WHEN THE MUSIC DIES (MUSIC CITY MURDERS Book 1) (25 page)

“A woman like that could make a man harder than Chinese arithmetic,” Hogue blurted.

“Hogue,” Cris said. “You are such a class act. With romantic lines like that, I bet you get all the girls, huh?”

“Shove it, burrito.” Hogue had to make some kind of derogatory reference to her Latino heritage.

“Wow, more stimulating conversation. I bet your college major was International Relations.
College
Hogue, you know the place you went for one semester so you could confirm that you’re a dumb ass redneck who should have paid attention in high school.”

Hogue gritted his teeth and pulled one of his fifty-cent cigars from his jacket pocket.

“Do
not
light that,” Cris warned him.

Hogue unwrapped the cheap stogie and crammed it into his mouth to dampen the outer leaf and slow the burn. He fished his see-through plastic lighter from his pants pocket and proudly fired up the cigar, sucking out volumes of smoke and exhaling them toward Cris in the driver’s seat.

Cris threw open her door and scrambled out of the car, coughing. Backing away from the smoke now floating out the door, she yelled, “Your contrary old ass is going down, Hogue. Burris told you no more cigars while you’re on duty. I know he warned you. He told me he did.”

Hogue opened the passenger door and climbed out. He walked around the front of the car toward Cris all the while puffing excessively. She backed away as he came closer blowing the smoke in her direction. Hogue headed for the driver’s seat.

Cris used her hands to shield her nose from the smoke. “You’re not driving, Hogue.”

He fell into the driver’s seat.

“Get out of the car,” Cris yelled.

“Get in, enchilada. Let’s go.”

“I’m not riding with your drunk ass. I’ve put up with you for the last six weeks. That’s all I got. This is it. Burris is gonna have to do something about you. I’m done with it. Hell, I’ll go back in uniform before I’ll take any more of your shit.”

Staring at Cris, he pulled the cigar from his mouth and spat a piece of tobacco in her direction.

“Are you done?” Hogue asked.

“Screw you, Hog,” Cris yelled.

He crammed the stogie back into his gritted teeth, cranked the engine and yanked the gearshift into drive. Both doors slammed shut as he punched the accelerator, and gravel flew from beneath the rear tires.

Cris turned her back and doubled over to keep the rocks from hitting her face.

“You son of a bitch.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, and held down the number three.

“Burris.”

“I need a ride.”

“Cris? What’s the matter? Where are you?”

“I’m in a parking lot next to The Daily Donut on Murfreesboro Road.”

“Where’s Hogue?”

“He left in the cruiser.”

“And you’re not with him because ...?”

“I’m not riding with a stinking, drunken bigot.”

“Two of those traits I already know about. He’s drunk too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him drinking?”

“I didn’t need to. My nose still works. He’s been popping peppermints for the last two days, but they don’t cover the smell. It looks like he’s got him a new bad habit.”

“Where did he go?” Burris asked.

“I don’t have a clue, and I don’t give a shit. He tore out of this parking lot and sprayed me with gravel. Lieutenant, I cannot continue working with this asshole. I can’t, okay? You gotta help me. This jerk has hit the wall. He’s done. Trust me.”

“Patience, Detective.”

“Yeah. You said that before, several times if I remember. Well, I tried. This is getting old, and
I’m
out of patience. Put me with somebody else or transfer me. I can’t work like this, and no one else can either. I can’t believe you put me with this racist bastard.”

Burris paused. “We thought if he spent more time around someone of color, he would realize there was nothing to be prejudiced about.”

“Oh, so I was the guinea pig in your social experiment?”

“No, you were available, and he was without a partner. We hoped he could be saved. He partnered for over twelve years with another equally bigoted detective. They were a fairly good investigative team for most of those years. When Gil Murdock retired this year, Hogue was—well, he was like he’d lost his way. You know, we were trying to do the right thing for a long-term employee.”

“Okay, I admire your sensitivity, but I won’t continue in this role as his adversary. We’re supposed to be partners. The right thing would be for Hogue to follow in his old partner’s footsteps and go fishing.”

“Maybe. I’ll talk to Moretti. You sit tight, and I’ll get a car to you in a couple of minutes. Hey, Cris?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry.”

“Forget it. Just get me a new partner, preferably a non-smoker who understands diversity and maybe someone who occasionally bathes?”

“Copy that.”

Eastern Davidson County

Nashville, Tennessee

Wednesday Morning

“Isn’t this near where we investigated that domestic last summer?” Mike asked. “You remember, the one where the woman got pissed off and drove over her equally drunken husband on the lawn with a John Deere tractor mower?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Norm said. “She was still smashed when we got there, and he was—well, he was all over the place.”

Norm drove for another half mile.

“Here it is, thirty fifteen,” Mike said.

The rusty mailbox was mounted atop a piece of weathered driftwood. The zero digit was missing from the address and the mailbox door, attached only by a single small rusty bolt, was swinging in the breeze below the box. Norm turned from the pavement onto the gravel-and-weed driveway that dropped about twelve feet at a steep angle down to a small bridge. The bridge was made from four inch steel pipes and welded onto a frame of steel channels. As they drove over the structure, the gaps between the pipes shook the car like a carnival ride. Norm’s reflexes caused him to hit his brakes. When he did, the officers in the patrol car behind them almost struck his bumper.

“Careful,” Mike said. “Mullins must have cows or horses running in this pasture. Keep a look-out for them.”

“How do you know that?” Norm asked.

“Well, Milwaukee, that was a stock gap you crossed. It’s there to keep livestock from getting out of this fenced area and still allow vehicles to come and go without having to stop and open a gate.”

“Well, aren’t you Farmer Brown?” Norm kidded.

“No, but I did ask a lot of questions as I was growing up, and I paid attention to most of the answers. My uncle had a small dairy farm outside Murfreesboro.”

“Is that Mullins, there on the porch?” Norm said.

“Looks like him. Pull over there, off the gravel drive. Richter and Scott can park behind us.”

Mike and Norm opened their car doors at the same time, and the stench of cow manure rushed them like a SWAT team. Norm fell back in his seat.

“Damn.” He coughed. “I need a respirator—and hazardous duty pay.”

“Come on, partner,” Mike said. “You’re a detective. You’ve been around bullshit for years.”

“I don’t remember it taking my breath away quite like this.” Norm coughed again.

The uniforms joined Mike for the walk to the house. Norm paused to pull the evidence kit from the trunk then followed the others through the rickety gate.

“What now?” Jimmy Dan shouted with contempt.

Mike held up the warrant. “Mr. Mullins, this is a search warrant granting us the right to search your property this morning.”

“For what?”

“For evidence that might connect you to, or clear you of, the Daran Hamid murder at Cumberland Plaza yesterday evening.”

“I told you last night, I didn’t kill that rag-head son of a bitch. Besides, this is private property, detective. I have a right to my privacy and a right to keep people off my property. It’s in the constitution, I do believe.”

“Mr. Mullins, we’re not here to debate the Fourth Amendment,” Mike said. “We’ll have to leave that for the lawyers. This warrant is signed by a Davidson County judge granting us access to your property for the purpose of searching for evidence in a homicide investigation. It’s perfectly legal. I assure you. You can ask your attorney, Mr. Norris.”

“I intend to.” Jimmy Dan unclipped his cell phone. “I assure you,” he said, mocking the detective. He scrolled to Harlan Norris’s number, placed the phone to his ear and turned away from the detectives.

“Harlan, what the hell is goin’ on? These damn detectives are down here at my house with some kinda freakin’ search warrant. They’re obviously wantin’ to go through all my shit lookin’ for some way to blame me for that camel jockey’s murder. Harlan, you gotta fix this.”

Jimmy Dan listened. His eyes closed and then his lips curled in.

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say. They ain’t tryin’ to blame you with murder.”

He listened. “This
is
calm, damn it. You need to get on the phone to somebody downtown and get these people off my property, now. Are you forgettin’ about somethin, Harlan? We don’t need this intrusion.”

Jimmy Dan was losing this battle and he knew it.

“Do what? You gotta be kiddin’ me. But, I ain’t
done
nothing, and I damn sure ain’t been
convicted
of nothin.”

It was obvious Harlan Norris was doing his best to explain why Jimmy Dan had no recourse to the warrant.

“This is bullshit, Harlan. I’m callin’ Reverend Carl.”

Jimmy Dan snapped his phone closed. “I ain’t believin’ this shit. He says you can do whatever you damn well please, and I can’t do nothin’ to stop you. This is America?”

“Red, white, and blue,” Norm said with a smile.

“Hell, it sounds more like Russia to me.”

“Let’s go,” Mike said over his shoulder to the others. He walked up to Jimmy Dan and slapped the warrant against his chest. Jimmy Dan caught it to keep it from falling to the ground. He started scrolling for another number.

As they crossed the front porch and entered the house, Mike gave out assignments. He pulled on his gloves and began his share of the search in the living room.

Norm stepped into the kitchen, snapped tight his XXL nitrile gloves and turned on all the lights. He scanned the room left to right before entering and his eyes caught sight of a large butcher-block knife rack next to the sink. He stepped closer to the rack and counted fifteen mis-matched wooden knife handles protruding from the deep wooden block.

“Mike.”

“Yeah?”

“You might want to see this.”

“What have you got?” Mike said, as he came through the doorway to the kitchen.

Norm pointed to the rack.

“Whoa.” Mike came closer. “That’s quite a collection of cutlery Jimmy Dan has there.”

“I’d say so,” said Norm. “I guess these are the knives he was talking about last night.”

Mike inspected the block then pulled up one of the larger handles until it exposed the long curved blade. He looked at Norm. Both men smiled. Mike released the knife and it fell back into the wooden rack with a pop.

“Bag them all in one large bag and label it. Make sure the knives stay inside the block until the lab gets them.”

“Gotcha,” Norm said.

“Check the drawers. He may have more in his collection.”

“Detective Neal,” Officer Scott shouted from what sounded like far away.

“Yeah,” Mike returned the shout, trying to determine its origin.

“You need to see this.”

“Be right there,” Mike said. “Where are you?”

“Down here, in the basement,” Scott said.

Mike opened doors until he found a set of stairs. Scott was standing at the bottom.

“What is it?” Mike asked, as he started down the steps.

“I’m not sure. I was searching the basement,” he pointed to his right, “and found nothing suspicious, only a bunch of worthless junk. I continued my search around the room and still saw nothing of concern until I went to leave. I turned off the ceiling lights with the switch here on the wall. I glanced back into the basement and saw this.”

He turned the ceiling lights off. Along the floor under the workbench was a thin strip of light about three feet long.

Scott turned the basement lights back on and looked at Mike.

Mike examined the area under the bench along the strip of light, and then he asked Scott to turn the lights off again.

“Back on,” Mike said. He walked to the workbench, and squatted to inspect the area beneath it.

Standing, he grabbed the front edge of the workbench and pulled. Nothing. He stood back, looked the bench over, grabbed it and shook it. Tools rattled, but nothing moved. Squatting again, he crawled under it. He took out his tactical flashlight and shined it around underneath the bench. He saw that casters had been counter-sunk and mounted behind the bottoms of each of the workbench legs barely elevating the legs off the floor.

He searched the underside of the bench, where in the front corner, he found a black button mounted to the wood. Mike pushed the button. The whirring sound of an electric motor started. The tools rattled as the workbench and pegboard began to move forward. Mike crawled quickly from beneath the workbench and watched as the right end of the bench swung out and continued to come toward him until it made a stop at a ninety degree angle to the wall behind it.

“What the hell?” Scott said.

There, behind where the wooden workbench and pegboard had been, was a black reinforced steel door with an electronic keypad lock and a five spoke handle.

White Tail Lodge

Hubbard County, Tennessee

Wednesday Morning

“Morning,” Brad said as he knocked on the wooden door frame and stepped into Carl Garrison’s office.

“Hello, Brad. How are you?” Garrison asked.

“Doing well, thanks.”

“Can you give me a hand with this?” Garrison reached behind his desk and retrieved a long flat case.

“Sure. What do you want to do with it?” Brad took the case from Garrison.

“Look it over first. Tell me what you think.”

“What do you mean?” Brad asked.