its productions rival those of the leading opera companies of America – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Mi

In the begi

So, in reality, this book is about the Washington National Opera specifically, rather than the world of opera in general.

My decision to have people murdered at the Washington National Opera does not reflect actual events there. Of course, many great operas that have graced the stage of the Ke

Finally, my hat is off to those at the Washington National Opera who made the courageous decision to ignore the protests of curmudgeonly purists, and to use English supertitles to translate operas at the Ke

Or, as Sir Edward Appleton wrote in The Observer in 1955, “I do not mind what language opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand.”

Margaret Truman

New York

2006

PROLOGUE

She died quickly and with a modicum of suffering.

This came as no surprise. Unlike so-called crimes of passion which are invariably messy, drawn out, and painful, I’d pla

She had to be eliminated because she knew something that I preferred she not know, which raised the possibility that she would pass it along to others. I couldn’t allow that.

Had knowing the victim made it easier or more difficult for me? Of course, having known her cast me as a suspect, along with dozens of others. Murderers who are strangers to their victims invariably stand a better chance of getting away with it. There was a brief temptation to enlist the aid of another person, someone outside our circle of acquaintances, but I quickly ruled that out. The fewer people who know about a murder, the better.

That the murder took place onstage at the Ke

It should also be pointed out that my choice of a weapon had nothing-absolutely nothing-to do with the fact that the encounter took place on the Opera House’s main stage, where the Washington National Opera would soon present the latest production of Puccini’s warhorse, Tosca. Moments before dealing the fatal blow, I thought of the justified murder of the cruel, lecherous Scarpia in Tosca’s Act II. The major difference was that this slaying was committed in shadows and without onlookers, while Tosca’s stabbing of the cruel chief of the secret police would take place before thousands bearing witness to her defensible action. Of course, Tosca’s dramatic killing of Scarpia is make-believe. This one was very real; I did not break into the aria “Vissi D’arte” before completing the act, as Madame Tosca has done thousand of nights on grand stages around the globe.

The victim was eventually found, of course, although it took almost a full day. I’d placed the body in such a location where few would have reason to go under ordinary circumstances. When her body was discovered, there was a flurry of media and law enforcement activity, and much was made of the fact that the homicide took place inside the revered Ke

In the meantime, Tosca, and the larger comic opera that is Washington, D.C., itself, but that too often turns deadly-must, and did-go on.