Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (41 page)

“Agreed,” Franklin
said.

“Good.
 
I’ll go talk
to the conductor.”

69.

Big Bill walked over to the amphitheater where Eddie and
Megan were waiting for the sound check.
 
He tracked them down in the hospitality suite.
 
They were drinking gin and tonics.
 
“Hey now,” Big Bill said.
 
“We ready for another great show?”

Eddie looked up and smiled like the sun was shining in his
head.
 
He looked alert, rested,
energetic
.
 
“Steady
ready Freddy,” he said.
 
“Raring to go.
 
Man,
this is a great venue.
 
I’ve never been
to Oregon but someone was telling
me there’s a place on the Columbia River we ought to
book on the next tour.”
 
He took a sip on
his drink.
 
“Oh, I talked to Franklin—”

“Frankie Baby!” Megan interjected.
 
“Frankie goes to Hollywood!”
 
She and Eddie both laughed at what was
apparently their new nickname for Franklin.

“Yeah,” Eddie said with a chuckle, “that’s
right,
Frankie Baby came by and told us the new SoundScan
numbers.
 
Are we the big swinging dicks
or what?!”

“Yeah, man,” Big Bill said, momentarily confused by Eddie’s
energy level.
 
“The bottom rail finally
gettin’ on top.
 
Look, I—”

“Listen,” Eddie said, “we decided ‘Dixie National’ is gonna be
the next single.
 
Probably release it in
four or five weeks, don’t you think, depending on how long ‘Pothole’ stays
strong on the charts.
 
Man, I can’t wait
for the show tonight, I’m ready to kick some ass and move some merchandise!”

Megan put her arm around Eddie’s waist.
 
“I keep telling him we ought to release it
sooner and see if we can’t get three songs in the top ten at the same time,”
Megan said, “but I guess some of your conservatism’s rubbed off on the boy.”

Big Bill smiled and nodded at the two of them.
 
“Seems unlikely,” he said, “but we’ll do
whatever Eddie decides.”
 
Big Bill knew
what they’d been up to but he also knew better than to come down hard right
now.
 
He just pretended everything was
beautiful.
 
“I mean, I ain’t proud.
 
I’ll be the first to admit your strategy’s
done us good so far.”
 
Big Bill pulled
the cassette from his pocket and held it up.
 
“By the way, I been listening to the songs,” he said.

Megan finished her drink and went to mix another.
 
“Aren’t they fabulous?
 
Eddie and I co-wrote all of ‘em.
 
We’re thinkin’ ‘Country Voodoo’ might be the
first single on the next record.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, “sort of a Neville Brothers meets
Brooks and Dunn kinda thing.”

Bill’s head bobbed noncommittally.
 
“You know, there’s an old saying about how
you got your whole life to write your first album but you only get about six
months to write your second.”

“I know
,
it’s unreal ain’t
it?”
 
Eddie handed his empty glass to
Megan.
 
“At the rate we’re goin’, we’ll
have all the songs we need before the
tour’s
over.”

“Well now, Eddie, I gotta tell ya, these songs aren’t—”

“Aren’t what?” Megan said.
 
“Those songs are hits.
 
Nothing wrong with any of those songs.
 
Don’t come in here trying to—”

“No, no, no.
 
Don’t
get me wrong.
 
I’m not saying we can’t
use some of what’s on here,” Big Bill said hoping to slow Megan down.
 
“I just think you need more time to work on
‘em is all.
 
Nothing unusual about it,
you get on tour with a tight media schedule and show after show.
 
All I’m saying is we need to make sure you
get more time to spend on writing, that’s all.”

A roadie stuck his head in the room.
 
“Hey, Eddie, we’re ready for the soundcheck.”

Megan waved the guy off.
 
“We’ll be there in a minute.”

“Besides,” Eddie said, “at this point I can pretty much do a
polka record and go platinum, right?”

“Well damn near,” Big Bill said.
 
“All I’m sayin’ is—”

“Trust me,” Eddie said.
 
“
There’s
plenty more good songs where the
others came from.
 
We’re fine.
 
No, we’re better than fine!”
 
He started singing in a mock operatic voice,
“
We are the champions, no time for losers
,”
he kept singing as he headed for the door, “
for
we are the champions
!”
 
He stopped
and turned to Megan.
 
“Hey, you
comin’?”

Big Bill waved him on.
 
“You go
ahead,
I need to talk to your road
manager for a second.”
 
He stood there
smiling as Eddie headed for the stage, still singing the Queen
song
.

“So what’s up, Billy Boy?”
 
Megan picked up wedge of lime and squeezed the juice into her drink.

Big Bill eased over to her and got close enough to make her
uncomfortable.
 
He spoke in a low,
controlled voice.
 
“I don’t know how
stupid you think I am, but I been around.
 
I know what’s going on.
 
What’d
you get a gram?
 
An
eightball?
 
More?”

Megan stepped away from him, scoffing.
 
She looked at her drink.
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?
 
I’m talkin’
about cocaine, sweetheart.
 
Bolivian marching powder.
 
The fastest way to ruin your life anybody ever came up with, at least
‘till they came up with crack.
 
I know a
lot of folks you could ask about it if they were still alive, but—”

“You don’t know shit about it,” Megan said.

“Listen, missy, I spilled more cocaine in my day than you’ll
ever see.”
 
Big Bill grabbed her arm and
pulled her close.
 
“Now, Eddie’s can’t
write any new songs as it is.
 
You get
him all fucked up on cocaine and what do you think’s gonna happen?”

“Let go of me!”
 
She
tried to jerk free, but Big Bill held on.

“And by the way, you got no business co-writing anything
longer than a grocery list.
 
Now, if you
don’t straighten up I’m going to get you the hell out of Eddie’s life.
 
And make no
mistake,
I know how to do that.”
 
He let go of her
arm.
 
“I’m glad we had this little chat.”

Megan smiled her prettiest smile.
 
“Bill,” she said sweetly, “until you start
going down on Eddie?
 
I think he’s going
to do what I tell him a lot faster than what you tell him.”
 
She sniffed her nose at him.
 
“Trust me on that.”
 
Megan spun around and headed for the stage.

70.

Jay Colvin was screaming into the phone.
 
“You’re a genius!
 
I can’t believe they haven’t caught this guy
yet.
 
You oughta be a damn detective.”

Jimmy had called Jay to report his discovery of the nearly
empty container of MSG in Eddie’s kitchen cabinet.
 
“Well, it’s all circumstantial,” Jimmy
said.
 
“You can’t convict on—”

“Hey, it’s good evidence supporting the theory
,“
Jay countered.
 
“Listen, just write it up and get it ready.
 
And leave the ending open so you can write
something at the last minute, just before publication.
 
We want it as up to date on Eddie’s career as
possible.”

“I’m going through my old files to make sure I didn’t miss
anything.”

“Good.
 
Oh, your
editor had a great idea.
 
He wants to do
a website where you continue writing on Eddie’s career after the book’s
published.
 
They’ll make it so people can
pay to download each new chapter.
 
Later
we’ll compile the online chapters and do a follow-up book.”

After Jay explained how Jimmy would get paid for the on-line
deal, Jimmy got back to work.
 
He was at
his desk, surrounded by all his files and a hundred sticky notes with little
memos reminding him to go back and check this or that or another thing.
 
He decided it was time to organize the mess,
so he gathered the notes and sorted them by subject.
 
That’s when he found a note stuck to the back
of one of his files: ‘
Compare Eddie’s
early tour to Oak Pharm info
.’

Jimmy had to think about it a minute before he remembered
what the note meant.
 
He shuffled through
the files until he found the information he’d blackmailed out of the guy at
Okatibbee Pharmaceuticals.
 
The critical
information here was that the poisoned packages had all come from a lot shipped
to Little Rock, Arkansas.

Jimmy found copies of the police reports from the agencies
that had investigated the four known poisoning deaths.
 
Thanks to receipts found in Fred Babineaux’s
car and in the wallet of the victim in Tuscaloosa,
the police knew when and where those boxes had been purchased.
 
The Gulfport Police used credit card records
to determine when and where that box had been bought.
 
The only unknown purchase date was for the
box found at Eddie’s, which he knew had also come from the shipment sent to
Little Rock.
 
He made a list of the
dates.

Jimmy then pulled out a document Eddie had given him.
 
It was the list of every club and casino he’d
ever played and the dates he’d played them.
 
He put the two lists side by side and candled them.
 
After a second something caught his eye.
 
Not only had Eddie played in each of the
cities where the poisoned powders had been sold, but it turned out he had
played in each city a few days
before
each purchase.
 
It didn’t cinch the case,
but, logically, it failed to exclude Eddie as the killer.
 
Jimmy looked at the touring schedule.
 
Eddie frequently played at a club in Little
Rock called Little Rock,
Little Country.
 
In fact, according to
the touring schedule, he had played there several times a year and one date
coincided with the arrival of the Dr. Porter’s lot that had been tampered with
and redistributed throughout the South.

Jimmy thought about it for a moment.
 
Something seemed goofy.
 
Somebody had violated the law of averages
which suggested Eddie would have been in at least
one
of the cities
after
the poisoned dose of Dr. Porter’s was sold.
 
But he always arrived before.
 
Jimmy found it impossible to believe someone at Oak Pharm would take
several boxes from a lot bound for Little Rock,
Arkansas, poison them, and slip them into
lots that consistently arrived in those particular towns just before Eddie got
there.
 
Coincidence couldn’t possibly
explain it.
 
The pattern at least hinted
at Eddie’s involvement.

Jimmy paused to consider a possible alternative
explanation.
 
What if Eddie had a
psychotic fan — someone who had followed him from show to show and, at the
same time, was leaving a trail of poisoned headache powders?
 
Nah,
didn’t make
sense.
 
For example, why would this
psychotic fan choose only three of the two dozen cities where Eddie had
played?
 
Further, Eddie had never played
in Hinchcliff.
 
Okay, maybe the fan was
actually trying to kill Eddie.
 
No, that
made even less sense.
 
It required too
many reasons to explain all the actions.
 
Given a set of facts, Jimmy believed the simplest explanation was
probably the right one.
 
Besides, he
couldn’t think of a more dimwitted way to try to kill someone than hoping the
intended victim would get a headache and go to the right store and buy the
right box of poisoned headache powder.

Jimmy ran through a few more far-fetched scenarios, but he
kept coming back to the one explanation that made sense.
 
Eddie was the killer.
 
But why?
 
Maybe Eddie found out about the other
man.
 
Or maybe it was because Eddie felt
Tammy was holding him back.
 
Okay, that
might explain Tammy’s death, but not the others.
 
Unless…
 
“Holy shit,” Jimmy muttered.
 
The
facts suddenly came together in his mind and hit him like a wrecking ball.