“Families of the slain men are horrified,” the report continued.
The image cut to a red-faced Butch Cassen. “How dare he dredge up the past for publicity, to forward his career! Slandering my dead son…”
Killy muted the TV and took a long swig of Jack, washed down with a mouthful of now-tepid coffee. The asshole should be mad. He’d be losing out on the millions he tried to lift from Killian’s pockets.
He unmuted the television when a man he didn’t know appeared onscreen. A banner across the bottom of the screen proclaimed him to be a guard at the Asheville auditorium, what would have been Trickster’s last show.
Although the interviewer wasn’t shown on screen, they shoved a microphone in the guard’s face and asked, “You’ve heard Mr. Desmond’s account of the fateful night that claimed the lives of his bandmates. Is there any truth to the accusation of Rob Cassen being the cause of the cancellation of their last show?”
The man’s drawl could’ve starred in an advertisement for visiting North Carolina. “I filed a full report of that night. Someone from the dressing room called for help, and when we got there a man was beating on the door, screaming and cursing. We hauled him into the office, then got word the band cancelled the show.”
“Who was the man?” the reporter asked, angling the microphone towards his own face, now barely visible in the camera’s view.
“The drummer, Rob Cassen. It’s all in my report. Why nobody looked before now is anybody’s guess.”
“No charges were filed?”
“No, sir. He managed to escape before the cops got there.”
Good. A corroborating witness, as well as a possible police dispatch report. Killy would get his lawyers right on that.
* * *
Keeping Mike away from the news reports proved easier than Killy originally thought.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked, bending over to take a shot at the pool table.
Killian shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Mike straightened, rolling the pool cue in his hands. “I know how these things work. I’m sure the media is crucifying you this morning after the podcast.”
“Some are. Others know what an asshole Rob was and agree with me.” Killy had never given a rat’s ass about other people’s opinions, and didn’t intend to start now, as long as the shit didn’t slop over onto his bandmates. Val and Jacobi both called earlier to show their support.
“I noticed you haven’t got the TV on. You’re not going to let me see, are you?” Mike leaned hipshot against the pool table.
“I’m not going to stop you from the shit show if it’s what you want to do, but it’s not going to change anything. Gus has been blowing my phone up all morning, but so far hasn’t come here, so I’m calling it a win.” Killian forced a smile, feeling the scar at the edge of his mouth pucker.
At least they hadn’t shown his face on the morning news, just images from his old days. Three years and a dozen or more scars younger, and one hell of a lot more naïve.
Mike placed the cue stick in the rack and approached Killy slowly. “I know it’s ugly, and I know how much it hurt you, but if people don’t know the truth, they have a tendency to make things up. It’s not right, but it’s human nature.”
He stood still, neither approaching or retreating, waiting for Killy’s next move.
Killian stepped forward, testing his theory. As predicted, Mike opened his arms and let Killy inside.
Those arms. Those strong arms. Keeping the world at bay.
Killy deserved the shit in his life. Mike didn’t. First chance he got, he’d get the truth out there on Mike’s behalf too.
* * *
Killy finally answered the phone the twenty-seventh time Gus called, or was that the twenty-eighth?
“What do you want?” he growled. He was so not in the mood to be dictated to right now.
“How could you do that? Say those things?” Gus nearly whined.
“How about ‘cause they’re true?”
