Chapter 11 #2
5
The band load-in crew only works half a day on Saturday unless there’s a show, and Sista Bessie’s first show at the Mingo is still a week away. This is still about rehearsing the music, the tech, and finalizing the set list. Barbara is backstage, watching Batty and Pogo show her how the breakers work with the amps and lights, when Tones Kelly finds her and says Betty wants to see her.
The Mingo’s dressing rooms are a floor up, and they’re first-class; Betty’s is actually a suite. There’s already a star on her door, and a photo of her in her sparkly Sista Bessie show clothes. Inside, Betty is sitting on a wine-red couch with Hennie Ramer, her agent. Hennie puts away her word search book when Barbara comes in, and Barbara sees Tones Kelly is also here. All at once she’s frightened.
“Am I being fired?” she blurts out.
Betty laughs, then says, “In a way, you are. No more work with the roadies, Barbara.”
“Insurance issue,” Hennie says. “Also a union issue.”
“I thought we weren’t union,” Barbara objects.
Hennie looks uncomfortable. “Yes and no. We abide by most of the AFM rules.”
“I don’t care about that Federation shit,” Betty says, “but you’re talent now. If you sprain your back, you won’t be able to keep step with the Crystals.”
“The Crystals are fine, but I also like the roadies,” Barbara protests, “and they seem to like me.”
“They do like you, Acey says you pull your weight, but I need you to concentrate on harmony with the girls.”
The girls—Tess, Laverne, and Jem—are now in their seventies.
“And our duet on ‘Jazz.’ That’s what I’m all about these days. Girl, we’re going to whale the shit out of that thing. By the time we get to New York, it’ll be a show closer. The band is going to drop out except for the drums, and we’re going to go…” She bursts into full-throated song, pumping her moccasined feet. “Jazz, jazz, that Lowtown jazz, give it, take it, move it, shake it, roll it, stroll it…” Back to her speaking voice. “Like that, and for as long as it will play. It’s gonna be like that J. Geils joint, ‘(Ain’t Nothin’ But a) House Party,’ but we’re gonna soul it instead of rock and roll it. Don’t mind me making some changes? Because, girl, we can tear that sumbitch up.”
Barbara does dig it. The rhythm Betty’s putting down is exactly what she heard in her head the first time she read Vachel Lindsay’s racist (but crazily addictive) poem “The Congo.” Yet at the same time…
“Betty, I’m a poet , not a singer. I told my brother the same thing. Trying to be a poet, anyway. This is… it’s crazy .”
“Legal issues aside, there’s a practical side,” Hennie says. “Fact is, you’re a better singer than you are a roadie. Good pipes. You’re not Merry Clayton—”
“Or Aretha,” Tones says. “Or Tina.”
“But who is?” Hennie says. “You’re good at this, and what’s a poet without song? Or life experience?”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Betty says from the couch. “Patti Smith. Hell of a singer, hell of a writer. Nick Cave. Gil Scott-Heron. Josh Ritter. Leonard Cohen. I’ve read them all, and I’ve read you . Also your brother now, and I have to wonder if he can also sing.”
Barbara laughs. “He’s horrible . You don’t want to hear him on Karaoke Night.”
“Ne’mine then, but I’ve got you,” Betty says, “and I want this for you. From now on, it’s like Mavis says: You belong to the band, hallelu’. All right?”
Barbara gives in, and when she does, discovers it’s a pleasure.
Betty holds out her arms. “Now come on, girl, and give this fat old lady a hug.”
Barbara steps forward and allows herself to be enfolded. Does some enfolding of her own, too. Betty kisses her on both cheeks and says, “I care for you, girl. Do this for me, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Barbara says. She’s scared, but she’s also young and still willing to spread her wings. Also, she likes the idea of being in the same company as Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen.
Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director, pokes his head in. “Your sound man says you’re wanted onstage, Ms. Brady.”
Betty stands up, still with an arm around Barbara. “Come on, girl. We are going to sing our fucking hearts out. And you will bang the tambourine on ‘Saved.’?”
6
Kate carries her own new brand-new bags to the truck, which Holly appreciates. The boss is in a fine mood, and so is the boss’s assistant.
“We’re back at the Mingo Auditorium,” Corrie says. “I just spent an hour on the phone with Gibson, the Program Director, and the bookstore people. It’s just a day earlier—Friday instead of Saturday. Most of the venues were willing to help out.”
“Because I’m hot ,” Kate says, and strikes a pose, hand behind her head, chest thrust out. She laughs at herself, then sobers. Her eyes are bright with curiosity. “Tell me something, Holly. What’s it like, working in a male-dominated field like private investigation? Do you find it difficult? And I can’t help noticing that you’re rather slightly built. Hard to imagine you going toe-to-toe with an escaping miscreant.”
Holly, a private person by nature, considers this question a tiny bit invasive. Possibly even rude. But she smiles, because a smile isn’t just an umbrella on a rainy day; it’s also a shield. And she has gone toe-to-toe with a few bad people, and—through luck and pluck—has come out fairly well. “Subjects for another time, maybe.”
Corrie, perhaps more sensitive to emotional nuances than her boss—the vibe —chimes in immediately. “We ought to get on the road, Kate. I have a lot to arrange when we get there.”
“Right,” Kate says, and gives Holly her most winning smile. “To be continued.”
Holly says, “Remember that you two are registered at the Axis, but we’re actually staying at—”
“The Country Inn and Suites,” Corrie finishes. “Registered under your name.” And, to Kate: “They have a pool, if you want to swim.”
“I’d prefer you to stay in your—” Holly begins.
“ I’d prefer to swim,” Kate says. “It relaxes me. Touring is hard enough without being cooped up like a prisoner.”
Being dead is even harder than being on tour , Holly thinks… but of course doesn’t say. She has discovered that the most difficult thing about being a bodyguard is that the bodyguard’s subject considers herself, at bottom, to be invulnerable. Even blood and guts on her luggage only gave her a day’s pause.
“I still need to look at the communications from your stalker.” She also wants to catch up with Jerome. Briggs isn’t her case, but Jerome’s call this morning was moderately weird.
“Tomorrow,” Kate says. “Tomorrow is a day off, oh gloriosity.”
And with that, Holly must be content.
7
Late Saturday afternoon, Trig sets sail in his Toyota for the bucolic town of Crooked Creek, about thirty-five miles northwest of the city. As usual, his radio is tuned to WBOB, Buckeye City’s “All News, All the Time” station… although what the Big Bob mostly broadcasts isn’t news but right-wing shouters like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. With the volume turned low, it’s not political, just the company of human voices.
Trig tells himself his current goal is nothing more than dinner at Norm’s Shack, which is considered by culinary experts (including Trig himself) to serve the finest ribs in the state, always accompanied by spicy beans and tangy coleslaw. He tells himself it’s just a coincidence that the Creek, a facility for teens dealing with substance abuse, is just a block or two from Norm’s. Why would he even care if there are runaways and dealers there?
Daddy disagrees. I got a good idea of where the bear shit in the buckwheat , as good old Dad used to say.
Trig shouldn’t take another one so soon, shouldn’t press his luck, and so what if a lot of young road warriors—like the nameless girl now decomposing in the Holman Rink—hang out at the Creek for awhile, before moving on to the next wherever? No-names who are already missing and in many cases presumed dead?
Just outside the town limits, he comes upon one of those no-names, this one a girl in a baggy duffle coat that is too warm for the day. She’s got a pack on her back, a barbwire tattoo around her skinny neck, and her thumb out.
Trig opens the console between the front seats, touches the Taurus, and closes it again. Who is he to say no when opportunity knocks? He pulls over.
The girl opens the door and peers in at him. “You dangerous, man?”
“No,” Trig says, thinking, What else would someone like me say, you idiot? “Where are you headed? The Creek?”
“How’d you know?” She’s still peering in. Trying to decide if he’s safe. And what does she see? A middle-aged man with a Mr. Businessman haircut, wearing a Mr. Businessman sportcoat over his small Mr. Businessman paunch. Looks like a salesman or something.
“Been there a few times. Once this spring. Chaired the meeting.”
“You’re Program?”
“A few years downriver from my last drink. And you’re a runaway.”
She freezes in the act of getting in, eyes wide.
“Relax, kid, I’m not going to out you. Or try to make a move on you. Ran away six times myself. Finally made it.”
She gets in and closes the door. “They let you sleep overnight there?”
Trig holds up a finger. “One night only.”
“Hot meal?”
“Yes, but not great. If you like ribs, I’ll buy you half a rack. Don’t like to eat alone.”
He pulls back onto the highway. Three miles down is the Crooked Creek Rest Area. He’ll pull in there, tell her he wants to stretch his bad back. If there’s no one there, he’ll shoot her before she knows what’s happening. Risky? Yes, of course. Killing isn’t the thrill. Risk is becoming the thrill. Might as well admit it. Like driving home with an open bottle of vodka.
“If it’s the kindness of your heart, okay. If it’s something else, just drop me at the halfway house. That’s what it is, right? A halfway?”
“Yup.” Trig checks his rearview mirror. Nobody behind him to see his license plate, and so what if there was? Just another dirty Toyota on a country road.
Two miles from the rest area—his heart beating hard and slow as he rehearses the moves he’ll make—the hemorrhoid cream ad on the radio cuts off and a horn blares the WBOB Breaking News intro. He doesn’t have to turn the radio up; the girl does it.
“This just in,” the announcer says. “Two of the jurors in the now infamous Alan Duffrey case have apparently committed suicide. I want to repeat, two of the jurors have apparently committed suicide. Sources close to the Buckeye City Police Department have confirmed it, although the names of the deceased haven’t been divulged, pending notification of next of kin. Several recent murders have been linked to the Duffrey jurors. Stay tuned to WBOB, your All News, All the Time station, for updates.”
The hemorrhoid commercial picks up where it left off. Trig barely hears, so overcome with joy he can barely keep a poker face. He never believed the surrogate killings would work, but they have, and to what an extent! If only the rest of the jurors would follow suit! But of course they won’t. Some probably feel no guilt at all. Especially the shit ADA who sent Duffrey to prison… and consequently to his death.
“Fucking incredible,” the girl says. “Pardon my mouth.”
“No need. I was thinking the same thing myself.”
“Like they thought offing themselves would bring that guy Duffrey back.”
“Have you been following the case?”
“I’m from Cincy, man. It’s on the news all the time.”
“Maybe those two were trying to… I don’t know… make amends.”
“Like in AA?”
“Yes. Like that.”
Here is the rest area. It’s empty, but Trig passes by without slowing. Why would he murder this poor girl when he’s been given this incredible, unexpected gift?
“Suicide is a pretty radical way of making amends.”
“I don’t know,” Trig says. “Guilt can be powerful.” He enters the town of Crooked Creek and pulls into a slant parking space in front of Norm’s Shack. “What about those ribs?”
“Lead me to em,” she says, and holds up a hand. Trig laughs and slaps her five, thinking, You’ll never know how close you came.
They get a booth by the window and chow down on ribs and coleslaw and beans. The girl—her name is Norma Willette—eats like a starving wolf. They split a strawberry shortcake for afters, and then Trig drops her at the Creek, where the sign out front suggests that teens TAKE OFF YOUR WEARY BOOTS AND REST FOR AWHILE.
Norma starts to get out, then looks at him dead in the eye. “I been tryin, man. Honest to God. It’s just so fuckin hard.”
Trig doesn’t have to ask her what she means. He’s been there, done that. “Don’t give up. It gets better.”
She leans in and kisses his cheek. Her eyes shine with tears. “Thank you, man. Maybe God sent you to give me a ride. And a meal. Those ribs were some good.”
Trig watches until she’s safely in the door, then drives away.
8
The two weeping willows in front of the Willow Apartments are dying. The two men on the eighth floor are already dead, having ingested monster doses of a drug that will turn out, upon autopsy, to be synthetic Oxy—what’s known among users as the Queen, or the Big Dipper. No one will ever discover which of the dead men purchased it.
Jabari Wentworth was Juror 3 in the Alan Duffrey trial. Ellis Finkel was Juror 5. The apartment where they died was Finkel’s. The two men are in bed together, wearing nothing but underpants. Outside, the sun is sinking toward the horizon. Soon the coroner’s van will take the bodies away. They would have been gone hours ago, if not for the possible link to the Surrogate Juror serial killer case. The investigation is moving with careful deliberation. Lieutenant Warwick and Chief Patmore were both here; so was Ralph Ganzinger of the State Police. All the brass have since departed.
Watching the three-man forensics team (two investigators and a videographer), Izzy Jaynes takes a moment to consider the difference between fact and fiction. In fiction, suicide by overdose is considered the easy way out, often favored by women. Men are more likely to shoot themselves in the head, jump, or use carbon monoxide in a closed garage. In fact, suicide by overdose can be horribly messy as the body fights to stay alive. Ellis Finkel’s lower face, neck, and chest are plated with dried vomit. Jabari Wentworth has shit himself. Both stare at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, as if considering a purchase of dubious merit.
The sight of them—and the smell of them—aren’t the things that will haunt Izzy as she lies awake in her own apartment that night. What will haunt her is the waste of them. The note they left behind, signed by both, was simplicity itself: We will be together in the next world.
Bullshit , Izzy thinks. You’re going into the dark, and unaccompanied.
One of them needs to talk some more with Ms. Alicia Carstairs, in 8-B. She found the bodies, was friendly with both men, and understood their “special situation.”
“You do it, Iz,” Tom says. “Woman to woman. I want to go through this place one more time. Especially Finkel’s little studio. But I think it is what it looks like.”
“Not guilt about Duffrey, you mean.”
“Guilt, maybe, but not about him. Go on and talk to the lady. I think she’ll tell you.”
Izzy finds Alicia Carstairs standing outside her apartment door, wringing her hands and looking at the pair of uniformed cops guarding the door to 8-A. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet with tears. At the sight of Izzy with her badge hung around her neck, she starts crying again.
“He asked me last night if I’d check in on him,” she says. Izzy already has this in her notebook but doesn’t interrupt. “I thought it was work.” She raises her hands. The nails, Izzy notices, are beautiful. Otherwise, she has no idea what Ms. Carstairs is talking about.
“Let’s go into your place,” Izzy says. “Maybe you have coffee? I could use a cup.”
“Yes. Yes! Strong coffee for both of us, what a good idea. I’ll never forget the sight of them. Not if I live to a hundred.”
“If it’s any consolation, Ms. Carstairs—”
“Alicia.”
“Okay, and I’m Isabelle. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think they knew it would be so…” Izzy thinks of the two men sprawled in the bed. Their bulging, half-lidded eyes. “… so rough. I’m not sure what you mean about it being work.”
“You know Ellis was a photographer, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Because of Bill Wilson (or Briggs, or whatever his real name is), Izzy and Tom have gotten thumbnails on all the jurors in the Duffrey case. Finkel’s main studio was downtown, but he also worked in his apartment, where he had turned the spare bedroom into a mini-studio.
“I was his hand model,” Carstairs says, and holds them up again. “Ellis said I had great hands. The pay was good—he always told me what he was being paid for an assignment, and he’d give me twenty or twenty-five per cent depending on the amount he was being paid for the job.”
“For things like nail polish?” Izzy is intrigued. “Hand lotion?”
“Those, but all sorts of other things, too. Scrubbies, dish detergent, Razr phones—that was a good one. Once he photographed me holding a Nook, which is like a Kindle, only—”
“Yes, I know what a Nook is.”
“And sometimes Jabari would model clothes. Sports jackets, topcoats, jeans. He’s very handsome.” She rethinks that, considering what she saw in Finkel’s bedroom. “Was.”
“You had a key to 8-A?”
“Uh-huh. I watered El’s plants when he was out of town. He used to go to New York a lot to talk with ad agencies. Sometimes Jabari would go with him. They were gay, you know.”
“Yes.”
“They met at that trial. The Alan Duffrey trial. Fell head-over-heels for each other. Love-at-first-sight type of thing.”
“Mr. Finkel specifically asked you to check in on him this morning?”
“Yes. I thought he had a hand job for me.” She colors. “That sounds dirty, but you know what I mean.”
“You thought he had a product he wanted you to hold.”
“To display. Yes. I let myself in and said something like, ‘Yoo-hoo, El, are you decent?’ And then I smelled… I didn’t know… thought something spilled… or overflowed… I went into the bedroom…” She’s crying again. She tries lifting her coffee cup and spills some in the saucer and on the arm of her chair.
“Just sit quiet a minute,” Izzy says. She goes into the narrow galley kitchen, gets a sponge, and mops up the mess. She can imagine Alicia Carstairs holding the blue sponge for a photograph, perhaps with soap foaming over her perfectly maintained fingers and nails.
“It’s the shock,” Carstairs says. “Finding them like that. I’ll never get over it. Did I say that already?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll be better,” Carstairs says. “I have two Xanax left over from when I went through the change. I’ll take one of them and I’ll be better.”
“Do you have any idea of why they took their lives, Alicia?”
“I think… maybe… just guessing… that El didn’t want Jabari to go alone. Jay’s wife threw him out, you know, and his family wouldn’t have anything to do with him. This was after they’d been… I don’t want to say sneaking around, but you know, keeping it quiet… for the best part of a year, maybe more. Jay’s wife sent pictures she found on Jay’s phone to all his Facebook friends. I’m assuming some were… you know… graphic. I’m no snoop, don’t get that idea, he told me that. Stay out of other people’s business unless invited in, that’s my motto. Jay was Muslim. I don’t know if that was part of why everyone shunned him or not. Do you?”
“No,” Izzy says.
“Someone from Jabari’s office saw him and El together, maybe holding hands, maybe kissing, and squealed to his wife. That’s how it started. Why would a person tattle like that, Isabelle?”
Izzy shakes her head. All she knows is that sometimes people can be shitty.
“Ellis was having problems with his own family. Also, he had HIV or AIDS, whichever one is worse. He was managing it, but the medicine he was taking made him feel sick a lot of the time. They must have decided…” Carstairs shrugs, and her mouth turns down in a moue of grief.
“Did they talk about the trial?”
“Sometimes El did. Jabari, almost never.”
“What about after Duffrey was murdered in prison?”
“El said something like, ‘Kiddie fiddlers deserve what they get.’ He said he hated pedophiles, because so many people assume that gay men are child molesters or groomers or whatever the current buzzword is.”
“What about when Cary Tolliver came forward?”
Carstairs sips her coffee. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead…”
“Ellis won’t mind, and it could help our investigation.”
Although for the life of her, Izzy doesn’t know how. This wasn’t Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet , but Act 5 of Romeo and Romeo . Their problems might have looked solvable by the light of another day, the idea of suicide an absurdity, but at the time the idea of dying together in bed, holding hands, must have seemed the ultimate in romance… not to mention revenge. They’ll all be sorry then , they might have thought.
“El said, ‘We did what we promised to do, that’s all. Those awful magazines had his fingerprints on them, and besides, if he didn’t do this, he probably did something else.’?”
“So you wouldn’t say he was guilt-ridden?”
“He felt guilty about Jay’s family not having anything to do with him, but about the trial? I don’t think so.”
“And Jabari? How did he feel?”
“I only brought it up once. He kind of shrugged and spread his hands and said the jury found him guilty on the evidence that was presented. He said there were a couple of holdouts, but they came around on the second day. The others convinced them. He was sorry about what happened.”
“Sorry but not guilty?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
9
When Izzy returns to 8-A, the bodies have been removed. The smells of shit and puke, however, remain. It was never thus in Shakespeare , Izzy muses, then has to smile. It’s such a Holly thought.
“What’s funny, Easter bunny?” Tom is standing by the slider giving on the late Ellis Finkel’s balcony. There’s a good view of the lake from here.
“Nothing. Can we rule out murder?”
“Sure,” Tom says. “Our boy Bill doesn’t murder jurors, only people in the names of jurors.”
“Can we assume he won’t be killing two men as surrogates for Finkel and Wentworth?”
“We can’t assume anything about the guy, because he’s crazy. But he can’t guilt-trip them if they’re dead, can he?”
“No. And the bastard probably assumes he drove them to it, when the Duffrey trial had nothing to do with it.”
“ Au contraire , my little chickadee. That’s where they met.”
“True. That’s where they met.” She thinks about it and says, “I would love for the press to find out the real reason, just to take away this psycho nutball’s satisfaction. But we can’t let that out, can we?”
“ We can’t,” Tom says, “but somebody will. If Buckeye Brandon doesn’t have it on his shitpod and shitblog tomorrow, it’ll be the next day. This department leaks like a defective Pamper.”
“Just as long as you don’t leak it, Tom.”
He gives her a smile and a Boy Scout salute. “Never would I ever.”
“Did you find anything in his studio?”
“You mean like Bill Wilson’s real name written on a piece of paper?”
“That would be good.”
“I found nothing but a bunch of photo albums. The raciest thing in them was Jabari Wentworth in swim trunks. There might be other stuff on his computer or up in the Cloud, but that’s not our biz. And even if you decide Mr. Bill Wilson won’t have to murder two random strangers in the names of Finkel and Wentworth, he’s still got plenty of jurors, plus maybe the judge and the prosecutor. Partner, we got nothing. Do we?”
“Pretty much,” Izzy admits.
Tom lowers his voice, as if afraid the room might be bugged. “Talk to your friend.”
“Who? Holly?”
“Who else? She’s not police, but she thinks around corners sometimes. Fill her in, then ask if she has any ideas.”
“You’re serious?”
He sighs and says, “As a heart attack.”
10
In the Garden City Plaza Hotel, Barbara is watching with fascination as Betty Brady and Red Jones have a whisper rehearsal for next Friday night, when they will perform the National Anthem at Dingley Park. Betty says she’s done it twice at Sacramento Kings basketball games, but with a Korg accompanying her.
“Don’t know what that is,” Barbara says.
“Synth,” Red says. “That’d be better than this.” He holds up his sax. “Who wants to hear ‘O say can you see’ honked out?”
“Bullshit,” Betty says. “It’s going to be…” She points at Barbara. “Something spooky but in a good way. What’s the word?”
“Haunting, maybe?”
“Haunting! That’s it! Perfect! Let’s do it again, Red. Mostly to make sure I’m on key. Been a long time since I had to go high and low in the same song.”
Red has got three pairs of Betty’s socks stuffed into the bell of his sax, and Betty sings the National Anthem in a low, melodious voice. They try it first in the “official” key of B-flat major, but Betty doesn’t like it, says it sounds like a dirge. They switch to G major. Red, blowing his muted horn, gives her a nod. She nods back. The first time through in G is ragged, the second time better, the third smooth as silk.
“After ‘O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,’ I want to go dead-stop,” she says, and counts off. “One-two-three-four. Then the last line. Really punch it.”
“Cool. It’s a groove.”
“Let’s try it.”
They do.
When they finish, Betty looks at Barbara. “What do you think?”
“I think the people lucky enough to go to that game are going to remember it forever.”
She’s right about that, but not the way she thinks.