Sheet Music - A Rock 'n' Roll Love Story (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A week before Thanksgiving, Michael arrived home from the tour.  It was two-thirty in the morning and Bonita quietly shuffled her way out into the kitchen when she heard his boots hitting the marble floor.

“Welcome back,” she greeted him, flicking on the wall light switch.  When she did, the vision of him startled her.  Bonita managed to catch the gasp of shock in her mouth before it escaped her lips.  She had never seen him look more defeated.  His face was unshaven, clothes wrinkled, dark circles beneath both eyes, and his hair was in desperate need of a trim.  This was clearly not the well-groomed man she knew to live there.

Michael managed a soft moan of acknowledgment and tossed his car keys onto the counter top.  Then flopped his tired body down onto a barstool and rubbed at his eyes.  “Any word from Annie?”

“No, still nothing,” she replied softly.  “I picked up your mail, and your phone messages are in that pile,” she stated, pointing to the two neatly filed stacks of paper.  “Are you hungry, Mr. Michael?”

“No.  I think I ate on the plane.  I don’t remember,” he replied scratching his head.  “It doesn’t matter,” he sighed, flipping through his mail; most of it was household bills, everything from the power company to the phone.  He made a mental note to drop it all off at his accountant’s office in the morning.  “I think I’ll just go on up to bed.”

“Okay.  I’ll cook you a nice breakfast in the morning,” Bonita chirped and disappeared back into her suite.

Michael made his way through the darkened house and up the front stairs.  He stopped in the doorway of his room and pressed the switch for the light.  His eyes started on one side of the room and then drifted over to the other, as if beyond reasonable hope that Annie’s things would be miraculously back where they belonged.  But, Bonita was right, Annie was gone.  The only thing that remained was the slight lingering scent of her perfume and a few framed photographs of them together.

He picked up a snapshot displayed beside the bed and gazed at it.  He could remember when Brian had taken the picture down in the music room.  In the picture, Annie sat in Michael’s lap, one arm wrapped tightly around his neck, while the other waved at Brian behind the camera.  Her face was full of happiness and so was Michael’s.

With exhaustion weighing on his eyelids, he placed the photo face-down on the table and left the room.  Opting instead for the family room, he stretched out on the leather couch and quickly fell asleep.

Michael woke to the fragrant smells of breakfast preparation in the kitchen and the soft humming of Bonita.  As if on command, he dutifully followed the scents and appeared in the doorway of his kitchen.  Still dressed in the clothes he had on the night before, he yawned noisily to announce his presence.

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Michael.  Did you sleep downstairs?” she asked, a note of concern in her voice.

He nodded and set himself down on the stool by the counter.  Pushing the hair off his face he noticed again the stack of bills Bonita had collected for him.  “Are these all the bills?” he asked.

“As far as I know,” she answered, carefully flipping two eggs.

Michael quickly sorted through the envelopes, his eyes stopping on the telephone company logo.  A spark stung his brain.  For reasons he couldn’t have explained, he opened the envelope and began studying the paperwork enclosed.  All the phone numbers were recognizable to him except for a few.  What if Annie had called for a  ride the day she left, he thought?  That person might know where she was now.  He ran his finger across the paper and studied the information.

“Do you remember the day Annie left?” he asked Bonita.

Bonita stopped her cooking chores and pondered his question.  “It was three days after you left on tour.  That is all I remember.  Why?  Do you see something in the phone bill?”

“Son of a bitch,” Michael sighed.  “The last phone call she made was to Gary and they talked five minutes.”  He quickly reached for his cell phone.  “That asshole has probably known all along where she is,” he mumbled, dialing Gary’s number.  Several rings later, the answering machine picked up again.

“I think it’s time I have a face-to-face chat with Gary,” Michael stated, getting up from his seat.

“Do you think he has something to do with her disappearance?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past him.  He’s always had a problem with us being together.”  He rubbed at his face.  “But, if he did have anything to do with this, he’s a dead man.”

“Don’t talk crazy, Mr. Michael.”

He raised his eyes to meet hers and forced a dim smile to his ragged face.  “It’s a figure of speech, Bonita.  Don’t worry, I’m not looking to rack up a murder charge to add to my long list of criminal offenses.”

Michael ate his breakfast and then drove to Gary’s apartment.  He knocked on the door several times before Gary answered it, half asleep.  Gary opened the door and shook his head when he saw Michael standing there holding two cups of coffee.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked Michael.

“I think you already know the answer to that question,” Michael answered, kicking the door open with his boot.  “And I’m not leaving until you tell me what I want to know.”  He handed Gary a cup of black coffee.  “Here, I brought you breakfast,” Michael sneered.

Gary took the coffee and scratched his head.  “Look, I don’t have any information for you,” he said, sitting on the arm of his couch.  “And I already told you that in the message I left.”

“And I have a phone bill with your number all over it that tells me otherwise.”

Gary shifted uneasily on the couch.  A female voice called out to the living room:  “Gary, what’s taking so long?  Come back to bed.”

Michael stood in the hallway facing the bedrooms.  “Sweetheart, roll over and go back to sleep.  Gary’s going to be a while.”  Then his angry eyes narrowed and fell back onto Gary.  “So, start talking.”

“I’ve got nothing to say,” Gary replied, sipping the hot coffee.

Michael walked to the window in the living room and peered down at the street.  “Listen, I don’t think you understand.  I love Annie.  I’d do anything for her.  What you did was wrong and could have seriously jeopardized her health.  Did you bother to consider that?”

Gary stood.  “As a matter of fact I did!  Don’t think for a second that I don’t still care for Annie.  I do and I always will.  We’ve known each other since we were kids, so there’s a lot of history between us.  I’d do anything for her, too, which is why I helped her when she called.  I tried to talk her out of it but she made it crystal clear to me that it was also important to her health that she be as far away from you as possible.”

“And why’s that?” Michael asked, swigging his coffee.

“She said she couldn’t take the lies and the cheating anymore.”

“That’s bullshit!  I’ve never cheated on her - not once, ever!”

“Maybe that’s how you justify it in your world but that’s not how she sees it.”

“Look, I don’t have time for this, just tell me where she is and I’ll be gone.”

A long pause filled the room.

“Truth is,” Gary started.  “I don’t know where she is now.”

“What do you mean?”

Gary shook his head.  “I’m not supposed to tell you.  She made me promise.”

“Oh, and you’ve been so good at holding promises to her,” Michael quickly added.

Gary walked into the kitchen.  “There was a lot more to our marriage than how it ended, Mike.”

“I’m sure.”

“Last I saw her she was boarding a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard.  But that was a few weeks ago, so I don’t know if she’s still there.”

“Martha’s Vineyard?”

“Yes,” Gary said, sitting on a bar stool in the kitchen.  “She asked me to drop her off at the ferry terminal.  She was supposed to call me when she got settled but she never called.”

“Jesus Christ!  And that didn’t worry you?  You never bothered to track her down yourself?”  Michael began to pace.

“I never said that!  I made some calls but they were all dead ends.  You know how independent she thinks she is.”

“And you didn’t think it was important to let me know any of this?”

Gary shook his head.

“You better hope I’m not too late,” Michael spat, setting his empty coffee cup on the kitchen counter top.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Gary asked.

“You seem to think you know what’s best for Annie, figure it out for yourself!”

Michael slammed the door to the apartment behind him.

From his car, Michael called the caretaker of his Vineyard beach house.  They were the closest neighbors to his house, retired locals, and hired to care for and keep an eye on his property.  For the past decade they had done a fine job.  As agreed to during their brief conversation, his cottage was to be prepared for his arrival and his jeep left waiting for him at the airport.

A few hours later, Michael boarded a private jet in Boston bound for Martha’s Vineyard.  Located seven miles off the coast of Massachusetts, it was an island Michael knew all too well.  It was here that he made his third and finally successful attempt at sobriety.  In fact, he came to love the island so much that he bought a small beach cottage after completing his stay at the rehabilitation clinic.  A year later, and upon the urging of his accountant, he purchased a popular island nightclub, mainly as a tax write-off, but it had been years since he had been back to the island, partly because of his constant touring schedule.  If he wasn’t on the road promoting his band’s latest album, he was in the studio recording it.  It seemed to be an endless cycle that didn’t allow him much time to relax.

The trip from Boston to the Vineyard took mere minutes but it felt like hours.  Michael found his jeep in the airport parking lot and tossed his travel bag into the back seat.  Not knowing the exact on-island location of Annie, Michael decided to stop first at his club.

Lola’s was located halfway between Oak Bluffs town center and Edgartown.  Year round, the club hosted the best in local island musical talent and offered a four-star gourmet menu in the adjoining restaurant.  The décor was a mixture of eccentric and eclectic, giving it a laid back feeling that the clientele seemed to appreciate.  They could eat like millionaires but weren’t expected to dress the part.

Huge murals of the island regulars adorned the walls of the club, leopard skinned prints graced the tables and richly carved cherry woods were used to construct the bar and surrounding stools.  Michael remembered Brian’s comment when he first saw the place.  He quickly compared the place to a high-class bordello.  In other words, he loved it.

Not being a hands-on club owner, Michael hired the expertise of Jimmy Sears.  He was the existing manager when Michael bought the property, with decades of experience at managing a club and restaurant.  Jimmy was also a lifelong island resident and knew almost everyone by name.  If anyone would know of Annie’s whereabouts, it would be Jimmy.

Michael parked his jeep out in back of the club and entered through the kitchen, practically unnoticed by the hurried kitchen staff.  He wore his long hair loosely pulled back in a ponytail, trademark baseball cap on his head, well-seasoned leather jacket on his back, and a light weight v-neck burgundy sweater with white cotton t-shirt beneath it.  Tight blue jeans with holes in both knees accentuated his long legs and a pair of lived-in boots kept his feet warm.  He looked like any other local: casual, and non-chalant.  It was one of the many reasons he loved this tiny island.  Most of the year, nobody cared who you were or what you did for a living, and if your face was famous, the locals didn’t bother you about it.  When you were on their island, you were simply one of them.

In the summer season it was completely different.  The tourists infested the place with their noise, gawking looks and money.  Michael had to be much more cautious then when traveling in public.  Short trips into town had to be thoughtfully planned ahead of time.  Otherwise,  he got stuck signing autographs or mobbed by strangers.  That is why he enjoyed the Vineyard most in the off-season.

“Hey boss man!  How the hell are you?” Jimmy cheered, when he saw Michael emerge from the kitchen through the swinging doors.  “I didn’t get the memo saying you were coming over for a visit!”

Michael cautiously gave the bar a quick scan and noticed it was half full with patrons, none of which he knew or that seemed to recognize him.  He shook Jimmy’s hand heartily and sat at an empty stool by the cash register, mindful to keep his distance from the other customers.  He also kept his back to the tables in front of the stage.

“Are you here to check up on the place or are you getting a little R and R?” Jimmy inquired, sliding Michael a glass of club soda and a bowl of pretzels.

“Neither.  I’m actually looking for someone.”

“Hmmm, sounds intriguing,” Jimmy replied.  “And you think I can help?”

“Hope so.”

Jimmy was forced to excuse himself, as a waitress called his attention to the other end of the bar, leaving Michael alone.  Suddenly, the soft strumming of an acoustic guitar interrupted his thoughts and he casually glanced over his shoulder toward the tiny stage.  His eyes tried to focus on the young woman sitting solo on a stool, center stage, but the lighting was dim.  She appeared to be in her late twenties, skinny to the point of being unhealthy, with one long blond braid hanging lifeless onto her chest.  Her shirt and floor-length skirt weren’t ironed and completely mismatched.  Her legs were crossed at the knee, and a guitar comfortably resided in her lap.  On one foot she wore a summer sandal with a thick winter sock.  The other foot was encased in a leather boot.

Michael skewed his face and figured the oddity of the woman’s attire was probably normal wear for some of the native musicians.  Her voice was weak and uninteresting, while her guitar playing lacked imagination.  He made a mental note to discuss the bar talent with Jimmy when he came back from the kitchen.

“Sorry about that,” Jimmy apologized to Michael.  “Are you hungry?  Can I get you a burger or something?”