It’s a little too narratively convenient that her daughter was singing along with the WyldBoyZ at that moment, but it’s the truth. She was soulfully belting out, “Deep down, I’m not hurtin’! Deep down, I’m not afraid!”
At least she was on key, Luce thought. Melanie had always had amazing pitch.
She was nine years old—dead center in the band’s demographic sweet spot of preteen females—and a huge fan. A poster of the band—the one where they’re wearing space suits from the Unleashed album—hung over her bed. Luce knew the names of every member of the band, because Melanie talked about them as if they were her personal friends. Devin, “the romantic one,” was three-quarters bonobo; Tim, “the shy one,” was a large percentage of pangolin; Matt, “the funny one,” was a giant bat; and Tusk, “the smart one,” was a hybrid elephant. Last but by no means least in the heart of Luce’s daughter (and on the LVMPD person-of-interest list) was “the cute one,” Bobby O.
Next to her mirror Melanie had pinned up a Tiger Beat cover filled with Bobby O’s face. The headline read: “O Is for Ocelot! We Luv a Lot!” And indeed, Melanie adored him. Last week Luce was feeling bad she hadn’t ponied up the $38.50 a ticket for the WyldBoyZ show at the Matador. She had zero interest in watching a bunch of genetically engineered manimals sing and dance like some Chuck E. Cheese nightmare, but Melanie would have lost her mind with joy. Now Luce was grateful she’d skipped.
“Sweetie. Stop it. Sweetie!”
Melanie kept twirling and kicking, not making eye contact, as if she knew what was coming. She was wearing a bright pink top, a floofy skirt over blue jeans, and UGGs knock-offs. Though she wasn’t allowed to wear lipstick, she’d applied so much ChapStick that her lips glowed.
“Mommy’s got to go to work,” Luce said. “I need to drop you at Aunt Maria’s, okay?”
She stopped dancing. “What?”
Luce turned off the boombox. “Pack your backpack. We’ll go through the McDonald’s drive-thru on the way there.”
Melanie watched her mother’s face, gauging how much she could get from her. But Luce was already wearing her Cop Face, so the odds weren’t in Melanie’s favor.
“I want a shake,” Melanie said.
“Not for breakfast.”
“It’s noon!”
“Oh. Okay. Fine.” In fact, it was 12:15. The body had been discovered by hotel staff forty-five minutes ago. Luce would have to ask her sister to keep Melanie away from the television—the case was going to be all over the news, and her favorite WyldBoy was the prime suspect.
* * *
Banks met Luce in front of the hotel. He was a lanky white kid with an enormous head—not yet thirty but already losing the battle with male pattern baldness. He’d joined Homicide and Sex Crimes only six months ago. A little too much of a smarty-pants, but he was eager, and trainable as a border collie. Part of his training was to have coffee waiting for her when she came on shift.
Luce took the paper cup from his hands and pushed through the glass doors into frigid air. The lobby was crowded with people in animal costumes.
Banks said, “It’s a zoo in here.”
She stared at him. “No comedy before coffee. What about the security footage?”
“I told the hotel manager not to let anyone touch it. He’s a big fan of yours, by the way.”
“Jesus Christ. Okay, let’s get a CSD tech in there to lock it down.”
They took the elevator to the penthouse. A pair of patrol officers guarded the hallway, which was covered by plastic sheeting. Three more loitered in front of the door to the victim’s suite. She knew the cops’ faces, if not their names, and they knew her by reputation.
“Where’s our guy?” she asked one of them, meaning Bobby O. The ocelot-boy was in his room, being guarded (but not detained, in case any lawyer asked) by two officers. The other band members, as well as a female roadie and the victim’s wife, had been told to stay in their rooms.
“Jesus, the wife’s here, too?” Luce asked.
“Convenient,” Banks said.
“We won’t have any of them for long,” she said. “Lawyers are on the march.” Worse, the press would soon be here, and every paparazzi headhunter in Clark County. She told the patrolman to put out the order: no civilians in the stairwells or the elevator for the top two floors.
Inside the suite, half a dozen Crime Scene Detail people were picking their blue-gloved way over exposed surfaces like farmers of the microscopic. Luce wasn’t sure what they could expect to find: There’d obviously been dozens of people partying in the suite last night and the place was awash in all manner of biological material. She stepped around a tech crouched over a piece of stereo equipment that had been torn from the wall, then followed the flashing lights to the master bedroom.
Inside was Lionel Paget, head of the CSD unit, instantly recognizable by the impressive wingspan of his gray handlebar moustache. Luce never understood how Lionel’s facial hair was not a contaminant in every case in Las Vegas. Beside him, a photo tech was clicking away, capturing the corpse at all angles. It was a pretty big corpse, even with some of it gouged out.
“So.” Banks. “Somebody was angry.”
“I’d say you’re right about that,” Lionel said. He spoke in a cowboy drawl. If it was fake, he’d been faking it for the entire twenty years Luce had known him.
The furrows in Maurice Bendix’s torso were deep. The T-shirt he’d been wearing was torn to shreds. The blood had soaked into the bed and through his sweatpants.
“Did you find the weapon?” Luce asked.
“No, ma’am,” Lionel said.
“The cat guy does have claws,” Banks said.
“So does half the band.”
Luce asked for gloves, and then leaned close to the body and studied Dr. M’s face. She pulled down one eyelid, then the other. Turned on her key-ring flashlight and peered into his nostrils. Then she peeled back an inch of his shirt to view one of the wounds. It was still seeping blood.
She straightened, looked at the bedside table. There was a small plastic tray, the kind restaurants use to hold receipts. She touched a gloved finger to it. There was some kind of white residue. “Get a few shots of this tray,” she said to the woman with the camera. “Then have it bagged and tested.”
The rest of the place looked like it had been ransacked—clothing all over the floor, drawers open—but she couldn’t rule out that Bendix and his wife were slobs. The sliding glass door to the balcony was half-open, and a breeze stirred the air.
“You think robbery, too?” Luce asked Lionel.
“Cat burglar,” Banks said.
“I don’t reckon,” Lionel said. “We found jewelry and a wallet full of cash in the bathroom. But there was blood on some of the clothing on the floor and in the luggage, like they was rummaging around.”
Luce reached into Lionel’s supply duffel, grabbed a few evidence bags for herself, as well as a packet of swabs and extra gloves, and jammed it all into her pockets. Then she walked back into the lounge and headed toward the balcony and those billowing white drapes. Dark spots flecked the material. “Did anybody see the stains on this?” she asked. One of the techs said he’d get on it.
Luce stepped onto the balcony and Banks followed. The sun was bright and the wind was strong. A couple of ring-billed seagulls hung in the air just six feet from the balcony, riding the updraft. She wondered if the hotel guests fed them. In Las Vegas, even the birds made their living from the tourists. The next balcony, the one connected to the master bedroom, was a dozen feet away.
Banks leaned over the edge. “Long way down. That’s the way I would have done it. Tossed him over the side.”
“Did you see the size of him?” she asked.
“The elephant man could handle it, I bet. And the gorilla.”
“Bonobo.”
“Oh my goodness,” Banks said. “You’re a fan.”
“Melanie loves them.” About then she noticed the sliding door. A web of cracks radiated f
rom an impact point. “Something hit the door pretty hard.”
“That would explain the blood on the curtains. Do you think it’s part of this? There was a party here—somebody could have hit it then.”
“Right.” This place was going to be a mess, physical-evidence wise. “Let’s go talk to Bobby O.”
She grabbed a couple patrolmen standing inside the room, told them to go down to the lobby and start asking for people who’d been at the party. “Get names and IDs before they all fly back to fucking Indiana.”
Before either one of them could move, a woman started screaming.
* * *
By this point in Luce’s career she was a connoisseur of screams, especially of the Las Vegas variety: the ecstatic Holy-Shit I - Rolled - a - Hard - Eight!; the shocked There’s - a - Drunk - Guy - Peeing - in - the - Elevator; the pain-filled and panicked Oh - My - God - a - Lexus - Backed - over - My - Foot (only heard once, but memorable). This scream was one she recognized instantly: Entitled - White - Lady - Demanding - Badge - Numbers.
The screamer was a fiftyish redhead, body by Pilates, hair and boobs courtesy of other expensive technologies. Her miniskirt was shrink-wrapped to her, and her spangled spaghetti-string top was as understated as one of Luce’s daughter’s outfits.
“It’s my goddamn room!” the woman shouted. She saw the cops glance at Luce and immediately shifted her attack. “You! Tell these goons to get out of my way, or so help me—”
“You’re Mrs. Bendix?” Luce asked.
“Of course I am.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your husband—”
“For Christ sake, I know he’s dead. I want to see the body!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Luce said. “I can’t let you do that.”
That pissed off the widow even more. Her smeared mascara added to the sense of demented outrage. “I’m his wife. So legally, that’s my room.”
Behind her, various heads peeked out of doorways. Five sets of eyes and a grab bag of other features: a gray trunk, a black snout, dark fur, steel-colored scales. . . . There was one 100 percent human face, belonging to the female roadie Luce had been told about, though even hers was nonstandard: Dark geometric tattoos marked her from the forehead down. The corridor looked like an old-timey illustration of the Barnum & Bailey zoo train, plus hipster conductor.
“All of you!” Luce barked. “Please stay in your rooms. We’re going to come talk to you as soon as we can, but right now, you’ve got to let us do our work.”
The widow started to open her mouth and Luce silenced her with a raised hand. “What room were you in last night?”
She blinked. “Last night?”
Down the hall, the ape face suddenly ducked out of sight.
Luce gestured to one of the patrolmen. “This officer will walk you back there.” As he passed she gave him a look that couldn’t be mistaken: And make sure she fucking stays there.
Track 3: “Party Animal”
Featuring Bobby O
The blood had stiffened Bobby’s fur into bristles and the urge to lick himself clean was almost unbearable. The uniformed cops had allowed him to put on a hotel bathrobe, planted him on the couch, and told him not to move. He wondered if this included nontraditional self-care. Their uniforms and their aggression reminded Bobby of the security guards back on the barge, who’d not been shy about keeping order with electric cattle prods. Bobby often woke from nightmares with the smell of burning fur in his nose.
A dark-haired woman walked in, followed by a tall guy who seemed to be 40 percent forehead. Both of them carried coffee cups, but they hadn’t brought any for him. Not that he liked coffee, but it would have been polite. They looked around at the room. Bobby had wrecked the place pretty good last night. The coffee table was turned over, the giant TV screen was all starry, and the couch pillows were torn to shreds.
“Are you my lawyers?” Bobby asked hopefully.
“No, I’m Detective Delgado and this is Detective Banks,” the woman said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Am I under arrest?” He started to breathe hard.
“No, not at all,” Delgado said. “You’re free to leave at any time.” She glanced at the claw marks in the white leather seat opposite him and sat down anyway. “I’d like to make sure you’re all right, though. Are you cut at all? Hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Better safe than sorry.” She asked the uniformed cops to give them the room and told them to radio for paramedics. To Bobby she said, “Just as a precaution.”
“But—”
“You know, my daughter’s a huge fan of yours.”
“Really?”
“She says you’re the best dancer.”
“Well, yaaah!” Bobby grinned, then remembered his media training. “But we all work as a team. Choreo is like singing harmony—if one person’s a little off, it just doesn’t work, you know? Some of the parts are greater than the . . . whole part.”
“Truer words,” Detective Banks said.
“We’d like to help you out, Bobby,” Delgado said. “But I have to tell you, it looks pretty bad. It seems like last night’s party got a little out of control.”
“It was pretty great,” Bobby said. “I mean, except for the murder part.”
“Why don’t you tell us about it. When did you get there?”
“I was there at the start?” Then he had to explain that the actual start was backstage, with lots of people stopping by, lots of drinking, and had continued on the bus to the hotel (a short ride, but thanks to the bus’s stripper pole and a zoomie wearing a cat fursuit—kind of a tribute to Bobby, really—an awesome fifteen minutes), and then it was up to the penthouse floor.
The detectives had notebooks out, and they kept asking for names and times—who was on the bus, did they arrive at the hotel by midnight or 12:30, who came up to the room—but Bobby had never been good at keeping track of people and/or time. “I’m kind of an in-the-now person,” he explained.
“Sure,” Banks said. “You’re an artist.”
“Right!”
“Was Dr. M on the bus?” Delgado asked.
“No, he had his own car—he hates the bus. The whole time we were on tour, he never rode on it.”
“How long have you been on tour?”
“Um, seven years?”
“What?”
“I mean, mostly? Except when we were recording and rehearsing—it’s been pretty much nonstop since Dr. M took us on. He says that if you’re not the top, you’re the bottom, and he will not be fucked by Joey Fatone.”
“Who’s Joey Fatone?” Banks asked.
“NSYNC? Justin Timberlake?” The detectives looked at him blankly. Did they not know anything? “It doesn’t matter, all those guys want to fuck us. NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Boyz II Men, Menudo, Westlife—”
“Menudo’s still around?” Banks asked.
“Those guys are unstoppable! They restock every year. As soon as one of them hits puberty—whick!—they pop in a new guy. Dr. M says they raise them on a farm.”
“A Menudo farm,” Delgado said.
“I think it’s in Mexico. No offense.”
Delgado stared at him. “Let’s get back to the party.”
“I remember everything!” Bobby said.
* * *
The party really took off once the band got to the penthouse. Jay-Z was thundering on the massive sound system, zoomies were dancing and rubbing on each other, and everybody wanted to share their drugs. Dr. M sat in this huge spinning leather chair, giving rides to half-naked hot girls and hotter boys. Their abs were so defined they looked like they’d been drawn in Sharpie.
“So who’s next?” Dr. M called out. His wide face was flushed from spinning. “I need a dancer. Who’s a dancer? Wait, all of you?”
At one point Tusk stomped over and told Bobby to chill out. Bobby was ten feet in the air, perched on top of a rack of lights, which was suspended above the po
ol table by two thin cables. The rack was swaying, but Bobby kept his balance, aided by two bottles of vodka, one in each hand. People around the table were chanting, “Max-ee-mum! Max-ee-mum!”
“Bobby. Come down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Bobby hissed at him, and everybody laughed. “I am the highest!” Bobby said. “I am literally the highest.”
“Who taught him a new word?” Tusk asked. One of the fans sheepishly raised a hand.
“Kat, can you help?” Tusk asked. “Kat!”
But Kat couldn’t hear him over the music. She was standing by the wall with Tim, holding his claw. Tim, per usual at any event with more than two people, looked stressed out. One of his great fears was that a fan would pluck one of his precious scales. It was such a stupid phobia, because it had only happened twice. Okay, maybe three times, but only in China!
Only Kat could soothe him when he was like this. She looked as intimidatingly cool as always: She was wearing her standard uniform of mechanic’s coveralls and combat boots, and her facial tattoos gave her a default expression of Back the Fuck Off, which was handy for keeping the zoomies from crowding Tim. Kat did all the hard jobs, and managing Tim was one of the hardest. He puked before every performance, shook when he talked to the media, and avoided parties, especially ones where fans might get in. Why did he come to this one if he was just going to mope? He looked like he wanted to curl into a ball—literally.
Tusk lifted his arms. “Come on, buddy.”
Bobby said, “Promise me this isn’t the last time.”
“It’s not the last time.”
“We’re always going to hang out together, right?”
“The band’s breaking up,” Tusk said. “Not us.”
“The fuck it is.” Dr. M had risen from his chair. He was bedecked in band paraphernalia: WBZ sweat pants, WyldBoyZ Unleashed 2000 Tour tank-top T, Signature Tusk elephant-feet slippers, and the WBZ healing crystal amulet that Devin insisted be sold at every concert. It all looked terrible on the Doc, and it broke the unwritten Rule of Cool that band members should never wear their own merch. It was so uncool, Bobby thought, that it crossed the line back into cool. Dr. M didn’t give a fuck!
The Album of Dr. Moreau Page 2