The next day, I had to lead a tour at the chapel. Believe it or not, I usually don’t mind that assignment. The chapel at Garden View is one of the few buildings in the country completely designed and built by Tiffany. Yeah, that lamp and window guy, and how he’s more important than the guy with the jewelry store, I can’t say, but a lot of people are impressed when they hear his name.

I like the chapel. In the summer, it’s shady and cool. Any time of the year when the sun is shining, the place is awash in the colors of the huge stained glass window that dominates one wall.

Unfortunately, this was not one of those days. Heavy clouds hung just above the treetops. They were the exact color of the steel gray pants I’d paired with a white cashmere sweater that was gorgeous (and looked great on me), but wasn’t nearly warm enough to keep out the chill. While I waited for the senior citizens to totter off the bus, the damp air seeped through me, chilling me to the bone. I was inside on the heels of the last little old lady.

The chapel is small but impressive, and when folks are in there, they’re usually so blown away by the mosaics on the walls, the inlay floor, and that spectacular window, they just walk around with their mouths open. That means they don’t ask a lot of questions, and for a tour guide, that’s always a big plus.

Especially when the tour guide has more important things to deal with.

I’m not a total idiot; I knew I had to satisfy them before I got down to my own business. I gave a quick spiel about the building, its design, and its highlights, and waited until the thirty-four members of the Bay Village Senior League were at the openmouthed stage. That’s when I ducked into the back of the chapel where Damon was waiting for me.

“It’s a job for the police,” I said. Since I’d already told him the same thing earlier in the day and back at my office, he knew what I was talking about. My comment shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

So he shouldn’t have rolled his eyes. “And the police are going to believe you when you say you have a tape recording of a ghost who’s telling you the guys in the band are in danger?”

This was farther than we’d gotten in our conversation back at the office because just as we’d started, Ella had come in to talk about the day’s tours and the Christmas events she was planning. I hadn’t had time to prove to Damon that I’d already thought through all of this. Now with the opportunity, I raised my chin, pulled back my shoulders, and gave him an I’m-on-top-it look. “I’ll play the recording for them.”

“They’ll think it’s a hoax.”

He had a point.

I muttered, but I didn’t have time to respond. At least not until I took care of the granny who was giving me one of those embarrassed half waves from across the chapel. I knew what it meant; she needed to find a ladies’ room. After I got her headed in the right direction, I got back to worrying about what I was going to do about the message from Vinnie.

I was already chewing my lower lip when I realized I was biting off a fresh coat of Frosty Caramel Apple. “Okay, so I can’t tell the police,” I said. I made sure I kept my voice down after I’d zipped back to where Damon waited. “But it’s not my job to handle this, either. I’m supposed to be helping you get to the Other Side. I’m not supposed to be solving crimes that haven’t even been committed yet.”

“That’s the whole point!” Of course, the weather didn’t matter to Damon, but just looking at him in jeans and that LBJ T-shirt made me shudder. “You’ve got to help the guys, Pepper. You’re the only one who can.”

I hated being responsible. For anything. I sighed my surrender. “I suppose I could warn them.”

“That’s not good enough. You have to protect them.”

As I may have mentioned, Damon was a pretty laid-back guy. I’d never seen him angry or agitated. Until then. His cheeks dusky and his eyes on fire, he stalked to the far end of the chapel, right through a group of gawking geezers who immediately shivered and commented about the dip in the temperature. He got as far as the window, and I expected him to turn back. Instead he went right through it. A second later, he popped back up at my side.

Gift or no Gift, I’ll never get used to the comings and goings of ghosts. I just about jumped out of my skin.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Damon said.

I crossed my arms over my chest. The stance helped contain my heart (which was about to pound its way past my ribs), plus, when I stepped back with my weight against one foot, I looked a little more intimidating. “Tell me.”

He hesitated. “The guys and me…well, you can’t possibly understand.” I could just about see Damon’s anger dissolve. The look in his eyes had been riveting and fiery; now it wasn’t focused on anything. Not on me or on the old people just a few feet away. He was seeing the past, I knew it as sure as I knew my own name, and his voice was soft and slow, like a man’s in a dream.

“When a band comes together and everybody meshes and clicks, it’s magical! That’s what happened with Mind at Large. We all had the same artistic vision and the same drive and the same goals—kick-ass music and rock stardom.” The tiny smile that touched the corners of Damon’s mouth was nothing short of rapturous. “We set the world on fire. It was everything I ever dreamed of, and it blew my mind! But then…” Damon blinked back to reality.

“It isn’t the money, you know. Sure, that’s what people say. It’s easy, and it explains everything. One day you don’t have a dime and the next, you’re rolling hundred-dollar bills and using them to light your joints. But hey, I got used to that quick enough. It was the drugs that messed with our minds. And the women…well…I already told you that part. I was a greedy son of a bitch. I wanted every single one of them. Between that and acting like an asshole because I figured I was a star and I had every right…” His shoulders rose and fell. “After a while, me and the guys, we were at each other’s throats all the time. I couldn’t take it. And I refused to admit any of it was my fault. I’d had enough. It was messing with my mind and my songs and it was getting me down. I knew what I had to do. I decided to leave the band. I was heading out on my own for a solo career.”

In all the reading I’d done about Mind at Large and with all the people I’d talked to, no one had ever mentioned that Damon quit.

And no wonder.

It took me only a second to see the light.

“You told them, right? The band members. You told them you were quitting the night you died.”

He nodded. “Everybody was there. Except Gene, of course.”

I remembered what the agent had told me back at the Rock Hall. “He was in Pittsburgh. Did he know?”

Damon nodded. “I told him before he left. I figured I owed it to Gene. He’d been with us from the start. I didn’t want him to read it in the papers. The way it was, I didn’t have to worry, huh? I guess the news never made any of the papers.”

And no wonder. “None of the books I’ve read about the group mentions you were leaving,” I told Damon. “And none of the Web sites devoted to the group say anything about it, either. That’s because you died that night. And if the band talked about you leaving right before you died…well, that drug overdose of yours sure was going to look suspicious. Nobody wanted any fingers pointed at them.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Damon was thoughtful. “See, without me, Mind at Large was nothing. I know it sounds bigheaded, but it’s the absolute truth. I knew it, and they knew it. Once I told them I was leaving, they knew their careers were sunk. Except—”

I put two and two together. For once, it actually equaled four.

“Except that once you were dead, it didn’t matter that you weren’t with the band anymore. Your death made the band a legend. And once Vinnie figured out how to channel you, the songs he stole put it back at the top of the charts. Damon, that means every one of the Mind at Large members had a motive to kill you.”

“It does, but don’t you get it?” Damon’s enthusiasm for my theory did not equal my own. “Vinnie Pal and Al and Mighty Mike and Pete, they had every right to be angry. We were brothers. We were compadres. And I made the mistake of actually believing what people said about me. They said I was the sexy, bad-boy genius of rock, and, son of a bitch, but I was going to do everything I could to prove it was true! I stole the guys’ chicks. I hogged the spotlight. It was my face as big as life on the cover of our albums, and most times, people referred to us as Damon Curtis’s band. Then I got pissed, and I was all set to pull the rug out from under all their lives.”

Damon looked me in the eye. “You’re right, Pepper. Any one of them could have killed me, but I know these guys, and I know not one of them has the heart. Now, if what Vinnie says is true, they’re all in danger. We can’t let that happen, don’t you see? It’s taken me nearly forty years to figure it out, but I finally have. I owe them.”

 

There are a lot of pluses to being a private detective, and someday when I think of what they are, I’ll be sure to write them down.

Most days, my Gift and the job responsibilities that result from it are pretty much a big ol’ pain in the ass.

The day Damon and I talked in the chapel was a perfect example. After hearing what he had to say about the band, how he felt responsible for their safety, and how I was the only one who could possibly help, I knew what I had to do. And I knew it was going to be a big ol’ pain in the ass.

All the same, I slipped out of the office and into full investigation mode.

It would have been a whole lot more tolerable if the weather wasn’t so cold and drippy. I sat in the car, huddled in my raincoat with the heat running full blast, and flicked the windshield wipers to their slow cycle. Every twenty seconds or so, they stroked the layer of mist off my window and I had a clear view of Damon’s grave.

Swipe.

There was nothing to see out there but gray and gloom and the fog that collected in pockets along the hillside. I blew on my hands and waited, feeling more isolated by the moment as the rain coated the windows and I lost touch with the outside world.

Swipe.

Like I said, there were pluses to being a detective. This was one of them, the reassurance that my instincts were right on. Because this time when the window cleared, I saw Crazy Belinda walking toward Damon’s grave.

I was tempted to hop right out of the car to intercept her, but I bided my time, eager to see what she was going to do. A coffee cup clutched in one hand, Belinda paused in front of the marker with Damon’s name on it, and I could see that she was talking to someone. Not to Damon. At least not so that he’d hear. I hadn’t seen him around since I left the chapel earlier that day.

When she was done, Belinda reached into the shopping bag she was carrying and pulled out a rag. She wiped down the headstone, removed each of the objects on the flat stone behind the marker, cleaned them, and set them back in place. The rain wasn’t driving, but it was steady enough. She didn’t even try to relight the candles in their colored-glass cups. Instead she took a wilted bouquet of flowers away and replaced it with a bunch of orange and gold mums that she’d brought along with her.

She was done, and it was time for me to spring into action. It was my job to make sure Belinda didn’t get away before I had a chance to talk to her.

Gritting my teeth against the raw weather, I hopped out of the car.

“Hey! Imagine running into you here!” When Belinda turned at the sound of my voice, I waved. She was wearing a blue plastic rain slicker, and though it had a hood, she hadn’t pulled it up. Her hair hung around her shoulders, dripping. Belinda’s toes stuck out of the worn sandals that were brushed by her long, tie-dyed skirt. Her eyes were glassy, and when she looked at me, I could tell she wasn’t sure who I was.

I didn’t want to spook her, so I closed in slowly. “We met at the Rock Hall, remember? I was talking to Gene Terry, the manager of Mind at Large. You know him, don’t you? You know the guys in the band, too.”

As if a fairy godmother had flitted by and done the bibbidi-bobbidi-boo routine, Belinda was transformed. Her face lit. Her eyes twinkled. “I’m with the band!” she said. “Don’t need a backstage pass. I’m with the band.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You’re always with the band. That’s why I knew you could help me.”

Belinda’s expectant expression melted. “Can’t help you find the angel. He promised he’d be here and he hasn’t come.” As if she was giving him another chance, she looked up at the leaden sky, and when the angel of death didn’t appear (thank goodness!), her shoulders drooped. “Can’t find Alistair, either,” she said. “Bad, bad Alistair. He went out for the mail and he hasn’t come back.”

I was clearly fighting an uphill battle, but I remembered my promise to Damon. I told him I’d do everything I could to keep the band safe. So far, talking to Belinda was the only thing I could think of. “Alistair the drummer?” I asked her. “Or Alistair your cat?”

When Belinda shook her head, raindrops flew around her. “Went out for the mail. He hasn’t come back. And he took Damon along.” She leaned in close and put a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell anyone. He was in the living room. You know, the night he died.”

“Damon was in your living room? The night he died?” I did my best to make sense of this piece of information. “But I though he died right before a concert.”

“You’re so funny!” With one grubby finger, Belinda poked me in the ribs. I promised myself my raincoat would go to the dry cleaner’s first thing the next morning. “June 5, 1969,” she said. “That’s the night.”

I thought of everything I’d read about Mind at Large. “But that’s not the night Damon died,” I said, even though I knew this was one person I didn’t need to remind. Any fan obsessed enough to come out to Damon’s grave in the rain would surely know he hadn’t died until two years later. “And it wasn’t the night he told the band he was heading out on a solo career, either, because that was the same night he died and that wasn’t until seventy-one. So what happened in June of sixty-nine? Their first gold record?”

Belinda rolled her eyes, and the sound that escaped her wasn’t exactly a laugh. She washed it away with a sip of coffee. “Everyone knows,” she said.

Everyone, apparently, but me. “I don’t know,” I said. “Tell me.”

Belinda’s eyes were on her coffee cup, but it was clear her mind was a million miles away. Or more precisely, nearly forty years in the past. “They let me backstage,” she said, and she smiled. “They said I was cute. That’s when I met him. Damon. Damon, Damon, Damon.” Her eyes lost their focus, and still mumbling, Belinda shuffled away.

A smarter person would have just let her go. But let’s face it, there was something about her insisting that Damon had been in her apartment the night he died that was as fascinating as an auto accident. I couldn’t turn away. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from following her.

Curious to know where she was headed and what she would do when she got there, I trudged behind Belinda through the rain, up the hill, and into the old, ornate part of the cemetery, and by that time, I was breathing hard and wishing I’d been smart enough to follow her in my car. Like I thought she’d walk all the way here? I told myself it wasn’t possible but hey, like I said, there was that whole crazy thing to consider. When we got to the main gate and Belinda stopped to look both ways before she crossed the street, I was huffing and puffing, and—not incidentally since the rain started to come down harder than ever—soaked to the skin.

Did I let this stop me?

I’d like to say that in true detective fashion, I refused to give up on my investigation.

I reminded myself of that fact when Belinda paused in front of an old red brick apartment building within spitting distance of Garden View’s main gates. She was just about to go inside (and I was all set to slip in right after her) when a movement in the overgrown rhododendrons to one side of the front door caught my eye. I saw a flash of gray and a peek of a little black nose.

I may have been soaked to the bone and as chilly as a frozen margarita, but I wasn’t dumb, and I was willing to try just about anything to get Belinda to keep talking. I darted forward, stuck my hand into the bush, and came out holding a cat.

“Hey, look!” Holding up the wet critter so she could see it, I closed in on her and hoped that I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree. (I guess that’s a mixed metaphor, but since by this time it really was raining cats and dogs, I figured it counted.) “Is it Alistair? Did I find him?”

Lucky for me, it was the right feline. I knew this because Belinda tried to look stern when she said, “You bad, bad boy!” It might have worked if she wasn’t smiling at the same time.

While she made a move to unlock the door, I kept a firm hold on the cat. “Go on ahead,” I told her. “I’ll bring him up.”

Belinda didn’t argue. A couple of minutes later, we were inside her apartment.

While she clucked and cooed and grabbed Alistair out of my arms to rub him down with a tattered towel and get him something to eat, I took the opportunity to look over the place. It was, to put it charitably, pretty basic. The living room contained nothing but a worn couch and a table across from it that was filled with pictures.

Rude or not, I didn’t care. I reached for the closest gold-colored metal frame. It contained a faded color photograph of Damon. In it, he was standing with his back to the ocean where sunlight glittered like diamonds on the water. He was smiling.

Next to that photo was another one, this of Damon along with his bandmates and Gene Terry, as bald then as he was now. There was another photo of Damon to the right and another next to that one. Interspersed with the pictures was an incense holder filled with ashes and five colored glass cups. Each contained a burning candle. On the wall above the table there were a dozen more photos of Damon. They had been painstakingly hung in a perfect circle. It might not have struck me as odd that the center of the circle was empty—except for the rectangular-shaped patch of lighter colored paint there. And the empty picture hook.

When Belinda came into the room with Alistair in her arms, I was ready for her. “Something’s missing,” I said.

“Alistair was missing.” She smiled down at the cat, who had lost no time and was sleeping soundly. “I told him not to get the mail, but he didn’t listen. He isn’t allowed outside. There are dogs, you know, and dogs eat cats.”

“Then it’s a good thing we found him.” I tapped the empty spot on the wall. “But something’s missing here, too.”

Her eyebrows dipped. They needed a good plucking and an expert’s hand when it came to shaping. “Damon was here,” she said. “He left with Alistair.”

There are those who say I am not the brightest bulb in the box (well, actually, Joel was the only one who’d ever really come out and said it). I was about to prove him wrong. Believe it or not, what Belinda said actually made sense.

“You mean that Alistair disappeared the same day the picture of Damon went missing?”

She nodded. “Alistair went outside. He shouldn’t be able to reach the door handle.”

I couldn’t argue with that. So Belinda didn’t get wind of what I was looking for (and maybe panic), I strolled over to the door that led into the hallway. The wood was raw near the lock, as if it had been scraped. As if the door had been forced open.

As casually as I could, I turned back to her. “Belinda, on the day Alistair went outside and took Damon with him, was anything else missing?”

As if she didn’t understand, she narrowed her eyes.

I tried to explain without frightening her. “You know, a TV or a stereo. Maybe some jewelry or—”

Belinda’s rough laugh cut me short. “Don’t have any of those things. Don’t need them. I won’t be here long. Only until the angel spreads his wings and—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that part.” I did, and honestly, I wasn’t in the mood to hear all about it again. “So nothing else was touched? Nothing else was taken?”

“Only Alistair.” She cuddled the cat. “He’s back. He promises he’ll never do it again.”

I nodded as a way of telling her that if the cat swore he was going to be good, I wasn’t one to argue, and pointed to the empty spot on the wall. I had a feeling that by that time, Belinda had forgotten all about it.

“What was in this picture?” I asked her. “You know, the picture that disappeared the day Alistair went out for the mail? In the picture, what was Damon doing?”

This question was tougher, and considering it, Belinda sucked on her lower lip and stared at the empty spot on the wall. “It was the night he died,” she said.

At this point, I should have been frustrated but actually, I wasn’t. See, I was too busy realizing that when it came to my investigation, I was finally getting somewhere. Because I knew more now than I had a little while earlier.

Number one, I knew that Alistair the cat hadn’t really gone out for the mail. (Okay, I actually knew that before, but I was sure of it now.) What I thought was that when the door was jimmied open, the cat escaped.

As to why that door was forced open in the first place…

I looked from the scratch marks near the door lock to the empty spot on the wall.

A picture of Damon. The night he died. And call me crazy, but something told me it must have shown more than that.

Whatever was in that picture, it must have been something important. Because somebody was willing to risk breaking into Belinda’s apartment to steal it.