Denton - 03 - Way Past Dead by Steven Womack

over and not knowing how. It was bittersweet from the get-go, and if I’d been a little more stressed-out or had a few more beers in me, I’d have probably choked up myself.
    She sang each verse of the song brilliantly, followed by the chorus that tied it all together:
    You ask me now
    If our love still breathes …
    If our love still grows
,
    Like the springtime leaves
.
    But my heart
    Is filled with dread
.
    My love for you
    Is way past dead.…
    My love for you, darling
,
    Is way past dead.…
    As the last notes of her voice and Slim’s guitar faded away, there were about two heartbeats of the deepest silence I’d ever seen in a crowded room. Then the whole place exploded once again in standing ovation. Rebecca Gibson sat motionless, her head down, as the cheering continued. Then, as the applause ebbed, she raised her head, and I could see that her eyes were wet. She stared straight at Slim, and as the yelling faded out she whispered into the microphone: “I’m sorry, baby. I really am.”
    Slim’s eyes were dark, intense, his jaw locked so hard the outline cast a shadow on his cheek. Whatever had happened to them, I thought, had resulted in more pain than anyone should have to bear, and was now irrevocable.
    Then the other guy did a song, and I caught his name: Dwight Parmenter. Then Slim again, then Ray, and round and round and round, until the next thing I knew, it was two in the morning and I was driving up Hillsboro Road to the freeway on my way back to East Nashville. At the last second, I turned and headed out to the other side of town. The key to Marsha’s apartment sat in my pocket like a chunk of lead. If I couldn’t haveher next to me, then maybe by sleeping in her bed, I could feel her next to me.
    It was nearly nine when I came to, my head groggy and heavy. I had to get home fast, change clothes, then get out to my office, grab that videotape, and head to the insurance company. Somehow, though, the energy just wasn’t there. I dawdled in the shower, made a cup of coffee, made up the bed, straightened up a little, brushed my teeth—the usual. I tried my luck at cellular-phone roulette, with the same frustrating results as before. I felt like a puppy who’d been yanked from his momma.
    Marsha doesn’t subscribe to the morning newspaper—she’s usually at work before it arrives—so I sat at her kitchen table with a towel wrapped around me and coffee in front of me, then flicked on the television. The last segment of
Today
was just wrapping up, and then a local newsperson came on with a quick roundup of Nashville news, headlined, of course, by the hostage situation at the morgue.
    It was right after that when I learned that the sweet-voiced, high-cheeked, long and lanky ex-Mrs. Slim Gibson had been found murdered early that morning, beaten to death in the bedroom of her apartment. After last night’s appearance at the Bluebird, she really had become the late Rebecca Gibson.

Even though I’d never met Rebecca Gibson, certainly didn’t know her, and her death had not touched me personally, I found myself shocked at her murder. Maybe it was her being Slim’s ex-wife. Maybe it was that I’d seen her perform and had heard that sweet voice, now silenced for good.
    The morning rush hour had ended by the time I got moving, and there was still another hour or so before the lunchtime rush hour began its slow segue into the evening rush hour. You want to get anywhere in this city, you’ve got about a forty-five-minute window three times a day to go for it. Then you’re screwed. The Big Apple’s got nothing on Music City, gridlock-wise.
    For once, my parking fees were paid up, so I was able to slide into a space in the lot across Seventh Avenue from my office. I didn’t know how long I was going to be able to keep the place; cranky old Mr. Morris had raised my rent seventy-five a month after the fire in my office last year. Hell, it wasn’t my fault some joker burned my car and my office in the same