Chapter 10. Paper and Peril #2
I turned to my computer and googled Quentin Sanderson’s name, along with the word Nashville to narrow the search.
Several links came up. The first three were websites for local TV broadcast networks.
All had reported on a mass arrest made at a nightclub in Nashville three years prior.
The raid had been carried out by a joint force of local police and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Nine people were arrested for trafficking in fentanyl pills and powder, some of which was mixed with a veterinary sedative called xylazine.
Both the drug and the electronic dance music were popular with the twentysomething crowd that frequented the nightclub.
Most of those arrested worked at the nightclub, including Quentin Sanderson.
He was ostensibly employed as a bouncer.
After his attorney negotiated a reduced sentence in return for information on the organized drug ring, Sanderson admitted he also worked as an “enforcer” who collected debts owed by the dealers to his boss.
Though Sanderson gave the authorities details of the violence he’d brought upon those who’d failed to pay their drug debts in full, he convinced them he’d been forced into the position after his boss threatened his girlfriend and young son.
For this reason, too, he was given leniency.
I sat back in my chair, unsure what to think of these accounts.
Sanderson had painted himself as a victim who’d been forced to do atrocious things to protect his girlfriend and child, but couldn’t he have gone to the police when his boss threatened him?
Sought protection from the authorities? Of course, the streaming services were replete with movies in which someone is sucked into organized crime, and law enforcement is unable to adequately protect them and their families.
But that was fiction, sensational stories to entice viewers.
Still, the movies weren’t entirely off base.
Had Tyler Yee produced a story or a podcast about the arrests? Had Quentin Sanderson been stalking him to retaliate?
I looked online, but found no articles by Tyler that had anything to do with the nightclub arrests, or even fentanyl or drugs in general. He had no available podcasts on the subject, either. Of course, it was possible that Tyler had something in the works that had yet to be published.
I moved on through the other printouts, giving the majority only a cursory glance. They were a random assortment of odds and ends that didn’t seem relevant.
One document was a recall notice in someone else’s name for their Tesla Cybertruck.
Apparently, an external trim piece called a cant rail could fly off because the adhesive used to attach it was “susceptible to environmental embrittlement.” I’d never heard the word embrittlement before, but I vowed to use it in a sentence before the week was over.
Another recall notice for the 2024 model addressed a problem in which the accelerator pedal could get stuck and cause unintended acceleration.
My guess was that Tyler was doing some sort of article on issues with the odd-looking trucks.
I had no idea why anyone would buy one. They looked like toasters or modern garbage dumpsters to me.
The next item was a sealed envelope addressed to Tyler.
The return address indicated the piece had been mailed by Nashville Electric Service, the municipal power provider.
I assumed it was his monthly statement. It might also be one of those occasional reminders they sent about ways to conserve energy in your home, or the option for “Budget Billing,” which averages monthly bills to make the amounts more consistent.
The next printout was a list of locations where movies had been filmed in the state, including Montgomery Bell State Park in Burns, Tennessee, where the movie Ernest Goes to Camp had been filmed in 1986.
I recalled my dad renting the movie from Blockbuster Video years ago for the family to watch, and all of us laughing up a storm.
More recently, the movies based on the Percy Jackson and the Olympians children’s book series had been shot in part at the full-scale Parthenon replica in Nashville’s Centennial Park.
Tyler must have been working on an article about movie sites.
Georgia had established itself as a primary filming location in recent years, thanks in no small part to Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.
The Walking Dead was a hit zombie show that had been filmed in various places in Georgia.
The Hunger Games movies and several superhero films, including Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War had also been shot in the state, as well as the Netflix series Ozark.
Because it generated jobs and revenue for local businesses, Georgia offered tax incentives for production companies to film there.
Does Tennessee do the same? Maybe Tyler was looking into the subject.
But while most of the printouts related to articles Tyler had been working on and seemed to have nothing to do with his death, two of them gave me pause.
The first was a receipt from the Victory Garden restaurant dated the preceding Tuesday.
The time stamp showed 2:08 p.m. Tyler must have ventured over to the restaurant for a late lunch after our initial meeting with Gail Pittman.
He’d ordered the black bean tacos with a side of Mexican street corn.
He’d written the name Deborah Holt on the receipt, along with an e-mail address of Deborah@.
The next printout that grabbed my attention was a postcard printed with a hand-rendered drawing of a church, beautiful flowering bushes and vines gracing its walls, its white steeple puncturing a cloud as it rose toward heaven. In gold lettering across the bottom was “The Redemption Fellowship.”
The following page depicted the back side of the postcard. It was addressed to Tyler Yee at what I suspected was a home address since it included a unit number. The message written on the back read:
Thinking of you, and wishing you the blessings of faith, hope, joy, peace, and gratitude.
Never forget that His blood was spilled to redeem you! We hope to see you again soon.
Forever in Fellowship, Bess Ivarsson-Carmichael and Pastor Devin Carmichael
At the mention of blood, my own veins froze. The postmark was dated just four days earlier. My guess was that Tyler had stopped at his mailbox before heading out to work this morning, and had tucked the postcard into his backpack along with his electric bill.
I ran a search online to see if Tyler had sold an article about the Redemption Fellowship.
He had. An alternative weekly paper had featured it as their top story, including a photo of the church on its cover along with the teaser: “Salvation for Sale.” The paper put out a free print version funded by advertisers, mostly bars, CBD dispensaries, and New Age shops that sold crystals and sage.
I picked up a copy on occasion. But they also offered an online version and had included Tyler’s story there.
No less than eight hundred comments had been posted.
While some people used what appeared to be their actual names, others had adopted a username as a pseudonym.
I skimmed through a few pages. Half of them lauded Tyler for calling out the church’s alleged hypocrisy, while the other half raked him over the coals for daring to cast doubt on a purportedly legitimate religious institution and its faithful leadership.
Some were surprisingly ungodly. Rot in hell, liar!
said one. Another ironically read: Your an idiot.
One person, who’d repeatedly posted under the username Saved&Sanctified, threatened Tyler with God’s wrath, including quotes from scripture.
One post read You will pay for your words, Mr. Yee—“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”—Romans 1:18.
Another post read You are a deceiver, Mr. Yee!
“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. ”—Ephesians 5:6.
A response to one of Saved&Santified’s posts said Hey, holier-than-thou A-hole. You should change your username to Shameful&Sanctimonious.
Sheesh. People could be quite bold and contentious online. I wished they’d debate more respectfully. Threats and insults weren’t likely to change anyone’s mind.
I jotted down Saved&Sanctified’s username, wondering if there was any way to identify who was hiding behind the pseudonym. Could this person have brought their own wrath down on Tyler Yee?