cameras in my house? That’s just not him, no way.”
Chapel thought, barely nodded.
I asked, “How long do I stay here?”
“Next forty-eight hours, at least. This will get bad, Mim, and I want you as far out of it as possible. The media’s going to go nuts, if they haven’t already. Your brother dealt drugs, your father’s a convict, you’re a celebrity . . . reporters wait their whole lives for this kind of thing. Throw in that you’re the subject of someone’s commercial voyeurism, and we have what we refer to in the legal profession as a fucked-up mess. I don’t want you leaving these rooms. I don’t even want you calling for room service. Don’t use the phone at all, unless it’s to call me. If someone comes to the door, you hide in the bathroom. I don’t want anyone knowing where to find you.”
“The police—”
“They want you, they’ll come to me,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“Time for me to earn what Graham and the label and you have been paying me for. I’ll handle the press, the police. I’ll arrange for your brother’s funeral. You leave all that to me.”
“I should be doing something.”
“You stay sober. Can you stay sober, Miriam?”
I nodded.
“Really? Or should I get the wine out of the room?”
“You going to remove the minibar, too?”
“I’ll be keeping the key.”
I twisted on the chair, uncomfortable, and wanting him to shut up. “I’m out of cigarettes.”
“I’ll have Barry get you a carton.”
“I don’t want to be alone.” It sounded more plaintive than I wanted it to.
He nodded. “Who do you want to stay with you?”
“Joan.”
He took a different mobile from his pocket, matte black and no bigger than a credit card, and asked me for her number. I gave it to him, and he dialed. It seemed to ring several times before anyone answered, and then Chapel started speaking, introducing himself. He didn’t hand over the phone, just saying that he represented me, that my brother had been murdered, and that for the sake of my privacy he had moved me from my home to a hotel. I couldn’t hear Joan’s half of the conversation, not even when Chapel told her about Mikel. He asked her if she would mind joining me, staying with me for a day or so, and there was no appreciable pause for her to answer, and then he was saying I was at the Heathman, under the name Jennifer Lee, and that the sooner she got here, the better.
Then he hung up and said, “She’s on her way over.”
“I wanted to talk to her. You should have let me talk to her. She knew Mikel.”
He slid his phone back into his jacket, exhaling, and his face changed, smoothing. I realized that he’d been as worked up as I was, that he was as worried as I was, though maybe not for all the same reasons.
“I should have,” Chapel said. “I apologize.”
I thought about saying that I accepted it. Thought about offering him an apology of my own, too, for whatever good it would do. Maybe to bank against future transgressions.
Instead, I got up and grabbed the robe off the back of the chair, then went into the bedroom to change, slamming the partition behind me.
CHAPTER 18
Barry had dropped off clothes and smokes before Joan arrived, and Chapel left almost immediately after she got there. I had showered and eaten a room-service sandwich—ordered by Chapel—and was feeling so sleepy I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.
Joan gave me energy, though, along with unconditional comfort. I took it greedily, trying not to remember that I hadn’t been around to give her the same when Steven died.
Chapel returned Saturday night, about an hour after I woke up, with a long list of accomplishments. He’d arranged the funeral for Monday afternoon, at a parlor called Colby’s in Southeast. He’d picked Colby’s, he told me, because they could be discreet, and that was going to be even more important, because Van and Click and Graham all intended to be at the service. He’d spoken to Graham, and passed along concern and condolences from all involved. Apparently even Oliver Clay had expressed sympathy for my loss. Big of him.
It was the mundane questions that threw me. What kind of casket did I want for Mikel? What kind of flowers? Should there be music at the service? Choral, or organ, or something else? Was there a song he liked? Did I, perhaps, want to play? Did Mikel want to be cremated, or buried, and if buried, where? Who of his friends did I want invited to the funeral?
“I don’t know his friends,” I admitted.
“If it’s all right with you, I can go through his things, see if I can find an address book. Did he keep an address book?”
“He had a PDA, one of those pocket things,” I said. “Should be at his house.”
“Then I’ll bring that back here, and you can put together a list of guests.
“You remember a car on your street, a gray Chevy?” Chapel asked me. “It was parked down the block from your house.”
“The beater?”
“Burchett’s people figured that’s where the signal from your house was going, that the receiver was in the car.”
“So Burchett found the tapes?”
“He couldn’t get into the vehicle. But he told the police about it, and they’ve moved it to their lot. Their people are going over it.”
“But that means that the police will have the tapes,” I said. “If there are tapes, then they’ll have them.”
“Yes, but as evidence. Their existence might be leaked, but not their contents, not until they’ve got the people responsible.”
That didn’t actually reassure me very much at all.
Chapel went on, telling us that Tommy was still in custody, but that he hadn’t been charged.
I asked him why.
“A guess? The police don’t have the evidence and they’re trying to get it.”
“What about Miriam?” Joan asked. “Is she a suspect?”
“For about six hours, she was the prime suspect,” Chapel told her.
Joan was almost incredulous. “For heaven’s sake, why?”
“The search they executed at her home turned up a lot of blood, they thought it might have been her brother’s.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. “It was mine.”
“They know that now.” Chapel shook his head. “No, she’s in the clear for the time being. Even if she wasn’t, the D.A. would want to be damn certain before he took the publicity of charging her.”
Joan was looking at me. “Why did they find blood in your house?”
“My hand,” I said.
“You said you cut it on tour.”
“I lied.”
“Why would you . . .” And Joan trailed off, because she figured out the answer to that one, and it led to another question. “That’s why you’re home? Because you couldn’t stay sober on tour?”
Chapel wasn’t speaking, and from his expression, he looked like he wasn’t listening, either. I knew he was, but he did a good job of pretending not to.
I tried to make a joke, I said, “It’s just the way Steven told it, Joan. It’s just part of the job.”
