With a Bullet

Inc.

Hey, Cafton. I wrote your obit today. Marty grinned, peering over his heavy black-rimmed glasses. I said you were one of Nashville’s iconic success stories, an inspiration to all those wide-eyed dreamers who migrate to Nashville to see their name inscribed in gold records and to hear themselves on the radio.

Well, thank you for those kind words, Marty. My mama used to always say that you’re more famous when you die than when you’re drawing breath, Cafton drawled, flipping a coffee cup onto the bar in front of Marty, filling it half way with black coffee, and topping it off with vintage bourbon.

Marty Schwartz, a reporter at the Nashville Banner, the redheaded, conservative, afternoon stepchild newspaper to the morning’s The Tennessean, was a pragmatic drunk. Marty called his signature libation a Black Jack—equal parts hot black coffee and bourbon. Marty thought the two ingredients would offset each other so he could drink and work at the same time. A good belt of coffee with the bourbon would keep him sharp and cover the booze on his breath, or so he thought.

Stop being so damn humble. Marty scowled, noisily slurping his steaming concoction. "You’ve been the hottest songwriter in this town for years. You came, you saw, you conquered. No one has ever seen someone have so many hit songs so quickly before. Since 1968, you’ve had four chart-toppers in the last five years. People would kill to be in your shoes. In fact, people have killed to be in your shoes."

With a Bullet

by

Jacki Moss

Music City Mysteries, Book One

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

With a Bullet

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Jacki Moss

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Mainstream Historical Rose Edition, 2016

Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0536-3

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0537-0

Music City Mysteries, Book One

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For my Mom,

who inspired me to just put one foot in front of

the other and keep going when all seems lost.

For Granny,

who instilled in me love, compassion and strength.

For Alley, my love.

For Mrs. Sutliff in 10th grade,

who taught me more about writing than anyone,

anywhere, any time.

Preface

It’s a Music Row mystery. The women who write some of country music’s hottest songs are missing, but their songs aren’t.

Cafton Merriepennie, who has never personally written a song, has charted more songs in the last five years than any other songwriter in history. Nashville music industry folks think he’s strange. He would agree. But he’s successful and owns the most exclusive club in Music City, where music industry moguls are treated like royalty, and where they make deals that change people’s lives forever.

This book is a suspenseful whodunit, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a song, or two.

Chapter 1

Death Eating a Cracker

Hey, Cafton. I wrote your obit today. Marty grinned, peering over his heavy black-rimmed glasses. I said you were one of Nashville’s iconic success stories, an inspiration to all those wide-eyed dreamers who migrate to Nashville to see their name inscribed in gold records and to hear themselves on the radio.

Well, thank you for those kind words, Marty. My mama used to always say that you’re more famous when you die than when you’re drawing breath, Cafton drawled, flipping a coffee cup onto the bar in front of Marty, filling it half way with black coffee, and topping it off with vintage bourbon.

Marty Schwartz, a reporter at the Nashville Banner, the redheaded, conservative, afternoon stepchild newspaper to the morning’s The Tennessean, was a pragmatic drunk. Marty called his signature libation a Black Jack—equal parts hot black coffee and bourbon. Marty thought the two ingredients would offset each other so he could drink and work at the same time. A good belt of coffee with the bourbon would keep him sharp and cover the booze on his breath, or so he thought.

Stop being so damn humble. Marty scowled, noisily slurping his steaming concoction. "You’ve been the hottest songwriter in this town for years. You came, you saw, you conquered. No one has ever seen someone have so many hit songs so quickly before. Since 1968, you’ve had four chart-toppers in the last five years. People would kill to be in your shoes. In fact, people have killed to be in your shoes."

Cafton dropped the shot glass he was cleaning. ’Scuse me. Got a case of the dropsies today. Speaking of death, do you know something I don’t know that prompted you to write my obituary? It’s not like I’m Methuselah, ya know.

Nah, the paper has us write stock obits for prominent people. That way we’re not on such a deadline when they drop dead. Marty smirked at his own pun, which Cafton ignored. When the obit assignments came out for the day, your name was up, so to speak.

How lucky for me. Cafton sighed.

"Hey, at least you get an obit. Now that I’m an obituarist, I think a lot about people and their lives and what I’d write in their obits. Then I think about all the poor schmucks who croak and don’t get their final history written." Marty took a sip of his Black Jack and held it in his mouth a minute to extract the full buzz and mellow. The warmth of the alcohol and steaming coffee spread across the roof of his mouth like caffeinated lava. It felt good. Calming. Steadying. Three more of these and he would be a wide-awake drunk. Just the perfect state for a bored reporter.

He slowly took off his glasses and carefully waved them over his cup. The near-toxic vapor moistened the thick lenses. He then methodically wiped the lenses dry with his rumpled paisley tie. Without his glasses, Marty looked like a beady-eyed rodent sporting a greasy Elvis wig. With the glasses on, he looked like a university professor sporting a greasy Elvis wig. Neither particularly appealed to Cafton’s sense of aesthetics.

Like, I think about this mama I met down in the paper’s morgue while I was researching your history. She was beside herself with worry, scrounging around for anything that might tell her what happened to her missing daughter, Marty continued.

How dreadful, Cafton said. "Why would she be looking at old newspapers? It would seem to me that the first place to go would be the police. If they have nothing, then it’s a dead end. Fini."

Marty smiled at Cafton’s inadvertent pun, which Cafton ignored.

Oh, she did that. It was like pissing in the wind. She said the police told her it’s the 1960s and kids think they are all independent now. You know, peace, love, and rock and roll, or around here, peace, love, and a dime store guitar. They said they’d heard her story a thousand times. That if they had a dime for every time a mama called them frantic about her missing starlet, they’d own Music Row. Said the kid is probably fine and just doesn’t want to be found and have her ass be hauled back home yet. Pretty much just blew her off. You know the drill. So she came to the paper looking to see if any of the club listings had her daughter’s name in them. Marty watched Cafton for a reaction.

Poor thing. And did they, uh, have her poor darlin’s name in them anywhere? Cafton leaned so far forward toward Marty, elbows on the bar, he could smell the Black Jack brew.

Cafton made a point of knowing his competition and soaked up any intel about what they did and how they did it. He kept his club, the New Song Café, very exclusive and low-key. He never advertised his talent in the newspaper, or anywhere else, for that matter. In fact, his club was the Fort Knox of clubs. It was so hush-hush there wasn’t even a telephone in the public part of the building. Cafton had his personal phone in his private living quarters, but his girls weren’t allowed to use it, and his personal space was kept locked at all times.

Nope, she couldn’t find anything about her baby girl. She asked me if I knew her, if I had seen or heard of Taryn. Showed me a picture. Don’t you have a singer named Taryn here? That’s quite an unusual name.

And quite a coincidence, if it were true. Cafton leaned back and brushed a wisp of hair off his forehead and back onto the top of his thinning pate. But my girl’s name was, is, uh, was, Tara-Lynn. Close, but no cigar, Sherlock. Reporters! Always trying to dig up a story where there isn’t any. It’s painfully obvious, brother, they pay you by the word. The vein in Cafton’s forehead began to bulge like it did when he talked about the Internal Revenue Service.

No, I distinctly remember—it’s Taryn. I’m a reporter, you know, and I pay attention to stuff like that. Anyway, I thought what if that mama’s innocent baby girl did come to Nashville, and one of these snakes in the industry got a hold of her and for some reason offed her. She wouldn’t have even had an obit to leave her mark in the world, let alone the fame or fortune that she came here lookin’ for. Marty again studied Cafton for a reaction. There was none, except for the bulging vein and the wisp of hair that had again fallen across it.

Marty noisily gulped down the last of his drink. Gotta split. I’m on a killer schedule, if you know what I mean. Marty placed three crumpled dollar bills on the bar, delicately balanced his coffee cup right on top of them, and headed toward the door.

See ya, Marty. Stay cool out there. This heat will creep up on you if you don’t watch it.

The July sun was already heating up Music Row.

Cafton poured himself a cup of coffee and slowly doctored it with two sugars and a splash of half-and-half. He was momentarily mesmerized by the coffee and cream swirls as he leisurely stirred. Cafton did remember Taryn. In fact, he remembered Taryn all too well, and the last time he saw her.

Taryn Turnipseed had been one in his usual trio of three girl singers at the club for several months. He hated that she had gone missing, but nothing could be done now, he thought. Cafton just didn’t want to open that particular can of worms right now. He had enough on his plate without having to try to explain a missing employee.

Business relationships are symbiotic. They depend upon both parties needing something from the other party. When one party fulfills their need from the other, then the relationship becomes unnecessary and even deleterious to progress. Taryn’s departure had opened the door for another young talent, Ruby Jean Heathcock. That’s how Cafton preferred to think about Taryn’s departure.

Unlike some of the slimy bar owners in dives all across Nashville, Cafton treated his girl talent with personal respect and dignity, like his mama had been treated when she was trying to make it as a singer and songwriter back home in Alabama.

Cafton never paid for talent. As an homage to his mama, instead, he took an unorthodox approach to helping women break into the music industry. He knew what indignities, discrimination, and dangers women faced trying to get started in Nashville’s cutthroat music industry. They needed exposure to the industry moguls who could make deals, as well as room and board and a sense of security while they climbed to the top. Cafton felt they shouldn’t have to sleep with anyone or be degraded to get there.

Cafton’s girls, in exchange for the opportunity to showcase their original songs and singing talent and to gain exposure at the club, waited tables, received a private room upstairs in the club, and had access to the girls’ community bathroom, shower, and laundry room, and all the food and non-alcoholic drinks they wanted. They were paid minimum wage for a full forty-hour week—a fortune, considering many musicians played all around Nashville just for beer and chow and were sitting ducks for bar owners and managers who would promise the sun and the moon for sexual favors and deliver nothing more than heartache.

On the contrary, Cafton’s girls didn’t need any money and were protected from outside lecherous men. He pretty much took care of all their needs. He even mailed their letters to home for them, took them shopping, and paid for personal items. They had no need to leave the premises if they didn’t want to. It beat the hell out of living in some fleabag hotel and pounding the pavement up and down Broadway begging sleazy bar managers for a free gig.

My God, Cafton! You look like death eatin’ a cracker. You been pullin’ an all-nighter hammering out another hit? Ruby Jean coming downstairs brought him out of his reverie. She went behind the bar and grabbed a bar rag off the side of the sink.

Well, thaaaank yew for your astute observation, Ruby Jean. Now, how about minding your own business? Cafton laid on thick the accent of his native tongue, for emphasis.

Well, excuse the hell out of me! Ruby Jean slapped the sepia-colored wipe rag down on the bar, slinging God-knows-what across the room. Cafton Merriepennie, you may be my boss, and I don’t mean no disrespect, but you know you’re the only family I’ve got right now, and family takes care of family. So there is no need for you to take that tone with me. I was just tryin’ to say that I am worried about your bony ass.

"Mea culpa. Cafton rapped his fist on his chest three times and hung his head, truly regretting his snippy tone. Don’t mind me, Ruby Jean. I guess I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Of course we’re family. That’s why I take care of you and the other girls. Truth be known, family is why I do everything." Cafton raked his lean hand through his hair and yawned silently to the heavens.

If there was one thing Cafton knew, it was how to treat a woman. If there were two things Cafton knew, they were how to treat a woman and a hit song when he heard it. And if there were three things Cafton knew, they were how to treat a woman, a hit song when he heard it, and how to run a bar. He had taken care of several women during the last two decades, starting with his mother, had charted five hits in five years, and had masterfully run his New Song Café since he opened its doors on Music Row six years ago.

If Midge Mullins, Cafton’s beloved mother, had been alive, she surely would have beamed her Southern Belle smile at him and told him that he was the goodest boy heaven could have ever sent a mama. Cafton used to live for those words from her when he was a kid. Now he could only imagine her voice and happiness whenever he walked by the row of metallic records with the Merriepennie name engraved on them. They lined the café hallway down to the club’s private Gentleman’s Lounge.

Ruby Jean had no idea just how right she was about Cafton having a bad night. She was right on the money. He self-consciously dusted off the clothes he was still wearing from the night before. He had, in fact, pulled an all-nighter, he looked and felt like hell, and there was a new song incubating. Cafton didn’t want to talk about it; he never discussed his songs with anyone. For now, he just wanted to go upstairs and wash the memory of last night away in a long, hot bath, stretched out in his antique, six-foot long, chest-deep clawfoot tub.

Tonight he would finally give Ruby Jean the break she had been hounding him about for a year and a half. Taryn, his house singer for the last eight months, was nowhere to be found, so tonight Ruby Jean would take the club’s stage, or what approximated a stage in Nashville, for the first time.

Taryn’s disappearance had caught everyone flatfooted, except Cafton. A couple of other girls had just up and left before, so he didn’t blink an eye about it. Without missing a beat, he anointed Ruby Jean to take her place. The show must go on, after all. And the music industry royalty expected to be entertained.

Ruby Jean, go tune your guitar and get ready to get all slung up tonight. You’re off the floor and fillin’ in for Taryn tonight, Cafton said over his shoulder as he wearily pulled himself up the hand-carved oak spiral staircase to his private quarters.

Hot damn! Ya mean it? It wouldn’t be Christian of me to wish bad things on anybody, but I’m sure glad the good Lord decided to get rid of Taryn. Bless her heart. I can’t wait to bust out those new songs I’ve been tellin’ you about. Oh, crap! My capo is broke. You got an extra? Did she leave one in her room? You think that Decca guy will be in tonight? Do I have to do covers, too? How long is my set? Will you be recording me?

Ruby Jean’s staccato soliloquy faded into what sounded like distant squirrel chattering as Cafton solemnly unlocked the three locks securing the solid oak door to his suite. He walked in, quietly shut the door behind him, and snapped the locks secure.

Chapter 2

Blowhards, Beatniks, and Bitches

Cafton didn’t