I’d heard of Roger Vaden. He was an entertainment attorney, a reputable one, but he wasn’t the guy to get you off a murder charge.
“That’ll do for tomorrow,” I said. “But you’ll need a criminal attorney on this one, Ray.”
Ray stared out the window, his head leaning against the dirty glass. “Slim’s got his faults, Harry. I don’t think he killed Becca.”
He turned and looked at me. “But he sure as hell had reason to. That woman was a snake, Harry.”
I took that to mean that when the divorce came down, Ray’d been on Slim’s side. I’d learned from painful experience that everyone feels compelled to take sides in a divorce. There were people I’d considered good friends, only to learn they wouldn’t take my calls after Elaine and I split.
“Tell me about her,” I said.
“Rebecca Gibson was a Thoroughbred. Frisky, fast, creative. Could put a song together better than anybody I ever knew, me and Slim included. But she was unpredictable. You never knew what was going through her. All you could count on was that sooner or later she was going to explode.”
“She was the volatile one and Slim was the steady, patient type?”
“Most of the time,” he said, crossing the office and stuffing his hands in his back pocket. “But she liked to pick at him, and it got her goat when she’d go to work on him and he wouldn’t fight back. She’d nag and pick at him until he just couldn’t take it anymore. Then ol’ Slim’d pop his cork. Next thing you know, you got a domestic-disturbance call in the middle of the night.”
Damn, I thought, and the DA would be glad to mention each and every one of them to a jury, as long as the judge would let him.
“He ever hit her?”
Ray hung his head. “Time or two. Hell, she hit back, though.”
“How long were they married?”
“Almost nine years. The last straw came when she booked a tour without him. Didn’t even tell him about it. They were trying to make it as singing partners, working the nightclubs and the honky-tonks for a grand or two a night. She did a three-day gig down in San Antonio without even letting him know where she’d be. When she got back, Slim was gone. Just packed his shit and left.”
“Who filed for the divorce?”
Ray shook his head. “I don’t know. It just happened. I think she did, but I’m not sure.”
“What happened to all the songs they wrote together?”
“Most of ’em were sold to different publishers. This was back before me and Slim formed CKM.”
“CKM?”
“Cockroach Killer Music,” Ray said, grinning. His right index finger motioned toward the floor as his other hand pulled his left trouser leg up a couple of inches. He wore a pair of shiny gray snakeskin boots that had the sharpest pair of pointed toes I’d ever seen on human footwear.
“They get in the corners real good,” he added. “Decided to name our publishing company after them.”
I smiled back at him. “Okay, CKM it is. Does Rebecca own any part of CKM?”
“No, but we’ve published a lot of her songs. Even had a couple of them recorded. But the truth is, Harry, me and Slim have been struggling for a long time. On the other hand, Rebecca’s career was about to take off. She was going to be up there with Reba and Dolly, Tricia, and Kathy and the rest.”
“Professional jealousy, then, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what them bozos down at the courthouse are figuring. I know it But you see, it don’t make any sense. We’ve published enough of her songs that when she hits big, we’re going to ride along with her at least a little ways, and so is everybody else who’s ever worked with her. It’s a gravy train, man. That’s the music business. Most of the time, fame’s a short ride. But when you’re on it, it’s a holler a minute.”
I pushed one of the chairs out from under a desk with my foot and plopped down on it. I interlaced my fingers behind my head and leaned way back, staring at the dirty acoustic ceiling tiles.
“So then the question remains-if Slim didn’t kill his ex-wife, who did?”
“That’s why I called you, Harry.”
My feet dropped to the floor, and I shot up in the chair. “Oh, no, Ray, I-”
“Aw, c’mon, Harry, he needs your help.”
“I’m booked up right now,” I said. I thought of Marsha again and forced myself to bring her face into focus. Funny how when people are gone, it’s not very long before you have to struggle to remember what they look like.
What am I talking about, I yelled inside my head, she’s not dead!
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Ray pleaded. “If it’s the money you’re worried about, we can pay you over time.”
“It’s not the-” I stopped. Wait a minute, what was I saying? I didn’t come into this office every day just because I thought it was a neat place to be. Of course it’s the money. At least, part of it is. And I knew that if I took the job, it would be forever before they paid me, if they ever did. That was time and energy that could best be put to hustling clients with ready cash.
On the other hand, it’s Slim. And right now he’s sitting in a cell.
“I’ve just got too much going on right now.”
Ray resorted to the last refuge of the desperate. He rolled his lower lip out and scrunched his eyes together.
“Aw, c’mon, Harry,” he drawled. “Please …”
It was another thirty minutes before I managed to talk myself free of Ray O’Dell’s clutches. I anguished for them both. Obviously Ray was in acute distress over his partner and friend’s fate. And I liked Slim enough, even though I didn’t know him all that well.
Mainly, I just couldn’t handle it. I was already going at life like killing rats. I had no reserves left, nothing to draw on.
No blinking red light on my answering machine, so if Marsha tried to call, she’d hung up. One of these days, I’m going to get an answering machine with built-in caller ID so I can know who the hang-ups are. Imagine the look on some poor sucker’s face when I call him back and demand to know why the hell he hung up on me.
Some days you eat the bear; other days the bear eats you. This was one of those few rare days when I felt like I’d managed to fight the bear to a begrudging draw. I took a quick shower, dried my hair, and had just settled into bed with my history-of-jazz paperback when the phone rang.
“Yeah?” I said into the phone, fumbling with the mute button.
“You’re home,” she said.
“Damn it,” I said, then let out a long sigh. “I missed you earlier, didn’t I?”
“ ’S okay. Gave me a chance to wait until I could get back here alone.”
“How are you, lady? This’s your third night.”
“Don’t remind me. I’m okay, but we’re all getting on each other’s nerves a bit. The food’s running low, too. We’re all tired of eating out of cans anyway.”
I sat up in bed. “Wait a minute. You telling me you haven’t got enough food down there?”
“We’re okay for another day or so. We’ve let the hostage negotiators know. They’re working out the details to have provisions passed through the lines.”
“I know.”
“You know? How do you know that?”
I bit my lower lip. “I was down there today. Howard let me through the lines.”
“Harry, what the hell did you think you were doing? I assume you had to tell Spellman what vested interest you had in visiting the trenches.”
“Marsha,” I said, hesitating for a moment. “They all knew anyway.”
There was a long, static-filled silence over the cellular phone. “Oh,” she said.
“Who cares? We’re both single. Nothing to be ashamed of, right? It’s not like we’re running around on our spouses or anything. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Do you?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “It’s just that … Well, I’ve just never, well, not never, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been involved with anyone so, so publicly.
”
“Hey, screw ’em if they can’t take a joke, right?”
She sighed. “I guess so.”
“So what’s the latest? There hasn’t been much new on the news programs.”
“The PEs have modified their position. They’re willing to let us take X rays, do a visual and cavity examination, and take tissue and fluid samples for analysis. But they still don’t want us cutting her open.”
“So, can you guys live with that?”
“Law’s pretty clear. In all cases of suspicious death, you have to do an autopsy. But,” she added, “Spellman’s taking it to the state Attorney General’s Office tomorrow morning for an opinion. The Pentecostal Enochians want to bargain for amnesty as well.”
“And in the meantime you all just sit there.”
“That’s about it. We found one of those little battery-powered pocket TVs in Dr. Henry’s office. We charged it up in the cooler, so at least we can watch the news.”
I laughed. “I can just imagine five people huddled around a three-inch pocket TV.”
Marsha laughed quietly. “I’ve seen so many episodes of Cheers, I’ve got the hots for Norm Peterson. C’mon, babe, I’m tired of talking about me. What’s going on in your life?”
“I met with Phil Anderson today over at the insurance company.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
I recounted the whole, frustrating story, then segued into Slim’s arrest.
“You going to get involved?” she asked.
“No. I’m too preoccupied. With you, with my cash situation. It’s just not a good time.”
“Can I give a little advice, darling?”
“Sure, of course.”
“You’re not going to do anything but drive yourself and me nuts, not to mention hacking off the entire Metro Nashville Police Department, if you persist in trying to figure out some way to be a hero in all this.”
“That’s not what I’m-”
“I know. I didn’t mean it like that. But there is really nothing you can do, Harry. We just have to sit tight. And there’s probably nothing you can do about the insurance money as well. So for the sake of your blood pressure and my nerves, why don’t you find something to take your mind off all this?”
There was a ripple of an audio static wave in the phone, and I knew her batteries were on the way out.
“I’ll give it some thought,” I said.
“You do that. In the meantime I’m going to make my last cup of herbal tea and stretch out on my office couch. If nothing else, the last few days have sure given me a chance to catch up on my paperwork.”
There was a pop in the phone, and the signal dropped out for just a second, then came back. “Hey, listen,” I yelled into the phone, like that would do some good. “Call me tomorrow.”
“Goo-” Hiss, pop. Dial tone.
I hung up the phone and leaned back into the pillow. On the muted television, a silent anchorman’s image was replaced by footage taken at the police station earlier this evening. On the tape, Slim Gibson was standing before a magistrate, hands cuffed, head down, bathed in a corona of television lights.
What the hell, I thought. Maybe she’s right. I reached over and grabbed a notepad out of my shirt pocket and flipped to the last page, then dialed the number written on it.
“Ray?” I asked, when a voice answered. “What time did you say that hearing was?”
Chapter 13
High-profile murders always seem to draw high-profile crowds. The highest-rated TV reporter in the city was jammed into the cramped hallway in front of the courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center as fans, hangers-on, spectators, musicians, cops, lawyers, and about fifty other people jostled for a spot.
Over the background din, I could hear her delivering her live remote from the courthouse for the morning news:
“Yes, Bob,” she said brightly, “the courthouse hallways are indeed packed as country-music fans, friends, family members, and onlookers struggle to get into the courtroom to see the man accused of murdering one of country music’s fastest-rising stars. The ex-husband of Rebecca Gibson, Randall J. Gibson, known as Slim, will stand before Judge Rosenthal and hear the preliminary case against him. The District Attorney’s Office has refused to comment on whether or not they will seek the death penalty against Rebecca Gibson’s ex, but we do expect them to seek to have him held without bond.”
At the words death penalty, all the hairs on the back of my neck got together, stood up, and did the Wave. Christ, I thought, I didn’t have any idea it was this grim. But then I settled down. The death penalty in this state is most often used as a weapon by prosecutors to scare the stew out of the accused, rendering him or her much more willing to negotiate when plea-bargaining time rolls around. Besides, Tennessee is historically reluctant to actually execute people. We hand out the death penalty like traffic tickets, but when it comes to yanking that switch, we really aren’t like Texas or Florida, where they’ll fry your ass for spitting on the sidewalk. We take almost a perverse pride in having a huge death-row population, but no executions in over thirty years.
I worked my way through the hallway past the television cameras toward the general-sessions courtroom where preliminary hearings are held. I’d spent many a morning in this building as a newspaper reporter; sometimes it was packed, other times I was the only one in the spectators’ gallery.
This time, they were jammed in like a 1930s revival meeting. Inside the small courtroom, the benches held row upon row of human in every imaginable combination. Some wore suits, but most were dressed casually, many with the affectations of musicians. The walls were even lined with standing men and women. I looked around the courtroom, searching the faces for one I knew. To my left, eight or ten down, stood an exhausted-looking Ray.
“Excuse me, excuse me, oops, excuse me-” I muttered to dirty looks as I wove my way around the bodies and edged in next to him.
“You made it,” he said, relieved. Ray pulled at the skin on his face like a rubber mask.
“Parking’s hell out there,” I said. “I drove around for ten minutes looking for a meter, then gave up and went into the garage behind the Ben West Building. Hell, took me five minutes to find a slot in there.”
“This one’s going to be pretty popular.”
“Yeah. You get any sleep last night?”
“Not much.”
“Who’s going to be representing him?” I asked. “We called Roger. There wasn’t much else to do,” Ray said. He hung his head like it was a heavy burden.
“Jesus, Harry, this is bad. News said this morning they might be going after the death penalty.”
“Don’t panic, guy. There’s quite a walk between going after it and getting it.”
On benches in a special gallery to the judge’s right, a row of suited lawyers sat talking and fumbling through papers. I recognized three of them from the Public Defender’s Office. They were huddled over the rail, making deals with the assistant DAs, shuffling through a huge caseload as quickly as possible.
“Where’s Vaden?” I asked.
“Second row, over there.” Ray pointed. “Just sitting off by himself.”
Roger Vaden, I thought, had probably not seen the inside of a criminal courtroom since field trips in law school. He looked completely forlorn, lost, befuddled.
“This is not an encouraging sign,” I whispered.
“No shit.”
“This is just the preliminary hearing,” I said. “It’s boilerplate for now. F. Lee Bailey probably couldn’t get him off at this point.”
The door to the judge’s chambers bounced open and a flurry of black robe entered the room and took the stairs up to the judge’s bench two at a time. The court officer jumped out of his chair.
“All rise,” he shouted. There was a commotion of noise and movement as everybody stood up. “Hear ye, hear ye, all persons having business before this honorable court are instructed …” Blah blah blah. “… Judge Alvin Rosenthal presiding.” The court o
fficer finished his spiel and sat down.
God, I thought, remembering my days in Boston as an undergraduate, only in the South would a good Jewish couple name their son Alvin.
Judge Rosenthal banged his gavel. “Before we get started, I want to address the spectators here. Now y’all listen. This is a courtroom, and the bench is going to conduct business with decorum and dignity. I want no outbursts, no talking aloud, no interference with the business of this court in any fashion.
“And, sir-” Judge Rosenthal pointed to a man in the front row of the spectator’s gallery and lowered his voice half an octave. “If you don’t get that Co-cola out of my courtroom in about ten seconds, you’re going to spend the next two days as my guest in the county jail. Understood?”
Some poor sucker in a denim sport coat, hair draped across his shoulders, two earrings in his left ear, hopped up and scampered through the crowd with his hand wrapped tightly around a can of diet Coke. A young woman quickly slid into the seat he vacated.
“Now we’ve got a lot of business to conduct this morning, and we’re going to go through this docket quickly and in the order in which the cases are listed. Is the District Attorney’s Office ready?”
Two fresh young law-school graduates-one male, one female, both in pinstripes-stood up at the table to the judge’s left.
“We are, Your Honor,” the male half of the team announced.
“The officer will read the docket,” Judge Rosenthal ordered.
A suited, dark-eyed woman at a table next to the court reporter stood up from behind two stacks of file folders, each about two feet high. “Case number 02-4597-346J,” she rattled off. “Willie J. Smith, Willful Destruction of Private Property, Public Intoxication, Carrying a Weapon for the Purpose of Going Armed.”
“Who’s for the defendant?” the judge asked.
Another suit stood up from the gallery on the side. “Scott Webster, Your Honor, Public Defender’s Office.”
I turned to Ray. “This could go on for hours.”
“You mean they’re going to work all those folders in this morning?” he asked.
Way Past Dead d-3 Page 9