Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol Read online

  I took the paper from Mary, dropped down on the edge of the bed, and began to read.

  DAYTON—The antics of DeathStroke’s lead singer Everett Lester took their toll last night at the Dayton Arena, where 16 of the 17,682 in attendance were hospitalized after a riot broke out when Lester passed out onstage and management stopped the concert.

  A 14-year-old Xenia girl is in critical condition at Good Samaritan Hospital. She was struck in the head by a microphone stand, allegedly tossed from the stage by Lester, who witnesses say openly guzzled whiskey from a bottle during the six songs the band performed before the show ended abruptly.

  Lester passed out onstage immediately after whirling the heavy black mike stand. The girl, whose name is being withheld, was carried by friends to an outlying concession area where employees phoned 911. Lester was carried from the stage by security personnel, and his whereabouts was unknown at press time.

  DeathStroke manager Gray Harris announced that management teams from the band and from Dayton Arena had agreed to cancel the show. Although Harris told patrons they would receive a full refund, fans began yelling obscenities, fighting, and throwing everything they could get their hands on. A race to the exits ensued, trampling dozens of DeathStroke fans in the fray. Of the 16 people taken to the hospital, only the Xenia girl sustained serious injury.

  Witnesses say things started getting out of hand when Lester encouraged the frenzied crowd to repeat the lyrics from a new DeathStroke song entitled “Freedom.” “Judgment Day is a lie, you know,” he reportedly yelled to the audience. “All of us are going to survive. There is no hell…only Freedom.” Then the band launched into the new song by that name, the last one DeathStroke played before Lester passed out.

  Mary was sitting next to me when I dropped the paper and fell back onto the bed, pulling my hair and screaming, “Nooooo!”

  9

  “I JUST SAW CNN!” Endora panicked. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m not okay,” I said into my phone, sitting slumped in the passenger seat of Mary’s Subaru.

  “What’s the matter? Where are you?”

  “On the way to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” she gasped. “What’s wrong? Are you sick from last night?”

  “It’s not me. Did you hear about the girl?”

  “Yes, I told you, I heard about it just now. Are you in Cincinnati?”

  “No! I’m still in Dayton.”

  “Everett, you’ve got a show in Cincinnati in…four hours.”

  “Didn’t you hear about the girl at the concert last night? That it was my fault.”

  “I’m sure it’s just all the pressure you’re under. Gray’s taking care of this other thing, I’m sure.”

  “What the heck do you mean . . . that Gray is gonna pay this girl’s parents so I don’t go to jail?! Is he gonna pay to make her better? To make her live?”

  “Look, Everett, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”

  “No, but it’s going to be the last!”

  “So it is...very good. Good! Calm down. I agree. There’s no reason for you to lose control like that. No excuse. But listen, darlin’, you’ve got over twenty-five thousand people counting on you in Cincinnati tonight. Those people love you just the way you are. You don’t want to let them down, do you?”

  I didn’t say a word but instead helped Mary look for a parking place in the visitor’s lot.

  “Everett, are you going to visit that girl?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Mary and me.” I unfolded myself out of the Subaru. “My sister, Mary. She came to see me today at the hotel.”

  “Did you tell Gray what you’re doing? Because, from a legal standpoint, you need to be very careful about what you do as it relates to that girl.”

  “Endora, I’m so sick of doing what Gray says, what you say, what the record label says, what the fans say…”

  “Listen, honey. I know you’re stressed out—”

  “Did it ever occur to you that some people don’t live with this kind of stress?”

  “Everett, your sister’s not brainwashing you, is she?”

  “Maybe that’s what I need, Endora. A good brainwashing.”

  “Well, she’ll be just the one to do it, I’m sure.”

  “I gotta go. We’re walkin’ in.”

  “Everett, you need to make that show tonight. Thousands of people have been waiting for this night for months. They need you. They need the freedom you have to offer.”

  “I’m not free, Endora.” I tried to keep my voice down. “I’m a prisoner!”

  Turning around to glance into the audience in Miami-Dade County courtroom B-3, I noticed Donald Chambers, my guard friend from the detention center, seated toward the back of the court in his street clothes. I guessed Donald to be close to fifty years old, about two hundred pounds, with curly grayish black hair and sideburns. He appeared to be alone.

  After starting out wearing suits the first few days of the trial, I gradually dressed a bit more casually, today wearing khakis and a navy dress shirt.

  Before emerging into the public eye this morning, I checked myself in a mirror in the holding area. My hair was combed neatly. It was cut slightly above my shoulders and was still dark brown, except for a few white hairs at my temples and sideburns, which I usually trimmed when I wasn’t in jail.

  Brian Boone, wearing navy slacks and a camel-hair blazer, paced in front of the witness stand where Twila underwent her second day of questioning.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Yonder.” Boone walked away from the witness. “How many years did you say you’ve known Everett Lester?”

  She smirked. “I told you I’ve never met Mr. Lester.”

  “Oh, wait a minute. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I just assumed that, since yesterday you said that Mr. Lester was, and I quote, ‘unstable, insecure, a loser, and a drug addict,’ I assumed that you knew my client.”

  That made me smile.

  “Your Honor.” Frank Dooley stood up. “My client told the court yesterday that she never met Mr. Lester. Now…Mr. Boone is harassing the witness and attempting to discredit her. Let’s get on with the cross-examination, shall we?”

  “Good idea, Counselor,” Judge Sprockett said, looking bored with it all.

  “Miss Yonder,” said Boone, not fazed by the chastening. “Do you know how much money Endora Crystal was paid by Mr. Lester?”

  “I know she was on a monthly retainer. The last time we talked about it, I think she made close to fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Fifty thousand a year?”

  “No, fifty thousand dollars a month,” she conceded.

  “That would mean that Endora made about six hundred thousand dollars a year from Mr. Lester. Does that sound about right?”

  “Your Honor.” Dooley stood slowly, calmly. “We object based on a complete lack of relevance. What does Miss Crystal’s salary have to do with anything?”

  “Where are you going, Mr. Boone?”

  “Your Honor, for background and context, I felt it important that the jury realize how much money Endora Crystal was making from my client, not to mention her other clients. It was an exorbitant amount. And I believe it may have played a part in her continued, excessive interest in my client.”

  “What do you mean, excessive?” Dooley fired at Boone, then swung to Judge Sprockett. “Your Honor, come on.”

  “All right. Enough already. Endora Crystal’s salary from Mr. Lester has been duly noted.” Judge Sprockett turned to Brian. “Now, Mr. Boone, let’s turn this questioning in a more meaningful direction, shall we?”

  Boone wandered back to our table and sat down. Calmly placing his brown reading glasses on his face with one hand, he reviewed his notes, as if he were alone in the courtroom. This guy is cool, cool, cool.

  “Miss Yonder,” he finally said. “You said yesterday you knew Endora Crystal some fifteen years.”

  “Your mem
ory’s improving,” she said, blinking, smiling, and searching the room for a reaction, which she got in the form of a smattering of laughter.

  “Ah.” Boone smiled in response. “Glad to see you are so attentive today, Miss Yonder. You said Endora was so close to you, like a mother, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you spoke to her several times a week, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, my question is—if you knew this woman, this friend, so long and so well, why did you have no clue that she was having this alleged relationship with this world-famous rock star for the past however many years?”

  “She obviously wanted to keep it a secret…until the end.”

  “Ah. Ah. Ah.” Boone got the court’s attention by spinning around. “‘Until the end.’ Were those the words you used, ‘Until the end’?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Interesting choice of words, ‘Until the end.’ It makes it sound as if Madam Endora may have known when her end was coming. Did it ever occur to anyone, I wonder, if perhaps she did know? What do you think, Miss Yonder? Is it possible Endora may have committed suicide...?” Boone’s words trailed off, as if he knew he was about to be the target of return fire.

  Sure enough, Dooley sprang like a jack-in-the-box. “Your Honor, where did that come from? I’m surprised at Mr. Boone. He’s grasping at straws. That is pure and undefiled conjecture. It’s not a question, and the witness doesn’t have to answer!”

  “From now on, Mr. Boone, let’s keep our hypotheses to ourselves. That is an order, sir.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  This was where Boone belonged—moving about a courtroom, working a witness, playing a jury. It was like watching a master fisherman as he selected just the right tackle, carefully planned where to troll, patiently deciphered a nibble from a strike, and knew when to set the hook.

  “Tell us about your psychic involvement with Endora.” Boone casually approached Twila. “Did you work with her?”

  I could tell the witness was suspicious of Boone, so she treaded carefully. “When I first met Endora, I came to her for readings. She was obviously good at what she did.”

  “When you say readings, explain to the court what you mean.”

  “It’s when a psychic reads your past, present, or future. She tells you what’s happened in your life, what’s happening, or what’s going to happen. And she gives you advice based on that knowledge.”

  “So, Endora did that for you?”

  “Uh-huh. I had been through some tough times as a youth, and our meetings really helped me.”

  “Did she do things like palm readings and tarot cards?”

  “Yes, and she was amazingly accurate. She had a supernatural gift.”

  “How was she able to help you personally?” Boone asked.

  “When we first met, she immediately realized there was something tragic in my past. She helped me cope.”

  “Do you mind my asking what that tragedy was?”

  “My parents were killed…in an automobile accident,” she said coldly, with a sudden glaze over her eyes.

  “I am sorry to hear that, Miss Yonder. How old were you at the time and how, specifically, was Endora able to help you?”

  “I was seventeen when they died,” she said, snapping out of the daze. “When I met Endora, about five or six years later, she was able to assure me that my parents were okay, that they were…okay, that’s all.”

  “And how did she assure you of that?” He turned to the jury with his arms up in the air.

  Frank Dooley rose to his feet, letting out an exhausted sigh. “Your Honor, I am sorry to interrupt, but I just cannot see how this is relevant.”

  Clearing his throat, the judge spoke to the entire room. “This background may be helpful for all of us. Miss Yonder may answer the question.”

  “What was the question?” she asked, nervously grasping at her hair.

  “How did Endora assure you that your deceased parents were okay?”

  “Endora believed in afterlife—for everyone.”

  “Okay.” Boone raised his eyebrows. “So…it’s not like she attempted to communicate with your parents after they had died. Because, I know Madam Endora was said to have done that on occasion.”

  Miss Yonder’s head tilted slightly, and her mouth fell open.

  “Objection, Your Honor.” Dooley stood again. “Leading the witness.”

  “Sustained,” said Sprockett.

  Boone focused on Twila like a laser beam. “Did Endora attempt to communicate with your parents after they died?”

  “She did communicate with my mother. She found out that they are well, that they’re in a good place.”

  “Oh?” Boone hesitated, knowing he was perched atop a powder keg. “And where is that place? Heaven?”

  “No.” She set her jaw against the world. “It’s known as the Other Side. Endora communicated with many people who had crossed over.”

  “I see. And did you ever help her communicate with the dead?”

  She looked down, fidgeting with her hands. “Actually, I did.”

  Dooley’s head dropped slightly.

  “Often?” Boone asked.

  “Fairly.”

  “Did you, by chance, have any part in helping Endora communicate with anyone who may be connected with this case, this trial?”

  “Liza Moon.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Liza Moon. Endora asked me to serve as a medium between her and Liza Moon.”

  “Everett Lester’s former girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When was that?”

  “I don’t know, not too long before Endora’s death.”

  “Tell the court what happened in that instance, please.” Boone acted as if he already knew.

  “For a long time after Liza died, Endora wanted to serve as a medium for Everett, so he could communicate with Liza.”

  “Why?” Boone asked. “Why would she want to do that?”

  “I guess so Everett could have closure after her death.” She chomped on her gum. “So he could have some peace, knowing Liza had reached the Other Side.”

  “And that’s the only reason Endora wanted to do this séance?”

  “Endora also told me she was getting some bad vibes…about a dark woman coming into Everett’s life. She believed doing the séance with Liza might shed more light on that.”

  The crowd was dead quiet.

  “Did Mr. Lester go along with it? Did he take part in this…séance?”

  “No,” she said. “Everett was changing. He wasn’t sure about the power of psychics anymore. He was questioning.”

  “So, instead of having Mr. Lester in on this séance, Endora asked you to be the medium so she could communicate with Liza Moon? Is that what you’re telling the court?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your Honor.” Dooley arose, clearing his throat and pulling at his right cuff. “This is getting way out there. Relevance?”

  “Yes it is,” Judge Sprockett said. “Let’s bring this thing back home quickly, Mr. Boone.”

  “Miss Yonder.” Brian looked confident approaching the witness stand. “In a nutshell, I want you to tell the court exactly what happened when you and Endora attempted to communicate with Liza Moon.”

  “We made contact with Liza,” Twila said coldly. “She was sending danger signals to Endora.”

  “Danger signals about what?”

  “Liza was concerned about Everett’s future. She warned Endora that an angel of death was coming into Everett’s life, a person who would change his life forever. Liza kind of confirmed these bad vibes that Endora had picked up on earlier.”

  “Anything else about the future, specifically as it related to Everett Lester?”

  For a fleeting second Twila’s whole body seemed to flinch. Her eyes darted up and down, and she mouthed several words.

  I turned to see a slight look of alarm on Dooley
’s face.

  “Are you okay, Miss Yonder?”

  She snapped back to reality. “Yes, it is no problem,” she said, almost robotically. “Liza said the angel of death was going to lead Everett to a Lamb of some kind and when that happened, everything would change.”

  “What was Endora’s response to that?”

  “She became somewhat angry.”

  “Why?”

  “She was concerned Everett would get his mind off his music and his fans and…”

  “And what?” coaxed Boone.

  “And become some kind of religious zealot, I guess.” She threw her hands up. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

  “Okay, Miss Yonder, we’re almost done. Let me just go back and ask you one or two final questions about this ‘angel of death.’”

  Boone stopped just in front of the witness stand, where he placed both hands on the railing in front of her. “In the séance, did Liza Moon indicate who this angel of death was?”

  “No,” she said, avoiding eye contact with Boone.

  “Did Endora indicate to you who she thought the angel of death was?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Is that person in this courtroom today?”

  “Yes, she is…seated directly behind Mr. Lester’s defense table.”

  Mary had waited in my hotel room while I took a steaming hot shower and changed clothes. I didn’t tell anyone we were going to visit the girl I had injured. If Gray Harris knew, he would have had heart failure, wanting instead to keep me totally out of the picture.

  My sister hadn’t asked me to go with her to Good Samaritan Hospital; she simply announced her intentions. I really don’t know what made me ask if I could join her. Maybe it was guilt, just knowing that Mary—a total stranger—was going to visit this girl I had hurt. Perhaps there was a faint sense of remorse buried somewhere deep beneath my wicked exterior. Maybe I just wanted to be with Mary longer. Probably, it was all three.

  When we left the hotel, Mary ran me by a Wendy’s drive-thru, where I picked up a burger and a Frosty. We drove most of the way in silence, with a smattering of small talk about family and old times. Her husband of eighteen years, Rick, had left her for another woman several years ago. The divorce had recently been finalized, with Mary getting custody of the boys. She was relieved that the divorce was behind her.