High Strung

by Jacki Moss

  “Was he really guilty?” Bynum asked, trying to understand his anger.

  “Oh, yeah. Everyone knew it. Everyone but our parents. He was selling pot at school. He didn’t need the money, but he thought it made him cool and popular. We tried to stop him, but he said if we told Mom or Dad, he’d kill us. Of course we didn’t believe him, but we knew sooner or later it would catch up with him,” the next oldest brother, Kirby, explained.

  “How did it catch up with him?” Bynum asked.

  “He sold to an informant. There was no denying it. So he was found guilty. It was a good lesson for him, though. Since it was his first offense, and it was a misdemeanor, and he was a minor, his record was expunged when he turned eighteen. But he still has a mad on about it. He holds a grudge like nobody’s business, even when he’s guilty,” he explained.

  “I can see that. Thanks for letting me know. Well, we need all hands on deck for this. Make sure he’s here, will you? It’s all water under the bridge if he shows up and cooperates,” Bynum assured him.

  The brothers agreed they would bring him along, and they would all cooperate.

  At two o’clock, Robert Miller, Merriepennie Music’s attorney, knocked on Bynum’s door.

  “Come on in, Bob. Sorry to drag you away from Nashville for this,” Bynum apologized.

  “It’s not a problem, Mr. McCooter. We just want to make sure the police play this by the book,” Miller explained.

  “Have a seat. The boys should be here in a few minutes. We’ll follow your lead.” Bynum motioned for Miller to sit on the loveseat.

  Miller sat down, opened his briefcase, and withdrew a legal pad and pen. “I will just be a bystander unless something comes up I feel requires my intervention. Otherwise, all you all have to do is tell the truth. It’s as simple as that,” Miller reassured Bynum.

  A few minutes before three, everyone gathered at Bynum’s suite. Everyone except Chad.

  “Where’s Chad?” Bynum asked Joshua.

  “We don’t know. When we went back to the room after the meeting this morning, he was gone. Lock, stock, and barrel. Took his stuff and left. We’ve been looking for him all day,” the brother said, hanging his head in apology. “We don’t know where to begin to look, because we don’t know this city. We called the bus station to see of anyone like him was there, but they didn’t see anyone like him. We called our parents to see if he called them. They haven’t heard from him since the morning we left on tour. We just don’t know where to go next.”

  “Boys, this is our attorney, Mr. Miller. He’s here to make sure everything will go down professionally.” The boys nodded to Miller.

  The hotel room phone rang. Bynum picked it up. “Hello. Yes. Yes, I’m expecting him. Please tell him to come up.” He hung up the phone. “Detective Ketchum is on his way up. I don’t quite know what to say to him about Chad, but this doesn’t look good at all,” Bynum confessed.

  “Do we have to tell the detective Chad is not here? He may not notice. We wouldn’t want him to get the wrong impression,” Joshua pleaded to Miller. “He’s just a hothead kid. He wouldn’t really hurt anyone. He just got scared.”

  “We have to tell the detective. If we are not truthful, then we will all fall under suspicion, and rightly so. The truth is the only way to go. We have nothing to hide,” assured Miller.

  Ketchum knocked lightly on the hotel room door. Bynum opened the door and introduced himself. “I’m Bynum McCooter and this is my wife, Mattie, and our attorney, Robert Miller. Joshua, Kirby, and Steven Overstreet, are my opening band. Their brother, Chad, couldn’t make it today.”

  “Nice to meet you all,” Ketchum said. “Thanks for meeting with me. I know you are all busy. I will make this as short as possible. I only have a few questions.”

  “Please have a seat,” Bynum offered, showing Ketchum the sofa that faced the loveseat.

  “Thanks, but may I sit at the table? I need a place to write and to set up my tape recorder.”

  “Sure.” Bynum cleared the small table by the balcony and pulled a seat out for Ketchum. He then seated Mattie and sat down at the table with them. The boys stood around behind Bynum like a choir.

  “I need to do some housekeeping before we begin.” Ketchum pulled six manila folders from his briefcase and laid them out on the table. Bynum noticed each one was labeled with one of their names. Then Ketchum wrestled a small tape recorder and some cassettes from his bulky briefcase. He checked it to make sure it was working and stacked half a dozen mini-cassette tapes beside it. “I’m going to turn on this tape recorder. Then I need each of you to acknowledge you are aware you are being recorded.”

  Ketchum clicked on the recorder. “This is Detective Jake Ketchum. Please state your name clearly and acknowledge you are aware our conversation today is being recorded.”

  Each person in the room complied with Ketchum’s order.

  “Do you agree you are making these statements voluntarily and you are under no duress or coercion?”

  Everyone agreed.

  “No one is under arrest. Your answers are completely voluntary and you may stop answering questions at any time. Understood?”

  “Yes,” they all agreed.

  “First, may I see all of your hands, palm up?” Ketchum asked. His face was placid, expressionless. Not gruff, not happy. Blank.

  One by one, everyone offered their hands for inspection. Ketchum thoroughly examined every hand, carefully looking at the fingers and feeling the fingers individually. After each person’s hands were scrutinized, he wrote something on a sheet of paper in that person’s folder, and said their name out loud, announcing, “Hands checked.”

  “Now, tell me if you are right-handed or left-handed,” he instructed. All answered that they were right-handed. Ketchum noted their answers in each file.

  He noticed Chad’s folder. “So where is Chad?” he asked. His face started changing to firm.

  “Joshua is Chad’s oldest brother. Joshua, please tell Detective Ketchum what you know about Chad,” Bynum requested. He wanted to make sure all statements to the authorities were as accurate as possible. He had no first-hand knowledge of why Chad left or where he was, so Bynum deferred to Joshua.

  Joshua sighed. He had been accounting for and making excuses for Chad all of Chad’s life. He had run interference for him at home, in school, on the tour, and now to the police. “Chad is gone. I wish I could tell you why, but honestly I don’t know. He just goes off the rails sometimes when he is stressed out,” Joshua confessed.

  “Why is he stressed out?” Ketchum queried.

  “Because you’re here. He’s not fond of cops. I bet you get that all the time.” Joshua tried to lighten the mood a bit, hoping to deflect suspicion away from what could look like Chad’s incriminating actions.

  “When did he leave?” Ketchum was not in a joking mood. He was now officially annoyed and suspicious.

  “When we, uh, told him he had to be at this meeting. Early this morning.”

  “How early? What time, exactly?”

  “Six, seven hours ago.”

  “By ‘gone,’ what do you mean? Gone as in left just to avoid this meeting, or gone as in left the hotel?”

  “Left the hotel. Took all his stuff with him.”

  “No note or message as to why?”

  “No, sir. Just poof, gone.”

  “Uh-huh. Since he’s not here to answer questions himself, let me ask you. Has Chad had any injuries to his hands in the past few weeks?” Ketchum watched all the brothers’ expressions.

  The brothers looked at each other. They knew Chad had cut his hands the night they left on tour. Ketchum immediately read their faces and had his answer. He dug deeper. “Did Chad have cuts on his hands when you were in New Orleans?” he asked, looking directly at Joshua, who seemed to be the most forthcoming with information. “Joshua, did he?”

  “Yes,” Joshua answered curtly.

  “Did he have cuts on his hands when he boarded the bus in Nashville?”
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  “No. Well, no, because he didn’t board the bus with us in Nashville. He was late, and we left without him. But to answer the question, yes, he did have some cuts in his hands when he got on the bus at the state line. Some cuts, and one of the callouses on his fingers had fallen off, but nothing serious. He said he had been working on his girlfriend’s car so she could give him a ride to catch the tour bus. He was already late, so he was probably rushing and just got a couple of cuts.” In his effort to clear Chad, he was inadvertently digging a deeper hole for him.

  “You realize, Detective Ketchum, their answers about Chad may be hearsay in court,” interrupted Miller.

  “Yes, sir, but their actually seeing his cuts would not be,” Ketchum snapped back.

  Bynum had noticed Chad wasn’t playing well when they kicked off the tour, but he had not gotten close enough to know he had cuts on his hands or a raw finger from a missing callous. He began to put pieces into place in his mind, bringing forth an alarming picture.

  “Why was he late to catch the tour bus?” Ketchum pressed.

  “Uh, he said his car broke down and he had to call his girlfriend to bring him,” Joshua answered.

  “Hearsay!” Miller interjected.

  “Got it, Counselor.”

  Joshua had been suspicious of Chad’s weak excuse the night they left, but he’d just chalked it up to Chad’s usual deceptions to cover up some other real motive. To Chad, a halfway-plausible excuse was as good as the truth, and he would indignantly defend it if challenged, so Joshua rarely challenged Chad on his lies. It just wasn’t worth the stress or time to confront Chad on such things. He had been that way all his life. People around him chose to either ignore his deceits or avoid him.

  “Did you believe him?” Ketchum noted Joshua parsed his words, chose them carefully, articulating Chad “said his car broke down and he had to call his girlfriend to bring him” instead of stating Chad had cut his hand working on the car as a fact he believed.

  “I had no reason not to believe him,” Joshua stated in a defensive tone.

  “So you had doubts, but you had no proof otherwise? Is that right, Joshua?” Ketchum knew Joshua was feeling torn between his loyalty to his brother and the truth. He intended to exploit his weakness.

  “Oh, come on, Detective. You’re out of line. You’re leading him,” Miller butted in.

  “Counselor, this is not a court of law, so I am not bound by those rules. When we get to court, you can object all you want. Right now, this is my investigation, and I will ask any damn question I want, any way I want, to get to the truth,” Ketchum snarled at the attorney. “Your clients are not under arrest, so they don’t have to answer anything they don’t want to, but if they want to get this behind them, they will help me get to the bottom of it!”

  “So, Josh, did you believe what your brother told you about why he was late to the bus?” Ketchum resumed.

  “No, what I meant was I try to take people at their word,” Joshua fired back.

  “You try to take Chad at his word?”

  “Stop talking, Joshua,” Miller ordered.

  Joshua was upset and on the edge of losing his temper. “No. I mean yes. I mean, you know what I mean. Why are you grilling me? I didn’t have anything to do with Chad’s activities before he got on the bus,” he said, ignoring Miller’s admonition. “I don’t know why he didn’t use his own car. I don’t know why his girlfriend’s car was broken down. I don’t know how Chad got those cuts on his hands. You need to ask Chad!” Joshua, feeling like he had been backed into a corner, cut loose on Ketchum. Just what Ketchum wanted. He broke him open like a coconut.

  “So you were suspicious of those cuts on Chad’s hands?” Ketchum snapped back. “So you don’t think Chad cut his hands working on a car? Right, Joshua?”

  “Shut up, Joshua!” Miller shouted.

  “No! Uh, yes. Chad doesn’t know a thing about working on cars, but I don’t interrogate him every time he gets a boo-boo!” Joshua was standing up, shouting, shocking his brothers and everyone else in the room except for Ketchum. Under super-controlled, calm, passive demeanors often lies a long-stagnant volcano ready to erupt. Joshua had erupted into blind rage. Ketchum had triggered the eruption and now let it flow.

  “You didn’t believe him, did you?” Ketchum prodded.

  “He’s a grown-ass man! He can do whatever the hell he wants, and I have no control over him. I’ve been his keeper for twenty damn years, and I am tired of cleaning up his messes, of running interference for him, of trying to keep his temper in check, of trying to keep him out of trouble. I’m done! I’m always the one who gets splattered when his shit hits the fan! I am sick and tired of having to answer for him! I am not my brother’s keeper! You need to find him and ask him!” Joshua slammed his fist down on the table, jarring everything on it.

  The room was silent.

  Miller took a deep breath, waiting for the next volley. He knew Ketchum was on a roll and would not stop there.

  Joshua stood like a prizefighter, panting, breathless from his rage. His face burned like he was leaning over a campfire. His jaw was clamped shut now. He felt like he could break bricks by hand. He had never felt this way before. His outburst shocked almost everyone around him, but none more than himself. He realized he had just thrown a Chad-style temper tantrum. Twenty years of pent-up rage against his baby brother was finally unleashed. Now he had to deal with his loss of control and his sick-in-the-gut feeling that maybe, just maybe, Chad did have something to do with the man’s murder.

  Ketchum let Joshua catch his breath and regain his composure before continuing.

  “I would be more than happy to ask Chad about those cuts on his hand. Do you know where he is or where he might be headed?” Ketchum asked quietly. “Anyone?”

  No one spoke up.

  “Look, talking to Chad is not optional. I will find him, one way or another,” Ketchum said slowly and softly. “It is in his best interest for us to do this the easiest and the quickest way possible. Only he can clear this up. So help me help him. Where might he be headed?”

  “Home,” the boys quietly said in unison.

  “He’s a mama’s boy. He always runs home to Mama when he gets in trouble,” Kirby disclosed.

  “He has been in trouble with the law before?”

  Miller shook his head in disbelief. These kids were honest to a fault. Good kids. Total opposites of Chad. He knew all he could do now was damage control.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t anything serious. Just misdemeanor pot possession.” Joshua sighed.

  “Did they take him in and book and fingerprint him?” Ketchum was on the scent like a bloodhound. He couldn’t get the questions out fast enough, but he had to soft-peddle now. He had to not seem too aggressive and disclose Chad was probably in deep, deep trouble.

  “Yes. The sheriff there in the county did.”

  “Was he an adult when this happened?”

  “No, so he was put on probation. Hasn’t been in trouble since.” Joshua tried to rehabilitate his brother’s history.

  “Okay, here’s a piece of paper, please write down your folks’ names, address, phone numbers, and places of employment. Also the county where Chad was arrested.” Ketchum was de-escalating the situation, sufficiently convinced Chad was his prime suspect. He was careful not to telegraph he was just minutes away from putting a BOLO out on Chad, in case he contacted one of the brothers.

  Joshua looked to Miller for guidance. Miller mouthed, “Okay.”

  Joshua took the piece of paper and a pen and did as requested. As he wrote, he had to dab his tears off the paper.

  “Anyone happen to have a photo of Chad?” Ketchum asked.

  “He probably has about a thousand headshots in his room, doesn’t he, boys?” Bynum asked the brothers. “He gives a lot of them out to the girls every show.”

  The brothers reluctantly acknowledged there was a large envelope with Chad’s headshots and their band photos in one of their gear bags.

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nbsp; “Go get the detective one of Chad’s headshots, please,” Bynum instructed the group. Steven quietly left the room to retrieve an eight-by-ten glossy.

  “Someone give me a description of Chad.” None of the brothers answered Ketchum.

  “Guess I’ll have to.” Bynum groaned. “He’s white, thin, small. About five-foot seven or eight. Weighs about one-twenty-five to one-thirty or so. Has light brown hair, longish, sort of curly midway between his ears and shoulder. I don’t know the color of his eyes. Boys?”

  “Brown,” Joshua reluctantly answered.

  “Tattoos? Scars?” Ketchum continued.

  “No,” said Joshua.

  “Facial hair?”

  “No. Smooth as a baby’s butt, but no telling what he looks like if he doesn’t shave,” Bynum offered. “Oh, and beautiful teeth. Just perfect.”

  “Uh-huh. I bet. By the way, what instrument does Chad play?” Ketchum asked, wanting to fill in some details to support what he believed was going to be a capital murder case.

  “Mandolin,” Kirby quietly answered.

  “Is he right-handed or left-handed?”

  “Left-handed.”

  “Can I take a look at his mandolin?”

  “No,” Kirby answered. “He took his stage mandolin and the one he was working on with him. They are gone. He wouldn’t go anywhere without those mandolins. He’s been working on his new one nonstop in his spare time since we came on tour.”

  “Working on? He makes mandolins?” Ketchum inquired, wondering about Chad’s hand strength.

  “Oh, yes!” Kirby answered proudly. “He’s amazing. He hand carves the headstock, and on this one, he’s even doing inlays on the fret boards and putting his initials on it. He does amazing work.”

  “What kind of inlay? What material?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Looks like pearl. Maybe mother-of-pearl. It’s beautiful.”

  “I bet it is. Where does he get that material? That pearl material? Is there a place to buy it?” Ketchum circled his “pearl” note in Chad’s file.

  “I don’t know. I don’t do that sort of thing. In our spare time, we just grab a pickup game of basketball like we used to do as kids,” Kirby recalled fondly.