“A week before he was supposed to come, I called the hotel and said I had a flower delivery for when he arrived. They told me when to deliver.”
“How’d you know which hotel?”
“I tried them and the Loews Vanderbilt. Where else is he gonna stay?”
Baker said, “Did you try to see him personally?”
Gret grinned. “I didn’t just try, I saw him.”
“How?”
“Went there. Got all dressed up pretty and waited in the lobby. I had an iced tea…paid ten bucks out of my own pocket to drink and sit there and watch rich folk. Finally, he came out. Then he remembered something and started walking back to the elevators. I rode up with him. Pushed a button on the same floor and pretended to be staying there. We had a nice conversation.”
“About what?”
“First,” she said, “I sweet-talked him…things like ‘I recognized you right away, you look just like you do on the CDs.’ Which is bogus bullshit, he put on like a hundred pounds and he’s old. But he liked hearing those lies, everyone has their own favorite lies. That’s when I told him I was going to the Songbird concert…singing backup for Johnny Blackthorn. He said, No kidding, Johnny’s an old bud, and we started talking music. I know all about music, it’s my life.”
“All this is in the hall?” Lamar asked.
“At his door. I knew I could have gotten inside, but I didn’t want to. He’d try to fuck me and that would be gross.”
“Gross because he’s your father.”
“That for sure. But also, he was gross.” She stuck her tongue out.
“So how’d you get him over to The T House?”
“I told him I’d be singing and also helping out with the serving ’cause my daddy owned the place. I told him he should stop by, hear some good music if he wasn’t too tired. Then I told him I was thinking about giving up music because the lifestyle was tough. I told him I got into Vanderbilt dental school, maybe I’d do that.”
“Why dental school?”
“’Cause it sounded educated. Jack was impressed, and said that sounded cool. Then he said, ‘But if you really love to sing, don’t give up your dream.’”
“You were getting him on your side,” said Baker.
“I wanted him to hear me sing ’cause I’m worth listening to,” Gret said. “But I knew I had to be casual. That’s the way you got to do it with them.”
“Them being…”
“Men. They’re like fish. You cast the line, wiggle the bait a little, move it around real casual. I figured he’d show up. And he did.”
“What time?”
“Toward the end of my last set. A quarter to.”
“Quarter to midnight.”
“Yeah.”
She’d told them around eleven fifteen, eleven thirty the first time. Lying for the sake of it.
“What happened then?”
“I greeted him like a long-lost friend and sat him right in front. I even gave him free tea and yellow-raisin scones. Then I sang. Did a KT Oslin and a Rosanne Cash. Finished with ‘Piece of My Heart’—the Janis way, not what Faith Hill did to it. He was listening. Then…” Her blue eyes clouded over. “He just up and left. I gave the bastard free tea and he didn’t even have the courtesy to say good-bye.”
Just like he did to Mama, Lamar thought. “So you went to the door and saw…”
“The rich bitch with the red Mercedes. My car’s red, too, it’s my favorite color. I could never get it to shine like that…” Tossing her hair. “They talked like they knew each other, didn’t look so friendly. Then she drove away and he started walking.”
Reaching for her coffee, she sipped. “Um, this is good and creamy! Thank you, sirs!”
Baker said, “Then what?”
“Pardon?”
“What happened next?”
“Nothing.”
“Gret,” said Lamar, “we found that knife in your purse. It matches perfectly to the wound on Jack’s neck. We also got your fingerprints on his clothes and his neck.”
Blatant lies. They were days from processing all the evidence.
Silence.
Baker said, “I reckon you carry that knife because johns can get rough, right?”
“Right.”
“We can understand that,” Lamar added. “A girl needs to take care of herself.”
“Right.”
“So why don’t you tell us exactly what happened between you and Jack Jeffries?”
“Hmm,” she said, finishing her coffee. “Can I have another creamy latte? They’re so expensive. I can’t afford to buy more than one a week.”
They got her the coffee and a croissant. She finished both and asked to go to the bathroom.
“Sure,” said Lamar, “but first I’ve got to bring a senior CSI technologist in to scrape under your fingernails.”
“Why?” said Gret.
“To match it to Jack’s skin.”
“I washed my hands,” she said.
“When?”
“Right after I…” Looking at the ceiling and toying with her hair and letting one hand wander to her right breast.
Lamar said, “You need to finish the story, Gret. We need to hear the whole thing.”
“I need to use the little girls’ room.”
Fondebernardi came in, pretended to be a crime scene tech and did the scrape. Greta Barline was accompanied by a female officer to the restroom and returned looking refreshed.
“That was good,” she said, focusing on Lamar.
Baker said, “Please finish the story.”
“It’s not much of a story.”
“Do us a favor and tell it anyway.”
She shrugged. “I saw him walking and I went after him…to ask him why he left without saying good-bye. Asshole gave me a funny look and kept going…ignoring me. He was all pissed off…probably because of that woman. Ain’t my fault, but he took it out on me, you know? A whole different Jack from the Jack in the elevator. I kept walking with him. It was real dark, but I could see the hostility in his…manner. The way he had his arms folded in front of him, looking straight ahead. Like I didn’t exist. That made me super pissed off.”
“Because he wouldn’t talk.”
“Because he was being rude. Being rich doesn’t give you any right to be rude. Uh-uh, no sirree, Mr. Jeffries. The world don’t work like that.”
Her second delusion. The first was thinking she could sing.
Baker said, “It sure isn’t fair.”
She looked at Lamar. He said, “Downright rude.”
“I mean who is he thinking he is? A big fat ugly gross disgusting person who used to be famous but now no one gives a shit about him? Who’s he to go all silent and pissed and leave without saying good-bye? Still, I minded my manners. I said, ‘What’s wrong? Did the tea taste bad?’”
Lamar said, “He was being rude but you held on to your dignity.”
“Exactly! Dignity’s what it’s all about. Everyone deserves a little dignity, right?”
“Darn right,” Baker said. “So then what happened?”
“He just kept ignoring me and I just kept walking alongside him. We keep walking and walking and walking and then he stops again and makes a sharp turn…like that’s gonna confuse me.” She let out a laugh. “Except now he has no idea where he’s going and he ends up in this empty lot. I stick right with him. He turns around, not looking where he’s going, and his foot hits a wall. He starts cussing and swearing and then…and then, he starts screaming at me. That I should stop stalking him, can you believe that?”
The detectives shook their heads.
She touched her hair, licked a finger and ran it over her eyelids. “He sounded crazy, I was scared. I tell you, Detectives, that old boy was on drugs or something.”
“Did you try to leave?”
“Too scared.” Gret made her eyes go wide. “It’s all dark and he’s going crazy on me. He starts calling me horrible names—a lyin’ no-talent little bitch, if you
must know.”
She sniffed, grimaced, and rubbed her eyes, trying to dredge up some tears. The floor had been dried since Tristan Poulson’s sob-fest. It stayed that way.
“It was horrible,” she said. “No one ever, ever, ever talked to me like that. That’s what I said to him—trying to stop him from being so rude. Then I looked him straight up in the eye and said ‘Shut your mouth for a second and hear the truth. I’m your daughter and you know what, I don’t even care about that, it means nothing to me! And you know what else? I’m lucky you weren’t never in my life, you don’t deserve to ever be in my life, you sorry-ass, has-been motherfucker!’”
The room fell silent.
“You told him off good,” Lamar said.
“Wait, wait, it gets better. Then he gets this wild look, this really wild crazy look gets in his eyes, and he says, ‘You’re lying, it’s just another lie, you been a lying little bitch since the moment I laid eyes on you.’ And I say, ‘I’m the daughter of Ernestine Barline. You knew her as Kiki. Remember that night you fucked her all night? The result is me.’”
She stopped. Panting, sucking in breath.
Finally, the tears came…a constricted trickle that ended with a gasp.
Lamar said, “What did Jack say to that?”
“His voice got real quiet and he gave me this look. Not the wild-eyed one, but a different one. Scarier. Cold, real, real cold. Like I was nothing…but…dirt. He smiled, but not a nice smile, an ugly smile. Then he said, ‘I don’t remember her and I don’t give a shit about you. And even if I did fuck her, no way you were the result. Know how I know?’”
She gasped, covered her eyes. Lamar thought of patting her shoulder, but hesitated. Baker reached over and did it for the both of them.
“I didn’t answer him,” she said. “But he told me, anyway.” She shivered.
Neither detective spoke.
Gret’s hand dropped from her face. For a second, she looked young, untouched, vulnerable. Then the brown eyes sparked with fury.
“The bastard touched me here.” Gret fingered the bottom of her chin. “Chucked it, you know? Like I was some baby, some stupid little baby thing.” Another shiver. If she was faking her emotion, she was Oscar-quality. “Then he said, ‘I know you didn’t come from me because you got no talent. You sing like shit and I’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard than to hear you screech like a crow. I knew Janis and she’s the lucky one, being dead so she didn’t have to be subjected to that sorry-ass, ultra-fucked-up abortion you did of her classic. Girl, your voice should never be used except for talking, and not much of that, either.’”
She took awhile to catch her breath. Stared at both detectives as if she’d seen the afterlife and it wasn’t pretty.
“Oh, man, that’s cold,” said Lamar.
Baker said, “God, what a bastard.” Sounding as if he meant it.
Greta Barline said, “He’s saying those things…those horrible things…cutting me…cutting my singing…cutting my life…I can’t even speak, it’s like I’m bleeding inside.”
She gnashed her teeth, clawed her hands.
“Then he starts pushing at me, pushing—like to get away. Honestly, I don’t know what happened. He was so big and I’m so little and he’s pushing at me, pushing at me. I was so scared. I don’t know how the knife got into my hand, I promise. All I remember is him holding his neck and looking at me and making this gurgly noise. Then, he fell down and made this thud noise. And then he gurgled some more.”
A strange, distant smile skittered across her lips. “I’m just standing there and I’m thinking about that gurgly noise and I say out loud, ‘You don’t sound so good, yourself, Jack Jeffries.’ After that, he got quiet.”
The room felt as if all the air had been sucked out of it.
Lamar waited for Baker to speak, but El Bee had a funny look on his face, kind of glassy-eyed.
Lamar said, “Thanks for telling us, Gret. Now I’m gonna have to read you your rights.”
“Just like on TV,” she said. Then she perked up. “So what do you think, it’s self-defense, right?”
16
Lamar got home at four thirty AM. Sue was sleeping but she woke up, brewed some decaf and sat with him while he ate cold pasta, a couple of hastily fried breakfast sausages, and five pieces of toast.
The usual case-closed munchies.
“Another one bites the dust,” she said. “Congrats, honey.”
After he told her the details, Sue said, “The girl’s obviously disturbed but you can see her point.”
“About what? She cut the poor man’s throat for insulting her singing.”
“If what she said is true, he was brutal, honey, just dumped on her dreams. Of course, it doesn’t justify what she did. But still, to be rejected like that.” She touched his face. “Maybe I’m being a bleeding heart, but I guess I understand her a little.”
“If it’s even true,” said Lamar. “She lies about everything.” But he knew he was denying the obvious. For all Greta Barline’s lies, he was certain she’d spoken the truth about that final encounter.
Jack Jeffries had paid for it. Now Greta Barline was going to ante up.
They’d closed the case, a high-profile whodunit, they’d get their names in the paper. Maybe even be there at the press conference.
He should’ve felt more satisfaction.
Sue said, “How’d Baker react?”
“To what?”
“The way it ended.”
“He seemed okay.” Lamar immediately regretted the lie. He was always honest with Sue, no reason to change that, now. “Actually, he didn’t react at all, hon. Once she signed the confession and he made sure the tape had recorded he just left. Fondie called Jones and Jones called in to congratulate us and Baker wasn’t there to hear it.”
“Maybe he’s got a point, Lamar.”
“About what?”
“The business, all those dreams, a thousand people come to town, nine hundred ninety-nine get stepped on and shattered and the one who gets a chance doesn’t last long either.”
Lamar didn’t answer. Thinking about his own arrival in Nashville, fifteen years ago, from New Haven. Good solid bass player, he had the moves, extra-long nimble fingers able to span eight, nine frets. A darn good ear, too. After a couple of listens to something, he could often play it back note-perfect.
He couldn’t invent, but still, an ear like that counted for something. Everyone back home telling him he was great.
In Nashville, he was good. Maybe even real good.
Meaning not even close to good enough.
He felt cool hands on the back of his neck. Sue had gotten up and was massaging him. She wore that old Med Center 10K commemorative T-shirt and nothing else. Her smell…her firmness and her softness, pushing against him.
He said, “Let’s hit the hay. Thanks for the grub, Nurse Van Gundy.”
“Anything for you, Favorite Patient.”
“Let’s hear it for Marvin Gaye.”
She laughed, for the thousandth time, at the in-joke. Time for Sexual Healing. Lamar wondered if he should find some phrases that weren’t music-connected.
Sue didn’t seem to mind. She took him by the hand and laughed again.
By the time they reached the bedroom, they were kissing deeply.
17
Baker went home to an empty silent house, popped a beer, and sat in the kitchen with his feet propped up on the Formica dinette table.
Fifty-year-old table, everything in this place was older than he was; since inheriting the house, he’d bought virtually nothing.
Hanging on to all the discount-outlet crap his parents had bought when they moved in.
Danny and Dixie.
When he thought of them that way, they were strangers.
When he used their real names, it was different.
Danville Southerby and Dorothea Baker had met when he was sixteen and she was fourteen, singing in the choir of the First Baptist Church of Newport, T
ennessee.
The town, nestled on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, was rich in music and folk art and memory, poor in everything else. Danny’s father barely broke even farming tobacco and Dixie’s daddy didn’t do much better with corn.
Singing hymns threw the teenagers together. Blinding love soon followed and within two months, Dixie was pregnant. The child, a small, squalling, pink-faced boy they named Baker, was born three weeks premature, one half year after a hastily arranged church wedding. Dixie bled a lot and the doctor told her she’d never conceive again. She cried, as much from relief as regret.
Like a lot of people in the church, the teens were highly musical. Danny had a clear tenor voice, played piano and organ and guitar without ever taking a lesson. Dixie was on a whole other level, a mandolin prodigy with an astounding vibrato and, some said, technique better than Bill Monroe’s. Top of that, her soprano, always nice, smoothed out and stretched following the delivery of her baby. Maybe singing to the cranky little red-faced tot helped, or it could’ve been one of those strange hormonal twists. Either way, listening to her was a privilege.
The young couple lived on the corn farm with her family, doing scut work and sinking low emotionally. In their spare time, when someone else would take the baby, they sat and played and sang—softly, so as not to share the precious thing they had with anyone else. It was the only private time they had. In those moments, each of them wondered if life wasn’t slipping away, but they never shared the thought with each other.
One night, after Dixie’s daddy scolded Danny for indolence, he got up in the middle of the night, woke Dixie and told her to get dressed. She watched him pack a bag, carry it out of the house, then return for his guitar and her mandolin.
“What—”
He shushed her with a finger. She got dressed, followed him out to the old Dodge his daddy had given him last year but which he never got to drive, being stuck on the corn farm, working like a mutt.
They pushed the car away from the house so as not to wake anyone. When he got far enough, he started up and hit the road.
Dixie said, “What about the baby?”
Capital Crimes Page 29
