Bright Midnight

by Chris Formant

  …the movie Easy Rider contemplated the anguish of this generation, and to many it seemed that Joplin’s death signaled the flaming-out of a meteoric era…the frame around the Age of Aquarius and its utopian vision...not unlike the Renaissance in Italy when genius seemingly sprang up from primitive origins, later to astonish historians with its complexities.

  Gantry got up to walk around. He knew the article by heart having read it hundreds of times. He wanted to put it down but couldn’t stop…it was almost religious-like for him…as if reading and rereading it was a way of keeping her irrepressible spirit alive.

  Her bold style drew growing attention in San Francisco...Big Brother and the Holding Company asked her to front them...electrifying performance at the Monterey Pop Festival...“most powerful singer in the rock and roll,” Time Magazine... Vogue called her “staggering.”

  ...“Piece of My Heart” forever became a quintessential standard for female blues and rock singers.

  …Janice left $1,500 in her will to pay for a party in the event of her death.

  Always up for a good time, he said to himself before finally putting the article down.

  Gantry told himself not to stay up too late Sunday night. He needed to recharge.

  But he couldn’t sleep. He was running on adrenaline.

  Gantry woke up instantly alert. He’d set his alarm for 5:00 a.m. On his way to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, he caught a glimpse of a FedEx envelope that had been slipped under his door.

  “Jesus fuckin Christ! What now. I never get deliveries here,” he said out loud.

  Gantry bent down to grab the envelope, already knowing what it was.

  “Shit…shit…” he said, unnerved that it was delivered to his home address.

  “Of course no fucking sender.” He flipped over the delivery slip.

  He pulled the small tab that unzipped the top and looked inside. There was a piece of white copy paper. Not yet thinking clearly, he pulled it out with his bare hand and read, to his astonishment: Peter Ham did not commit suicide. He was murdered.

  Gantry dropped both the FedEx envelope and note on the floor, “Goddamn it…forgot the gloves…fuck.”

  His hands started to tremble and he began to breathe heavily, as he realized that the guy knew where he lived. The more than passing thought he had the other day, however brief, now came back to him like a sledgehammer…a stalker, a killer.

  He jumped to his pc and quickly looked up the tracking number on the FedEx website. His face scrunched as he read. The package was sent from his address.

  Gantry was angry and alarmed, but also wired. Whoever knew his address might be following him and keeping an eye on him from a distance. He’d now be constantly looking over his shoulder.

  He quickly dialed up Melendez, but got his voicemail. “Raphael, I got a Fedex package with another message. This one is about the death of Peter Ham. Leaving now,” a breathless Gantry quickly explained.

  On instinct he walked into his bedroom and pulled the hidden key from beneath his end table and slid it into the heavy lock on his footlocker. Under a pile of papers was a black alloy Smith and Wesson .44 magnum with six high-pressure hollow points in the cylinder.

  “OK, motherfucker.” He picked it up, feeling the satisfying heft of it, and aiming it at the far wall before placing the pistol down.

  Gantry was a strong man, even though he was sixty-five years old. He usually felt he could handle just about anything. But this was different. This was surreal, like an evil ghost you can’t see. “Hell, the guy could have walked right up to my front door,” he thought as he put the key in the ignition and started the rental car.

  The message and clue had really shaken Gantry; he was now reluctant to handle the envelope, and just wanted to get some distance from his apartment. He promised himself he’d wait until he got to Quantico to handle it any further.

  He first swung by the Rolling Stone office, where he had arranged to meet early with the chief of security and pick up the digital surveillance file. He then went up to Alex’s office to retrieve the McKernan envelope.

  “Alex, I got a Fedex with another message. This time about Peter Ham’s death,” he said as he walked in.

  “Jesus, you’re fucking kidding me. What did it say? What’s in it?”

  “Don’t know. I’m taking it to Melendez. He needs to dust it for prints.”

  “OK, let me know as soon as you find out.”

  The drive was tedious and took longer than before. A major accident had slowed everything down and the state police were motioning all cars into one lane on I-95. He decided to pull over and sit on the shoulder for a while. Once he’d turned off the engine, Gantry took a deep breath. It was still at least two more hours to Quantico.

  Strange that he had not heard back from Melendez. He called again getting his voicemail for a second time. Not like him, he thought to himself. He would want me to look at the contents, He reasoned, trying to give himself permission.

  Carefully re-opening the zip of the FedEx envelope using a tissue this time, he now saw a small piece of paper and a matchbook, along with the note he’d already seen.

  Delicately pulling the paper out, Gantry recognized, to his surprise, a prescription slip. It read, “Sixty tablets, Antabuse. Take one every morning with food.” There was a doctor’s name and a phone number and address for the St. Albans Pharmacy in London. It was made out to Peter Ham.

  Gantry knew about Antabuse, a drug that makes a person violently ill if they drink any alcohol while taking it. Rehabs used to use it all the time. One swallow of alcohol on top of Antabuse, and the drinker would vomit, experience excruciating cramps, and generally just want to die.

  He laid that on his leg and took out the matchbook. Some matches with a club name on them, a logo script that read Thingamajig Club. No address.

  The timing was impeccable. Not only did the killer know where he lived, he knew he was going to Quantico today! That’s why it was sent to his home by FedEx instead of dropped at the office like the others. This guy wanted to make sure Gantry had this last clue before that meeting with the FBI.

  Does that mean the son of a bitch is listening to my phone calls as well? he thought.

  Gantry was nervous. Why this one? How is this tied to the others? What the fuck is this guy doing?

  Before he started the car, he thought that he should have Ham’s obituary in the Myth of 27 file. It was much different than the others, more like Jones’s. The other three had supposedly died of overdoses or by suicide, but Jones and Ham were different. Jones drowned, or at least that’s what the police in London said, and the papers reported that Ham had hung himself. He’d retrieve that obit.

  As Gantry pulled back onto I -95, he recalled something obscure about Ham. His band, Badfinger, had been the first band produced by Apple Records, the Beatles’ label. Also some kind of controversy…

  At the next rest stop he decided to make two important calls, the first to Alex, the other call would be more important. Digging into his files, he found the obituary and quickly skimmed it. It confirmed his recollection about the Apple connection and how he died:

  Peter Ham, founder of the group Badfinger, died on April 27, 1975. He was 27 years old.

  Ham was an accomplished songwriter and gifted guitarist, best known for Badfinger’s huge hits, ‘No Matter What,’ ‘Day after Day’ and ‘Baby Blue.’ But his most celebrated songwriting success was ‘Without You,’ which became a number one hit for Harry Nilsson

  Badfinger’s first hit song, ‘Come and Get It’ was penned and produced by Paul McCartney after John Lennon rejected it for the Beatles. When Apple dissolved Badfinger moved to Warner Bros. Records.

  Badfinger’s bouncy pop sound, left Ham little opportunity to display his guitar virtuosity. Many felt that he was being held back by his producers and management. Even his searing public cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ was ridiculed as a fake.

  Frustrated by his professional limits and desp
ondent over the apparent mismanagement of the band’s financial and legal affairs, he was found hanged in the garage of his Surrey home, an apparent suicide.

  Gantry pulled up to the security gate at 11:45. He felt far more confident than he previously had been, armed as he was, with two security surveillance video files, the latest clues, and his freeway phone call. But overriding all that, he now he had a heightened sense of urgency and a very real personal exposure. He felt threatened. Personally threatened.

  After passing through security, he parked and went directly to Melendez’s office. Opening the outer door, he noticed that on the wall where the government portraits had hung, there was a new picture. A blow up of The Beatles’ “White Album,” their ninth, and one that John Lennon had been extremely proud of.

  Gantry immediately knew the significance it must have had for Melendez. It was a time of turmoil for the band, a time when Ringo Starr had quit the group temporarily, after hearing that Paul McCartney had played the drums on two tracks. It initially received poor reviews, but eventually went platinum.

  Before Gantry could knock to announce himself, Melendez came out, his big hand extended immediately.

  “Like it?” he said to Gantry, seeing him eyeing the poster, “We are the avant-garde branch of the Bureau, you know,” he said laughingly, but abruptly stopping as he saw the serious expression on Gantry’s face.

  “Why didn’t you return my calls? I called you twice,” a perturbed Gantry asked.

  “I’m so sorry. I apologize. I had a little scare last night. But it turned out to be just a little acid reflux and indigestion. Back now good as new,” Melendez said, downplaying the situation, not wanting to draw any attention to his deteriorating heart condition. “Do you have the surveillance files?”

  “Yes. But I got another package. A FedEx package delivered to my home.”

  Melendez shot up straight, “Your home?”

  “Yes, the son of a bitch knows where I live!” he said angrily.

  Gantry fumed, then reached into his bag and pulled out the two surveillance video files, along with the two new clues. Both of the manila envelopes inside the folders were in a plastic Ziploc bag. Gantry then laid out all the objects and notes in front of Melendez.

  Raphael looked up.

  “At your apartment?” Melendez asked again.

  “Yep. After you read these, I have more to tell you.”

  Gantry pulled out twenty dog-eared and slightly moldy manila files and dropped them on Raphael’s desk.

  “What are those?”

  “My Dead Artist files going all the way back to 1969. Everything I read in the papers, wrote myself, or acquired otherwise is in there.”

  Melendez took a pair of latex gloves from a box in his desk, unzipped the bag, and noted Gantry’s name and address on the front.

  “This was the item that was delivered to your home?”

  “Yes, and that’s one of the things I want to talk to you about. This son of a bitch now knows where I live, and on top of that, he must be listening to my calls, because he had to have known I was coming here. You’ll note that the Saturday overnight option is checked on the bill of lading. Why the urgency? He had to have listened to our conversation the night before.”

  Raphael rocked back in his chair. “This is starting to get interesting,” he murmured, trying to calm Gantry down.

  “Interesting…interesting? Hell, yes. But I don’t like it that I’m one of the things that’s interesting.”

  “Okay.” Melendez said in a more assuring tone.

  “Oh, thanks…that makes me feel much better,” Gantry responded sarcastically.

  “Let me read this latest for a second,” Raphael said. He pushed a button on his phone for the intercom. “Hank, can you come to my office? I have a couple of surveillance files from that case I told you about. Need you to analyze them. I have Gantry Elliot here in my office. And keep this between us.”

  Melendez began to skim the files, then he pulled out the FedEx on Peter Ham. He glanced at the prescription, which was for sixty tablets of Antabuse.

  “Do you know what Antabuse is?” Melendez said.

  “Yeah. I saw that, too, but it didn’t send off any signals.”

  “Well, according to your note here, Peter Ham hanged himself.”

  “What’s that got to do with Antabuse?” Gantry surmised.

  “According to the articles in your file and the police report, his stomach was full of alcohol. Doesn’t figure that he’d be taking Antabuse and still have a stomach full of alcohol.”

  “You’re right. Doesn’t make sense. But here’s something else. When I opened that and I saw Iveys and the Thingamajig Club, I remembered that Iveys was Ham’s original name for the band Badfinger.”

  “Go on,” Melendez asked.

  “Well, that was before he hooked up with Apple Records. So that means this may be a club date right before they changed their name and became famous. On the way here I made a couple of calls. The first one was to Alex. I described the package, the prescription, and the reference to the Iveys. That’s when he validated the Apple Records thing. I told him to Google it.

  “He found an incredible version of ‘Purple Haze’, but it wasn’t Hendrix playing, it was Peter Ham.”

  “Okay, so what was the connection to Hendrix?”

  “Neither of us knew, but I knew someone who did,” Gantry admitted.

  “Who?”

  “Macca.”

  “Who?”

  “Sir Paul McCartney, to most people,” Gantry replied in a half bragging voice.

  “So...what happened?”

  “That was my second call.”

  “You have Paul McCartney’s phone number?”

  “Yep.”

  Melendez couldn’t help but smile. He pushed his chair back and said, “So what did he tell you?”

  “It was funny because Paul is so laid back. He answered the phone, ‘Hello, Paul here.’”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  “Well, I just said, ‘Hey, Paul, this is Gantry Elliot at Rolling Stone, and I need your help with something.’”

  “‘Certainly, anything for you, Gantry. Shoot,’ or words to that effect.”

  “Jesus.” Melendez said, clearly impressed.

  “I asked him if he’d known Peter Ham pretty well, and he had. McCartney produced some songs for him and the group, and even wrote one of their biggest hits, ‘Come and Get It.’ He went on a bit, saying how the business had really killed the poor guy, metaphorically speaking. He said he’d even suggested the name ‘Badfinger’ to make them sound more hip.

  “When I asked him if he remembered Peter playing at the Thingamajig Club in Reading in 1968, he recalled the night as if it were yesterday.

  “McCartney talked about how Hendrix’s label, and his management were furious that Peter had covered ‘Purple Haze’ and played it so well. They’d invested a ton to promote Jimi as the best rock guitarist in the world, and now this no-name kid was creating an underground buzz. Paul noted that Hendrix, in fact was flattered; but the gig created a mini shit storm as disinformation and FUD rained down on Peter Ham. The industry was ruthless back then.”

  “So, the upshot?” Raphael asked.

  “I don’t know, I’m just saying. It’s clearly another piece of the puzzle that someone desperately wanted me to have. I don’t know how you guys here at the Bureau do it, but when I’m doing investigative reporting, half the time I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I just gather up facts and if I see connections or clues, I try to group them together. Later, when I sit down with my notes, I rearrange them and, eventually, a pattern begins to form. It almost always works out.”

  By now Melendez was getting the sense that he and Gantry would make a good team, but it was still too early to form that partnership. Mayflower, his boss, would go nuts if that happened. But Melendez also knew that, if this was for real, he had no one on staff with Gantry Elliot’s incredible archival memory and personal knowledge
of the rock stars and the Myth of 27.

  I may have no choice but to use him, Melendez thought as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head.

  To Gantry, that was a tell. Body gestures tell a reporter everything, whether someone is lying, relaxed, tense, thinking, or whatever. Raphael was thinking.

  Then pointing to the overstuffed files, said, “Anything else in your magic bag?”

  “Like I said, that’s everything I have, more than forty years of stuff.”

  “Can you be more specific? What kind of stuff?”

  “Here’s one example that fits nicely with the other connections. We have here Brian Jones, Al Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Ron McKernan, Peter Ham, and Janis Joplin. All the clues tie those six together somehow. Those are the ‘who’s.’ I already left you the other four obituaries. This one is a retrospective article on Morrison,” Gantry said. He handed the newspaper article to Melendez.

  He slowly stood up and walked around the office reading out loud, parts of the article. “Nice title…Jim Morrison: Still Controversial Forty Years On,” Melendez said nodding his head.

  ...From 1967 to 1970 the lead singer and chief lyricist for the Doors ruled the rock world as a rock & roll Alexander the Great, even styling his hair in imitation. A lifelong student of philosophy and the classics, Morrison brought a depth and imagery to the Doors songs that make them sound avant-garde even today.

  “Gantry, did you know he had a genius IQ?...No wonder the songs have been enduring works of art,” Melendez mused.

  ... closed casket and immediate burial. The lack of autopsy, conflicting accounts of how and where he died, all continue to spark controversy and contribute to Morrison’s overall mystique.

  “Pretty bad police work,” he mumbled, as he was internalizing the mishandling.

  In the beginning there was no controversy, no spin control, no management issues, no excess, just pure poetry, much of it influenced by William Blake and French writers Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Arthur Rimbaud.’ Morrison was a literary. A true renaissance man.