by LS Sygnet
Madden grinned unabashedly. “Oh damn. I like her. I like her a lot.”
“Something got spilled into this stack,” Swanson said. “I called the cops because it looks like blood to me.”
“Blood,” Dev echoed.
“A whole shit load of it,” Burke said. “We’re talking somebody gutted a damn pig into Scott’s set.”
“Vandalism?” I was utterly unconvinced of the urgency.
“Nobody is allowed back stage around the equipment outside the presence of tour staff,” Swanson said. “And Fulk says nobody was near Scott’s equipment since he did the sound check this afternoon.”
I reached behind my head and pulled my hair into a handheld pony tail. “All right, so we’re probably talking about vandalism.”
“Aren’t you gonna call some CSI dudes to have them investigate it?” Lenny asked. “I mean, if this is blood, how the hell did somebody get that much of it back here to dump into Scott’s gear?”
I glanced at the glowering Fulk. His attention hadn’t strayed an inch away from Devlin. In fact, they seemed to be engaged in some sort of nonverbal warfare. I nudged Devlin with my elbow. “You wanna take a look at it, or shall I?”
“Be my guest.” His lips didn’t actually move, and there was little doubt in my mind that if Devlin had worn his sidearm into the concert, it would’ve been trained on a spot between Fulk’s sandy eyebrows.
A heavy sigh later, I joined the guitar tech beside the stack which was little more than the speakers used to amplify the guitar. I peered into the wooden case. “Where’s the cover for this thing?”
Fulk pointed at a metal mesh tray that had been removed.
“And do you normally store this device upright?”
“Unless it’s being shipped,” Madden piped up. He joined my side and stared into the box. I gauged his reaction carefully. His nose wrinkled. “Jesus, that’s disgusting!”
I pulled out the phone and dialed a number.
“Forsythe.”
“Hey, Ken, it’s Helen. How fast can you get a team over to the amphitheater?”
“As in right now? Isn’t there some sort of wild party down there tonight?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “A rock concert. Devlin and I got called in on a case. We’ve got a piece of equipment drowning in blood and we need to figure out if it’s vandalism or something else.”
“Human blood?”
“That would be the salient question, it seems. So how fast?”
“I’ll grab a team and head over right away. You and Dev are at the scene right now?”
“I’m about to sequester this single piece of evidence we’ve got at the moment,” I said. “We’ll start processing witnesses while we wait for your team to get here.”
“Hold on,” Scott Madden growled. “You’re bringing more cops over here, and gonna question us, but we’ve got 20 thousand people out there expecting to see us perform twenty minutes ago.”
I held up one hand.
“I heard,” Ken said. “We’ll be there ASAP.”
“Thank you. We’ll try our best to corral anyone with access to the area for a statement, but there’s not much point in doing a whole lot until we know if this is a prank or foul play.”
“Gotcha.”
I disconnected the call and gave Madden a hard stare. “Sir, I understand that this is highly inconvenient for you and your fans, but if a crime was committed here tonight, we need to protect the evidence and ask questions now, not after your concert. I apologize if that puts a damper on your plans for the night, but this is a legal matter now, and frankly, you have no choice anymore.”
“Fuckin’ a, man,” he muttered and glared at his tour manager.
“It doesn’t mean you can’t go on with the show,” I focused my attention on Fulk. “We need to chat with him first, and your manager.”
Dev cut in. “We’ll need a list of all the patrons with back stage access.”
Madden reached out and fingered the pass around my neck. “Including the two of you?” he asked.
“I think we’re aware of our status,” Devlin bristled and stepped closer to me. “And I’ll give you one warning, Mr. Madden. Detective Eriksson doesn’t like being manhandled. She won’t hesitate to defend herself from unwanted contact with anyone.”
He grinned. “Like her even more now.”
“Fulk, can you make sure that the amp from –”
“Already done, boss,” he said to Swanson. “They can hit the stage right away. I’ll talk to her and you can give the information to Mackenzie.”
I wondered at the pecking order in the world of music tours. The so-called boss took nothing but orders and flack from what I could see.
“You’ll still be around after we finish our set, right?” Madden asked. “You gotta take our statements and stuff, yes?”
“It depends on the outcome of our test on the blood,” Devlin said. “I’ll talk to you after the show if it’s necessary.”
He glanced at Devlin and nodded. “Yeah, sure man.”
Devlin finally inched closer to our so-called evidence and took a look at what prompted me to call our crime scene division. “Shit,” he muttered when he saw the amount of blood inside the wooden case.
“Yeah,” I said. “Way too much to be less than foul play, wouldn’t you say?”
“Should we call Winslow?”
“What for? Even if it’s human blood, we don’t have a body. We don’t need Forsythe to know that this is fresh. Thank God for that much at least.”
“Helen –”
“Go with Swanson and get that list,” I said. “I’ll talk to your old pal from the Marines.”
“Helen, I don’t think –”
I knew where it was going. I’d encountered Underwood’s type often enough in the past to see him coming from the womb. Unfortunately for him, he was hardly what he exalted himself to be in his own eyes.
Fulk Underwood believed himself to be the quintessential alpha male. The world lived by his rules or he walked away. Women were drawn to his power, his magnetism, the fact that right or wrong, he was the ultimate authority on any and every topic under the sun.
What I saw when I looked at him was somewhat different. The underlying affect demonstrated an unhealthy amount of anger and resentment, though he tried to cover it with a sort of suave disdain toward me. He swaggered forward on legs much shorter than my own. I couldn’t help but think Shetland pony as he approached.
One hand thrust forward and clasped mine. “Fulk Underwood,” he clung with one meaty paw to my bony hand longer than my comfort zone liked. “My friends call me –”
“Mr. Underwood will do just fine,” I said. There was some doubt in my mind already that he had true friends, more likely a pack of other oversexed jocks who fancied themselves legendary with the ladies. I tugged my hand free and stomped the urge to body slam the little weasel or send him flying over one of my shoulders for invading my personal space without permission. “Tell me what time you performed the pre-concert check on the equipment for Mr. Madden’s gear.”
“It must’ve been three, three-thirty this afternoon. Does that matter?” He smiled engagingly.
“It’s part of the process, Mr. Underwood. At that time, after you verified that the gear was in working order, what’s the normal procedure?”
“We store the stuff back stage, in close proximity so we can quickly change the set over after the opening act finishes.”
“How did you find Mr. Madden’s equipment after the opening act finished their performance?”
“It was right where I left it.”
“Exact same place?”
He nodded. “Yeah, right over there.”
I stared at the place indicated by the tip of one well aimed finger. It was almost the exact place where the speaker apparatus now lay open on the floor.
“Upright?”
“‘Scuse me?”
“Was the equipment upright, ready to roll onto the stage.”
; Underwood frowned. “Obviously not. There’s no puddle of blood on the floor, is there, detective.”
Rhetorical questions are fine – so long as they’re coming from me and not some smart ass witness at a potential crime scene. “So someone tampered with Scott’s equipment before the set they’re playing right now.”
“Clearly. Wow.”
I felt my eyebrows inch closer. “Feel free to elaborate on what sounded like a spectacular display of sarcasm, Mr. Underwood.”
“Just never talked to a chick detective before. I’m curious if you always ask such pedantic questions when you interview people.”
“I try not to overburden certain suspects until I’ve been able to accurately assess things like personality and cognitive function, Mr. Underwood. And while my title is technically detective, I am a doctor, of forensic psychology.” Evil brain shifted into assault gear. Take that, you feeble shit. Who is this guy? Trying to intimidate a cop on the basis of gender is a really stupid move.
He leered at me. “I stand corrected then, doctor. I can assure you, my cognitive functioning is higher than anyone else’s you’ll find around here. Hit me with the tough questions.”
“Where were you between the time you finished your sound check and the time you discovered that Scott’s equipment was not the way you left it?”
“I hung out, drank a little, kicked back, called a couple of girls I know from the last time we came through Darkwater Bay.”
“Did you leave the premises at any time?”
“Uh, define premises.”
“This building.” So much for his assertion of intelligence.
“Yeah, I did. There’s a building adjacent to this one that’s part of the complex. When my girlfriends showed up –”
“Were they granted access to this area?”
“No, but they sent a text to let me know that they were here. That must’ve been around five. I went to the building next door and hung with them for about an hour. I was back here before the lights went on for the opener.”
“Did you check the equipment upon your return?”
“No need,” he said. “I never do. After the initial check is done and I know that the guitars are ready for the show, I’m basically done until it’s time to roll out for Pan Demon’s set.”
“Did you notice anyone other than the crew and staff authorized in this area this afternoon?”
“By the time I got here, all that meet and greet bullshit was done. I kind of prefer avoiding the sycophants, if you know what I mean.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and threw an icy stare down at Underwood. “Let’s, for the sake of expedience, assume that I don’t know what you mean. Who are the sycophants, and why do you prefer to avoid them?”
“Uh ...” he started to stammer a little bit. Despite the blaring music from the stage that bore evidence to where the band was, Underwood behaved like eyes and ears were upon him. “Maybe I’d rather not say, detective. My personal opinions aside, these guys are my bosses, and I’d rather not see that arrangement come to an end because I voiced an unpopular opinion.”
“You can either say it here or down at the station, Mr. Underwood.”
“I really wish you’d call me Woody. You call Madden Scott.”
“Who are the sycophants?”
He sighed and stared at the concrete. “Madden’s fans. The guy is determined to surround himself with only the shit heads of his fandom.”
“Meaning?”
“You know the difference between a brownnoser and a shit head, detective?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Depth perception. Madden might come off as this super secure, don’t-give-a-damn dude, but he’s got a really fragile ego, to the point that he will not tolerate even the most constructive and gentle criticism. He’d shit on his own mother if she dared say anything he didn’t like. The guy is like fucking Napoleon or something. So when he holds these fan events at the shows, he makes sure that nobody makes the list who isn’t so far up his ass that he can feel their breath on the backs of his teeth.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“Typical response to fame,” I said.
Underwood shook his head. “No way, man. The other guys in the band are way more secure. Nobody calls Madden on his shit, because as he pointed out to you right away, Pan Demon belongs to him. Everybody else is expendable.”
“Everybody’s got to have a leader, Mr. Underwood. Democracy is a beautiful concept, but the average person in the world has never experienced it in the true sense of the word. Democracy in government is quite a different thing than in a business. While you may not like Mr. Madden’s desire to surround himself with positive opinions, there is certainly nothing illegal – or even uncommon about that practice.”
His posture tightened, added half an inch to the short stature. “And I should’ve figured that you’d land on the famous side of the fence.” His second finger flicked the all-access pass hanging around my neck. “You’re part of the after-show bash, where Madden treats the special ones to the real party.”
“I’m not a fan. Let’s talk about you right now, shall we?”
“Then who scored the VIP’s for you?”
“Mr. Underwood –”
“It was that fucker Mackenzie, wasn’t it? I should’ve known when I saw him that he’s still the little gay-fan boy he always was.”
I think my eyebrow bounced off the sixty-foot high ceiling. Granted, I hadn’t known Devlin for very long, but not one time had I ever had an inkling that anybody would’ve accused him of being gay. “Detective Mackenzie is my date tonight,” I chose words carefully.
“I thought you said he was your partner.”
“For all intents and purposes, since we were already on the scene, we’ll work this case together. I don’t really have a partner, Mr. Underwood. As I explained, I’m not like any detective you’ve met. Do you understand what a forensic psychologist does?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, I impaled his smug body to the floor with a single withering glare.
“I profile behavior.”
“Well, you’re gonna have a hell of a lot of fun when you finally have a conversation with Madden.”
“I’m curious about something. If you hate Mr. Madden so much, why on earth would you want to work for him?”
Underwood grinned without shame or hesitation. “Because it’s just too much friggin’ fun snatching pussy right out from under him before he gets to make his move.” His eyes stripped away my clothes with predatory resolve. “Chicks dig me, whether they want to admit it or not. I could have you on your knees in a matter of minutes if I wanted you.”
“I guess I should count myself lucky then.” Sarcasm bounced off his impervious ego.
“I dig blondes,” he said. The eyes did another once over, and despite the fact that his creepy gaze made me want to cover myself in revulsion, I resisted the urge. “You know what? Fuck it. I’ll make an exception for you. Damn, you’re hot.”
Tension built around me, heavy and suffocating. I hadn’t felt it so strongly since –
The voice hissed over my shoulder down at Underwood.
“Show some respect, boy, before I decide to pound it into that smug little head of yours.”
My head turned, and eyes met those of Johnny Orion.
“And our little sex triangle suddenly is a square,” Underwood murmured, not put off in the least by Johnny’s size or anger.
All balls and no brains. I dog paddled through the river of testosterone and attached a tether to Orion. Somebody had to pull him away, before he ripped Underwood’s head off.
Chapter 4
My immediate inclination was to grab Johnny’s arm, drag him away and placate what looked like simmering jealousy to me. Reality dashed that tiny flicker of hope as his vacant eyes caught mine and his words obliterated everything but the brutal fact that I was every bit the stranger to him tonight as I’d been a week ago.
&
nbsp; “Are you all right, Detective Eriksson?”
If he remembered me at all, he’d have known there was no need to ask. I pasted a cold smile on my face and nodded. “May I ask why OSI is here, when we’re not even sure that a crime has been committed beyond petty vandalism?”
His eyes narrowed. “Your partner called Chris Darnell. Apparently he’s convinced that something illegal happened tonight, detective.”
Sometimes I have to remind myself that for as much as men accuse women of being bitchy, they are as capable of the behavior as anyone sporting ovaries. They are after all, merely a broken leg away from that Y being and X chromosome. “Devlin,” I muttered.
“He said you were talking to the prime suspect –”
“Who the fuck is this guy?” Underwood made an unwise attempt to step between Johnny and me, as if he believed his lame come on would actually result in me swooning before his massive sex appeal.
Johnny had him by the scruff of the neck in an instant. “You will cease and desist, sir. I’m discussing official police business with a colleague.”
“It’s all right, Commander Orion. I think I can handle this.”
Blessedly, Forsythe arrived with techs from CSD before I had to resort to drastic measures. “Mr. Underwood, please go to whatever area is off limits to everyone but staff and the band’s crew and wait for me there. I need to talk to our crime scene supervisor.”
Johnny glared, but released a man who looked more like a wet pup than the perpetrator of more than a minor annoyance. I found it remarkable that Underwood still didn’t back down. Instead, he turned his attention – and nauseating charm – on me again. “Keep what I said in mind, sweetheart. You’re the exception to the blonde rule.”
Forsythe advanced into the charged atmosphere. “Helen, where’s this iffy evidence?”
I stepped away from Johnny and showed him the blood pooled in the speaker assembly. “From what I’ve learned, the stack was found side lying. We didn’t get far enough into the interview before Orion arrived for me to ascertain what made the tech responsible for this particular piece of equipment to suspect something was wrong, but there’s no blood on the floor. From this, it’s apparent that nobody righted the stack before taking off the front cover.”
