You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Killing your wife and then digging her up each night to tell her your sorry.
I’m in Hickman County, Tennessee.
Honestly, I try not to come here if I can help it.
It’s an hour or so outside of Nashville, but it’s more like 50 years ago in a galaxy far far away.
“I only come to Hickman County, I tell the the Sheriff, when something crazy happens.
The sheriff laughs. He knows I’m right.
Hickman County is one part jet lag, one part moon shine, one part cock fighting.
Every road ends in Hollow.
Chicken Street in your community is Chicken Hollow in Hickman County.
Maple Lane where you live is Maple Holler here.
I’m driving through this county with a roller coaster for a highway system and Barney Fife as a mail carrier. I am here because there’s been a double fatal fire and it has now been ruled a homicide. Arson dogs have gone through the house and detect signs of an accelerant. That’s a sure sign that something is wrong.
I wonder if the entire county should inspected, sniffed, investigated.
If there were intelligence K9’s, they would detect a distinct lack of education, ability to process correct syntax and formulate rational thought.
If there were an incest K9, would they detect the strong possibility that someone has been doing more than kissing their cousins.
Can you say Uncle Daddy?
If there were a country bumpkin K9, would they detect a southern fried, sweet potato pie, bar b que licking mentality where hurry up and wait is the county mantra.
So we pull beside the still simmering house fire. The house burned so hot, for so long, the two dead bodies are just now being removed by the Medical Examiner.
Suddenly I hear shouting and see a young Hickman County Deputy, 26 years of age he will later tell me.
He has that cop walk, wearing that cop face, waving that cop hand to let me know that I am in violation of something.
I roll down my window.
He is steaming mad.
“What’s up deputy?,” I say with a smile.
“You can’t park here,” he shouts at me.
“We didn’t see any crime tape on this dirt path. We just want to park. Where should we go.”
“The family really doesn’t want any of you media types here.”
And the line in the sand has been drawn.
I can go off on this guy about my 1st ammendment rights and challenge his Hickman County badge or I can bedazzle him with AC B.S.
“you remember that guy named Fultz?” I say with all the subtetly of David Copperfield pulling a rabbit out of my hat.
He cartoon shakes his head like a morracca. “Excuse me sir?”
His face is long and hard. By this time another deputy has joined us beside our news vehicle.
2 deputies? Now I have an audience.
I lean out the window so both men can hear me.
“Yeah, must have been 16 years ago. He lived not far from here. His wife disappeared. The sheriff told me that he was under investigation, suspected of killing his wife. But they couldn’t prove it at the time.”
“Sir you have to move your vehicle,” he says trying to keep that law man demeanor they teach them in cop school.
“I called your sheriff. He’s meeting me here, ” I say so they know I am the most bad ass man they will meet all day.
They look at each other somewhat perplexed.
“Sir this is a crime scene….”
I gather my thoughts, not knowing if this is a good strategy, but I’m too deep now to stop.
“So where was I?”
“So we knock on the guy’s door. He answers. I say hey Mr. Fultz, can we talk to you about your wife?”
I can see the deputy’s face softening.
“He takes us on a tour of his house. He shows us her bedroom, her photos, tells us how much he loves her. He tells us that her last cell bill traces to Boston where she has family. He is so sad, like a puppy whose milk bones have been stolen. Then on the way out, I shake his hand, camera still running and I say to him; So Mr. Fultz, you didn’t happen to kill your wife did you?”
The deputies both burst out laughing. I win. I got them. They love the magic trick.
Laughter is the universal solvent. It is WD40 for the soul.
“Well his face gets all serious and he says; I loved my wife. I would give anything to see her again. As we get into the car, I tell my camera man not to lose that interview. And guess what. Less than a week later, the TBI arrests him and charges him with his wife’s murder. She was buried in the back yard. Turns out he would go out there at night and dig her up and tell her how sorry he was he killed her. Then he would bury her again during the day.”
“Ive been here my whole life,” the 26 year old deputy says. “I don’t remember that story.”
“You’re a baby deputy,” I say to the baby law man.
Just then the sheriff shows up and it’s a love fest.
“Hey sheriff, remember Fultz digging up his wife and talking to her at night?”
“Oh my God, that’s bringing me back,” the sheriff says with a burst of good ole boy laughter.
Suddenly the sheriff and I are reminiscing about old sheriff’s and past crime scenes and carrying on.
We laugh and talk and the deputies who minutes earlier wanted to arrest me, now are smiling. They want my damn autograph.
This is Hickman County for Christs Sakes. Out here where the roosters crow all day long because they are too poor to afford a watch, I’m bout as famous as Elvis.
Ha. What the hell does that even mean?
As we talk and laugh and reminisce, I stare over the crime tape.
It is bright yellow and seems to glow in the darkening sky.
The house has been reduced to rubble. Smoke is still billowing up from the charred remains.
The only thing that resembles a house, is the stone chimney which stands tall, like a monument of a lifetime of accomplishments snatched away in a burst of flames, accentuated by gasoline, torched by a demon in the night.
Just beyond the crime tape, 2 bodies are charred beyond recognition. I will come to learn it is an 88 year old man and his wife. He is a respected businessman.
“He was a preacher too,” the sheriff will tell me. “he married my wife and me 35 years ago. This crime touches everyone up in these parts.”
I watch as the medical examiner’s van backs up to load the couple up and take them to Nashville for an autopsy.
I shake the sheriff’s hand.
I say goodbye to the rookie deputies who are now smiling and relaxed.
As we drive away I think about Hickman County.
Windy roads. Roosters crowing. Two dead bodies and a possible killer on the loose.
I think about the man who told me he loved his wife, only to dig her up in the moonlight and say he was sorry each night.
Hickman County?
Nice people, crazy crimes, a Twilight Zone of a county just a stone’s throw from civilization.
Life’s Crazy™