“La Porte Rouge. It’s pretty good, actually, if I do say so myself. But it doesn’t really tell me anything.”
Quinn walked over to her, setting his hands on her shoulders as he studied the drawing. He saw the bar as if he were standing in the cross-street entrance. To his left was the bandstand, and to his right was the bar. Jessica was there, and Eric Lyons was setting drinks on her tray. The place was crowded, but most of the faces in the crowd were indistinct, faded. He could see that Billie was offstage, sitting with Hattie, Father Ryan and Natasha. He and Danni were onstage with Shamus, Gus, Blake and Tyler.
Tyler’s saxophone seemed to be the focal point of the drawing. It was slightly oversize.
“Great drawing,” Quinn told her. “Wish I could draw a tenth so well wide awake, much less in my sleep.”
“What do you think it means?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. It looks like it’s just a picture of where we’ve been, but your mind must have been trying to tell you something about it, since you drew it,” he said carefully.
“You’re not being honest,” she said.
He glanced at her quickly. She could read him so well.
“I’m never quite sure what it means—your sleep-drawing. But I think this picture means that you think the murderer was in the bar the night when we both were playing. And that he’s one of the people whose faces you’ve drawn.”
Danni frowned. “I don’t. Or maybe I just don’t want to. I like the guys we were playing with. I like everyone there.”
Quinn hesitated, well aware that things could be hitting too close to home. One of Danni’s trusted employees had once proved to be involved in what could best be described as demonic rites.
“Still, not a bad place to concentrate,” Quinn said. “It’s the last place Arnie was before he was killed.”
She stood up suddenly. “Arnie,” she said.
“Is gone.”
“Yes, but Quinn, the killer hasn’t gone after his parents’ house yet. But he will. He’s bound to.”
“Tyler has been staying with them.”
“Staying with them, yes. But he doesn’t get there till morning. What about all night, before he shows up? Why doesn’t the killer show up before Tyler gets there? Or, if it’s Tyler he wants, why doesn’t he get there early and then ambush Tyler when he shows up? I can’t believe we haven’t thought about protecting them yet.”
“I’m guessing the killer doesn’t think they have the sax. He’s convinced that a musician somewhere in the city has it.”
“And there’s what’s frightening. Tyler is a sax player. The player most likely to have Arnie’s special sax if the killer figures Arnie’s parents would have been as likely to give it to one of Arnie’s friends as sell it with the rest of his stuff,” she said. “And if the killer can’t find it with any of the Survivor Set, eventually he’ll think Arnie’s parents must have it after all and go after them.”
She was right, he realized, feeling irritated he hadn’t thought things through that way himself.
“I can head over and talk to them now,” he said. “See what I can do to convince them that they need to take special care.”
“Special care? They need to stay somewhere else altogether,” Danni said.
“And you think they can afford that? Or that they’ll even consider leaving their home?”
“If they like living, yes!”
Quinn looked at Danni’s drawing again. Her subconscious didn’t steer her wrong. It was time to start looking at Tyler’s bandmates, who just happened to be the last people who had been with Arnie on the night he died.
“There’s also Arnie’s friend,” Danni said.
“Which friend?” Quinn asked.
“I didn’t get to tell you. There was too much going on last night.”
“Okay. Tell me now.”
“Arnie had a close friend in the military. His name is Kevin Hart—Corporal Kevin Hart. He stepped on a mine, and now he’s up in Walter Reed, doing rehab after getting a prosthetic leg. Hattie said she can help us get to see him. If Arnie was as close to this guy as Tyler says, he might have told him things he didn’t tell anyone else, maybe things about people here in town. Maybe he even entrusted his special sax to him.”
“That’s a long shot.”
“What else have we got?”
“Following up on the musicians around here, on people who knew about the sax. Maybe following through on that Survivor Set connection.”
“All right, I agree with you that we have to do all that, but I think it’s important that we talk to Kevin Hart, too.”
“But we can’t be here and also there.”
“I could go,” Danni said.
“I don’t want you going anywhere alone,” he said quickly. Maybe too quickly, and a little too harshly. He saw her bite down lightly on her lower lip.
Her tone, in turn, was cool. “Fine. You could go.”