Ian had rented out Open Fields and invited friends to drop by. All were entertainers who could carry a tune. He had gotten the idea when he ran across one of Bill Gaither’s Homecoming programs on PBS. He gathered a few singers; Jimmy Sage, Susan Andrews, a few members of El Toro, even Tippy and Colton joined in. Jimmy and Susan gathered another handful.
They just turned on some lights, set up a few cameras and started the tape rolling while everyone played whatever instruments they brought along and sang. Jeremy had even talked Ian in to doing a few songs himself. He sat at the piano and played a song that he’d been working on for awhile.
He called it “The Other Side of the Moon”. Granted, it was a pretty sad song, but it always made him feel better after he sang it. It must be the catharsis of pouring out your loneliness and heartache to someone who has passed on.
When he finished the song Jimmy Sage and Susan shouted simultaneously “That’s mine!” After the session both wanted to put in on their new albums. It was Marc from El Toro that said they should both do it, and since Susan had bought El Toro’s catalogue, Ian granted permission. It seemed that on top of everything else, Ian was now a professional songwriter. It made him laugh.
It hadn’t occurred to him that about half of the early songs from El Toro’s catalogue were either co written or solely written by him until he got a check in the mail. Susan had chosen two for her new album, if she did record “The Other Side of the Moon” that would be a trio of tunes he had inadvertently contributed.
Jimmy Sage was making a bold move with his new album. Marc was producing it, as well as Susan’s. While it was still a country album, it had a new flavor and at Ian’s suggestion the cover would be the first time Jimmy appeared without a cowboy hat.
Ian, Wella and Susan had come up with a concept for an event series, one that had a limited number of episodes and would feature a minimum of one song broadcast live from a concert somewhere in the United States. In between would be music and comedy either taped specifically for the program or videos made by the viewing public with tools and footage they could download from a link on the HRT website.
They were calling it “Is That On Tonight”. The selling point would be an event that would be one of the most inexpensive variety programs ever produced. The comedy bits and much of taped music footage would be done the way the old country show “Hee Haw” was made.
They would film all of the bits that involved specific characters or sets for the entire season at one time. Ian realized they could do this and only contract people for a few days to a weeks worth of work, saving bundles of cash and allowing the performers a bigger chunk of the back end, which would be more profitable because of the low initial cost.
Other details of Ian’s business life had fallen into place as well. Trampus Scott was in full force, joining in the producing team by helping to pool the cash needed for funding for the dream project, “Quarters”. His casting was sheer genius on many levels. Jeremy and Trampus were best buds, and had been for over ten years. There was a natural playfulness between them that the public couldn’t get enough of and translated easily to the screen. Everytime they had appeared on screen together previously it generated a blockbuster.
The rebooted “Sebastian Manor” had hit the airwaves as well. Within minutes it caused a glut of calls to stations around the country running it. By the end of the first hour it was all daytime audiences could talk about. By the end of that first week it was all anyone in the country could talk about. Ratings for it and “The Best of Everything” were soaring. Baxter Black was oddly silent.
Even at half days, Ian was settling into his new regimen at HRT. Wella was now in full control of what used to be his division, and the other branches of the network seem to be following suit with little resistance. Although the Fall Season hadn’t begun, the campaign was bringing in new viewers.
The retooling of the Summer schedule was proving effective. They had quietly dropped almost everything they had planned to cancel and made all the major time shifts to existing programs. Holes were being filled with classics dusted off from HRT vaults and they were regularly winning those time slots.
They had also begun filling in with some series from other English speaking networks, made available via some past misguided brokering. Some of it was taking off, Ian and David Turner were in fast negotiations for full summer runs the next year or to fill time slots of new series that would need to be quickly cancelled.
HRT was no longer on the bottom of the heap. It wasn’t number one, but David Letterman was no longer able to get laughs out of comments about the network needing bypass surgery.
The work place was full of energy, new ideas and excitement. No one seemed to be convinced that what “they used to do” was still valid. The other networks were beginning to sweat a little, hoping that the summer blip was just curiosity and the Fall line up would be nothing for them to think about just as it had been in the past.
Ian’s only worry now was the phone call he received making him now wait impatiently in a chair at the police station. He didn’t like this part of reality. He didn’t like not being in control. He didn’t like the way the vinyl of the chair made his pants crawl up his butt crack.
“Mr. Justyn?” A severe looking woman in blue came up to him.
“Yes.”
“Would you follow me please?” She didn’t give him time to answer, and didn’t take into account that he was still heavily reliant on a cane to walk. He was practically breathless when she threw open a door and motioned him in.
Ian wasn’t sure if he should sigh in relief or panic when he spotted Kellen in the office with two other men. Kellen immediately came to Ian and helped him to a chair.
“Hey, buddy.” Kellen handed him a glass of water as Ian took a seat. The chair was just as uncomfortable as the one outside. “Thank you for coming down on such short notice.”
“Why am I not sure I’m going to like this.” Ian said, simply holding the disposable cup.
Kellen patted him on the shoulder. “Ian do you remember Andy Mitchell?” He motioned to the young man sitting in the chair beside the empty one Kellen had been in.
“Not really. I apologize, if I should.” Ian tried to at least seem like he wasn’t approaching third gear in terror.
“It’s fine, Mr. Justyn.” The young man smiled. “To be honest, I’m not sure if we’ve actually met or not. I’m one of the officers that has been investigating your…”
Ian held up his hand. “Yeah, okay. I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s still difficult to close my eyes at night, without prescriptions, and not remember what you’ve been investigating. I hope you understand.” The young man nodded and looked at his feet as Kellen took back his seat.
“I am assuming that this is about…all that…” Ian looked for a placed to put the unwanted cup down and gave up, continuing to hold it like Oliver waiting for more gruel.
“And Mr. Justyn, I’m Yancy Barrow.” The third man, seated behind the big desk looked at Ian, said simply as a fact, nothing more, nothing less. “There has been a development in the case.”
“Development?” Ian looked at Kellen and then turned questioningly to Kellen. “How can there be a development when the case is closed?”
“Well, sir…” The man behind the desk started to say.
“Look, you seemed to have been very happy adding up a lot of things that don’t make sense; leaving my friends, my little boy and I with a lot of questions. We smile a lot, and don’t talk about it, but the truth is the pat little conclusion you’ve saddled us with gave us nothing to feel secure about.”
Yancy Barrow sat back in his chair and stuck a fancy pen in his mouth. “And exactly what do you think happened, Mr. Justyn?”
“I don’t effing know, Mr. Barrow, Detective Barrow, whatever. All I know is the boyfriend of a co-worker popped out of a closet in the middle of the night, dressed in black and started shooting at everything and everyone in sight and nothing else makes sense. Not an attempted burglary, which I might add no one, NO ONE, can figure out for certain what was stolen, not any kind of kinky sex thing when it was obviously that the man had been hiding in the house all day long, passing up many opportunities to force himself on any number of people…”
“Ian…” Kellen tried to calm Ian down, but he was on a roll and he wasn’t about to let anything stop him.
“And the fact that the police department, who so quickly deduced an open and shut case, has never bothered to even chat with me or Billy, the two living, and I cannot stress the word living enough, victims of said case.”
“I can see how you would be a little upset.” Barrow made mistake of saying.
Ian dropped the plastic cup, swinging his cane at it and expertly baseballing it to the wall behind the desk. “Upset?” He pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t patronize me. I am not upset. I am pissed off. You people, hired and trained to serve and protect and aid in justice have taken a big blue dump all over me. You give me no closure, no access to any information to even try and get closure. A man with a mystery dies looking in my eyes blurting out some cryptic legend, I’m still recovering from physical injuries and I’m afraid to pee at night without a body guard close by.”
“Ian, Ian…we’ve hit a trigger.” Kellen stood and looked in Ian’s eyes. “We know you are angry. You have a right to be. We’re angry, too. That’s why you are here. Some pieces have fallen into place and we need to let you know what’s going on.” He pulled the chair close to Ian. “Take a deep breath. Have a seat.”
Suddenly exhausted Ian plopped straight down. “I…uh…I’m so sorry. I had no idea I’d go off like that. I usually don’t…” he rambled.
Andy Mitchell presented Ian with another cup of water. “A little to the left next time, there’s a spot the maintenance people keep missing.” Ian tried to smile past his mortification and gulped most of the contents in one swallow.
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