Murder at Castle Rock (6 page)

"Let's do this!" Bobby screamed. "A-one! A-two! A-one-two-three-four—"

*  *  *

Nearly two hours into the set, I was dancing my heart out and singing along as Bobby whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Despite his despicable behavior before, I had to admit that he still knew how to rock. He strutted back and forth across the stage, as energetic and smooth as he had been when Kat and I saw him at Philips Arena back in high school.

Jared and Bobby leaned into each other so that their backs were touching as they played, each facing a different side of the crowd. The muscles in Jared's arms rippled when he strummed a funky bass solo during the instrumental break on Glitter's smash hit "Tara's Eyes." I found myself wishing I'd chosen a spot front and center for an up-close view of the sexy bass guitarist in action.
Sigh
.

It was so rewarding to watch the crowd light up as Bobby, Jared, and Cliff rocked onstage. This was why I put up with the countless hours of contract negotiations, phone calls, spreadsheets, and babysitting needy performers. I did it for the music, and for the rush that people—myself included—felt after a night of dancing and singing along at a stellar live show. If the energy of both the band and the crowd was any indication, I was doing my job right.
Promotion, here I come!

I took a break from dancing to glance at my watch. Eleven o'clock on the dot—time to jet back to the green room and refill the band's beer cooler so they could grab a cold drink before the encore around eleven-thirty. Maybe I could stay back there and check out—er,
hang
out—with Jared for a few minutes before they went back out on stage, even though Candy would probably be plastered to his side. I could see her in the wings of the stage drooling over him herself.

I shimmied my way through the crowd and over to the bar, where Laura was waiting for me with two cold six-packs of Yuengling. Scooping them into my arms, I headed across the room, grinning as I passed a few of the teen girls from earlier. They'd traded their neon pink and green cropped tube tops for Parker's Castle Rockettes shirts. With their matching shirts and nearly identical choppy hairstyles, they looked like a band of rock n' roll Barbies.

Bobby launched into his number one hit, "Baby, We Gel" just as I reached the door marked "Employees Only." A wave of nostalgia swept over me, accompanied by a pang of disappointment.
Where is Kat? He's playing our song!
I had expected her to come join me in the crowd for the show, but I hadn't seen her in hours.

As I pushed through the door to the hallway, the gleeful cries and cheers on one side gave way to angry shouts and yelling on the other. I looked out into the hall just in time to see Reese slam Parker against the wall. "Stay away from her! If you touch her again, I'll kill you!" The angry bouncer reared his arm back and balled his mammoth hand into a fist the size of a grapefruit.

Before I could react, Kat came hurtling down the hallway and jumped into the fray. "Reese, don't!" she yelled. Kat pulled at his arm, which was twice the size of her own. "He's not worth it." She glowered at Parker, who was panting and struggling to free himself from Reese's grasp.

"Just calm down, man. It's not what you think." He held out his hands to block Reese's blows. "Come on, let's try some deep breathing." He inhaled a deep breath and then let it out slowly.

"I'm not doing your sissy yoga shit, Deering," Reese said, seething. "I quit—I don't need this job if it means working for a sorry sack of crap like you." He slammed his fist into the wall right by Parker's head, causing my boss to jump nearly a foot in the air.

"Fine," Parker huffed. "Go. Get out. But don't come crawling back next week wanting your job back."

"Take a walk, Martin." Kat tried, a little softer this time. "But don't even think about taking this fight into High Court. You wait until she's off work, you hear me?"

"This isn't over." Reese glowered at Parker before storming off in the direction of High Court's backstage.

Kat was the first to notice me standing there. She sprinted over and snatched the two six-packs of beer from my hand. "Here." She walked over and thrust them into Parker's hands. "Take these to the green room—and then you and I need to have a talk."

"Katy, wait!" Parker pleaded, but she turned away from him. With a resigned sigh, he took off down the hall.

I stared after him, confused.
Why did he call her Katy?

"Reese won't really quit. He's our only bouncer, and he needs this job." Kat's voice was hoarse. I glanced her way, taken aback by the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"K, what's wrong?" I rushed toward her, but she held up a hand to keep me away.

"We'll talk later, okay? I just can't do this right now." She whirled around and started down the hallway after Parker, sniffling.

O…kay…
I was dumbfounded and frustrated. It felt like I'd stumbled onto the set of a soap opera starring all of my friends.
Why would Reese pull a stunt like this tonight of all nights?
Between arguing with Bobby's manager and this, Bobby Glitter Week was going to leave a sour taste in Parker's mouth.
And after how hard I've worked…
I felt a lump form in my throat.
Screw it. I need a break.

I wandered downstairs, welcoming the rush of chilly night air that hit my cheeks as I pushed open the venue's back exit.
Alone at last.
I closed the door and leaned into it, pressing my forehead against the cold, smooth surface.

I puzzled over what I'd just witnessed upstairs. Parker and Reese were fighting over Laura—at least I thought so. Reese had warned him to "never come near her
again
." Had Parker done something to—or with—Laura before?

Then there was Kat. First, she wouldn't spill about her mystery beau from this afternoon, then she was disinterested in the sexiest man to walk through Castle Rock's doors in months—which was seriously out of character for her—and now she was in tears because of…what? What was going on with her that she wasn't telling me? And why did Parker call her Katy? I'd never heard him—or anyone—call her that before.

I flipped around to lean my back against the door, and I stared out into the empty, open courtyard. The vast green lawn stretched on for at least a quarter-mile and was enclosed by a grey ashlar wall that matched the structure of the castle. Alternating hickory and maple trees lined the wall. They were my favorite part of the courtyard, especially during this time of year. In the spring and summer, their leaves made a solid wall of vibrant green, and the winter left the branches bare and brittle. It was in the fall, however, that the trees gave their most breathtaking display. The red maple and orange hickory leaves danced in the wind like a moat of fire hovering above the castle wall.

When they needed a break, most of the staff chose Piedmont Park, which was only three blocks away. Not me—this felt like my own private park. I often took walks along its perimeter when I needed an escape from the constant ringing of my office phone. Sometimes I'd pretend that this was my castle and courtyard. I'd pace the length of the fence, mapping out in my mind the additions I would love to make. Lately, I had been envisioning an outdoor stage along the wall, facing inward to the lawn. While the capacity in either High Court or the Dungeon was one thousand, we could easily fit up to two thousand or more people in this space. This would allow us to book bigger, better acts and maybe even double our business. I'd been working up the nerve to share the idea with Parker—and if I could get everyone through Bobby Glitter Week without killing each other, maybe I could finally pitch the idea to him during my annual review. A smile curled my lips as I daydreamed about the small music festivals we could host out there.

Sometime later, I could feel the bass and the roar of the crowd vibrate through the door as the band returned to the High Court stage for their encore.
One show down
.
Two to go
. I sighed. It felt good to finally have a few moments to myself, just me and my thoughts in this dark and peaceful space. A noise somewhere above me drew my attention to the sky. The stars were suddenly blocked from view as a dark object fell from the heavens—no, it was falling from the rear tower.
What the…

Time screeched to a halt as the shape of the dark, falling mass came into focus. There were arms with open palms and splayed fingers—and legs, eerily limp even as they moved downward in a rapid free fall…In the moonlight, I could just make out a head of thinning chestnut hair…

Parker Deering's body careened into the flat ground of the loading dock with a sickening
splat
a mere fifteen feet from where I stood. The horrible sound of bones crunching upon impact sent my lunch on a mad dash back up from my stomach.

I doubled over and retched.

Then I screamed.

"Let's go over everything one more time, Miss Grace. Try to think of anything you might have forgotten or left out before." There was a hint of apology in the detective's tone. He knew that asking me to rehash the past two hours again was pushing me to my limit.

I took my time in responding, giving him a dazed nod as I stared out of my office window. The crowd from tonight's show had long since cleared out, and the media circus was held at bay by the dozen or more officers that had sealed off the venue with yellow police tape. All that remained were Bobby and his crew, Tim and Tony from 95Rox, the Castle Rock staff, and officers from the Atlanta Police Department. We were each ushered into separate areas of the building to give the detectives our accounts of the evening while other officers investigated the crime scene out back…
Crime scene?
It felt wrong to call Castle Rock such an ugly name. I watched the flashing lights cast sinister shadows that danced across the row of police cars outside.
Might as well get this over with.
Taking a deep breath, I launched once again into the details of the horror I'd just encountered.

"I've told you everything I know," I began. "I was watching Bobby Glitter's set in High Court until just before the encore—that's when I grabbed some beer from the bar to take back to the green room. I ran into Reese and Parker in the hallway."

"Where they were fighting," the detective prompted.

I gulped. "Yes. I mean no. They
were
having an argument, but that's all it was—just a little disagreement. Nothing more. Reese would never lay a hand on Parker…"

My voice trailed off as the memory of Reese's fist slamming into the wall next to Parker's head flashed in my mind's eye. His words echoed in my thoughts:
"If you touch her again, I'll kill you,"
he'd said.
"This isn't over."
Of course he'd only spoken those words in anger—it wasn't a real threat. Reese would never do Parker any harm…would he?

Swallowing hard, I continued. "Kat broke up their
argument,
"—I turned away from the window and gave the detective a pointed look as I emphasized the word—"and she took the beer from me. She gave it to Parker and sent him off to the green room to put some distance between Reese and him—so they could both cool off. That was the last time I saw Parker until…" A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn't go on. Fresh tears came. I averted my eyes from the detective's sympathetic gaze and stared at the floor as I silently wept.

The detective, whose nametag read "Dixon," jotted a few lines onto his notepad and cleared his throat. "Can you tell me again in which direction each person was headed when you last saw them?"

I rubbed my eyes and sniffled. "Reese, Kat, and Parker were all headed down the back hallway towards the High Court green room and the stairwell. Those stairs lead down to the other employee hallway and the exit—and also up to the tower. That area is off limits to our patrons, so there was nobody else around. I don't know where Kat or Reese went off to—I only know that Parker was going to the green room… "Another sob racked my body, and I broke down.

Dixon scratched his red beard and rose from his chair to come kneel beside mine. "Hey now, it's okay, Miss Grace," he said, giving me a reassuring pat the shoulder. "We'll get to the bottom of this. You've been through a lot tonight, but everything you've told me could help us find out what happened to your boss. I really appreciate your cooperation during such a difficult time."

"I think she's had enough for tonight, Detective," came a voice from the doorway. I wiped a few tears away with my sleeve and glanced up. Sergeant Eddie Sinclair, Bronwyn's father, stood just beyond the office threshold.

"Thanks," I said weakly, meeting his eyes.

The police sergeant smiled at me and nodded his bald head. He shuffled his burly frame through the doorway and spoke to the detective, his voice low and serious. "Dixon, I need to have a word with you in the hall. Please excuse us a moment, Amelia."

Though his lips were still stretched wide in a polite smile, there was no merriment in his eyes. Eddie had been a good friend of Parker's for several years. They spent the weekends restoring classic cars together in Sinclair's home garage. It took all summer and most of the fall for them to restore a beautiful, black 1974 Jaguar Roadster. Parker had talked about how excited they both were to finally test-drive it next month. Now Sinclair would be making that journey solo.

Detective Dixon excused himself with a grunt. He followed Sergeant Sinclair out into the hallway and closed the door behind him…almost. In his haste to exit the room, the detective didn't realize that the door hadn't pulled to behind him. Instead, it remained cracked open just wide enough for their conversation to be audible.

"Ben, it's a damn shame," Sinclair said. "According to CSI, there doesn't appear to be any sign of a struggle upstairs. We haven't found any kind of note yet, but the preliminary evidence suggests a potential suicide. Looks like he may have jumped from the tower."

A current of shock coursed through me, and my hand flew to my mouth.
Parker committed suicide? No! He couldn't have—he wouldn't!
Parker was way too in love with himself to take his own life—and it wasn't like he was depressed. He had a pretty great life. He owned the hottest concert venue in Atlanta, got to work on classic cars in his spare time, was an avid runner and yogi. People like Parker didn't just leap off of towers.