Emerald City

by Chris Nickson

  She turned as I closed the door of the Horizon, eyes running over me to see if I was any kind of threat. I smiled and said, “Jenna Wright?”

  She nodded, then turned her head as if judging the distance to the front door. If I’d been a man she’d probably have bolted.

  “My name’s Laura Benton. I think you knew Craig Adler.” Her eyes widened at the mention of Craig and she compressed her mouth. “It’s okay. I just want to ask you a few questions, please. I’m writing a story about his death.”

  For a moment I believed she was going to say no and tell me to go away. Then her shoulders slumped fractionally and she said, “How did you find me?”

  Sixteen

  I could hear the hard nasal twang of Eastern Washington in her words. It was desert country out there, with plenty of small towns and redneck attitudes. Looking at her more closely, I could see the high cheekbones and long nose that spoke of generations of hardscrabble living.

  “I got lucky,” I admitted. “It was your car.”

  “I guess you’d better come in.” It sounded more like an admission of defeat than an invitation. She pulled the keys from her purse and led the way along the hall to her apartment. It was a typical one-bedroom, not unlike mine, but newer, smaller, and more cheaply constructed. The furniture was anonymous, the only personal touches a few photographs on the windowsill. There was Jenna with her parents, and a studio portrait of someone younger, a little sister perhaps, in her graduation robes. “Do you want a beer?” she asked.

  “Sure.” I watched her in the kitchen, moving quietly. She looked like a lost little girl.

  Jenna brought two bottles of Bud and settled at one end of the couch, drawing her legs up and under her. She took a pack of Virginia Slims from her purse and lit one, blowing the smoke out slowly.

  I gave her a moment, then began. “So, you and Craig.”

  “We had something going on,” she said, starting to blush. “But I didn’t think anyone knew about it.”

  “People always see things, even when you’re careful.”

  “Did his girlfriend...?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her gently. She wiped some of the condensation off the dark glass and took a drink.

  “It was only for a couple months,” she explained, glancing at me quickly then looking away. “I went to one of his gigs down in Pioneer Square. A couple of friends took me out because my boyfriend had just dumped me.”

  “And you started talking?”

  “Something like that.” She gave a wistful smile. “I thought he was cool.”

  “He was,” I said, watching her nod agreement. “How often did you see him?”

  “Six times,” she replied with certainty, every occasion etched in her mind. “A couple after his band had been rehearsing, and the rest over at his place. He told me he was involved with someone, he didn’t lie about it.” She shrugged. “I just liked being with him, it wasn’t a real biggie, you know?”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “The Wednesday before he died.” She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I had the afternoon off, and I knew his girlfriend was at work, so I went over.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “I don’t know, two, maybe three hours.”

  “Was Craig shooting up?”

  “No.” She looked at me in surprise. “I know they said he died of an overdose, but all we ever did was smoke a few bowls. I wouldn’t have done anything with a junkie.”

  “You know he used to?”

  Jenna shook her head. “He never told me that.” She paused for a second, sadness creeping across her face. “But I guess there’s a lot he never said.”

  “Did you make plans to meet again?”

  “This week. He said he had to go down to LA but he’d be back.”

  “Did he tell you why he was going?”

  She shrugged. “Just business is all. Why, was it important?”

  “He was going to sign a big record deal.”

  Jenna’s mouth opened wide for a second. “He didn’t mention anything about that.”

  “What kind of relationship did you have with him?”

  She stared at the carpet before answering, that blush returning, as if the truth embarrassed her. “We got high and we fucked. That was about it. He was fun.”

  “No romance?”

  Jenna shook her head. “I knew how things were. It would probably have ended soon, anyway. I think he was starting to feel guilty about cheating.” She stopped and stared at me. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel that great about it myself. But sometimes a thing gets a hold of you, you know?”

  I could understand, even if I’d never been so casual. It was an attitude I didn’t really get. Back in my twenties I’d briefly dated someone who was married. He didn’t tell me when we met. Once I knew the truth I left, telling him he should be grateful I didn’t call his wife.

  “How did you feel when you heard he died?”

  She stubbed out the cigarette and lit another.

  “I didn’t even know until last Wednesday. I don’t really watch the news. A friend of mine called. We were talking and she said, hey, did you hear about that guy in the band we saw... I couldn’t believe it.” Her eyes glistened with tears and she wiped them away. “I’m sorry. None of my friends knew. I didn’t tell anyone and I don’t think he did.”

  “He didn’t, at least as far as I know,” I assured her. “It was just the way things worked out that someone saw you and I was able to find you.”

  “You won’t tell anyone?” Jenna asked, suddenly worried. “I mean, my name?”

  “I’ve no reason to,” I said gently. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you.” She gave me a small smile. “I don’t know what else I can tell you, though.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I told her. “But there’s one thing I’ve got to ask you. Why a muscle car?”

  “It was my daddy’s. He left it to me when he died.” She smiled, more broadly this time. “So it’s kind of special to me.”

  I stood up, the small mystery solved, even if it brought me no nearer to the truth about Craig’s death.

  “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “You know what?” she said with relief. “It was good to finally be able to tell someone. I’m going to miss him.”

  As I drove back down the Interstate I replayed the conversation in my head. She’d told me the truth, I was certain of that. I felt sorry for her; she’d be stuck with the guilt of that relationship for years, unresolved and incomplete.

  Steve was home before me, sitting out on the deck with a beer and his feet up on the railing. I grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator and joined him, sharing a long, passionate kiss before I sat down, breathing in the familiar scents of heat and dishwashing liquid.

  “How was work?” I asked.

  “Same old,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just starting to get nervous about Saturday.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I promised him.

  “Maybe.” He tried to smile. “Between that and...” He didn’t need to say it. The bullet and the threats were in both our minds. “Anything new on the story?”

  “I was out talking to the muscle car blonde.”

  He sat up, alert and focused. “You found her? Really? Wow. I’m impressed.”

  I told him about her. “Jesus,” he said slowly. “So Craig was just horny. Shit. Are you going to tell Sandy when you talk to her?”

  “God, no,” I replied. “If she doesn’t know already I’m not going to say anything. She’s hurting enough right now.”

  “Maybe she found out and killed him.”

  “No,” I answered. “If she’d wanted to do that she’d have been more direct. And none of these calls. So I need to look back at the other things.”

  “The band?” Steve suggested.

  “What reason would they have? With Craig they were going to sign their big record deal. Withou
t him...” I pursed my lips and shook my head.

  “So if it’s not the band and it’s not sex, what’s left?”

  “I wish I knew. Business, maybe?” I lit a cigarette; from the corner of my eye I saw Steve’s disapproving glance. “If this guy hadn’t started threatening us I’d have given up long ago. Now I just need to find out how he managed it. And why.”

  “Just don’t get yourself hurt doing it.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure I really believed my own words. I was toughing it out on bravado, on the determination to prove I was a strong woman. I reached out and played with Steve’s long hair.

  “I love you, you know,” he said.

  “And I love you, too.”

  We finished the beers slowly, letting idle talk fill the minutes. I cooked some pasta while he brought his guitar into the living room and played, flexing his fingers and doing the vocal warm-up exercises a coach had taught him. He put the instrument aside for dinner, eating on the couch as we watched the news on KIRO.

  “You mind if I spend the evening playing?” he asked later. “If you want to go out somewhere, it’s fine.”

  “I’m good.” There was no one gigging that I wanted to see, and after a couple beers with the meal I didn’t feel like going out for a drink. I could see the tension about Saturday growing on his face, the pressure to play the gig of a lifetime. I had a good book, plenty of music and a pair of headphones.

  The way it turned out, I dozed on the couch with the book open on my lap and an LP of Scarlatti sonatas playing. Steve gently shook me awake.

  “You’ve been crashed out for a while,” he said. “It’s almost eleven.”

  “Have you been playing all this time?”

  “Pretty much.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand. “Come to bed.”

  He slept but I couldn’t. A week ago all this business with Craig had seemed like another story, a bigger one than I’d ever attempted but still just a story. Now it had become all I could think about; the threats gnawed at me and pushed me on to discover what was behind them. I felt guilty. Even Steve’s big gig was taking second place and I wasn’t supporting him the way I should. And so far all I’d run into had been dead ends. I’d pinned so much on Jenna, thinking she could be the answer, and she’d proved to be no help at all.

  Now I had to hope that Sandy could push me in the right direction.

  Seventeen

  As dawn came I was pacing around, still wired. My brain simply wouldn’t shut down and let me rest. Later I heard the small, sour squawk of the alarm and Steve came padding into the living room.

  “Hey,” he said sleepily, “what happened to you?”

  Unshaved and hair tousled, he looked like the rockstar he wanted to be. I gave him a quick kiss, avoiding the morning breath, and said, “I just couldn’t sleep.”

  “Is it getting to you?”

  “Big time.”

  He stared at me for a long time before finally nodding and heading for the shower. I made him some toast and poured him coffee, ready for the rush before he headed downtown.

  Neither band nor sex had given me a reason for Craig’s death. Steve was right, I needed to look at the business end of things again. Somewhere there was one end of that thread I was going to unravel. Someone was going to pay for what he’d done to Craig, and for what he’d put us through in the last week.

  I dug through the notes I’d made. The lawyer wouldn’t say boo, but two people might talk: Greg down at the label in Los Angeles, and Tom, the man who’d put out the album by Craig and Snakeblood. If the reason behind all this was money, one of them might know something.

  Neither of them would be around before ten; music people don’t keep normal office hours. I passed the time writing up all the things Jenna had told me, and seeing just how little help she’d turned out to be. It was a good lesson: never expect too much from anyone.

  Just after ten I dialed the LA number and asked the secretary to connect me to Greg. He came on the line bright and breezy, full of pleasantry and friendliness.

  “Hey, how’s things? How’s that little story of yours coming?”

  “It’s getting interesting,” I told him, pushing down my anger at his response. At the other end of the line I could hear him sniffing his way through a late spring cold or a lack of coke.

  “Yeah? So what can I do for you? You’ve got more questions, right? Shoot, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Were there any business points in the deal that caused friction? Anything that seemed like real sticking points?”

  “Nothing I can think of,” he answered easily.

  “No wrangling over royalty levels or anything?”

  “I don’t recall any hassles. You’d do better to ask their lawyer.”

  “You know what lawyers are like,” I told him evasively, hoping he’d spill everything.

  “I think they wanted another point,” he told me, “but we weren’t prepared to give way on that. Not when they were unknown. We’d agreed to tour support and generous advertising.”

  “Was it exclusive? Could they still release tracks on smaller labels?”

  “Let me check,” he said, and I could hear him flipping through the pages of the extensive contract. “Yeah, there was a clause that let them release three tracks a year on other labels, as long as we took a cut of the royalties.”

  “Is that standard?” I asked.

  I could almost hear him shrug. “Pretty much, where we allow artists to do that. It’s usually for benefit albums and shit like that. The band or the other label pay the recording costs. Just saves on negotiation later.”

  “What about back catalog?”

  “Nah,” he answered. “We weren’t interested in what they’d done. You’ve heard that first album of theirs?”

  “I have it.”

  “It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s baby steps. They sound way better now, and with a good producer that early shit would have sounded like amateur hour.”

  I bristled a little; I liked that album, it had captured their sound and their raw, eager spirit well. “Was there anything stopping their old label from continuing to sell the record?”

  “Nope. If they could shift a few units after ours came out, more power to them.”

  “They didn’t have a contract with any other label?”

  Greg laughed. “Are you shitting me? That’s always the first thing we check out. These bands never know what they’re signing when they start out. They just want an album out there, that’s it. They’re green as fuck. No, Snakeblood were clean, no ties. They were only contracted with that label up there for the one disc.”

  “Okay.” I was using the word to try to buy a little time. I didn’t know what else to ask. He seemed to have everything sewn up, just the way anyone would expect from a major label with decades of experience and the best lawyers money could buy. They had the power and they could dictate the terms. “So there was nothing doubtful in there at all?”

  “It was perfectly fair,” Greg said with confidence. “We wanted a long relationship with them.”

  Or at least a profitable one. “Thanks,” I told him. “You’ve been really helpful.”

  “It’s nothing. Craig was one of the good guys, he could have gone a long, long way and been a real star. If you ever find out what happened, let me know, okay?”

  I put down the phone, leaving his condescension behind, ready to have a cup of coffee and think for a few minutes, but it rang again immediately. I stared at it for a few seconds, certain it would be the voice with another threat. Finally I picked up the receiver, holding it tentatively.

  “Hello?”

  “Laura?” It was a woman’s voice, one I didn’t recognize. “Hi,” she continued hesitantly. “This is Sandy Turner. Craig’s girlfriend.”

  “Hi,” I said and took a deep breath. I could feel the pulse pounding hard in my neck. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry I didn’t
call before. It’s just been, you know, a really bad time.” She sounded confused and anxious, lost.

  “What happened was terrible,” I offered. “It must have been awful for you.”

  “Yeah, and to find him like that...” Her words trailed away.

  “I know it’s difficult, but I could really use to talk to you.”

  “I know. Dani passed on your message. And the stuff that’s happened, that’s awful. Why would someone do that?”

  “Because I think someone killed Craig and he’s trying to stop me.”

  “What?” Her voice was a mixture of outrage and disbelief. She paused for a long second, confused and trying to take in what I’d just said. “The police said...”

  “I know,” I told her. “But why else would I get these threats after I started this story? I want to find out what happened.”

  “Jesus.” She barely breathed the word. I couldn’t even imagine what she was feeling. I’d just changed everything in her world. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “That’s...” She couldn’t find the words. “I couldn’t believe he was using again. I’d have known. But you’re saying the police were wrong.”

  “It looks like it.” I paused. I’d just turned upside down everything she’d come to believe in the last few days. “I need your help. I’m sure someone killed Craig but so far I haven’t managed to find a reason. You knew him better than anyone. Maybe the best thing would be for us to sit down together, if you’re willing.”

  “Yes,” she agreed quickly. I could feel her holding on to the hope I’d just given her. “How about tomorrow?”

  “That’d be good.” The sooner I learned what she knew, the faster things would move. “Where are you staying?”

  There was a short silence. “I’d rather not say, if that’s okay. But I’ll meet you wherever you want.”

  I thought quickly. I wanted a place where I could tape the conversation, so there couldn’t be too much background noise.

  “The OK Hotel?” It was down near the water, an old hotel that had become a café and bar and also put on music in the large back room. It had ample seating so we’d be able to find a nook that was out of the way.