Jonathan Kellerman - Capital Crimes

A hard swallow.

“So thank y’all for comin’ out here for Jack…and let’s not forget Denny and Mark. So this is for the trio…we love you guys. Keep the faith. And I think we’re gonna end on a piece that, hey, Jack, we love you, bro. We’re really gonna miss you.”

The performers shuffled back on stage, took up their positions and ended with “My Lady Lies Sweetly.” When they had finished, the standing ovation was thunderous and long. Lamar had to shout over the bravo s and encore s. “Talk to Train?”

“Reckon he’d be the one.”

They wound their way through the crowd until they found Jeremy talking earnestly to a bevy of nubile teenage girls, each one looking profoundly sad as Jeremy dispensed his words of wisdom.

“Yeah, that was Jack. Just a crazy guy.”

Baker stepped toward him, badge in hand. “Mr. Train, I’m Detective Southerby and this is Detective Van Gundy. Could we have a word with you in private?”

Jeremy’s eyes darted from side to side. The dilated pupils could have been from the dark, or from something that would make him nervous to be around the police. Baker interjected, “It’s about Jack Jeffries.”

Looking a little relieved, Jeremy Train nodded. “Sure…uh, wanna step outside so I can take a smoke?”

“That would work,” Baker said.

Once outside, Jeremy lit up and offered the detectives a Marlboro. Both declined with a shake of the head. “Bad habit,” he said.

“Just think of it as helping the southern economy,” Baker said. “I liked what you had to say about Jack.”

“It sucked, man…” He shook his head in disgust. “I can’t talk in public. It’s weird, I can write good songs- ”

“Great songs,” Lamar interrupted.

“Yeah?” A smile. “Thanks. I can sing…I dunno, I’m kinda shy in public.”

“Not like Jack from what I hear,” Lamar said.

“No, Jack wasn’t shy about anything. He was just…you know, out there. Damn shame.” He looked up from his smoke. “You’re the detectives who’re investigating his murder?”

“We are,” Baker said. “Anything about him you can tell us would be helpful.”

“The truth is that Jack and I hadn’t been in touch like for…sheez…ten years. You could call him one day and he’d be like real cheerful, then ten minutes later, he’d be cussing you out and hanging up on you…the guy was as unpredictable as the weather.”

“Yeah, that was his rep,” Lamar said. “In your talk on stage, you mentioned that there was a new CD and some personal relationships. What can you tell me about that?”

“The CD was going real well. Actually, he e-mailed me and asked me if I wanted to participate.”

“What’d you tell him?” Baker asked.

“I said hell yeah, if the timing works out. He e-mailed me back telling me we’d talk about it at the benefit in Nashville. I was pretty surprised he was comin’ out. We all knew he had a fear of flying.”

“I’m interested in the personal relationships,” Lamar said. “What about those?”

“I think I meant more like his personal life. From what I understand, he was getting his addictions under control…alcohol in particular. He was a mean drunk, so that was good.”

Baker said, “What about that kid he fathered with that lesbian couple?”

“Melinda Raven…yeah, I met her, I think…yeah, gay…been a lot of women in my life.” Jeremy said that without braggadocio, just a statement of fact. “We all thought Jack was a little weird for volunteering, but in retrospect, who knows? For as much as I see my oldest daughter, she could have been put up for adoption. Her old lady likes me to keep my distance except when it comes to child support. If the checks aren’t there by the first of the month, she sure doesn’t mind calling me up. So maybe Jack had the right idea. Have fun and let someone else take care of the kid.” Talking about his ex had hardened his face. “I really don’t know if Jack had contact with the kid or not. Like I told you, we’ve basically been out of contact for ten years. I was surprised by his e-mail, his contacting me after all these years.”

Lamar said, “And you told him you’d work with him on his CD?”

“Not work with him…just participate, like cut a background track, I coulda used Pro Tools, e-mailed it to him. I was happy he called me, but there was this part of me that was a little…uh, hesitant. I mean the guy was a real asshole even though he was blessed with the voice of an angel.” A chuckle. “We’re in the Bible Belt so I guess I can say that God really does work in funny ways.”

The next morning, Lamar was on the phone with the Mercedes dealer’s sales manager, a voluble guy named Ralph Siemens. Siemens gave up a name instantaneously.

“That’s got to be Mrs. Poulson. She bought a fire-engine SLK350 two months ago. I only sold two red ones in a long while, everyone wants white or black. The other was to Butch Smiley but he got an SUV.”

Defensive tackle for the Titans. Three-hundred-pound black man.

“Is Mrs. Poulson around forty-five with shoulder-length dark hair?” said Lamar.

“That would be her,” said Siemens. “You know who I’m talking about, right?”

“Who?”

“ Poulson. As in Lloyd Poulson? Banking, electronics, shopping centers, whatever else makes money. Real nice gentleman, bought a new sedan every two years. He died last year, cancer. Mrs. Poulson stayed in the house but she also breeds horses in Kentucky. There was talk she was going to move there full-time.”

“Where does she live?”

“Where else?” said Siemens. “Belle Meade. Do me a favor and don’t tell her I’m the one who told you, but I might as well give you the address ’cause you’re going to find out anyway.”

Belle Meade is seven miles southwest of downtown Nashville and a whole different planet. Quiet meandering streets wind past Greek Revival, Colonial and Italianate mansions perched on multi-acre lots. Sweeping lawns are shaded by monumental oaks, pines, maples and dogwoods. The town’s an old-money bastion with plenty of new-money infiltration, but who-lived-here-before still affects real estate values. Driving through the wide lanes of asphalt, it wasn’t unusual to spot trim young women riding beautiful horses around private corrals. The street signs said it all: a racing horse with a colt behind a low-slung fence. Equestrian sports ranked right up there with golf and family football games as Sunday pastimes.

The town’s two thousand residents had been absorbed into the Metro Nashville utility grid years ago while managing to keep their high-priced real estate officially independent, with its own police force. Autonomy, and some believed psychological segregation from Nashville as a status symbol, was so important to the landowners of Belle Meade that they agreed to pay taxes to both cities.

No big strain; average family income nudged two hundred thousand, highest in the state. The locals were ninety-nine percent white, one percent everything else. Kids who wanted to go to Vanderbilt could, for the most part. Not much reason, in the past, for Lamar and Baker to drive through. Over the last three years, Belle Meade had registered no homicides, one rape, no robberies, four assaults, most of them minor, and a quartet of stolen cars, two of them joyrides by local teens.

That kind of peace and quiet left the twenty-officer Belle Meade police force time to do what had made it famous: mercilessly enforce the traffic rules. Including no special treatment for cops; Lamar drove down Belle Meade Boulevard slowly and carefully.

Making a quick turn, passing Al and Tipper’s place, he found the address easily enough. Pinkish cream, flat-topped thing about ten times the size of a normal house, set behind iron fencing but with a nice clear view of a three-acre swath of bluegrass. In the center of a circular driveway, a one-story fountain burbled. The red Benz was parked right in front, along with a Volvo station wagon. Pines so dark they almost looked black had been barbered to cones and were positioned at the front of the mansion, like sentries. Toward the front of the property, hanging over the fence, were some of the biggest oaks the detectives had ever seen.