Tie Die

  Also By Max Tomlinson

  The Colleen Hayes Series:

  Vanishing in the Haight

  The Sendero Series:

  Sendero

  Who Sings to the Dead

  The Agency Series:

  The Cain File

  The Darknet File

  Standalone:

  Lethal Dispatch

  Copyright © 2020 by Max Tomlinson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-60809-343-4

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing

  Sarasota, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  This one’s for Evan Marshall, agent extraordinaire, a man who never stops, and one who knows how to come up with a great book title!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my writing group, whose steadfast critiquing helped whip Tie Die into shape. They are (in no particular order): Barbara McHugh, Dot Edwards, Heather King, and Eric Seder. Thank you for many years of enduring early drafts!

  Special thanks to Stan Kaufman for helping with various details, and Carl Gonser for answering legal questions.

  And, as always, thanks to my wife, Kate, the ultimate beta reader, and my dog, Floyd, whose extremely slow walks allow me to ruminate on stickier story questions.

  PROLOGUE

  THE HAMMERSMITH ODEON

  LONDON 1966

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the group you’ve been waiting for—number one on Top of the Pops—on their way to America—will you put your hands together for—The Lost Chords!”

  Eighteen-year-old Stevie Cook stood backstage behind the safety curtain, smoking a Player’s No. 6, listening to the Odeon burst into a massive, collective roar. He shut his eyes and relished the noise. Screaming: the girls were bloody screaming out there. The Chords had sold out the Hammersmith Odeon. A year ago, they couldn’t fill the front row of Andover Church End Youth Club on a Saturday night.

  Onstage he heard Tich starting it up, bass drums like sledgehammers, snares and tom-toms making Stevie’s feet move. Cymbals crashed as Nev’s raucous guitar cut in. Thousands of pairs of hands clapping now. The audience knew the tune, yelled it at football matches. He might have written it, but now it was theirs.

  Frenzy. You’ve got me in a Frenzy.

  Stevie sucked tobacco smoke while he listened to Nev slashing out the intro on his white Vox Teardrop, an African rhythm tempered on wet English cobblestones. Then the bass guitar came thundering in, like a locomotive out of the station.

  He’d stay behind the curtain just one second longer, savor it just a bit longer.

  “Right, Stevie. You’ve had your fun. And put that bloody cigarette out.”

  Steve opened his eyes, saw Ian Ellis, their manager, a ferret of a man, mustache trimmed too tight, a boarding school bully in a Savile Row suit.

  “When I’m good and ready, Ian.” He gave the man who’d been robbing them blind a hard stare as he took a luxurious drag of smoke. And blew it directly into Ian’s face.

  “You might have a crowd of yobs out there tonight,” Ian spat, his face turning red as he fanned smoke away. “But you won’t have them long. Yesterday’s papers are what you’ll soon be. I’ve seen it all before.” Ian gave Steve’s arm a light double pat, military, cold, patronizing. Beyond the curtain the band vamped out the song’s intro, over and over, waiting for Stevie to come out. The crowd was chanting the opening lines.

  Steve looked at his arm where Ian had touched him, then he looked back at him, the look saying: touch me like that again and I might bloody well touch you back. Ian didn’t have his thugs to protect him now.

  “I’ve got one question, Ian,” Steve said. “Where’s our money?”

  Ian Ellis gave a smirk. “You might want to read your contract, boy. You get paid when I say. Not a moment sooner.”

  “You’re a bloody thief and that’s about the size of it.”

  “Best watch your step, lad. And end on the new song—American girls won’t wet their knickers like some West Country trollop over a tune you wrote in the back of the van.” Ian gave Steve another shoulder pat.

  Steve flared, jerking his fist back, holding it a few short moments to let Ian know what it was about to become before it actually did, then let it fly. He thought he heard a crunch of cartilage above the music and managed to get Ian again with his left fist on the way down to the floor, twisting it on a smudge of opened nose.

  “Pay us, Ian,” Steve said, wiping his hands. “Final warning.”

  Ian sprawled on the rough wooden boards.

  “You’re finished!” Ian shouted, clutching his face. A streak of red ran through his fingers. Steve dropped and stomped his smoldering fag next to Ian’s head, then fluffed his dark mod haircut back with his bricklayer’s fingers. Straightened his skinny tie.

  Sauntered out from behind the curtain.

  The house exploded, a blast of applause.

  Up to the mic in a jog, the roar deafening his ears.

  “Are you ready?” Stevie yelled, eyes screwed up.

  Shouting back: Ready!

  “No, I said, ‘Are you ready?’” Steve bounced up with the mic stand and spun, turning midair, landing to face Nev, who was planted firmly onstage, beanpole legs splayed wide in his stovepipes, chopping out power chords. Grinning at Steve from under a mop of fine blond hair.

  Steve whirled toward Dave, on bass, in his white shoes and big-striped suit, working away. Dave nodded back with a shy smile, thumping along.

  To Tich, on drums, the sweat already making his face shine, thick neck bulging out of a purple Ben Sherman collar. Beating every drum he owned.

  Play every gig as if it was your last. Steve gyrated back to the audience, whipping a leg around the way he’d seen Wilson Pickett do at The Marquee, adding his own bit of British flair. The crowd, rising out of the seats, bellowed with approval.

  He leaned into the microphone.

  “Alright, then.”

  A throbbing head and full bladder woke Steve from a drink-induced coma the next morning. The clicking in the corner of his hotel room was like a metronome from hell, tapping on his skull.

  He didn’t know where he was at first. Then he remembered: Dorchester Arms, Mayfair. But how he’d gotten into his hotel room after the show last night, he hadn’t a clue.

  He peeled back the sheet that had been covering his head, squinted through the stabbing of his optic nerves, saw his clothes strewn across the floor. The tick-tick-ticking of the record player scratching the final groove of an LP in the corner of the room was drilling a hole in his cranium. The tonearm bobbed as the black vinyl turned. Cold gray morning light seeped in around the edges of the curtains.

  Steve threw the sheet off and climbed out of the king-size bed in his socks and tie-dye underpants. Standing now, he swayed like a boat on a stormy sea as blood rushed up the back of his spine and slammed the base of his skull like a hammer. He grabbed the back of his neck with one hand; his hand felt bruised. He examined his knuckles. Swollen. A fight?

  He recalled something about Sir Ian.

  He stumbled over to the record player on the floor. LPs and 45s out of their sleeves, scattered around. He pu
lled the tonearm off the end of Rubber Soul. He didn’t remember listening to that.

  There was a lot he didn’t know.

  Back to bed. He turned, the room spinning a split-second behind.

  And flinched when he saw that the bed he’d passed out in wasn’t his alone.

  A slim girl lay facedown, a satin sheet just covering her curved, bare derrière. The gray pall leaking in around the curtains highlighted the delicate bumps of her spine. Pale skin like cream. Her short blond hair reminded him of Twiggy, and she was an English rose, to be sure, but one that was probably smashed with drink the way he had been.

  He didn’t remember that either. Christ.

  Staggering into the bathroom, he shut the door behind him, took a long strangling piss, bracing one hand against the red and gold wallpaper above the loo so he wouldn’t fall in and be flushed away. Examined Mr. Johnson while he drained: he didn’t appear to have seen any action last night.

  God, his head hurt. He could normally handle his drink better than that.

  Back out into the room, he picked up the phone, dialed zero.

  “Reception,” a woman’s crisp voice said. “Good morning, Mr. Cook. And how may I help you?”

  “You can start by telling me what time it is, love.”

  “Five thirty in the morning, sir.”

  “Right,” he said, glancing around for his cigarettes. He found a near-empty pack of Player’s on the floor next to a pair of white lace knickers. He pulled a fag out with his lips, found some hotel matches in a glass ashtray.

  Then he remembered he had a guest.

  “Tea or coffee, pet?” he said to the girl facedown in his bed.

  No response.

  “A pot of tea,” he said into the phone. “Two cups. Milk and sugar. And a bottle of brown ale to chase it down with.” Christ but his head was screaming.

  “The bar’s closed, I’m afraid, Mr. Cook.”

  He got a cigarette going, sucked in acrid smoke, bringing some minor relief to his ravaged system. “Just the tea, then, please.”

  “Straightaway, Mr. Cook.”

  He hung up. Looked at the curvature of the flared hips exposed above the shiny sheet. In the half-light she looked like a painting. One he wished he’d known better.

  He called the front desk again while he waited for room service and was put through to Nev’s room. On the fifth ring, the phone was answered, dropped, picked up again.

  “Who the fucking hell is this?” Nev croaked.

  “Wakey, wakey, Nev.”

  “Fuck me dead, Steve. Do you have any idea what the bloody time is?”

  “Around five thirty, I’m told.” Steve blew smoke across the room.

  “My point exactly. Call me when the bar opens.”

  “Just curious, Nev. What the hell happened last night?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

  “You don’t recall guzzling scotch in your dressing room after the show? You know, mate, it’s not considered classy to drink right out of the bottle.”

  “I do not remember.”

  “Thank Sir Ian for that. Apparently the two of you got into it before the gig. You were a tad upset.”

  He remembered something about that now. Punching him in the nose.

  “Well, at least the evening wasn’t a total write-off,” Steve said.

  “That would explain Sir Ian’s purple, enlarged beak.” Nev laughed. “We all hit the booze pretty hard, mate. But you outdid yourself. But, for the record, it was a great show.”

  Steve lowered his voice. “Any chance you might know the name of the bird I came back to my room with, Nev?”

  Nev laughed again. “There were a couple at the bar waiting to meet you.”

  “She probably got past the guard. Waited at my hotel room door.”

  “Lucky git.”

  “Funny thing is, Nev, I’m not feeling all that lucky at the moment.”

  “Well, my heart bleeds. I can’t think straight, mate. I’m back to my beddy byes. Ta-rah.” Nev hung up.

  Steve ran his fingers through his hair, his head numb and buzzing. The ding of an elevator outside was followed by a gentle knock at his door.

  Cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he pulled on hasty trousers, let Room Service in, the woman in the white frilly apron blushing when she saw Steve’s unclothed guest flat out on the bed. The maid put the silver tray with the pot of tea and cups down on the table and, having no cash, Steve tipped her a pound on the room service receipt. Sir Ian could pay for that, tight arse.

  He poured a cup of tea, stirred in three sugars and milk, drank it down in a single burning gulp, gasped, poured another cup. His belly radiated heat.

  Took the cup over to her side of the bed. Set it down on the stand.

  “Rise and shine, love.”

  No movement.

  “Not to be too personal about it,” he said, “but would you mind telling me your name?”

  Still no movement. That wasn’t right. He pulled in a breath.

  He reached down, gently touched her bare shoulder. “Come on, pet …”

  Her skin was cool.

  Still.

  Dead.

  He recoiled back, heart pounding between his ears as a million thoughts screamed through his aching head.

  The Daily Mirror, April 16th, 1966:

  ROCKER RUNS!

  Reports have confirmed that pop star Steve Cook, lead singer of Britain’s chart-topping Lost Chords, has fled the United Kingdom whilst under investigation over the death of an underage girl found nude in his Mayfair hotel room bed.

  The Mirror has learned that Cook, eighteen, traveled to France by ferry under an assumed identity, and has since boarded a flight to Rio de Janeiro. Cook has been the center of an investigation over an unidentified sixteen-year-old girl found dead of a drug overdose in Cook’s hotel room in Mayfair’s Dorchester Arms the night after a sold-out concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. Cook was taken into custody and had been helping the police with their inquiries and was released on bail earlier this week.

  Cook maintains his innocence.

  “It certainly doesn’t help matters that he’s left the country illegally,” Scotland Yard said. Brazil does not recognize extradition treaties with Great Britain.

  Delco Records sacked Cook when the investigation began.

  “We are appalled by the criminal behavior of one of our recording artists,” said Sir Ian Ellis, manager of The Lost Chords. “Cook should come back and face the music—so to speak.”

  The Lost Chords shot to fame earlier this year after “Underground Girl,” a song penned by Cook, hit number one on the British pop charts. Their current hit, “Frenzy,” has been sitting at number one for three weeks and, ironically, the bad news about Steve Cook seems to be fueling its continued success. The Lost Chords hail from Andover where the former childhood friends until recently played youth clubs and small venues while Cook worked as a bricklayer’s apprentice.

  “My mate is completely innocent,” said Lost Chords’ guitarist Nev Ashdown. “Steve and I spoke right after the incident. Steve told me he found the girl in his hotel room and thought she was asleep. Fans will do anything to get near a star sometimes. Tragic, but it happens. The poor girl died of drugs they say. Steve never did drugs. Drink, yeah, but drugs—never. I would know; we’ve been friends since we were kids. Steve hates drugs. My heart goes out to the poor girl’s mum and dad. But if Steve said he didn’t give her drugs, and he didn’t touch her, then he didn’t do it.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 1978

  “It sure beats sleeping on a cot in a condemned warehouse,” Alex said, admiring Colleen’s new flat. In one hand she held a bottle of champagne in a paper bag. Behind her, beyond the sunroom facing the rooftop deck, the city was fast disappearing in fog.

  “You can say that again,” Colleen said. Her last residence had been an abandoned paint factory she guarded for a client.<
br />
  Alex was a former client, a petite blond decked out in one of her runway-worthy outfits, today a dark blue linen pantsuit with a long, draped jacket and outrageous bell-bottoms that hid her stacked platform heels. Her aristocratic features seemed heightened by the fact that she’d just inherited a fortune.

  The silver tips of the Bay Bridge’s spans were vanishing. Behind them, up the hill toward Potrero, the whir of traffic on an elevated section of 101 provided white noise.

  Colleen set a bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter, already occupied with boxes and tools and other artifacts of the recent move-in. She shifted a can of paint on the floor out of the way with the tip of a white Pony Topstar and pulled open the door to an empty refrigerator where she began putting groceries away.

  “It’s about time you had something nice,” Alex said.

  Colleen felt like an Amazon next to Alex, although that was overstatement. But she was taller, darker, moodier, with brown eyes and chestnut hair that she’d let reach her shoulders, with a feathered look that was in fashion. She was more muscular, thanks to her decade in prison inhabiting the weight room. And she had to earn a living, presently as owner and operator and sole employee of Hayes Confidential, investigator license pending. She also wore clothes that came off the rack, acid-washed denim flares today, along with her beloved beat-up tan leather jacket over a white V-neck T-shirt. A pair of silver magpie earrings that once belonged to her daughter dangled from her ears. Pale pink lipstick softened her lips.

  “Want the fifty-cent tour?” she asked as she slid a stack of TV dinners into the freezer compartment. “I actually have furniture.”

  Bottle in hand, Alex came in close, the scent of her hair filling Colleen’s nostrils. She touched the tip of Colleen’s nose softly with a fingertip. “You bet.”

  Colleen led Alex through a long living room with polished hardwood floors, where a new chrome and black leather sofa sat under a bank of tall, white-framed wooden windows. The smell of fresh paint prevailed. At one end of the flat was a corner room that served as Colleen’s office. French doors led to a large bedroom with a bay window. “Technically, you can see the Ferry Building from here,” Colleen said. “If the sun comes out.”