Zoe fell into a coughing fit, and Virgil asked, "Can you breathe?" and she patted herself on the chest and said, "I inhaled a corn."
"'Zat what it was," Virgil said. And he asked her, "Are you staying here?"
"Until the locks are on," Zoe said. "The lock guy is coming tomorrow morning."
"What're you going to do tomorrow?" Signy asked Virgil.
"Push on people," Virgil said. "I'm going to run around and push on people."
"I'd like to see that," she said; her head was tilted, and she stroked her cheek with the fingers of one hand. "I really would like to see you work."
VIRGIL CRASHED at a chain motel on Highway 169 South, the kind where they don't bother with drywall, but simply paint the concrete blocks a dusty shade of yellow; but offered double-length parking for customers pulling boats. When he checked in, the desk clerk asked him how long he'd be there, and he said, "Three or four days."
Before he went to sleep, in the time he usually thought about God, he thought about Wendy. One problem with looking at a talent in isolation, he thought, was that it was almost impossible to judge exactly how good they were.
Wendy was as good as anyone he'd heard in a small bar in Minnesota-but on the other hand, those bands were in small bars in Minnesota, and that was the problem. Put Wendy up against Emmylou Harris, and she might sound like Raleigh the Talking Bulldog.
Of course, that didn't mean so much if the people around her were convinced that they stood at the edge of a gold mine; on the one hand, you had life in Grand Rapids; in the other one, the possibility of Nashville and Hollywood and… whatever.
Then he thought about God and, after a while, went to sleep.
IN THE MORNING he put on a fresh, but vintage, Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, took five of the eight remaining free miniature Danishes in the complimentary breakfast, and two cups of coffee, and ran out to the Eagle Nest. Another good day, sun creeping up into the sky, almost no wind. He wondered if Johnson was fishing, or if he'd given it up and gone home.
That God-blessed Davenport.
The problem with Davenport, Virgil thought, was that he tended to think in very straight lines. Brutally straight. We have a murder in Grand Rapids, the victim's prominent, the BCA agent with the highest clearance rate in the agency happens to be on a lake nearby, so what do you do? Send in Flowers.
Was there anything creative in that? Was there a break for a new guy, somebody who could use the experience? Did it take into account the agent's emotional state, or need for respite?
Virgil thought not.
Just drop in that fuckin' Flowers, and forget it. Let him sink or swim.
MARGERY STANHOPE was leaning against a railing, looking out over Stone Lake, when Virgil came up beside her. "Still bummed?"
"I can't shake it," she said.
Virgil looked out over the lake and said, "Well… another month, and you can take the winter off."
She sighed and asked, "What are you up to?"
"I'd like to talk to people who are still here who knew McDill. I need some names."
"You want to talk one at a time, or all together?"
"Both," Virgil said. "I'd like to have the whole group in, and then, when we're done, I'll ask if anybody has anything they'd like to follow up with me, privately. Give them my cell number to call."
"A bunch of them went on a bear-spotting trip to Steven's Island. They'll be back for lunch. How about right after lunch?"
Virgil patted the rail. "See you then," he said.
HE CALLED ZOE. "Get your locks?"
"The guy's here now. He'll be done in an hour," she said.
"Where'd I find Wendy and Berni and the rest of them?" Virgil asked.
"Probably down at the Schoolhouse. They've rented it for the month; they're working on a record."
THE SCHOOLHOUSE was east of town, and had once been a one-room schoolhouse. A red-brick cube with a chimney at one end and a door and bell tower-no bell-at the other, it was surrounded by a gravel parking lot with a half-dozen SUVs scattered around in no particular pattern. When Virgil got out of his truck, he could see through a glass-brick wall the flailing arms of a drummer, but he could hear not a sound. He climbed the steps, went through the front doors, found himself in an entry room facing a skinny, nervous blond woman who was sitting on a desk, reading what looked like a manuscript, but turned out to be a musical score, and chewing gum in rhythm with the faintly audible bass.
Virgil said, "I'm looking for Wendy Ashbach."
The woman chewed and asked, "Who're you?"
"The cops," Virgil said.
He must've said it in a cop-like way, because she nodded and said, "Virgil. I heard about you. You were at the fight last night."
"Yeah…"
"They're laying down the basic tracks for 'Lover Do,' and they'll be greatly pissed if you mess it up."
"I don't want to mess anything up, but I need to talk to Wendy and maybe Berni and anybody else who might have something to chip in," Virgil said.
"Okay. You ever been in a recording studio?"
"Nope."
"Follow me in, and sit on the couch against the back wall," she said. "You don't have to be real quiet, but be a little quiet. They're working."
The control room was probably twenty feet long and fifteen feet deep, with a long window facing a room full of women musicians-a bass guitar, a lead, keyboards, a violinist, all wearing headphones, playing a fairly simple song. On the other side of the musicians' room was another, smaller room, also with a window, and Berni was inside, pounding on her drums.
Under the window, on Virgil's side, two men crouched over a control board that must have been fifteen feet long; the music flowed into the control room through speakers on either side and above the control board. Wendy was in the control room itself, standing behind the engineers, wearing headphones and a microphone, half singing, half humming the words to the song, and behind it all, a metronome-like click was parsing out the beat.
Nobody looked at Virgil or the blonde. They stayed with the music, and the blonde pointed Virgil at a couch against the back wall, and when he sat down, she sat down beside him.
"They're laying down the basic tracks," the blonde said quietly. "They'll record the solos later, and overdub them. When they've got that perfect, then Wendy'll come in with the real vocals and they'll overdub that. She's doing scratch vocals now, to keep everybody tuned in to her."
Virgil nodded.
The blonde asked, "Are you here about Erica McDill?"
"Yeah."
"That was a bad break. We needed somebody like her. She knew her shit."
"Who're you?"
The woman stuck out her hand and said, "Corky Saarinen. I'm the manager."
As Virgil shook it, the band clattered to a sloppy stop, and one of the engineers said, "Okay, guys, let's pick it up right at the top of the fourth verse. Sin, lead us in, and Wendy can pick it up…"
They started again, and Virgil whispered, "Why'd you need McDill?"
Saarinen leaned closer and said, "I can handle all the detail stuff-the road stuff. Making sure everything gets where it's supposed to, on time. And I can find other people to work for us, lawyers, accountants, and so on. But some of it-contacts, agents, advertising, publicity-so much counts on talent. You don't know when people are bullshitting you, or if you're getting what you're paying for. And you know, if you come out with a bad initial image, you could be dead for years. It's something you've got to get right, right off the top. That's what McDill could have done for us."
"So what'll you do now?"
She shrugged: "McDill talked to some people down at her agency, about the band. I'll track them down, find out what they think. Maybe they can give us a lead to a new PR guy."
"You guys were going to hire McDill? Could you afford her?"
"Nah. Wendy and McDill were bumpin' each other. McDill was doing it because it made her feel hip. Edgy. Out there. I mean, she was married to a fat housewife, and along comes Wendy, you know?"