LITMIR.BIZ

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Mercy and Kiera, with Frank just sitting on the sidelines. The waitress recalled a few lines verbatim, from the argument: Mercy called Kiera a waste of time, and Kiera called Mercy a frog. “A frog?” Leith had asked, cupping an ear.

      The waitress insisted that was what she heard, frog.

      An interview of Ms. Blackwood was on Leith’s to-do list anyway, if only to firm up some background info, so now he would ask about the argument as well, kill two birds with one stone. But first he would get Frank’s take on it.

      Frank Law showed up when the grey of dawn was just flooding over the mountains and promising another day of half-light in the Hazeltons. Leith had a cramped and cluttered workstation in the main room. He sat Frank down here, gave him a cup of coffee, flattened his notebook, and wrote down the opening particulars. Leith had been accident-prone his whole life, so his body was conditioned to fast healing — that was his theory, anyway — and already his wrist was good enough that he could take his own notes, which spared him further contact with Constable Dion, whom he had come dangerously close to shooting yesterday. He told Frank about the overheard argument at the Catalina and asked for an explanation.

      “Argument?” Frank said. “What argument?”

      Leith refreshed his memory for him. “You were in a booth on the south wall of the restaurant. You were seated next to Kiera, and Mercy Blackwood sat across from the two of you. Mercy and Kiera were arguing. Quite loudly. There was some swearing.”

      Frank looked tired and uninterested. “Okay.”

      “You had coffee. Kiera had tea and a cherry Danish. Mercy didn’t order anything but brought her own drink in a Thermos.” All this the waitress had recounted for Leith this morning before her early-bird shift. She didn’t like the drink-in-the-Thermos part, and no, she admitted, she didn’t like Mercy Blackwood. “Mercy accused Kiera of wasting her time, and Kiera called Mercy a frog. Mercy’s not French, is she?”

      Frank’s mouth hung open. His short, rakish beard was becoming just plain scruffy. “French? I don’t know, maybe.”

      “Seems kind of a racist thing for Kiera to say, doesn’t it? Does she have a thing against the French?”

      “Who doesn’t?”

      “And why would Mercy say Kiera’s a waste of time? That’s pretty harsh.”

      Frank said, “I don’t remember much. Probably they were arguing about the demo, which wasn’t going well.”

      “I don’t get that, why it wasn’t going well,” Leith said. “You guys have been playing together for years. You’re popular, have a lot of fans. What wasn’t clicking?”

      Frank shrugged. “We’re trying for a recording. Kiera’s a show girl. Without an audience egging her on, she’s kind of … flat. Me and the others, we tried all kinds of tricks to get her spun up, and she tried, but it just doesn’t seem to work.” He hesitated. “That’s what they were arguing about, I guess. Mercy thought maybe I should do lead vocals, Kiera would sing backup. And we’d ditch my songs and try something else. None of which Kiera accepted for a moment.”

      His eyes shifted about, a man thinking of things he didn’t want to discuss, and Leith considering harassing him further on the issue. But really, it was all sidetracking. Scott Rourke, for all his rattiness, had a point when he said to stop wasting time talking to people. It was a monster they should be looking for.

      * * *

      Next in line was Fling’s manager. Maybe it was the aggressive ring of her name, but Leith had envisioned a battleaxe, and Mercy Blackwood was anything but. She was a reedy, intelligent-looking woman in her late thirties, possibly, with a fine-featured and pleasant face, intense grey eyes, and grave manner. She wore black slacks, brand-new looking snow-boots, a fine-weave grey sweater, and a puffy white parka with fake fur trim. For the pretty librarian look, she wore gold-rimmed spectacles.

      “I’m glad to finally meet you,” she said and held out a hand in a jerky sort of way, as if she had doubts about physical contact. “I’ve seen you from afar.” She didn’t smile. He shook her limp hand and invited her to remove her coat and sit. She kept the coat on, saying it was chilly, but placed herself primly on the hard wooden chair next to Leith’s desk. He could see how out of place she was. He recalled she was from Vancouver, up here to care for a dying relative, who had then died. He also recalled she was primed to sell her dead relative’s house and return to the city ASAP, where she quite clearly belonged.

      She watched him and waited, still and expressionless. To break the ice, he said, “I hear you worked with Joe Forte and the Six-Packs, way back when. They had a great thing going while it lasted. Too bad about Forte.”

      She nodded, still not a sign of smile on her attractive face. She said, “They were the first group I worked with, went from bar gigs to the Commodore. Amazing talent. I learned a lot from that experience.”

      And made a lot of money, too, Leith thought. “Who did you work with after that?”

      “Lemon Heart,” she said. “Goldie Weatherstone, who you may know better as Goldie Hawkins. The Midlanders, you know, Jerry Robinson and his fellows? That’s about all. Once I got on with the Midlanders, I worked with them exclusively, as I had worked with the Six-Packs.”

      It all sailed over Leith’s head, names that meant nothing to him except possibly the Midlanders, a fairly big name on the music scene. He said, “And now you’re here in the Hazeltons representing a little country rock band called Fling. Why?”

      “Terrible name,” she said. “I want them to change it before it’s too late. But they’re quite stuck on it. I’m here because I had to give up the Midlanders. Medical issues. Plus I had to care for my grandmother.”

      He was reading her face as she spoke, and thought he saw traces of fear and dismay. Not surprising, considering what brought them to this room. Or maybe it was just physical discomfort. Or, like Fairchild had suggested to Constable Dion, culture shock. Whatever it was, she looked miserable. He offered coffee to warm her up. She declined.

      He asked her to tell him about Fling, where they were going, what the plans were, that sort of thing.

      She studied him for a moment in a cool, analytical way, before answering. “I’m not sure you care to know, but I’m only up here for the short-term. Or that was the intention. It’s a full year ago I first chanced to see Fling perform, at the high school auditorium, the Valentine’s dance. I had to get out of the house, away from Granny. Do something. Move. You know? Anyway, back to Fling, I guess you’d say I was smitten, or more like swept up in the moment. They shook the auditorium, and the audience loved them. Sometimes the music is secondary. That can be worked on. Personality and verve, you either have it or you don’t. They did. Do. You will find her, won’t you?”

      “We’re doing our best,” he said.

      She looked doubtful, and he could understand why. The whirring gears of the investigation, based in Terrace, were all but invisible to residents of the Hazeltons. A chopper flew by now and then, shiny trucks arrived, strangers reined someone in, asked questions, and were gone again. Meanwhile, Leith and his team looked like plods, and frankly, Leith was worried they were. He said, “How do you find working with them, Frank and Kiera?”

      “Lovely,” she said. “Both of them. Very down-to-earth, but gung-ho.”

      “They were thrilled when you took them under your wing?”

      “Thrilled is the word,” she said, and there she should smile, he thought, and still she didn’t. She said, “There are difficulties, of course. They’re lovers, for one thing, which complicates things. They’re both stubborn. And I hate to say it, but they’re not reliable. I foresaw problems, but I guess I underestimated their unreliability.”

      “Things are not going well, I take it,” Leith said.

      “Things need fixing,” Blackwood said gloomily.

      “Can you elaborate

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