by Lauren Carr
“Maybe after so many years, she’ll be willing to admit it if she did know.” Cameron pointed at her briefcase, which was on the floor near his feet. “Take out my tablet. I downloaded a video that I want you to watch.”
“Is it dirty?” J.J. reached into the briefcase for the tablet.
Cameron had to smile. That sounded like something that Murphy would say to her. “No. Dylan Matthews’ sister, Wendy, disappeared after a Fourth of July concert.”
“Exactly ten years after Dylan disappeared and was presumably murdered.”
“He was murdered.”
“But do you have evidence that proves that he was murdered on that Fourth of July?”
“Spoken like a lawyer,” she said. “A blogger who specializes in the goth music scene sent me the video that she shot of the last concert that Wendy performed in before her disappearance. In the last ten minutes, she sang a new song for the first and only time. She introduced it as a song she had written for someone very close to her and said that it seemed appropriate for her to perform it that night. She went on to tell her fans how much she loved them. I keep going back and forth, thinking that maybe, the song was a suicide ballad. Watch it, and tell me what you think.”
J.J. cued up the video and played it.
As she listened to the sad, almost haunting melody and words, Cameron was struck by the emotional pain and the loneliness of the singer-songwriter.
No wonder the police concluded that she might have voluntarily disappeared and killed herself after this last concert.
She glanced in J.J.’s direction, expecting him to confirm her conclusion. Instead, he was digging through his valise for a binder with sheet music in it.
“What do you think?”
Instead of answering her, J.J. rewound the video and replayed it while studying the sheet music in the binder.
“Did you find something?”
“Maybe,” J.J. said. “I need a piano.”
Luckily, Catherine Calhoun, also known as Cat, was in an after-school teachers’ meeting when J.J. and Cameron arrived in State College, which allowed them to have some time alone in the music room. J.J. immediately plopped down at the electric piano and spread the same sheet music that he had taken out of his valise across the top of the piano. He then instructed Cameron to stand behind him with the tablet cued up to the video. With his fingers on the keyboard, he nodded his head in her direction.
She hit the “play” button. Wendy’s sad song sounded over the speakers.
J.J.’s fingers danced across the keyboard. J.J. played the piano in unison with Wendy’s song. After a full minute, J.J. turned to her as he played. “How am I doing?”
“I’m not an expert by any means, but you aren’t missing a note.”
Cameron stopped the video and sat down on the bench next to him. Together, they peered at the sheet music, which she could see had been copied years before. The paper had yellowed with age. “Where did you get that?”
“Suellen found it last night,” he said. “It’s the music Dylan asked her to write lyrics for.”
“So he wrote this in 1988, and Wendy performed it in 1998.”
J.J. shook his head. “Dylan did not write this.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“This music was written for the piano. Dylan didn’t play the piano.” He pointed to the first notes on the sheet music. “Wendy sang this song at a tempo that was much slower than the one indicated on the sheet music. I recognized the note pattern. Just now, I slowed it down considerably to match her tempo.”
“Also, this music has no lyrics. Wendy’s song has words.”
“Wendy was gothic, so she was very dark.” J.J. gathered the music and returned it to the binder. “Dylan was trying to break through as a mainstream pop singer. This song at that tempo and with those lyrics—”
“Wouldn’t have gotten him that agent in Hollywood,” Cameron said. “So he stole his sister’s song, sped up the tempo, erased the lyrics—”
“And gave it to Suellen so that she could write more upbeat words for it.”
“I wonder what Wendy’s reaction to that would have been,” Cameron said.
“Sorry that I kept you waiting,” Catherine Calhoun said as she hurried through the door and into the music room.
“Here’s someone who can tell us,” Cameron said in a low voice.
The sexy former backup singer for the Reading Railroad Band had aged well over the decades. The big blond hairstyle she’d worn in the eighties had been neatly cut into a short, layered style. After giving birth to three children, Cat had acquired more curves, but she was still a very attractive woman.
Cameron had made it a point to meet Catherine at the school during a workday, when her husband, another witness, wouldn’t be able to join them. She was planning to meet Harrison after he got off work later in the day.
Whenever possible, Cameron liked to avoid interviewing multiple witnesses at the same time to prevent them from comparing notes or influencing each other’s statements.
During their introductions, Catherine said that she liked to go by her proper name, Catherine. “Cat was my stage name,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I thought that using that name projected a sexy-feline image. Now that I’m an old married woman, I’m aiming for a more dignified image."
Cameron showed her the songs that Dylan had given to Suellen. Keeping her and J.J.’s conclusion about the songs’ origins to herself, she asked, “Did you know that Dylan asked Suellen to write the lyrics for them?”
“I only found out about that on the day of the last concert.” Catherine took the binder and scanned the sheet music. “I gave him hell about it.”
“Why?” J.J. asked.
“Because they were not his songs,” she said. “He had stolen them.”
“Who had he stolen them from?” Cameron expected her to say that he’d taken them from Wendy.
“I don’t know. A fan sent them to Wendy.” Catherine peered closely at the copied sheet music. “The music that Dylan showed me had lyrics.”
“We think he copied the songs without their lyrics and sped them up to make them seem lighter,” J.J. said.
“The strange thing is,” Cameron said, “Wendy performed one of those songs exactly ten years later, right before she disappeared.”
Catherine’s mouth fell open. “Wendy went missing?”
“Quite mysteriously,” Cameron said. “And in the same manner as Dylan.”
“Are you sure Wendy didn’t write the songs and then lie to her brother?” J.J. said. “Maybe she was too insecure to admit that she’d written them, so she lied to protect herself in case he didn’t like them.”
“No.” Catherine took the sheet music back and studied the top sheet. “This music is written for the piano. Wendy knew how to play only percussion instruments.” She handed the music back to him. “Did you say Wendy was performing in a solo act? Where?”
“She changed her name to Vendetta and became a very popular goth singer,” Cameron said.
Catherine visibly shuddered.
“She must have kept the original songs and then went on to perform them,” J.J. said. “But she said in that last performance that she’d written the last song she played.”
“So she stole it, and maybe the real songwriter killed her because of it. Catherine, do you have any idea who gave these songs to Wendy? I mean, Wendy must have known who it was, because he or she would’ve wanted credit for writing the songs.”
“She’s right,” J.J. said. “What would’ve been the point of sending the songs to her anonymously if the person who sent them wanted to be a professional songwriter?”
Catherine sat down in one of the classroom’s chairs. “Wendy and I weren’t exactly friends. Yes, I lived with Dylan off and on, but Wendy never let anyone get too close to her. That l
ast month, her boyfriend moved in, and he didn’t seem to get too close to her either. It was like he latched onto her and she didn’t care enough to get rid of him. Very strange.”
Cameron shifted gears. She pulled up a chair and sat across from Catherine, close enough to her to let her know that she meant business. “The, let’s talk about something you do know about. What happened after that last concert?”
“We went and got drunk,” Catherine said.
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Not Suellen,” she said. “She was too upset to stick around, which was natural, since the band had been her idea, she’d done all the work, and we were just about to break into the big time—or at least the medium time—when Dylan decided to screw us.” She sighed. “‘We’ included me, Harrison, and Keith.”
“The bass player,” J.J. said.
“There was a bar across the street from the run-down motel we were staying in that night— Harrison and me, I mean,” Catherine said. “They had a small stage, so Harrison, Keith, and I entertained the patrons. The place was jam-packed. We were there until the place closed at two o’clock in the morning.”
“You, Harrison, and Keith?”
Catherine shook her head. “Keith left at about eleven thirty. He’d met a woman. They left together.” She let out a laugh. “Oh, he was so mad at Dylan.”
“I thought Keith was the easygoing one,” J.J. said.
“Until he got good and drunk. And I think he was maybe doing some other stuff in the men’s room.” Catherine pretended to sniff something. “You should have heard some of the stuff he said he wanted to do to Dylan.”
“What kind of stuff?” Cameron asked.
“Bash his head in with his bass, for one.”
“You say he left around eleven thirty?” Cameron asked. “And you never saw him again?”
“No, I did see him again,” Catherine said. “About five or six years ago. Or maybe…It was a few years ago.” She giggled. “Harrison and I were shocked. We’d both figured he was already dead. Keith liked to think of himself as a Keith Richards clone. He drank and smoked and did every drug he was given. You should see him now. Unbelievable.”
“He’s a different man?” J.J. asked.
“Leopards can change their spots. Keith Black is living proof of that,” Catherine said. “Harrison and I went to a couples’ spa weekend in the Poconos. It was a weekend of health and relaxation. We were sitting in the restaurant, having lunch, and this guy came over to us. He was dressed in white slacks, and he was clean-shaven with neatly trimmed hair. He knew our names and stuck out his hand, and we said hello and looked at each other for clues about who the guy was. Suddenly, he laughed and said, ‘You have no idea who I am, do you?’”
“It was Keith Black, your druggie bass player?” Cameron asked.
“He’s now a substance-abuse counselor at a rehab center in the Poconos,” she said. “He told us that he almost died of a heroin overdose. He was on the brink of death and made a deal with God. Now he’s a born again Christian. Totally clean. He actually went to school and got a doctorate in psychology with a focus on substance-abuse counseling.” She threw up both hands. “Would you believe he’s even a vegan now?”
Cameron slowly shook her head. “We haven’t been able to find Keith—”
“Probably because he went back to using his legal name after he gave up music,” she said. “He told us that when he plays music, he wants to drink and raise Cain, and according to him, if he does that, God will take away everything that he’s been blessed with since he got sober. So he gave all of that up—including his name.”
“What’s his legal name?” Cameron saw that J.J. had taken out his cell phone so that he could write it down.
“Malcolm Geller.”
Behind Cameron, J.J. choked down a chuckle.
Catherine’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t think he killed Dylan in a drug-induced frenzy, do you? He did do a lot of crazy things back then.” She shuddered. “Thing is, this all happened so long ago, and we’ve all grown up and changed. We’re all different people now. I really wish Suellen hadn’t decided to dig all of this up now. I mean, Keith is a totally different man. Think of all the people he’s helped since he turned his life around.”
“Think about how Wendy felt all those years assuming that her brother had abandoned her,” Cameron said.
Catherine frowned. “Have you positively identified the body they found at the abandoned mental hospital as Dylan’s?” Cameron brought up the composite drawing on her tablet and showed it to Catherine, who nodded her head. “That looks like Dylan.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any dental records for him.” Cameron took the tablet back. “If we can locate his sister, we can do a DNA comparison.”
“In your investigation, did you uncover the connection that Dylan Matthews and his sister had to Dixmont State Hospital?” Catherine asked.
“No.” Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Is there one?”
“I only found this out while we were driving out to Moon Township for that last concert,” she said. “When I became a teacher here, I made some connections with the child-welfare services and did a bit of digging. Dylan and Wendy’s mother was a patient there. She had killed their father while they were at school one day because she’d thought that he was having an affair. They came home and found his body.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Cameron said in a soft voice.
“Dylan was twelve years old, and Wendy was nine,” Catherine said. “They both ended up in the foster-care system—they were mostly put in group homes. As soon as Dylan turned eighteen, he adopted Wendy, who by then was completely goth. Now, knowing what I know, I think she suffered from severe depression.”
“Who could blame her?” J.J. asked.
“I’m trying to remember from the cold-case show we saw …How did he die?”
Evading the question, Cameron asked, “When Keith left the bar that night, did he have his bass with him?”
“You mean Malcolm,” J.J. said in a low voice.
Cameron reached behind her to slap his leg.
Catherine furrowed her brow. After some thought, she said, “I’m sure he did. We were drinking a lot that—did you find Dylan’s van?”
“No,” Cameron said. “Why do you ask?”
“Harrison and I saw Dylan and his van that night, after we left the bar at around two o’clock,” Catherine said. “Now remember—we were drunk.”
“But you’re certain it was Dylan’s van?”
“Oh yeah.” Catherine nodded her head quickly. “We were both surprised. You see, Dylan had told us that he’d be on his way to Hollywood right after that concert. So Harrison and I checked into the hotel because we didn’t want to drive back that night. It was a small roadside motel that had a diner attached to it. When we came out of our room after checking in, Dylan’s van was parked in front of the diner, and we saw him, Wendy, and Silas eating. We assumed they were eating dinner before taking off.”
“Silas, too?” Cameron asked.
“Surprised me,” Catherine said. “Because I half suspected that Dylan had pursued that agent and the move to Hollywood to get Wendy away from Silas. He did not like their relationship at all, and I didn’t blame him.”
“So you knew Dylan was talking to a big agent about a solo career,” Cameron said.
“I knew he was talking to agents,” Catherine said. “Dylan was ambitious, and he had a lot of talent. He would have been a fool not to look for a way to get to the next level.”
“Sounds like you totally understood why he dumped the group the way he did,” Cameron said.
“Yes, I did. It was nothing personal.”
“Then why did you attack him?”
Catherine’s eyes grew wide. Pausing, she looked from Cameron, who was waiting for her answer, to J.J. as if to ask whet
her the detective had been joking. Sensing that they expected her to answer the question, she said, “I didn’t attack Dylan.”
“A witness said that Keith Black had to pull you off of him,” Cameron said.
“You mean Suellen?”
Cameron did not respond.
Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “I understood why Dylan had gone after an agent and a solo career. I’d always expected him to dump the band eventually. It was clear that we were nothing more than a leg up to the next level. It wasn’t if he was going to dump us—it was when. What I didn’t like was how he did it. On stage. In front of our biggest audience ever. That was very uncool, and I reacted to it.”
“Are you saying that you were as surprised as the rest of the band when he dumped all of you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“But you were living with him,” J.J. said. “How could you not have known his plans?”
“My thought exactly,” Catherine said. “That’s another reason I was so upset. When he dropped us the way he did, I realized that Dylan had been keeping secrets from me. Obviously, he didn’t trust me.” She sniffed. “It hurt. I thought we were closer than that.”
“When, not if, Dylan got this big break, were you planning to go out to Hollywood with him?” Cameron asked.
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. “I was young, and I did have my fantasies. But truthfully, Dylan and I never talked about it. If you’re asking me if I planned to leave with Dylan that night after the concert, the answer is no. I didn’t know he was going to dump all of us like that, so how could I have planned to leave with him?”
“You couldn’t have.”
“Exactly.”
“Is it possible that Dylan told Silas that he wasn’t going to Hollywood with them over dinner?” Cameron asked.
“Extremely possible.”
Cameron shot a grin over her shoulder at J.J. They then had a possible motive for Silas murdering Dylan.
“But you saw Dylan later, at two o’clock in the morning?” J.J. asked.
Catherine jumped in her seat. “Yes. We came out of the bar after the last call, and we were getting ready to cross the street. We looked both ways before we crossed, and Harrison pointed to a van and asked me if it was Dylan’s. I looked over, and sure enough, there it was. It was parked behind a gas station that was closed, by the way.”