Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  • • •

  Sean Adams had come to Monteagle to have something other than a table shower and a flip. If that was her, then the woman who stood near the back of the trailer was certainly the girl to do it. He took out his phone and dialed. There was enough neon flashing from the sign on Highway 41 to see that the woman was clothed in the outfit she had told him she would be wearing and carrying the red purse. The woman fumbled and then reached into her coat pocket. A good sign. She took out a phone.

  “April?” Sean asked.

  The snow fell heavily. The woman trembled from the cold. He could see that. She wore a coat, gloves, and boots, but they weren’t enough to curb the cutting mountain gusts.

  “Sean?”

  He drove cautiously up beside her and looked around, glancing at the light in the window of the massage parlor.

  “Can I get in?” She asked into the phone.

  “Sure.” Sean unlocked the door and hung up, feeling like a halfwit. He let the knife drop into the space between the seat and the driver’s door. She was prettier than her self-description. He pulled from the Healthy Hands Massage parking lot and headed west.

  • • •

  Jack thought about the details of Marjorie’s death. He had rehearsed answers all the way from Winchester so as not to break down or flush. Tonight, even those who had not read the paper would question him when they saw him alone. But now, all those rehearsed answers seemed as plastic and stretched as some of the women’s faces he was beginning to see around him. The room had grown to sixteen. Still, not one had come over to say, “hi.”

  He took a deep breath.

  He had to begin his new life and it should appropriately begin with this group, the same ones who had helped him start before. He slinked along the wall-of-tacky-balloons with smiley faces for which Mary the Greeter had taken credit until he got to the bathroom. The man he saw in the mirror was not the man who had swept Marjorie off her feet. Prematurely grey hair—where he still had hair—now replaced shoulder-length brown hair that Marjorie had once loved to pull in fits of teenage passion. His body had inverted since then. His former-athletic V-shape had turned upside down and had produced a butt requiring two seats on an airplane and no ample seatbelt in his car. Looks aside, Heather saw him for what he was: a locally powerful man.

  As he nervously drew circles in the urinal, he thought of the last few months. They had been a nightmare. He could envision Marjorie taking her last breaths at the bottom of the cliff. The unanswered questions awoke him in the middle of the night. His mind distracted and not washing his hands, he zipped and shuffled back out.

  Across the room, just having been greeted by buxom Mary, came Stencil Berchman.

  Stencil was the one man Jack hated. Jack had never acquired Stencil’s wealth. Stencil came from money. His grandfather’s money. It was no accident that I-24 crossed over the mountain where it did. His grandfather had bought the land before anyone else knew. He was a Jew like Dinah Shore’s family in Winchester. Jack was dressed in a white button-down shirt with gold cufflinks and khakis, but Stencil had gone all out: tux, white shirt, prissy bowtie, creased Italian slacks. He lived alone in the biggest house in Gruetli-Laager. Could live anywhere, but he didn’t. Wanted to flaunt it to the locals, Jack always thought.

  When Stencil’s date appeared, Jack nearly dropped his glass. Now he knew who had left his wife’s bed, leaving her for him to discover, moaning, sweaty, and smiling.

  • • •

  Mountain people were different than those in the city. Much more dangerous. Sean had seen Deliverance. That was why he carried his knife.

  (Here, Piggy, Piggy, Piggy!)

  Sean had saved himself with that knife many-a-time in dark places throughout the cities of good ol’ U-S-greenback-of-get-some-A.

  Sean’s business partner was at a high school reunion. Sean planned to meet Jack at the motel after the reunion.

  “Pull in there,” April said.

  It was an old weed-infested parking lot off Dixie Lee Highway. A building might have been there once, but maybe burned down.

  “What’s your real name?”

  “This is cash only, yes?” she asked.

  “That’s what you said.”

  “Tell me what you’re wanting,” the woman said. “Really. Sometimes rates change.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “April. Drive to the back and around those trees.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “What do you think?”

  “April showers bring May flowers,” Sean joked nervously. “We’re still going to the motel?”

  She touched him with her hand.

  Sean pulled the car to a stop and threw the gear into “Park”.

  “Let’s do it,” he said. Sean pushed back the seat to give himself more room. He started unzipping his pants before he had an accident and ruined it all.

  “Don’t do anything,” she said.

  Sean leaned back in the seat, grinned like a ’possum, and wiggled in.

  • • •

  Jack took a drink, tasted mostly liquid ice, and hid the half-filled glass against the base of the dusty fake ficus tree. Even if his business did go under and he and Sean declared Chapter 7, he would still have the death benefits from Marjorie. Death benefits were personal, not business. If he never worked another day in his life, he would still have all the money he could possibly ever want. He wouldn’t lose his house. He would take time off work. Ironic, wasn’t it? Instead of spending his spare time with Marjorie, he was going to share his free life with Heather using the money that came from Marjorie’s death. If only he had been able to do that with Marjorie. If only he had felt that way towards her.

  He saw her. She wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Leaving the table from where she had gotten her nametag from busty Mary, Heather looked frazzled. Her blonde, highlighted hair was tied willy-nilly on top of her head revealing a neck he had long-remembered from high school, a neck he still longed to kiss again, though now she had gotten religion and wouldn’t let him.

  Jack hurried to her, ecstatic that she had changed her mind.

  “Let’s go outside,” she quietly spoke first.

  “Sure.” He wanted to tell her about seeing Stencil and his date, both of which appeared to have disappeared from the room. “Let me get my coat.”

  “No. Now.”

  • • •

  The view outside the Moonshine Lodge did not provide the best panorama of Monteagle. Jack and Heather watched the traffic go down David Crockett Highway. The wind was up and bits of spitting snow swirled with each gust. The parking lot was already white, but the street was still black with nighttime wet. Jack’s breath condensed with each exhalation. He put his arms around himself to ward off the cold. He began to shiver.

  “I read today’s paper,” Heather said. “From a Cracker Barrel machine of all things. How could you mention me?”

  He knew what she had seen. Tennessean morning Business News page 3S. “Bad news.”

  “You think? Strange men calling me this morning. My name in the paper. I didn’t know what they were talking about.” She wiped her nose and eyes with her gloved hands. “How are you?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “That’s manly.” She took out a cigarette.

  “Well, I don’t mean scared.”

  “Whatever.” She turned and hurried down the catawampus, buckled sidewalk.

  At first, he only watched her go, standing with his feet planted and feeling the snow salt his neck like dandruff. When she disappeared into the dumpster alley beside the lodge, he frowned and followed.

  He felt guilt, but also thankfulness for a second chance at love. Marjorie and Heather had been best friends. Both had had a teenage crush on him. He’d been a big football player then. The Heather of Old did not care about commitment. Marjorie was the girl he could take home to Momma. However, once he and Marjorie had married—right before he had joined and left for the mili
tary—Heather had no longer wanted to meet with him in secrecy. After Heather had smiled and had thrown rice as he and Marjorie had walked from the church towards their new, much-anticipated, and much-uneventful life, he and Marjorie had never seen Heather again. Until after Marjorie had gone. Then, small world as it was, Heather had walked right back into his life. Harold was gone. Two people alone. United again.

  “Are you going to lose your business?” she asked him when he had finally caught up to her.

  “Probably.”

  She had somehow been able to light her cigarette while still wearing her gloves. “You sounded pitiful in the article.”

  “I was misquoted.”

  “Like a whiny baby.”

  “We’ve got Marjorie’s money. We have Harold’s.” He pointed to what looked like a handle sticking out of Heather’s pocket. “What’s that?”

  She pushed it back into her coat.

  “Is that a gun? What are you going to do with a gun?”

  “I’ve had four people call me, Jack, and threaten me for no reason. Threaten to kill me. Because they’re mad at you. They think you squandered their money, overpriced the houses, used inferior materials, colluded with loan officers. One guy has lake water standing in his basement. And they don’t believe you’re going to jail. They think you’re getting away with it and that I’m involved. Being with you…after the phone calls…after that article…it frightens me.” She was in tears. She pushed him and yelled, “And you mentioned my name! You had to know this was coming. Before we got together. And you didn’t tell me! Why did you mention me?”

  “It was the reporter,” Jack told her. “I knew you were going to be mad. We were talking. I didn’t know she was going to…”

  “Just be quiet.”

  “She came tonight. With Stencil Berchman.”

  “Oh, good god, Jack.”

  “We are just going to push her over the cliff. Right? We’re not going to shoot her?”

  • • •

  “She still looks the same.”

  “She’s fatter, I think,” Jack said, still not believing that Marjorie had had the audacity to show up on the night they were planning to kill her. The reunion and the night with Sean were an alibi for Jack. Heather was supposed to meet Jack in Shad. Marjorie had said she would not be at the reunion. Now both women were there.

  “When are we going to do it?” Heather asked. “Now that nothing is going as planned.”

  Jack thought about the events leading up to this. He and Heather falling in love again. Their relationship progressing. Her growing interest. And then her distance when she had learned that he and Marjorie were not yet divorced.

  He had shared with Heather how Marjorie had treated him all those years, how his last image of Marjorie in their house was finding her taunting him in wet sheets from the bed, having just been left by her lover. How Marjorie had left him when he had most needed her when his business had been collapsing (a white lie, he had actually thrown Marjorie out after finding her). How she had moved back to Shad (near Gruetli-Laager) to be close to her parents. How she had humiliated him with her affair right when he had needed some anchor to hold his life together.

  Heather had listened and grown angry on his behalf.

  Over the weeks, the more Jack had talked about Marjorie—once he had started, it had been difficult to hold it in—the more angry Heather had become. She too had spoken about how Marjorie had deceived her, how she had been holding a grudge. She said that back in high school Marjorie had known about Heather and Jack and that the only reason Marjorie had wanted Jack was because she had not wanted Heather to have him.

  As they had talked, somehow the idea of Marjorie’s insurance policy had come up. At first, it had been a joke. Somewhere, somehow, though, it had grown into something real, something sinister. And here they were, on the scheduled night with everything going wrong, about to commit the crime.

  “I don’t know that we should do this.”

  “I want you, Jack. Don’t you want me?”

  “But can’t we…?”

  “Do you want to be with me? Just say it. If not, I’ll leave now and you’ll never see me again. I promise you that.”

  “I can try to ask her for a divorce again.”

  “And I’m sure this time she’d give it to you.”

  Jack winced. Heather didn’t know it, but the divorce had already been approved. Jack just didn’t like the terms and had refused to sign the papers. Jack had no proof of Marjorie’s affair, but he accused her in court anyway. Marjorie denied it. Marjorie’s lawyer then told the judge about Jack throwing Marjorie out of the house without cause. The judge ruled in terms of Marjorie’s affair that she was innocent until proof could be given. In a heated argument later that same day at a local Shoney’s, Jack admitted to Marjorie that he was seeing someone. He wasn’t sleeping with anyone. But he led Marjorie to believe there was more. He thought it might make Marjorie jealous. Two weeks later, he was back in court with Marjorie’s lawyer playing the secretly recorded tape of his false confession to the judge. The judge awarded Marjorie half of everything he had. Jack had refused to sign the papers.

  Jack and Heather watched Marjorie across the room with Stencil Berchman. Marjorie knew they were watching her. She smiled and licked her lips as she said something into—or nibbled—for the love of Pete she was nibbling—on Stencil’s ear. Right there in front of everybody. She stopped, pulled out her cell phone, and then photographed Jack and Heather standing together beside the gaudy, dust-ridden fake ficus tree. Probably to use in court. Jack grew livid. Heather held him back.

  “She’s baiting you,” Heather said.

  Jack’s anger grew. Was Stencil the unidentified lover who had been in his bed? Was he the real reason she had moved back to Shad after he had thrown her out? Stencil Berchman certainly had all that Marjorie would ever need. Jack imagined Stencil sitting on the balcony of his 8,000+ square foot house, the biggest house in Gruetli-Laager, looking out over his manmade lake stocked in the summer with seasonal tilapia that died as soon as the air turned cold, and rubbing Marjorie’s thigh when she brought him a drink. Jack felt his face grow red with hatred. He wanted to take the gun out of Heather’s pocket and blast that smirk right off Stencil’s chiseled face. “Let’s think about this another night,” Jack whispered.

  “I’m not having a relationship with a married man,” Heather said. The irony that she would help him kill his wife so he could be single and avoid adultery did not escape Jack’s notice. Marjorie smirked at them both and kept on nibbling.

  “You’re right,” Jack said. “This is the only way.”

  • • •

  Jack watched from a distance as Marjorie and Stencil said their extended goodbyes. The couple had been in Marjorie’s house for almost two hours. When Stencil pulled from the neighborhood, Jack moved his car from the shadows to the front of Marjorie’s rented house. The lights in the house methodically started going out beginning with the front porch. Heather pulled behind Jack in her car.

  Heather jumped out of her car and hopped into the rented Lincoln with Jack.

  “Should we wait?” When Heather didn’t answer, Jack chattered, “I figured they would go to Stencil’s, not here.” Though steeped in poverty, Shad did look pretty with snow and moonlight. They would be shutting the Interstate over Monteagle, for sure. To get to Chattanooga in the morning, he and Sean would have to take Highway 41 off the mountain. To get back to Murfreesboro as planned, Heather would need to get on the road soon.

  The digital car clock said the time to be 3:04.

  “Did he actually kiss her at the door?” Heather asked. “Talk about a gentleman. Women like that sort of thing.”

  Jack did not answer, thinking about what the gentleman did to his wife before he got to the door.

  “Do you want to get her, or do you want me to?”

  Jack looked at her. “You’d do that?”

  “The result’s the same either way, isn’t it? It might b
ring the point home if it’s me who breaks the news, rather than you.”

  Jack swallowed hard. “Would you?”

  Heather kept her eyes locked on Jack’s as she put her hand on the door handle, then impulsively she reached across, grabbed his head, and pulled his lips to hers. Jack felt himself tingle in his lower back as they kissed for the first time in several decades. His head spun as he felt her tongue run across his lips and then plunge powerfully into his mouth. He reached for her, but as he did, she pulled away.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  • • •

  The porch light came on, though the rest of the house was dark. The door opened. Marjorie appeared in the doorway.

  She had slipped into a pair of casual slacks and a sweatshirt. She looked surprised.

  Jack could not hear the conversation, but he could make out the body language. Heather asked to go inside. Marjorie was hesitant. She looked towards Jack’s Lincoln. Her eyes squinted and her face appeared confused. Then things seemed to go wrong. Marjorie retreated; Heather forcibly followed inside. The door closed.

  Jack sat dumbfounded, watching the snow settle on the windshield. Should he help? Should he leave? What if Heather shot Marjorie inside the house? Then the whole plan would fall apart. What if Marjorie took the gun away from Heather and shot her instead? He had guns. He knew the gun was a bad idea. Why hadn’t he told Heather? The gun was a bad idea!

  The door opened.

  Marjorie slowly appeared. Her hands were behind her back. Her mouth was gagged. Behind her came Heather, her torso against Marjorie’s back. Jack thought, thank god for the gun. He looked up and down the street. No sign of any witnesses. In fact, many of the houses were abandoned.

  As the two descended the front porch steps, Jack felt his heart race, knowing it would finally be over. As he thought about the plunging kiss he had received before Heather had gone to retrieve Marjorie, he remembered Sean, his business partner, waiting for him twenty miles away at the motel in Monteagle. Jack pulled his cell phone from his pocket, but then decided he would call Sean later. If things worked out, if he finally got to spend the night with Heather, then Sean would understand. He would not know about Marjorie being dead and all and he had never met Heather, but it would make sense. Jack and some old friends had hooked up at the reunion. Jack had been delayed. Sean would cover for him. It’s what they did.