Authors: Kathy Clark
I pretended an intense interest in the paper in my hand, but I sneaked a look up at him as he took his place at the table. He made no attempt to glance in my direction. Damn, but he looked good
, his hair still damp and his clothes crisp and clean. He didn’t look like he had suffered through a sleepless night.
“Okay, where are we in the investigation?” he asked, focusing his attention on Tulsa.
“I’m making a table now of all the songs in this box. Then we’ll be able to look them up and see if they’ve been recorded. Liberty and I will do on-line searches and make calls to find out whatever we can.”
Christopher nodded his approval.
“I’ve got an appointment with Harlan right after this meeting.”
“I’d like to know if Roger was aware of all this and if he was in the process of doing something
about it when he was killed,” Dallas suggested. “If Roger had confronted Terry about the songs, then that would certainly be motive.”
“Yeah, and I’d like to know how much Harlan is involved in all this,” Reno added. “I can’t believe he didn’t know, being an old band member and all.”
“You think Harlan might be covering something up?” I asked.
“Let’s just say, I don’t trust lawyers…” Reno declared.
“Hey, I’m almost a lawyer,” Dallas said defensively.
“There’s still time to save you,” Reno retorted
with a smile.
Dallas smiled back. He and Reno never missed a chance to jab each other verbally…just like real brothers. I thought it was funny that these two very different personalities got along so well.
“Maybe Roger and his band members had some sort of agreement about the songs when they broke up,” I suggested. “He might have given Terry the rights.”
“I hope there’s a paper trail,” Christopher said, not looking at me as he spoke. “But organization was not one of Roger’s strong suits.
When I first met him his records were a wreck…that’s how I got my job.”
“But Harlan’s been with him all the way…
I don’t understand why he didn’t get this all settled a long time ago,” Dallas mused. “He’s got other entertainment clients…he should know better.”
“Roger wasn’t just his client,” Reno pointed out. “He was his long-time friend. He should have had his back.”
“I’m going to find all that out today,” Christopher promised. “Do you two guys want to go with me?” He directed his question to Dallas and Reno, pointedly excluding me.
For a second, the room was dead silent. Reno, Dallas, Tulsa and Liberty looked uncomfortable, shifting their gazes from Christopher to me, then back to him.
“Uh…yes, I’ll go,” Reno said.
“I’m in,” Dallas agreed.
Christopher stood and walked out without another word. Reno and Dallas followed him, but Reno paused in the doorway and gave me a slight smile to show his support. Then they were gone. It felt like a heavy cloud had been lifted out of the room. I took a deep breath and realized I was so tense my fingernails had left marks in my palms from clenching my hands so tightly.
I reached for another donut. God, I was going to be as big as a house by the time I left. My coach was going to kill me…if she still was talking to me once I told her I was pregnant.
Tulsa’s fingers were tapping on the keys as she searched for the website where she could find out more information about the songs’ registration. Liberty was trying to balance on her crutches and scan the songs on the copy machine.
“Let me do that,” I offered. I was feeling a little left out. Everyone had a job to do except me.
Liberty smiled. “I can’t wait until I get this cast off. It’s starting to itch.” She gratefully handed over the pieces of paper to me and hopped back to a chair.
I scanned each song in and saved it under its title. Some didn’t have titles, so I had to use the first line as a name.
“I found it,” Tulsa said, giving a little fist pump in celebration. “Here’s a complete list of all the songs ever registered under Terry’s name. Oddly enough, there were none until last year.”
“So he doesn’t have a large body of work…except for Roger’s songs,” I commented.
“Doesn’t look like he ever wrote anything on his own,” Tulsa confirmed.
“What did Dallas say about copyright?” Liberty asked.
“He said that a songwriter in some ways is a lot like an author. As the original composer of the music the law gives rights automatically to the songwriter the instant it is created. But that is only an intellectual copyright. It needs to be registered, put in some printed form like a song book or sheet music or recorded as a demo disc of some kind,” I paraphrased what I remembered he had said.
“
That means that if Terry stole all those songs from Roger and secretly registered them, made demo tapes and filed them with the proper forms, it’s going to be hard to undo?” Liberty asked.
“
Did he do it properly?” I asked.
Tulsa nodded.
“Each of the twenty-seven songs has a United States Copyright Office form PA…for registration of published or unpublished works of the performing arts… and a form SR for both the underlying musical or dramatic work. And he included a sound recording for each.”
“And
Terry signed these forms?” I asked.
Tulsa
zoomed in on the signature on the forms. “Not exactly…it was filed by an authorized agent for a music publishing company, Fruit Fly Publishing.” She opened a new window and typed in a search for Fruit Fly Publishing. Almost a minute later, she continued, “Guess who owns Fruit Fly.”
“Terry?” Liberty said.
“Exactly,” Tulsa confirmed.
“Are there any other names on the form?” I asked. “Like a registered agent or a partner?”
Tulsa
checked several of them. “Good catch, Killeen. They’re all signed by Harlan as the registered agent!”
I
grabbed my cell phone and speed dialed Dallas. “Are you with Harlan yet? Good. Listen…don’t tell him anything. His name is on all of the registrations. Yes, that’s right, he’s in on it. The question is…how deep?” I heard him relate what I said to Christopher and Reno. “Just find out what you can without giving anything up. Okay…bye.” I ended the call.
Tulsa
asked. “So what’s next?”
“We
need to figure that part out, but I’m not comfortable with Harlan knowing anything about what we’re doing…agreed?” I stated.
We all agreed.
“I think we should keep digging on the information we have,” I continued. “I’d like us to have all the answers by the time they get back.”
“
Do you think Roger knew about Fruit Fly and Harlan and Terry?” Liberty asked.
“
Probably…,” I said.“That must have broken his heart. These were two people he had trusted, and they betrayed him,” she added.
That thought gave us all pause. Slowly, Roger was becoming more fleshed out as we uncovered the pieces of his life.
“Let’s start by taking each song,” Tulsa said. “Killeen, get your laptop and Liberty’s. We can go at it three at a time.”
“
Sounds good,” I agreed. I retrieved the two laptops out of our offices and returned to the conference room. Tulsa showed us how to get to the website she was on. We divided up the songs and started searching.
Two hours later, the boys returned. They found us still holed up in
the conference room with a half-empty box of pizza showing that we hadn’t even taken a break for lunch.
“
Still at it.” Christopher’s statement was more of a comment than a question as he walked into the conference room. “How’s it going?”
A chorus of
“good” was heard.
“Great…Harlan sent his best. He asked how you all were fitting in
, and I said fine. Okay, I’ll bite. What’s this about Harlan being involved?”
“We’ve been
researching the songs Liberty found in the box,” Tulsa spoke up. All twenty-seven songs were legally registered to Terry Roth. Trouble is, the copyright form was submitted by a company called Fruit Fly Publishing which Terry owns and for which Harlan is the registered agent. It gives them all rights.”
Christopher frowned. He obviously didn’t want to think that Harlan was involved with Roger’s death.
“
I’ll Take Mine to Go
is the first of the twenty-seven to be commercially released, although a half dozen of the others are currently in the process of being produced by some very well-known bands,” I told them. “We think that at some point after
I’ll Take Mine to Go
started getting air time, Roger confronted Terry.”
“
We don’t know what went on between them, but we suspect Roger was trusting Harlan to work it out,” Tulsa picked up our story. “We’re guessing he put him off until the Grammy win when Roger probably demanded the issue of ownership be cleared up. Four months later, he’s dead.”
“So we
thought it would be cool if we could figure out a way to trick Terry into confessing he killed Roger,” I said.
“Yeah, right. Too bad
Castle
or that dude from
Hawaii Five O
isn’t around,” Reno commented. “Maybe they could get him to confess.”
“We have a plan,” Liberty announced.
“We’re listening,” Dallas prompted.
“We think that the reason they tried to bomb the warehouse is because Terry w
anted to get rid of these handwritten pages.” I held up the stack of paper. “These are credible evidence that Roger had the rights to the songs. Terry won’t rest easy until they’re destroyed or he has them in his possession.”
“So we’ll use them for bait,” Tulsa told them. “We thought it would be cool to hold a wake for Roger a
t the lake house and invite all his old friends and band members.”
“A wake? But he died two months ago,” Christopher pointed out.
“Isn’t Elliot a Scottish name?” Tulsa asked.
“
He had a funeral, but it’s never too late for a wake,” I suggested. “It’ll be a big going-away party for Roger. We’ll spread the word that we’ve found some of Roger’s old tour stuff and since it doesn’t mean anything to us, we thought they might want to go through the boxes and take whatever they want for a keepsake.” I looked around and saw that the guys were processing this idea.
“We’re guessing that Terry will go for the songs and we can confront him,” Tulsa added.
“And he’ll just spill his guts?” Reno was skeptical.
“Okay, it’s not a perfect plan,” I retorted. “So what did you find out today?”
“Nothing. Since we couldn’t actually talk about Roger’s death not being an overdose, we couldn’t ask Harlan any specific questions,” Dallas answered.
“
What do you guys think about the wake?” Liberty asked with uncharacteristic persistence. I think her sense of justice had been ignited, and now she wanted to see Roger’s killer revealed.
Christopher
spoke up finally. “And you’ve got all the documentation behind this story?”
“
Everything but a video of Roger and Terry at a meeting. We’re counting on Terry to see it as an opportunity to end this once and for all.”
“Pam!
” Christopher yelled out.
Almost instantly
she appeared.
“
Would you check the cell records on all of Roger’s phones over the past six months and give me a list of every call Roger made to or received from Terry Roth…any of his or his agent’s numbers.”
“You got it,” Pam said as she left the room. Christopher smiled. “I just want to button this up as tight as possible.”
“Where do you guys think Harlan fits in?” I asked.
“I think we’ve concluded he was in on the copyright form part
, but I can’t believe he was in on Roger’s murder,” Christopher answered, but he still wasn’t meeting my eyes.
“
Until we know, we should assume that anything we don’t want Terry to know should also be kept from Harlan. We wouldn’t want him to tip Terry off,” Tulsa reiterated.
“I agree…
” Christopher was clearly conflicted about this, but committed to the cause. “Harlan isn’t to know anything. So…at the wake how are we going to pull this off?”
Al
l of our eyes focused on Reno who smiled and nodded.
“Imagine
Terry is the audience and, therefore, the victim of our trick,” he explained, pleased we were calling on his area of expertise. “It starts with a diversion and ends with the great reveal. First thing is to wire the entire house with video cameras and microphones so every square foot will be recorded.”
“
Then all we have to do is find a way to trick him?” Liberty asked.
Reno edged forward on his chair and propped his arms on the conference table. “
Exactly. Today Terry isn’t aware that we even know him. We use the songs for bait, record him taking them, then we spring the trap. The one common element of all magic tricks is to divert the audience’s attention from the trick itself until you are ready for the reveal…then it’s too late.”