“I was getting worried,” she said.

“Genevieve and Ray are on their way. They’re joining us.”

“Oh?”

“Glad you landed a larger table. A prime one, I might add, away from the bar.”

“I mentioned to Bill Frazier that we wanted to have dinner here and he offered to make a call. Nothing like having the chairman of the Washington National Opera put in a good word.”

They’d just ordered drinks when Genevieve and Pawkins arrived.

“If I’d known I’d end up here tonight,” Genevieve said breathlessly, “I would have changed into something dishy. I felt like Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Beatrix Potter’s matronly washerwoman, walking through that crowd at the bar.”

Pawkins chuckled. “I’d say you look like anything but a washerwoman.”

“Isn’t he sweet?” Genevieve said.

“Sweet’s my middle name,” Pawkins said.

“I love the Domingo Room,” Genevieve said, pointing in its direction. She referred to one of Cafe Milano’s private dining rooms, named after WNO’s general director. One night in 1996, shortly after Plácido Domingo had arrived in Washington, he stopped in to eat and suggested to the owner that a door be put on the entrance to a private room to cut down on noise from the bar. When he returned the next night, the door was up and the room renamed the Domingo Room. A few years later, Nuschese commissioned a Russian artist to create a ten-foot painting on the room’s ceiling of Domingo in costume as Verdi’s Otello. The maestro has looked down on all who dine there ever since.

Over a large platter of beef and spiny lobster carpaccio with baby arugula and apple citronette sauce, accompanied by a bottle of Chianti Classico Riserva, Podere Tereno, talk eventually came around to the Charise Lee murder. Naturally, most questions were directed at Pawkins.

“Is there any progress?” Annabel asked.

“Nothing yet,” he replied. Had he still been with MPD, discussing an ongoing case would have been off-limits-officially. But like most cops he knew, that rule was frequently ignored. Besides, those sharing the table with him this evening were, after all, his clients. “I’m in touch with a contact at MPD. They’re looking closely at her roommate, a pianist from Toronto named Christopher Warren. They’re also questioning every student in the Young Artist Program, and a couple of agents from Toronto who represented the victim and Warren.”

“Christopher called in sick today,” Genevieve said. “He said he couldn’t make tonight’s rehearsal.”

“Maybe you’d better get a sub for him,” Annabel offered.

“That’s a good idea,” Genevieve said.

“No it’s not,” Pawkins said. “Let’s keep him close. I might learn something from him.”

“It couldn’t have been him,” Genevieve said, wrapping her arms about her as though the AC had suddenly been turned up. “He’s a lovely boy.”

“That may be,” Pawkins said, “but MPD has a different take on him.”

It was over cappuccino and a platter of small cookies and fruit that Annabel brought up the Musinski murder of six years earlier. “I was fascinated to read that you were the lead on that case, Ray,” she said.

“All part of my illustrious past,” he said lightly.

“They never found those scores, did they?” Mac said.

“No” was Pawkins’ reply.

“Or arrest anyone,” Annabel said.

“They had a prime suspect,” Pawkins said casually, “a grad student at the university. We all knew he did it, but we could never come up with enough evidence to convince the prosecutors to charge him.”

“This grad student knew the deceased, Professor Musinski?” Mac asked.

“Oh, yeah, he sure did,” Pawkins said. “He worked closely with him as an assistant. We grilled him pretty hard, but he never broke.”

“Where is he now?” Annabel asked.

“Still at the university,” Pawkins said. “My MPD source says they might reopen the case based on new forensic evidence.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mac said. “Do you think this grad student killed the professor to get his hands on the musical scores? What were they-Mozart?”

“Musinski was a Mozart expert, wrote books about him and his music,” Pawkins said. “But his primary interest was some string quartets supposedly written with Joseph Haydn.”

“Supposedly?” Genevieve asked.

“No one’s ever seen them,” Pawkins said, leaning back in his seat and dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. “They only exist because Musinski’s niece claims her uncle said he’d brought them back from overseas a couple of days before he was murdered. Know what I think?”

“What?”

“I don’t think those musical scores ever existed in the first place.”

“Then why was Musinski killed?” Annabel asked. “The scores would provide the motive.”

Pawkins laughed. “Maybe the kid got a bad grade from the prof and decided to even the score. This was great, but I have to get going.” He reached for his wallet.

“On me,” Smith said, waving him away.

“Not on your life. My turn.”

“Yes, but this is Cafe Milano,” Mac said.

“That makes it more special for me to treat,” Pawkins said, pulling a credit card from his wallet and motioning for the waiter.

“What an unexpected surprise,” Genevieve said as they parted outside the restaurant. “Thank you so much.”

“Thank Mr. Pawkins here,” Mac said.

“Yes, thank you, Raymond,” Genevieve said.

“Come on,” Pawkins said to her, “I’ll drive you back to Takoma Park.”

At home in their Watergate apartment, Annabel said, “Mr. Pawkins does quite nicely on a retired detective’s salary.”

“I didn’t want him to pay,” Mac said, “but he seemed determined. Bad form to argue over it.”

“Did you notice what he was wearing?” Annabel asked as they dressed for bed.

“He carries clothes well,” Mac said.

“That suit came straight from Savile Row,” she said, “and those shoes were custom-made, too.”

“Maybe he won a lottery we don’t know about,” Mac suggested, “or had an unmarried rich uncle who died and left his fortune to his only nephew.”

“Maybe,” Annabel said. “I think Genevieve is smitten with him.”

“No.”

“Yes. I can sense it.”

“Not a bad match-up,” Mac said. “She’s attractive and a culture-vulture, and he’s not without his own brand of erudition. They both love opera. By the way, Zambrano told us the story of Tosca. He had this wonderful tale of when a soprano playing Tosca jumped to her death, landed on a trampoline, and bounced back up for the audience to see.”

“I’ve heard it,” Annabel said with a laugh. “That’s a staple. Opera is full of such stories, real or imagined. I think that’s why everyone thinks operas, and the people who perform them, are crazy.”

“Well,” he said, “I like the soprano bouncing off the trampoline. Should go over well with my students, a few of whom I’d like to bounce off a trampoline-or a brick wall.”

“Good night,” she said, kissing him sweetly on the lips.

“It’s early,” he said.

“Not for me,” she said. “Meetings exhaust me.”

The strains of Tosca drifted into the bedroom from the den where Mac had put on the CD. Annabel turned over, fluffed up her pillow, and fell asleep, a contented smile on her face.