e-mail address I may be able to find out where he’s been logging in from. And then, I guess I’ll see if I can find out whether there’s any possibility that Kitty Binder’s parents were here right after the war. Martin probably heard tales about them when he was growing up—he might have tried to track them down. What was Kitty’s birth name?”
“Saginor,” Lotty said. “But remember, that was her mother: we don’t know her father.”
“It’s easy to get a list of Nobel laureates,” I said. “Someone who won the prize between 1920 and 1939, that should fit the bill. Unless her father was a builder. Perhaps he was a builder who dined with the King of Sweden, though: he wasn’t a Nobel laureate, but simply the king’s carpenter.”
Lotty laughed at that, but her face remained worried as she ushered me through her apartment to the elevator.
As I drove home, I remembered, a bit belatedly, that I’d promised Kitty Binder I’d keep her affairs confidential. I also remembered vowing not to let other people put their problems into the center of my stage. One more day, I vowed: one more day on the Binder-Saginor mystery and then I’d turn my back on them.
It was close to eleven when I got home, but I stayed up another hour to talk to Jake Thibaut, the bass player I’ve been seeing for the last fewyears. One of the chamber groups he belongs to was on tour along the West Coast. They had started in Alaska and were working their way south to San Diego. They’d made it as far as Victoria on Vancouver Island.
His absence made my schedule easier in some ways, but it also meant I was lonely at the end of a long day. I waited up until his concert had ended, so we could exchange news of the day. His had definitely been more fun than mine: the concert, held in a refurbished church, had been a major success. Tomorrow, on their day off, a friend was taking them out deep-sea fishing.
“If I catch a salmon I’ll send it home to you.”
“I’ll prop it up at the dining room table and talk to it over dinner; that will make us both forget we miss you.”
I casually mentioned the dog I’d rescued from a meth house, and he groaned. “No more dogs, V.I., please. Peppy’s mellow, but I can only just tolerate Mitch; a third dog and we’re going to do some serious talking.”
“A third dog and I’ll be in a witness relocation program,” I assured him. “Don’t you care that I was risking life and limb in a meth house?”
“Victoria Iphigenia, what can I do about that? If I told you to steer clear of them you’d do your cactus imitation. Anyway, I’m three thousand miles away. Even if I were right next to you, I know you’re the person on our team who takes down meth dealers, not me. I’d be worrying about my fingers and you’d have to protect both of us.”
I had to laugh. I abandoned the effort to extract worried cluckings from him and moved on to Kitty Binder and her missing family.
That did get his attention. “You say Lotty told you this Kitty’s birth name was Saginor? Was she related to a Viennese musician named Elsa Saginor?”
“I don’t know.” I was surprised. “Who is that?”
“She was one of the Terezín musicians. She played flute, but she composed, also; some of her music was in the scores from the campthey discovered several years ago. We perform it from time to time. It’s rather intricate, fugal but in a serialist style. The fun thing, if it isn’t sacrilegious to talk about having fun with death camp music, is to lay about ten tracks of the recording over each other and then play live against the backing. It’s exhilarating to concentrate so hard.”
I wondered if mentioning a musical aunt would make Kitty Binder unbend with me, or if she would purse her lips still further and utter some pithy condemnation of people who had their mouths on their flutes instead of their eyes on the prize.
Before we hung up, Jake said, “Don’t get in over your head, V.I. I miss you.
“Saginor,” Lotty said. “But remember, that was her mother: we don’t know her father.”
“It’s easy to get a list of Nobel laureates,” I said. “Someone who won the prize between 1920 and 1939, that should fit the bill. Unless her father was a builder. Perhaps he was a builder who dined with the King of Sweden, though: he wasn’t a Nobel laureate, but simply the king’s carpenter.”
Lotty laughed at that, but her face remained worried as she ushered me through her apartment to the elevator.
As I drove home, I remembered, a bit belatedly, that I’d promised Kitty Binder I’d keep her affairs confidential. I also remembered vowing not to let other people put their problems into the center of my stage. One more day, I vowed: one more day on the Binder-Saginor mystery and then I’d turn my back on them.
It was close to eleven when I got home, but I stayed up another hour to talk to Jake Thibaut, the bass player I’ve been seeing for the last fewyears. One of the chamber groups he belongs to was on tour along the West Coast. They had started in Alaska and were working their way south to San Diego. They’d made it as far as Victoria on Vancouver Island.
His absence made my schedule easier in some ways, but it also meant I was lonely at the end of a long day. I waited up until his concert had ended, so we could exchange news of the day. His had definitely been more fun than mine: the concert, held in a refurbished church, had been a major success. Tomorrow, on their day off, a friend was taking them out deep-sea fishing.
“If I catch a salmon I’ll send it home to you.”
“I’ll prop it up at the dining room table and talk to it over dinner; that will make us both forget we miss you.”
I casually mentioned the dog I’d rescued from a meth house, and he groaned. “No more dogs, V.I., please. Peppy’s mellow, but I can only just tolerate Mitch; a third dog and we’re going to do some serious talking.”
“A third dog and I’ll be in a witness relocation program,” I assured him. “Don’t you care that I was risking life and limb in a meth house?”
“Victoria Iphigenia, what can I do about that? If I told you to steer clear of them you’d do your cactus imitation. Anyway, I’m three thousand miles away. Even if I were right next to you, I know you’re the person on our team who takes down meth dealers, not me. I’d be worrying about my fingers and you’d have to protect both of us.”
I had to laugh. I abandoned the effort to extract worried cluckings from him and moved on to Kitty Binder and her missing family.
That did get his attention. “You say Lotty told you this Kitty’s birth name was Saginor? Was she related to a Viennese musician named Elsa Saginor?”
“I don’t know.” I was surprised. “Who is that?”
“She was one of the Terezín musicians. She played flute, but she composed, also; some of her music was in the scores from the campthey discovered several years ago. We perform it from time to time. It’s rather intricate, fugal but in a serialist style. The fun thing, if it isn’t sacrilegious to talk about having fun with death camp music, is to lay about ten tracks of the recording over each other and then play live against the backing. It’s exhilarating to concentrate so hard.”
I wondered if mentioning a musical aunt would make Kitty Binder unbend with me, or if she would purse her lips still further and utter some pithy condemnation of people who had their mouths on their flutes instead of their eyes on the prize.
Before we hung up, Jake said, “Don’t get in over your head, V.I. I miss you.
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