WHEN THE MUSIC DIES (MUSIC CITY MURDERS Book 1) (40 page)

“Will do,” the sergeant said, then turned and grabbed his epaulet microphone.

“What is it with the long-distance shootings lately?” Cris asked. “First the graffiti artist out on Interstate 65 and now this?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m guessing they’re connected. Did you see Avila’s tats?”

“Yeah,” Cris said. “He’s got enough ink on him to print the Tennessean.”

“Does it tell you anything?”

“Los Punzados,” Cris said.

“Right. Black and gold. What kind of cap did you say the artist was wearing?”

“Steelers—black and gold.”

“Circumstantial? Maybe,” Mike said. “But, my gut is telling me they’re related.”

Cris nodded her head. “I just spoke with one of the waitresses who’s worked here for four years. She recognized Avila when she walked out onto the patio earlier. She said he used to hook up with one of the girls who waited tables here a few months ago.”

“Did you get the girl’s name?”

“Nia, but the waitress couldn’t remember her last name. I asked the manager on duty and he thought the girl was talking about Nia Gallegos. He said she worked here for about eight or nine months. He also said she quit one night after her boyfriend went off on the bar manager, threatened him and caused several customers to leave.”

“Sounds like that could have been our tattooed friend here,” Mike said.

“He gave me a copy of the application they had in Gallegos’s employee file. I’m going to run her through NCIC and then assuming she’s still in the area and I can find her, I’ll set up an interview.”

The FBI’s National Crime Information Center offered federal, state and local law enforcement agencies 24/7 access to criminal record historical data.

“I’m going to learn everything I can about Mr. Avila this evening,” Mike said. “Maybe his past can tell me something about his recent activity and net me a list of who might have wanted him dead.”

Criminal Justice Center

Nashville, Tennessee

Friday Morning

The background checks Mike ran on Manuel Avila produced a number of the expected results. Mike was amazed to discover that Avila was an American citizen, and had been since his birth near Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1972. Mike suspected that his pregnant mother, like so many others, had come to the U.S. from Mexico with the hope of giving birth to a child who would be an American citizen and who would have a chance at a better life.

Mike was also surprised to find that Avila had virtually no criminal record until eight years ago at which time he appeared to have fallen into a pit of crime following his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. Since that time, Avila managed to get himself arrested fourteen times for everything from DUI to assault and possession of stolen property.

Avila’s association with Los Punzados was first a matter of record in the fall of 1996 when he was arrested along with three other members of the gang for assault, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest after they beat up two members of a rival Nashville gang.

When Mike learned of Avila’s most recent clash with society stemming from the automobile crash and subsequent wrongful death lawsuit filed by the husband of Julie Evans, he knew it could be helpful to talk with the deceased woman’s husband.

Mike ran checks this morning on Brad Evans in order to learn as much about him as he could prior to scheduling an interview. The only arrest of record for Evans was dated September, of 1971. This appeared to have taken place less than a month after his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. Evans was arrested for public intoxication and assault & battery. It appeared the judge must have shown compassion based upon Evans recent military service. He imposed a $500 fine, and six months probation. During that probation, Evans began working for a local gunsmith.

Mike learned that at the time of Julie Evans death, she and Brad had been married almost thirty years. During that time, the couple lived on eighty acres of farm land south of Nashville in Hubbard County.

He discovered some other facts about Brad Evans that concerned him. In addition to being a gunsmith, Brad’s military records showed he was a former Army sniper in Vietnam. Mike knew these associations with guns alone did not convict Evans of Avila’s murder, but they brought considerable attention to him as a man with the skills needed for such a task. And this, along with almost any supporting evidence, would push him past
person of interest
and paint him as a potential suspect.

“Hello.”

“Brad Evans?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Evans, my name is Mike Neal. I’m a detective with the Nashville Police Department.”

“Okay.”

“Mr. Evans do you know a man named Manuel Avila?

After a moment, Brad spoke, “I know who he is. Why?”

“Is he the driver that struck your wife’s car in December of last year?”

Brad hesitated, wanting to be careful with his answers. “Yes, he is the man that killed my wife.”

“Mr. Evans, I’d like to speak with you about your wrongful death suit against Mr. Avila and about any interactions you may have had with Mr. Avila since the accident.”

“I’ve not had any interactions with the bastard, and I don’t intend to. Why do you want to see me?”

“We need to know what you know about Mr. Avila.”

“I don’t know
anything
about him, except that he killed my wife. Why don’t you just talk with my lawyer? He filed the wrongful death suit. He has all the facts.”

“Mr. Evans, Manuel Avila was murdered last night outside a Nashville restaurant and we’re in the process of checking all the leads we can generate to hopefully determine who killed him.” Mike concentrated in order to hear everything Brad said and didn’t say.

There was a brief silence on the phone as Brad crafted his response. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” Mike waited before continuing. “Most folks don’t realize how much they know, and how much they can help until they sit with us and talk. Mr. Evans, can you visit with me for a few minutes and do what you can to help us with this case. We’d appreciate your input.”

“Okay. I understand. When do you want to talk?”

“Now would be good, if you’re available.”

“Well, it’ll take me a while to get there. Maybe a couple of hours.”

“Do you know where the Criminal Justice Center is downtown?”

“I think so,” Brad said. “James Robertson Parkway, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Ask for me at the guard’s desk.”

Mike was reexamining the notes from his interview with Brad Evans when Cris returned from her meeting with Avila’s former girlfriend.

“Hey, how’d it go with Evans?” Cris asked.

“His responses were all pretty typical. He said he was at home alone on his farm at the time of the murder. He didn’t offer up anything momentous and not much we didn’t already know. He did tell me that the morning before her death, his wife Julie was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. She never got to tell him.”

“How sad,” Cris said.

“What about your interview with ...” Mike tried to remember the girl’s name.

“Nia Gallegos. It went better than I expected. She was withdrawn at first, but opened up a little after I started speaking Spanish and distracting her with small talk. She wasn’t very interested in talking about Avila. I found out later, she has lots of reasons and lots of bad memories.

“I think speaking in her native language made her more comfortable, and helped to keep her talking. I tried to discuss things early that didn’t involve Avila. She is still scared of him.”

“You did tell her he’s dead?”

“I’m getting to that.”

Mike made himself comfortable and gave Cris all his attention.

“We met at Centennial Park, by the lake. When she first got in the car, I could tell she didn’t want to be there. She sat with her head down and focused on the baby.”

“Baby?”

“Yeah. She has a baby.”

“Avila’s?”

Cris nodded. “I found out later the reason she kept her head bowed was because she has an ugly scar down the left side of her face. She tries to hide it with her hair. The night he cut her, she had threatened to hit him back after he punched her in the abdomen.”

“Bad idea,” Mike said.

“Once the hospital released her, she ran. She never told him she was pregnant.”

“As we talked, she was careful not to say anything that might piss off Avila if it was repeated to him. She told me what he’d shared with her about his past. She said he came from a hard life.”

“And he caused several other lives to be hard as well,” Mike said.

“She said he ran away from the orphanage in San Salvador when he was nine years old and he’s been on his own since.”

Mike squinted his confusion wondering which of Avila’s histories was really his.

“He told her about his youth. She said he told her he grew up begging, stealing and picking pockets to survive. She heard him tell some other gangsters that when he was young he used to slice men’s rear trouser pockets with a straight razor, steal their wallets as they fell out, and then run like hell.”

Mike was beginning to feel confident that the American Manuel Avila, born in New Mexico in 1972, was another person altogether and long ago deceased. Most likely, the real Mr. Avila’s identity was stolen by this creative criminal years ago, and whatever his real name was, he was now residing where his chosen lifestyle had deposited him, the Davidson County morgue.

“When I first told her he’d been killed, she didn’t believe me. She was adamant that she’d been told of his death several times before. In the end, he was always alive.

“I listened. I let her talk. She pulled her long hair back from the left side of her face to show me the scar. After we talked a while, she realized I was being honest with her and she asked me if he really was dead. I assured her he was. She broke down. I don’t think it was sadness.”

“More likely relief,” Mike said.

Cris nodded. “I gave her some time, some tissues; I comforted her and allowed her to let it out. Once she regained her composure, she started telling me the kinds of things I wanted to hear. I think she loved him at one time, but he scared the hell out of her too many times. I asked about whether he ever talked to her about the wreck that killed Julie Evans or any crimes he’d committed in his past. She stared out the side window for a while. I explained that no one knew she was talking with me and that as far as I knew she was not a party to any of his crimes, and she had nothing to worry about.

“I pointed out that this was her chance to gain some justice, without any threat of retaliation. She listened and finally told me he had never talked to her directly about any of his criminal past, but she used to overhear him bragging about crimes, beatings, armed robberies, and such with his fellow gangbangers.

“She sat quietly for a minute, then told me about overhearing him talking with three of his fellow drunken gangbangers who were at the apartment playing poker. They were bragging about who had committed the most brazen crime. She said one of the other bangers told about a Confidential Informant for the MNPD who he and another guy followed to a movie theater. They sat behind him and then used a length of wire wrapped around two short pieces of pipe to garrote him, and then they changed seats and watched the rest of the movie before leaving.”

“Emilio Pineda.”

“You knew him?” Cris asked.

“No, but I knew who he was. He was a CI for our Narcotics Section.”

“Nia said the entire group displayed their admiration for the grizzly crime. They all ended up laughing, saying the informant would not be informing on anybody else.

“Nia said she watched Avila lift his hand and interrupt the others. The entire room fell quiet. He told them when he was in the Army, he came home to find his wife had left with another soldier who’d gone AWOL. Nia didn’t know Avila had been married. She said he told her once when he was drunk that he started dying that day he came home from deployment, and he just wasn’t through yet.”

“He is now,” Mike said.

“She said Avila told the bangers he got wasted and took his rage out on two young couples who were irritating him with their loud talking and laughter at some country and western bar. He said he was more pissed off then he had ever been in his life. Everything was falling apart and he wanted revenge.

“He admitted to raping the girls and killing all four of those kids that night at some old rock quarry.”

“He what?” Mike leaned forward in his chair. He wasn’t sure of what he’d just heard.

“He killed all four kids,” Cris repeated.

“Where?”

“A rock quarry.”

“No, in what city?”

“He was stationed at Fort Campbell at the time, so I’d say somewhere near there.”

Mike froze. His face turned pale.

“Are you okay?”

His head dropped, and he stared at the floor.

“Mike, are you okay?” When she asked him the second time, he finally looked up as if he was going to say something, but only swallowed hard and looked back at the floor with his head in his hand.

“Cris put her hand on his shoulder. “Is there something wrong? What is it?”

“What else did she say Avila told her about the four killings?”

Cris thought a moment. “Nia said he was bragging about how easily he took them all by surprise, cutting the boys throats, raping both girls and then killing them, too.”

Mike’s breathing became faster as if he’d been chasing someone. His face reddened and his brow furrowed. He stood.

“Mike, what’s wrong?”

He looked at Cris, squinted and before he could explain, he saw the realization as it hit her.

“Oh, my God!” Cris grabbed her mouth with her hand as her eyes bulged. “Mike, I’m sorry. Oh, shit. I didn’t realize.”

Mike looked at her with a face burdened by nine years of emotion.

“Oh, Mike. It didn’t register. I’m so sorry.”

Mike walked toward the door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Where are you going? I’ll come with you.”

“No. You stay here in case something else surfaces.”

“Mike, let me come with you.”