Saturday Night Dead

By F.H. Belfus-Bennett

Rock and roll kills in F. H. Belfus-Bennett's thrilling debut novel, "Saturday Night Dead". A clever blend of murder mystery and the 1990's Boston music scene, its constant twists and turns will have fans lining up!
There's nowhere quite like Boston for rock and roll fans. However, when wealthy, privileged college students who frequent the nightclub circuit begin turning up dead, it leaves the entire city in a panic!
Readers will be on the edge of their seats as they follow the tracks of an evil killer in F. H. Belfus-Bennett's wickedly suspenseful "Saturday Night Dead"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543901375

Book preview

Author

SATURDAY EVENING

11:46 P.M.

MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

The rain fell hard into the cold March New England night. The raindrops sounded like bullets hitting the roof of A. J.’s van. A.J. stopped his windshield wipers momentarily. The noise was getting on his nerves. From the glow of the streetlight he could make out the face of his watch. The time read 11:46 p.m. He then looked out the window of the van. The falling rain distorted his view. Still, he could make out a pair of headlights coming towards him and a car grinding to a halt. Paranoia began to grip him. What if it was the police? But it was only a little station wagon. He wished the occupants would park and get out or keep on going. He turned the windshield wipers back on using the auxiliary switch in the steering column. He could see a couple in the car necking.

Damnit to Hell! What the hell is taking that SOB so long? A.J. thought to himself. He glanced at his watch and was shocked to find that only ten minutes had passed. It seemed like an eternity. A.J. opened the window about an inch and lit a cigarette. He heard a car behind him press its brakes making a whoosh sound while doing so in the slush. He could make out lone patches of snow here and there. Then a car door opened and a heavyset girl in a parka got out and waved to the driver.

What a doofus, A.J. thought to himself and turned his eyes to the front. If that dumb scumbag don’t get here soon, I’m leaving without him, thought A.J. in anger.

They were at the prestigious Tufts University in suburban Boston. A.J. wished that he had been able to go to college. Those kids had life handed to them on a silver platter. The fraternities, the parties, the weekends in town spending money and cruising around were not and never would be a part of A.J.’s life. These kids had rich parents and European vacations and all the advantages he didn’t. They had nice, happy childhoods with lots of stylish clothes and proms. A.J.’s parents had died when he was young. He had no real family. He was raised on a farm by a bitchy aunt and twin girl cousins who did nothing but pick on him.

A.J. knew that life was not fair. The eternal flame of anger burning inside him told him that the time for justice had begun.

Just as he was about to rev up the engine, A.J. caught sight of the man he was looking for. Clad in a brown ski jacket and carrying a dark green knapsack, his walk broke into a brisk run. Seconds later, he began knocking on the passenger’s side of the green customized Ford Econoline van. A.J. unlocked the door and let his buddy in.

What the hell took you so long? A.J. asked. You were supposed to be in and out. Instead, you took about fifteen minutes.

Sorry. I had to wait until a couple of guys showed up at the front of the dorm so it would look like I was going in with them, said A.J.’s friend.

You didn’t say anything to the guys you followed, did you? A.J. asked, just to be on the safe side.

No. I overheard them saying something about smoking a joint in someone’s room, and then, I waited for them to disappear, said A.J.’s friend.

Next time, don’t be so slow, you stupid Slav. You don’t have any idea how nerve-wracking it is to wait out here. Any car that comes by can be the police. I about had a heart attack when this car pulled up behind me a couple of minutes ago with his high beams on.

I’m sorry, A.J., his friend said. Don’t you want to hear how it went?

Heck yeah. Did you get Harrington?

Sure did. Instead of using my knife, I used his telephone cord. He has a phone in his room, you know. He was gone within seconds. Didn’t even hardly put up a fight. Then, just as a lark, I pinned a note to his to pajama shirt, said A.J.’s friend, with a certain smug pride.

Well, birdbrain, what did the note say? A.J. asked. Getting this guy to talk was like pulling teeth sometimes.

Well, being that this Harrington kid is the son of John Harrington, the famous long distance telephone services magnate, I wrote ’It’s For You’.

A.J.’s friend took off his winter gloves and put them into his knapsack.

Hot damn! That’s brilliant, said A.J. with a smile.

Thought you’d like that, said the buddy. By the way, when do I get my pay?

As soon as we get to my place and smoke a rock to celebrate, A.J. answered.

Alriiight yeaaa, said A.J.’s buddy, who already had a slight buzz from a joint he had smoked earlier to help calm his nerves before his mission this evening.

A.J. was a Southerner from Georgia, an outsider, filled with contempt and disdain for rich strangers. A.J.’s buddy, a Slavic-American hairdresser who was the victim of high school bullying, does not mind following A.J.’s lead as an exterminating angel. The fact that neither one knows Brad Harrington makes the target even more desirable. Besides the fact that the two men work at the same hair salon, A.J. as owner and boss, Slavic Boy as a hairdresser, they form an unlikely friendship and a shared motive of jealousy of the well-to-do. Who said that envy was one of the seven deadly sins? They were right.

Slavic Boy always went by the name Pisces which was also his zodiac sign. Even though he was gainfully and legally employed, he had a sealed juvenile record for small-time burglary. He had also served a 90 day sentence for drug possession a couple of years prior. So visiting dorms (or in his past case, houses) incognito and jimmying locks was something that often wired him with adrenaline. A.J. was a drug dealer who operated his salon as a front for a drug lord from Minneapolis, whose brother-in-law he happened to meet while serving in the military.

Someone else needs to suffer as I have was often A.J.’s motto during his warped pep talk, encouraging Pisces to take a human life. You’ve met your worst nightmare, Pisces would often chant to himself, while preparing to commit murder. A.J. and Pisces would utter one final homemade adage to each other before causing mayhem, both agreeing in the sparse but just sentiment.

"I am what happens when nobody gives a damn!"

MONDAY EVENING

6:00 p.m.

JAMAICA PLAIN

Back Door Man was playing on the radio. David Dakich picked up a hairbrush and started lip-synching in the mirror. When he flexed his arm muscles and pursed his lips, his high Slavic cheekbones definitely stood out. With his green eyes and wavy reddish brown hair, he could pass for a poor man’s Jim Morrison.

How he wished he had Jim Morrison’s money. David was a waiter at Boston’s famous Anthony’s Pier 4 seafood restaurant. The job wasn’t too bad, and he made tips; however, since he had left home at the age of eighteen, he barely made enough money to make ends meet. With his erratic schedules, college was out of the question right now.

What David really wanted out of life was to be a rock and roll star. He currently sang and played bass guitar in a band with three of his buddies. But in a large city like Boston, it took time and a lot of luck to get discovered and to get a record label. His buddies had equally paying jobs. Brian was a television repairman, Mike worked in a plastics factory, and Stewart was playing in another band on the off nights and sometimes worked as a maintenance man at the New England Aquarium. Yes, they were all hungry. Hopefully, their impending gig at a place in Cambridge called Club Heidelberg could get them the break they needed.

You’d better hurry up if you’re going to catch the next T heading for Dorchester, said David’s bespectacled roommate Len Wallenski, pulling David out of his reverie and into the immediate present.

ONE WEEK LATER

MONDAY MORNING 8:30 A.M.

DORCHESTER

Brian Moneghan was eating a piece of toast and sipping a cup of coffee at the breakfast table when a headline on the front page of the Boston Globe that he had just begun to look at jarred him into terrifying reality. He read the article accompanying the headline:

ROCK STAR’S DAUGHTER SLAIN

WELLESLEY, Mass. TEAL KNIGHT, daughter of famous rock star Toby Knight, was found stabbed to death in the room of her dorm at Wellesley College Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. She was discovered by a girlfriend across the hall who had had plans to attend church with her.

Miss Knight, 21, was stabbed seven times. This is the second college campus murder to occur this month…

My God, thought Brian to himself. Somebody out there is one mean and demented bastard!

SEVEN DAYS LATER

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

5:15 P.M.

ANTHONY’S PIER 4 RESTAURANT

BOSTON

David was relieved that he only had to work from twelve to five on Sundays. Today had been a busy day and he was ready to go. He was pleasantly surprised to find his buddies from the band waiting for him.

Hey old geezer, what’s new? Stewart asked. Old geezer was an affectionate term Stewart had adopted for David. Born on February 27, David was older than Stewart by twenty days.

Just another day at the grindstone, said David.

David, do you remember Massachusetts Governor Stavers?, asked Mike.

Sure, David said. He’s the one with that knockout daughter attending Radcliffe. Dana or Deena—something like that.

Dania Ilene, declared Stewart and Mike in unison.

So what about her? David asked, slightly agitated.

Campus security found her in the dormitory shower room with her throat cut this morning. It was on the twelve o’clock news, said Mike.

Oh My God! How horrible! David exclaimed.

And the most bizarre thing of the whole grisly mess was a message spray painted on the tile wall. It said ‘Tito Did It’. Have you ever heard of a Tito? Brian asked.

Wasn’t he one of the Jackson Five? asked Stewart, with a crooked grin. The Jackson Five was a popular soul and pop musical group in the 1970’s.

I don’t think that’s the Tito they mean, said David. Tito was the nickname of Josip Broz, the former Premier of Yugoslavia. When Tito died in 1980, there were riots in the streets from Zagreb to Sarajevo. He was a man few people liked until he was gone. Then the whole country felt lost and in a state of panic, David added with quiet authority.

So what does that have to do with a murder in Cambridge? a confused Stewart asked.

The answer has a few possibilities. The first is that that the killer was a Communism or Political Science major. Because not too many other people know of or remember that nickname. Among the other possibilities are that it could have been a mad Slavic like me (he grins). And last of all, it could mean nothing. Just something that the killer wrote to confuse the police.

Number three spooks me the most, said Brian.

What a shame for Dania’s family. She was just twenty and an only child, said Mike.

How did you know that? asked Stewart.

I read the newspapers. Maybe you should try it sometime, Mike added with a sarcastic grin.

Stewart wasn’t much of a reader. He had dropped out of high school at fifteen and played in bar bands ever since, learning more music as he went along. He recently took a job at the Aquarium to supplement his income.

It was probably a fellow student. Most likely a jealous boyfriend gone mad, said Brian. David Dakich the poet stepped in with a closing comment.

This is a world of fear and a world of pain. Who is to blame?