Death Distilled

by Melinda Mullet

  “Rory’s hiding out somewhere. We need to find him.” I pointed to the message on the back of the door.

  Patty blanched. “Damn him. He thinks everything’s always all about him, but he’s putting the audience at risk, too,” Patty said, the tension resonating in her voice.

  “Then help us find him,” I said.

  We fanned out and started searching the grounds. When I’d walked through the crowds fifteen minutes earlier with Mickey Dawson, all eyes were on me, assessing my status and whether I might be useful, but now that I was alone, I might as well have been invisible. Patty had just come from the Great Hall, so I headed in the opposite direction toward the battlements that rose up behind the stage, looking in every nook and cranny I could find.

  No sign of Rory, but I did catch a glimpse of Tina Doyle’s flaming red leggings behind one of the barrier screens. I moved to the right to get a better view and shot a couple of long-lens photos of the young man she was talking to. He was tall, dark, and muscular, and his head was bent down to catch whatever it was she was telling him. She swayed slightly and he steadied her, bestowing a rather intimate squeeze on her backside. As the two broke apart I snapped a close-up of his face. A connection worth looking into. Tina might be fairly useless, but I’d bet he wasn’t.

  I continued to look, making my way in a wide arc toward the rear of the stage. The scarlet-haired bassist from Celtic Riot was playing the electric bagpipes with a vengeance as their set drew to a close. My eyes continued to scan the movement backstage. Rory couldn’t have gone far. If he was planning to take the stage he had to be somewhere close at hand. I searched behind every screen and speaker array. In equipment lockers and even porta-loos. Rory was nowhere to be seen.

  The sun had retired behind the distant hills and the castle was bathed in a rosy glow as the sky shifted from shades of pink to lavender to deep purple as dusk closed in. Time was running out. The lighting crew had rigged red floodlights in the castle’s defensive ditch, and as Mayhem took the stage the walls of the castle suddenly glowed a vivid blood red. It seemed a bad omen, and I shuddered thinking what might be coming next.

  I continued to wander around, taking pictures of everything that caught my eye. Patty appeared at my side, shaking her head no to my mouthed inquiry about Rory. She was wearing headphones and handed me a pair. I slipped them on, and the intensity of the sound from the stage dimmed. I could hear the exchanged conversations between the stage crew, the lighting and sound crew in the tower, and the video crew in front of the stage. It was a complex interface that was working seamlessly to stage the extravaganza in front of us while the audience remained oblivious to the puppet masters as they worked.

  When Mayhem finally ended its sensory onslaught, I heard Rory’s voice through the headphones. He was somewhere nearby and waiting for a cue from JR. I gestured to Patty to go left and I went right, pushing my way through the crowd to the area immediately in front of the stage, looking desperately for Michaelson. Mayhem was taking their final bows, and the crowd was on its feet chanting for Rory. Dry-ice smoke was billowing across the stage, obscuring the floor and flowing down into the first rows of the audience. I heard JR’s voice giving a set cue from the midfield tower and the first strains of “Fanfare for a Common Man” echoed across the lawn.

  A frenzy of cheering continued from the crowd as a trapdoor opened in the floor beneath the stage to reveal Rory rising to greet his people. I could see Michaelson backstage. He was livid, but it was too late, Rory had already launched into the first chords of “Music to My Fears.” Michaelson raised his hands in resignation. Mickey Dawson was on. There was nothing that could be done now to shield him from whatever awaited.

  —

  On stage Mickey’s persona had matured. He was still a brooding and tortured soul, but the theatrics had been dramatically toned down. The emotion was not as raw as the early days, but his voice had developed a rich mellow quality that was even more electrifying.

  As the show rolled on, I could see Michaelson watching Rory intently from his vantage point backstage. So far, nothing. Maybe the threat on the wall wasn’t meant literally, just a threat designed to unsettle, to compromise Rory’s comeback performance. I turned and began shooting photos of the crowd, using my strongest telephoto lens to look for signs of anyone behaving in a threatening manner. It was impossible. I took some pictures of the guys at work on the tower. JR on the lower level conducting the light show like a maestro; Gerry on the upper deck launching into a moving video sequence accompanying War. The new screen was amazing. Behind Gerry I could see Lion Man pacing as he gave orders to the sound crew.

  Patty rejoined me in front of the stage, and we stood together watching the show. The stage crew was gearing up for some kind of pyrotechnic finale and the audience was on its feet singing along. Suddenly, the screen behind Rory went black. I could hear Gerry swearing from the sound deck in my headset. When the video came back online, it wasn’t the one we’d just been viewing. Instead, it was an enormous picture of Rory, a gaunt twisted image of his face in black and white, and slowly a red liquid began to trickle down the screen like blood from a gaping wound.

  Rory continued to play, oblivious to what was happening behind him. I looked at Patty and gestured questioningly at the screen. She shook her head, wide-eyed in confusion. Obviously it wasn’t part of the plan. The audience gasped as the word killer flashed across the screen in six-foot letters, before the entire area was plunged into total darkness.

  People in the crowd were screaming. I could hear Lion Man’s voice in my headphones saying, “I’m on it, I’m on it.” An announcement over the PA system asked people to remain in their seats, but there was a tremendous amount of noise and movement in the dark. The power surged for a moment, and then there was a bang like a rifle shot and the field went dark again. Rory spoke from the stage, appealing for calm, and the lights finally came back on in a blinding flash. The crowd was everywhere, having panicked in the darkness. Rory spoke over the chaos, thanking the audience for their support for the veterans and for all the well-wishes extended to Ian Waters and his family, before Michaelson’s men forcibly removed him from the stage.

  The police moved into the audience and started to herd the guests to the far end of the esplanade and down into the parking areas below.

  Suddenly behind us there was a bloodcurdling scream. Patty and I turned to see security running toward a crowd of people straining to get a look at something that was happening at the foot of the tech tower.

  Patty and I pushed our way toward the tower, holding our credentials out in front of us. We elbowed our way around to the site of the incident, gasping in unison at the sight in front of us.

  At the center of the crush lay the body of a man. His life had come to a harsh end: crashing into the cold cement of the tower deck from the sound booth above.

  Chapter 9

  Lion Man lay sprawled on his back, a dark stain of blood spread like a halo around his head. The vibrant laughing eyes now stared lifelessly toward the sky. I looked up to the sound booth suspended some thirty feet above us and took a shaky breath, tightening my grip on the camera around my neck. Was Siobhán right, did I somehow draw death and destruction into my orbit? I shook my head and tried to focus on the real question. Was this the death that awaited? Did it have anything to do with the Rebels, with the images on the screen, or was it simply an accident in the dark?

  Patty was shaking like a leaf, and JR was doing his best to comfort her. On top of the accident with Ian, this had to be devastating. I had no words to say. The sweet man joking around with us earlier in the evening was gone. I hardly knew him, but I felt as if I’d failed him. I couldn’t just stand here feeling sick—I had to try to do something. Michaelson was standing about ten feet away, talking to two men from the audience with his back to the tower. I took the opportunity to shimmy up the ladder to the deck above.

  Gerry Wilson was sitting at his computer console, looking gray. “What a bloody mess,” he said
when he caught sight of me. He pulled a dingy handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose vigorously.

  Something in his demeanor reminded me of Cam: gruff and prickly on the outside, but a bit of a cream puff on the inside. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Damned if I know. I’m still running diagnostics on the system.”

  I came over to the rail by Gerry’s station and looked down at the empty seats below. “I’m guessing the bloodstained picture wasn’t a part of the show.”

  “Definitely not part of the show.” Gerry rested his forehead in his hand. “I lost control right before the images came up on the screen.”

  “Hackers?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Who else had access to the video before the show?”

  “It wasn’t a locked file if that’s what you mean. We add and delete stuff right up to the last minute. Anyone on the video crew from Ravenscourt or Southfields would’ve been able to access the file.”

  I looked up at the blood-red floodlights still bathing the castle walls and shuddered. I knew it was a bad omen. I looked down at the headset still clutched in my hands. “I heard Leo Moore say he was ‘on it.’ What did he mean?”

  “He was checking the generator up here, trying to see what had happened with the lights. When the system tried to kick back on, there was a huge power surge, totally overloaded the generator. Sent sparks everywhere.”

  “And Leo was hit by the surge?”

  Gerry grimaced. “Must’ve been. One minute he was over there, the next he was gone. Force must’ve thrown him right over the rail.”

  We both turned at a noise on the ladder behind us. Patty climbed up to the platform and ran to Gerry’s side.

  “You alright, luv?” he asked, giving her a hug.

  “I’m okay,” Patty said, her eyes red from crying. “I just can’t believe it.”

  I watched Gerry with Patty, and the words dedicated, genuine, and principled floated to the front of my consciousness.

  Gerry murmured words of sympathy, and I walked over to the rail at the opposite edge of the platform where Leo must have been standing right before the surge. The generator panel was open and there were dark gray scorch marks on the metal. I put my foot on the crossbar at shin height and leaned over, getting a vertigo-inducing view of the ground below where the coroner was attending to the body.

  “Get the hell down from there,” a familiar voice barked from behind me, grabbing my belt loop and hauling me unceremoniously backward onto the platform. “Mrs. Waters,” Michaelson said, acknowledging Patty. “And you must be Gerry Wilson,” he said as he approached the control panel.

  Gerry nodded warily.

  “Detective Inspector Michaelson. I need to ask you a few questions.” Michaelson turned my way. “Logan, perhaps you’d be kind enough to help Mrs. Waters back down,” he said pointedly. “Then go wait in the Great Hall with the others. I’d like to talk to you both when I am finished here.”

  Patty and I climbed slowly down from the tower and made our way back to the Great Hall. Rory had been segregated in the kitchen area, away from the horde of people in the adjoining room.

  We found him pacing back and forth, looking agitated.

  “I was right there; out in the open,” he bellowed. “They could’ve taken a shot at me. Why are they going after everyone around me?”

  “Still have that death wish, don’t you?” Patty snapped. “Leo’s death was an accident, nothing to do with you.”

  “If they weren’t threatening me it wouldn’t have been dark,” Rory retorted. “Everyone else gets attacked head-on. Why not me?”

  It was a good question, but one I didn’t have an answer to. The killer had wasted no time in dealing with Hamish and Ian, but seemed to be playing cat and mouse with Rory. Did this mean the killer had finally come around to the main focus of his vendetta? And why would he be accusing Rory of being a murderer?

  “Why do you think ‘killer’?” I asked him point-blank.

  “Killer?” Rory said, looking surprised.

  “Yes, the word killer flashed up on the screen just as the blood finished covering your face.”

  Patty shuddered. “It was horrible.”

  Rory stopped storming around the room and looked toward Patty with an expression of pure misery. He stepped toward her, but turned aside as she moved away from him. There was a wall between them, but whether it was an old fortress or a new structure, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’ve done a lot of stupid, reckless things in my life,” Rory said, “but I’m no killer.”

  “Not on purpose,” I agreed, “but could there have been a car accident, a death at a concert, a suicidal ex-lover? A wound that might have festered down the years?”

  Rory kicked at a metal rolling cart and sent it sliding across the floor and into the wall with a clatter before putting his elbows on the counter and burying his head in his hands. “I want to say no,” he said finally, “but there’s so much blank time. Things I just don’t remember.”

  You may not, I thought, but someone does.

  “I better go and check on the guests that are still here,” Patty said with a sigh.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said. Rory was too full of recriminations to be of any help at the moment. “I missed out on a number of interviews earlier searching for you, Rory, and there are a few people I’d like to chat with before we’re done here.”

  —

  I scanned the group waiting in the Great Hall and saw most of the backstage crew as well as the sound and lighting crew. Almost everyone in the room wore credentials of some kind. The lead singer from Mayhem was in the corner, talking to an older man with spikey ash-blond hair that contrasted sharply with the near black of his eyes. He was scowling at the goings-on and ignoring the no-smoking signs. I watched until his companion left before heading across the room. He glared at me as I approached.

  “I’m not putting the cigarette out.”

  “Not asking you to.”

  He grunted in reply, studying my face through a smoke haze. I watched his fingers beating an elaborate tattoo on the wall behind him. “Simon Moye, right.” It was a statement more than a question. “You were the drummer for Punk Junk.”

  His scowl deepened. “You have a good memory for ancient history,” he muttered.

  “Not so ancient,” I protested. “Your music was an integral part of my misspent youth. You and Rory and Ian formed the band that eventually morphed into the Rebels.”

  Simon watched the crowd milling around restlessly. “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “Why did you leave the band?” I pressed.

  “Professional differences,” he snapped.

  “But you were only just starting out.”

  Simon ignored the comment.

  “Professional differences with the band…or with the management?” I insisted.

  Simon took a long drag on his cigarette. “Why do you care?”

  “Why do you not?”

  “I cared. Once. Now it’s water under the bridge. The band changed direction, that’s all there was to it.”

  “You were a punk band—”

  “Tell Bruce Penrose that. His vision was rock and blues, and I wasn’t willing to bend over backward for him like some.”

  “But the rest of the band was willing to make changes to sign a deal?”

  “Anything for the big bucks,” Simon growled. “Penrose pushed me overboard and the Rebels were born.”

  “But you cowrote so many of the songs on the first album. I’m surprised Rory and Ian would have let this happen.”

  “No more’n I was,” Simon replied. The bitterness in his voice was almost palpable. “If they’d stood up to Penrose in the beginning, they could’ve broken his hold over them.”

  “Did Bruce Penrose really have that much sway over the boys?”

  “That barracuda controlled everything; absolutely everything. They couldn’t breathe without Bruce.”

  “Drugs a
ffect judgment, and there were a lot of drugs floating around in those days,” I offered.

  “Courtesy of Bruce. He kept ’em all supplied. Built his own rock-and-roll monster. Mickey Dawson got just enough drugs to keep him flying, but not enough to crash.”

  “Stuart crashed…and Hamish,” I pointed out.

  Simon shrugged. “Wonder it didn’t happen sooner. They had a good run, all things considered. Hamish looked like death warmed over the last time I saw him.”

  “When was that?”

  “ ’Bout a week before he died.”

  “You were still friends after everything that happened?”

  “Not at all,” Simon snapped. He took a final drag on his cigarette.

  “Is Rory a killer?” I asked.

  Simon looked startled by the bluntness of the question. “The Rory I knew wasn’t, but times change, people change.”

  Simon crushed his cigarette out with his heel. Self-contained, wary, and tense came to mind. A man whose professional dreams had been destroyed. A man with a motive for revenge. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m up,” he said, and moved to follow the sergeant beaconing to him across the room.

  Michaelson had commandeered a couple of tables at the far end of the hall, and he and his men were in the process of taking statements before dismissing people. The crowd was starting to thin a bit.

  “Abi.” I jumped as Patty came up behind me and touched my arm. “Heard from one of the guys at Ravenscourt that Bruce Penrose is around. Staying at a motel on the far side of town.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Digging around for memorabilia apparently. Here’s his card.”

  I tucked it into my camera bag. From the beginning Penrose struck me as the one with the most viable motive for wanting to harm the band. I was disappointed he wasn’t here tonight, but I wasn’t willing to count him out completely. He might not be working alone.

  I continued to wander through the group, waiting to be questioned by the police. I talked to as many people as I could, trying to gauge their reactions to Rory. I focused on the older attendees who’d been around when the Rebels were hot. The general consensus was that the band had been taken advantage of and overwhelmed by the sheer force of the juggernaut that was the Rebels. Most were in shock over the events at the show. Some expressed suspicion that the video was a publicity stunt, but no one denied that Rory was still an incredibly gifted musician. I did hear plenty of reminiscences about drunken escapades, and always in the background was Bruce Penrose. The cleanup crew, the “Dustman,” “Bury It Bruce.” He was the missing link. Simon Moye had motive, but why wait all this time? Penrose’s grudge was old as well, but he’d been in jail and in the States, only returning to the UK at the beginning of the year. Four months before Rory—I was keen to know why.