Killer in the Band

by Lauren Carr

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Joshua said. “That, and that you’re not living here.”

  “In other words, you’re kicking me out?”

  “Not in other words.” Joshua finished his drink. “Those are the words.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Pennsylvania State Police Forensics Garage

  “Are you ready for this?” Joshua squeezed Cameron’s hand as they watched two uniformed State Police officers escort Silas Starling from the police cruiser and into the garage.

  Everyone else who had been called to the interview had arrived.

  “I’d better be,” she said. “Does J.J. have the recording set up?”

  “He’s ready.”

  Cameron reached for her valise, which was on the floor of the passenger’s side of her cruiser, but Joshua grabbed it and handed it to her. He leaned over to kiss her when she took it. “For luck,” he said.

  “Love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  Inside the garage, the 1982 Dodge van was the center of attention. Malcolm Geller, a.k.a. Keith Black; Harrison Calhoun; and his wife, Catherine, were circling it in awe. Off to one side, Silas Starling was in shackles and sitting in a straight-backed chair with police officers standing on either side of him.

  Their guests were so interested in the van that none of them had noticed J.J., who was sitting with his laptop at a table near a large television monitor on a stand.

  “Hello, everyone!” Cameron said, greeting them as if she were hosting a party. “I’d like to thank you all for coming.”

  “You made it sound like we didn’t have a choice,” Malcolm, the former bass player, said.

  “You always have a choice.” Cameron went on to introduce Joshua as her husband. Since he had no official role in the case, she left out the fact that he was a prosecutor. “How about getting started?”

  “This isn’t really Dylan’s van, is it?” Catherine asked as she shook her head.

  “You tell me,” Cameron said. “You used to live with Dylan. You rode in it numerous times—including on that Fourth of July, when you rode in it from his apartment in Reading to Moon Township for that last concert—the one where Dylan announced onstage that he was dumping all of you to go to Hollywood so that he could become the next Bruce Springsteen”—she looked around at each of them—“which gave each of you a motive to kill him.”

  “Is it?” Harrison asked Catherine. “Is it his van?”

  Catherine’s mouth was working, but no words were coming out.

  “The VIN is a match,” Cameron said, as walked to the table next to J.J., which was covered with the items that had been found inside the van. “Plus, we found Dylan’s wallet behind one of the moving boxes in the back. It had his driver’s license, credit cards, and a couple hundred dollars in cash, which rules out robbery as the motive for his murder.”

  She flipped open the lid of the guitar case, revealing a red guitar. The former band members gasped in unison.

  “That’s Dylan’s guitar, all right,” Malcolm said.

  Cameron picked up the evidence bag in which they had placed the tire iron. “Also, we found the weapon used to strike Dylan on the back of the head”—she picked up another bag that contained yet another bag—“before he was suffocated with a bag from a dry cleaner. Even after three decades or so, Dylan’s hair and blood were still on the tire iron and the bag.”

  Joshua invited them to sit down in the straight-backed chairs that they had lined up away from Silas Starling. The band members were grateful for the location of the chairs when they saw the man in shackles and the police guards.

  “Where’s Suellen Russell?” Catherine asked as they sat down. “Since she started all of this, we were expecting her to be here.”

  Joshua saw J.J. turn away and busy himself with checking the connection of laptop to the monitor.

  “I regret to tell you that Suellen passed away last week,” Cameron said as gently as possible. “She was murdered.”

  Catherine gasped and grasped Harrison’s hand. He draped an arm across her shoulders.

  “What happened?” Malcolm asked. “Was it connected to Dylan’s murder?”

  “No,” Cameron said. “I can’t comment any further on it, but I will say that none of you are suspects in Suellen’s murder.”

  Malcolm gestured at Silas. “Did he kill Suellen? And who is he, anyway?” He turned to Silas. “Who are you?”

  “This is Silas Starling,” Cameron said. “That’s right. Some of you may not remember Silas, because he was only at the last concert. He was Wendy Matthews’ boyfriend. They got married a few months after Dylan was murdered. Then he killed her.”

  “I told you he was nuts,” Catherine said to Harrison. “He killed Dylan because he was taking Wendy to Hollywood to get her away from him.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Cameron said. “Before she was killed, Suellen recorded a statement about what she remembered happening on the last day that you were all together.” She gestured at the television monitor.

  “Poor Suellen,” Catherine said, sniffling.

  Silently, Joshua picked up a box of tissues from the table and held it out for her.

  “Last week J.J. and I interviewed each one of you about that last concert and about your actions and observations directly afterward. Some of you remembered more than others,” Cameron said.

  “I mostly remembered being in a drug-filled haze,” Malcolm said.

  “But you remembered enough,” Cameron said. “Let’s go through it all again—piecing together what each of you remembers. If we do that, I believe that we’ll be able to identify who killed Dylan Matthews.”

  “It was Silas.” Catherine pointed at the man in the shackles. “You said he killed Wendy. Isn’t it obvious that he killed Dylan?”

  Ignoring her, Cameron gestured for J.J. to start the video.

  Catherine gasped and covered her mouth when she saw Suellen’s face fill the television monitor.

  “First off, Dylan Matthews; his sister, Wendy; and Cat Foxworth, our backup singer, who was living with Dylan, were late,” Suellen said. “Luckily, they didn’t miss the concert. Cat said they’d gotten a flat tire.”

  “That’s right,” Catherine said. “I actually did forget about that.”

  “So did I,” Silas said in a tone filled with significance.

  Catherine shot him a glare over her shoulder before turning her attention back to the recording.

  “Bruce Springsteen’s agent had signed him as a solo singer. Since Dylan was our lead singer, he broke up our whole group right there on the stage.”

  “How did the band take that news?” J.J. asked.

  “It was a miracle that Dylan didn’t get killed onstage,” Suellen said. “As soon as we were offstage, our guitarist, Harrison Calhoun, slugged Dylan. He gave him a bloody nose. They got into a huge fight. Cat and I broke it up.”

  “I did not kill him,” Harrison said. “He was alive after that.”

  Catherine patted his leg. “No one is saying that you did, honey.”

  “To answer your question,” Suellen said, “no, I don’t know whether Cat was planning to leave with Dylan. I do know that after she and I broke up the fight, while I was holding Harrison back, I heard Cat and Dylan talking. Suddenly, out of the blue, Cat started slapping and kicking Dylan. Keith Black, our bass player, broke them up. Oh, she was so mad at Dylan. Then Dylan told her to get her overnight bag out of his van because he was leaving—”

  “I remember that,” Malcolm said with a grin.

  “Yes, you did tell us about that,” Cameron said.

  The recording continued. “And she told him to keep the bag. She didn’t want to see his face ever again.”

  Off-camera, J.J. asked, “How did Keith Black, the bass player, take the news that the group was breakin
g up?”

  Suellen giggled. “He wasn’t one bit mad. Keith never got mad about anything. All he cared about was the next party or gig. After breaking up the fight, he told us that it had been a nice ride while it had lasted—”

  “Stop it there, J.J.,” Cameron said.

  J.J. paused the recording.

  “Is that how everyone remembers what happened after the concert?” Cameron asked. “Maybe someone wants to add something.”

  They all looked at one another.

  “Catherine, did you know beforehand that Dylan was planning to leave the group and to go to Hollywood that day?”

  Malcolm and Harrison turned to her.

  Uncomfortably aware of their gazes, Catherine folded her arms across her chest.

  Cameron threw open the back doors of the van, revealing that the back of the van was filled with suitcases and boxes. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t notice that Dylan had packed all of this in the back of this van and think that something was up.”

  “You knew, and you didn’t tell any of us?” Harrison asked.

  “You must have been really mad,” Cameron said. “You thought you were going to Hollywood and that you were the girlfriend of the next Bruce Springsteen, but then you got dumped along with everyone else in the group. You thought you were special.”

  “That’s why you slapped him and kicked him in the shins,” Malcolm said.

  “Okay, yes!” Catherine uncrossed her arms. “I did know that Dylan had gotten an agent and was planning to leave the group, but he was doing it because he was desperate to get Wendy away from him.” She pointed her finger at the man in the shackles. “Dylan was alive after Harrison, Keith, and I left him. The last person we saw him with was him.” She pointed at Silas again.

  “She’s telling you the truth,” Harrison said. “We were all together. After Dylan, Wendy, and Silas left us and Suellen packed up to go, Catherine and I checked into a motel and went across the street to a bar. Keith was already there. We spent the whole evening drinking and jamming. We were all together until the bar closed at two o’clock.”

  “You weren’t all together,” Cameron said. “Malcolm left at around eleven thirty.”

  “I met a woman,” Malcolm said. “Still can’t remember her name.”

  “You were so wasted that night,” Catherine said.

  “You actually left your bass behind.” Cameron reached behind the evidence table and picked up the clear evidence bag containing the broken-up bass guitar.

  “My bass!” Like a child discovering a long lost toy, Malcolm sprang out of his seat to grab the guitar. “Where did you find it?”

  “With Dylan’s dead body.”

  Malcolm thrust the guitar back into her hands.

  “It’s just like what you said you were going to do!” Catherine said.

  “What?” Harrison asked.

  “Don’t you remember, dear? At the bar that night, Keith was wasted—he was drunk and had been doing lines—and we all talked about what we wanted to do to Dylan. Keith said he wanted to bash his head in with his guitar.”

  “I-I don’t—”

  “Maybe,” Malcolm said, “but if I did I would have been talking about his guitar, not mine. I never would have used my own guitar. I did four months’ worth of gigs down in Florida before I got enough money to buy a new one.”

  “He’s right,” J.J. said. “A musical instrument is a musician’s livelihood. Using his own guitar to beat up Dylan would have been like cutting off his own nose to spite his face.”

  “He was high out of his gourd that night,” Catherine said. “Besides, we all know that Keith was crazy back then. A sane, rational person would have thought that way, but Keith wouldn’t have.”

  “Malcolm didn’t kill Dylan,” Cameron said.

  “His broken-up guitar was found with Dylan’s body in the freezer,” Catherine said. “Why would you think he didn’t kill Dylan?”

  “The killer took the bass, smashed it up, and placed it with Dylan’s body so that the police would assume that the bass player had killed him—especially after a witness” —she gestured at Catherine— “came forward stating that the bass player, who’d been high on drugs, had said that he wanted to bash his head in with his bass. But science has come a long way since 1988. We quickly found out that the bass was not the murder weapon. The killer hit Dylan over the head with the guitar long after he was already dead. I think that that was really an afterthought—that the killer decided to do that when Keith had left his bass behind at the bar.”

  “So if I hadn’t gotten wasted and left my bass—”

  “Dylan had been dead for hours before that, Malcolm,” Cameron said. “And the killer put his body in the back of the van, hid the van behind the gas station, and disposed of it in the dead of the night, after the bar had closed and everyone had passed out.”

  “And you know it wasn’t Keith, because…It was his guitar. Granted, J.J. said that a musician would never smash up his instrument, but this is Keith we’re talking about. No offense, Keith,” Harrison said.

  “None taken,” Malcolm said as he shrugged his shoulders.

  “But he did come back and get it,” Harrison said. “So maybe Keith was smarter than you’re giving him credit for, and he smashed up his bass, knowing that the police would figure out that it wasn’t the murder weapon and, assuming that he was being framed, eliminate him as a suspect.”

  “How do you know Keith picked up his guitar?” Cameron asked. “Did you see him pick it up?”

  Harrison gazed at her with wide eyes.

  “Malcolm could not have killed Dylan, because he didn’t know anything about Dixmont State Hospital back then,” Cameron said. “He had never been there. He didn’t even know where it was. Dylan Matthews’ body was locked in a freezer in an outbuilding behind the main building. Only someone who had been to Dixmont and was familiar with it could have done that.”

  “That leaves us out,” Harrison said with a smile of relief.

  “That means it was Silas,” Catherine said.

  “Silas didn’t kill Dylan,” Cameron said.

  “He was the last one seen with Dylan,” Catherine said, ticking off on her fingers. “He was familiar with Dixmont.”

  “Was he?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes,” Catherine said. “I told you all about his background. His mother worked there.”

  “Yes, you did make sure I learned all about that.”

  “He was obsessed with Wendy—”

  “So obsessed with her that he refused to leave her side when Dylan tried to lure him out of the diner so that he could dump him,” Cameron said. “Wendy did an interview with a journalist, and she talked about that day. She said Silas was with her the whole time.”

  “He brainwashed her,” Catherine said with fury in her eyes.

  “I did consider that,” Cameron said. “But logistically, it doesn’t make sense. The motel was mowed down years ago, but I tracked down some old employees who informed me that the diner closed at eleven. When Silas and Wendy realized that Dylan wasn’t coming back, Silas called his grandmother to pick them up, and she took them to her place, which was about ten miles away. You and Harrison saw the van behind the gas station at two o’clock in the morning. That meant Silas had to return to the gas station to dispose of the body, take the van to the airport, and then take a cab to the motel.”

  “Which he did!” Catherine practically jumped out of her seat. “I saw him driving Dylan’s van out of the gas station, heading in the direction of the airport! Don’t you remember me telling you that last week? It was a hour after the bar closed. I got up to go to the bathroom—”

  “Yes, Catherine, I do remember you telling us that,” Cameron said. “And even though the motel and bar are no longer there, maps and records do exist. For Silas to have pulled out of the gas station to he
ad toward the airport, he would have had to have turned left, which would have had him driving right in front of the motel where you and Harrison were staying.”

  “And it was when he drove in front of the motel that I saw him in the driver’s seat—driving Dylan’s van.” Catherine sniffed and blew her nose. “Poor Dylan was most likely dead in the back. If I had only known.”

  “The problem with your version of that event,” Cameron said, “is that the motel would have been on the right-hand side of the road as Silas drove past. He would have been sitting in the seat on the side of the van that was opposite of where your room was. It was three o’clock at night. Dark. Yet, you claim you looked out your window, across a parking lot, through the front passenger compartment, and clearly saw Silas in the driver’s seat on the other side.”

  “It’s the truth,” Catherine said in a low voice.

  Cameron sat against the floor of the open back of the van. “This is what happened. Dylan was having dinner with Wendy and Silas. They ordered dessert. Dylan wanted to get Silas alone so that he could tell him to get lost. Sensing why Dylan had invited him to go gas up the van with him, Silas refused to go. Dylan was stuck. He had said that he was going to get gas, so then he had to go. So he went outside, at which point he encountered his killer. They argued, and in a fit of rage”—she picked up the tire iron encased in the evidence bag—“the killer picked up this tire iron. It was lying loose in the back of the van anyway because on the way to the concert, they had gotten a flat tire—”

  “Suellen remembered that,” Malcolm said.

  “And the killer struck Dylan with it, knocking him out. We found Dylan’s blood, skin, and hair on this.”

  “Did you find the killer’s fingerprints?” Catherine asked.

  “Unfortunately, there we weren’t that lucky.” Cameron set down the tire iron and picked up the evidence bag that contained the bag from the dry cleaner. “At that point, the killer was filled with white-hot rage. Dylan wasn’t quite dead, but he was unconscious. So the killer finished the job by wrapping the bag around his head and suffocating him. That’s why Dylan’s face print, blood, and DNA are all over it.”