"Maggie! Maggie, my God, move!" Sparks screamed and my eyes flew open, but not in time. I turned around and saw nothing but Jack. Jack running and hurtling toward me, a fierce look of determination on his face, his arms outstretched as he flew into me, knocking me off my feet and sending me flying backward.
A speaker tower crashed to the ground, falling from its position high above the stage, landing on the spot where I had just been standing. It shattered, splitting open, spilling wires and shards of black plastic everywhere.
Jack had tackled me, the force of his body throwing me off balance, across the stage, the two of us landing in a heap on the hard wooden floor.
"Are you all right?" he gasped. He pushed up off of me, turning to look at the spot where the heavy piece of equipment had landed.
"I could be dead," I whispered.
"But you're not," he said, and then he smiled. "You're not."
Cletus and the other bouncer were running up onto the stage. Pandemonium had erupted among the techies and the roadies, with everyone looking for the cause of the accident. But I knew it wasn't an accident. Accidents like that didn't just happen.
I started to shake and suddenly it was freezing, even with the ultrahot lights and the heat from the equipment.
Jack looked back at me and smiled. "Son of a bitch!" he said. Then he was standing, reaching down to pull me up.
"Cletus," he called, "we need to look and see if anybody's been fooling with the equipment. See who's been hanging around this afternoon. This couldn't have happened without someone noticing something." Jack was stronger and taller than he had been minutes before, and more certain of himself. The easygoing, peace-loving boy was gone, replaced by a self-assured man.
Sparks was impatient with the entire process. "Come on, get the other tower in here," he called to the stagehands. "Get this mess cleaned up." When the others ignored him, he became even more controlling. "Let's get moving, people. We're on in five."
Cletus stooped down by the broken amplifier, stretched out a hand, and pulled the broken chain away from the bits of equipment and examined them.
"Yep," he said, his eyes meeting Jack's. "Somebody cut on it."
"No kidding!" Jack couldn't seem to decide whether to be amazed at this or pleased that he'd figured it all out. He turned to me. "Let's go ahead and call your detective friend. He's gonna want to see this."
When a stagehand moved in with a broom, Jack stopped him. "You can't touch this. It's a crime scene."
"Aw, for pity's sake," Sparks moaned. "We've got a show to do."
"Well, we can just work around it if we have to," I said. But I knew that wasn't the case. Once the police arrived, we'd be twiddling our thumbs for hours while they took pictures and scratched their heads.
Cletus handed me his cell phone. "You'd better call," he said. "You seem to know them better than we do." He winked at me and smiled. "Tell him we need the V.I.P. treatment."
I dialed the number, knowing Weathers wouldn't be there, listening to the familiar recording: "This is Detective Marshall J. Weathers of the Greensboro Police Department's Criminal Investigation Unit. I am unable to take your call at the moment, but if you would leave me a detailed message, including the time of your call and your number, I will return your call as soon as possible."
I waited for the tone and tried to be brief. "Marshall, it's Maggie. I'm at the club. There's been an accident here, but it probably wasn't an accident, so could you come down?"
I hung up, handed the phone to Cletus, and turned back to Sparks. "Let's do it. Let's start off and work around the mess."
Sparks was all white hat and mustache, a short man with big pointy-toed cowboy boots and no sense of humor.
"Good enough," he said, and headed for his pedal-steel guitar. The rest of the band followed suit, picking up their instruments and plugging them into their amps. A techie pushed a heavy backup amp out to the edge of the stage.
"It won't be perfect sound," he said to Sugar Bear, "but they'll hear you fine."
Sparks started the count and the others began playing. I took the mike the roadie handed me, walked around the near-fatal mess, and stood just in front of the broken amp. I closed my eyes and began to sing.
"I'm standing on the edge of a broken heart,
I can't believe that we're falling apart.
Your touch has grown as cold
As the love that you stole
When you walked away from me."
Sparks brought the pedal-steel in under the melody, each note a sliding teardrop that broke just at the end of every syllable. The lights dimmed as couples moved together in a slow, steady circle around the dance floor.
Chris walked up to the mike right next to me, looked me in the eye and began the second verse of our duet.
"You're breaking my heart as you walk away,
I can't believe I'm your yesterday.
I tried for so long,
But you tell me it's wrong,
As you walk away from me."
Jack stepped in between us, his harmonica sweetly moving through the break as Chris picked up his mandolin and added a harmony to it. For a moment I lost sight of the danger, forgot about everything but the music and the song. But only for a moment; Marshall Weathers was the only reminder I needed to know that things weren't right. He stepped into the club and stood by the doorway letting his eyes adjust. By the time Chris and I came back in to sing the third verse, he was standing in front of me, staring at the ruined amplifier.
When the song ended, he walked up the side steps onto the stage and over to the smashed tower.
"Folks getting a little careless around here?" he asked. His thick mustache barely moved when he spoke, but his eyes seemed to be taking everything in. He was wearing tight faded blue jeans, a white dress shirt, and his lizardskin boots. He could've passed for a customer if I hadn't caught a glimpse of the gun that rested securely on his hip, hidden by his jacket.
"Cletus thinks somebody cut the chain," I said.
"Uh-huh," he muttered, stooping as Cletus had to pick up the twisted metal links.
"Don't you want to wear gloves when you do that?" Sugar Bear asked, his curiosity overcoming him. Sugar Bear has a thing about the law. He avoids them at all costs, figuring that one of these days he'll get arrested for intent to possess illegal drugs.
Weathers looked up at him and seemed to stifle a grin. "Nan. If there were fingerprints on this bit of chain they'd be long gone by now, smudged off by all the people who've probably handled it since it fell. Besides, it's really hard to lift a print off a thing like this."
Sugar Bear looked disappointed, as did just about everyone else, including me.
"Y'all might want to clean up this mess," he said. "Somebody could get hurt." He turned and looked at Cletus, who was standing on the edge of the crowd. "How about you tell me what happened and we'll go from there," he said.
Cletus nodded and spoke into his walkie-talkie, giving instructions to the other security staff.
"All right," he said, his voice a thick, bull-like monotone. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee in my office."
Marshall started to follow, then stopped and returned to the spot where I stood. "Give us a couple of minutes, all right, Cletus?"