by Brenda Novak
Moore Street was one of Nashville’s nastiest projects. Many of the city’s homicides happened there. Some were fueled by drugs, most others by desperation. Whatever the cause, the effect was tangible—the Moore Street projects accounted for nearly thirty percent of all the murders in Nashville in a given year.
In the gloaming dusk, Taylor exited her vehicle to the usual catcalls. In these projects, men and women of variable ages roamed the streets aimlessly at all hours of the day and night, talking, watching, being. The typical crowd had gathered when they heard the news. She ignored the rude gestures, the propositions and threats. She walked through the manufactured similitude of the run-down buildings to the complainant’s front door. The screen was cut. The wooden door stood open. Taylor could hear the sound of crying and smell the blood. Though there were other police around as well as EMTs, she instinctively put her hand on her gun.
A pale-faced EMT saw her looking through the screen and came over to the door. He opened it silently. His motions were sluggish. He looked as though he might be sick. She gave him a look of concern, then continued into the cramped house. The walls were paneled with dark walnut, lending the depressed air of the room a morose tone. Attempts had been made to keep the walls clean, but it seemed half-hearted. Lace curtains, yellowed with cigarette smoke, hung limply over the window. Taylor could see a bullet hole in one pane. The carpet was orange shag, about a million years old, and it didn’t quite reach the four corners of the room. The home was squalid. The fetid stink of despair hung from every corner like a blanket.
She stepped through to the kitchen. She immediately realized why the home was such a mess—the woman sitting at the tiny, unstable kitchen table was blind. Her eyes were milky white, made more opaque by the contrast with her blue-black skin. She was old, very, very old. Taylor bit back a curse. The woman should be in a home with people to take care of her, not living on her own.
There were tears leaking ever so slowly from the woman’s blind eyes. For a moment, it seemed she and Taylor were alone, just the two of them in the putrid little kitchen, and she looked right into Taylor’s soul. Taylor got a chill down her spine. Then the old woman’s head turned and Taylor spotted the body of the girl. All other thoughts left her. She stepped carefully, avoiding the pooling blood.
The girl was lighter than her grandmother, her skin unmarred by the ravages of age. Her hair was braided into tiny rows, each held in place with alternating blue and white beads. Though dispatch had said the girl was twelve, she looked older. Taylor guessed that came from living hard.
She threw off all the cloaking of compassion and became a cop. She turned to the EMT leaning against the counter.
“What’s the story here?”
“Tamika Jones, twelve years old. Seems she had an abortion today. Came by to check on her grandmother, collapsed on the floor. I’m assuming something went wrong with the procedure, and she bled out.”
Taylor gave him a sharp look. Assuming wasn’t allowed.
“You know she had an abortion for a fact?”
A voice, deep and rich, drifted toward Taylor’s ears.
“She told me she was. That’s how I know. Honeychile told me she was riddin’ herself of the child. I told her it was a sin. She didn’t care. Never listened to old me, anyways.”
Taylor turned and saw Tamika’s grandmother looking her straight in the eye. Taylor shuddered and the woman laughed. “Don’t take sight to see, girl. I know you’re right there in front of me. Honeychile’s been acting stupid for a while now, whoring around, taking drugs. I told her it would come to no good. She don’t listen to her Gran, though. I told her that man would kill her, one way or the other.” The woman turned away and Taylor stood, frozen, as if Medusa had glared out of the woman’s sightless eyes.
“Ma’am, what man are you talking about? Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Haw,” the woman spit out. “Boyfriend. Girl, child like that, she got herself a pimp. A sugar daddy. He whores her out, give her the drugs.”
“Do you have his name, ma’am? Any way I can contact him?”
The woman made the guttural noise again. Taylor understood it was a mirthless laugh. She got quiet, then seemed to shrink in on herself, drawing into the collar of her stained dressing gown like a turtle. The interview was obviously over.
Taylor took a deep breath and stared down at the little girl. The story was all too familiar.
Fifty-Two
“The medical examiner’s autopsy report found the girl had in fact procured an abortion within the past twelve hours. You were able to contact the doctor that performed the abortion, one Carl Murray?” asked the foreman.
The question yanked Taylor back into the small room. She nodded and licked her lips.
“Correct. I was given his name by one of Tamika’s friends. The girl only identified herself as Annya, wouldn’t give me her last name. She was the one that confirmed that Tamika had seen Dr. Murray earlier that day. I visited Dr. Murray, and he denied ever seeing the girl. There was no way to confirm either story. Unfortunately, even if he had performed an abortion on Tamika, I couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
“That’s when Annya called again. She asked me just how stupid I really was.” Taylor shook her head. “She told me about the set up. The word on the street was if you needed an abortion, you could go to Dr. Murray. He would do an abortion without parental consent for only a hundred dollars a pop. There was one catch. You had to bring an over the counter decongestant known as pseudoephedrine hydrochloride with you. One hundred dollars and a pack of Sudafed? It was the deal of a century for these girls.
“Recognizing a possible criminal enterprise, I brought Annya on board as a confidential informant. With her contacts, I started seeing a trend. It wasn’t just the poor black girls going to Dr. Murray. It seemed every one who Vice would have interest in was seeing him as well. Strippers, prostitutes, drug addicts—all of them were being funneled to Dr. Murray for abortions.”
“Which in itself is not necessarily illegal, is it, Lieutenant?” The foreman smiled at her gently. The grand jury knew all of the details of the case from their summary documents. For legal purposes, they needed to hear it from Taylor’s own mouth.
“No, sir, it isn’t. Incredibly unethical, but not illegal. I had a better chance of busting Dr. Murray for doing abortions on underage girls, but even that was tricky. If they show him an ID saying they’re sixteen, he’s covered.
“Something felt wrong to me. Rumors were swirling. Word on the street was there were other people involved, people in the police department, and drugs were playing a role. I didn’t want to make any unfounded accusations, but I needed to separate the truth from the rumors.
“I set up a loose surveillance on Dr. Murray’s office. It quickly became apparent that he had a very successful practice. Almost too successful to be handling a patient load that large. If I hadn’t been clued in about what he was doing I would have assumed he was just a very popular neighborhood doctor.”
“That’s when I was contacted by Detective David Martin.”
The knock on the window of her unmarked vehicle made Taylor jump a mile. She looked out to see the grinning face of David Martin, one of the detectives in homicide. He was blowing her cover, damn it. She put down her window in annoyance.
“What’s up, David?”
“What’s up with you, Taylor? Sitting on a house?”
She just smiled. “What can I do for you?”
He smiled back. “We need to talk about what’s going on with the esteemed Dr. Murray. I know you’re looking at him, and there’s something going on that may involve the department. I’ve got some information for you. Let’s go get something to eat and talk about it.”
Taylor’s first impression was that David had gotten information and was there to help her bust who ever was involved. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
She followed him as he drove to the Shoney’s across the bridge from police headquarters. Taylor noted that they w
ere well away from Dr. Murray’s office.
They went inside. Martin ordered coffee and eggs from a robust waitress. Taylor asked for Diet Coke. Her appetite had left her back at the stakeout.
Martin leaned back in the booth and gave her a lazy grin. “So, Taylor. Whatcha been up to lately?”
“David, I just want to talk about what’s happening at Dr. Murray’s. What information do you have?”
“Ah, c’mon now, sugar britches. Tell me you don’t want to catch up with me.”
Taylor started to fume. “I told you never to call me that. What the hell is your problem? You think being condescending is going to win you any points with me? You’re an asshole, you know that?”
He started to laugh. “Oh, struck a nerve, did I? You need to lighten up, Miss Loo-tenant.”
“I get it. You’re still pissed I got promoted and you didn’t. Tough shit, David. I earned this job.”
“Whatever you say, sassafras.”
That was the last straw. Taylor stood up and threw a dollar on the table. “Fuck you, Martin.” She turned to leave but he grabbed her wrist.
“Oh, c’mon now. Sit back down. I know you’re pissed at me, but you need to forget about it for a while. We need to talk about the doctor.”
Taylor yanked her wrist out of his hand. Turning slowly, she sat back down. “Talk,” she spit out.
“Detective Martin offered to cut me in on the deal. Dr. Murray was producing and selling the drug methamphetamine in the back room of his offices. He would do an abortion for a cut rate as long as the woman provided him with a certain quantity of pseudoephedrine. As ephedrine, one of the main ingredients in meth, is a controlled substance and difficult to procure, meth cooks can produce ephedrine by processing large quantities of pseudoephedrine. It seems that once the laws on selling pseudoephedrine over the counter in Tennessee changed, when they put it back in the pharmacies where it couldn’t be shoplifted, the meth makers were having a hard time producing the quantities to meet their demand. They needed a legitimate way to get their hands on the pseudoephedrine. Detective Martin was working with the three previously mentioned vice squad detectives—Ray Alvarez, Tom Westin and Nelson Sanders.
“According to Detective Martin, each man received a monthly ‘reward’ for funneling women and product to Dr. Murray. They had put the word out on the street that he was doing abortions cheap, and not looking at the ID’s too closely as long as you brought the drugs with you. All the vice guys had to do was tell the pimps and strippers that Dr. Murray would take care of them.
“In compensation for my efforts, I would receive approximately $15,000 a month. It was less that the others because I wasn’t going to be doing any of the work. I was simply to keep my mouth shut and not pursue the matter.
“The money was large, and the detectives were getting rich. As many of you know, meth production and distribution is one of the biggest problems facing law enforcement in Tennessee. There always seems to be money in illegal drugs.”
Taylor shifted in her chair and crossed her legs.
“Unfortunately, we have not recovered Dr. Murray’s files.”
The foreman consulted the sheets of paper in front of him. “That would be because allegedly, David Martin killed Dr. Murray, then burned all the files. Is that correct, Lieutenant?”
“That is correct, sir. Allegedly, Detective Martin made a visit to Dr. Murray the same evening he came to see me.”
“Which is the night you shot and killed the detective, isn’t that right, Lieutenant?” A small woman with gray hair and piercing eyes glared at Taylor. Word on the street, meaning lawyers’ gossip, was there had been a holdout in Taylor’s case. Someone on the grand jury had actually voted to indict Taylor for homicide in the death of David Martin. But the grand jury had issued a “No True Bill” in her case. It only took twelve of the thirteen jurors to issue a “True Bill”—a yes to indict, or “No True Bill”—a no to indict. The holdout had been effectively silenced in that round. Taylor wondered if this was the woman who voted to indict her, and felt an unexpected fury take hold. She bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to be civil.
“Yes, ma’am, you are correct.” Taylor did not continue. No sense in answering questions that weren’t asked.
“That’s enough, Inez,” the foreman shot at her. The woman shuffled some papers angrily. “Now, Lieutenant Jackson, is there anything else we need to know?”
“No, sir. I believe that is all I can give you. I recused myself from the investigation after I…um, upon Detective Martin’s death. That is all the information I have for the grand jury at this time.”
There was throat clearing and paper shuffling. A few members stood and stretched. They were finished with her. Taylor stood as well. She smiled at the foreman. He gave her a wink. Nodding to the rest of the room, she left them to their next witness. She had done all she could. Maybe now she could finally put all of this behind her.
Fifty-Three
Jill didn’t know if she was awake or dreaming. It looked like there was light coming through the window of her room, but she couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t be sure of anything. She could vaguely understand she was being drugged, and that a man she thought she knew kept coming into the room, whispering crazy stories in her ear while he held her. She felt his voice inside her head constantly, saw glimmers of his face, hovering, concerned. Was she sick? In a hospital? She had a momentary vision of her parents: her mother crying, her father pacing. Were they worried about her? Was the baby okay?
Her thoughts drifted away again, and she felt herself slip into the darkness. The hallucinations were becoming more complex each time the drugs were injected into her arm. Jill felt herself walking on clouds, skimming over the earth, flying through the sky. She felt the wind in her hair and it brought her joy. She knew she had died, that she was flying to heaven. She was excited, thrilled, but a little frightened. What would God be like?
She drifted higher and higher. She started passing what she knew were angels. One looked at her, a blindingly beautiful girl with flowing blonde hair. Jill saw she was crying, and frowned. Angels aren’t supposed to cry. She heard the weeping then, multitudes of whimpering, sadness all around. The blonde angel turned to her and reached out a hand, and Jill felt the touch in her soul. A word breezed through the air; she couldn’t make it out. She strained, but the wind took the word and cast it aside before she could grasp its meaning.
She had stopped flying and was walking on the clouds. There were thousands of lights around her, celestial fireflies flitting through her. As they surrounded her, the voices became louder and louder, and she became frightened but was unable to stop, to turn back. She realized she was entering some sort of room, and the voices quieted. There was no sound; even the wind whipping through her hair was silent. The lights became people, men and women, all shimmery and gossamer thin. The people’s mouths were moving, but no sound came out. She was terribly confused. She didn’t know heaven was going to be a silent place.
Fifty-Four
Sam returned to her office after finishing the autopsies of the two burn victims, popped open a mini, Halloween-size box of Milk Duds and tossed them in her mouth. She was exhausted; there had been so much happening in the past few days that her entire schedule had been disrupted. She was thankful she had four other medical examiners on the staff; they had been dividing up the normal duties between them to keep her free for Taylor’s ever-growing list of bodies.
Though the sensational string of killings was getting all the media attention, there were still other people dying whom the Medical Examiner’s office had to process. There were death certificates to be signed, meetings to attend, and piles of paperwork to be dug through. All the regular day-to-day aspects of working in an office had been languishing from her lack of attention. Full of sugar, she reached into her Inbox, pulled out the week’s accumulated stack of death certificates and opened her Mont Blanc fountain pen.
She’d been working for about an hour and maki
ng actual headway when Dr. Thomas Fox, one of her youngest ME’s, stuck his head in her office. “Hey Sam, can you come down into the autopsy suite for a minute?”
Sam wasn’t taken aback; it wasn’t unusual to have requests for a second on posts. But she didn’t have the time, and asked Dr. Fox if he could round up one of the others.
“Actually, everyone is already down there. We have something you need to see on the woman pulled out of Old Hickory this morning.”
Sam felt her heart sink. She followed Dr. Fox through the biovestibule, put on a smock and grabbed gloves and a shield and joined the group of ME’s standing over the body on the table.
The woman was young, probably barely into her twenties. There was a lot of damage to the skin, and she was bloated like a distorted puppet. The standard incisions had been made, she was laid open, her breastplate was set aside, her lungs had been excised and the typical autopsy procedures had been followed. Sam didn’t see anything obvious that would be enough to drag her away from her work.
“What’s the problem,” she snapped, instantly sorry she sounded so bitchy. No one seemed to notice.
“She didn’t drown,” Dr. Fox volunteered. “She died of ventricular fibrillation.”
“So she was dead before she went into the water. C’mon, Fox, dazzle me! You dragged me all the way down here for that?”
“Look at her liver, Sam.”
Sam looked at him long and hard. Oh, shit was the only thing running through her mind. She leaned in and looked carefully at the woman’s liver, then hastily examined the rest of the organs. When she looked up, her face was ashen.
Dr. Fox explained his reasoning, though he could tell Sam had just confirmed what all of the other ME’s had been speculating. “I went back and looked at the pictures and slides from the Blake and Kincaid autopsies. The organ composition and liver necrosis match. I think this woman was given aconite prior to her plunge into Old Hickory Lake.”
