Murder in Rock & Roll Heaven

by Robin Ray

  All of that genius-slash-madness took a backseat as the ex-Stones member sat on the side of his hospital bed with his head in his hands. Drugs had been his panacea, his buttress against a world he once considered vacuous and emotionless. It made him feel invincible, almost untouchable, but at times, unapproachable. It caused him to compose music no one could understand; naturally, most folks suspected he may have gone over the deep end, but no one had a clue his cure-all, his sweet, darling elixir, his silver bullet through the heart of unbearable pain was heroin. But there he was. As yet, he wasn’t a shell of his former self, but he sure did feel like yanking every nerve out of his body one by one. Such savagery would have to wait for another day, however, because he had company.

  “Hey, Brian,” Gregory greeted him, entering the room.

  “What’s up, man?” the recuperating musician asked.

  The PI grabbed a wood & hemp chair from the corner near the restroom, placed it next to Brian’s bed and took a seat. “How are you doing?” he asked the sullen patient.

  “Okay,” Brian answered. “They’ve been poking me left and right,” he said, pointing to injection spots on his arms, “and I should be out of here in three days.”

  “That’s when you’ll be released?” the PI inquired.

  “Not yet,” the multi-instrumentalist told him. “First, I gotta do a month or two in rehab. They’re gonna ship me off to Medical Heaven. It’s gonna be pure hell. You know, that place is so dry it makes a nunnery look like Studio 54.”

  “Less trouble for you,” Gregory guessed. “I gotta say, I was surprised when I walked in here just now. I’d met your nurse outside and she said you had withdrawal symptoms this morning but now it’s gone.”

  “Yeah,” Brian explained, looking at his arms. “You gotta like how celestial tissue heals so quickly. Wish I had better control of my mind, though. I’ll see how long I last before I get sucked in the padded looney bin.”

  “You know your fan club’s outside raising royal hell, right?” Gregory enlightened him.

  “Are they really?” the musician wondered, astonished. “That’s a surprise.”

  “You founded the Rolling Stones, man,” the PI related as if needing to remind the genius musician of that well known fact. “Anyway, the Labor Day festival’s on hold till all this stuff gets straightened out.”

  “Now I feel guilty,” Brian moaned, lowering his head.

  “Ready to talk?” Gregory asked.

  The guitarist stood up, walked over to the window and gazed out the back. His entire panaroma was the forested canopy stretching forth for miles towards the South Beach and the gently waving sea beyond that. He could make out the faint sounds of his supporters but not clearly discern their chant through the window’s muted glass pane.

  “I can’t betray anyone’s trust,” he finally asserted, planting his palms on the glass.

  The PI got up and approached him. “In my experience as a police officer,” he said softly, “I’ve met people who would rather slit their own throats than snitch. But that’s not what I’m requesting from you; it’s bigger than the both of us, than everyone in this heaven, and I think you understand that well. Where’d you get the heroin?”

  Brian kept his position without flinching a muscle. He started biting his lips as tiny pools of tears welled in his dark grey-green eyes. The forest was beginning to resemble an impressionist painting with its various hues savagely blending together like angry watercolors on a mad canvas.

  “Ain’t life grand?” he suddenly laughed, then turned to face the PI. “You’ll be remembered as a great detective; I’ll be that crazy guy who started the Stones and was the first member of the 27 Club.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up, Brian,” Gregory said. “I hate to ask you now, but we’re running out of time. Are you willing to take a polygraph?”

  “I suppose now you think the J in 27J must mean Jones,” he figured. “I’ve already been mauled about Amy Winehouse. I could tell you now I have nothing to do with that.”

  “Just ruling out everyone,” the PI said. “You understand.”

  The blond-bobbed guitarist thrust his arms out as if expecting handcuffs to be slapped on his wrists. “I confess,” he remarked. “I killed Amy Winehouse.”

  “How?” Gregory asked, eyeing the musician with doubt while he lowered his arms.

  “Strangling?”

  The PI shook his head. “You’re guessing.”

  “Drowning?”

  “No one in this town suspects you, Brian,” the detective admitted. “But just for the record, will you take the polygraph again?”

  “Anytime, man,” the rocker promised.

  “Feel up to it today?” the PI asked.

  “I feel up to it right now,” the ex-Stones clarified. “Lead the way.”

  CHAPTER 29

  As expected, when Gregory escorted Brian Jones out of the hospital that morning, he knew their simple trek across Tinker Street to the polygraph room at the police station was going to take a while. As they exited the small hospital, they were instantly accosted by cameras and microphones in their faces, all surrounded by several members of the press. There was now about 100 supporters of the blonde-bobbed ex-Stones guitarist, as well as a generous helping of curious onlookers. Both Brian and Gregory, escorted by twin angels in white, effortlessly moved through the swirling mass aided by an invisible shield created by the overlords. Declining to give any statements or answer questions, detective and suspect finally made it across the street and into the station without further incident. After they entered, the twin angels wrapped the invisible shield around and above the station, successfully preventing anyone from barging in.

  Minutes later, in the interrogation room, Brian was hooked up to the polygraph while its operator, Eric Witherspoon, was seated in front of it making last minute adjustments. Sitting next to Witherspoon, Angelicus had a pad and paper in hand; his legs crossed in a casual way. He sipped water from a glass on the table next to the machine and commenced his task.

  “For the record,” he began, “please give us your name.”

  “Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones,” the musician answered.

  “When and where were you born?”

  “I was born February 28, 1942 in Cheltenham, UK,” Brian answered.

  “Do you recall when and where you died, and under what circumstances?”

  Brian shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “Sorry to ask this,” the PI apologized. “Just questions to gauge the legitimacy of your answers.”

  “It’s okay, mate,” Brian said. “It happened at me house on Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, East Sussex. Pretty tony country home, it is. Quite famous, I would say. You know the chap who wrote Winne the Pooh?”

  The detective shrugged.

  “A.A. Milne,” Brian answered. “Once belonged to ‘im.”

  “Must have cost a fortune,” the PI guessed.

  “I was in the Stones, mate,” Brian reminded him. “Anyway, me band mates got to hating me. I don’t know what I’d done, but it’s so. Maybe they thought I got into too much trouble, but you know, it was the sixties. Total liberation, mate.”

  “Party all the time,” Gregory added.

  “Yes,” Brian nodded. “You name it, we had it.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “I had a lady friend named Anna, Anna Wohlin from Sweden,” he admitted. “Pretty thing, she was. Nothing was off limits, you know what I mean? I knew all the drugs and alcohol I poured in my body would kill me someday, just didn’t think it’d happen at 27, though. Anyway, me and me mate, Frank Thorogood, he’s a builder of sorts, went for a late night dip in me pool.”

  “When did this happen?” the PI asked.

  “Around midnight, July the 2nd, 1969,” the musician said.

  “And that’s when you…”

  “That’s when I bought the farm,” Brian completed the detective’s sentence. “You know, I had a bit of a wheeze; asthma, they say. Me inhaler is normally ke
pt by the pool just in case, you know. I was drunk out me gourd, horse-playing in the water with me mate, Frank, going under then coming up for air, going under then coming up for air. One of those “going unders” made me lungs fill up and I drowned.”

  “Hmm,” Gregory mused, “why didn’t your friend Frank pull you out of the water?”

  “I don’t think he knew,” the singer said.

  “How could he not know?” the PI quizzed him. “He was there.”

  “The whole night’s a fog,” Brian admitted. “I was soaking in brandy, Frank had vodka. My guess is he went back to the house for a refill.”

  “And by the time people found you,” Gregory noted, “it was too late.”

  “Yep,” the multi-instrumentalist said. “Just like that.”

  Gregory leaned in to Witherspoon. “How’s he doing so far?”

  “Hardly moving the needle,” the round one replied.

  The PI returned to Brian. “Okay,” he warned him, “here comes the tough stuff.”

  The musician loosened his shoulders. “I’m ready.”

  Gregory looked directly into Brian’s eyes. “Are you responsible for the death of R & B singer Amy Winehouse?”

  “Not at all,” he answered.

  The PI, hearing the needle on the polygraph scratching louder, glanced at the machine. That last question he’d just asked the blonde guitarist, he noticed, lit a fire beneath him.

  “Who killed Amy Winehouse?” Angelicus asked the musician.

  “I don’t know.” Like before, Brian’s answer caused the needle to track heavily, the black ink creating acute sketches resembling the peaks of Mt. Everest.

  “Why do you think anyone would kill Ms. Winehouse?”

  “I don’t know,” the musician answered.

  The detective didn’t have to glance at the polygraph to realize something was amiss with his questionee. He could see small droplets of sweat had formed on his brow; Brian was also nervously chewing the flesh on the inside of his cheek.

  “Do you understand the importance of this investigation?” the PI asked him.

  “Yes,” he answered. “They want to lock the doors of Heaven.”

  “If you know something,” Gregory exhorted, “anything, now is the time to say.”

  Brian gazed directly at the PI. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Okay,” the PI said, moving on to Part 2. “You know, when you saw that little wooden case in my hand at the back of the 27 Club, you dived after it like it was a million dollars in cash falling out of a plane.”

  “Just me protective instincts kicking in,” the artist explained. “Nothing more.”

  Gregory glanced at Witherspoon who shook his head while displaying signs of doubt on his face. He turned back to Brian. “I think that’ll be all for now.”

  “Can I go back to the hospital then?” Brian asked. “I’m famished and a bit tired.”

  “Sure,” the PI answered. “I’ll walk you back.”

  After Witherspoon removed the leads off the musician, he returned to his machine while interviewer and interviewee began exiting. As Brian was about to open the door to step out of the office, he stopped and turned to Gregory. “You think I did it, don’t you?”

  “This wasn’t a trial, Brian,” Gregory insisted. “Just a fact finding survey.”

  “So, what do you…”

  “I have no personal opinion about this,” the PI swore.

  “I can always disappear into another heaven,” Brian hinted.

  Gregory reached into a pocket in his tunic, brought out his orientation manual, and quickly flipped through the virtual pages until he found what he was looking for. “It says here,” he explained, turning the book over to Brian, “fugitivity is futile.”

  The musician looked puzzled by a word he’d never heard before. “Fugi…”

  “Fugitivity or fugitiveness – the act of fleeing from justice,” the PI clarified. “It’s from the Latin ‘fugitivus – fleeing.’ I had to look it up myself. You leave and your credits go down to zero. Plan on doing a lot of starving in the next heaven.”

  Brian perused the passage in the manual himself, mumbling the words as he read. “Adding weight to my soul…increased fatigue…puss and sores?”

  “From malnutrition,” the PI explained. “Seems like celestial matter decomposes differently from carbon-based organisms. You simply fall apart, and it’s as painful as 4th place.”

  The multi-instrumentalist returned the virtual book to its owner. “I’ll stay put till I’m transferred to Medical.”

  “Good idea,” Gregory said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 30

  When Brian and Gregory left the police station, the rock guitarist asked the gathered mass patiently waiting outside to disperse for the sake of peace; he will make a statement when he feels better, and he won’t be taking questions at this time. The detective, also promising to answer questions in the future as soon as he learned more about Amy Winehouse, escorted the musician back to his rear room in the hospital, spoke to him for a few minutes, then stepped out for lunch.

  Casually walking up Mill Hill Road towards Patty’s Egg Nest around noon, he saw Tony and Eddie coming towards him.

  “Hey, partner,” he greeted his young assistant. “Eddie,” he said, acknowledging the 50’s era singer/guitarist.

  “Sorry I couldn’t get with you earlier,” Tony apologized. “Something important came up.”

  “Yeah,” the PI nodded, sneaking a glance at Eddie. “I figured as much.”

  “We’re off to petition the court for a transfer,” the Latino-Korean informed him.

  “Where to?” Gregory wondered.

  “Painters and Artists,” Eddie answered.

  “Do you have enough credits?” the PI asked.

  “We spent the whole morning cleaning up Cumby’s, repairing the traps, greens and divots as best as we could at the golf course, and punching out the dents in Laura Branigan’s cart,” Tony replied.

  “Is that who it belongs to?” Gregory asked.

  “Yeah,” Eddie replied. “She’s a 10-handicapper who broke 100 at Torrey!” he added, enthusiastically.

  “Really!” the PI rebutted in a way that obviously showed he had no clue what the Cumby’s clerk was talking about.

  “How’s the investigation going?” the young PI inquired of his mentor.

  “It’s going,” Gregory retorted. “Pretty tiring without you, though.”

  “Maybe I should go by myself,” Eddie thought aloud.

  “No,” his detective friend negated. “I guess I just wasn’t up for this investigative stuff.”

  “I’m not asking you to stay, Tony,” the elder PI said. “You’re young. You two have fun. I got this.”

  “Are you sure?” the novice D asked.

  Gregory put his left hand on Tony’s right shoulder and his right hand on Eddie’s left shoulder. “Let me know how Painters and Artists goes from time to time.”

  “Sure,” Tony said.

  “Did you two eat already?” the seasoned detective asked. “I was just headed to Patty’s.”

  “Yeah, we did,” Eddie answered.

  “Then I’ll see you two around,” the PI said as he took off.

  “You think he’s mad at you?” Eddie C asked his buddy.

  “He’ll be all right,” Tony hoped. “Let’s go.”

  The pair of 21-year old’s entered the police station a few minutes after their impromptu meeting with Angelicus. Drașovya, the sergeant Gregory joked was Nosferatu’s doppelgänger, was sitting behind the desk filling out some papers. Two angels, one in red and the other in black, were sitting in the nearby office conversing – observable because the door was half-open.

  “Excuse me,” Eddie began as the boys approached Drașovya. “We’d like to petition.”

  “Where to this time?” the sergeant asked jadedly, already familiar with the musician’s frequent excursions.

  “Painters and Artists,” the Gretsch slinger answe
red.

  “It’s one or the other,” Drașovya informed him.

  Eddie looked puzzled. “Really?” he asked the sergeant. “They’re not together anymore?”

  The anorexic officer shook his head. “There was constant friction because the 2D artists, the painters, were seen as being consistently inebriated or showed little respect for the importance of high art. They said the 3D artists, the sculptors, forgot the true meaning of art with their emphasis on commercialism and pathetic realizations. Anyway, it became so contentious that they split. Best thing anyway because having too many people was taxing for their meager water supply.”

  “But it was working out so nice,” Eddie reckoned.

  “It was,” the sergeant agreed, “but now illustrators, cartographers, animators and architects remained in Painters; sculptors, marble and wood carvers, glass blowers, and potters returned to Artists’. At least both worlds are side by side, joined together by a foot bridge.”

  “So we’ll go to Painters, then,” Eddie said. “Lemmy Kilmister gave me the address of someone there.”

  The sergeant turned and retrieved two blank sheets of bond paper and placed one of each in front of the couple. Eddie, already familiar with the drill, planted his right palm on his sheet; Tony, observing the ritual, placed his palm on his sheet. A quick flash of blue light shot up from the paper around the outline of their hands. Eddie then removed his hand and Tony followed suit.

  “What was that?” the elementary PI asked his friend.

  “Watch,” Eddie counseled him, eyeing the palmed sheets.

  The sergeant held up each paper for the duo to see. As before, it was completely white, devoid of any markings or hint that it had just emitted blue light. Then, Tony watched in amazement as lines of legalese in black ink slowly appeared on each sheet.