Page 96 of Echoes of a Silent Song

The door to the interview room opened, and a suit-clad, silver-haired man walked in and sat down next to Vic.His lawyer, most likely.They talked quietly to each other, their heads together, and then Vic nodded and straightened.His hands lay folded on the table, and a cold, fishlike stare deadened his eyes.She’d seen the look before, usually when he was annoyed with the choir, but never to this extent.

A moment later the door opened again, and Detectives Stanton and Valentine walked in.Introductions were made, and then Vic piped up.

“Am I under arrest, Detectives?”

“No.”Valentine settled into a chair across from Vic.“By no means.We’ve just received new information on Iris Wallingford’s death, and we need to tie up a couple of loose ends.”

Vic’s eyebrows raised.“You mean hersuicide.Did Blair and Callum put you up to this?Or that nosy reporter?”

Vic’s attorney rested a hand on his client’s forearm and whispered in his ear.

“We’re just curious about how you came to have this.”Stanton pulled Iris’s music notebook from a bag and set it on the table in front of Vic.

He remained expressionless.“An old notebook?Probably one of my own composition notebooks from back in the day.”

“Open the front cover,” Valentine instructed.

Vic did, and Blair’s stomach churned.

“Says Iris Wallingford on it,” Valentine said.

“So I’ll ask again.”Stanton leaned forward.“How did you get this?”

“How didyouget this?”Vic demanded.“I haven’t seen it for years.”

“Your wife brought it in,” Valentine replied.“She says she found it on a shelf.”

“Marilee’s lying,” Vic burst out.“She’s in on this too?Lies.It’s all a pack of lies.”

Blair froze.She’d never once heard Vic Nelson raise his voice.Not even when the choirs’ behavior warranted it.Not even when they were down to the wire and not prepared for a concert.Never, as a student or as a professional, had she heard him shout.

Stanton didn’t blink.“She’s also filed for an order of protection against you.”

An order of protection.Had Vic abused her?Blair’s heart ached for what Marilee Nelson must have endured hidden in plain sight.

Vic let out a bark of laughter.“That’ll never stick.I’ve never laid a hand on the woman.What kind of monster do you people think I am?”

“Well, your former girlfriend wound up dead.”Valentine leaned forward.“And her music wound up at your house.”

“And in at least two dozen of your published compositions,” Stanton added.

Vic’s lawyer side-eyed his client.“You never told me that.”

“Iris was a genius,” Vic said.

“That why you submitted a piece she wrote to the Whitehall Conservatory back in 1969?”Valentine asked.

Vic rolled his eyes.“This again.That was all Iris’s idea.Allhers.It never even would have occurred to me if she hadn’t brought it up.She insisted.”

“She made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”Stanton leaned back, arms folded across her chest.“And once you saw her genius, you needed more of it.No way could you write like she could.Whitehall would’ve seen through your ruse the first day of school.No, you needed her whole notebook.”

“We talked to Whitehall,” Valentine added.“They said you were never a student there.”

“Professor Hochsteiner confirmed it when we spoke with him.”Stanton’s words were casual, but her gaze was anything but.

“That old coot,” Vic scoffed.“What is he, nearly a hundred by now?”

“Still sharp as a tack, though,” Valentine replied.“And he told us Whitehall revoked your acceptance.”