Power Ride

by J. L. O'Rourke

  “Just as well you didn't. You might be dead too,” Keith pointed out practically.

  “I think we should eat,” broke in Sarah. “Avi, can you and Elizabeth eat chicken with salad?”

  "Yeah, absolutely,” Avi explained. “I'm not sure about Kelly, though, He's vegetarian.”

  “Oh dear! Kelly?”

  Kelly turned from the photo he had been studying.

  “Sorry, I wasn't listening. Michael, when was this taken?”

  “Three years ago. Why?”

  “Have you got any other crowd shots?”

  “Yeah, heaps.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Mike pulled a bulging album from a bookcase by the television.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Kelly didn't reply until he had four different shots lying on the coffee table in front of them.

  “Look,” He pointed to a figure with red hair, always in the same place at the foot of the stage. “By the dates on the back these photos cover five years. Same girl.” He paused, timing his revelation for dramatic effect. “Is this not the very same redhead who attacked Kester so lasciviously in the bread shop?” Kelly watched the news sink in. “She knows where you live, Kester. She came on Thursday, while you were indisposed. I turned her away.”

  Nick helped himself to Avi's coffee again.

  “Rossiter thinks it's all got to do with drugs,” he said between gulps. “Danny Gordon was chock full of steroids and Rossiter reckons Kit must have been supplying them.”

  “Steroids? Where the hell would I get those?” Kit exploded.

  “Don't shoot the messenger,” Nick placated him. “I'm just passing on what I heard from Rossiter.”

  “Why would Danny take steroids?” inquired Keith, who hadn't known him.

  “Instant muscles,” Nick supplied. “He was a competitive body builder, wasn't he?”

  “Yes,” Sarah agreed. “With an important competition just after the tour ended. Remember, Mike, he was telling me about it. It sounded as if it was very important to him to win.”

  “Instant muscles! Of course!” Jo exclaimed. “Those packets he made up for lunch. Instant-muscles-just-add-water. I used to tease him about it until he started to throw those hissy fits.”

  “A bit bolshy, was he?” Nick asked.

  “Tell us about it!” Avi answered. “I was telling Jo the other day, Danny was quite a nice bloke when we first met him. He got argumentative after he started doing all that weight training. In the last few weeks he's been positively bloody violent!”

  “Steroids'll do that. At least, so I've heard. One of my colleagues in the sports department was doing an article about a support group being organised for body builders' wives. Apparently they can get really hyped up on the things and from what I gather the stuff Danny was taking was a pretty high-powered little cocktail.”

  Kit, who had been rocking gently to himself and had not appeared to be taking any interest in the conversation, leant forwards suddenly.

  “If Danny was on drugs and drunk, like Avi said, he might have killed himself,” he suggested.

  “Nah, I doubt it,” Avi disagreed. “Too much ego.”

  “Too many stab wounds,” added Nick.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “The children are asleep,” Sarah reported thankfully. She glanced around the room, which was beginning to look like an airport transit lounge, empty coffee mugs and dirty plates strewn in all directions. Nobody had shown any inclination to leave and she had been secretly worried that they were settling in for a second night, so she was relieved when Avi took the hint, announcing that he wasn’t feeling well and needed sleep too.

  Kit’s enquiry about where he should go as he couldn’t go home was answered by Elizabeth who suggested he join her and Avi at her motel and Elizabeth readily agreed with Margaret Phillip’s suggestion that she go with them to check on Kit and organise some pain relief for Avi. In a matter of minutes Kelly had organised a taxi for himself and Jo, Nick had offered Keith a ride into the central city and Sarah was left to restore her lounge. She closed the door as the others left, leant back against it and let out a heartfelt sigh. Mike nodded in agreement.

  “Let me guess. Wishing they would all go home then feeling guilty for thinking that? Me too. I’ll give you a hand to get this mess cleaned up.”

  Outside, as Elizabeth unlocked Avi’s car, she noticed a small piece of paper tucked under the windshield. She pulled it out, read it, exclaimed with surprise then handed the paper to Avi who squinted at it through his blackened eye and bent glasses before passing it on to Kit to read out.

  “Meet me in Barbadoes St cemetery, opposite Kester’s house, asap. urgent. Cassandra.”

  “Cassandra?” Avi thought hard. “That’s the redhead fan, yeah?”

  “Yeah, should we go?”

  “It could be a trap,” Elizabeth worried.

  “Could be, but we won’t know until we go,” Avi replied.

  “All of us?”

  “No, Mum. Hey Nick! Keith!” Avi shouted to get the attention of the two men who were heading to a car further down the street. “Mum, you take Dr Phillips and Kit to the motel. I’ll take Nick and Keith to meet this girl. Safety in numbers.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay to go?” Margaret Phillips queried.

  “Yeah. Tired, sore, hurt everywhere, but this could be important. We won’t be long and Nick can drive.”

  “Why did she put the note on the car?” Kit asked. “Why didn’t she knock on the door?”

  She was easy to find. Perched on the top of a large, granite tombstone, Cassandra looked like a live version of a carved angel, her hair flowing in waves over the back of her denim jacket. As the three men approached she jumped off the tombstone, pulled her jacket tight across her bosom and tried to look demure.

  “I thought Kit should know,” she blurted out without preamble. “I saw the dude.”

  “What dude?” Nick prompted.

  “On Thursday. You all came and went so much. I saw you,” she pointed to Avi, “and the girl and the lady. And you all left and Kester looked so sick and I saw Danny and I saw the dude in the track suit. The jogger.”

  “You mean Kelly?” Avi queried, wondering where her rapid-fire speech was leading.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Short, spiky hair, carries a bass guitar.”

  “No, not him,” she turned on him scathingly. “I said the dude, not the yuppie.”

  “I’m not with you, then. What dude?”

  “Are you telling us you saw the person who killed Danny Gordon?” Nick interjected.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! It was the dude in the tracksuit. I've seen him lots of times. He drives a sports car. Parks it around by the hotel and jogs around to Kester's house. I saw him on Thursday. Come and go. Then he came back. I know where he works,” Cass held out some pieces of paper. “I took this from his office.”

  Avi stared at the paper until the blurs made sense. “Oh my God!” he breathed, before passing the paper to Keith.

  “Bloody hell!” Keith turned the pages over several times, barely believing what he was reading. “Bloody Hell!”

  “What is it?” Nick asked anxiously.

  “Dynamite,” Keith replied.

  “We need to show these to Rossiter,” Avi suggested. “I’ll call him.”

  “Wait!” Keith stopped him as he read the document again. “The bastard'll just deny it. This may give him a motive but it doesn’t prove him guilty, even with this young lady as a witness. We need more.”

  “How?”

  Oh, I think there could be a way.” He smiled maliciously. “Nick, do you have a voice recorder?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Before that, though, we need to make copies of these then, I hate to say it, we need to get these originals back where they came from before he notices. Can you do that, Cassandra?”

  Cass pulled her jacket tighter, shivering at the idea, but nodded b
ravely.

  “If I have to.”

  “To the Press building then,” Nick ordered. “Three copies of these. One for you to show Kit, one for Rossiter, who doesn’t need to know how we got them, and one for me for my exclusive feature article when they nail him.”

  Nick and Cass approached like a well-rehearsed tag-team. Nick introduced himself as a reporter and indicated that Cass was there to take photographs for the article. Cass held up Nick’s camera, smiled and said nothing. The bluff worked. They were led into the office where, while Cass randomly pointed the camera and hoped she looked like she knew what she was doing, Nick explained that he wanted a formal interview that he could quote in the paper, then asked a variety of questions before giving a polite “thank you” and standing to leave. As he walked his interviewee back down the passage to the entrance, Cass grabbed her chance, quickly opening the drawer, thrusting the papers back into the red folder and slamming the drawer shut before innocently joining Nick as he stretched out his goodbyes to give her enough time.

  “That was too scary!” Cass expelled a relieved sigh as they sank into the safety of Nick’s car.

  “High five!” Nick offered out his upraised hand.

  Rossiter was not impressed at being called back to work.

  “This had better be worth it, John,” he complained as he walked into the office. “What’s this new evidence?”

  John Matheson handed Rossiter the copied papers. Rossiter skimmed through them and whistled softly. “Where did you get these?”

  “Those two,” he indicated through a window in the wall to Avi and Keith who were sitting in an adjoining room. “The older one is Simmons’s father, he wants to talk to you.”

  “Wheel him in then.”

  The young man smiled at his reflection in the full-length mirror. He flexed his body in a variety of poses, admiring the bulging of the muscles, the lines of the veins. Now everything he wanted was at his fingertips. There was no-one, now, to stand in his way. He smiled again, satisfied.

  Mike, too, felt satisfied. The situation had remedied itself quite nicely. Messy but convenient. He felt a bit guilty about what he had planned, but not too guilty. In the end, it had been a business decision. Nothing personal. Okay, it was personal, but the solution was business. Mike liked contracts.

  “Good evening, Sir,” Keith rose from the vinyl chair and offered his business card. “Keith Barrett. I hope I haven't called at too inconvenient a time, but I am on a very tight schedule. My good friend suggested I meet with you,” he continued, quoting the name he had read on the document and using all the right business executive jargon.

  “Come this way,” his companion said. “We'll talk in my office.”

  “I'm in antiques,” Keith continued as they settled into the office chairs, broadening his American twang for the occasion. “I've got money and I'm looking to invest some in your country. They told me you had a project running. Something about real estate?”

  “Town houses,” the younger man smiled. “My partner and I will be building designer town houses. Top class section.”

  “How soon?” Keith inquired.

  The younger man smiled again, coldly.

  “I predict the property's present dwelling, an old house, should be demolished within the next three months. Construction will begin immediately after that.”

  “And this section belongs to you and your partner?” Keith smiled back.

  “It will. Very soon.”

  “My research says the property is still occupied. I assume your profit margin has taken the purchase price into account?”

  The young man laughed.

  “There is no purchase price. Look, I'll be honest. The land belongs to our family. My brother lives in the house at the moment but, between you and me, he's quite mad. My mother and I are arranging to have him committed. He won't need the house any more.”

  Keith restrained his welling anger.

  “I gather your mother is your partner in this venture?” he asked levelly.

  “Yes,” Gabriel Simmons concurred. “She's in real estate. I say, if you're in antiques, you might like to look over the place before we pull it down. You might like some of the furniture.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Keith recapped. “You and your mother have arranged to commit your brother to a mental asylum. Then you plan to sell the back of the section to the supermarket developers and build town houses on the front. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So why did you kill the guitarist?”

  Gabriel turned pale.

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” he bluffed.

  “You were seen,” Keith's teeth parted in an evil grin.

  “Rubbish! There was no-one...,” Gabriel stopped, realising what he had just said, then sighed in defeat before delivering one last defiant shot. “Even if he did see anything, Kester would have been so stoned on those drugs his testimony will be useless.”

  “It wasn't Kester.” Brian Rossiter stepped through the door. “It was someone else. A very astute, very credible witness who has given an excellent statement, listing every time she has seen you at your brother's house. Why did you kill the guitarist?”

  “So why did he kill Danny?” Jo still didn't understand.

  “It was an accident,” Keith explained over a late Sunday brunch at Elizabeth’s motel. “They wanted the land. It's worth a lot of money. His intention was merely to drive Kester crazy, so he could be committed.”

  “That would give Mum and Gabriel complete power of attorney and they could sell the place out from under me,” Kit finished between bites of toast.

  “It was Gabriel making the malicious phone calls, to break Kit's sleep pattern. Along with the hallucinogens amongst his tablets, it was scrambling Kit quite successfully.”

  “On top of that,” Kit took up the story again, ticking the items off on his fingers as he spoke, “he got into my house while I was out, or asleep, lots of times, and moved things around, so I'd think I was going crazy, which I did. He also cut back my money so I was half starved, which made the L.S.D. work even better and they fed me all that crap about being too stupid to handle my own money, which I believed because he's a doctor and I've got the self-esteem of a dead gnat.” He grinned sheepishly at Margaret Phillips who had joined them for breakfast.

  “Why go to all that trouble?” Jo asked. “He's a doctor. If he wanted you committed, couldn't he have just put you away?”

  “No,” Margaret broke in. “They needed my signature, and one of my colleagues at Sunnyside. And I've treated Kit for too long to be fooled. They needed to create some genuine psychosis symptoms. I don't mind telling you, Kit, they nearly succeeded. I was getting very worried about you.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Jo proceeded. “Danny came back on Thursday night to fix the amp. Why was Gabriel there?”

  “To slash my drums,” Kit replied. “He knew the fuss he had caused with Gary's bass guitar. He did that. He was running out of time. The supermarket wanted the land fast and once we had left on tour he wouldn't have been able to harass me. I would have come right. He had to finish me off before we left. So he thought he would really wind me up by slashing my drums. If I'd thought I had done that without knowing, I would have committed myself.” Kit took another bite of his toast before continuing. “Apparently, he didn't see Danny, who was down behind the amps. Danny heard him and watched for a while. Then, when he realised what Gabriel was doing, he leapt out to stop him and Gabriel stabbed him. He died trying to save my drums.”

  ‘Charlotte Jane’ surveyed the rehearsal room. The blood was still on the floor. Kit scuffed it with his boot.

  “I guess the tour's off,” Avi said grimly. “No guitarist, no keyboards,” He indicated his sling.

  “No keyboards!” Jo exclaimed indignantly. “Oh yeah?” She marched over to the Roland, still on its stand, turned it on, played one of Avi's more complex melodies and smiled at her cousin benignly. “You're not th
e only pianist in the family, you know.”

  “So, we still need a guitar,” Avi protested.

  “And drums,” Kit added. “These are not going to sound so good.”

  “Defeatists,” Mike mocked. “It's simple. Avi does vocals. Jo takes over Avi's keyboard and Pete'll play lead guitar.”

  “Pete?” Avi looked incredulous. “Pete Branston?”

  “The very same. He should be flying in later today. He was coming anyway. I'd already been onto him about Danny's contract and Pete thought he'd come up with a way to break it.”

  “So he was the hitman you mentioned the other day,” Jo said with relief.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did I have to keep it secret?”

  “Because I didn't want Danny to get any hint of it. We were trying to fire him, after all.”

  “So we have a band,” Jo enthused.

  “We still need drums,” Kit reminded her.

  “Take a look in there,” Mike indicated a large cardboard box stacked behind the door. “It arrived from Tama this morning, special delivery. Replacement parts.”

  He grinned as Kit fell delightedly on the box and began ripping it open.

  “So,” asked Jo excitedly. “Do we tour?”

  “Say, Kelly,” Kit looked up. “If we are going on tour, can I borrow your hot pink t-shirt?”