Steel Guitar (11 page)

“Yeah,” he said, “I'll remember that the next time I find a corpse.”

“How long since you called the cops?”

“Uh, we, uh—we've been thinking what to do. Dee thought maybe you could, uh—”

“So your bass player's dead in your lead singer's bed, and you're sitting around holding a panel discussion about PR implications?”

“Don't get snotty with me,” he said. “It sure ain't gonna matter to Brenda whether she died in this bed or her own.”

I said, “I have to use the phone.”

“No,” he said.

“What are you going to do? Stop me?”

“Please, honey, call the doctor.” Dee entered from the other room on unsteady legs, followed closely by Hal. “I should have called. I should have called. Maybe she was still alive.” She stumbled and Hal helped her into a chair. She leaned her head over, forehead to knees, and clasped her thighs, rocking in silent misery. “He did this,” she muttered. “He's trying to ruin me.”

“Shh, now,” the road manager murmured soothingly.

A white phone was perched on a white desk, just like in the living room.

“Don't touch a damn thing while I'm gone,” I ordered, thinking how useless the words were even as I said them. I used a fold of my shirt to cover the door handle on my way out. There was a maid's cart two doors down. My Spanish was good enough to convince her to let me into an empty room.

It had a white phone too. I dialed 9 first to get a dial tone. I considered 911, punched Mooney's number instead. In Massachusetts, nobody's dead until they've been pronounced dead by a medical examiner, but in my opinion Brenda no longer rated emergency status. After I gave Mooney the outline, I added, “No sirens, okay?”

That's what the uniforms say when they find a dead politician in a strange bed.

I hung up. The maid, reluctant to leave me alone in the unoccupied room, regarded me with stony eyes.

“When did you make up 812?” I asked, fumbling with the numbers in Spanish.

She nodded a few times, then spat back a torrent about the loco music people, how they sleep all day, party all night, and never get out of the rooms, so she can't do her work. They leave dishes in the bathtub. Broken dishes. Her eyes flashed as if she were glad some retribution had justly struck.

This time I knocked on the bedroom door. Mimi, like a faithful attendant, let me in. I wondered who she'd been with tonight. Probably the now sleeping Freddie. Jimmy Ranger? The lead guitar, Ron? Or was he Dee's main action? Chunky little Hal? Would a road manager have the glamour to attract Mimi? Would she work him into a free evening so he'd let her backstage whenever he was touring a show?

Hal was patting Dee's hand when I came in, comforting her like a child. “She's suffering from shock,” he announced, stepping between us like some knight in aging armor. “She doesn't know what she's saying.”

I asked, “When did you really get here? Not till after Dee called me, right?”

Jimmy Ranger said, “Shut up.” His warning glance included everyone in the room.

I wondered if last night's rehearsal had proceeded without the bass player. Had Brenda relented, come back? And without her, how would the tour go on?

“If that's your line,” I said to the gnome, “about her not knowing what she's saying, you'd better get a tame doctor in here and keep her from chatting with any cops.”

Hal exchanged a brief glance with Jimmy Ranger and walked to the desk with commendable speed.

“Not that phone,” I snapped. “Matter of fact, it would be better if we all got out of this room.”

The road manager knelt in front of Dee; tilted her chin so she'd see him. “Don't say anything till I get back, Dee, honey,” he said softly.

Dee raised her eyes to me. “You know,” she said tremulously.

I didn't, but I went over and helped her to her feet. I figured if I got her back onto the white sofa, the rest would follow like sheep. The fewer visitors to the scene of a crime the better. The shorter the duration of each visit the better. As I walked Dee through the connecting doors I murmured, “Does this mean you want me to keep doing what I'm doing? Looking for Davey?”

“No,” she said quickly, her hand to her throat. “Oh, no. Just let it be. Please. I never should have started this. Oh, poor Bren.” She got a funny faraway look on her face. “Oh, God. Oh, God. I should have called the doctor.”

“Cut the crap, Dee,” Ranger said. “At least cut it when the cops get here. We all got here together. And she was dead. She was ice-cold.”

This from a man who'd assured me he'd touched nothing.

He went on, but whether he was talking to Dee, or for my benefit, I wasn't sure. “She killed herself, that's bad enough. Don't, for chrissake, make it worse.”

I got Dee settled on the sofa. Mimi sat on the carpet, wide-eyed, spacey. The others used furniture.

“Dee,” I said, “you think there's something funny here, you tell the cops.”

“And kiss the tour good-bye, Dee,” Ranger said. “Kiss the MGA/America deal good-bye.”

Dee put her hands over her ears.

Ranger muttered, “If it wasn't her room, the damage would be minimal. Brenda was in a funk. Everybody saw her walk out of rehearsal. Nobody could find her the whole damned day. And Dee's talked about replacing her before.”

The hall door opened, and we all jumped involuntarily. Hal breezed in, a glow of achievement on his face. Before he could report his success at finding a willing physician, Ranger asked, “Is the room in Dee's name, or the tour's name? Do we have a block, Hal, or is this room specifically in her name?”

“Block,” Hal said, after a moment's thought.

“Let's get Dee moved out quick. Somebody—Freddie or Ron—can move his stuff in—”

“The hell with that,” Mimi said, leading me to believe she was sharing the drummer's room, and maybe not as stoned as she appeared to be.

“Right,” I said. “You give the best room in the hotel to the drummer, and Dee Willis has to stick her stuff in the broom closet. The cops will buy it easy.”

“Cops are dumb.”

“Yeah, except I didn't call the dumb ones.”

“Gee, thanks,” Hal said sarcastically.

“Before the dumb cops get here, can somebody tell me the story?” I asked.

“There's no story,” Ranger insisted. “We walked in, we sat down, we were gonna order from room service. Dee, or maybe it was Mimi, peeked in the bedroom and said, ‘Hey, they haven't cleaned up the room yet,' or something like that, because the bed wasn't made. Then we, uh, we saw it, saw what happened.”

“Who went in first?” I asked.

Nobody answered.

“Dee, why don't you lie down on the couch?” Hal quickly filled the silence. “The doctor will be here in a minute or two. It'll look better if you lie down.”

“What?” Dee said, plainly bewildered. “Oh, God, Bren, I'm so sorry.” She hunched over and her shoulders started to shake.

The cops beat the doctor by seven minutes.

Sixteen

The first team—a uniform I didn't know and an older plainclothes I remembered—showed up with the hotel manager in tow. She had to be the manager; no lowly desk clerk could afford her snakeskin heels, much less her suit. Totally unruffled, she breezed down the hall as if a dead bass player or two were all in a day's work. With her help, the cops quietly commandeered the bedroom and living room of Dee's suite as well as the adjoining function room where the MGA/America stiffs had partied two nights ago.

That's where they sent the witnesses to wait.

The room had been transformed. It was sedate, ready for a high-society wedding. The Mylar balloons had disappeared along with the rock band setup. Twelve linen-covered round tables ringed the dance floor. Mimi sat alone at a table for eight until Freddie, blinking and looking hastily roused from sleep, joined her. Jimmy Ranger and Hal Grady huddled at another table, their balding heads close together. I could hear them mumbling in low tones. The lead guitar, Ron, came in, still buttoning his shirt, and I marveled at how close he was in build to my ex-husband, Cal. Dee and I just liked the same sort of men. I thought about introducing myself to Ron, but he quickly surveyed the room and joined Freddie and Mimi. Nobody invited me to rub elbows, and I found myself too restless to sit. I wanted to reexamine the scene of Brenda's death, ask Dee a few questions. Alone.

Like why I should stop looking for Davey Dunrobie.

Like who had arranged the invitations for the MGA bash and included Mickey on the list.

Like exactly what Lockwood had said on the phone besides three hundred thousand bucks.

Like whether she'd be willing to swear on something she held holy, like the Reverend's guitar, that she'd really written “For Tonight.”

I paced a narrow track by the windows, staring down at the lights that sparkled the trees on Boston Common. If the windows could have been opened, I would have opened one just to hear a car honk, a siren wail, anything to break the heavy silence of the room.

Instead I walked faster, clacking my heels against the parquet floor.

I wondered where Dee was, whether the road manager's quack would keep her from mumbling that she should have called the doctor because maybe stone-cold Brenda was still alive.

The young cop summoned Mimi first, then Freddie, then Ron, then Ranger, then Hal Grady. I wondered if I'd have drawn a lower number wearing the hotel manager's charcoal suit and cream silk blouse.

When the uniform finally ushered me in, he and his partner were remarkably polite, as if the atmosphere of the hotel had rubbed off on them. Cops find a junkie overdose in Grove Hall, they treat it differently than a drink-and-pills in a posh hotel. I heard no references to meat wagons, no discussion of the anatomical attributes or shortcomings of Brenda's body.

I wondered how the detectives who'd investigated Lorraine's long-ago suicide had gone about it. Had they been influenced by her fleabag Jamaica Plain digs? Seen her as one more skinny hippie-chick OD? No cop had asked me any questions about her death. But then, I hadn't been at the scene.

Mooney showed up, and for a brief time we were all buddies together. The old guy realized he did know me from way back—he never forgot a face, by God—and you know, they had a whole lot more women cops now. From the way he said it, I was pretty sure he didn't approve of the change.

Mooney told me to wait a minute, and he and the two cops slipped through the connecting hall to the bedroom. They left both doors ajar. I'd had my fill of waiting, so I followed. Lightning seemed to flicker from the bedroom, but I figured it for a photographer snapping shots of Brenda's body. I peered through the doorway, not really trying to eavesdrop.

“Might as well come on in, Carlotta,” Mooney said.

A slew of cops was present and busy, taking inventory with gloved hands, shooting photographs, dusting for prints. Maybe the hotel had a special arrangement with the police department: quick and efficient service in exchange for respectable corpses.

Brenda's was still covered by the sheet. The pile of clothes by the side of the bed was presumably hers.

The medical examiner arrived, and I was glad Mooney motioned me out into the hall. This particular M.E.'s sense of humor—a job requirement, I suppose—always made me gag.

“Are you working for Dee Willis?” Mooney asked. He didn't pull out a notebook, but I didn't take it for a casual question. He's got a memory like a lockbox.

“No,” I said with a clear conscience. Dee had made it perfectly plain that she no longer wanted me to find Dunrobie. I always like to tell Mooney the truth.

“But she phoned you to come over? Before she called the police?”

He must have gotten a quick summary from the cops inside. “It sounded urgent. She was upset. If I'd known anybody was dead, I'd have phoned you from my house.”

“When she called you, did you get the impression she was alone?”

“I couldn't see a thing over the line,” I said flatly.

“Seriously,” he said.

“Seriously,” I said.

He wasn't happy with my reply. He switched gears. “Tell me about the park,” he said.

“You talk to the officers involved?” I was sure he had.

“You see any connection between the park and this, uh, unexpected death?” he asked.

What had Dee mumbled? Something about somebody trying to scare her. Could she have meant Dunrobie?

I didn't think Mooney could see my face. The light in the hallway was dim.

“If you're not going to tell me anything, why did you call me?” he asked mildly. He talks that way when he's just starting to get angry.

“To keep it low-key,” I said. “Dee's an old friend. She's worked hard for what she's got, and she doesn't need a lot of nasty publicity.”

“You can't keep murder that quiet,” he said.

“Who's talking murder?” I said.

“Come on. Don't tell me you didn't look around in there.”

“A quick glance,” I admitted.

“You didn't touch anything?”

“Damn straight I didn't.”

“So?”

“So it's very neat,” I said reluctantly.

“You want to try and tell the medical examiner she didn't vomit up any of that stuff, didn't thrash around, just laid herself out like she was ready for the funeral director to decorate her with lilies?”

I said, “And then there are the circles on the magazine.”

“You can come back to work anytime,” Mooney said. “Two different sizes, two different glasses. Where's the other glass?”

I shrugged.

“Let me run this by you. Your friend Dee scores some dope in that park. She and the bass player decide to play some bed games, drink some booze, take some pills. Dee maybe falls asleep, and when she wakes up, she can't wake Brenda. So she cleans house and calls you.”