“Slade is from California,” I said. “Or at least he lived in California before he moved to Austin. The rental application says he worked for a flooring company in Concord, in Contra Costa County. And the person he listed as his emergency contact has an area code from the Bay Area, which could be either Contra Costa or Alameda County.”
“Let’s see what the reverse directory has to say.” Antoine’s fingers moved across his computer keyboard.
After talking with Ortega, we’d gone back to Antoine’s shotgun house in the Treme. He was in his office chair and I’d brought a chair in from the kitchen. We were looking at his computer monitor, where he’d opened an Internet browser. Now he typed in the ten-digit phone number for Millicent Patchett, the emergency contact on Slade’s apartment rental application. We got an address in Lafayette, California.
I made a guess as I jotted down the address. “His mother. I’d bet money on it. Let’s see what we can find out about that band he was in, the Flames.”
We didn’t find much on the band, or its gigs. These days, with the Internet, bands make videos and post them on YouTube or a website, but we couldn’t find either for the Flames. Antoine kept searching, typing in keywords and clicking links. Finally he said, “Here’s something.”
I looked at the screen. It was a small article, no more than two paragraphs, listing the lineup for a concert at a festival in Brentwood, in the eastern part of Contra Costa County. And it listed the Flames, saying the group featured Eric Slade on lead guitar, Cam Gardner on bass and slide guitars, and Marsh Spencer on drums. The accompanying photograph was black-and-white and grainy. Antoine enlarged it. Slade and Spencer looked about the same age, while Gardner appeared to be a few years older.
Antoine typed in Marsh Spencer’s name. “Nothing else on Spencer, at least nothing relating to music. Maybe he’s given it up. Let’s see if we have better luck with Cam Gardner.”
We did. Gardner looked like a serious musician, one determined to build his career. He had his own website, with links to a calendar and a Facebook page. He was based in Austin now and it looked as though he was working steadily, playing gigs all over town, and farther afield in Texas. According to the Facebook page, he was working as a studio musician on several recordings.
His website led us to a list of links for videos, mostly of Gardner playing with various bands. But at the bottom of the list, we found two early videos of the Flames. In the first, the group was performing at a club in Concord. The second was from a club in Oakland.
Antoine and I watched both of them. At the Concord gig, the Flames were performing “Light My Fire,” which had been a huge hit for the Doors back in the 1960s. Slade was singing, attempting to channel Jim Morrison, but not quite succeeding. I was no judge of his guitar playing, or that of Gardner. The drummer, Spencer, was high-energy, bouncing on his stool and flailing away at the drums and cymbals. It seemed like he couldn’t sit still. Between numbers he moved restlessly, tugging at his earlobe.
In the second video, the one from the Oakland club, the group sounded more polished as they worked their way through a fairly decent cover of the Subdudes’ “All the Time in the World.”
When the video ended, I said, “They’re not bad. Just not that good either. Of course, I don’t know anything about guitar playing or drumming. Slade’s voice isn’t that remarkable.”
“Sometimes you don’t have to be that good,” Antoine said. “There are a lot of singers out there with voices that don’t have much polish, but they make it work. They hustle and they stick with it.”
“Point taken. It looks like Austin was a good move for Gardner. Maybe that’s why Slade relocated to Texas, following in Gardner’s footsteps. But he didn’t stay long. He showed up in New Orleans in October. That’s when he got the job at Melancon Supply and the apartment on Marais Street. So he spent barely six months in Austin.”
Antoine nodded. “Impatience. That’s what my sister says. A lot of musicians show up in New Orleans, or Austin, thinking they’re God’s gift to the music world. Then reality bites them in the butt. There are a lot of musicians in this town, as thick as flies on honey. The competition for gigs is fierce. That’s why so many of them are playing on street corners, like the kids we saw on Frenchmen Street, for whatever cash people toss into the hat. It’s not a matter of catching breaks. Like I said, you have to hustle to get those gigs and stay working. Got to keep with it, no matter how many times you get turned down. That’s why Daisy’s doing gigs at the Spotted Cat and Slade isn’t. Daisy’s been singing since she was in middle school and hustling for gigs about that long, too.”
“What about luck? That must be a factor, too. Being in the right place at the right time.”
“Daisy would say that behind every lucky break is someone who’s been working at it for years,” Antoine said.
“I would imagine that where you live is also important.” I was thinking out loud here. “It would be hard to be a working musician in some small town at the back of beyond, though I’m sure some people are. It seems that every kid who has a guitar winds up with a band, even if it’s playing gigs at the local high school. But if Slade does come from the Bay Area, the business about small towns and limited opportunity doesn’t really apply here.”
“Unless it’s limited talent,” Antoine said. “And that impatience I’m talking about.”
“So Slade’s impatient,” I said. “He’s not willing to do the hard work. He wasn’t an instantaneous success in Austin, so he moved to New Orleans. Same story here. He’s getting gigs, but it’s hard to pay the bills, so he has to get the job at the warehouse. He gets fired from that. He gets evicted from his apartment and uses that as an excuse to move in with Laurette, so he’s not paying rent. Now what? It looks like he’s impatient with New Orleans, too. So he’s leaving town, with Laurette. Somehow I don’t think it’s because he’s madly in love with her.”
“He’s driving an old, beat-up car,” Antoine said.
“But not anymore. He sells that car for whatever cash he can get. Then he persuades Laurette to trade in her Honda and buy a newer Ford. So now, in addition to Laurette, he’s got the keys to a much better car. But where are they going? Where is there a better music scene than the two places he’s already been—Austin and New Orleans?”
Antoine looked speculative. “New York City? Too expensive, is my guess. We got Memphis and Nashville. Maybe Chicago. Going west, Los Angeles. Or maybe up to Seattle.”
“I think he’s headed back to the Bay Area. Millicent Patchett must be his mother. So he’s got family there.” I paused. “We’ve got to follow up on what Ortega said about the car fire in Austin. A case of Slade getting even again?”
Antoine rubbed his chin. “I know a guy in Austin. I’ll call him. In the meantime, we ought to contact Cam Gardner and see what he has to say about his former guitar-playing buddy.”
The only contact information we could find for Cam Gardner was a “Contact Me” form on his website. Antoine filled out the form and sent it on its way. With luck, Gardner would get back to us.
Antoine called his friend in Austin, got voice mail and left a message. No sooner had he hung up the phone than it rang again. “That number,” he said. “It’s Cindy Brixton.”
He answered the phone and put it on speaker. “Ms. Brixton? This is Antoine Lasalle. Thank you for returning my call.”
The woman on the other end had a sharp, suspicious voice. “You keep calling me and leaving messages saying you want to talk about my brother. What is this about? You say you’re an investigator. For who? Are you working for some insurance company? I’ve talked with the cops and the fire department people. What’s your angle?”
I leaned toward the speaker. “This is Jeri Howard, Ms. Brixton. I’m working with Mr. Lasalle. We’re private investigators, looking for information on a man named Eric Slade.”
“That’s right,” Antoine added. “My contact at the fire department tells me you might have some things to say about him.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. As it stretched out I wondered if Cindy Brixton had ended the call. Then she spoke, her voice sounding subdued.
“I have plenty to say about Slade. I’m at home. Come on over.” She rattled off the address.
* *
Cindy Brixton had to be the woman who’d confronted Slade at Laurette’s apartment.
She was tall, nearly six feet, and slender, with a body that seemed to be all angles. Her blond hair was short and sculpted around her head. She wore khaki cropped pants and a lime-green cotton shirt, her feet bare. I pegged her age as early thirties. Her manner was brisk and businesslike as she greeted us at her front door. She lived in a two-story double-gallery house on Terpsichore Street in the Lower Garden District. It was just off St. Charles Avenue, close enough that I could hear the streetcars going by. The house had been converted into condos and she had one of the upstairs units.
She ushered us into the living room furnished with sleek, modern furniture and waved us toward the sofa. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got iced tea and beer. In fact, I’ve already started.” She indicated the end table, where a bottle of Abita Amber sat on a coaster.
“A beer would be great,” I said. Antoine agreed.
Cindy headed for the kitchen and came back with two more bottles of Abita. I took a swallow of beer, enjoying the cold brew. Cindy sat cross-legged in a chair covered with a green-and-yellow geometric print. She picked up her beer bottle from the end table and took a sip, then cradled it in her hand. “Why are you looking for information on Slade?”
“He seems to have disappeared,” I said.
“And we’d like to find out why,” Antoine added. “And get a line on where he went.”
“Disappeared?” She gave a short derisive snort. “That doesn’t surprise me. That son of a bitch killed my brother. He knew I wasn’t going to let go of that, no matter what the cops or fire department did—or didn’t do. He’s probably running for cover. I don’t have any idea where, but I sure as hell hope the past catches up with him.”
She leaned over and picked up a small framed photograph. I recognized the young man in the picture. This was the same photo that had appeared in Ray Brixton’s obituary.
“Was it you?” I asked. “Waylaying Slade outside the apartment building a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yes, that was me. I’ll bet that’s why he left town.”
“We don’t know for sure that he left town,” Antoine said. “We think so, but we don’t have any confirmation of that. Right now, we’re trying to find out everything that went down and make some sense of it all.”
Cindy looked at Ray’s photo. “It’s been seven weeks. The police rang my doorbell and told me my brother was dead. My baby brother. Damn it.”
Her voice broke and a crack appeared in her armor. She brushed away a tear, then set the photo on the table. The wound of her brother’s death was still fresh. Not surprising. That kind of hurt doesn’t go away.
“Why do you think Slade killed your brother?” I asked.
She took a sip of beer. Then her mouth settled into a firm, no-nonsense line. “Slade owed my brother money. That’s what started it. Ray never should have loaned money to that bastard. But my brother was too damn soft-hearted. He was an easy touch. All he had to hear was that a fellow musician was having troubles. He would take out his wallet, or give the guy the shirt off his back, that sort of thing.”
“I hear that,” Antoine said. “Did Ray say why Slade needed money?”
“According to Ray,” Cindy said, “Slade was having car troubles. He needed cash to get his piece-of-junk car fixed so he could take his equipment from gig to gig. I guess he was hitting up a bunch of musicians and he found my brother. Who unfortunately was an easy mark for Slade’s scams. After a while, Ray was having some money troubles of his own. I offered to loan him some cash, but he said no, said this guy owed him money and he’d get it from him. So my brother wanted to get paid back and this creep Slade kept putting him off. Finally Ray told me he was going to meet Slade and get the money. He said Slade told him to meet him at his apartment. Turns out it wasn’t his apartment anymore, he’d been evicted. He must have kept a key, because that’s where my brother went to meet him. Next thing I know, I’ve got a couple of cops on my doorstep, telling me Ray’s dead.”
She grimaced and stopped talking, fighting down the emotions that made her voice shake. I gave her a moment to compose herself, then asked, “What do you think happened?”
“I think my brother went to that apartment to meet Slade and Slade killed him. Then he torched the place to cover it up. I can’t understand why the cops haven’t arrested that bastard and charged him with my brother’s murder.” Her hand tightened on the beer bottle. “Now you tell me Slade is missing. He must have known they were coming up on his ass and he left town. That son of a bitch. If I ever catch up with him, I’ll...”
Later, as we left Cindy’s condo, I said, “It could be the reason. She’s pressuring the authorities, convinced Ray was murdered. Then she tracks Slade down to Laurette’s apartment, confronts him. So he decides to leave.”
“And persuades Laurette to go with him?” Antoine nodded. “Possible. I wonder what happened, there at Slade’s apartment.”
“We may never know. But what Cindy told us might fit. Slade and Ray meet at the apartment. Ray thinks he’s going to get his money. They get into some sort of altercation, Ray’s hurt, or dead. Slade sets a fire to cover his tracks.”
Now that we were outside, I pulled out my cell phone. I’d silenced it before we went to Cindy’s condo. I leaned against Antoine’s RAV4 and looked at the screen. I had two voice mails. The first was from Davina and the second from her mother.
I listened to Davina’s message first. Her voice sounded excited. “Jeri, we’ve heard from Laurette. Call me as soon as you get this.”