by Bill Noel
“Seven demo sessions he never paid for plus two big-ticket sessions, six musicians, hours of post-production, need I go on?”
Charles asked, “So you didn’t get Heather’s twenty-nine hundred bucks?”
Kelly laughed, not an ounce of humor oozed from his mouth. “Do you know what we charge for our standard demo package?”
Until a few seconds ago, I thought I had. I shook my head.
Kelly said, “Seven hundred twenty-five dollars. That beats most studios in town. In other words, not only did we not get what Starr charged her, but we never even got our paltry fee. Bet there was a line of wannabes waiting to kill the basta…the agent. I hope he had a whale of a life insurance police. Maybe we can get our money that way.”
I asked, “Do you often let your customers build up such a large debt?”
“No. Our sessions were light and Starr had several artists lined up. He said he had a deep-pockets backer and he’d clear up the debt at the end of the month.”
Charles asked, “You believed him?”
Kelly started to answer and Dale put her arm in front of him and turned to us. “Why are you here? Does Ms. Lee have something to do with Mr. Starr’s death?”
I waited for Charles to respond. He looked at me.
I said, “Heather Lee has been arrested for his murder.”
Kelly grinned. “Good for her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dale said as she stared at Charles. “I take it you and she were close.”
Charles mumbled, “We’re engaged.”
“Oh,” Dale said. She leaned close to Charles.
“We’re trying to find out who else may have had motive to kill him,” I said, like it was the most logical thing we could be doing.
Kelly said, “Too many to count.”
“I’ve known Heather Lee for a long time,” I said. “I don’t believe she killed Starr.” I paused and waited for Charles to pitch in. He didn’t. “We came to ask if you could give us the names of Starr’s other clients who recorded demos here. We’d like to talk to them and see if they knew anyone who would have been angry enough to kill him.”
Dale’s expression hardened. “Since this is a police matter, and you’re close to the accused murderer, perhaps we shouldn’t be talking with you. Our attorney would frown on it. I’m sorry we can’t be more help.”
Dale stood, nearly pulled Kelly out of his chair, and started walking to the door.
We had exceeded our welcome.
We walked to the car, and Charles stopped and looked back at the studio. “Don’t know about Starr’s clients, I now do hereby park those two at the top of my suspect list.”
From what they, especially Kelly, had said, it would have been hard to argue with my friend. Kelly appeared angry enough to do it. Also, Kelly had said murder even though I’d only said Starr was dead. It seemed they had two things working for them being guilty. Seven thousand dollars would have been a chunk of change for what appears to be a struggling business. So first, how would they have had a chance to get paid from a corpse? Second, and the most difficult to explain, was how would they have known about Heather’s gun, Charles’s broken door lock, and how to get and return the gun to the car?
I shared my misgivings as we sat in the car. “Don’t forget,” Charles said, “Kelly said he hoped Starr had a large insurance policy. He would have killed Starr figuring the only way he could get his money was from that.”
I conceded that point and asked how he figured the studio owners knew about Heather’s gun and Charles’s broken lock.
“Don’t know, but they did.”
I didn’t remind him that hours earlier he’d been convinced of her guilt. Since I didn’t think she was guilty, I wanted to push on with our unauthorized and amateurish investigation. Kelly and Dale didn’t give us a list of Starr’s clients, but we knew two of them.
“Charles, what’re the names of Heather’s friends from the Bluebird?”
“Gwen Parsons and Jessica something. Good point, they were both pissed at Starr. I think Gwen even said something about wanting to conk him in the head.”
“Was she the one who left with Heather after their performance when we were there?”
“No, that was Jessica.”
“Where we can find them?”
He didn’t know. “Their phone numbers should be at the apartment.
18
Charles found Gwen and Jessica’s numbers in Heather’s notebook. He left a message for Gwen, had talked to Jessica, and we were on our way to meet her where she was a server at a Cracker Barrel near the Opryland Hotel.
We had maneuvered through the maze of items ranging from pottery, candy, clothing, and thousands of other knickknacks with our goal being to reach the nostalgia-bathed restaurant’s hostess station, when Jessica appeared at our side.
“Got a fifteen-minute break. Let’s go outside.”
She had her arm through Charles’s arm before he could get to a revolving book rack and was leading him out. I followed them past the row of rocking chairs, and around the side of the building. Jessica was puffing on a cigarette as soon as we reached a shaded spot and a paint-chipped bench at the employees break area. She was not the only smoker who worked there. The ground was littered with butts and the smell of smoke hung in the air even though no one else was nearby.
“How’s Heather holding up? Can she get bail? I feel terrible about telling those horrible detectives I left her the night he was killed. I figured I must’ve set them sniffin’ after her. OMG, I feel sick about it.” She took a deep breath and another drag on her cigarette.
She was so hyper I didn’t know what question to answer first or if she would hear or understand them. Charles didn’t have any reservations. “She’s miserable and won’t get out unless we find who killed Starr. Do you know who did it?”
I wouldn’t have been that direct, although it did cut through a lot of other questions.
She looked toward the front of the building, lit another cigarette, and looked at her watch. “Heather.”
That wasn’t the answer I'd hoped for. “Why do you think that?”
“God, I hate to say this. I had to tell the cops, you know. She said she’d like to kill him. Honest, she did. She said it to me after we left the Bluebird.” She lowered her head. “I hated to tell them. Honest to God.”
I glanced at Charles who had closed his eyes.
I asked, “Was she serious or letting off steam?”
“I don’t know. Like how do you know for certain if someone means something? She had hateful feelings about him, you know.”
Charles tapped his cane on the ground. “So, did you?”
Jessica had started to her mouth with the cigarette, hesitated, and glared at Charles. “What are you saying?”
“We’re not saying anything,” I said trying to diffuse the situation enough to keep her talking. “We’re trying to figure out what happened.”
“Good luck with that one. He had a whole shit-pot full of people who wanted him dead. I don’t think any of them did it. Sure, I was one of them, and I didn’t shoot him. Your Heather did. She was pissed. She had the gun. The cops said she was with him before he was shot. Duh.” She shook her head. “I’ve got to get back.”
She pivoted, threw her cigarette butt on the ground, and stomped away.
Charles watched her and turned to me and shook his head. “That went well. Any other brilliant plans to get Heather off the hook?”
“When’s his funeral?”
“Should be soon if he’s not already planted. Why?”
“I thought we might go to the visitation.”
“Of that SOB?”
“Unless you have better ideas. If we could talk to widow Starr, she might help.”
Charles pointed to my phone. “Look it up on that thingy.”
A search of the Nashville area obituaries revealed Kevin Starr’s interment was still in the future; tomorrow, in fact. Visitation was to begin in an hour at a funeral home a couple o
f miles from his house. We were on that side of town and decided we were dressed well enough to stop by. I pulled in the parking lot of the white-painted brick funeral home thirty minutes before visitation was to begin; on time, per Charles.
Gwen Parsons returned my call while we waited. I put the phone on speaker, and after a minute of her expressing sympathy for Heather, I asked if we could meet and talk about Starr. She surprised me when she said no, that she was busy and didn’t have time, and she said it after I’d said it could be a time and location of her choice in the next couple of days. I gave up on meeting and asked if she had any idea who killed him. She said there could have been any number of people who wanted Starr dead. She couldn’t or wouldn’t narrow it down. She wished she could help her “good friend” Heather, but didn’t know what she could do. She again said she was sorry, and had to go.
“Quick question,” I said and hoped she hadn’t hung up. “Who else knew you sold Heather the gun?”
She was silent, and I figured the next sound would be the electronic buzz after a hang up. “You there?”
“Sorry, I was thinking. A lot of people know. It wasn’t a big secret. We were at the Bird when I gave it to her, standing out front with a ton of people around. Umm, Jessica was there, so was, oh what’s his name, Joey, and two or three other pickers I sort of know.” She giggled. “The only guys who didn’t know were the fuddy-duddy security guards. Didn’t think it would be wise to wave it in front of them.”
“Who’s Joey?” I asked.
“Some guy letting Heather try his guitar. He’s always trying to sell something. Says he needs the money to write songs, calls it plying his craft. Can you believe that?”
I remembered him from our visit to the Bluebird. “Was Starr his agent?”
“Nah, he doesn’t have one. He wanted us to introduce him to Starr, but the son of…uh, he never showed up at our gigs.”
“Are you sure—”
“Sorry, have to go.”
Everything in the funeral home was muted: muted music from the funeral home version of Muzak; muted-color, thick carpeting muted our footsteps, through the muted corridors covered with muted wallcovering. What wasn’t muted as we stepped into a viewing room, was the robust fragrance of floral arrangements. I sneezed and told Charles, in muted tones, of course, how much the smell in funeral homes bothered me and how it always got my allergies in an uproar. Charles, being the fount of everything trivial, proceeded to tell me that in the pre-air-conditioned, pre-embalming days, flowers at funerals were to mask the smell of the corpse. I asked him if funeral directors realized those days were long gone and he suggested this would be a good time to ask a funeral director. I said never mind.
Much to my relief, the steel-gray coffin housing Kevin Starr was closed. Open coffins bothered me more than the stench of funeral flowers. The room was near empty. I assumed because the visitation had just begun and people were still at work. A man in his late-sixties asked if we were friends of Kevin. We lied and said yes and he shared that he was Kevin’s father. He didn’t know any of his son’s friends since he lived in California, and told us he was the reason the funeral had been delayed. He had been in Italy and got back in the country last night and flew to Nashville. We listened to his long-winded story until he started telling us about his “holiday” in Tuscany. I interrupted and said it was nice to meet him and that we wanted to pay our condolences to his daughter-in-law.
Sandy was in one of the chairs with a muted geometric pattern on the seat, and talking to a woman who appeared to be about her age. We walked over to them, and Sandy glanced up at us like she recognized our faces but couldn’t recall from where. The other lady leaned down and gave Sandy a hug and said she’s let her talk to the new arrivals.
The grieving widow stood and held out her hand. She wore a black dress that looked new. It was loose on her shoulders and I suspected was probably bought for her by someone else. Make-up covered most the red around her eyes. I told her who we were and reminded her about the visit to her house.
“Oh yes.” Her voice was hoarse and soft. If the room hadn’t been so empty, I wouldn’t have heard what she said.
Sandy didn’t give any indication that she remembered who was with us or that she knew one of the visitors to her house was accused of murdering her husband. I told her we were sorry for her loss. She nodded, and glanced around the room and noticed there was no one waiting to talk to her.
“I’m being rude,” she whispered, and pointed to the chairs beside her. “Please have a seat.”
I said, “How are the children?”
Charles glanced at me and gave an expression that screamed, “That’s not why we’re here.”
Sandy looked toward the door to the corridor. “They’re in a little room out there where they have toys and books. Kevin’s mom’s with them.”
She continued to look at the door, and hadn’t answered my question. Perhaps she was in shock and didn’t want to, or couldn’t, deal with their condition. If I didn’t know it was the same person, I never would have suspected this was the same lady we’d met pounding on red-hot steel in her blacksmith shop.
Sandy turned back to us. “I apologize. This has been rough, and I’m not thinking straight, please tell me again how you know—knew, Kevin.”
Charles said, “He met my fiancé when he was at Folly Beach a few months ago. He heard her sing and wanted to be her agent,”
He hadn’t used Heather’s name.
“Folly Beach,” Sandy said like she was rolling the words around in her mouth. “Where’s that?”
She still hadn’t put two-and-two together and connected us with Kevin’s alleged murderer. I explained that Folly Beach was a tiny island near Charleston, South Carolina, and we had met—sort of met—Kevin there.
Sandy looked at me like I’d said we hooked up with her husband on the North Pole. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m confused. Kevin’s never been to Charleston, a least not since we met ten years ago.”
And she was confused, I thought.
“It was five months ago,” Charles said, like that would make things clear.
She shook her head and stared at him.
“He told my fiancé he was staying at the hotel and was meeting with record executives from New York. Think he said it was a retreat. He—”
Sandy pulled her shoulders back and clinched her fists. “I don’t know why you think that. It couldn’t have been.”
I said, “When we met you at your house, you said he was gone a lot.” Today must be horrible for the young widow and I could understand how she may have forgotten. “You mentioned trips to North and South Carolina. Couldn’t the trip to Folly have been one of those times?”
“No. I distinctly remember the two trips he made to South Carolina were to Columbia. I remember because that’s where one of my best friends in college was from.”
I didn’t want to argue while she was sitting a dozen feet from her husband’s coffin. I was certain I’d seen Kevin Starr in Cal’s Bar, on Folly Beach. “I’m a little confused myself. You’re certain he hasn’t been there?”
“Kevin called me most every night he was on the road. He always talked to the kids if they were awake, and told me where he was.” She hesitated, and continued, “He brought them souvenirs from each of the cities he visited. Nothing big, you know, little cheap stuff with the city’s name on it.” A tear appeared in the corner of her eye. “He did it so they would learn about other places and so … and so they’d want to visit the cities with us when they got older.”
When we had been at her house, she'd told us about him calling from the trips. It wasn’t many years ago that saying where he had called from would have meant something. Now, with ubiquitous cell phones, his calls could have been from anywhere. I was as certain as I was sitting here, if he called her that often, one or more of them had originated from Folly, regardless what he’d told her.
Sandy wiped the tear from her cheek. Her hands began to fidget, she sh
redded a tissue, and squeezed it in her fist. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to see we had started a conversation she didn’t want to be a part of. I started to excuse us when she snapped out of her reverie and glared at Charles.
“What did you say your fiancée’s name was?”
“Heather.”
Sandy pushed out of the chair, stood and looked down at us. If she had her blacksmith hammer, I suspected she would have treated us like a lump of molten steel.
“The bitch who killed Kevin?”
A handful of others had arrived while we were talking. All conversation stopped, and Kevin’s father started toward us.
“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” I said and eased Charles toward the exit. The only smell I detected on the way out was that of hate.
“What do you think?” Charles asked. We were driving through rush-hour traffic on the way to the apartment.
“She either had lied to us about knowing he’d been on Folly or he had lied to her.”
Charles looked at his imaginary watch and at the traffic stopped in front of us. We had nowhere to be, yet he was in a hurry to get there. He sighed like we were going to be late. “She didn’t throw off any vibes she was fibbing. I can’t see any reason she would have for not admitting he’d been on Folly.”
For the next fifteen minutes, we traveled five blocks in traffic that was more akin to stop-and-stop rather than stop-and-go. We talked about why he may not have been telling her the truth and what it could've meant to getting him killed.
Starr had made several out of town trips looking for talent or doing whatever he could to increase his business, so I didn’t understand why he’d lie about being in the Charleston area. Why would it have been different than being in Columbia, or anywhere else? Could he have been having an affair? The simple answer was yes. If true, there could have been two more people who may have wanted him dead: whoever he was having the affair with and the lady we had just left wearing a poorly-fitting black dress. I couldn’t see Sandy as the murderer. She was hurting, and her reaction when she found out about Heather hadn’t been faked. Besides, no one could have mistaken her for Heather, not even in a dark bar. The person Starr could have been having an affair with was another story. If she was one of Starr’s aspiring singers, he probably conned her into moving here and since we had no idea who she might be, she could have looked enough like Heather to have fooled the bartender in a dimly-lit room.