A Murder in Music City

by Michael Bishop

  “I took the liberty of ordering one coffee and one iced tea. I hope that works for you,” I said.

  “Yes, thank you. Coffee's fine. I don't have that much time, actually.”1

  “Not a problem. Can I just begin with a few questions? Would that be too direct? Or do we need to spend some time on the social graces?” I asked.

  She laughed at my words, and I sensed just a hint of relaxation in her demeanor. I took her laughter as agreement that we could skip the rapport-building phase and just move forward with a few questions. But she beat me to the first one.

  “So, the girl who was killed, you said her name was Herrington?” she asked.

  “No, actually, I didn't say. But her name was Herring. Paula Herring. You remember the story?”

  “I think I may have known her; I'm not sure. We lived in a rental house in the Music Row area,” she said.

  She offered this in the same tension-edged voice that I recognized from the earlier phone call.

  “How on earth would you have known Paula Herring?” I asked.

  “I'm just saying kids at that time always hung out at the drive-in restaurants, especially those near Belle Meade. So you're a private detective?” she asked.

  “No. I'm just attempting to round up a few answers related to what many describe as Metro Nashville's first big murder case. I'm an amateur researcher; that's probably the best description. Kind of like an investigative journalist but without a journal or any real credentials. How's that?”

  At this point, I decided to employ an interview method that I had recently discovered—pretending that you don't know what you actually do know, and then pretending you do know what you actually don't. Rather than pursue the Jesse Henderson topic as I'd done the first time we had spoken, I rolled the dice.

  “When did you first meet BlueSky?” I asked.

  “Oh, gosh, I don't remember. I knew him before I knew Jesse.”

  “Is he in town?”

  “As far as I know, unless he passed away. His family had money, big money. He and my mother ran around a lot back in the day.”

  “Got any fond memories of your time with Jesse Henderson?” I asked.

  As she gazed wistfully out the window, she said, “I just remember standing on the sidewalk in front of his apartment early one morning and him telling me everything was going to be okay.”

  “Gina, I need your help,” I began. But before I could describe the assistance I needed, she cut me off.

  “I know that you think that somebody that we were around knew about the girl dying. But it's like I'm two different people. And right now, the way I'm thinking about that whole thing is that somehow it's in my head and I don't think any of it really happened. Even talking to you about it, it's kinda like it's all a dream,” she said.

  I gave her a puzzled look and finished my previous attempt at a request. “I need to know BlueSky's real name, and I need you to find him for me,” I said. “Today would be a really good day for that, and maybe you could take me to see him. Because I don't think he's dead. In fact, I think BlueSky and Jesse talk pretty frequently, even now. Let's just call it my intuition,” I said.

  If she was startled at my request, she didn't verbalize it, though she quickly looked out the window at the cars filling up the drive-through lane before responding. I let silence fill the air as long as necessary.

  “The thing is, I don't even know why I think I know anything about any of this. I'm about ready to go see BlueSky. I really am about ready to go see him and just tell him that I've just got to have some sane answers from somebody because my mother has driven me nuts through all these years. He'd understand that,” she said.

  As I heard this puzzling response, I got the feeling that my guest was a million miles away. It was as if I wasn't sitting on the other side of the table from her. So I tried again to bring her back to our conversation.

  “Gina, I need his name.”

  “And I'm not worried about your interest because the thing is, is that I know, I just know that I didn't hurt the girl myself; that I'm sure of. If anybody's got a fear and a hate and a desire not to touch or have anything to do with a gun it's this girl here. I have got a real aversion to a gun.”

  Why would she say she didn't hurt Paula? Was she in the house on the night of the murder? I tried not to be too obvious as my right hand slowly rose from the table to cover my mouth, trying to buy some time, searching for a question I might ask after hearing this bombshell.

  “So your mother, Lizzie, how long did she work as a nurse at Vanderbilt Hospital?” Gina's mouth fell open slightly, but she didn't try to deflect the question and simply answered, as I had hoped.

  “I think a few years while we lived in the Music Row area and then after that at the VA Hospital.”

  “And when she worked at Vanderbilt, she found a new best friend named Jo Herring.”

  I stated this as a simple matter of fact, but my guest didn't offer a response. And I didn't say a word, as it was my turn to look at the cars in the drive-through lane outside, all the while hoping that she didn't notice my own hands sweating as I held onto my glass of iced tea as if it were the last stationary object on a boat being slammed by a summer storm.

  “I could almost be a split personality. And so right now I know, I know kinda who you are. I don't think I'm in the story—see I don't know what the girl's name is right this minute. I know that she got killed. I know that you think that somebody…that we were around or knew about it or were there…but right this minute, I don't even remember what we've talked about. Even when I talk to you about it, it's kinda like it's all a dream. The whole accident happened and never even could get to court or anything.”

  “Do you think all of this in 1964 started out as an accident?” I asked.

  “As an accident? If I had to put my druthers on it, I think it just started out as a…I don't think anybody meant to kill anybody…except that I think Jo's husband was meant to be killed.”

  “Who was behind that?” I asked, thinking, This is unreal. This woman is talking about two murders, the father and the daughter? Why? How can she possibly know this?

  “I think Jo Herring was probably behind that,” she said, with her now-familiar nervous laugh.

  “Now let me tell you, I called BlueSky, and he called me right back.”2

  This was Gina's opening line as follow-up from our coffee shop meeting two weeks prior. Only this time, the conversation was by phone, as she was concerned about meeting again in public. Before we had departed from our first in-person meeting, I had convinced her that we should swap email addresses, and she had agreed. Not only had she agreed, she had asked if I would provide her with a brief summary of the Paula Herring story. Within hours, I sent her a few brief paragraphs, all similar to what she could have gleaned on her own from the newspapers of the day.

  “Basically, I got nothing from BlueSky other than the fact that he did think…he thought I ought to call the police,” she said.

  “Gina, that's completely up to you. Feel free to call the authorities and tell them whatever you feel compelled to tell them,” I said. “I'm certain they would love to hear from you on this topic, if you know what I mean.”

  “But then he decided that maybe I shouldn't call them,” Gina concluded.

  “I'm not surprised,” I said.

  “BlueSky kept telling me, did I realize his age, and, that was years ago. And I informed him I did. The thing is, I pretty much ran it by him that you were asking questions about Paula Herring and that you had found Jesse Henderson, and I got nothing, absolutely nothing from him in response.”

  “Well, that's unfortunate. But I still need his name, please. Where can I find him today?” I asked.

  “You know that little boy would now be a man about your age.”

  “You think I'm Paula Herring's little brother come back to town for answers?” I asked.

  “Aren't you?” she asked.

  “No, I'm not the little boy that was in the house t
hat night, though I'm certainly seeking answers,” I said.

  “Look, whoever that little boy is that wants to know about his father or his mother? I feel sorry for him. He's better off thinking his mother had absolutely nothing to do with anything and that it was the guy that did it or that it was his buddy that did it or whatever,” she said.

  “Gina, why don't you tell me what was going on the night that Paula Herring was, um, accidentally shot. Tell me about that night. How about your mom? What was Lizzie doing on that Saturday night?” I asked.

  “My mother was not a good driver. Not good at all, really. She was more of a ‘bumper in the wall’ kind of driver, especially if she was trying to back up.”

  “Well, that's interesting. So you're saying that your mother had a little automobile accident on the night of the murder?”

  There was complete silence on the other end of the phone line. I waited a moment before saying her name to bring her back into the conversation.

  “I think maybe a car got trashed out on River Road that night. Maybe it had been out in Crieve Hall that night and it didn't need to be found.” She said this in a near whisper.

  “Gina, why do you think Paula Herring was killed?” I asked.

  “I don't know, Mike; I really don't know. Maybe it had something to do with drugs? And it wasn't like they could tell Paula to drop out of school.”

  Who would be telling Paula Herring to drop out of school? I wondered.

  “I don't see the connection with the victim and drugs. She was an athlete, so why would she use drugs?”

  “I know that after my dad died a lot of people would come to our apartment to get meds. Sometimes it was college students and sometimes it was truck drivers. There were a lot of professional wrestlers who were customers. I didn't realize what was going on at first, but I eventually figured out that my mom was selling them right out of our house.”

  “What kind of meds?” I asked.

  “The usual back then, uppers and downers and pain killers.”

  “You're talking about amphetamines and barbiturates?” I asked.

  “Sure. Speed helped you lose weight and you could study for hours. I guess you could drive a truck for hours, too. And the downers and pain killers let you sleep when you wanted to sleep. When you mixed in some booze, it was a pretty good high, or so I was told,” she said.

  “So, I'm thinking because of your mother's work and her lifestyle, maybe you were exposed to a lot of powerful people when you were growing up in Nashville,” I said.

  Her voice began to take on a shaky quality with her reply, as if I'd hit on a nerve and a sensitive topic.

  “Well, there was this…person in town…that thought nothing of making a financial arrangement with my mom, and she'd say, ‘Well, you know, whatever you work out with her,’ and let him go on with what he had planned.”

  “You mean, ‘Here's some money, Lizzie, and I'm gonna try out your daughter Gina’?” I asked.

  “Or, ‘Here's some money, and since I'm paying your rent, you just sit down over there and be quiet.’”

  “I'm so sorry you were used that way,” I said, almost in a whisper.

  “Well, for your story, I think the only positive thing about it is that hopefully the little boy is alive and he's got a good life to lead, and hopefully he can put some of this behind him…and realize it was not his fault and that he could not have stopped it…. He might have some guilt that he survived and nobody else did, and…well…the pleas for help…he may have heard something or saw something that even now he will never remember that he saw or heard,” she said.

  “How's your mother doing, by the way? How is Lizzie these days?” I asked.

  “She has good days and bad. When I was growing up, my mom and dad would take off. You know what I mean? They would just vanish for days at a time. My grandmother would take care of me. My mother was, um, a little like Lizzie Borden on drugs sometimes.3 She could go a little crazy, if you know what I mean? Like, she could have fired those shots in the floor at the house that night.”

  “The shots fired through Paula's back into the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  At this news, I was certain that my heart had stopped. I had been sitting at my desk in a private office across from the Tin Angel restaurant on West End Avenue when I heard these words, and I stood up, took a couple of deep breaths, and attempted to offer a feeble response.

  “So, let me ask you. Has anyone tried to blackmail you over this story?”

  “No. Not so far.”

  “Gina, I really need to meet with BlueSky. Where can I find him?” I asked.

  “I can't help you with that. I just can't. Have you talked to Jesse lately?” she asked.

  “No, he's gone missing again. Would you know a reason for that?”

  “No, I don't, but I'm not surprised,” she responded.

  “Where can I find our friend, Mr. BlueSky?”

  “I've got to go now. I'm sorry.”

  And then the phone line went dead. But what I hadn't told Gina was that I already had crafted a plan to find her old friend BlueSky, and I really didn't need her help.

  Before there was a drive-in restaurant at 2501 Franklin Road in Nashville near the Melrose area, there was a hotel at the exact same spot. The York Hotel Court was the official name, though everyone referred to it as the York Motel, and it was a one-story, forty-room motor court. Postcards created by the owner described the property as Nashville's newest and finest, AAA approved and just two blocks south of Nashville's city limit. In smaller print, additional notes informed the potential guest that every room in the York had a telephone, a television, and sound insulation, a feature that may have been in demand on a cold night in February 1964.

  While it didn't carry the prestige of the Noel Hotel near Printers Alley, the York Hotel Court was in a high traffic area for those making their way to the mecca of country music, the Ryman Auditorium. In the days of pre-interstate travel, it was two days from Florida and one from Chicago. In fact, Roy Orbison and Elvis Aaron Presley were occasional guests at the York, as were a number of professional wrestlers on the multistate circuit managed by Nick Gulas and Roy Welch.1

  On Sunday morning, February 23, 1964, the housekeeping crew at the York arrived to find the typical list of to-dos: changing linens, cleaning bathrooms, and emptying ashtrays. They did not expect to find a substantial amount of blood on the floor in one of the guest rooms—enough blood to alert management, who, having read in the morning newspaper about a young coed being slain the night before in nearby Crieve Hall, decided to call the police.

  A few days after the bloody motel room was found, John Clarke's defense attorney, Charles Galbreath, visited the motor court to take a deposition from the owner, indicating that Paula Herring's killer may have been so bloody from the slaying that he hid out at the York Motel after unsuccessfully attempting to make a phone call at the Krystal hamburger restaurant just down the street. The distance from the Krystal to the York Motel was so close it could be walked in a handful of minutes, and by car it was just over a half-minute trip from one location to the other.

  Forty years later, a bit of research and a couple of phone calls confirmed that the 1964 owner of the York Motel was a man named Jack Spence. Spence, upon being contacted, easily remembered that his wife's uncle, J. J. Richmond, had been managing the motel at the time of the 1964 Crieve Hall murder. When asked about the possibility that the uncle was still alive, Spence said, “Yes, he's in a nursing home near Hartsville, Tennessee.”2

  I asked about the bloody room, and Spence unhappily remembered calling the police, only to find out that they had no interest in his discovery. But defense attorney Charles Galbreath got news of this possible alternate suspect in the murder, and he came to the York to investigate. Spence also remembered having to replace the carpet in the room because an attempt to clean it had failed.

  Hartsville is a wide path in the road about forty miles northeast of Nashville. The little town of two th
ousand residents has the dubious distinction of being neighbors with one of Tennessee's most expensive abandoned properties, a two billion dollar nuclear plant, which began construction more than a decade after Paula Herring had been murdered and then was swiftly abandoned by the Tennessee Valley Authority before the plant ever went into operation.3

  Not far from Hartsville proper, I turned into the driveway of a country nursing home, a tidy property with a wide front porch and rocking chairs at street level and another ranch-style house running perpendicular at the basement level.

  As I walked up the path to the front door, I greeted an old gentleman apparently dozing in one of the rocking chairs. He slowly raised his head as I approached and asked if I could help him unzip the top pocket of his faded bib overalls. I cautiously agreed, and then he asked if I would also reach down into the pocket and see if he had any cigarettes there. My first thought was that the next day's newspaper would tell the story of “man slain by nursing home resident with pocket full of scorpions.” I was needlessly worried, as the pocket held neither scorpions nor cigarettes. I could tell he was disappointed, and silently I was hoping that Mr. Tobacco wasn't Jesse James Richmond.

  A few moments later, after being allowed entrance into the facility, I carefully made my way down the hall, reading the names of the residents affixed to each doorway and making sure I remembered to smile and say hello to anyone who happened to glance my way.

  With a bit of help, I found Mr. Richmond's room on the first floor. He had just finished lunch and was still sitting up in bed, reading the newspaper. He was a large man with an expressive face and a bit of sparse gray hair, and he read without glasses. A quick glance at a note tacked to his bulletin board indicated that he had just celebrated his eighty-ninth birthday two days prior. To me, he looked a decade younger than his actual age.