efe24af1849d5822a0fb0e585c983840

“I guess that’s all right,” said Lucy as she dragged herself up from her own bean bag and shook Odelia and Chase’s hands. Then she glanced down at Max and Dooley. “Do you always take your cats along with you, Miss Poole?”

“Yeah, they like to follow me around,” said Odelia with a smile.

“Just like Darryl,” said Lucy wistfully. “He liked to follow me around everywhere. Until he met the other girl. I guess he started following her around, and look where it got him.”

Chapter 20

Dooley and I were fortunate enough to be able to follow Odelia and Chase around as they talked to this and that person. Now I know talking to suspects and witnesses and generally conducting what is termed a police investigation isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it just so happens it’s my cup of tea, and lucky for me it’s Dooley’s cup of tea, too.

I’m not sure why I enjoy it so much, for a large portion of these interviews simply consist of digging into people’s private lives and eliciting all kinds of little-known clues as to their personal existence. So maybe that’s it: I’m simply one of those nosy individuals who like to know everything about other people, and Dooley is exactly the same way. It’s probably why he loves watching those daytime soaps so much. Basically soaps give you a peek into people’s personal lives, even though those people are all larger than life, and their lives a lot more interesting than the lives ofregular folks.

At any rate, Odelia’s and Chase’s investigations had taken us to a man named Todd Park, who had been called the head raver by Darryl Farmer’s former girlfriend. In fact Mr. Park was the organizer of those raves that her ex-boyfriend liked to DJ at so much.

I had expected Mr. Park to live in a dump, but in actual fact he lived in a neat little condo in a new development near the beach. From his balcony we even had a very nice view of that same beach, and the ocean, and I noticed the presence of a pair of binoculars on a wrought-iron table indicating that Todd liked to keep an eye out for possible drowning victims—or girls dressed in string bikinis, as the case may be.

Todd wasn’t a young man. In fact I would have put him closer to fifty than forty, but he was probably young at heart, or at least liked to present himself that way. He was dressed in designer jeans, designer T-shirt depicting a stylized weed symbol, and designer sneakers, and with his long ponytail and neatly trimmed beard he looked more like the owner of a Silicon Valley startup than a ‘head raver,’ whatever that was.

“So you knew Darryl well,” said Odelia. We were all seated in the nice salon of Todd’s neat condo, the humans on leather couches and Dooley and me on the hardwood floor.

“Yeah, Darryl was my right-hand man,” said Todd, who looked actually stricken at the news that his friend had died. “He was a great DJ and him and me set up Rave Central together three years ago or something. He thought the kinds of clubs he used to play were charging people through the nose,and wanted to offer a cheaper alternative for people who lived to party—our kind of people. And that’s when Rave Central was born. We organized our parties in empty factories, under bridges, in houses targeted for demolition, cargo boats, and of course out in the woods, when the weather permitted.”

“Also in office buildings under construction?” asked Chase.

“No, that we didn’t do. Too dangerous,” he explained. “And also we didn’t want to attract too much attention, or get in trouble with the law.”

“So three nights ago,” said Chase, “did you also organize one of your raves?”

Todd thought back for a moment, then nodded.“Yep. Three nights ago we were in the woods. I remember because it was one of the best nights we ever had. Very large attendance, and Darryl really was on fire that night—played one of his best sets ever.”

“Was he there with his girlfriend Suzy Bunyon?” asked Odelia.

“Suzy, yeah. Well, Darryl had lots of girlfriends,” said Todd with a grin. “But yeah, he was with Suzy that night. I saw her pop up behind the turntables a couple of times.”

“You do realize Suzy is underage?” asked Chase sternly.

“Um… no, actually I didn’t know that,” said the rave organizer, shifting a little uncomfortably. “She told me she was twenty-three.”

“She’s seventeen.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of these girls that went for Darryl big time were very young. And it’s not as if we checked their ID at the door or something,” he added apologetically.

“So when you were out in the woods the other night, you didn’t happen to notice anything out of the ordinary?” asked Odelia.

“Like what?”

“Like this man,” said Chase, and showed Todd a drawing of John Doe a sketch artist had created.

“Nah,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy. Why? Something happened that I should know about?”

“This man was found dead,” Chase explained. “And according to what we now know he was shot and killed the same night you were out partying close by.”