Page 97 of Echoes of a Silent Song
Vic stiffened.“It was a mutual decision.”
Valentine let out a quiet chuckle.“Mutual ...kind of a funny way of saying they knew you couldn’t hack it as a composer because the audition piece wasn’t your work to begin with.Iris mailed him a letter confessing to what the two of you had done.”
Stanton leaned on the table, locking eyes with Vic.“Postmarked the day she died.”
Vic’s attorney cleared his throat.“What exactly are you insinuating about my client?We’re well past the statute of limitations on intellectual property theft.”
“We’re not interested in Iris’s music,” Stanton said evenly.“We’re interested in how she died.”
“You gotta admit, all this sounds like motive,” Valentine pointed out.
Vic exploded, rising out of his chair.“I didn’t kill Iris!All I wanted was her notebook.She owed it to me.Sheowedme.She came up with this whole cockamamie scheme, and she got me into a situation I had no way out of.She was supposed to come to Chicago with me, and we weresupposed to write music together.Have both our names in lights.That was the plan all along.”
“And then she screwed it up by not getting in with the other piece she wrote,” Stanton pressed.“You had to go it alone.So you had to make sure your name could still be lit up.”
“Iris’s music was brilliant,” Vic protested.“Even Hochsteiner thought so.It deserved to be brought to life.”
“But only under your name,” Valentine pointed out.“Her work shows up in a whole lot of your pieces.And your name’s the only one on them.”
“Which brings us back to how this sounds suspiciously like motive,” Stanton said.
Vic sighed and stared at his hands.Was this the moment Blair had dreaded?
“I told you, I didn’t kill Iris,” Vic said softly.“By the time I saw her, she was already dead.”
March 19,1970
People in Peterson never locked their doors.Even the rich ones.Nobody needed to.Peterson was the safest place around.
So Victor knew, when he crept from his bed just after eleven and walked to Iris’s house, that he’d be able to get in.Knowing Iris, that notebook would be on her desk.He could count on that.
People could be so predictable.
Something was off with her, though.She’d been so moldable.So eager to please.She’d been putty in his hands—until she’d seen what that idiot Hochsteiner had written about Victor’s audition piece.His.
Yes, she’d written the music, but for him.About him.Inspired by him.It might as well have been his.And once he sent that application, it became his.She’d given the piece as a gift.And a gift, once given, became the property of the recipient, to do with whatever they liked.
He’d thought Iris understood that.Apparently she didn’t.
Eventually she’d come around to his point of view.She always did.Sometimes she took a little convincing.Sometimes she needed time to think it over and see that he was right.But he always was, and the sooner she realized that, the better.
Probably the pills were making her act strangely.Or maybe the lack of pills.Whatever.He didn’t know.Frankly, he didn’t care.He just wanted his Iris back.His sweet, malleable Iris.The one who would agree to contribute music when he got stuck, to perpetuate the deception—which she’d started—that he was the compositional genius.
He needed her music.He needed to at least scribble a few copies of some things so, if she never came around to his point of view, he’d be covered.
He’d give her notebook back.Probably.Unless she kept being stubborn and unyielding.Then he just might keep it.
He reached Iris’s house, that pile of white-columned wood, and went around to the servants’ stairs in the back.Servants’ stairs.How pretentious must someone be to build special stairs just for servants—for people who weren’t highborn enough, rich enough, or good enough to use the regular ones?No, people like him had to go in the back.
The joke was on them.Going in the back meant he was much less likely to be caught.
The second stair creaked beneath his weight, and he froze.But nothing indicated that anyone had heard.
He slunk along the wall, down a long hallway.He didn’t know which room was hers, since he’d never been allowed in the house before, but he’d figure it out.
Not that one.That appeared to be a guest room.It looked sterile.Unused.Like no one had touched it in quite a long time.
Not that one either.It was lived-in but neat as a pin.A place for everything and everything in its place.
