The Chilling Spree (3 page)

I’m not vain enough to believe that the draw
was my skin.  Still, Devlin wrapped himself around me a little
more intently.  Either he was concerned, or the ultimate
lightweight drinker who decided to push the dare to the limits.

Ned’s practical joke condoms were buried in
a bathroom drawer at home.  I had no intention of digging them
out for Dev or anybody else.

I focused on the music, and much to my
surprise, discovered that I was sincerely having a good time. 
Even though I was pretty well geriatric compared to the average age
of the people around us.  God, when did the world get so full
of young people?

The band finished their set with high energy
that left the crowd pumped and primed for the main event.  The
lights went down before blinding me with full-on illumination while
tour techs switched out equipment for Pan Demon. 

“You want another drink?” Dev asked.

“I’m good for now.  Maybe after the
show we could go somewhere and decompress a little?  We’ve got
such a great spot, I’d hate to lose it.”

Devlin nodded.  “Plus if we try to get
through the masses out there stocking up on booze right now, we’ll
miss the beginning of the main event.”

Someone offered a joint.  I held up one
hand and declined as politely as possible for a cop.  It
wasn’t long before a contact high from the gray cloud shrouding the
floor buzzed through me.  “Shelly won’t like this,” I yelled
at Devlin.

“Nah, we’ll be fine,” he said.  “You
worry a lot, don’t you?”

“I’m not used to being senseless.”

Devlin’s right eyebrow shot north. 
“That’s not been my observation since I met you.”

“Wine is a different animal.”

“If you say so.”

A wave of sobriety rolled through me. 
“Dev, you’re not into the drug stuff are you?”

He grinned.  “Not on your life.  I
figure God didn’t give me an infinite number of brain cells. 
I don’t plan to intentionally fry them by doing something
stupid.  Though I will admit that when I was in the corps, we
dabbled a bit with this and that.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you having a good time?”

I nodded.  “Much better than I thought
I would have.”

Devlin tapped my shoulder with one finger
and pointed toward the stage.  “See that little fucker up
there?”

He stuck out like a sore thumb in Darkwater
Bay.  His closely cropped hair looked dirty gray-blond under
the stage lighting.  I guessed his height at no more than
five-eight, a little paunchy in the belly, and the lower border of
a tattoo peeked from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.  Those
were the remarkable details.  I nodded.  “What about
him?”

“Knew him in the Marines.  Before Chris
had him dishonorably discharged.”

Our eyes met. 

“Really?  What did he do?”

“Officially, they booted him on account of
his winning personality.  The military doesn’t put up with a
lot of bullshit that can’t be fixed with a pill.”

“A personality disorder?  Was it a real
one, or did they dump him because he really had PTSD?”  The
military didn’t like the public exposure it received over the
intentional misdiagnosis of true Axis I disorders in lieu of Axis
II.  Apparently, treating a long term disorder caused by
military service was something the government had no interest in
pursuing.  Therefore, those with the misfortune of acquiring
true post traumatic stress disorder were labeled with something for
which combat isn’t a cause and dumped out of the system.

“Oh, they nailed it – at least they did in
my opinion.”

“Then why did you say
officially
they
dumped him because of a personality disorder?  If he’s really
got one, that’s a legitimate reason to discharge him.”

“Because they preferred something neat,
rather than underscoring why
don’t ask, don’t tell
was such
a piss poor idea.”

“I don’t follow,” I said.

“Nope, and neither would anybody else unless
they saw old Fulk in action.”

“Fulk?  Was that some sort of corps
nickname for the guy?”

Devlin laughed and hugged me.  “Sadly
for him, it’s his real first name.  Fulk.  No wonder the
guy was such a fuck-head.  His parents must’ve hated him
before he developed a personality to slap a label like that on
him.”

“And now he’s a roadie for Pan Demon?”

Dev grinned and shrugged.  “Great place
to get drugs and chicks, I guess.”

“So he wasn’t gay?”

“You’d think, looking at him, wouldn’t
you?  No, Fulk hates homosexuals.  The real problem with
this guy was that it was his mission to ferret out every queer he
could accuse and see to it that they got to boot.  As you can
imagine, that sort of shit wouldn’t fly with Chris.”

“Can’t imagine it would, although I have to
admit, I wouldn’t imagine that Darnell would go out of his way to
be an advocate for that group as a whole.”

“It had nothing to do with the work we were
doing, Helen.  Chris judges people solely on merit for the job
at hand.  He doesn’t give a damn what the guys do on their own
time, so long as they know how to follow orders and fight.”

“I can see that about him, yes,” I
said. 

“Fulk decided to go after Chris’s second in
command in our unit.  Let’s just say that when all was said
and done, he was the guy that got kicked out, not Major
Wesley.”

Another curtain floated around the front of
the stage before the lights dimmed. 

“Devlin, did you know that this guy would be
here tonight?”

“Not a clue,” Dev said.  “I hadn’t
thought about him in years.  Can’t say I’m surprised to see
him working for Pan Demon, though.  He almost singlehandedly
destroyed my love of the band.”

“Oh my,” I sighed with a dramatic shake of
the head.

The crowd around us grew restless. 
Nothing happened behind the curtain, while the lights were still
out.  We were close enough to see movement on the stage, to
hear a few shouted curses.

The curtain billowed, and a large man with
wild ginger hair that nearly reached his waist appeared in front of
us.

“Son of a bitch, Darkwater Bay!  How
the hell are ya?”

A deafening roar made my brain shudder.

“We’re having a bit of technical
difficulties with our motherfuckin’ equipment, thanks to the
incompetence of a soon-to-be-fired fuck-hole, so if you could bear
with us for a few while we rip off an amp from our brothers who
warmed y’all up so beautifully, we’ll be out as soon as
possible.  We’re gonna tear this joint
down
tonight, my
demons!”

A cacophony louder than the first pierced my
skull.

“Have another beer, smoke a little more
green, and we’ll be right back.”

I felt Devlin stiffen behind me.  The
hand that hadn’t strayed far from my hip all night vanished. 
Dev fumbled in one pocket and procured his cell phone.  I
glanced at the screen when he held it up.

Text message from Finkelstein.

If you’re at that concert, head backstage
now.  We need a cop on the scene ASAP.

“Shit,” Devlin said.  “Technical
difficulties my ass.  Maybe somebody finally put poor Fulk out
of our misery.”

We both had out cell phones and badges as
security escorted us past the barricade in the front of the
amphitheater to the exit back stage.  I wasn’t sure what to
expect, perhaps sexual assault, given some of the wilder stories
about bands in this genre of music.

What we found was unexpected.  Devlin’s
old compadre from the Marines was standing over a large black box
with a screwdriver in one hand while five men – four of whom
sported some seriously wild hair – yelled obscenities and
accusations at him and each other.

“All I’m saying is that he couldn’t have
done the goddamned sound check, Drake.  If he had, he’d have
figured out that the son of a bitch wasn’t working.”  This
from Ginger-hair who urged the crowd to imbibe in heavier drinking
as a pastime before the main event.  “Now we gotta have
fuckin’ cops out here because douchebag is too stupid to keep the
groupies from dumping shit into my stack?  Please!”

I pushed forward, a little surprised at how
Devlin suddenly seemed to hang back.  I whipped out my
badge.  “Detective Helen Eriksson, Darkwater Bay Police. 
What’s the issue, gentlemen?”

All eyes crawled over my skin.  I was
certain I displayed the paragon of police professionalism – beer on
my breath, no bra, sweaty tank clinging to every protruding
bone.  Nice.  The specific order of ogling was chest,
legs, chest, face, badge.  I rolled my eyes. 

“We were at the show.  This is my
partner, Detective Devlin Mackenzie.”

“Son of a bitch,” Fulk muttered.

Devlin found his voice – and his
spine.  He stepped forward to my side.  “Underwood,”
followed by a curt nod.  “What seems to be the problem,
guys?  You can’t tell me that the police are required to deal
with a problem with your gear.”

Ginger-hair stepped forward.  “You know
this asshole?”

I wasn’t sure which person he was
addressing, the unfortunately named Fulk or Devlin.  Ergo, I
had no idea who the asshole in question was.  “Sir, if I could
get your name –”

He cut me off with a leering gaze. 
“Absolutely, cupcake.  I’m Scott Madden, and Pan Demon is my
band.  I’m not the one who called the cops, but I sure as hell
wasn’t as pissed off when you showed up with your pretty little…
badge.”

I glanced at Dev. 
Is this jerk
serious
etched into my brow.  He shrugged.

“Who’s actually in charge here and capable
of explaining why our lieutenant asked us to come back stage?” I
didn’t pretend patience any longer.

The shaggy representative stepped forward
and extended his hand.  “Drake Swanson, tour manager,
detective.  I called the police.”

The others followed suit – drummer Burke
Baxter, bassist Lenny Rawlins, guitarist Cliff Hartman.

“Nice to meet all of you,” I dipped to the
knee in the sarcasm pool, “but none of this tells me why the police
are required.  Are we talking about a crime here, or is
someone irritated that an expensive piece of equipment was
damaged?  If that’s the case, I’d suggest you file an
insurance claim, have your internal security tighten up so fans
aren’t around anything of real value and stop wasting the police’s
time.”

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.”