A Crime of Passion

by Scott Pratt

CHAPTER 9

  Not a word was being said, but the air seemed to be alive, buzzing with tension as Lana Milius prepared for the evening out she was scheduled to have with Joe Dillard. Paul had just arrived at Xanadu after having been released from jail. He walked through the bedroom toward his bathroom while Lana sat at a vanity mirror applying moisturizer to her face.

  “So how was jail, honey?” Lana said in her most sarcastic tone. “Did you meet any singers? Any potential money-makers?”

  “Shut your hole, Lana. I don’t feel like listening to you right now.”

  “Speaking of holes, how is yours? Did any of those big, mean boys explore you? Did they stretch it?”

  “I’m serious, Lana. Shut it or I’m gonna rip your head off.”

  “Then you’ll be facing two murder charges.”

  Paul walked into his bathroom and semi-closed the door behind him. Lana, seeing it was still open, raised her voice.

  “You lied to me again, Paulie,” she called. “You didn’t tell me you went to her room that night. You also failed to mention that you slapped her across the face.”

  Paul appeared in the doorway, a towel draped over his shoulder and a toothbrush hanging from his mouth.

  “I went to her room to apologize for the things you said to her at the party,” he said.

  “I don’t need you making apologies for me. And besides, what I said to her wasn’t all that bad.”

  “You called her a chubby, no-talent wannabe who looked like a bloodhound and sang like one, too. You sang it to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday.’”

  “I thought that was kind of cute. It was mild, too.”

  “She was a beautiful girl, Lana, and she made—”

  “You had insurance on her, didn’t you?”

  “What? How could you say a thing like that?”

  “Well, you did, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  Lana got up from the stool where she was sitting and walked toward him.

  “Yes you are, Paul. You’re having this conversation. You killed her. Now how much was she worth?”

  “I killed her? I can’t believe this. You really think I killed Kasey.”

  “You did kill her. You killed her the minute you started following her around like a heartsick teenager. And if you hadn’t gotten yourself tossed out of the room, you’d probably have been lying up there dead, too.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Paul said as he took another step toward his wife. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying if you’d been there you might have been killed, too. I’m saying you’re probably lucky to be alive.”

  “No, no. You said I killed her the minute I started following her around like a heartsick puppy. What is that supposed to mean? Did you have something to do with this, Lana?”

  Lana folded her arms and stared at him. “What did she say to you that made you slap her, sweetheart? Did she make fun of the size of your wee-wee? Did she use Zeus’s name in vain? Did she insult your Greekness?”

  Paul placed a thick finger on Lana’s nose and pushed.

  “If I find out you had Kasey killed, I’ll bury you,” he said.

  “Why don’t you just kill me now?” Lana said. “It would be such fun. You’d have to figure out what to do with my body and then hide everything from the police. I know…you could take me out by the stables and bury me in that soft ground.”

  Paul removed his finger from her nose, straightened up, and turned his back on her.

  “It’d be the right place for you,” he said. “Buried out there among the other black widows and the horse manure.” The door slammed with a bang.

  “Black widows,” Lana said quietly as she turned back to her dressing table. “Perfect.”

  CHAPTER 10

  A few hours after I left Charlie and Jack and after I’d called Caroline and talked to her for a little while, I found myself in a limousine owned by Paul and Lana. Lana had her own driver, a silver-haired man she introduced as Bennett. Bennett the driver picked me up at the guesthouse at 8:00 p.m. sharp, pulled around to the back of the big house, and Lana climbed into the seat next to me.

  She looked damned-near stunning, and I immediately felt underdressed, although I have to admit I wasn’t all that concerned about it. She was a star, after all, and I was, as Leon Bates had put it, a ham-and-egger. She was wearing a waist-length black coat that was puffy at the shoulders and probably cost twice what most people make in a week. I didn’t know anything about fashion or labels and never will, but Lana’s clothes, her makeup, her earrings, her necklace, her handbag, her shoes, her watch, all of it screamed one word: expensive. Her skirt was thigh-length and revealed long, slim, shapely legs beneath sheer, dark hose. The front of her coat was as low cut as the cream-colored V-necked top beneath the coat. I had to force myself not to look at the spot where the V-neck naturally led the eye. Her skin was shimmering, and she smelled like a field of wildflowers after a summer rain.

  “Good evening, Lana,” I said after she’d settled in and Bennett the driver had closed the door behind her.

  “Good evening, Mr. Dillard,” she said.

  “Call me Joe,” I said. “I lightened your bank account by $1 million. It’s the least you can do.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Good evening, Joe.”

  “I’m a happily married man, Lana, and I don’t mean this any other way than honestly. I was just thinking that you look damned-near stunning, but I’m going to have to remove the ‘damned-near’ from the description. You look stunning.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Dill—Joe. A woman never grows tired of hearing things like that, especially when the compliment is, as you say, an honest one.”

  Bennett was pulling away from the house, and I looked around at the grounds. It was dark, but the place was still lit up for the holidays and glowed like a city skyline.

  “This is beautiful,” I said. “Do you ever find yourself taking it for granted?”

  “What an unusual question,” Lana said. “Why would you ask?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that since my wife got sick, and especially since her cancer metastasized last year, I try to remind myself on a regular basis not to take things that are good or beautiful for granted. Doesn’t matter whether it’s someone I love or a red rose petal or a clear night when the sky is full of stars or a beautiful display of Christmas lights like this one. I try to take more deep breaths, to go slower, to not worry and fret about so many things.”

  “So your wife’s illness has turned you into a philosopher?”

  “I’m no philosopher, Lana, believe me. I just think maybe it’s made me more introspective.” I suddenly felt embarrassed and said, “I’m sorry. You must think I’m crazy. Where are we going for dinner?”

  “Morton’s steakhouse in Nashville. Ever been?”

  “I have, and I love it.”

  “They deal with a lot of celebrities and politicians. They know how to be discreet, and they’ll have a private room where we can be alone and talk.”

  The limo dropped us ten feet from the front door, and we were immediately surrounded and ushered into the restaurant by a small group of people, all of whom seemed to know exactly what the others were doing, as though the entire procession was choreographed. We were seated in a private room in less than two minutes, and in less than three minutes a waiter was handing me a bottle of wine. I looked at it, looked at him, and nodded. He opened it and set the cork on the table. I waved my hand to let him know I wasn’t interested in the cork, and he poured a small amount of wine into a glass and handed it to me. I sniffed it first, took a small sip, and nodded again. He filled Lana’s glass, then finished filling mine. I disliked upper-crust rituals, but I was not entirely without culture.

  We ordered our meals a little while later, after the wine had had a chance to settle in and take
effect. The service staff was attentive but not intrusive. They were there immediately if either Lana or I needed anything, but they didn’t hover over the table. It was a perfect place to talk.

  “I need to ask you about the night Kasey was killed, Lana,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “There isn’t much to tell, really. Where do you want me to start?”

  “Wherever you think you need to start.”

  “All right. Well…Bennett drove me to the show around seven, and since Paul was supposed to be there, I told Bennett to go on home, that I would ride with Paul to the after-party and then ride home with him.”

  “So Paul and his driver, David, arrived at the show separately from you?”

  “That’s right. Paul came straight from the office. Paul is always at the office.”

  “And then the two of you rode to the after-party together?”

  “No. I rode with Cameron Jones.”

  “The singer?”

  “Right. He’s another of Paul’s artists.”

  “Why didn’t you ride with Paul?”

  “We were having a bit of a spat.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “It was nothing, really. I’d had just a touch too much to drink, and then Paul and Kasey got into some kind of argument and she threw a glass of tea in his face, which made him look ridiculous. And then—”

  I held up my hand. “Wait,” I said. “Stop for just a second. Did you just say Paul and Kasey had some kind of argument that ended with her throwing a glass of tea in his face?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “Kasey surprised everyone by doing a song she wasn’t supposed to do. She was supposed to perform this new song they’re going to release for the summer called ‘Party Girl.’ The band, the orchestra, everybody had the music and was ready to go. The host even announced it to the audience. But when Kasey got up to the microphone, she told the audience there had been a slight change in plans. She had her guitar with her, and she sang a bluesy ballad she’d written called ‘Blood Red Sun.’ She nailed it, too. I was watching from the wings, and she sang and played that song for everything it was worth. The audience loved it as much as I did. They stood up and clapped and yelled when she was finished.

  “But Paul was angry, and so were the show’s producers, the director, the musicians, the tech people. They thought it was incredibly unprofessional for her to go off script like that, and it was. She shouldn’t have done it. So a little while after she came off stage, she was standing in the wings with a glass of tea in her hand, and Paul walked up to her and you could tell it was getting pretty heated and then all of a sudden, whoosh, Kasey just tossed that tea right into his face and stalked off. Paul went to the restroom and cleaned himself up as best he could, but that kind of took the fun out of the evening, if you know what I mean.”

  “And what happened after that?”

  “We all went to the after-party, and it was kind of subdued. I rode with Cameron because I was drunk and mad at Paul for not smacking Kasey upside her head or spitting in her face after she embarrassed him like that, and then at the after-party I started giving Paul a hard time for not standing up for himself after she doused him. Kasey and Paul hadn’t said a word to each other, either, and then the next thing I knew I was saying a couple things I shouldn’t have said to Kasey, and then she was gone. Then Paul says I started messing around with Cameron underneath the table—which I deny and don’t remember at all—so Paul called Bennett to come and get me around one in the morning. I think Paul stayed on until around two, and then he went over to the hotel. He told me he went to Kasey’s room to try to patch things up, but she wound up saying something that made him so angry he slapped her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. It must have been bad, though, because Paul and I have been married for fifteen years, and I’ve said some mean things to him and he hasn’t ever once even given me the notion that he might slap me. Paul’s a big sissy when it comes to physical confrontation. He’ll take every last dime you have, but he’ll make you feel good while he’s doing it. He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.”

  “Did he say what happened after he slapped her?”

  “He said he couldn’t believe he’d done it. He said Kasey went straight to the bathroom and locked the door, so he left.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He came home. Called a cab and had the guy drive him all the way to Franklin.”

  “Do you know what time he got home?”

  “I was passed out. He said he got home around three, and I don’t have a reason not to believe him.”

  “Okay,” I said, “you’ve explained the piece of skin they found wedged between Kasey Cartwright’s teeth and the bruising, but what about the strangling? Any ideas?”

  “Somebody else killed her, and they’re letting him take the fall.”

  I thought about what I’d told Jack and Charlie earlier. The SODDI defense. Some Other Dude Done It. It looked like that was where we were headed.

  “Any idea who that might be?” I asked.

  “One of the usual suspects, I guess. A competitor in the record business. Could be a disgruntled artist who thinks Paul screwed him or her over. Maybe some jealous boyfriend of Kasey’s or some deranged fan. Who knows? There are all kinds of possibilities.”

  “Have you and Paul talked about it?”

  “A little.”

  “What did he say? He hasn’t admitted anything to you, has he?”

  “He said he has no idea who killed her.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess. I don’t really have a reason not to.”

  I sat back and let out a deep breath. I must have had a concerned look on my face because Lana said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I was just thinking we have a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Why don’t you call Leon?” she said.

  “Leon? Are you talking about Leon Bates?”

  “Cute as a button, and I hear he’s as good a lawman as there is. Y’all are friends, right? Why don’t you bring him in to help?”

  “He told me he knows you.”

  “He and his girlfriend stay in the same guesthouse you’re staying in when they come to Nashville.”

  “Girlfriend? Are you talking about Erlene?”

  “Erlene Barlowe. Sweet as she can be. Reminds me of my granny.”

  I smiled. Erlene Barlowe was as sweet as she could be on the exterior, but when threatened, she had the instincts of a pit viper.

  “I can’t believe you know them,” I said. “Small world. But we can’t use Leon. He has his hands full up in Washington County.”

  “Just a thought,” Lana said.

  I was drinking slowly, but Lana wasn’t. She took large sips from the wine, and she took them frequently. She made two trips to the bathroom during the first hour we were at the restaurant. After her second trip, I started up the conversation again.

  “Tell me about your marriage,” I said, “and by that I mean your lives together. You and Paul. Tell me about you and Paul.”

  She took a long drink from her glass of wine and set it carefully on the table.

  “We were quite the item back in our day. Downright scandalous. I was only eighteen, and Paul was twenty-nine. He was looking for new artists to build his record company, and I was looking for fame and fortune. I gave him what he wanted, and he gave me what I wanted.”

  “So it was good?”

  “It was for a time, but the passion faded pretty quickly. We were both so busy. We were all over the country, all over the world even. We would go months without seeing each other.”

  “I haven’t heard you use the word ‘love’ to describe the relationship, Lana.”

  “Love,” she said with a sour look on h
er face. “People make such a big deal out of love. I don’t even know what it really means, if it really exists.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Then tell me, lawyer man, what does ‘love’ really mean?”

  “Nah, I’m not here to talk about love according to Joe Dillard. I’m here to talk about you and Paul. Tell me why you quit the music business.”

  “Because I couldn’t sing anymore. I lost my voice.”

  “Th at isn’t what the press reported,” I said.

  “I know. They wanted another scandal, so they started reporting all kinds of crazy things. When I first started having problems with my voice, we made a public announcement that I was going to take a little time off—that I was exhausted—which was true. But since Paul and I are public figures, they can write pretty much anything they want to—there’s nothing we can do about it. They started writing that we were breaking up, that Paul was seeing other women, that I was bisexual and was seeing a woman, all kinds of things. The lies generated so much publicity that my record sales skyrocketed. They actually benefitted us by lying about us. But the truth was that I’d abused my voice. I’d overused it and stretched my vocal cords to the point where several nodules developed on both of them. I went to the best surgeons in the world, and they all told me I was finished. Turned out they were right.”

  “You were saying you gave him what he wanted, and he gave you what you wanted,” I said. “He wanted an up-and-coming artist, and you wanted fame and fortune. Are you still giving each other what you want?”

  She held her hand up to refuse the dessert she’d ordered earlier and took another long pull of the wine.

  “We have some stability, we’re surrounded by luxury, we’re as wealthy as we’d dreamed we could be,” she said. “I don’t have to do a damned thing if I don’t want to, which is exactly the way I like it. Paul is still doing what he loves—he’s just doing it with different people. So to answer your question, I guess we’re still giving each other some of what we want, just not all of what we want. I actually see very little of Paul. We haven’t had sex in more than a year, but that hasn’t been because we aren’t attracted to each other. We are, but Paul has had some problems with…well, you know…performance. It got to be embarrassing. It was so uncomfortable that we just stopped, you know? We didn’t really talk about it. We just stopped.”