Public Secrets

Why automatically assume he’s there for you?”
“When you’ve lived with it most of your life, you know when you’re being watched.” Annoyed, she moved away from the window. On an oath, she whirled back and yanked the window open. “Hey!” Her sudden shout surprised her as much as the man on the street. “Go call your boss and tell him I can take care of myself. If I see you down there in five minutes, I’m calling the cops.”
“Feel better?” Marianne murmured at her shoulder.
“Lots.”
“I’m not sure he could hear you all the way down there.”
“He heard enough,” Emma said with a satisfied nod. “He’s leaving.” A little dizzy, she pulled her head in. “Let’s go get a facial.”

M ICHAEL PORED OVER the printout. It had taken him days to correlate lists and cross-check. In the past weeks he’d found himself just as caught up in Darren McAvoy’s murder as his father had been twenty years before. He had read every inch of every file, studied every photograph, checked and rechecked every interview that had been compiled during the original investigation. From his own memory he pulled out the visit to the house in the hills with Emma, making his own notes from her descriptions and recollections.
From his father’s meticulous investigation and Emma’s recollections, he was able to re-create, in his mind, the night of Darren’s death.
Music. He imagined Beatles, Stones, Joplin, the Doors.
Drugs. Everything from grass to LSD cheerfully shared.

Shop talk, party talk, gossip. Laughter and intense political discussions. Vietnam, Nixon, women’s liberation.
People coming and going. Some invited, some just showing up. No one questioning unfamiliar faces. Formal invitations had been for the establishment. Peace, love, and communal living the order of the day. It sounded nice enough, but for a cop in the first year of the nineties, it was frustrating.
He had the guest list his father had compiled. It was, of course, woefully inadequate, but a place to start. Playing a hunch, he. Spent days verifying the whereabouts on the night of Jane Palmer’s death of every name on the list. He’d turned up sixteen people who had been in London, including all four members of Devastation, their manager, and Bev McAvoy. Michael ignored his tendency to cross them off, and spent several more days checking alibis,
His printout now had twelve names. He liked to think if there was indeed a connection between two murders, twenty years apart, it was on that list.
“It gives us something to work with,” Michael said. He leaned over his father’s shoulder so that they could both study the printout. “I want to dig a little deeper, find any and all of the connections between these twelve people and Jane Palmer.”
“You’ve got the McAvoys on the list. You don’t think they killed their own son?”
“No. It’s the connection.” He pulled over a file and opened it. He had a list of names connected with broken lines. It resembled a family tree, headed by Bev, Brian, and Jane. Below were Emma’s and Darren’s names. “I’ve been hooking them up, using interviews and file information. Take Johnno.” Michael slid his finger down. “He’s Brian’s oldest friend, his writing partner. They formed the group together. He remained friends with Bev during her long estrangement from Brian. He also knew Jane the longest.”
“Motive?”

“Money or revenge is all we’ve got,” Michael went on. “We can easily apply both of those to Jane Palmer, but it’s a stretch for anyone else on the list. Blackpool.” Michael moved his finger down. “He was more of a hanger-on at the time Darren was killed. His big break came several months later when he recorded a song Brian and Johnno had written. And Pete Page became his manager.” He ran his finger over the lines connecting Blackpool with Brian, Johnno, Pete, and Emma.
“No connection with Palmer?” Lou asked.
“I haven’t found one yet.”
With a nod, Lou leaned back. “There are several names on your list that even I recognize.”
“A rock-and-roll countdown.” Sitting on the edge of the desk, Michael lit a cigarette. “I know when you figure the main motive for kidnapping is money, most of these names don’t fit. That’s where Jane comes in. If she planted the idea, she could have used blackmail, sex, drugs, or any other kind of hook to pressure someone into getting to Brian through Darren. She tried to get to him once through Emma, and all she got