The Chilling Spree (25 page)

Loud voices in the hallway put an end to our
conversation. 

“Uh-oh,” Johnny said.  “I wonder what
that’s all about.”

I opened the door and slipped out with
Johnny close behind.

“Sir, if you’d wait in your office –”

“Get the hell out of my way!  Where are
Hellfire’s agitators, and why the hell isn’t there a show on stage
right now?  So help me God, if you people arrested Bobbi again
–”

“Mr. Waters, I’m Detective Conall.  We
spoke earlier on the phone,” Crevan injected himself between Waters
and Briscoe.

Sparks flew.  Not the angry kind, and
they all came from Waters.  Crevan recoiled involuntarily.

“Je-sus tits,” Briscoe huffed his
disgust.

“Oh boy,” Johnny murmured.  “I think
this calls for a united front, Doc.”

Johnny and I intervened before Briscoe had
time to recognize Crevan’s deer-in-the-headlights expression and
realize what was going on.

“Alex Waters?”

He glanced at me, zeroed in on
Johnny. 

“I’m Detective Helen Eriksson, Darkwater Bay
PD, and this is Commander –”

“Johnny Orion,” he grinned
lasciviously.  “I’d recognize you anywhere.”

“Sir, we need to speak with you
privately.”  I felt a tiny measure of what Johnny experienced
with attention thrown my way by men and found that I didn’t like
it.

“Uh, just lay it out for me.  What did
Bobbi do this time, and how much is it gonna cost me to get him
back up on stage where he should’ve been more than an hour
ago?”

“I have to insist,” I said.  “If you
have an office where we could speak in private, that would be
best.” 

Behind us, I caught my first glimpse of
Forsythe and Maya as they entered the club.  We had to get
Waters sequestered fast before he realized that no amount of money
would put Tippet back on stage.  I gripped his arm and steered
him away from the encroaching investigation.

“Pushy little thing, aren’t you.  All
right, Detective Eriksson.  We’ll play this your way.  My
office is at the end of the hall.”

“Johnny?”

He nodded and followed. 

Waters moved to a minibar and poured a glass
of clear liquid from a crystal decanter.  “May I offer you a
drink?  Oh wait.  You’re not supposed to do that while
you’re on duty.”

“Sir, if you could please sit.”

Johnny’s stern direction knocked a little
bit of cocky posturing out of Waters.  “All right. 
You’re making this sound very serious, commander.  Tell me
what Bobbi did this time.”

I sat in one of the wingback chairs in front
of Waters’ desk.  “I need to ask you a few questions about Mr.
Tippet,” I said. 

“He’s not exactly in witness protection,” he
grinned.  “Is he refusing to talk to you?  I’m certain
that handsome detective in the hallway could get him talking in no
time at all.”

“Can you tell me a little bit about Robert’s
routine before each show?” Johnny asked.

“Same as most of our performers,” he
said.  “He has to get into character, and prefers to be left
alone while he transforms into his alter.”

“Alter?”

“Ego, Johnny,” I said.  “Tell me about
his alter, Alex.  May I call you Alex?”

He shrugged.  “Bobbi doesn’t really
change a whole lot from backstage to front and center if you know
what I mean.”

“He prefers to live as a female?”

“Yes,” Alex said.  “No crime in that,
Detective Eriksson.”

“No, I agree with you, however it could lead
to some potentially dangerous confrontations.”

“In what way?” Waters asked.

“Say someone displays interest in Bobbi
while he’s in character,” Johnny said, “not realizing of course
that Bobbi is anatomically male.”

Waters grinned and tucked a lock of shoulder
length ebony hair behind one ear.  The row of gleaming gold
and diamonds circling the cartilage nearly blinded me.

“Well, I suppose that might create a stir,
commander, but Bobbi isn’t interested in the conversion
process.”

“Conversion,” Johnny snarled.  “Is that
what it sounds like?”

“Sure,” he chuckled.  “Some guys get
off on snagging boys who aren’t necessarily gay.  Bobbi isn’t
one of them.”

“And you are?”  The accusation shot
like a fatal bullet from my lips.

“Not a chance,” he said.  “I’m too old
for such games, Detective Eriksson.”

“You wouldn’t by any chance be related to
Dr. Alexander Waters, would you?” I asked.  My mind stripped
away the flamboyant and almost pirate-like appearance and
substituted a more conservative style.  The resemblance was
remarkable.

Waters sighed.  “Of course you’ve heard
of my father.  Who hasn’t?”

“Curious is all, it doesn’t really relate to
why we’re here,” I said.  “So tell me about Bobbi’s
performances at The Cockpit.”

His eyes twinkled with something akin to
pride.  “Bobbi is a brilliant performer, detective.  He
packs the house every night he’s on that stage, probably the best
female impersonator I’ve ever seen.  I met Bobbi during the
grand opening festivities for The Cockpit.  I hosted an
amateur night that first weekend, and Bobbi showed up.

“Have either of you ever been to one of
these shows?”

“Never,” Johnny said.

“A time or two, back east,” I said. 
Johnny’s eyes burned a hole in the back of my head.  “It was
work related.  I was a profiler for the FBI in another life,”
I explained.

“Then you know that most of the
impersonators have varying degrees of performance skills.  The
vast majority are all about the show.  They dress up, get on
stage, dance and lip-sync.”

“Not Bobbi?”

He shook his head and chuckled.  “He
wasn’t even eighteen yet.  Got in here with a fake ID, but he
was so beautiful, I doubt that security would’ve turned him away
even if they had realized he was underage.  So he gets on the
queue to perform, and when it’s his turn, Bobbi gives his disk to
the DJ.  Everybody was expecting more of the same, you
know?  Not the case.  He got out there, the music
started, and he opened his mouth.  It was phenomenal.”

“Bobbi could sing,” I said softly.

“He’s Broadway talented, detective.  I
tried to encourage him to go to school and study performing arts,
you know?  He could do great things with his talent.  I
don’t think he’s quite ready to stop playing around and get serious
about it yet, but I have hope.”

“Why would you want your most talented
performer to leave the business?” Johnny asked.

“Because he’s that good, and I can’t stand
the idea of this club or any other holding him back.  Please
tell me that he hasn’t done something so audacious that it’s going
to make it difficult for him to have options when he finally grows
up a little more.”

“Mr. Waters, the reason we asked you to come
here tonight, have so many questions about Bobbi is because there’s
been a very serious incident,” I said.

“How serious?” he sobered instantly.

“I’m sorry to inform you that Bobbi Tippet
was found dead in his dressing room tonight.”

Waters shot out of his chair and lunged
toward the door.  Johnny grabbed him, restrained him without a
whole lot of effort.

“You’re not going in there, Waters,” he
said.  “It’s a crime scene, and regardless of how close you
were to this guy, you really don’t want to see him this way.”

“I have to!”

“Alex,” I laid one hand on his shoulder,
“you can’t go in there.”

“You don’t understand,” tears leaked from
his eyes, and it suddenly occurred to me that the reaction was a
bit overblown for an employer-employee relationship.  Was
Waters involved with Bobbi Tippet?

Oh that it could’ve been that simple.

“He’s my brother,” Waters rasped.

“Shit,” Johnny let go but continued to block
the doorway.

“His name is Tippet,” I said.

He nodded.  “Half brother
technically.  We had the misfortune of sharing the same
incubator.”

“Excuse me?”

“No offense, detective,” Waters trembled and
brushed the tears from his cheeks.  “Joanne isn’t much of a
mother, not unless you toe the party line.”

I groaned softly.  “She didn’t approve
of Bobbi’s lifestyle – or yours.”

“Bingo,” he whispered.  “And now the
bitch is gonna blame me for this too.”

Waters started slamming shots of vodka like
they were water.  I sat next to him in one of the pair of
wingback chairs in front of his desk while Johnny helplessly
watched.  The young man, who minutes ago claimed he was too
old for certain behaviors, wept like a small child.

I was pretty sure that the atmosphere had
thrown Johnny’s guard up before Alex Waters showed up, but the
tearful outburst had pushed him firmly into uncomfortable
territory.  Me, on the other hand, well, I’m supposedly
trained as a professional psychologist.  Years of chasing
monsters had somehow stripped all of that consoling stuff right out
of my brain.  What could I say?

Grief was certainly no stranger to me, but
my method of coping wasn’t exactly healthy or one that I would ever
suggest to anyone else.  Tuck the pain in a box.  Store
it in the attic.  Ignore it until it’s gone. 

Then again, I couldn’t ignore all of the
empathy that Darkwater’s strange environment seemed to infuse into
who I am.  Who I am becoming at least.  I reached out and
gripped his hand before another shot could be tossed back.

“Alex, this isn’t the answer.  I need
your help.  You can’t help me if you’re comatose from
alcohol.”

“Help you?”  He sniffled loudly, but
put the glass down.  “Why do you need my help?”

“This is going to be difficult for you to
hear, but Bobbi’s death was not accidental.”

Tears welled, streamed down his
cheeks.  “Bobbi loved life too much to
ever
hurt
himself.”

“It wasn’t suicide.”

“Oh my God,” he rasped.  “Somebody
killed
him?”

I nodded.  “I can’t get into the
specifics of how he died right now, because frankly, the medical
examiner will have to make that determination.”

“Oh please don’t cut him open. 
Anything but that.”

“Alex, we need to know definitively what
happened to Bobbi if we’re going to find out who killed him. 
I’m sorry that the autopsy isn’t optional.  But you can help
us.”

“How?  Everybody loved Bobbi.”

Why do people always say that?  Is it
me?  Am I the only person who freely owns the truth that
nobody likes everybody?  We all have enemies.  Or maybe
my list of those who hate me dwarfs those who don’t.  It might
be that I am the first to admit that I dislike more people than I
admire.

“Clearly he had at least one enemy,” Johnny
said.  Bless that man for understanding me, even if he
couldn’t remember everything about
us
.

“Hellfire,” Alex rasped. 

“Who is Hellfire?”

He glanced up at me.  “Reverend
Hellfire.  I figured that there was some kind of altercation
between Bobbi and Hellfire’s zealots when that other detective
called me down here tonight.  He’s got his protestors out here
all the time.”

“I assume that’s not his real name,” I
said.

“I don’t know who he is really.  The
guy doesn’t have the balls to come down here and confront me
personally.  Most of the time, it’s his minions from that
church of his.”

“Foundations Baptist?” Johnny asked.

“That’s the one, I think.  Why can’t
they be like the Catholics around here?  They don’t exactly
condone us, but they at least get the concept of live and let
live.”

“During the altercation last October, did
anyone from Foundations Baptist make specific threats against Bobbi
or his friend Kyle?”

“Kyle?” Waters echoed.  “What’s he got
to do with any of this?”

I peered up at Johnny. His call. How much
did he want Waters to know about what happened to Kyle Goddard?

He cursed softly.  “Mr. Waters, this
isn’t common knowledge yet, but Kyle Goddard was the young man
murdered on New Year’s Eve at the Pan Demon concert.”

“Shit. 
Shit!
”

“Tell me, Alex,” I urged gently.

“Bobbi was with Kyle at that show.”

“Are you sure?” Johnny stopped fidgeting and
crouched beside my chair.  “He was with Goddard at the
concert?”

“They knew some of the crew, I guess.”

I glanced at Johnny.  “Do you know the
names of these crew members that Kyle and Bobbi knew, Alex?”

“I don’t know.  The guy that founded
the band, he’s related to Kyle somehow.  So whenever they come
into town, Kyle manages to get access, you know?”

“Mr. Madden mentioned that Kyle was his
nephew,” Johnny said.  “He didn’t tell us that he gives Kyle
special access.  Are you sure that Bobbi and Kyle went to the
concert together?”

“They were supposed to.  I was busy
here at the club.  I know Bobbi showed up before we
closed.  He said something about getting stood up.  I
figured he meant with the people they planned to party with at the
show.”

“Alex, this is very important,” I
said.  “Would Bobbi and Kyle have shown up at the concert as
their alters?”

He nodded.  “It’s like I said. 
Bobbi pretty much was living that way.  Kyle has been doing
the same for longer than Bobbi.”

“Do you know anything about who they planned
to meet?” Johnny asked.

“No, but Bobbi was more or less going to be
the wingman.  He’s been involved in a relationship for a few
months now.”

“Serious relationship?”

“Enough,” he nodded.  “He and Sasha
moved in together a few months ago.”

“And before that, was Bobbi living at home
with his parents?”

“Shit,” Waters started crying again. 
“This
is
all my fault.”

“No,” I said.  “You cannot blame
yourself for what happened to Bobbi tonight, Alex.”