“Be cool, man, everything is just… peachy.” Harry Hale sank back into a drug-and-booze torpor.
Peachy? Not with a dead teenage girl lying on the floor of his hotel suite. Harry was the vocalist with Harry and The High, a psychotropic rock band. I don’t like working with musicians at the best of times and this was shaping up to be my worst experience yet. The assorted drugs and paraphernalia on display were worth an ‘intent to supply’ beef on their own. The naked corpse lying face down on the carpet added ‘contributing to the delinquency of a minor’ and ‘reckless endangerment’ – if not an actual charge of homicide.
I left a micro-drone scanning the scene and returned to the corridor where Lonnie Perth, the band’s manager, was waiting. He looked pale and nervous. “Well?”
“She’s dead alright and has been for several hours. I didn’t touch the body but my drone detected no pulse or brain activity. There’s no sign of violence so I’m assuming it was something relatively benign, like choking to death on her own vomit or a drug-induced heart attack. Do you have any idea who she is?”
