The Violin Conspiracy(76)

“Yeah,” Ray said. “It’s mine. These nutjobs have come up with some crazy idea that it’s theirs, but they’re just lying.” He spoke loud enough to be heard at the counter.

Andrea rose to the bait. “We are not,” she yelled back. “It’s our family heirloom. Our niece is going to play it someday.” But she sounded hopeless and definitely crazy.

“Ma’am, sir, you’re going to have to take him to court for this one,” the older cop said. “I don’t think any of you are in any physical danger. If you have further issues, we can take this down to the station.” The Markses shook their heads, and soon the police officers left. The tall goon behind them still hadn’t said anything. The people in the diner and the people outside continued to hold up their phones, filming them.

As Ray packed up the violin, Andrea inched over to him, hissed, “Don’t think this is over. We tried to let you off easy.”

“Lady, go home. Stay out of my face. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”

He was so angry that he left the diner without taking his tater tots, salad, and pie. Now the Boston hawk didn’t seem nearly as cold.





Chapter 23


    Settlement


4 Months Ago

No phone call or high-res video could take the place of standing in front of Aunt Rochelle and talking to her. So that’s what Ray would do. Now he was half sitting, half leaning on the hood of her car, hands jammed into the pockets of his puffy coat. He’d been standing outside her Philadelphia condo waiting for her since 7:00 a.m.; he knew she sometimes left early for work.

At about 7:40 she came into sight. When she saw him, her shoulders lifted and her head rocked back on her neck, her body language projecting surprise at seeing some Black dude sitting on the hood of her car. Her hand came up to her throat. Then she recognized him. “Ray?”

“Hi, Aunt Rochelle.”

“Oh my lord, you gave me a fright,” she said. She bounded forward and hugged him tightly. The hood of her car jammed into the back of his leg. “What are you doing here, sugar? You okay?”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d talk to me,” he said, hugging her back, breathing in her familiar perfume. “So I figured I’d just show up and say hello.”

“Not talk to you?” she said. “Why wouldn’t I talk to you? Because of all that foolishness with your violin?” She shook her head. “I don’t know where their heads are sometimes, and that’s the god’s truth. Of course I’ll talk to you. How are you? What’s been going on? It’s been forever since I’ve seen you. Except on TV.” She hugged him again.

He started telling her about the concerts, about playing all over the country, about the media interviews. She cut him off. “You know, I’m not going to stand out here in the cold and listen to my favorite nephew, who just happens to be a famous musician. We’re going for breakfast. Have you eaten?”

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

“Screw ’em,” she said cheerfully. “I feel a sudden sore throat coming on. Hold on a sec.” She pulled out her phone, tapped an email. “I got some sick days coming anyway. Where you want to go for breakfast? There’s a Bob Evans down the street that makes a mean sausage biscuit.”

Ray had forgotten Aunt Rochelle’s love of biscuits. “That sounds great,” he said.

She drove, her car immaculate, with a lemony air freshener that surprisingly did not smell like some kind of chemical spill. “Tell me everything,” she told him. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with my world-famous musician nephew,” she said. She looked in the rearview mirror. “And a billion-dollar violin in the back seat.”

So he talked—in the car, and in Bob Evans, as they sat in the booth and ordered. It had been months, he realized, since he’d had a conversation with someone in his family, and family really was special; the relationships were unlike any other. Fraught and perilous much of the time, but sweet as well. He told her about touring, about Baton Rouge, about Kristoff, about performing in huge concert halls and in school gyms.

In the meantime they wolfed down eggs and biscuits with bacon and vegan sausage.

The waitress brought over more orange juice for Ray and refilled Rochelle’s coffee. She cleared their plates.

“You see this handsome man here,” Rochelle told her. “He’s a famous musician. He was on 60 Minutes last month.”

“Aww jeez, come on, Auntie,” Ray said, embarrassed.

The waitress, hands full with dirty plates, was properly appreciative.

After she left, Rochelle said, “Speaking of 60 Minutes, what’s going on with those people? The ones who said they used to own PopPop’s fiddle?”

“That’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet you,” Ray said. “I had to hire a lawyer. To fight them and—well—the family.”

Up until now, neither had directly acknowledged the family’s lawsuit against Ray, of which Rochelle wasn’t part.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this,” she said now. “It wasn’t my idea. I told them that Mama wanted you to have that violin and it was criminal to say otherwise. Mama would be turning over in her grave if she knew.”