Neon Nights Chapter 20

A dead body with your coffee. What a way to start the day.

As far as murders went, this one looked pretty straightforward.

Trailer lay on his back, his vacant eyes fixed on the popcorn ceiling, a bullet entry wound right in the center of his forehead.

He was naked, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

Why had he answered the door like that?

Marc scanned the run-down motel room, which consisted of a queen-sized bed with a comforter so soiled it looked like the maids had washed it in with the coffee filters, a lamp that was missing a shade, and a dresser that looked like someone had taken an axe to it. As an added bonus, the carpet looked like it hadn't been swapped out since Reagan was president, and it was covered in cigarette burns, greasy stains from fast food wrappers, and other discolorations from things Marc didn't want to think about. It was filthy; though, in all fairness to the room, Trailer could have accounted for an outsized portion of the disrepair.

Alec hadn't sprung for the Four Seasons here, for sure.

A studious-looking woman named Amanda Carr, the lead crime scene investigator for the department, scribbled notes on a small pad and nodded vaguely in Marc's direction. She looked like the Grim Reaper in black cargo pants, polo, and boots, with inky colored hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail, fittingly with a black hair tie.

"What have you got so far, Amanda?" Marc asked.

She stayed focused on the ground, scanning up and down like a robot.

"Eh."

"Helpful," Marc said.

He saw her grimace when she stood up, and Marc knew her years of running were starting to catch up to her.

"He was shot in the head."

"You needed all those years in school to deduce that, huh?"

She started to laugh, and it was sweeter and warmer than Marc thought she was capable of. Warm and fuzzy was not how anyone would ever describe Amanda Carr.

As if she were aware she had broken her hard candy shell, she composed herself and got back to business.

"So, outside of the obvious, I was struck by two things. One, that he answered the door naked, which indicates that he was expecting someone to visit, and two, given his appearance, it is likely that this person was a 'professional' at their trade."

"Yep, I think you're spot on with both."

Marc pulled on a pair of blue gloves and walked to the nightstand beside the bed. He opened the drawers and found a few hundred dollars crinkled up and a small baggie with a half dozen Prisms. There was no suitcase anywhere, just a ratty old duffel bag with a faded Confederate flag.

Outside a few neighbors stood gawking around the crime scene and answering questions volleyed at them by several officers on site. Everyone had been asleep during the shooting, except one guy in the room directly underneath Trailer's, who said he heard a crash that woke him up from a dead sleep, but he didn't think anything about it because he knew who was upstairs from him. The front desk worker had broken down in tears while being questioned because she had fallen asleep and begged Marc not to tell the owner so she could keep her job.

No security cameras at the place, as the out-of-town owner of the property cared to put precisely zero dollars a year into its upkeep.

Festival employees occupied all the rooms, and none seemed to be even remotely agitated or dismayed by the passing of their colleague.

Marc didn't get the impression his funeral would need a police escort for the traffic.

He took out his phone and texted Alec.

Alec, this is Detective McKinley. Please give me a call when you get a minute. It's important.

Marc hit the send button and waited. He wasn't sure why he had not just called the man.

Within seconds, his phone rang.

"Hey, Alec, thanks for getting back to me so fast."

"No problem, Detective. I assume this call is about Jason Trailer."

"Yes, I'm here now at the motel, but I needed to make sure you were alerted."

The man sounded flustered and impatient on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, I had like a dozen messages from employees about it already.

I'm running around like a lunatic, trying to figure out how to get through these last two days. Spoiler alert … I'm screwed."

"He was a big part of your organization then, huh?"

"Jason was a disaster of a person. He had every vice and issue known to man, but let me tell you what, he could fix anything. It was unbelievable sometimes when things would break, how he could get them sorted out."

"Any idea who would want to kill him?"

"He didn't make a lot of friends," Alec replied.

"What about a guy named Clyde he was talking to yesterday? Have you ever seen a gang of bikers that go by the name of White Wave running around other shows? Did Jason have connections with other bikers in different cities?"

"If we were in a new city, Jason attracted the scum to him like a magnet. Everywhere we went, he would run around with some of the shadiest-looking people I had seen."

"That didn't bother you?"

"Of course it did, but I'm not his parent. He's a grown man." "Was he actively involved in a biker gang at all?"

Alec laughed; the sound so loud that Marc had to pull the phone away from his ear.

"He couldn't ride a motorcycle if a lion was chasing him. Not to speak poorly of the deceased, but you met him. I don't think they made a bike big enough for him."

Marc watched as four men who hadn't missed a workout in years heaved the dead man onto a stretcher.

"Did he talk about any of them? Any friends he might have had?"

"No, in all these years, we never spoke about anything except the show. The only time we did, was when we had gotten drunk at a company Christmas party, where he told me a little about his childhood. It was a disaster. I felt terrible for him after I heard about it."

"Abuse?"

"Daily. He was a kid around a carnival. Can't be the healthiest way to grow up."

"Will you handle the funeral arrangements for him?" Marc asked. "He has no family, so I guess it's on me."

Marc could hear the exasperation in Alec's voice, and he heard a muffled yell from the other end of the line, meaning Alec was venting his frustration on another hapless employee.

"Do you think he was the driving force behind the drugs at this event?"

"I wouldn't have before, but now …," Alec said, trailing off.

"So, who is his backup to help you finish the weekend?" Marc asked. There was a long pause.

"You're talking to him."

Marc felt stuck.

Not just stuck, but starving and stuck.

There were a hundred directions he could turn, and each one invariably could lead him down another rabbit hole.

Paralysis by an overabundance of avenues for analysis.

More importantly, he wasn’t going to make any progress while visions of sugarplums, and anything else worth chewing, danced in his head.

There was nothing noteworthy in his refrigerator or pantry, so he opted to run down the road to the Farmer's Daughter, the comfort food capital of East Bay. The restaurant featured a James Beard award-winning chef at the helm and a waiting list every night of the week. People came from far and wide to taste Chef Paco's inspired far Southern fare, sexy Hispanic twists on Southern classics.

He pulled through the gates of the Dawson farm and saw a cadre of cows on his left and a slew of blackbirds hopping from post to post

on his right. A man a few years past his gold watch, though fit as a man fifty years his junior, sat atop his seal brown quarter horse, looking over the cattle as contented and at peace as anyone Marc had ever seen.

The man waved at him, and Marc rolled down his window to return the gesture.

"How do I get a gig with you Jim?"

"Shit, grab a horse out of the stables, and I'll put you on the payroll today. Be like old times when you were a younger man!"

"Don't tempt me. Hey, what's for lunch up there?"

"Whoo boy, Chef Paco has a spicy chicken and waffles with some special maple syrup from a little farm up in Vermont. About the best damn thing I've ever eaten."

“Sold. Appreciate the recommendation!"

The man tipped his hat with a smile and rode off.

Marc went to the counter to place his order and then back to his truck to think.

Trailer.

Was he the lynchpin to this whole production?

Was it believable that he could be considered a "criminal mastermind"?

How in the hell did the fraternity kids get involved with a scumbag like him?

It sure didn't look like they ran in the same social circles.

Jameson loved the EDM scene, so maybe it started there. Avery looked like a kid driven by greed, certainly not a far fall from the Bass family tree, to be sure. What about the Ryan kid? What didn't they know about him? Did Alec know about Trailer's possible side hustle?

The rapid-fire questions were interrupted when a young man walked up to his truck carrying a to-go bag with his food and a set of rolled silverware.

"Chef Paco has a message, sir. He said eating this in your truck bed with plastic silverware would be impossible, and he didn't want you to embarrass yourself by using your hands."

Marc laughed at the message.

"Tell him I appreciate him thinking of me." "Will do, sir."

He thanked the young man and tipped him.

When Marc opened the box of food, his stomach did a backflip at the aroma of syrup and fried chicken. His brain tried to pick its train of thought back up, but when he took the first bite, he realized that until breakfast was done, it wasn't coming back to the station.

"You want the good news or bad news?" he said when she picked up.

"Never just, ‘Hey, you want some good news?'’" Carly asked. "Nope."

"Bad first. Go."

“Trailer's gone," Marc said. "Gone where?" she asked.

He hopped off the tailgate and paced back and forth in short intervals as he watched a posse of chickens walk brazenly near the kitchen.

"The Great Beyond." "Like … dead?" she asked.

"Do you know of another Great Beyond?" "Well, what's the good news?" she asked. Marc said nothing.

"There is no good news, is there?" she asked. "Nope." Marc chuckled.

"What if I had picked good first?"

Marc paused for a moment in quiet contemplation and then laughed.

"I honestly don't know."

He could almost feel her roll her eyes through the phone. "Where did they find him?"

"His motel room with a bullet in his head," Marc said. "Does Alec know?" Carly asked.

"Yeah, he got bombarded with messages and calls from the rest of his staff at the motel.

"Security camera footage?" "Nope."

Marc saw a tan mare standing at the fence, gnawing on some grass around one of the posts. Everything about her looked relaxed, and she helped take his stress level down a few notches.

"Can you find another word to use, please?" she asked. He could feel her smile on the other side of the line. “Nope,” he said.

"I set myself up there, didn't I?” "Yep."

Marc returned to the counter with his used silverware and thanked the young man who had brought them.

"So, what's next then?" she asked.

He climbed back in his truck and drove down the gravel drive.

"This is the second murder to tie up loose ends. I think we are getting close."

"That's not an answer," she said.

"You weren’t going to like the one I gave you, so I skipped it." Now there was a long pause from her end.

"White Wave?" she asked.

"Surf's up."