The Big Rewind (8 page)

M
ac worked at Ol' Vinylsides, the kind of record store where guys in horn-rimmed glasses and ringer tees hung around waiting for someone to buy a Huey Lewis album so they could mock them with quotes from
American Psycho
. But Mac was a walking zine, a
Rolling Stone
commemorative coffee table book of B-sides and bass players. If anyone would be able to hunt down this unnamed song off KitKat's tape, it would be him.

One of his fellow record nerds had cut out an elaborate construction-paper banner spelling out W
ILLIAM
J
OEL
A
PPRECIATION
D
AY
behind the counter and “She's Always a Woman” was playing loud enough to rattle my guts.

“Have you come to peruse our fine selection of William Joel records?” Mac asked, gesturing to the three stolen white Crowley milk crates packed with tattered vinyl. “We have many, many,
many
copies, and they're all on sale—or free, if you spend twenty-five dollars on music that doesn't totally suck.”

“I think I'll pass on that generous offer, thank you,” I said. “But I'm hoping you can provide me with your expertise in music outside of Planet Joel.” I slid my typewritten lyrics sheet across the counter.

“What, is this some new single you're trying to get recorded?”
He unfolded it and read through. “It's pretty good. I mean, it's not ‘Movin' Out' good, but we can't all possess the songwriting genius of Mr. William Joel.”

Brad, his coworker, who hadn't gotten the hairstyle memo that the nineties were over, snatched the lyrics out of his hands. “Do you need any session musicians? My brother Steve is a great keyboard player, and I could play drums . . .”

“It's already been recorded, but I want to know by who,” I said. “I heard it someplace, but can't find any information on it. I titled it ‘Wither without You,' but that might not be the real title. Google and Shazam both failed me at every try.”

“Shit, that's the worst,” Mac said, taking the paper back. “I'll see what I can find, but on one condition.”

I had to have that song and I would do anything to get it. I couldn't remember the last tune that had struck me as hard in the heart as this unknown track. It sounded like love. It sounded like loss. It sounded like something I'd forgotten how to feel, and all I wanted to do was feel it forever. I would give Brad's next album a hundred stars on Amazon. I would sing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” at karaoke.

“Name it,” I said.

He reached under the counter and handed me a copy of
The Bridge
. “You have to buy this.”

I
WAS OUT
five bucks for the record, but I trusted that Mac could find the history of my mysterious song. And if he didn't, I was going to make a bowl out of the record, fill it with candy, and give it to him to enjoy before he discovered that Billy Joel had invaded his home like bedbugs.

Back at the apartment, I took a quick inventory of the case. I had a tape I couldn't play again and a track list full of anguish. I had a set of initials and what looked like a motive. But I still didn't have the connection between KitKat, Bronco, and GPL.

I did, however, have another postcard, this one from Spain.
My grandmother hoped I was enjoying spring in Brooklyn. I wished I had a way to write to her, to ask her advice, to hear her wisdom in her airy trill.
Dear, you're a smart girl. You'll figure this out,
she'd say, pouring me another cup of tea. Just those words, said over the phone before a big test or over lunch on my first day here, would be enough to propel me through, if only I could hear her say them.

I put on Sid's copy of Cocteau Twins' dream-laden
Heaven or Las Vegas
and left Baldrick watching the record spin with eager eyes while I washed Philip's laundry in the bathtub. He wasn't kidding. His laundry soap smelled amazing.

I heard Hartford's ringtone and answered, expecting Susan.

“It's Philip,” he said. “I'll be in your neighborhood this evening; if everything's done, I can pick it up.”

“I could have it done, yeah,” I answered. Maybe Philip would be willing to give me a little advice on how to go about solving a case. I had the track list—most of it—and was on my way to solving that final mystery. But all I had was a theory I couldn't prove and a name I had no idea where to find. I was at a dead end, and it couldn't hurt to ask someone who knew better than me. Especially while holding a packet of his freshly washed secret underpants.

I
WASN'T USED
to seeing Philip in jeans and a sweater, but even so he had a coolness about him that completely betrayed the fact he was wearing ladies' underwear underneath it all. I found myself wondering what color he was wearing today and if he liked the ones I had picked out.

“You're too kind,” he said, accepting a cup of coffee and taking a sip. “Good coffee. If my own secretary ever leaves, I'll hire you on in a heartbeat.”

“I use a French press,” I said. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“That explains it—the office just uses a drip machine. They tried to get a Keurig, but I told Lauren I'd fire her if one of those
coffee robots showed up in my office. Sure, ask away. I can't stay too long, but now that I have a cup of coffee, I might as well sit.”

I took a seat at the table and he took the chair across from mine. “How do you solve a case?” I ventured to ask. “I mean, how do you go about getting all the information? What kind of questions do you ask?”

“It's easier than you think,” he said. “You just keep asking what you want to know until you start hearing the same thing over and over again.”

I had already been doing that. I had asked Marty to find me a tape player, Josie to help me decode, Mac to find the song. But I was still at a dead end unless GPL appeared in a wisp of vapor. “How do you know who to ask?”

“You ask everybody,” he answered. “Landlords, neighbors, coworkers, grocery store clerks. No one keeps a secret to themselves for long, and someone always knows something.”

I stared at the gold ring on his finger, wondering who else knew
his
secrets.

“Why do you ask?” he said. “Are you writing a screenplay?”

“No,” I said. “A friend of mine got accused of a crime, and I want to help prove that he's innocent.”

He had the coffee cup halfway to his mouth, but he set it down and got very serious. “Jett,” he said. “This is not Nancy Drew. Detective work is not something you can just play around with. There are laws in place, there are protocols. You could get yourself—and your friend—in real trouble.”

“But what about him?” I asked. “What if they don't believe he's innocent?”

Philip sighed. “I wish I could give you more hope that the justice system would work,” he said, “but you and I both know that's not always the case. If you want, I can recommend a good lawyer, but, Jett, I want you to listen to me when I say you need to stay out of it.” He took a last sip of his coffee and stood up, collecting his package under his arm. “If you really are interested in becoming a PI, I can set you up to take a certification course online. And
if you want to come work for Hartford, they'll pay for it. But I'm warning you: it's not all bourbon in your desk drawer and leggy dames and fedoras.”

“So why did you become a detective?” I asked.

“I like puzzles,” he said. “I like fitting everything together. But I didn't have the stomach to deal with the kind of crimes cops deal with—murders and rapes and kidnappings—so the private sector was more for me. Sometimes I wish it was a little more exciting, like on TV, but the upside is that I've never had to look at a dead body that wasn't already laid out in an expensive casket.”

“I'll think about it,” I said. “Thanks for the chat.”

“Thanks for the laundry,” he said. “I'll schedule you for Friday evening, if that's convenient.”

“I'll put it on my calendar,” I said.

“Make it seven o'clock,” he said. “And I'll see you then.”

I thought about what he said after he left. Up until now, I hadn't asked anyone about GPL because I hadn't wanted to tip my hand, reveal to anyone that I was doing anything behind the scenes in case I failed. But I also knew I wasn't going to walk away from finding out who really killed KitKat, even if Bronco was the guilty one. And now I knew I had to ask someone, and better still, someone who would know better than anyone.

A
fter Philip left, I put in a call to Hillary. If anyone might know the identity of the mysterious GPL, it would be KitKat's sister. I dialed her number and rinsed out the French press while I waited.

There was loud music when she picked up. “Hey, Jett,” she said. “You're going to have to speak up; I'm helping Vern do a sound test before his show tonight. What's up? You in town?”

“I wish,” I said. Baldrick hopped up on the counter and batted at the faucet. “I've been going over those tapes you gave me and I wanted to know if you were in touch with any of the creators—thought maybe they might want them back as a memento.”

“Not really,” she said. “I mean, we saw her first boyfriend, Luke, at the gas station when we were home for Christmas, but her Facebook page would be the place to ask around—it's kind of become a makeshift memorial.”

I was going to have to be a little more direct. “There's one here that's just initials, GPL—does that sound like anyone she talked about?”

“Could be Greg Larkin, he was her friend Jennifer's brother,” she said. “But I don't think he ever made her a tape. They were just friends.”

I got out the binder and flipped through the track lists. There were two mixes from Jennifer but none from Greg. “I don't think so—can you think of anyone else?”

Someone yelled something in the background. “I gotta go, they're having a problem with the drums. I'll dig through her phone and see what I can find.”

She hung up before I got a good-bye in, but a few minutes later, a text came from KitKat's old number. At first, it didn't feel right to open it, a ghost, a message from beyond the grave. And when I did open it, there wasn't a phone number—instead, Hillary had sent me a photo of KitKat holding hands with a man at least ten years her senior. He was wearing a yellow shirt and a Red Sox cap; she had on a Binghamton University sweatshirt and a red polka-dot skirt. I vaguely remembered KitKat telling me she'd done her undergrad work at Binghamton. Anthropology, I think, probably because they didn't have a degree in being quirky.

This pic was labeled GBU in her photos,
Hillary wrote.
No clue who he is. Never seen him before, but I hope it helps.

I stared at her picture with tears in my eyes. She was smiling in the photo, happy enough to look almost alive beyond the pixels. I only had a few photos of her and none of them were of the two of us—group shots from the Save Our Bluths run, brunch Instagrams, party candids. For two weeks, I'd carried around the abstract knowledge that she was gone, the day-to-day understanding that I wouldn't see her in the foyer or at a party. But looking at her picture with her cat by my side, the hard reality of her death hit me square in the chest. It wasn't fair. It never is, but seeing her so vibrant in this small digital scrap only reinforced the fact that she was taken from us too young, too violently, and seemingly without sense. And my task—whether Philip agreed or not—was to put all the pieces together.

I sat down on the couch with my laptop. Baldrick knocked into my shin with his head, and I reached down to scratch him
behind the ears. BU for Binghamton University, like her sweatshirt. I pulled up the college website and plugged in all the G names I could think of. Greg L, two hits. Gerald L, none. George L, fourteen names came up.

But only one of them was George Parker Lennox.

P
rofessor George Parker Lennox taught music theory, the History of Rock, Intro to New Wave, Punk Theory, and Yacht Rock Senior Seminar. That explained Steely Dan and Billy Bragg. He'd authored an intro-to-music textbook and written the foreword to a book on the Talking Heads. The headshot on his bio matched the man in KitKat's photograph, Red Sox cap and all. He had a blog. He had a Twitter feed.

And he had a wife.

The tape was starting to make sense now. He was the unavailable one and that's why he was ending it. It wasn't a breakup, it was a farewell. He probably assumed that she hadn't contacted him because she understood the tape. And now I wondered if my interception made me responsible for telling him what really happened. Bronco had no reason to be jealous—it was over between the two of them, it might have even been over before the tape was made. There was too much heartbreak in those lyrics for it to be a fond farewell
and
a fuck-you.

But it also meant that GPL's wife could be a suspect. Binghamton was only a few hours away, and it wouldn't be the first time in history that a wife took care of her husband's mistress. If I was trying to prove Bronco's innocence, she was making a pretty strong case for herself without even knowing it.

I scanned KitKat's cupcake blog, her Facebook, her Twitter for any conversations that might have tipped the wife off. If they were having an affair, they'd kept it very quiet. He'd never left a comment, wasn't listed as a follower or a friend. But he was going to have to find out she was dead someday, and I was probably going to have to be the one to tell him.

I was shaking. I closed the laptop. Baldrick yowled and I poured out the last of the cat crunchies into his dish. He ate while I put on my coat and walked down to the grocery store for distraction, silently begging,
Please don't let me run into anyone, please don't let me . . .

“Hi, Jett.” I was surprised to see Randy by the vegetable corner. Key Food seemed too pedestrian for him and Lovelle; I always assumed they got all the supplies for Egg School and their own kitchens at a more free-range grocery store. “Picking up some goodies for Bronco's care package?”

Bronco. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to visit him tomorrow.

Randy had a full basket of organic and gluten-free offerings. All I had in my basket was the cheapest, smallest bag of cat food that would get Baldrick through until the direct deposit fairy magically planted money in my checking account. Right now, my washerwoman duties were the only thing keeping me in MetroCards and Trader Joe's.

“That and a few other things,” I lied, hoping it would explain the cat food.

Randy nodded. “Lovelle and I have a box of things other customers have dropped off—some puzzle books, snacks, stuff like that. But if you could pick up some soy cheese and a couple of those egg-free, casein-free cookies they have over at Hotte Lotte, I know he would appreciate it.”

“Can't you guys just send some egg-free cookies?” I asked. “Those ones that you get are pretty good.”
For being dry and disgusting,
I thought. I had accidentally ordered one a few months ago when I'd been too hungry to make an informed decision
and had regretted it the whole time it was crumbling in my mouth.

Randy looked at me like I'd asked him to burn down his store and use the insurance money for bail. “This is about community support, Jett,” he said. “We need to show Bronco that we're all rallying behind him.”

“I just know he really likes the cookies you guys have—”

He cut me off. “You'll be riding with Bryce; he'll pick you up. Just remember, no raisins in anything. Prisoners can use them to make booze.”

“They could start a distillery and sell it to hipsters in Williamsburg,” I joked. “I bet guys in seventies running shorts and cop-show mustaches would line up to drink Raisin Jack.”

Randy didn't find that funny. Truth is, I didn't either. I was feeling bitter and mean about everything. He muttered some kind of good-bye and went back to buying kale. I looked at the cat food in my basket and decided that was all I was going to buy. I liked Bronco, but this week, there was only enough cash to feed one man in my life, and it was going to have to be the fluffy one.