The Rock 'N Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - a Spike Berenger Anthology Read Free Page B

Flame’s death and couldn’t understand why he would have done it. He knew that Flame had converted to a fundamentalist religious cult at the turn of the century and that seemed to make the star appear very happy. Why would the guy kill himself? Could Flame have been despondent over the lack of success of his religious material? Berenger didn’t care much for the new stuff—he preferred Flame’s Heat material to anything else in the rocker’s career.
    Still, the man was a legend. The superstar’s famous “David” stance, the one patterned after Michelangelo’s statue, was an indelible image in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll. Striking the pose was always a clue that he was about to launch into the last song of a concert. Even in recent years, Flame still had the physique for it. For a fifty-five year old rock star, he had looked damned good. Tall and lean and with his angelic shoulder-length blond hair showing no signs of graying, Flame was still a groupie’s dream.
    Until now. Murder? That would certainly explain some things. Berenger had wondered if there was more to the situation than initially reported. The police had interviewed everyone associated with Flame and by all accounts the pop star was “very depressed” that night after the concert. His longtime driver had taken Flame home after the show, dropped him off around midnight, and departed. It was Kenny Franklin, Flame’s production and tour manager, who found the corpse. Berenger knew Franklin, too, and he was a real straight shooter.
    Well, if it was truly murder that brought down one of the world’s biggest stars, then the week was going to shape up to be a lot more interesting than Berenger had first expected.
    Berenger went down the stairs to the first floor and knocked on Rudy’s office.
    “Come in,” Rudy called.
    Upon entering, Berenger saw Rudy behind his desk. Seated in front of him were two people—a man in a suit, obviously the lawyer, and Gina Tipton. She turned and looked at him with those fabulous green eyes of hers and he was reminded of just how good-looking a woman she was.
    “Well hi there, Spike,” she said. “Long time no see, sweetheart.”

3
LA Woman

( performed by The Doors )
    R udy Bishop blinked. “You two know each other?” he asked.
    “Sure,” Berenger said. He smiled and held out his hand. “How ya doin’, Gina?”
    Gina ignored his hand. Instead she stood, leaned over the back of the chair and threw her arms around his neck. “You big bear, I love you! How are you ?”
    Berenger kissed her cheek and gave her a squeeze in return. “I’m doing okay. You look great.”
    “Yeah?” She let him go and said, “I don’t believe you. After what happened last night and this morning I probably look like shit. I sure feel like it.”
    “I just heard about it, Gina.”
    “Come on in and sit down, Spike,” Rudy said. He gestured to the other man, who stood and shook Berenger’s hand. “This is Derek Patterson, the attorney working for Gina and Adrian.”
    The men exchanged pleasantries and then Spike sat in one of the empty chairs. Gina felt compelled to explain the familiarity to Patterson and Rudy. “Spike and I met, what, early eighties?”
    “Seventy-nine, actually,” Berenger said. “Grendel supported Flame in Europe and I was their tour manager at the time.”
    “That’s right! I knew it was on a tour. We had some good times, didn’t we?”
    She had aged a little but she was still gorgeous and had managed to keep her figure. Blonde, with deep green eyes, Gina Tipton had been a flower child in the sixties, a rock star’s wife and a mother of a rock star’s son in the early seventies, and a party girl in the eighties. From what Berenger had heard, in the nineties she went into the business world and started selling real estate. Today she looked that part, wearing a tasteful gray suit that reminded him of Kim Novak’s wardrobe in Hitchcock’s Vertigo . Gina had cut her hair shorter and now wore