“Here,” she said, “I wasn't thinking about it before but... that stupid music Thorne was blaring when we busted in... It was familiar.”

Ruby passed off the file to Gabe. Marcia Reuben's name appeared on the tab.

“Touring musician. Always seemed to be touring a little too close to the murders, but hotel staff had her on camera causing a scene in the lobby during one of them.”

Gabe scanned the three-year-old notes.

“Sounds charming,” he said.

“Let's see where she is now...” Ruby said, sliding in front of a computer amid the towers of case files.

She typed in Marcia's band name: Man's Ruin.

The results came up instantly.

“There's a band website...” Ruby said.

She opened the tab.

“The band's been through plenty of lineup changes in the last three years,” Ruby said, “and guess who's in town.”

A photograph of the lineup came up on screen.

Marcia was there, listed as the singer.

She clicked on the band logo, reading through the website. The dates listed were all hole in the wall type places, bars with bad reputations. That tracked for all Ruby remembered of Marcia Reuben.

“The band's been in town all week,” Ruby said, “at least according to this.”

Gabe dropped the file on the table. He came over, leaning over Ruby's shoulder to read. Being in town for one major murder investigation was one thing, but to be in town for a second with a suspected relationship to the first? That had to be too much of a coincidence.

“I know that bar. It's near the river,” he said. “I'm in. Let's talk to her. Get a hold of the manager and see where they're staying.”

Ruby nodded, her eyes still on the promo images of the band, fixed on Marcia herself. It was like no time had passed at all. She was just thrust back into the same investigation she'd conducted three years before.

*

Man's Ruin was booked into a shabby hotel in a rough neighborhood, walking distance from all the kinds of establishments a touring rock band could be interested in.

“What was Marcia like?” Gabe asked, “when you interviewed her?”

Ruby bristled involuntarily at the question.

Marcia Reuben wasn't really a celebrity by any stretch. She fronted the kind of band that lived out of their van for at least a few of their gigs. They must have made enough to get by, because Ruby never found any evidence that Marcia had another job, but the singer wasn't exactly living it up.

“Abrasive,” Ruby replied, to answer Gabe's question more succinctly.