Free StoneDust by Justin Scott Page A

gigantic attic.
    â€œDown front on the left.”
    We found two seats in the sixth row, behind Connie and a group of well-dressed elderly ladies discussing their recent trips to the Amazon.
    The Pings, a handsome family of string players, took the stage.
    I glanced at the program and groaned.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œRavel. The Friends of Music ought to set aside a Ravel Haters Room we could retreat to.”
    Aunt Connie turned around and told me to behave myself. The first violin stamped his foot and the Pings galloped into some fine Mozart. I scanned the program notes, written with a flourish by Scooter’s wife; Eleanor made the Ravel piece sound interesting, but when they got to it, it wasn’t.
    There’s something about Ravel. Musicians love the guy. There’s rarely a Friends concert without him, and barely a note of movie and TV music that hasn’t been lifted from the Frenchman that critics more knowledgeable than I have dubbed “the musical self-abuser.” I whispered to Alison that New Guinea headhunter pickup bands play Ravel on their neighbors’ skulls at least once an evening.
    Predictably, he cleared the hall like grapeshot. Only half the audience returned from intermission, which was a shame, because the Pings had grown to a quintet, procuring the services of a vast lady in red who played a showy piano. She bounced on her stool like a Jeep Cherokee on a washboard road and tossed her long black hair with such ecstasy that I had to wonder what it would be like to be on the bottom making love with her. After she took her bows, the Pings got real with a Corelli piece intended to make angels weep.
    â€œJesus!” Alison breathed when it was over.
    â€œâ€˜Gosh’ will do, thank you.”
    â€œWhy do you always correct me?”
    I glanced at Connie’s white head. She was applauding with enthusiasm. I said, “Because when I was growing up, Connie and my parents did it for me, and it helps me know now what’s appropriate when and where. Makes you comfortable, no matter what the company.”
    â€œBut Ben, it was a ‘Jesus!’ moment.”
    I admitted she had me there and wondered if ice cream at the General Store was a good idea. But we were being very grown up today, and Alison said, a little tentatively, as she does when she’s afraid of being disappointed, “There’s a reception to meet the musicians. Can we go?”
    â€œYeah, I want to meet the lady in red.”
    â€œSay ‘yes,’ Ben. Not ‘yeah.’”
    The lady in red turned out to be as jolly offstage as on, and Alison got a little jealous until the violinist paid some attention to her, which left her starry-eyed all the way home. I walked her to the barn door.
    â€œThanks for asking me.”
    â€œThanks for coming. Hey, Ben?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI heard you were asking about Mr. Hopkins?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou should have asked me.”
    â€œOh, really?”
    â€œThe big kids saw him that night.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œLate.”
    â€œWhere?”
    She drew back, and I realized I had grabbed her shoulder and was squeezing. “Sorry.” I stepped back. “What do you mean, hon? Who saw him?”
    â€œI don’t know. Big kids. They were riding their bikes real late and they saw him.”
    Bikes. When I was a “big kid” fourteen to sixteen, we walked everywhere. But nowadays they got around on bikes, which we had scorned as kid stuff as soon as we were old enough to start counting the years to a driver’s license.
    â€œWhere did they see him?”
    â€œThe party that the Fisks gave.”
    â€œThe cookout?”
    â€œNo. You know. The grownup party. The Jacuzzi party.”
    I bent down until we were eye to eye. “This is important. What time?”
    â€œLate. Midnight, maybe.”
    â€œWhat were they doing out at the Fisks’ at