Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (51 page)

It was the shot Chester
had been waiting for most of his life, so he squeezed the trigger.
 
It sounded like a bomb exploding in the
rafters.
 
The pristine cotton wall behind
Eddie was suddenly spray-painted a gory, dripping crimson.
 
And before you could say “There’ll Be No
Teardrops Tonight,” Big Bill’s prediction came to pass; he wouldn’t be #99
anymore.

96.

It took a few moments but once the crowd realized what had
happened, all hell broke loose.
 
The
divas up front were screaming and stampeding over anyone standing between them
and the exits.
 
More than a few of the
men reached for the pistols in their boots, but decided against.
 
Why shoot someone just for killing Big Bill,
they reasoned.

Back in the control room the director was screaming, “Cut to
commercial!
 
Cut to commercial!”
 
Someone accidentally hit the wrong button and
the chorus of ‘
It Wasn’t Supposed To
End That Way’
began playing again over the sound system.

Jimmy was as stunned as anyone.
 
He was paralyzed at first but then instinct
took over.
 
He pulled out his camera and
started taking photos.
 
He zoomed in on
the stage.
 
Click
.
 
He got a shot of
Eddie hovered over Big Bill.
 
Click
.
 
Megan frozen on stage, hands over her mouth.
 
Click
.
 
Blood and membrane on the
cotton wall.
 
Click
.
 
An
empty place on stage where
Franklin
used to be.
 
Click
.
 
Last year’s Female Vocalist of the Year throwing an elbow to get out the
door first.
 
Jimmy tried to work his way
toward the stage for a better angle but he was like a salmon swimming upstream
against a flash flood.
 
He stepped back
into a row of seats to avoid being swept out to the foyer.
 
Suddenly his cell phone rang.
 
Instinctively he grabbed it.
 
“Hello?”

“Jimmy!
 
I can’t
fucking
believe it!
 
This is fabulous!”
 
It was his
agent, Jay Colvin.
 
“I’m sitting here
watching the damn awards show and bam!
 
I’m suddenly sitting on another great book.
 
Get all the photos you can.
 
Hang up the damn phone and get to work!”

A dozen cops and several security guards had fought their
way into the auditorium with their guns drawn and aimed at the catwalk.
 
The guys handling the big spots had the
lights trained on Chester.
 
He was sitting there, legs dangling, casually
smoking a cigarette.

No one paid attention to Jimmy as he snapped a series of
exclusive photos.
 
Click
.
 
The
killer in the spotlight.
 
Click
.
 
The cops with guns drawn.

“Nashville P.D.,” one of the cops barked.
 
“Hands up!
 
Now!”

“Slow down, Dick Tracy,” Chester
drawled.
 
“I’m willin’ to go nice and
quiet.”

97.

They took Chester
into custody without a fight.
 
They read
him his rights, stuffed him into the back of a patrol car, and took him back to
the Metro Police Department in downtown Nashville.
 
Chester
took advantage of his right to remain silent.
 
He simply refused to talk.
 
He’d
been in the interrogation room for eight hours without making a peep except to
ask to use the bathroom.
 
There was a
video camera aimed at him and a stack of tapes next to it, testimony to his
silence.

A new detective arrived to take over the questioning.
 
He looked through the one-way glass at Chester
sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette.
 
“Who is he?” the detective asked.

The patrolman threw his hands up.
 
“Didn’t have any I.D. and he hadn’t said a word
since he’s been in custody.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Nothing on file.
 
We got no idea who he is or why he did it.”

“Maybe he’s one of those traditionalists,” the detective
said with a chuckle.
 
“You know some
people still like the Possum a lot more than those new singers you hear on the
radio all the time.”

The patrolman was confused.
 
“Why’re we even questioning this guy?
 
We tested the gun and confirmed it fired the bullet that killed
Herron.
 
This guy’s prints were the only
ones on the gun.
 
What else is
there?
 
We got
the who
,
the when, and the how, who the hell cares about the why?”

The detective looked at the patrolman.
 
“Me and the district attorney,” he said.
 
“We’re funny that way.”

“What difference does it make?”

“One never knows,” the detective said.
 
“That’s why we like to get to the bottom of
things.
 
Folks coulda stopped poking
around after they caught Lee Harvey Oswald but they didn’t and look what all
they turned up.
 
Big conspiracy
conviction goes a long way if you’re in an elect- able position.”
 
The new detective walked into the
interrogation room and went to work.
 
He
questioned Chester for another
eight hours but Chester never said
a word.
 
The detective tried every
technique he knew but Chester just
sat there and watched him like a television cop show.
 
The last thirty years of his life had been
far worse than anything the Nashville
police could put him through.

They provided a public defender but Chester
never said ‘Boo!’ to the man.
 
He just
sat there and listened as the detective badgered the suspect.
 
Toward the end of the second day of
questioning when the detective started talking to the public defender about
just putting the suspect in jail to await trial, Chester
stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking and cleared his throat.
 
“I wanna meet with Mr. Dupree,” he said.

“The district attorney?” his lawyer asked.

The detective smirked.
 
“DA’s kinda busy right now,” he said.
 
“Workin’ on cases that aren’t as easy as this one.”

Chester shook
his head like he didn’t care.
 
“He’s-
a
only one I’m gonna talk to.”

“Is that right?
 
Well,
let’s see about that.”
 
The detective
thought he’d finally broken Chester,
but after three more hours of silence, he put in a call to the DA’s
office.
 

An hour later Mr. Dupree walked in the room.
 
He was a tall, handsome man in a nice gray
suit.
 
“Well, hello, mystery killer.
 
I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes sir, that’s right.”

Mr. Dupree glanced at his watch.
 
“Well, I got thirty seconds, old man.”
 
He leaned onto the table with both hands and
copped an attitude.
 
“Whadda you
got,
other than the deck stacked against you?”

Chester stared
him down.
 
“What if you
was
to find out I was hired to do the killin’?”

Mr. Dupree shrugged indifference.
 
“We might be interested to know who did the
hirin’.”

“How interested?”

“Depends.”

“Mr. Dupree, let’s me and you step back and take a look at
the bigger picture,” Chester
said.
 
“You ain’t exactly had a banner
year.
 
First you botched that Garnetts
case real bad, then your office was sued for having prosecuted twenty-two
defendants with what your office, as far as anybody can tell, knew was planted
evidence, and I believe you recently got wind of a federal grand jury
investigation about some shenanigans pulled by one of your assistant D-As.”

Mr. Dupree wondered who the hell this guy was and how he
knew so much about his office’s track record, let alone a federal grand jury
investigation.
 
“What’s your point?”

“Point is
,
you could use a little
somethin’ to prop you up this fall.
 
Somethin’ like the conviction of a high profile individual who’s been
known to support the other party.”

Mr. Dupree pulled up a chair and sat down.
 
He was starting to warm up to the suspect’s
line of reasoning.
 
“Keep talkin’,” he
said.

“Well, sir, how interested would you be if you was to find
out the person who hired me to do the killin’ was somebody on that list of
Nashville’s most powerful people?”

Mr. Dupree squinted slightly.
 
“Very interested.”

“Very interested?”
 
Chester
lit another cigarette.
 
“Could you be
more specific?”

Mr. Dupree reached over to turn off the video camera.

“Leave it runnin’,” Chester
said.
 
“Just for the
record.”

The district attorney folded his hands on the table in front
of him.
 
“Well, I think we could look at
a reduction of the charges against you in return.”

“I want a sentencing recommendation too.
 
Plus I gotta be free on bail until sentencing
so’s I can attend a funeral.”

Mr. Dupree shrugged.
 
“All right.
 
But you’d
have to be willing to testify against this person and I’ll need proof.
 
Some evidence, you know?
 
‘Fraid I can’t just take your word on this
sort of thing.
 
I’m sure you understand.”

“All right,” Chester
said.
 
“Let’s pretend for a minute
there’s some evidence.
 
Hypa-thetically
speaking, what kinda deal
we
talkin’ about?”

“Well,” Mr. Dupree said, “we always like to get at whoever’s
behind these kindsa things.
 
Don’t wanna
leave ‘em out there where they can do it again.”
 
He paused briefly.
 
“If your evidence proves your claim, and
you’re willing to testify, I’d be inclined toward offering you something you
can live with.”

“Could you be more specific?”

Mr. Dupree thought about it for a moment.
 
He figured getting the goods on a high
profile supporter of his political opponent and securing a conviction in a big
conspiracy-to-commit- murder case was exactly the sort of thing that would be
useful come campaign time.
 
“You’ll have
to do some time,” Mr. Dupree said, “but I can make sure you don’t miss more’n
one Christmas.”

“I can live with that,” Chester
said.
 
He turned to his public
defender.
 
“You oughta write up some
kinda document to memorialize
all this,
doncha
think?”
 
The public defender dashed off a
quick deal memo based on the conversation and showed it to Mr. Dupree who
signed off on it.

“All right,” Mr. Dupree said.
 
“Where’s this evidence?”

Chester leaned
over and whispered something to his lawyer.
 
The man stood up.
 
“Mr. Dupree, if
we can meet back here tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have everything you need.”

98.

The next day they gathered in the interrogation room.
 
A microcassette player was sitting in front
of the public defender.
 
The videotape
was recording.
 
Mr. Dupree looked at Chester.
 
“All right, mystery man, time for the chin
music.
 
Who hired you to do the killin’?”

“Big Bill Herron.”

Mr. Dupree cocked his head like he was hard of hearing.
 
He spoke slowly.
 
“Big Bill hired you to kill him?”

“No sir.
 
I wouldn’t
say that.”

Mr. Dupree’s face tensed.
 
“What exactly are you sayin’ then?”

Chester’s
attorney raised an index finger.
 
“Why
don’t we listen to the evidence,” he said as he put a tape in a cassette
player.
 
“My client recorded this at Owen
Bradley Park,” he said.
 
“It’s a
conversation between my client and Big Bill Herron.”
 
He pushed the ‘play’ button.

“Thanks for coming.”
 
It was Big Bill’s voice.

“No problem,” Chester
replied.
 
“I understand you wanna take
out a—”

“A contract,” Big Bill said.
 
“And in a hurry.”
 
A car alarm began sounding in the distance.

“Fine with me,” Chester
replied.
 
The alarm stopped.
 
“Just tell me when and where.”

“The awards show,” Big Bill said.

“All right, and who’s the lucky winner?” Chester
asked.

“
That damn
Megan Taylor.”

There was a short pause before Chester
continued.
 
“And what’s in it for me?”

“A prosperous future.”

“You mind bein’ a bit more specific?”

“Fifty thousand,”Big Bill said in a clipped voice.
 
“I don’t care how you do it, just kill the
bitch.”

“All right,” Chester
said, “here’s what I’m thinkin’.”

“No, no, no,” Big Bill said.
 
“I don’t want to know a thing about it.
 
Just do the hit.”

Chester’s lawyer
hit the ‘stop’ button and smiled.
 
He
produced a document and handed it to Mr. Dupree.
 
“This is an independent expert’s affidavit
authenticating Big Bill’s voice against recordings of him in the studio during
the recording of Eddie Long’s album.”

Mr. Dupree looked at Chester.
 
“Sounds to me like Big Bill wanted you to
kill Eddie’s girlfriend,” he said.
 
“Not
him.”