I have completed my new novel, The Murder Rule, to be published by OmegaBooks likely in either September or October, 2023, and to be copyrighted by myself, Deborah Lagarde, and to be registered at the Library of Congress soon. The genres it will be registered under will be Adult Fiction, Drama, Suspense, Spiritual, and perhaps one other. Unless I change my mind and decide to sell it through an online platform (such as Amazon), The Murder Rule will be posted as a FREE PDF download at this site, as with The Prodigal Band, which has well over one thousand downloads since stats have been recorded starting in 2019.
During this month, August, 2023, I will be posting excerpts (© Deborah Lagarde) from Chapter One of each of the three parts to The Murder Rule. In subsequent months I might post excerpts from other chapters from Parts One, Two and Three. With the excerpts will come necessary details regarding these excerpts and how these excerpts play into the parts as a whole or stem from the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy of which The Murder Rule is a “spin-off” novel. However, I will not post entire chapters–they can be read by downloading the entire FREE PDF of The Murder Rule, if one so chooses.
The first excerpt begins Chapter One and features Part One’s victim, rocker Denny Spradlin of the fictional band Wolfin, a ‘friend’ and ‘advisor’ that is visiting him, and the Part One narrator, pop-culture pundit Lloyd Denholm, who writes for X-Zine, a magazine edited by an editing team known as ‘Cal.Edit.’ All of the characters in this chapter (and most in Part One) are British, including the writer of the mentioned ‘hand-written letter.’
Afternoon, February 3, 1996
“So, ol’ man, you honestly believe my band, Wolfin, a dominant band from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, won’t be able to put together one last effort to get back into the limelight?”
Wolfin singer Denny Spradlin’s voice was as tense as it ever could be, in the midst of an argument with a friend and advisor, both sitting on couches in Denny’s large parlor at his Wistview estate south of London.
The advisor smirked as he faced the singer. “Look, Denny. Wolfin has been played out since 1994 at the latest. Your last two albums barely sold. You haven’t had a platinum since 1991. Your band took 1992 off, with you and Blake mostly partying, and then both of you were guests on various 1992 and 1993 tours, and all that partying in the meantime. So, you wonder why you didn’t get any MusicCom video deal last year when you haven’t done a bloody thing since 1991? Your bassist Art and drummer Pete wanted to get back to work but you and Blake refused. I know you have satisfied The Pleasure Rule, but you have not done other tasks we required of you.”
“Bollocks.”
“Have you recruited for us lately? No. Have your mentored for us lately? No. The Pleasure Rule isn’t just about partying and pleasure. It is also about growing our society and our message, Denny.”
Denny nearly stood up in frustration. “But I’ve stopped partying the way I used to and want to get back to work, and you know that!”
“Right. And you are supposedly cleaning yourself up.” Smile. “Too late, my friend. Too late.”
A couple of minutes later, the friend left, cleaning up his tracks, unable to find a large metal strong box that contained a letter meant for X-Zine, an alt-rock magazine for which I, Lloyd Denholm, freelanced.
Leaving Denny on the floor as death approached.
But not before Denny slithered on the floor to insert a hand-written note inside that same metal box under a nearby parlor cabinet. He knew Blake, Wolfin’s guitarist, had a spare key.
Richmont, California, Spring, 2005
“Lloyd here,” I said into the land-line phone receiver on top of my kitchen counter, being interrupted by a call from my X-Zine boss. I had been making my lunch of burger and crisps.
“We just got the information you were looking for about Denny Spradlin’s demise. And you were right.”
“You mean, it wasn’t a suicide after all?”
“Not if what Blake’s hand-written letter to me says is true. And it must be, since he originally stated it was a suicide but— Look, Lloyd, I’ll mail it to you.”
“E-mail it, eh? Like, scan the pages and e-mail them.”
The next excerpt explains the reason ‘Cal.Edit’ scanned and then e-mailed Lloyd Denholm the ‘hand-written letter’ written by Blake Fenmore, Denny’s band-mate–Lloyd never bought into the mainstream narrative regarding Denny’s ‘demise.’ ‘Suicide,’ the consensus claimed. But Lloyd suspected something a bit more sinister.
“Did you open the email?” Cal rang me up as I was reading the document sent.
“Bloody hell, Cal,” I blurted into the phone, “will you let me actually read the bloody thing?”
“Okay, okay, Lloyd. I’ll ring you about it later.” Hung up.
As I, Lloyd Denholm, former CounterCulture Magazine freelancer and now writing, as well as investigating, for X-Zine, read through the email-scanned document written by Blake Fenmore, I wondered.
What caused Blake to finally open up about the truth of the likely murder of his best friend from the seventies into the nineties, Denny Spradlin, who was also his Wolfin bandmate? Guilt?
Fenmore, since the so-called suicide of Wolfin’s front man-singer in early 1996 that supposedly happened at his Wistview estate near Torquay Manor in Surrey, had promulgated the notion that Spradlin’s death was either a self-inflicted drug overdose or simply a drug overdose. After all, everyone who knew anything about Spradlin’s party-party lifestyle knew he was addicted to skuz.
But so was Fenmore, and so were many rockers they’d hung out with. So then why would Spradlin die of a skuz overdose, intentional or not, if so many of his celebrity mates hadn’t up until then?
Depression, the pop culture and tabloid media blasted on their front pages as if the singer had let them know beforehand why he would do such a thing! But they had their excuse. Though rumors abounded that Wolfin was heading back to the recording studio for one last comeback effort, the media knew that success would elude Spradlin and his mates, guitarist Blake Fenmore, bassist Art Fenton, and drummer Pete Carson. Wolfin’s time had passed. Thus spoke the consensus.
And consensus appeared to rule the roost in pop culture media. To heck with the truth.
And why did I, Lloyd Denholm, never buy into the consensus narrative? One reason and one reason only—the morning of the day of his death, 3 February, 1996, I had interviewed him at his estate.
“Denny, I’ve heard rumors from sources close to you that you have been giving away some of your prized possessions. You gave Blake your luxury sedan hood ornament and you gave away a platinum album souvenir and some prized earring and other things.” To various friendly rival rockers of the day. “Blake told me this information, and while Blake didn’t come to any conclusion as to why you’re giving away such treasured possessions, I must ask you this question. Are you about to take your life?”
Spradlin broke into a cocked-head pose with a mouth of scorn. “Bloody hell, no! Why the bloody hell would I do that?” Threw his arms out. “We’ve started working on new tracks, new songs, and we’re going back to our original roots, hard and heavy. The music we used to do when we led the Outlaws rock genre. Art’s been on Blake and I for the last couple of years and I’m not gonna disappoint the bloke, okay?”
I sat across from him with his mahogany coffee table between us in his snooker parlor. “But then why would you—?”
“Look, Lloyd,” still with his arms out. “I gave away the razor blade earring and other icons I’m known to wear and all that other stuff because either I got better ones or because I’m kinda making meself over a bit. I knew I screwed up, eh?”
He lit a cigarette, threw the lighter onto the table. “I know Blake and I have party’d like bloody crazy,” he cussed, “and became lazy. When we didn’t get any video deal, MusicCom, eh?” Puff. “When we didn’t get any deal like all the others did, Blake and I knew it was our own fault. Had we gone back and made albums a year or two ago like Art wanted, I’m sure we would’ve gotten at least a few mil out of it.”
“Makes sense. That’s likely why the media has been saying that Wolfin is not likely to head back into the big time. No video deals.”
“Likely right, eh Lloyd?”
The final excerpt features Blake’s ‘hand-written letter.’ After reading the letter, Lloyd tells ‘Cal.Edit’ he will take X-Zine’s investigative assignment.
As I would learn by reading his scanned and emailed document, it was clear that Blake Fenmore had been too afraid to reveal the truth for several years. By 2005, however, he couldn’t keep what he knew to be the truth to himself any longer.
Cal, or whatever your name is, the X-Zine editor,
This is Blake Fenmore, formerly of Wolfin, now living alone in the countryside in a rocky farmhouse, but I won’t say where, in England. I have let go of the guilt I felt about not saying what happened to my mate Denny Spradlin. Lloyd Denholm was right. Denny did not commit suicide by OD-ing on skuz. He also did not OD on skuz or any other cocaine- or opioid-laced drug. So how do I know this? I will state what I know later in the letter, but Lloyd was right. Denny gave up his crystal nose spoon because he was giving up addiction to skuz and the other drugs as Lloyd had surmised. I knew this all along, but I could not admit this in public until I knew for sure how Denny died.
Denny had a large metal box he stored important documents within. I had originally opened it straight-away after he died as he had given me a key in case anything happened to him.
He told me he believed someone was going to hurt him. Why? He had said weeks before he died that he owed money and was in debt over an estate he had bought back then as well as another car he had bought and that he had not paid his driver in over a month due to the debt.
But then I found documents within the box, receipts, proving he paid the debts and had also paid the driver right before he died. So, since he no longer owed money, it was not the bank or outfit he owed money to that was out to hurt him.
Then I found in the box a note he left, scribbled quickly. He must have stuck the note in the box in desperation before he collapsed. Here is what the note said.
“A hooded man has forced poison up my nose, not skuz. Pray for my soul. Denny.”
In other words, Denny knew he was going to die and wanted to let me know how it was done.
More proof Denny would not commit suicide: he had told a friend of his—I won’t say who this friend is—that he was giving this same friend his prized razor-blade earring because he had a better one. This is true. I found an almost exact match to the old earring in this metal box, but the new one was in a gift box within the metal box.
I do not know who did this act and killed Denny, but I think I know why.
Denny was giving up the life he had led and that I and so many others in our profession led. The party-party-do-what-you-want-no-consequences-lifestyle that was leaving him empty and without meaning. That was why he wanted back into the studio, for a life purpose again. But it seemed to him anyway that there were people of influence in the business that would not let him escape the emptiness he was trying to overcome. People that wanted to continue to control him and Wolfin as a whole, who wanted Denny to continue to be the front-man he had been, to keep fulfilling their agenda. Since Denny was trying to oppose their agenda, he felt these people were out to harm him. Denny was the one they had to ruin to punish Wolfin, since we had started to refuse to carry out their wicked agenda.
Denny had taken an oath, as had I, but not Art and Pete. That oath was to Andelusia, a secret society of wealthy entertainers such as Denny and I. Part of the oath we took was to live by what is called The Pleasure Rule. But there was only so much pleasure Denny could handle. The Pleasure Rule is a core concept of Andelusia which one had to give an oath to in order to make it big in present-day show biz. Andelusia though leaves one empty and without meaning and purpose, just pleasure-living high on drugs that one could easily OD on and die. It’s great for a while, but when one starts to grow up out of the party lifestyle, one realizes there is only so much pleasure one needs. One also needs meaning and purpose in life. It is my core belief someone in the Andelusia hierarchy punished Denny for giving up living by The Pleasure Rule, and killed Denny in the process. It would be my wish for X-Zine to aid me in the process of finding out who did it.
Signed, Blake Fenmore.
‘Cal’ rang me back shortly after I had read the letter.
“So, Lloyd, are you going to delve into this investigation? You’d be perfect. You even look like Sherlock Holmes! With long hair, that is.”
“Funny,” I snorted. “Yes. And X-Zine had better back me up on this!”
The next post will feature excerpts from Chapter One of Part Two, narrated by prodigal band roadie Bobby Jones, an American living on the west coast in California, that gets mixed up in a sinister New Age cult featured in The Prodigal Band Trilogy as well as The Murder Rule.
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