by Steve Brewer
Nashville, Tennessee
Whitney Rankin sat in Owen Bradley Park wide-eyed and wondering if he’d come to the right place. He was an unknown songwriter, just arrived in Music City after spending ten years honing his skills in thankless places. He was sitting at the north end of fabled Music Row, directly across from the original Country Music Hall of Fame. It wasn’t there any more, having moved downtown a year or two ago. Whitney wondered if that was symbolic of anything.
His tight-lipped smile was in conflict with the vague sense that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he wasn’t sure where else to go to do what he did. “Damn,” he whispered as he looked around. “Now what?”
Whitney knew Owen Bradley was one of the most important producers in the history of country music, having made Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee huge stars by applying to country the songwriting and production techniques of pop music. Depending on your point of view, Owen Bradley was the man who deserved either credit or blame for having paved the way for what became known as the Nashville Sound. Whitney gave him credit. He didn’t subscribe to the notion that one type of country music was better than another. They were just different. They were all part of the music’s evolution where the worst thing that could happen was stagnation. So it was no wonder to Whitney they’d honored the man with a park of his own, even if the park itself wasn’t much to speak of. It was small and unassuming and brought to mind Hal Ketchum’s notion about how country music was just three chords and the truth. It consisted of some trees, several pine straw-lined flower beds, a few concrete benches, and a life-size bronze sculpture of the man himself seated at the piano. It was a nice little patch of calm, Whitney thought.
He was twenty-nine and dressed like a songwriter who’d never had an appointment on Music Row, which was okay since he’d never had an appointment there. The standard dress code up and down The Row was country club casual and golf course ready. Every now and then you saw someone wearing a suit and tie or dressed in full country regalia, but not as often as the tourists expected.
At first glance Whitney looked more-or-less like he belonged. But on closer examination he somehow looked. . . different. He was six foot three and, as his mama used to say, he was so skinny he had to stand in the same place twice to cast a shadow. He wore tight black Wranglers, a black t-shirt with a dark gray vest over it, and a worn pair of black Tony Lama ropers. He wore a ragged piece of an old red bandana tied around his wrist. He had a turquoise stud in one ear and a dangling silver earring in the other. His hair was long and dark and dangerous as it fell from under a black Resistol Lancer with a thin leather lariat hatband with a small red feather in it. He had a dark patch of stubble on his chin but it wasn’t enough to spoil his narrow, still boyish face. It added up to an off-kilter country look that tended to draw queer looks but, having always been a little different than others, Whitney was used to the stares.
He suddenly hopped to his feet to stop a woman who was walking by. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He sounded southern as fried okra. “I’m sorry to bother you, but could you do me a favor and take my picture?” He handed her a disposable camera. “Over here by the statue? I appreciate it.” Whitney was creating a photo chronicle of his journey to wherever it was he was going. The woman took Whitney’s picture then smiled at him. She saw his guitar case and knew why he was here and what he was up against, especially dressed the way he was. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said as she went on her way.
Whitney was alone in the world, but he was all right with that. He figured every good songwriter needed his share of bad fortune. Whitney’s mom had died two years ago and his dad had disappeared long before that. He didn’t know much about his father. His mom told him only that he was a good man, but troubled. She had remarried, to a man named J.C. Rankin who adopted Whitney and gave him a new last name, but that was about all he’d given. He hadn’t wasted much gas on being a father to the boy. Whitney was all right with that too, after all J.C. hadn’t fathered him, so it was enough that he’d fed and housed him until he was seventeen. And he rarely hit him. You couldn’t ask more than that from a stranger, really.
Whitney had grown up with a guitar in his hands, a guitar that his father had left behind. Whitney could play it too. And ever since he was fourteen, he’d been writing songs. He had a suitcase full of them but, like many songwriters, Whitney had one in particular that was his favorite. He couldn’t wait to play it for somebody in Music City. And now here he was. Now he’d find out one of two things. Either he had what it took or he’d come to the wrong place. Either way, he hoped his mama was looking down, watching him. He wanted to make her proud.
Whitney was sitting on a concrete bench, so uncertain about his future that all he could do was look around and say in a funny way, “Oh boy.” He didn’t know exactly what to do next, but it was time to do something. So he stood and picked up his guitar case. Just as he about to leave he heard a splash come from behind the tall wooden fence that bordered the south end of the park. Whitney wandered under a magnolia tree and looked for a spot in the fence where he could see through. He wedged the toe of his boot between a couple of slats in the fence and pulled himself up to look over the top. What Whitney saw sent a tingle up his spine. It was the crystal blue water of a swimming pool in the shape of a great big guitar. He shook his head slowly. “Well, check it out,” he said slowly. It even had strings painted on the bottom.
10.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol did the decent thing, sending a patrolman out of the Gulfport substation to break the news. Eddie was in his hotel room working on a new song when the knock came to his door. “Mr. Long, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
Eddie blanched when he heard Tammy had been shot. Of all the things he might have imagined the patrolman saying, that his wife had been shot would have been way down the list. The patrolman reached out to catch him when it looked like Eddie’s legs might give way, but he made it to a chair and sat down. “She was shot?” He couldn’t believe it.
Eddie canceled the rest of his shows and made the long drive back to Quitman County. The whole way back he thought about what his future held now that Tammy was gone.
It was a bleak day in the Mississippi delta when they laid Tammy to rest, overcast with thunder rolling in the distance. The humid air was dead still and thick as two dogs’ heads.
Eddie did his best to be strong. He walked on one side of Mrs. Teasdale offering support while Henry was on the other. There was a good turn out at the church. The preacher kept it simple and let anyone speak who was of a mind to. Carl sat in the back of the church with his wife and toddler. He kept his mouth shut and felt guilty about everything he’d ever done.
After the funeral, family and friends gathered at the Teasdale’s home just outside of Hinchcliff. Everyone agreed, it smelled good up inside that house. It was the largest gathering of green bean casseroles ever recorded north of Yazoo City. There wasn’t a can of cream of mushroom soup on a grocery store shelf in a four county radius. And God alone knows how many chickens had been fried. And the pies! The flakiest crusts, the sugariest fillings, the best fruit and nuts, butter, lard, and shortening. Pure comfort for the mournful and two tons of saturated fats.
A group of women gathered around a vessel of Miss Lexie’s pineapple casserole, a dish notable for its unique combination of a sweet tropical fruit, sharp cheese, butter, sugar, and a pile of Ritz cracker crumbs. They ate the entire thing straight from the dish.
Another group of women, this one cattier and less particular than the casserole group, stood to the side of the room making derisive comments about the diameter of certain thighs over at the buffet. They also talked about how great Eddie looked in his all-black suit. They knew it was tacky, what with the dirt still being fresh on top of his dead wife and all, but they couldn’t help themselves, and they meant it in the nicest possible way. He really did look good in his grief.
Carl was there, still with his wife and toddler. He had surrendered to what he
assumed would be a lifetime of guilt and fear of exposure. He was drinking bourbon by the tumbler and weeping uncontrollably. The sheriff was there too. He had come as a friend to express his condolences but at one point late in the afternoon Mr. Teasdale pulled him aside. “What can you tell me about the investigation?”
“Now, Henry, I’m not here on business,” the sheriff said. “But if you insist, I’ll tell you what I can.”
Henry looked him in the eyes. “Let’s step outside.”
They went to the back porch and lit cigarettes. “Henry,” the sheriff said, “I gotta tell you, this is got me stumped. I got evidence indicating both murder and suicide.” He lowered his voice. “And I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but not too long before she died, Tammy had sexual relations with someone other than Eddie.”
“What’re you saying?”
“All I’m saying is this thing ain’t on all fours.”
“It sure ain’t.” Henry looked away, ashamed that his daughter had sinned by cheating on her husband and had compounded the matter by taking her own life.
“I can’t make head nor tails out of it, Henry.” He dropped his cigarette on the ground, stamped it out. “Now, the medical examiner hasn’t finished all the toxicology tests, but I tend to think the simplest explanation’s the best and that gunshot wound in the head’s as simple as it gets. I’ll know more in a few days, but for now I’m telling the district attorney it’s an open murder investigation. We got no useful fingerprints and no weapon.” He hesitated a moment, then looked at Henry. “Did Tammy own a gun?”
Mr. Teasdale nodded as he flicked his cigarette away. “She had a twenty-two. A pistol.”
“Hmmm, ‘at’s the caliber what killed her, but there weren’t no gun at the house. That’s what got me thinking it was a murder. You know, like someone broke in the house and found the gun and then Tammy walked in on him. . .” He rolled his shoulders to say ‘you know the rest.’
Mr. Teasdale looked off at the horizon and squinted. “You said you got evidence of suicide too. What’s that about?” Henry thought he’d cleaned things up pretty good. He didn’t like hearing the word ‘evidence.’
The sheriff folded his arms and looked to the ground for a moment. “Well, like I said, I was thinking it looked like an open-shut murder case right up until we found some clippings from a magazine in the trash can, then we found the magazine with letters cut out of it, you know, like a ransom note situation? Once we figured out what letters were missing, we pieced ‘em together and came up with some options, but do you know the only one that made any sense was the word ‘depressed’? That’s what got me thinking about suicide.”
“Is that right?”
“Henry, I know it’s happened before in your family and I just want you to know that I’m not saying it was suicide because, well, like I said, this one ain’t on all fours. I don’t wanna be calling it something’s it’s not, especially if it’s gonna hurt your family.”
“I appreciate that.”
“So I’m trying to figure out why an intruder would cut out a bunch of letters from a magazine to spell the word ‘depressed’ but then not do anything with it. Know what I mean? On the other hand, if Tammy cut out the letters for a suicide note and then killed herself, where’s the note and where’s the gun? I suppose an intruder could have stumbled into the house after she killed herself, if that’s what happened, and he’da taken the gun, but why take the note, assuming there was a note, you know?” The sheriff shook his head. “Like I said, it’s got me stumped.”
“That’s a mess all right. Just don’t make much sense any way you look at it.”
“No. It don’t.” The sheriff turned to go back inside. “I’ll let you know soon as we find anything out.” He stopped and put his hand on Mr. Teasdale’s shoulder. “Henry, I’m real sorry about all this. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
Henry nodded, said thanks, and went back inside.
A few hours later, when most of the mourners were either gone or drunk, Eddie and Henry were off to the side of the living room having a heart-to-heart. “Son, I’m hurting pretty bad,” Henry said, “and I suspect you feel the same or worse. I wish there was something I could say, but I can’t improve on anything the preacher said and he didn’t do much to make me feel any better.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Teasdale. I’m real sorry I was gone. Maybe if I’da been here, none of this would’ve happened.”
Henry put his arm around Eddie. “Don’t do that to yourself, son. If you’da been here, you might be dead too.” In truth he was thinking that if Eddie had been here, then whoever it was Tammy had been sleeping with might be the one who was dead, but Henry wasn’t going to tell Eddie about what the sheriff had said in that regard. Henry reckoned Eddie’d been hurt enough.
Across the room, Carl’s wife was offering her condolences to Mrs. Teasdale. Carl had finally stopped crying but he was clinging like a vine to the fear that he would be exposed at any minute. He stood at his wife’s side with puffy red eyes and a nervous twitch.
Eddie looked at the floor, then at his father-in-law. “Mr. Teasdale, I’ve been giving it some thought and I decided I can’t stay here.” Henry looked like he might have expected this. “I appreciate your job offer but you know I’ve been wanting to get my music career going and, well, maybe this is God’s way of telling me it’s time to move to Nashville and get serious about it.”
Mr. Teasdale nodded. “Maybe you’re right, son. Maybe you’re right.”
11.
Blacks were to Nashville what Charley Pride and Stoney Edwards were to country music — rare, but there was no sense denying they existed. The geographic center for Nashville’s relatively modest black population revolved around a series of presidentially named roads — Van Buren, Garfield, Monroe, and Harrison. And, as was the case in many southern cities, one of Nashville’s favorite restaurants was located in this area, on a rough cut of asphalt just off Jefferson Street.
The sign out front said ‘Estella’s Shrimp Joint’ but to hear the locals say it, you’d have thought it was ‘Estella’s Swimp Jernt.’ Estella’s had been open for thirty years, serving the best fried shrimp plate in the state of Tennessee, mostly after midnight. Estella’s was the place to go in Nashville when everybody else stopped serving. It was a beacon in the darkness for the city’s night crawlers — black and white alike — and for everybody who worked the late shift and who wanted a drink after the statutes said it was illegal to get one. In fact, after hours on any given night of the week you were likely to find at least one state legislator washing down his fried shrimp with a pint of bourbon.
Estella’s was two deluxe mobile homes pushed together side by side on a raised foundation. The dimly lit interior was worn and friendly with red Naugahyde booths, four-top tables, and a long service counter with soda-shop seats. The floor was tired tan linoleum flecked with red. Pale blue shag carpet covered the lower half of the walls. Above that was a sort of brown fabric-corded wallpaper which gave the place terrific acoustics. In the corner by the door was a jukebox with an old hand-lettered sign reading, ‘three selections for fity cent.’ Estella’s was the only place in town where you were liable to hear the likes of La Vern Baker, Ivory Joe Hunter, Solomon Burke, or King Curtis. The place was an R&B clearing in a pedal steel jungle.
Otis and Estella Frazier were the sole proprietors. Estella was somewhere in her sixties; she wouldn’t say exactly where. She had mostly gray hair and was a little short for her hundred and eighty pounds. A few years ago Estella had a heart attack, “but it was jes a small one,” she said. They ran her through a battery of tests. When it was all over her doctor told her she had to stop smoking, stop eating fried food three times a day, and start getting some sort of exercise. Estella swore she would change her ways, but soon decided the doctor was overreacting.
Estella had long known she’d never be rich, so she decided she’d be comfortable instead. She wore loose fitting blue jeans and a baggy old pullove
r shirt with long sleeves, always topped with a knee-length white apron. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a string around her neck, but she used them only while at the cash register. Estella took orders, ran the register, and went table-to-table chatting up the clientele no matter if they wore corn-rows or cowboy hats. Everybody loved Estella.
Otis was a couple of years older than Estella and built just the opposite. He was a scant little guy with brown eyes that understood your problems. He had a silvery mustache streaked with black that curled sweetly at the corners of his mouth. A wispy tuft of gray sprouted just under his lower lip. He wore a black leather beret and open collared shirts, and his expression — a sort of suppressed smile — made it look like he was waiting for you to get the joke. But Otis’s calm and amiable face belied a troubled past.
12.
It was two-thirty on a Saturday morning and the place was about three quarters full. Estella snapped a scrap of paper into one of the clothes pins hanging in the window between the service counter and the kitchen. “Three swimp plates and a cheeseburger,” she said, ringing the little bell.
Otis looked up from the deep fryer to glance at the order. “Three swimps and a cheese.” He tossed a meat patty on the grill, then pulled the shrimp from the fridge where they were soaking in milk and paprika. He drained half a pound and began to dredge them in the flour.
“Otis,” Estella said with a gesture. “Who’s that sittin’ over at fourteen?” Otis couldn’t see table fourteen through the little service window so he went to the kitchen door and looked out. Estella met him there, wiping her hands on her apron. “He’s steady been actin’ funny since I carried him that gin,” she said.
Otis shook his head a little, shrugged. “Never seen him.” He went back to the kitchen knowing that if the guy was up to no good, Estella was the better one to deal with it. Otis lowered the basket of shrimp into the deep fat fryer. Greasy steam escaped into the vent.
