Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  Going away to college represented blessed freedom to him. Life at home had been unpleasant for as long as he could remember. His father, a hard-drinking bully, was unrelenting in his criticism of his only child, chastising him verbally and physically for being weak and unfocused, for never participating in sports, and for not doing “man things”. His abused mother cowered before her husband, tip-toeing around him to avoid conflict, and became a closet variety drinker.

  By the time he graduated from college, Willard was no longer a virgin, although he hardly qualified as a notches-on-the-bedpost sort of guy. He was hired by a regional bank in Savannah as a junior executive and began dating Jocelyn, a shy, demure young woman who’d also recently graduated with a degree in English literature, and who intended to seek advanced degrees with the goal of teaching one day at the college level.

  But one day, Debbie walked into the bank to open an account. Willard, who worked the platform, hadn’t seen her since going off to college and was stunned by her beauty—and sexual appeal. So taken with her, he was unaware that he even handed her his business card and suggested that they get together one day to “catch up on old times”.

  He had little to say when Debbie and he did meet over drinks one evening a week later. She was ebullient, telling him what seemed to him like every intimate aspect of her life to-date. She’d married a high school beau, an all-state football hero who’d turned out to be a drunken, cheating, wife-beating clod. The marriage had lasted two years before she moved out of their small apartment and back home to her mother’s house. Willard lent a sympathetic ear to her tales of woe, and felt flattered when she gushed about how successful he was, and how handsome he’d turned out to be. “Do you have a twin brother?” she asked, her long, tapered fingers tipped in crimson resting on his hand.

  Willard only smiled nervously.

  Their meetings became more frequent and clandestine over the next few months. He spent less and less time with Jocelyn, pleading an increased workload at the bank as an excuse.

  One night, in a roadhouse on the outskirts of town, both giddy from having had too much to drink, he blurted in a low, sophisticated voice, “Will you marry me, Debbie?”

  Debbie didn’t hesitate: “You bet your ass I will, honey,” she said and motioned for the bartender to bring them a celebratory round.

  That was six years ago.

  • • •

  They were greeted by Duke’s tuxedoed maître d’.

  “We have a reservation,” Willard said, fighting the urge to glance at his watch to see how late they were. “Walker. Willard Walker.”

  “Yes, Mr. Walker, I have your reservation. We’re a little backed up tonight and you’re running late, but your table will be ready shortly. May I suggest that you and your lady wait at the bar?”

  “How long will it be?”

  “Not long, I assure you. Enjoy a drink and I’ll call you when your table is ready.”

  Willard turned to his wife, but she was already on her way into the busy barroom where a dozen spirited people held court.

  Debbie perched on a stool and ordered a drink. Willard stood behind her and asked for a white wine. Three businessmen in suits sat at the end of the bar, their loud, boisterous voices testifying to how much they’d had to drink. They were telling jokes, including one whose punch line included a string of profanities.

  “Hold on,” one of the friends said. “Watch your fucking language. We’ve got a lady at the bar—and a gorgeous one.”

  Willard glared at them, but Debbie laughed loudly and drank to their health.

  “She’s got a sense of humor,” one of the suits said.

  “I like that, a broad with a sense of humor,” said another, which brought another laugh from Debbie.

  “Jerks,” Willard muttered in her ear.

  “Oh, loosen up, Will,” she said loudly enough for the men to hear. She waved to the bartender to refill her empty glass.

  Willard looked back towards the dining room, where the maître d’ oversaw the room like a college proctor during an exam. Willard went to him and asked about their table.

  The maître d’ pointed to an empty one in the middle of the room where a busboy was busy resetting it.

  “I asked for one of the booths when I called,” Willard said.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but they were all reserved. Besides, you can see that they’re occupied.”

  “What happened to my request?” Willard asked, hoping he wasn’t being too combative.

  “Sir, if you’d rather leave, that’s all right.”

  “No, we’ll stay. I’m just disappointed, that’s all.”

  The maître d’ gave him a practiced understanding look and turned to other matters.

  Willard returned to the bar where Debbie had now joined the three businessmen, a fresh drink before her.

  “They bought me a drink, Will,” she said, her words slurred.

  “Come on,” he said. “The table’s ready.”

  “You’ve got a beauty of a wife,” a businessman said to Willard.

  Willard uncharacteristically grabbed Debbie’s arm, pulled her off the stool, and herded her to the dining room.

  “My drink!” she protested.

  “You’ve had enough to drink,” he said as the maître d’ led them to their table.

  Debbie stumbled as she took her seat and cursed, eliciting stares from diners at adjacent tables. Willard glanced around. He was uncomfortable being surrounded by others with the way his wife was acting. He saw familiar faces: local businessmen, customers of the bank where he was now a vice president.

  A waiter appeared: “Something from the bar to start perhaps?” he said.

  “No, thank you,” Willard said.

  “A double vodka on the rocks,” Debbie said.

  “You’re drunk,” Willard said quietly, leaning closer to her.

  “This is a lousy table,” was her response.

  “They didn’t honor my reservation,” he said.

  “Hell no, they didn’t. I wonder why. We never come here—too rich for Mr. Vice President’s taste. You want a good table, Will, you can’t come just one goddamn night a year.”

  His promotion, awarded to him six months earlier, had been accompanied by a handsome boost in salary. Debbie immediately outlined what she had wanted to do with the extra money: trips, clothes, an addition on the house. “No,” Willard had said. “We have to save for the future. I’m buying municipal bonds.”

  Within a half hour of sitting down, Willard and Deborah were on their way home from Duke’s. She had spilled most of her drink on the table, prompting her to curse at the waiter, whom she claimed had bumped her arm. They brought her another drink, which only fueled a louder voice and more four-letter words. It had become an unpleasant scene, not only for them, but for other diners as well, including those with whom Willard interacted in business. He held her up on the way out, stiffed the valet, and drove home, where he helped her into the house.

  He assumed that she would pass out, and was guiding her towards the bedroom when she suddenly seemed to sober up. She went to the kitchen, poured herself another drink, took a fresh lime from the refrigerator, and began cutting it into wedges on the kitchen counter.

  “No more drinks,” Willard said. “You made fools of us at the restaurant. You’re drunk. You’re scratching the…you need to go to bed.”

  “Fuck you, Mr. Big Shot Vice President,” she snarled as she hacked away at the lime.

  Willard grabbed the knife from her.

  “Give that to me,” she said.

  “You’re drunk, Deb.”

  “And you’re a pathetic asshole.”

  It was over in an instant. He slammed the knife into her chest just below her sternum, felt it penetrate deeply into her cavity, and withdrew it as she began to sink to the floor. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, the bloody knife hanging loosely at his side.

  Debbie looked up at him from the cold tiles. “Why did you…?” she ma
naged with her final breath.

  He waited until his heavy breathing had returned to normal before taking the cordless phone from its base and dialing 911.

  “Nine-one-one,” the woman said.

  “There’s been a death here at my house.”

  “A death sir? Who has died?”

  “His wife. I just killed his wife.”

  “Whose wife?”

  There was a long pause before Willard replied, “My wife. Deborah Walker. Please send someone quickly.”

  When the police and emergency personnel arrived, Willard was sitting placidly at the kitchen table holding the bloody knife as though it were a sacred totem.

  Hours later, he sat in an interrogation room in the Savannah-Chatham Police Headquarters at Oglethorpe Avenue and Habersham Street, informally known as “The Barracks.”

  “Look,” said one of two detectives questioning him, “you keep saying you didn’t kill her, but we saw the scene. You had the bloody knife. There’s blood on your shirt and jacket. Why the hell should we believe you?”

  “You know who I am,” Willard said.

  “Yeah. You’re a VP at a bank. So what? I’ve investigated a lot of murders over the years, but I’ve never investigated one where the killer was so goddamn evident. What do you take us for, idiots?”

  “I didn’t kill Deborah,” Willard said. “Skip did.”

  The detectives looked at each other before one said, “Skip? Who’s Skip?”

  “Skippy. His real name is Warren, but I always call him Skip.”

  The detective leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You know this guy?”

  “Oh, I certainly do.”

  “And this is the guy you say stabbed your wife?”

  “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.”

  “Okay Mr. Walker, so your wife was killed by this Skip character. Where do we find him?”

  Willard shook his head and extended his hands in a gesture of being understood. “I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said, “but I didn’t kill Deborah. Skip did. He did it for me.”

  “You hired him to kill her?”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. I need a lawyer.”

  • • •

  Willard Walker claimed that his alter-ego, Warren “Skippy” Walker, the second personality that inhabited his body, had done the deed, and his attorney, K. Posey Pullen, a wily Savannah gentleman of the old school, announced every chance he had that his client was innocent and that he would be exonerated in court.

  “Ah know, ah know,” he told a press conference the day before the trial was to commence, “it’s hard for regular folks to wrap their arms around the notion that two people can live side-by-side in the same body. Ah had trouble with it myself at the beginning. But after consulting with some of this great nation’s leading experts on it—it’s called, by the way, a multiple personality, a split personality—ah now understand and believe that my client, Mr. Willard Walker, an upstanding and true gentleman, is innocent of this ghastly crime, and I am willing to put my long and distinguished career on the line to prove it to the fair folks of this city ah’ve called home for seventy-two years. See ya’ll in court.”

  To which the considerably younger district attorney countered at his own press conference, “We may have lost the Civil War, but we’re not imbeciles. You buy what Walker and his attorney claim, and you’re—well, you’re ready to buy that the moss on live oak trees don’t have red bugs in ’em and sand gnats don’t bite. Willard Walker murdered his lovely wife in cold blood and he’ll pay the price for it. Case closed.”

  • • •

  The murder trial of Willard Walker would not have garnered national attention were it not for Pullen’s unique and controversial defense strategy. The notion that a second personality living within his client had stabbed Willard’s wife provided fodder for the late night TV comedians and spawned myriad discussions on talk shows. In the weeks leading up to the trial, media from around the country descended on sleepy Savannah, providing a boon for hotels and residents looking to rent out rooms at inflated prices. Savannah’s three commercial television channels had set up tents outside the downtown courtroom and assigned crews on a twenty-four-hour basis. Savannah’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration, second in size and scope only to New York City, was dwarfed by the circus surrounding the Walker trial. Lines of people seeking a seat at the proceedings started forming two days before the judge would call the courtroom to order. The lines snaked around the block and back again. It was, according to town historians, the biggest event in Savannah history since James Edward Oglethorpe arrived in 1773 from Britain and founded the city.

  Beatrice Latham, a no-nonsense criminal court judge, was selected to hear the Walker case. A stern, humorless woman with small, dark eyes in a round face, she warned the attorneys for both sides that she would come down hard on anyone who violated the decorum of her courtroom. Her admonition was especially directed at Walker’s attorney, Pullen, whose theatrics were legendary in Savannah’s legal circles.

  Those fortunate enough to capture a seat watched with fascination as guards led Walker into the courtroom. Leaks from within the penal system painted the accused as having shriveled during his incarceration. But that wasn’t what onlookers in the courtroom saw that first day. Dressed in a navy blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, and muted maroon tie, he walked confidently to the table where his attorney awaited his arrival, smiled at the observers and jury, slapped Posey Pullen on the shoulder, and took his seat.

  The district attorney’s opening remarks focused on the tangible evidence in the case. Walker had been found in his kitchen, the bloody murder weapon in his hands, his dead wife on the floor at his feet. The jury was told that witnesses would testify to the altercation between the couple at Duke’s Chateau, and other witnesses would testify to what was a long-standing animosity between Willard and Deborah Walker. The DA concluded with, “You will hear from the defense that while Willard Walker rammed the knife into his wife, it was, in actuality, his so-called ‘split personality’, who actually committed the murder. All I ask of each of you is to use your common sense and God-given intelligence to decide whether to accept this outlandish claim.”

  Pullen objected to the DA’s use of the word “outlandish”, but was overruled.

  The prosecutor presented the State’s case methodically and without undue flourishes.

  Police who’d been summoned to the crime scene, and who’d questioned Walker, painted a graphic picture of the murder scene and talked of his claims during interrogation that his alter-ego, Warren “Skippy” Walker, had actually committed the crime. A few observers giggled and were warned by Judge Latham that any such behavior would result in the offenders being removed from the premises.

  The 911 operator who’d taken Walker’s call the night of the murder was called to the stand, and a tape of that call was played for the jury. Pullen had had few questions for the previous prosecution witnesses, but he now rose to his feet to cross-examine the operator. He directed that the tape be replayed and asked the jury to pay particular attention to one section:

  “There’s been a death here at my house.”

  “A death sir? Who has died?”

  “His wife. I just killed his wife.”

  “Whose wife?”

  “My wife. Deborah Walker. Please send someone quickly.”

  Attorney Pullen made much of Walker having said “his wife” instead of “my wife”, and got the operator to admit that the voice of the caller sounded markedly different from the voice Walker used during other portions of the call. During cross-examination, the DA established that it was simply a slip of Walker’s tongue due to stress. The operator was excused.

  A succession of other witnesses told of the couple’s very public marital problems, although—to the DA’s chagrin—some added that Willard Walker was usually a mild, easygoing man whose work at the bank had been exemplary.

  The prosecution ended its case-in-chief by brin
ging to the stand a local psychiatrist who debunked the concept of multiple personality disorder, calling it “junk science” and “a handy, but absurd tool to excuse criminal behavior”. Previous accusations that this psychiatrist had seduced a few female patients was declared irrelevant by Judge Latham during a pre-trial conference and were not allowed to be raised by the defense. Pullen waived the right to cross-examine the shrink, and the prosecution rested after a day-and-a-half of testimony, indicating to pundits that the State was supremely confident in its case.

  Pullen gave a lengthy opening statement the following day in which he promised the jury that when it was done hearing his witnesses, they would have quite a different view of the human mind and the role that multiple personality disorder played in Willard Walker’s life. His two star witnesses, psychiatrists from New York and Los Angeles whose recitation of their professional credentials took almost an hour, caused a few jurors’ heads to nod.

  “It is more common than you think,” said one, a bearded bear-of-a-man from New York whose voice thundered throughout the courtroom. “We all have the capacity to house additional personalities within us, particularly those with a heightened capacity to enter what is called ‘disassociation’.” He was on the stand for most of the day, concluding with the DA’s blistering attack of his theories.

  The second psychiatrist, a thin woman from California, explained that those with multiple personalities were most likely to have come from homes in which physical or mental abuse took place. “A child under stress in those situations often creates a second personality to help withstand the abuse, someone stronger and more equipped to stand up to the abuser.” She went on to link multiple personality disorder to those individuals with a high capacity for trance, to be hypnotized. Like her colleague who’d testified first, she was on the receiving end of a grueling cross-examination by the district attorney, but held her ground.