by T. N. Robb
He walked through the busy squad room, waved to a couple of officers, and headed directly to Charlie Fontana's office, the office they had once shared. There were lots of memories here, good and bad, and they seemed to all come at him at once. His years here had been a mixed bag: crack police work, honors, decorations, and advances on one hand, and petty squabbling, distrust, bureaucratic lethargy, and accusations of corruption on the other.
The memories advanced, swept through him, and then passed. Whenever he visited the Seventh Precinct, it was for police business, and he didn't let himself get enveloped in the past. Instead, when he walked in the door, he raised a protective shield around himself. It was a shield that kept him from collapsing into his past and doing something foolish like asking for his old job back, something he had told himself he would never do. Sure, the invisible shield was sort of silly. But oddly enough, it seemed to work.
Fontana saw him through the glass door, signaled him to enter. He was on the phone, pacing restlessly about. He frowned at Cleary, shaking his head, then spoke into the receiver: "No, we're working on it right now.... Hey, your guess is as good as mine. Just a minute."
He jotted down something on a pad at his desk, then tapped his pencil against it. He stuck the pencil behind his ear and resumed his pacing.
Cleary walked over to the window. He once had spent a considerable amount of time gazing out here while pondering cases. All the buildings still looked the same. Little had changed. His only thought about his past was that he was glad it was over.
He liked the way things had turned out just fine.
He had never cared for the office politics that sometimes seemed to dominate everything. He had risen through the ranks mainly on initiative, long hours, and an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of cases when others, including his superiors, were stumped.
He turned away from the window, Fontana's ennui making his own worse. C'mon, Charlie, get off the phone. He noticed a stack of photos on his desk and recognized the three faces on the top one. He picked up the eight-by-ten glossy and stared at the images of Johnny Betts, Jesse, and Billy Ray. They were standing together, the two men smiling. He looked closely at Jesse, sandwiched between them. She wore a gold guitar necklace over her blouse and was looking directly into the camera with a bored, get-me-outa-here look on her face.
"Publicity shot," Fontana said, cupping his hand over the phone receiver. "Taken at the party."
Cleary nodded. He studied it a moment longer, inexplicably intrigued by the trio of young rebels. Then he dropped it back on the pile and paced over to the glass partition looking out onto the squad room. Fontana wrapped up the conversation and rang off.
"What the hell's taking 'em so long, Charlie?" he said, still staring into the squad room.
"Going from a counterfeit record scam to murder's a long toss, Jack. You know that. You saw the autopsy report. What do you expect the SID boys to find up at that house, anyway, a signed confession?"
Cleary hesitated, not knowing the answer, then spotted Hogan and Walczak entering the squad room. They headed directly to Fontana's office. He nodded toward them. "I'll let you know in a minute."
The two plainclothesmen from the Scientific Investigation Division walked into the office. Walczak carried a clear plastic satchel of personal effects. "Man, those greasers sure know how to throw a party," he said, shaking his head and laughing. "Enough booze bottles up there to get a couple platoons drunk on their asses. Every one of 'em empty, too."
"Yeah," Hogan said, a look of terminal cynicism on his face. "I oughta trade in my badge on one of them electric guitars. That kid's house up there is worth a mint." He turned to Cleary and smirked. "Didn't know raunchy music paid so well. But I guess when you work as bodyguards for them guys you know all about it."
Cleary stared blankly at him, as he reinforced his invisible shield. He and Hogan had never hit it off. Hogan had been on the force a couple of years longer than he had, and hadn't liked the way Cleary had risen from the ranks of street cop to detective so fast. It had taken Hogan seven years to attain what Cleary had managed in less than three. They had worked in the same detective bureau for several years before Hogan had gone into SID, and always there'd been a quiet hostility between them.
At first Cleary had taken it for competitiveness, but it went beyond that He had heard that Hogan had greeted his suspension with a laugh and bought a round of drinks for all takers. He was that kind of guy.
"What did you find?" Fontana asked impatiently.
He slipped the pencil from behind his ear and tapped it against his desk.
"Aside from all the empty bottles, and a coupla reefers, and a pair of panties and a bra in the backyard... nothing," Hogan said. "It was the aftermath of a party, not a crime scene."
"Peterson's still going through the pool area," Walczak continued, "but as far as I'm concerned—"
"We're wasting our time, Lieutenant," Hogan finished. "Nothing there."
He shot another look at Cleary. "The kid went skinny-dipping, blacked out, went under three times and came up twice. End of story."
"The kid wouldn't go skinny-dipping, Hogan," Cleary said. "He didn't know how to swim."
Hogan walked over to the wall and took a look at a framed photo of Fontana and Cleary from his badge-carrying days. He shrugged. "Fifth of booze might make a guy forget a lot of things."
He turned to Cleary, looked at him with a mean-spirited smile. "It's been known to happen before. Wouldn't you say, Cleary?"
He just stared at Hogan, feeling the barb and resisting the urge to alter the man's orthodonture. Instead he reinforced the invisible shield. Nothing Hogan said was going to get to him.
Fontana, miffed by Hogan's impropriety, stepped between the two men, then turned to Walczak. "Those his personal effects?"
"Yeah, from his last night. Billfold, watch, chain bracelet, couple of rings. He took 'em off before he went into the pool."
Fontana dumped the bag onto his desktop for the benefit of Cleary, who started rifling through the effects. "These rock and rollers aren't big on old age, Jack. Hell, for all we know, the kid committed suicide."
Fontana's observation, however, was lost on Cleary. He was staring at the watch. He turned to Walczak. "Where did you find these?"
"On a chaise lounge. By the deep end."
"Where're his clothes?"
"In his hope chest," Hogan sniped. "Anything else you want to know, Cleary?"
"Yeah, there is."
He looked at him, held up the watch. "If he took off this stuff before he jumped in, how come there's water under the crystal?"
Cleary tossed the watch to Fontana, who examined it and appeared nonplussed as he reconsidered his thinking on the case.
But Hogan was unperturbed by the inconsistency. "So he made a mistake. He was drunk, remember the autopsy report? He forgot to take it off. When he realized he was still wearing it, he got out of the pool, took it off. No big mystery there."
Why was it, Cleary wondered, that Hogan always came off sounding like he had been present at every homicide they had ever tackled?
The phone rang. Fontana picked it up, said his name into the mouthpiece. He listened a moment.
"Yeah." His features turned grim. "You sure?" He nodded. "Okay. Thanks."
He hung up, looked over at Cleary, then the other two. "Peterson just found his clothes. They were in some bushes back of the house." He narrowed his focus on Hogan. "They were all wet."
"I suppose he forgot to take those off, too. Right, Hogan?" Cleary said. "It was so embarrassing that he hid them in the bushes so nobody would see his mistake. Then he went and drowned himself."
"Lay off, Cleary," Walczak snapped. "So someone pushed him in. Probably a joke. Then whoever it was tried to cover his tracks."
"Pushing someone in might be a joke. Letting him drown isn't."
Fontana didn't wait for any more speculation. He dialed a number on his telephone, then looked up at Hogan and Walczak as he waited.
"You fellows better plan to work late tonight."
He spoke curtly into the receiver. "George? It's Fontana. I want you to reclassify that Billy Ray death. Yeah. Homicide."
Cleary was already on the move. He gave the SID guys a look as he passed them. "Nice to see you haven't lost your touch, Hogan. Or your sense of humor."
He stepped through the door, crossed the squad room, then disappeared down the stairway. He didn't lower his shield until he had pulled away from the precinct house.
THIRTEEN
The Rockets
The band was playing on the back of a '48 Ford flatbed diesel in the parking lot behind a Westwood record store. Despite the torrid afternoon heat, hundreds of rock-crazed teenagers were mobbed around the impromptu stage. The Rockets all wore wraparound shades and black arm bands symbolic of their loss. To their blistering backbeat, Dwayne sang Billy Ray's hit tune:
Blue Hotel,
On a lonely highway;
Blue Hotel,
Life don't work out my way...
Inside the record store, the aisles were adorned with a half-dozen life-size cutouts of Billy Ray. Several Silhouette Records merchandising booths were set up, and were doing a landmark business in Billy Ray's 45s and memorabilia. Suddenly it seemed that everyone under twenty-five was an avid Billy Ray fan. Always had been.
Sure. You bet, thought Johnny Betts. His hands shoved in his pockets, he looked over the booths and cutouts. He was dumbfounded by the spectacle. He turned away, walked back out to the parking lot.
He worked his way through the crowd of greasers, biker chicks, and Eddie Cochran clones. But he was surprised by the rest of the crowd. Mixed in with Billy Ray's regulars were a surprising number of straight-arrow high school kids with letter jackets and crew cuts, and girls with pleated skirts, bobby socks, and bows in their hair. They were the type of kids who, if they had even heard of Billy Ray, had written him off as a weirdo-greaseball.
Until his death.
Now they were fans, and probably saying they had been listening all along. That was how it went. He stopped for a moment at another Silhouette Records booth that was raking in the cash on two-dollar Billy Ray banners. He held off the urge to knock it over and punch out the vendor.
The Rockets had finished "Blue Hotel," and were cranking right into another one, a song Betts didn't recognize. Billy Ray was a tough act to follow. He watched Dwayne a moment as he gyrated and sang:
"Now I hear the sound of thunder
Coming with the rain,
Yeah...
Coming down on me."
To his right, near the wall of the store, he saw Calvin Pettys standing next to a hyperthyroidal DJ who was bobbing his head to the song. He hadn't seen Pettys since the day of the funeral, and took a few steps closer to him. He was considering telling him just what he thought of all the razzle-dazzle, but stopped short. Pettys probably wasn't the one responsible for it.
"Calvin, I've never heard this one before," he heard the DJ say.
Pettys's eyes looked empty. He stared at the band, expressionless, almost as if he didn't care about what was happening around him. "Never been recorded. It's the last song Billy Ray wrote before... before he died." He shuffled his cowboy boots on the pavement, and patted his bulging gut. Betts noticed his hand was bandaged.
"Hey, I dig it. Let's see... found scribbled on a dressing room wall," the DJ said, embellishing the story for Pettys. "Yeah, I like it. I can use that."
Betts, standing a few feet away, was dumbfounded when Pettys just nodded.
The DJ who wore a checkered green coat, a bow tie, and horn-rim glasses, shook his head in wonder. "Kid takes a powder in a rented pool and bing-bang-boom he's bigger than Jimmy friggin' Dean." He held up a copy of Billboard and pointed to the record chart. "Look at this. Over fifty thousand platters peddled since the funeral. Can you believe that, Calvin?"
"Billy Ray's hot," he answered dryly.
The DJ gestured toward the band. "Understand Silhouette has these kids locked into a three-month, forty-city memorial tour. That's incredible. They're taking off, really going places."
Calvin nodded weakly. "Forty places." The blank expression on his face looked permanent. "Make hay while the sun shines."
Betts caught his eye. Suddenly Pettys's blank look turned to surprise, then wariness. He turned to the DJ. "Hey, I gotta go," he said, and hurried off through the crowd.
"Whataya mean, 'you gotta go'? What about the live interview?" he shouted at the receding figure.
Betts watched the manager's head bobbing through the crowd. It seemed that the sight of him had spooked Pettys, and he wondered why. He started following him, but a fight broke out between two greasers, and by the time he had gotten around the skirmish, Pettys was gone.
He moved on through the crowd until he found Jesse and Dottie. "Lots of little twerps here." He shook his head. "You see all the booths? I swear these record people would merchandise the Lindbergh baby if the kid had cut a 45."
"Billy Ray's a legend now," Jesse said. "Everyone wants a piece of a legend." She looked around at the crowd. "At least now his music will get heard."
Betts and Dottie nodded somberly.
Jesse looked up at the sky, squinted. "It's so hot. I'm gonna get us all some Coca-Colas. Don't go anywhere, Johnny. I missed you."
She headed off through the crowd, and Betts watched her every move until she was out of sight. Dottie lowered her shades a notch, watching Betts's fascination with Jesse. "Is there a doctor in the house or what?"
Betts turned to Dottie, feigned incomprehension. "Whataya talking about?"
She shielded her eyes with her hand and, making an exaggerated expression, looked off in the direction Jesse had disappeared. "Whataya talking about?" she mimicked him, and shook her head.
Betts frowned. "A doctor? For who?"
She poked Betts in the chest. "For you. Ya look like some dog that's been eating grass all afternoon." She smiled, her voice softening. "You're really nuts on her, aren't ya, Johnny boy."
Betts was wary about confiding to Dottie about anything. She was liable to turn it around on him. She had a tongue like a dagger. Besides, he knew she told Cleary everything. He shrugged. "What gives you that idea?" he said coolly.
"You mean aside from the fact you sandblasted your T-shirt clean, and"—she pinched his cheek—"you smell like Old Spice instead of Eau de Valvoline?"
Betts was rendered momentarily dumb by her observations. He tapped a foot to the music, looked around, and was rescued from further questioning by a voice from behind them.
"You working banker's hours these days, Dottie?" They both turned around to see Cleary. Dottie winced at having been caught AWOL from the office. To her surprise, Betts came to her rescue. "It's over ninety degrees in that office of yours, Cleary. And besides"—he pinched Dottie's cheek—"she's got a wet spot in her heart for the lead guitarist, ol' Dwayne boy."
Dottie batted away Betts's hand and shot him a look that would freeze mercury.
"Any news from the precinct house about Billy Ray?" Betts asked.
Cleary glanced toward the stage where the band was finishing a song. "Yeah." He met Betts's gaze. "Looks like rock and roll's got one more murder to deal with. They've decided it wasn't accidental."
This confirmed Betts's suspicion, but Dottie was shocked. "God, you're kidding, Cleary. I mean, who'd do it? Who'd murder Billy Ray?"
"Not so loud," Betts admonished, then added snidely, "Someone might set up a concession stand around you."
"I don't know the answer, Dottie," Cleary said "That's what we're trying to find out."
He turned to Betts. "I want you to swing by the dead bomber's motel."
"I thought the cops already tossed that."
"Not his car they didn't. It's still parked in the lot."
"How'd they miss it?"
"Sleazy motel owner apparently has his eye on it. He told the cops the bomber was dropped off by another guy. A quick thinker, but not bright enough to get th
e Chrysler moved out of there, yet." He handed Betts a scrap of paper with the address of the motel.
"What am I looking for? Anything in particular?" he asked.
"I need a lead on that counterfeit record warehouse. Maybe our bomber left behind some goodies."
"You think there's a connection?" Dottie asked.
"We'll see."
Betts glanced at the address, understanding what was required of him. "A '55 Chrysler 500. I think I got the tools for that."
"Looks like you could use a cool one, Mr. Cleary," Jesse said as she approached with the Cokes. She handed one to him.
Cleary smiled, accepting it. "Thanks, Jesse. How you doing?"
"How am I doing?" She handed another bottle to Dottie. "Hot. Pretty damn hot, Mr. Cleary." She took the third bottle, and rolled it seductively against her unbuttoned neckline, parting her mouth slightly. Condensation drops slid down the bottle toward her cleavage.
She looked coyly at Betts, a gleam in her eye. "You and me can share this one, Betts." She took a deep fa allow and handed the bottle to him.
Betts frowned as he noticed the gold guitar necklace Billy Ray had given her was no longer around her neck. He asked her what happened to it.
Jesse touched her bare neck. "It brought back too many memories." She looked toward the stage as Dwayne bent down on one knee playing to the crowd.
"I buried it with him."
Betts nodded, understanding, then looked at Cleary, remembering the task that awaited him. He took Jesse's hand. "C'mon, baby, you and I are gonna take a little ride somewhere."
-Jesse smiled. "My favorite destination." She glanced at Dottie and Cleary. "Toodieloo, y'all."
FOURTEEN
Dottie's Choice
Cleary smiled at Dottie, a bemused, nearly incredulous expression on his face as he considered the vapor trails Betts had left behind. "Am I imagining things, or is he wearing cologne?"
She nodded, gave him a jaded look. "Like a fish wears water." She grabbed Cleary's wrist and looked a his watch. She gave a martyrlike sigh and looked wistfully toward the band, then back to Cleary. "Well, I guess I better get back to the fun-filled world of stenography. Anything special you want me to work on?"
