“Rick Jonsen,” Krista said.
Rhonda frowned, tilted her head. “But wasn’t that a heart attack?”
They were standing by Krista’s Toyota in the lot now.
“It was called that,” Krista said, “minus an inquest and with no real investigation at the time . . . followed by cremation, making any new inquiry problematic. For example, looking for traces of, or injection sites for, drugs that are so-called perfect poisons—the kind that leave the impression of heart attack.”
The mayor frowned. “You can’t be suggesting that someone is trying to eliminate every member of the band?”
“Possibly just the original members.”
“Oh, is that all!”
Krista knew how absurd she was sounding, but somehow managed to say, “If that is the case, however off the wall it might seem . . . do we really want that happening onstage at the Music Fest?”
The mayor shrugged. “Isn’t that kind of thing why you’re inviting the SWAT team?”
THIRTEEN
The various websites list more than ninety lodging choices in or near Galena, Illinois, ranging from bed-and-breakfasts in historic homes to the magnificently scenic (and expensive) Lake View Lodge. The Tick Tock Motel, on winding Highway 20 West, ten miles past the Galena city limits, was in the midst of the rolling countryside, high bluffs and overlooks that made Galena a top tourist destination.
The ten rooms in a row with an office in the middle were pink brick with a charcoal roof, a roadside sign with pink neon letters spelling TICK TOCK by a neon clock, the hands of which were permanently set at ten after three for no apparent reason. A few planters with artificial flowers under windows dressed the place up and several picnic tables faced the highway with its lesser view of the countryside. Amenities included TV, free Wi-Fi, and free parking, as if ten miles out of town that was a real plus.
All of this made Tick Tock a destination for tourists touring with someone other than their legal spouses and/or who had certain illegal recreational interests that suggested the neon clock might more aptly read twenty after four. The latter customers included residents of the area, who would pull into the parking lot well after dark, make a brief trip into the office, and return to drive back into the night, as if turned away from the inn, though a VACANCY neon burned red.
Keith stepped out of room seven, which he’d taken earlier, checking in with the guy working the previous shift, who told him Steve Pike came on at 1:00 a.m. Usually Steve came on at 11:00 p.m., but on the nights of his house band gig at the Corner Stop, he didn’t make it in till one or so. Right now it was one thirty, so Steve should be on duty.
And he was, seated at a computer in a cubbyhole office behind the counter in a small lobby with the usual rack of things-to-do-in-Galena pamphlets, and whose wood paneling might have been left over from a 1965 rec room. The drummer’s salt-and-pepper hair, adding up to gray, looked greasy and unattended, not surprising since he’d probably come straight from beating on his drums at the Corner Stop. He was likely wearing what he’d worn onstage there—a black Hot Rod & the Pistons T-shirt and jeans, providing his muscular chest as a billboard for the coming reunion at the Music Fest.
Steve frowned at first seeing him, then smiled tentatively and got up from the computer desk, came out to the counter. “Keith, my man. What brings you out here after midnight?”
“I wanted a chance to talk to you, away from the other guys. Thought this might be a good, quiet time.”
A bell dinged over the door as two college-age kids with long hair and sideburns came in, also in T-shirts and jeans. Seeing a full-fledged adult like Keith looking at them—even though he was in a T-shirt and jeans, too—seemed to throw them. Of course, Keith’s T-shirt was CUBS and theirs were ELECTRIC WIZARD and MONSTER MAGNET.
Keith said to Steve, “Take care of your customers, then meet me outside, would you?”
He went out and sat at the small picnic table. The night was cool, almost cold, and the umbrella above a nearby small table shivered. Not much moon tonight, and dark. The boys came out quickly, as if they’d just pulled a robbery, and squealed off in their car, a mildly battered Mazda Miata that was about the same age as they were.
Keith smiled to himself.
Steve lumbered out of the office and, as he approached the picnic table, said, “They just wanted directions.”
“What, about how to roll a joint?”
Then, as he sat, pink neon edging the left side of his face, the percussionist said, “What can I do you for, Keith? But let’s make it quick, okay? I am working, you know.”
“I gathered. Did you ever finish your college up?”
Steve frowned at this non sequitur. “You drove out here to ask me that?”
“Just making conversation.”
“I said I was working.”
“I said I gathered.” He gave his host an easy smile, making sure his tone was neither sarcastic nor judgmental. “You didn’t, did you? Finish up school. You stayed out on the road with Rick awhile, right?”
He sighed, smiled a little himself. “I did. Rick had an ego that was hard to be around for too very damn long. But I’ve mostly been gigging ever since. Different bands, different stuff. Night manager at the Tick Tock is not the career I had in mind.”
Keith jerked a thumb toward Galena. “But you do have the house band gig in town.”
“I do. Between this job and that one, I pull down thirty K—if I’m lucky.”
“Not counting your sideline.”
Steve smiled again, but not in a friendly way. “Are you a cop or my bud? A roadie or a narc?”
“Probably none of those.” Keith shrugged. “We were never ‘buds’ in the old days. Friendly acquaintances, I’d say. That fair?”
Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.”
Keith said, “I don’t care about grass one way or another. I don’t care that you deal it or that you smoke it.”
The drummer frowned. “Listen. I’m not heavy into it. There was a day, but . . . but now about the only time I toke is on a slow night here, if it gets long and boring.”
“That happen a lot?”
Steve shook his head. “Less than you might think. I actually have a lot to do in this job. It’s not just checking in guests who show up at all hours. I do the daily accounting, which was what I was working on when you showed up. It’s dealing with drunks and fights and plumbing and medical emergencies. It’s towels and toilet paper. You name it and I got to deal with the damn thing.”
“You didn’t work this shift the night of the band’s preview in Davenport, did you?”
“No. I took it off. There’s a guy who fills in for me, likes any extra hours I can throw his way. Why?”
Keith turned over a hand. “At rehearsal the next day, you were high. Yet Booker tells me you never gig when you’re high.”
“He’s right.”
“Because you’re playing with a cop in that house band?”
Steve frowned again. “No. Because I don’t like to play high. It screws up my timing. I poke, then I rush. But that wasn’t a gig day. It was rehearsal, and I was bummed out about Dan getting bent out of shape and quitting. I thought it might cost us this whole reunion tour.”
“And you wouldn’t like that,” Keith said. “You’re into the idea of playing again.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“Not at all. I just don’t think working the night desk and selling tourists and local stoners weed has much long-term potential for advancement . . . if for no other reason than legalization is in the air.”
The drummer huffed a resigned laugh. “You’re not wrong.”
Keith leaned in, kept his tone friendly. “So, yeah, Steve, I think you should keep your focus on your music. Maybe a new career is waiting for you out there with the regrouped Pistons. I mean, you boys are sounding really fine.”
Steve chuckled, grinned. “Yeah, it is going good, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. So the sooner
you make dealing a thing of the past, the better, don’t you think? For one thing, there’s Dan and Rick to consider.”
Steve frowned again. “What about them?”
His voice inappropriately cheerful now, Keith said, “Well, they’re dead, remember? And now I am talking as a cop . . . not even an ex-one, because I’ve been hired on as a consultant by the Galena PD. My daughter’s chief of police, you know. Call it nepotism. Worked for Trump.”
The drummer’s expression was cold. “Okay. So you’re a cop again. Sort of.”
“Sort of is right. But my nose is telling me your two dead band members were not a heart attack and a suicide.”
A skeptical half smirk dimpled a cheek. “I know. I heard you before on that, Keith, but none of us in the band really buy that.”
A little shrug. “Maybe not. But I can tell you this—if they’re murders, it’s dead certain both of those two bandmates of yours were drugged. And that makes you an instant suspect.”
Alarmed, Steve lurched forward. “Keith . . . man, I deal nothing but weed! No pills, no coke, no GHB, nothing. If I did . . . well, certain people wouldn’t look the other way.”
Keith smile was mildly mocking. “Hey, I don’t think selling weed is the gateway to poisoning your bandmates any more than I think smoking it leads to heroin. But, I’m kind of a freethinker for a guy my age.”
“Are you really?”
He leaned way in, coldness in his voice now. “So far this was just some sheriff’s deputies, like you say, ‘looking the other way’ . . . but now Booker’s heard about it. That means my daughter will hear about it—from me, as well, because we have two possible murders to look into. She will talk to the sheriff, not deputies. So I would suggest finding a new sideline.”
Steve was thinking about it. He nodded. Nodded some more. “Okay,” he said. He got to his feet. “Now . . . do you mind getting the hell out of here? Having you around isn’t great for business.”
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere, not right now.”
“Is that right?” The muscular drummer loomed.
“Yeah,” Keith said, getting to his feet. “I’m a guest. Check the register.”
Keith could feel Steve’s eyes on him as he walked to room seven, used his key, and went in.
The lights were off, the curtain shut. His night vision was attuned enough for him to get undressed in the dark down to his boxers, and he left the CUBS T-shirt on, then climbed into bed, quietly.
A bedside lamp snapped on.
Rebecca Carlson, naked but mostly covered by a sheet and light blanket, her long light brown hair fetchingly tousled, brushing her shoulders, looked at him sleepily with those big blue eyes in that fashion model’s face.
“Out for a walk, were we?” she asked.
“I told you I needed to talk to the night man.”
“Did he try to sell you any grass?”
“No. Why, did you want some?”
“Not particularly.”
Keith propped a pillow behind him and gazed at her, while she sat up and let the sheet and blanket fall to her lap, brazenly and beautifully unclad, waist up. She shoved a pillow behind her, too.
He asked, “How do you know where to buy weed in Galena?”
She was in her deadpan mode, which he found infuriating and delightful. “This isn’t Galena. This is outside Galena. Get your facts straight. Didn’t you used to be a cop?”
“I got rehired today, remember?”
She raised a lecturing forefinger. “Part-time. A consultant. Doesn’t sound very Dirty Harry. I know about the weed because my camera guy mentioned it last time we were up here. I’m not into that. Strictly a wine girl.”
“Do you think a mixed marriage could work? Beer and wine?”
“Is that a proposal?”
“Just a dumb joke. But you’d be surprised how few women in my lifetime I ever checked into a motel with for illicit relations.”
She frowned a little. “That sounds like aunts and uncles who steal from you. How many?”
“Aunts and uncles have stolen from me?”
“Women you aren’t married to that you’ve checked into a motel room with.”
“Before you?”
“Before me.”
“One.”
She nodded, processing it. “Did your wife ever find out?”
“Sure. She was the one. We weren’t married yet.”
She gave him a squinty smile. “Keith Larson, I am still working on whether you are fascinating or boring. I’ll get back to you.”
“No rush.”
Rebecca sighed, nestled further into the pillow she was propped against. “Do you have to get back home before your daughter gets up and realizes her father was out all night?”
“Probably should. Would hate to get grounded. What time do you have to get back?”
“I put in a wake-up call for three.”
“Ouch.”
Her shrug was rather regal. “Trials and tribulations of a morning show anchor. It’s an hour and a half back, you know.”
“I know very well.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Please.”
She looked right at him. “Why do I feel like you feel you’re cheating on your daughter?”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” he said, but he was smiling. Then he said, “Maybe because it’s kind of true. I don’t think she can handle me sleeping with you in the same house where her mother and I raised her. She’s never said as much, and she’d deny it if I ever had the stupidity and nerve to ask about it . . . but I think you’re probably onto something.”
“I have an idea.”
“You often do. Care to share it?”
She touched his arm. “If I sleep over . . . just as your very good friend . . . I will take the guest room.”
He made a face. “What, and I tiptoe in, in the night, have my way with you, very quietly, and tiptoe back? All without waking my daughter?”
“No.” She shrugged. “You just sleep with me in the guest room.”
“What does that accomplish?”
“It means we’re not in the bed you used to share with your wife.”
That stopped him.
Then he said, “You are smart, aren’t you?”
“Sensitive and insightful, too. Now let’s talk about Brian. What’s your problem with him?”
“I don’t have a problem with him.”
“Sure you do. Do you feel your daughter is cheating on you when she’s with him?”
His eyebrows raced to his hairline. “Of course I don’t! . . . Do I?”
“Is it because he’s Hispanic?”
“What?”
“Part Hispanic, anyway. His mom is Maria, who runs that Mexican restaurant, right?”
He was goggling at her. “How can you even say that?”
A shrug. “Well, she does run that Mexican restaurant.”
“No, how can you accuse me of being down on Brian over that?”
“Then what are you down on him about?”
“Nothing!”
She turned to him and got close, as if sharing a terrible secret. “How would you like it if he and Krista were in her room together, doing what comes naturally, and we were across the hall in, for sake of argument, the guest room, doing the same.”
“I . . . I . . . I . . .”
Her chin came up, her eyes widened, and her right palm opened like a blossoming flower. “You have another guest room and it’s on the first floor, right? One of the advantages of owning a big old ungainly monster of a house.”
Her eyes narrowed and her smile was a sly curve.
She went on: “Here are some new old-fashioned ground rules. When I stay overnight, it’s in the guest room and you are free to join me. When Brian stays overnight, it’s in the downstairs guest room and Krista is free to join him. You can even make a rule that all four of us are never there at the same time—she gets her overnight guest and you get yours, in those specific loc
ations, but on different nights. Prevents any kind of Fawlty Towers type mix-up.”
That made him laugh. “You have no shame.”
She gestured to her topless self. “Clearly.”
“Why don’t you turn that light off?”
“This one?” she asked, gesturing to the bedside lamp.
“That one.”
“Okay,” she said.
And did.
FOURTEEN
La Mesa—owned and managed by Brian’s mother, Maria Paulen—was among Krista’s favorite restaurants in a town noted for many good ones. Normally she would have been delighted to drop by midmorning, at Maria’s request, for whatever reason; but accepting the woman’s invitation today meant postponing a follow-up meeting on the music festival with key county health department board members.
Still, she hadn’t hesitated in accepting. Not when Maria told her she was gathering the wives and other women with direct ties to the members of the Pistons. Krista wanted to hear their concerns and answer any questions they might have.
And maybe get some information from them that she didn’t have.
The restaurant itself was on the corner of Franklin and Commerce, across from the blacksmith museum, a parking lot, and the grass-covered rise of the levee. The pueblo-style building, making a sideways L with its rounded wing, was pale pink with pastel-green trim; dark red lettering said LA MESA over the doors and more red edged the steps leading to a deck that served as a patio. This was where the women would gather at ten thirty on this warm but not hot May morning.
The restaurant didn’t open till 11:00 a.m. Maria had snugged an extra chair up to one of the hot-pink umbrella-shaded tables for four. She had even moved one of the latticework dividers to give her guests some privacy, if their conversation lasted long enough for other patrons to arrive.
Krista got there right on time but was still the last to show up. Their hostess had provided two dips—black bean and chunky guacamole, with tortilla chips—and each of the women had a small, salted-rim margarita going, including Maria herself. Good thing it was the small, Krista knew, as you could swim in the large.
Plump, lovely Maria was dressed as she usually was at the restaurant, in a simple black dress with a colorful necklace; she did not greet or wait tables, but liked to smilingly circulate and talk to her patrons. She was in her midfifties, but her black hair showed no gray, her face unlined enough to make a mystery out of whether or not she dyed those tresses piled up on her head.
Girl Can't Help It: A Thriller (Krista Larson Book 2) Page 13
