by Dave Connis
“Hey—” she starts, but covers the receiver. “What’s his last name? We never got The Ass’s last name.”
Addy looks out the window at the mailbox. “Woodrow.”
“Is this Mr. Woodrow? Awesome. My name is Mindy Hastings, and I’m looking to record an album. A friend of mine recommended you.”
I raise my hands in confusion. She waves me away.
What the crap is she doing?
“There are five of us.” She rubs her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Did you ask who recommended you?”
Trey slams his head on the back of my seat like we’ve been defeated.
“Okay,” she says, laughing. “Confession. I figured you’d take me more seriously if I said someone recommended me. This town is like one giant party. If you aren’t invited, you’re screwed.”
I can hear the guy laughing through the speaker. I pretend to give her a slow clap, but she just shrugs at her own ability to BS.
“Yeah. Our band name is … Knights of Vice. No, not nights with an n. Knights, like medieval dragon-slaying badasses. Haha, right. Well, we’d like to come in and see the place…. Yeah, and I’m sure Carrie Underwood wanted to see the place before she coughed up that much money, too. Can we drop by and get a tour today? Great, how about one? Cool. One last question: when I was reading reviews on your studio, I kept seeing these alternate spellings for the studio name.”
Her mouth drops.
“Haha, yeah.” She turns in her seat to look at all of us. “It’s pretty hard to mess up Bridge Studios.”
WHIPPED PUPPY DOGS
“What if The Ass is the killer?” Dez asks. “What if he was/is a head honcho in the KKK and he lived across from Mr. Cratcher, and that’s how Mr. Cratcher and Gabby were found out?”
“That’s totally possible,” Trey says, “but, I think the cops would’ve thought about that. I’m sure they interviewed his neighbors.”
“But maybe the investigation was so focused on Mr. Cratcher, they were lax on their other suspects?”
“I don’t know, guys,” Elliot says. “I came here to find a missing album, not solve a murder.”
She frowns. “I’m just saying it’s kind of a crazy coincidence that Mr. Cratcher’s neighbor now works in the studio where Abbey Road US used to be.”
“I think Elliot’s right,” Addy says. “You guys need to focus on getting Mr. Cratcher’s album so you can finish it when we get back. I don’t feel like tracking down a murderer. I’ve seen enough movies.”
“We don’t have enough time to do a criminal investigation,” I add, thankful that the majority of the group is on my side. “I don’t want to miss going back to school because I’ve been murdered by The Ass. Besides, we need to make sure we’re attempting to accomplish attainable things.”
“What if he has the album, though?” Dez asks. “What if the killer has the album because it’s incriminating evidence?”
“If the killer wound up with the album, he/she probably already destroyed it,” Elliot says.
Silence.
Addy grabs the steering wheel. “Soooo, Bridge Studios?”
“Yeah,” Dez says, tapping the address into her phone. “Let’s do this.”
“Okay,” I ask. “Why didn’t you just tell The Ass that you wanted information about Colin Cratcher?”
“Uh, because his own son hasn’t talked to him in years. You think he’s just gonna chitchat with a girl who doesn’t want to give him any money?”
“Fair point.”
“The only way to get this guy to talk is to trick him into doing it. We need … ugh. I need to, don’t I?”
“Need to what?”
She takes a deep breath and then pulls the glove box open. “I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this,” she mutters as she sifts through a bunch of napkins. Finally, she pulls out a stack of hundred dollar bills like she’s touching dirty underwear.
“Holy …” Trey says.
“I feel like a one-percent-rich-ignorant-dull-hacksaw that just throws money around because he can for even touching this,” Dez says, “but bigger things are at stake and money talks.”
“Dez, that’s like, a bank stack of hundreds,” Addy says. “And you were keeping them in the glove box.”
“I’m aware of that.” Dez says.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” Addy says.
“Like, dumb cool or dumb dumb?” Trey asks.
“Come on!” Dez says before Addy can answer. “Step on it. Follow that car!”
We pull out of the neighborhood, all silent and really confused.
Finally, Elliot says, “I don’t fucking understand your kind of people.”
And we all break into laughter.
—
The Ass doesn’t look like an ass. He’s wearing a gray cardigan over a V-neck shirt. He’s in his late-sixties, but he looks as stylish as Dez. He’s all ours as soon as Dez holds up her stack of Franklins and asks, “Do you have to pay for a tour?”
The building looks like what I’ve always pictured a real studio would look like. A small front desk with a hallway that leads to the sound engineers room. Inside, there’s a giant mixing board against the wall, right below a huge window that looks into the isolation room, which is filled with microphones and amps. Somehow the floor in their isolation room is void of the rat’s nest of cables that typically marks our home recording sessions. Mr. Cratcher never organized the cables. He just let them cross and intersect until they become one big stringy mass of black wire.
During the studio tour, I provide some good misdirection by talking about what kind of microphones we’d like to use on our “album.” I make myself seem like a persnickety sound geek, but I realize very quickly I don’t know enough to back up my pretentiousness. Addy realizes I’m about to talk myself into a hole before Dez does and nudges her in the ribs. Dez jumps in and saves me from my ignorance.
“I was doing some research on this place before we came over. Looks like it was a pretty intense crime scene in the seventies, huh?”
I don’t know why I expect The Ass to hulk out and tear us to pieces over this question, but I do. The thought that our bodies might be shoved under a floorboard in Bridge Studios is pretty much all I have in my head.
The Ass doesn’t flinch. “Wasn’t pretty.”
“Do you think about it all when you’re sitting behind the mixing board?” Dez asks. “I know I would. I would’ve torn down the building and burned all its contents.” Dez acts as if she has a sudden realization. She flays her fingers and pretends to shiver. “Dear God, please tell me this is a different building.”
He laughs. “The building was torn down. This place is entirely new and state-of-the-art.”
Wow, she’s brilliant. It took me forever to figure out her plan. I smile at her, and she winks.
“Can I talk to you for a second, Mr. Woodrow?” I ask.
He looks at me like I just asked him to make out, but we step out of the isolation room and he closes the door.
“Mindy’s the money behind this operation. You saw her flash that stack. That’s not even the half of it,” I say. “Her dad’s a wealthy stock trader. We have our band practices in her house and it’s huge.”
“So?” he says.
“So, Mindy’s pretty superstitious. As soon as she figured out there was a murder here, we practically had to tie her to the roof of our SUV with bungee cords to get her to come. Now, I know she’s prepared to drop as much money as she needs to get the best quality recordings possible. She flat out told us before we came there’s no budget.”
The Ass’s eyes light up. I got him. We’ve got him.
“I’m just warning you, if you want her to drop that money here like I do, you have to show her there isn’t even a cable left from the old studio. Now that she knows you know something about what happened here, she’s going to slay you with questions. Just give her the answers and you’ll be a richer man for it. We good?”
He runs
a hand through his hair. “Why are the rich, hot ones always the weirdest ones?”
Anger rolls through me when he calls Dez hot and weird. Only I can do that. Well … and Addy, Trey, and Elliot. Finally, he brings his hand down from his hair and rubs his eyes. “Whatever, kid, let’s just get the show over with so we can make an album.”
We walk back into the isolation room and I nod to Dez. Her smirk appears for a millisecond. She knows I caught on.
“What did you guys just talk about?” she asks.
“I just wanted to check the mixing board,” I say.
“So, is there anything left of the old studio in this one?” she asks.
The Ass crosses his arms. “No, everything was sold off after the trial.”
“You aren’t just saying that to get my money, are you? Where did it all go?”
He shrugs. “I wasn’t around then. After the case was closed, the cops dealt with the personal stuff. Like I just said, anything that wasn’t ruined or stolen, Abbey Road sold. That was a long time ago, definitely before Bridge bought the building. I promise you, Mindy, there’s no trace of the old building here. None.”
“Not even under the floorboards?” she asks.
“No, the foundation was ripped up. Everything about this building is brand new.”
“None of the guys that currently work here worked at the old building, did they?”
The Ass casts a disgusted look at me. I just shrug and give him an “I told you so” face.
“No, we’re all new staff. The guy who was acquitted of the murder doesn’t even live in Nashville anymore.”
“Oh. My. God,” Dez says, making herself sound like the biggest diva on the east coast. “So he’s still on the loose? How do you know he isn’t in Nashville?”
“I lived across the street from him. He disappeared as soon as the trial was over.”
Dez takes three dramatic steps back. “You knew him?”
“No, no, no, I didn’t know him. I mean, I said hi to him every morning. Seemed like a nice guy. Didn’t think he’d ever kill anybody.”
Dez throws her hands up and pretends to storm toward the door.
“Mindy,” I say, grabbing her wrist. “Just chill, okay?”
“I can’t. Are you hearing this? This place is probably as haunted as an abandoned insane asylum.”
“So what if it’s haunted?” Addy says catching on. “We can use that to our advantage. Put a sticker on the album that says we recorded in a haunted studio.”
“Look, Mindy,” The Ass says, scrambling to cover over Addy’s statement. “I’ve worked here since we opened. I haven’t seen a single ghost, spook, or anything supernatural. This place isn’t haunted.”
“Wha—what happened to the guy’s stuff? He worked here, right?”
The Ass is getting super pissed. His jaw is as tight as an overblown balloon.
“He took it all with him when he moved,” he says. “There was nothing left in his house. I looked after he left.”
“I need to make sure,” she says, waving the stack of Franklins at him. “Who can I talk to so I can make sure?”
He throws his hands up in the air. “Look, if you’re not going to believe it, then just get out of here.”
“Do you want my money?” she asks.
“Mason Crowell,” he says. “Mason Crowell was the police chief then. He handled the murder. He interviewed me as a suspect at least three times. Go talk to him, figure your stuff out, and come back when you’re ready to record your album.”
Dez drops her shoulders and puts her hands on her hips. “You know what? I can’t work with an old man with an attitude. Forget this. Come on, band.” She snaps at us and we follow her out like we’re whipped puppy dogs.
WHY DOES IT MATTER IF I FIGHT IT?
Dez doesn’t buy herself lunch. We cover her because, after her Oscar-worthy performance as Mindy, the least she deserves is a free sandwich. We sit down to eat, and I scarf down my foot-long chipotle turkey sub in four minutes and then, because we decided it’s not going to cause mass addiction chaos to have Addy give us or phones back when we’re out and about, aka not in the house, go outside and call dad.
When the others finish, we drive around Nashville for a little bit then end up going back to the mansion to work on figuring out what to do next. I pick my teeth with a pine toothpick, but only because Elliot got the last mahogany one. Dez has my laptop in the Hamana, and though I can’t see her, I hear tap tap tap tap tap. Elliot is reading a Reader’s Digest about trout fishing and is making a bunch of “huh” noises.
Trey brings our dirty dinner dishes into the kitchen and washes them next to Addy. I watch them through the window. Addy smiles at him like I smile at Dez. He makes her laugh, and in turn she makes him laugh. They clean the dishes, pots, and pans together. Since Addy’s unofficially joined the KOV, he’s been different. Good different. Like Addy’s existence has made him grow out of his un-thoughtful horniness. They finish the dishes, and thinking that none of the porch dwellers are watching, Trey turns to her and goes in for a kiss. I wait for Addy to reject him, ready for the entertainment at his expense, but she lets him. Heck, she puts her arms on his shoulders and kisses him back.
My jaw drops.
She’s liked him all along.
Elliot notices my incredulousness and follows my line of sight. Then Dez notices us noticing. She turns, sees them, and goes to say something, but I bring a finger up to my mouth and shush her. As strange as it is, I want Addy to enjoy it. I want her not to feel pressure, silly, awkward, or anything besides happiness. After what she did for me, the way she loves me, I want whatever her and Trey have to last. I don’t want anything to scare her into running away. No more running away for the Hawthornes.
Addy and Trey break apart, all smiles. He grabs the phone and comes back onto the porch. I watch Dez and Elliot to make sure they go back to their business, and even though they’re conspicuously smiling, they do. Addy comes out a minute or so later.
“What’s with the face, Trey?” Addy asks. I look at him. His forehead’s wrinkled.
Elliot, Dez, and I could make a bunch of make out jokes right now. I, for one, have millions, but I don’t, so the other two don’t.
“There are three Mason Crowells in Nashville,” Trey says. “I’m sure we can find the right one, though. Should we just call them all?”
“Yeah,” Elliot says. “Use Adam’s ‘team of researchers’ excuse and tell him we’re looking to do an interview.”
“We could pretend like we’re doing an interview on racism in Nashville. I feel like cops are always looking for ways to get on the other side of racism.”
“Abuela Treybo with the win,” Addy says, plopping down on the rocking chair and pulling a random book off the table next to her.
“Do it,” Dez says. “That’s brilliant. It’s like, using systemic racism to battle racism. I love it so much.”
“Alright, I’ll be right back,” Trey says. “I have to call my parents first.”
I catch Addy’s eyes and give her a brother-like nod. Red spreads across her cheeks, but she smiles and goes back to her book.
Dez disappears back into the Hamana. “So, do we want to go check out more of downtown Nashville tonight? We don’t have much else to do so we might as well, right? Or we could go get more pie. Mmmmmm, pie.”
“I kind of just want another day to relax,” Elliot says. “How about we paint the town some color tomorrow? We can just chill and play games tonight.”
“Trey hates board games,” I say. “Remember the time we tried playing Apples to Apples? He shoved everything off the table after the second hand and we ended up going to Pritchett’s.”
“Maybe we should just make Trey play games for tonight’s entertainment,” Dez says. “That sounds more entertaining than anything else.”
Elliot snickers and then sticks his toothpick into the mesh screen behind his head. “Yeah, well, while you guys think about that, I’m going to take a nap.”
>
I hold up my hand like I’m in class.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s just a nap, right? You aren’t going to go do your thing? Because if you want to feel something that badly, I can just punch you in the balls and save you the trouble.”
“It’s a for-real nap. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Why couldn’t you have just pinky swore or something?” I ask.
“Not as funny.”
Once Elliot’s gone, I walk over to the Hamana and part the fabric. To my surprise, Dez is sleeping.
I miss being home with her. It’s nice being on a trip, but it feels too sensational to be normal. With her around, monotony is an adventure. We could go to Pritchett’s every day, sit in our normal booth, order the same milkshakes, and she can make it feel different and awesome every time. I lean down and kiss her. My lips touch hers and my entire body ripples with warmth.
“It didn’t work,” she says, eyes still closed.
So she’s not sleeping. I lay down next to her, wrapping my arm around her waist. “What?”
“Not engulfing each other with our unnatural disasterness.”
She’s nervous. She told me her secret and now she’s scared of our closeness. I get that. I felt exposed after I told her about the reason for my suspension.
I grab her hand, hoping it will ease her worry.
“What happens when we erupt?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? That’s not possible. Name one natural disaster that hasn’t destroyed something, even if it was a small destruction.”
“Hurricanes that don’t make landfall.”
“I bet all kinds of fish and birds die in them.”
“Can you just, not think about us in terms of impending doom?”
She spins around to face me. Her body adds to the burning of mine. We’re like a bonfire in a hammock. A bonfammock.
“I know you think we can be more than addicts. I’m trying to believe that, but the reality is I’m letting myself consume you: kissing, going on dates. What happens when I’m ready to move on?”