“Do okay. Have a seat.”
We looked at each other for a few seconds without saying anything. He broke the ice by opening the desk drawer and holding out a Goo Goo Cluster to me. This time I accepted his offer. He took one, too. “Don’t want to give you the wrong impression, Mrs. Fletcher, by asking you to come by,” he said, tearing the wrapper off the candy. “I’m not looking for a partner. But—well, it’s just that there’s something gnawing at me about the Marker case, and I hate it when something gnaws at me.” He took a bite of the candy and chewed thoughtfully.
“Like a circumstantial case?” I said, nibbling at the marshmallow, chocolate, peanut, and caramel confection.
He smiled. “Something like that,” he said. “I got a call from Marker’s office a few minutes ago.”
“Oh? And?”
“It was the deceased’s partner, Whitson, complaining that you’d been there using my name to get inside Marker’s office.”
“I did go there,” I replied, “and I’m afraid I did use your name to gain access. But it’s not what you think. All I said was—”
He waved his hand in the air. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I don’t care about Whitson. Guy’s a loudmouth. I bring it up because you’re obviously somebody who won’t take no for an answer.”
I nodded cautiously. I certainly couldn’t deny the truth, but I wondered where he was taking this.
Biddle continued. “You’ve gotten yourself on Gabriel’s defense team—nice work, by the way, getting her out of jail without bail—and you’re letting it be known around town that you’re playing detective.” He waved a copy of the morning newspaper at me. “Not good for my reputation. The duty officer passed a comment.”
“I don’t consider it playing detective. But I do believe in Cyndi’s innocence and feel a responsibility to do everything I can to help her.”
“Like showing up at Marker’s memorial this morning.”
“Is there something wrong with my being there? You were there, too.”
“No, no, nothing wrong at all.”
“I was hoping that
your
presence meant you’re interested in developing other leads,” I said.
Biddle hesitated a long time, contemplating the candy wrapper as if it held a secret he was trying to divine.
“Are you?” I asked. “Developing other leads?”
“Matter of fact, Mrs. Fletcher, I’ve come into some information that might—and I stress
might
—have a bearing on the case.”
The news buoyed me, but I was careful not to react too strongly. “I’d love to hear about it,” I said, breaking off a piece of candy and popping it in my mouth.
“Between us?”
This time I was the one who hesitated, then said, “If it helps Cyndi, I’d naturally want to share it with her attorney, Mr. Washburn.”
“But nobody beyond him.”
“Fair enough.”
He leaned back and finished off his Goo Goo, chewing while he decided what to say, and how to put it. “Okay,” he finally said. “We put out some feelers around town, people who know the music scene and what’s going down.”
“Informants?”
“Yeah, one of them, too. Learned that Marker had been having a fling with a young country singer. I’m thinking it might have been Sally Prentice, the one who sang at the memorial service today.”
“Sounds like something for the tabloids,” I said.
“You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Of course not,” I said, wrapping up what was left of my candy and tucking it in my bag. “This was delicious, by the way. I’m going to save the other half for later.”
“We’ll make a Southerner of you yet.”
“I’m afraid you have a long way to go with this dyed-in-the-wool Maine Yankee.”
Biddle shrugged. “You know, this sort of philandering isn’t exactly a shock,” he continued, relaxing into his subject. “In any glamour field, guys in top places, guys with influence, have been known to take advantage of the vulnerable ones. In Hollywood you’d expect it. It’s no surprise it’s here in Nashville, too.”
“There are disreputable people in every business, Detective. I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Sources tell me Marker’s gone through quite a few women, most of ’em young and looking for a break, or a mentor, or a king-maker, maybe I should say ‘queen-maker.’ Easy pickin’s.”
“You’re not suggesting that Cyndi Gabriel was one of them, are you?”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t have ruled her out, but fact of the matter is she doesn’t fit Marker’s MO, method of operation. For one thing, she’s not blond—his preferred . . . well, let’s say game. And she’s not an especially provocative dresser. Plus, even though I don’t know her well, your girl doesn’t strike me as the kind of young woman to sacrifice her scruples on the altar of fame.”
“I agree, which is why I don’t believe she’d kill anyone just because he didn’t live up to his promises. This is a young woman who’s had a lot of disappointments in life. Nothing’s been given to her. Anytime she’s been faced with obstacles, she’s simply worked harder to achieve her goals. She was disillusioned with Marker—I know she was. She was upset and angry—with justification. But vengeful or violent? No. I just don’t believe that’s true.”
“Maybe,” he said.
But I had a feeling he was coming around to thinking Cyndi wasn’t the best candidate for prosecution in this case.
“To fuel you with a bit more gossip, Mrs. Fletcher, the talk says Marker’s wife, the grieving widow, has been known to show up in somebody else’s bed as well.”
“Whitson’s?”
“Don’t have a name yet.”
“Or one you’re willing to reveal,” I said. “Well, if Whitson and Marilyn are having an affair, that could give both of them motives to get Marker out of the way.”
“Could.”
“Where is all this leading, Detective Biddle?”
He’d been leaning back in his squeaky chair and now let the seat propel him forward. “Don’t really know,” he said, sighing. “Yeah, there are others might’ve had a motive to kill him. Problem is, I keep coming back to the fact that your girl is the one who sent the threatening letter.”
“I know you think that’s strong evidence against Cyndi,” I said. “In fact, if my memory serves me, you said it tied up the case in a neat bow for you. But if Marker was in the habit of stealing songs from young, unrepresented songwriters—and if that’s a valid motive to kill—then there’s a good chance there are others who’ve suffered that same fate. You could even take it further and say that if
anyone
knew about Cyndi’s letter, he or she could use it to set her up as the killer.”
“You think she’s been framed?”
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” I said.
He chuckled. “In crime, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.” He leaned back in his chair again. “So,” he said, “tell me about your visit to Marker’s office.”
“I wanted to check out the second door in Marker’s office,” I said, telling him what the guard said about it being open, and laying out for him my theory of how the murderer used that door and the fire stairs to access the office, and to flee the scene.
“We dusted all of them, including the one leading to the parking lot, for prints. There were so many prints we couldn’t come up with a specific one.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said.
“There’s always at least one surprise in a murder investigation,” he said through a chortle.
“And I hope that’s the case with this one,” I said. “If we knew the names of everyone who had a key to that outside door at the foot of the fire stairs, and to that second door to his office, we’d have a pretty good list of suspects.”
“Nice theory,” he said, “but I doubt we’d ever be able to get all the names.”
“The office probably has a list. Did you ask for keys to those doors as part of your investigation, Detective?”
“No. What would that accomplish?”
“If we know what those keys look like, we could check other suspects’ keys to find a match.”
“What’s to keep the murderer from throwing away the keys?”
“Nothing, of course. But it would still help to know who was issued a key. And if the killer didn’t think to throw away the keys, finding them in someone’s possession, someone without an alibi, perhaps, could point us in a different direction.”
Biddle opened the desk drawer and stared down at a small pile of silver-wrapped Goo Goo Clusters, as if debating whether he should have another. Apparently deciding against it, he closed the drawer and said, “I’ll send an officer to get a copy of the keys from the building manager and a list of who had them. Anything else you can think of ? Any other suspects you have in mind?”
“I heard Marker tried to fire Edwina Anderson, but his wife intervened.”
“Firing’s not a killing offense.”
“It has been many times in the past. Have you done a background check on her?”
He grunted, then shook his head. “We’ll look into it. Anyone else?”
“Mr. Marker’s son was at the service this morning,” I said. “I’m told that their relationship was not particularly close.”
“I interviewed him at the hospital while Marker was lingering on the edge. The son arrived in Nashville the day before his father was assaulted. He was pretty up-front about his feelings. He and his father didn’t get along, and had as little to do with each other as possible. But you could see he was worried that his father was dying. Of course, he was living off his old man, receiving regular checks. Maybe the father truly wanted to help, or maybe he was paying him to stay away. There was no love lost between him and his stepmother, either, the current Mrs. Marker. They barely said two words to each other in the waiting room.”
“Not a Norman Rockwell family,” I commented.
“Meaning?”
“Not the sort of loving family the artist depicted in his paintings,” I explained.
“Not at all.”
“So where does this leave us?”
“Until we have another viable suspect, it leaves us exactly where we are.” He picked up the newspaper again and tapped it on his desk. “I don’t object to you poking around, but I gotta ask you to be discreet. Not a good reflection on the department to have stories in the paper hinting we’re not doing our job.”
“I certainly never said any such thing. May I see that?” I asked, pointing to the
Tennessean
. “It seems that everyone in Nashville has read about me
except
me.”
“Go ahead and take it. I’m done with it. Brian Krupp is a pit bull when it comes to getting a story. He’s gravel in our craw here at MPD, but I have to admit he’s good.”
I mentioned the call I’d received from him at the hotel.
“Just watch what you say to him,” Biddle counseled. “He picks up on everything.”
“Thanks for the warning, Detective. I really appreciate having this chance to sit down with you. I’m sure we’ll be running into each other again.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
He walked me from the office, stayed with me on the elevator, and escorted me to the street, where we shook hands.
“Mind another warning, Mrs. Fletcher?” he said.
I cocked my head as an invitation for him to continue.
“Whoever killed Rod Marker, assuming for the moment it wasn’t Cyndi Gabriel, knows that you’re here in Nashville to find out who that person is. I’d watch my back if I were you. Once someone has taken a life, it’s not as hard to do it again.”
“I—”
“Stay in touch,” he said, and walked back into the building.
.
Chapter Seventeen
W
hen I got back to the hotel, Cyndi was lying on her bed, watching a movie on TV. I went to my own room and used the time while she was distracted to read the Brian Krupp article in the
Tennessean
that I’d taken from Biddle’s office. While the details of Marker’s assault and subsequent death were rehashed in the piece, and Cyndi’s alleged involvement in it highlighted, much of the article focused on me and my trip to Nashville. It made me sound like a caped crusader who’d flown in to rescue a damsel in distress, an overly dramatic portrayal of my trip and its purpose. My inclusion on Cyndi’s defense team was duly noted, and the prosecutor was quoted as being shocked, as well as dismayed at the judge’s decision to release her into my custody without any bail to bind her to Nashville. And there was my photo, larger than either Cyndi’s or Marker’s.
I wasn’t certain if I should show the article about Marker to Cyndi. She hadn’t shown any interest in watching the news or reading a paper since Jamal and I had picked her up in the jail and brought her to the hotel. Perhaps it was her way of avoiding the ugly reality facing her: She very well could be brought to trial for a murder she hadn’t committed. If she asked to see a newspaper, I would show it to her. But until then, I would take my cues from her behavior and let her decide when she was ready to see how the news was portraying the case against her.
I’d finished reading the feature and was skimming the rest of the paper when one item caught my eye in the entertainment section. Sally Prentice, the up-and-coming country-and-western star who’d been given Cyndi’s song, would begin recording her new CD that night at a Nashville studio. It was a short mention accompanied by a head shot of the singer.
I folded the paper and tucked it into a drawer in the nightstand next to my bed. When I returned to the living room, Cyndi was engrossed in playing and singing a new song.
“Sounds nice,” I said.
“I got up in the middle of the night to write it down,” she said proudly. “I think it’s as good as ‘Talkin’ Through the Tears.’ ”
“That’s wonderful, Cyndi. I’m impressed with how you can continue to create under these circumstances.”
“I think I’d go crazy if I didn’t have my music,” she said, hugging her guitar to her chest. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mrs. Fletcher, but there’s nothing else for me to do here. In the jail, they had classes from morning to night. At least it passed the time.” She looked around the room. “How many hours can you spend sleeping or showering or watching TV?” She gave a soft snort. “I’ve never been so clean.”