“What about the gun?” Quinn asked. “How did you know it was real?”
“Because he fired it,” Jeff said drily. “When he came up to us, I said, ‘What the hell?’ And the next thing I knew, he’d bashed me in the head and fired.”
As he described the action, Lily rushed between them and pretended to slam her “weapon” against Jeff’s head.
Jeff’s reflexes were strong; he ducked even though he must have known that she wouldn’t hit him. And even if she did, it was just a pencil. But Quinn noted the way that, the second she’d made her move, she hurriedly pointed the gun at them again.
Jeff cleared his throat. “He fired when Rowdy made a move toward me. Maybe he couldn’t tell that Rowdy was trying to help me and not tackle him. I was about out. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I just heard the shots.”
“Shots?” Quinn asked.
“Yeah, two of them,” Lily said.
“I suspect he fired in a panic, thinking Rowdy was going for him, especially because he shot twice, and he wouldn’t have wanted to draw attention to his presence.”
“Maybe, but he knew what he was doing,” Rowdy offered. “He told us to put our instruments down and move. Lily was sobbing by then and asking him how Jeff was supposed to move, but he said we’d better get him up somehow or he’d never move again. So we dropped our instruments and headed toward Esplanade as fast as we could, dragging Jeff and screaming for help. A cop heard us and called an ambulance for Jeff, and Lily and I went to the police station.”
Larue had the report on his desk. He looked at Quinn. “Officers were sent out right away to search the area, but they didn’t find anything.”
“You guys can take your seats again,” Quinn said, sitting down himself and turning to Larue. “No bullets? No casings?”
Larue shook his head.
“We’re not lying!” Lily said angrily.
“I’m not suggesting you are. How many shots, again?”
“Two,” Rowdy said. “And I’m sure of that. As certain as I am that we’re sitting here in this room.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “I need to know because I’m going to try to find those bullets and casings. I need your help, though. First, he took your ukulele, Lily, your guitar, Rowdy, and Jeff, your sax?”
“Yeah, he took my sax. How did you know?” Jeff asked.
“It’s in the report,” Larue said quickly.
“What about the gun? Do you know what make or model it was?” Quinn asked.
“It was a gun. It fired bullets,” Rowdy told him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
“Me, neither,” Lily said.
“I went skeet shooting once at a casino in Mississippi,” Jeff said. “And I still couldn’t tell a rifle from a water pistol.”
“All right, big? Small?” Quinn asked.
“About the size of the one Detective Larue has,” Rowdy offered, pointing to Larue’s shoulder holster. “But different.”
“Okay, let’s go in a different direction. How tall was he?” Quinn asked.
“Tall,” Rowdy said.
“Medium,” Lily said at the same time.
Jeff laughed ruefully. “I thought the bastard was a short little shit. But then, he was on me like a bat out of hell, so I’m not a good judge.”
“About how long was it from the time you were attacked to the time the cop found you and sent someone to the scene?” Quinn asked.
“Just a few minutes,” Rowdy said.
“Felt like forever, though,” Lily added.
“I couldn’t begin to tell you,” Jeff said. “Those two were half carrying me, half dragging me, and the world seemed to be a blur. Why?”
“I’m trying to figure out if he might have had an accomplice—someone to help him with the instruments, maybe someone with a car—or if he had a place in the area to stash them and himself,” Quinn said. An accomplice could even have come back later to pick up the bullets.
“Oh!” Lily’s brown eyes went wide. “Let me think. I wish I could be more helpful, but the whole thing happened so quickly. And we were afraid we were going to die. Once he went after Jeff, we just complied as fast as we could.”
“You did the right thing. No instrument is worth your life,” Quinn told her. “Were those the instruments you usually played?”
“I play drums, too, but they stay at the club,” Lily told him.
“Harmonica—and I didn’t even think of it. It was in my pocket,” Rowdy said.
“Sometimes I play keyboards,” Jeff said. “But the bar has a piano, and I never take that home with me, either—obviously.”
“But you always take your sax home?” Larue asked, looking at Quinn as he spoke.
“Always,” Jeff said.
“You’re pretty friendly with a lot of the other musicians in the city, yes?” Quinn asked them.
“Sure,” Rowdy said. “Have been for thirty years. You never know when you’ll need someone to cover you, and you never know when work might go sour and you’ll be looking to cover for other people.”
“Did you know the two men who were killed? Holton Morelli and Lawrence Barrett?”