Chapter 8 - The Man Who Took the Piano
Lionel Price answered his phone from a warehouse office beside the Patapsco River. His voice was quiet, tired, and immediately suspicious.
"If my mother sent you, tell her I'm fine."
"This is Asha King. I'm calling about a piano your company just received."
A long pause.
"You need to get here before Whitlock does."
Lionel was thirty-six and had grown into a thin man with graying hair at his temples. He wore a mechanic's jacket and kept glancing through the warehouse windows. The piano stood inside a wooden shipping crate, untouched except for its lid.
Asha had brought an investigator and the court order. Lionel signed an inventory receipt and allowed them to inspect the instrument. He explained that Elaine Sutter had directed the shipment but had not expected him to be working the night shift.
"She usually deals with my manager," he said. "I saw the serial number. I remembered Marian writing it on our sheet music when she talked about taking care of things that last."
"Why did you leave the foundation?" Imani asked.
Lionel rubbed his forehead. "Because I found the scholarship fund wasn't doing what they said. And because I was too scared to go public. I thought if I stayed away, they'd leave my mother alone."
His honesty made it harder for Imani to be angry with him.
The investigator photographed the piano's underside. Beneath layers of white paint was the blue-window emblem from Marian's old photograph. A repair label identified a craftsman who had worked on the instrument in 2000. Celeste recorded the serial number again.
"Do not open any compartment," Asha told Lionel. "No one alters this piano until the court settles custody of the evidence."
Josiah, who had begged to come but remained at the church with Odessa, would have been delighted by that warning. He had become convinced every piano in Baltimore contained a secret drawer.
Imani had a different question. "Why send it to you, Lionel? Why would Elaine risk that?"
"Because she thinks I still work for her," he answered.
After leaving the foundation, Lionel had started a moving and restoration company. Elaine had given him steady contracts in exchange for discretion. He had accepted them, telling himself he was repairing instruments, not covering up anything.
"I wasn't brave," he said. "I was busy paying rent."
Imani thought of her own paycheck and found she could not judge him from a distance.
They heard a car outside. Elaine Sutter entered without knocking. She wore the same silver brooch seen in the gala reflection.
"Lionel, where are the documents?"
Then she saw Asha.
Elaine stopped. "I should have known."
Asha identified herself and explained the preservation order. Elaine insisted the piano belonged to the Whitlock Foundation and said the truck had been scheduled before any notice reached the hotel.
"Then that can be determined with the shipping records," Asha said.
Elaine's eyes moved to Imani. "Your mother was supposed to sell us the score. She was offered enough to keep that school open."
"She said no," Imani replied.
"She signed the building sale."
"My father signed it. That's not the same thing."
Elaine stared at the blue window visible beneath the paint. Her face changed in a way Imani could not read.
"Conrad promised he'd keep the place open," she said.
"You know he didn't."
"I know a lot of things."
Asha waited. "Would you like to tell us one of them with counsel present?"
Elaine looked toward the door. "Not here."
She left without touching the piano.
Two hours later, she walked into Asha's office accompanied by her own attorney. She provided a bank transfer, a meeting calendar, and copies of correspondence with Conrad around the time of the fire. Her account was limited: she said Conrad had pressured the city to vacate North Window and that he knew about complaints concerning the exit. She denied knowing who chained the door or who started the fire.
"I helped hide the song," she admitted. "I watched them take Marian's name off the published score. I told myself it was business."
"Why speak now?" Imani asked.
Elaine twisted the brooch between her fingers.
"Because Conrad has been using my name on transactions I never approved. And because I saw your boy at the piano."
Imani's voice turned cold. "He didn't become somebody worth helping because you saw him."
Elaine accepted that without answering.
The records supported several new questions, but the most important document was a 2001 fax from Conrad to his attorney. It instructed him to transfer proceeds from Marian's recordings into the North Window Children's Trust and to keep public credit under Conrad's name until disputes were resolved.
"So he knew the music wasn't his," Vivian said.
Asha examined the document. "It suggests he acknowledged a dispute and ordered a transfer of proceeds. We'll have to establish its authenticity and legal effect."
Freddie traced the listed account. It had received substantial royalty payments for two decades, then sent distributions through firms tied to Whitlock directors.
That night, an independent reporter asked Imani for an interview. She agreed to speak about her own experience and Marian's work, but only if Josiah was not filmed without his permission. The reporter accepted the condition.
Afterward, Josiah asked why she hadn't told everybody about the times they had eaten crackers for supper.
"Because you don't have to show strangers every hard thing we've survived to prove we deserve fairness," Imani said.
He leaned into her side. "I still want Grandma's name on the music."
"So do I."
Asha called from her office with urgent news. The audio expert had isolated the second voice on Marian's tape and compared it to recordings of Conrad from that period. The findings were consistent with his voice but not definitive.
More importantly, the expert discovered a second layer of sound underneath the piano: a child counting the beats, very close to the microphone.
"Listen," Asha said.
They heard a young voice say, "One, two, three, four, Mama. Again."
Imani stopped moving.
"That's me."
At the end of the tape, Marian answered, "Good, Imani. And when it's finished, we put both our names on it."
May you like
Imani had not only witnessed the song's creation.
Her mother had intended to credit her as its co-writer.
