A Stranger Lies There

by Stephen Santogrossi

  Their site was done in a gothic style, with psychedelic green lettering on a black velvet background. The first page was a group portrait, with the band members’ names listed beneath. They wore black clothing and silver jewelry, high collars and fringed leather jackets. They all looked to be in their early twenties, close in age to the murder victim, whom I’d been hoping to recognize as one of the musicians. But it was obvious, even behind the makeup and unusual hairstyles, that that wasn’t the case. Unfortunately, only first names accompanied the instruments they played, which meant it wasn’t going to be easy tracking them down. Plus, if the murder victim was merely one of their fans, there’d be little hope of finding out who he was. But I held on to the small chance that he was somehow connected to the band on a higher level. Maybe a roadie or something, anybody they would know personally.

  I scrolled down the page, where it showed the links to other pages. A band bio, live photos, tour dates, and a list of MP3 downloadable songs. After clicking on the bio, the screen filled with more of the same distinctive typeface, the first letter of each paragraph enlarged and intertwined with vines, flowers and serpents.

  They were a Brooklyn, New York, band who’d been together for three years. One CD on their own label, available through the Web site. That gave me a place to start, even if it was on the other side of the country. I wondered if it was just coincidence that it was the same city as Deirdre was from. I clicked on the concert calendar, hoping for a date and location where I could hook up with them. But the schedule was out of date. The last concert listed was over a month ago, and I saw that the page hadn’t been updated since longer than that. Not sure of what to do next, I tried to think of a way to track them down. I typed in “The Village Voice,” crossed my fingers while its homepage assembled. When it came up I went straight to the show listings and scrolled through the week’s events. There were dozens of bands at numerous small clubs and venues, but I couldn’t find Gravity Throttle anywhere. My eyes were tired and burning from looking at the monitor, but I forced myself to go on. The listings covered Friday to Thursday, which was only up through tomorrow. Exactly when a new edition would show up on the Web I couldn’t say, but I didn’t want to wait until then anyway. Unless I found something tonight, there was no way I’d get any sleep.

  I tried the advertisers’ pages, hoping they’d publicize future events farther in advance. There were pages and pages of ads. Concerts, poetry readings, album release parties and gallery showings. Some ads were large and elaborate, others smaller and more plain. I went through every single one of them, my eyes blurring with fatigue. My wrist ached with each movement of the mouse, clicking, scrolling and sliding.

  Didn’t get a hit. Gravity Throttle was nowhere to be found in New York, at least as an advertised attraction. My head was pounding, and I was just about to call it a night. Then something caught my eye. A small notice for a band called Spine, who were playing their debut show at a club called The Coven tomorrow night. What intrigued me about it was the lettering in the ad; it was similar to the style Gravity Throttle used in their bio, with the “S” in Spine enlarged and intricately decorated.

  After saving the page, I hit the “back” button a few times until I got to Gravity Throttle’s Web site. I perused the material looking for another “S” like the one in Spine, and found one starting the third paragraph of the bio: Sparked by the addition of a new singer … For comparison, I minimized the screens and put the two of them side by side.

  An exact match. Hoping the script style wasn’t particularly common, I kept the advertisement displayed, snatched up the phone on the desk, and punched in the number of The Coven. I glanced at my watch. 9:32. Which would make it 12:32 in the morning on the east coast, still early for most club-goers.

  After four rings the line engaged. I heard what sounded like a big crowd over a heavy background of music. Someone answered “Al’s Bar,” above the din.

  Momentarily taken aback, I raised my own voice and stuttered, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I was calling The Coven.”

  “Not till tomorrow night.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Only on Thursday nights. It’s Al’s Bar the rest of the week. What can I do for you?”

  “Your band tomorrow night—”

  “Spine? We been getting a lot of calls about that.” Then, like an answered prayer: “Former members of Gravity Throttle. They forgot to put that in their ad.” The music in the background ended and I heard applause.

  “How many former members?” The more, the better.

  “Three out of four, guy. Another new singer.” Pause amid clinking glasses and laughter. “Look, we’re pretty busy. Come by tomorrow night. You won’t be disappointed.” He hung up then, abruptly cutting off the crowd noise.

  “Thanks,” I said to a dead line.

  I knew without thinking about it that I’d be on the first plane to New York City. Screw the mandate from Tidwell not to leave town. It would be a short trip; either the band knew the victim or they didn’t. If they didn’t, I’d be wasting my time. But if they did know him, finding his identity might lead to Deirdre’s killer, and I’d hand the information over. A long shot, but I had to take it. And nobody needed to know about the unauthorized trip if nothing useful came up.

  As I threw some stuff into a small overnight bag, it struck me how similar my thought processes were to those of the other night, when I’d convinced myself to go out to the Blue Bird Motel, and promised that anything I stumbled across would go directly to the police. A series of decisions that had ultimately allowed Deirdre’s death.

  I tried not to think about all that as I finished packing and turned off the bedroom light. After checking my wallet for cash and credit cards, I left the house without bothering to set the alarm. There seemed nothing worth protecting now. Back at the motel, I retrieved the other overnight bag, Deirdre’s client paperwork and, finally, our wedding photo which I’d propped on the night table. It seemed horribly out of place there. Then I checked out.

  I got to Palm Springs International Airport just before eleven and hurried past the putting green outside, unused at this hour. At the terminal, all the ticket counters were closed until the next morning. The last scheduled flight had landed, and the boarding areas beyond the security checkpoints were now inaccessible behind rigid fencing. Only a few travelers remained in the terminal. Two security guards prowled the hall in tandem.

  I spent the night right there in the parking lot. In the cramped back seat of Deirdre’s car, I could feel sleep coming on quickly. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was a blue-white point of light glowing above Mount San Jacinto. I thought it was a star at first, but then recognized it as the light for the tramway’s summit station, anchored to the mountain high above the valley.

  The next morning I awoke at sunrise, stiff-necked and groggy. I bought a round-trip ticket to New York with an open-end return date. After breakfast in the cafeteria, I found a pair of phone booths and picked one. Closed the door to shut out any telltale airport noises, and took out Branson’s card.

  Tidwell answered instead. “Tidwell, homicide.”

  “It’s Tim Ryder. I was calling about the autopsy.”

  He hesitated, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. “I hate to tell you this, but it’s just like we thought. The coroner can’t rule it a homicide. Not with what we got.”

  “Which is nothing,” I finished for him. I’d expected this, and it strengthened my resolve to pursue things on my own.

  “Basically. No foreign prints we could find, not even on the syringe. Same with the spoon and the lighter and the other stuff. No evidence of a struggle in the house or on her person … sorry, I know that sounded kind of cold.”

  Next to me, a man took the other booth. “What about the cause of death?”

  “Heart stoppage due to heroin overdose.”

  “So that’s it?” I could hear the airport public address system faintly through the glass, and hoped it wouldn’t be audible
over the phone.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, but our hands are kind of tied. Branson and I don’t set the priorities around here.” I didn’t respond. “We can still talk to a few people, but beyond that, I can’t promise anything. We’ll do our best.”

  “You find anything new on the first murder?” I wanted something, anything, to point me in the right direction for Deirdre.

  “I can’t really talk about that. It’s ongoing.”

  “What about funeral arrangements? When can I have her body?”

  “The coroner still has to wrap up a few things, but tomorrow should be okay. Call me.”

  “All right.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I quietly hung up. I knew what he meant by wrap up a few things, an unfortunate way to put it, and the thought sickened me. They had to put Deirdre back together.

  I was startled by the door rattling loudly right next to me. Someone wanted to use the phone. A young guy with a questioning, irritated look on his face. Fuck him, I thought.

  “Fuck off. I’m not done yet.”

  His face reddened. Then he noticed the other phone booth free up and took it, shaking his head. I closed my eyes, rested my forehead on the phone in front of me, alone inside the glass case again. I was dying in here. The finality of Tidwell’s news was a bigger blow than I’d thought it would be. All around me, travelers went on about their business. The muffled sounds of commerce barely reached me as I stood there, visible to the outside world yet sealed off from it. I felt as if it had always been this way before Deirdre, and always would be in her absence. Then I opened the door and walked toward the departure area.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I ordered a beer with lunch, then had another. We hit a long patch of turbulence and the plane’s swaying and dipping, coupled with the alcohol, soon gave me a pounding headache. I put on the headphones and dropped into a restless nap. I kept seeing myself standing in our bedroom doorway the other night, wanting to get into bed with Deirdre. But I couldn’t get past the threshold no matter how hard I tried. A voice was echoing in my head, and when I woke up it was the captain announcing our landing.

  It was close to five in the evening New York time. Looking out the window, I saw clouds below us, the sun in the west lighting them from above. Through the cloud cover, Manhattan suddenly appeared, a great, gray, spiny beast. Skyscrapers packed together like bristles. I remembered the golden sunlight this morning and how it burnished the inert rock face of the San Jacintos, then took in the stainless steel monotone of the city below us. Up ahead, the Atlantic Ocean was a dull sheet of crinkled tinfoil. Ships belching blue smoke were visible on the horizon, where it met the fading gun-metal sky. The Statue of Liberty was lost at sea, her upthrust torch extinguished by the gathering clouds.

  I looked away and spoke to the passenger next to me, a woman in a gray pinstriped business suit. “Excuse me. Uhh … do you live in New York?”

  The plane took a sudden dip, and we both tensed.

  “It’s just that I’ve never been here before,” I continued after we smoothed out.

  “You need help with something?” she asked, closing her laptop.

  “You know how much cab fare into the city will cost me?”

  “Manhattan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thirty bucks, flat fee. But why would you want to do that? The subway’s cheaper. Faster too.” And when I didn’t reply: “What part of Manhattan?”

  “Greenwich Village.”

  “A train’ll get you there.”

  “A train.”

  “Yeah.” She had a pretty face that needed little makeup, and her skin, one shade lighter than her dark brown hair, was smooth and unblemished. “Air Train first, then the subway. You can ride with me if you want.”

  “That’s very nice of you. Thank you.”

  “Just don’t let anybody sell you the Brooklyn Bridge,” she said, and laughed.

  “I won’t,” I replied sheepishly.

  “You here on business?”

  I didn’t know quite how to answer that. “Yeah.”

  The seatbelt sign came on with a soft ding. I strapped in as the landing gears rumbled into position below us.

  After landing, I picked up a map of Manhattan. We boarded the Air Train, then transferred to the subway at Howard Beach. Miraculously, we each found seats across the aisle from one another. Finally we introduced ourselves, and she told me her name was Lynn. She flashed me a quick smile as the subway moved out, but it was too noisy to really talk. A guy standing near the door holding on to a handrail was checking her out, until he noticed me looking at him.

  “Pizza-man can’t throw anybody out,” I caught from a few seats away. A young man with sunglasses over his head.

  “He’s still going to the Hall,” his companion said. “I mean, come on.…”

  The train ran more smoothly than I expected, with a rhythmic sway as it traveled through Queens and Brooklyn, each stop identified by large black signs with white letters. The stations were colored with splashy murals and graffiti, and the music of street performers could be heard from the platforms. Next to me, a lady with a baby in her arms cooed softly to him. Lynn had pulled an appointment book out of her jacket pocket and was paging through it.

  When we stopped again, I leaned forward into the aisle. “I … ahhh … I’m not sure where to get off.” The smell of food wafted into the train car along with the pungent odor of oil and hot metal and electricity.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Lynn said, putting the book back in her pocket. “You’re just two stops after mine.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate your help.”

  “No problem,” she said around someone that had just stepped in front of her. “I know it can be kind of intimidating.”

  “You lived here long?”

  “Few years,” Lynn said as we jerked into motion, and that was it for a while. A bridge took us over the river to Manhattan, then back in the tunnels again, which were punctuated by recurring strips of yellow tracklighting. Halfway there, I was startled by another train whipping by in the opposite direction.

  The seat to my right was vacated eventually, and Lynn came across the aisle to sit next to me. “What about you? Where are you from?”

  “California. Palm Springs area.”

  She nodded, smiling. “Desert playground for the rich and famous. Which one are you?”

  “Neither one, I’m afraid.” Was she old enough to remember the war that had brought my notoriety way back when? Probably just barely; she looked to be in her late thirties. I glanced down at her bare ring finger, surprised that she seemed interested in me. But she wasn’t Deirdre, and no woman ever would be.

  Feeling a sudden pang, I looked away quickly, and Lynn, picking up on the expression that must have clouded my features, quieted. Suddenly we were two strangers on a crowded train.

  In the darkness of another tunnel, I saw my face reflected in the opposite window, and the noise all around me began fading away. Deirdre had told me once about how, when she was in high school, she used to come down here and randomly pick a train, then stay on it until the end of the line. Just to try and get away from what was eating her up inside.

  “Never worked,” she said, sitting on the hood of our car out near Garnet Hill, while the Southern Pacific freight lumbered past. Deirdre had always liked traveling songs, and a taped collection was playing on the stereo. “Sometimes I’d end up near the airport, watching the planes take off, wondering how far I could get. Maybe I’d find one that would never land, just fly off and never come back.” She shook her head and smiled faintly. “Then I’d get back on the subway, thinking I’d be stuck in New York forever.”

  Lynn spoke from miles away. “My stop’s coming up. You’re going to be looking for the West Fourth Street station.”

  I nodded, still with Deirdre in that hot desert. “West Fourth. Okay.”

  She didn’t respond, just held my gaze for a moment. Took a breath like she was a
bout to speak, then swallowed it. We came to a halt and she stood with the other debarking riders, laptop under her arm and overnight bag in hand. Somebody bumped her on his way out, but she didn’t seem to notice. She pointed to a plastic subway map inside the door with colored lines all over it.

  “This is us,” she told me, putting her finger on the blue line. Just above her head, I saw strips of advertisements in English and Spanish. Got a drug problem? Get help! “West Fourth is two stops from now. Here.” She indicated a white dot further up the line, then gestured outside. “See the signs?” Hers was Chambers Street.

  “I got it. Thanks again.”

  Lynn turned back to me just before she left. “Take care, Tim,” she said, and I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say before she was gone, high heels clicking on the platform outside as the door slid shut.

  Needing some fresh air to clear my head, I got off at the next stop, one before the Village. I jostled my way off the subway carrying the bag I’d packed at home. I stopped to watch the train pull away, its taillight blinking slowly as it receded into the tunnel. Then I went up the steps into the graying evening light.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A blast of warm, supercharged air hit me when I reached street level, and the city moved all around me. Pedestrians rushed by on the sidewalks. Traffic ebbed and flowed in slow-moving packs, yellow cabs lined up like marching ants. Fleeting clouds of steam escaped from curbside subway vents. Across the way, neon signs advertised tattoos and piercings in a shop window. The din of the streets vibrated in my bones. It was the sound inside a seashell amplified a thousand times.