The Big Rewind (4 page)

M
ix tapes are like diaries. Each corresponds to a very specific place and feeling, and to go pawing through someone else's collection is a huge breach of trust. It's musical espionage, emotional voyeurism, and just plain rude.

But KitKat was dead, and curiosity quickly got the better of me.

I opened the binder with a thick plastic crack. Preserved in plastic sheeting was a lifetime of track lists, each with a photograph of the tape's compilation artist.

The first was a track list handwritten in pencil on torn-out composition paper, titled
Hi Katie from Luke
. I'd never thought about her name being anything but KitKat. It was a tape that could have been played at any middle school dance in the country: John Michael Montgomery's “I Swear”; Bryan Adams, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”; Celine Dion, “Falling into You.” I didn't know boys were
allowed
to put Celine Dion on a mix tape.

I dug the tape out of the box. It was the only one without a case, the label lay slightly crooked, the title written in ballpoint pen. The matching Polaroid showed Luke as a blond boy with a jade-green T-shirt from Freehold Middle School—I recognized the T-shirt as one KitKat had worn as a tube top—posing with a preteen KitKat in front of a panther diorama at a museum. KitKat
had her eyes closed; Luke was grinning with the sad dirty face of a kid just a few years away from his first beer, his first smoke, the last of his innocence wasted on the lies of becoming a man. He reminded me of my second-grade boyfriend, Josh, who'd pushed me on the swings at recess until third grade, when we got put in different classes. He'd started coming to class drunk in sixth grade, dropped out in ninth, and would routinely show up in the
Loring Free Press
police blotter.

Calvin, creator of the next mix tape,
Let's Get the Hell Out of This Place,
was photographed in the moment he'd heaved his graduation cap off the edge of the Grand Canyon, sandy, soft hair blowing in the wind, flannel shirt wrapped around his waist. He had decorated his case with a road map and mislabeled “Baba O'Riley” as “Teenage Wasteland.” Thom, of
You & Me @ the End of the World,
was a beautiful geek, all angles and glasses and open-lipped pout, posed with his telescope in a concrete-walled dorm room. His track list, comprised mostly of Weezer and Radiohead and Mazzy Star, was typed on the back of one of KitKat's college astronomy tests. She'd gotten a 90. Good for her.

Baldrick hunkered down in the space left in the box by the cassettes I'd pulled out. There were tapes for parties, tapes from summer camp, mixes of dance music, and Broadway show tunes. On page after page of her musical scrapbook were photos of KitKat and her friends from Girl Scouts to college, track lists covered with stickers and magazine cutouts, songs I knew by heart, bands I'd never heard of. There were boys who loved her, friends I'd never met, stories I'd never heard her tell. I was beginning to feel like I'd never known KitKat at all.

But for the last three track lists at the back of the binder, there was no photograph of GPL.

GPL, whoever he was, had compiled three tapes—
How Fucking Romantic,
Songs for a Girl Genius,
and
Without Words
. He wrote his titles in small, evenly spaced handwriting, centered on the label, and his track lists were all neatly typed with the faded ink of an old typewriter.

Though there had been no name on the return address of the tape I'd received the day she was killed, the handwriting in the upper left matched the print on these three tapes. Paying no attention to the care that had gone into wrapping it, I tore the paper open.

There was no typewritten track list. No letter. I even checked the back of the paper I had just shredded. Nothing except a cassette labeled
Cure Kit
in that same meticulous handwriting. I flipped back to the first track list for
How Fucking Romantic
. Whoever GPL was, he had been crazy about KitKat. All three track lists read like a hipster love song compilation off late-night TV—Stevie Wonder's “Knocks Me Off My Feet”; the Magnetic Fields, “Nothing Matters When We're Dancing”; Marshall Crenshaw, “Whenever You're on My Mind,” each with a little note about why he'd chosen that particular song. Next to Sara Hickman's “Simply,” he'd typed,
How better can I say it? I've fallen for you
.

But if some other man was sending her love songs, what did that say about Bronco?

My stomach had a long crawl back to where it had dropped from. I might have been holding in my hand what cop shows called
a motive
. Maybe that's why Bronco was acting weird at her funeral, why he hadn't shown up at the memorial. My throat went dry, and although I got up and got a drink of water, it didn't help. If Bronco had killed her in a jealous rage, he had a pretty good reason to play it normal at the funeral and lie low afterward. The last time I had seen him was the day she died, in the foyer as he was leaving KitKat's and I was headed to work. He'd been all smiles, and we made a few minutes of small talk before he got on his bike and rode away.

I picked up the card Detective Muffin Top had given me from where I'd left it on my side table and started to dial. But I hung up before I finished. Something in my gut didn't feel right, and it wasn't the two-day-old pizza I'd had for dinner. I wanted to do a little more digging before I turned Bronco over to the hard boys. I just couldn't believe, for myself, that he would kill her like that.

I tried to entertain another notion. Maybe it was a romantic game for them, a chance to pretend like they were fifteen again. Then I remembered that Bronco was a tech junkie, the kind who waited in lines for a new phone or the latest tablet. He rolled his eyes whenever anyone talked about vinyl. If it was a choice between eating meat and making a mix tape, he'd probably order the bacon double cheeseburger.

I called Bronco's number. I got his voice mail. He still hadn't updated his Facebook or his Twitter. It wasn't like him at all to be so disconnected, and I hoped he was all right.

Frustrated, I put the box of tapes away and flipped on the TV to a
Law & Order
marathon, but it was Chris Noth, and I hate Chris Noth, so I turned it off. I'd check back when it was Jerry Orbach.

That left me in the silence of the clues at hand. Baldrick hopped up on the couch beside me and nestled against my leg. I once watched a show that claimed that if a case wasn't solved in a week, it was never solved and wound up stuffed in the file cabinet of some overworked civil servant. I may not have known her as well as I should have, but KitKat was my friend, and with her one-week-old case already collecting dust, I owed it to her to help put her spirit to rest. It was the least I could do.

The problem was, I didn't even know where to begin. I couldn't take DNA samples or bag up evidence, didn't have a hot light to interrogate our friends under. Hell, I didn't even know where she'd gotten the supplies for her pot brownies. Maybe her dealer killed her because she owed him money. No, that didn't make any sense; it was a couple of dime bags, not a brick of China White.
Shit, what do I do?

I pulled up KitKat's Facebook page. Even a week later, memorial posts and old photos were still coming in strong. The most recent was from Thom, the same one who'd made her
You and Me @ the End of the World
.
I've been playing “High and Dry” over and over since I got the news,
he wrote.
I miss you every day, KK
. He
was married now, expecting a child, doing postdoc work at the University of Kansas.

I scrolled through a week of posts but found no one with a name starting with G, let alone the whole set of initials. A scan of her friends came up empty too. I checked her Twitter and her Tumblr for followers, but for as much as his track lists proclaimed his love, GPL was a digital ghost.

I closed my laptop and tried to walk back through the crime scene in my head, ignoring the sick feeling in my stomach as I played the scene out over and over.
I stood in the hallway. I put my hand on the doorknob. I put the key in the lock. . . .

The door.

The door had been locked when I got there. All the doors in the building locked from the inside automatically, which meant that KitKat had probably known her killer enough to open the door and invite him—or her—inside. The killer would have closed the door on his—or her—way out, and it would have locked automatically after. This wasn't some lunatic on bath salts coming up the back staircase. This was someone she knew.

But that didn't narrow down the list of suspects, and it certainly didn't rule out Bronco. In addition to her friends, KitKat had a lot of clients and had lived here long enough that it was fair to assume she felt safe inviting strangers in. That's what people did on Barter Street, whether it was a friend of a friend at a house party or to exchange a teapot from Freecycle. We opened doors. We invited people in.

And I got up to double-check that mine was double bolted.

I
was still mentally walking around KitKat's crime scene when my work ringtone, Loverboy's “Working for the Weekend,” interrupted me from where I had left my phone on the table.

“You want to go to the Hartford Firm on the third shift?” Susan, the MetroReaders dispatcher, asked when I answered. “They want you to come in at ten tonight.”

I didn't normally like third shift, but I wasn't exactly ready to go to sleep. Maybe working among the investigative reports and the legal jargon would spur me on, help me with this case. Of all the places MetroReaders sent me to proofread, Hartford was my favorite. The law offices were stuffy and the financial sector attracted the late-hour crazies, but Hartford kept a small enough roster that I knew someone on call no matter what shift I was working. “Sure,” I said. “Tell them I'll be there.”

I
RAN INTO
Birdie, one of the other Hartford regulars at MetroReaders, on her way out of the temp lounge. “I'm making a coffee run, you want anything?” she asked. I started to shake my head, but she quickly added, “Hartford's footing the bill—”

“I'll take a cherry Danish and a vanilla latte.”

She grinned. “I knew you'd listen to reason,” she said. “And
hey, make sure to grab one of my postcards—I got a show coming up with a guy that was in
Kill Bill,
says Tarantino's going to be there opening night.”

Temp work was a better look into New York's art, music, and theater culture than any review in the
Village Voice
. All the temps at MetroReaders were actors, musicians, filmmakers, and other wonderful weirdos. Unlike the trust-fund dopes I used to live with, they were genuine artists who needed the freedom and space only temp work could provide. There would be months where someone wouldn't show up for work, only to return with stories of six months spent driving to dirty nightclubs and summer festivals in a van with no AC, a film shoot with an A-lister who'd complimented them on the way they delivered their three lines, or backstage whispers of the Broadway diva they'd danced chorus for. It was the center of enjoyable narcissism, and no work night was complete without someone slipping you a flyer for their upcoming show or the link to their latest YouTube short film. More than once I'd been hit up for an album review, and more often than not, I gave it. It was a way of getting my name out there, a portfolio I could show around to
Rolling Stone
and Spin.com and finally get my journalism career off the ground.

I picked up Birdie's card and stuffed it into my backpack. Now it was just a matter of time before Lauren, the third-shift secretary, arrived with an envelope full of investigative reports to proofread. It was easy enough work, and late at night, there was never much to do. Most nights, I could even catch a nap.

Lauren came in, but her arms were empty of the manila folders that told us it was time to get off the couch. “Mr. Hartford would like to see you,” she said.

None of us temps ever interacted directly with the investigators; most of them were gone by the time the third shift arrived, and we were told never to speak to them directly unless spoken to first—which, as far as I could tell, had never happened. Birdie had told me of one legal office she'd worked at where the lawyers had
used the temp lounge like a private brothel. My stomach dropped back to the first floor as the elevator doors opened.

By the time Lauren announced my presence, I was sure I was going to black out from anxiety. Maybe I should be flattered, I thought, that someone thinks me pretty, easy, and enough of a corporate climber to be willing to sleep with me. Or maybe, more likely, I would simply do.

Philip Hartford was that kind of clean-shaven, middle-aged handsome that
Mad Men
tries to convince us is common when in reality, most middle-aged office guys look more like a sitcom dad. He wore black suspenders and a blue shirt, a mute-patterned tie and a serious, quiet expression.

“Thank you, Lauren,” he said in a voice that betrayed no familiarity or comfort. I swallowed so hard I'm sure he must have heard the saliva hit my stomach.

“Jett Bennett,” he said, as though reading an imaginary file on all my comings and goings. He gestured for me to sit in a leather office chair waiting at the front of his desk. “How long have you been working here?”

“Six months,” I answered, my mouth dry.

“You like it here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're good,” he said. “Lauren says you're always on time, your work is clean, and you get along with the others. That's important in this line of work.”

Was I being fired? Promoted? Propositioned? My palms were starting to sweat, leaving rings of gross on his nice chair.

“I need to know that what I tell you—regardless of whether or not you decide to accept my offer—will stay between us. Can I count on your confidentiality?”

Oh God, it was a proposition. But he
was
handsome, and it had been a while since I'd gotten laid. I imagined myself sauntering into the Hartford lobby in a trench coat with a red lace negligee underneath, stiletto heels clicking on the marble tile, the envious stares of Birdie and Lauren. It wasn't my hottest fantasy—that was
the one about eating barbecue naked with Jack McBrayer—but it would work. There were worse guys to bone on my way up the corporate ladder. Helen Gurley Brown was smiling down on me from heaven.

When I nodded, he smiled. “Good to hear.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a Victoria's Secret charge card, placing it on the desk between us. A good sign. At least he would be paying for my red lace negligee.

“I wear a large, an extra-large in camisoles, and I prefer bikinis, not the string kind,” he said. “I like blues and greens, no reds.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Surely, this had to be a joke. I looked for any traces of jest, a visible panty line, a hint that if I said yes, I might be fired for being a pervert, a weirdo, or just plain dense.

Mistaking my curiosity for interest, he continued, strolling behind me at a pace that almost made me squirm. “You'll be required to pick up and launder the dirty ones, replacing them with a fresh set. I'll leave you some of my laundry soap; it's a nice lavender-basil scent, you're welcome to try a little out on your own delicates. But you cannot say a word to anyone, do you understand?”

“Of course,” I murmured.

He stopped and turned to me, smiling placidly. “When Susan calls, she'll tell you to bring in the documents,” he explained. “You switch out the laundered ones with the dirty ones and I'll leave a check in the envelope, plus three hours on your time card to avoid suspicion at the agency. No proofreading, just in and out and you get paid, guaranteed at least twice a week. How does that sound?”

I couldn't bring myself to say no. I'd rather have risked humiliating myself than insulting him. I could deal with everyone laughing, but offending him would surely end up with me looking for another job. I couldn't deal with a murdered neighbor and getting fired from an enviable temp gig in the span of two weeks.

He leaned down, reaching over the arm of my chair to pull
the card across the desk toward us. “Go on, take it,” he said. “And when you go out, pick yourself up something nice. A matching set, a nightie, whatever you want. Don't worry, I won't ask to see.”

I picked up the card, still waiting for him to burst out laughing, tell me he was joking, and send me back downstairs. Instead, he handed me an office key on a black leather fob and put on his overcoat. “Retrieve the documents before you leave tonight,” he said. “Come on, I'll walk you back downstairs.”

He escorted me back to the temp lounge, where my latte and Danish were waiting. I was alone and someone had left the TV tuned to
The Big Bang Theory
. I watched him leave out the front door and clicked off the TV. There wasn't any work to do, so I stretched out on the couch with my headphones on, pondering the strangeness of what had just happened. The first lesson we got at MetroReaders was to never seek out the higher-ups at any agency we worked at. I wondered what Susan would say if she knew I was not only interacting with Philip but picking out his lingerie.

It was too much to comprehend at midnight. Between this and KitKat's murder, my life was quickly turning surreal, and I turned instead to something that made sense: music. I dug out my headphones and hit shuffle.

I played a little game with myself whenever I put my songs on random, trusting the chance and math of the shuffle feature to dictate the mood of the room. I would follow the path as if it were a tarot deck, predicting my future and peering deep into my soul. It wasn't always accurate, but it was always kind of fun.

But tonight, perhaps inspired by KitKat's box of tapes, every song reminded me of some great lost love—driving with William under the endless autumn sky to the mournful wail of October Project's “Bury My Lovely”; New Year's Eve hanging around Mikey's Pizza in Loring with Jay as he filled a hundred drunken orders and gave me a quick, shy midnight kiss to the Smashing Pumpkins' “Tonight, Tonight,” like we were ringing in 1996 instead of 2006. It had been a long time since I'd let a new song
remind me of anyone, but like KitKat, I still had an archive of every tape and CD all my boyfriends had made me.

But the aching nostalgia really kicked in with July for Kings' “Champagne” and all of a sudden I was back in college, sprawled out on the floor with my vintage red cocktail dress pushed up around my waist and Catch's arms around me, tie abandoned, jacket thrown over my chair, shirt unbuttoned. It was so real I could almost taste the stolen champagne on his lips as he leaned in close, half-proposing marriage in between breathy kisses. We'd swiped the bottle from the department reception for our senior recital. We'd been performing together for about a year by then, and we had arranged a jazz version of Warren Zevon's “Searching for a Heart,” his trumpet muted and mournful, my vocals smoky and deliberate. It was the hit of the show, and when we'd reached the peak of giddy adulation at the after-party we'd grabbed the champagne and retreated to his dorm room. It was not the first time we'd made out on his floor, but whether it was the champagne or the high of performance, kisses had quickly turned to eager hands, and soon we couldn't get each other's clothes off fast enough.

My phone buzzed, jolting me out of my daydream.
Have I got a story to tell you,
Sid wrote. I loved that he typed out his text messages in full, no stray
2
or
u
like Prince.
Brunch tomorrow?

Can't wait to hear it,
I wrote back.
11?

See you then
.
Good night, darlin'.

I played the song again, trying to will myself back into the beautiful memory, but nothing came except for the reminder that Catch, like his own apparition, was long gone.