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     Jim Hammond was a nice guy.
     No, that’s not true – Jim Hammond was an asshole.  As the Food and Beverage manager for the Peabody Hotel, Jim was responsible for the management of bars, restaurants, banquets, service delivery and the costs associated with all food and drink sold at the hotel.  That responsibility included purchasing the product, hiring employees, setting schedules and menu prices. He distinguished himself by bringing a level of profitability that had never been recognized in the history of the hotel.  He also distinguished himself as being the most hated member of the Peabody Hotel Management Staff.
     I didn’t have to deal with Jim, but I did have to deal with the people he directly or indirectly supervised – they all hated him.  He was rude, over bearing, over structured and over-the-top in his management style.  Everyone knew that Mason Booker T. Brown was the person who hotel staff looked to for direction; but, everyone also knew that Jim Hammond could appear at anytime and make a good day turn bad.
     He had been known to fire people on the spot, to change menus in the middle of a breakfast, lunch or dinner delivery time, to not provide adequate provisions for banquets and to personally check liquor levels of issued bar stock.  Jim Hammond ran a tight ship and he was successful; however, most every employee of the hotel despised him.
     Jim’s marriage of 10 years ended two years earlier after a very nasty divorce. Fortunately, the marriage had produced no children.  Following the divorce, Jim seemed to focus more on his work, and I’m sure that was partially responsible for his recent success as Food and Beverage Manager.
Also, shortly after his divorce, rumors began to surface about a homosexual lifestyle – but I doubted those rumors.  I had personally seen Jim in the company of some very attractive women; so if he was homosexual, he camouflaged it well.
In the end, Jim Hammond distinguished himself in another way – he distinguished himself as the only employee of the Peabody to be murdered while in the hotel!
                                                                          ~
     For some stupid reason his office phone rang; it was almost 11:30 PM on Saturday night and nobody should be calling at this hour.
     “Hello,” Jim snapped after quickly grabbing the phone. He felt the presence of someone on the line, but no one spoke.
     “Hello,” Jim shouted again. “Who the hell is this and why are you calling me at this hour?”
While he was screaming into the phone, the door to his office abruptly opened –Jim had a visitor.
     “Well, well, well,” Jim said to his intruder, while slowly replacing the phone receiver back in its cradle. “I told you to never come to my office or call me here.  And who the hell was that on the phone?  One of your ‘other’ friends?” he asked sarcastically.
     Jim’s visitor didn’t speak, but simply smiled, while quietly closing the office door behind them. Then they walked across the office, around the large desk and slowly began giving Jim a soft shoulder massage.
     “Thank you,” Jim mumbled, enjoying the massage. “But, this doesn’t change anything.  We’ve had our fun, you’ve been paid and tonight isn’t a good time – I’m tired and I’m going home.”
     Jim’s visitor still didn’t speak. Slowly they reached a glove covered hand into their pocket and produced a freshly opened bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a couple of glasses, which they sat on his desk, while still performing the soft shoulder massage.
     Jim looked at his visitor and then at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting in front of him.
     “Whiskey?  You brought whiskey!” Jim exclaimed as he picked up the bottle and shook his head.  

“You know I don’t drink, and if I did, it wouldn’t be this crap!  What’s this for?”
     “A toast,” his visitor said, before stabbing Jim in the neck with a large kitchen butcher knife!
                                                                     ~
     Sometime, late on a warm spring Saturday night, somebody walked into Jim Hammond’s basement office at the Peabody Hotel and stabbed him to death.  
     Evidently, Jim had been working late, because the time of death was estimated to be around midnight.  Jim had been seen by one of the employees at eleven; so the murder, obviously, occurred sometime after that.  Jim Hammond was stabbed in the neck and bled profusely before succumbing to his mortal wound – leaving most of his blood on the floor underneath his leather desk chair.  Soon after stabbing Jim in the neck, and while watching him die, Jim Hammond’s killer did something strange; the killer cut off the thumb of Jim’s right hand!
     Also, even though Jim Hammond didn’t drink, there were two half-full glasses of Jack Daniel’s found on his desk and the freshly opened bottle nearby. Much like he and his killer had shared a drink before the murder.
     A maid discovered Jim’s body on Sunday morning, and the hotel detective, Slick Goodrich, was immediately notified. Slick called the police, and within an hour the Memphis and Shelby County Sheriff’s office crime scene units were heavily involved.  Detectives were assigned, and the investigation began.
     No murder weapon was found, but the coroner determined that a big bladed knife, something similar to a large kitchen butcher knife, stabbed Jim. The thumb had been crudely and hastily removed – most likely with the murder weapon or by some other large bladed and semi-dull instrument.  And, according to the coroner, the thumb was severed while Jim’s heart was still beating. Presumably after he was stabbed, but definitely while he was still alive.
     The crime scene contained hundreds of fingerprints, all belonging to Jim Hammond and hotel employees who would have had legitimate business in the office.  So, their investigation focused on the whiskey bottle and glasses sitting on the  desk.
     Oddly, the bottle of Jack Daniel’s only contained one set of fingerprints – they belonged to Jim Hammond. But, both drink glasses contained multiple prints – at least four different people had handled those glasses, including Jim Hammond.
     What the detectives needed was to find a match for the prints on the glasses, and one of those would be the killer – or so it seemed.
     During the next three days every employee of the Peabody Hotel, every vendor and every tenant who operated a business or worked in the building was fingerprinted – no match was found.
The hotel’s guest list for that Saturday was secured, and Memphis detectives began contacting everyone who might have seen or heard anything.  They were also comparing that list to anyone who might have known, or had business dealings with Jim Hammond – unfortunately that part of the investigation was going nowhere. Focus was returned to the fingerprints on the drink glasses.
                                                                        ~
     Joe and I were in Little Rock on an investigation during all the excitement, and missed the fingerprinting marathon. The newspapers and television news had provided us general information about the tragedy and we were certainly interested, but Marcie’s call to our hotel was much more urgent.
     According to Marcie, there was a large nasty note taped to my office door – telling me to call lead detective Keith Gamble as soon as we arrived back in town. The Memphis Police, as a part of their investigation, required our fingerprints and we needed to comply immediately.
We returned to Memphis on Wednesday – and that’s where our story begins.