Now he was wondering…ahem…about maybe a ree-ward?

“Sorry, sir,” said Lamar, “no rewards for finding bodies, only murderers.”

“Oh,” said Watson. Flashing a sunken grin. “Cain’t blame a guy for trahn.”

They questioned him awhile longer, ran him through the system and got a hit with a few misdemeanors. When Baker suggested a polygraph, Watson loved the idea. “Long as it don’t hoit.”

“Painless, Mr. Watson.”

“Let’s do it, den. Always wanna try new t’ings.”

Lamar and Baker traded looks.

Stretch cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry, sir, no polygraphers on the premises. We’ll call you.”

“Oka-ay,” said Watson. “I got nuttin a do.”

Calls to Jack Jeffries’s credit card company, follow-up chats with a supervisor at Marquis Jet and the limo driver who’d taken Jeffries and Delaware to the hotel, and a brief sit-down with the staff at Jack’s Bar-B-Que confirmed every detail of Dr. Delaware ’s story.

No one at the restaurant had noticed where Jeffries had gone.

Baker and Lamar spent the next two hours canvassing neighboring merchants east of the barbecue joint, talking to passersby, anyone who hung out regularly on the numbered streets between Fifth and First.

Nothing.

With little else to go on, the two detectives started making phone calls, splitting the list of the performers for the upcoming “Evening at the Songbird Café for the Benefit and Protection of the First Amendment.”

Among the names were some of Lamar’s idols: Stretch did his police duty with gusto. Baker made the calls with reticence bordering on hostility. The sum total of twenty-two phone calls yielded the same results, which were no results. Everyone was stunned by the news, but no one had seen hide nor hair of Jack Jeffries. Some didn’t even know he had been scheduled to perform. Checking Jeffries’s outgoing cell calls verified the stories. If Jack had attempted to reach former buddies, he’d done so on a landline that the detectives were unaware of.

A seven PM call to Lieutenant Milo Sturgis in LA verified Dr. Alexander Delaware’s longtime association with the department. Sturgis termed Delaware as brilliant.

“If you can use him,” the lieutenant said, “do it.”

Baker asked him if he knew Delaware had been treating Jack Jeffries.

Sturgis said, “No, he never talks about his cases. Guy’s ethical.”

“Sounds like you like him.”

“He’s a friend,” said Sturgis. “That’s an effect of his being a good guy, not a cause.”

The AFIS report on the scrap of song lyrics from Jack Jeffries’s room came back negative for any match with an individual in the system. The crime scene people were still working at the scene and the results would start to trickle in tomorrow.

Baker called the coroner’s office and spoke to Dr. Inda Srinivasan. She said, “Obviously tox won’t be back for a few days but this was one unhealthy guy. His heart was enlarged, his coronary arteries were seriously occluded, his liver was cirrhotic and one of his kidneys was atrophied, with a cyst on the other not that long from bursting. Top of that, he’s got noticeable cerebral atrophy, more like what you’d see in an eighty-year-old than a sixty-five-year-old.”

“He was also fat and had dandruff,” said Baker. “Now tell me what killed him.”

“Severed carotid laceration, exsanguination and subsequent shock,” said the pathologist. “My point is, Baker, he probably didn’t have long, either way.”

6

At seven thirty, they returned to the kill-spot. In diminishing daylight, stripped of hubbub and artificial illumination, the site was even more depressing. Last night’s foot-indentations were almost gone, plumped by dew. But streaks of rusty brown remained on the weeds. Fresh dog dropping deposited inches from where the body had lain, the pooch disregarding the boundaries of the yellow crime scene tape.

Why should life stop?

At eight thirty they were starving and went back to Jack’s Bar-BQue, not just for the food, but also hoping someone might remember something.

Baker ordered smoked chicken.

Lamar asked for Tennessee pork shoulder and when the food arrived, said, “It’s like some primitive rite.”

Baker wiped his mouth with a Wash’n Dri. “What is?”

“I’m eating what Jack ate, like that could transfer his karma to us.”

“I don’t want his karma. You gonna eat all those onions?”

They wiped their chins and drove to The T House. The front door was open but from the street, the club looked empty.

The interior was a single dim, plywood-paneled room with a warped pine floor, mismatched chairs pulled up to small round, oilcloth-covered tables, a few pictures of bands and singers hanging askew.

Not quite empty; three patrons, all young, emaciated, sullen, drinking tea and eating some kind of anorexic biscuits.

Big and Rich on the too-loud soundtrack, asking women to ride them.

Behind a makeshift bar, a black-shirted, spiky-haired guy dried mismatched glasses. As the detectives stood in the doorway, he glanced their way briefly, then returned to his chore.

Not curious about their presence. Meaning Jeffries probably hadn’t been here.

They entered anyway, looked around. No hard liquor permit, just beer and wine and a skimpy selection of that. To the left of the bottles, a blackboard listed two dozen types of tea.

“Talk about selection,” said Lamar. “Oolong is one thing, Unfermented White sounds illegal.”

Baker said, “Look at this.” Cocking his head at the rear of the room where a stage should be. No platform, no drum kit, or any other evidence of live entertainment.

Another dude in all-black fiddled with a karaoke setup.

“They can’t hire someone live?” said Lamar. “The Large Pizza Blues just got sadder.”

Referencing the old strummer’s joke: What’s the difference between a Nashville musician and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

This town, getting someone to play for cheap was as easy as blinking, but whoever owned this place opted for a computer. Someone turned the volume down on Big and Rich. A young woman wearing a waitress apron over a red tank top and jeans stepped out of a door in the back, checked with all three tea-drinkers, refilled a pot, then went over to the karaoke guy. He offered her a cordless microphone. She wiped her hands on her apron, untied it and placed it on the bar. Untying a blond ponytail, she fluffed her hair, flashed teeth at the nearly empty room, finally took the mike.

The room grew silent. The blond girl wiggled, more nerves than sexiness. She said, “Here we go,” and tapped the mike. Thump thump thump. “Testing…okay, folks, how’re y’all tonight?”

Nods from two of the tea-drinkers.

“Awesome, me, too.” Mile-wide smile. Pretty girl, twenty, twenty-one. Small and curvy- five-two or -three, square jaw, big eyes.

She cleared her throat again. “Well…yeah, it is an awesome night for some music. I’m Gret. That’s short for Greta. Then again, I’m kinda short.”

Pausing for laughter that never arrived.

The karaoke guy muttered something.

Gret laughed and said, “Bart says we’d best be moving along. Okay, here’s one of my favorites. ’Cause I’m from San Antone…though I love love love Nashville.”

Silence.

A third throat clear. Gret threw back her shoulders, tried to stand taller, planted her feet as if ready to fight someone. A musical intro issued from the karaoke box and soon Gret was putting heart and soul into “God Made Texas.”

Lamar thought she started out pretty good, belting out the song in a smooth, throaty voice, just above an alto. But she was a long ways from great.

Meaning another rider on the Dead Dream Express. Nashville chewed them up and spit them out the way Hollywood did with starlets. According to what he’d heard about Hollywood; the farthest west he’d been was Vegas, five days at a homicide investigation seminar. Sue had won twenty bucks playing dime slots and he’d lost all that and forty more at the blackjack tables.