Soundtrack...To Murder Previously unpublished, or maybe I put it on the web somewhere. The Dom wasn’t as cold as I [private investigator Elvis Cole] wanted, but that was okay. I filled two flute glasses, and brought them out. I put Natalie Merchant on the CD player, singing “One Fine Day,” and then I opened the big glass doors. --Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem Art Pepper was on the stereo and [Homicide Detective Harry] Bosch was on the telephone with Javis Langweiser when there was a knock on the door. --Michael Connelly, A Darkness More than Night [Criminal profiler Maggie O’Dell] unearthed her CD player, an inexpensive oversize boombox. She dug into the overflowing box of CDs… Finally she decided on an early Jim Brickman, hoping the piano solos would soothe her agitated insides. --Alex Cava, Split Second The Monday morning sunlight spilled through [Acting Detective Superintendent Alan] Banks’s kitchen window and glinted on the copper-bottomed pans hanging on the wall. Banks sat at his pine table with a cup of coffee, toast and marmalade… and Vaughn Williams’s Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis playing on the radio. --Peter Robinson, Aftermath

I was sitting in my chair-and-a-half, guzzling a Snapple and gnawing on a Peek Frean, when the ring of the telephone interrupted the modulating drone of Terry Riley’s In C that warbled from my Bose Acoustimass 16s. It was Grimes. In a voice like Ethel Merman’s, he said, “Jack, get down to the station.” I got, and quick. Grimes was in the conference room, tapping his fingers on the woodgrain formica in the 15/8 rhythm of Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean.” “Give it to me,” I said. “A whole wind ensemble. Cut down in the middle of Schubert’s Octet in F.” “Fill me in on the way.” In the car, Grimes jammed a Foghat 8-track into the player. “Who’s the perp?” I asked. “A man in black, with an automatic. Witnesses thought he did it just to watch them die.” I already had an idea, and it sure as hell wasn’t Li’l Bow Wow. When we got to the concert hall, the boys from forensic were already there. Boys and a girl, that is: Medical Examiner Janet Jackson. She looked up from the bloodied remains of a shattered bassoon. “If it isn’t Rogers and Hammerstein,” she said. “What can you tell us, JJ?” Her voice mingled with the Jim Brickman trickling from the PA. It didn’t do much for my agitated insides. “Eight shots, every one right between the eyes.” My eyeballs danced over the carnage from behind my Ray-Bans. “Any leads?” “Only this.” “A bottle of Dom,” I marveled. “Not quite cold enough.” “Prints?” “Nah,” she said, “he’s got an alibi. Better check with the lab.” On the way there, I nearly got sick thinking about the dead musicians. I violently switched off the radio, breaking the knob. “This is no time for Vaughn Williams,” I said. “Or Thomas Tallis, for that matter.” “Take it easy,” said Grimes. “Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” “You’re right.” I replaced the knob and switched on the radio. The Byrds were playing. It made me feel a whole lot better. At the lab, we asked if they had a match on the prints. “You bet,” they said. “But look.” I opened the file. “Hildegaard von Bingen?” Grimes asked. “She’s been dead for centuries.” “Then what was she doing at Lollapalooza?” We hopped in the Saturn and Grimes popped some Art Pepper into the Blaupunkt. Naturally Javis Langweiser called. “No time to chat,” I said, hanging up. We arrived at the fairgrounds, but the place was deserted. “Look,” said Grimes. “The old man down the road.” We hopped out and grilled him. He talked like Dylan, but his body language was pure Otto Klemperer. He said, “Sure, I remember. Lady about yea high, looked about 900 years old? She said she was waiting on a friend.” “And I bet I know where,” I said. We found her under the boardwalk. She had Yo-Yo Ma in a half-Nelson and she waved a glinting copper-bottomed pan in the air over his head. “Let the cellist go, Hildy,” said Grimes, whipping out his Smith & Wesson .45 Schofield. It gleamed like an Eminem CD. “How’d you find me?” “You might have got away with it,” I said. “But you forgot one thing.” Suddenly there was a knock at the door. It was Keith Jarrett. He said, “You forgot to shoot the piano player.” Von Bingen dropped the pan and Ma scrambled out of the way. Jarrett walked up and grabbed her by the hair. “And you’re no dead composer either,” he said, and pulled. We all gasped at the face that was revealed. “Natalie Merchant!” everybody said together. “It would’ve been one fine day for sure, if not for you gumshoes.” “Instead,” I said, “all you’ll be singing is Jailhouse Rock.” We took her downtown. She begged for us to turn down the Aphex Twin, but we just pumped up the volume. Later that night Grimes and I ruminated over a Dixie cup of Chivas, a sack of Funyuns, and the original cast recording of Hair. “How’d you know it wasn’t Johnny Cash?” Grimes asked me. I grinned and put on some Charlie Parker. “A little bird told me,” I said. c2002 by J. Robert Lennon.