Capital Crimes (27 page)

“How’d you end up at the river?”

“I went there after I found out what happened.” Tristan’s eyelids swelled as if allergic to remembering. “It was like a big hand entered here and ripped me.” Knuckling his solar plexus.

“What time?”

“Seven, nine, in the afternoon, I don’t know. I just drove like I was in a dream.”

“Where?”

“Up and down the highway, all over.”

“Which highway?”

“The I-Forty.”

“Anyone see you?”

“No, it was just trees—I drove to the old prison, down west, where they film movies? There were these—with the white-striped blue pants? I guess they’re minimum-security prisoners, they’re always walking around, cleaning up.”

“Sounds like you go there a lot.”

“It’s quiet,” said Tristan. “Helps me think. I was there that morning. Parked on top of the hill and looked down at all those dirty gray walls and one of them saw me. He had a rake, was raking leaves. He saw me and waved, I waved back. I sat there a little more, drove back to the city, parked near the river, sat in an empty building and…that’s what I was doing when the cops found me.”

“Thinking about killing yourself.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it.”

“Probably?”

“It would be selfish, right? Like her.”

“Your mama.”

“She hated Jack,” said the boy. “Told me so, when she was screaming no way I was going to meet him, she’d make a scene.”

“Why’d she hate him?”

“For leaving her in the first place, then for coming back when she didn’t want him to.”

“She was married to Lloyd when she conceived you.”

“But things weren’t going so well,” said the boy. “Least that’s what she told me. She was bored and thinking of leaving Lloyd. My mom used to be Jack’s main groupie, she made like it was more, but that’s what it sounded like to me. Then he dumped her and they didn’t see each other for a long time. Then, she was visiting a friend in LA, looked him up. They hooked up for a couple of days. After she found out she was pregnant, she called him about it but he didn’t answer. So she went back to Lloyd and forgot about Jack.”

“And now he was coming back,” said Baker. “And being a bad influence on you. You really think she’d have killed him over that?”

“You don’t know her, sir. She sets her mind to something, she’s not going to be convinced otherwise. She’s got all sorts of people working the farm. Lots of trash.” Some animation had spread across Tristan’s face. “You don’t believe me because she’s rich and cultured.”

“Well,” said Baker, “if we had some evidence.”

“If she didn’t do it, who did?”

Baker sat back, placed his hands behind his head. “As a matter of fact, son, we’ve been thinking about you.”

The boy shot to his feet. Big boy, all those muscles. His jaw was tight and his hands were clenched. “I
told
you! That’s fucking
insane
! Meeting Jack was the coolest thing in my
life,
I was going to go to
LA
!”

“Your plan, not his.”

“He would’ve been into it!”

The detectives remained in their seats. Tristan glared down at them.

Lamar said, “Sit back down, son.”

“Stop
calling
me that!”

Lamar rose to his full height. Tristan was unused to looking up at anyone. He flinched.

“Please sit down, Tristan.”

The boy obeyed. “I’m really a suspect?”

“You’re what we call a person of interest.”

“That’s crazy. Fucking crazy. Why would I kill someone I loved?”

Baker said, “Maybe he changed his mind about singing your song.”

“He didn’t,” said Tristan. “But even if he did, that’s no reason to kill someone.”

“People get killed for all sorts of reasons.”

“Not by sane people—anyway, it never happened, he loved my songs. Read my e-mails, everything’s positive, everything’s cool—my laptop’s in the back of my car, it’s out of power but you can recharge it. My passwords DDPOET. Short for Dead Poet.”

“We’ll do that,” said Baker. “But no matter what your e-mail says, it doesn’t mean that Jack didn’t change his mind and decide not to sing your song.”

Lamar said, “People change their mind all the time. And Jack was real moody.”

“He wasn’t moody with me,” said Tristan. “I was
important
to him. Not like the others.”

“What others?”

“All those loser trailer trash women claiming they had his kids, sending him pictures of their loser kids. And stuff—songs, CDs he never listened to. I was the
only
one he was sure of. Because he liked my songs and because he remembered the exact day it happened.”

“The day you were conceived?” Baker asked.

“He told you about it?” Lamar questioned.

“It’s in one of the e-mails—if you ever get around to reading the computer. He even forwarded an e-mail she wrote him five years ago, when he was thinking of coming out to see me. She told him that she didn’t want to risk losing Lloyd and that I would never accept him because I was close to Lloyd. That unless he wanted to destroy her and me and everything she’d built with Lloyd, he needed to stay away. And he agreed. For
my
sake. It’s all in there. And he saved it for years.”

Lamar said, “Mom didn’t want to risk losing Lloyd.”

The kid smirked again. “Didn’t want to risk what Lloyd gave her. Eleventh commandment.”

“Jack had money, too,” said Baker.

“Not as much as Lloyd. Money has always been her first and only love.”

“You have strong feelings about your mama.”

“I love her,” said Tristan, “but I know what she is. You need to talk to her. I’ll give you her number in Kentucky. I know she’s there, even though she didn’t tell me she was headed there.”

“How would you know?”

“She always goes to the horses when she’s disgusted with me. Horses don’t talk back and if you put the time into them, you can eventually break ’em.”

They retrieved an IBM ThinkPad from the backseat of the VW, booted it up, spent an hour with Tristan’s old mail and sent mail. A tech ran a basic scan of the boy’s Internet history.

“Weird,” said the tech.

“What is?”

“Just music stuff—downloads, articles, tons of it. No porn at all. This must be the first teenage boy in the history of the cyber-age who doesn’t use his laptop as a stroke-book.”

Lamar snickered. “We know what you do at night, Wally.”

“It keeps me busy and I don’t have to brush my teeth beforehand.”

The mail between Jack Jeffries and Tristan backed up the boy’s story. There was at least a half year of correspondence transitioning from initial reserve on both their parts, to amiability to warmth to professions of father–son love.

Nothing smarmy or sexual, the letters could’ve been how-to-communicate instructional tools from Dr. Phil, or one of those other preachers with doctorates.

Jack Jeffries praised some of his son’s lyrics, but he never gushed. Criticism of weaker songs was tactful but frank, and Tristan reacted to every received comment with lamblike gratitude.

No indication Jack had ever changed his mind about “Music City Breakdown.”

They spent another hour phoning the new hi-tech penitentiary and finding out the names of the trustees who tended the old prison grounds. Two of the inmates remembered seeing the green VW atop the hill just before water break, and one recalled waving to a distant figure standing near the car.

None of which provided an airtight alibi; the murder had taken place before that, when Tristan Poulson claimed to be working on his song and sleeping and surfing the Internet. No doubt Amelia, the maid, would back him up.

Even without backup, the detectives were starting to doubt Tristan as a prime suspect. The boy had plenty of time to develop a real alibi, but hadn’t bothered. There had been an openness to Tristan’s manner, despite all he’d gone through. If either man had been able to admit it, they would have called it touching.

And as far as the detective could tell, the boy hadn’t lied.

As opposed to his mother.

Baker and Lamar agreed that Tristan’s theory about her was intriguing.

Repeated calls to Al Sus Jahara Arabian Farms were met by a recorded message so brief it bordered on unfriendly.

Lamar Googled the place. It had a thousand acres of rolling hills and big trees and gorgeous horses. Champion bloodlines, big antebellum mansion, paddocks, stables, stud service, cryogenic semen storage, the works. A place that hoo-hah, one would think there’d be a person at the other end, not voice mail.

Unless someone was in hiding.

By day’s end, and after reviewing the situation with Fondebernardi and Jones, they decided Cathy Poulson had grown to the status of “serious suspect,” but they had no easy way to get evidence on her.

Before they went about digging around in Belle Meade social circles, they decided to recontact an eyewitness—of sorts. Someone who’d seen Cathy and Jack, shortly before Jack’s throat got cut.

14

T
he Happy Night Motel looked no better than it had in its bordello days. Gray texture-coat stucco had flaked, leaving chicken-wire lesions. The green wood trim was bilious. A couple of big rigs were parked in the cracked asphalt motor court. One filthy pickup and a primer-patched Celica made up the rest of the vehicular mix.

The night clerk was an old, crushed-faced guy named Gary Beame—flyaway white hair, grease-stained shirt, ill-fitting dentures, rheumy eyes that jumped all over the place. Maybe a barely reformed homeless guy the owners had hired on the cheap.

He made the detectives right away, rasped through cigarette smoke. “Evening, Officers. We don’t hire out to whores. Mr. Bikram’s a clean businessman.”

It sounded like a rehearsed little speech.

“Congratulations,” said Baker. “Which room is Greta Barline’s?”

Beame’s face darkened. He yanked out his cigarette, scattering ash on the
Star
magazine spread atop the counter. “That little—I knew she was gonna get Mr. Bikram in trouble.” Scratching the corner of his collapsed mouth, he peered at something, flicked it away. “All that dirty whorin’ and then she stiffs Mr. Bikram for a week’s worth.”

Lamar said, “She was hooking out of here?”

“Not like you’re thinking,” said Beame. “Not waltzing out to the street in them halters and hotpants.”

“Like the good old days.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Beame lied.

“So what, she’d just be here and they’d show up?”

“Who?”

“Johns.”

“I never saw no one sneak in,” said Beame, warming to his falsehood sonata. “Not on any regular schedule, anyway. I’m all alone here, cain’t be bothering to watch all the comings and goings.”

“Then how do you know she was hooking?”

Beame puffed manically, working his jaws while constructing his answer. “Only way I found out was we had a family staying in the room next door, tourists from Missouri or someplace. Mother calls me up complaining about three different guys in one night. The noise was coming through the wall. Bad enough they had to hear it, but they had kids.”

“What’d you do about it?” said Lamar.

“What could I do?” said Beame. “My responsibility’s up here. What I done is phone Mr. Bikram. They tell me he’s back home visiting. That’s Calcutta, India. Mrs. Bikram says when he comes back in three days he’ll deal with it. Next time I see Barline coming in, I try talkin’ to her. The little whore has the nerve to ignore me. When Mr. Bikram comes home, I tell him what happens and he marches straight over there. But she’s gone with all her stuff. Then we found out she passed a bogus money order. The little whore still owes a week. You find her, you tell me. Or you can call Mr. Bikram direct. Here’s his card.”

“Your housekeeping staff never informed you about the prostitution?”

“What staff?” said Beame. “We got a couple Mexicans come during the day. They don’t even speak no English.”

They asked to see Greta Barline’s room.

Beame said, “Sorry, can’t do. I gotta a couple of people in there.”

“More respectable tourists?” said Baker.

No answer.

“Maybe one-hour tourists?” said Lamar.

“Hey,” said Beame. “They pay, I don’t ask. They might even be married. You find that little whore, you call Mr. Bikram.”

“Any idea where we
can
find her?”

Beame finally gave some serious thought to a question. “Well, mebbe one thing. I saw her go off with a guy once. This wasn’t no trucker. Suit and tie, drove a Lexus. Silver. It had a white coat hanging in the back. Like a doctor.”

Out in the motel parking lot, they thumbed through their notes for the name of the dentist who owned The T House.

“Here we go,” said Lamar. “‘Dr. McAfee. Lives in Brentwood.’”

Baker said, “If she was telling the truth about that.”

“About anything. Hooks, passes bad paper, real sweet kid.” Lamar looked up. “Maybe there’s something to the churchgoing lifestyle.”

“At the very least, you know where the kids are on Wednesday and Sunday.” Baker rubbed his head. “Let’s talk to the good doctor and find out what other games Gret likes to play.”

Motor Vehicle records placed Dr. Donald J. McAfee’s house six blocks away from the Drs. Carlsons’ white contempo.

“Must be a medico thing,” said Baker, as they headed there.

The house was a shingle-topped ranch with an oddly sloping roofline that suggested pagoda. A little stone fountain in front and a patch of mondo grass said someone loved the whole Asian thing.

Two vehicles were registered to McAfee, a silver Lexus sedan and a black Lexus Rx. Neither was in sight but a ten-year-old red Mustang sat in the driveway. It was dented and sagging, rust on the bumpers, a cracked rear side window.

Texas plates.

Lamar said, “So much for Gret not having any car. Why lie to make yourself poorer than you are?”

“Tugging at our heartstrings,” said Baker.

“For what reason?”

“The little gal thinks she can sing. Maybe she’s into acting, too.”

Not much light over the red door. They knocked.

A gonglike chime sounded and Greta Barline’s voiced trilled, “One second.”

When the door swung open, she was standing there with her blond hair all long and combed out, wearing a tiny little lace apron, spike heels and nothing else. Flour whisk in one hand, round-tipped frosting knife in the other.

Few people look better naked than clothed. This girl was the exception. Every visible inch of her was smooth and golden and nubile and voluptuous and all sorts of other good adjectives. She’d come to the door licking her lips and grinning. But that died fast.

Baker said, “Sorry to interrupt the production, Gret.”

The girl’s eyes widened and then, darn if her little pink nipples didn’t get hard and all puckery around the rosellas or whatever you called them.

Lamar said, “Dressed for business?”

He’d never admit it but he’d been distracted by those nipples when she went after him with the frosting knife.

They subdued her, but it took surprising effort. Even cuffed and facedown on a red silk Asian print sofa, she kept up the kicking and screaming—lot of nonsense about rape.

The interior of the house looked like someone had raided every tourist trap in Bangkok. Lamar found Greta Barline’s clothing in the master bedroom—a wide, shag-carpeted space dominated by a huge plaster Buddha spray-painted gold. In a teak dresser, one drawer was reserved for bikinis, thongs, and crotch-less panties. A section of the walk-in closet held negligees, wife-beaters and T-shirts and three pairs of size-4 Diesel jeans. Tons of makeup and other female products in the bathroom. She’d made a real mess of the place, leaving wet towels on the floor, along with crumpled-up
National Enquirer
s.

Living here, on and off, when she wasn’t bedding johns and belting out karaoke.

Lamar selected the most modest clothes he could find—a yellow tee, along with a pair of jeans—and brought them back to the living room. Maybe calling for a female officer would’ve been the smart thing but they didn’t want to wait around with this foulmouthed naked girl screaming rape.

The detectives managed to wrestle her into the duds, but it made them sweat.

Then Lamar remembered: no underwear. Like she’d care.

They sat her up, and had just gotten her something to drink, when a big, florid middle-aged guy wearing a Domino Pizza delivery uniform showed up. The duds were a size too small and downright stupid-looking on a paunchy, gray-haired idiot with steel-rimmed eyeglasses.

Trembling hands clutched a pizza box.

“Dr. McAfee?”

The dentist’s eyes got wild, as if he were contemplating escape.

Baker said, “Bad idea, sit over there.” He took the box and inspected it, finding a packet of ribbed condoms, an aerosol can of whipped cream and some creepy-looking big old plastic beads on a string.

“Talk about nutrition,” said Lamar.

The dentist clutched his chest and when that didn’t work, flashed a nice set of white teeth and looked over at Greta. “Don’t know her, just met her, Officers. She insisted on coming over. It was just going to be some old-fashioned fun in the privacy of my own domicile.”

“Fuck you!” screamed the girl. “You said I was the best!”

McAfee’s look was ripe with pity.

Greta Barline squinted. “I’ll kill you, you bastard. I’ll cut you like I cut him.”

McAfee blanched. “Guess I’d better be more careful who I allow to pick me up.”

Baker and Lamar hauled the girl out of there. When they reached the door, McAfee was still standing there in his ludicrous delivery duds.

“May I change?”

Baker said, “You better.”