The Day Will Come (5 page)

“The asshole drummer guy.”

That about summed it up.

“So what happened last night?” I asked.

He took off the other glove and tossed them both on the table beside me. “I stuck around while the parking lot cleared out and I finally found him arguing with some cops in front of the club. He was desperate to get inside and look for her, or see a list of people they’d talked to who had come out of the building. They weren’t having any of it, and before we knew it, there were cops and paramedics scrambling into the club. By the time we heard there was a body, Jordan was about freaking out. It was all I could do to keep him from rushing in and getting taken down by the police. When they came out…” He stopped for a minute, his face carefully controlled, and I looked away. “When they came out and said they’d found someone, Jordan knew it was her. They wouldn’t let him anywhere near the scene, but when they brought the body out they had him take a look and he… God, I can still see his face. Still as stone. Scary as hell.”

Oh, Jordan.

“But they don’t know how?”

He shook his head. “Not that they were telling.”

We stood together quietly for a moment.

“So Jordan’s still down there?” I asked.

“Yup. Refused to come back. Said he’ll bring the train back, or he’ll get some other ride.”

“You know where he is?”

“Last I saw him, he was sitting in the lobby of the police station. Said he wasn’t leaving till they told him what had happened to his fiancée.”

Chapter Five

“His
fiancée
?
”

Jermaine held out his hands. “I’m telling you, that’s what he said. When I mentioned it to Ma this morning, she about flipped.”

I could just imagine the Granger matriarch being shelled with this kind of news. “What did she do?”

“Set about trying to find out where he was and what exactly he was doing.”

“And did she find him?”

“Nope. She actually searched his house.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I know,” Jermaine said. “Anyway, she tried calling that cell he uses for work, but it’s turned off. The cops said he’s not at the station anymore, and they don’t know where he went. Ma even called Tom Copper, who said he’d call the rest of the band and get back to her if he found him.”

“So Jordan’s out there by himself.”

Jermaine let out a sigh. “I’d go to him if I knew where to go.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

I stood up, brushing dust from my rear. “You hear anything else about the bomb?”

“Just that there was a real one. Set to go off by remote.” He reached over to grab his gloves off the table.

“Yeah. I heard that on the news. And about the missing club employee. Robert Baronne? You know him?”

“Not really. He was the front office guy. Took care of the money and tickets. Contracts, too. Wait a minute. You were asking me about a Bobby last night. The same guy?”

I nodded. “Did you see him after the concert?”

He picked up his safety helmet and positioned it over his head. “Wasn’t looking for him.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” I headed toward the front door. “You’ll let me know if you hear from Jordan?”

“Sure will. Where you gonna be? Home?”

I glanced at the clock on the wall and made a face. “For the next little while I’m going to be at the bridal shop, trying on dresses.”

A short laugh escaped Jermaine’s lips.

“Don’t even start,” I said.

“Oh, I ain’t startin’. But I’d love to be a fly on
that
wall.”

“Bridal shops,” I said, “do not have flies.”

Mustering what dignity I could, I jammed my helmet on my head and fishtailed out the drive.

Lucy was waiting for me in the living room, flipping through a copy of
Redbook
.

“I’m here,” I said.

She didn’t look up. “I didn’t doubt you would be.”

Uh-huh. And my neighbor’s bull was now producing milk.

I hung my leathers and jacket in the closet. “You ready?”

“Just have to call Tess down from her room.”

“I can do that.”

“I’ll get her. You might want to take a minute to wipe off the bugs who lost their lives on your face.”

I stalked to the downstairs bathroom and swiped at my cheeks and forehead with a washcloth. The woman hadn’t even
looked
at me, and she found issue with my appearance. But then, no doubt the saleslady at the bridal shop probably would have, too, since there really were several spots of bug guts to be removed.

The three of us were soon belted into the Civic—it was Lucy’s deal, so she could use up her gas—and on our way to Harleysville.

“What color dress are you getting, Stella?” Tess asked from the back seat.

I looked at Lucy. “Well?”

She grinned. “Pink? Fuschia?”

I growled.

“We’ll just see what they have, honey,” Lucy said, looking at Tess in the rearview mirror. To me she added, “I asked them to pull everything in your size that’s modest, simple, and as unfrilly as they come.”

“Great. Can’t wait to see what they have.”

She laughed, but I really didn’t see what was funny about the situation.

“Jordan didn’t call while I was gone, did he?” I asked.

She sobered up. “No.”

When we finally made it through the light at the intersection of Routes 113 and 63 I wasn’t exactly relieved, since that meant the dress shop was only a few minutes away. I took a deep breath, focusing on the fact that I was doing this for Lucy. Lenny, too, I supposed. He’d been my friend for as long as I could remember. Not that he’d give a rip what I wore to the wedding.

“Can we get pizza afterwards?” Tess asked.

Lucy shrugged. “Sure. If Stella’s a good girl trying on dresses.”

“Can’t we just skip the dresses and go straight to the food?” I asked.

“Now, now. Don’t be a party pooper.”

“A wedding pooper!” Tess shrieked, giggling.

Lucy swung into the parking lot of Marlene’s Bridal Shoppe and shut off the car. “Ready?”

“For lunch,” I said.

“Grump.” She opened the door and got out, Tess doing the same.

I decided I’d better get my ass in gear if I wanted that pizza, so I followed them up the stone walkway to the front door that played “Here Comes the Bride” when we opened it.

The interior of the shop—oh, sorry, the
shoppe
—was everything I feared it would be. Lace, ribbons, bows, lingerie, garters, veils, elevator music, cake toppers… And those didn’t begin to compare to the vast array of gowns. Wedding gowns, mostly, which threatened to suffocate or perhaps just eat anyone daring enough to wander further into the store.

“Ms. Lapp!” A young blonde woman wearing a linen suit—
bright green
, of all things—and a widely displayed mouthful of teeth welcomed Lucy with open arms. “We’re so glad to see you again. And Tess, of course. How lovely to have you along.” She turned to me and the bionic smile lost a bit of its power. Whether it was my tattoo, my seen-better-days jeans, or the scowl on my face I wasn’t sure.

“This is Stella,” Lucy said. “Stella, this is Allison.”

“Uh, hello Stella.” Allison tentatively reached out her hand and I decided I might as well shake it.

“So what do you have for us?” Lucy asked, her eyes twinkling.

“Well…” Allison’s eyes darted from me to the back, where the dressing rooms lurked. Now that she’d seen me, she was obviously uncertain of her choices.

“Might as well show us,” Lucy said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Allison made a strangled sound, and I tried not to think of the answer to Lucy’s question.

I followed the little procession, staying as far from the racks of white gowns as I could, afraid I’d somehow manage to stain, rip, or otherwise disfigure a piece of clothing that cost more than I made in a month but would only be worn once. I stopped when the others stopped, and got my first look at my options.

Lucy studied them while I tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t be offensive. She turned to Allison with a tight smile. “Why don’t you leave us alone for a few minutes while we go through these?”

Allison’s expression reeked of relief, and I fought down a hysterical giggle. When she’d gone, I let out the breath I’d been holding. Lucy shuffled through the dozen or so dresses on the rack, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“You might as well take out those pinks,” I said. “The lavenders, the peaches, and my God, who would wear that shade of yellow? That brown is hideous—is that actually a color someone would wear for a wedding? And I look terrible in silver.”

That left about three dresses. Lucy pulled them out and hung them against the rail so we could see them.

“That dark green’s an okay color,” I said, “but good lord, that bow is bigger than my butt, and the blue one would do a great job of showing the cleavage and hips I don’t have. Besides, it’s…” I snorted. “Four hundred dollars.”

“Well,” Lucy said through her teeth. “That leaves this lovely black one.”

“Now that’s a color I could live with. But what about that funky skirt, or whatever you call the bottom part of a dress. Is it supposed to look like that?”

Lucy stared at me, her expression flat, and I realized what I’d just done.

“I’m sorry, Luce. I’m sorry. It’s your show. I’ll try on whatever you want. Except maybe the pink ones.”

She looked at me some more.

I shut up.

In the end she pulled out one of the lavenders, the gold (it
wasn’t
yellow, she explained stiffly), and the last three.

“Shoes?” she asked.

“I don’t have any.”

“I know that,” she said evenly. “What
size?
”

“Oh. Eight. Sometimes eight and a half.”

She left, and I heard her talking to Allison in the front room. Tess sat in the corner, watching me like you would an unfamiliar dog.

Lucy returned without any shoes.

“Didn’t have my size?” I asked.

She cocked her head. “Can you wear high heels?”

“Well…”

“That’s what I thought. We’ll figure that out later.” She grabbed the lavender dress off the rack and shoved me toward a stall with a curtained doorway. “Just try this on.”

I tried it on. I tried them all on. I tried on more styles that Allison brought us. Some that she’d had in storage that had gone out of fashion two years before. I even tried on one of the pink monsters. But when it came down to it, I might as well have been one of my cows trying on the dresses. They just weren’t…fitting.

“I’m sorry, Luce,” I said when I’d changed back into my clothes.

“Yeah.” She led us back through the store and paused to check out the display of white gloves near the counter.

“Hey,” I said. “Look at that.”

A poster for the concert the night before was taped to the door, showing Tom Copper in front, with the rest of the group angled out behind him, like a fan. Genna stood directly to his left, a hand on his elbow. A lump formed in my throat.

“I was going to go to that,” Allison said.

I looked at her with more interest, surprised someone working in a wedding boutique could have good musical taste. She was leaning on the counter, her elbows resting on the glass.

“You didn’t go?” I asked.

“Nope. Husband got sick. It was too short notice to find someone else, and I didn’t really want to go by myself. Guess I’m glad I didn’t get there, the way it turned out.”

“We were there,” Lucy said.

Allison stood up. “Really? With the bomb threat and everything?”

“Yeah.” I put a finger on Genna’s picture. “She’s the one who…” I glanced at Tess, who was listening all too carefully. “Who was on the news.”

Allison wrinkled her nose. “Oh, wow. That’s…that’s too bad. She was nice.”

“You
knew
her?”

“I used to go to their concerts when I was at Temple. Five, six years ago. I was kind of a groupie, actually. You know, they only did local shows, then, before they got bigger and started touring.” Her face grew nostalgic. “I used to follow them to the bars where they’d hang out. Went out with Donny a couple times, actually. The guitarist? Loved that bull tattoo on his arm. He had another one, too, of a dragon, but you wouldn’t see it unless—” She broke off, color creeping up her neck. “Anyway…”

“Which drummer was with them then?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “What? Parker. He was always…oh, that’s right. They got a new one, didn’t they? A year or so ago? I stopped hanging with them a year or two before that. I did hear they switched, though. Not sure why.”

“How come you stopped hanging out?”

“Different reasons. I graduated, moved out of the city. But Tom Copper got married, too, and that changed things. The band sort of seemed to get over the whole groupie girl thing, became a little more tight with just a few. You know. You get older. Wiser.”

She leaned back against the counter and gestured around the shop. “Life happens. People get married. Move on to different things. Better things, if you ask me. Things that last a lifetime.” She smiled at Lucy. “Right?”

Lucy smiled back. No reason to tell the girl that Lucy had already had that better thing, and it hadn’t lasted a lifetime. Brad, her first husband, had died two and a half years before. But now Lucy had Lenny, and was ready to add a new dimension to her life. And hope that this time it did last as long as one would hope.

And Lucy was still smiling. “Better things,” she said, “can still include good rock and roll.”

“Oh,” Allison said. “Absolutely.”

Maybe this chick wasn’t so bad, after all.

She looked at me, seeming a little more comfortable now we’d had this chat. “So you didn’t find anything back there?”

I shrugged. “I’m not made for this girly stuff. I’ll find something somewhere.”

She laughed and looked at Lucy, who rolled her eyes.

“Just wait till it’s your wedding,” Allison said to me. “Then you’ll see how important it is what your bridesmaid wears.”

“I’m not having a wedding,” I said.

Lucy and Tess looked at me, probably wondering if Nick was aware of this.

I smiled. “I’ll just elope.”

Chapter Six

Lucy didn’t talk much on the way home. She was probably worried about what I’d show up wearing next Saturday, and in her place, I would’ve been, too. I guess I should’ve been more concerned about her feelings, but it was hard for me to get worked up about a frou-frou dress when Jordan’s fiancée—or whatever she was—was dead.

Then again, it was Lucy’s
wedding.

“I’ll find something,” I said. “I promise.”

The way her jaw bunched wasn’t exactly a show of confidence.

“You could wear that fancy white and black leather outfit you showed me,” Tess said.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m not sure that would be…appropriate.”

Lucy snorted. “If you’re talking about the one with the short shorts and halter top that you won at the HOG Club winter party, I have to agree.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Not real wedding-like.”

Tess pouted. “But it’s pretty.”

“Well, then,” Lucy said, “we’ll let Stella wear it for
her
wedding. But oh, no, she’s not
having
a wedding.”

I glanced into the back seat, giving Tess the finger-across-the-throat cue. I hoped she got it.

When Lucy parked in the driveway, she stepped out of the car without saying another word. I took a deep breath and let it out. I truly didn’t
mean
to be a pain in the ass.

Inside the house, Lucy went upstairs, shutting the door with excessive force, and I went into the kitchen, Tess skipping along behind.

“Guess I didn’t deserve the pizza for lunch,” I said. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “You got any frozen ones?”

I did, and we pulled it out, sprucing it up with some mushrooms and sweet peppers Lucy had put in the fridge. I hoped she wasn’t planning on using them for supper, or I’d be in even deeper doo-doo.

We had just stuck it in the oven when Lucy stopped in the doorway. “I’m going out to work in the garden.”

“You don’t want lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“All right.”

But she didn’t hear me, having already left the kitchen. The outside door shut—again, quite firmly—and she marched past the window toward the vegetable plot.

While the pizza cooked Tess set the table and I checked the answering machine. Nothing from Jordan or any other Granger, and it was too soon for Nick to be home. The only messages were from Lenny, who had a question about food for Saturday, and Allison, from the bridal shop, saying she forgot to ask if we wanted to schedule another fitting time.

Somehow that message ended up getting erased.

After Tess and I inhaled all but one piece of the pizza we went out to the garden, where we found Lucy cutting some rhubarb into a bowl. Packets of seeds for zucchini and sweet corn lay on the ground, ready to be opened.

“I’m going out to work on fences,” I said.

She looked up. “I saw a nice hole over on the west side. Looks like a snow plow hit it good.”

“Yeah, I’ll get that.”

Lucy’s face had relaxed, the lines in her forehead smoother than during the ride home from Harleysville.

“Sorry about the dresses,” I said. “I really will find something nice. You don’t have to worry.”

The corners of her mouth twitched, like I’d said something funny. “I think I’ll just leave it up to you.”

“No requests?”

She did smile this time. “Like that would matter?”

I swallowed. It did matter. But I had pretty much vetoed everything we’d just looked at. “Have you tried praying about it?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Lucy’s eyes widened. “Every day.”

I managed a little laugh. The problem was, she was probably serious.

After grabbing some fence-mending tools—wire cutters, a roll of heavy wire, and a bucket for scraps—I headed out across the pasture. The spring weather had dried off the grass, making for an easy walk. In fact, it hadn’t rained in about two weeks, a strange occurrence for April. Lucy would be watering her garden every day if this kept up.

I’d mended one big hole on the north side—looked like some snowmobilers had gotten a bit aggressive—and was started on the second when two men came walking across the pasture. I straightened up, my wire cutter in my hand, until I recognized one of them. I dropped the tool into my bucket and stretched my shoulders.

“Ms. Crown,” the bigger man said, his eyes looking straight into mine.

So it was
that
kind of a visit.

“Detective Willard,” I said, hoping I was following his cue correctly.

He nodded briefly. “Ms. Lapp directed us this way after we talked with her. I hope it’s all right.”

I stared at him, marveling at his behavior. The last I’d seen Willard was over a huge pot of chili Lucy had cooked, having invited the entire Willard family over for Sunday dinner. Now he was acting like we’d never exchanged more than a howdy-do. I figured there must be a reason.

He gestured to the man beside him. A plump, smiling, gray-haired guy with a notebook. “This is Investigator Alexander from the Philadelphia police. He’s working on the incident from last night.”

Ah.

“Which incident?” I asked. “The bomb? Or Genna?”

“Both,” Alexander said cheerfully. “I’m working on both.”

I caught Willard’s eye, but his expression was unreadable.

“Do you know how Genna died?” I asked. “Was she really trampled trying to get out?”

Alexander shook his head sadly. “We have yet to receive answers. The autopsy has been put off until later today or tomorrow, because of a backlog.”

I thought back to the morning news. “The Mafia killings?”

“You are remarkably well-informed, Ms. Crown.” He smiled some more.

“Okaaaay,” I said. “Why are you here? I gave the cops a statement about the concert last night.”

“But you didn’t give
me
a statement,” Alexander said. “And I’d find that ever so much more helpful. Is there a place we could sit?”

Was this guy for real?

“Grab a fencepost,” I said. “They work great to lean on.”

“Fine, fine.” He stayed where he was and pulled a little device from his pocket. It looked like a phone.

“I like to record my interviews,” he said, holding up the thing. A Dictaphone. “Do you have any objections?”

“I guess not.”

“Wonderful. So, could you please recount your experiences last night at the concert?”

“Well, when the music cut off in the middle of the song, I grabbed my friend Lenny and followed him toward—”

“No, no,” Alexander said. “Forgive me. Could you please start at the beginning?”

“The beginning? Of the concert?”

“Of your time there. From when you arrived at Club Independence.”

“You mean starting outside?”

He showed me his incisors.

“Well, all right. It was freaking cold, and we did our best—”

“‘We’ being?”

I sighed. “Lucy Lapp, who you just met. Lenny Spruce, her fiancé. And Nick Hathaway, my boyfriend.”

He scribbled in his notebook. “Thank you. Please continue.”

“We waited outside for close on an hour before finally getting inside.”

“And while you were outside did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

I thought back. Fred, the toothless beer-guzzler, was a bit unappetizing, but hardly unusual. The group of Harleys, the staff guy telling us we couldn’t take cameras inside…

“Nope,” I said.

“Thank you. Go on.”

“We went through security, and Nick got to keep his phone even though it takes pictures.”

Alexander stopped scribbling. “And did he take any?”

I shrugged. “Don’t think so. I can ask him.”

“He’s not here?”

“He’s on his way home to Virginia.”

“You can give us his phone number?”

I recited it.

“Thank you. And you were saying?”

“I don’t know. What was I saying?”

Willard cleared his throat. “You went through security.”

“Right. Gave our tickets to the guy— Is he part of your investigation, too?”

“To whom are you referring?” Alexander asked.

“Robert Baronne. The missing Club Independence guy. He’s the one who took our tickets.”

Alexander nodded. “I would be very interested in anything you have to say about him.”

“I don’t really have anything to say. I was just asking.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“We gave Baronne our tickets— Oh, I guess I do have something to say about him. After the bomb scare, when we were at the parking lot, the owner of the club came running up to another guy—” I held up my hand before he could interrupt. “Don’t know who he was. Anyway, he was asking if the other guy had seen ‘Bobby.’ When I saw the news this morning, I figured it was the same guy.” I waited until he finished scribbling and looked up at me again.

“Anyway, after we got in the lobby—”

“We’re back to before the concert?” Alexander asked.

“Yes. Jordan took us—”

“Jordan?” Alexander said.

I gritted my teeth. Telling this guy a story was worse than pounding your finger with a hammer. Repeatedly. “Jordan Granger. He’s the band’s sound man, and a good friend of mine. He took Nick and me backstage to meet the band.”

“Not your friends Lucy and Lenny?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

He smiled. “I’m interested in
your
story.”

I snuck another look at Willard. His eyes were focused on my tool bucket.

“So Nick and I went backstage,
without
Lucy and Lenny, where we met the Tom Copper Band.”

“All of them?”

I felt a lightbulb go on above my head. Or perhaps I’d inadvertently shocked myself on the fence.

“Actually, not quite all of them. We met Tom Copper, Donny, LeRoy, and Genna. Don’t know any of those last names. Met the old drummer, too. Parker Somebody. But we didn’t meet the
new
drummer, or not exactly.”

Alexander looked at me with interest. “How can you ‘not exactly’ meet someone?”

“Jordan took us on stage for a minute on our way back out. We were in the wings, where we couldn’t be seen by the audience, and we heard the drummer say he was going to wring someone’s neck.”

Alexander and Willard both looked up at that.

“You’re sure it was him?” Willard asked.

“We heard his voice from the other side of the curtain, then he came stomping past. We didn’t see the other person. Jordan said there’s another way out.”

Alexander scribbled energetically in his notebook. “Anyone else there?”

“On the stage? Not that I know of. But we left right away.”

“And did you see anyone else close by?”

“The owner of the club passed us on our way out the backstage door. Oh, and two girls on our way in. What were their names?” I clicked my tongue, looking out over my newly planted cornfield. “A rock star.”

“One of the girls was a rock star?” Alexander asked.

“No, named for one. Marley. That’s it. And the other girl—the smaller one—was Annie. She helps Jordan with sound stuff, I guess. Anyway, then Jordan left us and we went out to find Lenny and Lucy.”

“Okay. Fantastic. Now, why don’t you tell us about the concert.”

I talked about finding Lenny and Lucy, the crowd’s wild response to the band, and Nick leaving during the first break. Then how the panic had started, how I’d almost gotten pushed over the railing, and how we’d stopped to help Norm and Cindy negotiate the stairs and get rid of their wheelchair. How I’d fought down the stairs and outside into the fresh air, where I couldn’t find my friends and got no help from the fresh-faced cop.

They liked the method I used—Loader—for finding Lenny and Lucy in the parking lot.

I described the ambulances, finding Nick, and repeated what I overheard Gary Mann say to the other guy about looking for Bobby. And how we’d found Lucy and Lenny again.

“Then Jordan found us,” I said. “Bringing Marley and Annie, and Ricky got there quick after phoning Marley. None of them had seen Genna, and they were pretty worried.”

Alexander watched my face. “You believed none of them had seen her?”

“Sure. The guys were both a bit panicked, and the girls really didn’t seem to care.”

“Hmmm.” He wrote something down. “Now Jordan Granger. You know him well?”

“Real well. Like a brother.”

“And he’s the sound man for the band? Is that his only occupation?”

“When he’s not touring with the band he’s working at his brother’s welding shop. Granger’s Welding.”

“And do you know anything about his relationships with members of the band?” Alexander asked.

“No.” I didn’t
know
anything. Everything I
thought
I knew was completely my own imagination.

“He’s never mentioned any problems he’s had? Anyone with whom he had disagreements? Tensions?”

“What? No. He’s living a dream. All he’s ever mentioned to me is how much fun he’s having.”

“He never said anything about a relationship with Genna, the female vocalist? Or her boyfriend, the drummer?”

“No. He’s never said anything— Wait a minute. What are you trying to say here?” I’d been about three steps too slow. “Jordan would never hurt anyone. Especially not Genna.”

Alexander raised his eyebrows. “No? Why ‘especially not Genna’?”

Shit.

“Because he’s a gentle guy. He’s a
nice
guy. He’s never said anything bad about
anybody
in the band. He’s never said anything
at all
about anybody in the band, except that he loves being with them.”

Alexander wrote something down. “What would you say if I told you Jordan and Genna had an argument before the concert?”

I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What were they arguing about?”

He smiled. “That’s not important. But did you know anything about it?”

“Of course not.” But I remembered the tension. How Jordan barely looked at Genna backstage, and how she left the room so quickly after Jordan introduced Nick and me.

“You’re not really looking at him as a suspect?” I asked. “Jordan wouldn’t hurt anyone, and he would definitely not set a bomb.”

Alexander remained mute. Willard wouldn’t meet my eyes.

My heart thudded in my chest, and my skin went cold at the thought of Jordan being the center of their investigation. “I at least hope you’re smart enough to be looking at other people? People like Ricky, who said he’d wring someone’s neck?”