Death Notes

room set up like an office with a desk and chair, a couch, a piano, and a clarinet in a glass case over the desk.
    Above the brick fireplace were a bunch of dusty trophies and three eight-by-ten photographs in simple black frames. One, a faded black-and-white taken in some smoky nightclub, was of a young Match, sax in hand, beside a laughing, darkeyed woman at a piano. The inscription, in bold, back-slanted letters read, ‘Georgette, you are my life. Forever, Match.’ Georgette looked like a gypsy princess, high-spirited and exotic. The other two photographs on the mantel were of Clark surrounded by a bunch of kids under a softball champs banner.
    Clark dropped into the swivel chair at the desk so I sat on the couch. His eyes followed mine to the nest of papers and the stacks of notebooks scattered across the desk and at his feet. ‘I’m a teacher,’ he said. ‘Junior high math and music.’
    ‘Tough job.’
    I nodded toward the piano. It looked like the same one in the picture. ‘Do you play piano?’
    ‘I use it to teach and compose. The range of octaves lets you write for almost any instrument, even the human voice. For me, and I guess for most composers, it’s just a tool. This,’ he reached up and touched the glass case holding the clarinet, ‘this is what I play.’
    ‘Jazz?’
    He smiled patiently.
    ‘Everybody asks me that. I play classical music. It’s what I compose, too.’
    He cleared his throat, then fixed me with an expectant look, so I got right to the point.
    ‘I’m involved in your father’s case,’ I began.
    He nodded. ‘My father told you who killed him, right? The police wouldn’t tell me, but 1 appreciate your coming in person. I didn’t know how to reach you myself.’
    ‘That’s what I came to talk to you about, but it’s not what you think. Match didn’t say anything before he died.’
    ‘No?’ He seemed surprised and disappointed.
    ‘Who told you that he did?’
    ‘Sharon told me. She said you knew, but the police wouldn’t let you say who. I assumed...’ His voice trailed off. ‘Why are you here, then?’
    ‘I was hoping you could tell me what Match did those years he wasn’t playing, before his comeback.’
    ‘You mean besides being strung out?’
    I saw the pain creep into his face before he looked away. Somewhere down the street a small dog started yapping. Then a door slammed and the noise stopped. His gaze wandered to the photograph on the mantel.
    ‘A big part of him died with my mother. I was just a kid so I didn’t understand. I know now he was on heroin when he met my mom and he quit because of her. But he couldn’t cope when she died. I went to a foster home and he went to live on the streets. His friends kept dragging him into rehab but it never stuck.’
    ‘Until Sharon.’
    He made a sour face. ‘Did she tell you that?’
    ‘Yes. Why? Isn’t it true?’ I played dumb.
    ‘He stopped because the doctors told him he’d die if he didn’t. And because Mary Elegius got religion and started a place for her fellow jazz musicians to kick their habits. Dad went there and that’s when he finally was able to stick to a program. Sharon sent him, but really, Mary’s the one who convinced him to stay for a whole year. Mary Elegius believed in Dad. Sharon was just coincidental to the whole experience. But she tries to take full credit because by then they happened to be married.’
    ‘Why did he marry Sharon?’
    ‘To be honest, I don’t really know. I’m still as puzzled about it as I was the day they came back from Reno and told me they’d gotten married. The best I can come up with, having spent too many Sunday afternoons over at their house, is maybe she badgered him into it. She wasn’t really his type.’
    A thought occurred to me. ‘Do you think she blackmailed him into it?’
    For a fleeting moment, something crossed his face. Then his expression hardened.
    ‘That presupposes there was something to blackmail him about,’ he said coldly.
    ‘Was there?’
    ‘Of course not. And I resent your asking. My father might have had some weaknesses, but he was only human. And he was honest about them. He acknowledged them, took responsibility, and eventually conquered them.’
    His response was clipped, annoyed. A less polite person would have asked me to leave, but I was banking on his good manners. ‘Tell me about your half-sister.’
    ‘Yvette? What’s there to say? She’s only interested in money. My father and I never heard a word