The Dead Play On by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

back into the swing of playing. I was filling in with another group. A friend of mine was sick and needed someone to cover for him, and I figured Arnie was just getting used to my band, so I’d head over to work with the other group. My band didn’t mind. They all knew Arnie was way better than me,” he added without rancor. “Usually when we end a shift we’re all hungry, so we go out for pizza or something. But that night Arnie told them he had something to do, so he’d see them the next night. And that was it. Sometime after he left the band, someone killed him.
    “They were playing at the same place where you saw me today, Danni, La Porte Rouge. What the police didn’t investigate, I did. Who was he hanging around with? Me. Other musicians. His family. What was going on in his life? Nothing. So yeah, I promise you, the cops would laugh at me if I tried to tell them some random murderer who didn’t steal a thing from him just decided to off him by pumping him full of heroin. Believe me, I know what I sound like. Like I’m on crack myself. But I know what I saw and what I heard when I played that sax, and...”
    “And?” Danni asked.
    He looked at her with eyes as gold as his skin and said, “I knew Arnie. And like most of us who grew up around here, he was exposed to his share of drugs and alcohol. He saw what it did to people—including me. Arnie wouldn’t have touched the stuff. Hell, he’d have swallowed his gun before he stuck a needle in his arm. I know it.”
    He stopped talking and looked at the two of them questioningly.
    Danni turned to Quinn. He nodded slowly.
    “We’ll look into it,” he promised.
    Danni almost fell off her chair.
    How? she wanted to scream at Quinn. How the hell were they going to look into it? No witnesses, the body already interred, and they weren’t likely to get any help from the ME or the cops.
    Obviously, Tyler Anderson didn’t want to accept the fact his friend had committed suicide, and maybe that was all this was: a man desperate to think the best of his friend. But then there was the vision he’d claimed to have had while playing the dead man’s sax...
    It was all just too damned tragic.
    She winced, lowering her head.
    And yet, was it any less a tragedy if he’d been murdered?
    It was almost as if Tyler read her thoughts. When she looked up, he was staring at her.
    He shook his head. “The truth. The truth is what we all need. And if...if I’m right, it’s not vengeance I’m after. It’s justice. Justice for Arnie.”
    Looking back at him, she understood. She didn’t know why, but she understood. Wondering, not knowing, those were the emotional upheavals that tore people to pieces.
    “We’ll need a lot from you,” Quinn told him. “I need names—all the musicians he might have played with and anyone he might have been seeing. A one-night stand, a long-lost love—anyone. And,” he said, “I’ll have to talk to his family.”
    Tyler winced at that. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
    “And,” Danni added, “if the sax...says anything else to you, we have to know.”
    Tyler stiffened and stared at her. “The sax doesn’t
talk
,” he told her, irritated.
    She smiled. “I didn’t say it
talked
.
But if it gives you anything else, another vision, anything else at all, we need to know right away.”
    He nodded and said, “Thank you.”
    “Of course,” she said softly.
    He rose, picking up the sax case.
    “Oh, and...” He paused, looking at his plate as if surprised. Somewhere along the way he’d actually finished his food. “Thanks for the lasagna.”
    “My pleasure. I just hope we can help you,” she said.
    “One more thing,” Quinn said.
    “What’s that?” Tyler asked.
    “The sax,” Quinn said.
    “The sax?” Tyler repeated, puzzled.
    “That’s the sax that Arnie’s mom gave you, right?” Quinn asked.
    “That’s it.”
    “Leave it here,” Quinn said.
    “But...I’m a saxophonist. I make a living playing