Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  Bracing herself, she lifted the lid and gasped.

  The door to the outer office opened. Sara had locked the door upon entering. Who else had a key? The staff, though none would have reason to be there at this time on a Saturday morning. Would BPS have directed security to follow her inside? She shut the lid and slid the box inside her desk, then used the duct tape to stick the key beneath it. She pushed back her chair and slid the letter opener down the waistband of her sweat pants, covering the hilt with her sweatshirt. The person in the outer office moved forward. Sara could make out the shadow of a Confederate officer’s wide-brimmed hat against the glassed half of the door.

  The door pushed open.

  Sara gasped. “Representative Barrett?”

  The Speaker was dressed in a Civil War officer’s uniform. Holstered on her hip was a pistol.

  “You’re here early, Sara.”

  “I…” Something in the Speaker’s eyes and the dullness of her speech gave Sara pause. “I had to check on a few things and, well, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you could.”

  “What are you doing here, Madame Speaker?”

  “I saw the light beneath the outer door,” she said, even though the room remained in darkness. “I wondered who might be here after such a late night.”

  “Just me,” Sara said, trying to sound calm. “Why are you dressed that way, ma’am?”

  “This?” she said running a hand down the grey wool coat. “This belonged to my husband, Cades. He used to be an ardent re-enactor before his accident.”

  “It looks well on you,” Sara said, though the Speaker had not answered her question.

  “Perhaps, it should. It’s been a tradition in Southern families, hasn’t it, the women picking up to do the work when our men go forth—and too often fall—in battle? My great, great grandfather served with Robert E. Lee, you know. This is the pistol he took from a Union soldier.” She studied Sara. “Horrible what happened to Hank, isn’t it? It was ironic, him in a Confederate uniform meeting his fate at the hands of a Union officer.” She turned and closed the door behind her. Then she locked it.

  “Why are you locking the door?”

  “One can never be too careful can one? I mean with a killer on the loose.”

  “You knew the killer wore a Union uniform,” Sara said.

  Barrett removed the pistol, considering it. “You can never tell if there will be residue after shooting this old pistol.” Barrett stepped further in. Sara detected a glassy quality to her eyes.

  “Representative Barrett, we’re both tired from last night. We should be getting home.” It sounded ridiculous, but Sara didn’t know what else to say.

  “You have my box.”

  “It’s yours?”

  “Hank found out my secret.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “The heroin? Ever since my Cades died. Oh, it started much earlier, in college, but I kicked it back then after a very long stay at a very expensive and discreet institution. With Cades, I made a life of honor and achieved greatness as a statesman. My great, great grandfather lost all during the Reconstruction, but my career restored what had been lost. Then my Cades died and… Cruel, isn’t it, life? Hank found my secret. He found out that I had…” She couldn’t seem to finish her thought.

  “You need help,” Sara said.

  “It’s too late for that, Sara. We both know that. For honor’s sake, if nothing else.”

  “You can’t kill everyone.”

  “I won’t have to, thanks to Hank. We’ll leave that box of supplies right where he put it, which I assume to be your desk, as though it belonged to you. It will look as if you killed Hank for the drugs, or maybe he was going to expose you, and then, consumed by guilt, you took your own life here in your office.”

  “They’ll check my blood, Senator. That isn’t going to fly.”

  “Well, that is a problem, isn’t it? One must adapt. I’m a southerner, Sara. I’m a survivor. I’m going to take care of everything.”

  Barrett advanced, the gun pointed. Sara stepped back, countering around the desk, towards the door.

  Sara’s cell phone rang on her desk. Barrett turned her head. Sara felt for the hilt of the letter opener, pulled it from her waistband, lunged forward, and struck. The blade penetrated just below the Speaker’s right clavicle, but the heavy wool coat absorbed much of the thrust. Barrett screamed. The gun exploded. Smoke and soot clouded the room, momentarily blinding them. Sara pushed Barrett backward. The Speaker lost her footing and tumbled over, landing on the floor against the wall of the reception area. Sara dashed to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open.

  • • •

  B.A. tried to get Sara on the phone while he and Sam raced across the complex. “She isn’t answering.”

  “You really think it was Barrett?”

  “I think it warrants a further conversation. Her great, great grandfather served under Lee. He was an officer and would have been issued a pistol, and her husband was a Civil War re-enactor before his accident. In the early photographs she’s wearing gloves. After the time Sara went to meet Hank, the photographs show her without gloves. You remember the condition of Sara’s gloves and the side of Hank’s face. Gunpowder residue everywhere. I’d like to ask her what she’s done with her gloves.”

  In a giant leap, they took the steps to the public entrance. Once inside, B.A. struggled to catch his breath. “Have you seen Sara Ainsley Sims?” B.A. asked the guard at the entrance.

  “Just a while ago.”

  “And Speaker Barrett?”

  “No. Not today.”

  A gunshot sounded, echoing though the building. B.A. ran to the lobby with Sam and the guard behind him. Before they reached the grand staircase, they saw Sara running full speed toward them. Just behind her a person in a Confederate officer’s uniform stepped out of the office into the hallway and raised the gun.

  • • •

  B.A. had no time to raise his own weapon. He stood helpless, his tired mind watching as Representative Barrett took aim. But no explosion followed. No burst of spark or smoke. Misfire.

  B.A raised his .38, but with Sara still running toward him in the line of fire, he could not get a clear shot. He watched Representative Barrett turn and run in the opposite direction, toward the escalator. B.A. caught Sara as she stumbled into him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “She killed him. She killed Hank.”

  B.A. handed Sara to the guard. “Take her someplace safe. Close access to the building and call for backup. Tell them we’re looking for a woman in a Confederate officer’s uniform. Representative Barrett. Armed and dangerous.”

  B.A. didn’t wait for a response. He took off in the direction Barrett had run, which was down the escalator and back into the basement of the Statehouse. He carefully stepped forward into the darkened basement where they had found the body of Hank Mattox. He heard nothing.

  “Speaker Barrett?”

  No answer.

  “Madame Speaker. Please put down the gun and come forward.”

  “Surrender? I can’t do that B.A.; you know that. It’s a matter of honor. To the people I come from and the people I represent.” Her voice echoed in the darkness.

  B.A. pressed up against the wall, sliding down the tunnel. “There’s no honor in this.”

  “My reputation…”

  “What would your great, great grandfather have said about that? Sometimes we have to surrender to fight another day.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Madame Speaker, this is not going to end well for one of us. I know it doesn’t have to end this way. Please put the gun down and show yourself and we’ll get this worked out.”

  “I don’t think so.” Barrett stepped from the shadows just before the flash of light blinded him and the gun exploded, deafening.

  • • •

  Sam heard the gunshot as he pushed into the basement, a stream of BPS officers following.
The flash of light lit up the darkness and, in the burst, he saw the outline of two figures halfway down the tunnel.

  “B.A.!”

  He raced forward, gun extended. The agents behind him fell in, taking shooter’s stances. But as Sam approached, B.A. did not fall. He had turned his head with hand raised to shield his face, but he remained upright. The gunshot echoed in Sam’s ears. On the ground, dressed in a Confederate officer’s uniform, lay Representative Caroline Barrett.

  • • •

  B.A. faced Sara Ainsley Sims for the third time in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Is it over?” Sara asked.

  B.A. nodded.

  Sara lowered her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. B.A. gave her a moment to compose herself, then asked the inevitable questions. Sara took him to her office and produced the box with the packets of heroin and nearly $1,500 in cash. She also provided details of her conversation with Barrett.

  Thirty minutes after they began talking, Mary Louise Stanley entered and she and B.A. stepped into the lobby. “This is a mess,” Stanley said, stating the obvious.

  B.A. nodded. “Yes, but it is resolved.”

  “The Chief wants to know what he can tell the press.”

  B.A. smiled. “Tell them, regretfully, there have been two deaths in the Statehouse: Speaker Barrett and her aide Hank Mattox. We’re in the process of investigating. No comment. No comment. No comment.”

  Mary Louise smiled. “And then who will cover your ass when I get fired, B.A?”

  B.A. smiled and started for the exit. “Just tell them the Officer in Charge went fishing.”

  SAD LIKE A COUNTRY SONG

  by Eyre Price

  There are sharps and flats. Majors and minors. And then there’s the sound of a Top 10 hit.

  That sound.

  It shouldn’t be so, of course.

  A song is, after all, a simple thing. At its heart, it’s just a collection of verses and choruses, maybe a bridge to stir things up and tie it all together. A few chords with a solo thrown into the middle. That’s all there is to it.

  And yet, for an art form that’s ruled by and relies upon mathematical patterns, there is still an unquantifiable quality that defies reason and explication, but which registers immediately in the human heart (and soul)—and makes all the difference between album filler and chart killer.

  It. That undefinable quality. Whatever It is, it’s more precious than diamonds or gold.

  And a helluva lot harder to find.

  Most of the evening and a fifth of Jack were already long gone when Jimmie Dallas first heard It. He’d wasted hours in the writing room at Cashville Studios with nothing to show for his time but a mountain of crumbled papers, each containing the flash of an idea that had fizzled and died before he could bring it to life.

  He’d just conceded that he wouldn’t be seducing the Muse anytime soon, and his thoughts were set on salvaging what remained of the night with one of those barmaids who drew drafts in the honkytonks down on Broadway. He was just packing up the Gibson he was still $400 past due on, when his ears pricked up at the sound.

  It!

  What Jimmie Dallas heard coming out of the recording studio in the middle of the night was chock full of It.

  He left the financed guitar in its case and followed the sound down the halls and around corners like a rat drawn to his Piper.

  Well, Once upon a time was just a tired line.

  Our Happy Ending ended wrong.

  There’s no love story. Ain’t nothing for me.

  Ain’t it sad.

  Sad like a country song.

  Jimmie had thought he was alone in the fabled old studio, so he knocked on the sound room door tentatively. Still, his excitement couldn’t be contained and he let himself in before anyone gave him permission to enter.

  Inside the recording booth, a young man was at the Neumann U47 mic. Jimmie had never seen the kid before. Bright eyes and crew cut, iron-pressed dungarees and a snap-button shirt. Around his neck hung a guitar, covered in scars and scratches, and clearly much older than he was.

  The kid seemed genuinely alarmed by the unexpected visitor, like he’d been caught doing something he oughtn’t by his own mama.

  “It’s all right,” the kid stammered. “Mr. Jackson says I can use the studio in exchange for cleaning the place and helping out and all.”

  “Relax,” Jimmie said. “I don’t work for Griffin.”

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  A tent preacher’s smile spread across Jimmie’s face. “It’s not what you can do for me. It’s what I can do for you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That song of yours. Pretty good.” Jimmie paused a moment for effect. “I think, maybe, I can get it put on a record.”

  The kid straightened his back. “I’m putting it on a record myself.”

  Jimmie’s eyes narrowed, just a bit. “Well, let me put it another way. I can get it on a record that will actually get played. On an album that’ll find its way to a store shelf, not just sit in your closet.”

  “My song ain’t gonna sit in no closet. I made damned sure of that.”

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “I was baptized John Scott West, but everyone just calls me Golden Boy.”

  “Golden Boy, huh? You know who I am?”

  “Yes, sir. You’re Jimmie Dallas.” The kid clearly wasn’t impressed by the name. “I saw you sing once at that Buick-Olds dealership over in Knoxville.”

  “And you know why I can open car dealerships? ’Cause I got name recognition. Jimmie Dallas.” He said it like his name was a magic spell and something wonderful was about to happen. “I’m a somebody in a town that opens for somebodies, and closes to nobodies.”

  The kid snorted a laugh. “Well, sir, I came here because this is a town that can turn a nobody into a somebody. If’n he got the right help.”

  “That’s right. And that’s what I’m here to offer you: the right help. Son, it’s 1975. Country-and-western music is changing and it ain’t never gonna be the same. You gotta be smart.”

  “I am smart.”

  “I can tell that. That’s how I know you’re gonna let me take that song, record it, and put it on my own album—an album that MGM Records has already bought and paid for. Those big city sonbitches are waiting on it like they running outta patience. By the end of next month, you’re going to be the co-writer of the biggest song in Nashville. Guaran-goddamn-tee.”

  “I already got help,” the kid said.

  “Not my kind.”

  “No, sir. He sure as hell ain’t.”

  “Then why don’t you just use your head as something more than a hat block and give me that song and…”

  The kid was quick to cut him off. “Ain’t my head I worry about. And it ain’t my song to give.”

  “Then it ain’t your song to keep neither.” Jimmie took an aggressive set of steps forward.

  The kid met him halfway. “Mister, I don’t want no trouble.”

  “Lesson One, Golden Boy: We don’t always get what we want.” A potent mixture of ambition, desperation, and bourbon fueled Jimmie. He hit the kid square in the jaw.

  Jimmie snatched the crumpled piece of paper that the song was scribbled across and pulled it from the music stand. Before he could claim his prize, there was a hand on his back and then a fist in his face.

  Jimmie staggered back, but he didn’t go down.

  Instead, he lunged forward, took hold of the guitar’s neck and ripped it from the strap around the kid’s neck. Then with a single, overhead motion, he brought the instrument down on the studio floor.

  The kid just stared wide-eyed at the wreckage of the jangly explosion. “You don’t know what you just done, mister. He gave me that guitar. Tuned it himself and said it was special. When he finds out what you just done…”

  Jimmie was breathing hard. “You think a guitar and a song make you a country singer?” He wiped at the blood flowing from his n
ose. “Do you know how many goddamn car dealerships I’ve had to open? How many shitty county fairs I played as the bottom of the bill? How many rundown honkytonks I’ve played from behind a screen of chicken wire? This isn’t about music, boy. It’s about blood and guts.”

  “It’s about a hell of a lot more than that.” The kid’s eyes were no longer bright, but dark and mean, like he knew exactly what was at stake. He took a step forward.

  And then there was another sound, every bit as distinctive as a hit song, but a helluvalot colder: the schnick of a switchblade springing open.

  The kid took another defiant step.

  It was his final act of bravado.

  The blade pierced his belly, and before either man was quite sure what had happened, it had happened again.

  And again.

  Golden Boy opened his mouth, but there was no more music in it. Only blood.

  • • •

  Before it was the center of the country music universe, Nashville was no more than a wilderness outpost. The only connection to civilization (or what passed for it at the time) was little more than a footpath that wound its way through otherwise impenetrable woods until the terrain opened again in Natchez, Mississippi, which sat on the banks of the Mississippi River, which led to the port at New Orleans.

  Those first Nashvillians had to load their goods on wagons and take them down The Trace to Natchez, which was difficult. And then return home, along that same dark, twisted path with all the money they’d made on their trade, and this was absolutely deadly.

  The Natchez Trace was home and hunting ground to notorious highwaymen like John Murrell and Samuel “Wolfman” Johnson, who killed hundreds of travelers—and maybe even did worse. And of the entire trail of death and desperation, the darkest recesses of The Trace came to be known as The Devil’s Backbone.

  The area was aptly named.

  Jimmie Dallas could feel a presence beside him as he stumbled off the road with the young man’s body slung over his shoulder. He could sense a dark companion, matching him step-for-step as he struggled along through the moonless night. And as he laid the corpse of the kid called Golden Boy there on the ground, he could feel half-dead eyes on him, watching him move, marking the unmarked grave.