by R. J. Jacobs
When we reach the end of the street, he clicks a garage opener clipped to the sun visor and the garage door on the last house on the right swings open. Before we are fully parked, he clicks the button again, and a few seconds later the engine is off. A yellow seam where the garage door meets the driveway is the only light. The dark shapes of tools hang on the wall, dull from grease and age. The thought flashes in my mind that if Marion wants to kill me, now is the perfect time. He opens his door and a dome light pops on above. He starts toward a stairwell on the far side of the garage, but when he sees I haven’t moved, he pauses.
I could reach the garage opener, I think, where it hangs limply from the visor. I could open the door and run, but I think back to the way Williams had looked at me earlier and decide I at least need to listen to what Marion has to say. I have to know what he knows.
His shoes squeak from the rainwater he’s tracked in as he returns to the car. I look at him over the curved edge of the window.
“I know detectives don’t give out information,” I say. “They keep part of what they know to themselves. Right?”
“That’s right.” His eyes are patient even as his feet shuffle on the garage floor.
“I understand why that is. But if you want me to follow you inside this house, I need to know everything you know about what happened to Shelly.”
He bites the inside of his cheek then sets his jaw. “That’s fair.”
“And you have to tell me where we are.”
His eyebrows rise and fall like he forgot something obvious.
“This is my uncle’s place. He and my aunt go up north every summer, so it’s empty. I’m staying here, until … something changes with the case. Until the news and everyone else stops looking for me. Do you feel okay enough to go inside?”
My head is spinning from wanting to be out of the closed-in space.
I was a watcher, a follower, a fan. When I tried to leave that life behind, I got pulled back into it. If I tell him to take me home, I’ll just be sitting there waiting to hear from the police again. I could do that, or I could find out what Marion knows, and try to help. I know already what my choice is. I follow him up a flight of painted wood steps, and we enter a kitchen lit only by daylight coming through the windows. The air smells dusty and still and is very warm. I wipe my forehead where it has begun to sweat and notice there is no display on the microwave, no ticking from the clock at the center of the stove.
“Sorry about the temperature in here. Everything is turned off. It’s better, less noticeable from the street,” Marion says, pulling a chair away from the kitchen table. He motions for me to sit down, then sits on the chair across from it.
He sets his hands flat on the table as if laying out what he means to say.
“Where should I even start? I’m still in shock to be honest, still processing what happened. Since my phone rang with the news late last night, everything has been a blur. But if I think like a cop, I understand Shelly’s murder is the biggest crime Metro PD has faced in a decade. People in Nashville are angry, and scared. Metro has to arrest somebody, bottom line. The longer they wait, the worse it looks, and the more time that passes, the more evidence goes away. Rain has already turned the park into a mess. You saw someone last night. And you watched the entire last tour. I wish like hell you weren’t in this situation, but you’re suspect number one. And until the other detectives verified my location last night, I was a suspect too. And I know neither one of us is guilty.”
I give him a look. How does he know it wasn’t me?
He reads my mind, shrugs a little.
“Was I imagining it, or were you a little suspicious of me when we questioned you this morning? You asked where I’d been the night before.”
A week earlier, I would have kept quiet because of the protection order. “Yes,” I admit. “I know you weren’t working … security for them. As of three weeks …”
“Because the new security interviewed the caterers,” he says, realizing.
I nod.
“You were the first person who came to mind when I heard the news about Shelly, I’ll admit. But it was so obvious you were telling the truth during the interview. You hadn’t even wanted to be at the party last night, I could hear it in your voice.”
“I didn’t. I tried to get out of going.”
“I believe you did. So, we have to back up. Tell me again what Robert Holloway said to you. He told you Shelly and Owen wanted you at their house for a PR stunt?”
As a reason, it sounds crazy when Marion says it back to me, probably too crazy for me to have made up. I start at the beginning, when Robert found me in the alley, and tell Marion everything that was said.
Marion slowly shakes his head. “I don’t get it. I’m confused, I’ll admit, but I don’t see any motive there. The trouble is, there aren’t many people in Shelly’s life who would want to do her harm. Whoever killed her was angry at her for sure, or at least extremely determined. Forensics told us she was struck at least nine times. In some cases, victims have a list of enemies a mile long, but Shelly is beloved.”
Is. I notice he can’t use the past tense. A gust of wind blows a branch against the window, the leaves brushing the glass like they’re asking to come in.
He rubs his eyes. “Let’s talk about what you saw on tour. Maybe you shouldn’t have been there, but the truth is that you were. It might be weird to talk about, especially with me, but there are things that probably only you saw and might remember. Owen and Shelly had a lot of people working for them. You watched those people, show after show. Basically the whole summer, right?”
I nod, hesitant. I glance at the tiny scar my knife made on his left forearm.
“Go back to the first show. Boston. I assume you drove up there?”
Putting the memories out of my mind was like cleaning my head. Opening them back up is like finding souvenirs I once thought were special but look strange to me now.
Marion leans forward.
I tell him how I left Nashville and drove straight through the night, the speedometer at sixty-five to save gas, staying in the right lane of the interstate all the way up the East Coast. It felt like I was driving to Mars—with no idea what Boston would look like, or where I would go once I got there. I tell him about how once I found the arena, I paid to park with a crumpled ten-dollar bill and wandered sidewalks until it was near time for the show to start, my arms wrapped around my chest because the wind from the harbor felt cold even in June. I ate a candy bar because I felt weak, went into the arena as soon as it opened, and listened to the last of the sound check echo over the empty seats. This was before security knew me—I noticed a few looks, but the guards seemed to think I was homeless. I guess I was homeless. Except the music was my home. It was more my home than any physical place. In the dark, that music was woven into me.
“Tell me about the crew and the other musicians. Was there anyone who stood out? Maybe who you saw after the show?”
“In Boston I left right after,” I say. “I thought maybe my car would get towed. Then I’d have no way to get to Pittsburgh. That was the second stop. I drove at night again, laughed to myself at the thought that I was a kind … of driving vampire. I stopped for gas, bought two Red Bulls, kept going.”
Marion rubs his eyes like I’m losing him, but I’m not sure which details are important and which aren’t.
“I want to show you a few pictures,” he says, turning his phone screen toward me. “Tell me if you ever saw these people alone with Shelly or sensed that anything could be off between them, okay? Thomas Dixon,” he says as the first image comes up. “The sound engineer.”
I shake my head as I look at the man who worked the boards during sound checks.
Marion nods, scrolls through his phone, then shows me another. “Angela Lamb,” he says.
She managed lighting and effects. I shake my head again.
“Right,” he sighs, seeming like he doesn’t believe it could have been any of them, like he
’s going through the motions by asking, reviewing suspects he already considered and ruled out.
“Tana Nolan,” he says. She managed all the merch tables. I picture her long purple-red hair, her all-black clothes.
“I didn’t buy any merch at the venues. It’s too expensive.”
“Where do you get it then?” The side of Marion’s lip draws up a little. I’m sure he’s remembering the pictures they showed at my hearing of my collection—proof, they said, that I was dangerously obsessed with the Jameses.
I shrug, trying to avoid giving away how much I used to spend. “On eBay. There’s all kinds of stuff on there. I bought a few of Owen’s handwritten set lists. I bought a scarf Shelly wore on their first tour. There are other clothes, ticket stubs, and things like that, but VIP passes too. I could never afford those, though.”
Marion frowns. “VIP passes? The all-access kind, on eBay?
“Yeah.”
“Like phony ones? There were only four of those passes issued for each show, sold only through Shelly and Owen’s website.”
“They didn’t look phony to me, and they always sold. For a lot, too.”
His eyebrows knit together as he asks, skeptically, “How much?”
“Five thousand.”
He blinks a few times, fast, then slowly leans back in his chair. “And how many, would you estimate?”
I have to think. “Five? Six?”
“Total?”
“For each show.”
Marion buries his cheek in his palm as he looks out the window. “Where do people even get that stuff?” he asks, not expecting an answer.
“I think Robert Holloway sold me most of it,” I say.
Marion’s hand drops onto the table with a thud. He cocks his head at an angle. “What did you say?”
And so I tell him every detail I can recall. I talk slowly, not able to hide what remains of my shame. “He didn’t know he was selling anything to me. But it was easy to hide who I was, and he didn’t seem too careful about it anyway. He used a few different accounts, but I knew them all. You could tell the photos were taken in basically the same place each time. Some of them looked like they were above a tiny sink, like in a tour bus. His reflection was in the mirror once, but it was basically the same photo over and over, even though the account kept changing.”
Marion’s voice drops into a very deep tone. I can see he believes a part of my story that didn’t make sense to him until now. Very slowly, he asks, “Tell me again about what Robert asked you to do when he approached you outside your work.”
As I talk, his eyes begin to burn.
11
Marion turns away from me, his back rising with each breath. His neck has reddened just below his clipped hair, and I imagine his mind working as he twists his boot on the floor the way people do when they’re putting out a cigarette.
I’ve triggered something in him but I’m not sure what. He’s put something together about Robert, but when I ask about it, he doesn’t answer except to curse under his breath. In my mind, I recall the outrage in Robert’s eyes as he spoke to Ken. Outrage and something close to joy, like it made him happy to catch me.
Marion picks at the frayed hem of his denim shirt, the back of which is dark with sweat. Finally he stands up, shoves his hands in his back pockets, and says, “Ready Jessie? I’ll take you back now.”
Outside, a bird perched on a branch watches us like we are actors in a play and he wants to see what will happen next. Marion hooks his finger through his key ring.
I stand up. “You’re going to find Robert?”
“I have your number. I’ll be in touch soon,” he says. His mumble sounds preoccupied. Already, his eyes are on the door we came in by.
“I want to come,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me. “No, you don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Words parents say in movies. It’s better than him talking to me like I’m developmentally delayed, but I won’t accept it. I stare at him. The air is so still I can see flecks of dust in the thin rays coming through the kitchen window.
“You said you would tell me what you know, and so far all I’ve heard are questions.”
He sighs. “The best place for you right now is your apartment. I know this whole situation is a lot to take in and I wish you hadn’t gotten so tangled up in it. I do. I’ll get you to your car, then you can go home. You can call your …” He almost says family, I can tell. “Call your friends,” he says instead, catching himself.
When I imagine my apartment, my stomach feels like a hole the size of Nashville. I picture alone and know I’ll go crazy waiting.
“No,” I say, “no way. You can’t just … use me for information then dump me off.”
“That’s not what …”
“Are you going to the studio?” We both know Robert Holloway practically lives in the studio on Music Row when he isn’t on a tour.
“That’s the …”
“Robert tricked me. And whatever you just put together you only did because of what I just told you. So I’m going to see him now whether you drive me or not. I’ll take a cab. Besides, there’s no time to take me back to my car … unless you want to backtrack across town.”
From where I stand, I can see the kitchen clock’s face showing nearly six o’clock. Driving across town to where I’m parked only to backtrack to Music Row would take the more than an hour. Marion’s boots shift like he is eager enough to run all the way there. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then looks at his watch.
“I’ll stay in the car while you go talk to him,” I say. I know I almost have him convinced. “I’ll wait there.”
He looks at me, considering, before glancing at his watch again. “You’ll stay in the car the whole time. No exceptions.”
“The whole time,” I say, halfway meaning it.
Rain pelts the kitchen window so suddenly we both turn our heads. I see the bird that was perched on the branch outside fly away.
* * *
Neither of us knows what to say as we drive toward the studio. Once I ask about what he’s thinking about Robert, but all he says is, “We’ll see.”
“How … are you now?” he asks after a long moment, apparently trying to make conversation.
I know he’s asking about my general mental health, but I don’t know what to say under the circumstances. I settle on “Better.”
“I always wanted to tell you,” he says. “I never had the sense that you went to that concert meaning to hurt anyone.”
Part of me is stunned that he’s brought this up, though it’s what he’d said to Detective Williams earlier, when he thought I couldn’t hear. I guess he wants to say it to me too.
“Why did you have the knife?” he asks.
“It protected me,” I say. “It’s how I felt safe. Once, in a foster home—the one I was in before I went inside the closet—I woke to find the dad’s hand resting on my chest.”
Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. I can still feel his callouses pressed against my thin T-shirt, his face half lit by the streetlight. I can smell the beer he drank earlier while my hand brushed along the dusty drywall beside the bed, looking for a way out.
“Closest I ever came to hurting anyone was right then. I started carrying a knife after that.”
Marion gives me a look that’s both sympathetic and angry. “I hate that that happened to you. Just hearing about it makes me want to …”
He doesn’t finish. I see his temple throbbing. Maybe he understands.
He drives to the studio the same way he had after he picked me up—down side streets and then up an alley that runs between Elliston Place and mid-town. Music Row is where most entertainment businesses are located—record labels, publishing houses, and recording studios sit side by side. Some of the studios are in big buildings, as you would expect, but others are tucked in the backrooms of bungalows. We pass the forty-foot-tall Musica statue as we circle the
roundabout and turn onto 17th Avenue. He rolls right on a red light so that the car will keep moving, then splashes up an alley toward the studio. When he parks, the car rocks once and gas sloshes somewhere deep inside. The engine goes quiet and rain dots the windshield, blurring the view of the studio’s back stairs.
Marion leans against the steering wheel. “This is a mistake. Seriously, stay here.”
He sounds like he is half talking to himself and half to me. He gets out and jogs toward the studio, his shoulders hunched, until he disappears around the front of the building.
Alone in the car, I begin to think of all the times I watched the studio from pretty much right where I’m sitting. That version of me seems much younger, less capable, and I wonder what I was even hoping for by catching a glimpse of Owen or Shelly. My distant involvement with them seems like a security blanket that I held onto for too long.
Raindrops on the windshield become jagged streaks. I start to roll down the window for some air when I see the studio’s back door opening and Robert Holloway stepping out. He closes it very slowly behind him and runs his hands roughly through his hair. He starts down the back steps, shoulders hunched as he squints up into the rain.
My heart starts to race. Detective Marion went around to the front door. In a few seconds, Robert will get to his car and be gone down the alley. It feels like one of those times that moves fast and slow at the same time because a decision must be made right now.
I reach over and press the horn. A loud burst sounds. Over the steering wheel, I see Robert freeze and look around like he is trying to understand what is happening, his shape blurred in the watery dots on the glass. When he starts down the stairs again, I know I can’t just watch him leave. I can’t do nothing. I have to try.
I get out of the car and run toward him. His eyes catch mine. Robert outweighs me by a hundred pounds and could easily push past me, I know, but I put my hand on the rail and face him. The painted metal, still warm from the afternoon sun, rattles against my palm. I half hear what he says over the rain. “… who is back again,” that makes me grip the rail harder. He turns to head back up the stairs, but the studio’s back door flies open and Detective Marion steps out. Robert looks at Marion, then down at me, just as the clouds open up and rain begins pounding loudly on the metal hoods of cars and trucks.
