Music, Murder, and Small Town Romance

by K C Hart

  “Where did you meet Mr. Clay to take the lessons?”

  “At first, he suggested his house, but, well, that just felt weird, you know what I mean?” Emma tilted her head to the side. “I was already keeping a secret from my husband, even if it was a good secret, but I didn’t want to go to some strange old man’s house every week without Tubby knowing about it.”

  “That was probably a smart move.” Katy didn’t know if Emma knew about Rob Clay’s reputation. She figured that she did since the woman was known for knowing everybody’s business that came in the bank, but maybe this time she was in the dark. “So, where did you end up taking the lessons?”

  “At Mr. Donnie’s place. He gives flute lessons to kids every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He just let me and Mr. Clay do the guitar lessons in his dining room while he was in the den giving the flute lessons.” She smiled and sucked in a deep breath. “When Tubby saw how innocent it all was, I thought he was going to break my ribs he hugged me so tight.”

  “Did you tell all of this to the sheriff?”

  “Oh, yes ma’am. They’re going to talk to Mr. Donnie and a couple of the kids tomorrow.”

  Katy collected the names of the children and their parents who could collaborate Emma’s story. She stuck the end of the pen in her mouth as she thought about how to ask the next question. “Did you ever feel uncomfortable around Mr. Clay? Like he was making a pass at you or something?”

  “You mean flirting with me?” Emma asked raising her eyebrows in surprise. “He tried that one time when I was in the music store back when I was in high school. I told him if he knew what was good for him, he would keep his dirty mind and dirty hands to himself or I would scream so loud his own momma wouldn’t believe he was innocent.”

  “Oh really?” Katy looked down over her reading glasses in surprised admiration. “I guess you knew how to handle him.”

  “Yes ma’am. He ain’t been anything but respectful ever since.” Emma paused. “I don’t want to sound like a snob or anything, but when you look a certain way some men just think they have the right to say stuff to you that they shouldn’t be saying to any woman. If you don’t shut them up with a firm word or two, they’ll just walk all over you.”

  A new level of respect for Emma was obvious in Katy’s eyes. “You need to teach a class, Emma. There are a lot of women who need to learn exactly what you just said.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Katy. I don’t usually come over as the smart type, but there are different kinds of smart.”

  The night dragged on while she talked to Emma. After leaving the young woman in the cell in a much better frame of mind, Katy walked to the front door, stretching her back and shoulders in a deep yawn. She glanced out the glass front door. John and Joe were still talking. She needed to ask Todd a couple more questions before they called it a night. She found him back in his office looking over several papers. “I was just wondering,” Katy said, poking her head through the door, “how did y’all know that it was Emma’s fingerprints? She said she’s never even had a speeding ticket, much less a criminal record.”

  “Lots of people have their fingerprints on file who don’t have records.” Todd swirled the last few drops of the energy drink in the plastic green bottle then tossed it in the trash. “Emma was fingerprinted when she took a certified nursing assistant class her senior year in high school. Anybody planning on working with the elderly in the nursing home have to have a background check and be fingerprinted.”

  “I know about health care workers requiring fingerprints and background checks,” Katy said, eyeing Todd. “I had no idea she ever worked in that field. She doesn’t strike me as the type of girl who would want to be a nursing assistant.” Katy watched as he leaned his chair back on two legs. “One day you’re going to bust your behind doing that.”

  “Four on the floor, yes ma’am.” Todd grinned as the chair tilted back upright. “Emma never completed the course, but her prints are in the database on the state computer. We just compared the fingerprints found on the guitar envelope with everyone available in the state, and Emma’s matched. There were no prints on the letter, but having ‘EM’ signed at the bottom sure does make her look guilty.”

  The hot, wet needles of the shower pounded her face, but she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, refusing to admit that waking up was actually required today. She had smelled a hint of soap and felt soft warm lips touch her forehead about six thirty this morning when the words “I love you, see you this afternoon,” had tried to push their way into her dream. She had mumbled something in return then rolled over. Not yet, not getting up yet.

  She turned her face away from the pounding of the shower and let out a deep sigh, combined with a yawn, as the hot water massaged the place where the tension had settled a couple of days ago and made its new home. Her eyes opened slowly as she pushed back the wet wads of hair that decided to cling to the side of her face. She didn’t have to see home health patients today. If she had, she would have called last night and let the on-call nurse know she couldn’t do it. They had crawled in bed at the wee hours of the morning for the second time this week. That might not be a big deal for some people, but they were always tucked in saying their prayers before ten. The lack of sleep had caught up with her.

  After the shower she dressed in jeans and a “Get Piggy With It” t-shirt she had won at the grocery store a few years ago. The aroma of the coffee was already bringing her brain into focus before the steamy liquid even had a chance to touch her lips. She took her mug and notebook and stepped onto her patio. There was just a little nip in the air, but spring had pushed hard to gain control of the calendar. Even though it was early March, the temperature was perfect for watching the birds fight over the free and easy meals she put out for them every week in the cypris feeders around the edge of the yard.

  She sat in the patio chair and read over her notes. Going to the music store today was out. She was sure it would be closed. She might drive by after while anyway, just to make double sure.

  She rolled her head from side to side as she replayed what she had learned last night. She would give Todd time to look into Emma’s story before she called him. In the meantime, she needed to figure out how Mr. Clay got to the auditorium that day.

  She took the last swallow of the black coffee. It was lukewarm now, but she didn’t care. The caffeine worked just as well going down warm as it did going down hot. She grabbed her purse and phone as she walked back through the house. She was going to drive down to the school parking lot. Maybe there was something there that could help her figure this out. There sure wasn’t anything to help on her patio.

  The parking lot was pretty bare this morning. The students drivers and the staff had assigned places to park on the other side of the campus. The main entrance of the auditorium faced the street, with the parking lot between it and the rest of the campus buildings. The lot wasn’t very big. The lines were painted to hold two rows of vehicles, and it only ran down the length of the large building. The main parking was in the back of the building, which was not visible from the street.

  She parked her car in the same space that she and Misty had used last Saturday and got out to look around. There didn’t appear to be anything unusual to see, no blood spots on the pavement or other obvious clues like the TV detectives always seemed to be able to find. She sighed and returned to her car to think. The zzzt zzzt zzzt sound of the power wrench coming from the service station across the street was very distracting and made it hard to concentrate. She looked over at the station that always seemed to be busy. Three old men, probably retired with little else to do, sat on a bench out front watching the people go in and out of the store and the garage on the side. Katy waved to the men who were also watching her, and they waved back unabashedly.

  She clicked the lock on her car and walked across the street to the station. “Hello,” she nodded to the men as she passed by, entering the store. They nodded back without speaking.

  She leaned in and
squinted at the hours of operation posted in small print on the store door. A thick layer of grease and grime coated the glass, giving the door a brown, smoky appearance. A squirt of Windex and a few paper towels would work a small miracle here.

  The gas station opened every day except Sunday from seven to six. She grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler in the back and paid the ancient man behind the counter, then walked back outside to the three men sitting on the bench.

  Two of the men had wads of chewing tobacco sticking out of the sides their cheeks, making their faces poke out in a lopsided contortion that most people in Skeeterville would not even notice. Smokeless tobacco was an extremely common vice among men over the age of twenty. The third man didn’t seem to “chew” like the first two, but “dipped” instead, with the black coffee-ground looking tobacco tucked tightly into his lower lip. Each man held a small tin container, probably a recycled pork and beans can with the label pulled off, to spit their brown juices in as the need arose.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” Katy said, unscrewing the lid to her water bottle. “It sure seems to be busy over here.”

  All three men tipped the rims of their caps and nodded hello, but only one actually spoke. “Howdy, ma’am. Ain’t you one of them ladies that sings for the nursing home?” The speaker had on a pair of grease-stained gray coveralls and weathered steel-toed work boots. He had probably retired from the oil field. His face was tanned and wrinkled from years of laboring in the sun. The stiff growth of gray whiskers looked like he only believed in shaving about two or three times a week.

  “Yes sir, I play the guitar for The Moonlighters. Do I know you?” Katy asked, searching his face. He looked familiar and had a pair of crystal blue eyes that shone from his hooded lids with a rather playful glee.

  “Probably not,” he paused to spit in the can. “But I visit my sister at the nursing home, and I’ve heard y’all play a couple of times.” He wiped his hand on the worn leg of the coveralls and extended it to Katy. “I’m Emmet Smith. My sister is Frances Prescott.”

  Katy wiped the condensation from the sweating water bottle on her jeans and shook the old man’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith. You have a sweet sister. I hug her neck every time I go there.”

  “Yeah, she had a stroke about five years ago and her kids put her there. I was worried about her at first, but she seems to be doing good and likes it. She can’t talk, but that don’t mean she can’t let me know what she’s thinking.”

  “Oh, yes sir, I know what you mean. She’s always waiting for us when we get there to set up and sing.”

  “She was tickled pink when y’all won that battle thing. She made me call in and vote.” He pointed his finger to the other two men on the bench along with himself. “We all did, every single day for the entire contest.”

  Katy reached across and shook the hands of the two silent partners. “Thank you so much. We had no idea how we won until the activities director told me what happened.”

  Katy paused and took a drink from her bottle while the three men spat in unison. “I was wondering, did y’all happen to be sitting here last Saturday?” Katy looked from one man to the next, including all three in her question.

  “Yeah, we were here,” Mr. Smith answered for the group again. “You want to know what happened across the street?”

  “Yes sir, I do. How did you know?”

  “We saw you looking around the parking lot and figured that you were trying to piece it all together. The sheriff and his folks were over there Monday. I don’t think they found anything worth looking at, either.”

  The third man on the bench, the dipper, spat again and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “You’re the first one that’s had enough sense to come over here and ask us about it.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did,” Katy said, grinning at the three old men. “Do you mind telling me what you saw?”

  “Not at all. We see all kinds of stuff going on every day, better entertainment here than on TV.” Mr. Smith paused and pulled his baseball cap off to rub the top of his bald head. “Let’s see, I guess the first thing worth mentioning was when a little foreign car drove up around,” he paused and looked at the men beside him. “What time did that first car get there, Herman?”

  “One thirty-five,” Herman answered, speaking for the first time. He sat in the middle of the group with his enormous chew of tobacco wedged in his left cheek.

  “Yeah,” Mr. Smith continued in agreement, “it was one-thirty-five. It was a little blue foreign car with two men in it, those music store men. What kind of car was that, Herman?” Katy and the two men again turned to the man in the middle.

  “Honda Accord, 2012, two-door.”

  The three men looked back at Katy. “That sounds about right,” said Mr. Smith. “One man got out, the one that got killed, and the other sat in the car. Before he drove off, though, another vehicle drove up.” Mr. Smith paused and scratched his chin, trying to remember the details. “What kind of truck was that, Herman?”

  The three again turned their eyes to Herman. “Silver four-door F150 Ford extended cab, 2014.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it was,” Mr. Smith nodded as they all turned to him to continue his story. “A younger man, probably in his thirties, jumped out and grabbed that other guy, the one that had just gotten out, by his shirt and took a swing at him. Knocked him down.” He looked at the other two men for confirmation of his report. Neither spoke, but they both nodded their heads in agreement.

  “If the other music man hadn’t gotten out of his car to help, I imagine that young guy would have put a whipping on the first music man pretty bad.”

  “Wow,” Katy said slowly. “So, the other guy broke up the fight?”

  “Oh yeah, the young guy shoved him, too, but I guess the young fella decided he didn’t want to take them both on, although I think he could have taken them.” Mr. Smith chuckled. The other two men nodded in agreement, then all three paused for a spit.

  “What happened after that? Did they argue?”

  “Looks like they did.” Mr. Smith squinted as he looked toward the lot across the street. “The young guy did a lot of finger poking in the spikey haired guy’s chest. Of course, we couldn’t hear what they were saying over here with all the noise and stuff.” He paused and grinned, “We don’t hear as good as we used to, anyway.”

  “The noise from the garage is what made me look over here and notice y’all in the first place,” Katy said. “I sure am glad I did. Did anything else happen?”

  “After that, the truck drove off, up the road,” Mr. Smith pointed to the left. “And the car drove off down the road.” This time he pointed in the other direction. “What time was it then, Herman?” Katy and the two other men looked to the man in the middle again.

  “About one forty-five,” Herman replied.

  “It was one forty-five,” Mr. Smith said. “Then the music man that got killed went on inside. After a little while,” he paused and again they looked at Herman.

  “Two fifteen.”

  “Yeah, about two fifteen the rest of the cars started pulling up and going in the auditorium. You and that flower lady got there last,” Mr. Smith finished. All three men raised their cans to spit.

  Katy reached her hand out again to shake their hands then changed her mind. She leaned over and hugged Mr. Smith, the man on the other end, and finally Herman in the middle. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this will help me.” She squinted her eyes as she looked across the parking lot at her car then turned again to the men. “If I send the deputy sheriff over, will you tell him what you just told me?” she asked hopefully.

  “Sure will,” Mr. Smith said. “If it will help catch the person that killed that man, we’re all for helping.” The other two nodded in agreement.

  Katy thanked them one more time and got the full names of all three before leaving. She asked if they had cell phones, so she could contact them. They didn’t but assured her that if she didn’t see them sittin
g on the bench then they were probably home, and she could look their home numbers up in the phone book.

  Katy got in her car and pulled out the notebook. She quickly wrote down everything the men, well, mostly Mr. Smith, had told her. She texted Todd. She needed to find out what he had learned from talking to Donnie Gibson and his music students. She also needed to fill him in on what she learned. Who was the young guy that attacked Mr. Clay? He might have returned without being seen and finished the man off. A man in his thirties could very possibly be an old boyfriend of the hairdresser who Mr. Clay was seeing. Donnie Gibson would know. How could she talk to Donnie Gibson?

  Katy drove back home with her phone sitting in her lap. She had it on vibrate, so if Todd answered her text she could pull over and see what he said. He did not text back. She frowned as she got out of her car and unlocked her carport door. He must be busy, but he needed to know what she knew. She had been taught by her home health company to never text a patient’s name or any private information to another person. You could not guarantee that the person reading your text would be the person that you meant to see it. She didn’t know how this would apply to a murder investigation, but she was wary of sending him a text with the things she had learned. Instead she sent another message. I have found out some things that you need to know. Call as soon as you can. It’s important.

  She flopped her purse on the kitchen counter and sighed. That was the best she could do for now. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed a pink lady apple out of the crisper and the peanut butter off the shelf. Maybe a snack would help her think. She cut the apple into slices with the paring knife and then smeared a generous helping of peanut butter on a piece to eat. She was just about to pop it into her mouth when her cell phone rang.

  “Hey girl,” Misty said as Katy laid the apple down with a slight frown.