Prologue
Henrietta “Bird” Tompkins concentrated on what her last thought should be before she was murdered. The time that Loretta Lynn gave her a Grammy Award was a good thought, she grimly determined. A sufficiently happy thought that would have to do for when the final curtain descended. Because she was going to die tonight. The men in her house were determined to make sure of that.
She was called Bird because of old Charlie Harris. She could see him now in her mind’s eye: he was a pot-bellied grift of a man with his gray hair slicked into a razor-sharp part over his left eye and two bushy, mutton-chop sideburns shaved into fine points that seemed to cut into his cheeks. He had been the owner, proprietor and bartender of The Starlight Lounge in Jackson, Tennessee and he had been the first person to see Ronnie and Leanne’s oldest girl, just this side of seventeen, unleash her powerful voice on the public. He had watched the crowd be transported. “They flew to some other place, girl,” old Charlie had said. His characteristic leering had been placed momentarily to the side in respect for the damn-near holy thing he still could not believe he had observed. “You’re like a goddam bird up there.” And that was that. It had certainly sounded better than Henrietta, Bird had to admit.
Ezra was on the floor next to her and was struggling mightily against the plastic zip ties that were around their hands and feet. Stop it, she wanted to tell him, it’s over. While she had never been more terrified in her entire life, the fact that the situation was both wholly beyond her control and grinding to an inexorable conclusion gave her an odd sort of comfort. She had known it when they walked in. Like the old country song, she had known what the cards were by the way they held their eyes.
They were talking in the other room, the men who would murder her. Not softly but not loud enough where she could hear what they said. Goddamn them, Bird thought. She pushed it from her mind to try to focus on happy thoughts. The green rolling hill of wild grasses dotted by big purple irises that grew in front of a storybook red barn near where she had played in the creek as a girl. The sound of the first chord – full and glorious – wafting over the hushed crowd on the sweltering July night when she first played the Ryman Auditorium. Her lover’s beautiful face. Miss Loretta smiling brightly at her as she walked towards the stage amid thundering applause.
Then everything went black.
Chapter One
Jed Hatcher’s phone buzzed mercilessly on his nightstand. It had not woken him. The dead seven year old who regularly returned to his dreams had done that job already. Jed, though fully awake, had not stirred when the phone buzzed. Maybe it would cease, and then he could try to drift back off and get the sleep he knew he needed. It continued to buzz.
It was early morning on a Wednesday in February and the gloom streaming through his bedroom window told him that it would not be a sunny day. The hope that the phone would stop buzzing was, like most hope, pretty stupid. For starters, the number of people who had Jed Hatcher’s cell phone number was, as his Uncle Ray put it, as tight as a minister’s asshole. Of that select group, Jed knew none of them would call at what he professionally pegged as approximately quarter past five in the morning. That could only mean one thing.
“Yeah,” Jed said gruffly into the phone. In the half second it took before the caller responded, Jed mentally remarked on how his voice sounded as gravelly as a back road. Too many goddam cigarettes.
“Jed, it’s Lieutenant Richards.” Trent Richards was the lieutenant over the Homicide Unit of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and was Jed Hatcher’s boss. “We need you out here at a scene.”
“Okay,” Jed responded, throwing his legs over the edge of his bed and sitting up for the first time.
“Do you know who Bird Tompkins is?” Richards asked.
“Doesn’t everybody?” A sinking feeling developing in the pit of Jed’s stomach.
“She’s been murdered. Along with Ezra Conrad.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Richards said, pausing to let the seriousness of the statement sink in, “so we need you over here.”
“Text me the address,” Jed commanded, “I’m on my way.”
“Jed…” Richards said, holding Hatcher from disconnecting the call, “look you’re my best detective – well you and Pierce – but are you…well…are you going to be fit to come out here? I know you’re supposed to be off today. The Chief is probably going to come out here and, well…”
“I’m on my way, Loot,” Jed replied quickly, using the slang term for his commanding officer. He ended the call quickly, as if that action would change the fact that his commander had just asked if he was sober enough to handle a homicide scene.
Christ, he thought.
Without deliberating further, Jed Hatcher got up from the bed. His boxer shorts were soaked through with sweat, another manifestation of Tyler Harrison’s visit to his sleep last night. He smelled like stale whiskey. The booze, which had helped him fall asleep, had not kept him from dreaming. His head lightly spinning, he stripped off his boxers in one motion on the way to his bathroom. Charitably called a “master” bathroom, the tub-shower combo bore the sea foam blue-green tile that had apparently been popular in the late 1940’s and, Jed mused, at no other time since. He turned on the shower to as hot as it would get and, as he waited for the water to warm, he thought for the millionth time how much he wanted to replace the damn tile. But he knew he never would. With the water sufficiently scalding, Jed stepped under it. The hot water started to cut through the fog of his late night communion with Jack Daniels and the Marlboro Man and his mind started to think about what he had to do next.
Call Mont.
A few minutes later, Hatcher was showered, dried, and starting to dress when he picked up his cell phone and maneuvered the cracked touch screen to go to his “Favorite” contacts on the phone. He punched the contact labeled “Mont” and heard it start to ring.
“Yo Hatch!” Came the familiar voice of his partner, Montello Pierce, and, based on the tenor of Mont’s voice and his breathing, Jed could tell he had caught his partner on his morning run.
“Hey man, we got one.” Jed said, evenly.
“What you mean we, playa?” Mont fired back. “We are off today. I am off today.”
“We got one.” Jed repeated.
“Fuck,” Mont said flatly, the acceptance registering. “Man, me and Keisha and the boys were going to get breakfast after this.”
“It’s Bird Tompkins,” Jed said. There was a pause. Mont had stopped running.
“Like the Bird Tompkins?” Mont said quietly, knowing the answer.
“Yep.”
“Fuck.” Another pause. “Text me the address. I’m direct in 30.”
“10-4,” Jed replied, disconnecting the call. He forwarded to Mont the address that Richards had texted him. That concluded, he turned to the full length mirror that was on the back of the door leading to the bathroom so he could tie his tie. In his considered opinion, he looked like shit. He didn’t have enough weight on his six feet frame. A small white scar hung lightly over his left eyebrow. The scar, a mystery to everyone but him, somehow complimented his dark features. He never answered questions about how he had gotten it and for reasons he never fully understood, some women found that alluring. Jed put on his suit jacket and checked his reflection again. The suit wasn’t bad and his chosen tie, a red and white regimental striped one, was one of his favorites. But the bags under his eyes and sallow complexion made him look as hungover as he felt. Too much goddam whiskey.
“Fuck it.” Jed said to his reflection.
The address that Richards had texted was close to Jed’s house, less than a ten minute drive. He climbed into his ancient Ford Bronco and gently coaxed it to life. The old girl thankfully responded at the first crank of the key, never a sure thing especially when it was chilly as it was this morning. A cassette tape was sitting in the ancient Bronco’s tape player and Jed slid it in, hearing the satisfying snick of the tape catching hold. He had been re-listening to Chris LeDoux’s second big album, Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy, and the tape started a few seconds into one of his favorite songs on the tape. He had picked the driving guitar beat of Hooked on an 8 Second Ride. As the guitar began cranking, Jed turned up the volume to let the vibrations start to charge him up for the job ahead. He listened to LeDoux’s gravelly twang sing about a man headed to a rodeo; the rider’s addiction drives him forward into the dangerous blood sport.
The crime scene was in a nice part of East Nashville that Jed knew fairly well. The entire side of the city had been going through either a renaissance or annihilation, depending on who you talked to. Once home to working class Nashvillians, East Nashville had turned into one of the roughest parts of the city in the 1980’s and 1990’s only to “rise again” in the following decades. Urban pioneers had taken over East Nashville block by block, restoring old houses damn the cost, turning former gas stations into kombucha bars, and generally – to Jed’s way of thinking – sucking the gritty life out of the place. Jed had grown up in East Nashville, his Uncle Ray still lived in the same house he grew up in. Even though he had once kicked around buying a place in one of the other suburban Nashville neighborhoods like Donelson or Crieve Hall, he decided to pay entirely too much for ramshackle “East Nasty” bungalow that had seen better days. Even though he had bought it during a recession and the corresponding dip in the housing market, the mortgage still kicked his ass most months and largely contributed to the reason that he hadn’t replaced the bathroom tile or done anything else with the house.
The physical proximity of the murder scene to Jed’s house gave him the luxury of time and he desperately needed something to eat. LeDoux had moved on to Look At You Girl as Jed coasted into a nearby gas station. With limited choices he settled on what was euphemistically described as a “sausage biscuit” at and a cup of black coffee to go. His hangovers, though brutal, were increasingly easier to manage which, Jed knew, was an ominous sign onto itself. With nausea fleetingly at bay, he popped the remnants of what was potentially the worst sausage biscuit he had ever eaten into his mouth and slugged it back with a gulp of hot coffee. His self-flagellation complete, he exited his car and started up the front walk.
Bird Tompkins’ house was gorgeous. It was one of the few times where a renovation had succeeded in keeping the character of an older house. It looked turn-of-the century with a prominent turret on the left side topped by an old weathervane with a metal cutout of a mockingbird. There was a wrap-around porch that featured a rustic porch swing off to the side. The massive oak front door was open, and several police officers were standing in front of it.
Three marked cars which bore the markings of the “Metro Police” were already there, along with the van of the crime scene processing unit – formally the “Identification Unit” but which everyone in Metro called “ID” – and a couple of unmarked cars. It was, Jed noted wistfully, already a wild rumpus with everyone and their dog showing up. He swore silently to himself as he walked to where Lieutenant Richards and Commander Tommy Howard, East Precinct’s commander, were standing. Richards was wearing the standard MNPD blue uniform, which was unusual, and so was Howard, which was not.
“There he is,” Richards said, unnecessarily, offering his hand to Hatcher. Richards’ voice was transparent with relief. Richards had clearly worried that Jed was going to show up to the crime scene half in the bag. Or not show up at all. Jed grimaced at the thought.
“Who’s running the scribe?” Jed asked, getting to business. The scribe was an officer who was in charge of keeping track of who entered and exited a scene.
“Tranh.” Richards gestured to a young, handsome South Asian patrol officer in uniform, who was holding a metal box that functioned both as a clipboard and a carrier for form documents the MNPD regularly used. Jed nodded. He didn’t know Tranh but since the officer was a young patrolman and Hatcher hadn’t been a patrolman in over ten years, that wasn’t much of a surprise.
“Who called it in?” Jed asked Richards and Howard.
“The housekeeper and cook,” Howard responded. Tommy Howard was tall and lanky, with close-cropped hair that fairly sang out ex-military. Normally the precinct commander didn’t show up on a murder scene. But it wasn’t every day that a living legend got murdered in your precinct.
“Leticia Quinones,” Richards interjected.
“She apparently gets here before 5:00 to start cooking for the day,” Howard continued, visibly irritated at the interruption. “She found the bodies and called 911.” The fact that Howard called them “bodies” told Hatcher that the victims were dead by the time Ms. Quinones called. Hatcher also didn’t see an ambulance on scene. Knowing that an ambulance would be the first responder to a 911 call like the one Ms. Quinones made meant that the paramedics had come and, upon seeing there was nothing further for them to do, had gone.
“Looks like a robbery gone wrong to me, Jed,” Richards said, knowingly. Jed appraised Richards closely. He was shorter than Howard, with a barrel chest and aviator-style eyeglasses that were in fashion, though Jed knew that Trent Richards had worn them long before they were fashionable and likely would long afterwards. Jed also knew that Richards was the rare Homicide supervisor who had never been a homicide detective and conveyed that knowledge to his commander with a stony silence. Richards, sensing Jed’s glance, graciously offered: “But I’m sure you’ll want to make your own judgment.”
Just then, Jed felt movement behind him and turned to see Mont Pierce striding up the walk. Handsome and terrifically fit, Mont moved with a purpose and Jed knew from experience that his partner’s eyes were taking in everything as he moved.
“Loot. Commander,” Mont said, shaking hands with both men.
“Hey there, Mont,” Tommy Howard said with a smile. Jed recalled that Mont used to work for Tommy who, like everyone else in the department, had loved the guy and pegged him as a future commander. As Richards shook Pierce’s hands, his eyes were looking past him towards the street.
“There’s the Chief,” Richards said, with near reverence.
Hatcher and Pierce turned to face the street and saw a black Yukon with tinted windows and cop tires glide up to the middle of the street and stop. The door opened and Kelvin Wright, the Chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, exited. Wright was the second Black police chief in the history of the city and had come up through the ranks. Even in his mid-fifties, Wright still looked like the former all-conference linebacker that he had been for Tennessee State University before a knee injury his final game had cut short any dreams of pro football glory.
“Gentlemen,” Chief Wright said by way of greeting. There was an exchange of handshakes. “What have we got?”
“Looks like a robbery gone wrong, Chief,” Richards piped up.
“It’s too early to tell,” Jed said flatly. Richards and Wright both looked at Hatcher, Richards with contempt and Wright with interest. Howard looked uncomfortably at his boots and Pierce stared blankly ahead hoping to fade into the scenery.
“Well, obviously we have a lot to do still Chief,” Richards stammered, “but the wallets are gone, some items are missing, and the house is ransacked.” Jed took in the new information. The facts that wallets and money were missing were consistent with a robbery. But he also knew that making early assumptions about an investigation were the absolute quickest way to fuck it up beyond all recognition.
“Chief, I haven’t been inside yet,” Jed said, trying to dissolve the tension. “May I?”
“I’d have thought you’d been in already, Detective Hatcher.” Wright’s statement was more question than reproach.
“Shit, Chief,” Jed said, mustering a smile, “it’s my day off.”
Wright smiled in response and said, knowingly: “No such thing for a policeman.”
“What you said, Chief,” Pierce commented. He met eyes with Hatcher: let’s go.
“C’mon Mont,” Hatcher said, nodding his head towards the door of the home.
Hatcher and Pierce checked in with Officer Tranh, who was still positioned by the door, and gave him their names and badge numbers for the log. They then entered the home, automatically avoiding the main areas by the door to keep them from stepping on trace evidence that ID may have been in the process of recovering. The front door opened into a kind of foyer with a curved staircase leading up to the second floor.
“Ah you’re okay, Jed,” called out Pete Peterson, one of the ID officers who had noticed their careful steps. “I already shot it and swabbed it. First thing I did.” Peterson was giving the detectives the ‘all clear’ to walk normally through the home’s entryway and foyer. Sometimes crime scene investigators could gather important trace evidence or even footprints from the doorway to a scene. Peterson’s remark told Hatcher and Pierce that the old pro had already processed that part of the house.
“You’re the doctor,” Jed responded, truly meaning the compliment. Peterson, a short, stubby man with a burr haircut and a slight bulge in his waistline, was generally regarded as the best ID officer in the department. The victim’s celebrity was bringing out the first team for MNPD.
“The main event is in the living room,” Peterson said, between snapping pictures of the of the pads on the staircase with a large camera.
“Doers go upstairs?” Mont asked, inquiring why Peterson was shooting the stairs.
“Mebbe.” Peterson said absently. “Doesn’t look like it. Upstairs was pretty clean during our walkthrough.” After the responding officers ‘cleared’ the house of any potential threats they would have let the paramedics in to work on the victims and then locked the scene down for ID to come through. Peterson and any other ID officers would have been among the first officers to have full access to the house and would have completed a full walkthrough to begin categorizing where potential evidence may be found. Jed, his head still pounding, was glad not to have to climb the stairs.
“Forced entry?” Jed asked.
“Not seeing it,” Peterson said, shaking his head. “Front door has a thick lock. It was thrown open from the inside.”
“Security system?”
“Nope.”
Shit, Jed thought. No forced entry was weird if this was really a street robbery that got out of hand. Unless Bird Tompkins was the kind to leave her front door wide open, which he doubted.
“You good in the living room?” Hatcher asked Peterson.
“Sabrina’s in there but she’s been there for a while so just try to stay out of her way, will ya?” Peterson said with a warm smile.
“Roger that,” Mont said. Peterson gestured towards a hallway off the foyer.
Hatcher and Pierce followed a short hallway towards the living room. Hatcher noticed that there were framed, black and white photographs on one wall of the hallway and reproductions of book covers on the other. Hatcher’s attention was drawn to the photos. Bird Tompkins with Johnny Cash. Bird Tompkins with Garth Brooks. Bird Tompkins and Taylor Swift. Bird Tompkins with Dolly Parton. And so on.
The hallway opened up into an expansive living room with high ceilings. There was a fireplace at one end of the room and a set of large, expensive-looking French doors that opened onto a slate patio and a manicured backyard and garden. Covering most of the floor in the room was the largest Oriental rug that Jed Hatcher had ever seen. Its exquisite craftsmanship was now forever marred by a massive, sticky, red ocean that flowed between the two bodies laying prone on the floor.
Sabrina Hanek, wearing a blue coverall with patches on the sleeves showing the insignia of the MNPD Identification Unit, was snapping photographs of the scene from near the fireplace and facing the French doors. Her long brown hair was not only in a bun but it was under a cloth cap designed to keep any of it from falling in, and thus contaminating the crime scene.
“We okay, Sabs?” Jed asked. Hanek, in addition to being widely known as one of the best ID techs in the department, was also widely known as being one of the most gorgeous women who worked in MNPD. A civilian technician, Hanek’s hiring had initially made a lot of noise in the department with many testosterone-fueled officers taking a swing at trying to catch her eye. Hatcher knew personally of one instance where Hanek had grabbed one muscle bound officer’s ear and twisted it while dragging him out of an area so as not to contaminate her crime scene. A few officers then, quasi-secretly of course, called her “Sabrina the Teenaged Bitch” after an old kids show and to make light of her youthful appearance. However, Jed had worked with Hanek on multiple scenes, knew she was a pro, and that she took scene integrity personally which Jed greatly respected.
Upon hearing her name, Hanek turned and saw Hatcher and Pierce. “Hey, Jed,” she replied with just the hint of Slavic accent that belied her immigrant past, “do you need to get in close?”
Hatcher shook his head. “Just getting the lay of the land. You to do your thing.” He then paused. “The Chief’s outside.”
Hanek considered that fact. Then, anxiously, she asked: “Do you think he’ll want to come in here?”
Jed shook his head again. “Doubtful. What do you think, Mont?”
“Negative,” Mont said, definitively, his eyes already processing everything he was observing. Hanek gave a quick nod, satisfied. Jed squatted two feet away from the bodies so he could get a better look at everything.
The bodies of Tompkins and Conrad were lying face down on the rug and looked like they had been previously kneeling before being killed. Their hands and feet were bound with what looked like long plastic zip ties. The zip ties fascinated Hatcher. They signified that the killers wanted total control of the scene. And, unless Sabrina and Peterson found the same plastic zip ties somewhere else in the house, then it meant that the killer or killer had brought the zip ties with them. That indicated planning. Richards’ “robbery gone bad” theory seemed to be in significant peril. Robberies went “went bad” when the robbers never intended to kill the victims but did accidentally or because of a struggle. That’s not what Jed was seeing.
The zip ties meant control. In his guts, he knew this wasn’t a quick-bang job for easy money. The murderers wanted time for some reason. Were they looking for something specific? While the autopsy would later confirm it, Jed couldn’t see that either victim had struggled. Neither had defensive wounds or other injuries that made it look like they had put up a fight. Maybe the murderers had gotten the drop on them so fast there hadn’t been time to resist. Or maybe the victims knew their killers who had lulled them into a false sense of security.
And it had to be killers not killer. Getting two victims totally under control to the point of being ziptied and kneeling on the carpet was going to be a stretch for one person. Two killers (at least), no forced entry, zip ties, and no struggle.
What the hell is this?
“How’d they get in?” Jed asked Mont referring to the killers. Mont shrugged but gestured to the sliding glass door. Jed nodded and stood. Still struggling with his hangover, his rapid rise filled his eyes with spots, and he stumbled, putting his hand on a nearby chair to steady himself. Jed couldn’t bear to look at his partner as he waited a beat for the spots to clear. He knew that Mont had the look of a concerned father on his face which, somehow, made it worse. Wordlessly, the detectives went out the French doors that lead to the courtyard.
The cold February air sank into Jed’s lungs and helped immensely. After a couple of minutes outside, the investigators concluded it couldn’t have been the point of entry. Bird’s backyard was surrounded by a twelve foot high brick wall most of which was overgrown with wisteria, clematis, and honeysuckle. The wall would have been a bitch to get over on a good day and none of the vines appeared to have been disturbed; it was easier to tell the lack of damage given that it was February. They went back inside.
Both victims had been shot in the back of the head. Angry black lumps were prominent on the back of both Tompkins and Conrad’s skulls. The exit wound had shattered most of the right side of Conrad’s face. Thankfully, the way Tomkins head had landed on the rug, her exit wound was not visible. Hatcher could see that Bird’s signature gray hair was still tucked behind her left ear, framing her face. There was barely visible red spray on her cheek and forehead. Her eyes were closed. Jed doubted that Bird’s gunshot wound had caused the blood spatter, though it was possible. Jed theorized that Bird had been shot first and then Conrad, hence the spatter from Conrad’s wound on Bird’s face. But that was theory. Jed would wait until Sabrina had done her work and the Medical Examiner’s Office had done theirs. He would keep his thoughts about the crime fluid, so that parts of the case would only become fixed when factual information came to light.
In life, Bird Tompkins had been a beautiful woman. She had long, silver gray hair that had become a trademark. She had refused to dye it in a town where looks regularly counted for more than how well you could play a C-chord. Yet her silver hair was legitimately lovely and even made her look regal. Jed could remember having seen her play at the Ryman more than a few years ago. Affectionately named “The Mother Church” of country music, the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville had magnificent acoustics and was a treasured stop for any performer. He remembered how her hazel eyes sparkled that night when she sang about a heartbreak that every single person in the room could feel in their souls. He remembered thinking then, like many fans of Bird, how beautiful but still tortured she was. The facts of the sexual and physical abuse that Bird had suffered at the hands of her father had first come to light in the late 1990s over a decade after she first arrived on the country music scene. Bird had not wanted it to come out at all. But she had later leaned into telling her story, doing so in a powerful album called Daughter that later won a Grammy for Album of the Year. Bird had won multiple Grammys, Jed recalled, and had been the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year several more times. She had reached “national treasure” status as a singer-songwriter revered by millions of people. Jed himself had several of her early records on vinyl and still played them. Even for a man who had seen more dead bodies then he liked to think about, seeing her dead on the floor was earthshaking.
“Is that…?” Mont Pierce asked, looking at the male victim lying dead next to Bird.
“Yep,” Hatcher replied.
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
Ezra Conrad had won a National Book Award more than two decades earlier for his second novel, Sawgrass Creek. The book had also been Oprah’s Book of the Month and a New York Times bestseller for over a year. A Pulitzer Prize for fiction followed for his third novel as Conrad cemented his reputation as the greatest American novelist in over a generation. Jed had read Sawgrass Creek in college and remembered being moved by the tragic story. But after winning a Pulitzer for A Moon for Me, Conrad’s career had slowed considerably. Jed couldn’t remember the last Conrad novel that he had read though he knew several had been published. Nevertheless, the fact that Ezra Conrad, a native of Monterey, California like his literary hero John Steinbeck, had moved to Nashville, Tennessee several years earlier was a huge point of local pride. Conrad occasionally taught writing classes at Vanderbilt University and was enthusiastically welcomed at any party where those who fancied themselves as intellectual had gathered. Conrad’s romantic relationship with Bird Tompkins had been a love affair that made Nashville swoon. Since Conrad’s father had committed suicide, and was a common theme in his novels, the tragic familial backgrounds of two world-renowned artists gave the entire romance a kind of black magic that guaranteed voyeuristic attention.
Nothing at the crime scene was helpful in giving him a lead. If anything, the discordance between any motive and the manner of death was downright confounding. With two of most celebrated artists in the country lying executed on the floor, literally everyone was going to demand quick and satisfactory answers on a case that, so far, wasn’t giving any. That pressure, like a hurricane, threatened to devour everything in its path including the two detectives standing over the bodies. The desire for a drink was damn-near overwhelming. Jed Hatcher met his partner’s eyes.
“Christ, this is going to be a shitshow.”
