After a drink and a long pause, I said, “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because Charles Elkaim isn’t going to be around that much longer. And he hired me to find out what Hawley knew.”
Fry considered. “Okay,” he said, “but that’s a long shot now—”
“Yeah, I know that, but I’ve got to try.”
“Okay, okay—but at this late date, why is it so important?”
“It’s important,” I said, a little too vehemently. “It’s important. Because…he was my uncle’s only friend, ya know?” I made a hand gesture like stabbing my own heart.
“All right, fair enough—but can you do that without poking your nose into another crime scene?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Know so. You stay away from the workshop, Hawley’s home, his current associates, any of that. You’re investigating the band, and Emil Elkaim, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just stay off of tonight’s business.”
“I gotcha.” Howard the cat hopped into my lap—a vote of confidence.
“What about the rest of the group?” Fry said. “Anybody you can talk to?”
“Well…the bassist is a guy named Jeff Grunes, he works for the school district. That should be easy enough. But the singer is a guy named Mick or Mickey Sandoz, and he’s incarcerated, up at Banning.”
“What for?”
“Meth—selling, I think. Getting an actual sit-down with him might not be that easy.”
“I can look into it,” Fry said, “but that ain’t his real name.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“ ’Cause—Daily Telegraph, lead singer—he’s a psychedelic rock guy. Sandoz was the lab Hoffman worked for.”
“Who?”
“Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD. Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. Before it became illegal, they pumped out a million vials of the stuff under the name Delysid.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, “the LP they never put out is called Del Cyd.”
“Told ya.”
“Fry—how come you know everything?”
He sang it: “They call me mellow yellow.”
I said, “Quite rightly,” but he was already reaching for the beat-up laptop, pulling down his reading glasses, frantically clicking away.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Oh boy.”
“What?”
“Holy moly.”
“What?”
“Aye caramba.”
“Come on, dude, it’s late.”
“Real name’s Michael Sanderson, age fifty-nine.”
“How’d you—”
“Banning database,” Fry said, scrolling the page. “This mofo is a serious drifter. Drug busts, psychiatric treatment, six counts of larceny, two convictions, two violent assaults. Before lockup, he also had a restraining order.”
“From who?”
“His wife?”
“Where’s she?”
“Weird address—two numbers and no street name. It’s some kind of annex to his father’s ranch up in Coulterville.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Mariposa County, up past Fresno. Apparently, when he wasn’t slugging her, Sanderson and the wife liked to deal a little heroin together.”
