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  Copyright & Information

  Bright Midnight

  First published in 2016

  © Chris Formant; House of Stratus 2016

  Cover and Interior Artwork © David Singer 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Chris Formant to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2016 by Astor and Blue LLC

  Suite 23A, 1330 Avenue Of The Americas,

  New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.

  Typeset by Astor and Blue LLC

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN EAN Edition

  1941286925 9781941286920 Print

  168120004X 9781681200040 Kindle

  1941286933 9781941286937 Epub

  1941286941 9781941286944 Pdf

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's express prior consent in any form of binding, or cover, other than the original as herein published and without a similar condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser, or bona fide possessor.

  This is a fictional work drawn from the author's imagination and all characters (alive or dead), places, incidents, quotations, and events portrayed herein are either fictitious, or are used fictitiously at the Author's discretion and responsibility, including historical facts and intimate aspects of the lives of those mentioned, along with descriptions of the tragedies and mysteries surrounding some deaths.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  For those who heard the music, like they never heard the music before.

  About the Author

  CHRIS FORMANT, who got his start in rock and roll in his early “garage band’ days, never dreamed he would one day hold a seat on the Board of Trustees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Today he is still a student of rock and roll and an avid collector of rock memorabilia.

  As an executive in a leading global company, running a multi-billion-dollar business, Formant is the unlikeliest of authors of a murder mystery.

  However, the continued unanswered questions surrounding the deaths of our most iconic rock legends led Formant to first speculate and then re-imagine what would happen if cutting-edge technology were applied to these famous cold cases.

  By conducting research into the archives of the Hall of Fame, studying advanced forensic techniques and gaining creative insights from top doctors, FBI investigators, and a former editor of Rolling Stone magazine, Formant has crafted what is being referred to as “The DaVinci Code for Rock and Roll Fans.”

  Gregg Fienberg, award-winning Producer and Director of hit television series including 'Deadwood', 'True Blood' and 'Twin Peaks' writes:

  “Bright Midnight is an unexpected gem of a story. From the moment the mysterious clues surfaced, I was immediately drawn into Gantry Elliot’s world, as the ageing Rolling Stone writer discovers that a long established rock and roll myth is actually something much more sinister. Chris Formant is so adept at crafting the intrigues of his novel that one can’t help but come away questioning what is the real truth behind the deaths of some of our most-beloved artists. The ingenious weaving of "historical “accounts and clever vignettes with descriptions of advanced forensic technology unlock a set of startling revelations that will leave readers reeling at the end. Bright Midnight is Rock and Roll’s DaVinci Code!"

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to acknowledge the advice, insights and assistance from the various friends and associates who encouraged me and helped bring Bright Midnight into the sunlight. There are many: my Agent, Lisa Queen, Publicist Meryl Moss, Business Manager Angela Virzi, and my social media muses, Tamara and Michael McCleary. Also, the insight and professional support received from Raphael Tamargo, Jim Henke, Gregg Fienberg, Robert Woodcox, Robert Astle, and David Lane.

  A special mention must be made of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, particularly the incredible archive research staff, and to the encouragement and support of my family: Libby, Cooper, Chris, Virginia, Angelina, and Cindy.

  Lastly, and most of all, to the beautiful musicians who made the legendary music that continues to haunt us and inspire us.

  Chris Formant

  July 2016

  Cover Art: The stunning cover art is by one of the artistic geniuses of the psychedelic era, legendary Fillmore poster artist, David Singer. It depicts the joy and sorrow of the young “minstrels” and musical poets of 1960’s rock and roll along with the harrowing suspense of a 21st century murder mystery. Singer is well known as one of the early psychedelic poster and album cover artists, and the artist that made collage art popular.

  10 PM, November 17, 1967

  Reading, England

  The opening chord exploded like a thunderclap, silencing the raucous late night crowd in a nanosecond as it reverberated off the walls and ceiling, almost shaking the beer and wine glasses off the flimsy cocktail tables.

  Nearly every head snapped toward the stage in unison straining to see, through the smoky club atmosphere, just who was playing with such power and precision.

  The unmistakable dominant seventh sharp ninth chord of “Purple Haze” and the tamed fuzz buster distortion could only announce the arrival of Jimi Hendrix.

  The crowd went wild and surged toward the stage.

  Only this was not Hendrix.

  This otherworldly sound was coming from a scraggly teenager with a forty-year-old whiskey voice.

  He moved effortlessly from hard rock to sing-along English folk ballads, the crowd silenced as he channeled the best of Hendrix, then segued to the Beatles, then Stones, then his own catchy songs.

  They were in awe as he played with their emotions, drawing them in and twisting them around his finger with each song.

  He owned the room full of stylish mods and black leather rockers and everyone instinctively knew that this kid and his group from Wales were destined to explode onto the music scene.

  He was good. Really good.

  Unfortunately, he was too good for the record company representative in the audience, who stormed out before they were even finished. Wheezing and coughing, he hurriedly waded through the Vespa scooters, past the Norton and Triton motorcycles, to the beaten up old red phone booth on the edge of the parking lot. Gasping, he leaned against the phone booth and pulled out his inhaler and took two deep breaths.

  Calming himself, he dialed a familiar number. “Boss,” he said slowly, “we have a big fucking problem…”

  Present Day

  Rolling Stone Magazine Offices, NYC

  Early Afternoon

  “No one’s gonna give a shit about where we place the Rock Hall piece,” the new staffer curtly commented. “Our readers don’t really follow stuff like that anymore. The latest focus groups suggest that we need more current and diverse material, like EDM…or Electronic Dance Music, for you Gantry.” The new staffer condescendingly looked at the older men, and went on. “Grammy’s, yes. Oscars, yes. But our readers weren’t even alive when most of these groups were popular. Maybe the AARP might be interested?”

  The young staffer laughed at his joke.

  Gantry stared at the staffer with a perplexed expression, like a spoiled teenager. Alex sat back and rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming next.

  “Young man, do you know the derivation of the metered heartbeat, the ba
ckbone of EDM?” Gantry asked in a slow Texan drawl as the smiling staffer shook his head. “It was introduced by Greg Errico, the drummer for Sly and the Family Stone. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. One of the most influential drummers in rock history.”

  The kid sunk down in his chair as Gantry continued.

  “It’s the basis for much of Rock, Funk, Hip Hop, and EDM…electronic dance music for us old timers.”

  Alex smirked at Gantry.

  A soft knock on the glass conference door interrupted Gantry’s lecture. It was Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters. In awe of the rocker that they’d idolized since they were young, the staff jumped up as if the president of the United States had walked in the room.

  “Hey Alex, sorry to barge in, but I’m in town for a show at the Garden and thought I’d stop by and say hello,” he explained as he stuck his head in.

  “Anytime,” Alex responded as he introduced the rocker to his staff. They were star struck.

  “And here’s the MAN,” Grohl exclaimed when he spotted Gantry, and ran over to shake his hand.

  “Hey, can I ask you a question? “Alex interjected, “Do you know Greg Errico?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! He’s one of my idols…the father of modern drumming. I learned to play by imitating him. Why do you ask?”

  “Ah, no reason. No reason at all.” Satisfied, Alex slyly glanced over at Gantry, who couldn’t help but smile.

  Gantry Elliot was a tough son of a bitch, but always fair, and much smarter than his appearance let on. Now at age sixty-five, he looked as out of place working in Rolling Stone’s Manhattan offices as “a centipede at a toe-tappin’ contest,” a term he liked to use in the rare instances when the opportunity presented itself. His well-worn, dark crocodile cowboy boots were always propped on his desk when he was deep in thought. He’d come a long way since leaving Irving, Texas, but Gantry never lost the boots. They meant home to him.

  He had joined Alex Jaeger, Rolling Stone’s publisher, more than four decades earlier. He was a wunderkind when he first came on in the late sixties—a smash investigative reporter—but now he was just a relic to the rest of the staff. Holding the title of “Classic Rock Editor,” Gantry had been relegated to commenting on rock & roll stars, writing the occasional article on the “classic” era, or reviewing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony every April. Though he tried to pitch substantial stories, lately he had been shut out of every promising lead. Frustrated, he seldom left his back office.

  Gazing out the window at the bright rays of morning sun over the East River, Gantry made his first cup of strong coffee and settled in for the day. He’d been thinking about his life lately. Turning sixty-five tends to focus a man on what’s important, what he’s accomplished, how he’ll be remembered. He tried not to dwell on the writing opportunities he was losing to younger staffers, but it nevertheless ate at him, as his boredom grew month after month.

  After taking a large gulp of coffee, and with little else to do, he began to reorganize his file drawers which were filled with stories dating back to 1968. Occasionally, Gantry liked to read his old copy to remind himself he really was a writer. He pulled out an article, dated July 1999–skimming the coffee stained paper, his eyes softened as he read the opening words.

  I believe we are moving toward a new age in ideas and events. Astrologically, we are at the end of the Pisces Age…soon to begin the Age of Aquarius, in which events as important as those at the beginning of Pisces are likely to occur. There is a young revolution in thought and manner about to take place.

  — Brian Jones[1]

  It all came rushing back to him as the words triggered memories of a time when a new form of music filled the air. The unusual blended dissonance of sitar and guitar was still fresh in his mind. He could almost hear it…Inspired by creative bands, a devoted following of avid disciples actively searched the music and lyrics for the signposts and symbols of peace and love. A new musical religion emerged. It was truly the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

  Gantry’s adrenaline started pumping, remembering the familiar hum and feel of the perfect keyboard of his beat up IBM Selectric 11 typewriter—the little golf ball whirling and punching the paper...he sped through the old article.

  Juxtaposing this free love culture was the “us vs. them” militaristic stance of the government and local authorities. Musicians, singers, poets, and songwriters became enemies of the state. It became almost a form of “rock and roll McCarthyism.”

  Damn fine quote, he thought to himself. Then, smugly, These fucking Millenials can’t write four sentences in a row without adding a link to Wikipedia. His eyes lingered on the page, and with a sharp cold inhale of his breath, he felt the tragic reminder of the untimely death of a great artist…

  Because of an unwritten code, when a rock & roll star suddenly died, generally of what was called “excess” (drugs and alcohol), investigations were grossly inadequate and superficial, leading to wild speculations and urban legends that have persisted over time.

  Then darting to the conclusion, he recalled rewriting the last line about sixty times. It was a killer line…worth a Pulitzer.

  “Electricity was in the air. Everything was in a state of upheaval and chaos. It was reflected, even inspired by the music. It was a renaissance.”

  Suddenly his office door swung open

  —a major affront and an unpleasant surprise. No one ever came into his office without knocking first. Who the hell was this?

  His heavy boots hit the floor with a thud as he looked up at the tri-colored, spike-haired kid standing before him.

  “Hey, Mr. Artifact-oh!” the kid said in an irritating voice, with a heavy emphasis on the last syllable. The kid had called him this once before, and Gantry had told him if he ever did it again, he’d find his multicolored head on a spike.

  “What the fuck do you want, rainbow head?” Gantry retorted, turning back to his computer as if busy with something important.

  Rainbow head was the first thing that had popped into his mind, and he wished he’d been cleverer. Of course now, seconds later, he could think of at least ten good retorts. Perhaps something about the large black plug that was stretching the kid’s earlobe to the size of a quarter. “Ubangee freak” would have worked well.

  “Hey, Gantry, I heard you covered the classic-rock show over at St. Agnes Retirement Home last night. Did that Beatles cover band really drive up in a paisley, psychedelic VW Microbus?”

  The kid waited, his left hand propping him up in the doorjamb, his right hand fingering the plug in his ear.

  “I told you what I would do if you ever called me that again, you little Ubangee freak,” Gantry said without turning, his fingers working his keyboard, typing xjglskpg fstxpmonc, fhghfkdl, xtufrohpzzid.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the kid murmured, knowing when to quit.

  When the kid finally left, Gantry had to get up and close his door again—they never did, another sign of youthful disrespect. But he had to smile as he sat back down, thinking of all the shit he pulled during the halcyon days of the late sixties and early seventies back in Texas and, later, in the magazine’s home office in San Francisco.

  What a trip that place had been. Especially Haight-Ashbury. What these kids do now pales in comparison. With Alex as the ringleader, it was as if the inmates had taken over the asylum.

  “Did you know there is a town in Texas called Useless?” Gantry had opened his unsolicited query to Rolling Stone with what he thought was a little-known fact about his home state.

  He was a college junior living in Austin, and Buddy Holly was a favorite of his. Holly was a Texan from Lubbock and was later one of the original inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Together, Holly and the Hall of Fame comprised Gantry’s two favorite subjects.

  He knew back in 1968 that Alex, and by extension Rolling Stone, shared his interests because Alex’s thoughts permeated those pages, and Gantry had read every word. He wanted desperately to
get published in Rolling Stone because it was the only magazine of its kind. Nothing before or since compared, and with only five issues out that first year, getting into it would be like winning a Pulitzer.

  He poured himself another cup of coffee, remembering with a silent laugh the way Alex had responded to the grabber line in his query.

  Gantry had proposed a creative and unusual sort of obituary for Buddy Holly in his query letter. It would be a post-epitaphic, wherein he would write something about Holly, that had been whispered, but never written about: the possibility that the plane crash that killed him, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. Richardson, the Big Bopper, might not have been an accident.

  Gantry’s letter had caught Alex’s eye.

  Why not? He thought.

  Alex responded to Gantry with a surprise phone call. On that day, Gantry had been engaged in a protest and was working on a report about it, which he’d hoped to sell. As a student he was so poor that he was living on whatever leftover condiments were still in the refrigerator and visiting hotel happy-hour bars three nights a week for free buffets. He had perfected the art of ordering one beer and nursing it until he’d had his fill of appetizers.

  So when Alex called that day, Gantry was speechless. When the voice on the other end of the line said, “Hello, is Gantry Elliot there? This is Alex Jaeger calling from Rolling Stone,” his hands began to tremble.

  “Shit,” he remembered saying, covering his mouth too late to grab back the word he had now flung out into the world and into Alex’s holy ear. This was the man. This was Rolling Stone magazine. He could barely breathe as he pulled himself together, the receiver in his left hand, a cowboy boot in the other—he’d been caught dressing.