A long silence as he looked at the pink rectangle and then the whiteboard. “Tell me the date again.”
She looked at the stub. “October 17, 2007.”
“I was there,” he said. “I’ll never forget that date. I was onstage with Maggie for a few minutes at the end of that concert. It was the night of the car crash.”
Evie didn’t know how to respond. Maggie was a Chicago native, had come to stardom because the local college crowds loved her—this was one of the coincidences that came up in cases, histories overlapping. But it hit hard.
David dropped into a chair. “I can probably tell you a bit more about that night. It’s not a concert I’m ever going to forget.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Evie. The date on your case should have triggered the connection. I should have realized it had to have been a Triple M concert.”
“I didn’t think about that possibility either.”
She handed him the ticket stub, its date still readable. He turned it over in his hand, a man lost in thought. He finally looked over at her, returned the ticket. “Maggie played concerts in college towns across the Midwest during those years. Does this help solve what happened to your Jenna?”
“I dislike coincidences. But they are usually just that. The fact we’re looking into this case years later, and you happen to be dating Maggie? That’s a random coincidence. Similarly, the fact it was the night of the accident with enormous impact on both of you. Lives do intersect, even in high-population cities like Chicago.” Evie paused. “But what are the odds if Jenna was at that concert, her killer was also?”
“College crowd, college-student victim, college-age killer?” he suggested with a nod. “That seems like a reasonable direction.”
“Someone selected her at the concert, followed her home, did her harm,” Evie stated. “The venue is just blocks from where she lived, an easy walking distance on a comfortable night. A mostly college-age crowd, a lot of others heading back toward campus would have walked those same blocks, it’s not so obvious she’s being followed.”
“If it was a college student, you’d figure the cops would have solved it by now,” David said. “It’s hard to leave no evidence behind, but from what you’ve said already, there isn’t much to work with along this line.”
“Agreed.” Evie hesitated to bring up a theory, but it seemed appropriate now. “Or go a different direction,” she offered. “Someone from the band she might have been interested in? They met up later that night after the concert is over?”
He didn’t immediately shake his head. “I knew Maggie’s band members, her sound guys. The stage crew not as well, as they would shift around depending on the venue. The band was beginning to pay its own way. They were making enough to draw a salary, small, but it was a paycheck. Eight men and women were the core of it back then—band, sound, a manager. I can get you a list of names. With the star-struck attention from fans, I’m sure there were more than a few phone numbers exchanged between fans and crew. Most of that core group were single then.”
“You said band members have changed over the years? Sound guys?”
“Five of the original group were still with Maggie. Lives go different directions, and the travel, the concert life, are only glamorous from the outside. It takes a toll on marriages and on kids. And the crowds have decided there’s one star on the stage, the rest are simply the support cast. It can hit your ego when the spotlight doesn’t shine on you, but on the one you’re making look good.”
“I’m beginning to see why you went to New York to be Maggie’s main security guy.”
David smiled. “There are always dynamics going on between members working together. Maggie has been lucky over the years to mostly work with people who can wisely handle what they’ve signed on to. The money differential is also prominent—they all do well, but she’s the famous voice.” He leaned back, thinking, finally shook his head. “Evie, I may have liked some of those around her more than others, but I can’t say any one of them ever stood out as a concern. These are guys Maggie worked with, and I spent a lot of time around them, with a cop’s instincts for when something was off. They might have connected up with fans, but murder? That’s a mind-set that doesn’t play with what I know about them.”
He considered it further and shook his head again. “Her security crew, they’re mostly former cops, retired military. Even in the early days, security at a concert venue was tight. As the fame grew, security traveling with them became part of her life. These are guys who don’t look the other way when a band member or sound person crosses the line. I might hear about it before Maggie would, but I would know what’s going on around her, around her band members. We don’t take chances with her or her reputation. If there was something off with a long-term member of her group, I have to think I would have seen it.”