“I’ll be upstairs around ten,” Dallas said to me, as he wandered into the Saloon and went to the bar. “We’ll do the interview there. I’ll give you a half-hour.”
Upstairs was the Saloon’s showroom where some of the festival’s events were to take place. It would be quiet at ten in the morning, since the welcoming party usually continued as an afternoon jam session of alcohol-powered songwriters around the outdoor bandstand.
I excused myself from the bar at ten, grabbed my camera bag, and headed upstairs unaware of what waited for me. The loud mixture of music and chatter followed and I stopped on the top landing to look down at the weathered, outdoor bar, the Saloon’s worn-concrete floor, and the celebrating crowd. Clint Bullard and Bob Pierce were laughing and jamming on the small stage, powered by bloody Marys, screwdrivers, and mimosas. Roosters strutted and crowed atop the bar’s tin roof, having climbed one of the large trees covering the patio to escape the crowds.
As I walked in, Kris Kristofferson’s gruff voice thundered like hurricane
winds from the multiple speakers in the Key West Saloon’s upstairs showroom, his recorded words vibrating off the walls as he sang about love and loss, pilgrims, Sunday mornings, and traveling with Bobby McGee.
Window light dimly illuminated the room. The A/C was on high, and it was chilly. I saw Dallas sitting by the drum set on the shadowy stage about the same time I noticed the CD unit’s remote control on the bar. I put my camera bag down and lowered the volume.
“Dallas, I need to hear myself think.” I attached the flash to the camera bracket as the music softened. “I appreciate your time. I know you’ve got a lot of things to do before tonight’s show.”
Dallas ignored me. I wondered if my turning down the music upset him. He’s a short-tempered man I know because he’s part of the featured events at the annual Songwriters’ Festival and each year I grow to dislike him more. But this interview was a paying gig so I smiled and disregarded his mood.
If he wanted to massage his hangover in the cold dimness it was okay, but I needed light to take notes. I stopped at the theatrical lighting panel by the woman’s room and switched on the soft light above the sound mixer. As soon as I stepped to the front of the stage, I knew why Dallas wasn’t talking and it had nothing to do with being upset with me.
Dallas sat on the drummer’s stool, his back against the wall, with a wooden drumstick stabbed into his throat. Blood stained his western shirt and jeans, and dripped onto the stage, while his alcoholic eyes stared into the netherworld, leaving a puzzled expression frozen on his face.
The Nashville songwriters downstairs were dressed in shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops to celebrate the tropics, but Dallas died wearing faded jeans, a western shirt, and boots. All that was lacking were his hat, chewing tobacco stains on his chin, and he would’ve been a cliché.
“What the hell have you gone and done now, Dallas?” I stepped around a puddle of blood at the base of the stool and checked for a pulse that I knew wasn’t going to be there. It took someone with strength to drive a drummer’s stick into his throat.
This was not the opening-night publicity Charlie Murdock, the event coordinator, wanted for his festival.
I’m Liam Michael Murphy. Years ago, I picked up the moniker Mad Mick Murphy because of stunts I pulled in college and my Boston-Irish heritage, and it stuck. I’m a journalist living in Key West and a weekly newsmagazine hired me to do a feature on Dallas Lucas, a Nashville legend, and a recent winner of his fifth songwriter-of-the-year award.
It was supposed to be an interview about his life, now it would be about his murder.
I expected all hell to break lose before breakfast was digested, when word got out. Most of the people downstairs wouldn’t shed a tear for Dallas, so maybe that made them suspects.
Habit had me shoot a few frames of the body, before I called my friend Key West Police Chief Richard Dowley. Another few minutes wasn’t going to matter to anyone, especially Dallas.
“Jesus, Mick,” Chief moaned after I told him where I was and what I was looking at. “Can’t you go anywhere without bringing trouble?”
“I’m supposed to interview the guy, Chief, not kill him. You want, I’ll walk away and let someone else find him.”
“Lock the door.” I heard him sigh. “Wait there for Sherlock.”
“What about the cops? Should I let them in?” I was being sarcastic.
He disconnected our conversation without a reply. Chief’s call to Sherlock would put the EMTs and cops into the loop quicker than a 911 call.
Sherlock Corcoran is the city’s crime scene investigator and the nickname came with the job. To show his sense of humor, he had a caricature of Sherlock Holmes’ profile painted on the crime scene van. He was not a big fan of journalists and seeing me at a crime scene never made him smile.
Rows of chairs were lined up facing the stage and the well-stocked bar was prepared for the sold-out show that was supposed to feature Dallas this evening. I moved to the back of the room and sat in the corner for the window light. I didn’t bother to lock the door because I expected a cop and ambulance to show up quickly.
I took the flash and lens off my camera and put them away. There was no reason for Chief to know I’d taken the photos. Sherlock would shoot more than enough.
“Yeah,” I said to Dallas, “you didn’t commit suicide.”
After scanning the room, I wrote what I had witnessed in my notebook, and when I looked down to check my observations, I saw a small pile of wood shavings on the carpet.
I picked up a few of the slivers – light colored wood, thin, uneven like someone had whittled a piece of wood. I jumped up, letting the shavings fall. I was sitting where the killer had sat and whittled the drumstick to a sharp point. I knew it.
I had used the remote and light panel, all things the killer must have used. Damn it, Sherlock would find my fingerprints on things the killer had touched.
Wiping everything down was an idea, but I knew it would also remove the killer’s prints. My only defense was to tell Sherlock upfront what I touched and hope someone else’s prints were there too.
I put the camera bag back on the bar and went outside to the steps. The morning held promise for the living, with its ocean-blue sky and jasmine-scented breeze, up away from Duval Street. I heard the siren over the partying downstairs and watched the police car turn into the parking lot. Officer Gene Bruehl got out, his long silver hair pulled into a ponytail, and by then a fringe group of songwriters was paying attention to the flashing lights.
Gene stopped at the door and talked to the Saloon’s door security men. They pointed toward the back of the Saloon, where the stairs were, and the cop pushed his way through the crowd. Half way up, he looked at me and shook his head.
“This the songwriters crowd?” Gene looked down at the group jamming on the stage, their drinks balanced on the railing.
“Yeah. Most of ‘em.”
“You want to do the honors?” He opened the door and motioned me through.
I led him down the short hallway to the main room.
“No lights?” He stopped at the edge of the bar.
“This is how I found the room.”
“Where’s the body?”
He followed me and noticed the dim light over the sound mixer.
“I turned that light on, I needed to see to write,” I said and stepped onto the stage.
Before he could join me, the door opened and we heard people outside. Two paramedics came in. Gene glanced at Dallas’ body and then went down the hall to meet them. He pointed them toward me, and forced a few curious songwriters outside.
While the first responders checked to make sure Dallas was dead, Kristofferson sang about a dying singer being unappreciated and no one caring until she was gone. I doubted anyone downstairs would write a song like that for Dallas.
Sherlock walked in and stopped in the hallway. “Why are we in the dark?”
“I left the room as I found it,” I sa
id, “But I touched the CD remote and stage lighting panel.”
He gave me his suspicious, squinted-eyed look, dropped his crime scene bag in the first row of chairs by the stage, and walked to the body without saying anything.
“He hasn’t been dead long.” Sherlock walked off the stage. “Who is he?”
“Dallas Lucas, one of the headliners of the songwriters’ event.” I sat down next to his crime scene bag.
“Not a nobody?” Sherlock moaned, shook his head, and took a camera out of his bag.
The paramedics had their gurney ready.
“Thought he was king of Nashville,” I said.
“I had tickets for his show tomorrow,” said one of the paramedics.
Detectives Donny Barroso and Alfredo Vargas came into the room.
“We gonna turn the lights on?” Donny yelled.
“Turn the lights on, Mick.” Sherlock shot photos of the stage and then moved in for close ups of Dallas. He walked back to his bag.
I went to the cooler unit behind the bar and used my elbow to throw the light switch. One less of my fingerprints for Sherlock to question me about later.
“You watch too much TV.” Donny laughed.
Sherlock jumped back onto the lip of the stage as the lights came on. “Jesus,” he said and all eyes turned toward him. “Don’t anyone move,” he shouted and looked around the floor.
Blood stained the carpet, leaving a trail from the bar to the stage. Sherlock followed the stains and bloody footprints to the bar, checking to see if there was blood spatter in the seating.
“Donny, anything in the hallway?”
Donny walked carefully toward the tiled hallway. He checked the floor and the walls.
“Nothing here,” he called back.
Sherlock stooped down and touched one of the stains. “Blood,” he said. “Fresh blood.” He stood and checked his wristwatch. “What time did you find him?”
“A couple of minutes after ten,” I said.
Sherlock looked concerned and nodded toward the two detectives. “Why don’t you sit in back and tell your story to Donny and Alfredo.” He turned his back to me, searched through his crime scene bag, and then talked with the detectives.
I walked to the last row of chairs, making sure I didn’t step in the blood and waited for the questioning to begin.
Now that the lights were on, I had a clear view of the room. I took a quick look across to where the whittled shavings were and knew it was too late to mention them. The cops were thorough, so they’d find them and piece together the same story I had, the killer waited in back whittling the drumstick.
I knew most of the bloody footprints were from my boat shoes, but others must have stepped in the blood too. Walking around the dark bar, when I first came in, there was no way I could have avoided it.
Donny sat next to me, while Alfredo straddled the folding chair in the next row, leaning against its back facing me.
“Start from the beginning,” Donny said and pointed a small micro tape recorder at me. “And, Mick, remember Louis will hear this, so keep to the story and forget we’ve known each other for a while or that you and the Chief are friends. We’ve got to do our job.”
“You don’t object to us taping this, do you?” Alfredo smiled, but his eyes stared hard at me.
“I’ve seen your penmanship, guys, hard to decipher it.” I tried to put levity in my words to show them how calm I was. “I understand Donny. Let’s get it over with.”
Lying is an art. Criminals, journalists and cops practice lying, so they’re good at it and good at spotting it in others. I look for the telltale signs, eyes avoiding contact, hands nervously moving, and other uncomfortable body language when interviewing people for a story, signs these detectives would be looking for in me.
I kept eye contact with them.
Donny said the date, time, location, and subject matter into the recorder. I told them almost everything, leaving out the whittling, from the time I walked past the Saloon’s security, showing my invitation – even though R.D., the bouncer, knew me – to calling the Chief after finding Dallas. They let me speak without interruption.
“You have a reason to kill him, that why you didn’t call 911?” Donny spoke quietly, putting no importance to the words.
I looked right at him. “There was no pulse, I checked it twice.”
“You a medic now?” Alfredo quipped.
“You didn’t see anyone else up here?” Donny didn’t wait for me to answer Alfredo.
“Only Dallas.” I said.
“Another way in or out but the front door?”
“No. The windows don’t open.”
“Sherlock said the vic had been dead a few minutes before you found him.” Alfredo’s stare hadn’t softened. He waited for me to flinch. “Do you know how he died?”
I looked from Alfredo to Donny and wondered if they knew something I didn’t. “A drummer’s stick through the neck.” I shrugged. “That’s what it looked like to me.”
“Sherlock said the vic bled out. Someone could’ve saved him with a call to 911,” Alfredo said. “So the killer sat here and watched him bleed to death, maybe drown in his own blood. If you didn’t kill him, where did the killer go?”
“Sherlock’s not the M.E., so he’s guessing. When Dallas left the bar, I was still sitting there. Check with the bartender.”
“The killer was up here and met him? Is that your take on how this happened?”
“I don’t know, but when I saw him at the bar, he was alone.”
“What time was that?” Donny kept the tape recorder pointed at me.
“I didn’t check the time.”
“Take a guess.”
“Somewhere after breakfast at eight and before the ten o’clock jam sessions.” It wasn’t the precise answer they wanted.
“I know who Dallas is, I watched him on the award show,” Alfredo said. “This is going to be big news, right?”
“Sure, in Nashville and Austin.”
“You going to get paid more for the murder story than the interview?” Donny pushed the recorder closer, while his tone turned accusing.
“You going somewhere with this?” I didn’t believe he thought I’d killed Dallas.
“Answer the question.” He held the recorder inches from my face and lost his smile.
“I was contracted for a story on Dallas. I don’t expect they’ll pay more because he was murdered.” I didn’t look away and neither did he. “I didn’t know the man well enough to want him dead.”
“But now there’ll be follow-up stories, right?” Alfredo said.
“Why are we listening to my wife’s music?” The Chief’s voice bellowed from the hallway before we could see him.
I didn’t answer Alfredo.
Sherlock walked to the bar to shut the music off. He spoke to Chief, nodding a couple of times toward the stage and once at me. Richard followed Sherlock and observed the body, never touching anything.
Off the stage, Sherlock pointed to the bloodstains and footprints on the carpet and at me. The Chief put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, pulled him closer, said a few words, and then motioned me to join them.
“We done?” I asked.
“For the moment.” Donny put the recorder away.
“I told Sherlock you didn’t do this.” The Chief said, as I walked up. “I’m correct, right?”
It’s a good thing having the chief of police as a friend when you live on a two-by-four-mile island.
“This is how I found him, Chief.” I kept eye contact with Sherlock.
“Chief, right now the evidence points to Murphy. The vic was killed around ten, when Murphy says he arrived, and he didn’t see anyone else in the room or on the stairs. The bloody footprints are his.” Sherlock pointed to the footprints. “He’s admitted to touching the remote control, the light switch, and other things. Someone sat here and watched the vic drown in his own blood.”
“Guilty of most of those things, but not the murder.
” I didn’t turn away from Sherlock and he didn’t flinch, either. “I found the room dark and cold and the CD playing loud as hell, so I turned down the A/C and the music, and put the stage’s sound mixer light on because I needed to take notes. I walked through the blood, because I didn’t see it in the dark. And they’re not all my footprints.” I looked down at Sherlock’s tennis shoes.
“Bag the shoes,” Chief said. “Check everyone’s shoes.”
“I gotta go barefoot?” I protested, as I slipped off my boat shoes.
“Buy a pair of sandals, downstairs.” Chief turned toward Sherlock, who nodded.
“Now, tell me what we’ve got here and who the vic is.” He spoke to me, not Sherlock, which didn’t endear me to the crime scene cop.
“A dead songwriter, but I’m not the person to tell you about him.” I looked at the bloodstained carpet. “You need to talk to Charlie Murdock and Rob Bauer.”
“Murdock I know, who’s Bauer?”
“Rob’s the BMI rep. Big sponsors of the festival.”
“BMI?” Chief waited for me to explain.
“Broadcast Music International collects royalties for songwriters and singers,” I said. “Polices the industry and pays the royalties out. The Nashville office helps the festival with talent.”
“Okay. Now I know about BMI. What can you tell me about the vic?” He forced me toward the windows, his large arm over my shoulders, and we sat down.
“Rumors.”
“I love rumors.” He adjusted his glasses. “Let’s hear one.”
“Dallas was a womanizer.” I began by recalling things I was sure of. “And I don’t think it mattered if they were single or not.”
“Some of the husbands and boyfriends downstairs?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “He’s also been accused of stealing songs from new songwriters he’d taken on as a mentor, mostly women.”
Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories Page 7