by Kelly Rey
"That is not better," Curt snapped. "You're grounded."
"You can't ground me," Maizy said. "You're not my father."
"You're right," he said. "If I was your father, I'd arrest you."
"What about her?" She pointed at me. "They want to kill her, too!"
I stuck my fists on my hips. "What did I do except pay the full cover charge and submit to a thoroughly intrusive wanding at the door?"
"You're never going to let that go, are you?" she said.
"If you two have a minute," Curt said, "I'd like to set up a game plan for tonight."
"Way ahead of you," Maizy said. "You're going to play. I'm going to talk to Archie when he shows up. And Jamie's going to surveil the room."
"Why can't you surveil the room?" I asked. "And I can talk to Archie."
"Be serious," Maizy said. "You don't know enough about Virtual Waste to pull it off."
I rolled my eyes. "What do I need to know? That TJ wrote 'Puddle of Drool'?"
"Impressive," Maizy said. "Now what's Bones' real name?"
"I have no idea," I snapped. "What is it?"
"Got me," Maizy said. "But that's not important. We all have our jobs to do. Oh, and Uncle Curt, stay away from Susan Two. She's like an octopus."
"Don't worry about me," he told her. "I'd better not see you at the bar."
"I go where the investigation takes me," she said.
"It might take you to your room for a month," he said. "Stay where I can see you."
"Good idea," she said. "That way you can learn something."
Curt and I watched her make her way through the crowd, blending in effortlessly without the blue hair. Maybe I was better off letting her do the heavy lifting while I surveilled the room. Except what did surveilling a room mean, exactly? Did I have to take notes or pictures? Where should I stand? What was I supposed to be looking for, and how would I know it when I saw it?
Something occurred to me. I turned back to Curt. "What did TJ do when he couldn't find Mike?"
"He went outside for a smoke. That's where he was when Nicky D's body was found."
At least he was consistent, even if he was lying. That's what he'd said before. "But I just talked to Bones," I began, "and he said—"
"Hey, man." Plop was at the door. "Showtime."
I glanced at him and drew back in surprise. Plop had a bandana tied around his head with the number 20 above his right eye.
"Be right there," Curt told him.
"Curt." I moved closer to him so I could whisper in his ear. Or smell his cologne. Whatever. "What's that number 20 on his head mean?"
He looked over at the doorway, but Plop had already gone back inside. "IQ?" he suggested.
I wasn't smiling. "What does he drive?"
"He came in the van with Mike." Curt's eyes met mine. "Plop's been here the whole night, Jame. He's not our guy."
"No, I guess not." If Bones wasn't our guy, and Plop wasn't our guy, who was our guy? This thing seemed to be turning into a process of elimination. "But that bandana," I added. "I think I saw something like that in the video Maizy took that first night. Something on the dash of the pickup. I saw a number 20, anyway, I'm sure of it." As sure as I could be while simmering in a stew of terror.
"I'll get a look at him onstage," he added. "I've got to go." He touched the ends of my hair. "While you're surveilling the room, check out the new drummer. They say he's pretty good."
A smile tugged at my lips. "I don't know. I've got my eye on the keyboardist. I'm a sucker for a guy named Marion."
That breathtaking smile again, meant just for me. My breath caught for a second. He took advantage of my silence to grab my hand. "Come on," he said. "Showtime."
He was telling me.
"Excuse me," someone said behind me.
I turned to find Mike trying to make his way back to the stage. He seemed surprised to see me. "Hey, it's Hortense, right? How've you been?"
"Good. Great." I tried to step aside, but I could barely move. Since we were nose to chest, I might as well make the most of it. "Can I ask you something?"
He took a drink from the glass in his hand. "Sure."
"I know you said you weren't arguing with Nicky D the night he died," I said. Not that I believed him. "But we were told you gave some kind of signal at the door right after what they thought was an argument, and then you propped the door open. Like maybe for someone in the parking lot to come in."
His expression grew dark. "What kind of signal?"
"Like this." I tried to mimic Bryn's demonstration, but we were packed so tightly, I wound up smacking two people in the back of the head and one in the shoulder.
"Knock it off, will you?" someone yelled.
"Sorry." I holstered my arm again. "Like that," I said.
Not sure what I expected from him, but it wasn't laughter. Still, that's what I got. You'd think I was used to that, but not so much coming from a relative stranger. I felt my temper rising.
"I'm not kidding," I told him. "It's a serious question."
"I'm allergic to bee stings," he said.
"Sorry to hear that," I said. "What about the signal?"
"You got some bad information." He tipped an ice cube into his mouth and crunched on it. "Hate to disappoint you, Nancy Drew, but that was no signal. I was trying to get a bee away from me."
"You didn't tell Ma—Alana that when she asked you," I said accusingly. "You played dumb then."
His eyes drilled into mine. "Maybe you have better technique than she does."
If that was some kind of come-on, it was my turn to play dumb. Even if I'd been interested, he wasn't my type. My mouth twisted in disappointment. "Only a bee?"
He bent to speak in my ear. "Not only a bee. That bee was a spy, and my buddy the CIA beekeeper was waiting outside for my signal."
Funny. Of course, it might have been funnier if his necklace hadn't fallen out of his collar right into my face. A silver cross, in a silver circle. Just like the one hanging from the mirror in the pickup. Up close I could see the little shield and bar on the bottom of the cross. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I knew it was unique enough to be unmistakably identical.
"Yo, Mike!" Plop yelled from onstage.
Mike gave me a sly smile. "I've got to go play. Thanks for the laughs." And he was gone, heading back to the band.
Swatting at a bee. Good grief.
It took me a few minutes to find a suitable spot from which to see the whole room, mostly because I was being pinballed around by a rowdy crowd to whom I stood at armpit level. When I spotted an empty chair, I dragged it over against the wall and climbed on top, glad to have a little breathing space. I wasn't a pub crawler; the only bar I'd seen apart from when Maizy and I had pursued a skinny green man (no, I wasn't tipsy; it had really happened) was on Cheers, where the place was always clean and bright and frequented by well-mannered customers.
The Golden Grotto was no episode of Cheers. It was nicer than the Pinelands Bar and Auditorium, but that wasn't saying much. One large room, dark, noisy, and smoky, with the stage at one end, the bar running along the far wall, pool table, air hockey table, and pinball machine at the other end by the fireplace, none currently in use. I scanned the room, noticing a familiar face with black-framed glasses but no lenses. Susan One, her attention riveted to the band. I was surprised to see her, given that it had seemed Nicky D had been the object of her obsession rather than the band at large. I'd been wrong.
Or maybe it wasn't the band at large that absorbed her attention. Maybe it was Curt. Her head hadn't moved to follow TJ or Mike around the stage. She wasn't watching Plop behind the keyboard. Bones might as well not exist for her. She'd stayed trained on one person. Unless she was lost in a standing meditation, she was ogling Curt.
I didn't like that one little bit. She might have already killed once by proxy, through that human sequoia that she was dating. Was she planning to add to the tally?
A curvy blonde in heavy makeup appeared at her side. They exc
hanged a few words while keeping their mutual focus on the stage. Was that Susan Two? I forgot all about surveilling the room. This was important. And my question was answered when Susan Two reached into her bag and pulled out a tube of moisturizer, which she proceeded to squeeze liberally onto her hands.
The girl was shameless.
Suddenly the crowd shifted, and I lost sight of the two Susans when more people pressed into the room. But I immediately recognized another familiar face. Bryn, the bouncer from the Pinelands. She was striking in a windblown kind of way, imposing but feminine with a red sweater and red lipstick, standing a head taller than the tide of women who had washed in with her. She scanned the room in bouncer mode, alert for trouble. Occupational hazard, I supposed, the same way Wally scanned the floors of public spaces for spills and sidewalks for uneven concrete. Bryn's eyes settled on Maizy. Although I was standing on the chair, she hadn't noticed me. In fairness, I was eminently unnoticeable.
Snippets of conversation floated over to me from a nearby group of girls.
"…it happened at the Pinelands…"
"…any idea who…"
"…outside with Plop when they found him…"
That came from a petite redhead, and it wrenched my focus off Bryn. Outside with Plop? But Plop had told us he'd been napping between sets on the Friday night while Nicky D was getting himself killed. I studied the girls as surreptitiously as I could, which wasn't easy since I towered over them on the chair. None stood out as accessories to murder, but if I'd learned anything about killers, it was that they didn't fit into neat archetypes.
"…Nicky D was cute but…"
Maizy was right; we'd been lied to plenty of times, and it wouldn't surprise me if it had happened again. It would surprise me coming from Plop. He didn't seem like he had it in him to be deceptive. He didn't seem like he had anything in him except fumes.
Of course, that white number 20 on his bandana…
"…the new guy's pretty hot for an older man…"
Well, I wasn't about to stand there and listen to that.
Someone tapped on my kneecap. "Excuse me. Can we use this chair?"
I looked down into the mesmerizing pale green eyes of the redhead. She was striking in a way that left me uncomfortably aware of my boring clothes. Maybe I should make more of an effort. Boots instead of sneakers. Sweater instead of gym wear. Skinny jeans instead of mom jeans.
The redhead waited, oblivious to my eternal struggle for a sense of style. "We're one short. Would you mind?"
Plenty of time later for self-loathing. I shook my head, climbed off the chair, and found a crumpled tissue in my pocket to wipe the seat while I considered the best approach. "Were you diddling Plop two Fridays ago?" I asked.
Okay, maybe that wasn't the best approach.
She took hold of the chair, but I was still polishing the seat, holding it firmly in place.
"What are you, his girlfriend or something?" she asked. "You trying to kiss up to him after what you did?"
What I did? Did I lose his favorite socks in the laundry? Dye his favorite T-shirt pink? Wake him up before noon?
"I'm not his girlfriend," I said. "But let's pretend I was. What did I do?"
She gave the chair a tug, but I wasn't finished with it or her.
"If you don't know," she said, "I'm not going to tell you."
Wow. Now I knew why Curt got irritated when I said that. It was the third leg in the trinity of guilt, along with "I shouldn't have to ask you" and "You could have at least called if you were going to be late."
"I'm asking because I'm a detective," I said. "Hortense Doe. And you are?"
"I'm Tiffany," she said. "I've never met a detective before. You must be undercover, right?" She did a quick head-to-toe appraisal. "Really undercover."
I stifled a sigh. I got it; I was only a few pegs above Plop on the worst-dressed list. Mr. Blackwell wouldn't even waste ink on me. I bought my underwear in six-packs and my T-shirts in the irregular bins. I didn't even know the meaning of ruching. And it mattered about as much as bedtime mattered to a narcoleptic.
"Tell me about the girlfriend," I said. "What did she do?"
"What do all girls do around Nicky D?" she asked.
Stare? Drool?
She rolled her eyes at my blank expression. "She messed around with him."
Of course she did.
Wait. That sounded like a possible motive.
"Do you know where she lives?" I asked.
Tiffany shook her head. "Plop said she flew off to Cancun with her sister. I think her sister has a condo there or something."
Too bad I didn't have a passport and a bikini body. Sounded like someone we might have wanted to talk to.
"And Plop told you this? How long have you known him?"
"I just met him that night," she said. "I've been to almost all their shows, though. I like to watch him."
I couldn't imagine why.
"So between sets, you went outside with him?" I prompted her. "And he told you all about his girlfriend, right?"
She didn't notice my biting sarcasm. "I finally got my chance. He was wonderful."
I really couldn't imagine it.
"And he was awake?" I asked.
"Sure, he was awake," she said with a frown. "He wouldn't be able to talk to me if he was asleep."
Oh, ick. Plop was a talker. That was way too much information.
"He just pretends to be out of it half the time," she said. "Don't let him fool you. That's the character he plays."
I thought about his performance at the Pinelands, both while Curt had been auditioning and afterward behind the bar. Oscar worthy.
"Plop is maybe the smartest guy up there," she said. "Like that Friday night? He said we'd better go outside because things were going to get ugly." She shuddered. "Boy, was he right."
Ugly? What did that mean? Ugly as in he was about to kill Nicky D, or he already had and knew his handiwork would be discovered soon enough?
"How did he seem to you?" I asked. "Was he agitated in any way? Upset?" Guilty?
"No, not really. He seemed as happy-go-lucky as ever."
The band launched into a cover of "Move It On Over" by George Thorogood. Plop stood intensely focused on his keyboard, looking neither happy-go-lucky nor particularly smart. Curt, on the other hand, looked magnificent, head bobbing in time to the music, occasionally grinning at Mike or TJ when they made some comment to him. He was easy to watch (just ask Susan One), but my gaze was drawn to Bones, to the side of the stage, playing his guitar, looking at no one, saying nothing. Even with the sunglasses concealing his eyes, you could tell he was utterly lost in the music. I watched him for about twenty seconds while it slowly dawned on me that his total, uninhibited immersion in his craft was maybe kind of sexy.
I forced my focus back to Tiffany while I polished the back of the chair. "What about Bones?"
"What about him?"
Good question. "Does he get along with the rest of the band?"
She shrugged. "I guess so. I feel kind of bad for him, to tell you the truth. Nicky D was always so mean to him. He was a real bully, but he didn't seem to treat anyone else the way he treated Bones."
"How do you mean?"
"I'll show you." She brought up YouTube on her cell phone and handed it to me. It was Nicky D, clearly unaware he was being recorded because he was laying into Bones like a mean girl, ridiculing his looks, his musical inadequacy, his lack of charisma, and if the recording had been longer, probably the way he breathed. It was awful to watch, and I was glad when it ended and I could give her back her phone.
"He did that a lot," Tiffany said. "Nicky D didn't think he had the rocker vibe, whatever that means. That's the phrase he used, 'rocker vibe.' He said they'd have to replace him if Virtual Waste was going to go global."
Global? They'd be lucky to go to the next county. Still, it seemed worth following up on that.
"How do you know all this?" I asked her.
"I know a lot a
bout Virtual Waste," she said. "They're big around here. Besides, these aren't exactly secrets. Everyone knew Nicky D hated Bones."
Had the feeling been mutual? Bones didn't seem like much of a fighter, but maybe he'd made his stand one time and made it count, lashing out in revenge.
Tiffany glanced around, scoping out another free chair, tired of waiting for mine.
"About Plop," I said quickly. "You're sure about when you met him outside?"
She nodded. "I know because I had to give my friend Gina a ride home. I only had him to myself for ten minutes, though, before…well, before everything happened."
Ten minutes? "That doesn't really seem worth getting undressed," I muttered.
"Excuse me?"
Had I said that out loud? My face grew warm. "Sorry," I said. "Your love life is your business."
"My love life?" she repeated. "You think I slept with him the night I met him? What kind of girl do you think I am?"
Uh-oh.
"But you said you went outside with him between sets," I said. "I guess I assumed…"
"To talk to him," she said. "About getting together for a jam session. What kind of detective are you, anyway?"
I thought that was fairly obvious. I gave the chair one last swipe and stood back while she snatched it up and stormed off with a fire-breathing glare.
"I see you've made another friend," Maizy said from behind me. "You have a real gift."
"I'm investigating," I snapped. "I had to keep her talking."
"I know a better way to do that." She whipped out a crumpled ten. "Works every time."
I didn't make enough to go passing out cash. I'd wasted my last ten on the cover charge so I could get in and polish up the furniture. And if Maizy had been handing out counterfeit bills, I really didn't want to know about it.
"It's not counterfeit," Maizy said, shoving it back in her pocket. "Herbie Hairston gave me a refund on some equipment."
"The death star?"
"Morning star," she said. "Not death star. Turn off your TV once in a while. God."
"Look who's talking," I shot back. "You can name the cast of What's My Line? and it was on fifty years ago!"
"That's different. I use that show to sharpen my skills."
"You can stop watching," I said. "They're sharp enough."
