Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [58]
Somebody didn’t, Berry thought.
He gave them his card and urged them to call if they thought of anything. After paying the bill, and again offering his condolences, he left them at the table, one half of a cold English muffin the remnants of their having met.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The meeting of the Opera Ball committee was spirited, and at times contentious.
The pressure was on, the date of the gala rapidly approaching. Adding to the sense of urgency was the murder, the tragic nature of Ms. Lee’s death, and rampant speculation about who’d killed her. Since Mac Smith had arranged for the private detective to investigate the crime, Annabel was a target of probes into what progress her husband was aware of.
“I really don’t know any more than you do,” Annabel replied. “I just know that Raymond Pawkins, who used to be a Homicide detective, has agreed to work with us, and that the police are vigorously pursuing it, too
“Oh, come on, Annabel,” one woman said, “I just know that you and that handsome husband of yours already know who the murderer is and are just waiting for the right time to announce it
Annabel was tempted to educate her questioner about why that scenario was unlikely, at best, but instead simply denied it. Another member of the committee who’d overheard the exchange said, seriously, “It would be wonderful if it could be announced prior to the ball. That would make the evening especially meaningful
Another woman disagreed: “I don’t think it would be wonderful at all. It would only deflect attention from the ball
As with any undertaking of the scope of the Opera Ball, there were bound to be mishaps, and thorny issues to be resolved. On this day, the ongoing and nettlesome chore of seating arrangements topped the agenda.
The festive evening would begin with sit-down dinners at more than thirty foreign embassies, hosted by their ambassadors. Five hundred leaders of Washington’s diplomatic, corporate, government, and arts communities would pay handsomely for the privilege of attending these relatively intimate, pre-ball dinners featuring food indigenous to each embassy’s home country. Some couples lobbied for seats at the British, French, and Spanish embassies as hard as professional lobbyists fought for pet bills in Congress. Others, who prided themselves on an appreciation of ethnic food, happily signed up for dinners at less popular venues. But no matter where you ended up sitting, the Opera Ball was a yearly social event not to be missed. As Thorstein Veblen’s seminal work on status in America, The Theory of the Leisure Class, had proffered, we’d gone from hunting and fishing skills as signs of social standing to what he termed the “modern-peaceable barbarian” stage, in which social status now involved signs of affluence, tuxedoed men arriving at galas in large, expensive cars with ladies in designer fashions on their arms. See and be seen. It was a lot better than being skilled with a crossbow, Annabel thought when first reading it.
Following those private dinners, everyone would head for the main event, the ball itself, hosted this year by the Brazilian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, where Brazilian desserts—Manjar Branco, a coconut flan with prune sauce; Cream Sago, tapioca pudding with red wine; and Peach Mousse—would be savored, and couples would dance the night away beneath a massive tent to the music of one of D.C.’s favorite society orchestras. Later, as whiskey and wine and heat and humidity loosened lips and lacquered hair, two Brazilian samba bands would send the revelers home filled with fond memories, and with the Washington National Opera’s coffers fatter as well.
The seating charts for the various embassy dinners were displayed on a large easel, with problem ones circled in red on the master layout.
“The Zieglers insist upon being seated next to the Carlsons at the Colombian Embassy,” the woman in charge of seating said. “Ken Ziegler has a deal pending with the bank where Carlson is CEO.” She threw up her hands. “I simply can’t