Her head bobbed up and down a couple of times, and then she said, "Really?"-a genuine question.
"Yeah. Really," Virgil said.
"You like to fight?" she asked.
"Like is the wrong word," Virgil said. "I find it intense. My life lacks intensity."
"You killed all those Vietnamese. Was that intense?"
"I didn't personally kill anybody-but yeah: it was intense," Virgil said. Before she could ask another question, he asked, "Where were you when McDill was killed?"
"I don't know exactly when she was killed, but I heard it was late afternoon. I have a karate class at six o'clock, and I was in class."
"Karate. You like to fight?" Virgil asked.
"My life lacks intensity," she said.
"How many people in the class?" Virgil asked.
"Probably eight or nine people, plus the sensei," Mathis said. "Then, another class came in while we were finishing. If you want to check the alibi, you should do it quick-today-before people start to forget. I sparred with a guy named Larry Busch."
"If you had to pick out one person that you know who might have killed Erica McDill, who would you pick?"
But she was already shaking her head: "Not a fair question. I have no idea who might have wanted to hurt McDill. I knew that she and Wendy were fooling around, but I figured that was their business."
"Have you had a relationship with Wendy yourself?"
"Yeah. She pays me to play keyboards. I'm an employee," Mathis said.
"But…"
"I'm straight."
"All right; so you had no… love interest in the situation… with either McDill or Wendy or Berni or whoever."
"Nope."
BERTHA (BERT) CARR, the violinist: "You're looking at the wrong place. The only person who might have wanted to get rid of McDill for romantic… or sexual reasons… would be Berni, and Berni really didn't know. I mean, I know she didn't know, because I was talking to her about Wendy and she asked me if I thought McDill was a threat. She knew McDill had an eye on Wendy, but didn't know how far it had gotten."
"When did you figure it out?"
"Tuesday night. Nobody said anything, but we were sitting around here and Wendy's dad brought some pizzas and McDill and Wendy were sitting right next to each other, were touching each other all the time; right there with Dad watching."
"Tuesday."
"Yes. I counted back."
"If I shouldn't be looking here, where should I be looking?" Virgil asked.
"At the Eagle Nest," Carr said. "That place… you know that there are a lot of us who stay there, right?"
"Us?"
"Gays. Lesbians," she said.
"Sure. I've been told that."
"That's not the whole story," she said. "Did you notice that there are quite a few little boy-toy waiters up there?"
"Boy toy… Are you…?" He thought of the waiter who'd taken him down the steps to the water, and his cutting-edge hairdo.
"Yes. There are any number of hasty romances going on up there, and they're not all gay. I'd heard that McDill would rent one of the boys every once in a while. She had this dominatrix thing going. You know, I don't mean leather or vinyl or any of that, but she sort of liked getting a little boy to kneel down for her, if you get the picture."
"Ah, man. Did Wendy know that?" Virgil asked.
"Wendy… Wendy would inhale a boy every once in a while," Carr said. "That was something she and McDill shared. I wonder if there was a boy there that night, when Wendy stayed over?"
"Ah, man," Virgil said.
"What? You weird about sex?" Carr asked.
"No. But everything just got more complicated," Virgil said. "So where were you when Erica McDill was murdered?"
"I think-this is just from what I heard on TV-that I was right here, working on 'Lover Do' with Wendy. There were a few people here, Gerry, Corky, our manger, that guy Mark…" She pointed through the window to one of the engineers, who was disconnecting a microphone in the live room.
"Okay. Enough to nail down an alibi."
"Yes. I believe so. I mean, people were coming and going, we went out to eat for a while… But, generally, we were around," Carr said.
"It's only ten minutes out to the Eagle Nest."
"Well… what can I tell you? I don't know where everybody was, for every ten minutes. The dinner break, some people were out for an hour…"
CYNTHIA (SIN) SAWYER, the lead guitar. She came in carrying a saxophone, tooted it once, then put it on the floor beside her chair.
"Gay or straight?" Virgil asked.
"Me? A little of both," she said.
"Do you think Wendy and McDill ever shared a male companion?" Virgil asked.
"I doubt it. Wendy would have been bragging about it, if they did," Sawyer said. "And she hasn't. Been bragging."
"You ever hear about male companions working up at the Eagle Nest?"
"Sure. It's a high school joke around here," she said. "If you've got a certain look, apply at the Eagle Nest for a summer job. Depending on the length of your dick, you might get overtime."
"You believe it?"
"Yep." She smiled.
"The place is starting to sound like a whorehouse," Virgil said.
"What, you thought women came up to look at loons all day? Believe me, you can only look at a loon for so long," she said. "You get up, you do some yoga, drink some body-cleansing green tea, look at some loons, paddle some canoes, drink some martinis, get your brains banged loose, go to bed. All part of the package."
"Do you have any feeling that anybody in the band might have wanted to hurt McDill?"
She leaned forward and tapped his knee. "No. And I'll tell you why. I'm a good goddamned lead guitar; I'm a pro. Gerry is a terrific bass player-she's not from here, she's from the Cities, and moved up here to get with Wendy's voice. And she's got a good backup voice. The violin is fine, the keyboards are okay; if we can find a decent drummer, we could go a long way with Wendy. McDill could have been part of that plan. I listened to McDill talk, and I'm a believer. She knew her shit. She was somebody we needed."
"But you'd have to dump Berni, right?" Virgil asked.
"Well, yeah-but she doesn't necessarily know that," Sawyer said. "Or maybe she does. That's life. Maybe she could be an assistant manager or something, a roadie, or a spare drummer, or she could do some other percussion shit-tambourines. She can sing a little, and she's got really great tits, so she'd look good up front, I mean, she could stay… but the point is, McDill could have put us on that road, you know? She had contacts all over the place: she knew how to get it done."
"You liked her?"
"Oh… no. But that didn't make any difference to me," Sawyer said. "It's like you've got a terrific music teacher, and he puts his hand on your ass. You don't like him, but hey-he teaches you to play a killer guitar. You like that part. Same with McDill. I'm not going to sleep with her, but she can do my PR all day and night."
She had been running around to a grocery store and to a Wal-Mart when McDill was killed: "I guess that's not exactly a great alibi, but that's what I was doing. I was in and out of here, while they were trying to figure out 'Lover Do,' but I didn't have anything to do with killing McDill."
Virgil believed her.
GERRY O'MEARA, BASS, didn't seem to have a nickname; she'd been working on the "Lover Do" song with Wendy and the others when McDill was killed. "Yeah, there'll have to be some personnel changes in the band, and I guess she probably knows it. I mean, this is what I do for a living, and I'm good at it, and I've played with some heavy people. Now I need to cash it in. I'm almost thirty, and if I'm going to make it, it's got to be soon."
"But you don't think the changes might somehow lead to this murder?" Virgil asked.
"I don't see how. McDill was going to help with PR, and with contacts in Nashville and so on, but… I don't see how the changes would wind up with her getting shot. I think it was something at the Eagle Nest. Somebody heard about her sleeping with Wendy and got jealous. I mean, who else would know where Erica was going in that canoe?"