“To bond.”

“To meet me.”

“First time?” said Lamar.

Nod.

“You get together?”

“Not yet.”

“So when’d you give him your song- ‘Music City Breakdown’?”

“I mailed it to him. Five Oh Two Beverly Crest Ridge, Beverly Hills 90210.”

“How long ago?”

“A month. I mailed him a bunch of lyrics.”

“Before that, did you exchange letters?”

“We e-mailed. We’ve been doing it for six months; you can check my computer, I’ve saved everything between us.”

“Why’d you send him ‘Breakdown’ using snail mail?”

“I wanted him to have something…something he could touch. It was part of a whole notebook I sent him, all my lyrics. Jack liked four of them, the rest he said were too shapeless- that was the way he put it. But those four had potential to be songs if they ‘grew up.’ He said he’d help me grow them up. He said we should concentrate on ‘Breakdown’ because even though it needed work, it was the best. Then, if it…I was thinking about moving to LA, maybe getting into a creative writing program at UCLA or something.”

“You and Jack making plans.”

Long silence. Then Tristan shook his head. “Jack didn’t know about that. We were concentrating on ‘Breakdown.’ ”

“To grow it up.”

“We were supposed to do it before the concert- he was playing a concert at the Songbird. If it came together, he was going to sing it and then call me up on stage and introduce me as the writer. And maybe more.”

“His son.”

Slow, tortured nod. “Now she ruined it.”

“Who?” said Baker.

Silence.

“No theories, son?”

“No offense,” said the boy, “but that makes me feel worse, not better, sir. Hearing you call me ‘son.’ ”

“Apologies,” said Baker. “Who ruined things for you?”

No answer.

Baker said, “She as in…”

“Mom.”

“You think she killed Jack?”

“I don’t see her actually stabbing someone, too messy.”

“What, then?”

“She’d hire someone. Maybe some Lexington bad dude; she’s got all sorts of people working on the farm. I hate that place.”

“Don’t like horses?”

“Don’t like horseshit and all the racism that’s part of the whole scene.”

“Some Lexington bad dude,” said Baker. “What reason would your mama have to kill Jack?”

“To prevent me from entering his world. That’s what she called it- his world, like it was some Hades thing, some nether-hell of deep, dark iniquity. All those years, she’s been bragging about knowing Jack, how she used to hang with all those rock stars.”

“Not in front of Lloyd, though.”

“Sometimes, if she was drinking.”

“Did it bother him?”

“He’d smile and go back to his paper.”

“Easygoing sort,” said Lamar.

“That,” said Tristan, “and he had all his girlfriends.”

His smile was weary. “It was what you might call a free environment, sir. Until I wanted to invent my own brand of freedom. Mom wasn’t pleased.”

“The music scene,” said Lamar.

“She calls it the lowest of the low.”

Lamar quelled another urge to look at Baker. “You really think she’d murder a man to stop him from being a bad influence on you?”

“She went to warn him off,” said Tristan.

“When?”

“The night he flew into Nashville. At least, that’s what she told me she was going to do. Drove straight to where I was supposed to meet him. Told me to forget about going there, you stay away unless you want an ugly scene you’ll never forget.”

“Go where?”

“The place Jack was gonna be. Someplace on First, where there’s no other clubs.”

“The T House.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were supposed to meet up with Jack there.”

“Yes, sir. He called me that night, said he was going there, I should bring the extra verses I was working on- for ‘Breakdown’- and he was going to check them out. Then I was going to drive him back to the hotel and we were going to pull an all-nighter so the song would be in shape to sing at the concert.”

“But Mom warned you off and you didn’t go.”

“I called Jack and asked what to do about it. He told me to be cool, he’d calm her down, and we would meet up.”

“How’d you feel about all that?”

“Angry as hell, but Jack promised me we’d get together with enough time before the concert.”

“The concert was important.”

“He was going to bring me up on stage.”

“Where’d you go instead of to the T House?”

“Nowhere,” said the boy. “I stayed home and worked on ‘Breakdown.’ I fell asleep, maybe at three, four, I don’t know, it was at my desk. Then I got up and worked some more. Check my computer logs, when I write something, I record the time.”

“Why?”

“To preserve it. Preserve everything about the process. You can have my computer, if you want to prove it. It’s on the backseat of my car.”

“You seem real anxious for us to get hold of your computer.”

“Anything about me is going to be on my hard drive.”

Lamar said, “We find your computer was used at a certain time, doesn’t tell us who used it.”

The boy scowled. “Well, it was me- ask Amelia, our maid. I was in all night and never left.”

“How’d you end up at the river?”

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

“What time?”

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

“Where?”

“Up and down the highway, all over.”

“Which highway?”

“The I-Forty.”

“Anyone see you?”

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

“Sounds like you go there a lot.”

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

“Thinking about killing yourself.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it.”

“Probably?”

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

“Your mama.”

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

“Why’d she hate him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“If she didn’t do it, who did?”

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

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