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home hi-fi. It was three in the morning and we got a noise complaint from Lynch’s nearest neighbor, a half-mile down the road.”
    “That loud?” Sandy said, impressed.
    “That loud. It was stupid, too. Our man probably only missed the killer by a minute or two on that dirt road. It doesn’t add up. Whoever did this, they were real careful otherwise. No prints, no murder weapon, no heart, very little physical evidence, no witnesses. We got a tire track, but it’s too common, useless. So why crank up the stereo like that? If they wanted to hide Lynch’s screaming, why not turn it off after he was dead?”
    Sandy shrugged. “You tell me.”
    “I can’t,” the deputy admitted. “But I’ve got an idea. I think it was some kind of hippie cult thing.”
    Sandy stared at him and laughed uncertainly. “Hippie cults?”
    Parker was looking at him shrewdly. “Blair, you don’t think every reporter who comes nosing around gets this kind of grand tour, do you? I’m giving you all this because I figure maybe you can give me something in return. You know things that I don’t. I know that. So talk.”
    Sandy was flabbergasted. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
    Parker chewed on his lower lip. “I want to give you something off the record. Can you keep this out of your story?”
    “I don’t know,” Sandy said. “I’m not sure I want to take any off-the-record information. Why is this so secret?”
    “Since the news of Lynch’s death appeared in the papers, we’ve already had three clowns call up to confess. We’ll have more. We know the confessions are fake because none of them can answer a few key questions we ask them. I want to give you one of those questions, and the answer.”
    “All right,” Sandy said, curious.
    “We ask them what was playing on the stereo. The answer—”
    “My God,” Sandy said, interrupting. “The Nazgûl, right?” He blurted it out without thinking. Suddenly, somehow, he knew that it had to be.
    Deputy Davie Parker was staring at him, a very strange look on his long horseface. His eyes seemed to harden just the smallest bit. “That’s real interesting,” he said. “Suppose you tell me how you happened to know that, Blair.”
    “I just…I just knew it, the minute you started to say it. It
had
to be. Lynch was their manager. The album… I’ll bet anything it was
Music to Wake the Dead,
right?”
    Parker nodded.
    “Listen to the first track on that. There’s a lyric about cutting someone’s heart out. It seemed so…I dunno, so…”
    “Appropriate,” Parker said. He wore a small, suspicious frown. “I listened to the record, and I noticed that lyric too. It got me thinking. Manson and his bunch, they were involved with some album too, weren’t they?”
    “The Beatles’ White Album. Manson thought the music was talking to him, telling him what to do.”
    “Yeah. I knew a bit about that. Went and got a few books down at the local library. But you know a lot more, Blair. That’s why I thought maybe you could be of help. What about it? Could this be another Manson thing?”
    Sandy shrugged. “Manson’s in prison. Some of the family are still out there, but mostly in California. Why come to Maine to off Jamie Lynch?”
    “What about other nut cults? Like Manson, only different?”
    “I don’t know,” Sandy admitted. “I’ve been out of touch with that lunatic fringe for a long time, so I can’t really say what might be going down. But the Nazgûl…it would have to be someone our age, I’d guess, to get their obsessions from the Nazgûl. They’re a Sixties group, broken up for more’n a decade now.
Music to Wake the Dead
was their last album. They haven’t played or cut a track since West Mesa.”
    Parker’s eyes narrowed. “That’s another real interesting thing you just said, friend. Keep going. What’s West Mesa?”
    “You’re kidding,” Sandy said. Parker shook his head. “Hell,” said Sandy, “West Mesa is famous. Or infamous. You never saw