Death Sung Softly

by David Archer

  “I'll come down,” he said. “What time is visiting hours?”

  “They start at noon, but I asked the head jailer, and he said if I hire a PI or a lawyer, they can come anytime and we can go into a meeting room and talk privately. I'll be ready anytime, just come as soon as you can, okay?”

  Sam sighed. “I'll be there in a couple of hours,” he said.

  Smith let out a sigh of his own. “Thanks, Mr. Prichard, I really appreciate it. I'll talk to you then.”

  Sam put down the phone, and noticed that Indie was awake and looking at him. “Jimmy Smith?” she asked.

  “Yep. He says he didn't do it, and wants to hire me to try to prove it.”

  “You think there's any chance he's telling the truth?”

  Sam nodded. “Strange as it may seem, Babe, I think there might be. Something about the way the case ended has been bothering me, like there's something I've overlooked. I think I want to hear what he's got to say.”

  “I heard you say you'd be there in two hours. How long does it take you to get there?”

  “Half hour or so.”

  “Good,” she said, “cause I'm not done with you yet.” She rolled over on top of him, and he stopped thinking about Jimmy Smith.

  An hour later, he got up and showered while Indie went back to sleep for a while, then slipped into his clothes and out the front door. He drove the van downtown to the jail and told the jailer he was there as a PI to see Jimmy Smith. A few minutes later, another jailer came to escort him to an interview room normally used by police and lawyers.

  “You sit here,” the jailer said, indicating one of a pair of chairs on one side of a table. “Smith will sit across from you. If he gets violent or anything, just yell, and one of us will be right outside. I don't know if you've seen him, but he's a big son of a bitch!”

  “I know him,” Sam said, and the jailer nodded and left. A moment later, he returned with Smith and told him to sit in his chair and not to get out of it for any reason.

  “No problem,” Smith said, and the jailer left them alone.

  “Mr. Prichard,” he began, but Sam held up a hand to stop him.

  “Just Sam,” he said, and Smith nodded.

  “Thanks for coming, Sam. I know it must have been a hard decision, especially after the last time we met. I wasn't very polite, and I apologize for it.”

  Sam shrugged. “I was pretty rude, myself, that day. Let's forget that and get on to this. To be honest, I wasn't a hundred percent convinced you were guilty, and I guess I'm still not. Tell me your side of it.”

  “That's part of the problem,” Smith said, “I don't even have a side to tell. I have no idea how Barry died, and no clue how his head ended up in my property. The place where they found it, that spot is back by the road behind my place, and if you ask me, anyone could have driven up there in the middle of the night, got out and buried that stuff, and been gone before anyone noticed. I sure didn't hear anything.”

  Sam sat there and looked at him for a minute. “I've talked to someone who says Barry called you from her phone and said he wasn't interested in your record deal, a few hours after you say he told you he'd sign and leave the band.”

  Smith nodded. “I heard. Samantha Harris. I got a call from her that day, but it wasn't from Barry. She called me and said Barry asked her to call and say he wasn't interested. I said that was BS, but she insisted it was true, so I started trying to call Barry and he never answered. I figured she talked him out of it, and that he just wasn't answering for me, and that's when I called her and left the message they're using against me. I was trying to tell her to butt out, was all, cause I figured she was talking him into ignoring me.”

  Sam thought it through. He'd seen the call to Smith's phone on Samantha's, but there was no way to know who had placed it, of course. Smith could be telling the truth.

  “What did the cops say when you told them this?”

  Smith snorted. “I asked them to put me on a polygraph, and they said it wasn't worth their time and effort. They basically said they've got me, so they're not gonna look for anyone else. That's why I thought to call you, Sam.”

  So who do you think is framing you? Samantha Harris?”

  “Nah, she's not this smart,” Smith said. “But I can guarantee you she knows who's doing it, and working right along with 'em! Otherwise, she'd never have thought to say Barry called me that day from her phone. She'd have tried to pretend she never talked to me at all.”

  “Then who else could it be? It'd have to be someone who hated Barry enough to kill him, and hated you enough to want you to go down for it. Any ideas?”

  Smith nodded. “Two possibilities,” he said. “One would be Chris Lancaster; we've had a problem since I tried to get him in with that big band, and he's run his mouth several times about wanting to see me get what he says I deserve, and if Barry did say he was leaving the band, he'd have been hot enough to flip his lid. He'd be the first one I'd look at.”

  “And the second?”

  “Barry's sister, Marjorie. Back when I started working with Chris, he told me about how his sister is raising his kid, and he was trying to make enough money he could get her back. I thought if I could help him out with that, then he'd sign the contract and I'd be hone free and making the big money, so I went to talk to her. She and her husband went absolutely nuts on me; she even pulled a gun and threatened to shoot me if I ever talked to her again! She said she'd see Barry rot in hell before she ever let him have his daughter back, and that if I didn't stay out of it, she'd send me there right along with him. She's a nutcase, and I guarantee you she'd be capable of killing her own brother!”

  Sam sat there for another long moment, just considering what Smith had said. If he was telling the truth, and there was no reason to doubt him at the moment, then it was very possible that he was innocent. Sam wasn't convinced that Chris was a killer, but the sister was an unknown quantity.

  “Let's assume for the moment that I believe you're innocent. There still are no guarantees that I can prove that. You do understand that, right?”

  Smith nodded. “I know,” he said, “but you’re the only hope I've got. I'll pay you fifty thousand to get your ass out there and try to find the real killer, Sam. If you manage it, I'll give you another fifty on top of that. Fair enough?”

  Sam nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “How do I get the money? They let you have a checkbook in here?”

  “No, but I talked this over with my wife Sheila last night, and she said to call you. I'll give you her number, and she'll give it to you in cash today.”

  Sam's eyebrows went up. “You keep that kind of money around in cash?”

  “Hey, sometimes cash is what makes the big deals happen! I keep better than half a million in cash there in a safe, just in case I need it. Just call her and she'll let you have it. And Sam? Thank you, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

  “If you really are innocent,” Sam said, “then I'm gonna do my best to prove it. If you’re not, and you're playing me, then I'm gonna take your money and enjoy the heck out of it while you rot in prison, understood?”

  Smith stood up and extended a hand. “Perfectly,” he said, “and I'd feel exactly the same way if I was you!”

  Sam shook his hand, and then knocked to let the jailer know he was done. The same one came and escorted Smith back to his cell, while another walked Sam out.

  When he got outside, he dialed the number Smith had given him, and a woman answered.

  “Mrs. Smith, this is Sam Prichard,” he said, and she started talking and crying all at once.

  “Oh, thank God, Mr. Prichard, thank God you called! You talked to Jimmy already?”

  “Yes, he told me...”

  “To call me, yes,” she said. “I've got the money for you now, fifty thousand dollars in cash. Can you come by for it, or do you want me to bring it to you somewhere?”

  “I can come by. I can be there in about thirty minutes, is that alright?”

  “
Yes, yes, I'll be here! And thank you, thank you so much for being willing to help!”

  Sam hung up and got into the van to drive to the Smith place, a fairly large mansion on the edge of the city. He got there just when he'd said he would, and Mrs. Smith answered the doorbell instantly. She was a ravishingly beautiful woman, a few years younger than her husband, but obviously in great shape. She invited him in, and he stepped into a grand foyer, then followed her into her kitchen.

  She picked up a small cloth bag, the kind used by upscale stores, and handed it to him. Sam glanced inside and saw several stacks of bills with paper bank wrappers still on them. Each was marked $1000, and he estimated that there were probably fifty of them, as promised. He didn't bother to count it.

  “Mr. Prichard,” she said, “I do thank you for helping us. Jimmy isn't nearly as bad a man as some people think, and this is very hard on our whole family. I know he didn't do this, Mr. Prichard, I know he didn't do it. I even told the police, he was with me the whole day that Barry disappeared; I was here when Barry called him, and when that woman called him, too. I know for sure that he's innocent, but the police think I'm just lying to try to protect him, and I guess I can see why they'd think a wife would do that, but I’m telling the truth!”

  Sam looked at her for a moment, and then asked a question. “Mrs. Smith, would you have any ideas who might want to frame your husband for murder? Does anyone come to mind when you think about it?”

  She looked him in the eye for a long moment, and then asked one of her own. “Mr. Prichard, is a private investigator like a lawyer? Do you keep confidential what your clients tell you?”

  “We're not protected by the law on such matters, Mrs. Smith, but I can give you my word on it. Anything you tell me will stay between us.”

  Mrs. Smith stood there for a few seconds, then said, “Mr. Prichard, my husband is a good provider and a wonderful father, but he's also a man, and sometimes he strays. This Samantha Harris was one of those he has strayed with in the past, and the truth about the time he supposedly assaulted her is that they got into a fight because he would not leave me and marry her. That's what caused her to back out of the contract he was working on for her, and that led to the big fight. If you ask me, she's had it in for him ever since, and since she's the one who supposedly came up with all this evidence...”

  “Then you think she's behind it? I asked Jimmy about her, and he said she isn't smart enough to do this on her own.”

  Mrs. Smith smiled, but it was a bitter smile. “My husband has a low opinion of the female intelligence, I'm afraid. Is she smart enough? Oh, yes, she's very intelligent, and very devious! I think she's quite capable of doing this, and I know she's had some sort of relationship with Barry that was pretty rocky, too. I'm not sure what it was all about, but there were times when she loved him, and others when she hated his guts!”

  Sam let her words digest for a moment. “I'll do what I can, Mrs. Smith. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas or need anything from me, here's my number.” He handed her one of the homemade business cards. “Just call me.” He started to turn and leave, but she caught his arm.

  “Mr. Prichard, please find out who did this,” she said. “And if what I've given you isn't enough, or if there's—anything else you might want, as an incentive—please let me know. I'd give you anything to help my husband, because no one else will.”

  Sam smiled, but assured her the money was more than enough, and he thought he detected a hint of disappointment in her face as he turned away. He'd known instantly what she was offering, but he wasn't interested, and especially now that he had the woman he truly wanted waiting for him at home. This was one conversation he wouldn't be telling her about; Indie might be small, ut he'd bet she could take Mrs. Smith in a fair fight.

  He got back into his van and glanced into the bag full of money again. What was it about people nowadays, always giving him cash? Didn't anyone know how to write a check anymore?

  He called Indie and told her that he'd accepted the case, and that he'd picked up the money, but wanted to go and try to see Samantha Harris, to see if he could rattle her at all. She went to the computer and found the woman's address in a matter of seconds, and he was on the way.

  Samantha Harris lived in Arvada, so it was about a forty minute drive from where he was to her place. He pulled up and parked on the street in front of her townhouse, and walked up to ring her bell. She answered almost immediately, and seemed very surprised to see him standing there.

  “Ms. Harris, I was wondering if I could ask you a few more questions,” he said, and she opened the door wide so he could enter.

  “I thought everything was over, now that Jimmy's been arrested,” she said.

  “Well, I'm just trying to clear up a few details,” Sam said, “and I was hoping you could help.”

  She shrugged. “Sure, if I can. Have a seat.” She pointed to her couch and he sat.

  “Okay, now, according to Jimmy, it wasn't Barry who called him from your phone that day, it was you. He claims you said that Barry asked you to call and tell him he wasn't going to sign the contract, and that that was the real reason for the voicemail message he left you.”

  She laughed. “Oh, good grief,” she said, “he actually said that? What a liar! No, like I said, Barry's phone was dead and he used mine to tell Jimmy to forget it. That's the honest truth.”

  Sam couldn't tell if she was being honest or not, for sure. She seemed relaxed enough, but something was off. “Okay, thanks. Now, can you tell me about your affair with Jimmy? That was back before your hand got hurt, right?”

  Her eyes went dark, suddenly. “Yeah, we had a fling once,” she said through clinched teeth, “years ago. He kept telling me I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and how he wished I was his kids' mother, all the crap married men say when they want to get into a girl's pants, and I fell for it. Hell, I was barely in my twenties, then, and he was a handsome, rich guy, so I fell for it all. We broke it off after he hit my hand with that vase, though! I wasn't gonna be one of those women who keep getting out and then going back, not me. That was the end of that, and I was glad to be out of it!”

  Sam thought for a minute. “Naturally, Jimmy is saying he's been framed, and that he's innocent, so we have to look into all these little things he's saying. Do you have any idea who might have hated Barry and Jimmy enough that they'd murder one and frame the other for doing it? Just assuming there's any truth to his claim, I mean, who do you think might be that kind of person.”

  A flash of something dark went through her eyes, and she gave a derisive snort. “That little crack-whore of his might do something like that. What’s her name, Janet? Janice, that's it. She might be that evil, if Jimmy was telling the truth, not that he is!”

  Sam hesitated a moment. “Samantha, did you know that Barry and Janice got married a couple of months ago? They were keeping it a secret for the time being, but it's true.”

  The darkness hit again, but vanished after only a second. “Yeah, I knew. He told me right after, cause we'd been on-again, off-again lovers for a year or so, and he wanted me to know why he wasn't coming around anymore. He still came by once in a while to talk, though, just like that day. He said I had a level head on my shoulders, and he liked getting my opinions on stuff.”

  Sam nodded as if accepting it all. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks for giving me your time, and helping me clear some of this up.” He stood and turned toward the door. “One more question,” he said. “Who else besides you knew that you'd gotten that message from Jimmy, warning you to stay out of his business?”

  She thought for a second. “I told Bill about it after I got the hairs in the mail. Other than that, I don't think I told anyone.”

  “You almost sound like you believe Jimmy.”

  Sam turned to her and shrugged his shoulders. “Something about this whole case is bugging me. It almost seems like it was too easy, and in my experience, when a case seems too easy it's because you missed something. I'm
just trying to make sure nothing got missed.”

  “I don't think Jimmy is innocent,” she said, “but if he is, then I hope you find whoever really did this. Barry deserves that, but I can tell you that it wasn't me, and I've told you the only one I could think might do it. Even if they were married, there could be a thousand reasons why she'd turn on him, and there's just something about her that never set right with me. You need to take a good look at her, I think.”

  Sam nodded. “I guarantee you, I'm going to. You're right; Barry deserves to have the truth come out, one way or another.”

  Sam left, then, and drove back toward his home. Since it was a Sunday morning, there wasn't a lot of traffic, and he spent the time thinking over all that he'd learned about the case.

  Jimmy still seemed the most likely suspect, but if his wife was telling the truth, then he couldn’t have done it. Samantha had been eager to come forward with the evidence she had, implicating him, but there was always the possibility that Jimmy was telling the truth and it was she who had called him from her phone, rather than Barry. The envelope containing the hairs had been typed, so anyone could have sent that to her, even she herself. Whoever did send it had been in possession of Barry's head at some point, and if that wasn't Jimmy, then it was someone who knew that Jimmy had called and left a threatening message on her phone, because they knew that her receiving the hairs would go along with that voicemail to implicate the agent, but according to Samantha, no one had known about it until after the envelope had been delivered.

  The whole thing was like a three-dee jigsaw puzzle. Each piece left a place for a new piece, but the more pieces you had, the more complex the whole thing became and the harder it was to figure out the next piece.

  His route home took him through some business districts, and he stopped to pick up a cup of coffee and a newspaper, then saw a store across the street that was open, and wandered inside. He spent a half hour there, browsing through their stock, then had to go back to the van to get some money from the bag. He made his purchase and left, smiling to himself.