Rock Star Down (The Psychic Registry) (12 page)

Laurel pointed out
another post: an advertisement selling Rock memorial t-shirts. "I saw a
guy selling these when we arrived at the house. I wonder if that was Dean?"

Nathan nodded, he
remembered the man, although he hadn't seen him clearly. "It could've been
him."

"So if he's not
here, maybe he's back at Jaqui and Franklin's place," Archer said.

It was a reasonable
assumption, but Nathan thought he could do one better. He was feeling somewhat
refreshed following lunch and the change of locale had improved his disposition
as well. He decided that he didn't want a cold read on Dean, especially if the
man was a killer. So Nathan carefully read the man's most recent updates and
discovered that his social page and forum posts were merely cross posts from
his blog. Dean didn't come across as particularly bad
or
bright in his
posts, just an ambitious fan with time on his hands.

A black and white
patrol car pulled up alongside the BMW. Archer lowered her window and briefed
the pair of uniformed officers. A minute later the patrol car drove down the
block and turned the corner.

Nathan got Dean's
number from Archer then he tapped it into his phone.

He got an answer on
the third ring, "Hello?"

"Harold Dean?"
Nathan asked.

"Yeah? Do I know
you?"

Nathan reached out
with his mind, searching for Dean's frequency within the apartment building. If
he was nearby, Nathan hoped to tune-in before they came face to face.

"You got any more
of those Rock Franklin shirts?" Nathan asked.

"Nah, I sold out
like an hour ago," Dean said.

There was a lot of
background noise, but Dean was nearby. Nathan could feel it.

"You don't have
any
?"
he pressed.

"Well, I've got
one
,
but I've been wearing it," Dean admitted.

"That's cool. How
much?"

"I dunno, fifteen
if you want to pick it up," Dean said.

Dean was in the
building. Nathan's read was fuzzy as they were separated by a distance of about
three houses, but he knew he had the right frequency. Nathan gave a nod to the
others and exited the car. Archer and Laurel were quick to follow.

"Sure, I'll be
right over," Nathan said and they approached Dean's building.

"Okay, you want
my address?"

"You're on
Eucalyptus Avenue, right?" Nathan said as they reached the top of the
steps to the apartments.

Archer tried the
common door – she glanced at Nathan and shook her head – it was locked.

"That's right— Do
I know you?"

"It's Nathan. We
saw each other outside of Jaqui and Rock's house, but I was too busy to chat."

"Uh, sorry dude.
I met a lot of new people this week."

Dean sounded calm, and
his thoughts were harmless. Nathan doubted he was the killer, but he didn't
want to take the chance that Dean would answer the door with a shotgun.

"You there?"
Dean asked.

Nathan thought about
tweaking Dean to get him to open the door. But he tried to reserve such methods
for bona fide bad guys. He tightened up his read on Dean, taking it to an 8. It
took a bit of extra effort due to the distance, but he only had the one
question.

Nathan asked, "So
Harold, any idea who killed Rock Franklin?"

"I don't know. I
just hope it wasn't Jaqui, I got a lot invested in her career, you know?"

Nathan felt he was
telling the truth. Both Archer and Laurel were taken aback by his question and
were eagerly awaiting the verdict. He shook his head,
no.

"Yeah? Too bad
Harold, I was hoping to get the scoop from you."

"Hey, are you a
reporter?"

Nathan smiled, then pressed
the buzzer for Dean's unit.

"Hang on, I got
somebody at the door," Dean said.

Nathan gently maneuvered
Laurel to the side of the door. Archer flanked the other side. They could all
hear Dean clambering down the stairs, and then he peeked out the peep glass and
saw Nathan. Of course Nathan saw it from both angles, which was quite
disorienting, but he'd kept the read on Dean nice and tight in case he grabbed
a weapon on the way to the door. Thankfully, Dean hadn't seen fit to arm
himself.

Dean came back over
the phone, "There's some guy in a suit on my front porch," he
whispered.

Nathan smiled and said
into the phone, "That's me,
dude
. Open the door."

Dean opened the door
with some trepidation, "What's going on?"

Archer slipped into
view and announced herself, "Police, Harold. We were hoping you could tell
us about Rock Franklin."

"He's
dead
?"
was Dean's reply.  

Laurel batted her eyes and easily got
Dean to invite them all inside where they followed him up to his apartment on
the second floor. The interior was surprisingly well furnished and it occurred
to Nathan that Dean probably came from some money.

Harold Dean was near
twenty, but he still had a baby-face. He was somehow both lanky
and
pudgy,
giving the impression of both weakness and softness. As promised, he was
wearing the last remaining t-shirt emblazoned:
RIP Rock, We Love You.
Most importantly, he neither looked, nor sounded like a murderer. Nathan
relaxed his read down to a 4, allowing him to better utilize all of his senses.

Dean was a courteous
host and offered them all something to drink, but they each declined. He then
cleared the couch so they could sit and he fetched an office chair for himself.
Otherwise, Dean had been quietly studying them until he announced, "I saw
you guys this morning, didn't I? I got the video on my blog right now!"
Dean picked up a tablet from the coffee table to confirm his realization.

Archer nodded, "Yeah,
that's us Harold. I'm Detective Archer. This is Miss Comfort with the City
Attorney's office. And this is Nathan Miller."

Dean looked at Nathan,
"The psychic detective."

Nathan nodded, "That's
right, Harold. We heard that there's been some
friction
between you and
Jaqui."

Dean shook his head,
clearly worried that he might have offended Jaqui, "
No, no
. Me and
Mister Franklin, we sorted that out. We're cool now."

"You had some
kind of agreement?" Nathan asked.

"Nothing on paper
yet, but we had an understanding."

"Pertaining to
what?" Nathan asked.

"I've been
following Jaqui for years. My blog and my forum are the biggest
Jaqui
sites by far. We're like the unofficial fan club. Mister Franklin was going to
help me make it
official
."

Archer spoke up, "Yeah,
we heard how he vouched for your good character, Harold. But we got the
impression that there was some sort of
misunderstanding
before that?"

Dean slumped into his
chair, "I sold some
Jaqui
shirts. I didn't know I needed
permission. I was
eighteen
. Anyway, the lawyers explained it to me. That's
when I first met Mister Franklin. They were threatening to sue me, but Rock
asks,
how much you make?
And I told him that I'd just broken even. So he
said he'd just take the rest of the shirts if I promised not to do it again. He
was a cool dude."

Nathan smiled and
pointed at Dean's shirt, "And yet you're selling
those
?"

"This isn't
Jaqui
merchandise, Detective. No copyrighted images, no trademarked names. Just
words… Rock would've been alright with it."

"Maybe, but what
about Jaqui? What about Rock's family?" Nathan asked.

"We're his
family, too," Dean sniffled.

Nathan was surprised
by his genuine sadness. Had Dean and the other fans really
lost
someone?
Had they
earned
their grief? Maybe Dean was entitled to
something,
but—
"What about the money you made?"

Dean shook his head, "All
profits go to charity. Details are on the forum."

"What charity?"
Archer asked.

"Rock did work
with wounded vets. We're helping the same group."

"Really? Good for
you. Guess I'm just surprised. I thought Jaqui was more your focus," Nathan
said.

Dean nodded, "She
is. But
Jaqui's World
is about all of them: Rock, Vanessa, Carlotta,
Judy, Sam, not just Jaqui."

Nathan saw Laurel
nodding along in agreement. He asked her, "Judy? Sam?"

Laurel said, "Judy
was Jaqui's PA – the one who married the agent."

Dean added, "Sam
is Jaqui's vocal coach. He's funny as hell."

Laurel smiled, "I
like him, too. The thing with the limo driver—"

"That was
awesome!" Dean replied.

Archer was smiling
now, too, "That
was
funny."

Nathan cleared his
throat, "Alright, let's get back to this deal you and Rock were working,
about making your forum official?"

Dean nodded, "Yeah,
well… We talked a few times and he said he would run it by the lawyers. We were
supposed to meet again – he needed some tax papers from me – but then he got
killed."

"You had an
appointment with him?" Nathan asked.

"You make it
sound so formal. We were supposed to have coffee near the studio," Dean
shrugged.

"When was this?"

"Uh, the day he
died."

All eyes were on Dean
and he shrunk into his chair.

Nathan turned his read
back up to a 9, then closed his eyes and said, "Harold, I want you to
think very carefully back to that day and then tell us everything that you
remember."

Dean took the bus,
then walked to the café across the boulevard from the studio. The coffee shop was
a small, family owned place, the kind that catered to working people and closed
before dinner. Dean didn't want to be late, so he arrived quite early owing to
the peculiarities of the mid-day bus schedules. He ordered a muffin and a mocha
latte, then connected to the shop's Wi-Fi using his tablet, intent upon passing
the time.

Every so often he
would look across the street to see if Rock was coming over to join him yet.
But Rock never came.

However, he noticed a
few others leaving the studio, although none of it had struck him as being of
any consequence: He saw Vanessa drive out of the parking lot next to the
studio. A short time later he saw a woman walk out the front doors of the
studio and get into a car parked further along the street. Awhile later he saw
Jaqui's car arrive, followed shortly thereafter by all manner of police, fire,
and ambulance crews. Naturally, he recorded some video of the commotion and
uploaded it to his blog. He was sure about the sequence, but was unsure about
the intervals as he tended to lose all sense of time when online.

At first he thought
that maybe something had happened to Jaqui. He tried calling Rock but got no
answer. Eventually the shop closed for the afternoon and he headed home. That
evening he learned along with everyone else that Rock was murdered. And his
first thought – like most everyone else – was that Jaqui killed him. So he got
swept up in his shock and his grief, and immediately went to the growing
memorial for Rock outside his home. Then Dean had spent his time on the t-shirts,
the charity, and the forums, which were busier than ever.

It wasn't as if he'd
made his presence near the studio a secret; the video was posted to all his
accounts. The thought simply hadn't occurred to him that the police might want
to talk to him. And even as they were questioning him, he didn't seem to grasp
that he might have seen anything important. But Nathan saw what he had seen and
he asked Dean to go over it once more, at least in part…

"The second
woman, you didn't recognize her?" Nathan asked.

Dean thought about her
again, "Not that day. But I think I've seen her
since
then."

Nathan nodded; he
thought he recognized her, too. But he had to be careful not to project his own
thoughts onto Dean. "When? Where?" Nathan asked.

"Earlier today,
outside of Jaqui's house. She was shooting interviews with the TV crew."

"Lot of reporters
there," Archer said.

Dean shook his head, "No.
This was the crew for
Jaqui's World
. They all wore shirts with the same
logo: Silver Media, LLC. Anyway, I think that was
her,
from the studio."

Archer and Laurel
looked from Dean to Nathan who nodded, "I think you're right."

Dean scanned their
faces, "So who is she?"

"Somebody we need
to talk to," Nathan replied.

Dean seemed to finally
catch on, "
Hey
, do you think that
she
killed Rock?"

Archer spoke up, "Harold,
we need you to keep this to yourself right now. If you go posting online about
our discussion you could seriously jeopardize our investigation."