Capital Crimes (17 page)

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J
ohn Wallace “Jack” Jeffries, a natural Irish tenor prone to baby fat and tantrums, grew up in Beverly Hills, the only child of two doctors. Alternately doted upon and ignored, Jackie, as he was known back then, attended a slew of prep schools, each of whose rules he violated at every turn. Dropping out of high school one month short of graduation, he bought a cheap guitar, taught himself a few chords and began thumbing his way eastward. Living on handouts, petty theft, and whatever chump change landed in his guitar case as he offered renditions of classic folk songs in that high, clear voice.

In 1963, at the age of twenty-three, usually drunk or high and twice treated for syphilis, he settled in Greenwich Village and attempted to insinuate himself into the folk music scene. Sitting at the feet of Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs, Zimmerman, Baez, the Farinas was educational. He had a better shot actually jamming with some of the younger lights—Crosby, Sebastian, the heavy girl with the great pipes who’d begun calling herself Cass Elliot, John Phillips who’d do a favor for anyone.

Everyone liked California Boy’s voice but his temperament was edgy, pugilistic, his lifestyle an all-you-can-smoke-snort-swallow buffet.

In 1966, having failed to snag a record deal and watching everyone else do so, Jeffries contemplated suicide, decided instead to return to California, where at least the weather was mellow. Settling in Marin, he hooked up with two struggling folkies named Denny Ziff and Mark Bolt whom he’d seen playing for not much better than chump change in an Oakland Shakey’s Pizza.

In what subsequent armies of publicists termed a “magical moment” Jeffries claimed to be munching on a double-cheese extra-large and admiring the duo, while realizing something was missing. Rising to his feet, he hopped on stage during a spirited a capella delivery of “Sloop John B” and added high harmony. The resulting melding of voices created a whole much greater than the sum of the parts and brought down the house. Word of mouth seared through the Bay Area like wildfire and the rest was music history.

The real story was that a speed-shooting promoter named Lanny Sokolow had been trying to get Ziff and Bolt past the pizza circuit for two years when he happened across a chubby, longhaired, bearded dude crooning to a giggly bevy of porn actresses at a Wesson Oil party sponsored by the O’Leary Brothers, San Francisco’s favorite adult theater tycoons. Even if Sokolow hadn’t been racing on amphetamine, that high, clear voice would’ve tweaked his ear. The fat guy sounded like an entire angels’ chorus. Hell if this wasn’t exactly what his two borderline-intelligence baritones could use.

Jack Jeffries’s response to Sokolow’s greeting and attempted power shake was, “Fuck you, man, I’m busy.”

Lanny Sokolow smiled and bided his time, stalking the fat kid, finally getting him to sit down and listen to some demos of Ziff and Bolt. Caught at a weak moment, Jeffries agreed to take in the Shakey’s show.

Now, Sokolow figured, if
three
edgy temperaments could coexist…

One thing about the official version
was
true: word of mouth was instantaneous and super-charged, nudged along by a new electric thing called folk-rock. Lanny Sokolow got his trio amplified backup and a series of freelance drummers, and booked them as opening acts at Parrish Hall and the other free venues on the Haight. Soon, The Three, as they called themselves, were opening for midsized acts, then major headliners, actually bringing in serious money.

An Oedipus Records scout listened to them lead in for Janis on a particularly good night and phoned LA. A week later, Lanny Sokolow was out of the picture, replaced by Saul Wineman who, as head man at Oedipus, rechristened the group Jeffries, Ziff and Bolt, the sequence of names determined by a coin toss (four tosses, really; each of the three demanded a turn but none was happy until Wineman stepped in).

The trio’s first three singles made Top Ten. The fourth, “My Lady Lies Sweetly,” hit Number One With A Bullet and so did the LP,
Crystal Morning.
Every song on the album credited the trio as writers but the real work had been done by Brill Building hacks who sold out for a flat fee and a strict nondisclosure pact.

That exposé was among the almanac of allegations listed in Lanny Sokolow’s breach-of-contract lawsuit, a marathon feast for attorneys that dragged on for six years and ultimately settled out of court, three weeks prior to Sokolow’s death from kidney disease.

Six subsequent albums were penned with some help from Saul Wineman. Four of the five went platinum,
My Dark Shadows
dipped to gold, and
We’re Still Alive
tanked. In 1982, the group broke up due to “creative differences.” Saul Wineman had moved on to movies and each of the trio had earned more than enough to live as a rich man. Residuals, though tapering each year, added cream to the coffee.

Denny Ziff burned through his fortune by backing a series of unfortunately written and directed independent films. By 1985, he was living in Taos and painting muddy landscapes. In ’87, he was diagnosed with small-cell carcinoma of the lung that killed him in three months.

Mark Bolt moved to France, bought vineyard land and turned out some decent Bordeaux. Marrying and divorcing four times, he sired twelve children, converted to Buddhism, sold his vineyards and settled in Belize.

Jack Jeffries chased women, nearly lost his life in a helicopter flight over the Alaskan tundra, vowed never to fly again and bunked down in Malibu, overindulging in any corporeal pleasure at hand. In 1995, he donated sperm to a pair of lesbian actresses who wanted a “creative” kid. The match took and one of the actresses gave birth to a son. Jeffries was curious and asked to see the boy, but after the first few visits where Jeffries showed up toasted, the mothers termed him unfit and filed a cease-and-desist. Jack never fought for contact with his son, now a high-achieving high school senior living in Rye, New York. Rug-rats had never been his thing and there was all that music yet to be made.

He slept till three, kept a small staff that pilfered from him regularly, drank and doped and stuffed his face with no eye toward moderation. The residuals had trickled to a hundred G a year but passive income afforded him the house on the beach, cars and motorcycles, a boat docked in Newport Beach that he never used.

From time to time, he sang on other people’s records, gratis. When he performed, it was as a solo act at local benefits and venues that got smaller and smaller. Each year he put on more weight, refused to cut his hair, now white and frizzy, even though every other m.f. had sold out to Corporate Amerika.

He hadn’t been to Nashville since That Time but remembered it as a cool place, but too far to drive. So when the owner of the Songbird Café sent out a mass e-mail requesting participants in a First Amendment concert inveighing against federal snooping in public libraries, he tossed it. Then he retrieved it, read the list of those who’d agreed to attend, and felt crappy about having to say no.

Hemmed in, like maybe the cure was worse than the disease.

Then he happened to bring his guitar for repair into The Chick With the Magic Hands and started talking to her and she made a suggestion and…why not, even though he didn’t have much hope.

Give it a try, maybe it was time to show some
cojones.

Two months later, would you believe it, it
worked.

Ready to fly.

Good name for a song.

Jack Jeffries, lying dead in a weed-choked, garbage-flecked lot a short walk from the Cumberland River, would be a no-show at the Songbird concert.

Cleared by the M.E., Lamar Van Gundy and Baker Southerby gloved up and went to take a look at the body. The okay didn’t come from an investigator; an actual pathologist had shown up, meaning high priority.

Ditto for the appearance of Lieutenant Shirley Jones, Sergeant Brian Fondebernardi, and a host of media types kept at bay by a small army of uniformed cops. The two local homicide detectives had signed off to the Murder Squad, more than happy to be free of what was looking like the worst combo: publicity and a mystery.

Lieutenant Jones handled the press with her usual charm, promising facts as soon as they were in, and urging the newshounds to clear the scene. After some grumbling, they complied. Jones offered words of encouragement to her detectives, then left. As the morgue drivers hovered in the background, Sergeant Fondebernardi, trim, dark-haired, economical of movement, led the way to the corpse.

The kill-spot was a shadowed wicked place reeking of trash and dogshit. Not really a vacant lot, just a sliver of clumped earth shaded by the remnants of an old cement wall that probably dated to the days when riverboats unloaded their wares.

Jack Jeffries lay on the ground, just feet from the wall, vacant eyes staring up at a charcoal sky. Dawn was an hour away. Cool night, midfifties; Nashville weather could be anything, anytime, but in this range, nothing would weirdly accelerate or slow down decomposition.

Both detectives circled the scene before nearing the body. Each thinking:
Dark as sin: a body could walk right by it at night and never know.

Fondebernardi sensed what was on their minds. “Anonymous tip, some guy slurring his words, sounds like a homeless.”

“The bad guy?” said Lamar.

“Anything’s possible, Stretch, but on the tape he sounded pretty shook up—surprised. You’ll listen when you’re finished here.”

Lamar got closer to the body.
The man was obese.
He kept that to himself.

His partner said, “Looks like he let himself go.”

Sergeant Fondebernardi said, “We’re being judgmental, tonight, Baker? Yeah, aerobics would’ve made him prettier but it wasn’t a coronary that got him.” Flashing that sad, Brooklyn smile, the sergeant leaned in with a flashlight, highlighted the gash on the left side of the victim’s neck.

Lamar studied the wound.
All that music. That voice.

Baker kneeled and got right next to the corpse, his partner following suit.

Jack Jeffries wore a blousy, long-sleeved black silk shirt with a mandarin collar. His pants were lightweight black sweats with a red satin stripe running the length of the leg. Black running shoes with red dragons embroidered on the toe. Gucci insignia on the soles. Size 11, EEE.

Jeffries’s belly swelled alarmingly, a pseudo-pregnancy. His left arm was bent upward, palm out, as if caught in the act of waving good-bye. The right hung close to a spreading hip. Jeffries’s long white hair was a droopy corona, some of it floating above a high, surprisingly smooth brow, the rest tickling puffy cheeks. Muttonchops trailed three inches below fleshy ears. A fuzzy moustache as luxuriant as Lamar’s obscured the upper lip. Would have hidden both lips but for the fact that the mouth gaped in death.

Missing teeth, Baker noted. Guy
really
let himself go. He pulled out his own penlight and got eye to eye with the wound. Two or so inches wide, the edges parting and revealing meat and gristle and tubing. An upwardly sloping cut, ragged at the top, as if the knife had been yanked out hard and caught on something.

He pointed it out to Lamar. “Yeah I saw that. Maybe he struggled, the blade jiggled.”

Baker said, “The way it climbs is making me think the thrust was upward. Could be the stabber was shorter than the vic.” He eyeballed the corpse. “I’d put him at six even, so that doesn’t clear much.”

Fondebernardi said, “His driver’s license says six one.”

“Close enough,” said Baker.

“People lie,” said Lamar.

Baker said, “Lamar’s license says he’s five nine and likes sushi.”

Flat laughter cut through the night. When it subsided, Fondebernardi said, “You’re right about lying. Jeffries claimed his weight to be one ninety.”

“Add sixty, seventy to that,” said Baker. “All that heft, even if he wasn’t in shape, he’d be able to put up some resistance.”

“No defense wounds,” said Fondebernardi. “Check for yourself.”

Neither detective bothered: the sergeant was as thorough as they came.

“At least,” said Lamar, “we don’t have to waste time on an I.D.”

Baker said, “What else was in his pocket besides the license?”

Fondebernardi said, “Just a wallet, morgue guys have it in their van but it’s yours to go through before they book. We’re talking basics: credit cards, all platinum, nine hundred in cash, a Marquis Jet Card, so maybe he flew in privately. That’s the case, we might get a whole bunch of data. Those jet companies can book hotels, drivers, the whole itinerary.”

“No hotel key?” said Lamar.

The sergeant shook his head.

“Maybe he’s got friends in town,” said Baker.

“Or he didn’t bother with the key,” said Lamar. “Celebrity like that, people carry stuff for you.”

“If he is in a hotel, where else is it gonna be but the Hermitage?”

“You got it,” said Lamar. “Ten to one, he’s got the Alexander Jackson suite or whatever they call their hotshot penthouse.”

Sounding like he yearned for all that, thought Baker. Dreams died hard. Better not to have any.