Heather Graham - The Dead Play On

“His dealer?” Quinn asked.

He was really pushing Tyler, Danni thought. Testing him.

Tyler thumped a hand on the table. “His killer ,” he repeated. “I heard him talking to Arnie just before he shot him up so full of poison that he died within minutes. I heard him, I’m telling you. I heard him say, ‘You’re dead, buddy. You’re dead.’”

Danni and Quinn turned to look at each other, silent for a moment.

“Are you saying the sax...talked?” Quinn asked.

Tyler closed his eyes, looking as if he was in pain. “No. I was playing the sax,” he said quietly. “But while I was playing I saw what Arnie saw, felt what he felt, heard what he heard.”

“You didn’t happen to see the killer, did you?” Danni asked.

He stared at her. “Are you mocking me?”

“I swear, I’m not,” she said softly. “But if you really believe that he was murdered, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“The police?” Tyler asked drily. “Yeah, right. I wish you could see the way you’re looking at me, and you’re open-minded enough to believe me. The police... I can just imagine the snickers. I’m not sure they’d even try to keep straight faces. You both said you read the newspaper articles about his death, so you know what they’re saying. The same crap you hear everywhere. ‘He just hadn’t adjusted. He was like so many soldiers. Strong, stoic, not about to admit to having nightmares he couldn’t handle, nightmares so bad that he’d turn to drugs to wipe them out.’ Especially not a marine like Arnie. Admit it. That’s all stuff you believed about Arnie when you read he was dead. And like everyone else, I bet you thought, ‘What a waste, what a tragedy. A man comes back from the war and takes his own life. Makes you stop and think.’ But no one stops to think, ‘Hey, whoa, maybe he didn’t kill himself.’”

Tyler was certainly passionate in defense of his position, Danni thought. Of course, he’d been Arnie’s friend. His best friend, she imagined.

“Tyler, how long have you had the sax?” Quinn asked him. “You said it’s special, but would anyone else know that?”

“Probably,” Tyler said and then shrugged. “I don’t know. He told everyone in the band back in high school it was special, that his grandma told him so. I’ve had it since about a week after he died. His mom said she had to give it to someone who would love it the way Arnie had loved it, would take care of it the way he did. She used to love to listen to him, and then she’d laugh. She told us both that Arnie got to be as good as he was because of the sax. His grandmother told him it was special, kind of...magical. But according to his mom, the magic was because he believed it. Plus he loved playing, and he practiced all the damned time. And practicing made him the musician that he was.”

Quinn nodded. “I read in the paper that the family intended to sell his sax, along with his other instruments, and donate the money to a foundation helping veterans.”

“Arnie had a bunch of saxes. They planned to sell some of them, but not this one.”

“What do Arnie’s parents think? Would they tell you if they suspected he’d made any enemies?” Quinn asked.

“Arnie’s parents think he was murdered, too. But there’s nowhere they can go with that any more than I can. They know the police would think they were crazy, too, if they tried to convince them some random killer had hunted Arnie down and killed him with an overdose of heroin.”

Quinn pushed his plate aside and leaned on the table, his attention focused entirely on Tyler.

“Were you with him the night he died? Do you know who he was hanging around with, what might have been going on in his life?” he asked.

Tyler shook his head. “I wasn’t with him the night he died. Wish I had been!” he said fervently. “I was working in the Quarter that night, too. Arnie had been sitting in with my band, getting 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.