The Ballad Of

John Lee

Nick Russell

Copyright 2025 © By Nick Russell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing by the publisher.

Nick Russell

E-mail Editor@gypsyjournal.net

Also By Nick Russell

Fiction

Big Lake Mystery Series

Big Lake

Big Lake Lynching

Crazy Days In Big Lake

Big Lake Blizzard

Big Lake Scandal

Big Lake Burning

Big Lake Honeymoon

Big Lake Reckoning

Big Lake Brewpub

Big Lake Abduction

Big Lake Celebration

Big Lake Tragedy

Big Lake Snowdaze

Big Lake Fugitive

Big Lake Wedding

Big Lake Ninja

Big Lake Quarterback

Big Lake Massacre

Big Lake Hoarder

Big Lake Shootout

Big Lake Ranger

Big Lake Drunk

Big Lake Assault

Big Lake Accident

Big Lake Sinner

John Lee Quarrels Series

Stillborn Armadillos

The Gecko In The Corner

Badge Bunny

Mullets And Man Buns

Strawberry Slugbug

Sweet Tea And Jesus

Dead Romeos

The Road To Wrinkle Ranch

Fresh Out Of Mojo

Ka-Bar Karma

Pucker Factor

Jackpot

The Ballad Of John Lee

Dog's Run Series

Dog’s Run

Return To Dog's Run

Tinder Street Saga

Tinder Street

The Good Years

Boom And Bust

The Hard Years

A Changing World

The War Years

Standalone Mystery Novels

Black Friday

Nonfiction

Highway History and Back Road Mystery

Highway History and Back Road Mystery II

Meandering Down The Highway; A Year On The Road With Fulltime RVers

The Frugal RVer

Work Your Way Across The USA; You Can Travel And Earn A Living Too!

Overlooked Florida

Overlooked Arizona

The Gun Shop Manual

Author’s Note

All persons in this book live only in the author’s imagination. Any

resemblance in this story to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

It had been promised as the adventure of a lifetime, and their cruise along Alaska’s Inside Passage had been a true adventure, no doubt about that. John Lee and Maddy had been thrilled to see whales and magnificent eagles, to look in awe at the massive glaciers, and they had enjoyed exploring the sights in Sitka, Juno, and Skagway. However, it seemed that from the moment they departed the ship in Seattle, it turned into the trip from hell.

Things had started going downhill when the shuttle from the cruise ship terminal to Sea-Tac Airport became involved in an accident along the way. While it had been little more than a fender bender, it damaged the shuttle van enough that it was not drivable. A second van had been dispatched to pick them up, along with their fellow passengers, but somehow their luggage had not been transferred to the replacement vehicle. The ticketing agent assured them that if it didn’t make it onto their airplane, it would surely be on the next flight and would be delivered to their home in Florida.

Figuring there was nothing they could do about that, the couple got through the TSA screening process and settled in to wait the two hours until their flight. John Lee was dozing off in his chair while Maddy was reading the news on her cell phone when an announcement was made that there had been a delay in boarding, but passengers were asked to stay in the general seating area and could expect to be updated soon. Half an hour later, there was another announcement that the flight would be delayed by at least an hour.

“What’s going on?”

“Hard to say,” John Lee said. “I’m sure they’ll get it worked out.”

The hour delay turned into two hours and then three, and Maddy said, “We’re not going to make our connecting flight from Atlanta to Tallahassee, are we?”

“I don’t see how we can,” John Lee replied. “Let me go see what I can find out.”

There was a long line of passengers wanting to know about their own connecting flights, and the two young women working behind the counter were obviously becoming flustered as people grew irritated and complained about missing connecting flights, an important meeting, and a grandchild’s birthday party. All the women could tell the passengers was that updates would be passed on to them as soon as they got them.

On the next update an hour later, some people were beyond disgruntled and moving toward outraged. “If I miss my grandson’s first birthday party, there’s going to be hell to pay,” a woman shouted at one employee behind the desk. “Find out what the problem is and fix it!” A man in a three-piece suit said he had a million-dollar contract on the line and if he didn’t make his meeting the next morning, he was going to hold the young ladies personally responsible.

Finally, a representative from the airline appeared and apologized, saying that there had been a maintenance issue with the aircraft and it was not going to be able to fly that day, but they were working hard to get people onto alternate flights. That only brought more shouts and complaints from the waiting passengers.

“God, I’d hate to be in those people’s shoes,” Maddy said.

“They’re doing the best they can, honey.”

“I’m not talking about the employees. I’m talking about these people,” she told him. “Shit happens. If their lives are so complicated that they can’t roll with the punches now and then, they must be miserable just about every day.”

They grew tired of listening to all the complaining around them and went for a short walk, only to hear an announcement on the public address system for all passengers on their flight to return to the waiting area.

“Maybe they got another plane ready after all,” John Lee said.

“I hope so. With any luck, it will be the one our luggage is on,” Maddy said.

Unfortunately, the news was not good. Their flight had been canceled, and it didn’t look like they were going to make it onto another flight until late that evening. Some passengers asked about being booked onto other flights, but none were available on that or any other airline. 

With hours to kill, John Lee and Maddy made the best of the situation and tried to sleep on the chairs in the boarding area, which were less than comfortable. By the time they finally managed to get onto a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth instead of the original stop in Atlanta, they were both stiff and sore, but happy to see some progress on their trip home.

Maddy became ill during the nearly four-hour flight to Texas, telling John Lee she thought the airport food they had eaten disagreed with her, then bolted for the restroom, which she returned to several times before they finally landed in Dallas. John Lee suggested they go to an Urgent Care, but Maddy said she would survive and didn’t want to leave the airport to find something.

They had a three-hour layover before they finally boarded a flight to Tallahassee, arriving exhausted, only to find that their luggage was missing in action somewhere between Seattle and Florida. Maddy fell asleep on the shuttle ride to the long-term parking area to pick up their car, and John Lee hated to wake her, only to tell her they had one last delay because they had a flat tire. He told Maddy to get in the car while he changed it, but she said she would be fine. He knew better. She was weak and almost asleep on her feet as he retrieved the spare from the trunk and changed the tire.

Finally, they were on the road home to Somerton County, and Maddy slept all the way. When they pulled into their driveway, John Lee had to half carry her into the house and to their bed. They both smelled like stale sweat and airports, but he was too damn tired to consider a shower and lay down on the bed next to her, fully dressed, and fell asleep. His last thought was that it was good to be back home, and tomorrow would be a better day. He did not know how wrong he was.

***

Exhausted, they slept late, and it was past noon when they finally got out of bed. Maddy was feeling better and woke up ravenous. She made waffles and sausage patties for breakfast, and they talked about their trip and the flight home.

“I don’t know what I ate that got to me, but it sure kicked my butt,” she said.

“Maybe you’re pregnant.”

“Don’t even say that, John Lee.”

“Think about it, all that sea air and how romantic it was making love when we could look outside and see glaciers going past.”

“If you had time to look out and see glaciers, one of us wasn’t doing their job,” she told him.

John Lee laughed, and just then his phone rang. Answering it, he said, “Hey there, Paw Paw. How you doing?”

“I’m hanging in there,” his grandfather told him. “What time did you guys finally get in?”

“I don’t know. It was late and we just crashed.”

“Is Maddy feeling any better?”

“Yeah, she seems to be. She was sure a sick puppy on the flight from Seattle to Texas, though.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She says it was bad airport food, but I told her I think she’s pregnant.”

Maddy gave him the finger and shook her head as Paw Paw said, “They know what causes that, you know.” Then he said, “I wanted to give you a heads up before you came to get your dog. We’ve got company.”

“Oh yeah? Who’s that?”

“Your mother.”

John Lee groaned and said, “Lovely.”

“That ain’t the half of it,” his grandfather said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Just remember, none of this was my idea.”

***

While driving to his grandparents’ house to pick up Magic, John Lee’s German shepherd, Maddy asked, “He wouldn’t tell you anything else?”

“No. Just that she was here and to prepare myself,” John Lee said. “Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s going to be good.”

“John Lee, don’t you dare mention any of that nonsense about me being pregnant,” Maddy warned him. “She was bad enough with that crap the last time she was here.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “The last thing I need to do is give her any ammunition to nag us about. She comes up with plenty of it on her own.”

They pulled into his grandparents’ driveway and Maddy said, “I’ve seen that truck before, but I don’t remember where. Do you?”

One look at the flashy black pickup with what seemed like acres of gleaming chrome was enough to curdle the breakfast in John Lee’s stomach, and he replied, “Yeah, I do. Damn it!”

***

“There’s my handsome boy and his pretty lady! Y’all give me a big kiss. Are ya surprised to see me? Well, guess what? That ain’t the big surprise. Just wait until you see! You’re just not goin’ to believe it! No, you’re not!”

Neither John Lee nor Maddy could get a word in edge wise, not that either of them knew what to say, as John Lee’s mother, Lisa Marie, babbled on nonstop while pulling his hand toward the door of his grandparents’ house.

“Now, both of you close your eyes. No peekin,’” she said as she grabbed each of their hands and led them into the house, through the kitchen and into the living room. “Okay, ya can open them up now. What do ya think?”

Maddy said, “Oh, my,” but all John Lee could do was stare at the full color, life-sized cardboard image of himself wearing his deputy’s uniform.

“Well, come on, John Lee. What do ya think?”

“What the hell is it?” he asked.

“It’s you, silly.”

“I know it’s me, but why?”

“This here is just a little surprise. The big surprise is what it’s for,” his mother said. When he didn’t respond, she asked, “Well, ain’t ya gonna ask?”

“Ask what?”

“What the big surprise is. Oh, never mind. Show him, Dakota.”

John Lee had been so taken aback by the cardboard cutout that he had not noticed the 50ish man dressed in black who was standing off to the side of the room. Black boots, each embroidered with a red musical note, black jeans, a black shirt with red embroidered horseshoes on the pockets, and a black cowboy hat. The top three buttons of the shirt were open to show two heavy gold chains.

He turned around and picked something up, and when he faced them again, he was holding an oversize record cover with the same image of John Lee on it.

“Well, what do ya think now?”

“I still don’t know what the hell you two are up to,” John Lee told his mother. “But whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

“How can you not like bein’ famous, John Lee?”

“Okay, just slow down for a minute,” he said, raising his hands palm up. “Tell me exactly what this is all about.”

“It’s about what your Mama said, John Lee,” the man told him. “See, it says right here on the cover, The Ballad of John Lee. Me and your Mama done went and made you famous, boy!”

“That’s right,” Lisa Marie said. “The song about you is playin’ on the radio right now all over the country. And guess who’s singin’ it?” She pointed a finger at herself and said, “That’s right, yours truly.”

“What song are you talking about?”

“Why, the one about you. Don’t you remember, John Lee? The last time we were here, Dakota told you he was goin’ to write a song about you. Well, he did, and it’s becomin’ a hit. And not just that, John Lee. Dakota here is a marketin’ genius. He’s already workin’ on a book and a movie deal all about your life. Ain’t that excitin’?”

“Oh, no! You guys need to stop right there,” John Lee said. “I want no part of whatever crazy scheme you’ve cooked up now.”

“There ain’t nothin’ crazy about it, John Lee,” his mother said. “Me and Dakota, we made you famous.”

“Over my dead body,” John Lee said sharply.

At the time he spoke those words, he didn’t know that before long there would be a dead body in Somerton County, and he would be embroiled in an investigation like no other he had ever seen. One that might cost him his career, and even his very freedom.

Chapter 2

John Lee was seething with anger as they drove back home, gripping the steering wheel of his Ford pickup truck so hard that his knuckles were white, and his jaws clenched so tightly that Maddy was afraid he would break a tooth. Standing up in the back seat, Magic could sense something was wrong and whined.

“Shut up, Magic!”

“Don’t take it out on him, John Lee,” Maddy said. “He just knows you’re upset, and he doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

“You’d be upset too if they wrapped you up in this stupid scheme of theirs,” he snapped.

The couple seldom argued, and Maddy tried to remain calm. Instead of lashing out in response, she said, “Well, they kind of did. She said they put me in the song, too.”

“Where do they get off thinking something like this is all right?”

“You know how your mother is. She’s always up to some kind of nonsense.”

“I know, but this is going too far! I’m going to put a stop to it.”

“I don’t know if you can,” Maddy responded. “They said the song is already out there and being played on the radio.”

“I don’t care if the damned Boston Symphony is playing it in Madison Square Garden. It’s going to stop.”

Trying to lighten the mood a bit, Maddy said, “I don’t think the Boston Symphony plays country music. Or at Madison Square Garden.”

Turning his head to glare at her from across the truck cab, John Lee said, “This isn’t funny, Maddy.”

“I know that, honey. But you know as well as I do that nothing your mother ever gets involved in lasts very long. She’s just like Emily, always looking for the next shiny thing that gets her attention. I’m sure in a couple of weeks this will all die down and be forgotten.”

John Lee scowled at the mention of his ex-wife, who had ended their marriage because she wanted to find herself, whatever the hell that meant. Since then, she had been a yoga instructor, a massage therapist, lived in a same-sex relationship for a while, and who knew what she was up to now? He knew that what Maddy said was right. His mother was just as bad. She had left him with her parents soon after he was born, and while Paw Paw and Mama Nell were raising him, she was off on one adventure after another. Just like this time, she would show up unannounced, expecting to be welcomed with open arms, always promising that things were going to change, and breaking John Lee’s heart again when she went off chasing whatever she hoped to find at some other rainbow’s end. Eventually, he had grown tired of her empty promises and stopped believing anything she said. His grandparents were the only family he had ever known, and if he never saw the woman that gave birth to him again, that would be just fine with him.

“No, it won’t, Maddy. Not this time. When he was talking about that damn song when they were here before, I never gave it a second thought because I figured it was just more of the typical bullshit that Lisa Marie comes up with. And I never thought that the drugstore cowboy she’s running around with would ever amount to anything, either. But somehow, they pulled it off and now it’s my job to put an end to it before it gets out of hand.”

He never referred to the woman who gave birth to him as his mother. John Lee felt she had relinquished her right to that title years ago.

“She said it’s already out there playing on the radio,” Maddy said again.

“There has to be something I can do about it. I mean, they can’t legally use my name and my picture without my permission, can they?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Maddy replied. “I guess you could sue them, but that could take forever. And Dakota was talking about a book and movie deal, too. I think you need to talk to a lawyer and find out just what your rights are.”

“Or I could just shoot that son of a bitch and be done with it. Without him, none of this would have happened. I had no idea he really had connections in Nashville. I thought it was just more of Lisa Marie’s bullshit. Or that he had fed her a line about being some kind of bigshot in the music scene and she believed it.”

“Don’t talk that way, John Lee. I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be, but that’s just crazy talk. You’re not going to shoot anybody.”

“How about I just beat him half to death then? Or choke him until his eyes pop out?”

Maddy laughed and said, “Stop it. Let’s just go home and forget about it for now, and tomorrow you can find an attorney and see what they tell you.”

“Forget about it? That’s easier said than done.”

Maddy reached across the console of the truck and put her hand on John Lee’s thigh. “You know, they say that angry sex can be really good. Maybe we can figure out a way to take your mind off of things for a while.”

“I’m not saying that’s not a good idea, but I don’t know if it’s going to take my mind off things.”

“Well, you’ve always been good at multitasking,” Maddy said.

***

They were languishing in bed after a very satisfying episode of afternoon delight when John Lee said, “Okay, I admit it. That took my mind off things for a while. As bad as you felt on the trip back home, I wasn’t sure you were up to that.”

Her head lying on his chest, Maddy smiled and replied, “Never underestimate me, John Lee. I have excellent stamina and willpower.”

“Well, thank God for that,” he told her, then added, “and just for the record, I never underestimate you, Maddy. Not by a long shot.”

Magic, who had been locked out of the bedroom while they made love, scratched at the door and whined. When no one responded, he barked.

“I think he feels neglected. First, we go off and leave him with Paw Paw and Mama Nell, and then we get home and close the bedroom door in his face. You better open it before we give him a complex.”

“Don’t blame me. You’re the one who doesn’t like an audience,” John Lee said, getting out of bed and opening the door. Magic bounded into the room and sat next to the bed, looking at Maddy with his head cocked to the side.

“What are you looking at, you pervert?”

The dog whined again and put his front paws on the side of the bed, standing up to lick her face.

Maddy laughed and rubbed his head and said, “I love you, too. Did you miss us?”

John Lee went into the bathroom to relieve himself and heard his phone ring. “If that’s Lisa Marie, don’t answer.”

Looking at the caller ID, Maddy said, “No, it’s one of the other women in your life.” She pushed the button to answer the call and said, “Hello, Dixie. Yeah, our flight got delayed and we were late getting back last night.” She listened for a moment and then John Lee heard her say, “Don’t ask. It was a terrible flight back. First our original flight got canceled and then they lost our luggage, and then I got the trots from something I ate.” Another pause and then she said, “Yeah, he’ll be out in a minute. He’s peeing. What do you mean, TMI? You’re a newspaper reporter. Aren’t you always looking for information?” Maddy listened and laughed, and then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Here’s John Lee now.”

He sat down on the side of the bed and took the phone from her and pushed the speaker button and said, “Don’t talk dirty. My dog’s listening in.”

“Welcome home,” said Dixie Landrum, the only reporter for the weekly Somerton County News. “I’d ask you how your trip was, but Maddy made it sound kind of shitty.”

“Just for her on the return flight,” John Lee told his friend. “The cruise itself was great. What’s up?”

“You tell me. You’re the big shot radio hero these days.”

“Oh. You heard about that?”

“Are you kidding me, John Lee? Everybody in the county has heard the song. Hugh Burris is playing it on the radio every half hour. How come you didn’t tell me about it?”

“Because I didn’t know anything about it until a little while ago,” he told her.

“You’re kidding me? Nothing?”

“Nope. Not until we went over to my grandparents to pick up Magic, and Lisa Marie and that idiot she’s running around with were there making a big production out of it.”

“It is a big production,” Dixie told him. “According to Dakota Phillips, he’s working on a movie deal and a book deal, too. You must be really excited.”

“Really pissed off is more like it.”

“Why would you be pissed off, John Lee? How many people ever get a song written about them, let alone a book and a movie?”

“Look, Dixie, I had no idea any of this was happening. I didn’t agree to any of it and I don’t want anything to do with it. In fact, I’m going to try to set up a meeting with an attorney and see what I can do to put the brakes on it.”

“You don’t want to be famous?”

“Hell, no! Would you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” Dixie replied. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“Not me. You said Dakota told you about it?”

“Yeah, he came in the office three days ago. He had a complete publicity kit with a CD with the song on it and pictures of you, and the big old poster with you on it. You didn’t pose for any of those?”

“No, I didn’t. I think they’re just pictures of me that Mama Nell sent to Lisa Marie at some point. I don’t know. But like I said, I’m going to find me a lawyer and see what I can do about it. I mean, can you use somebody’s picture and name without their permission in the newspaper?”

“It depends,” said Dixie. “If somebody gets busted for a crime, that’s news, and we can put it in the paper, or if somebody is in an accident or something like that. Or let’s say it’s an Easter egg hunt at the park. That’s a public event and we can take pictures of people there.”

“But this isn’t any damn Easter egg hunt. It’s an invasion of my privacy!”

“I only know the laws that apply to journalism,” Dixie said. “But I would think you would have some rights in a case like this. Especially if they’re using your name and picture for commercial purposes.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. Like I said, I’m going to find me a lawyer.”

“So, I guess that means I can’t come over and interview Somerton County’s hotshot radio hero?”

“If Dixie my friend wants to come over and visit, she’s always welcome. But if you’re coming here as a reporter, nope. Not happening.”

“Just so you know, Dixie,” Maddy said. “Right now, we’re both naked and in bed.”

“All right! Let me see how many traffic lights I can blow through to get there.”

“Since there are only four in town, it shouldn’t be that hard to do,” Maddy said, laughing.

“You know I respect your privacy, John Lee. If you don’t want to be interviewed about this, I won’t. But will you do me a favor and let me know what you find out from an attorney?”

“That depends. Is it my friend or the reporter asking?”

“I guess a little bit of both,” Dixie admitted.

“Let me see who I can find to talk to and what they have to say first. Fair enough?”

“Sounds good,” Dixie told him. “By the way, for what it’s worth, the song is pretty cool.”

“I’m hanging up now, Dixie. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, John Lee. I’ll see you soon, Maddy.”

Chapter 3

They spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through mail that had accumulated while they were gone, consigning the junk mail to the trash and setting aside bills that needed to be paid. They were trying to decide what to have for dinner when John Lee’s telephone rang. When he saw the unfamiliar number was from Nashville, Tennessee, he almost didn’t answer. Then he decided that if it was Lisa Marie or Dakota, it would give him another opportunity to unload on them, not that he thought it would do any good.

“Hello.”

“John Lee, this is Dakota. Listen, man, I honestly didn’t know you were goin’ to be so upset about this song. The way your mama talked, I thought you were all in.”

“Well, obviously I’m not, and I don’t know what would make her think I was.”

Actually, John Lee knew what would make her think that. It was typical of Lisa Marie to get all excited about something she dreamed up and just naturally expect everybody else in the world to embrace her latest fantasy.

“Tell you what, John Lee. How about we get together and have a drink someplace and talk this out?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” John Lee replied. “You need to do whatever it takes to get that damn song off the radio and keep it off.”

“Well, now, it’s not as easy as that sounds. It’s kind of like a snowball rollin’ downhill, pickin’ up more and more snow with it until it becomes a big old avalanche.”

“More like a shitstorm if you ask me,” John Lee snapped back.

“Listen, I want to make this right, John Lee. Like I said, why don’t you and me sit down someplace and have a drink and figure out what we can do?”

The last thing John Lee wanted was to spend any time with Dakota, but Maddy wrote something on a yellow Post-It note and handed it to him. It’s worth it if it will get him to pull the song off the radio. Reading her note, he knew she was right and nodded his head.

“All right. There’s a place called the Pour House Tavern on the east side of town. Do you know where it is?”

“No, but I’ve got a GPS in Black Beauty that’ll get me there,” Dakota said. “How about a half hour from now?”

John Lee wasn’t surprised the man had named his flashy pickup truck, but all he said was, “I’ll see you there.”

“Now, try not to lose your temper when you talk to him,” Maddy said. “Mama Nell always says you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”

“I’d like to drown this clown in a tub of honey and stake him out someplace and let the flies and the ants eat him.”

“I know, John Lee. But he said that Lisa Marie told him you were all in on it, and knowing her, she probably did. So maybe he thinks you gave her the okay. It wouldn’t be above her to do something like that. You know that as well as I do.”

“Yeah, I know. Let me go talk to this fool and see what we can work out to get that stupid song and the rest of this bullshit stopped.”

***

As drinking holes went, the Pour House was better than many in Somerton County, which still wasn’t saying a lot. At least they mopped the floors in the bathrooms now and then so they weren’t sticky under a customer’s feet, and the clientele was a step above the worst of the rednecks John Lee had to deal with when on duty.

Dakota was sitting at the bar, his black hat with the silver-studded band tipped low over his head like a gunfighter in an old western movie, a shot glass in front of him. His bloodshot eyes and slightly slurred speech made it obvious that it wasn’t his first drink.

“Hey there, John Lee. Ya made it!”

He made it sound like they had not seen each other in years.

“Hey, man, thanks for agreein’ to sit down and talk to me. I’m sure we can figure all this out to everybody’s satisfaction.”

Bonnie Andrews, a busty, broad shouldered bleached blonde working behind the bar, said, “Well, if it ain’t the big man himself, John Lee Quarrels! How you doin’ John Lee?”

“I’ve been better.”

“What can I get ya?”

“How about a bottle of Bud?”

“Shoot, John Lee. I figured now that you’re a high falutin’ celebrity, you’d want a martini or somethin’ like that.”

“Just a Bud,” he told her, then said to Dakota, “Let’s sit over here at one of the tables. I don’t need everybody in the county knowing my business.”

“Fair enough,” Dakota said, but before they could sit down, Melvin Hedges stopped them to ask, “Can I get your autograph, John Lee? My gal thinks you’re the hottest thing to ever hit the county, with that song about you and everything.”

“Very funny, Melvin.”

“I’m serious, John Lee. She bought that CD and she plays it nonstop. Do me a favor and give me your autograph. Hell, I might get lucky if I bring it to her. Course, she’ll probably close her eyes and fantasize that it’s you, but what the hell? Right?”

“I’m kind of busy right now,” John Lee said, sitting down.

“Shoot, man. I thought we were friends. I see how it is now. You hit the big time and ain’t got no time for us little people. Well, you can go to hell for all I care, John Lee. It’s a stupid song anyhow.”

“Melvin, you go back to the bar and leave this man alone. He ain’t got time for your nonsense,” Bonnie said, plopping a Budweiser and a paper napkin on the table, along with another shot of whiskey for Dakota. “This here’s on the house.”

“Thank you, but I’ll pay for my drinks,” John Lee told her.

When Bonnie went back to the bar, Dakota chuckled. “It’s kind of surprisin’ the first time someone asks for your autograph, ain’t it? But ya get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” John Lee told him.

“I understand that. Like I told ya, John Lee, the way Lisa Marie talked, I thought ya were behind this project all the way.”

“Well, I’m not. And you can forget all that bullshit about books and movies and everything,” John Lee said.

“So what you’re sayin’ is ya don’t want any part of the revenue from this whole project?”

“What I’m saying is, I want this whole thing to go away,” John Lee replied.

“What if I cut ya in for 5% of the profits? That could amount to a whole bunch of money. It could change your life, John Lee.”

“I like my life just fine the way it is.”

“Come on, man. Are ya seriously telling me you enjoy wrestlin’ with drunks and shootin’ it out with bad guys when ya don’t have to live that way?”

“It’s a job somebody’s got to do, and I’m good at it,” John Lee said. “And as far as shooting it out with anybody, it’s not like I get up every morning looking to get into a gunfight. That’s the last thing any cop wants to do.”

“Okay, I understand that,” Dakota said. “And I got to tell you, I admire ya for doin’ it, John Lee. I know all about the Thin Blue Line that stands between us and the thieves and killers and dope dealers out there. Y’all deserve a lot of respect, and I know that’s somethin’ ya don’t always get. That’s part of the idea of the song, John Lee. Showin’ respect for what you do every day, puttin’ your life on the line for your community.”

“Dakota, don’t try blowing smoke up my ass,” John Lee said. “Save your breath and tell me how we can get this all stopped.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Dakota said. “Remember what I told ya about that snowball rollin’ downhill? Well, it’s pickin’ up momentum and you can’t just put the brakes on somethin’ like that by snappin’ your fingers.”

“I don’t care if you have to jump up and down waving your arms and doing a rain dance. I want it stopped.”

“John Lee, ya have to understand that there’s a lot of time and effort went into this project. And a lot of money. My money, that I spent on renting a studio and hirin’ musicians, and payin’ for a demo and cuttin’ CDs. Not to mention all the time spent talkin’ to radio stations and promoters and those people out in Hollywood and the book publishers. This stuff don’t happen overnight, and it don’t happen for free. I can’t afford to just walk away from it, even if I could.”

John Lee could feel the hustle coming and wondered if that was Dakota’s game plan from the start. String Lisa Marie along with dreams of making it into the big time, knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the song was ever going to go anywhere.

“So, what are you saying, Dakota?” he asked warily.

“I’m just sayin’ that I’m a businessman, John Lee, and I’ve got a big investment in your Mama and this song. Not to mention the big bucks it’s gonna make. Even if I could put the reins to the whole thing, which I don’t know if I can, I need some reimbursement. I mean, that’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“How much?”

“What do you mean?”

“How much is it going to take to make this go away, Dakota?”

“You need to understand, John Lee, it’s not just about the money. Your Mama’s hopes and dreams are tied up in this song.”

“Lisa Marie will have new hopes and dreams next week, and they’ll turn to shit just like everything else she does,” John Lee replied. “You said you’re a businessman, which means it’s always the money. So how much?”

“The thing is, with all the time and effort I’ve put into this, not to mention the investment out of my own pocket...”

“Cut to the chase, Dakota. How much?”

“You know, if I pull this song, it’s goin’ to break your mama’s heart.”

“She’ll get over it. How much?”

Dakota picked up his glass and downed the shot, then set it back down on the table and looked John Lee in the eye and said, “Fifty grand. And that’s a hell of a deal, considerin’ what I could be makin’ off this project.”

“$50,000? You’ve got to be out of your mind!”

“John Lee, this is standard practice in the music business. It’s called a kill fee. It covers all those expenses I told you about. The musician and the recordin’ studio and all that. Like I said, it’s a hell of a deal. Take it or leave it.”

“Even if I had that kind of money, which I don’t, I wouldn’t fall for this bullshit,” John Lee said.

“I’ve done my homework. The way I hear it, a whole bunch of those drug dealers’ money that your daddy ripped off went missin’ when they came here huntin’ for him.”

“Well, you heard wrong if you think I took any of it. And leave my father out of this,” John Lee said with an edge in his voice that was hard to miss.

“Hey, man, I’m just sayin’ that if you had some of that dope money layin’ around, it’s not like you worked for it.”

“You’re beginning to piss me off, and you’re about to find out that’s not a good thing to do,” John Lee warned him.

“Okay,” Dakota said, raising his hands palm forward in surrender. “Maybe what I heard about that drug money is wrong. But I know for a fact that Maddy came into a big chunk of change in that settlement from the town after she got raped. And I know she’s got that property where her mama’s house used to be. That’s got to be worth a pretty good amount, too.”

“This is between you and me, Dakota. Maddy has nothing to do with any of this.”

“I’m just sayin’ that you two bein’ a couple and all that, it kind of belongs to both of you, don’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t. And besides, Maddy used most of that money to set up a counseling program for victims and abused women.”

“Then what about that piece of property I mentioned?”

“Forget it, Dakota. This conversation is over.”

“Come on, John Lee. We’re both grown men. I said let’s sit down and figure this out and that’s what we’re tryin’ to do, right?”

“I know you’re trying to hustle me and it’s not going to work.”

“How about we have another drink and talk this out?”

“How about you go back up to Nashville and crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out from under?” John Lee said.

“You think you got it made here, don’t you, boy?” Dakota set back in his chair and shook his head, then raised his shot glass and said, “Bonnie, how about another one?” Looking back at John Lee, he said, “You’re a big man around this county. Everybody’s afraid of you because you’re good with a gun. And all the women want to spread their legs for you because you’re good lookin,’ too. That badge and those looks must make it pretty easy to get your stinger wet whenever you want. I ain’t like that, John Lee. I didn’t have nothin’ given to me. I’ve had to fight for every dollar I got. And when it comes to women? Sure, I can find plenty of women like your mama, about dried up but still full of dreams and no talent at all, lookin’ for someone to make them stars. They’re a dime a dozen. Now, if I had a gal like Maddy, that’d be different. Good lookin’ gal like her? Shoot fire, John Lee, I’d have her on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry in a week.”

Bonnie set another shot and another Budweiser in front of them at the table, and when she was out of earshot, Dakota grinned and said, “Tell me the truth, John Lee. Is that coochie of hers as good as I think it is? Hey, does she have one of those landin’ strips that some gals have, just a little bit of hair on top? Or does she shave it bald? ’Cause I like that, too.”

“Shut up, Dakota. You’ve had too much to drink and you’re letting your mouth run away with you,” John Lee said, getting out of his chair.

“Shoot, son, I drank more than this when I was in kindergarten. But don’t change the subject. If I had a woman like that, I’d be bangin’ her like a screen door in a hurricane a dozen times a day.” A sly look came over Dakota’s face and he said, “Tell you what. Let me get a piece of that and I’ll knock five grand off that fifty.”

John Lee shoved the table aside, the beer bottle and the glass crashing to the floor and shattering as he jerked Dakota to his feet, then slammed a fist into his stomach. His fancy cowboy hat went sailing in one direction as a woof of sour whiskey breath hit John Lee in the face. He pushed the man against the wall so hard that a Jack Daniels sign fell off, then punched him in the face.

“Don’t you ever mention her name again,” John Lee shouted. “If you do, I swear to God, I’ll break you into so many pieces it’ll take the undertaker a week just to put them all back together! Do you hear me?”

“Hey, that’s enough, John Lee!”

Bonnie and one of the men who had been sitting at the bar tried to pull him away, but John Lee shrugged them off and clamped his hand around Dakota’s throat, fingers digging deep into his flesh.

“If I were you, I’d go back to that motel of yours and pack your shit and get out of town while you still can. Because if you ever come around my place again or even look at Maddy, you’re a dead man!”

“Stop it, John Lee. I mean it. Don’t make me call the deputies.”

Dakota’s face was turning purple from lack of air, and John Lee released him and stepped back. Dakota slumped to the floor and wretched, soiling the front of his black shirt with its pearl snap buttons.

“I like you, John Lee, but I can’t have this happenin’ in my place,” Bonnie told him. “Now get on out of here while you still can.”

John Lee nodded his head and pulled a couple of $20 bills from his pocket and handed them to Bonnie. “That’s for the drinks and whatever mess you’ve got to clean up.”

He turned and walked out the door, leaving Dakota on the barroom floor.

Chapter 4

The next day, John Lee was surprised at how difficult it was to find an attorney. Lord knows there were plenty of them in Somerton County. However, he had not realized that his role as a deputy had put him in direct opposition to so many of them. William Hodges, owner of the biggest law firm in town, shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, John Lee. I’ve got three clients with cases pending in court where you are the arresting officer. It would be a conflict of interest to take on any case with you.”

Frank LeSueur shook his head and said, “I’m handling the appeal for Monte Jacobs on the DUI you got him on six months ago. Can’t do it, John Lee.”

Howard Nelson minced no words when he said, “I don’t want anything to do with you, Deputy. I haven’t forgotten that you arrested my son two years ago.”

John Lee had arrested many people over the years, and he didn’t remember the attorney’s son for a moment, then recalled that it had been a domestic violence situation. “I was just doing my job,” he said.

“Apparently you think your job is to make people’s lives miserable,” Nelson said. “They were just having a little bit of a set to. There was no reason for you to get involved in something private between a man and his wife.”

John Lee was tempted to remind him that his daughter-in-law Sheila was the one calling for help, and the black eye and bruises on her cheeks made it obvious that she had been assaulted. But why try to explain facts to someone whose mind was already made up?

He tried Donovan Morris, who shook his head and said, “John Lee, I only practice real estate law. I wouldn’t know the first thing about your problem.”

The only attorney who seemed halfway sympathetic to his situation was Mary Spinner, who said, “I’m sorry, John Lee, but my caseload is so heavy I can’t do anything. I do believe you have some rights that are being taken advantage of. Maybe you should talk to that new guy, Justin Bach.”

“He’s just a young kid, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Mary said, nodding her head in agreement. “But he’s sharp. What have you got to lose?”

All of the other law offices John Lee had been to had a receptionist and looked more professional than the storefront location Justin Bach worked out of, which was sandwiched between a liquor store and a coin-op laundry. John Lee remembered it had been a video store in the past, and there wasn’t much inside except a cheap desk and two chairs, a couple of filing cabinets that looked like they had been purchased second-hand, and three bookcases half filled with law books.

Justin Bach didn’t look much different from some of the schoolkids John Lee had known over the years. His face was smooth and still had peach fuzz, but he smiled when John Lee came through the door.

“Hello there, Deputy. What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure if you can do anything for me or not,” John Lee told him. “But nobody else I’ve talked to has been able to help, so I’m kind of at the end of my rope.”

“Pull up a chair and let’s talk,” the young lawyer said.

John Lee sat down across from his desk and explained the situation. His mother and Dakota Phillips had produced a song and had it playing on the radio all over the country and were using his name and picture to promote it, all without his permission or knowledge.

Justin made notes in cramped handwriting on a large yellow legal pad as they talked, and when John Lee was finished, he asked, “So you had no part of the production of this song, nothing at all to do with it?”

“No, not at all. The first I heard about it was when I got home from a trip out of town.”

“And you did not give permission for the use of your name or your image?”

“No, nothing,” John Lee said. “I want nothing to do with it.”

“And the singer is your mother?”

“She’s who gave birth to me, but she was never a mother.”

“But she is your birthmother?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything to you about wanting to do a song about you?”

“No,” John Lee said, then added, “Well, let me back up. A while back, her and this Dakota, her boyfriend or agent or producer or whatever he is, were in town. He said he was going to write a song about me and I told him I didn’t want nothing to do with it.”

“But did you tell him specifically not to do it?”

“I think so. I’m sure I did. But either way, I made it very clear I didn’t like the idea and didn’t want him to write anything about me. And they still went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Have you heard the song or seen any images of you they are using?”

“I haven’t heard the song. But it’s called The Ballad Of John Lee, which is obviously me. And they have my picture on the cover of the CD and a life-size cardboard cutout of me. From what they told me, it’s playing on the radio all the time all over the country.”

“I think I heard it driving to the office this morning,” Justin said. “To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to it. I’m not into country music, but there’s only two radio stations around here. So it’s country and the farm report every hour, or else gospel.”

“So, what can I do to stop this?”

“Well, you’ve got some options,” Justin told him. “There’s a term called commercial appropriation where someone cannot use your image for financial gain without consent and that you will suffer loss or prejudice. Now, as a deputy you are somewhat of a public figure, so if something was written about you in the newspaper or was part of a valid news report, they could get away with that unless they slandered you, in which case you would have redress. But coming back to your problem, I don’t think they have any right to use your name and image without your say so.”

“You don’t think, or you’re sure?”

“I’m sure of it,” Justin said. “So, what do you want to happen, Mr. Quarrels?”

“First of all, how about you call me John Lee. Mr. Quarrels was my father. And I want this crap stopped, that’s all.”

“You are entitled to some sort of compensation if there was…”

“No,” John Lee said, interrupting him. “I don’t care about any compensation. I just want it stopped. I want nothing to do with that woman or her agent, or whatever the hell he is.”

“All right,” Justin said, writing quickly. “I will write a cease-and-desist letter informing them that they violated your rights and your privacy, and they have to put an immediate stop to it. But if that song is being played on country radio stations, they may or may not cooperate. Do you know how many stations out there are playing it?”

“I don’t know,” John Lee said. “They told me it was being played all over the country.”

“Do you know where they are staying locally?”

“I would assume at either the Starlite Motel or the Somerton Inn. Those are the only two places in town without bedbugs. My grandparents don’t tolerate Lisa Marie bringing guys to their place to stay. They had enough of that with her over the years.”

“All right, I’ll draw up a cease-and-desist letter as your attorney and I’ll have it served on them. From there, we’ll see what happens.”

“See what happens? What does that mean?”

“Just what it says,” Justin told him. “If they ignore my letter and continue, you’ll have to go to court and get a cease-and-desist order from a judge. If they continue from there, it’s going to have to go to court.”

“This is beginning to sound expensive, and like it could take forever,” John Lee said.

“Hopefully, just getting the cease-and-desist letter might be enough to do something. But if not, it’s where you have to start the legal process.”

“Do I have any other choices?”

“Not really,” Justin told him.

“I’m not exactly rich,” John Lee said. “How much is this going to cost?”

“The consultation’s free,” Justin said. “How about a hundred bucks for me drawing up the letter and having it served on them?”

“If that does the job, it’s worth it,” John Lee said, pulling the money from his wallet.

The attorney wrote out a receipt and handed it to him, saying, “I’ll get the letter done and have it served on them before the end of the day. I’m not exactly busy right now.”

Looking around the empty space, with its cracked vinyl flooring and bare walls, John Lee said, “No, it doesn’t look like it.”

“I’m new to the area and trying to make a name for myself, John Lee. But I will say that, even though I’m young, I’m damn good at what I do. I appreciate your trust in me with this.”

John Lee wanted to tell him it wasn’t so much a matter of trust as that there were no other choices available. Instead, he thanked the young man and left the office.

He was getting into his pickup truck when his phone rang, and the caller ID showed it was coming from the Sheriff’s Office. When he answered, Melinda Banker, Sheriff D.W. Swindle’s administrative assistant, asked, “Are you back in town, John Lee?”

“Yeah, Melinda. What’s up?”

“I know you and Maddy aren’t supposed to come back on duty until tomorrow, but D.W. said he needs to see you right now.”

John Lee didn’t think the sheriff would have heard about his confrontation with Dakota so quickly. “What about?”

“All I know is that three of the county supervisors are here and they’re hot under the collar.”

“I’m on my way.”

Chapter 5

John Lee took the marble stairs at the Somerton County Courthouse two steps at a time, and when he got to the second story, he went down the hall to Sheriff Swindle’s office, finding the door open and the office empty. Further down the hall, he found three of the county supervisors sitting in the conference room with the sheriff. He knocked on the door frame and asked, “You wanted to see me, D.W.?”

“Hey there, John Lee. Thanks for comin’ in. Have a seat.”

John Lee nodded his head at the three supervisors as he walked into the room and sat down at the table. None of them acknowledged the gesture, and he could feel the tension in the room. Something was wrong, and he wondered what it was.

The sheriff didn’t keep him in suspense long.

“John Lee, these folks came to see me ’cause they’ve got some issues with that song about you that’s goin’ around.”

“D.W., I didn’t know about that song until yesterday. I had nothing to do with it, and I’m trying to put a stop to it. I just left a lawyer’s office. He’s going to serve a cease-and-desist letter today.”

“Do you know how that song makes Somerton County look, Deputy?” Supervisor Paulette Butson asked.

“No, ma’am, I don’t. I haven’t heard it,” John Lee replied. “Like I said, I didn’t know a thing about it until yesterday.”

“What do you mean, you haven’t heard it?”

“Just that,” John Lee said. “It was late when we got home two nights ago from our trip to Alaska. The next morning my grandfather called and said that Lisa Marie and the guy who is supposedly her agent were in town, and when I got to his house, they told me about it.”

“Come on, Deputy Quarrels. How can somebody write a song and put it out there without you knowin’ about it? That doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Supervisor David J. Vaughn, a short, round, 80-year-old who had recently turned over the reins of the family business, Vaughn’s Home Furnishings, to his son Albert. But nobody in Somerton County believed the grouchy old man would ever relinquish the coveted seat on the County Board of Supervisors that he had held for over thirty years.

“It makes no sense to me, either.” John Lee said. “All I know is what I’m telling you. I haven’t even heard the song. As soon as they told me about it, I told them I didn’t want anything to do with it. I told Lisa Marie and that agent or producer or whatever he calls himself before that I had no interest in being part of anything they came up with.”

“Lisa Marie? You mean your mother, right? Isn’t she the one singin’ the song?”

John Lee didn’t want to get into the whole family dynamics of why he didn’t consider Lisa Marie his mother, so he just said again, “I didn’t know anything about it, Mr. Vaughn.”

“And you haven’t even heard the words?”

“No, sir, I haven’t.”

“You need to listen to it,” snapped Supervisor Lonnie Fairchild, a thin, sallow faced man with a pencil-thin mustache who always looked like he was straight out of an old 1940s crime movie.

“Yes, you do,” Supervisor Butson said. “Good god, that song makes Somerton County sound like the Wild West. People are going to think you just stand alongside the road waiting to shoot everybody who crosses the county line.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“Listen to the damn song,” thundered Supervisor Vaughn.

“Okay, I will,” John Lee said. “But again, I didn’t know anything about all this, and I’m trying to put a stop to it.”

“You damn sure better,” said Supervisor Fairchild. “I’m going to be talking to the rest of the supervisors. We don’t need this kind of negative publicity. It stains the good name of our county. And I’ll tell you something right now, Deputy Quarrels. If I find out that you were behind this scheme you claim you know nothing about, you’re going to be looking for another job!”

“Now, hold on there,” the sheriff said, raising his hand. “If John Lee says he didn’t know nothin’ about it, he didn’t know nothin.’ We all know his history, and we know he’s a courageous deputy who has put his life on the line for this county more than once. So don’t go off half-cocked here, Lonnie, actin’ like he’s the bad guy.”

“Yes, Sheriff, we are well aware of your family history with Deputy Quarrels and that he’s your favorite.”

“That’s enough of that nonsense right now,” D.W. said sharply, slapping his hand down on the table so hard it made a sound like a gunshot in the room. “This ain’t some elementary school and he ain’t the teacher’s pet. You get that through your head right now, mister! Yes, Deputy Quarrels was married to my daughter, but they ain’t married no more and I don’t give a tinker’s damn what ya’ll think. I got a lot of respect for this man. If he said he don’t know nothin’ about this damn song, I believe him. And as far as his job goes, if you or anybody else comes after any of my deputies, not just John Lee, but any of my deputies, you’re gonna have to come through me first. Do I make myself clear on that?”

“Let me remind you, D.W., that you answer to the Board of Supervisors,” said Fairchild.

“No, sir. I answer to the voters who put me in office and keep me in office, just like you all do,” D.W. told them. If you have a problem with the way I run things in this office, that’s a whole other story that I can talk about with the whole Board of Supervisors. But in the meantime, don’t you three come in here on your own and think you’re goin’ to tell me how to run things.”

“What are we supposed to tell people when they listen to that song about this deputy gunning down people in the streets of Somerton County?”

“I don’t give a hoot or a holler what ya’ll tell anybody, or what the song says,” D.W. said. “John Lee has never lifted a finger against anybody who didn’t deserve it. Not once.”

“How many shootings has he been involved in, Sheriff? More than anyone else in this department, right?”

“You know his history as well as I do,” D.W. thundered. “And y’all know he has been cleared in every one of them, and cited for valor, too. You guys sit at desks someplace and think you know how things run in the real world, but ya don’t. Has any of ya ever done a ride along with one of my deputies? ’Cause you’re welcome to. If ya saw some of the things they deal with on a daily basis, ya wouldn’t think this is Mayberry anymore. We’ve got a major US Highway runnin’ through the county, and Interstate 10 a few miles north. All kinds of things come into this county. We got drug runners, we got felons on the run from the law, we got wetbacks hidin’ from Immigration, you name it and we’ve got it. Myself and my deputies, we’re doin’ our job to keep things in line. If y’all have a problem with that, you can kiss my wrinkled old ass!”

“Watch your language, Sheriff! This isn’t a locker room.”

“No, Lonnie, it’s my department, and I’ll say what I want, when I want.”

Standing up, Supervisor Butson said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. But this isn’t over, Deputy Quarrels. Not by a longshot!”

The three county officials got up and left the office. John Lee looked at D.W. and shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly, D.W., I didn’t know anything about that stupid song.”

“Well, I have heard it, and it makes ya sound like some kind of Rambo with all the exaggerations in it. I can see how those folks might think it makes Somerton County look like an awful place where we’re havin’ shootins’ every day. Don’t worry about what those clowns have to say. Just get that song taken down the best ya can.”

“I will,” John Lee promised. “I don’t want anything to do with the song or anything else those two clowns are involved in.”

Chapter 6

Somerton County’s radio station, which billed itself as The Voice of Northern Florida, was housed in a metal building with one window that looked out on the gravel parking lot. Inside, the only employee of the station, Hugh Burris, took a drink from the large plastic mug of sweet tea as the song was winding down and then pushed the button on his microphone. “There you go folks, little bitty Brenda Lee singing her hit I’m Sorry from way back in 1960. Ain’t that just about the sweetest voice you ever heard? And now, here’s the legendary Glen Campbell with a song about a Wichita Lineman. Sit back and enjoy.” He released the talk button and pushed the button on the console for the song, then went back to his crossword puzzle book.

At 50 years old, Hugh knew that he was never going to see success as a big time disc jockey, no matter how much he longed for it. That dream was dead, and this podunk 250 watt AM station in Nowheresville was the best he could ever expect.

There was a time when he thought he was going somewhere, when he landed that late night gig on the station in Tulsa. But that ended when he fell hard for JayCee Morgan, the station’s good-looking advertising sales rep. JayCee had a reputation in town and she wasn’t hesitant to use her looks and curvy body to entice businesspeople to sign up for advertising contracts. With her mane of thick red hair and green eyes and gleaming smile, she was a knockout. The more advertising a customer bought, the friendlier JayCee was.

Hugh knew he didn’t have a shot with her, but he still tried hard, and JayCee strung him along for a while, only because she could get him to play her customers’ ads at the right times. But eventually he got frustrated and stopped giving in to her requests for prime spots. JayCee retaliated by lodging a complaint with the station’s owner, saying that he had created a hostile workplace with his sexist comments. A sexy ad sales rep who brings in high dollar accounts is hard to find, but DJs are a dime a dozen, and the next thing Hugh knew, he was down the road.

He managed to land a part time gig with a station in Indiana, but with an ex-wife who demanded her alimony on time every month, it didn’t pay enough to live on. Now here he was in Florida at a station that barely reached beyond the county lines, losing his hair and his hopes at the same time. His dreams of Chicago or New York had died long ago. He would have been happy to settle for Minneapolis or Milwaukee, but even that was out of reach. But what could he do? A guy had to make a living, right? Besides, who knew what tomorrow might bring? You just never knew.

Hugh looked out the window as the Ford pickup pulled to a stop. Who was that? People seldom came by the station. Then he recognized the driver, and a smile lit up his face. Maybe things might change for him after all.

“John Lee Quarrels, the man of the hour! How you doing, son?”

“I’ve had better days,” John Lee replied. “I need to talk to you, Hugh.”

The DJ held up a finger to his lips for silence as the current song was ending and keyed the microphone, saying, “Now folks, get your feet into the stirrups and grab onto the reins, because it’s the Cowboy Hour, and we’re kicking it off with the late great Marty Robbins, singing Big Iron, from his 1959 hit album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.”

He queued up another series of songs, then smiled at his visitor. “I figured I’d be seeing you today or tomorrow, John Lee. When did you get back from your trip to Alaska?”

Before John Lee could reply, Hugh said, “You’ve sure been making some news around here with that song your mama’s singing about you. Every time I turn around, somebody is calling, wanting to hear The Ballad of John Lee. And I’m playing it every chance I get.”

“Well, here’s the thing, Hugh. I don’t…”

“I’ve been talking to that guy Dakota who’s promoting the song. He sure is a nice guy, John Lee. We’ve been working on a deal for you to appear at some remote broadcasts. We’ve got us signed up with the Ford dealer over in Lake City and with Myers Hardware store here in town, and I think we can get you to the Palmetto grocery on Saturday. Does that work for your schedule?”

“What are you talking about, Hugh?”

“Those personal appearances, John Lee. Dakota and me, we’ve been to all those places and I’ve been promoting the remotes. People are going to be lining up to get your autograph and have their picture taken with you. This is going to be one of the biggest things to hit this county in a coon’s age.”

“Hold on,” John Lee said, cutting him off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hugh. I’m not going to any remotes or whatever you call them, and I’m not going to sign any autographs or anything like that!”

“Geez, John Lee. Who put a bee in your bonnet?”

“I don’t know what line of bullshit Dakota sold you, but you can just forget it,” John Lee said. “I told Lisa Marie and Dakota to stop all of this nonsense.”

“But you have to. We’ve got it all set up!”

“Then get it unset. I’m not promoting anything,” John Lee said, raising his voice. “Look, Hugh, I didn’t know anything about this damn song until I got back to town. I didn’t authorize it, I don’t want anything to do with it, and I don’t want you to play it anymore. I’d appreciate it very much if you just break that CD in half and throw it away.”

“Are you kidding me, John Lee? Like I said, this is the biggest thing to hit this county in a long time!”

John Lee took a deep breath, trying to keep his anger from rising. “Hugh, I’m going to say this one time, and one time only. Stop playing that damn song. And as for this stuff about live remotes and autographs and all that, forget it. Whatever you and Dakota have got cooked up in your heads, it’s not going to happen, so don’t be running around telling people that I’ll be someplace, because I won’t.”

“It’s too late for that, John Lee. You can’t just back out.”

“I’m not backing out of anything. I never agree to any of this in the first place.”

“But Myers Hardware is already running ads for it. They have that big cardboard picture of you in their front window right now. They’re gonna have a cookout and be doing some raffles and giveaways….” Hugh was desperate. He could see this whole thing blowing up in his face. The station didn’t have many advertisers as it was, and alienating two of its biggest would be a disaster.

“Forget it,” John Lee said. “I’ve already got the county supervisors crawling all over me about this and I’m doing everything I can to convince them that I didn’t know anything about that damn song. All this stuff is only going to make it worse.”

“Dakota said that…”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what Dakota said,” John Lee told him. “I’m having him served with a cease-and-desist letter today. I didn’t give my permission to use my name and I don’t want to have anything to do with this thing.”

“John Lee, I don’t know what problems you have with your mother or with Dakota, but this is a chance for you to make it big, son. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life running around in a patrol car?”

“I’ll tell you what I told Dakota. That’s exactly what I want to do,” John Lee replied curtly.

“Sometimes life comes along and picks us up and takes us to new levels that we never imagined,” Hugh told him. “Why, there’s a million guys that would give anything to be sitting where you are right now, John Lee.”

“Then find one of them and get them to go to all your remotes and stuff like that, and you can all live happily ever after, just like a fairytale. But I don’t want to be part of any of it.”

“John Lee, you’re still a young man. But look at me. This is my one chance to be part of something big.” Hugh could hear the pleading in his voice and didn’t care. He’d get down on his knees and beg if that’s what it took. “Dakota said that me being from your hometown radio station and helping get this project off the ground, he’s going to put my name in front of everybody. He might even make me an associate producer on the movie that’s coming.”

Shaking his head, John Lee said, “Hugh, the man’s bullshitting you. There isn’t going to be a movie, and if I have my way, there won’t be a song.”

“John Lee, the song’s already out there. The movie and the book, they’re gonna happen, too, just like Dakota said.”

John Lee had to take another deep breath so he wouldn’t explode, and when he spoke, he tried to keep his voice low as he attempted to reason with the disc jockey. “Hugh, I don’t know how else to say this. I didn’t agree to my name being used, or my image, or any of the stuff that this guy is running around telling people. First of all, I can’t use my uniform or my police car for commercial purposes, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. And if this keeps up, I may not be a deputy much longer if the county supervisors have their way. I need to get them to believe I wasn’t involved in this thing at all!”

Hugh saw yet another opportunity slipping through his fingers. Why did everything have to blow up in his face? All he needed was to get his name out there and be picked up by a big station.
Was that too much to ask? John Lee, small town boy, just a hick out of Hicksville. This was his one big chance to make something out of himself. Not just for himself, but for all of them involved. Why couldn’t he see that?

“John Lee, I’m not trying to get up in your business, but I know what you been through, all them shootouts and such. I know that this is probably bringing some of that back up for you. But you’ve got to look on the bright side. You know what they say about how every cloud has a silver lining? This is your silver lining, John Lee. This is your reward for killing those people that you had to kill.”

“You need to get this through your head right now,” John Lee said, his voice low and steady. “I never went out looking to shoot anybody. It’s the last thing any cop ever wants to do. It’s not like TV. You don’t do it and put your gun back in your holster and go have a big breakfast and forget all about it. It stays with you forever. The last thing I want to do is talk about it or have songs about it. Those shootings were the worst things that ever happened to me. So if you think I’m going to use the things I had to do on the job as my ticket to Hollywood, you can forget it. Now, how about you just give me that CD or whatever it is and I’ll break it and we’ll be done with it?”

“Have you even listened to the song yet, John Lee?”

“No, and I don’t want to hear it, either.”

“You should. People call all day long wanting me to play it again. Let me play it for you, okay?”

“I don’t want to hear it. Just stop, Hugh, okay?”

“I can’t do that, John Lee. I’m sorry. Whatever deal you have or don’t have with Dakota and your mama is your business. But the deal I got working, I got to take it.”

“I already have an attorney involved in all this. If I have to, I’ll have him serve you with a cease-and-desist, too.”

“Now, John Lee, don’t go talking about lawyers and all that stuff. All that does is muddy the waters. You’ll spend more money than you make from the song if you start down that route.”

“Damn it, Hugh,” John Lee shouted. “I don’t want to make any money off the song. I don’t want anything to do with it. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“I’m not the one to yell at, John Lee. You need to talk to Dakota and your mama. You guys work all that out, okay? Don’t be a fool and turn your back on a once in a lifetime opportunity like this, son.”

John Lee shook his head in frustration, then walked out the door, slamming it behind him. By the time Hugh followed him out to the parking lot, hoping to talk some sense into him, John Lee was pulling away in a cloud of gravel and dust, his foot slamming the truck’s accelerator to the floor.

Chapter 7

While John Lee was slamming the door at the radio station, Zach Kaufman, attorney Justin Bach’s process server, was knocking on the door to room 17 at the Starlite Motel. Somerton County was not exactly a tourist destination, and the thirty-unit motel at the edge of town catered to the occasional traveler who preferred slower two-lane U.S. Highway 90 over the busier and faster Interstate 10 to the north, as well as long-term renters who were working in the area and sometimes stayed for weeks at a time.

Zach knew someone was there because there was a big black pickup truck parked in front of the room, and he could hear arguing coming from inside.

A man was saying, “Just calm down. It ain’t what it looks like.”

“Don’t tell me that! It’s exactly what it looks like,” a woman shouted from inside the room. “I’m not stupid, Dakota!”

“I never said you were stupid, honey, so don’t put words in my mouth. And don’t go jumping to conclusions. This is business, and you’ve been around long enough to know how it works.”

“Don’t lie to me, you son of a bitch! You promised me this wasn’t goin’ to happen again.”

“Honey, nothing is happening. I keep telling you, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“I do, do I? Just like I got it all wrong the last time, and the time before that?”

“I promise you...”

“I’m sick and tired of your promises, Dakota! You keep saying everythins’s on the up and up and I’m always dumb enough to believe you. Then this happens! Well, this is the last time, buster. I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done!”

“Honey, if you would just calm down...”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, you bastard!”

The woman was shouting shrilly, and the door opened to the next unit and a man in a sleeveless T-shirt poked his head out and asked, “What in the hell’s going on over there? I worked all damn night and I’m trying to get some sleep!”

Zach looked at him and held his hands open as if to say he didn’t know either, then knocked on the door again, harder this time. It was obvious the couple arguing inside couldn’t hear him, and the man from the next unit came over, saying, “This is bullshit!” He pounded on the door with his fist, shouting, “Shut the hell up in there and open the door!”

A moment later, the door was jerked open, and Zach stepped back in surprise. The man who opened it had blood streaming down his face and his left cheek was swollen and purple, his eye bruised and swollen shut.

“What?”

The occupant of the unit next door stepped between them and said, “I’ll tell you what. Shut the hell up! Some people work nights and need to sleep during the day.”

“Oh, sorry, man. Me and my lady were just having a little argument and things got out of hand. I apologize.”

“I don’t need your damn apology, I need to get some sleep,” his neighbor said, then turned and walked back to his room, slamming the door behind him.

The bloodied man looked at Zach and said, “Like I said, I’m sorry. We’ll keep it down.”

“Are you okay? Your face is bleeding.”

The man put his hand to his cheek and then looked at the blood on it and said, “Yeah, it’s nothing. Sorry to bother you.”

“I’m not here because of the noise,” Zach told him. “Are you Dakota Phillips?”

“Yeah, that’s me. What can I do for you?”

“I represent John Lee Quarrels, Mr. Phillips. You’ve been served,” Zach said, handing him the cease-and-desist letter.

“What? What’s this all about?”

“The letter explains everything, Mr. Phillips.”

Zach turned and walked back to his car as a woman came to the door behind Dakota and asked, “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, honey. Just business. Don’t worry about it.”

She snatched the letter from his hand and read it and then shouted, “See? I knew this was gonna happen. I just knew it!”

“Would you just shut the hell up and let me think for a minute, honey?”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, you rotten son of a bitch. Where do you get off talking to me that way? I ought to...”

“You ought to just shut up,” Dakota shouted, then slammed the door.

Zach could hear the argument starting up again as he backed out of the parking space next to the big black pickup. As he started to pull away, the door to the next unit opened and the man came out again, shaking his head as he began pounding on the door to room 17.

***

Dixie Landrum’s old red Volkswagen Beetle was parked in the driveway behind Maddy’s car when John Lee got home, and after stopping to throw Magic’s Kong toy across the yard and watching the dog bounding after it, he found them sitting on the back deck drinking iced tea.

“Hey there, handsome. You been out signing autographs?”

“Don’t even go there, Dixie,” John Lee replied, coming up on the deck and bending down to kiss Maddy.

“I heard on the radio that you’re going to be signing autographs at Myers Hardware this weekend.”

“The only things I plan to sign are tickets if I pull somebody over and a credit card slip when I take Maddy to dinner.”

“Did you have any luck finding a lawyer?”

John Lee took Maddy’s glass of tea and drank some of it and then handed it back to her, nodding his head. “Yeah, but it wasn’t easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, most of the lawyers in town either don’t like me or are representing people I’ve arrested and they say it’s a conflict of interest. I finally wound up talking to that new guy, Justin Bach. He’s the one that was representing Tyrell Sterling when he was accused of murder. He’s just a kid, but he seems sharp. At least I hope he is.”

“I know Justin, and he is sharp,” Dixie said. “I interviewed him when he first opened his law office. He graduated magna cum laude from law school. Don’t let his age fool you, John Lee. If I ever need an attorney for something, he’d be the first person I’d call.”

“So, what did he tell you to do?”

“He’s going to write a cease-and-desist letter to be served on Dakota and Lisa Marie, saying they’re using my name and image for commercial purposes without my permission.”

“And that will put an end to all this?”

“Hopefully, Maddy. Because if it doesn’t, he says I will have to take them to court and get a court order, and that could take a while. And it could also cost more money. As it was, I gave him $100 to write that letter and get it served on them.”

“Shoot, John Lee, that’s cheap,” Dixie said. “Most lawyers would have charged you three or four times that much.”

“Yeah, but I could see he’s hungry and needs the work. Hey, if $100 will do the job, it’s well worth it.”

“I hope so. You know how Lisa Marie is. She jumps into things with both feet all the time and jumps right out again. With any luck at all, this will go the same way.”

“I’d like to think that, Maddy. But Dakota’s got her pumped up on this idea of being a big star, and when it comes down to it, he’s just a scam artist. But she’s got delusions of grandeur, so who knows?”

As if on cue, almost like his mother was listening to their conversation, John Lee’s phone rang and he saw it was Lisa Marie calling. He was tempted to not answer it, but decided he would, to see what her reaction to the cease-and-desist letter would be.

“John Lee, what are you tryin’ to do to me?”

His mother’s voice was strident, and he pushed the button to put it on speaker before he replied, “I take it you and Dakota have heard from my attorney?”

“Yes. Why would you do that? Why would you threaten to sue your own mother?”

“Why would you think it’s all right to use my name and picture in that stupid ass song of yours without my permission?”

“I have a right to, don’t I? I’m your mother, after all!”

“We need to get something straight between the two of us, Lisa Marie. The only thing you ever were to me was an incubator. You dumped me off on Paw Paw and Mamma Nell and forgot all about me. So don’t pull that mother shit with me!”

“How can you say that? All I ever wanted was what was best for you.”

“That’s the one thing you did do right. At least they gave me a home and let me know I was loved. I can’t imagine trying to grow up running around the world with you chasing your crazy fantasies.”

“That’s not fair, John Lee.”

“What the hell do you know about fair? Was it fair to them to be saddled with a baby at the age they were when you dumped me off and disappeared? Was it fair to me not even knowing you, and then you showing up out of the blue for a couple of days or a week before you disappeared again? How fair was that?”

“First of all, I didn’t dump you off, as you call it,” Lisa Marie said. “I talked to Paw Paw and Mama Nell, and the three of us decided it was what was best for you at the time. Don’t you know it broke my heart to have to leave you like that? Don’t you know how many tears I cried missin’ you?”

“Don’t try to play the martyr with me. You didn’t have to leave me, you chose to do it. My life isn’t a country song about heartbreak and bullshit,” John Lee replied.

There was silence for a long moment and he thought she had hung up, but then Lisa Marie said, “Please, baby, this is the break I’ve wanted all my life. Do you know what Hugh from the radio station is callin’ me? He’s callin’ me the North Florida Songbird. Don’t that sound wonderful?”

“Maybe because it’s more about you being a bird brain and less about your singing ability. Did you ever think about that?”

John Lee knew it was a cheap shot meant to hurt his mother, and under other circumstances, he would have regretted it. He had been a deputy long enough to know how to keep his emotions in check, no matter how much someone he was dealing with on the job verbally abused or threatened him.

He had been called every derogatory name in the dictionary, and probably some that weren’t, and he never took it personally. But damn it, this was personal! He felt violated in a way he never had before, and he wasn’t holding back.

“John Lee, please do this for me. Just this one time, and I promise I won’t ask you for anythin’ ever again. But I need this. Can’t you see how much it means to me?”

“What makes you think you’re entitled to anything from me?”

“Dakota says...”

“Dakota’s a lying sack of shit,” he told her. “He’ll say anything to anybody if it helps him get what he wants. Did he mention that he told me if I gave him $50,000, he’d walk away from this whole thing?”

“He would never say somethin’ like that, John Lee! He’s as committed to this project as I am. Why, he’s the one that made it all happen. He says the song’s gonna make us both rich. And you, too. We never intended to cut you out, if that’s what you’re thinkin.’ Is that it, John Lee? Dakota said he was gonna give you a percentage. If it’s as big a hit as we both know it’s goin’ to be, the sky’s the limit.”

John Lee wanted to think that she was no better than Dakota, but he realized that to her, the dream was real. She honestly believed that she was headed for stardom, and he was sure in her mind she saw herself standing on a stage in Nashville dressed in sequins, captivating the audience with her voice. For a moment he felt sorry for her, but then he reminded himself that this was just one more pipe dream. The next big adventure for his mother. It wasn’t the first and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Maybe the sky is the limit in your mind, but in Dakota’s mind, $50,000 is the limit. I guess you’re both going to be disappointed.”

Before she could say anything else, he pushed the button on his phone to end the call, then turned it off.

Chapter 8

The women coerced John Lee into taking them to dinner, and as the hostess at the Hog Hollow Barbecue seated them, a man from a booth across the aisle said, “Ya’ll need to mind your P’s and Q’s, ’cause John Lee Quarrels is here. Don’t shoot, John Lee! I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

His wife and the other couple in the booth with him all laughed, as did several other diners, and John Lee felt his face growing hot.

“Hey, John Lee, ya shoot anybody today?”

“You’re a funny man, Lester,” John Lee said. “You ought to go to Hollywood and be a standup comic.”

“Hell, John Lee, this county couldn’t take two celebrities, could it? I’ll just leave the fame and fortune to y’all.”

“Don’t get all upset, John Lee,” Maddy cautioned. “You know how Lester is. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“I know. But I still hope he chokes on something.”

“Seriously, John Lee, we’re all happy for you, gettin’ that song about you on the air and all that,” Lester’s wife Sharon, said. “I saw your mama at the beauty parlor today gettin’ her nails done and she was goin’ on and on about when they get back to Nashville she’s goin’ to be ridin’ around in a big old limousine. Well, I said I’m proud of her, and I meant it. And we’re all right proud of you, too.”

John Lee was not a man who liked attention under the best of circumstances, and these sure weren’t the best he’d ever experienced, so he just nodded his head, glad to see Shelly Duffy coming to take their order.

“Hey there, John Lee, Maddy. How y’all doing? You’re lookin’ good, Dixie. I got to tell ya, my mama was so happy to see that thing you wrote about her and her sister Caroline openin’ their little boutique store.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Dixie said.

“I’ve been listenin’ to that song about you, John Lee. Everybody has. I bet you were speechless when you first heard it.”

John Lee didn’t bother telling the young woman that he had not heard the song yet, instead saying, “Everything about it left me speechless.”

After Shelley went to place their orders with the kitchen, Dixie asked, “Did Dakota really tell you he would get the song off the air for $50,000?”

“Yeah. He called it a kill fee. Said it’s standard in the music business when they cancel a project.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“A lot more than I have,” John Lee said. “Not that I’d give him fifty cents. He’s a damn con man is all he is.”

“Between the song and you kicking his ass at the Pour House the other night, you’re sure giving people a lot to talk about these days.”

“Wait a minute. Kicking whose ass?”

“Oh, John Lee didn’t tell you about that, Maddy? I’m sorry.”

Maddy looked at John Lee and asked, “What’s that all about?”

“Dakota started running his mouth when I met him yesterday and things got a little out of hand.”

“A little?”

“It was no big deal, Maddy. The man just needed to be taught some manners.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“It didn’t seem that important.”

“Really? You get into a fight in a bar, and it doesn’t seem all that important to you?”

“Come on, Maddy. It’s not the first time you or me either ever had to deal with a loudmouth drunk.”

“Yeah. On duty, John Lee. Then it’s our job to break up the fights, not get into them.”

“He started it.” Even as he said that, John Lee realized how juvenile it sounded.

“It doesn’t matter who started it. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

John Lee sighed. Given Maddy’s experiences when she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by the former chief deputy and a city police officer, he had not wanted to bring all that trauma back to her. While extensive counseling had helped her deal with the ordeal, he knew the scars were still just under the surface.

“Can we just let it go?”

“I don’t care that you got in a fight, John Lee. Shit happens. Dakota Phillips is the kind of guy that most people want to punch out just looking at him. I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

“Do you really want to go there?”

“Since when did we start keeping secrets from each other?”

“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “After he hit me up with the $50,000 and I told him I didn’t have that kind of money, Dakota said that he knew that you came into a bunch of money after your assault, and also that you had that property where your mother’s house was. I told him to forget it, and then he said something.”

“Something? What something, John Lee?”

“He said he’d knock $5,000 off if he got to have sex with you.”

Maddy’s jaw dropped in shock and he wished he hadn’t told her. He didn’t know what to expect, but she said, “Eww. I could have gone a long time without knowing that.”

“I tried not to tell you.”

“And you only kicked his ass? I’d think you’d be sitting in a cell for murdering him,” Dixie said. “I don’t blame you for a minute, John Lee.”

Before anything else could be said, Shelly returned with their sweet teas, saying, “Your orders should be out in no time at all.”

The two couples across the aisle had finished their meals and were getting up to leave when Lester turned to John Lee, feet spread wide apart and body hunched forward, then jerked his hand up from his waist, finger pointed forward and pantomimed shooting. “Bang! I’m the only man that ever outdrew John Lee Quarrels and walked away.”

Lester and his friends laughed and John Lee felt his face getting hot again. Maddy squeezed his hand and he said, “You got me this time, Lester. No doubt about it.” Then he smiled and said, “But the next time I catch you bending the speed limit like you do, maybe we’ll have another go around.”

Lester laughed and said, “I’m just foolin’ with ya, John Lee. Ya know that. Y’all enjoy your dinner.”

They left and John Lee started to get up from the table, and Maddy held onto his hand.

“Let it go.”

“No, that’s not it. I see somebody I need to talk to real quick. I’ll be right back.”

He walked down three booths to where a red-haired young man and his wife had just taken seats.

“Hey there, Andy. How are you doing, Joyce?”

“Hey, John Lee,” Andy Whitehead said, starting to get up, but John Lee waved him back to his seat. “Don’t get up. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if I could.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I know you and your brothers put out a couple of CDs of your gospel songs that you sing at the churches. I was wondering if you could tell me a little about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“About the process. Do you guys use a recording studio, or do you just do it at home?”

“We did the first one at home, or at least tried to,” Andy told him. “It was terrible. Then Reverend Bodie told us about a studio over in Pensacola. One of his kinfolk owns it and he got us a deal, so me and Jerry and Mike went over there and redid it. The difference was like night and day. We did the other two CDs there, too.”

“I was curious about what it cost to do something like that,” John Lee told him.

“You mean renting the studio?”

“Yeah, that and producing the CDs.”

“Hmm, let me think a minute,” Andy said, then looked at his wife and asked, “Do you remember, Joyce?”

“Yeah, it was $250 an hour, and it took you guys about six hours.”

“That’s right. The first time we had some problems because we’d never done anything like that. But the next two times, we were probably in and out in maybe two or three hours. But Sean, the fellow that owns the studio, he didn’t charge us for setup time or anything like that. And since we’ve been playing in different churches all over the area, we’ve got that down to a science and it doesn’t take us long to be ready to start.”

“So that’s just the rental of the studio?”

“Well, that and him running the equipment and making the master CD. Then I think he charged us something like a dollar apiece for the CDs. We could have copied them ourselves at home, but his equipment was so much better and faster that it was worth it to us.”

“And that’s all it cost?”

“I took the pictures for the covers and just printed them off on my color computer printer,” Joyce said. “I heard that song of yours, John Lee. Are you thinking of going into the music business?”

“No, ma’am,” John Lee told her. “I was just curious what it would cost to rent a studio and do all of that. Since you and your brothers are the band, you didn’t have to hire any other musicians, did you, Andy?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea what it would cost to hire a band?”

Andy shook his head and said, “I don’t know. I guess it would depend on who they were and how many songs were being recorded. I mean, if someone asked me and my brothers, we might charge a couple hundred bucks an hour, I don’t know. But if it was a well-known band or well-known musicians, that would cost more. We don’t do it for the money, John Lee. We’ve all got jobs. We just do it to help spread the word about the Lord.”

“You might call it a labor of love,” Joyce added. “They don’t charge anything when they go to the churches to perform, although sometimes the minister takes up a collection for them to cover expenses. If they’re lucky, that’s about all it does.”

“I understand that,” John Lee told them. “I’ll let you get back to your evening. I see the waitress coming with our orders now. Thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate it.”

“Anytime, John Lee. Take care.”

When he went back to his own table and told Maddy and Dixie what he had learned, the reporter said, “Wow! I didn’t know it was that cheap. I’m surprised everybody isn’t turning into musicians and putting out CDs.”

“I think I read someplace that there are a lot of independent musicians selling their stuff online these days,” Maddy said.

“That makes sense. Technology has changed so much that things like that are a lot easier. Just like desktop publishing. It used to take a small fortune to start a newspaper, and now anybody with a computer can do it at home and farm out the printing to a commercial press. It’s the same with authors. The days of having to have an agent and a big publishing house are going away fast. I know at least a dozen self-published authors, and a couple of them are making big bucks.”

“So, if it cost, let’s say $1,000 for the studio time and another what? $500 or even $1,000 for a band. Where does Dakota get off saying he’s got $50,000 invested in that stupid song of his?”

“I don’t know, John Lee,” Maddy replied. “Maybe it cost a lot more in Nashville, it being the country music capital and all that.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Dixie said. “Everything I hear about Nashville is that there are studios all over the place and some of them must be looking for business. And as far as bands or musicians, wouldn’t you think there’d be some wannabe on every street corner looking for work or a way to break into the business? If you heard the song, you know they didn’t have somebody who backs up any of the big name singers. I mean, it was okay, but it wasn’t anything special.”

“I haven’t even heard the song,” John Lee said.

“Really? Why not?”

He gave her a baleful look, and Dixie said, “Sorry, I get it.”

“I guess I need to, especially since some of the county supervisors went to see D.W. about it and he called me in so they could rake me over the coals.”

“You didn’t tell me about that either,” Maddy said with irritation again in her voice.

“It just happened today, and I haven’t had time to tell you anything yet. I’m not trying to hold anything out on you, Maddy. I got home and Dixie was there, and then Lisa Marie called and then we came here.”

“I’ve got it on my phone if you want to hear it,” Dixie said, pulling her phone from her back pocket.

“Not here,” John Lee told her, grabbing for the phone. “The last thing I need is everybody in the restaurant listening.”

“Okay, I’ll play it for you when we get outside.”

“How about you wait until we get in the car?”

“You got it.”

Later, after they had finished their meal and left, but not before four different people stopped at their table to talk about the song, one actually asking for John Lee’s autograph, they got in Maddy’s car and Dixie pulled the song up on her phone and they listened to it.

If you make your way down across the Georgia border

Ya better mind your manners and keep straight in your head

’Cause there’s a man down there that believes in law and order

And if you go up against him, he’ll send you back home dead

All the pushers and crooks from Jacksonville to Tallahassee

Stay away from Somerton County if they can

Because there’s a straight shootin’ deputy down there they call John Lee

And he’s a deadly, quick on the draw lawman

When the drug cartel messed up and came to town

They was after his daddy, they said he stole their loot

John Lee, he shot those gun totin’ thugs right down

Then went home and slept, he didn’t give a hoot

Now John Lee, he has a long legged girl named Maddy

She’s so pretty she’d make a dead man’s heart flip flop

But mess with her man and you’ll be sorry, ’cause she’s a baddy

She’s got a gun and a badge, yeah, that pretty gal’s a cop

John Lee’s got a dozen notches on his gun

From men who tried to face down this deadly kid

Maybe they were fools, or maybe they thought it’d be fun

But that brave young deputy made sure it was the last thing they ever did

One time two bad men took his pretty lady

But John Lee don’t need no gun to win a fight

He caught those men doing things that’s shady

Let’s just say the gators ate good that night

So if your heart’s as black as the night

Don’t think you can rob, or rape, or kill in his part of the land

’Cause when John Lee gets you in his sight

The next thing you’ll do is shake the devil’s hand

Now you want to know how I know all about John Lee?

That’s fine, I’ll tell you folks all about it

I’m the mama of that hero, that’s right, he’s my baby

And I’m so proud that I could almost shout it!

John Lee!

When the song finished, Maddy couldn’t help laughing.

“You think that’s funny?”

“God no, John Lee. It’s about the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard! Do Lisa Marie and Dakota really think that’s going to be a big hit!”

“She definitely does. Like I said, he’s just a con man. I think this whole thing is just a scam to get money out of us.”

“But we don’t have any money.”

“I told him that,” John Lee said. “And like I said, he knew all about the settlement you got from the city, and about the property where your mom’s house was. He even told me he did his homework.”

“Isn’t there some way you can bring charges against him for trying to blackmail you or whatever?”

“I don’t know, Dixie. I’d still prefer to just wring his neck and throw his body in the woods for the coyotes and bugs to eat.”

When John Lee said those words, he had no idea how soon they would come back to haunt him.

Chapter 9

John Lee expected some razzing from his fellow deputies when he and Maddy went to work the next morning, and they did not disappoint him.

“Hey there, killer. Did you get any more notches on your six-gun while you were up in Alaska?”

“Bang, bang, he shot me down!”

“Incoming!”

Shaking his head, John Lee said, “You guys are a riot.”

“He said riot,” Andy Stringer, an easy-going deputy with a big belly and hands the size of catcher’s mitts, said. “Do we need to call out the National Guard?”

“Nah,” said Deputy Manny Stengel, shaking his shaved head. “What do we need the damn National Guard for? We’ve got John Lee here. Let’s just send him to break it up while the rest of us go and get a bite to eat.”

John Lee knew it was all in good fun, and these men were all like brothers to him. They had shared so much together and been there for each other for so long that he just laughed and said, “Remind me when you guys all die, so I can come and piss on your graves.”

“You’re going to come all the way down from Nashville just to pee on a grave?” asked red-headed Greg Carson, who had been a chunky young deputy with peach fuzz on his upper lip and teenage acne when he first joined the department. He was a hard-working young man who had grown into the job and no longer looked like he was a high school kid playing cops and robbers. “Are you going to fly down on your private plane, or have your chauffeur bring you?”

“Watch your mouth, youngster,” John Lee said, putting him in his place with a grin.

The sheriff came out of his office and said, “I hate to break up this hen party, but I need to talk to ya, John Lee. And the rest of ya, why don’t ya go out and chase criminals or somethin’ to earn your keep?”

John Lee followed him into his office and D.W. said, “Have a seat.”

When they were both seated, D.W. asked, “Did that lawyer fella ya hired do any good about puttin’ an end to that damn song?”

“I know he had the cease-and-desist letter served on them, because I got a call from Lisa Marie asking me why I was threatening to sue them.”

“Well, I don’t think it did any good ’cause I heard that damn song on the radio this mornin’ when I was drivin’ to work.”

“Damn it.”

“John Lee, any other time I’d say let this foolishness run its course. That song probably ain’t gonna go nowhere and pretty soon it’s goin’ to peter out and die. The problem is those jerks from the Board of Supervisors. I didn’t even get to finish my mornin’ coffee at home before Lonnie Fairchild was on the phone yellin’ that y’all are supposed to be doin’ some kind of radio broadcast from the hardware store and signin’ autographs. What’s that all about?”

Feeling the frustration rising within him, John Lee said, “After I left here yesterday, I went out to the radio station and Hugh was talking about doing some remote broadcasts and autographs and all that stuff. I point blank told him I’m not going to be a part of any of that.”

“I believe ya when ya said ya told him and your mama and that fella from Nashville ya didn’t want nothin’ to do with all that stuff. But I don’t think they got the message. Besides which, you’re not allowed to use your uniform or your patrol car or anythin’ related to the job for any kind of commercial purposes.”

“I know that, D.W. I promise you, I’m doing everything I can to put a stop to all this craziness.”

“How about you go back out to the radio station and have a talk with that man again, John Lee? The sooner he stops playin’ that song, the quicker this will all begin to die out. He’s just seein’ dollar signs and tryin’ to make hay while the sun shines.”

“I’ll head out there right now.”

“Good. By the way, ya said ya was goin’ to listen to that song. Did ya get around to it?”

“Yeah, and it sucked. I can’t believe anybody would be dumb enough to think that it’s going to be a hit.”

“Well, shit, John Lee. Don’t ever underestimate how stupid folks can be. Back when I was a youngster, there was a hit song called My Ding-a-ling. Best as I can remember, a fella named Chuck Berry was singin’ it on the radio.

“Really?”

“Yep, and people was playin’ it all the time,” D.W. said. “Just goes to show ya how somethin’ can take off that never shoulda seen the light of day.”

“I’m going to stop by that attorney’s office and see if I can have him write a cease-and-desist letter for the radio station, too.”

“Might be a good idea,” D.W. agreed.

***

Justin Bach was on the telephone when John Lee entered his office and he waved him to the chair across from his desk as he said, “No, sir, I don’t believe you can win a judgment for harassment because your neighbor’s rooster crows in the morning. When I talked to you about it last week, I told you that you live in the country and livestock is allowed. That includes poultry. So I really don’t know what to tell you.”

John Lee could hear whoever the attorney was talking to reply, and he sounded angry.

“I understand that, sir, and while I’d love to have your business, I would be taking your money for nothing. Your neighbors had chickens before you moved in. They’ve had them for years. There’s just no case there and I would be doing you a disservice to try to get this to go to trial. Any judge in the country would call this a frivolous lawsuit.”

There was more loud talk from the other end, and then Justin said, “I understand they are a nuisance to you, sir. The only thing I can tell you is you might want to think about getting some earplugs. No, don’t do that! If you go over there and try to shoot his rooster, you might get yourself shot. At the very least, you’ll get arrested.” He listened for a moment longer and then said, “Well, if you do, I’ll be happy to represent you. But I’ll make it very clear to the court that you did that after I strongly advised you not to.”

He ended the call and shook his head, then looked at John Lee and said, “I think I was like every other law school student, thinking I was going to be the next Clarence Darrow. Instead, I’ve got someone wanting to sue his neighbors because of roosters crowing in the morning.”

John Lee laughed and said, “Welcome to my world. I’ll bet you that was Kevin Woodhill.”

“How did you know that?”

“He moved down here from someplace in Illinois or Indiana or somewhere like that. Escaped the big city to the country life when he retired. He just didn’t know the country life was going to be so damn full of country. He’s probably called the Sheriff’s Office two dozen times about everything from deer eating his garden to the neighbors’ dogs barking or roosters crowing. He even wanted someone to come out and chase the raccoons away from his trash cans.”

“Now he says he’s going to go over next door and shoot the rooster if it does it again tomorrow morning. You heard what I told him about that.”

“Yeah, he said the same thing to me,” John Lee replied.

“I had that letter served on Dakota Phillips yesterday at the Starlite Motel.”

“I know. Lisa Marie called me wanting to know why I would be suing my own mother.”

“It’s none of my business, but why do you call her by her name?”

“She dumped me off on my grandparents when I was not much more than a baby and has spent her whole life running around doing her own thing,” John Lee told him. “This song is just the latest goofball adventure for her.”

“Hopefully, the letter will get them to stop with this project of theirs.”

“That’s why I’m here,” John Lee said. “I went up to the radio station yesterday and asked the DJ to stop playing the song, and it turns out he’s got me signed up for all kinds of things, like remote broadcasts and signing autographs at different businesses and stuff like that. I told him no, that wasn’t going to happen, and he acted like it’s already in the works and there’s no way to stop it.”

“Of course there is,” Justin said. “They can’t make you go someplace just because they say it’s going to happen. Just don’t show up.”

“I don’t plan to,” John Lee said. “Meanwhile, some of the county supervisors went to the sheriff complaining about it. And this morning the sheriff heard the song on the radio again, and the DJ talking about me being at one of their remote broadcasts at the hardware store. I’m wondering if I can get you to do one of those cease-and-desist letters I can give to the radio station, too.”

“That’s no problem. All I’ve got to do is change the name of who it’s going to and print it out.”

“Could you do that while I wait, because I’m going there from here.”

“Sure, just give me a minute,” Justin said.

John Lee waited while he did the letter and then handed it to him. As he reached for his wallet to pay the attorney, Justin waved his hand and shook his head. “No charge for that. It only took a minute.”

“You can’t stay in business if you don’t charge people for your services.”

“Look around you, John Lee. With all these folks lined up out on the sidewalk just waiting to come in here and hand me baskets full of money, why would I take yours?”

John Lee laughed and said, “I appreciate it, but I really don’t mind paying.”

“I might need a favor someday.”

“Well, I can’t fix a ticket, but I can buy your lunch sometime.”

Nodding and smiling, Justin said, “That’ll be fine. Let me know what happens with the radio station and with the song.”

***

When Hugh Burris saw John Lee getting out of the Ford Explorer with the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department emblems on the doors, he had hoped the deputy was coming to say that he had changed his mind and was going to take part in the remote broadcasts. But one look on John Lee’s stern face told him that wasn’t the case.

“Back again, John Lee? Just can’t stay away, can you?”

Hugh’s hope of lightening the mood fell flat when John Lee said, “I told you I didn’t want you playing that stupid song anymore, and I told you I’m not going to be at any remote broadcasts. So why are you still doing it?”

“Come on, John Lee. At least do those two remotes that I already have locked in and on the calendar, okay? You’d be doing me a big favor if you did.”

“I told you no, and I meant it.”

“Man, it’s only gonna take a couple of hours out of your life. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is I said no, and I meant it,” John Lee repeated himself. “And stop playing that damn song!”

“Do you know how many people are calling, asking me to play it?”

“I don’t care. Here, maybe this will get through to you,” John Lee said, handing him the cease-and-desist letter from Justin.

Hugh read it, then shook his head and asked, “Why did you go and do that, John Lee? I already told you, when you get lawyers mixed up in anything, all it does is make things worse for everybody.”

“Well, since you weren’t listening to me, you didn’t leave me much choice, did you?”

“Don’t do this, John Lee. If the station owner gets wind of this, I could be out on my ear.”

“That’s your problem, not mine,” John Lee told him. “Just stop all this shit right now!”

Hugh followed him out the door, still asking him to change his mind as John Lee got in his vehicle and drove away.

Chapter 10

Sixteen year old Aniki Devi sang along with the radio as she pushed the laundry cart down the walkway between rooms. She loved music, and it was a comfort to her when she felt homesick or overwhelmed.

America was so different from the life she had grown up with in back in Kolkata. It seemed like everybody was rich here, at least compared to her home, where she had lived in a tiny three-room apartment with her parents and five brothers and sisters. Her father worked as a mechanic for a bus company and her mother babysat for other family members who worked outside their homes. They could not afford to pay her for her services, but that’s what family did, right?

When Avyaan, her father’s brother, had written to suggest that Aniki move to the United States to go to school, her family had been overjoyed. Avyaan had been in Florida for twelve years now and owned his own business. He was a true success story.

At first, Aniki hadn’t been too sure about the offer. Fly halfway around the world and live with her uncle, who she hardly knew? It sounded exciting, but at the same time, frightening.

“This is your chance, Aniki,” her mother told her. “You’re a smart girl, and this is a wonderful opportunity for you. We are blessed by your uncle’s generosity. Go to America and work hard and go to university and study hard. Then you can help your brothers and sisters do the same thing. And then, maybe someday, your father and me can come, too, after you have all been established.”

“Yes, mama,” Aniki said. “I will work hard and get an education and help the little ones.”

When her father had written back saying that she was coming, her cousin Kira had written telling her how excited she was that Aniki was coming. She told her they would be sharing a bedroom, and she was going to introduce her to all of her friends. And she had. From the moment Uncle Avyaan and Aunt Fatima had picked her up at the airport in Orlando, it had been like stepping into a whole new world. Naturally shy, Aniki had been overwhelmed by all the hugging and greetings from so many family members she had never met. Aunt Fatima’s family had been in America for a long time and there were so many cousins and aunts and uncles, but everybody made her feel welcome.

The food here was so different, too. There were so many choices that she never heard of. Back home, some restaurants served things like pizza and hamburgers, but her family could never afford food like that. Her mother’s cooking was always delicious, even if it was a lot spicier than what the people here ate. American food was bland.

Sometimes she missed Samira and Depti, her best friends back home, but she had new friends here. And now she had a telephone and a laptop computer, and her English was getting better all the time. She had already been accepted by the community college over in Lake City where Kira was studying, and when the next semester started, she would be going with her. Yes, life was different here, but it was better.

Knocking on the door of room 14, she said, “Housekeeping” and waited a moment before she knocked again and used her key to unlock the door. The room was empty, but she always did that because twice now she had walked in on men who were undressed. She didn’t know if it was on purpose or by accident. She had slammed the door both times, apologizing. One of them, a fat bald old man with a beard who stank from across the room, invited her to come in and keep him company. Aniki had run back to the office, and soon Uncle Avyaan was at the door, telling the man to leave right now and not to come back or he would call the police.

After changing the bed linens and cleaning the bathroom, shaking her head and wondering why people couldn’t take the time to wash their toothpaste down the drain, she finished tidying the room and then moved on to number 15.

The guests who had been in that room had been very nice, a young man and woman who said that they were going to Disneyland. Aniki couldn’t imagine spending the money it cost to go to Disneyland, though she’d been fascinated by the commercials she had seen on television about it. The couple had been very nice and left her five dollars as a tip, along with a note thanking her for taking care of the room. Though they had made the bed before they left, she replaced the linens and cleaned up, which only took a few minutes. She wished all the guests who stayed at the Starlite Motel were like that.

There was a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the doorknob of room 16. Aniki knew that was Mr. Atwood, who worked at night and slept during the day. He was nice, and sometimes when he woke up, he would call to ask to have the room cleaned, and when she came to do it, he always apologized for making extra work for her and gave her money. Mr. Atwood wasn’t like those other men. He was younger and always very polite and respectful as he chatted with her while she made up the room. She never felt uncomfortable with him, and he always thanked her when she was finished.

Skipping his room, she knocked on the door of 17 and said, “Housekeeping,” then repeated it before she unlocked the door. The room was dark and Aniki reached for the light switch on the wall. What she saw when the light came on would be etched in her memory forever. Screaming, she slammed the door and ran back to the office, leaving the laundry cart on the sidewalk in front of the room.

***

John Lee pulled in behind a big Winnebago motorhome towing a Toyota pickup truck parked on the narrow shoulder of Highway 90 and turned on his overhead lights to alert traffic. Getting out, he approached the older couple standing at the back of the Toyota and ask them if everything was okay.

“My tire sensor alerted me to a low tire on the truck,” said the white-haired man, looking at the driver’s side rear tire, which was almost flat. “See there? Looks like I picked up a nail. I called my roadside service, but they said it would be two hours before they could get somebody out here.”

“Do you have a spare?”

“Yes, but Arnold has bad arthritis, and he can’t change it himself,” said the man’s wife. “I was hoping our roadside service company could get someone here sooner than that. Do you know anybody we can call locally?”

“You don’t need to call anybody. If you have the spare and a jack, I can change it for you.”

“I’d hate to put you through all that trouble,” the man said.

One look at his gnarled and liver-spotted hands told John Lee there was no way he could change the tire himself.

“It’s not a problem. I’d have more trouble if someone came by and sideswiped you here on the edge of the road.”

It only took him a few minutes to retrieve the spare tire from where it was mounted under the bed of the pickup and change the flat as traffic whizzed by feet away from where he worked, ignoring his patrol car’s warning lights. He worked fast, knowing that more cops and emergency workers were killed and injured by careless drivers every year than by any other on the job danger.

When he had the tire changed, the old man opened the camper shell on the back of the truck and John Lee put the flat tire in there. Wiping his hands and dusting off his trousers, he said, “There you go. All done. Where are you folks headed for?”

“Lake City, tonight,” the husband said, “Then over toward New Smyrna Beach to see an old Navy buddy of mine.”

“Well, when you get over there, I would try to get that tire repaired or replaced, so you have a spare,” John Lee suggested.

“We’ll do that, Deputy,” the man said, shaking his hand. “Thank you very much for all your help.”

“No problem. You folks have a safe trip.”

“Can we get your name? I want to let your chief or whoever your boss is know how much we appreciate you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John Lee said, handing her one of his cards.

“Thank you, again. We really didn’t feel comfortable sitting alongside of the road with so much traffic.”

“Happy to do it. Let me kind of pull out and block the road so you can get going before someone comes along and rear ends you.”

Once John Lee had pulled his Explorer onto the road, the motorhome drove away, the driver honking his horn. As they did, the dispatcher came on the radio, reporting a badly injured person at the Starlight Motel.

“Oh, shit. Now what?”

He made a U-turn and headed back to town, with no idea of the calamity that awaited him.

***

Four sheriff’s department vehicles and two city police cars were parked on the gravel lot in front of the guest rooms at the motel, and a small crowd of curious people stood off to the side, talking amongst themselves and speculating about what was going on. When John Lee got out of his car, he nodded to Perry Burton, one of the city cops, and asked, “What’s going on?”

Perry, a slouch shouldered man with a bulbous nose over a drooping mustache that always reminded John Lee of a walrus, replied, “Got a dead one there in room 17. Looks bad.”

“Bad as in been dead for a while, or bad as in something else?”

“Don’t know how long ago they died, but it wasn’t natural causes, that’s for sure,” Perry told him.

John Lee walked up to the door of the motel room where several officers were standing, and Deputy Herb Glickman stepped aside so he could see into the room. What he saw was a bloody mess. The body lying on its back on the bed appeared to be a man, clad only in what looked like a pair of bikini brief underwear. Something about them looked strange, and it took a moment for John Lee to figure out that they looked like some kind of leopard spotted pattern. Something on the floor caught his eye. It was a black cowboy hat with a silver studded hatband, and he felt his stomach lurch.

Somerton Police Chief Miranda Bryant and Chief Deputy Dick Schroeder from the sheriff’s office were standing on either side of the bed. Looking up, Chief Bryant said, “Don’t come in here. We need to preserve the scene until the forensic people from Tallahassee get here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Schroeder leaned over to look at the victim’s head and said, “I can’t tell if someone used a shotgun on him or if it was blunt force trauma. Can you, Miranda?”

“It’s hard to say, and I don’t want to contaminate anything for the crime lab people by touching him. But there’s a piece of metal lying here on the floor next to the bed on my side. It’s covered in blood. I can’t tell what it is.”

Schroeder bent down and looked at something on the floor, then held up a piece of paper in his gloved fingers.

“You shouldn’t touch anything, Dick. You know that,” the police chief reprimanded him.

If Schroeder heard what she was saying, he didn’t show it. Instead, he read what was on the paper, then said, “John Lee, I need you to leave the scene right now.”

“I wasn’t going to come into the room, Dick.”

“That’s not what I mean. I need you to get in your vehicle and get the hell out of here and don’t come back.”

“What’s going on, Dick?”

“Just do it, John Lee!”

Chapter 11

“How badly did your people trample over my crime scene?”

“The only people who went into the room were myself and Chief Deputy Schroeder,” Chief Bryant said.

“That’s two too many. I’d think you would know better than that, being the police chief. Nobody is supposed to enter a crime scene until I get here with my people.”

“We had to determine if he was dead or not, didn’t we?”

Chief Bryant didn’t enjoy having to defend herself to Jayne Emerson, a woman with short cropped gray hair and a bad attitude, who was the supervisor of the state crime lab crew sent to the scene. Emerson had a reputation for being rude and believing that all law enforcement officers were rubes who didn’t know better than to knock over, step on, and destroy evidence before she and her people got there.

“Of course he’s dead! Any fool can see that from the door without having to enter the room.”

After a long career with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that had come to an end after she shot a teenage thug and was crucified in the press, Chief Bryant was not one to back down from a confrontation.

“How about you do your job, and we’ll do our job?”

“My job would be a hell of a lot better without people like you stumbling over everything in your path,” Emerson told her.

Miranda was about to respond, but then thought better of it and just walked away to where Dick Schroeder was talking to a dark-skinned man and a teenage girl who looked like she had been through the ringer.

“Mr. Devi, this is Chief Bryant with the city Police Department,” Schroeder said. “Chief, this is Mr. Devi, the owner of the Starlite, and his niece, Aniki. She was the one who found the body.”

Miranda shook the thin man’s hand and then turned to the girl and said, “I’m sorry you had to experience something like that, Aniki. I know how frightening it must have been.”

The girl nodded her head but didn’t say anything.

“Is there a place we could talk, away from all of this activity, Mr. Devi?”

“Yes, let’s go inside.”

He led them into the motel’s office and then through another door to a room with a desk and two chairs and a sofa, along with an old metal filing cabinet and a table with an electric coffeepot and some Styrofoam cups.

“Would you like some coffee or maybe a soda or something to drink?”

“No thank you, I’m fine, Mr. Devi,” Miranda said, and Schroeder shook his head.

They sat in the chairs while the girl sat on the couch, looking down at the floor.

“Mr. Devi, can you tell us who is registered in that room and how long he’s been here?”

The man nodded his head and said, “There were two people. A man named Frank Phillips, and a woman named Lisa Marie Quarrels.”

Hearing the familiar last name, Miranda looked at Schroeder, who nodded his head.

“Can you tell us when they checked in, sir?”

“Last Saturday. He said they would be here two weeks, maybe more.”

“Can you tell me anything about the people who were in the room, Mr. Devi?”

The man shrugged his shoulders and said, “They seemed okay at first, but then there was an argument yesterday.”

“An argument?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Who was arguing?”

“The man and the woman. They were really loud. I was just going down to the room to tell them to be quiet when the other two men knocked on the door.”

“Other two men? Do you know who they were?”

“One was Mr. Atwood. I don’t know who the other one was.”

“Atwood? Who is he?”

“He stays in the room next door. He’s been here two months now. He’s a nice man. Never causes any trouble.”

“Do you know why they were knocking on the door of the room where the man died?”

“It sounded like Mr. Atwood was complaining about the noise. I saw the door open, and Mr. Phillips was talking to them and then Mr. Atwood went back to his room.”

“What about the other man? What did he do?”

“I don’t know. He was there another minute, maybe two, and then he got in his car and drove away.”

“And you don’t know who he is?”

“No. I never saw him before.”

“Can you tell me what he looked like?”

The motel owner shrugged his shoulders and said, “I was just starting down from the office and I didn’t see much because it seemed like the problem was over. He didn’t look very old, but he wasn’t a boy.”

“So, a young man?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Was he White or African American or Indian or…”

“He was White. I think maybe brown hair.”

“Can you tell me anything else about what he looked like, Mr. Devi? Like if he was real tall or real short, or heavy set? Anything like that?”

The man shrugged his shoulders and said, “Just average, I think.”

“You said they only talked for a couple of minutes,” Dick Schroeder said. “Did he leave then?”

“I think so. Right after that, I saw a car driving away.”

“What can you tell me about the car?”

The man shrugged his shoulders again and said, “I don’t know. It was just a car.”

“Was it a big car or a little car? Do you remember what color it was?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t pay that much attention. It was just an everyday car. I think it was a light color, maybe white, but I can’t say for sure. The phone was ringing in the office and I needed to get back inside.”

“That’s all right,” Miranda told him. “That helps.”

Looking around, the police chief didn’t see any security cameras, and when she asked, the motel’s owner said they didn’t have any.

“I never thought I would need any.”

“These days, they are a good investment,” Miranda advised. Turning to the girl, she asked, “Aniki, can you tell me about how you found the person in that room?”

“I was cleaning the rooms. I always knock twice and tell them it’s housekeeping before I unlock the door. Sometimes people are still in the room, and sometimes they’re not dressed.

Miranda noted a flush under her dark skin. “I’m sure that’s a good idea, so you don’t walk in on somebody. What happened when you knocked on the door of room 17, Aniki?”

“No one answered, so I opened the door. That’s when I see him. It was horrible.”

It was obvious English was a second language for the teenager. Tears flooded her eyes again at the memory of what she had seen in that room.

“Did you go into the room or anything, Aniki?”

“No. I think I screamed and then I ran to the office and got Uncle.”

“When you say uncle, do you mean Mr. Devi here?”

“Yes. He’s my father’s brother. I live here and I’m going to go to Community College.”

“Well, that’s wonderful,” Miranda said, trying to put her at ease. “What will you be studying, Aniki?”

“Business, I think. I want to make a business and be successful like my uncle.”

“That’s a good idea,” Miranda told her. “I’m sure you’ll do good. Before today, had you cleaned that room?”

“Yes, ma’am. I clean the rooms every morning.”

“Were the people staying in the room there sometimes when you cleaned it?”

“Only once. The man and the woman were there. He was on the telephone, and she was standing in front of the mirror by the bathroom putting on her makeup.”

“Can you tell me anything about them? Did they seem nice? Did they seem like they were getting along, or were they arguing?”

Aniki thought for a moment and then said, “The man didn’t say anything to me. He was on the phone and kind of waved his hand when I came in the room. That was all. The woman, she was nice. She called me dear and gave me a dollar when I was done.”

“Were they arguing or anything like that, Aniki?”

“No. He was still on the phone when I left.”

“Can you remember anything else that was different than any of the other people in the rooms that you clean for your uncle?”

“No,” Aniki said shaking her head. Then she stopped and said, “Except for the policeman.”

“The policeman? There was a policeman in the room with them?”

“Not a real policeman. He was… I’m trying to think how to say it. I’m sorry, my English isn’t good yet. He wasn’t real.”

“Your English is fine, Aniki,” Miranda assured her. “You said he wasn’t real? Do you mean a person dressed up like a policeman?”

“No, not that.” The girl put her hands up and massaged her forehead with her fingers for a moment, then she said, “Like a big photograph.”

“There was a big picture of a policeman? Is that what you’re saying?”

They could see the confusion on the girl’s face and she said, “I don’t know how to say it. It was a photograph, but it wasn’t like a photograph.”

“How big was the photograph, Aniki?”

“Bigger than Uncle. More tall and more this way,” Aniki said, holding her hands apart.

“All right. Let me ask you something, Aniki. Was there anybody else around, maybe standing outside the room or something like that?”

“No. Nobody.”

“What about this Mr. Atwood in the room next door? Your uncle said he saw him knocking on the door to room 17 yesterday while the people inside were arguing. Did you see him yesterday when you were cleaning the rooms?”

“No,” Aniki said, shaking her head. “He works at night and he had a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

“Have you met him before?”

“Yes. Sometimes when he wakes up in the afternoon, he calls and asks to have the room made up. He’s very nice. He talks to me while I’m working in the room.”

“What does he talk about?”

“He asks me if I like it here in America and about my schooling, and what it’s like where I come from in Kolkata.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure I know where Kolkata is, Aniki.”

“It’s in India. Some people call it Calcutta.”

“I see. Now I know where you’re talking about. Has Mr. Atwood ever mentioned any problems with the people in the room next door?”

“No,” Aniki said, shaking her head again.

They talked to the girl and her uncle for a while longer, but didn’t learn anything more. Thanking them for their time and telling Aniki they were sorry for her experience, they left the office and walked back toward the crime scene. Most of the officers had left by then. Just Deputy Herb Glickman and Officer Burton remained on the scene to keep curious lookey-loos who might try to venture past the yellow crime scene tape away.

“Should we see if Mr. Atwood is awake?”

“He’d have to be dead to sleep through all this commotion,” Schroeder said, knocking on the door. It was opened by a slender, dark-haired man who looked to be somewhere around thirty years old, with broad shoulders for a man his size. Whisker stubble covered his cheeks and chin and his eyes were red. Schroeder couldn’t determine if that was from the use of alcohol or some drug, or from lack of sleep.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Atwood. I’m Chief Deputy Schroeder from the Sheriff’s Office and this is Police Chief Bryant. We need to ask you some questions, sir.”

“You might as well,” he said, opening the door wider and waving them inside. “It’s not like I’m going to get any more sleep today.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Schroeder said. “Mr. Devi at the office said you work nights?”

“Yeah, at that bridge project up on Interstate 10.”

“Just out of curiosity, Mr. Atwood, why don’t you stay at one of the hotels up there on the highway?”

“This place is cheaper, and it’s quieter. At least for the most part. Besides, all you can get up there to eat is fast food, and there are some decent restaurants around here. And a lot of the guys I work with like to party and get rowdy. That’s not my thing. It’s only a fifteen or twenty minute drive to the worksite.”

“That makes sense,” Schroeder said.

“What’s going on next door? Somebody said the guy in there got killed?”

“It seems that way,” Schroeder replied, then asked, “Did you know the people staying in that room?”

“No. If I’m here, I’m usually sleeping. I work as many hours as I can because I’m saving up to buy a house, so I don’t usually spend much time hanging around.”

“I understand there was an argument yesterday?”

“Sounded more like World War Three, if you ask me,” Atwood said. “They were really going at it for a while there.”

“When you say they were going at it, do you mean the man and the woman in the room?”

“Yeah. Even with my earplugs in, I could hear them. Hell, I could feel the room shake when they were bouncing around in there. I finally got fed up and went over and pounded on the door and told them to shut the hell up.”

“Did you actually talk to them face to face or just talk through the door?”

“The guy came to the door. Man, he looked rough.”

“What do you mean by that, Mister Atwood?”

“One side of his face was swelled up like he had a baseball under the skin, and he had a bloody nose and blood was dripping down off his face.”

“And you talked to him when he opened the door?”

“Yeah. I told him to shut up, I was trying to get some sleep because I work nights or something like that. I don’t know what it was word for word, but I got the message across.”

While they were talking, Schroeder glanced at the man’s hands, noticing several shallow cuts on his fingers and the back of both hands.

“What did he have to say about that when you told him to shut up?”

“He apologized. He said him and his girlfriend were having an issue or something like that. Again, I don’t think that was word for word, but that they were having a problem and that they would keep quiet.”

“Then what happened, Mr. Atwood?”

“Nothing, really. I came back inside here and put my earplugs back in and went back to sleep.”

“Did you hear any more fighting over there after that?”

“No. I guess they got the message. It’s not like I’m one of those guys that complains about everything, but sometimes you just have enough and you have to say something. When you’re working on top of a bridge platform in the middle of the night, you can’t afford to be half asleep.”

“I imagine that can be dangerous work,” Schroeder said, then he looked pointedly at the man’s hands and asked, “Are those injuries from on the job?”

“Injuries? What injuries?”

Then Atwood looked down at his hands and asked, “This? Those aren’t exactly injuries. Anybody who works around heavy equipment and construction is going to get scraped up now and then. It just comes with the territory. When I’m talking about injuries, I mean getting really hurt, or even killed. Between the equipment we work with and drivers who aren’t paying attention, it can happen in a heartbeat.”

“That’s a fact,” Schroeder said. “I’ve known more than one police officer who got hurt or killed during a simple traffic stop by some fool coming along, not paying attention.” Then he asked, “So, you got those marks on your hands on the job?”

“Yeah.” Then Atwood looked at them and said, “Wait a minute. You don’t think I did anything to that guy next door, do you?”

“Of course not,” Schroeder lied. “I was just curious.”

“No way, man. That’s not me. You can check my record. I’ve never even had a traffic ticket. Like I said, I’m not one of those guys who complains or starts trouble.”

Changing the subject, Miranda said, “You told us the man in the room next door looked like he was pretty banged up. Did you see the woman, too?”

Atwood thought for a moment and said, “I don’t think so. It wasn’t like we had a long conversation. It only lasted long enough for the guy to say he was sorry and that they were having a problem. That was it and I came back here to my room and went back to bed.”

“Did you see anybody else around while all this was going on, Mr. Atwood?”

“Yeah, there was another guy. He was knocking on the door when I came out of my room.”

“He was knocking on the door of room 17, next door?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know who he was?”

Atwood shook his head and said, “No, I don’t think I ever saw him before.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Not really. Like I said, I was only out of the room for maybe a minute. He was young, younger than me. White guy. That’s all I can remember about him.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How about to the guy next door?”

“I don’t know. He was still standing there when I came back in here, so probably.”

“Did you happen to notice what kind of car he had?”

Shaking his head again, Atwood said, “Like I said, ma’am, I was just trying to get some sleep. I didn’t really pay that much attention to him.”

“I understand,” Miranda told him. “We’ll get out of your way and hopefully you can get a little rest before you have to go back to work.”

“I hope so. But I’m not going to hold my breath.”

When they walked back outside and the door closed behind them, Miranda looked at Schroeder and asked, “What do you think?”

“He seems like he’s being straightforward. But you saw his hands?”

“Yeah, and right away he got defensive, saying that he wasn’t someone that got into fights or anything like that. How did he know how that guy died? He could have been shot or stabbed or whatever.”

“You’ve got a point,” Schroeder agreed. “Or maybe he said that because the guy looked like he had been in a fight before. Either way, I think we need to see what we can find out about him.”

Chapter 12

John Lee was confused and didn’t know what to do. He was sure the dead man at the Starlite Motel was Dakota Phillips. The body’s build was the same and the black Ford pickup had been parked in front of the room. The cowboy hat on the floor confirmed it.

So, if Dakota was dead, what about Lisa Marie? Was she somewhere in the motel room, too? And if not, where was she? If she wasn’t a victim, was she the killer? What the hell had happened in that room?

There seemed to be a lull in calls from the dispatcher, so John Lee drove to his grandparents’ house. Whatever was going on, he wanted to be the one to tell them about it. Driving there, it occurred to him that, no matter what had happened, he was looking at it dispassionately, even though his birth mother had to be involved in some way. He wondered if that was because he had seen so much in his time as a police officer, or was it a result of the way he felt towards Lisa Marie?

Paw Paw was on his zero turn Kubota mower, and he waved at John Lee as he pulled in the driveway. He drove the mower up near John Lee’s Explorer and shut it down and got off, running the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe off the sweat.

“What’s up?”

“Have you seen Lisa Marie?”

“Yeah, she’s in the house with Mama Nell. Why?”

The look on his grandson’s face told the old man that something was wrong.

“Somebody killed Dakota.”

“The hell you say? What happened?”

“I don’t know, Paw Paw. There was a call to the motel where they’re staying, and when I got there, it seemed like all the cops in the world were there ahead of me.”

“Did you see him, or did someone tell you it was him? Maybe it was a mistake.”

“It was him,” John Lee told him. “I saw the body.”

“Shit. You said he was killed? It wasn’t a heart attack or anything like that?”

“It looked like someone beat him to death. How long has she been here?”

“Your mother?” Paw Paw looked at him and said, “You don’t think she is involved, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think. But I know that they’re going to want to talk to her.”

“John Lee, she’s got her faults. You and I both know that. But you can’t think that she would kill anybody, can you? Why would she kill Dakota when things are just taking off for her?”

“I don’t have any answers, Paw Paw,” John Lee replied. “But given their relationship, they are going to want to talk to her.”

“You keep saying they, who are they?”

“Whoever is going to be investigating it.”

“That’s not you?”

“No, it can’t be, given my relationship to the victim and Lisa Marie. In fact, Dick Schroeder ordered me away from the crime scene and told me not to come back. That’s standard procedure. Just like when I got ambushed, they wouldn’t let Maddy be anywhere near the case.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Paw Paw said, then looked toward the house. “I guess somebody’s got to tell her about it.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You sure, John Lee?”

“It won’t be the first death notification I’ve made.”

“Yeah, but she’s …”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” John Lee said, and the two of them walked toward the house.

They found the two women sitting at the kitchen table drinking sweet tea and playing Yahtzee.

“John Lee, how ya doin’ today? Want some sweet tea?”

“No, thanks, Mama Nell.”

“You goin’ to at least give your mama a hug, even if you are mad at me?”

He hugged his mother, then said, “Something’s happened and I need to talk to you about it.”

“John Lee, don’t get ugly about this whole song thing again. I know we took you by surprise with it, but I really thought you’d be happy for me. For all of us.”

“It’s not about the song,” John Lee said, sitting down in a chair next to her and asking himself if he really should be the one making the notification. But he was already here, so it was best to get on with it.

Just as with Paw Paw, seeing the look on his face let Lisa Marie know something bad had happened. “What is it, John Lee?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but something happened to Dakota.”

“I know all about that,” Lisa Marie said.

“You do?”

“Yeah, and I’ll admit I was mad at first. But then I got to thinkin’ about how mad ya was about the song, and I kind of understand. And I know that Dakota ain’t perfect. Sometimes when he gets to drinkin’ he shoots his mouth off and says things he shouldn’t say. He was all mad about it and wanted to report you for hittin’ him, but I talked him out of it.”

“You hit Dakota? How come, John Lee?”

“Not now, Mama Nell.” Taking Lisa Marie’s hand, a physical gesture that surprised both of them, John Lee said, “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then what? You’re scarin’ me, John Lee.”

“I’m sorry, but Dakota is dead.”

His mother stared at him, wide eyed and confused, as if he was some kind of alien that had just stepped out of a spaceship.

“Dead? What are you talkin’ about?”

“They found him in the motel room. It looks like someone killed him.”

Lisa Marie pulled her hand away from his as if she had been burned by a hot stove and recoiled into her chair. “No! Don’t say somethin’ like that, John Lee. Don’t ever say somethin’ like that!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“No. You’re just tryin’ to hurt me. Why would you make up somethin’ like that?”

“I’m not making it up. I wish I was, but I saw him myself.”

Suddenly she slapped his face, a stinging blow that caught him by surprise. “What did you do to him? Why?” She launched herself out of her chair, slapping at him with both hands. All John Lee could do was duck his head and try to cover up to avoid the worst of the assault.

“Hey there, that’s enough! Stop it.”

Paw Paw grabbed his daughter by the waist and pulled her backward as she fought him.

“Calm down, Lisa Marie. I mean it. Whatever happened, John Lee didn’t do it.”

“Then who else? Who else would want to hurt him except you, John Lee? You hated him because of that song!”

“Damn it, girl. You listen to me. I know you’re hurting, but don’t take it out on John Lee.”

Lisa Marie seemed to collapse, and if her father hadn’t been holding onto her, she would have fallen to the floor. Paw Paw scooped her up in both arms and carried her into the living room and laid her gently on the couch, where she began sobbing.

“You go be with John Lee. I’ll stay here with her,” Mama Nell said, placing a hand on her husband’s back. She dropped to her knees and stroked her daughter’s hair and said, “It’s alright, hun. It’s goin’ to be all right.”

Paw Paw looked at them and then turned and went back into the kitchen, where John Lee was still sitting at the table.

“You all right, son?”

“Yeah.”

Paw Paw opened a cupboard drawer and took out two shot glasses and a bottle of Jim Beam and filled them, sliding one in front of John Lee.

“I can’t drink on duty.”

“Just drink it. Ain’t nobody here but us.”

John Lee drank the whiskey, feeling it burn when it hit his empty stomach. Then he rubbed his face, where there was a livid red handprint, and said, “I’ll say one thing for her. She packs a hell of a wallop.”

“She gets that from her mother,” Paw Paw replied. “Why do you think I never argue with her?”

Paw Paw refilled his glass and looked at John Lee, who shook his head.

“She didn’t mean to hurt you, John Lee. She was just reacting to the news in a bad way.”

John Lee was tempted to say that she had hurt him in so many other ways over the years that one more didn’t matter, but he knew that what Paw Paw was telling him was the truth. There was no way to predict how someone would take a death notification. He remembered a father who had laughed when told that his teenage son had been killed in a car wreck. The two had a close relationship, and the man was destroyed emotionally. So much so that six months later, he took his own life. He had had people curse him, cry and scream and call him a liar, and last year Doug Zedekar had slammed the door in John Lee’s face when the deputy had to tell him that his mother had passed away.

They heard a car in the driveway and Paw Paw looked out and said, “It’s D.W. and Dick Schroeder.”

They walked outside to meet them, and the sheriff said, “Looks like ya got here before us. Did ya already tell her, John Lee?”

“Yeah. She’s taking it kind of hard.”

“I’d imagine so.”

The chief deputy looked at John Lee and asked, “Who told you to come here and tell her?”

“Nobody. I took it upon myself to do it. Is that a problem?”

“Yeah, it’s a problem,” Schroeder said. “You can’t be involved in any part of this, John Lee. You know better than that.”

“She’s my mother.” The words sounded alien to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had called her that.

“She’s also a suspect.”

“What? Are you crazy, Dick?”

“Sorry, Stanley,” Schroeder said, addressing Paw Paw by his first name. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but she’s one of the closest persons to the victim.”

“And that makes her a suspect? That’s like saying John Lee’s a suspect, too?”

The way the sheriff and chief deputy looked at him told John Lee all he needed to know.

“Wait a minute, guys. You can’t be serious?”

“Don’t take it the wrong way, John Lee.”

“How else am I supposed to take it, D.W.?”

“John Lee, we don’t believe for a minute that you were involved,” Schroeder told him. “But we know that there was a problem between you and the victim because of that song. And I found a letter in the motel room saying that you were going to sue him and your mother if they didn’t pull it off the radio and stop playing it. You have to look at it from our point of view.”

“From what I’m hearing, your point of view is right up your assholes,” Paw Paw said hotly. “How about you pull your heads out of your hind ends and get a breath of fresh air?”

Ignoring him, Schroeder said, “John Lee, you’ve been a deputy long enough to know how things like this go. Because one of our people is involved, even if it’s on the periphery, we can’t investigate this case. We have to call in an outside agency.”

John Lee knew what Schroeder was telling him was correct. If he had been in the sheriff or the chief deputy’s place, he would do the same thing. But that didn’t make it any easier.

“Stanley, we need to get a statement from Lisa Marie before the FDLE gets here.”

“You got a warrant?” Paw Paw folded arms across his chest stubbornly.

“Stanley, we’re friends,” Schroeder said. “Don’t be like that.”

“You’re not sounding very friendly right now. Besides, if the Sheriff’s Department isn’t going to be investigating this case, why don’t you wait for someone from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to get here?”

“We can do that,” D.W. said. “Truth be told, Stanley, we mostly wanted to make the notification in person rather than any of ya hearin’ about it over the radio or word of mouth. We all know how fast gossip spreads around this county. If a man farts in church, someone ten miles away is goin’ to know about it before the smell fades out. If she wants to talk to the FDLE instead of us, that’s fine. Either way, they’re going to want to interview her themselves. But if there’s anything she can tell us to help us get to the bottom of whoever killed that man, it’s a head start for everybody.”

Paw Paw was unmoved, and John Lee said, “It’s okay. If they want to talk to her and she’s willing to, let them. I trust D.W. and Dick.”

“I did, too, before today,” his grandfather replied.

“Go on and go in the house,” John Lee said to the sheriff. “She took the news real hard, so I don’t know if she’ll be up to talking or not.”

“Thank you,” D.W. said, and Paw Paw stepped aside reluctantly to let them pass.

They were in the house for a few minutes and came back outside and D.W. said, “She’s pretty shook up. Stanley, I apologize for steppin’ on your toes. You’re a good man, and you raised a fine young man here in John Lee. Sometimes the things we have to do on this job go against everybody’s grain, includin’ our own.”

The sheriff put a gentle hand on Paw Paw’s shoulder, then said to John Lee, “Take the rest of the day off.”

“I’m okay. I can work.”

“Then at least brush your teeth and wash your mouth out so nobody else smells that whiskey on your breath.”

The two men got into the sheriff’s white Chevrolet Tahoe and drove away.

Chapter 13

“Victim is a Caucasian male who appears to be somewhere around 50 to 55 years old, approximately six feet tall and slender build. Victim was found lying on his back in bed. Cause of death looks to be blunt force trauma, but we won’t know that for sure until the autopsy,” Jayne Emerson said into her small Sony digital recorder as she and her team worked the crime scene efficiently. “Victim presents with severe injuries to the head and face, and blood spatter on the bed, wall, and ceiling above the bed indicates that the attack took place on the bed.”

She paused the recorder and asked one of her technicians, “Are you through photographing and dusting the towel rod for prints?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said David Henderson. They had worked together for over seven years, but he would never call his supervisor by her first name. She believed in a rigid chain of command and tolerated no familiarity with her subordinates.

Pushing the button to activate the recorder again, she said, “Murder weapon appears to be a metal towel bar, marked Exhibit 9, that was found on the right side of the bed when photographed from the foot. The towel bar is bent and covered in blood. Holes in the bathroom’s wall indicate the bar was torn from the wall there. Photographs 19 and 20 are of towel bar and photographs 30 and 31 are of wall where the bar is believed to have been mounted in the bathroom.”

Around her, the four members of her team worked silently, measuring, photographing, and making notes. Experience had taught them to only talk when necessary during an investigation. Emerson ran one of the best, if not the very best, crime scene crews in the state, and every forensic technician wanted to be a part of it. However, the opportunity came with strict rules and regulations that the supervisor insisted upon. Small talk was fine en route to a job, but once they got there, the focus was entirely on the investigation, and mindless chatter would result in a quick reprimand the first time it happened. There were no second chances if someone made that mistake again.

“Responding officers to the scene report that a motel worker reported the death and said the door to the room was locked when she first approached it, and she used her key to open it and saw the victim. She reported that she did not enter the room,” Emerson continued speaking into the recorder. “Responding officers entered the room, confirmed the victim was dead and that nobody else was present in the room. How much they disturbed the scene in the process is unknown. Photographs indicate that the room was in disorder, with a lamp knocked to the floor, dresser drawers pulled open, and contents appear to have been rummaged through. Empty beer bottles and an empty pizza box were in the trash can, and an opened and partially consumed bottle of Cutty Sark whiskey was found on the dresser. Several strands of blonde hair found on the bed and three in victim’s hand.”

Three hours later she heard voices at the door and looked up to see Elliott Rosenthal and Stanley Nicholson, criminal investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“Took you long enough to get here.”

“We knew you would need time to process the scene before we could enter, so we weren’t in a rush,” said Rosenthal. “What do you know so far?”

“I know this guy’s dead.”

“Can we come in?”

Emerson looked around the room and asked, “Is everyone finished? Everybody got their pictures and measurements and everything?”

When her crew replied in the affirmative, she said, “Help yourself.”

After putting paper booties over their shoes and nitrile gloves on their hands, the two FDLE agents entered the room and looked at the body.

“Somebody really worked this guy over, didn’t they? Any idea what they used on him?”

“Looks to be this towel rod,” Emerson replied, pointing to the large evidence bag holding the towel rod.

“According to Chief Bryant from the city police department, his name is Frank Phillips. He went by the name of Dakota Phillips,” she said. “He’s some kind of record producer or something.”

“That’s what she told us,” Nicholson said. “She said Sheriff Swindle and Chief Deputy Schroeder are on their way back here.”

“Has the body been moved at all?”

“No,” Emerson said. “I was waiting for you guys to get here.”

They rolled the body onto its side and all three studied it carefully.

“What’s this?”

“What, Elliott?”

Using his gloved thumb to push the hair on the back of the dead man’s neck up, Rosenthal pointed to two red marks on the man’s skin.

“Burns, maybe?”

Leaning closer, Nicholson said, “I think somebody used a stun gun on him. What do you think, Elliott?”

“Based on how far apart they are, it could be.”

They studied the body longer and found another set of similar parallel marks under the thick hair in the middle of the man’s back. When they rolled the body back into its original position, Nicholson said, “I don’t see much in the way of defensive wounds, do you?”

“No,” replied Rosenthal. “I think somebody shocked him and then started beating on him with that towel rod before he could do much.”

Studying the man’s battered face, Nicholson said, “It looks like he was assaulted more than once. See how his face is all swollen up and his eye is closed? And those bruises on his throat like someone tried to choke him? I’m no pathologist, but those look older than the other head wounds. Assuming he died from the attack that happened in this room, there wouldn’t have been time for the bruises and the swelling in the face to develop, would there?”

“You’ve got a point,” Rosenthal agreed.

There was a knock on the door frame, and they looked to see Sheriff Swindle and Dick Schroeder standing there.

“I was hopin’ they’d send you two,” the sheriff said. “We got us a can of worms here and y’all are about the best there is.”

“About, Sheriff? You know anybody that’s any better than us?”

D.W. laughed and shook his head and said, “No, I guess not. When y’all get done in there, I’ll bring you up to date on what we know from our end.”

“Now is as good a time as any,” Rosenthal said, and they walked outside. “The motel’s within the city limits. Is this a city case or a county case?”

“I'm running a four-man department and that includes me,” Chief Bryant replied. “Whenever something like this comes along, we turn it over to the county because we just don't have the resources.”

“Okay, I just didn't want to be stepping on anybody's toes,” Rosenthal said.

“The Sheriff and I have a good working relationship, don't worry about that,” the police chief said. “Besides, the last thing I would ever do is step on his toes. His people killed the last two police chiefs we had before I got here.”

“Now, that ain't exactly true, Miranda, and you know it,” D.W. said. “We only killed one of ’em. We fed the other one to a gator.”

“So, what do we know so far?”

“The motel maid found the body, and her uncle, who owns the place, called it in,” Chief Bryant said. “No witnesses that we know of. However, Randy Atwood, the man in the room next door, said that yesterday there was a fight going on between our victim and some woman. It got so loud that he went next door and told them to shut up. According to the maid and Atwood, there was another guy there knocking on the door at the same time.”

“Another guest?”

“No,” Miranda told him. “The motel’s owner said he drove away just about the time Atwood went back into his room. For what it's worth, Atwood has some cuts on his hands. He works construction and says that's how he got them. We ran a check on him and he's clean, no record at all.”

“The reason I asked for the FDLE’s assistance is because we got a conflict of interest goin’ on here. That man in there is some kind of music producer or somethin’ from up in Nashville. Him and Deputy John Lee Quarrels’ mother showed up a few days ago with a song they wrote about John Lee. Don’t know if you’ve heard it on the radio yet or not.”

“I haven’t,” Nicholson said, shaking his head. “How about you, Elliott?”

“No.”

“Well, anyway, John Lee didn’t take kindly to that and can’t say as I blame him. Damn song makes him sound like he’s a combination of Wyatt Earp and Matt Dillon, with a little bit of Jesse James thrown in for good measure,” the sheriff said. “Some of the county supervisors came to my office complainin’ that it made Somerton County sound like the Wild West, and can’t say as I disagree. John Lee said he had told his mama and that fella in the room they was wrong to put that song out without talkin’ to him about it because he didn’t want nothin’ like that to happen. In fact, Dick here found a letter that John Lee’s lawyer had served on the man in there tellin’ them if they didn’t stop with the song, he was takin’ them to court. So, like I said, it gives us a conflict of interest.”

“I can see why,” Rosenthal said. “You said Deputy Quarrels wasn’t happy about the song. Did you think he had anything to do with what happened in that room?”

“Come on now,” D.W. said. “Y’all know John Lee. Hell’s fire. You two were the ones that investigated when he got ambushed and shot up a while back. And I think ya might have investigated one of the shootins’ he was involved in. He’s a good man, not somebody to trifle with. But he ain’t no murderer, is he, Dick?”

Schroeder shook his head and said, “No. John Lee didn’t do this. I’d bet my badge on it. But because of the connection with his mother and the song and all that, there’s no way that we were going to do our own investigation.”

“You said his mother was involved with the song?”

“Yeah. She apparently sees herself as a country singer. I guess this guy was her producer or agent or whatever and she’s the singer.”

“Do you consider her a suspect?”

“I’d like to think not,” the sheriff said. “I’ve known Lisa Marie since she was a little girl. Thing is, she’s kind of an airhead, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what I consider an airhead, but why don’t you tell me, Sheriff?”

“She pretty much abandoned John Lee when he was just a baby, and her parents raised him. Lisa Marie, she was always off searchin’ for whatever was gonna make her happy. Sad fact of the matter is that I got a daughter just like her.”

“Is that the daughter that Deputy Quarrels was married to?”

“It is,” D.W. said, nodding his head in acknowledgment.

“It sounds like Deputy Quarrels has a type a woman he’s attracted to,” Rosenthal said.

“Ya’d think so, but he kind of broke out of that habit now that he’s involved with Maddy Westfall.”

“She’s a deputy, too, isn’t she? Good looking blonde woman?”

“Yep, and she’s right up there with John Lee, bein’ two of my best deputies ever.”

“I remember talking to her after he was shot,” Nicholson said. “She’s sharp, no question about that.”

“Getting back to the mother, besides being an airhead and a country singer, what else can you tell us about her? Any idea of her whereabouts when this happened?”

“We went out to her mama and daddy’s place to make the notification,” D.W. said. “Turned out John Lee had already done that.”

“How did he know about it?”

“He came here to the motel when the call went out,” Schroeder said. “He got here just after I found that letter from his lawyer about suing his mother and the victim. I told him to get out of here and stay away because I knew right away there was going to be a conflict of interest.”

“So, he just happened to show up when the call went out?”

“Don’t go jumping to conclusions, Nicholson,” Schroeder said. “You know what happens when calls like this go out. Every cop within radio range wants to come and see what’s going on.”

“I’m not jumping to conclusions,” Nicholson said. “I’m just trying to get a picture of everything that’s taken place so far. You said you went out to make the notification. How did Quarrels’ mother react?”

“Oh, she was real broke up about it,” D.W. said. “We didn’t talk to her but a minute or two. Her mama said she had been there at the house since the day before.”

“Since yesterday. I thought you said they got into town a few days ago.”

“They did,” Schroeder said. “From what I understand, she’s been staying at the motel with our victim.”

Rosenthal looked toward the room and then back at Schroeder and said, “There’s only one bed in there. So apparently there’s more of a relationship than just professional between our victim and Quarrels’ mother.”

“Like I said, we got us a can of worms here,” D.W. replied.

Chapter 14

The FDLE investigators started out by interviewing Randy Atwood. He was sitting on the bed in his room drinking a beer and looked bleary-eyed. After introducing themselves, Nicholson said, “We’re sorry to bother you, Mr. Atwood. I understand you work at nights.”

“I already called my foreman and told him I wouldn’t be in tonight. I only had about 45 minutes’ sleep before all this shit started happening.”

Based on the clarity of his speech and how little sleep he said he had gotten, Nicholson decided that would explain the eyes, not the beer.

“Chief Bryant told us she had already talked to you, but can you run through it with us again?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Like I told her and that other cop, the only time I ever talked to that guy next door was yesterday when him and some woman were having a big fight.”

“You said fight. Do you mean argument or an actual fight?”

“It started out as an argument, but then I heard them throwing things around and it just got louder and louder. That’s when I went over next door and told them to shut up.”

“Did you talk to the man or the woman?”

“The man came to the door and apologized, saying that him and his girlfriend were having an argument and it got out of hand. One look at him and I could tell it had definitely gotten out of hand, and I think he got the worst of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The whole side of his face was swollen up and his eye was closed kind of. You know, like when you get a black eye? Only this was worse than a black eye. And he had scratches on his face and blood was dripping down all over the place.”

“What about the woman? Did you see her?”

“Not really. I think I saw somebody in the room, but I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. But it was definitely a woman he was arguing with in there. The whole time I was talking to him didn’t last a minute.”

Rosenthal said, “According to what you told Chief Bryant, there was another man there, too. Was he inside the room with them?”

“No,” Atwood said, shaking his head. “At least not when I was there. When I went outside, he was knocking on the door and he kind of stepped back because I pounded on it. I said what I had to say and went back to my room and tried to get some sleep.”

“Can you describe that man, Mr. Atwood?”

Shaking his head, the man sitting on the bed said, “No. Not really. He was a White guy. I don’t think he was very old, maybe mid-20s if I had to guess.”

“Was he tall or short? Can you tell me anything about his hair? Anything at all?”

“I wish I could help you, but I just didn’t pay any attention to him. I was pissed off about the noise, and once I told the other guy to shut up, I came back in here and went back to bed.”

“You said you were pissed off,” Nicholson said. “I can understand that. In this job, we work all kinds of hours, and I’ve got one of those neighbors who thinks he needs to mow his lawn at six o’clock every morning. Sometimes I want to go next door and strangle him when I’ve been up all night.”

Drawing back slightly on his bed, Atwood said, “Hey, man, don’t even go there. I had nothing to do with whatever happened over there. I never laid a hand on that man. You can hook me up to a lie detector or anything else and you’ll find out I’m telling you the truth. I told those other cops, that man and woman who talked to me before, check my record. I’m not someone who runs around getting in trouble. I go to work, I come back to my room and sleep, and I put my money in the bank. You can ask anybody who knows me. I think I was in junior high school the last time I had a fight.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t implying that you had anything to do with it,” Nicholson told him.

The look on Atwood’s face showed he didn’t believe what the agent was telling him.

“I’m serious. Check me out. I’m not the guy you’re looking for. If anybody had something to do with it, I think it was probably that woman that was in the room with him. Like I said, it looked like she beat the dog shit out of him.”

“Thank you for your time,” Rosenthal said. “We appreciate the information, and if you think of anything else, here’s my card. Call anytime.”

Outside the room, Rosenthal asked, “What do you think?”

“He seems like he’s telling the truth,” replied Nicholson. “And Chief Bryant said he came up clean when they ran his record. I think we need to talk to Deputy Quarrels’ mother next. If they were sleeping together, it would make sense she’d be the one we should be looking at first.”

“Yeah, but as long as we’re here, let’s talk to the maid and the owner of the place and see if there’s anything else they can tell us.”

***

Aniki was intimidated when talking to the two men. She had never come into contact with policemen back home in Kolkata and the only people she ever knew who had been were Harsha and Rakesh Kumar, two brothers from school who were always getting into trouble. They were thieves who stole from the merchants in the marketplace and brought shame to their family. Would people think the same of her family after seeing so many policemen at the motel? Would the authorities deport her back to India? What would her parents think if she returned home without the education they had allowed her to come to America to get? What about the futures of her younger siblings if she failed?

These last two men seemed nice, but all of the policemen she had talked to that day had seemed nice. The lady policeman, was that the correct term? She wasn’t sure. The lady had been very kind to her and told her how sorry she was that Aniki had to experience such a thing. But did they really mean it? They kept asking about the woman who had been arguing with the man in room 17. What if they thought she was the one who had been in there with him? No, that was nonsense, she told herself. She was just a girl. Nobody would think she could do something so horrible, could they?

“Aniki?”

She realized she had let her mind drift and was not paying attention, and now the Black policeman was asking her another question.

“I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”

“I asked if you had ever seen the woman who was staying in the room with Mr. Phillips?”

“Yes,” Aniki said, nodding her head.

“What can you tell me about her?”

“She was pretty, and she was nice. She gave me a dollar.”

“Did they seem like they got along okay?”

“I think so. As I said before, he was on the telephone all the time I was in the room.”

“You told the other officers who talked to you there was a policeman in the room. But I didn’t really understand what you meant by that,” said the other policeman, the White one.

“No, not a real policeman. I’m trying to remember the word for it. It was like a photograph, but it was really big.”

“Like a poster?”

Aniki knew that word. Her cousin Kira had posters on the wall in the bedroom that they shared.

“No, not a poster,” she said, shaking her head. “Bigger than that.”

“Like a mural?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know that word. My English is not good yet.”

“Your English is fine,” the man told her kindly. “Here, let me see if I can find a picture of what I’m talking about.” He scrolled through his phone for a minute and then showed her a picture of a drawing on the wall of a building. “This is a mural. Is this what you’re talking about?”

“No, not that either.”

“Can you do your best to describe it to us, Aniki? We know it was a picture of a policeman, and it was big. Can you describe it any other way?”

Aniki thought for a minute and then said. “I think I can show you. Can you wait here, please, for a moment?”

“Of course.”

She went through the office to the apartment where her family lived and found her younger cousins, Idhriti and Rachita playing in their bedroom. She came back to the office and showed the two men a paper doll cut-out of a child.

“It was like this, only as big as you. Only instead of a child, it was a policeman.”

“Wait a minute. I think I know what you’re talking about.”

The White policeman tapped something into his phone and a moment later turned the screen to her with an image of a movie lobby poster of John Wayne in cowboy gear.

“Do you mean something like this?”

“Yes, like that,” Aniki said.

Looking at his partner, the man asked, “Do you remember seeing anything like that in the room?”

“No. Let me go talk to Jayne and see what she says.”

The Black man left the office and came back a few minutes later and said, “It wasn’t there when she and her crew got here.”

They asked her more questions and then thanked Aniki for her time and got up to leave. She was afraid to ask them a question, but she always believed it was better to know what lay ahead than to wonder and worry about it.

“Am I in trouble?”

“Why do you think you would be in trouble?” the Black man asked her.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had to talk to the police before.” Aniki tried to hold back her tears when she asked, “Am I going to be sent home?”

“No, Aniki. Of course not,” her Aunt Fatima assured her, hugging the girl. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Squatting down in front of her, the Black policeman took her hand and said, “Aniki, here in America, the police don’t look for reasons to get people in trouble. We’ve got enough bad people to deal with already without picking on somebody nice like you. I promise you, you’re not in any kind of trouble and no one’s going to send you home, okay?”

She nodded her head, tears of relief spilling down her cheeks.

“You make sure to have yourself a good life here in America, Aniki. You go to school and you do real good, and I promise you, there’s nothing you can’t achieve. I grew up in a really bad neighborhood. Most of the kids I grew up with wound up in jail because they did bad things. But I was like you. I wanted to make something out of myself, and I did.” He smiled at her with the whitest teeth Aniki could ever remember seeing, and said, “You are a very brave girl to leave your home and everybody you knew to come all the way here like you did. Trust me, you’re going to do fine.”

Chapter 15

Maddy had been in court all morning, waiting to testify in a domestic violence case from two months before. After a night of drinking, Jed Difiore and his wife Seela had gotten into an argument that turned violent, and when deputies were called by neighbors, they found Seela with a broken nose and bruises from head to toe. But the ninety-pound woman had given her much larger husband as much as she had received. Jed was sitting in a puddle of blood on the floor in the kitchen with a serrated steak knife sticking out of his left thigh.

Both had been arrested and transported to the hospital in Perry for treatment before being returned to Somerton County and lodged in the jail. Sometime between when they bailed out and when their court dates came, they had made up and both told the judge they were so drunk they didn’t remember what had happened that night or who was to blame. Not convinced that either of them was telling the truth, but with no evidence to go on except the reports from the deputies and the hospital about their injuries, and since there had been no prior incidents reported about the couple, he let them off with a stern warning not to come back and suggested they seek marriage counseling.

Because her radio and phone had been shut off while she was in the courtroom, Maddy didn’t know about the death of Dakota Phillips until late in the afternoon. She immediately called John Lee, and when he answered, she asked, “Where are you?”

“Sitting on the Coon Hollow Road at 90, running radar.”

“I just heard about Dakota. What in the hell happened?”

“I don’t know much because Schroeder told me to get away from the crime scene and not come back. They found him dead in his motel room. It looked like somebody beat him to death.”

“Damn, John Lee. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he told her. “But everything’s kind of crazy right now.”

“Stay where you are. I’m coming there,” Maddy told him.

A few minutes later, when she pulled up next to his Explorer, she got out of hers and got in the passenger seat of his unit.

“Why did Dick tell you to get away from the crime scene?”

“Obviously, it’s a conflict of interest, between my mother being who she is and him being her whatever he was to her. I don’t blame Dick. I’d do the same thing if I was in his shoes.”

“Do they think it was a robbery or what?”

“You know as much as I do, Maddy.”

“Was Lisa Marie there?”

“No. She was at Paw Paw and Mama Nell’s house. I drove out there and told her.”

“Damn. How’d she take it?”

“She didn’t believe me at first, but then, when it sank in, she pretty much fell apart.”

“What a mess.”

“From what I’ve heard on the radio, it looks like they called the FDLE in to run the investigation, so there’s no conflict of interest.”

“What can I do, John Lee?”

“Nothing, honey,” he told her. “I’m sure they’re going to want to talk to both of us. All we can do is bide our time and wait to see what’s going to happen. In the meantime, we just keep doing our jobs.”

***

John Lee’s last official act of the day was a traffic stop of a truck driver from Arkansas who had been going twelve miles over the speed limit. He almost never stopped anybody for five miles over, and depending on where they were, he often looked the other way at ten over. But at twelve over the limit in a big rig, he normally gave a warning. That would not be the case this time.

The driver had an attitude the moment John Lee walked up to the cab of his Kenworth.

“What the hell are you stoppin’ me for?”

“Can I see your license and registration, please?”

“I asked you a question.”

“I asked you one, too,” John Lee told him. “License and registration, please.”

“I wasn’t doing a damn thing wrong! You got no right to pull me over.”

“We’ll get into that after I see your license and registration, sir.”

“You pricks in these little towns really get off messin’ with hard workin’ truckers, don’t you?”

“Sir, there’s no reason for the hostility,” John Lee said. “Again, license and registration, please?”

The man looked at him like he was going to refuse, but then he handed John Lee the required paperwork.

“Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

“You know you’re costin’ me money makin’ me sit here like this for no reason at all?”

John Lee ignored him and went back to his vehicle. He ran the truck’s license plate and the driver’s license and they both came back good. After giving him the information, the dispatcher said, “Can you call me on your phone, please?”

Wondering if there was something the dispatcher didn’t want to go out over the radio about the traffic stop, John Lee said, “10-4,” then pulled out his phone and called.

“What’s up, Dwight?”

“I need to talk to you about something, John Lee. Off the record.”

“Okay. What’s going on?”

“I’d rather do it in person. Can you swing by here when you’re done with your stop?”

“Yeah, no problem. Everything okay?”

“I don’t know, John Lee. I just need to tell you about something.”

“All right. I’ll see you soon.”

The trucker was livid by the time John Lee got back to the cab and handed him his paperwork.

“Hey, dipshit, I told you it’s costin’ me money every minute you keep me sittin’ here. If these

wheels ain’t rollin,’ I’m not makin’ money.”

“No reason to cop an attitude, sir,” John Lee said.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a little kid, asshole! I don’t give a flying fuck whether you like my attitude or not. Don’t you have a sister you should be home screwin’ instead of botherin’ hard workin’ people like me?”

“Please step out of the truck, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked you to.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” John Lee said. “Now, please step out of the truck.”

“What if I don’t?”

“There’s no reason for all this nonsense. All you have to do is follow my instructions.”

“I asked you a question. What if I don’t get out of the truck?”

“Then I’ll pull you out.”

“You think you’re man enough to, asshole? Because I don’t think you are.”

“You know, you may be right,” John Lee replied. “So instead, I’ll just call a couple of other deputies to come and help me. Do you really want to go that route?”

“Sure, why not?”

Just then, Deputy Samuel Gerrison was driving by, and he made a U-turn and pulled in behind John Lee’s unit.

“See, I don’t even have to call. Now, what’s it going to be, sir?”

“You got no right to be hasslin’ me like this!”

“Step out of the truck. That’s an order, and it’s the last time I’m going to tell you.”

Gerrison, a tall, broad shouldered African American deputy with a shaved bullet-shaped head, had played college football and looked like he was on a path to one of the big professional teams until a knee injury while serving with the National Guard during the summer before his senior year put him out of action and ended that dream. He walked up to John Lee and asked, “What do we have here?”

“This gentleman seems to be in a bad mood today,” John Lee told him. “I’ve asked him to get out of his truck, but he doesn’t want to do that.”

“I know this guy. I’ve dealt with him before.”

“There you go, call in your pet nigger,” the driver said.

“Hey, now. Let’s not get off to a bad start,” Gerrison said. “How about you do what this deputy asked you to do and get out of the truck?”

“Maybe I don’t feel like it.”

“Sir, my advice to you is to do what you’re told.”

“You can stick your advice up your black ass for all I care.”

“Really? You’re going to go that route?”

“Fuck off, nigger,” the man said, then spit on Gerrison’s uniform shirt.

“Okay, if that’s the way you want to be, let me tell you something, you redneck peckerwood. If you don’t get out of that damn truck right now, I’m going to crawl in there and I’m going to stomp your ass from one side of the cab to the other. And then when I get done, I’m going to throw you out the window and I’m gonna stomp your ass from one side of this road to the other. And if you still haven’t learned your manners by then, I’m going to get pissed off and do something you really won’t like. So, what’s it going to be?”

The look on the big deputy’s face left no doubt that he meant every word he said.

“Screw you guys. I don’t have time for this bullshit. Let’s get it over with.”

He got out of the truck, and they leaned him against the side and patted him down. Then, while Gerrison searched the cab of the truck and the sleeper, John Lee put him through a series of field sobriety tests. After he had passed all of them, and after Samuel finished searching the truck, they took their time doing a complete safety check of the truck and trailer, looking for any infractions. When they finished, John Lee wrote him a ticket for speeding and another for a faulty brake light.

Before sending him on his way, he told the driver, “For what it’s worth, all I was going to do was give you a warning and send you on down the road. It wouldn’t have taken more than five minutes. The rest of this is all on you, sir. Remember that the next time you get stopped. It might save you a lot of time and a lot of money, too.”

The driver didn’t say a word, he just signed the tickets and got in his truck and drove away. But he stuck his arm out the window and gave them the finger defiantly as he did. Watching him, Samuel said, “He seemed like a pleasant fellow, didn’t he, John Lee?”

Laughing, John Lee said, “Shit, man, you put the fear of God in me the way you talked to him. Who peed in your Cheerios this morning?”

Samuel laughed and said, “He didn’t recognize me, but I pulled that jerk over two weeks ago coming through here and he gave me a ration of shit. I was just returning the favor.”

“Thanks for the help, buddy.”

“I wasn’t doing it for you, I was doing it for him,” Samuel told him as he walked back to his car. “The way I heard it, you haven’t shot anybody in a couple of weeks, and I figured you were about due.”

“Bite me,” John Lee said with a laugh as he got into his own unit and drove away.

***

“Hey, Dwight. Why are you working this shift?”

“Maryanne had to get a root canal, and her mouth was all swollen up. So I’m pulling a double.”

“You’re a good man,” John Lee said.

“Yeah, well, don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Dwight Potter, a retired cop from somewhere up north, usually worked the graveyard shift at the dispatch desk. Calm and levelheaded, he had brought a lot of experience to the sheriff’s department, and John Lee always enjoyed working with him.

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

Dwight looked around to make sure that there was nobody else within hearing, then lowered his voice and said, “I got a phone call a couple of nights ago about you.”

“About me?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think anything about it at first, but after what happened today, I thought you should know.”

“I’m listening.”

“That guy that they found dead in that motel room? He called the other night and wanted to know how to put a protective order out against you.”

“Wait a minute? Dakota Phillips called here about me?”

Nodding his head, Dwight said, “He sounded drunk to me. He said you had assaulted him at the Pour House, and he wanted to know about getting a protective order.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, John Lee. Like I said, I didn’t think much of it at first because people are always calling wanting to make a complaint about a deputy or something. I told him he would have to do that through the court, and if he wanted to make a complaint against you, he needed to come in or call during daylight hours. But I just thought you should know about it.”

“Did you put it in your report for the night, Dwight?”

“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble or anything, but we have to make a list of every call we have, and they’re all recorded.”

“No, that’s okay,” John Lee assured him. “Did you tell anybody else about the call?”

“No. I figured it was bullshit. Like I said, it’s not been the first call like that I’ve ever gotten.”

“Well, in this case, he was telling the truth. We got into it at the Pour House and I punched him out.”

“If you did, I’m sure you had a good reason for it,” Dwight said.

“I thought I did at the time, but I should have known better. Look, Dwight, I want you to tell D.W. about this.”

“I’m not going to rat you out, John Lee.”

“No, I want you to tell him. Like you said, everything’s recorded, and I don’t want this to come back and bite you on the ass later. Tell him you didn’t think about it at the moment, but now, hearing about the man being dead, you wanted to put it on the record. D.W.’s been around long enough that he knows that complaints come in all the time and he’ll understand that you don’t feel the need to run upstairs and tell him about each and every one since they are recorded in the call log.”

“Are you sure, John Lee?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Besides, there were plenty of witnesses there, so it’s going to get out sooner or later, anyhow. You need to cover your ass. I’m a big boy. Don’t worry about me.”

“Anything I can do for you if this blows up in your face?”

“I kicked his ass, but I didn’t kill the guy. I’ll be okay. And I appreciate you telling me about it, Dwight. I really do. As far as anybody else knows, this conversation never happened.”

Chapter 16

The sheriff had already gone home for the day, so when John Lee left the courthouse, he drove to D.W.’s house. Mildred, his ex-mother-in-law, opened the door and said, “John Lee. It’s good to see you! You never get by to visit much anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Milly. I never seem to have enough hours in the day to get everything done I want to do,” John Lee said, as she hugged him and kissed his cheek. He had always been fond of her when he and Emily were married, and he considered himself lucky that both of her parents never held the divorce against him.

“So how was Alaska? Was it everything you hoped it would be?”

“It was absolutely beautiful,” he told her. “I never saw so much snow in my life.”

“Even this time of year?”

“Yes, ma’am. The mountains were covered, and the glaciers were awesome.”

“I sure wish you’d run for sheriff, so D.W. would retire,” she said. “Maybe then I could get him to take a vacation up there. But you know how he is. He thinks a trip to Jacksonville to look at the beach is an excursion.”

“You’ll have to find somebody else for that job. I don’t want it,” John Lee told her.

“Well, I guess you being a big radio star now, that job would look pretty boring to you, wouldn’t it,” Mildred teased, then asked, “Is this a social visit or do you need to see D.W.?”

“I need to talk to him.”

She looked at him with concern and asked, “Is everything all right, John Lee?”

“I think so, but I just need to tell him something.”

“He’s in the bathroom, so depending on which magazine he’s got in there with him, he could be a minute or an hour. Come on in the kitchen and let me pour you some iced tea and then I’ll go tell him you’re here.”

John Lee sat at the familiar table where he had shared so many meals and hours of visiting while she poured the tea and then said, “I’ll be right back.” She returned a moment later and said, “He’ll be with you soon. How’s Maddy? I heard she got sick while you were on your trip.”

“She was fine on the trip, but she got sick on the flight home. She’s better now and back to work.”

They chatted for a few minutes before D.W. appeared, wearing a sheriff’s department T-shirt and slacks. Mildred poured her husband a glass of tea and refreshed John Lee’s and then said, “I’ll leave you two gentlemen to talk.”

“What’s up?”

“I need to tell you about something,” John Lee said. “I should have told you before.”

“This about you kickin’ Dakota Phillips’ ass at the Pour House the other night?”

“You already knew about that?”

“Son, I’ve been the sheriff for 25 years, and my daddy was the sheriff before me, and my granddaddy before him. There ain’t much that happens in Somerton County that I don’t know ’bout.”

“You never asked me about it.”

“I figured it weren’t none of my business. At least not until that fella went and got himself killed.”

“I was out of line, D.W. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Well now, I’ve never known you to go out looking for trouble,” the sheriff said. “So I figure if you jumped on that man, he had it comin’ to him.”

“We were supposed to sit down and talk about that stupid song. He tried to shake me down for $50,000 to pull it off the air. That was bad enough, but then he said some things about Maddy that were way out of line.”

D.W. took a drink of his tea and said, “If someone said somethin’ like that about Mildred, or one of my daughters, or Maddy, for that matter, I reckon I’d have done the same thing you did.”

“Those investigators from the FDLE are going to hear about it pretty soon, one way or the other,” John Lee said. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”

“It would sound better comin’ from you,” the sheriff advised. “Make it plain you got nothin’ to hide.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Do you know if they’re still in town, or did they go back to Tallahassee for the night?”

“I think they’re stayin’ over. I know they were goin’ out to your grandparents’ house to talk to your mother.”

“I wonder how that’s going to go over. You saw how Paw Paw was when you and Dick went out there today. And he considers you guys friends.”

“He was just lookin’ out for his little girl. They’re just doin’ their job, John Lee.”

“I know. I’ll see if I can catch them there. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, D.W.”

“You know my door is always open, John Lee. Whether it’s here or at the office. You’re family.”

Mildred was watching television in the living room, and on his way out, John Lee stopped to tell her goodbye and promised that he and Maddy would get over for a visit the first chance they had.

Driving to his grandparent’s place, he called Paw Paw and asked if the FDLE men were still there.

“Yeah, they’re talkin’ to Lisa Marie.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s taking it hard, John Lee.”

“I imagine so. Can you ask them to wait until I get there? Tell them I have something I need to talk to them about.”

“This about you beating the hell out of Dakota?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there soon.”

***

Paw Paw and Mama Nell were sitting in their rockers on the back porch when John Lee pulled in, and they told him that Nicholson and Rosenthal were inside with his mother. He found them sitting at the kitchen table, Lisa Marie’s eyes red and swollen from crying. Nicholson looked up at him and said, “We’re about done here, Deputy. Can you wait outside?”

“I want him to stay here,” Lisa Marie said.

John Lee thought Nicholson might object, but Rosenthal said, “That’s fine. Pull up a chair, Quarrels.”

John Lee sat down, and Rosenthal turned back to Lisa Marie and said, “According to you, you spent last night here with your parents. May I ask you how come you didn’t stay at the motel with Dakota?”

“I know that my father didn’t much care for him, and Dakota said he had a meetin’ down in Ocala and wouldn’t get back until late. So I had him drop me off here so I could spend time with my parents.”

“And the last time you saw him was yesterday morning?”

Wiping tears from her eyes with a tissue, she replied, “That’s what I told you before.”

“Did he say who he was meeting with in Ocala?”

Shaking her head, Lisa Marie said, “No. I assumed it was about the song. He talks to a lot of radio stations and DJs and things like that. He’s the…,” she stopped herself and then said, “he handled the business end of things and the promotion. I’m the talent.”

“According to what we know so far, sometime yesterday afternoon, there was an argument between Dakota and a woman in that motel room. It was loud enough that the neighbor came over to complain. Are you sure that woman wasn’t you?”

“No!” Lisa Marie’s voice rose stridently as she asked, “How many times do I have to tell you? I was here with my parents.”

“And you never left here?”

“I already told you! No!”

“Then do you have any idea who the woman was in that room with him?”

Shaking her head again, Lisa Marie said, “I have no idea. I don’t know why anybody would be in the room with him.”

“Did he say anything about having a meeting with someone there?”

“No. All I know is he said he was goin’ to Ocala yesterday. We’ve been over all of this twice already. Why do you keep askin’ me the same questions? Can’t you see I’ve got enough to deal with?”

Rosenthal looked at his partner, and then said, “All right, ma’am. We appreciate your time and we’re very sorry for your loss.” Then he looked at John Lee and asked, “There was something you wanted to talk to us about?”

“Yeah. Maybe outside?”

They went outside and got in the FDLE agent’s car, them in the front seat and John Lee in the back. He couldn’t remember how many times he had had a suspect in the same position in his patrol vehicle.

“So, what’s up, Quarrels?”

“I want to be up front and tell you that I had a confrontation with Dakota Phillips two nights ago.”

“Yeah, we heard about that. Sounds like he came out on the losing end.”

“You heard about it?”

“Yeah,” Nicholson said. “Your mother threw you under the bus.”

John Lee wasn’t surprised by that. At the same time, he knew they were top-notch investigators, so they would have gotten the story from somebody before long, anyway.

“So, I have to ask, Quarrels. Did you waste the guy?”

“Absolutely not. The only time I ever laid hands on him was that night at the Pour House.”

“How about if we start at the beginning and you take us through everything that happened there?”

John Lee told them the story, then they took him through it again, step by step. When they were finished, Nicholson said, “It’s kind of interesting that the guy tries to shake you down for fifty large, and then all of a sudden he turns up dead, don’t you think?”

“I told you I didn’t kill him.”

Nicholson looked at him and then at his partner and said, “Elliot, if you needed somebody taken care of, do you think you’ve probably talked to enough people in your career that would be willing to do you a favor if you made it worth their while?”

“I can think of a couple dozen that would. How about you?”

“Oh, easy. All three of us know how cheap life can be here in the real world.”

“Forget it, guys. I didn’t kill Dakota, and I didn’t have anybody do it for me.”

“What about that pretty girlfriend of yours? The way I hear it, she’s a ball buster when she needs to be. What’s the possibility that she knew this guy was trying to stick it to you, so she solved your problem for you?”

“Okay, we can stop right there,” John Lee said. “I came to tell you guys what happened between me and Dakota. Don’t try to drag Maddy into the middle of this, because she had nothing to do with any of it. Understood?”

“We’re going to have to talk to her. You know that.”

“That’s fine. Talk to her. Talk to anybody you need to. But I’m telling you right now, I had nothing to do with it, and neither did Maddy.”

Nicholson smiled at him and said, “It’s been nice talking to you, Deputy Quarrels. Have a nice evening.”

***

While John Lee was talking to Rosenthal and Nicholson, Maddy was at home putting groceries away in the kitchen. They had let their food supply run down before their trip to Alaska, and she figured they needed some fresh meat and vegetables rather than frozen food. Magic had been sitting in the kitchen, watching her every move, hoping there was a treat for him.

“What, boy? Do you really think I’d forget you?”

She took a rawhide treat from one of the grocery bags and unwrapped it while Magic whined expectantly.

“Oh, be patient. I’ve only got two hands.” She finished unwrapping the treat and gave it to him, and he took it in his mouth, wagging his tail in gratitude before he sat down in the corner and started gnawing on it.

“There. Are you happy now? Good. Because John Lee isn’t going to be real happy when I tell him that Audrey Lancaster and Shelby Carpenter both stopped me in the grocery store to tell me how much they liked that song about him. This whole thing is turning into a big mess, buddy. Just when I think Lisa Marie can’t come up with something else to make life miserable, she proves me wrong.”

Suddenly Magic sat up and looked toward the street and woofed.

“What is it? Is he home?”

Magic went to the front door and growled, then barked. Whatever was out there, she knew it wasn’t John Lee. Looking out the window, Maddy saw a blue SUV parked on the road in front of the house and three people standing in the yard. One of them was taking pictures with her phone.

“Now what?”

She was still in uniform but had taken her gun belt off when she got home. Retrieving her .40 Glock pistol, she tucked it into her belt behind her right hip, then walked out onto the porch with Magic beside her.

“Can I help you?”

“It’s her!”

“I think it is!”

“What do you want?”

“Are you Maddy?”

“I asked what you wanted.”

Magic growled low, and Maddy put her hand on his head to steady him.

“You’re Maddy, right? From the song? Is John Lee here?”

“Ladies, you need to get out of the yard, and you need to leave now.”

“We don’t mean you no harm,” one of the women said. “We drove over from Pensacola because we wanted to get you and John Lee’s autographs.”

“Yes,” said another woman who looked enough alike that they were certainly sisters. “We’re big fans of the song. We love you and John Lee, both.”

Though irritated at the intrusion, Maddy relaxed slightly.

“I appreciate that, but I’m not much for signing autographs. Thanks for coming by. I’ll tell John Lee you were here.”

“Oh, please? You’re my hero, Maddy! I want to be a deputy just like you when I get out of high school,” said a teenage girl enthusiastically. “It would be so cool if I could get a selfie with you? Please?”

Suddenly, Maddy understood why John Lee found this whole mess so vexing. But at the same time, there was no doubting the girl’s sincerity. Holding her hand down, palm toward Magic, she said, “Stay,” and walked across the yard. She was certain they weren’t a threat, but also knew that if anybody did anything untoward, the dog would be as good a backup as any deputy she worked with.

“Okay, a couple of pictures, but then I have to get back inside. It’s been a long day.”

She posed for selfies with the young girl and then with all three of them. The girl introduced herself as Shiloh Gardner, and her mother Sandra, and aunt Barbra. She talked to them for a few minutes, answered a few of Shiloh’s questions about being a female police officer, then sent them on their way back across the Panhandle to Pensacola.

John Lee got home about twenty minutes later, and she told him about their fans paying a visit. He wasn’t happy about it, and she couldn’t blame him. In a small town, everybody they dealt with, including those they arrested, could easily find out where they lived. Knowing that people from almost 300 miles away also could was unsettling.

When he told her about his conversation with the FDLE agents, and that they would want to talk to her, and that Nicholson had mentioned the possibility of her being involved in Dakota Phillips’ death, Maddy shook her head and said, “Bring it on. I’ve got nothing to hide, and neither do you. Especially not after you told them about what happened between you and Dakota.”

“I know,” John Lee replied. “Just answer all their questions and tell them the truth. What’s the worst that could happen?”

All too soon, he would find out. 

Chapter 17

Eating dinner at a sports bar named the Flat Armadillo that had a dozen TVs mounted along the walls, some playing a baseball game, others a stock car race, and still others women’s soccer matches, Rosenthal asked his partner, “What do you think so far?”

“Either Lisa Marie’s parents are covering for her and she really was at the motel, or else Dakota Phillips was up to some hanky-panky behind her back,” Nicholson said.

“But who with?”

“That remains to be seen. If that was the case. For all we know, Lisa Marie was the one in that room fighting with him. I’m not ready to rule her out yet, no matter what her parents say.”

“What reason would she have for offing the guy?”

“It’s hard to say,” Nicholson said as the waitress stopped at the table to refill their glasses and ask if they needed anything. After assuring her they were fine and she left, he continued, saying, “Women kill their men for a lot of reasons. You and I have both seen it. Hell, you remember that woman down in Deltona who ran over her old man three times with a four-wheel-drive pickup because she caught him watching porn? What was that she told you? She ran over him so many times because she was tenderizing his soul before he got to Hell?”

“Yeah, that was a bad one,” Rosenthal agreed.

“Maybe when Lisa Marie heard that Phillips tried to shake her son down for fifty grand, the mama bear in her came out and she got pissed off.”

“She didn’t impress me as the mama bear type,” Rosenthal replied.

“All right, so maybe hearing that he was willing to sell out her big dream was enough to set her off.”

“Now, that I can see happening. What about Quarrels? It’s interesting that he came to tell us about his run-in with the victim. Why you think he did that?”

Nicholson shrugged his shoulders and said, “The cynic in me thinks he did because he knew it would come out anyhow.”

“I didn’t know you Black folks were cynical,” Rosenthal said with a chuckle.

“What? Do you Jews think you’re the only ones entitled to feel that way?”

“You’ve got a point there,” his partner agreed with a laugh. “Are you done for the day?”

“Not necessarily,” Nicholson said. “What did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking about going to that bar where Quarrels and Dakota got into it and see if anyone there can tell us anything more about it.”

“So, a Black guy and a Jew walk into a southern redneck bar. Is this a bad joke or what?”

“There you go, being cynical again,” Rosenthal said, as he finished his grilled chicken sandwich.

***

The bleached blonde woman behind the bar nodded as they came in and said, “Hello. Welcome to the Pour House. What can I get ya gents?”

“Thank you,” Rosenthal said, showing her his badge. “We’re from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We wondered if we could ask you a couple of questions?”

“Hey, guys, my liquor licenses are all up to date, I check IDs and don’t serve nobody underage, and I don’t allow any whores in my place.”

“It’s nothing like that. We’re not involved in liquor licenses and such,” Rosenthal told her. “We need to talk to somebody about the night that a local deputy named Quarrels got into a fight with a customer here.”

The look on her face told them it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss, but the woman said warily, “Yeah? What about it?”

“Were you on duty that night?”

“I own the place. If it’s open, I’m here.”

“What can you tell us about the fight?”

“It was a fight. It happens. It wasn’t the first in here and it probably won’t be the last.”

“I understand that,” Rosenthal told her. “But in this case, it was a little different.”

“How so?”

“Because one of the guys in the fight was a police officer and the other one wound up dead.”

“He wasn’t dead when he walked out of here.”

“But he’s dead now.”

“If you two think John Lee killed that man, you’re way out of line. I’ve known him forever. He’s a good guy.”

“Even good guys screw up sometimes, ma’am,” Nicholson said.

Shaking her head, the woman said, “Not John Lee Quarrels. No, sir. I’ve known him a long time, and I’d bet my life on that. I’ve seen him come in here when I called to have somebody thrown out and I’ve seen drunk fools mouth off to him and say things that would get their heads busted with some other folks. But John Lee keeps it professional all the way.”

“So, you’re saying you’ve never seen Quarrels put hands on somebody who got drunk and belligerent?”

“No, that’s not what I’m sayin’ at all. Don’t try to twist my words. I’m sayin’ that he’s a good man, and whatever happened between him and that guy, there must have been a reason for it.”

“Fair enough,” Rosenthal said. “Can you just take us from the start through what you saw?”

“If y’all think I’m gonna tell ya somethin’ ya can use to get John Lee in trouble, ya can forget it and haul your asses right out the door right now.”

“We’ve worked with John Lee before,” Nicholson said. “I like the guy. We’re not trying to hurt him. But the sooner we can eliminate him as a suspect, the sooner we get on to whoever really killed that man. If he were standing here beside us right now, I know he’d tell you that he wants you to cooperate. In fact, he’s the one that came and told us about what happened here,” Nicholson said, fudging a bit by not telling her Lisa Marie had been the first to tell them that there had been some kind of altercation between Dakota Phillips and her son.

The woman was quiet for a moment and then seemed to make up her mind. “I didn’t like that cowboy lookin’ guy as soon as he came in here.”

“Why was that?”

“When ya have stood behind a bar as long as I have, ya can spot trouble a mile away, and that guy just looked like trouble. He come swaggerin’ in here with that black shirt with the pearl buttons and that fancy cowboy hat, lookin’ like he stepped right out of a Western movie or somethin’ like that. He thought he was hot shit.”

“Did he say or do anything that set you off to make you feel that way?”

“No. Just the look about him.”

“Did he have much to say to you?”

“He came in, ordered a shot, and then another one. I think he was on his third when John Lee came in. I knew by then he was trouble.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Some people will sit and nurse a drink. Others down ’em as fast as they can. Those are usually the ones that cause trouble.”

“What happened when Quarrels came in?”

She thought for a moment, then said, “They went over to a table. John Lee had a beer, and the cowboy had another shot and they were talkin’ for a while.”

“Do you know what they were talking about?”

“No. It wasn’t like I was standin’ by the table eavesdroppin’ on them.”

“What happened then?”

“Best as I can recall, I took another round to their table and about then they were raisin’ their voices and gettin’ loud. Next thing I knew, the table was knocked over and John Lee had pushed him up against the wall.”

“Do you know what started all of that?”

“Like I said, I wasn’t eavesdroppin’ on their conversation.”

“Okay,” Nicholson said, “When things got physical, what happened?”

“Me and a couple of guys pulled John Lee off him.”

“So, would you say he was out of control?”

“Damn it, I told you not to put words in my mouth! That’s not what I said.”

“It took a couple of guys and you to get him off the other guy, but that wasn’t out of control?”

Placing both hands on the bar, the woman leaned forward to look Nicholson in the eyes. “Listen. I don’t have a problem with Black folks or White folks or green folks or anybody else if they come to my bar and act like they should. Got it? But if ya think I’m goin’ to make up a bunch of shit to get John Lee in trouble, y’all can haul your sorry asses out of here right now,” she said, pointing at the door.

Rosenthal intervened, saying, “Like my partner said, we’ve worked with John Lee before. We’re the ones that cleared him on that shooting with those drug runners. We both have a lot of respect for him. We do. But if we can’t get to the bottom of that guy’s murder, the next people they send around asking these questions may not know him like we do. They might take the easy way out, and decide that if he had a fight with the man and he turned up dead after that, it had to be John Lee.”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” said a florid-faced man sitting at the bar. “I was here. I saw the whole thing.”

“Shut up, Melvin,” the woman said.

Undeterred, he moved closer and said, “John Lee came in here strutting his stuff like he thought he was hot shit because they were singing about him on the radio. I’ve known the boy forever, and I asked for his autograph for my old lady. He acted like I was White trash.”

“Shut the hell up, Melvin!”

“Oh, come on, Bonnie. I’m just answering their questions. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

The man looked like he had already had a few drinks, but also looked like a few drinks were part of his daily diet.

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Hedges. Melvin Hedges.”

“And you were here when the fight took place?”

“Yeah, John Lee told that guy he’d kill him if he ever said something about Maddy again. Maddy is his squeeze. Good-looking woman, no question about that.”

“Shut up and get out of here,” the bartender said.

“Hey, don’t yell at me, Bonnie,” the man said. “You were the one that told John Lee to back off or you’d call a deputy.”

“That’s it. You’re done, Melvin. Get out of here and don’t come back.”

Apparently, getting 86ed from his favorite watering hole got through to the man and he immediately changed his tune. “Don’t get me wrong, fellas. John Lee’s not a bad guy. If he put his hands on that guy, I imagine he had a reason for it.”

Reaching under the bar, Bonnie pulled out the blunt end of a cut off pool stick and thumped it down on the bar top. “Cops or not, if you guys don’t get out of here, I’m goin’ to…”

Raising his hands in surrender, Nicholson said, “That’s fine. We’re done here. Thank you for your time.”

As they walked out, behind them they heard Bonnie telling the man at the bar what a dumb ass piece of shit he was. Getting in their car, Rosenthal said, “That was interesting. Quarrels told us he assaulted Dakota. But he never mentioned threating to kill him.”

“Yeah. That complicates things,” Nicholson said.

Chapter 18

“If Stanley and Nell said Lisa Marie was at their house all day and all night, you can take that to the bank,” D.W. told the FDLE investigators the next morning. “I know he looks like a damn hippie with that long gray ponytail of his, but I’ve known the man since I was a road deputy workin’ under my father and I got a lot of respect for him. I know he grows a little wacky tobacky, but only for his own use. He’s a decorated Vietnam veteran, and I reckon that after all he went through over there, I’m willin’ to look the other way about that. Because I’ll tell you right now, if y’all were stuck in a flood and the water was up to your neck, Stanley would be showin’ up with a rowboat to save ya. Now Nell, some people say she’s wacky ’cause she’s obsessed with Elvis. You probably saw all the pictures and decorations with his face on it at their place.. But she’s a good woman and honest as the day is long. Tell you the truth, I don’t know how the two of them came up with a daughter as flaky as Lisa Marie. But then again, like I told you yesterday, I got one just like her, so there is that.”

“After we talked to Lisa Marie and her parents, and then Quarrels yesterday, we went to the Pour House and talked to the owner and a fellow named Melvin Hedges about a fight that Deputy Quarrels got into with Dakota Phillips. I guess Quarrels whipped him pretty good.

“Melvin Hedges? Shoot, don’t listen to nothin’ that old boy’s got to say. He’s dumber than a box of rocks. If he fell in a barrel of titties, he’d come out suckin’ his thumb.”

“Sheriff, Deputy Quarrels himself said he got into a fight with the victim,” Nicholson said. “And both his own mother and the woman who owns the Pour House confirmed it happened.”

“I never said it didn’t happen,” D.W. replied. “John Lee told me about it himself.”

“Wait a minute. You knew about the fight, and you didn’t tell us, Sheriff Swindle?”

“Now don’t go gettin’ on your high horse, Nicholson,” the sheriff said. “I didn’t know about it until after I talked to y’all at the motel yesterday. John Lee came to my house yesterday afternoon and told me. He asked if I should tell you or if he should tell you himself, and I suggested he ought to do it himself.”

“Did he tell you that he threatened to kill Phillips?”

They could tell the sheriff was surprised at that news, and he shook his head and said, “No, he didn’t tell me that.”

“Why do you think that is, Sheriff?”

“Can’t say as I know,” D.W. said. “I guess that’s a question y’all will have to ask him yourself.”

“We plan to,” Rosenthal said, then added, “You do realize this changes the whole investigation, don’t you?”

“Come on, guys. Y’all have worked with John Lee Quarrels in the past. He ain’t no killer.”

“With all due respect, Sheriff Swindle, you called us in because you needed an outside agency looking into this thing due to the conflict of interest because of that song about Quarrels,” Rosenthal said.

“I did. I’m just sayin’ that you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, is all.”

“That may be true,” Rosenthal said. “If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. And I hope to God we are. Neither of us has any personal animosity toward Deputy Quarrels. We both respect him. But we’re here to do a job.”

Nodding his head, D.W. said, “I get that. I guess all I can say is keep barkin’ up all the trees and eventually the polecat that killed that man is goin’ to fall out. And it won’t be John Lee.”

“I hope not,” Rosenthal said.

“Somethin’ else you need to know. Somethin’ I was just made aware of myself.”

“What’s that, Sheriff?”

“I was just informed by one of our dispatchers that the night John Lee and that Dakota fella tangled, he called the dispatcher asking ’bout puttin’ out a protective order against John Lee.”

When they left the Sheriff’s office, Nicholson said, “I’ve never had a reason to doubt anything Sheriff Swindle said, or Quarrels either, for that matter. What do you think, Elliot?”

“I won’t lie to you. I’m a bit confused myself. Just in the interest of propriety, I think we need to talk to Chief Bryant and see if she’s got a conference room we can use for interviewing people instead of doing it here.”

“Do you think Sheriff Swindle would bug the room or something?”

“No need to bug it. It’s got video and sound surveillance built in. I’d just feel more comfortable if we knew who was watching and listening.”

***

Maddy wasn’t surprised when she got the phone call saying that the FDLE men wanted to talk to her, but she wondered why they wanted to do it at the police station instead of using one of the interview rooms at the Sheriff’s Department.

“Hello, Deputy Westfall. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, back when John Lee got shot,” Maddy said.

“It’s good to see he’s fully recovered and back on the job,” Rosenthal told her.

“I don’t think there’s a doctor or a set of handcuffs big enough to keep John Lee out of a patrol car,” Maddy said, then asked, “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes, ma’am. I guess you know by now that Sheriff Swindle and Chief Bryant called us in to investigate the death of Dakota Phillips.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Maddy said, nodding her head. “Whatever you need to know from me, just ask.”

Before starting the interview, Rosenthal said, “For the record, this is an interview with Deputy Madison Westfall of the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department. The interview is taking place at the Somerton Police Department, and present in the room are myself, FDLE Special Agent Elliott Rosenthal, FDLE Special Agent Stanley Nicholson, and Deputy Westfall. The time is now 10:05 AM. Deputy Westfall, are you aware that this interview is being audio and video recorded?”

“Yes, I am,” Maddy said.

“Deputy Westfall, we are here in Somerton because Police Chief Bryant and Sheriff Swindle requested the FDLE to investigate the death of one Frank Phillips, also known as Dakota Phillips. Had you met Mr. Phillips prior to his death?”

“Yes, a couple of times,” Maddy replied.

“Can you tell us when and where those meetings took place?”

“The first time was at our house. I can’t tell you the exact date, but it was about a year ago.”

“Deputy, when you say our house, are you referring to the house that you live in with Deputy John Lee Quarrels at 4105 Bishop Road?”

“That’s correct.”

“For the record, Deputy Westfall, what is your relationship to Deputy Quarrels?”

“I’ve known John Lee since we were both little kids. My older brother and him were best friends before my brother drowned when he was seventeen. John Lee and I have always been close.”

“You have always been close? Are you and Deputy Quarrels now involved in a romantic relationship?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Can you tell me how long that part of the relationship between you and Deputy Quarrels has existed?”

“I always had feelings for John Lee, but we were just friends for a long time. It’s been about two years now since we became romantically involved.”

“Getting back to the time that you met Mr. Phillips, you said he came to the house where you and Deputy Quarrels live about a year ago. What was the reason for that visit?”

“Dakota and John Lee’s mother were involved in their own relationship, and she showed up at the house to introduce him to us.”

“And how did that go, Deputy Westfall?”

“Not well,” Maddy said.

“Why was that?”

“John Lee and his mother have been estranged most of his life. Lisa Marie’s kind of an airhead, and that’s putting it mildly. She’s always off on some fantasy adventure, and the latest one is being a country singer. She basically abandoned him when he was real little, I think maybe a year old, no more than two. She dropped him off with his grandparents and went off to do something. I think somebody said that was the time she was going to join a commune in New Mexico. Or maybe it was when she decided she was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. It doesn’t really matter because the end result is that his grandparents raised him. I don’t know if you’ve met them yet, but they’re great people.”

“We have,” Rosenthal told her, then said, “So Deputy Quarrels wasn’t happy to see his mother, especially uninvited, and Dakota seemed to rub him the wrong way?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think that was, Deputy Westfall?”

“I don’t know. Some people just have that effect on others. Haven’t you met somebody you didn’t like, right off the bat?”

“It happens,” Rosenthal agreed. “Did anything specific happen during that visit to your home?”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, was there any kind of argument or anything like that?”

“I know that John Lee basically threw them out, if that’s what you mean.”

“Why was that?”

“As I said, he and his mother don’t really have a relationship, and he didn’t like Dakota as soon as he met him. John Lee’s mother, Lisa Marie, said that Dakota was a music producer and all this stuff. Then Dakota started talking about how he was going to write a song about John Lee, and John Lee told him not to do that and that he had no interest in it. That’s when he threw them out.”

“What about the next time you saw Mr. Phillips? When and where was that?”

“Three days ago,” Maddy told him. “We had just gotten back from Alaska the night before, and John Lee had left his dog with his grandparents. When we went to pick him up, Lisa Marie and Dakota were there. That’s when we learned about the song.”

“When you say the song, are you referring to the song that Phillips wrote and Deputy Quarrels’ mother performed? The Ballad Of John Lee?”

“Yeah, that’s the song. They had this big blown-up picture of John Lee in his uniform and had it on album covers. Dakota and his mother were talking about how it was playing on the radio all over the country.”

“What was Deputy Quarrels’ reaction to it?”

“He hit the roof. He told them he’d had already said he didn’t want anything to do with any song they were going to write or any of that, and that they needed to do whatever they had to do to put a stop to it right then and there.”

“Did they agree to do that?”

“No. They said it was already out on the radio, and it was going to be a big hit and just went on and on about what a great opportunity this was for Lisa Marie and for John Lee, too. Dakota said he had a book and a movie deal in the works. It was like they were just ignoring everything John Lee said.”

“How did that encounter end up?”

“We left,” Maddy said. “I could tell John Lee was about at the end of his rope with him, and I said we needed to get home and get some rest.”

“Did he seem in a better frame of mind after you two left his grandparent’s house?”

“Not really. He was still ticked off.”

“Can you tell us what he was saying?”

“I don’t know exactly. Just they had no right to use his name and his picture and all that when he already told him not to.”

“So, is it fair to say that Deputy Quarrels was very angry?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“At that time, did he say anything about wanting to do harm to Mr. Phillips?”

“He said he wanted to shoot him or beat him half to death something like that,” Maddy replied and immediately wished she had not said that.

“He said he wanted to shoot Mr. Phillips?”

“He didn’t mean it. He was just blowing off steam. Come on, don’t try to make this more than it is. John Lee didn’t kill that guy.”

“But he said he was going to shoot him or beat him.”

“No, that’s not what I said. He said he wanted to shoot him. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

Maddy felt trapped and was mentally kicking herself. She had interrogated plenty of suspects and interviewed many witnesses during her time as a deputy and couldn’t believe she had let her mouth run away with itself that way.

“Yeah, there’s a difference.”

“Tell me what that difference is, Deputy Westfall?”

“Okay, you’re both guys, right?”

“I was the last time I checked,” Nicholson said.

“Can either of you honestly say you haven’t seen a pretty woman and the thought crossed your mind that, if circumstances were different, you might want to, you know, get to know her a little better? Like on a personal level? But that doesn’t mean you’re going to act on it, does it?”

Rosenthal had to smile at the way she had turned the tables on them, and said, “Touché.”

“That’s what I mean. John Lee said something, but it doesn’t mean he was gonna run out and kill the guy.”

“Are you aware that Deputy Quarrels had a physical confrontation with Dakota Phillips and that he assaulted him?”

“Yes, he told me about that.”

“Did he say why that happened?”

“He told me that Dakota said something nasty about what he’d like to do to me. Sexual things. He had already told John Lee that he would trash the whole song thing if John Lee gave him a bunch of money. Money that John Lee doesn’t have. Dakota had said he knew I got a settlement from the city after what happened to me, and also that I had inherited the property where my mother’s house was, and that had to be worth quite a bit of money. He said something like, since we were a couple, John Lee could pay him off with that money.”

“Can you tell us where Deputy Quarrels was two nights ago?”

“He was home with me.”

“All night?”

“Yes, all night.”

“What about during the afternoon, before nightfall?”

“We were working, then when we got off duty we came home and didn’t go out again. Wait a minute, that’s wrong. I think that was the night we went out to dinner with Dixie Landrum. She works for the newspaper.”

“Can you tell me what Deputy Quarrels’ reaction was when he heard about the death of Mr. Phillips?”

“I can’t tell you his immediate reaction because I wasn’t there,” Maddy replied. “I was testifying in court on a domestic violence case. I didn’t hear about it until after I was done there. Then I called John Lee and found out where he was and went and talked to him.”

“What was his demeanor like?”

“His demeanor?”

“Did he seem upset, agitated, anything like that?”

“Not that I recall. He just seemed like himself.”

“So the guy that wrote the song about him, that he had a confrontation with and punched out, the guy who he said he wanted to shoot, turns up dead, he doesn’t show any emotion about that?”

“No, he didn’t show any emotion about it,” Maddy said. “Don’t go try to make it look like he’s some cold, heartless killer. You guys both know John Lee better than that.”

Nicholson looked at Rosenthal and asked, “Do we really know him better than that? Because I’ve got to be honest with you, Elliot, I’m not so sure anymore.”

Chapter 19

Maddy was cursing herself as she left the police station and got back in her patrol car. Stupid stupid, stupid! How could she have been so damn stupid to say something like John Lee said he wanted to shoot Dakota? All the time she’d spent wearing a badge, and she hadn’t learned a damn thing! One of the first lessons in interrogation was for the officer to keep their mouth shut and let the suspect or witness do the talking. Nine times out of ten, they would tell you things that they never would if you asked them about it directly. She needed to find John Lee and let him know what was going on, how badly she had messed up.

She started her Explorer and waited while the hot air blowing out of the vents turned cold as the air conditioner took over. John Lee was going to be so pissed! And she couldn’t blame him. She was such an idiot!

She called his number and waited for him to answer, but he didn’t. When she heard the beep to leave a message, she said, “John Lee, I need to talk to you. Call me back as soon as you can. It’s important!”

She needed to check in with the dispatcher to report she was back in service, so she keyed her radio and said, “County 28 is back in service in front of the P.D.”

“10-4, 28, back in service,” replied the dispatcher. “28, can you respond to the Morningstar Restaurant? The manager says they have an unruly customer there. All city units are working an accident on Decatur Street.”

“10-4,” Maddy said, “Morningstar Restaurant.”

As she drove the six short blocks to the restaurant, she listened to radio traffic, hoping John Lee might check in, but he never did. Arriving at the restaurant, she walked inside to see a man with shaggy blonde hair who looked to be in his mid-20s standing at the counter wearing cutoff denim shorts and a dingy wife beater T-shirt that might have been white at some time in the past.

Tami Bolster looked at Maddy with relief and said, “I’m so glad you’re here!”

“What seems to be the problem, Tami?”

“I’ll tell ya what the problem is,” the man said before Tami could reply. “The problem is that this dizzy bitch won’t take my credit card.”

“Hey, don’t start with the attitude,” Maddy told him. “And watch your mouth.”

“I tried to tell him that the card is expired, and when I ran it, it was refused,” Tami said. “It’s not my fault.”

“And I told you that a new one hasn’t gotten to me yet,” the man said.

“Wait a minute. Your card was declined because it’s expired, right?”

“That’s what this bi… woman is saying.”

“And for whatever reason, you haven’t gotten a new card from the bank, right?”

“Yeah, but she should still take the old card.”

“How is she supposed to do that if the bank declines the charge, sir?”

“I don’t know. How am I supposed to know how that stuff works?”

“Can I see some identification, sir?”

“Why?”

“Because I asked you.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, sir. I just want to know who I’m talking to. I’m Deputy Westfall, as it says on my name tag. So, you know who I am and I’d like to know who you are.”

“Dean McDaniel.”

“Can I see your driver’s license, or some other identification, please, Mr. McDaniel?”

“Why? I already told you who I am.”

“Sir, I don’t know why you’re making a big issue out of this. Just show me your license.”

“Is there a law that says I have to?”

“Yes, sir. Florida is what’s known as a ‘stop and ID state.’  That means that you have to show an officer your identification if there is a reasonable suspicion that you are involved in some sort of criminal activity.”

“What criminal activity? What crime have I committed?”

Turning to Tami, Maddy asked, “Once you told him his card was declined, did you ask him for another form of payment?”

“No. He just kept telling me to run the card again, and I did it three times. It’s still not good.”

“Sir, you’re going to have to pay her with some other form. Do you have another card or cash on you?”

“No, that’s the only card I have,” the man said.

“What about cash?”

“This is ridiculous! All she has to do is run the card.”

“Sir, I don’t know how else we can explain it to you,” Maddy said. “The card is no good. If you don’t have another card, you need to pay her in cash.”

“I’m not gonna do that. Just run the damned card again.”

“Last time I’m going to tell you, sir. If you have cash, pay her.”

“No. It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Okay, can I see your ID?”

“We’ve already been through that. You’re the one that said you have to have suspicion I’ve been involved in a crime.”

“That’s right,” Maddy told him. “Refusing to pay a restaurant bill of under $300 is a second degree misdemeanor. It carries a penalty of up to sixty days in jail and a fine of up to $500. Now, let me see your identification. If you refuse again, that’s another charge.”

“Jesus. You people are crazy!”

“Identification please. It’s the last time I’m going to ask. The next thing is you go in handcuffs.”

Maddy’s cell phone rang, but she couldn’t answer it in the middle of what she was doing. She hoped it was John Lee calling her back, and the sooner she got done with this clown, the sooner she could find out.

The young man took out his wallet, one of those nylon things with a Velcro closure, and opened it to give her his driver’s license. Maddy noted that there were several bills in the wallet.

“Stand by, please.”

She stepped away and called the dispatcher and ran the man’s license. It came back with no open wants or warrants. She thanked the dispatcher, then handed the man’s license back.

“A minute ago, you said we’re crazy. But how crazy is it that you have cash in your wallet and you’re acting like this over a stupid expired credit card?”

“I said it’s the principle of the thing.”

“Well, principle or not, you have two choices, my friend,” Maddy told him. “You can pay your bill and you can get the heck out of here, or I can arrest you. Do you have a car?”

“Of course I have a car.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s that red Nissan pickup out in the parking lot.”

“Well, it’s not going to be in the parking lot much longer,” Maddy said. “Because when I arrest you, I’m going to have a tow truck come and pick it up. So, on top of the fine and the possible jail time you’re looking at, you’ll also have a towing bill and an impound fee. How much is his bill, Tami?”

“$10.27.”

“Really? All this nonsense for ten bucks?” She reached behind her and pulled her handcuffs from the pouch on her belt and said, “Turn around and put your hands behind your back, sir.”

“Wait a minute! You’re really gonna arrest me over ten bucks?”

“You’re really going to get arrested for ten bucks? The choice is yours.”

“Okay, I’ll pay the damn bill. But I’ll tell you something. I’m never coming in this place again.”

“I’m sure that the management and staff would appreciate that,” Maddy told him.

“And I’m not leaving a damn tip, either.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Maddy watched while he paid the bill in cash and Tami gave him back his change and expired credit card. As he walked away, Maddy said, “You be sure to have yourself a nice day, sir. And drive carefully. I’d hate to have you get pulled over for some traffic infraction.”

After he was gone, Tami said, “Thanks Maddy. I’m sorry for the hassle. I couldn’t make him understand that I can’t do anything when the bank turns down his credit card.”

“Sometimes the only way you can get through to people is to hit them in the head with a ball bat. Or else pull out a pair of handcuffs,” Maddy told her, then wished her a good day and left the restaurant.

As soon as she was back in her unit, she checked her phone. But the missed call wasn’t from John Lee. It was an 888 number. Probably some damn telemarketer. She used her phone to call the dispatcher. “Sheila, it’s Maddy. I’m all clear at the Morningstar. Do you know where John Lee is?”

“Yeah, he’s upstairs in D.W.’s office.”

“Is anything wrong?” Sheila Sharp was a good dispatcher but also a nosey busybody who thrived on gossip, so Maddy was careful not to ask her too much.

“I don’t know, Maddy. D.W. told me to call him on the phone and tell him he needed to see him at his office. He hasn’t reported back in service, so I don’t know what’s up.”

***

John Lee wasn’t sure why the sheriff wanted to see him, but he had a feeling it had something to do with the investigation into Dakota’s death. When he knocked on D.W.’s open door frame, the sheriff said, “Come on in. Close the door behind ya, John Lee.”

That was never a good sign. And the look on Chief Deputy Dick Schroeder’s face wasn’t a good sign, either.

“Have a seat, son.”

Sitting down, John Lee asked, “What’s going on?”

“Well, we have us an issue,” D.W. said.

“Okay. What’s the issue?”

“When ya came to my house last night and told me about having that fight with Dakota Phillips, I told ya that sometimes things happen. But the thing is, John Lee, you never said anythin’ about wantin’ to shoot him.”

“What? I never said that.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Who told you that, D.W.?”

“Those FDLE boys said someone told them that during an interview.”

“Well, whoever they’re talking to is full of shit!”

“John Lee, Maddy told them that,” Schroeder said.

“What? No. There’s something wrong here,” John Lee said, shaking his head in confusion.

“Why would Maddy say that if it wasn’t true?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, John Lee, we’re all friends in this room. You know that. And I can’t think of any reason Maddy would say somethin’ that wasn’t true, can you?”

“No, D.W., I can’t.”

“Is it possible that after you found out about that stupid song your mama and Dakota cooked up, that you might have said somethin’ like that off the cuff and never even realized it?”

John Lee started thinking about every conversation he had with Maddy since they had gone to his grandparent’s house and found Lisa Marie and Dakota there waiting for them. Had he said something like that? He guessed it was possible. He knew he was really upset.

“I honestly don’t remember saying it, but if Maddy said I did, I guess I did. But I didn’t mean anything by it. I hope you guys believe me.”

“Of course we believe you,” the sheriff said. “But the thing is, when you had that fight with Dakota at the Pour House, people there heard you say you were going to kill him, too. That don’t look good when the man turns up dead right after that.”

“Did you say that to him at the bar that night?”

“Yeah, I think I did, Dick.”

“You think you did?”

“No, I’m pretty sure I said something like if he ever talked that way about Maddy again, I was going to tear him limb from limb and the undertaker would be putting him back together.”

“That same night Dakota Phillips called the dispatcher wanting to put a protective order out against you.”

The look between the chief deputy and the sheriff told John Lee that he was in trouble. He just wasn’t sure how much.

“John Lee, with all of this goin’ on, I need you to put yourself in our place. We can’t have you out on the road right now. People are talkin’ all over town about you threatenin’ that man.”

“I didn’t kill him. I admit I flew off the handle at that bar, and I told you last night I was way out of line. But I swear to God, I didn’t kill him.”

“We believe you,” Schroeder said. “If we didn’t, we’d be asking for your badge and duty weapon right now.”

“Am I fired or suspended or what?”

“No, you’re not fired or suspended, but we’re takin’ you off the street for now,” D.W. told him. “We’re puttin’ you on jail duty for now.”

John Lee hated jail duty. He much preferred to be out on the street actually doing his job. But it was something that all the deputies had to rotate through because they didn’t have the manpower to have officers permanently assigned to the jail downstairs. But it could be worse, and he knew that D.W. and Schroeder were doing him a favor.

“All right. When do I start?”

“Next shift,” Schroeder told him. “You’ll relieve Livingston. In the meantime, go home and get some rest or do whatever, but don’t be out on the street in your unit.”

“Thank you. Both of you,” John Lee said. “I know this wasn’t easy for you. And I know if some of those people from the Board of Supervisors had their way, I’d be out the door already.”

“Those pencil pushers can shove whatever they want where the sun don’t shine as far as I’m concerned,” D.W. told him. “Just keep a low profile until this all blows over, John Lee. I know those FDLE guys are lookin’ at you, but they’re no fools. They’ll get to the bottom of this and we’ll get things back to normal.”

John Lee nodded his head and left the office, thankful he still had a job.

Chapter 20

They met as Maddy was coming up the stairs at the courthouse and John Lee was coming down. The look on his face told her all she needed to know.

“Oh, John Lee.”

“Outside,” he said.

She followed him out the back door to the sheriff’s parking lot and said, “I messed up really bad, John Lee. I am so sorry. I can’t believe how stupid I was.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her.

“I should have known better. I was talking to the FDLE guys, and they were asking me questions and the next thing I knew, I just blurted out about you saying you wanted to shoot Dakota. I’m so damn stupid!”

“Maddy, it’s all right. It wasn’t just that, anyway. They talked to the people at the Pour House about the night I decked him, and he had also called the dispatcher that night asking how to get a protective order against me. So don’t go blaming yourself because I lost my temper and acted like a fool.”

“So, are you fired or suspended or what?”

“No, although I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had been. They put me on jail duty for now until things blow over.”

“Well, I guess it could be worse. But it still sucks. If you want to scream or holler at me, you go right ahead. I deserve it.”

“I’m not mad at you, Maddy. Stop that. This is all on me. I should have handled the whole thing differently right from the start.”

“Do you think they’re going to try to pin Dakota’s murder on you?”

“Nicholson and Rosenthal are professionals. They’re not going to jump to conclusions just to close a case. All we can do at this point is let the whole thing play out and see what happens.”

“But what if they do decide you did it, John Lee? What if some hard ass in the state’s attorney’s office wants to make a name for themself at your expense?”

“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he told her. “In the meantime, all we can do is wait to see what happens.”

“Do you think you need to talk to that attorney you hired to do that cease-and-desist letter?”

“About what, Maddy? I haven’t been charged with anything and I really don’t think I’m going to be.”

“What can I do?”

“There’s not anything either of us can do. The Sheriff’s Department has to have a hands-off policy on this whole mess. If you start poking around on your own, it’s only going to make things worse for everybody.”

“Hey there, gunslinger. How you doing, buddy? Hello Maddy.”

Deputy Andy Stringer, a big bellied man with huge hands and a good sense of humor, was on his way into the building.

“Hi, Andy. What are you up to?”

“I’ve got to appear in court this afternoon on that guy that was shoplifting the booze from the Palmetto Pantry. He’s still insisting someone else put both bottles in his pants without him knowing it.”

Shaking her head, Maddy said, “I can’t tell you how many times someone has put something in my pants without me knowing about it.” Then, realizing how that might sound, her face reddened and she pointed her finger at Andy and said, “Not one word! Not one damn word.”

He laughed and asked, “Not even wow?”

“That’s three words,” Maddy said, laughing.

“Well, I better get in there. Y’all take care.”

When he left them, Maddy asked, “Where were we?”

“I was telling you that we need to keep our hands off this whole thing. If we believe in the justice system that we work for every day, we have to trust it to do its job.”

“That’s a lot easier to say when it’s somebody else and not you in the crosshairs, John Lee. You’d feel the same way if it was me.”

“I know that, baby. Look, I’ve got to get home, and I may run by Paw Paw and Mama Nell’s before I have to come back to work at the jail.”

“If you need anything, you let me know, okay? Anything at all.”

“I will, Maddy.”

They were always careful about public displays of affection when they were in uniform, but this time Maddy hugged him and kissed him, and there were tears brimming up in her eyes.

“I love you so much, John Lee.”

“I love you, too. I’ll talk to you later.”

***

Magic was always eager to go for a ride, so after John Lee changed into jeans and a T-shirt, he jumped in the back seat of the pickup for the ride to John Lee’s grandparents’ farm. As soon as the door opened, he jumped to the ground and ran around sniffing excitedly, like he had never been there before.

Paw Paw came out of one of his workshops, where he had been busy on one of his many projects. He loved to tinker and was always building something or trying to make something work better. The large front yard held several sculptures of knights and dragons and all sorts of creatures that he had welded together from scrap metal, two old claw foot bathtubs, one on each side of the driveway, were planted with colorful flowers, and a windmill he had constructed stood over the barn.

“What’s up? How come you’re not working?”

“They took me off the street and put me on jail duty for the time being.”

“You’re kidding me? What a crock of bullshit,” Paw Paw said, crossing his arms over his chest. “All because you beat the hell out of that guy?”

“No, because the guy I beat the hell out of wound up dead,” John Lee said.

“But you didn’t do that.”

“No, but I shot my mouth off in front of people, and now it’s coming back to bite me on the ass.”

“I’ve got half a mind to go down there to the courthouse and tell D.W. just what I think of them acting like you’re the one that killed Dakota.”

“Don’t even think about that, Paw Paw. Like I told Maddy, let the FDLE people do their job. They know what they’re doing.”

“If they knew what they were doing, they would have arrested whoever killed him already.”

“It’s not like television, Paw Paw. Everything doesn’t get wrapped up in sixty minutes.”

“Want some tea?” John Lee looked towards the house, and Paw Paw said, “Don’t worry, she’s not here.”

He hadn’t even noticed that his grandmother’s Cadillac, decked out with Elvis Presley stickers, was gone.

“Your mom only brought one change of clothes because she was just going to spend the night and the day, and they won’t let her back in the motel room. So Nell took her over to the Walmart in Lake City to get something to wear.”

They went up to the back porch and Paw Paw said, “Cop a squat, I’ll be right back.”

He went inside and came back with two tall glasses of iced tea and handed one to John Lee as he sat down on the rocker next to him. Magic came up on the porch and nudged Paw Paw with his nose, wanting his head petted. The old man stroked his head and ruffled his ears and said, “How you doing, boy? You’re staying out of trouble?”

The dog wagged his tail, then went back to the yard, nose to the ground, following some scent trail.

“Did you ever think what it would be like if we could smell as much as a dog does? I read somewhere that a German Shepherd can smell forty times more than we can. Do you reckon that would be good or bad, John Lee?”

“I can see where it might come in handy sometimes, but there’s a lot of places I’ve had to go and a lot of people I’ve had to put in the back of my car that smell bad enough with the nose I have now, let alone anything more.”

Paw Paw laughed and asked, “Do you remember Elmira Hosler?”

“The name is familiar, but I can’t place her.”

“She was a big old gal, used to live down the road a-piece. I swear, that woman put on half a bottle of perfume every time she left the house. She’d come by to gossip with Nell, and I could tell she was here before she ever started her car at home. Imagine a poor dog having to put up with that?”

“Yeah, I remember her now,” John Lee said. “When I was little, she’d want to pick me up and hug me and I’d have to hold my breath till she put me back down.”

“Well, that’s what you get for being such an adorable little kid,” his grandfather said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Whatever happened to her, Paw Paw?”

“Died in her sleep. I was the one that found her. Her and Nell were supposed to be going off to Gainesville for a big shopping trip and she never showed up. Nell called her two or three times and she never answered the phone, so she sent me down there to check on her. I got to tell you, son, I smelled some terrible things in Vietnam, but nothing like I did when I went into that woman’s house. I can still remember it, and almost taste it.”

“Had she laid there two or three days?”

“Hell no! She’d been on the phone with Nell the night before. It wasn’t about her body rotting, it was just all that perfume laying heavy in the air. It was like walking into a cloud of tear gas. I was out on the front porch when the EMTs came, and I had tears running down my face. One of them thought I’d lost my wife. I said no, that wasn’t it at all, and when that young fellow came outside toting one end of that stretcher, he had tears running down his face, too.”

John Lee chuckled, and then his grandfather grew serious and asked, “You have any idea who killed Dakota?”

“Nope.”

“I ain’t no cop, but on TV shows they always look at the people closest to them first when somebody gets themselves killed. You know where I’m going with this?”

“I do. Do you think Lisa Marie had anything to do with it, Paw Paw?”

“I don’t see how. I was telling the truth when I told those investigators that he dropped her off here in the morning and said he was going down to talk to people at some radio stations. And she was here with me and Nell all the time after that. First we heard about him being dead was when you came and told us.”

“She seemed to take it pretty hard.”

Paw Paw was quiet for a minute as he watched the dog still sniffing around the yard and then up toward the barn. Then he nodded his head and turned to John Lee and said, “Yeah, she was pretty broke up about it. And I know this sounds bad when I say it, me being her father, but I’ve been asking myself if she was so broke up because the man was dead, or because she knows it’s going to end her so-called singing career.”

John Lee took a drink of his tea and contemplated what his grandfather had said. Was there genuine love between his mother and Dakota Phillips, or was the man just a means to an end, a way to finally make one of her dreams come true? That thought was followed by wondering if him telling Lisa Marie about Dakota’s offer to kill the song for $50,000 somehow might have led to his death. He believed Paw Paw when he said that she had not left the house since Dakota dropped her off the day before he was found dead. But John Lee had arrested more than one teenager who had slipped out at night while their parents were sleeping and did something stupid to get into trouble. Hell, he had slipped out and gotten into mischief himself when he was in high school. Knowing what he did about Lisa Marie, he had no doubt she had done the same thing when she was that age. She might not be a teenager anymore, but was it possible she had done something like that the night Dakota had been killed?

Chapter 21

Back in town, Rosenthal and Nicholson were asking themselves the same question. Based upon everything they had heard about Lisa Marie’s parents, they didn’t doubt they were telling the truth, as far as they knew it, when they said she had not left their house since Dakota Phillips had dropped her off the day before he was found dead. But the FDLE agents knew she could have snuck out at night without their knowledge.

“It’s less than three miles from their house to the Starlite Motel,” Nicholson said as they had a late lunch at the Fry Basket. “She looks to be in good shape physically. What would it take her, maybe an hour to walk there, assuming a moderate walking speed? So she could get there, kill Phillips, and be back home in what? Well under three hours, right?”

“It’s doable,” Rosenthal agreed. “But what would her motive be?”

“If it’s true that he was going to take that money from Quarrels and kill the song, wouldn’t that be motive enough? Everything we’ve heard about her is that she’s a dreamer and this is her one big chance. She’s getting to the age where she may not have any more big chances left. I think we need to get her in and then talk to her again, away from her family.”

“I’ve got no problem with that,” Rosenthal said. “What do you think about Quarrels?”

“Everything I’ve always known about him is good,” Nicholson replied. “If the shit hit the fan, I wouldn’t be afraid to have him covering my back.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“We can’t overlook the fact that even his own girlfriend told us he said he wanted to shoot Phillips. Not to mention how he threatened him in that bar, and Phillips calling the dispatcher, wanting to find out about getting a protective order against him.”

“Okay, I see your point, Elliot. But face it, man, for all your sterling qualities, you’re an impatient driver. Wasn’t it just last week when that guy slowed way down with his right turn signal on and took forever to pull into a gas station that you said sometimes you were tempted to push a driver like that right off the road?”

“In my defense, people like that shouldn’t have a driver’s license.”

Nicholson laughed and said, “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard you say that a thousand times. But that doesn’t mean you’re really going to push somebody off the road, does it?”

Rosenthal grinned at him as he picked up the last piece of deep fried shrimp on his plate and said, “Maybe. Maybe not,” before putting it in his mouth.

“Okay, so let’s play what if. What if you said something like that on a rainy day and then had to put the brakes on and slid right into the back of somebody and knocked them off the road? Was that premeditated?”

Chewing and swallowing the shrimp before he replied, Rosenthal grinned again and repeated, “Maybe. Maybe not. What’s your point?”

“My point is, just like Maddy Westfall said, sometimes we say things we don’t really mean.”

“Are you referring to her saying we might see a good-looking woman and think we want to jump her bones, but we don’t really mean it? Because if that’s what you’re saying, keep in mind, we’ve been working together for a lot of years, buddy. I know what a horn dog you are.”

Nicholson laughed again and said, “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best example. But you get where I’m coming from. Just because Quarrels said those things doesn’t mean he went out and wasted the guy, no matter how much he was trying to shake him down for, or what he said about his woman.”

“For what it’s worth, of all the people who might have a reason to kill Phillips, and for all we know there might be more people than just Quarrels and his mother, he would be way down on my list of suspects. I’d even put that guy, Atwood, who was in the motel room next door ahead of him. But we’ve got to work with what we’ve got and see what happens.”

Rosenthal’s comment about John Lee not being the first suspect on his list was tested when a man came up to their table and asked, “Excuse me. Are y’all the people from Tallahassee over here lookin’ into that man that got himself killed?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, if ya are, I got some information ya probably need.”

“What information is that?”

The man, who was wearing faded blue bib overhauls that hung loosely over his bare shoulders, said, “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ until I know you’re the right people to be talkin’ to.”

Rosenthal handed him one of his cards and said, “We’re the right people. What’s this about?”

“About a bad cop.”

“A bad cop? Who?”

The man scratched his scruffy beard and looked around, and then said, “Not here. There’s too many people with yappin’ mouths in here.”

“Do you want to go outside and talk?”

“No. I can’t be seen talkin’ to ya in public. Word gets around ’bout things like that and I got to live here after this is all over.”

Rosenthal wanted to tell him they were already talking in public, but instead, he asked, “Where do you want to talk?”

“There’s a place outside of town at Miller’s Pond. It’s an old fish camp that burned down a couple years ago. Do ya know where that is?”

“No, but we can find it,” Rosenthal told him.

“Meet me there in an hour. Just the two of ya.”

The man nodded his head and stopped at the counter to pay his bill and then walked out.

“So, what’s that all about?”

“Beats me,” Nicholson said. “I guess we’ll find out in an hour, if we can find that fish camp he’s talking about.”

***

In Tallahassee, Medical Examiner Clarence B. Navarro was performing the autopsy on Dakota Phillips. After reciting the man’s height and weight into the overhead microphone attached to the lab’s recording system, he said, “Decedent has a tattoo on his right forearm of a horseshoe with the word ‘Luck’ in what looks to be a banner across it. There is a scar on the palm of the right hand measuring eleven centimeters. Right ring finger shows a pale mark, indicating that a ring was worn there. Left arm and hand show no scars or tattoos, but paler skin at the wrist and on the left ring finger indicate decedent wore a watch and ring. No jewelry was with the remains when received at this location.”

With the help of his assistant, Doctor Nicole Hosey, he assessed the man’s visible injuries. “Left cheek shows a large purple, yellowish bruise, and the eye is swollen shut. There are deep scratches on the left cheek that look to be more recent than the bruise. There is deep bruising on the neck which might indicate strangulation. There are multiple lacerations on the face, top and back of the head. There is matted hair and congealed blood on the top and back of the head and a deep wound on the left side of the head near the temple. Palpitation shows the skull is fractured there, as well as at another wound to the back of the head. Rolling the body over reveals two sets of marks that are suspected to be from a stun gun that was applied to the skin. There are no surface punctures that would indicate darts from a Taser. There is also a deep wound on the back of the skull at the hairline.”

When they completed the visual examination, the doctor looked at his assistant and asked, “Shall we open him up, Nicole?”

“Let’s get at it,” she said as he picked up a scalpel. “I’d like to get it wrapped up before four if we could. I promised the kids spaghetti tonight.”

***

John Lee secured his weapon in a locker upstairs in the sheriff’s office, then went down to the jail in the basement of the courthouse.

“How’s it going, Tim?”

Deputy Tim Livingston, whose high forehead accentuated his prematurely thinning brown hair, said, “Not much happening. What are you doing down here?”

“I’m your relief.”

“I thought it was supposed to be Baker. He sick or something?”

“No, I’m off the road for a while,” John Lee told him.

“What the hell did you do to get yourself in trouble?”

“Because of that guy that got himself killed. It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, I heard about you punching him out. I figured if you did, you had a reason.”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time, but hindsight’s 20/20.”

Livingston laughed and said, “Yeah, it always is.”

“So, what have I got on my plate down here?”

“Not a lot, John Lee. City cops brought Bubba Henderson in because he was stopped in the middle of Garfield Street, passed out behind the steering wheel. We’ve still got Danny Joe Crutchfield. He’s almost through with his thirty days for drug possession. Shep Ward is still in on that assault case. I thought his daddy would have bailed him out by now, but apparently he’s fed up with the boy losing his temper and flying off the handle like he does. Aside from that, there’s just Murphy. He went over to pick up the pizzas for their dinner and he should be back any minute now. Nobody’s going to give you no trouble tonight.”

The two deputies made the required round of the cell block, checking that everybody that was supposed to be there was and that all the cells were locked, then returned to the small office near the stairs, where John Lee signed off that all prisoners were present and accounted for except the trustee, who had gone for their dinners, took possession of the nightstick that was the only weapon allowed downstairs, and told Livingston to have a good night.

As the other deputy was leaving, Leon Murphy returned with three pizza boxes and a six-pack of Coca-Cola.

“Hey there, John Lee. You got the duty tonight?”

“Yeah, for the next few nights,” John Lee told him as he did the required pat down of the trustee anytime he returned from leaving the jail, then opened the pizza boxes to inspect them. Taking two slices of pepperoni for himself and one of the Cokes, he sent Murphy off to distribute the food and drinks to the prisoners.

“No pineapple? I said I wanted pepperoni and pineapple,” young Shep Ward complained.

“People in hell want ice water,” Murphy told him. “I just pick up what’s ordered.”

As the prisoners ate, John Lee read through the logbook of the last two shifts. Livingston had been right. There wouldn’t be any problems tonight. Finishing his own pizza, he walked out to check on the prisoners, and a bald man in one cell said, “Hey, John Lee. What are you up to?”

“Just another day in paradise, Bubba. What are you doing back in here?”

The man shrugged his shoulders and asked, “What can I say? It sucks, because I was only half a mile from home. If I could have stayed awake, I’d be sleepin’ in my own bed right now.”

“I doubt it,” John Lee told him. “Didn’t Denise tell you the next time you showed up snockered, you’d be sleeping on the couch for a month?”

“Aww, she don’t mean nothin’ by that, John Lee. That woman adores me.”

“The last time I arrested you, you said you were going to stop drinking, Bubba. What happened to that idea?”

Shaking his head, Bubba said, “I tried, John Lee. I really did. I even went to one of those AA meetins’ at the Methodist Church. The thing is, my body don’t produce enough alcohol naturally, so when I’m drinkin’, it’s kind of like takin’ supplements.”

John Lee laughed and said, “Denise must really love you, because otherwise she’d have smothered you in your sleep a long time ago.”

“Ain’t it the truth, John Lee, ain’t it the truth?”

Chapter 22

It took them a while to find the road that led back to the charred ruins of the old fish camp, and once they did, they navigated down the rutted dirt path into it. Their car bottomed out twice and they weren’t sure they would make it without getting stuck or high centered. When they finally pulled up in front of the blackened timbers, Nicholson looked around at the Spanish moss hanging from the live oak trees in the thick, humid air and said, “I think I saw a movie that started out like this. If you see anybody wearing hoods, shoot first and ask questions later.”

They got out of the car and looked around, and though his partner had been speaking in jest, Rosenthal felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. This was exactly the kind of place he could picture somebody lying in wait to ambush them. It just had an ominous feeling about it. It didn’t help when he looked toward the pond and saw a large water moccasin swimming past in the dark water a few feet from shore.

“Do you see anybody?”

“No,” Nicholson said, waving a cloud of mosquitoes away from his face. “Do you?”

“No, and I didn’t notice any fresh tire tracks coming in ahead of us. We don’t even know who this guy is. For all we know, he just sent us on a wild goose chase.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Who knows? Maybe Quarrels has a friend that doesn’t want us poking into things anymore.”

“Just a little while ago, you were saying he would be the last person on your list of suspects, Elliott.”

“That was before all this. Do you think Quarrels is the bad cop the guy was talking about?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s a friend that just decided to do Quarrels a favor, even though he didn’t ask for it.” Nicholson looked at his watch and said, “We’re five minutes past the hour that he said to meet him.”

“It’s not like we synchronized our watches or anything,” Rosenthal said. “Let’s give it a little time.”

“Why not? I think I’ve still got a pint or two of blood left in me,” Nicholson replied as he smashed a mosquito on his forehead, leaving a bloody splotch on his dark skin.

“I don’t like this, partner. We’re meeting someone we don’t know out here in the middle of nowhere, and nobody knows where we’re at.”

They heard something moving in the bushes off to their left and both men instinctively put their hands on their weapons as they looked in that direction. But whatever it was didn’t seem to be a threat and soon all was quiet again, except for the buzzing of the flies and the mosquitoes swarming around them.

Fifteen minutes after they arrived, with multiple mosquito bites on both of the frustrated investigators, they decided they were wasting their time when they heard a motor start up. A minute later, the man they had met at the restaurant rode out of the trees on a four-wheeled Honda ATV that had definitely seen better days. Both FDLE agents tensed when they saw a Ruger .22 semi-automatic carbine across the handlebars.

“You’re late,” Nicholson said when the man shut off the engine.

“Weren’t late. I was here half an hour before y’all got here.”

“We didn’t see you.”

Leaning over the side of the ATV, the man spit tobacco juice and looked up and grinned and said, “Don’t mean I weren’t watchin’ y’all swattin’ skeeters and scratchin’ your asses.”

“So, what’s this all about? Why did you want to talk to us?”

“I told ya, I got information ’bout that man who got killed.”

“Okay, we’re here,” Rosenthal said. “What kind of information do you have?”

“Now, just hold your horses. Just because I know somethin’ don’t mean I’m gonna make y’all’s job easy without getting’ somethin’ in return.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Nicholson asked, “What is it exactly you’re looking for?”

Spitting more tobacco juice, this time almost at their feet, he said, “I think this is what they call one of them tit for tat kind’a situations. I’ll help ya, but I’m goin’ to need somethin’ in return.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind payin’ off a couple of bills I got. Times is hard these days, ya know?”

“We’re not in the habit of paying for information,” Rosenthal told him.

“Sure ya are. I always see rewards offered on TV for information ’bout crimes. What do they call that? Silent Witness?”

“As far as I know, there haven’t been any rewards offered in this case.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if one gets offered. If it does, I’ll give ya a call.”

The man started the ATV and Rosenthal stepped forward, raising his hand. “Hold on. I don’t even know your name.”

“I guess I forgot my manners. It’s Seth Inman.”

“You said something about a bad cop back there at the restaurant. Does this bad cop have a name?”

The man turned off the ATV and shook his head and grinned before asking, “Do I look stupid to ya?”

Rosenthal wanted to tell him that he certainly did, but didn’t figure that would do him any good. Instead, he asked, “If I could get some money for you, and again that’s an if, how much are we talking about?”

The man scratched his beard and said, “I’m thinkin’ ten thousand.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“It’s worth it for what I got.”

“You give me a little something to show me you’re serious and we’ll go back and talk to our boss and see what we can come up with.”

“Not until I got some guarantee.”

“Like what?”

“Well now let me see,” Inman said, looking up at the sky and closing one eye as if he was thinking about something. Then he looked at Rosenthal and asked, “How much pull you got with the local cops?”

“We’re a state agency. We’ve got some pull.”

“How ’bout this? If I had a ticket and I was due to go to court and maybe lose my license, do ya got enough pull to make that go away?”

“If what you have to tell me is good enough, I could probably work something out. No promises, but I could do my best.”

“Nah, man. Let’s don’t stand here and jerk each other off,” Inman said. “I got to know ya can do somethin’ for me. You know, it’s kind’a like when a guy and gal is getting’ serious. She might give him a little taste of honey, but that’s all. If he wants the rest of the honey pot, he’s gotta put somethin’ up to show her he’s serious. She ain’t goin’ to fall for no promises if there ain’t somethin’ to prove he means what he’s sayin’ to her. So, if ya want a little taste of the honey, ya prove to me ya can take care of that ticket. But for the whole honeypot? Now that’s goin’ to take some green.” He held up his hand and ran his thumb over his fingers. “Yeah, that’s goin’ to take some green money in my hand before I give you the big information I have.”

“Tell you what. Hang on a minute and let me see what I can do,” Rosenthal said. “Is this ticket from the Sheriff’s Department, or the city cops or state cops?”

“City.”

“Let me make a phone call.”

He walked off a short distance and called Miranda Bryant on her cell phone. They spoke for a couple of minutes and he thanked her for her time and came back and said, “Seth, it looks like you got a DUI. According to Chief Bryant, it’s your third one, and you’re due in court next month on it. Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“And if I can make that go away, you’ll give me something to show us that you’re sincere and that you really do have some information about the man who got killed?”

“Shit, man, I can give ya an eyewitness account of what happened.”

“You saw the whole thing?”

“Y’all are a cagey one, ain’t ya? Thinking I’m just gonna spill the beans? No, I told you the honey pot comes with a price tag. But I’ll tell you a little somethin’ just to kind of grease the wheels. But if I do, you gotta promise that that ticket’s goin’ to go away.”

“I just talked to chief Bryant. She can't quash the ticket, but she can arrange it so the cop who pulled you over doesn't show up for court and the case gets thrown out.”

“I guess that'll work.”

“Okay. I’ve done my part, now you do yours.”

“And I don’t need to worry about that DUI?”

“Not if what you give me is real.”

The man seemed to think about it for a minute, then leaned over the handlebars, his hands resting on the rifle. Nicholson and Rosenthal put their hands on their holstered weapons. Had they come this far only to get in a gunfight with this redneck?

“Don’t get all squirrely,” Nicholson warned him.

“What? I’m just contemplatin’ is all.”

He leaned back in the ATV seat, and they relaxed now that he wasn’t touching the Ruger anymore.

“Tell ya what. Just to show I’m serious, I’ll even give ya the name of the man who done it. But that’s all I’m doin’ until I see that green we’re talking about,” he said, rubbing his thumb across his fingers again. “I tell you that and you make that ticket go away. Deal?”

“Deal,” Rosenthal said, stepping closer and extending his hand to shake the man’s callused, dirty hand.

“The man who done it is a cop.”

“A cop?”

“Yes, sir. A cop. And I believe ya probably know him. Most people around these parts do.”

“Does this cop have a name?”

Inman nodded his head and said, “John Lee Quarrels killed that man at the motel.”

“Quarrels? You know this for a fact?”

“Ain’t an eyewitness testimony proof?”

“You saw the whole thing?”

“I did.”

“Tell me more.”

Inman grinned and shook his head, then held up his hand and rubbed his thumb against his fingers a third time. “Like I said, ya gotta pay for the honey pot. Ya done got your taste.”

“How do we get hold of you to pay you if we can get the money?”

“Don’t ya worry ’bout that. Y’all ain’t hard to find in this town. Ya got 24 hours.” He started the ATV again and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

Chapter 23

On their way back to town, they stopped at a CVS pharmacy and bought two tubes of Benadryl Extra Strength Anti-Itch Gel to apply to their numerous mosquito bites.

“Man, those little bastards bit me in places where I didn’t know I had places,” Nicholson complained as he rubbed the gel on his face and the back of his neck. “The state ought to give us combat pay for this.”

“I’ll be glad if we don’t get malaria or West Nile disease,” Rosenthal said as he treated his own bites.

Chief Bryant poked her head into the interview room they were using and said, “You two look like a couple of teenage boys with faces full of acne.”

“You got mosquitoes so big around here they could stand flatfooted and diddle a turkey,” Nicholson told her. “The next time we go wandering off in the boondocks, remind me to take some bug spray.”

“What we should have had is Avon Skin So Soft,” Rosenthal said.

“Avon?”

“Yeah, that’s good stuff.”

“I don’t even want to know how you know about that, Elliot.”

“My wife uses it all the time. Trust me, buddy. A Jewish American Princess knows all about comfort.”

“What can you tell us about this Seth Inman character, Chief?”

“He’s just another backwoods loser. Between us and the sheriff’s department, he’s a frequent flyer.”

“What did he do to get himself into so much trouble?”

“Take your pick,” the police chief said. “Drunk driving, public intoxication, disturbing the peace, assault, shoplifting. He gets around. He did eighteen months for felony fleeing and eluding and resisting arrest with violence. He got drunk one time and decided he wasn’t going to stop when the blue lights came on. I heard it took four deputies to get him under control, but not before one of them had a broken nose and another had a couple of teeth knocked out.”

“So he’s not exactly a candidate for Citizen of the Year?”

Shaking her head, Chief Bryant said, “Not hardly. If you really want me to, I can probably have that officer miss his next court date. It’s only a matter of time till we get him again.”

“We’ll string him along for now and see if he comes up with anything worth actually hearing,” Rosenthal said. “But when it comes right down to it, that’s the least of his worries. He had a rifle with him out there today, which makes him a felon in possession of a firearm. He could do some serious time for that, which gives us a hell of a bargaining chip.”

“Since I’m not with the Sheriff’s Office and my department doesn’t have a conflict of interest in the case, care to tell me what you got out of him today?”

“According to him, John Lee Quarrels killed Dakota Phillips.”

“Personal opinion, but I don’t believe that for a minute,” Chief Bryant said.

“He says he’s an eyewitness. Claims he saw the whole thing.”

“What did he say about that?”

“Nothing,” Nicholson said. “He wants ten grand before he’ll say anything else.”

“Seriously? Where does he expect that money to come from?”

“His way of thinking is that Silent Witness pays money for information all the time, so the state or somebody should pony up the bucks for him.”

“I’d bet a month’s pay he’s trying to scam you.”

“Don’t think I’d take that bet, Chief. But we can’t just ignore it if he really has any information we can use. Like Rosenthal said, we’ll string him along and see what happens.”

While they were talking, Rosenthal opened his computer and checked his e-mail and said, “Here’s some interesting stuff.”

“What have you got?”

“The background check on our victim.”

“What’s it say?”

Reading from the computer, Rosenthal said, “Mr. Phillips seems to be well known around Nashville.”

“If he was as deep into the music business as he said he was, that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“You’d think so. But according to this, there have been three charges filed against him for fraud.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. There’s a detective up there named Fleming whose name is attached to the cases. Oh, wait, here’s something else. Now, that’s interesting.”

“What have you got?”

“It looks like our man Dakota was a player.”

“How so?”

“Well, he’s down here with Deputy Quarrels’ mother, and every indication is that they had more than a working relationship, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I wonder if she knows he was married?”

“You’re kidding me?”

Rosenthal turned the laptop computer so they could see the screen and said, “Have a look, Chief. His next of kin is his wife, Dawn Annabel Phillips, with a Nolensville, Tennessee address. Which is also the address on Phillips’ drivers’ license.”

“I wonder if she’s been notified of his death yet?”

“I don’t know, Chief,” Nicholson replied. “I think I’m going to call this Detective Fleming and see what he can tell us.”

He made the call and spoke to someone for a couple of moments and then said, “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Putting the phone down, he said, “Fleming left for the day, but the woman I spoke to at the police department up there said she’ll reach out to him and have him call us back.”

“I’ve also got the preliminary autopsy report,” Rosenthal said, still looking at his computer.

“What does that tell us?”

“Pretty much what we already knew. Someone beat the hell out of him several hours prior to his death, and then someone worked him over, using everything from a stun gun to a blunt instrument. Cause of death was multiple skull fractures resulting in trauma to the brain.”

Police Chief Bryant wanted to say that she just could not believe Deputy John Lee Quarrels could be responsible for the man’s death, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She had already said that once, and she did not want to seem like she was trying to influence the outcome of the investigation. She had been a cop long enough to know that even the best of men and women could do terrible things under the wrong circumstances.

When she had been with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, she remembered a fellow officer from one of the Orlando suburbs who had raped and murdered three women before he was caught and brought to justice. She had also worked with a deputy who had mowed down an elderly couple in a crosswalk while driving drunk. She might be prejudiced, but overall, she believed law enforcement officers were some of the best people in the world, but that didn’t mean there weren’t occasional rotten apples. And, of course, those were the ones that the press loved to tell the world about. Not the cop who bought a meal for a homeless man, or the ones who chipped in to buy a bicycle for a young boy from a dysfunctional home after his was stolen, or a thousand other acts of kindness that never made the news.

Nicholson’s cell phone rang, and he answered it and said, “Nicholson here.” He listened a moment while the caller identified himself, then said, “Thanks for getting back to me, Detective Fleming. I’m with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and we have a murder victim down here I believe you’re familiar with.”

“Who’s that?”

“Frank Phillips.”

“Really? I can’t say I’m surprised,” the Nashville detective said. “I figured eventually his shenanigans would catch up with him. Do you know who killed him?”

“Not yet,” Nicholson replied. “I was hoping you could help us figure that out. I understand he was involved in some kind of fraud up your way?”

“Can you hold on while I pull off the road someplace? Traffic is terrible. It always is these days around here.”

“Sure, I can wait.”

A moment later, Detective Fleming said, “That’s better. I pulled into a parking lot. So where did Dakota get himself killed at?”

“A little town on the Panhandle called Somerton,” Nicholson told him.

“What happened to him?”

“The preliminary autopsy report says he was beaten to death with a blunt instrument.”

“Like I said, I figured one of his schemes would catch up to him sooner or later. I’d be willing to bet a woman did it, or else a jealous boyfriend or husband.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Those fraud charges we have up here against him? Each one is the same. His deal was to find some woman who had dreams of becoming the next Nashville superstar. It didn’t matter if she had any talent or not, all she needed was money or access to some money, and to be gullible enough to fall for his line of bullshit. And trust me, mister, you can find a hundred gullible women with big dreams on every street here in Music City. They all come here with big dreams, and for every one that makes it, there are thousands who wind up working as waitresses and standing behind the cash register at grocery stores waiting for that big break. They all know they’re going to be discovered. It’s just a matter of time. So, when a character like Dakota Phillips comes along, it doesn’t take much to convince them he’s the answer to all their prayers. It just comes with a price tag.”

“So what you’re saying is, he was scamming these women? What was he getting out of it? Sex?”

“Oh, sure, that goes without saying,” Fleming replied. “But that was just the icing on the cake for him. It was all about money as far as Dakota was concerned.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you on that,” Nicholson told him.

“He’d start out just talking to these women and complimenting them on their talent, whether they had any or not. I always said he would have made a hell of a salesman because he knew how to get information out of people just a little bit at a time without them realizing it. As I said, a lot of these women are broke and wind up taking any kind of job they can, just to get by. But Dakota had a knack for finding out who had money or access to money. Maybe parents who really believed in their daughter’s talent, or a few that had a little bit of an inheritance. His favorites were divorcees and widows who came into some money. The young hot girls down here have men lining up to talk a load of crap to them. Dakota found the ones with a few years on them who knew they were running out of time. Those are the most vulnerable ones.”

The call was on speaker, and Nicholson looked at Rosenthal and Chief Bryant, and they both nodded their heads. Lisa Marie Quarrels fit the profile the Nashville detective was describing, except for the money. But John Lee had described how Dakota had tried to shake him down for $50,000.

“So, these women have some money and he gets it out of them. How does he do that?”

“Dakota had a lot of contacts here in town, back street bars and lounges, where he could get the managers to let his latest target get up on stage and sing a bit. He would tell them that was just the start. Oh, yeah. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be on the Grand Ole Opry. No question about that. But there was just one little thing. They had to get a record out there, and it costs money to produce a record. But fortunately for them, he was a producer, and he had the connections. Just a few thousand dollars to hire a band and rent a studio and cut a demo. That’s a small price to pay for how much they were going to get back once they made it.”

“Let me guess,” Nicholson said. “Once he had their money, he disappeared.”

“Nope,” Fleming replied. “He’d keep on milking them until the well was dry. He’d say their song was playing on radio stations all over the country, which it wasn’t. Oh, sometimes he’d it get a local station in the woman’s hometown to play, but nothing ever went anywhere. Eventually, the women would either give up and go back home or just keep hoping. You know how I said he would have made a good salesman? He’d have made a good pimp, too. We had one woman who was actually selling her body to get money to pay him. Another had a house back home in Indiana that she sold and gave him all the proceeds. I think one of them sold her car and gave him the money, too. He had them convinced he was the best thing that ever happened to them.”

“But a few saw through his scheme and filed charges?”

“Two did. The third were the elderly parents of a woman he was scamming. He convinced her to get them to give her their power of attorney, and she emptied their life savings. It all went to Dakota.”

“Damn!”

“Like I said, it was only a matter of time before one of his scams caught up with him. You mark my words, sir. When you get to the bottom of it, you can pretty much be sure a woman killed him, or at least had a hand in it.”

They ended the call with Detective Fleming saying he would make the notification to Dawn Phillips about the death of her husband and promising to stay in touch and help their investigation any way he could from Nashville.

“Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Rosenthal said. “This sounds exactly like one of the man’s schemes. Except besides milking Lisa Marie for whatever he could get out of her, he went farther when he found out how much that song pissed off Quarrels. That icing on the cake that Fleming talked about? The way Quarrels reacted to that song just added another layer of icing.”

“We need to get Lisa Marie back in here and talk to her,” Nicholson said.

“It’s getting late, and I promised my wife I’d be home in time for dinner tonight,” Rosenthal said. “How about we head back to Tallahassee and come back tomorrow and hit it again?”

“Fair enough,” Nicholson said. “I’ll call her on the way and try to arrange something for tomorrow.”

They thanked Chief Bryant for her assistance and the use of her room and told her they would be back in the morning. After the FDLE investigators were gone, Chief Bryant thought about all they had learned that day. Had Seth Inman really seen what happened to the murdered man, or was he just trying to work a scam of his own? And who had killed that man in a motel room in her town? She felt with this new information, they might be getting closer to the answer they were all looking for.

Chapter 24

Nashville Detective Joshua Fleming, a stoop-shouldered man of fifty, looked nothing like the typical crime fighters depicted on television or in the movies. The product of an interracial marriage, he had inherited his White father’s blue eyes and reddish-brown hair and his African American mother’s caramel skin. Fleming would never be called a handsome man, even plain would be a compliment. His ears were too big, and his nose was off center. But probably his most noticeable physical detractor was his misshapen teeth. His bottom teeth were crooked, with the two center ones inset from the rest, and while his top teeth were straighter, they were also noticeably larger. Growing up, his family never had the money to get them corrected, and Fleming had learned to live with them as an adult.

Pulling into the driveway of the small yellow cinder block home where Dakota Phillips had lived at mid-morning the next day, he noted a ratty-looking Oldsmobile Cutlass with patches of gray primer on what had once been white paint. Fleming walked across the yard to the door and pushed the bell, hearing it chime inside. While he waited for someone to answer, he heard the sounds of someone mowing grass across the street, and three teenage boys next door shooting hoops with a basketball that looked like it needed more air.

He was just about to push the doorbell again when it opened and a skinny woman with short spiky hair dyed a brilliant magenta said, “Whatever you’re sellin,’ I don’t want it.”

“Are you Mrs. Phillips?”

“Yeah, and I told you that whatever you’re sellin,’ I don’t want it. Didn’t you see the sticker on the door that said No Solicitin’ or did you just ignore it?”

Showing her his badge, he said, “I’m not selling anything, Mrs. Phillips. I’m Detective Fleming with the Nashville Police Department. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh shit! What has that son of mine done now? Whatever it is, you can just keep him. I told him last time I wasn’t bailin’ him out again. If he wants to mess with that dope, he’s got to pay the price. Yeah, tough love. Nothin’ else has worked.”

“Mrs. Phillips, it’s not about your son,” Fleming told her. “May I come in?”

She looked at him skeptically for a moment and said, “Anybody can get a badge. How do I know you’re a real cop?”

He showed her his police department identification card, and she studied it carefully, looking at him and looking at the photo on it. He wasn’t sure if she was going to accept that and was about to tell her if she wanted, she could call the department and verify who he was. But she seemed to relent and said, “I guess it looks real. Come on in.”

The living room was small and cramped, with a matching brown leatherette sofa, love seat and recliner facing a big screen TV hung on the wall.

“Have a seat,” the woman said, picking up a pack of cigarettes from a small stand next to the love seat and lighting one.

Fleming sat down on the sofa when she did on the love seat.

She took a long drag on the cigarette and then exhaled smoke in his direction and asked, “What’s this all about if it’s not about Billy?”

“Ma’am, it’s about your husband.”

“Dakota?” She looked at him suspiciously and then said, “I know who you are. You’re that cop that’s been givin’ him so much trouble, aren’t you? Well, I can tell you right now, those dizzy women are full of shit. He never ripped any of them off. He tells them right up front that there’s no guarantees in the music business. So if they lost money tryin’ to be the next superstar, that’s on them. He can help them cut a record and show them around, but if they don’t have the talent or the luck, you can’t blame him for that. So if you’re here tryin’ to dig up dirt on Dakota, you can just go back to wherever you came from!”

“Yes, ma’am, I am the one who’s been investigating the fraud claims against your husband,” Fleming told her. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“He told me you’d be comin’ around askin’ questions. Well, I got nothin’ to tell you, mister. So you can just head out the door right now.”

She stood up and started walking toward the door and Fleming said, “Mrs. Phillips, this isn’t about any of that, I promise you. Please have a seat.”

“Don’t tell me what to do in my own house! I want you out of here right now.”

“Ma’am, if you’ll just let me explain, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“I don’t care about your bad news,” she said, her voice rising. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m goin’ to call the cops. You’ve got no right to come in here and…”

“Please, Mrs. Phillips, just sit down and let me talk to you for a moment. It’s very important.”

“I don’t want to hear any of your lies about my husband. Now get out.”

“Ma’am, I hate to tell you this way, but something happened to Dakota.”

“I said get… wait a minute. What do you mean, somethin’ happened?”

“Please, sit down, Mrs. Phillips.”

Looking at him cautiously, as if she expected him to attack in some way, she went back to the love seat and sat down.

“Mrs. Phillips, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Dakota is dead.”

“What? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“I got a call from the authorities in Florida. I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but he was the victim of a homicide, Mrs. Phillips.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, her mouth open and her cigarette between her fingers. It was so quiet in the room that he could hear the boys next door thumping their basketball and the sound of the lawnmower across the street. Then the woman shook her head.

“I don’t know what your game is, mister, but you’re lyin’ to me.”

“I wish I was, ma’am.”

“You’re a lyin’ sack of shit! Get out of my house.”

She started to get up from the love seat, and Fleming held out a piece of paper and said, “This is the name and phone number of the investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that I spoke to. He needs you to call him.”

She snatched the paper from his hand and looked at it, then shook her head in confusion.

“This can’t be true. Either you’re lyin’ to me or somebody somewhere has really screwed up.”

It wasn’t the first death notification that Fleming had made, and he knew that news like this was hard to take. People didn’t want to believe something so terrible could have happened in their lives. Those things happened to other people, not to them.

“I’m afraid it’s the truth, ma’am.”

“No, this is ridiculous,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “You said Florida?”

“Yes, ma’am. A little town called Somerton in the Panhandle.”

“No, that’s impossible. Dakota is over in Pigeon Forge. I just talked to him a couple of days ago.”

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah. He’s in Pigeon Forge. He went over there to pitch a couple of the singers he’s representin’ to some of the music places up there.”

“When did you talk to him, Mrs. Phillips?”

“I think it was Tuesday. Yeah, that’s when it was.”

“Did he mention anything about going to Florida from there?”

She seemed to become aware of the cigarette burning down in her fingers and snuffed it out in a round, amber colored glass ashtray.

“No. I don’t know who got killed down in Florida, but it wasn’t Dakota. I can tell you that for sure.”

“Did he say if he was traveling with anyone?”

“No, he’s by himself. Why would he be travelin’ with anyone?”

“Mrs. Phillips, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just relaying the information that was given to me.”

“I want to call this guy you talked to,” she said, looking at the piece of paper. She picked up a phone that was sitting next to the ashtray and punched in the number. A moment later she said, “I need to talk to somebody named Nicholson.”

Fleming could hear a reply and then she said, “This is Dawn Phillips. I have a cop here who gave me your number and claims my husband is dead down there in Florida.”

She listened to the reply and then said, “I don’t know who it is you’re talkin’ about, but it can’t be my husband. I just told the detective here that he’s in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I just talked to him a couple of days ago.”

Another reply, and then she said, “Yeah, he drives a black Ford truck. Yeah, that sounds like him, but it can’t be. No, you’ve got it wrong. I don’t care if it’s his truck, he’s not in Florida. Maybe someone stole it.”

Fleming could hear Nicholson talking to her and could tell she still wasn’t convinced.

“There’s a lot of guys that meet that description. Wait a minute. Did he have a big turquoise and silver ring on one hand and a horseshoe shaped ring on his other hand with a bunch of diamonds in it? No? Then it’s not Dakota. He never takes his rings off. Yeah, he has a tattoo.”

Fleming watched as her eyes grew big and saw the phone shake in her hand.

“That sounds like it. Yeah, on the palm of his right hand.”

The detective could see tears in her eyes and her voice became very weak, almost a whisper. “It can’t be. I don’t know, I just know it can’t be. How could he be in two places at once? Oh, my God!”

She dropped the phone and fell back in the love seat, seeming to shrink into herself as deep sobs shook her body. Fleming picked up the telephone and said, “Nicholson, this is Fleming. Yeah, she’s pretty upset. I’ll get back to you, okay?”

He pushed the button to end the call and squatted down next to the love seat. “Mrs. Phillips, is there anybody I can call for you? A friend or a family member?”

She didn’t reply, just continued to cry. He put a hand on her shoulder and the misery in the room was palpable. No matter what kind of man Dakota Phillips had been, someone had loved him, and now she was suffering.

Eventually, she raised her head and said, “This is crazy. I don’t understand any of this. When I talked to him, he was in Pigeon Forge. What was he doin’ in Florida?”

“There are a lot of questions that we don’t have the answers for yet, ma’am.”

“Who would kill Dakota? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Fleming knew that if Dakota Phillips was guilty of the fraudulent schemes he had been accused of, and the detective was sure he had been, there were any number of people who might seek revenge. But he didn’t say that. Dawn Phillips had enough to deal with right now, and he wasn’t going to add to her misery.

Chapter 25

Lisa Marie had dark bags under her eyes, the result of stress and lack of sleep, and she was obviously despondent when she sat down across from Rosenthal and Nicholson the next morning.

“Can I get you anything before we get started, ma’am? Coffee, or maybe water?”

“I could use a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please.”

When Nicholson left the room to get the coffee, Rosenthal asked, “How are you holding up?”

Shaking her head, Lisa Marie said, “I feel like this is some kind of a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I keep thinkin’ that if I could just wake up, it would all be better.”

“Things like this are never easy to get through. We’ll try not to keep you here any longer than we have to.”

Nicholson returned with the coffee and a bottle of water and set both of them in front of her. Lisa Marie smiled and said, “Thank you.”

Rosenthal began the interview by stating for the record the date and time, who was present in the room, and informing Lisa Marie that the interview was being recorded on audio and video.

“Okay, getting started, do you prefer we call you Mrs. Quarrels or Lisa Marie?”

“I haven’t been Mrs. Quarrels in a long time. Lisa Marie is fine.”

“Can you tell us when you first met Frank Phillips?”

“Frank? You mean Dakota, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Frank was his legal first name.”

“I never knew that. Why didn’t I know that? He was always just Dakota to me.”

“When did you first meet Dakota?”

“It was about a year ago. No, a little longer than that, come to think of it. I guess it was in June of last year. I remember because it was a couple of days after my birthday, which is the 7th.”

“And where did you meet him?”

“At a bar in Nashville. They have open mike nights for singers. I did a song, and when I came offstage, he was there waiting, and introduced himself. He said I had a magical voice and asked me if I had an agent. When I told him I didn’t, he said he would like to represent me.”

“What happened after that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you sign a contract or anything like that?”

Nodding her head, Lisa Marie said, “Yes. The next day he had me come to his office and asked me to sing a couple more songs, and then we talked about him representing me. He told me that besides being an agent, he also produced music and was a songwriter. There was like, I don’t know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “like a chemistry between us, if that makes any sense. I felt like everything that had happened in my life and everything I had been through was leading me right to that minute right there. And it’s funny, because he said he felt the same way.”

“And that’s when you signed a contract for him to represent you?”

“Yeah. But it really wasn’t like we needed one because we clicked so good. But Dakota said that he wanted to protect my interest, so he put everything down legal.”

“Did he ask for any money from you, Lisa Marie?”

“Money? What’s that got to do with it?”

“I’m just curious,” Rosenthal told her. “I don’t know a lot about the music business, so I don’t know how all that works.”

“No. He had a lot of contacts, and once we put together a portfolio, he started talkin’ to people at the different studios.”

“What all was in the portfolio?”

“You know, some publicity photos and a CD of me singin’ there in his office. It wasn’t a very good CD, we both knew that, but he said that’s all he needed to get started.”

“Where did the publicity photos come from?”

“He had a fellow that came in and took them, and another one that recorded the CD. Now, I had to pay them, because Dakota said those were my property and I could take them to any other agent anytime I wanted to, even though we had a contract. He said that way, if things didn’t work out between us for any reason, I was free to look for another agent. But I knew there wasn’t no need for that because, like I said, there was this chemistry between us.”

“I’m just curious, Lisa Marie. How much does it cost for the photo shoot and a demo CD and all of that?”

“It wasn’t much. I think $2500, somethin’ like that.”

“And you paid Dakota for that?”

“No. Like I told you, I paid the photographer and the guy that recorded the CD, not Dakota.”

“All right, and then he started making the rounds of the different contacts he had in Nashville for you?”

“Yeah. And he also fixed it so I could sing at two or three different clubs. I didn’t get paid for them, but it was exposure and he said that was important.”

“Did he get any kind of interest from any of the people he was talking to in the recording business?”

“Oh yeah. Lots of it. He told me that there were three big outfits that were all interested in signin’ me to a contract. But Dakota, he’s a sharp one. He said we didn’t want to sign up right away with anybody. We wanted to weigh all the options. That’s the way he said it, weigh all the options. He said there was no reason to jump the gun and settle for less. I guess the way it works is there’s kind of a biddin’ war between the different studios.”

“So, let’s talk about that song of yours, The Ballad of John Lee. Where did that come from?”

“Well, when it started out, I was just doin’ songs by other people for the demo. But Dakota said we needed to come up with somethin’ original. And as me and him got closer, and I told him about John Lee, he got all excited. He said the country is always lookin’ for a new hero, and we were goin’ to give them that hero with John Lee. Do you know that he wrote that song in just a weekend? He’s that talented. The first time I heard it, I knew I was gonna be singin’ that song on stage, right there in the spotlight.”

“You said that you and Dakota got closer. I don’t mean to be indelicate, Lisa Marie, but was your relationship more than just professional?”

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Mr. Rosenthal. I didn’t see that happenin’ between us. Especially not as fast as it did. But we fell in love, and it was just like fallin’ off a cliff. I never felt that way about a man since I was in high school. I know this sounds silly, because neither one of us was spring chickens, but that man made me feel giddy.”

Nicholson looked at his partner and rolled his eyes. After what Detective Fleming had told them about the way Dakota had seduced so many hopeful future stars, Rosenthal wondered how many other women had fallen off that same cliff.

“I’m just curious, Lisa Marie. How did it get from Dakota pitching you to all the different studios, to the two of you coming out with the song on your own? Do things usually happen that way?”

“No, sir. But, like I said, Dakota was a genius about all of that stuff. He said when I told him about John Lee and some of the things he’d been involved in down here, it was like, how did he say that? It was like it just all came to him in a flash that we didn’t need those studios. No, sir. He said we didn’t just have a song, we had a whole package. He was gonna talk to a ghostwriter. Those are people that write books for other people and they put them out under their name, so it was like Dakota wrote the book himself. He talked to a friend of his at a movie studio out in Hollywood, and right away they were all over that. Dakota said there was no reason to sign up with one of them Nashville studios when we could keep control of everythin’ and make all the profits ourselves. That’s why we decided to rent a studio and cut the song, and as soon as we did, he had radio stations all over the country playin’ it.” She stopped and took a ragged breath and then said, “I don’t know what happens now. I mean, the song’s a hit, but without Dakota bein’ the front end man, that’s what he called it, I don’t know where to go next.”

“Lisa Marie, when you guys decided to take this project on by yourselves, how much money was involved in that, do you know?”

“Oh, that wasn’t cheap. No, sir. It was thousands of dollars.”

“And who paid for that, Lisa Marie?”

“What’s all this got to do with what happened to Dakota?”

“We’re just trying to get the background and everything, ma’am,” Nicholson told her.

“Dakota said he was gonna pay for all of it, but then he decided that it’d be in my best interest if we split it. He said that way, if there ever come a time when things wasn’t workin’ out for us or for whatever reason I wanted to go off on my own, there be nothin’ holdin’ me back.”

“So you paid for part of the demo and all that?”

“I only paid $8,000. It was a lot more than that, but Dakota said he believed in me so much that he was goin’ to pay for the rest and I’d still have control. We trusted each other, so I kept tellin’ him he didn’t have to worry about that, but like I said, he always wanted to look out for my interest.”

“Moving away from the business end of things, Lisa Marie,” Nicholson said, “What brought you and Dakota down here to Somerton County?”

“It just made good sense,” she replied. “I mean, everybody here knows who John Lee is and about the things he’s had to do as a deputy. So even though Dakota had that song playin’ on the radio all over the country, he said this was where we would do the initial launch. That’s why he was arrangin’ for the remote broadcast and the autographs and all that. ’Course we never expected John Lee to be so upset about the song and all that. Lookin’ back, I guess we should have talked to him more about it. But Dakota said once the money startin’ to come in, John Lee would change his tune.”

“Lisa Marie, do you know of anybody who would want to hurt Dakota?”

“No. I keep askin’ myself why anybody would want to hurt him, and it just don’t make no sense.”

“What about the thing with him and John Lee getting into a fight?”

“Oh, that wasn’t nothin’ to get excited about. I’ll be honest, sometimes when Dakota had a little bit of liquor in him, he would say some things that weren’t right. But he never meant anythin’ by it. And I’m not blamin’ John Lee, either. A man’s got a right to stand up for his woman and I admire him for that. That would have all blown over in no time at all.”

“Do you think John Lee could have been involved with what happened to Dakota?”

“No! Absolutely not. I know my son and he wouldn’t do somethin’ like that. He’d never hurt me that way.”

“Let me ask you something,” Rosenthal said. “What do you think happened to Dakota?”

“I just don’t know,” Lisa Marie replied as tears started rolling down her cheeks again. She dabbed at them with a tissue and said, “About the time I think I’m cried out, I start all over again.” She sighed deeply and continued, “Dakota didn’t have an enemy in the world. I think this was just some kind of random thing.”

“Random? What do you mean by that?”

“I think when he was supposed to go down to Gainesville and all that to talk to those radio stations, I think after he dropped me off at my parents’ house, he came back to the motel room to pick up somethin’ he forgot. I think he walked in on a burglar. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“There was no indication that the room had been broken into,” Nicholson said.

“Then maybe it was an inside job. Maybe someone who worked there at the motel? I don’t mean to sound like I’m a racist, but those foreigners, you never know what’s gonna happen with them.”

“From everything we’ve heard, Mr. Devi who owns the Starlite and his family, are honest, hardworking people. There’s never been any indication of anything like that happening there before.”

“Then maybe it was somebody who stayed in the room before us. It’s an old place and they don’t have those credit card lookin’ things to get in the door. They give you an actual key. Isn’t it possible that someone who stayed there before had a key made and then they came back and was tryin’ to steal stuff and Dakota walked in and caught them?”

“I guess anything’s possible,” Nicholson acknowledged. “But it’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so, but I don’t know what else to say.”

“Lisa Marie, do you remember we read you your rights before we started talking this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Please understand. I have to ask you. Did you have anything to do with what happened to Dakota?”

“No! I told you, the last time I saw him was when he dropped me off at my parents’ house and said he was going downstate to talk to some radio stations and maybe set up some interviews for me with the DJs down there. Why in the world would I do anythin’ to hurt Dakota? I loved him and he loved me.”

“Did you two get along pretty well?”

“Yes. It was like we were on our honeymoon every day. Do you know how rare it is to find a man who opens doors for you and always calls you by your name, never sweetie or any of that nonsense? He was a gentleman, and he always treated me like a lady.”

“You know, someone with a suspicious mind might say that now that your career was taking off, and the song was such a big hit, maybe you felt like you didn’t need Dakota anymore. Why share any of the money that song was going to make?”

“Are you crazy, Mr. Nicholson? I would never hurt Dakota. Besides, I told you he had everythin’ set up so that anytime I wanted to walk away and go out on my own, I could do it. That’s why he had the contracts the way he did and all that. So why would I do somethin’ like that?”

“Lisa Marie,” Rosenthal said gently, “did you know that Dakota was married?”

“Yeah, I knew it.”

“You did?”

“Of course I did. We didn’t have any secrets from each other. Not one. He told me that he had gotten married to a woman up there in Nashville and it didn’t take long for either one of them to realize that it was a mistake. He said the only good thing that came out of it was their son, Billy. So what? I’ve been married and divorced a couple of times myself. Haven’t we all made mistakes in our life?”

“Dakota told you he was divorced?”

“Yes. I told you, we didn’t have any secrets from each other.”

“How long ago did he tell you this marriage and divorce took place?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Lisa Marie replied. “I know it was when Billy was still real little. I think Dakota said he’s around 22 or 23 now. What does all this have to do with what happened to Dakota?”

“I’m just confused, because I spoke to a woman yesterday who is married to him.”

“Why in the world would you look up his ex-wife? He said he hadn’t talked to Dawn since Billy turned eighteen. I guess it was a friendly enough divorce, but once the boy was of age, there was no reason for them to have any contact anymore.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Lisa Marie, but Dakota and Dawn were still married when he died.”

Lisa Marie leaned back in her chair and looked at Nicholson and said, “What? No. You’ve got that all wrong. They haven’t been married for a long time.”

“When I talked to her yesterday, she said she had spoken to him on the phone just a couple of days before he was killed. He told her he was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, promoting some of the singers he represented.”

“Then that woman’s crazy,” Lisa Marie said. “He hasn’t seen or talked to her in years.”

“His driver’s license still has the same address as hers. When a detective from Nashville went to the house yesterday to make the notification of his death, there were pictures on the wall of the two of them. Recent pictures, Lisa Marie.”

“No,” she screamed. “That’s not true! It can’t be.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

The woman was rocking in her chair, and she said, “I’m goin’ to be sick.”

Nicholson quickly picked up a round metal wastebasket near the door and handed it to her. She dropped her head and vomited into it. When she looked up at them again, the misery on her face was apparent.

Between the two of them, Rosenthal and Nicholson had over thirty years of investigative experience, more than a decade of it working together. Seeing Lisa Marie's shocked reaction to the news that Dakota had been married left no doubt in either of their minds. She wasn’t acting or putting on any kind of a show. She really did love Dakota Phillips and had no idea he had been married. Grief like hers could not be feigned.

Chapter 26

“I guess it’s my turn in the hot seat,” John Lee said, as he sat in the same chair his mother had an hour before.

“Don’t think of it as a hot seat, just think it as an opportunity to get through all this so we can all get on with our lives,” Rosenthal said. “We appreciate you coming in to talk to us.”

“We already talked the other day at my grandparents’ place.”

“I know that, but you know how it goes. We need a formal statement.”

“Then I guess we should get started,” John Lee said.

After Rosenthal went through the formalities of advising him of his rights and that the interview was being recorded, the same things that John Lee had said to witnesses and suspects innumerable times, Rosenthal said, “So, let’s start at the beginning. When did you first meet Dakota Phillips?”

“I can’t give you the exact date, but it was about a year ago,” John Lee replied. “He and Lisa Marie showed up at my house.”

“How did that first meeting go?”

“I wasn’t too impressed with him.”

“Why was that?”

“I could see right through him,” John Lee said. “All dressed in black like an Old West gunfighter, his fancy truck with all the chrome. Hell, calling himself Dakota. Who does that?”

“And was there any kind of problem during the visit?”

“Yeah, there was a problem. There were a couple of problems.”

“Such as?”

“Such as I don’t have a good relationship with Lisa Marie, as you know by now, and I didn’t appreciate her showing up at my house out of the blue. And even more so with somebody I didn’t know, like Dakota.”

“Any other problems you can remember?”

“Yeah. They started talking about how he was going to write a song about me. I told them then to not even think about that because I wanted nothing to do with it. I knew it was just another one of Lisa Marie’s pipe dreams. I wound up throwing them both out.”

“When was the next time you saw Phillips?”

“After we got back from Alaska and we went over to my grandparents’ house to pick up my dog. He and Lisa Marie were there, and they were going on and on about the song and a book and a movie and all that nonsense. I told them they were crazy, and that I wanted nothing to do with that, and Dakota said it was already out on the radio and a big hit.”

“Would it be fair to say you were upset?”

“You’re damn right I was upset,” John Lee said. “They had this big standalone cut out of me in my uniform and the same picture on the CD cover. I told them they had no right to do that, and I didn’t care what it took, it needed to stop right there.”

“What was their reaction to that?”

“Dakota said that it was already a big hit and there was no way to stop it, and we were all going to make a fortune, and on and on and on.”

“Then what happened?”

“We left.”

“When you say we, who do you mean?”

“Me and Maddy and my dog, Magic.”

“At any time that evening, did you threaten Dakota Phillips in any way?”

“Not to his face. I guess driving home I said something about I wanted to shoot or something him.”

“You guess you said that?”

“What are you getting at, Nicholson?”

“You think you did? Do you go around threatening to shoot people all the time, Quarrels? Because what I’m hearing you say is that it happens so often you don’t even remember.”

“What are we playing? Good cop - bad cop? Come on, guys. I’ve played this game myself and we all know it. For the record, no, I don’t go around threatening to shoot people all the time. I was really pissed off that night and I was venting. I know Maddy told you all about it. So, if you want to have an honest discussion, we can do it. Otherwise, I’ll get up and walk out the door. Which is it going to be?”

“Calm down, John Lee. Nobody’s here to roast your nuts over a fire,” Rosenthal told him.

“Spoken like the good cop,” John Lee said as he stood up. “It’s been nice talking to you, gentlemen. Have a good day.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Nicholson said. “No more games. Sit down and let’s get this over with.”

John Lee took his seat, and they went through the incident at the Pour House, and he told them he had not spoken to or seen Dakota after that until he briefly saw his body on the bed in the motel room before Chief Deputy Schroeder ordered him to leave the scene. Then he said, “Speaking for the record again, because I know you have to ask me. No, I did not kill Dakota Phillips.”

“Fair enough,” Rosenthal said, then asked, “Do you have any idea who might have killed him or who might want him dead?”

“No, I don’t,” John Lee said, shaking his head.

“What about your mother?”

“I don’t believe Lisa Marie did it, either.”

“We all know that you and your mother don’t have a good relationship. So what causes you to say that?”

“No, we don’t have a good relationship, Rosenthal. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t believe she’s capable of killing somebody. She’s a flake in a lot of ways, I’ll be the first person to tell you that. But for the first time in her life, I think she truly believed that one of her crazy ideas was actually going to happen. And even though she is a flake, she’s smart enough to know, or at least believe, that Dakota was the man that was going to make it happen. So there was no reason for her to kill him. She wouldn’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

“What if she found out that Dakota Phillips was married?”

“He was? That’s news to me.”

“Apparently it was news to your mother, too. Or at least that’s what she told us.”

“When did you find out about this?”

“Yesterday,” Nicholson said. “I talked to his wife up in Tennessee.”

Shaking his head, John Lee said, “If she knew it before you told her about it, Lisa Marie never let on to any of us.”

“Have you ever seen your mother fly off the handle and act violent or anything?”

“No. That’s not her style. She lives in this fantasy land of unicorns and rainbows. I’ve never heard her say a bad word about anybody, for what it’s worth. Like I told you before, the fact that I have no respect or affection for her doesn’t change the fact that she’s not a killer.”

“I’m not trying to play bad cop again, Quarrels,” Nicholson said. “But I’ll be honest with you. We have a witness who claims he saw you kill Dakota Phillips.”

“I don’t know who your witness is, but he’s lying through his teeth, or her teeth, whichever. I did not kill him. I already told you I lost control at the Pour House and I punched him out. But I did not kill him, no matter what your supposed witness says.”

“Why would someone go to the trouble to say something like that if it never happened?”

“Come on, Nicholson. How many claims of abuse or something against a cop have you guys looked into and found out that it was bullshit? All three of us sitting in this room know that when you put handcuffs on somebody, sometimes you make an enemy. Whoever this witness of yours is, I’ll bet you any amount of money you want that if you look into them, you’re gonna find out that we have some kind of history together. Either I busted them or I busted somebody close to them and this is their way of getting even. How about I take a polygraph test? Will that clear me?”

“It would help.”

“Then set it up.”

“Let me make a phone call,” Nicholson said.

He did and when he spoke to a polygraph examiner in Tallahasee, he asked, “Tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock here?”

“Works for me,” John Lee said.

They talked a while longer, and by the time they were through, John Lee felt that, though he was still a person of interest in the murder of Dakota Phillips, he wasn’t at the top of the list any longer. At least he hoped not.

***

As was standard practice, everybody had turned off their telephones during the interview, and when Nicholson turned his back on, he saw he had two missed calls from Dawn Phillips up in Tennessee. She answered on the second ring when he called her back, and when he asked how she was holding up, she said, “I feel like I’m goin’ crazy. I don’t think I slept a wink last night. Are you absolutely sure it’s Dakota?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re sure,” Nicholson told her.

“I can’t make any sense of this. What was he doin’ in Florida when he was supposed to be in Pigeon Forge?”

“He was promoting one of his singers.”

“Who?”

“A woman named Lisa Marie Quarrels. Is that name familiar to you, ma’am?”

“No, I never heard of her. But I didn’t get involved in Dakota’s business. I’ve got enough to keep me busy tryin’ to keep my damn kid out of trouble and runnin’ my shop.”

“Your shop? What kind of shop do you have, ma’am?”

“Can you call me Dawn? Every time you say ma’am, I feel like I’m an old lady.”

“Sure, Dawn.”

“It’s called Designs by Dawn. I’m a cosmetologist. We do hair and nails and things like that.”

“I thought every woman in Nashville wanted to be a country music star.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Every woman and every man, it seems like. Nope, I got that out of my system a long time ago. I’m perfectly happy doin’ what I do. At least I was, until yesterday.”

Her voice broke and Nicholson heard her sobbing on the other end of the line. He waited a moment while she composed herself, then said, “Dawn, according to Detective Fleming, the gentleman who came to your house yesterday to tell you about Dakota, there have been some kind of legal problems up there with Dakota and some of the singers he’s represented. What can you tell me about that?”

“It’s all nonsense, that’s what it is! Anybody with half a brain knows that if you think you’re goin’ to come to Nashville or Hollywood or wherever and make it to the big time, it doesn’t happen overnight. And for most people, it don’t happen at all. I can drive you down any street in Nashville and point out a hundred people who all think they’re going’ to see their name up in lights and be playin’ in front of big audiences someday soon. Most of them eventually give up and go back to where they came from and get on with real life. Dakota tells everybody right up front that there’s no guarantees. He tells them he’ll do his best, but it’s not like he can wave a magic wand and put them up on stage.”

“Please understand, Dawn, whatever happened up there is none of my business. But from what I understand from Detective Fleming, some of his clients are claiming he cheated them out of money. Could that have upset someone enough that they would want to hurt him to get even?”

“He never cheated nobody! Do you ever see those advertisements on TV that if you wrote a book, they wanna help you get it published and all that?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen them,” Nicholson replied.

“They call them subsidy publishers. Well, I guess some call them vanity publishers, too. Either way, their job is to take somebody’s book and turn it into an actual real printed book and to try to get it promoted. It’s the same thing in the music business. Yeah, Dakota charged for studio time and all that. And like I said, he always told them right up front that there weren’t no guarantees. So that’s all there is to it. It’s just business. Do you think one of them women is behind what happened to him?”

“That’s a possibility. I’m curious about something, Dawn. You said women. Didn’t Dakota represent any male singers?”

“Not really. I mean, let’s be honest, he was a good lookin’ man and he had a lot of, I don’t know what they call it. Charisma? The ladies all loved my Dakota. But that didn’t matter because he was a 100% true to me man. Now, I ain’t sayin’ some of them didn’t get it in their head that there was more to it. But that was all in their heads, not his, and he let them know right up front that he was a married man and there wasn’t going to be no hanky panky or any of that foolishness.”

“Do you know the names of any of the women that claimed they were cheated by him?”

“No, sir. Like I said before, I got all that music stuff out of my head a long time ago. Dakota ran his business, and I ran mine, and that’s the way we both liked it.”

Rosenthal wrote something on a slip of paper and pushed it in front of his partner. Nicholson read it, then asked, “Dawn, do you listen to the radio yourself?”

“Yeah, all the time. Why?”

“Country music?”

“I live in Nashville, Tennessee. There isn’t any other kind of music in the world if you live here.”

“Have you ever heard any of Dakota’s clients’ songs on the radio?”

“A couple, but I don’t think they ever went anywhere. He had a couple DJ friends that would play something for him if he had somebody he thought was going to make it. I don’t think any of them did. But that ain’t his fault.”

“By any chance, have you heard one called The Ballad Of John Lee? It’s about a deputy sheriff here in Florida?”

“I don’t think so. Who sings it?”

“A woman by the name of Lisa Marie Quarrels. The one I mentioned before.”

“No, I never heard of her or the song. Was she one of Dakota’s clients?”

“Yes, ma’am. He was down here promoting that song. According to what I’ve heard, he said it was playing on the radio all over the country.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I ain’t never heard it yet.”

“You mentioned he had a couple of DJ friends who would sometimes play stuff by his clients. Can you give me the names of any of those DJs, Dawn?”

“Yeah, one of them lives right across the street from us. Ricky Young. He goes by Youngblood on the radio. Him and Dakota were good friends. When I called him and Melody yesterday and told them about Dakota, they both came right over. They’re both really broke up.”

“Can you give me Ricky’s phone number, Dawn?”

She gave him the number, and they talked for a while longer and then she asked, “Can I come down and see him? I need to see for myself that it’s really him. I know that with the tattoo and the scar on his hand and all that, it has to be. But I just need to see him for myself.”

“That’s your right, ma’am. But I have to warn you, there was quite a bit of damage to his head and face.”

Nicholson heard her crying, but she managed to say, “I don’t care. I need to see him. I don’t want it to be real, but it never will be unless I see him with my own eyes. Where is he?”

“He’s at the medical examiner’s office in Tallahassee. They took him there for the autopsy.”

“Autopsy? They cut him up?”

“It’s standard procedure when someone dies under suspicious circumstances.”

“I’ll fly down tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. If you can call me and tell me your flight number and when it arrives in Tallahassee, I’ll meet you at the airport,” Nicholson said.

“Would you? I’d sure appreciate it. I may need a shoulder to cry on.”

“No problem, Dawn. Just tell me when to be there and I’ll meet you.”

Chapter 27

John Lee was walking out of the police station when he encountered his mother coming in.

“What’s up? I thought they already talked to you.”

“They did,” Lisa Marie said. “I just wondered if I can get my stuff from the motel room. Mama Nell took me to Walmart the other day because I didn’t have any other clothes with me, but I’d like to get my stuff.” Then she looked at John Lee and asked, “Would you go in with me? Those guys scare me.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he told her, then added, “Unless you killed Dakota.”

“Oh my God, John Lee! How can you say that? How could you even think it?”

“That wasn’t fair,” he said. “I apologize. For what it’s worth, I told them I was sure that you didn’t do anything to him.”

“I know you hate me, John Lee. I appreciate you tellin’ them that.”

“I don’t hate you,” he told her. “I guess I just don’t like you.”

He could see tears in her eyes when she nodded her head and said, “You’ve got every right not to. You’ve got every right to hate me, far as that goes. We both know I was a terrible mother. You probably don’t believe me when I say this, but if I could roll back the clock and do things all over again, it wouldn’t have been this way. I mean that. I’d a stayed home, and I’d a been a real mama to you, John Lee.”

“Well, as far as I know, clocks don’t roll back, and I wish I could believe what you say,” he told her, realizing it was probably the first honest conversation the two of them had ever had. Then he said, “Come on, I’ll go with you to talk to them.”

Rosenthal and Nicholson looked up when John Lee knocked on the open doorframe of the interview room and asked, “Did somebody forget something?”

“I was just wonderin’ about my clothes and all my stuff,” Lisa Marie replied. “They wouldn’t let me in the motel room before, and I don’t know what I need to do to get my stuff back.”

“Let me make a phone call,” Rosenthal said. He called Jayne Emerson and talked to her for a few moments, and then said, “Thanks, Jayne. Yeah, send it over to us when it’s done.” When he got off the phone, he said, “Everything’s been boxed up, and it’s still in the office at the motel, except for evidence. I don’t have a problem with you going and picking up your stuff. Do you, Nicholson?”

His partner shook his head. “No, just make sure you don’t take anything of Dakota’s. His next of kin have the right to that.”

“I don’t know his son, Billy, but I’m sure he’d like to have some of his daddy’s stuff,” Lisa Marie said. “I just need my clothes and my makeup and the copies of the CDs with my song.”

“I’ll call Mr. Devi at the motel and tell him it’s all right to turn it over to you,” Rosenthal said.

“Thank you. I sure appreciate it.”

John Lee had a thought and asked, “As long as you have a polygraph examiner coming here tomorrow to test me, can she take one too?”

“That’s up to your mother,” Nicholson said. “Would you be willing to, Lisa Marie?”

“What kind of test?”

“A lie detector test,” John Lee said. “It will prove whether or not you’re telling the truth about killing Dakota.”

“I can do that? I can take a test that shows I’m tellin’ the truth?”

“While the results of a polygraph are not admissible in court, it goes a long way in helping us eliminate suspects,” Nicholson said.

Lisa Marie nodded her head and said, “Yeah, I'll do that.”

When they left, John Lee asked, “Do you need a ride?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got Mama Nell’s car.” His mother started down the sidewalk to where the car was parked and then turned back and asked, “Would you follow me over there, John Lee? I’m not sure I can do this by myself.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right behind you,” he said.

***

“What do you want to do about lunch, Elliot?”

“How about that place called the Burger Barn? I could use a big greasy cheeseburger about now.”

“Got to maintain that dad bod of yours, don’t you?”

“Give me a break, Nicholson. I’m a middle-aged Jew. I wasn’t born with rhythm and athletic skills like you.”

His partner laughed and said, “You’re spending too much time around all these rednecks. You’re beginning to sound racist. Come on, let’s go.”

They were halfway through their lunch when Rosenthal’s phone rang. He answered it and the caller said, “This is Seth Inman. Ya got my money?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“I done told ya 24 hours.”

“Things don’t work on your schedule, Seth,” Rosenthal replied. “Besides, it hasn’t been 24 hours yet. It’s only been 22.”

“Close enough.”

“Then screw it. We can find the information we need without your help. Nice talking to you.” Rosenthal ended the call and grinned at his partner. “That ought to piss him off.”

Seconds later Inman called back, “Hey now, don’t get all mouthy with me, mister. We had us a deal!”

“Yeah, the deal was for 24 hours. I told you, it hasn’t been that long yet.”

“Are you gonna be able to get the money or not?”

“I’m trying, but I can’t make any promises. It’s not like I can just walk into the state treasurer’s office and tell them to give me a check for that kind of money. There are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through.”

“I don’t want no check. I want cash money. I told you that yesterday.”

“Come on, man. Be serious,” Rosenthal told him.

“I’m serious as a heart attack. I want cash money, and I want it within two hours.”

“I don’t know if I can do that or not. I’m just being honest with you, Seth. I’ll try.”

“How soon?”

Rosenthal looked at Nicholson, who nodded his head, and then said, “I’ll tell you what. Meet us at the police station in three hours. If I don’t have it all, I know I can get at least half of it for you in cash. If I have to, I’ll take it out of my own personal account and the state can repay me. Fair enough?”

“Mister, ya have to be crazy if ya think I’m goin’ to come into a police station. Ya think I can’t smell a setup like that? We’ll meet at the same place we did yesterday, and you better have the money.”

“Now you’re the one that’s talking crazy,” Rosenthal told him. “Do you think we’re going to meet you out there in the middle of nowhere with that kind of cash? Now that’s a setup if there ever was one. No way in hell we’re going to come out there with cash. So I guess we’ll just say our goodbyes right now, if that’s the way it is.”

“Hold on there. Ya can really get half of it in cash within three hours?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I can take it out of my personal account. I’m trying to work with you, Seth. But you have to meet me halfway.”

“There’s a store called the Kwik Stop. Meet me in the parkin’ lot in three hours. Bring the money and I’ll tell ya everythin’ I saw the night Quarrels killed that man. But I’m warnin’ ya right now, mister, that makes it personal.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means ya still owe me the other half, not the state. Y’all do. And don’t doubt for a minute I won’t come collectin’ if I don’t get it. It won’t be hard at all for me to find out where ya live and where your kids go to school.”

“Are you threatening me, Seth?”

“No, sir. I’m just tellin’ ya how it is. I’ll see ya at the Kwik Stop. Ya better have my money.

***

“I don’t like this shit, Elliot. I don’t trust that inbred asshole as far as I can throw him.”

“It’s not as bad as that fish camp. At least we don’t have mosquitoes crawling all over us,” Rosenthal replied.

“I’m telling you right now, if this idiot makes one move toward a gun, I’m blowing him away.”

“I don’t think he’s going to try something like that in a public place like this.”

“What public? There’s been two people going in and out of the store in the last fifteen minutes.”

“Relax, Nicholson. It’s going to be fine.” Rosenthal looked up as an old green Buick that sat low on worn out shock absorbers pulled off the road and onto the dirt lot and stopped in front of their car parked off to the side of the convenience store.

“At least he didn’t keep us waiting this time. I guess that says something, doesn’t it?”

“It shows he’s eager to get his hands on that money.”

“Let’s do this.”

They got out of their car and stood next to the doors as Seth Inman got out of the Buick.

“Ya got my money?”

Nodding his head, Rosenthal said, “I’ve got it.” He held up a zippered vinyl bank bag. “It’s right here.”

“Then let me have it.”

“Not until you tell us what you know about Quarrels.”

“Let me see the money.”

Rosenthal unzipped the bag and took out a stack of banded bills and held them in his hand. “See, it’s all here. Let’s get in our car because we need to record what you’re telling us to make sure we get it right.”

“Hell no, dude! Y’all can get in my car.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Rosenthal said. “We’ve cooperated with you all the way. You want the money? Then I’m calling the shots. Remember, this is my own money, not the state’s. It’s up to you.”

After thinking a moment, his eyes fastened on the money in the FDLE agent’s hand, Seth said, “All right,” taking a step toward them.

“Stop right there,” Nicholson said. “Are you armed?”

“That ain’t none of your business.”

“It is if you’re getting in a car with us,” Nicholson told him. “I’m going to pat you down first.”

“No, you’re not. Ya put one of your black hands on me and y’all are gonna be one dead nigger,” Seth warned.

“All right, you guys. Calm down,” Rosenthal said. “My partner’s right. You’re not getting in our car with a gun. So whatever you’ve got, take it out and drop it on the front seat of your car. Then I’ll pat you down. Fair enough?”

They could see that Seth didn’t like the idea, but he looked at the money in Rosenthal’s hand one more time and then said, “Screw it.” He pulled his shirt up and they could see the butt of a revolver.

“Take it out nice and easy and keep your finger away from the trigger,” Rosenthal said as Nicholson pulled his pistol. “Just drop it on the seat of your car and come over here.”

The man did as he was told and then walked up to their car.

“Hands on the hood.”

“Y’all are treatin me like I’m some kind of criminal,” Seth complained as he leaned forward and put his hands on the hood of their car, his feet wide apart. It was obvious it was a position he was familiar with.

Rosenthal patted him down, then said, “He’s clean.” He opened the back door of their car and said, “Get in.”

“Only if ya leave the doors open. I don’t trust ya sons of bitches.”

“That’s fine. We don’t trust you either,” Rosenthal told him.

They got in the front seat of their car and turned around and Nicholson held up a small digital cassette recorder and said, “This is Special Agents Nicholson and Rosenthal with Seth Inman in Somerton, Florida. Mr. Inman, I have to tell you that this is being recorded.”

“I can see that, ya damn fool.”

“You told us you saw Somerton County Deputy John Lee Quarrels kill a man named Dakota Phillips at the Starlite Motel. Is that true?”

“I didn’t say I saw him killin that guy at the Starlite. I just said I saw him killin’ him.”

“All right then, where did it take place?”

“Outside of the Pour House bar the night that Quarrels and him got in a fight,” Inman said. “I was there, and I saw it all happen. Quarrels was like a wild man, he was so out of control. He was chokin’ that man and punchin’ him, and blood was flyin’ everywhere. Took me and Bonnie from the bar, and I think it was Leroy Nelson, to pull him off the man. Even then, he was still actin’ crazy until Bonnie told him if he didn’t leave, she was goin’ to call the cops.”

“What happened then?”

“Quarrels, he left, but I’ve known him long enough to know that he wasn’t done yet. I’ve seen that look in his eyes when he starts beatin’ on somebody. He likes it. Likes it way too much. So when he left, I went out the back door of the bar and I kind of stood watchin’ in the shadows. He sat in his truck until that other fellow, the one that got killed, come out. He was parked over to the side, kind of, the other fellow was, and as soon as he got over there, out of the sight of the front door of the place, Quarrels come up behind him and whap! Hit that man in the back of the head with his nightstick and put him right down on the ground. I mean, he was out cold, if he wasn’t dead already. But Quarrels, he wasn’t done yet,” Seth said, shaking his head. “No, sir. He commenced to kickin’ that man and stompin’ on him. Kicked him in the head and the ribs, and then he bent down and put his nightstick across that man’s throat and just held it there. Now, I’m gonna tell y’all, I’ve seen some bad bar fights in my time, yeah, I have. I’ve even done a little bit of time, and I’ve seen it happen in prison, too. But I ain’t never seen nobody do a man like Quarrels did that fella that night. It about turned my stomach!”

“Then what happened?”

“Quarrels, I think he realized what he’d done and that he’d screwed the pooch. There’s no way he was goin’ to be able to cover that one up. So he opened the tailgate of his truck, put that man in the back of it, and he drove off with him. And that’s the last I seen of either one of ’em. Next thing I knew, everybody said that man was found dead in the motel. Now give me my money.”

“Like I told you, if I give you this money, it’s coming out of my pocket,” Rosenthal told him.

“And like I told ya, if I don’t get the rest of it, I might just have to pay a visit to your old lady. Or maybe I’ll stop and have a little visit with your kids on the way to school. So if I was you, I’d just make sure that ya get the rest of my money. I don’t care if you get it from the state or wherever. You’ve got 24 hours to get the rest.”

“I’ve got to admit, Seth, you’re kind of scaring me,” Rosenthal told him. “Would you really do something to harm my kids or my wife?”

“You bet your sweet ass I would, so don’t fuck around with me. 24 hours. Now give me the first part now.”

“I don’t think so,” Rosenthal told him.

“Huh?”

Just then Police Chief Miranda Bryant and two of her officers, along with three special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, piled out of a van parked a few feet away, shouting, “Hands up! Hands up! You make a move and you’re dead, Inman!”

Seth looked at them in a panic and then at Rosenthal and Nicholson, who both had their pistols pointed in his face. “Do what they say, or I’ll kill you where you sit,” Rosenthal said. “Just give me an excuse!”

Chapter 28

It was late by the time they got done dealing with Seth Inman and had the paperwork written up, charging him with interference in a police investigation, threatening a police officer and his family, carrying a concealed weapon by a convicted felon, and attempted fraud. All of that along with two federal firearms violations as a felon in possession of a firearm meant he was facing a long stretch behind bars. Even if his public defender could negotiate plea bargains, which was doubtful, given his record, he would not be breathing fresh air for quite a while.

They were both tired, and Rosenthal said, “After today, I need to be with my family tonight.”

Nicholson nodded, understanding. As investigators, they had been threatened before, but hearing threats made against one’s wife and children was different and much worse. When they pulled up in front of Rosenthal’s house in a Tallahassee suburb, Nicholson said, “Sleep in tomorrow and hold Angie for a while. I’ll call you after I pick up Dawn Phillips at the airport.”

Sitting behind the wheel of their state issued unmarked car, Nicholson watched until his friend was inside the house and the door closed. He knew they were safe, at least for that night, from the wolves that preyed upon the good people in society.

On the way home, he stopped and picked up Chinese food to go, and back at his apartment, he took a long, hot shower. When he got out, he toweled himself off and dressed in lightweight leisure wear. He ate his dinner sitting on the couch, watching television and drinking a cold bottle of Amber Lager.

He was halfway through a rerun of the Big Bang Theory when his phone beeped, telling him he had an e-mail. Setting down his container of Kung Pao chicken, he opened his laptop computer and saw a long list of junk e-mails, deleting them without even opening. When he was finished, there were only three legitimate e-mails, one from his sister asking if he had any idea what to do for their parents’ upcoming wedding anniversary, an invoice from his insurance company, and one from Jayne Emerson. He opened the last one and the attachment with it, her final report on the examination of Dakota Phillips and his motel room. He opened the attachment as he picked up the cardboard carton of Kung Pao chicken again and began reading as he ate, the sitcom on television forgotten.

***

D.W. called John Lee to his office when he arrived for his shift and said, “I’m takin’ ya off jail duty.”

“Am I back on the road?”

“Not yet. We’ve got a friend of yours down in the jail and it’s best ya not be down there right now.”

“Who?”

“Seth Inman.”

“I’ve dealt with Seth before. What’s the problem?”

“I can’t tell ya right now, John Lee. You’re gonna have to trust me.”

“Okay. So, what do I do now?”

“I’m gonna put you in dispatch.”

If there was anything John Lee hated more than working the jail, it was dispatching. But he knew that if D.W. assigned him to it, he had a good reason. Reading the look on his deputy’s face, the sheriff said, “This ain’t gonna be forever, John Lee. Them FDLE boys ain’t no dummies. They’ll get this thing with Dakota Phillips figured out and things will get back to normal. Or as normal as it ever gets around here.”

An hour later the phone on the sheriff’s desk rang, and when he answered it, Deputy Livingston downstairs in the jail said, “Sorry to bother you, Sheriff, but Seth Inman says he’s got to talk to you right now. Says it’s a matter of life or death.”

It was not uncommon for a prisoner to demand to see the sheriff, and usually D.W. ignored such calls, but he decided to make an exception in Inman’s case.

“Tell him I’ll be down directly, but I got a couple of things to clear up here first.”

D.W. picked up that week’s edition of the Somerton County News and went into the private bathroom attached to his office. Just because he was going to go down and talk to Inman didn’t mean he was going to ask “how high” when the fool said “jump.” After reading the paper leisurely, he locked his .357 revolver in his desk drawer and went downstairs.

“I wouldn’t normally bother you, Sheriff, but he just won’t shut up,” Livingston said.

“No problem, Tim. I kinda want to talk to this fool, anyway.”

D.W. walked down the cell block and stopped in front of the cell holding Seth Inman. “What’s so all fired important I gotta stop what I’m doin’ and come down here and listen to you pissin’ and moanin’ right this minute?”

“Sheriff, I’ve been set up. Those state investigators made up all that stuff ’bout me that they’re sayin’ I did. I didn’t do none of it!”

“Is that so?”

“I swear to God, Sheriff, I never said any of that stuff they claim I did.”

“Well now, I’m kind of curious why they’d do somethin’ like that. Why do ya think they came all the way over here from Tallahassee and looked ya up and came up with a crazy story like that?”

“I don’t know,” Inman said, shaking his head. “All I know is that I was mindin’ my own business, and they asked me to meet ’em at the Kwik Stop, and the next thing I know, I got people pointin’ guns at me. I can’t go back to prison, Sheriff. I’m a dead man if they send me back.”

“A dead man, ya say? What makes ya think that?”

“You know me, Sheriff. I believe in law and order. I ain’t sayin’ I ain’t slipped up once in a while, ‘cause I did. I’m not denyin’ that. But when I was inside, I managed to make a couple of enemies.”

“How did you do that, Seth? Didn’t you drop your drawers and bend over fast enough when they told you to?”

“Come on, Sheriff, it wasn’t like that. There was a couple old boys in there that I got crosswise with and I had to go into protective custody.”

“Usually when someone gets crosswise with somebody in prison, it’s because of a couple of things,” the sheriff said. “Either you got in debt for cigarettes and stuff like that, or you shot your mouth off when you shouldn’t have, or you were a snitch. Which one was it, Seth?”

“Maybe I saw some things and maybe I happened to whisper somethin’ to a guard. But only because, like I said, I believe in law and order and there was people doin’ stuff in there that was just wrong.”

“Well, imagine that,” D.W. said. “You’re tellin’ me they got people in prison who do stuff that they ain’t supposed to? That’s just amazin’ to me.”

“You gotta help me out, Sheriff! I got information. Information you need!”

“Well now, is it anythin’ like that information ya gave those state boys claimin’ John Lee Quarrels killed that fella from Nashville? ’Cause they knew right from the start that ya was lyin’ through all three of your teeth. Ya had so many facts wrong that a blind man could have seen that. And it didn’t take ’em but a minute to find out that John Lee was the one that busted ya for burglary and got you sent away before. I gotta be honest with ya, Seth. Sometimes I wonder how ya dodged a coat hanger for nine months while you was in your mama’s belly.”

“Sheriff, ya got to help me. I’m facin’ hard time.”

“Yes, sir, you are,” D.W. told him. “Here in Florida, givin’ false information about a capital felony is a third-degree felony. That’ll get ya up to five years in prison and another five years of probation, and up to a $5,000 fine. Then there’s obstruction of justice. That ought to be good for another three to five years. Now, threatenin’ a police officer or their family is only a misdemeanor, so y’all will probably only get a year for that.”

It looked like the man was literally shrinking inside himself as D.W. detailed the penalties he faced. But the sheriff wasn’t done yet.

“Now, those are state charges. Let’s don’t forget that the federal penalty for bein’ a felon in possession of a firearm is up to ten years in prison, plus probation and a big fine. Last I heard, it was somethin’ like $250,000. And they got ya for two of them, boy. Havin’ that rifle with you out there at the fish camp and that .38 ya had stuck in your waistband at the Kwik Stop today. Yes, sir, ya have got some fun times ahead of ya. Of course, that’s if those fellows you were talkin’ about in prison don’t slit your throat the first day ya get there. I gotta be honest with ya, Seth. If I was standin’ in your shoes, I’d probably look those fellows up as soon as the gate closed behind me at Raiford and just ask ’em to get it all over with. They’d be doin’ ya a kindness.”

“What can I do?” Inman asked desperately.

“Only thing I can think of is for ya to sit down there on the floor and grab your ankles with both hands and pull them back over your shoulders as far as ya can, and kiss your ass goodbye,” D.W. told him. “Now, if we’re done talkin’ about this mess ya got yourself into, I’m goin’ to go home and have me some fried chicken for dinner, along with some mashed potatoes and a piece of corn on the cob. Maybe some chocolate puddin’ for dessert. Then I’m goin’ to sleep on clean sheets in my own bed tonight. Have a good night, Seth. If ya are lucky, when ya get breakfast tomorrow, the oatmeal won’t be cold.”

Chapter 29

Nicholson waited as the passengers exited the gate from the Nashville flight, holding a cardboard sign that said Dawn Phillips as people passed him, some carrying backpacks or pulling small, wheeled carry-on baggage. A thick woman with frizzy red hair wearing a bright pink blouse and matching stretch pants stopped in front of him and asked, “Are you the driver from the hotel?”

“No ma’am, I’m meeting someone.”

“They said the driver from the hotel would be here.”

“Sorry, I’m not him,” Nicholson said, trying to look around her at other passengers from the plane.

“Well, where do I find the driver from the hotel?”

“I’m not sure, ma’am,” Nicholson said is he stepped sideways, and the woman stepped in front of him, blocking his view again.

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense. They said the driver from the hotel would be holding a sign. You’re holding a sign, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. But unless you’re Dawn Phillips, the sign isn’t for you.”

“Now what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am.”

“Well, can’t you call someone?”

“No, ma’am, but you could,” Nicholson suggested.

“Who am I supposed to call?”

“Maybe the hotel?”

“Well, you’re a lot of help,” the woman said snidely, then stalked away, looking for her driver.

“Are you Mr. Nicholson? I’m Dawn Phillips.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nicholson said, extending his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Phillips. And again, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Dakota Phillips’ widow looked to be somewhere in her early 40s, and under other circumstances, Nicholson thought she would be attractive. But today the short, slender woman looked physically drained from grief and lack of sleep. Her sunken, red-rimmed eyes and pale complexion contrasted with her short spikey hair of a bright color the FDLE agent couldn’t quite describe.

“I still can’t believe it’s true,” Dawn said, shaking her head. “I keep thinkin’ I’m gonna wake up and this is all a bad dream.”

“Do you have any luggage with you, Mrs. Phillips?”

“Please, Just call me Dawn. I put a change of clothes in my backpack. Don’t figure to be here long. Like I told you on the phone, I just need to see him myself to know it’s real.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I have to tell you again, it’s going to be rough. Someone worked him over pretty badly.”

The woman nodded her head and said, “I appreciate that, but I know I’m not gonna believe it’s really him until I see for myself.”

Nicholson led her outside to where his state issued car was parked and opened the passenger side front door. Dawn got in and put the backpack on the floor at her feet.

“Do you need anything before we head over to the medical examiner’s office? Coffee or anything like that?”

“No, thank you,” she replied. “I don’t know that I could keep anythin’ down right now.”

“Have you spoken to your son yet to let him know about his father?”

“I tried callin’ his cell phone, but he’s not answerin’ me. That means he’s layin’ around stoned someplace, or else he’s in jail. Usually when he’s in jail, he calls wantin’ me to bail him out, but I told him, no more. He’s a good kid when he’s not messin’ with that dope, but it seems like it’s got hold of him and it won’t let go. Me and Dakota sent him off to rehab twice now, and when he gets out, he swears he’s going to stay off that stuff, but it don’t take long and he’s right back at it. It broke both our hearts, me and Dakota, but we just don’t know what else to do.”

Nicholson had seen many families in the same predicament over the years, lives ruined and hearts broken by drugs and alcohol. He thought of his cousin Darius, who had overdosed at nineteen, and James Mills, one of his best friends from high school, who had spent more time behind bars than out. Both had been young men with a lot of promise, who threw their futures away in search of the next high.

Knowing the emotions that came with dealing with someone you loved who had gone down that dead-end street, he felt empathy for Dawn Phillips. Between her son, and now losing her husband, and knowing that she would soon learn of his infidelity, he wondered why one person should be saddled with so much in their life. Years ago, when something had upset him as a young boy, he remembered his grandmother telling him that life wasn’t always fair. How true that old woman’s words had been!

When they got to the medical examiner’s office, Nicholson parked his car and led her inside. He showed his identification to a receptionist sitting behind a desk in the lobby and said, “Doctor Navarro is expecting us.”

“Yes, sir. If you can just have a seat, I’ll call and let him know you’re here.”

They sat down on padded chairs, and Nicholson could tell that Dawn was nervous by the way she interlocked her fingers and squeezed her hands together and she kept swallowing.

“You don’t have to do this, ma’am. We already have a positive ID from his driver’s license.”

Shaking her head, she said, “I have to do this for me. I know I’m probably goin’ to regret it, but I just have to do it.” She unclasped her hands and wiped tears from her eyes, shaking her head again, saying, “I must look a mess. It was all I could do to shower and brush my teeth this mornin’ before I went to the airport.”

“You look fine, ma’am,” Nicholson lied.

She gave him a weak smile and said, “I appreciate you meetin’ me and comin’ here with me. I don’t guess that’s part of your regular job, is it?”

“It’s no problem at all. I know I’ve asked you this before, but since we talked, have you been able to think of anybody who might want to do something like this to your husband?”

She started to shake her head a third time and then stopped. Nicholson thought she was going to say something, but then she said, “No. I really can’t.”

Nicholson had started out as a state trooper patrolling the highways of Florida before joining the FDLE, and years of experience had taught him to detect when somebody wasn’t being completely truthful. The way she hesitated and the fact that she wouldn’t meet his eyes made him wonder what Dawn didn’t want to tell him. Nicholson had a feeling that she had thought of someone who might be responsible for her husband’s death, but was hesitant to say so. But before he could ask her anything else, a door opened off to the side of the lobby and a woman wearing surgical scrubs asked, “Special Agent Nicholson?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, standing up. “And this is Dawn Phillips.”

“I’m Doctor Hosey, Doctor Navarro’s assistant. I am very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Phillips. If you want to come back with me, I’ll take you to your husband.”

They walked through the door and down a long hallway with pale blue walls. Doctor Hosey swiped an identification card hanging from a lanyard around her neck to access a set of automatic doors that swung inward. Past the doors were three offices, and Doctor Navarro came out of one of them.

“Nice to see you again, Special Agent Nicholson. This must be Mrs. Phillips?”

“Yes, sir,” Dawn replied.

“I’m Doctor Navarro, the Medical Examiner. I’m so sorry we have to meet under such circumstances. I have to ask again, even though I know that Special Agent Nicholson has already. Are you sure you want to do this, Mrs. Phillips? I’m afraid it’s going to be a rather distressing sight.”

“Thank you, but I have to. Like I told Mr. Nicholson here, I just won’t believe it’s true until I see for myself.”

“All right. Whenever you are ready, then.”

Dawn took a deep breath and held it in before she exhaled and then nodded her head and said, “Let’s get it over with.”

Doctor Navarro took them through another door, and they stopped in front of a large glass wall covered with some kind of dark curtains on the inside. Stepping up to a metal speaker grill embedded in the glass, he pushed the button and said, “We’re here, Felix. Open it up.”

A moment later the curtain was pulled to the side, and beside him Nicholson heard Dawn take a deep breath at the sight of the covered body on the gurney on the other side of the window. A Latin orderly inside, dressed in scrubs, moved to the far side of the gurney and gently pulled the sheet covering the body down to the chest, revealing Dakota Phillips’ remains.

“Oh, my God! Oh Dakota, what have they done to you, baby?”

Her body wavered, and Nicholson put a steadying hand on her back. Dawn stared through the glass, her mouth hanging open for another moment, then she turned and pushed her head against Nicholson’s shoulder and began crying.

Doctor Navarro pushed the button again and said, “Thank you, Felix. We’re done here.”

The curtain closed again, and they led Dawn back through the door and into his office.

“Here, Mrs. Phillips, please have a seat.”

Dawn sat down wordlessly, shaking her head.

“Do you need some water or anything, ma’am?”

She shook her head again, and the doctor offered her a box of tissues from his desk. She pulled some out and wiped her eyes, then looked up and asked in a trembling voice, “It’s not a dream, is it? He’s really gone.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid so.”

Dawn stared at the medical examiner for a long moment, then looked up at the ceiling and began to wail, a mournful, haunting sound that echoed off the walls of the small office, and that Nicholson would hear more than once in his sleep in the nights to come.

When Dawn seemed to get control of herself, they sat quietly and allowed her to cry. Finally, she looked up and asked Doctor Navarro, “Did he suffer much, do ya think?”

The medical examiner shook his head and said, “All indications are that he succumbed quickly to his injuries. I don’t think he suffered, Mrs. Phillips.”

Nicholson knew that was a lie, but at the same time, he would have told her or anyone else sitting in her place the same thing. There was no reason to add to her misery and pain any more than they had to, and if a little white lie brought her some comfort in the long days and nights to come, so be it.

Chapter 30

“Have a seat, Dawn. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea, maybe some water?”

She had been quiet since they left Dr. Navarro’s office and on the drive to FDLE headquarters. She shook her head and said in a subdued voice, “No, thank you.”

“All right, sit tight and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Nicholson was walking down the hall to the property room when he encountered Rosenthal.

“How did it go?”

“She took it pretty hard.”

“I would imagine so. Especially the way he looked.”

“I was going to the property room to get the stuff that’s been released.”

Rosenthal walked with him, and when they came back with a suitcase and a cardboard box with a lid Nicholson introduced his partner to Dawn.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Phillips, but I can assure you we are doing everything we can to find out who is responsible for what happened to your husband.”

“Thank you,” she said, nodding her head.

“These are the things that were released to us,” Nicholson said, setting the box on his desk. He removed the lid and pulled out a half pack of Marlboro cigarettes, a cigarette lighter with a golden horseshoe on the side, toiletries, and a belt with a large turquoise and silver buckle.

“What about his clothes and boots?”

“The clothes are in his suitcase.”

“Are the clothes he was wearin’ covered in blood?”

“No, ma’am,” Nicholson said. “He was found in bed wearing just underwear. Those are being held as evidence. Here’s the property list of what was in the room when he was found.”

There were several pages, and when she started reading, Dawn stopped and looked at them in confusion. “What’s all this about dresses and panties and bras and such?”

“I’m sorry, Dawn, but there was a woman staying at the motel with Dakota.”

She stared at them, mouth agape, then shook her head and said, “No, y’all got it wrong. There wasn’t no one stayin’ with Dakota.”

“According to the owner and staff at the motel, they were together. Her clothes were in the dresser drawers and closet.”

Dawn shook her head vigorously and said, “Somebody is lyin’ to you. I know Dakota and he wasn’t with no one.”

Nicholson replied, “Dawn, we have talked to the woman. She had been traveling and staying with him for quite some time.”

“I ain’t gonna believe that for a minute!”

“I wish it wasn’t true, Dawn.”

“Who is she?”

“Lisa Marie Quarrels,” Rosenthal told her.

“The woman he was down here promotin’ with that song ya asked me about?”

“Yes.”

“Do ya think she was maybe stayin’ in another room and just had some of her stuff in Dakota’s?”

“We don’t believe so,” Nicholson told her. “According to the people at the motel, they were in the same room.”

“That just can’t be true! Dakota would never do me that way. He wouldn’t! There was always women hittin’ on him, hopin’ he could make them stars, but he never once took any of them up on it. He’d come home and tell me about it and then say why would he settle for cheap hamburger when he had filet mignon at home.”

“Do you know how long he was representing Lisa Marie Quarrels?”

“No. Like I told ya before, he had his business and I had mine, and neither one of us got involved in the others.”

“Did Dakota travel with his clients sometime?”

“Sure. He’d take them to Pigeon Forge and Branson and places like that, introducin’ them to the people that run the different shows. But don’t get the wrong idea, because there was never no hanky panky. They always had their room, and he had his, and that’s the way it was. That’s why none of this makes sense when you’re tellin’ me that woman was stayin’ in his room.”

“Dawn, did you ever meet any of Dakota’s clients?”

“Not really. Sometimes we’d go out to one of the shows in Nashville and he’d point somebody out to me and say that he was representin’ them, but he always made it a point not to let his work interfere with our time together. He was off on the road so much that when he was home we spent as much time together as we could.”

They spent two hours asking her about her husband’s business, anyone who might have a grudge against Dakota, his finances, any of his clients that she knew of, and what their personal relationship had been like.

Dawn said again that Dakota ran his business and she ran hers, and they kept them separate. “We ain’t gettin’ rich, but we pay the bills. It costs a lot to be out on the road like Dakota is so much, but that’s just part of what he does. People think it’s all glamorous, the music business, but it ain’t. There’s a lot more time spent sittin’ around motel rooms or goin’ up and down the highway and eatin’ cheap restaurant food than there is anythin’ else. But in a way, it’s like its own drug. Just like Billy, Dakota was hooked on the business and there was no way he was ever goin’ to get out of it. But it made him happy and it worked for us. Sure, I wanted him home with me more and he wanted to be home, but sometimes folks has got to do what they’ve got to do. Just like truck drivers or people in the Army. They don’t want to be away from home, but they got to do their job.”

“You said that when he was home you two worked to have quality time together, right?”

“That’s right. We didn’t go out much, because like Dakota used to say, he spent enough time in nightclubs and music halls and ate enough restaurant food when he was gone, that the last thing he wanted to do was that when he got home. Instead, we just hung around the house, or we’d go for long rides and make up for lost time.”

“Would you say you had a good marriage in spite of the fact that he was gone so much, Dawn?”

“The best! We never took each other for granted, and even if we wasn’t sleepin’ in the same bed every night, I learned a long time ago that if a woman keeps her man satisfied, he don’t have no reason to be lookin’ for anything else when he’s away, and Dakota didn’t. I don’t know why that woman was in the same room with him, but I’ll bet my life there wasn’t nothin’ goin’ on between them but business. And I don’t mean that funny business either.”

They let it drop, and she continued to read through the inventory of items taken from the motel room. She stopped and asked, “Where’s Dakota’s Jewelry?”

“Jewelry?”

“Yeah. He always wore a silver and turquoise ring on his right hand and a gold one with a horseshoe and diamonds on his left hand. And he had two gold chains around his neck. He never took any of them off. Not even when he took a shower.”

Rosenthal looked through the paperwork from the medical examiner and from Jayne Emerson and said, “There’s no mention of any jewelry or a watch here. But the medical examiner said that the skin on a finger on each hand was paler than the rest of the skin, showing that he wore rings, and the same on his left wrist, showing that he wore a watch. What kind of watch was it, Dawn?”

“It was a Rolex Submariner. He said his daddy got it back when he was in the Navy, way before he even got married, and he passed it on to Dakota when he died.”

“As far as I know, he wasn’t wearing any jewelry or a watch and they weren’t in the room when he was found,” Nicholson told her. “Our people are pretty meticulous about photographing everything and keeping lists about things like that.”

“Do ya think that woman ya said was stayin’ in the room with Dakota took that stuff? Is she the one that killed him?”

“We don’t believe she’s responsible for Dakota’s death,” Rosenthal said. “She didn’t have a motive, and she has an alibi for where she was at the time of his death.”

“Maybe the motive was he caught her stealin’ his stuff, and she killed him so he wouldn’t tell on her.”

“As I said, she’s got an alibi.”

“But did you ask her about his jewelry and stuff?”

“No, we didn’t,” Nicholson admitted. “We didn’t know anything about it until just now when you told us.”

“Well, ask her about it.”

“We will,” he promised.

Dawn went back to reading the inventory sheets and then asked, “What about Dakota’s truck? Where is it?”

“The truck has been impounded. Once the crime scene crew is finished with it, they will release it to his next of kin, which is obviously you.”

“Should I cancel my flight back to Nashville and drive it back?”

“It probably won’t be that fast, but I’ll make a call and ask,” Nicholson said.

He called Jayne Emerson, and she said, “I don’t want it released until we go over it again looking for any DNA that might have been missed. It’s going to be another day or two, at least.” He thanked her and hung up the phone and told Dawn what he had learned.

“Is there any reason I need to stay here then? Carol’s runnin’ the shop, but I can’t be away too long.”

“Let me change the subject for a minute, Dawn. When we were at the medical examiner’s office, I asked if you had been able to think of anyone else who might want to hurt Dakota and you hesitated like you wanted to say something, but then you didn’t. What was that about?”

“It wasn’t nothin.’ Just somethin’ that went through my head and was gone,” she said.

Nicholson noticed she looked slightly away when she replied.

“If there’s anybody you can think of, even if it seems far-fetched, we really need to know.”

“No, I don’t know anybody who would do this.”

“Ma’am, we’ve been at this a very long time,” Rosenthal told her. “Sometimes when people think something isn’t important, it really can be. So if you think there’s something or someone we should know about, even if it seems completely crazy, we need you to tell us.”

Dawn lowered her head and put a palm on her forehead, and seemed to think for a long time. They kept silent, knowing that sometimes silence is the best tool an investigator can use. Finally, she dropped her hand and looked at them and said, “It’s crazy and I don’t think there’s any possibility it could be true, but when you asked me that question before, Billy came to mind.”

“Billy? Your son?”

“Like I said, it’s crazy. But it just hit me for a minute.”

“Had Dakota and Billy been having any problems?”

She shook her head and said, “Ever since he got messed up on dope, Billy has been a problem. Like I told Mr. Nicholson before, when he’s not on the dope, he’s a good kid. But he just can’t shake that stuff.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rosenthal said. “I would imagine that his drug abuse caused conflicts between your son and your husband.”

“It’s like some kind of cancer. Once he got started on that mess, it just kept gettin’ worse. That’s why he did what he did.”

“What did he do, Dawn?”

“He stole money from Dakota. At first it was only like ten or twenty bucks at a time and Dakota kept tryin’ to make excuses. He’d say maybe he spent it on something’ and didn’t remember. But then the next time Billy came around the house, over $200 went missin’ that Dakota just got out of the ATM at the bank. It was all in twenties. Him and Billy got into a big argument about it and Billy took a swing at his dad and Dakota hit him back and knocked him on his rear end.”

“Then what happened?”

“Billy went stormin’ out the door sayin’ that Dakota would be sorry someday. That was the last time Dakota saw him.”

“When was the last time you talked to Billy?”

“Like I told Mr. Nicholson, he isn’t answerin’ his phone. That means he’s probably all doped up someplace or else he’s in jail. But usually when he’s in jail, he calls me and wants me to bail him out. Last time he called, I told him no. He didn’t like that, but it’s better for him to be sittin’ in there than out using dope and getting’ into trouble.”

“Can you give us Billy’s phone number?”

She looked at them and asked, “You don’t think Billy’s behind this, do you? I wish I’d never even mentioned his name. There’s no way he would do somethin’ like that to his daddy, no matter how messed up he is.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Rosenthal lied, “but we still need to talk to him.”

She gave them the phone number, and they wrote it down.

“I don’t know how I’m goin’ to tell him that Dakota’s dead. How do you tell a boy that his daddy’s dead?”

“Something like that is never easy to tell anyone,” Nicholson said.

“I hope he don’t hear about it when he’s in jail. I can’t think of a worse place to get news like that, can you?”

“Is there ever a good place for it?”

“No, I guess not.”

She was crying again, and Nicholson looked at Rosenthal. Both had the same thought. Would a drug addicted young man do anything, even steal expensive jewelry from his own father, to pay for his next high? And what would happen if he was caught in the act?

Chapter 31

They dropped Dawn off at the airport in time to get the late afternoon flight back to Nashville, and as they were leaving the airport, Rosenthal asked, “What do you think?”

“I think that’s a lady who’s got a lot of heartbreak to deal with,” Nicholson replied. “It’s bad enough losing her husband, but then finding out that he was having an affair with Lisa Marie Quarrels, that’s going to be devastating. Not to mention her kid being a drug addict.”

“I think we need to find Billy Phillips and talk to him, don’t you?”

“Definitely,” Nicholson replied. “Let me call Detective Fleming up in Nashville and see if he can help us find him.”

Nicholson was pulling his phone out to make the call when it rang. He answered and spoke for a few minutes and then said, “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

When he ended the call, Rosenthal asked, “Who was that?”

“Maynard Gillette, the polygraph examiner. He said Quarrels and his mother both passed with flying colors. In his expert opinion, neither one of them were being deceitful in any way, and neither one of them had anything to do with what happened to Dakota Phillips.”

“I was already pretty well convinced that Quarrels wasn’t involved and I kind of felt that way about the mother, too.”

“Yeah, but it’s good to know for sure,” Nicholson said. “I’d hate to see his life ruined by something like this. I’ll give Fleming a call.”

When he talked to the Nashville detective, Nicholson said, “I was hoping you could help us find Billy Phillips. We need to talk to him.”

“That’s not a problem,” Fleming replied. “He’s at the Downtown Detention Center. He was arrested early this morning.”

“Really? What did he do?”

“A patrol officer stopped a car with an expired license plate and Billy was a passenger. Knowing him and the driver from previous encounters, he asked if either of them were holding narcotics. They started acting hinky and the driver refused to give him permission to search the car. The officer called in a K-9 and the dog detected both of them were holding.”

“How long can you keep him in custody?”

“Well, considering the guy’s in violation of his probation from an earlier offense, and he has two failure to appear warrants, he’s not going anywhere soon.”

“We’ll try to make arrangements to come up there tomorrow,” Nicholson said. “I’ll let you know when we have a schedule.”

“I’ll be here,” Fleming told him.

***

Sheriff D.W. Swindle had been in a budget meeting with the county supervisors most of the afternoon and was frustrated that they wanted to go over every penny the Sheriff’s Office was spending. When Supervisor Butson raised the question of Deputy John Lee Quarrels and suggested that he should have been placed on unpaid leave of absence pending the outcome of the investigation into Dakota Phillips’ death, the sheriff grew irate.

“That’s the whole reason you called me into this meetin’ today, ain’t it?”

“I’m just asking…”

“We have procedures we follow in this county for every employee, whether it’s a deputy or someone on a road crew,” the sheriff said. “The procedure is, when someone is accused of somethin’, they’re put on paid leave until it’s settled. With a deputy, the sheriff has the option of puttin’ them on paid leave of absence pendin’ the outcome of the investigation, or puttin’ them on some other duty where they ain’t in public contact as a deputy. I took John Lee off the road until this thing is settled. That’s my choice to make as sheriff. But while y’all are wastin’ time nitpickin’ this crap, I’m still drawin’ a sheriff’s pay while I’m sittin’ here doin’ this nonsense instead of doin’ my job. So if all this is going to be is a witch hunt lookin’ for a way to stick it to Quarrels or me, I’m out of here.”

“D.W., why do you have to be so obstinate all the time?”

The sheriff chuckled and said, “I like it when people like you try to use big words ’cause ya think I’m just some dumb ass hillbilly. To answer your question, instead of askin’ why I’m so obstinate, I wanna know why ya got such a hard on for John Lee?”

“Sheriff, watch your language!”

“We all know why I’m sittin’ here right now, Caroline, and it ain’t got nothin to do with my budget. It’s all because John Lee did his job and busted your dumb ass kid.”

“Language, Sheriff!”

“Hey, ya called me in here because y’all wanted to hear what I had to say. Well, that’s what I got to say,” D.W. said. “But I’ll tell ya what, if y’all waste any more of my time like this, I’m goin’ to go have a talk with that little gal Dixie who works for the newspaper. I bet she’d like to run a story about how y’all are wastin’ taxpayers’ money and all of our time with this nonsense. Now, you all have a good day!”

D.W. got up and started to leave, and Supervisor Lonnie Fairchild said, “We’re not done here.”

“Maybe you’re not, but I am,” D.W. replied.

He was halfway to his car in the parking lot when he remembered to turn on his cell phone and saw he had missed a call from Special Agent Nicholson from the FDLE. D.W. called him back, and after listening to what Nicholson had to tell him, he asked, “Can ya hang on just a minute? I want ya to tell someone else the same thing ya told me.”

“Sure,” Nicholson replied.

D.W. reversed his course and went back to the supervisors’ meeting room, where they were milling about, and said, “I need y’all to shut up and listen to somethin’ for a minute.”

Two of the elected officials looked angered by the tone of his voice, but they all quieted down and D.W. said, “I got Special Agent Nicholson from the FDLE on the phone here. I want you to hear what he’s got to say.” Putting his phone on speaker and turning the volume up as loud as he could, D.W. said, “Nicholson, I’m here with the county supervisors and I need you to tell these pinheads what you told me about Deputy Quarrels.”

“Folks, I was just telling Sheriff Swindle that Deputy Quarrels voluntarily submitted to a polygraph with an examiner from our department today. His report was that there was no deception in anything Deputy Quarrels said during the examination and that the FDLE is convinced Deputy Quarrels had nothing to do with the death of Frank Phillips, also known as Dakota Phillips.”

“Did y’all hear that? Good,” D.W. said, and then said, “Special Agent Nicholson, thank ya for your call. I appreciate it.” He ended the call and then said, “When I leave here, I’m goin’ to talk to Quarrels and I’m goin’ to tell him he’s back on road duty. If any of y’all have got a problem with that, ya can go to hell.” Then, looking at Supervisor Caroline Trembly, he asked, “How’s that for language for ya?”

***

John Lee was bored to death sitting in the dispatch office. The regular dispatcher was on duty and he knew it was just a busy work assignment D.W. had put him on to keep him on the job. He appreciated that, but the frustration was getting to him. He wanted to be back out on the road doing his job.

Dispatcher Maryann Smallwood, a petite 30ish woman with short black hair who had lost her right leg while serving as an Army medic in Afghanistan, was shaking her head after a call from someone wanting to know if they could send a deputy out to scare her grandson because he would not eat his broccoli at dinner. Maryann explained to her that it was not a deputy’s job to do something like that and suggested she might find other ways to deal with the picky eater.

When the sheriff came into the office, he said, “Well, John Lee, turns out you’re not a psychotic murderer after all, are ya?”

“Not that I’m aware of. What’s up, D.W.?”

“I heard from Nicholson from the FDLE and that polygraph test ya took clears ya of any involvement in Dakota Phillips’ death. Go home and get yourself some rest because y’all are goin’ to be back out on the street doin’ your real job tomorrow, Deputy.”

“Oh, John Lee, that’s great,” Maryann said. “I’m happy for you.”

John Lee wanted to shout with relief, but he just smiled and said, “It’s about time. Thanks for having my back D.W.”

“Always had it, and I always will,” the sheriff said. “By the way, they cleared your mama, too.”

“That’s good to know. I’ll tell her.”

As soon as he left the office, John Lee called Maddy and gave her the good news.

“That’s wonderful! I know you were going stir crazy on jail duty and sitting in the dispatch office.”

“I’m going to run by my grandparents’ and tell Lisa Marie she’s in the clear, too. Then I’ll see you at home.”

“I’m going to cook you something special for dinner tonight. We need to celebrate. What sounds good?”

“How about we throw a couple of ribeye steaks on the grill? And maybe baked potatoes?”

“You got it. Let me know when you’re on your way and I’ll have them cooking when you get here,” Maddy promised.

When John Lee pulled into his grandparents’ driveway, they were sitting on the back porch with Lisa Marie. He could tell she was still having a hard time grieving for Dakota, and also from learning about his deception about his marital status. He hoped the news that she was no longer a suspect in his death would give her some comfort. Then he wondered why he cared, given everything that had happened between himself and his mother over the years.

“How you doin’ today, John Lee?”

“I’m good, Mama Nell.”

“Here, let me fetch you a glass of tea.”

“No, that’s all right. I need to get home. Maddy’s going to have dinner ready pretty soon. I just needed to come by and tell you something, Lisa Marie.”

“What’s that?”

“The guys from the FDLE called and said that we both passed the polygraph examinations and neither one of us are considered suspects in Dakota’s death anymore.”

The relief in his mother’s face was clear, and she began to cry, then stood up and put her arms around him and hugged him, saying, “Thank you for coming out here and tellin’ me that, and for suggestin’ they give me that lie detector test in the first place. That’s the only good thing that’s happened to me in a week. That and bein’ able to hug you.”

He was still uncomfortable with the physical contact, but he did not pull away.

“That’s wonderful news,” his grandmother said.

“Yes, it is. Does that mean you’re back on the road?”

“Yeah, Paw Paw. D.W. told me just a while ago that I’m back on regular duty starting tomorrow.”

“I think it was bullshit that they treated you that way in the first place,” Paw Paw said.

“The FDLE guys were just doing their job. And D.W. could have suspended me instead of putting me on other duty, but he knew how that might look to some of the county supervisors and to the public.”

“I’ll tell you what, the next time I run into any of those asshats from the board of supervisors, they’re going to hear from me,” his grandfather said. “I voted for all of them, but I won’t again. You can bet your ass on that.”

They talked for a while longer and then John Lee went home, looking forward to the next day, and life getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

Chapter 32

Nashville Detective Joshua Fleming met them at the airport the next morning, saying, “Welcome to Music City. How was your flight?”

“It was good,” Nicholson replied, introducing himself and his partner.

Fleming led them out of the building to a black unmarked car, and during the fifteen-minute drive to the detention center, he gave them a quick rundown on Billy Phillips.

“He’s 22, but he’s been using drugs so long it looks like he’s going on 40. And be prepared for an attitude. I’ve never dealt with him directly because I work Fraud, but everybody I know who has says he’s a waste of skin.”

“The way his mother talked, he’s just a mixed up kid who got in over his head with drugs and can’t get out,” Nicholson said.

“Yeah, I imagine Charles Manson’s mother thought he was just mixed up, too,” Fleming said. “His record includes at least a dozen arrests for possession, loitering, some strong arm robberies, purse snatching, six or seven burglaries, and resisting arrest. Not to mention his failures to appear.”

“So why wasn’t he already behind bars?”

“Same reason guys like him are on the street where you come from. Our jails are overcrowded and our courts are backlogged by months, if not years. Everybody wants us to lock up the bad guys, but nobody wants to pay the taxes it takes to do the job. Throw in some judges that have their heads in the clouds and think everybody deserves a second and third and fourth chance and there you go.”

“What’s this guy’s drug of choice?”

“Whatever he can get his hands on,” Fleming said. “I know he’s been busted with heroin and meth and pot, but I think he’d drink drain cleaner or battery acid if he thought it would get him to La La Land. Truth be told, except for his mama, nobody would miss him if he did.”

“According to Lisa Marie Quarrels, the woman he was involved with down in Florida, Dakota Phillips spoke highly of the kid.”

Looking at Rosenthal in the back seat, Fleming asked, “Are you telling me that Dakota lied about something? Man, that just shatters my faith in the whole human race.”

Rosenthal and Nicholson laughed and then Fleming said, “I don’t know. Maybe his old man was as blind as his mother. Or else Billy is as good a conman as his father. If Dawn believed Dakota wasn’t screwing all those women he was supposedly representing, I can see how he could pull the wool over her eyes. I’ve talked to the guy a lot, and every time I did, you’d think he was my best buddy. I made sure to keep my hand on my wallet every time because, if not, he’d have walked away with it.”

“For what it’s worth, even though she claims he’s just a kid with a lot of baggage, Dawn Phillips admitted Billy might be responsible for his dad’s death,” Rosenthal said. “What do you think?”

“He’s mad at the world, and with his record, I think anything’s possible.”

“Have you been able to come up with any ideas on the women he ripped off that might’ve been responsible for what happened to him?”

“I’ve looked at every case I know of, but keep in mind, Phillips conned a lot of women who never filed a complaint. The only one I can think of is Dolores Cascio,” Fleming said. “She actually left her husband because she thought she and Dakota were going to run off together and live happily ever after, singing their way across the country. I found out they got into an altercation at a hotel somewhere up in Minnesota and she pulled a gun on Dakota.”

“Now that’s interesting,” Nicholson said. “Any idea where we can find her?”

“She lives in Ohio, in a town called Mansfield. I’ve got an address and phone number for her.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

Nodding his head, Fleming said, “Yeah, after you called to tell me about what happened to Dakota. But I didn’t tell her about him being dead. I just told her I was checking anybody he ripped off. She told me she almost wished she had shot him. Said it might be worth it after the way he screwed her over.”

“Do you think she had second thoughts and tracked him down in Florida?”

“Just like with Billy, anything’s possible,” Fleming said as he pulled into the police parking lot at the detention center. As they walked inside, he asked, “Are you guys armed?”

“No,” Rosenthal replied. “There wasn’t time to jump through all the TSA hoops.”

“I’ll tell you what, it’s some crazy shit when a cop can’t carry a gun on an airplane anymore,” Fleming said. “Let me stash my weapon and I’ll take you up to see this puke.”

Fleming had not exaggerated in describing Billy Phillips. He looked almost skeletal when a guard led him into the interview room, with obvious patches of hair missing from his head, and his face and arms were covered with acne and sores that even his many tattoos could not disguise. The most noticeable of the tattoos were red stars tattooed on both cheeks and on his forehead. He shuffled into the room in leg shackles, with his hands cuffed in front of him, and sat down in the chair across the table from the FDLE agents. He immediately began picking at his skin, ignoring them.

Rosenthal introduced himself and his partner as Billy slumped down in his chair, looking more asleep than awake.

“You look like you’ve had a hard time, Billy.”

He shrugged his shoulders and didn’t reply.

Nicholson said, “We need to ask you some questions, but first we need to read you your rights. Is that okay with you?”

Billy shrugged his shoulders again and Nicholson said, “I need you to actually say yes or no.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Bill replied with obvious disinterest. When he spoke, they could see he had a serious case of meth mouth. The few remaining teeth they could see were rotting and broken.

After Nicholson read his rights and the young man sitting across from them said he understood them, he asked, “Billy, when was the last time you saw your father?”

His eyes downcast at the table, Billy shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t? Can you at least give me an idea when it was?”

“No,” Billy said, shaking his head as he picked at a scab on his arm.

“Would you say it was in the last week, or the last month, or last year?”

“I don’t know. A couple of months, I guess.”

“Where was that at?”

“At the house.”

“Your parents’ house in Nolensville?”

“Yeah.”

“Was there a problem between you and your father?”

“There’s always problems,” Billy said as he picked at the sore, not looking at them.

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s an asshole.”

“Okay, but what caused the problem on your last visit with him?”

“I told you, he’s an asshole.”

“The last time you saw your father, did you two get into a confrontation?”

“A what?”

“A confrontation. Did you and your father get into an argument?”

Billy continued picking at the sore and blood began to trickle down his arm. Rosenthal pushed a box of tissues across the table to him, but Billy ignored them.

“We need your help on this, Billy. Did you and your father have a physical fight the last time you were at their house?”

“Probably. We do most times.” Billy looked up at them, trying to focus on the conversation, and asked, “What’s this all about? Is that prick trying to get me busted for something?”

“Billy, I hate to have to tell you this, but your father was murdered.”

“No shit?”

Billy’s response was flat, showing no emotion at the news. Nicholson could have just as easily told him it was raining, or that they were having pizza for lunch.

“Doesn’t it upset you to hear what happened to your father, Billy?”

He shrugged his shoulders yet again and asked, “Why should it? He never was much of a father, anyway. I never understood why my mother thought he walked on water when he was always off banging some other woman.”

“You know that for a fact, Billy? That he was cheating on her?”

“I saw it with my own damn eyes!”

“You saw your father having sex with another woman? When was this?”

“Last summer. I went to his office to try to get some money from him and he had some bitch bent face down over his desk, putting the dick to her.”

“Did he see you, Billy?”

“Yeah, he saw me! Told me to get my ass out of there and keep my mouth shut.”

“Did you ever confront him about that?”

“Nope. Wasn’t none of my business and I knew Mom wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

“Billy, where were you in the last few days?”

“I don’t know. Here and there.”

“Were you by any chance down in Florida?”

“Why the hell would I go down there?”

“I don’t know,” Nicholson said. “Maybe to kill your father?”

“If you guys think I did it, you’re crazy. I hated the son of a bitch, but he wasn’t worth killing.”

“Do you know anybody who might want to hurt or kill him?”

“Hell if I know, and I don’t care. More power to them.”

“So, it doesn’t bother you that your father was murdered?”

“Nope. Means nothing to me.”

“That seems kind of coldhearted,” Rosenthal said.

“Did he leave me any money?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, there you go,” Billy said, as he found a new scab to pick at.

***

Getting nowhere with Billy Phillips, Fleming drove them to the country music radio station where Ricky Young worked as a DJ. When they told the receptionist who they were, she asked them to wait and went into the studio. A few minutes later, she came out and said, “He’ll be right with you.”

The man who came out to talk to them wasn’t as flashy as Dakota Phillips had been, but it was obvious Young enjoyed his celebrity. He wore a goatee, a blue silk shirt with several buttons open to reveal four heavy gold chains, and when he shook their hands, they noticed a ring on three fingers of his hand.

“Man, I sure was broken up to hear what happened to Dakota. Him and me were good friends. I live right across the street from him and Honi.”

“Honi?”

“Oh, that was Dawn’s stage name back in the day. Honi Dew. And I’ll tell you what, her voice was just as sweet as honey, too.”

“She mentioned something about getting the music business out of her system a long time ago,” Nicholson said. “But I didn’t realize she was a performer.”

“Every girl in Nashville has dreams about it at one time or another,” Young said. “She was good, no question about that, but then she got pregnant with Billy and decided she wanted to be a momma more than she wanted to be a country music star. I don't blame her. It's a hard life. Don't let anybody ever fool you about that. Once Billy got old enough to go to school, she started helping out here at the station and doing some live remotes for us.”

“So, she didn’t get the music business out of her system completely?”

“Oh, she wasn’t singing, but she hired out as a DJ providing music at parties and a couple of clubs.”

“How is she doing since she got the news about Dakota?”

“Oh, man, she’s taking it hard. My wife’s been over there with her a lot, just helping her get through it. They were a great couple, her and Dakota. You don’t see love like theirs very often these days.”

“It’s interesting you say that,” Nicholson said, “because we just left the jail and their son Billy said that Dakota was cheating on his mother all the time.”

Shaking his head in disdain, the DJ said, “that boy will lie to Saint Peter when he gets to the Golden Gate, not that he’s ever going to get there the way he’s going.”

“So, you don’t believe that Dakota was fooling around with other women, Mr. Young?”

“Hey, call me Youngblood. That’s what everybody does. And as far as Dakota and other women, come on, guys. You know how it goes.”

“No, I really don’t,” Rosenthal said. “I mean, I know how it goes down in Florida, but how do things go up here?”

“All right, I’m not gonna say Dakota was no angel, but who is? Yeah, sometimes some gal would wave her gash in his face and he might take another look. Hell, he might take more than a look, if you know what I mean. But that don’t mean nothing when it comes right down to it. He was devoted to Honi all the way.”

“Do you know of anybody who might have wanted to hurt him for any reason?”

Shaking his head, Young said, “I know he was having some trouble with a couple of former clients, but I never thought it would come to something like this. I mean, come on, it’s the music business. Not everybody makes it. For everyone that does, there’s ten thousand that don’t, and I imagine some of them want to place the blame on somebody else because they don’t have the talent or the luck, but that was never Dakota’s fault.”

“Can you think specifically of any of those former clients?”

“No, man. I can’t. I wish I could help you but I just don’t know. But I’ll tell you this. Whoever did it took a real good man out of the world. One of the best men I ever knew.”

Chapter 33

Since they had time before the next flight back to Tallahassee, they stopped for lunch on the way to the airport. While they were eating, Rosenthal’s phone rang. He talked to the caller for a moment, then took a notepad and pen from his pocket and jotted down something. “Can you text me photographs, please? Thanks, Mr. Bergen. We’ll try to come by sometime this afternoon or else first thing in the morning.”

“What’s that all about?” Nicholson asked when his partner was off the telephone.

“That was a fellow by the name of Patrick Bergen. He runs a pawnshop in Dothan, Alabama. He was calling about that alert we put out for Dakota Phillip’s missing jewelry. He thinks he has it.”

A moment later Rosenthal’s phone beeped with a message and when he opened it, he said, “Those look the way Dawn described them,” showing Nicholson and Fleming pictures the pawn broker had sent of a horseshoe shaped gold ring with diamonds, a turquoise and silver ring, and a Rolex watch.

“I recognize the rings,” Fleming said.

“I’ll be damned,” Nicholson said. “We need to go by and show this to Dawn to get a second confirmation. Do you mind running us back there, Detective Fleming?”

“Not at all. But we’re closer to the radio station. If Dakota wore these all the time like his wife said, I would think that Young would recognize them, too.”

“Good point,” Nicholson said.

“If we hurry, we could get there and still make it back to the airport in time for your flight.”

They left the uneaten portions of their meals and went out to his car and made the short drive back to the radio station.

“Yeah, that’s Dakota stuff. No question about it. He never took those rings off,” the disc jockey said.

“You’re sure these are his and not just something that looks like them?”

“Yes, sir. Dakota had those rings custom made for him down in Mexico. And the watch was his father’s before he died. He treasured it.”

Rosenthal looked at his partner and said, “I’ll bet that whoever pawned this stuff is the same person who killed Dakota.”

“Do we have time to get to Dothan today?”

Rosenthal looked at his watch and said, “It’s about a three-hour flight home and then a couple of hours’ drive up to Dothan. I doubt it. But I can call this Bergen fellow and ask if he would wait around for us.”

He made the call and after talking to the pawnbroker, said, “I understand. We’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

“What did he say?”

“Today is his kid’s birthday, and he has to get home. But he said that the jewelry wasn’t going anywhere and he would hang on to it until we got there.”

“Man, we need a break in this case and this sounds like it,” Nicholson said, his anticipation sounding in his voice.

***

It was good to be back on the road again, and to make it even better, John Lee’s first act of the day was to arrest someone. Minutes after he called the dispatcher to sign on for duty, he got a call for a suspicious driver on Turpentine Highway. Two different callers had reported a white Chevrolet Malibu wandering across the center line and onto the shoulder, thinking that the driver was impaired.

It didn’t take John Lee long to find the car in question, and as he pulled in behind it, he called Dispatch to report the license plate number. While he was waiting for a response, he noticed the car cross the center line and then pull back into its own lane twice. Turning on his overhead lights, he expected the driver to pull onto the shoulder of the road, but he continued on, not speeding up as if he was trying to get away, but just ignoring the police car behind him.

“County 16,” the dispatcher said over the radio.

“16.”

“License plate returns to a 1986 Chevrolet Malibu, white in color, registered to Barry Parker at 1425 Banyan Tree Street in Somerton. Driver has an outstanding warrant for unpaid traffic violations and his driver’s license is suspended.”

“10-4,” John Lee replied as he turned on his siren. He could see the driver and passenger in the car ahead of him both turn and looked behind them, as if unaware he had been there. Then the turn signal came on and the car pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

“Stopping them on Turpentine Highway across from Driscoll’s Welding Supply.”

“I show you stopping on Turpentine Highway across from Driscoll’s,” the dispatcher confirmed.

John Lee got out of his unit and walked to the car, putting his right hand on the trunk lid to make sure his fingerprints were on it. If things went bad, they would provide proof that he had been involved with the vehicle. Watching the two occupants for any suspicious movements, he stopped at the driver’s door and said, “Good morning. I’m Deputy Quarrels with the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department. Can I see your driver’s license and registration, please?”

“What did I do wrong?”

“You were wandering across the centerline a few times. I just want to make sure you’re okay and see if there are any problems with the vehicle.”

“Oh,” said the driver, a skinny man wearing a dingy wife beater T-shirt and cutoff jeans. “I think it’s probably the tires. I’ve been meanin’ to get some new ones, just haven’t had the money.”

“I understand,” John Lee said. “Let me take a look at your driver’s license and registration and we’ll go from there.”

“Uh, I don’t have it on me.”

“You don’t have your driver’s license on you, sir?”

“No, uh, my wallet got stolen a couple of weeks ago and all my paperwork was in it.”

“No problem. What’s your name and date of birth, sir?”

“Uh, it’s uh, Jones. Tommy Jones.”

“And your date of birth?”

“Uh, April 12th.”

“What year, Mr. Jones?”

“2019.”

“So that would make you five years old?”

“What do ya mean?”

“If you were born in 2019, you would be five years old, Mr. Jones. You don’t look five years old to me.”

The driver gave a nervous laugh and shook his head and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s my kid’s birthday.”

“So then, what’s your birthday?”

“December 12th.”

“What year, Mr. Jones?”

“Uh…”

John Lee could see him trying to count in his head and decided there was no use wasting any more time. “Please step out of the car, Mr. Jones.”

“What for?”

“Because I asked you to, sir.”

“Look man, I’m not gonna lie to ya. My license is suspended.”

“Okay. I appreciate your honesty,” John Lee said. “Step out of the car and let’s see what we can work out.”

The man got out of the car and John Lee said, “I’m going to detain you right now, Mr. Jones. You’re not under arrest, but I need to confirm who you really are.”

“I told ya, I’m Tommy Jones.”

“Honesty goes a long way with me,” John Lee said. “Is this your car?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you had it?”

“I don’t know. A couple of years.”

“See, now you’re lying to me,” John Lee said. “This car is registered to Barry Parker, who has a suspended license. So, either you’re lying to me about who you are or you’re lying to me about owning the car. Which is it?”

“Okay, man. I’m Barry Parker. Can you give me a break?”

“I’m going to search you,” John Lee said. “Do you have any weapons on you, or needles or hand grenades, or anything that’s going to hurt me?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have any drugs?”

“No.”

“What about in the car? Anything there I need to know about?”

“I’ve got a hunting knife under the seat.”

“Anything else?”

“Can you help me out on this?”

“I don’t know,” John Lee replied. “Like I said, honesty goes a long way with me. Am I going to find anything else in the car?”

“Yeah, there’s a little bit of pot.”

“How much?”

“A couple of joints in the cup holder on the console.”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah, I swear it is.”

“That’s no problem,” John Lee told him. “Anything else I need to know about?”

“No, man. That’s all.

“I’ll tell you what, I need you to go over here and sit down on the grass on the other side of my car,” John Lee said, leading the man away from the roadway. They stopped beside his Explorer, then John Lee said, “Oops, not here. See that ant hill? Those fire ants will eat you alive. Let’s move over here.” He found a clear space safely away from the anthill and helped Parker sit down. “Who’s your passenger?”

“That’s my cousin Kenny.”

“Is he riding dirty?”

“No, sir. He’s damn near a Boy Scout. He don’t even drink beer.”

“Where are you guys heading this morning?”

“Over to the other side of Live Oak. His car broke down last night and I’m goin’ to fix it. He’s a good guy, but he don’t know a crescent wrench from a jackhammer.”

John Lee approached the passenger side of the car and asked, “Would you mind stepping out, sir? And please keep your hands where I can see them.”

The passenger was clean cut and kept his hands away from his body, saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t do drugs or anything. You can run my record and find out.”

“I appreciate that,” John Lee said. “But I need you to put your hands on the car while I search you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, whatever you need.”

John Lee patted him down and didn’t find anything and asked, “What’s your name, sir?”

“Kenny Lashley.”

“How do you know this fellow here that was driving the car?”

“He’s my cousin, Barry.”

“Barry Parker?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Lashley, I’m going to put you in handcuffs for right now,” John Lee told him. “You’re not under arrest, you’re just being detained. But I need to have you both secure while I search the car.”

“I understand.”

“Do you know of any drugs or weapons in the car?”

“I’ve never been in the car before this morning,” Lashley said. “My car broke down last night coming home from my girlfriend’s place in Wellborn. I don’t know much about cars, but the lights started going dim and then it died and the battery was dead. I opened the hood and the fan belt, or whatever you call it, was gone. I hitched a ride home and called Barry because he knows about cars, and he said that he would take me back and fix it if I gave him twenty bucks plus gas money. We don’t hang around much or anything because, well… just because.”

“I understand,” John Lee said. “I’m going to sit you down here on the grass while I search the car. Then we’ll take it from there.”

He used his shoulder microphone to call Dispatch and ask for a second unit, then began searching the old Chevrolet. Just as the driver had said, he found two joints in the console and a rusty hunting knife in a leather sheath under the driver’s seat. Deputy Herb Glickman arrived while John Lee was searching the car, and when he was finished, they walked to the back of Glickman’s patrol unit.

“What do you have?”

“Driver has a suspended license and warrants for unpaid tickets,” John Lee said. “The passenger is clean and doesn’t have a record.”

“Yeah, I know Kenny,” Glickman said. “He’s a good guy. Works at the title company. He handled the paperwork when we bought our house.”

“I’m going to take the driver in, but I’ll cut the passenger loose,” John Lee said. “He told me his car broke down somewhere between here and Wellborn last night and the driver was taking him to fix it. Can you give him a ride somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of him,” Glickman said.

The deputies walked back to the two men sitting on the grass and helped them up, and as Glickman took the handcuffs off Lashley, John Lee said, “Gentlemen, I’ve got good news and bad news. Mr. Lashley, you’re free to go, and Deputy Glickman is going to give you a ride somewhere so you’re not stuck out here. Mr. Parker, I’m afraid you’re going to jail for your warrants and driving on a suspended license.”

“Oh, come on, man. Can’t you give me a break?”

“I am giving you a break,” John Lee told him as Glickman handed his handcuffs back to him. “I could also charge you with giving false information to a police officer and carrying a concealed weapon, since your knife’s blade is over four inches long.”

“What about my car?”

“Your tires are so bald they have cord showing through them. I’m having it towed.”

“Man, that sucks. No wonder people hate cops!”

“Yeah, well, life’s a bitch and then you die,” John Lee told him.

Chapter 34

It was noon by the time John Lee finished booking Barry Parker and got him lodged in the jail. Then he called Maddy, and they agreed to meet for lunch at Gator Bitze. He arrived ahead of her and ordered sweet tea for both of them, and as Kristi Heal, the waitress, brought the glasses to the table, she said, “I like that song about you, John Lee. It sure was a shame about that fellow that was helping your mama with it getting’ killed. How’s she doin’ since that happened?”

“She’s hanging in there as best she can, Kristi. Speaking of mamas, how’s yours doing? Last time I saw her, she was walking around on crutches.”

“Oh, she’s off them now,” Kristi said. “You know she’s got those damn stupid little dogs of hers. Four of ’em, and they’re always underfoot. She was goin’ out to get the mail and one of ’em got itself in between her feet as she was comin’ down the steps and she fell and twisted her ankle real bad. The doctor thought it was broken, but it wasn’t, just a bad sprain. Me and my brother Teddy keep tellin’ her she needs to get rid of those mutts, but since the two of us moved out and got married, I guess they’re the only kids she’s got anymore. Tell you the truth, I think if it she had to choose between them and us, she’d keep the dogs,” Kristi said with a laugh.

Maddy came in and slid into the booth across from John Lee and said, “Hey there, Kristi. How you doing?”

“I’m doin’ good, Maddy. How about you? I heard you got the runs when you went up to Alaska. I bet that wasn’t any fun.”

Shaking her head, Maddy said, “I actually got sick on the airplane flying back from Seattle, but I’m fine now.”

“So what do y’all want for lunch?”

“I want the alligator tails and an order of French fries,” John Lee told her.

“How about you, Maddy?”

“You know what? I think I want a pork chop sandwich and fried okra.”

“Comin’ right up,” Kristi said, walking toward the kitchen to place their order.

Leaning across the table, Maddy said in a low voice, “Can you believe I get diarrhea on a plane between Seattle and Houston, and everybody in the Florida Panhandle knows about it?”

“Trust me,” John Lee said. “The noise coming out of that airplane bathroom was enough that everybody on board knew about it, and I’m sure they told everybody they know. Word spreads.”

Maddy tore the end off of the paper cover from her straw and put her mouth on the end of the straw and blew it at him.

“How does it feel to be back on the road?”

“Wonderful,” John Lee said.

“I heard you had a traffic stop out on the highway that ended up with an arrest. I was over at the school running off some kids who were painting graffiti on the side of the building when I heard you call it in and Glickman say he was going out to back you up.”

“Yeah. I stopped a guy for the way he was driving and he turned out to have a suspended license and warrants for unpaid tickets.”

“Well, you’ve got me beat today. All I did was tell Gladys Tollson she shouldn’t turn on the sprayer to water her yard when her neighbor’s convertible is parked next door with the top down, and run those kids off from the school.”

A family was eating across from them, and their two little boys kept looking at the deputies. Finally, they got up and walked over to their table.

“Excuse me,” one said shyly.

“Hey there, little man,” Maddy said. “What can I do for you?”

Looking at John Lee, the other boy asked, “Are you the policeman they sing about on the radio? I saw a picture of you at the hardware store. We were going to go get your autograph, but then they said you weren’t going to be there. Can we get your autograph?”

“Yeah, we want to be policeman and shoot people when we get big, too,” said his brother.

“Well, guys, most policemen never shoot anybody,” John Lee told them. “And if they do, it’s really not a nice thing to do or to talk about. Mostly, policemen just help people out. I’m sure your mommy and daddy told you that, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, and so did Officer Mickles, our school resource officer. He’s nice.”

“He is a nice guy,” Maddy said, nodding her head.

“Can we have your autograph?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Maddy said, “instead of getting his autograph, how would you two like to be junior deputies?”

The boys, who were obviously brothers, looked at each other and grinned and nodded their heads.

“That would be cool,” one of them said.

“Maddy reached in her pocket and pulled out two stickers with gold badges on them from the Sheriff’s Office and said, “Okay, here are your badges. But first I need you to raise your right hand. No, your other one, buddy. That’s your right hand. Okay, and I need you to repeat after me, I promise to be a good deputy and a good citizen and always help my mamma and daddy at home and anybody else that needs help.”

The boys repeated the oath along with her and she stuck a badge on each of their shirts and then she and John Lee both shook their hands and said, “Welcome to the Sheriff’s Office, junior deputies.”

“Thank you,” they both said in happy unison, going back to their parents’ table.

The mother smiled at them and said, “You made their day.”

“Oh, they made our day,” Maddy assured her. Then, lowering her voice again, she leaned over the table and asked John Lee, “Which is worse? Having people ask you for your autograph because they think you’re a killer, or having the whole county know you had the Hershey squirts?”

Smiling, he asked, “Well, at least nobody asks you for your autograph for that, do they?”

They finished their lunch, leaving the restaurant and walking outside just as the family of four were getting into the minivan. The little boys waved at them, and then Maddy said, “Hey guys, would you like to sit inside a police car and turn the lights and siren on?”

“Can we?”

“Sure, if it’s okay with your mom and dad.”

“That would be great,” the father said.

Maddy opened the door of her Explorer and they got in. She showed them the portable computer system, the radio, and the switches to turn on the overhead lights and siren. Both boys were thrilled with the adventure, and when they ran back to their parents, the mother said, “I told you before that you made their day. But I think you just made their whole year!”

They waved goodbye as their van pulled out of the parking lot and Maddy asked, “Where are you headed now?”

“Wherever Dispatch sends me,” John Lee said, reaching for his radio to check them both in as back on duty.

“County 16, I’ve got a call holding for someone locked out of their car at the Palmetto Pantry, and another one for a report of boys throwing rocks at birds at the park.”

“That’s got to be the same little punks I ran away from the school,” Maddy said. “I’ll take that one.”

Keying his microphone, John Lee said, “Dispatch this is 16. Show me heading to Palmetto Pantry and County 28 going to the park.”

“Well, the good news is, maybe those two little boys we just saw will grow up to be decent kids instead of being like these brats I’ve been dealing with all morning,” Maddy said as she got in her unit. “If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you at home, John Lee. Love you.”

Fortunately, the car at the grocery store was an older model and John Lee was able to use a slim jim to unlock the door for the owner, whose frozen food was beginning to soften. She thanked him profusely, and as he got back in his unit, his phone rang.

He saw the caller ID was from Justin Bach, and when he answered, the attorney asked, “John Lee, are you anywhere near my office?”

“I’m just a few blocks away. What do you need, Justin?”

“I don’t need anything, but I think there’s someone here you should talk to.”

“All right. I’ll be there soon.”

When he got to Justin Bach’s office, he found him sitting at his desk talking to another young man, who he introduced as Zach Kaufman. Justin said, “Zach is an independent process server, and he’s the guy that served the cease-and-desist letter on Dakota Phillips for you.”

The blonde haired, blue eyed Kaufman’s grip was firm as they shook hands, and he said, “It’s nice to meet you, Deputy.”

“Nice to meet you,” John Lee said.

“Zach just got back in town, and he called and said he needed to see me, and as soon as he showed me why, I called you,” Justin said.

“What’s going on?”

“I always wear a body camera when I’m serving paperwork,” Zach said. “It’s proof that I served the papers to the right person, and it’s also protection because a lot of people don’t like being served.”

“I can believe that,” John Lee said.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve had people threaten to punch me out and throw bricks at my car, you name it. Anyway, I’ve been out of town, up in Tifton, Georgia, for my cousin’s wedding. I didn’t know anything about Dakota Phillips getting killed until I got back in town, and right away I thought you should see this.”

“See what, Zack.”

“This,” Justin said, turning his computer so that John Lee could see it. “This is the video from when Zach served the paperwork on Phillips.”

John Lee watched the screen as the image from behind the steering wheel of a car showed a vehicle stopping in front of room 17 at the Starlite Motel. Zack’s voice identified himself and gave the time and date and said that he was at the Starlight motel to serve a cease-and-desist letter on Dakota Phillips and/or Lisa Marie Quarrels. The body cam showed him getting out of the car and going to the door of the motel room and knocking and clearly picked up the sound of an argument coming from inside the room. Zach knocked again and there was still no response and then a man’s voice was heard saying, “What in the hell’s going on over there? I worked all damn night and I’m trying to get some sleep!”

The screen showed a man in a sleeveless T-shirt pounding on the door of the motel room and saying, “This is bullshit!” He pounded on the door with his fist, shouting, “Shut the hell up in there and open the door!”

Then the door opened to show a bloodied and battered Dakota Phillips, and the confrontation between him and his neighbor. After the man from the room next door left, the video showed Zach confirming the man he was talking to was Dakota Phillips and serving him the cease-and-desist letter. The video then showed him returning to his car as the voices of the man and a woman inside the motel room resumed their argument.

“Damn!”

“I thought it might be important after what happened to that guy,” Zach said.

“It’s beyond important,” John Lee told him and then had Justin replay the video twice more. “I need a copy of this.”

“I’m ahead of you,” Justin said, handing him a USB drive.

John Lee wrote down Zack’s contact information and thanked him again. Then he hurried outside, eager to call Rosenthal and Nicholson from the FDLE.

Chapter 35

A woman with a crying baby had been seated behind them during the flight, and though they understood it was not her or the child’s fault, they were certainly relieved when they got off the airplane in Tallahassee. When they turned on their cell phones, they both had voice messages from John Lee Quarrels. Listening to them as they walked through the terminal and out to the short-term parking lot, Rosenthal asked, “Did you get the same message I did from Quarrels?”

“Yeah. I wonder what that’s all about?”

“I don’t know, but he said it’s important. You drive and I’ll call him.”

John Lee answered on the first ring and Rosenthal said, “We were on a flight and had our phones turned off. What’s up?”

John Lee told him about the video from the process server and Rosenthal said, “Wow. We definitely need to see that.”

“Do you want to come here, or do you want me to bring it to you?”

“Let’s save us both some time. Can you e-mail it to me?”

“Yeah. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll have it to you.”

“Great. As soon as we look at it, I’ll call you back,” Rosenthal said.

A moment later, his phone beeped and they sat in the car with the engine running and the air conditioning blowing while they watched the video.

“I’ll be damned,” Nicholson said. “He definitely looks beat up, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, and that shows us that Atwood from the room next door at the motel didn’t do it.”

“I can hear the woman’s voice, but it isn’t very clear with the door closed. Can you see her at all?”

Rosenthal used his fingers to expand the image on his smartphone screen, but it wasn’t enough to show anything. “Let me try my laptop. Pop the trunk.”

He got out of the car and retrieved their laptop computers from the trunk and turned his on. It took him a couple of minutes to find an open Wi-Fi signal, and when he did, he opened his e-mail and clicked on the same message from John Lee and opened the video. On the larger screen they could see Dakota Phillips’ face better, but even zooming in, they could not see the woman behind him with the motel room’s door open, and the voice was still too muted when the door was closed to identify it.

“Do you think the techs in the lab could do anything with this?”

“I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.” Rosenthal looked at his watch and said, “It’s almost five. Let me call and see if somebody can stay until we get there.”

“I’ll start heading that way,” Nicholson said, putting the car in gear.

They had pulled out onto Capital Circle Southwest by the time anybody answered the phone at the FDLE forensics lab, only to be told that the technicians who worked in that area were all gone for the day. Frustrated, Rosenthal said that he would be there in the morning.

“Now what?”

“Let’s call it a day,” Rosenthal said. “I’ll e-mail this to you and maybe between the two of us, we can see something on our computers at home.”

“I live closer to the lab,” Nicholson said. “I’ll call and find out who to bring or send the video to tomorrow before I pick you up and we drive up to Dothan.”

“Okay. While you’re doing that in the morning, I’ll call and see if I can get a hold of this Dolores Cascio, up in Ohio.”

“A lot is happening at once. It feels like we’re getting close.”

“I know,” Rosenthal replied. “But I still don’t have a clue who killed the guy. Do you?”

“Right now, my money’s on his kid,” Nicholson said as he braked quickly to avoid hitting a plumbing company service truck that pulled out of a parking lot right in front of them. “He made it clear he didn’t have any love for his old man. And we both know a junkie will do anything for a fix. Fleming said that he was going to get one of the detectives who works Narco up there and has dealt with Billy before to see if they can run down where he was at the time Dakota was killed.”

“You don’t think it was the woman in the motel room with him?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s a very real possibility, whoever it was.”

“Well, the polygraph ruled out Lisa Marie Quarrels, and I don’t think there’s any way Dawn did it,” Nicholson said. “So, who is this mystery woman?”

“Maybe when we talk to that pawnbroker tomorrow, we’ll know more.” Rosenthal shifted uncomfortably in the seat as he pulled a small bottle of Mylanta chewable tablets from his jacket pocket and popped three into his mouth.

“How you doing, buddy?”

“I’m fine.”

“You really need to see a doctor,” Nicholson advised his friend. “Antacids aren’t going to cure an ulcer.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a little indigestion.”

“Money talks and bullshit walks,” Nicholson said. “I really wish you’d walk your bullshit into a doctor’s office.”

“Geez, you sound like my old lady,” Rosenthal said, shaking his head. “I told you, it’s just a little bit of indigestion. Probably from eating so fast up there in Nashville and being on the run all day. And that crying baby on the plane didn’t help much, either.”

Nicholson shook his head, knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere with his stubborn partner. For the last six months, the man had been having what he called indigestion, and it seemed like it was becoming more frequent. He was eating antacid tablets like they were M&M’s and Nicholson was truly worried about him. They had been partners for a long time and had formed a strong bond. More than once he had thought about talking to Rosenthal’s wife, who he knew was also worried about him.

Dropping Rosenthal off at his home in Betton Hills, Nicholson drove to his apartment in Frenchtown. The historic neighborhood dating back to the early 1800s became home to many emancipated slaves after the Civil War, who sent their children to Lincoln Academy, one of the first high schools in the state for African Americans. He had grown up here in the house his parents still lived in, just a few blocks away, and enjoyed everything about the area, from the weekly farmers’ market to being close to downtown and FDLE headquarters.

Nicholson put a hamburger on the grill on his small patio, and while it was cooking, microwaved some frozen mac and cheese, thinking back to how often his sister Sonja and Rosenthal had told him he needed to find a good woman and settle down, if for no other reason than that he would eat better. Chuckling to himself as he turned on the television, Nicholson thought that at least he wasn’t the one living on Mylanta.

***

The telephone rang seven times before a man answered, saying, “Yeah. What do you want?”

“Good morning. This is Special Investigator Rosenthal from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Is Dolores Cascio available?”

“Who the hell is this?”

Rosenthal told him again who he was, and the man asked, “What do you want with her?”

“I just need to speak to her for a moment. Is she there?”

“This isn’t Dakota Phillips, is it? Because if it is, I’m gonna hunt your ass down and kill you if you don’t stay away from her.”

“No, sir. As I said, I’m with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” Rosenthal told him.

“Hang on. But I’m going to tell you right now, I’m putting this on speakerphone because I want to hear everything you say. And I’m warning you, if you’re Dakota, your ass is dead!” The phone clunked down and then he heard the man yelling, “Dottie, get your ass in here! There’s some cop from Florida wanting to talk to you. At least that’s who he says he is, but I’m going to listen, and it better not be that prick from Nashville.”

A woman’s voice came on the line and said, “This is Dottie. Who’s this?”

“Are you Dolores Cascio?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

Rosenthal identified himself and then said, “I need to talk to you about Dakota Phillips.”

“I’m done with that man. He was the biggest mistake I ever made. So, whatever you want to talk about, forget it.”

The call ended and Rosenthal looked at his phone and sighed, then called back.

“Listen asshole, stop calling here!”

“Sir, I need to speak to Dolores. I can either talk to her on the phone or I can have a police officer come out there and pick her up and talk to her from the police station. Which is it going to be?”

“What the hell is going on that the cops want to talk to her from down in Florida?”

“Just put her on the phone, please. You can listen in for all I care,” Rosenthal said.

He heard the man saying, “It’s that same guy again, Dottie. He said if you don’t talk to him, he’s going to send out a cop. So find out what the hell he needs and get it over with!”

“What is it?”

“Please don’t hang up, Mrs. Cascio. I really need to talk to you.”

“I said I didn’t want anything more to do with Dakota. He ruined my life.”

“No, bitch, you ruined your life,” Rosenthal could hear the man saying.

“Mrs. Cascio, can you tell me when you first got involved with Phillips?”

The man apparently snatched the phone away from the woman because he said, “She’s not Mrs. Cascio anymore. She doesn’t deserve that name. She’s a no good cheating whore!”

“Do I need to send some officers out there to keep the peace?”

“Send them. They’ve been here before.”

“Just let me talk to the man and get it over with, Harold!” The woman came back on the line and asked, “What is it you want to know?”

“When did you first get involved with Dakota Phillips, Dottie?”

“I don’t know. About two years ago.”

“How did that happen?”

“Me and my sister and our friend Charmaine went down to Nashville to go to the Grand Ole Opry, and one night we went to a couple of clubs. They were having an open mike night and I’ve always loved to sing, so the girls got me to get up on stage. I sang Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn’s song. She’s always been one of my favorites. When I got done, Dakota came over to the table and introduced himself and gave me his card. He said I had an amazing voice, and he knew that I could have a future in the music business.”

“Yeah, some future,” the man said. “How’d that work out for you, Dottie? You ruined our family, our kids won’t talk to you, and then you’ve got the guts to come crawling back on your belly expecting everything to be alright again.”

Rosenthal didn’t want to go into the details of their personal relationship because he was sure with her husband or whoever the man was listening in, it would only make things worse. Instead, he asked, “When was the last time you saw or talked to Dakota, Dottie?”

“May 25th of last year. The night I threatened to shoot him in Minnesota. I wish I had!”

“What brought that on?”

“I found out he was lying to me all along. He told me that he was getting a lot of radio stations to play my songs, and I had a big future, and on and on and on. But I had to keep giving him money for cutting demo records and other expenses. By then we were...”

“Tell the man what you were doing, Dottie. Go ahead. Tell him Dakota was screwing your brains out all along. Not that you had any to start with.”

“Yeah, it’s true. Like I said, the first time I ever talked to that man was the biggest mistake of my life. When I ran out of money up there in Minnesota and told him I didn’t have any more and couldn’t get any more, he just said something about well, he tried, but if I couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain, it was time to cut our losses and move on. What did he lose? A little time that I was paying a bunch of money for? But I lost everything.”

“And that was the last time you saw him, up there in Minnesota?”

“Yes. What’s this all about, anyway?”

“Dakota was murdered a few days ago,” Rosenthal told her.

“No way!”

“Yes, ma’am. I have to ask, where have you been in the last week, Dottie?”

“Right here at home. Wait a minute. You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?”

“We’re just following up on a lot of things,” Rosenthal told her. “Can anyone confirm you were there in Ohio for the last week?”

“Yeah, my husband. I mean Harold.”

“Can you believe this bitch? Still calls me her husband after everything she did? Not only did she empty our bank account and even borrow money on our house without me knowing about it, and then ran off with that son of a bitch, but then when everything blows up in her face, who does she call to come and get her out of jail up in Minnesota? Yeah, me. I should have just left her cheating ass up there.”

“Mr. Cascio, I can understand how upset you must be,” Rosenthal said. “But...”

“Oh, you can understand, can you? Did your wife ever leave you for some dipshit like that? Did she drain your bank account and max out your credit cards and leave you so far in the red that you’re going to have to work two jobs for the rest of your life to get out from under?”

“No, sir.”

“All right then, don’t tell me you can understand a damn thing about what I’m going through.”

“I’m sorry,” Rosenthal told him. “Can you confirm that Dottie has been home the last few days?”

“Yeah, she was here. She knows that if she pokes her head out the door without me being here, I’ll be on her like flies on shit. Because that’s all she is, shit. So, Phillips is dead?”

“Yes, sir,”

“Best news I’ve heard in a long time. Do you know who did it?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it,” Rosenthal said.

“As much as I’d like to see Dottie get charged with it and go to prison for the rest of her life, she was here. But I’ll tell you what, mister. When you catch whoever killed that son of a bitch, tell him I appreciate it. If she hadn’t already wiped out my bank account, I’d send some money to pay for his lawyer!” 

Chapter 36

As they turned north off of Interstate 10 onto U.S. Highway 231 for the short trip into Alabama and to Dothan, Rosenthal was telling Nicholson about his telephone conversation with Dolores ‘Dottie’ Cascio and her husband.

“He sounds like a very pissed off man,” Nicholson said. “But I guess if my wife emptied my bank account and my retirement money and ran off to shack up with somebody like Dakota, I’d be pissed off, too.”

“Assuming you had a wife,” Rosenthal said. “You really need to find a nice girl and settle down. What happened to that one you were dating? What was her name? Tabitha? I liked her.”

“Don’t start that shit again,” Nicholson said, shaking his head and laughing.

“Hey, if you can nag me about my gut, I can nag you about your heart. Seriously, buddy, what happened with her?”

“If you must know, we’re still seeing each other. But don’t make a big thing out of it, okay? She’s busy finishing her master’s degree and I’m busy working, so we get together whenever we can.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Rosenthal said, and Nicholson knew he meant it.

“So this guy up in Ohio sounds like he took his wife back, but he’s going to make her pay for it for the rest of her life, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rosenthal said. “To be honest, the way he sounded, I wondered for a minute if he was the one that came down here and offed Dakota. Or maybe even brought his wife down here and made her do it.”

“I can see that happening. Do we need to look into that?”

“I already did,” Rosenthal said. “He’s a city bus driver, and I called up there and confirmed that he hasn’t missed a day in over three months.”

As they neared the small city of Dothan, Nicholson pointed to a sign across the road and asked, “Did you see that? The National Peanut Festival. I’ve never heard of that, have you?”

“Actually, I have. When I said at dinner last night that we were coming up here, Sarah told me that this area is where most of the peanuts are grown in the country. In fact, I guess there are a lot of statues in town that are painted to look like peanuts. Or peanut people, I guess I should say. Some are painted look like doctors or firemen or soldiers or whatever. I’m supposed to try to find a couple and take pictures for her.”

“No offense, but your kid is weird,” Nicholson said. “What 13-year-old girl is into stuff like that?”

“Hey, I’d rather have her fascinated by that kind of trivia than listening to some of the music that’s out there these days, or a lot of other things a kid could get messed up with.”

Laughing, Nicholson said, “You’ve got a point. Well, we shall find some peanut people and take pictures for her.”

They got on to Ross Clark Circle and found themselves in a construction zone, threading their way through a lot of traffic, past jersey barriers and orange cones until they found Bergen’s Pawn and Guns. Inside, a man with a handlebar mustache and a shaved head greeted them, asking, “How you fellows doing today?”

“Real good,” Rosenthal said, noting that the man was carrying a cocked and locked Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol in a holster on his belt. “Are you Mr. Bergen?”

“That’s me.”

“Special agents Rosenthal and Nicholson from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I talked to you yesterday.”

“Yeah. When I saw that flyer that came across on the Internet about that jewelry, I knew I had what you’re looking for. Hang on, I’ll get it out of the safe.”

He went into a backroom, and while they were waiting, they looked at the merchandise in the pawnshop. There was an assortment of power tools, a shelf full of televisions and DVD players, three outboard motors, golf clubs, and four showcases full of jewelry. Four other showcases held handguns, and the wall behind the counter was lined with long guns.

“Here you go,” Bergen said, coming out from the back. He placed a rectangular padded cover on top of a showcase and laid out the rings and a watch. Comparing them to descriptions given by Dawn Phillips and Ricky Young, there was no question that these had belonged to Dakota Phillips.

“Where did you get these, Mr. Bergen?”

“Call me Pat. Everybody does. How I come about having them is the damnedest story. I’ve been working here since I was a teenager, when my dad ran the place, and I never saw anything like it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this gal I had never seen before came in here with them and wanted to sell them. I guess she thought they were worth a fortune, but one look at them told me they were junk.”

“Junk?”

“Yeah, that’s all they are. This Rolex? It’s as fake as a three-dollar bill.”

“Really? How can you tell?”

“Here, let me show you,” Bergen said, moving to one of the jewelry showcases. He unlocked the back and took out a Rolex watch and asked, “Can you see the difference between these two?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Rosenthal admitted. But then again, I’ve never had a Rolex, so I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

“Well, first off, hold this one in one hand and this one in the other,” Bergen said, handing him both watches. “Feel the difference in weight?”

“Yeah, this one is definitely heavier.”

“That’s because it’s a real Rolex. These knockoff copies use cheaper materials. Now look at the numbers. On a real Rolex, they are laser-engraved and deep. See how on this other one they’re just on the surface?”

“I’ll be damned. I’m getting a lesson in Rolexes today,” Rosenthal said.

“There’s the crystal,” Bergen told him, tapping each one with his fingernail. “On a real Rolex, it’s a better quality of glass. And see this part here that magnifies the date? That’s called a cyclops lens. Do you see how on the real watch it’s lined up perfectly with the number? But here on the fake it’s just a little off.”

“I’ve got to admit I’ve seen some Rolexes in my time, but I would never have been able to spot these differences,” Nicholson said.

“If you’ve been doing this for over 30 years, those things would stand out like a billboard,” the pawnbroker said. “This isn’t the worst knock off I’ve seen by any means. Some of the stuff coming out of China and Mexico makes this thing look like a Cadillac compared to a skateboard. But it’s still a long way from a real Rolex.”

“I wonder if Dakota knew that.”

“He was a showman,” Nicholson said. “I think he probably knew, but he liked flashing it in front of people to make them think he was something he wasn’t.”

Bergen put the genuine watch away and locked the showcase, and then went back to the rings.

“Okay, now for these. This horseshoe ring? It’s not real gold.”

“It’s not?”

“No, it’s plated. I will say it’s a heavy plate, one of the best I’ve ever seen, but it’s not real gold. And these diamonds? Nope,” Bergen said, shaking his head. “Zirconia.”

“Wow.”

Picking up the turquoise and silver ring, Bergen said, “Looking at this thing, you think it’s real, don’t you?”

“Hell, I thought it was all real at first,” Rosenthal admitted.

“Wrong again.” Bergen pointed to the large turquoise stone and said, “This isn’t real. It’s reconstituted turquoise.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a mix of ground-up turquoise and other material. You see how it’s the same color all the way through? Real turquoise isn’t like that. The color varies in different parts of the stone. And the ring itself is what’s called nickel silver. It’s an alloy. They usually use nickel and copper and some zinc, but no actual silver.”

Picking up a magnet from behind the counter, Bergen held it to the ring, and it stuck.

“Good silver doesn’t stick to magnets.”

“So how did you come across this stuff, Pat?”

“It was the damnedest thing I ever saw in all the years I’ve stood behind this counter. I’ve seen a lot of people come in with junk, and sometimes they’re pissed off when you tell them that’s what it is, and other times they’re heartbroken because they really believe grandma left them something worth a fortune. But the gal that brought this stuff in?” He shook his head and said, “When I told her what it was, that none of it was real, she started laughing.”

“Laughing?”

“Oh, yeah. You’d have thought I told her the funniest joke she’d ever heard. Man, she had tears running down her face for a minute there. I even started laughing with her. It was contagious.”

“Did she say anything about it?”

“Yes, she did, and I’ll never forget what she said.”

“What was that?”

“She said it didn’t surprise her. Said the jewelry was just as fake as he was. Then she said the only thing that was real about the man was the dick, and she was surprised that it wasn’t a dildo.”

Nicholson chuckled at that, and then asked, “So what did you give her for this stuff if it wasn’t worth anything?”

“Nothing,” Bergen replied. “My old man built this business on honesty. Some shops will carry junk because there are people that want crap like this, even when they know it’s crap. But my old man always said we’re going to deal in quality stuff or we’re not going to deal in anything at all. I told her I wasn’t interested in it, but she might find someplace that would give her ten or twenty bucks for it. And I emphasized might. She just laughed and told me to keep it or throw it away and then went out the door, still laughing.”

“Did you get her name, Pat?”

“Nope. If someone pawns or sells something, they’ve got to have identification. But she just left it and walked out the door.”

Looking around the shop, Nicholson said, “I see you’ve got video cameras. Do they work?”

“Yeah. These days you’ve got to have cameras. We’ve been lucky and never had a robbery here, but pawnshops are always targets all over the country. The bad guys know we have a lot of cash on hand and a lot of expensive merchandise. That’s why I carry a .45 and I’ve got loaded guns all over behind the counters and in the backroom. Heaven forbid I ever need them, but if that day comes, I’ll be ready. At least I hope so,” the pawnbroker said, knocking on the wood frame of the glass showcase.

“Can we see the video?”

“Sure. Come on back, guys.”

The backroom was cluttered with merchandise waiting to be put on display. As he pulled up the security cameras, Bergen said, “I figured you’d want to see this, so I time stamped it and I already made copies on two different USB drives for you.”

He clicked the mouse on his computer and a camera showed the interior of the pawnshop with a view of the front door. It opened and a busty, blonde haired woman came in wearing a mask over her face.

“I think if someone came in a pawnshop with a mask, I’d be reaching for my gun,” Rosenthal said.

“Before COVID I would, too. But these days, even with it halfway under control, a lot of folks still wear masks,” Bergen said. “Besides, I was more interested in her boobs. Now, tell me that’s not a rack that would make a blind man sit up and take notice, guys.”

They watched as she approached the counter and then a different camera showed the man and woman talking and they listened to the conversation, which was as he had described it. When he explained to her that the jewelry was worthless, the woman laughed hard, and before long, the pawnbroker was laughing with her. When he suggested she take the items somewhere else that might give her a few dollars, she told him to keep them and left the shop, still laughing.

“Outside cameras?”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to get much good there,” Bergen said as he switched camera views. “We share a parking lot with three other businesses, and you can see there were a lot of cars coming and going that day. The UPS truck blocked the view and I don’t know if she went out the front or the back of the parking lot or what she was driving. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rosenthal said. “This is going to help us a lot.”

“Can you tell me what this case is about, guys?”

“We had a man murdered in a motel room and this was his jewelry,” Nicholson told him.

“Damn. Do you think that woman that was in here had anything to do with it?”

“Well, his jewelry’s missing and she had it, so I think there’s a good chance she’s involved some way or another.”

“Pat, we’re going to have to take this jewelry. I can sign a receipt for it and get you compensated.”

“Compensated for what? It didn’t cost me anything, and I was gonna throw it away before I saw that flyer. Take it.”

“Can we get a statement from you about how she brought it in and everything that happened?”

“Sure, guys, whatever you need.”

After he completed his statement, they shook hands with the pawnbroker and left. Getting in their car, Nicholson asked, “Did the woman look familiar to you at all?”

“No, how about you?”

Shaking his head, Nicholson said, “No, but the report Jayne Emerson sent us said they found several strands of long blonde hair on and near the bed where Dakota’s body was found, and two strands on the shower rod that was used to kill him. The woman in that video has blonde hair that goes halfway down her back. I think we just looked at the woman who killed Dakota Phillips, Elliot.”

“I think you’re right,” his partner agreed. “Are you ready to head back?”

“Not yet, man. We can chase killers anytime,” Nicholson said. “Right now, we’ve got peanut people to track down!”

Chapter 37

Their first stop on getting back to Tallahassee was at the FDLE crime lab, where they met with Mei Tao, a forensics technician who specialized in voice and audio investigations. Mei, who wore the ends of her shoulder length hair dyed a bright blue, was dressed in jeans and a gay pride T-shirt, and when she saw them, she said, “Hi guys. Are they keeping you busy out there?”

“Busier than a one-armed paperhanger,” Rosenthal said.

“A what?” Mei asked, looking at him quizzically.

“Never mind, it’s an old expression my father used all the time,” he told the young woman.

“I know you haven’t had much time, but were you able to get anything out of that file I sent you this morning?”

“Some, Nicholson. Not a lot, but I was able to clean it up enough to get a few snippets of the argument. If they didn’t have that damned air conditioning mounted on the wall and blowing into the room, it would have been better. But here’s what I got.”

Seated at her computer, she opened one sound byte, and they heard Dakota saying, “don’t put words in my mouth” and then something garbled before they could make out, “go jumping to conclusions.”

Then a woman’s voice said, “don’t lie to me, you” before it faded away and came back saying, “you promised me.”

Next was Dakota saying, “telling you.”

There was more garbled noise and then they heard the woman say, “be a big star someday.”

The last thing they could understand was Dakota saying, “Honey, if you would just calm” before there was the sound of Randy Atwood’s voice saying, “This is bullshit!” followed by the sounds of him pounding on the door and shouting, “Shut the hell up in there and open the door!”

After that, the confrontation between Atwood and Dakota was very clear, as was Zach Kaufman serving the paperwork on the man in the motel room. When they finished listening, Nicholson asked, “Do you recognize the voice, Elliot?”

“No. I can’t hear it clear enough to recognize it. Do you?”

“No, damn it. Is there anything else you can do with it, Mei?”

“Sorry, guys, I wish I could. You can see that air conditioner mounted to the outside wall in the video from the body cam. It’s making so much noise it’s just impossible. Maybe somebody at the FBI could, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“That’s all right, at least we have something to work with,” Nicholson said.

“Let me give you this on a USB drive, and I’ll e-mail it to both of you, so you have it, and I’ll keep fiddling with it and see if I can get anything at all,” the young woman said. “But no promises.”

“Fair enough. Thank you, Mei,” Rosenthal said, then he thought of something and said, “We’ve got another video from a pawnshop where somebody had the jewelry that belonged to our victim. Is there any way you can run it through your magical machine and see if there’s any match between that voice and the one from the motel room? It’s a lot better quality than what you have here.”

“I can try, but again, all I can work with is what I have from the motel,” Mei replied. “You know what they say, garbage in, garbage out.”

Rosenthal handed her the USB drive from the pawnshop, and she copied it and handed it back to him and said, “I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

***

When they left the lab, they decided to grab lunch before heading back to Somerton County. While they were eating, Nicholson said, “There’s something about that woman at the pawnshop, but I just can’t figure it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Nicholson said as he picked up his Cuban sandwich.

“Do you think you’ve seen her before?”

“I can’t say. There’s something though. I just can’t latch onto it.”

“I sure wished the video from the parking lot would have showed us what car she got in,” Rosenthal said. “That would have helped a lot. Or if Mei could have done better with the audio from the body cam.”

“Yeah, but either way, we know more than we did last night. Like I said yesterday, I think we’re getting close.”

“My old man used to always say that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” Rosenthal said.

“Yeah, but he talked about one-armed paperhangers, too,” Nicholson reminded his partner. “What was that about, anyway?”

“Just eat your sandwich,” Rosenthal told him.

***

“Thanks for making time for us,” Rosenthal said when everybody was seated in the interview room at the Somerton Police Department. “We wanted to bring you all up to date on where we are so far, and since Deputy Quarrels has been eliminated as a suspect, we wanted you and Chief Deputy Schroeder and him here, Sheriff.”

“What have y’all got for us?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” Nicholson said, and then gave them a rundown on everything from Dawn Phillips’ coming to Tallahassee to identify her husband’s body, their trip to Nashville and talking to Billy Phillips and Ricky Young, what they had learned from the pawnshop in Dothan, Alabama, and the voice recognition attempts to clear up the sound from the process server’s body cam.

When he finished, D.W. said, “Don’t sound like y’all have been lettin’ much grass grow under your feet. Any idea yet who killed the man?”

“Not yet, but like I told Rosenthal here, I just have a strong feeling we’re getting close.”

“Any hits on DNA yet?”

“Nothing yet, Chief Deputy, but we all know that can take a lot of time,” Nicholson said.

“If you had to pick one person, who would you think did it, based upon what you know right now?”

“That’s a good question, Deputy Quarrels. Before we went up to Dothan and got the video we just showed you, my money would have been on Billy Phillips. He’s a junkie, he’s got a long police record, and him and his father didn’t get along. But it obviously wasn’t him in that pawnshop with the jewelry.”

“Could it be some woman he’s involved with? People like him don’t usually run around with the best members of society.”

“That crossed my mind,” Rosenthal said. “But then she said that the only thing not fake about the man was his dick. Pardon the language, Chief Bryant.”

“No worries. I’ve heard the term before,” the police chief said. “And a lot worse than that.”

“Yeah, well anyhow, when she said that, it made me think she knew the victim pretty well.”

“Listening to what they could get from that body cam, which wasn’t much, the woman sounds like she might be one of Dakota Phillips’ clients that he ripped off,” Chief Deputy Schroeder said. “Since the polygraph cleared John Lee’s mother, did somebody else show up in town looking for him? Or, and I hate to say this, John Lee, do you need to take another look at Lisa Marie? Is it possible she beat the polygraph?”

“No offense taken,” John Lee said. “But Lisa Marie hasn’t left town. We know that for a fact. And except for the boobs, the body of the woman in the video from the pawnshop is smaller than hers. And no, I don’t have an Oedipus complex, so don’t ask me why I know what my mother’s body looks like.”

“Damn, Deputy, I didn’t know you knew such big words,” Schroeder said.

“I read books,” John Lee replied with a grin. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“A what complex?”

“An Oedipus complex, D.W,” Chief Bryant said.

“What the heck is that?”

“It’s psychoanalytic talk about a boy’s attraction to his mother.”

“Attraction? Are you talkin’ about….”

“Yeah, D.W., that’s what it means.”

“Well, that’s just disgustin’ if you ask me,” the sheriff said. “This ain’t West Virginia.”

“That’s definitely a White trash thing,” Nicholson said, laughing. “Getting back on track before somebody starts arranging a family reunion, we know that there are a bunch of people who had it in for Dakota Phillips. Women he ripped off, and people like that woman up in Ohio’s husband, and probably some others who were connected to his different victims.”

“So, how do we run them down?”

“That’s a good question, Chief. There’s a detective up in Nashville who’s been working some fraud cases against Phillips for a while now. I emailed him a copy of the video from the pawnshop and he’s going to see if it rings a bell with him with any of the women who have filed complaints. Aside from that, I’m not sure. We’re waiting for DNA results from evidence collected at the motel room, and if we get a hit on that, it will be a big help. Of course, that’s assuming that the person who killed Phillips has their DNA in a database somewhere.”

“I’ve read some things about genetic genealogy,” Chief Bryant said. “Even if the killer’s DNA isn’t in the system, there’s a possibility that there could be a familial connection with somebody who does have a police record, or maybe uploaded their stuff to Ancestry or 23andMe or any of those places. It’s a long process, and it’s not cheap, but I’m impressed with what I’ve seen of it so far. Technology has come a long way, and it’s getting better all the time.”

“That’s the truth,” D.W. said. “But no matter how far it comes, there’s always goin’ to be a need for boots on the ground doin’ the dirty work.”

“Well, the good news about that is that we will still have jobs,” Rosenthal said. “Speaking of which, unless anybody else has anything to add, I’ll let you get back to yours and we’ll get back to ours.”

“I have a question,” John Lee said.

“What’s that?”

“I know there was a bust that went down with the ATF and you guys, and then D.W. took me off jail duty because he said there was a prisoner down there I have a connection to. Is all of that related?”

“Yeah, it is,” Nicholson said, then told him about Seth Inman approaching them and offering to sell information that connected John Lee to Dakota Phillips’ murder. “Any idea why he would do that?”

“Yeah, I can tell you why. I’m the one that busted him, and he wound up going to prison a while back. He kept saying he was going to get even one of these days, but hell, everybody you arrest says that. I never took him seriously.”

“Well, John Lee, that old boy’s got himself a lot of serious trouble right now, so I think you’re probably the least of his worries,” the sheriff said.

***

“So, what do we do now?” Rosenthal asked as they got in their car after the meeting broke up.

“We go back to square one and start at the beginning again,” Nicholson replied. “Let’s go back to the motel and talk to the girl who found the body, and the owner of the place and Atwood. Maybe if they saw the video from the pawnshop, one of them might recognize the woman since nobody in the meeting ever saw her before. What do you think?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Rosenthal said. “What have we got to lose?”

“And if that doesn’t work out, let’s go back to that bar where Quarrels and Phillips got into a fight. I know that’s a long shot, and that barmaid might beat us both to death with that pool stick of hers, but what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Do you mean besides getting beaten to death with a pool stick? I don’t have a clue,” Rosenthal said.

Chapter 38

Neither Aniki Devi nor any member of her family recognized the woman in the video from the pawnshop, and none of them could remember anything else about the murdered man that might help advance their case.

When Nicholson asked the teenage girl how she was doing, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Sometimes I close my eyes and I see it all over again. All that blood and everything. My mother wants me to come home. She says America is not safe and there are always people getting killed. But except for that happening, I like it here. I tell her I have many opportunities here that I wouldn't have back in Kolkata.”

“That's right, you do,” Nicholson told her. “Listen, I have a friend who is a policewoman. Her name is Maddy Westfall. She had some bad things happen in her life, too, and she helped start a place to help victims of crimes and things like that. Would you be okay if I gave her your name and asked her to talk to you? She might be able to arrange some counseling for you.”

“Counseling? What is that? I don't know that word.”

“It's when you sit down with somebody and talk about your feelings and your experiences and they help you find ways to deal with them,” Nicholson said. “It wouldn't cost any money, and I really believe it would help you. You can trust Maddy, she's a really good person. Is it okay if I ask her to talk to you?”

Aniki looked at her aunt and uncle, who nodded their heads in approval, then said, “Yes, I guess so.”

“Great, Aniki. I'll give her a call and I'm sure you'll be hearing from her soon.”

They felt a moment of hope when they talked to Randy Atwood, who was getting ready to go to work. When he looked at the video, he said, “I’ve been thinking about this ever since it happened. Maybe this sounds crazy, and I swear I wasn’t holding out on you before, but I think maybe I saw the woman that was in the room with that guy for a second.”

“You think you did? What does that mean, Mr. Atwood?”

“The more I go over everything in my mind, I think I saw her over his shoulder when I went over there to tell them to shut up. Does that make any sense?”

“It’s possible,” Rosenthal said. “Tell us anything you can remember about what you saw.”

“If I saw anything. Like I said, I think I did, but maybe I didn’t. Keep in mind, I was exhausted because I hadn’t had any sleep. And it wasn’t like we stood there having a long conversation. I told the guy to shut the hell up and that was it. But the more I think about it, the more I keep thinking I saw a woman in there, just for a second. And if I did, I think she had long blonde hair like the woman in this video. But I’ve got to be honest, I don’t remember enough to swear on a Bible that I really did. I know that probably sounds like I’m trying to jerk you guys around, but I’m not. ”

“We don’t think that at all. It happens a lot,” Rosenthal told him. “Sometimes we see things and we don’t remember them right away because they don’t seem significant at the time. Then later on it comes back to us. You know, like you’re trying to think of the name of a song or a TV show and you can’t, and then later on when you’re half asleep, it hits you.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean,” Atwood said. “I wish I could be more sure, but I’d be lying to you if I said I was. But if there was a woman in that room, I think she had blonde hair.”

“Let me ask you something, Mr. Atwood,” Nicholson said. “Have you ever heard of hypnosis being used on witnesses in criminal cases?”

“No. I don’t believe in any of that shit.”

“I know it sounds like hocus pocus,” Nicholson said, “but it’s actually been used successfully in a lot of cases around the country.”

“How?”

“Here’s the way I understand it, and keep in mind that I’m no expert at all,” the FDLE agent told him. “Picture your mind being this giant sponge. It absorbs everything around it, things you see, things you hear, things you smell. Just like a sponge gets full of water, doesn’t mean all of that water is dripping out all at once. But if you squeeze it a little, what comes out? Water, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Hypnosis is the same way. They don’t put you in trances and make you do funny things on stage. That is all nonsense. But a professional, certified hypnotherapist might be able to help you remember what you saw in that room, if anything at all. Would you be willing to give it a shot?”

“I don’t know, man. My brain is screwed up enough without letting somebody get in there and scramble it even more,” Atwood said with a laugh.

“It’s not like that, I promise you,” Nicholson assured him.

“I guess. But how would we do that? I really don’t have a lot of time to be running all over the place doing stuff like this. I mean, I want to help you, but I’ve got a job to do.”

“We understand that, Mr. Atwood. But what if we could arrange it on your schedule here in town someplace? Would you be willing to at least consider it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Look, guys, I’ve got to get to work or I’m going to be late, and I can’t afford that. I’ll tell you what, see what you can figure out with this shrink or whatever you call them, and if we can make it work, I’ll try, if it will help you. But I don’t know if I’ve really got anything in there like you’re saying or not. If you were to talk to my ex-wife, she’d say there’s nothing in that brain of mine except jelly.”

“Fair enough,” Nicholson said, shaking his hand. “Let me talk to somebody and see what we can set up. Thank you, sir.”

They weren’t as well received at the Pour House, where Bonnie Andrews told them she did not remember anything else, and nobody who was there now had been in the bar the night John Lee and Dakota Phillips got into their fight. “I told you before not to come back around here botherin’ me, expectin’ me to help you stick it to John Lee.”

“Ma’am, I can assure you that John Lee has been completely cleared in this case,” Rosenthal told her. “He’s not a suspect. We’re just wondering if you could look at this video and let us know if this woman looks familiar to you. Can you do that, and then we’ll be out of your way?”

“Yeah, I guess I can look,” Bonnie said suspiciously. “But that’s it, understand? I’ll look at it and tell you if I know who it is, but then I don’t want to see you guys back here again.”

Nicholson handed her his phone and played the video from the pawnshop, and Bonnie shook her head, saying, “Never saw her before.”

“Are you sure?”

Nicholson knew instantly that was the wrong thing to say as the woman put her hand under the bar, and he was sure she had grabbed her cut off pool stick.

“I said I didn’t know who she was. Now get on out of here!”

As they were going out the door, she shouted, “Don’t come back if ya know what’s good for you.”

***

They had started back to Tallahassee when Nicholson’s phone rang. He answered it, asking, “What’s up, Jayne?”

They talked briefly and then he said, “All right, thank you. I’ll let his widow know.”

When the call ended, Rosenthal asked, “What was that all about?”

“Jayne said they’ve finished with the truck, and we can tell Dawn Phillips to come and get it. I’ll give her a call.”

“Do you think she could recognize the woman in that video from the pawnshop?”

“It’s hard to say,” Nicholson said. “She told us she didn’t get involved in his business and he didn’t get involved in hers, but who knows? If she doesn’t, maybe that disc jockey friend of his does. He said he tried to give some of Dakota’s clients a little bit of airtime now and then.”

“If Fleming doesn’t recognize that woman from the pawnshop video, why don’t you ask him to take it by and show it to Ricky Young. Dakota might have gone out of his way to keep all of those women he was involved with away from his wife, but there’s a good chance Young got to meet most of them. I don’t know about you, but after listening to him talk about how great Dakota was and how he was such a devoted husband, then going on about maybe he sampled some of the, what did he call it? Gash? It kind of makes me wonder about just how sterling a citizen Young is, too. My old man always said birds of a feather flock together.”

“Your old man was just full of quaint sayings, wasn’t he? Sounds like he was quite the philosopher.”

Rosenthal laughed and said, “When I was a kid and he'd say stuff like that, I used to think he was full of something. But I wasn't sure if it was quaint sayings or what.”

Nicholson had started to dial Dawn’s number and said, “I’ll call Fleming as soon as I get done talking to Dawn.”

When she answered the phone, Nicholson said, “Dawn, this is Nicholson down in Florida. How are you doing?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I keep thinkin’ I'm goin’ to get through this, and then I fall apart all over again and turn into a hot mess. My friend Melody has been here keepin’ me company. I don't know what I would do without her and the girls from the shop. They're all pitchin’ in and keepin’ things runnin’ for me.”

“The reason I called is because they've finished with Dakota's truck,” Nicholson told her.

“They have? When could I come down and pick it up? My old Cutlass is on its last legs and hardly gets me around anymore. Every time I leave the house and go to the shop or start back home, I never know if I'm goin’ to make it or if I'm goin’ to breakdown and have to call someone to come and help me. Dakota kept sayin’ we needed to get me a better car, but it cost so much to keep him on the road that we never seemed to get that far ahead.”

“You can come down anytime and get it,” Nicholson said. “Let me know when and I will meet you at the airport like I did last time and take you to the garage to pick it up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. I don't know what I would have done without you helpin’ me through all this. I was tellin’ Melody just today that you're an angel sent down by God to help me.”

“I'm sure some folks would disagree with that,” Nicholson told her.

“Have you found out anythin’ else about what happened to Dakota? I just lay in bed tossin’ and turnin’ all night, wonderin’ who would do somethin’ that terrible to him.”

“We've got a few leads, but nothing solid yet.” Nicholson said. “But believe me, Dawn, we're working on it all the time. We'll get there.”

“I just know you will. I'll try to fly down there tomorrow mornin’ if that works for you to pick me up.”

“Let me know and I'll be there,” he told her. “Try to get some rest, Dawn.”

When the call ended, Rosenthal asked, How’s she doing?”

“I think it's one day at a time,” Nicholson replied. “Isn't that how we get through most things in life?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? Are you going to tell me that your old man didn't have a saying about things like that?”

“Maybe so and I wasn't listening,” Rosenthal told him. “When I was a teenager and a young man, I thought my dad was about as dumb as dog shit. But about the time I hit thirty or so and had a couple of kids of my own, I was amazed how much smarter he got to be.”

“You drive the car. I'm going to call Fleming before you start becoming a philosopher yourself,” Nicholson said as he dialed the detective's phone number.

Chapter 39

Nicholson spent the night with his girlfriend, Tabitha Marshall, and was awakened the next morning by a call from Detective Fleming in Nashville, who said, “Ricky Young lied to me.”

Looking at his watch, he saw it was almost 8:30 and asked, “What are you talking about?”

“I just left his house. He said he didn’t know who the woman was in that video you sent me.”

“How do you know he was lying?”

“How long have you been a cop, Nicholson? Because if you’ve been on the job for more than a year, you know when somebody isn’t telling you the truth. He watched the video and afterward he wouldn’t look me in the eye when he said he didn’t know who the woman was. I asked him to watch it a second time, and he still said no, but everything about his body language was telling me he was being deceptive.”

“Why would he lie to you about something like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe he’s as big a hound dog as Dakota was and he was tapping it, too. Who knows what some of those desperate women would do for some air time?”

“Okay. How about Dawn? Did you show the video to her?”

“She wasn’t home. Young’s wife was at home with him, and she said Dawn was going to go to her shop and check in with her people there before she flew down to pick up Dakota’s truck. She said she offered to fly down with her to help make the drive back, but Dawn told her it was something she needed to do on her own. She said it was like a last chance for her to be alone with her memories of Dakota. I guess the car she’s got is pretty junky, and she said she was going to trade the truck in on something she could drive easier around town. Melody said Dawn told her it was going to be hard to do, but it was part of letting go and starting over.”

“She said something about her car being pretty unreliable when I talked to her yesterday,” Nicholson said. “In fact, I’m supposed to pick her up at the airport here at ten o’clock to take her over to get the truck.”

Tabitha had woken up while he was talking to Fleming and asked sleepily, “Who was that?”

“A detective from Nashville who’s helping us work on this case with the guy that got killed over in Somerton.”

She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes and then got out and walked naked to the bathroom. Nicholson admired her figure and the long, curly black hair that hung past her shoulders as she went. When she came out of the bathroom, she asked, “Are you gonna get up or are you going to stay in bed all day?”

“I don’t know. Do you want to come back and keep me company?”

Tabitha laughed and said, “I’d love to, baby, but I’ve got a class to get to. Besides, you’re picking up that woman at the airport today. You don’t need me for anything.”

“Now you know that’s not true. Come here and I’ll show you how much I need you.”

He reached out an arm for her, but she playfully danced away and asked, “How about I fix your breakfast instead?”

“Are we talking about breakfast in bed?”

“Un-uh. You and I both know if I climb back in that bed I’m never going to make it to class and you’re never going to make it to the airport.” She started back to the bathroom, then turned around and said, “I’m going to take a shower. If you’re good, I’ll let you wash my back.”

“What if I’m bad?”

“Let’s just see how it goes,” Tabitha teased.

As it turned out, they spent more time in the shower than was absolutely necessary, but neither was complaining when they got out. Tabitha was getting dressed, and he whistled as she pulled on a pair of tight blue jeans. Looking over her shoulder, she asked, “What you whistling at?”

“The only thing I like more than seeing you get dressed is seeing you get undressed,” he told her.

She put on a bra and slipped into a purple silk pullover blouse and asked, “How do I look?”

“You know, that woman could get a taxicab and you could skip class,” Nicholson suggested.

Laughing as she slipped on a pair of platform shoes that brought her almost to his height, Tabitha kissed him and said, “A Black man with a silver tongue. Now, ain’t that something? You never stop, do you?”

“Not when I’m talking to a beautiful Black woman like you. Hey, did I tell you that Elliot said we should get married?”

“He did? When was that?”

“Yesterday.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said we’re both pretty busy right now with our own things going on. He likes you.”

“I like him, too,” Tabitha said. “But don’t change the subject.”

“I didn’t know I was changing the subject. I don’t even know what the subject is for sure.”

“What are your thoughts about us getting married? I mean, have you thought about it at all?”

“Have you?”

“I asked you first.”

“I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. You know I love you.”

“Yes, and I love you, too,” she said.

“So, is this like a proposal thing or what?”

“I don’t know, is it?”

Before Nicholson could answer, Tabitha’s phone rang and she answered it.

“Hello. What’s up, Marcus?”

She listened for a moment and then said, “Yeah, but I don’t have a lot of time, so you need to be ready when I get there. Okay, see you in a few.”

She put the phone in her back pocket and said, “I hate to put this conversation on hold, but neither one of us has time, and now Marcus needs a ride to school.”

“Your brother’s thirty years old and he still needs a ride to school?”

“Don’t be that way. The poor guy is working two jobs and trying to get an education at the same time. Marcella had to take their car because she’s got an appointment with the pediatrician this morning for Thomas.”

“I was just teasing,” Nicholson told her. “I know he’s a good guy, and he’s trying hard. And we will have more of this conversation.”

“I need to make coffee,” Tabitha said. “Do you want some?”

“Sure.” She started to walk out of the room, and Nicholson said, “Hold on a minute.”

She stopped and turned to him and asked, “What?”

“Walk back over here.”

“Come on, babe. We don’t have time right now. I wish we did.”

“No, I’m serious. I want to see something.”

Tabitha shrugged her shoulders and walked toward him, and he said, “Turn around and walk back to the door now.”

“Are you just looking at my ass?”

“Every chance I get. But that’s not why I had you do that.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or not,” she told him.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, giving her a quick kiss as he pulled out his phone and headed past her for the door.

“What about your coffee?”

“I’ll get some later.”

When it closed, she looked after him for a moment and then shook her head. “One minute he’s talking about marriage and looking at my bottom and the next minute he’s flying out of here like he’s got someplace better to be.”

***

“Hey there, Dawn. How was your flight?”

“Not too bad. The plane was only about half full, so I could sit anywhere I wanted to.”

“Before we go pick up the truck, would you mind if I swing by my partner’s house and pick him up? It’s just a little out of the way.”

“No problem. You’re already goin’ out of your way to help me.”

Rosenthal was standing in his driveway talking on his phone when they pulled up. He held up a finger to tell Nicholson he needed just another moment on the call, and when it was over, he got in the back seat and asked, “How are you this morning, Mrs. Phillips?”

“I’m okay, I guess. I don’t really know from one minute to the next. I got a call from the medical examiner’s office and they’re goin’ to release Dakota’s body today. He always said he wanted to be cremated, so I’m goin’ to have it done down here and then have his ashes shipped back home. He loved the mountains over around Gatlinburg, and me and Billy are gonna go over there and spread them when it’s time.”

“Have you talked to Billy?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know you guys was up in Nashville and went to see him until Ricky Young told me you’d come by the studio, too. I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I have to ask, and I understand if you can’t tell me, is Billy a suspect in what happened to Dakota?”

“We just needed to talk to him and get his input on some things.”

“What about that woman that pawned Dakota’s jewelry? Do you know who she is?”

“Not a clue yet,” Nicholson said. “We’re trying to run her down.”

“When you told me you got the jewelry back, you said it wasn’t worth anything. That don’t make no sense to me because I know Dakota spent a lot of money on it.”

“He might have spent a lot of money on it, but if he did, he got ripped off,” Rosenthal said.

“But what about the watch? That was his daddy’s, and I know it was supposed to be worth a small fortune. That’s what Dakota always said.”

“All I know is what the pawnbroker told us, Dawn. And he’s an expert in things like that.”

“Well, that just doesn’t make sense. But none of this makes sense anyhow.”

They pulled into the state garage where Dakota’s pickup had been examined and inventoried, and Dawn had to walk around it and note any damage there might be, although there wasn’t any, and then sign a receipt acknowledging that she had taken possession of the truck.

“How were you planning to drive home, Dawn?”

“I’m not really sure,” she replied. “I guess there’s two ways to go, up through Alabama and get on Interstate 65, or over toward Lake City and Interstate 75. Have you ever been on either route?”

“I would definitely take 75,” Nicholson told her. “That way you avoid Montgomery and Birmingham, which are terrible to drive through. There’s a lot of construction that way. And 75 is a little shorter in time. Right now, there’s bridge construction on Interstate 10 that’s going to slow you down, too. So if I was you, I would take US 90 right here to Lake City, and that’s where I would pick up I-75 and turn north.”

“Then I guess that’s what I’ll do. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated everythin’ y’all have done for me. Can I give you both a hug?”

“You sure can,” Nicholson said.

She hugged them both and said, “The only good thing to come out of all this is meetin’ you two. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t helped me.”

“We were glad to help in any way we could,” Nicholson told her. “And don’t you worry, Dawn, I give you my word. We are getting very close to finding who killed Dakota. We won’t rest until we do. Will we, Elliot?”

“No, ma’am, we are going to do it. I promise.”

She hugged them again and then got into the truck and started it up and shook her head with a smile. “Dakota loved this truck. He was so proud the day he got it. I was thinkin’ about tradin’ it in on somethin’ else, but you know what? I think I’m just goin’ to keep it. Sittin’ here in the seat, I feel so close to Dakota.”

Nicholson smiled and said, “That’s good. You have a safe drive back home, Dawn. I promise we’ll be seeing you again soon.”

They watched her drive away and Nicholson said, “I’ve got to admit, if I was a redneck from Somerton County or anywhere else, I would think that was a really pretty truck.”

“Yes, it is,” Rosenthal agreed, as he pulled out his phone and made a call.

Chapter 40

A Ford Explorer marked with the logo of the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department was parked along the shoulder of the road just inside the county line and pulled in behind the chrome laden F-150. After following it for a quarter of a mile, the Explorer’s roof lights came on, along with the siren. The driver of the truck looked in her rearview mirror and then pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned convenience store.

A woman deputy got out of the Explorer and walked up to the car and said, “Hello. I’m Deputy Westfall with the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department. Can I see your license, registration, and proof of insurance, please?”

“Yes, ma’am. Did I do somethin’ wrong?”

“We’ll talk about that in just a minute. No worries.”

The deputy looked at her paperwork and walked back to her unit and got in. A moment later, she got out and came back to the door of the truck and said, “Mrs. Phillips, I need you to get out of the vehicle, please.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Just step out, please.”

As the deputy said that, two more sheriff’s department vehicles pulled in, one blocking the front of the truck. Then a blue car pulled into the parking lot and two men got out.

“What the heck is going on?”

“Hello, Dawn, or should I say Honi? I told you we’d be seeing you again soon.”

“What’s happenin’, Mr. Nicholson? I don’t understand.”

“Turn around and put your hands on the side of the truck, please, ma’am,” the woman deputy said.

“Why? What the heck is goin’ on?”

Maddy handcuffed the woman and then Nicholson said, “Dawn Phillips, you’re under arrest for the murder of your husband, Dakota Phillips. Should I continue to call you Dawn, or would you prefer I call you Honi?”

“What? I don’t understand any of this. What are you talkin’ about?”

“Honi Dew. That’s your stage name, right?”

“It was years ago when I was tryin’ to get into the music business. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”

“That’s interesting,” Nicholson said, “because your friend Ricky Young still calls you Honi. Do you remember that Detective Fleming that came to your house to tell you about Dakota being killed? He talked to Ricky a little while ago and Ricky said the reason he still calls you that name is because that’s what you were calling yourself when you first met, and according to him, even though you stopped singing, you fill in as a DJ at the radio station and you DJ at parties around town, too, don’t you?  And when you do that, you still use the name Honi Dew, right?”

“Yeah, so what? I pick up a little extra money now and then to help make ends meet. Is that a crime? And what’s it got to do with Dakota getting killed?”

“I kept thinking there was something about that woman in the video from the pawnshop, but I couldn’t figure it out,” Nicholson told her. “But this morning I did. That was you, wasn’t it, Dawn?”

“No, it wasn’t me! Are you crazy? That woman didn’t look nothin’ like me.”

“No, she had blonde hair, and yours obviously isn’t blonde,” Nicholson said. “But look here at this publicity photo from the radio station where Ricky Young works. You’re blonde in this picture.”

“That’s just a wig I use sometimes for work so people won’t bother me when they see me around town.”

“That may be a wig, but your hair is naturally blonde,” Nicholson said. “Look at your driver’s license picture. Blonde. We talked to Carol, one of the girls who works at your shop. It’s quite a coincidence that you had her chop off all your hair and dye it the color it is now, right after Dakota died. I mean, like hours after it, before you even got the news about it. Your friend Melody told Detective Fleming you told her you just felt like you needed a change. It was quite a change, I’ll grant you that.”

“There’s a lot of blondes in the world,” Dawn said. “That don’t mean I was the woman in that pawnshop. She was taller, and she had big boobs. Do these look like big boobs to you?” She indicated her chest.

“I’ve got pretty small boobs myself,” Maddy said. “I remember once when I was in high school, I got a set of falsies because I wanted to look like all the cheerleaders did. Yeah, I had quite a set there for a while. But I only wore them one day because everybody laughed at me. It was too much of a change. But I would imagine if that guy that runs that pawnshop up in Alabama had never seen you before, he would think they were real.”

“Y’all are all crazy. Even if I did all that stuff, which I didn’t, I damn sure didn’t have false legs to make me look taller, did I?”

“No, but my girlfriend helped me figure that out this morning,” Nicholson told her. “See, she’s shorter than I am. But she has these big wedge shoes or platform shoes or whatever she calls them. I don’t know about women’s things like that. She’s usually got to stand on her tiptoes and I have to bend down a little to kiss her. But with those shoes on this morning? It was a lot easier.”

“Come on, Mr. Nicholson. Are you that desperate to close this case that you’re makin’ stuff like this up? Why would I kill Dakota?”

“Because you were tired of him cheating on you with all those other women. I guess you just got fed up. And who can blame you? He’s running around the country in this fancy pickup truck and you’re driving an old beater that barely gets you around town. He’s off staying in some of the nicest hotels in the places he goes and you’re in that little old house all by yourself, except when your junkie son comes around, and then he usually steals something before he leaves.”

“I didn’t even know Dakota was down here in Florida! I told y’all that before. He told me he was in Pigeon Forge.”

“Yeah, but that tracking software you put on his phone told you something else, didn’t it, Dawn? Here’s the way I see it happened. You figured out he was lying to you about where he was, so you came down and confronted him. You got into an argument and then the neighbor and the process server broke it up and you left. But you didn’t go home. No, ma’am. You’d already seen all of that other woman’s clothes there in the room, so there was no denying what was going on between them. You went and bought yourself a stun gun because you knew you weren’t big enough to take him out on your own. We even talked to the guy at the sporting goods store where you bought it. Then you went back to the hotel room, and you got in bed with him and pretended you were going to make up for the fight. Then you zapped him with the stun gun a couple of times. Long enough to let you beat on him with that shower rod you broke off the bathroom wall. Does any of that sound familiar to you?”

“You’ll never be able to prove that story, no matter how hard you try,” Dawn said.

“We found your fingerprint on the shower rod and on the doorknob of the room. We also found some of your real blonde hair that got pulled out when you were fighting with Dakota. When we get the DNA back from that and the other things you touched in that room, there won’t be much of an argument, will there? It will be interesting when the jury sees that video of you at the pawnshop and finds out that you do voiceovers for commercials and can do everything from your normal voice to a British accent. I don’t think that little bit of evidence is going to help you convince anybody it wasn’t you. That’s what I picked up on, by the way, Dawn, the voice. You were able to change it a bit when you were in the pawnshop, but that laugh of yours as you were walking out of the pawnshop gave you away. I listened to some soundtracks from commercials you did for the radio station, and it’s the same laugh. An expert at our crime lab confirmed it just a little while ago.”

“He had it coming! He told me it wasn’t gonna happen again, but I’m no fool. I knew he was screwin’ all those women. Why? They were older than me and half of them were ugly. Why would he want to be runnin’ around the country, sleepin’ with them when I was at home wantin’ him? For money? There ain’t enough money in the world to make it worth that. Not to me, anyway. There’s a lot of things in the world more important than money and a big fancy pickup truck. I loved the man. I still do. But I couldn’t go on that way. If he wasn’t goin’ to be with me, he wasn’t goin’ to be with anybody.”

Maddy put her in the back of her Explorer for the trip to the jail, and John Lee and D.W. stood side by side as they watched them drive away. The sheriff put his hand on his deputy’s shoulder and said, “I’m glad you didn’t kill that man, son. Don’t get me wrong, I never thought for a second you did. But I’ve heard it said before that sometimes a man just needs killin.”

Nicholson pulled his phone out of his pocket and started to walk away, and Rosenthal asked, “Where are you going?”

“I need to make a phone call.”

Tabitha was in class, but when he got her voicemail, he said, “It’s me, baby. We need to finish that talk we started this morning. I think it’s time.”

Turn the page for a sneak peek at Debt Collector,

the next book in the John Lee Quarrels mystery series.

Chapter 1

He sat four rows behind her on the ferry from Seattle to Bremerton. It was enough to keep her in sight, but far enough away that she wouldn’t see him. He knew there was little chance she would recognize him after all these years, but he wasn’t taking any chances, just in case. When the ferry came into the dock at Bremerton, he stood up and watched her pick up her shoulder bag, then followed her off the vessel, making sure there were people between them. He had come too far and invested too much time and money for anything to go wrong now.

He knew her routine so well that he didn’t bother following her, instead going right to her apartment complex. He knew she would go to either King Wah Chinese restaurant, Puget Sound Seafood, or one of half a dozen other places, all within walking distance of the waterfront and her apartment. She was a woman who followed routines in her life. She had been that way, even years ago.

He lingered in the shadows of the apartment building until he saw her coming down the sidewalk carrying a bag in her left hand. This time Rudy’s burgers had been her choice for dinner. He entered the lobby ahead of her and paused at the bulletin board where residents could list items for sale and read notices of upcoming events in the community and studied a flyer from the management reminding everybody who had pets that they were responsible for walking them away from the building. He heard her coming in, and even though his back was turned to her, he knew she would stop at her mailbox and unlock it and take out whatever was waiting inside, then go up to apartment 203 on the second floor. 

He stayed several steps behind her and seemed to be absorbed in reading a flyer about the community theater company he had taken from the bulletin board as they ascended the stairs. He had timed it perfectly, as he knew he would, and when she set down the bag from the restaurant and unlocked her apartment door, he swooped in behind her and pushed her inside and onto the carpeted floor, face down.

“Don’t say a word and don’t fight me and I won’t hurt you? Do you understand?”

She struggled against him, and he held the knife against her throat and asked, “Do you feel that? Shake your head yes or no.”

She nodded her head, and he said, “If you struggle, if you fight me, if you do anything except exactly what I tell you to do, I’m going to cut your throat from ear to ear. Do you understand me?”

She nodded her head yes again.

“All right, that’s good. Did you get the note I left for you last week?”

She didn’t reply for a moment, and he pushed the knife more firmly against her throat. “I tucked it under your door. Did you get it?”

Her body went stiff for a moment, and then she nodded her head again.

“Well, I’ve come to collect.”

“What are you talking about?”

He cupped his left hand and slammed it into her ear, and her body recoiled in pain.

“I told you no talking. Didn’t I?”

She nodded her head, crying.

“You need to understand something, Lindsey. You’re not in charge here. You have no power. There’s nothing you can say or do that’s going to stop what’s happening. The only question is how much you will have to suffer before you get that through your head. Do I make myself clear?”

She nodded her head.

“Good girl. You were always smart, weren’t you? Stubborn as a damn mule, but smart. No question about that. Now, I’m going to blindfold you and I’m going to secure your hands behind you. Are you going to try to resist me in any way?”

She shook her head no.

“All right, raise your head up just a little.” She did, and she heard a ripping sound and then felt something wrapping around her head, covering her eyes. Something stiff but yet flexible. He wound it around her head three times. That done, he pulled her arms up behind her and did the same thing with her wrists, binding them together.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She didn’t answer, and he jerked her hair hard and said, “I want an answer. I don’t ask questions because I’m bored. I ask them because I want an answer. Was that so bad?”

She shook her head no again.

“There you go. Now you stay there and be quiet.”

She felt his weight lifting off of her and then heard the door opening and closing again. Had he left? No, he was back again.

“Couldn’t leave this bag of food out there in the hallway, could we? Someone might come knocking on the door to let you know you forgot it.” She heard the bag opening and then the sound of the wrapper around the burger and he asked, “Really, Lindsey? A double cheeseburger? How do you stay so slim and trim eating junk food like that? I’ll tell you what, I’ll eat this one and save you some calories, okay? I figure you don’t have much of an appetite right now, do you?” He kicked her in the ribs, not hard but enough to break them, but enough to get her attention and said, “I asked a question. Do you have much of an appetite right now?”

She shook her head, then heard him walk away and the sound of her refrigerator opening. “Diet Sprite. You get a double cheeseburger and drink Diet Sprite. I guess one’s supposed to cancel out the other, right, Lindsey?”

This time, she nodded her head yes.

“Well, you just lay there and be quiet, and we’ll get down to business soon.”

She heard the sound of the can opening and then the sound of someone sitting down on her couch. A moment later he said, “I’ve got to say, this is a damn good burger. No wonder you ordered a double.”

After a while, the sound of him eating stopped, and she wondered what he was doing. Who was he anyway, and what did he want with her? Obviously, he knew who she was, and she searched her mind, trying to remember the voice. Was it familiar? She didn’t think so, but she talked to a lot of people over the course of a day. So, who was he and where did he come from? She remembered seeing a man in the lobby when she came in and was aware that he was coming up the stairs behind her, but there were three floors with six apartments on each floor and she didn’t know everybody in the building.

Actually, the only ones she really knew were Mr. and Mrs. Gardenz, the old couple across the hall. Sophia was always bringing her something she had baked, and Tomas had helped her assemble the bookcase that she had bought. There were a few other people from the building she had a nodding relationship with, including the girl with the curly red hair who rode the ferry to Seattle every morning when she did. They had exchanged pleasantries a few times, but the girl never seemed interested in talking and always had her Kindle e-book reader in front of her face on the trip across Puget Sound. There was Wally, the obviously gay man who called every woman in the building Sweet Girl when he saw them, and his partner Lawrence, a diminutive Black man. Wally owned the beauty salon on 3rd Street, and Lawrence worked there with him.

“Well, I imagine by now you’re wondering what’s going on, aren’t you, Lindsey? And probably who the hell I am, too. Right?”

She nodded her head, and he said, “As I said in that note I left you, you owe me and I’ve come to collect. It’s as simple as that.”

Lindsay wanted to ask him what she could possibly owe him? She didn’t have much debt, only a couple of credit cards that she paid off every month, and her rent. It wasn’t like she was borrowing money from loan sharks. Did he get her mixed up with somebody else? If that was the case, how did he know her name?

She felt rather than heard him approaching her, and then he pulled her to her feet from behind with his hands under her armpits. It was a small apartment, just the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. He pushed her into the bedroom and then facedown onto the bed. The next thing she knew, he had pulled her dress up over her waist. Oh, God, no!

“Thigh highs and a thong. Oh, Lindsey, naughty, naughty. What would your mama think? But I admit, I like the look.” She felt his hands moving along her body and then unzipped the dress, rolled her over and pulled her upright, and then pulled it over her head. “Well, what do you know? The bra matches the undies. Nice.”

He roughly pulled her sideways with her head on a pillow, then rolled her onto her side and said, “I’m going to release your hands for a moment. Are you going to do something stupid and get yourself hurt?”

Lindsey shook her head no.

“I didn’t think so.” She felt him cutting through the material holding her wrists together and then they were free for a moment. But then he pulled one up and secured it to the frame of her brass bed and then the other. A moment later, he did the same with her ankles. “What a pretty sight. I must say, what a pretty sight. Do you mind if I take a picture? Oh, I guess it doesn’t really matter if you mind or not, does it?”

She heard a clicking sound several times, which she recognized as a camera on a cell phone and winced. Lindsey had never felt so exposed in her life. Then it got worse when he pulled her thong and bra off and took more pictures.

“So pretty. So very, very pretty. I’m going to say that it’s too bad you’re not going to enjoy this as much as I am, Lindsey, because I’ve looked forward to this for so long.”

Lindsey could hear him taking his clothes off and started to cry once again.

“Oh, come on now, Lindsey. There’s no need to carry on like that. It’s not like you’re a virgin.”

She felt his weight as he climbed onto the bed and then he was on top of her, and then inside of her. She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand clamped around her throat. “Don’t even think about it, Lindsey. If you do, it’ll be the last sound you ever make.”

It seemed like the rape lasted for hours. Twice he obviously climaxed and rolled off of her, but before long he was back on top of her once more. “I imagine you’re wondering what keeps me going so long,” he told her. “Don’t flatter yourself and think it’s because you’re so beautiful, Lindsay. Don’t get me wrong, you are very pretty, but we’ve also got to give some credit to modern science and pharmaceuticals, don’t we?”

She didn’t know if she had passed out or if her mind had just blanked out, but at some point, she realized she was alone in the bed. She listened carefully, but couldn’t hear anything. Was he still there? She didn’t remember hearing him leave. What time was it? God, she had to pee. Should she ask him to untie her so she could use the bathroom? He had warned her not to say a word, and she could still remember the feel of the knife’s blade against her throat. Who was he, and why had he done this to her? He said she owed him. Owed him what? Should she scream for help? What if he was still in the apartment? What if he was just playing with her mind? What if this was all just a bad dream and now she was waking up? But what if it wasn’t a dream? Then what? She pulled at the restraints, but her arms and legs were tightly secured. If he was gone, who was going to find her? She couldn’t imagine anybody seeing her like this, naked and spread eagle on the bed like something out of a bad porn movie. But she couldn’t lie there forever. Sooner or later, somebody was going to miss her and come looking for her, wouldn’t they? God, she had to pee!

***

Riding the ferry back across Puget Sound, he thought about his evening with Lindsey. Had it been everything he had imagined? Everything he had hoped for? Oh yes. That and even more. This was the third one now, and each time had been better than the last. He knew part of that was because he was refining his technique, and also because of the detailed planning that had gone into it. Imagining what it was going to be like only added to the satisfaction.

He caught a cab from the waterfront and asked the driver to take him to the Seattle Public Library at the corner of Madison and 5th Street. Paying the cab driver off, he walked a block to Spring Street, where he hailed another taxi and took it to Swedish Hospital. From there, he walked a few blocks to a small restaurant, hailed another cab, and asked to be taken to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

He had a two hour wait for his flight back to Dallas, and he spent it reading that day’s edition of the Seattle Times newspaper. He slept well on the flight to Texas, went to the Marriott Hotel near the airport, and early the next morning flew to Houston. From there it was a quick flight to Tallahassee. Retrieving his car from the parking lot, it was a short drive home to Somerton County. He stopped for lunch at Peggy’s Diner, where he saw his friends Deputies John Lee Quarrels and Maddy Westfall.

They nodded at him, and he said hello and asked how their day was going.

“Just another day in paradise,” John Lee told him.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “Yes, it is.”