High Strung Read online

  “Ballsy? How about stupid? Hateful? Dangerous? Yes, I think someone who does this sort of thing is definitely off the rails, and could be prone to doing even worse,” Cafton concurred. Cafton had not told Heckle about the phone threats. He hadn’t taken them very seriously and certainly didn’t want to go whining to the police, especially to Heckle, who seemed to feel Cafton’s lack of machismo was a character indictment.

  Until now. Now there was a reason to let Heckle know.

  “By the way, some prankster has been threatening me on the phone for a couple of weeks. Suppose it’s him?” Cafton asked nonchalantly, like he was wondering when the policeman’s ball was going to be this year. Meanwhile, he kept an eye on the action behind Heckle, making sure the firefighters didn’t decide to completely burst his door down with a torrent of water from the fire hose and flood the inside of his house just for good measure, amusement, or training points.

  “Uh, do one-legged ducks swim in circles?” Heckle gave himself another self-congratulatory chuckle for his witty retort. “Why didn’t you tell me when I saw ya at the Metro Council meeting a couple of days ago? Maybe we could have prevented this and saved us all a lotta time and trouble.” Heckle pointed his stubby thumb behind him toward Cafton’s smoky front porch.

  Cafton felt like he just got blamed for someone firebombing his home. “Sorry to inconvenience you, Moses,” Cafton said flatly. “I’m not Nostradamus. I can’t divine what’s going to happen in the future. I had no way of knowing this guy, or anyone else, would escalate their lunacy to this extent.”

  “Naw, you sure ain’t no fortuneteller, but just dog sense says that when you get threatened, you respond.” Heckle was getting serious with Cafton, because he felt there was a lot more to this than a passing spat or lark. He might be jaded and lazy and pretty much uninterested in anything he couldn’t eat or drink, but he still had a glimmer of cop left in him.

  “I just blew them off as prank calls. Everyone gets prank calls at one time or another,” Cafton explained in his defense. “I had no idea he was serious about killing me.” Cafton tried to recall if the caller had mentioned explosives. He wished he had pulled several more butterscotch candies from the car to help soothe his burning throat.

  “Killing you. Well, I’d say he was serious, seeing as he, or another member of your fan club, chucked a shit load of Molotov cocktails on your front porch. You better be glad he wasn’t a professional criminal or you’d be dead. Anyway, it looks like you’ll be bunking at the YMCA tonight.”

  “Not the Y, Moses, the Music City Emerald maybe, but not the Y.”

  “Of course. Gold-record-label executives stay at the Music City Emerald. Us lowly cops would have to stay at the Y.” Heckle’s tone was one of slight disdain, slathered in condescension. “Well, anyways, you need to watch yer back. You wouldn’t believe the whack jobs walking around among us every day. Hell, we’ve even got one guy, we call him the Stomper, who gets his jollies from stomping on women’s feet and running away. Sumbitch has broken seven women’s feet. When we catch him, the first thing we’re gonna do is accidently stomp both his damn feet while he’s resisting arrest. He’s gonna look like he has damn flippers when we get through with him.” Heckle made a stomping motion, lifting his leg all of the three inches his overhanging belly allowed.

  “At least I don’t have to worry about the Stomper. I just have an arsonist to contend with,” Cafton mused.

  “An arsonist who was just this close to being a murderer, Cafton. Yeah, we got your usual run-of-the-mill criminals here, like any other city, but we have an extra problem to contend with—the music industry. You of all people should know how cutthroat the industry is. Hell, a song shark would steal a song in a heartbeat and not think twice. No offense.”

  “None taken, I think,” grumbled Cafton. Surely Heckle doesn’t think I’m a song shark and someone is retaliating because they think we stole their song. I’ve never stolen a song in my life. Never have, never will. Song sharks are the scum of the industry. Well, besides record labels. Some record labels, not all of them. Merriepennie Music is the gold standard of record labels. An anomaly.

  “This is serious, and you need to take it that way, cowboy. Do ya hear me?” Heckle glared down at Cafton. “Oh, and I seen you creeping around in them bushes. What are you, Secret Squirrel?” Heckle again snorted his go-to, smug laugh. “I told the fire guys no one was in the house. Right?”

  “No people. Right. I just had to go get Dagwood, my cat,” Cafton explained. He noticed behind him the fire engines were sluggishly pulling away and clearing the road. You would have never known by their snail’s pace how they had hounded Cafton down Music Row just an hour or so ago.

  “While you’re creeping around, take a good look at the gawkers. See if you know anyone or if anyone looks familiar,” Heckle continued. “Firebugs like to see their handiwork and how it shakes up their victim. Most of ’em sort of get off on it.”

  That made it even more chilling. Cafton thought about the implications. “Vengeance or something like that at least makes some amount of sense, but to get gratification from the act itself and the distress inflicted on his victims is just bizarre. Sounds like this guy is off his rocker,” he said.

  “Yeah. Probably is. First, the act of arson gets them all in a white-hot lather, then the commotion and fear they cause adds to the thrill. He might be out there in the crowd watching. Then again, if he knows you personally, he might make himself scarce and create an alibi elsewhere.” Heckle nodded, squinting toward the bystanders like he was trying to thread a needle.

  “Well, that’s even more unnerving. The psychopath who firebombed my house might be watching us right now.” Cafton examined the rather substantial crowd gathered, but couldn’t make out any faces due to the darkness, since the fire was out.

  Heckle continued, “This yahoo will probably see you barely got your loafers dirty and weren’t hurt. Sometimes it just frustrates and riles them up that they didn’t cause a lot of pain or disruption. I can’t tell if he’s an incompetent boob or if he was just trying to scare the shit out of you. But it don’t matter neither way. You and your cat might wanna camp out at the hotel until we get a handle on this.” Heckle apparently couldn’t complete a conversation without a tobacco fix, thought Cafton as Heckle grunted, leisurely pulling out an unfiltered cigarette from a pack he kept in his front cop shirt pocket. He tapped one end of the unfiltered cigarette and then the other on the pack and lit it with a ballet-like clink/zip/snap procedure of his lighter.

  “My plainclothes boys are mingling right now, looking for the usual suspects. The newspaper and TV reporters also take photographs and film. We’ll review it all when it’s available. I’ll give ya a ring if we see anyone we know,” Heckle said.

  Cafton smelled Heckle’s lighter fluid as it evaporated from the flame. The metallic lighter’s clink, zip, and snap sounded familiar. His daddy had used a lighter like that. Cafton used to play with it when his dad was in a rare good mood and let him. Cafton’s mom would take it away from him, though, and admonish his dad, saying she didn’t want Cafton growing up to be a firebug. Ironic, thought Cafton.

  Heckle loudly spat some pieces of loose tobacco toward the ground, then took a long, bottom-of-the-lungs toke on his cigarette and released it like a dying man’s last breath to circulate with the fog and smoke. “I’ll get a round-the-clock unmarked patrol on your house for the next forty-eight hours to see if anyone keeps showing up, and to keep looters out until you get this mess fixed.” He flicked the slightly smoked cigarette to the ground beside his own feet this time and smothered it with his thick-soled, hefty black boot before opening the door to his car. “Now I gotta get outta here before a reporter tries to corner me for an interview. I prefer to be seen, not heard, if ya know what I mean.”

  Cafton knew what he meant. “Thanks, Moses. I’ll start getting everything fixed first thing in the morning. Well, this is the morning, but later today,” Cafton promised.

  As he wedg
ed his bulky body into his patrol car and tossed his hat into the passenger side of the car, Heckle grunted, “Come on down to the PD soon, and let’s get a statement. We need to find this nut job before he actually kills somebody.” He closed the door and rolled down the window. “Besides, I don’t need the head of the record label that’s gonna sign me gettin’ bumped off, right?” Heckle grinned, exposing his brown-outlined teeth.

  Heckle, like seventy-five percent of everyone else in Nashville, had a song in his heart and on a demo tape and would do just about anything to get a reputable record label to pick it up. He had been hounding Cafton about his “Lawman” song for years, so much so that Cafton vigorously avoided Heckle. It was yet another reason he hadn’t called Heckle about the threatening phone calls.

  “Let’s just say right here and now, when I catch this nut job for you, you’ll sign me. Deal? Gentleman’s agreement. Here, shake.” Cafton smiled and waved off Heckle’s extended, tobacco-laced hand.

  “I’ll be in touch. Thank your officers and the fire department for me, will you?” Cafton made a mental note to send over some donuts for the police department and some fancy cookies for the fire department in appreciation.

  Heckle cranked the car, put it in gear, and radioed the station that he was off-scene, off duty, and headed home.

  Chapter 4—Timing is Everything

  “I’d like a room at the end of a hallway, next to the stairs, non-smoking, on the third floor. I’ll be here for at least two nights,” Cafton told the artificially perky hotel desk clerk as he completed the guest register.

  “How will you be paying for your stay, Mister, uh, Merriepennie?” the clerk asked, spinning the register around for her viewing. Cafton saw the glint of his name recognition in her eye.

  “Cash,” he said, counting and then withdrawing the cash from his wallet and laying it—all bills facing exactly the same way in ascending order—on top of the invoice. He always carried cash, reverting back to his upbringing when he never knew what to expect but needed to be prepared for the worst.

  “Oh, you’re Cafton Merriepennie! What are you doing here, Mr. Merriepennie?” The star-struck young woman temporarily forgot her manners and professionalism and let her curiosity intrude.

  “I’m having some renovations done at home,” Cafton patiently answered, not wanting to chastise the young lady. “Please keep my being here our little secret. You know how this town is.” Cafton made his request, enlisting her camaraderie, which tickled her to no end and made her feel special.

  “Oh, yes, sir! I’m a singer and musician, so I know who you are. I won’t let anyone get to you, I promise! By the way,” the young lady continued, reaching under the counter to her purse, taking out a cassette, and timidly giving it to Cafton with his change, “I’m Rosie. Here’s my demo. If you need a cassette player, just call the concierge or me. Have a great stay!”

  Cafton smiled. “Thank you, Rosie. I will be sure to listen. Best of luck with your career.” Cafton would listen to it, as he did with every demo foisted upon him. It was an act of the “better angels of his nature,” as Abraham Lincoln had spoken about. At times like this Cafton always remembered his mama, who never had a demo and never had a real chance in the music industry but had all the talent and personality to be a star. One just never knows when a demo will be a diamond in the rough.

  Cafton and Dag quickly got settled into the swanky, downtown hotel room. Cafton had a lot of experience living in a hotel room, so this was almost a homecoming, not an imposition, for him. Granted, when he and his mama fled their home when he was a kid, and ended up living for years in a hotel room in Birmingham, the room was anything BUT swanky. But it was clean, safe, and had all the basic necessities of life. Now, again, he had clean, safe, and all the basic necessities of life, but they were just newer, more luxurious, and with a splendid view of the magnificent Nashville skyline. More importantly, as long as he had Dagwood with him, he had no complaints.

  His former life always stayed with Cafton. He knew how to live on a shoestring. He actually enjoyed a simple life. Even though his home now was posh, his sense of self, his ego, wasn’t wrapped up in it. He never lost sight that the best things, the most important things in life, are not measured in square feet, or cost, or size, or other artificial attributes. He always understood and appreciated that health, safety, and love were the foundation of happiness. He was blessed with all three.

  He wasn’t sure how long they would be in the hotel, so he had laid in some provisions on the way. He stopped at a twenty-four-hour drug store and bought Dagwood some food, an aluminum roasting pan to be used as a makeshift litter box, and flushable litter. He got himself a damn six-pack of sodas, and some waxy chocolate mini-donuts, a guilty, unhealthy pleasure.

  He had concealed Dagwood inside his gym bag instead of the briefcase to get him to the room, because the bag would be more comfortable for Dag. Cafton hadn’t stepped foot in a gym since mandatory physical education class in grade school, but he always carried an emergency change of clothes and some toiletries in the bag stashed in the trunk of his car. It was a habit carried over from his childhood, when his mom and he would have to flee his violent father’s drunken rages.

  Having Dagwood with him was important enough to risk being thrown out of the hotel. Besides Bynum, Dagwood was the most important, uh, person, in Cafton’s life. He’d rescued him just in the nick of time, six Julys ago, from a scorching grocery store parking lot. As it turned out, the rescue was an important milestone in both of their lives. Cafton literally saved Dagwood’s life, but Dagwood opened Cafton’s eyes to the importance of animal rescue, which became a passion of Cafton’s thereafter. Dagwood was sort of Cafton’s gateway rescue animal. Since then, Cafton had supported trustworthy rescues with significant money and exposure.

  That fateful July, Cafton was loading his groceries in his back seat when the sound of glass shattering got his attention. “Uh-oh. Been there, done that.” Cafton had been a victim of the bottom ripping out of a paper bag, dropping and exploding a jar of mayo all over his loafers and the asphalt just last week. He scanned the area to see if the victim needed help.

  What he saw, though, was a mob of old-enough-to-know-better teens skipping through the parking lot laughing and clapping. He saw one of them throw a glass soda bottle between two parked cars, scattering treacherous shards over a six-foot circle around and under the cars. As Cafton approached to run the kids off, he realized he was hoofing it through a sea of glass fragments. They had been at it a while.

  He carefully picked his way through the mint green glass minefield toward the boys and got a glimpse of a kitten under the car they had just thrown the bottle beside. It had been the target of the hoodlum’s last missile.

  “Oh, HELL, no!” Cafton snarled as he sprang into action. They had been terrorizing the hot-dog-bun-sized kitten, chasing it from car to car all over the parking lot, blasting bottles at it as it tried to escape. They now had it buttonholed. Cafton was beyond furious. So furious, he lost his innate sense of self-preservation.

  The pack of vicious boys was so intent on getting the next shot off at the kitten they didn’t notice Cafton storming up behind them. He reached up at the hoodlum who had launched the last bottle, grabbed him by his T-shirt collar, and yanked him backwards, off balance, and to the pavement. That was no small feat for Cafton, considering he was 5’6” tall and 140 pounds soaking wet. But what he lacked in body mass in this skirmish he made up for in righteous anger and pumping adrenalin.

  “What do you think you’re doing!” It wasn’t really a question, but more of a warning, Cafton’s version of a threat. “Leave that baby alone!”

  He stepped over the stunned thug and headed toward the kitten. The temporarily dumbfounded hoodlum jumped to his feet, circled around in front of Cafton, and insinuated himself into his path, chest and chin out. If it had been a basketball game, the ruffian would have been called for a foul.

  The thug’s week-old Tennessee-July-sweat body odor
enveloped his personal space and now Cafton’s, making him gag. That’d knock a buzzard off a corpse wagon, he thought. He backed up three steps to get some maneuvering space between them, and to avoid the stomach-turning stench that could potentially render him vulnerable while he was puking.

  “Move, you cretin,” Cafton commanded, now charging into the body mass before him. They were chest to chest. Well, Cafton’s chest to Stink Boy’s belly. Stink Boy easily towered over him.

  The miscreant glared down at him, huffing, and with murder and embarrassment in his bloodshot eyes. His fetid breath reeked of cigarettes, beer, and possibly a chili dog with onions. The cigarette and beer smell reminded Cafton of his dad. It was not a fond memory.

  The hood’s three co-conspirators spun around, glaring, fists clenched by their sides awaiting the ringleader’s order for their next move. “Imma gonna whup yo’ ass, little man,” Stink Boy declared, his neck craned forward like a box turtle reaching for a minnow.

  “Well, you better get to it.” Cafton backed up a step, reached across his body with his right hand, slid it underneath his untucked polo shirt, and pulled his pistol from its holster. Shoving the pistol into the ringleader’s taut belly made Stink Boy, out of habit, raise his arms in a surrender posture and back up several steps. “Now, let’s discuss just whose ass is gonna be whupped,” deadpanned Cafton.

  Cafton’s finger coolly rested in the little channel alongside and under the pistol’s barrel, not on the delicate trigger. Cafton was fighting mad. So mad, he wasn’t arguing. He was now very quiet, intense, deliberate. When he was like this, like granite, watch out, because all hell was about to break loose. As long as Cafton was fussing, there was wiggle room, negotiation potential. But when he was in a confrontation and deadly quiet, or, God forbid, when tears of rage streamed down his face, he was as solemn and fearless as a cobra.

  Cafton unleashed on Stink Boy. “How. Dare. You! Does that make you feel big? Like a man? Terrorizing a kitten is how you prove you’re tough to your little flunkies? What a disgrace! What cowards! I bet you make your mamas real proud. You are disgusting.” He used his verbal barrage to distract the group while he repositioned, sidestepping three paces to his right, putting the trunk of a car between them and him. He steadfastly kept his pistol trained at Stink Boy’s core mass.