What Have We Done (11)

The nurse says, “I’m afraid we need to ask everyone to step out.”

“Boo,” one of his fans says playfully, and the small crowd shuttles out.

A man in a dark suit enters. “Mr., ah, Danger,” he says, like it pains him. But it’s actually

Donnie’s last name; he changed it legally after their first album went platinum and he had money burning a hole in his pocket. His real name is Donnie Johnson, but Tom told him, Don Johnson?

You’ve gotta change that. This isn’t Miami Vice .

“That’s me,” Donnie says.

The man is tall, olive skinned, his part defined, his posture arrow straight. A lawyer, possibly.

Maybe the cruise-ship company thinks Donnie’s gonna sue. They’ve already sent over a giant bouquet of flowers and a perky woman called and told him they’d set him up in a suite at the Fontainebleau hotel so he can recover in style.

He should fall out of a boat more often.

“I’m Special Agent Rodriguez with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“The FBI?” Donnie says. “No shit.”

The man nods. Doesn’t elaborate. “I have a few questions, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure, boss,” Donnie says, his accent thick and folksy when he’s Rock Star Donnie.

“What happened?” the agent asks, an open-ended question if there ever was one.

“Afraid I can’t tell you much. I hit my nugget on the way down, it seems.” He knocks lightly on the side of his head. “Last thing I remember is the show. We killed it.” He remembers a little more but doesn’t want to get into Tom firing him. His solo pity party afterward with the bottle of Jack. But what came after remains a complete blank.

“You don’t remember how you went over?”

Donnie shakes his head. “The doc says it may come back to me, but right now, nothin’.”

The FBI agent doesn’t seem surprised. He’s probably already spoken with the doctor, a pretty Black lady immune to Donnie’s charm.

Donnie adds, “There’s cameras all over the boat, I imagine the cruise line can—”

“We have the footage,” the agent cuts him off. “Mr. Danger…” He pauses, cracks his neck. “Is there anyone you can think of who’d want to hurt you?”

Donnie guffaws at that. “Maybe one of my ex-girlfriends.” He smiles. “Oh, you’re serious. No, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt me. I mean, why would they?”

The agent doesn’t respond. He pulls out his phone, displays a grainy video. It shows Donnie, his gait unsteady, a bottle clenched in his left hand as he pulls along the stair railing up to the promenade deck with his right.

The agent says, “This is the last footage of you they could find. We think you went over on deck four.”

Donnie nods. He has absolutely no recollection of it. “They got cameras there, don’t they?”

The agent nods. “The two were disabled, vandalized.”

He studies Donnie, like he’s looking for a reaction. Maybe they think Donnie disabled the cameras himself. If they’ve talked to the band, they’d know he was fired. Maybe the FBI thinks he was trying to kill himself. But the agent doesn’t ask.

“You were friends with Benjamin Wood?”

This takes him aback. Why would this agent be asking about Benny? Donnie supposes the Feds would be on the case—the murder of a federal judge must be something the FBI covers. But what in the hell does it have to do with Donnie falling off a boat?

“Yeah. We were tight since we were kids. I’m the godfather to his daughter.” This reminds him, he needs to call and check in. He called Benny’s wife, Mia, several times from the ship’s satellite phone, but they all went to voicemail.

“When was the last time you saw him before he was killed?”

“About a month ago. I’ve been on the road.… I visit him in Philly whenever I’m back east.”

The agent nods.

“Hey, you mind me asking what this has to do with my, ah, accident?” Donnie asks.

“I don’t mind you asking,” the agent says. But he doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he asks,

“Any idea why Judge Wood would have been in Chestertown?” The newspapers said Benny was last seen leaving work, but his body was found in a Dumpster in an industrial area of the dreary Pennsylvania town where they’d been in foster care together. The reports speculated that he’d been the victim of a carjacking.

Donnie shakes his head. He and Benny vowed to never go back to that wretched town.

The agent displays the screen of his phone again. It’s a photo of a woman. Grainy footage from a low-end surveillance camera. She’s standing outside a marble building.

“You recognize this woman?”

Donnie shakes his head.

Rodriguez says, “Footage shows her outside the Eastern District of Pennsylvania courthouse building on multiple occasions, including three days ago, the last time anyone saw Judge Wood.”

“I thought you caught the guy who did it? One of the criminals Benny put away.”

The agent sighs. “An arrest has been made. But the investigation is ongoing. The woman is a person of interest, someone we want to speak to. She wasn’t originally a high priority, but…”