Nashville: The Mood (Part 2)

by Donald H. Carpenter

  Although Nashville was one of the early centers for the civil rights movement, with sit-ins and attempts to integrate various facilities in the city, it had, for the most part, avoided some of the worst types of racial strife that other cities had undergone during the 1960s. Some credited the city’s leadership at the time with that outcome; others said that whites outnumbered blacks so much that the minority population was intimidated into not protesting more overtly. In any case, Nashville passed through the sixties with a relative minimum of unrest.

  One incident occurred in the 1960s that some people still recalled well over forty years later. A prominent doctor, in a somewhat tense ongoing relationship with his business partner, another doctor, had been accused of murder. Days after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, cities across America were tense; Nashville was no exception. There was a jitteriness that set in among the overall white population, compounded by a single murder that took place during a home invasion, where a black man had been accused of the crime, but had not yet been identified or apprehended. There had also been a few minor incidents of insults or dirty looks exchanged, and a few fights between groups of black and white teenagers.

  In the midst of that palpable tension, Dr. Robert Weiss invited his partner, Dr. Andrew Schlessen, for a ride to discuss something. The two had been arguing for months about how to split the profits of their practice, and how to allocate expenses. There were also differences in philosophy and direction, including basic ideas about how to interact with patients. It had reached the stage where the two men were having discussions about splitting up the practice, with one buying out the other’s half.

  The receptionist, Karen Hornby, thought the whole thing was strange. Dr. Weiss looked tense, very tense, as he explained to her that the two men were going for a ride. He didn’t volunteer anything else. She even heard Dr. Schlessen ask him what the purpose of the ride was to be, and Dr. Weiss had answered that he would explain it while they were gone. She knew trouble had been brewing, and she assumed it had something to do with their ongoing dispute, possibly a proposal Dr. Weiss wanted to make to resolve the issues.

  They were gone about twenty minutes, maybe less; she hadn’t looked at the clock when they had departed. Dr. Weiss came in hurriedly, telling her urgently that Dr. Schlessen had been shot, and asking her to call the police. While they were waiting, Dr. Weiss sat in his office, seemingly tense, although not appearing terribly upset otherwise. He made no move to check on Dr. Schlessen.

  When the police arrived, they quickly determined that Dr. Schlessen was dead, sprawled out in the passenger seat of the car. Dr. Weiss related to them how, while the two men had been stopped at a traffic light at an isolated intersection, a young black male had opened the car door and begun firing. Dr. Weiss himself had been nicked in the fleshy area near the shinbone, but Dr. Schlessen had been caught full in the chest with several bullets. It was later estimated he had died within minutes.

  The police investigation into the shooting had proceeded haltingly, some even said nervously, over the next year and a half. Dr. Weiss was a prominent individual in the city, and Dr. Schlessen had been so as well, although not quite as much. The police, not used to investigating such a prominent individual, had seemingly ruled Dr. Weiss out as a suspect, and instead had concentrated fully on his story of the two men being attacked in the car by an unnamed assailant. A number of black men were brought in for questioning, and Dr. Weiss was asked to view them in lineups, but he never came up with a certain answer. In one instance, he seemed to identify a particular individual, and the police even made an initial announcement about it, but Dr. Weiss quickly corrected them, or changed his mind, depending on which version one believed.

  Eventually, a man was arrested for committing the home invasion that had so alarmed the city, but Dr. Weiss quickly ruled him out as being the same man who had attacked him and Dr. Schlessen at the traffic light. The case seemed to die about a year after the crime, and there were no new announcements for a while.

  Then, one day out of the blue, it was announced that Dr. Weiss had been arrested for the crime, and that a grand jury had indicted him for first degree murder. The prosecution theory, of course, was that he had lured Dr. Schlessen on the ride in order to kill him because it would be neater for him to dissolve their business relationship if his partner was dead.

  With Dr. Schlessen dead, Dr. Weiss had moved quickly to take over the entire medical practice. The death of his partner had clearly worked out favorably for him, both in taking over the full business, and in avoiding a messy breakup. But was that a real motive, and did it show that he had committed the murder? Dr. Weiss immediately hired a team of prominent defense attorneys, including two who had specialized in defending murder cases, and the prosecution had actually hired special outside counsel to conduct the trial.

  The trial itself came about six months later, and was so closely followed in Nashville that the two main newspapers chose to run complete daily transcripts of the court proceedings, particularly all of the witness testimony. The history of the relationship between Dr. Weiss and Dr. Schlessen was explored at length, various side stories were played out, and Dr. Weiss took the stand in his own defense, dramatically and forcefully denying that he had murdered his partner.

  The trial had unexpected twists and turns, with witnesses coming forward at the last minute on both sides to present some type of sensational testimony, with varying degrees of credibility. Sometimes individual witnesses canceled each other out. In the end, both prosecution and defense gave stirring closing arguments, and the entire city was on edge for two days. The result was a verdict of not guilty.

  The build-up to the trial, and the trial itself, had split the city in two, especially within the wealthier sections and the medical community. No one openly spoke of whether they thought Dr. Weiss was guilty or not; it was too risky, and tended to start an inflammatory argument. But the feelings were there, and they simmered underneath.

  After the trial, however, things seemed to get back to normal, however hesitantly. Dr. Weiss maintained the practice and continued to live in Nashville from that point forward. Dr. Schlessen’s family, his wife and two young sons, also continued to live in Nashville; his family had deeper roots there than Dr. Weiss. Neither of the families ever spoke publicly about the crime, the trial, or the aftermath. However, there were vague, whispered rumors, that Dr. Schlessen’s oldest son, Martin, who was nine at the time his father had been murdered, had vowed revenge on Dr. Weiss. The rumors had started very early after the trial ended, at least within a year or so, and many people had quickly ruled them out. But they had persisted and a legend of sorts arose that one day Martin Schlessen would do something dramatic, something violent, and that Dr. Weiss could never rest easy.

  Martin Schlessen had not had a hugely successful life. He had done well enough through high school, had struggled somewhat in college but managed decent grades, and then had applied for medical school. He was not accepted to any medical school in the United States, so he wound up attending one in the Caribbean islands, one that could produce a licensed physician in the United States after certain hurdles were overcome, but which had a reputation for turning out substandard graduates. However, he never got to test those hurdles out; he did badly in medical school, and withdrew early in his second year.

  Martin Schlessen then came back to Nashville and was involved in several businesses, always unsuccessfully, over a period of two decades. He filed for bankruptcy on two occasions and seemed to slowly, ever so slowly, spiral downward, both economically and, some said, mentally.

  And then the new set of rumors began. Not long after they emerged, no one could really remember when the new set had begun, or how long a period had elapsed between the original set and the new set. But suddenly, everyone in town seemed to know about them, at least among those who still remembered the original case. It was spoken about, vaguely, that Martin had been in a bar downtown, and while more than slightly intoxicated
, had made some threats toward Dr. Weiss, even referencing the crime, and the trial that had set him free. Another aspect of the rumors was that Dr. Weiss had met with the police to ask for some type of protection, and that he had begun carrying a concealed pistol.

  In the midst of those rumors, Joe Elderberg, a bartender at a luxury hotel downtown, looked up to see Martin Schlessen entering the bar shortly after midnight. He appeared to be generally sober, but Elderberg knew from experience that Schlessen could handle a few drinks without appearing intoxicated. It was only after he began to sit and talk for a while, and began to ramble, that one could tell for certain. Schlessen took a seat at the end of the bar to Elderberg’s right, far away from the two other customers off to Elderberg’s left.

  “Scotch on the rocks,” Schlessen said when Elderberg approached. “Something good, not too pricy.”

  Elderberg mixed the drink and brought it back. “Where have you been keeping yourself, Martin?”

  “I’ve been here in town. I haven’t been anywhere.”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, or heard anybody say they’ve seen you.” Elderberg had heard all the rumors, a number of times, but wanted to start off with a clean slate, to see if Martin would bring it up himself.

  Schlessen grunted something in reply, and began to sip on his drink. He sat there quietly for most of an hour, not saying anything, not looking at Elderberg, or down the bar, or around the room, the way many did when they first took a seat. He seemed to stare straight ahead, or downward into his drink, and Elderberg thought he had a somewhat glazed look in his eyes. He didn’t really appear to be drunk, more like he was lost in serious thought.

  About a quarter to one, Elderberg announced the last call. The bar had been sparsely filled almost all evening, and the few remaining patrons began to file out slowly. Martin Schlessen, though, remained in his seat, looking straight ahead. He couldn’t have known when the last person had exited the room, but as soon as that had happened, he turned to Elderberg and said, “Hey, Joe, do you remember when my father was killed?”

  “Yes, I remember that, Martin. I was just a kid at the timeLike you, I guessIt was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, it was,” Martin Schlessen said evenly. “But I’ve never been able to get it out of my mind. And lately it’s been beating like a drum. It’s always been there, beating inside me, but lately it’s been worse than ever, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get any better. Until—“

  “Until—what?”

  “Until I kill that son of a bitch.”