Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  And while the boyfriend had indeed “run off”, as Sam had told Dr. Brenda, he hadn’t gotten very far; Seth had stabbed him in the heart.

  After that came the terrible trauma: his uncle saying that it was better if they didn’t go on these outings. It was too dangerous after this. They’d be looking for people near lakes. There was evidence: footprints, witnesses might have seen them.

  It wasn’t the killings that had repressed Sam’s memory; it was the opposite: that he knew there’d be few opportunities where he, a twelve-year-old by himself, could hunt down and kill again.

  His life had been a desert since then, his joy denied. Yes, as Dr. Brenda had suggested, life in Manhattan was distracting enough to deflect his depression, but once he’d returned to the sloth-slow Meadow Hills, his malaise and anxiety were free to return.

  It was all so clear now. Other pieces of the puzzle were slipping into place, too. His fascination with the murder-suicide of the young couple at the high school—echoes of the two he and Seth had killed at the lake, and an unpleasant, subconscious reminder that he wasn’t out stalking through the night for more victims. He recalled, too, his anger at his daughter’s sitting on the fallen tree at the car show, which reminded him, also subconsciously, of his uncle’s offer to their murder victim to sit on a similar trunk.

  But now he was on the road to recovery. And Sam was going to do exactly as Dr. Brenda said: not waste a minute in his efforts to recreate the happiness he’d had with his uncle.

  In fact, he’d already been hard at work.

  He thought back to earlier that day, walking through Dr. Brenda’s waiting room and smiling at the young woman patient, who ignored him.

  And he’d known what to do.

  When the woman’s appointment was over and she had left the office, he’d started his car and followed hers to a cheap apartment complex in a tacky part of Meadow Hills. After she was inside her unit, he gave her five minutes and, pulling on leather work gloves, he walked up to her door and rang the bell.

  When she answered, he shoved inside and struck her hard in the throat with a fist. She fell backwards, gasping for breath. Sam found a piece of bad sculpture—an eagle in a Native-American theme—and he knocked her out. He then stripped her and thought back to the news stories about the man who’d sexually assaulted those two women recently. Sam recalled that he’d gagged them and then tied them to the bed with their own pantyhose. In copycat fashion, this is what he now did with the patient. The only difference between his approach and the real attacker’s was that Sam held her mouth and nose closed until she shivered and then lay still, dead.

  He didn’t molest her—that had no interest to him—but the police would probably decide the lack of rape was because the attacker had panicked and fled when the woman had died.

  At the door, he paused and looked back at the patient’s crumpled body. He considered what he’d done and found himself ecstatic. Though there was one adjustment he’d make in the future. This time, he’d decided to kill the patient because she’d rudely ignored his smile that afternoon. But Sam realized that he didn’t need an excuse to murder. Excuses were a crutch. Dr. Brenda’s therapy showed him that it was more honest to accept who he was…and that meant killing simply because it was his nature.

  Now, at home in bed, he glanced at his wife, pale in the moonlight, breathing shallowly. Was a faint smile on her face?

  He thought about his next steps. The plan was pretty clear.

  I want to do that again…

  He figured he’d be satisfied if he killed once or twice a year. That seemed safe. And he’d never murder anyone in the vicinity of Meadow Hills. He decided he’d take up fishing again—it would be a good excuse to travel. And he could take business trips for his job: the European Literature Association, the International Association of Libraries, plenty of other groups, too.

  His new life awaited.

  Sam Fogel gazed out the window at the faint stars and found he was smiling. Dr. Brenda had fulfilled her promise. The healing process had begun.

  THE COAL TORPEDO

  by Blake Fontenay

  Allan Pinkerton sat in the reception area of the Executive Mansion, wondering if he had made a mistake by coming.

  Many men would have been intimidated by the prospect of meeting with the President of the United States of America, but that wasn’t what was bothering Pinkerton. In fact, he had sat in the same chair in that outer office many times before, waiting to see the current president’s predecessor. The advice Pinkerton had offered during those meetings had shaped the course of the Civil War and, he was sure, the eventual course of human history.

  So while the trappings of the Executive Mansion were overwhelming for first-time visitors, Pinkerton regarded them as nothing more than the workplace of one of his former bosses. A workplace with a storied history—but still a workplace.

  Andrew Johnson didn’t keep him waiting long. After wrapping up a meeting with some other men, he strode out to greet Pinkerton as if they were old friends.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Allan Pinkerton!” the new president exclaimed, extending his hand for a firm handshake. “Master detective! Master spy!”

  Pinkerton couldn’t immediately tell if Johnson was trying to be charming or sarcastic. Johnson hadn’t been vice president during Lincoln’s first term, so Pinkerton had rarely met him. Thinking back to the reports he’d heard about Johnson’s slurred and incoherent vice presidential inaugural speech, Pinkerton wondered if the nation’s leader had already been hitting the bottle this morning.

  Johnson invited Pinkerton into his inner office, where Pinkerton was offered and accepted a seat in one of the chairs opposite the president’s desk. Pinkerton sat there in silence for a long minute, stroking his bushy beard and studying the man he had come to see.

  Johnson was impeccably dressed and clean-shaven, with a high forehead and a large, hawk-like nose that accentuated how deeply set his dark brown eyes were. Those eyes were ringed with circles so dark that it appeared as if Johnson hadn’t slept at all in the month since he had become president. Then again, Pinkerton hadn’t slept much during that time, either.

  “So Mr. Pinkerton, with the war over, I had heard that you would be returning to your detective business in Chicago,” Johnson finally said. “Is that not the case? Are you interested in continuing your service to your nation’s government?”

  “Maybe,” Pinkerton replied tersely.

  That drew a short barking laugh from Johnson.

  “Well, I must say, your approach is much different from that of most of the people who’ve come to see me over the last month, Mr. Pinkerton,” Johnson said. “Most people have hat firmly in hand, earnestly asking me for jobs, favors, or other special considerations. Compared to them, you seem, well, rather unenthusiastic.”

  “I haven’t made up my mind about you yet,” Pinkerton said.

  “You haven’t made up your mind about me?” Johnson questioned, again stifling a snort. “Around here, I’m the one making the decisions that count for something.”

  “That’s what I’m wondering,” Pinkerton said, his pale blue eyes staring intently across the desk. “Can you make the right decision, if given the right information?”

  “A lesser man might be insulted by such a comment, Mr. Pinkerton. I’m the leader of the greatest nation in the world. Most people provide me with the information they believe to be important, then accept that I will use it properly.”

  “With respect, Mr. President, I submit that one month in your current job doesn’t offer a very complete picture of your decision-making ability.”

  “No? With respect, Mr. Pinkerton, I submit that you sound quite arrogant. Who are you to judge the quality of my decision-making ability?”

  “I’m a man who has to make judgments about a great many things in my line of work. Some, matters of life and death. And if I’m wrong here, the results could be catastrophic. There are many who think that, since you are a Tennessean, your true goal
as president might not be to bring healing to our nation, but to give the Confederacy new life.”

  “How dare you accuse me of treason, sir!” Johnson began sputtering and fumbling around in his desk drawer. Pinkerton, who was experienced with gunplay, knew what to expect. By the time Johnson had retrieved his weapon from the drawer, Pinkerton had his own pistol cocked and aimed squarely at the president’s chest.

  “I’d rather not shoot you, Mr. President, but I will if you force me to.”

  “Have you lost your mind, man?” Johnson thundered. “You’d never leave this office alive if you shot me.”

  “I admit, my odds on that are not very good,” Pinkerton said calmly. “But they would be substantially better than yours.”

  “So that’s it, then,” Johnson said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “This renowned detective, confidant of my predecessor, this great man from Scotland, is no patriot after all, but a traitorous assassin. I think I understand your motives now. With this country recovering from a terrible war, you seek to destabilize it further by killing its president, perhaps giving Great Britain another opportunity to try to reclaim its lost colonies.”

  This time, it was Pinkerton who snorted. “If I wanted to kill you, you would have never seen or heard me coming. As for my patriotism to this country, I’ve proved it time and time again since I moved here more than twenty years ago. I’ll take no insult from your comments, though, if you’ll take none from mine.”

  “None taken,” Johnson said. He exhaled, put his revolver on his desk, and sat back heavily in his chair. As he did, Pinkerton returned his own weapon to its holster and sat back. “And to answer your original question, Mr. Pinkerton, you can trust me with whatever it is you came here to tell me.”

  “Yes, I suppose I’ll have to now,” Pinkerton said. “But the story I have to tell you is long and sordid—and it’s best if I tell it from the beginning.”

  “Perhaps we should have a glass of whiskey while you talk,” Johnson said, rising to the tray of bottles beside his desk. “Unless your standards of professionalism prevent you from drinking during work hours.”

  “I grew up to be a professional man, but I was born a Scot,” Pinkerton said. “And Scots aren’t often known for refusing drinks.”

  Pinkerton paused long enough to take a sip of the glass of bourbon Johnson handed him and to allow the president to sit again, then carefully removed two old photographs framed in glass from his pocket and slid them across the president’s desk.

  “These photos are ancient,” Johnson said as he studied them.

  “The plates used to make them went out of style ten years ago. Maybe longer.”

  One photo showed two young men, probably no older than seventeen or eighteen, dressed in military uniforms and carrying rifles. They stood shoulder to shoulder, grinning ear to ear. Both were tall and handsome, the one on the left dark-haired while the one on the right was sandy-haired. The other photo wasn’t quite as old, but still not recent. It showed a beautiful blonde woman in a red hoop skirt and black boots, posing with hands on her hips and a pouty look on her face.

  “Who are these people?” Johnson asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I know. Much of it is based on interviews my men and I have conducted with their friends, acquaintances, and even their enemies over the last month or so. The dark-haired man, I have not met. Nor the woman. The blonde-haired man I knew quite well. Because he worked for me.”

  Johnson set the photos back on the desk and signaled for Pinkerton to continue.

  “The blonde man’s name is Noah Baggett,” Pinkerton said. “His friend is Caleb Slayback. And the woman’s name is Lucy Wright.” Pinkerton took a sip of bourbon. “This story may be of particular interest to you, Mr. Johnson, because all three of these people lived in your home state of Tennessee. Caleb Slayback and Lucy Wright grew up with families who ran neighboring tobacco farms north of Nashville. Noah Baggett lived with his father, a widower who ran a blacksmith shop in Nashville proper. The Slayback and Wright families often traveled to Nashville together, where they did business with Baggett’s father. Noah, Caleb, and Lucy became fast friends, and they remained that way as they grew to adulthood. When the Mexican-American War began, Caleb and Noah enlisted together in the First Tennessee Regiment, led by Colonel William Campbell. Do you know what the First Tennessee Regiment was called, President Johnson?”

  “The Bloody First,” Johnson replied quickly. “The call went out for Tennessee to supply 2,800 men toward the war effort. Instead, 30,000 enlisted, keeping alive the grand tradition of the Tennessee Volunteers from the War of 1812.”

  Pinkerton nodded appreciatively.

  “Since you’re a Tennessean, I should have expected you to know that bit of history well,” he said. “The Bloody First was, true to its name, among the first to storm the walls of Tannery Fort—the Mexicans called it Fortin de la Tenería—in the Battle of Monterrey in 1846. It was bloody work, much of it done at close range with swords and bayonets. My sources tell me that Noah Baggett and Caleb Slayback were among the first of the Bloody First to breach the wall and send the Mexicans into retreat.”

  Pinkerton took another sip of whiskey, as did Johnson.

  “But the Battle of Monterrey did not end with the storming of the fort,” Pinkerton continued. “The American troops had to take the city street by street and house by house. They were outnumbered in the battle, although about a third of the Mexicans were poorly trained militia, not professional soldiers. Even so, that kind of city fighting is nasty business. There were rumors that the Mexican General Santa Anna was somewhere in the city, so of course the American troops were anxious to find him and capture or kill him.”

  “Santa Anna was not taken or killed at Monterrey,” Johnson said.

  “No, he was not. But in their eagerness to find him, a group of four soldiers—Noah, Caleb and two other men—got separated from the rest of the American troops while out on a patrol. Mexicans, firing from the rooftops of some adobe houses, ambushed them on a dusty street. The other two men fell, and Noah was stuck behind a wooden barrel, pinned down by sniper fire. Caleb was in the rear, so he was able to duck behind one of the houses at the end of the street, out of the line of fire.

  “Now, in that situation, Caleb Slayback could have waited for reinforcements or he could have run. And he did run, but not away from the firefight. He circled around the block and began shooting at the snipers, drawing the fire away from his childhood friend.”

  “And they made it out alive?” Johnson asked.

  “They did,” Pinkerton continued, “with Caleb’s diversion, Noah was able to roll clear and get to a firing position where he wasn’t exposed to the rooftop snipers. Caleb killed one of them before retreating the way he had come. In the process, though, he was shot in the shoulder and twice in his right leg. American reinforcements arrived and got both Noah and Caleb out of there alive. Two of Caleb’s wounds weren’t serious, but one slug in his upper leg shattered the bone and became infected. Although he was hailed a hero, Caleb’s career as a soldier was over.”

  Johnson rose and refilled his glass and Pinkerton’s.

  “That’s a very interesting story, Mr. Pinkerton,” Johnson said. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with the here and now.”

  “I’m getting to that. Caleb worked on his family’s farm for a few years after returning home, although the limp left over from his injuries made farming life difficult. In time, after his parents had passed away, he sold the farm and moved into Nashville where he took work as a telegraph operator. Some say he may have been bitter about having to leave military service, but he never came right out and told anyone that. Just a feeling that some of his friends got because he had been so outgoing when he was younger and he became quiet and withdrawn after his service ended.

  “Noah continued to serve in the army for a time after the war, gathering more combat experience a few years later fighting against the Indians in Florida during the Third Seminole War. Eve
ntually, he retired from the service, too. Some say Noah was ambivalent about how our country treated the Indians, but he never performed as anything but an excellent solider and patriot during his time in the army. After he left the military, he went back to Nashville to take over his father’s blacksmithing shop.”

  Johnson picked up the photo of the two men again and studied it. He replaced it on the desk and tapped the other photo. “And the woman?” Johnson asked. “Where does she fit into all this?”

  “Lucy Wright remained friends with both men as they grew to adulthood. As teenagers prior to the war, both Noah and Caleb were apparently smitten with her. We know that Lucy and Caleb became lovers when he returned from Mexico. Had Noah come home first, friends say it might have gone differently. But winning Lucy’s affections may have been the one bit of good fortune Caleb received as a result of his war injury.”

  “Did Caleb and Lucy eventually marry?”

  “No,” Pinkerton said. “They were together for many years, but never took that step. The reasons why are unclear. There is speculation—and really speculation is all we have on this point—that perhaps Lucy remained ambivalent and unable to decide between the two men, particularly after Noah returned to Nashville. Or perhaps Lucy Wright simply wasn’t the marrying kind of woman. It’s impossible to know what goes on in the hearts of two people, much less three.”

  “Well, as I said before, Mr. Pinkerton, that’s quite a story,” Johnson said. “But I’m a very busy man and I still don’t see what any of this has to do…”

  “The Civil War brought out the differences between Noah, Caleb, and Lucy. Caleb and Lucy had grown up on farms—not slave-owning farms, but they nevertheless sympathized with the concerns that Southern farmers had about how Union laws could devastate their way of life. They sided with the secessionists. Noah had grown up in a city, a relatively progressive city, and like you and many Tennesseans, he was opposed to secession and a strong supporter of preserving the Union.”