Death in the 12th House

by Mitchell Scott Lewis

  “Well, for one thing he’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. And maybe the most arrogant.”

  Vivian bent down and put the red shoe next to Sarah’s foot. “You must know him very well.”

  “I thought I did, until last week.” She slipped her foot into the shoe and they both scrutinized it.

  “What happened?”

  “When we were attacked downtown he threw this big guy around like he weighed nothing. You should have seen it, it was amazing. He called it aikido, said it was a martial art.”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “But it wasn’t even that, it was the fruit that blew my mind.”

  “What fruit?”

  Sarah told her about Lowell using the melon and nectarines as weapons of convenience.

  “So he even has secrets from you?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah smiled, as she slipped her feet into black heels, “but I know where he keeps them, and I’m gonna get in one day.”

  “Why did he become a detective?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No, and I’m wrong to ask you. Forget I said anything. I’ll find out if and when he chooses to tell me.”

  They both looked at Sarah’s feet in the mirror.

  “So are you going to tell me already, or what?”

  Sarah nodded. “Of course, it’s not much of a secret anyway. You could find all this out on the Internet. About eight years ago, before I came to work for him, David was down on Wall Street making a killing in commodities. He had let his private practice fall apart and was pretty much using astrology just to make money. He apparently made a ton of it, although he won’t tell me how much.

  “Anyway, there was a holdup in a grocery store and David’s son, Robert, was killed. His wife blamed David, said if he had a gift he should have been paying attention to his family and using it to watch over them. Of course he was only working in the financial markets so he could watch over them and not have to worry about the financial woes they were having, but she didn’t see it that way.”

  “What happened?”

  “She left him.”

  Vivian’s eyes lowered. “But losing a child.”

  “I know. And he never talks about it.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “So David became a detective?”

  “At first it was to catch his son’s killers, which he did. But after that I believe he continued to do it because he has a strong sense of fair play and feels that the world is an unjust place. In his way he likes to feel that he is helping to balance things out.”

  “He told you this?”

  “Nah, I could see it in the cases he chooses to take, and the way he deals with his clients. He only takes the cases where he thinks someone has been wrongfully abused and he believes there is something he can actually do about it.”

  Vivian looked at Sarah with new admiration. “You’re pretty impressive yourself.”

  Sarah smiled. “I have a few secrets of my own.”

  “So why did you choose to work for him?”

  “I got a degree in social work. If I had taken a job in my chosen profession I would make about thirty grand a year, and be paying off my student loans until I’m ninety.”

  “He pays you well?”

  Sarah winked. “And there’s perks,” she nodded toward her shoes. “And he has solved every case he has taken.”

  “So far.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The next day Lowell was gazing out the window and petting the turtles when Sarah buzzed. He was stuck, as often happened when Mercury was in retrograde.

  “Boss, Roger from Morgan Stanley on line one.”

  “Roger, thanks for getting back to me. What have you got?”

  “Sorry it took so long. We’ve been having problems with the computers ever since Mercury retrograded. See, and you thought I didn’t follow your newsletter. Just give me a minute, let me bring it up. Here it is. In 1997 Prudential Insurance issued a fifty-five million dollar bond with a promise of seven point nine percent return against profits from David Bowie’s recordings. It consisted of about twenty-five albums and several hundred songs. I can look it up if you need the exact figures.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Well, the Bowie bond was put together by a fellow named David Pullman, and today these are often called Pullman bonds. After Bowie, a number of other acts including James Brown, Ashford and Simpson, the Isley Brothers and, of course, as I’m sure you knew, Freddie took advantage of the financial climate and had bonds issued against their work as well.”

  “So what happened? How did the bonds do?”

  “Quite well for the first few years. The bond paid its eight percent return, and there was a big bonus for the underwriters. But after a while things started to turn bad.”

  “How so?”

  “As you know, album sales tanked in the late nineties. CDs had propped things up for a good while, as boomers rushed to replace all their vinyl. But that peaked, and then in a classic case of unintended consequences, the digitization that created the CD also created the means to download just the good tracks. The one-two punch of the iPod, and free music on the Internet starting with Napster, plunged the record industry into very hard times. And musicians and their work lost a lot of their revenue-making power.”

  “What happened to the bonds?”

  “A number of years ago Moody’s lowered the rating on Bowie’s bond from A3 to BBB3, one level above junk bonds. I assume the same was done to the other Pullman bonds issued as well. For several years the return was lowered, and some investors began to complain, although none actually defaulted. There were no more underwriters, and no more bonds issued. Freddie’s was one of the last. Recently there has been a bit of interest shown again because of the success of iTunes and several other legal online music sources. But I doubt you will see the kind of revenue these guys made anytime in the near future. The music business is changing, and the hey-day of the seventies, eighties, and nineties is long gone.”

  “But people still get rich in the music business?”

  “Oh sure, some make a fortune,” replied Roger. “But not as many as used to. And the catalogues of the old acts aren’t worth anything near what they were.”

  “Who issued the bond for Freddie?”

  “Goldman Sachs. They issued shares to individual investors.”

  “Do you know who bought the lion’s share?”

  “No, but I’ll try to find out for you.”

  “Keep an eye out and let me know if Jimmy DeAngelo’s name shows up.”

  “Fat Jimmy from the floor of the Merc?”

  “The same.”

  “Okay. What do you think of the markets?”

  “I think the stocks are still much too risky for a long term position. As long as this Uranus – Pluto square continues they will have violent ups and downs. You’re better off playing the volatility. I would stay liquid, and look for oversold commodities. We could see shortages in some soon. I’m still long oil, as well as wheat, soybeans, and the other agriculturals. And watch the Pound. Mars is about to enter Virgo and it should make a correction. Thanks, Roger. You’ve been a big help.”

  After they hung up Lowell made a note of his conversation and left it on Mort’s desk.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  They sat around the big circular table in the back of First Wok on Third Avenue and 88th Street. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and the restaurant was empty except for their party. Outside, rush hour traffic was just beginning to clog the avenue.

  Nine of the chairs were filled. The tenth was left empty.

  The waiter took their drink order, seven sodas and two teas. When the drinks arrived Marty stood up holding his ginger ale. “Before we go any further,” he faced the empty chair, “a toast to Bill “The Walrus” Martin, one of the greatest bass players this city and rock n’ roll ever knew.” Billy had been gunned down in the subway on his wa
y home from a gig late one night about ten years earlier.

  “To Billy,” said a few.

  “You all know why we’re here,” Marty looked over the faces of his old comrades.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” asked J. R.

  Marty looked at him. “You’re the best damned guitarist and engineer I ever worked with. You worked on over a hundred albums?”

  “Over two hundred.”

  “You had some pretty good years, didn’t you? Probably made a couple hundred thou per? How much you got left?”

  “I was divorced twice, you know.”

  “What did you make last year? Thirty grand? We can’t even make a living in New York anymore. There used to be dozens of top notch piano rooms in this city. Now there’s about five. An Italian restaurant on Lexington was looking for a pianist-singer a few months ago. I went there and auditioned. The guy almost dropped his teeth when he heard me. Then he offered me a hundred dollars a night for five hours. That’s what they paid me in 1976 when I first came to New York. I told him I couldn’t afford to work there. I thought about following the pianist from the Carlyle and pushing him down the subway stairs, then running to audition.” There was a little nervous laughter at the table. “I’m kidding, of course.”

  “There used to be so much work, commercials, records to cut, and live gigs everywhere. It started getting bad with digital,” said Steve Whoo, a great drummer who had also played on hundreds of top selling albums.

  “At least they made your song, “You Wiped Me Out,” into a commercial last year,” said Mark Lineberry, guitarist, producer, and genius.

  “Yeah, for a debt consolidation company.”

  “It could have been worse. It could have been for toilet paper.”

  They all laughed.

  “What did you do with the money?”

  “I paid off my debts.”

  The waiter came over. They ordered a load of different appetizers.

  “Well, here’s to the old days when most of us would have been carried out of here at the end of the evening.” Mark took another sip of soda. “Ah, that’s delicious.”

  Most of them had been in AA or drug rehab.

  “Um, any of you still, uh, you know,” said Marty, miming a smoke.

  “Sure.”

  “You bet.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t give that up.”

  “That’s not drugs.”

  They went out three at a time and each took a few tokes. By the time the last group came back the food had arrived. Most of them dove in with great zeal.

  “So, how are you guys?” asked Marty, a dumpling heading toward his mouth. Many hadn’t seen each other in years.

  “I’m fine,” said J. R. “My PSA is a little high.”

  “Yeah?” said Richard, “mine too. How high is yours?”

  “About seven and change.”

  “Mine’s over nine. But they say it’s not the number but how much it changes.”

  “Have you tried Saw Palmetto? It’s wonderful. I use a combination of that and pygeum. It works wonders.”

  “Stop it,” said Steve. “Listen to us. We’re talking like little old men. Girls used to drool when we entered a club.”

  “Now we do,” said Lineberry.

  “Age is all in your head,” said J. R.

  “Tell that to my prostate,” added Richard.

  “It’s not just the business that’s changed,” said J. R. “This city has gone to hell in a hand basket. They’ve made it impossible to live here. I’ve got less than two years left on the lease at my recording studio in the west thirties. If the landlord pigs out on me I’m done. The only way I stayed in business this long is that I came in on a sweetheart deal during the seventies when nobody wanted to live here. But my wife has a good job with a pension and we got a small place upstate, so I guess we’ll be okay.”

  “I got a house near Nashville that I bought for a hundred thousand when Squeeze Toy was on the charts,” said Richard. “I might just move there permanently. Marty, why don’t you come down to Nashville? I can get you some work playing keyboards. Maybe you can sell a song or two. What do you say?”

  “I’ll talk it over with Beth.”

  “We may be the last generation of homegrown New York artists,” said Walter. “Will there ever be another Tin Pan Alley, a Village folk or jazz renaissance? I’ve always liked to teach, and I’ve seen a change in the past ten years. Young musicians aren’t flocking to this city the way we did. They don’t want to work forty hours a week just to pay the rent on a tiny little hole in the wall and put together a band. It isn’t worth it to them. This city doesn’t have a thriving, boiling underground like it used to.”

  “No Lou Reed, Patty Smith, or Dylan coming from these kids, huh?” said Steve.

  “No, it’ll be the Internet where new heroes will be found. Hyperspace nightclubs.”

  “Isn’t that a shame,” said Walter. “There were so many places to play in New York in the seventies and eighties, and everybody went out to hear live music. On the Upper East Side alone there was J.P.’s, Eric’s, Friends, Dr. Generosity’s, Home Bar, it was wonderful. The record executives would hop from bar to bar and check out the live acts. Nobody could open a new club uptown now. The rent would make it impossible.”

  J. R. got a faraway look in his eyes. “Remember when James Taylor would come up after the band had cleared the equipment off the stage at J.P.’s and sing until four in the morning?”

  “I was in Home Bar on Second Avenue once in the eighties,” said Marty. “I came to listen to a band called Elephant’s Memory. I was loaded when I got there and sat next to an Englishman and chatted for hours about all kinds of things. He was there to consider the group for his back-up band. The next day I went in, a bit hung over, and Jimmy, the bartender asked if I had had a good time the night before. I told him, Yes, I had a great time chatting with some very nice Englishman who had come to hear the band. Yes, said the bartender, that very nice Englishman was John Lennon.”

  They all laughed uproariously.

  “Elephant’s Memory became the Plastic Ono Band,” said J. R.”

  “That’s right,” said Walter.

  “God, I miss those days,” said Marty. “Just to get together and play the blues and some old rock ‘n roll.”

  “Why don’t you come down to B. B. King’s next week,” said Steve. “Every Monday night they run an informal jam downstairs, mostly blues and old rock tunes.”

  “You know, I’d love to. It’s been years since I just played for fun.”

  “That’s the only thing they can’t take away from us.”

  “Now, here’s the question we ask every ten years or so,” said J. R. “How many of you were at Woodstock?” Eight including Marty raised their hands. “Now, how many were really at Woodstock?”

  Four of them lowered their hands. Marty’s stayed up.

  “So, the truth will out.”

  Marty smiled. “You know who I went with?”

  “Who?”

  “Freddie.”

  “You’re kidding. Really?”

  “He got his father’s station wagon and about seven of us piled in.”

  “So,” said Walter, “you hung out with Freddie Finger at Woodstock.”

  “Not really. The minute we got out of the car he dumped me and disappeared into a sea of humanity. I never saw him again until we were back in Westchester.”

  “How’d you get home?”

  “It was Woodstock. Everybody offered me a ride.”

  “Everybody except Freddie,” said Steve.

  “Alright,” continued Marty, “now down to business.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The next morning Lowell was about to begin his day’s work when Melinda came in carrying two deli coffee cups.

  “Hi, dad, I’ve got a meeting near here in an hour. Thought I’d stop by to say hello. Hope you don’t mind?” She handed Lowell one of the coffees.

  “Not at all. I’m delig
hted to see you. I was just about to begin the examination of the relationship charts.” He pointed to the pile of papers he had accrued. “These are all the suspects, but none showed the transits or progressions one would associate with a murder.”

  “Nobody stands out?”

  “There are plenty of natal charts that displayed enough anger or explosiveness necessary for an act of violence. Marty Winebeck has a Mars – Uranus square. Several of the Rocket Fire members also showed a propensity toward anger and frustration. Even Tracy’s birth chart has a Sun-Uranus conjunct, showing an inner stress that could easily come out in an act of sudden violence.”

  “I thought she was calm and a little dumb, the way you described her?”

  “Libras are very good at hiding their animosity. They tend to be passive-aggressive, but do manage to get what they want, mostly by circumventing the situation and working behind the scenes, rather than direct confrontation. But if someone is going to commit premeditated murder, and Freddie’s death certainly was that, certain planetary configurations should show up actively in the transits, secondary progressions, and solar arc directed charts. One would expect to see Mars, the god of war, and Pluto, planet of vengeance and hidden agendas, involved. Also, more likely than not, Uranus, the planet of sudden and explosive events would also make a prominent appearance. It was also possible that Saturn, the planet of restriction and frustration, could be sufficiently active to force an event. In other words, there is any number of combinations that could conceivably create the atmosphere conducive to a murder.

  “But the problem with this case is that the most prominent planet is Neptune. In the natal charts of most of the suspects overwhelming presence makes this a difficult and confusing situation. Neptune, as you know, rules music and the arts in general, so one would expect it to be active in the charts of musicians and other artists. But it isn’t by nature a violent or aggressive energy. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It can be overly passive, and it’s often difficult to act in a decisive way when this planet is around. So the answer must lie in the composite charts.”

  “Okay, tell me about the composites.”

  “The band members’ charts are particularly interesting.” He tugged on his ponytail. “Remember, anyone is capable of murder under the right circumstances. But planning and carrying this kind of action would take a certain type of personality, or, as I now believe, a group personality. I don’t believe any of these people has it in their natal charts to do away with the three victims alone. But there are several combinations that could be sufficient to create a composite murderer. If you add the charts of the drummer and guitarist, for example, as a team they are far more aggressive and controlling than as individuals.”