She went over the file till her head hurt. Asked a couple of the guys if they had any ideas. A young D-I named Arbogast said, “You should listen to his music.”
Petra had bought a few CDs, spent the early-morning hours with Baby Boy’s bruised voice and wailing guitar licks. “For a clue?”
“No,” said Arbogast. “Cause he rocked.”
“Guy was a fucking genius,” another detective agreed. An older one—Krauss. Petra would’ve never taken him for a blues fan. Then she realized he was around Baby Boy’s age, had probably grown up with Baby Boy’s music.
A genius dies but the mainstream press couldn’t care less. Not even a phone call from the Times, despite uniformly good reviews of Baby Boy’s music Petra found while surfing the Web. She left a message for the newspaper’s music critic, on the off chance something in Baby Boy’s past could point her in a new direction. Jerk never phoned back.
She did get pestered by a handful of self-styled “rock journalists,” young-sounding guys claiming to represent outlets with names like Guitar Buzz, Guitar Universe, and Twenty-first-Century Guitar, each one wanting details for obituaries. No one had anything to say about Lee other than to praise his playing. The word “phrasing” kept coming up—Alex had used the term—and Petra figured out that meant how you put notes and rhythm together.
Her phrasing on this one stank.
The rock writers lost interest when she asked questions instead of answering theirs. Except for one guy who kept bugging her for details, a character named Yuri Drummond, publisher of a local magazine called GrooveRat, which had run a profile on Baby Boy last year.
Drummond alienated Petra immediately by calling her by her first name and proceeded to compound the annoyance by rooting around rudely for forensic details. “How many stab wounds? How much blood did he actually lose?”
Guy had the ghoulish curiosity and nasal voice of a hormonally stormed teenager, and Petra wondered about a prank caller. But when he asked her if anything had been scrawled on the alley wall, she stiffened.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, you know,” said Drummond. “Like the Manson murders—Helter Skelter.”
“Why would the Manson murders be related to Mr. Lee’s murder?”
“I don’t know. I just thought . . .”
“Have you heard anything about Mr. Lee’s murder, Mr. Drummond?”
“No.” Drummond’s voice rose in pitch. “What would I know?”
“When did you interview Mr. Lee?”
“No, no, I never met him.”
“You said you ran a profile on him.”
“We ran an in-depth profile and listed his discography.”
“You profiled him in depth without meeting him.”
“Exactly,” said Drummond, sounding cocky. “That’s the whole point.”
“What is?”
“GrooveRat’s into the psychobiosocial essence of art and music, not the cult of personality.”
“Psycho-bio-social,” said Petra.
“In plain words,” said Drummond, condescending, “we don’t care who someone screws, only the groove they put out.”
“Hence the title of your magazine.”
Silence.
Petra said, “Do you have information about who Baby Boy Lee was screwing?”
“You’re saying there was a sexual angle to—”
“Mr. Drummond, what exactly was the focus of this profile?”
“The music,” pronounced the little snip, letting the unspoken “duh” hang in the air.
“Baby Boy’s phrasing,” said Petra.
“Baby Boy’s whole groove—the mind-set he put himself into to get the sound he did.”
“You didn’t think talking to him would help that?” Petra pressed, wondering why she was wasting time with this loser. Knowing the sad answer: nothing else on her plate.
“No,” said Drummond.
“Did Baby Boy Lee turn down an interview with you?”
“No, we never asked him. So tell me, what kind of blade are we talking about—”
“What was Baby Boy’s groove?” said Petra.
“Pain,” said Drummond. “That’s why his being killed is so—it fits. So what can you tell me about how it went down?”
Petra said, “You want gory details.”
“Right,” said Drummond.
“Do you have any idea who killed him?”
“Why would I? Listen, you really should help us. The public’s got a right to know, and we’re the best messenger.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Drummond?”
“Because we understood him. Were they? The details. Gory.”
“Were you at the Snake Pit, Saturday night?”