Deadly Illusions Page 4

  I turned to Jill. “Is this what you ordered, babe?”

  She checked the box and nodded. “It should make you look like a pro.”

  “I thought I was a pro.”

  “Just sign the receipt, Greg.”

  I signed and handed it back. “Thanks, Larry,” I said, noting the name badge pinned to his shirt.

  He nodded, maintaining that dour look, and gave me a copy of the receipt. I watched as he headed for the door, noticing an odd gait that might have come from an old leg injury. I still find myself doing tricks like that, observing anything that appears out of the ordinary. It’s something that sticks with you long after the need is past. Turning back to the box, I took out my pocketknife and tackled the job of printer setup. While I tugged the new toy away from its packing, the phone rang.

  “It’s for you, pro,” Jill said.

  “I checked your man out thoroughly,” said a businesslike Julio de Leon.

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  “What I didn’t find might be more apropos. Damon Saint has no current checking accounts, no savings accounts, no bank accounts, nada. Furthermore, he has no credit or debit cards and no accounts with a stockbroker.”

  Maybe David Wolfson had overrated young Julio, I thought. Apparently he didn’t have all the financial programs or passwords or whatever wizardry it took to get into the right files.

  “In other words, you struck out,” I said.

  Julio’s voice had a wounded sound. “I hope that doesn’t imply what I think it does, Mr. McKenzie, that I failed to find something that exists out there in financial cyberspace. I can assure you nothing currently exists for the name and Social Security number you gave me.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to question your competence. It’s just hard to believe he has no accounts. His wife said his military pension payments were made directly to his bank.”

  “Then she lied. Now if you’re interested in his past activity, that’s a different matter.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “From the middle eighties to the middle nineties, Mr. Saint had multiple accounts in Indianapolis, Indiana.”

  The Social Security number from Indiana. Of course. It fit.

  “What kind of accounts?” I asked.

  “Both personal and business. He also had credit cards.”

  “What business?”

  “Pro-Kleen Carpet Care.” He spelled it out for me.

  “Sounds like a franchise deal,” I said.

  “Probably.”

  “The accounts were closed in the mid-nineties?”

  “The personal accounts were. The business account was transferred to another name.”

  “Meaning it was sold,” I said.

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Did you learn anything else about Damon Saint?”

  “I checked the Indianapolis city directory for that period and found Mr. Saint had a house in the suburbs. So I took a look at the property records for the county. The house was sold a few months after Pro-Kleen Carpet Care apparently got its new owner. If Saint came to Nashville from there, I’d say he arrived with a pocketful of cash.”

  The time frame would have corresponded pretty well with Art Finley’s recollection of when Saint had begun working with Heritage Car Rentals. But why had Damon lied to Molly about his Army pension going directly to his bank account? According to Julio, Damon had no bank account at all. What had happened to all the money he had brought with him from Indianapolis?

  Jill and I were bouncing around these questions late that afternoon when Ted Kennerly called.

  “Didn’t your man Saint claim to have retired from the Army?” he asked.

  “That’s what he told his wife,” I said.

  “Well, ex-Sergeant Saint was being a bit untruthful. He was discharged around the time the Vietnam War ended.”

  “So there was no retirement.”

  “None. He was given an honorable discharge and transportation back home to Indiana.”

  “That figures,” I said. “What was his military assignment?”

  “The Fifth Special Forces Group in Vietnam.”

  When I told Jill what I had learned about Damon, she shook her head. “Well, we know a little more about Mr. Saint,” she said. “We know he’s an accomplished liar. I’ll bet he wasn’t an orphan raised in Chicago, either.”

  “Quite likely. I think it might be worth our time to make a little junket to Indianapolis,” I said. “Maybe somebody up there can tell us why he sold his house and his business and left Indiana.”

  7

  We left early the next morning for the flight to Indianapolis aboard Jill’s Cessna. When I met her back in the sixties, she was a student in the aviation program at Middle Tennessee State College (now University), located in the next county to the south of Nashville. We married after her graduation, and her dad, a wealthy Nashville insurance man, gave her a Piper Cherokee so she could fly home whenever it suited her. A savvy businesswoman as well as an excellent pilot, Jill ran her own charter service for a time during my Air Force career. She still had a Cessna 172 that she kept at Cornelia Fort Air Park, not far from our home in Hermitage.

  We took off into a cloudless blue sky and headed north, flying through air so smooth the plane could have been sliding along a greased track. I found that almost enough to make the flight a pleasure. Almost. But the fact remained, though I’d had to do a lot of flying during my years in the Air Force, I never enjoyed it. I equated being strapped into an airplane seat with being chained to an Inquisition-era torture device.

  I brought the morning paper along in hopes of deluding myself into believing I had simply embarked upon a pleasant soiree among the heavens. I didn’t fool my irrational mind, but I did get to bring myself up to date on the Bernstein affair. According to mostly unnamed sources, the FBI had concentrated on looking for the .22 rifle used in the slaying, plus questioning airline personnel regarding passengers departing Nashville International Airport on Monday afternoon. They had blown up stills from surveillance camera tapes, but the suspect’s floppy hat, pulled down to hide his face, ruled out the chance of a positive identification.

  As for Metro, the cops busied themselves interviewing Opryworld employees, hoping to find someone who had seen or heard something that might provide a clue to the murderer. They also sought anyone who likely harbored a grudge against the banking system.

  Unfortunately, there was more airspace ahead than newspaper in my lap, but I managed to survive through the landing. For the sake of marital bliss, I skipped the kissing-of-the-ground ceremony at Indianapolis International Airport. After Jill shut down the engine on the private aircraft ramp, we headed for the fixed base operator’s counter, where she took care of parking and servicing details and I checked the phone book for Pro-Kleen Carpet Care. The woman who answered informed me that the owner, Perry Vanatta, had left for a job. He could be reached on his cell phone, however.

  When I contacted him, he agreed to meet us for lunch—I generously offered to buy—after finishing the current job, which involved cleaning carpets at a residence on the south side of the city. We met around 11:30 outside a small meat-and-three restaurant he had recommended, located in a large white frame house. Vanatta was tall and thin with close-cropped brown hair. He wore blue jeans and a gray knit shirt. His eyes seemed to blink almost constantly with a nervous tic.

  After introductions, we strolled inside and were ushered to a small square table covered with a red and white checkered cloth. The waitress suggested the meat loaf, to which we obligingly agreed. After she left for the kitchen, I looked across at Vanatta.

  “Thanks for agreeing to talk with us. Sounds like you’re a busy man. How’s the carpet cleaning business?”

  “It just goes on and on. People keep getting them dirty and we keep cleaning up. Literally and figuratively. Boom or bust, not much changes.”

  “Must be nice,” I said. “You told me on the phone that you knew D
amon Saint. I take it you’re the guy who bought the business from him?”

  Folding his long, slender hands, he propped his sharp chin on them and blinked several times. “Actually, I didn’t buy it. He gave it to me.”

  I gave him a skeptical look. “You’re kidding.”

  Vanatta shook his head. “I had worked for him for about five years. When my dad died just after I graduated from high school, I was forced to forego college to support my mom and myself.”

  “That when you started with Damon?”

  “Yeah. He only had one truck back then. But after I got pretty good at cleaning carpets, he bought another truck for me to use.”

  “Business was booming.”

  “Right. We were making a pretty decent living off it when all of a sudden he took off. No warning. No good-bye. Nothing.”

  I stared at him. “He disappeared?”

  “Yeah. I came to work one Monday morning and the place looked abandoned. He just had a little hole-in-the-wall office. The business records were still there, but all of Damon’s personal stuff was gone. Including his laptop computer, which he used to keep financial records and stuff like that.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Around seven years ago.”

  “Did you ever hear from him?”

  Vanatta paused, then nodded. “A few days later I got a letter.”

  “From where?”

  “Louisville. He said he had agreed to take on a clandestine mission for the government.”

  This was getting a bit ridiculous. “Did you buy that?”

  Vanatta shrugged. “Damon was always a big bull-shitter, if you’ll pardon the expression. But the rest of the letter left me wondering. It said he was giving me the business—Pro-Kleen Carpet Care. He enclosed a signed, legal-looking statement of sale form that said he had sold everything to me, including the two trucks. The checking account was practically empty, but the bank signed what was left over to me.”

  “Did he ever call?”

  “No. But something else was in the envelope. He enclosed a power of attorney giving me authorization to sell his house. Said he would contact me later about where to send the proceeds.”

  “He must have really trusted you,” I said.

  He blinked his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. He knew I had always played square with him.”

  The waitress brought our meat loaf with green beans, carrots and corn, and Vanatta related the rest of the story between bites. A couple of months later, he said, he received another letter from Saint. This one had an Atlanta postmark. Damon instructed him to send the money from the house sale to a box number in Atlanta. Vanatta had turned the house over to a Realtor, and when it sold fairly quickly, he forwarded the check as instructed.

  “Did you hear anything else after that?” I asked.

  “Nothing. He was sometimes a bit of a weird character, but I never expected anything like this. It worked out fine for me, though. I’ve expanded the business and run three trucks now.”

  “Did you know about Damon’s service in Vietnam?”

  Vanatta nodded. “He talked about being a Green Beret over there. Said he worked with CIA agents some of the time. That’s why I half-believed the bit about a clandestine government mission. You think it could be true? Why else would he leave like that?”

  Somehow, ferrying cars for Heritage Car Rentals didn’t have the ring of a CIA plot. There was the occasional trip to help out old buddies from the war that might provide the opportunity for some black operation, but I’d had a little experience with CIA officers during my Air Force career, and Damon’s story sounded more like the product of a vivid imagination. I was beginning to harbor other thoughts. The possibility of drug dealing first crossed my mind. I mentioned it to Jill as we left the restaurant.

  “You really think he’s peddling drugs?” she asked.

  I opened the door of the rental car for her. “I don’t know. But I have the definite feeling that Mr. Saint is up to no good. I’d like to know what really goes on in that basement workshop.”

  “I trust you weren’t impressed by the clandestine operative story,” Jill said.

  I climbed in beside her and started the car. “The CIA took part in a lot of Special Forces operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Damon Saint could have been involved in one of them. But secret agent he’s not. Intelligence organizations don’t turn up thirty years later and ask the help of ex-soldiers who’ve done nothing more sinister than clean carpets for a living.”

  ———

  Happily, from my point of view, the flight back to Nashville was equally as tranquil as the flight up. No doubt much of the credit went to Jill and her expertise at the Cessna’s controls. At any rate, we arrived back at the office late that afternoon with a little better handle on the real Damon Saint. We found two messages on the answering machine. The last call had come in only thirty minutes earlier. Jesse Logan wanted us to get back to him at the Opryworld Hotel. The first call, recorded that morning, was delivered in a frantic whisper.

  “Mr. McKenzie, this is Molly Saint. I couldn’t get your cell phone. Damon said he had to go downtown, but I don’t know how long he’ll be gone. After he left, I got to thinking about what you said about his workshop. When I tried the basement door, I found it unlocked. He left in a big hurry. I don’t know if he forgot it in the rush or if he thought I was so conditioned to staying away I’d never even consider going down there. Anyway, I figured the booby trap would be turned off. I didn’t want to mess with any switches, though. So I got my flashlight and sneaked down. You won’t believe what I found. Call me from a pay phone as soon as possible. I don’t want your number showing on our Caller ID. When I see pay phone on there, I’ll call your cell phone. Please hurry.”

  8

  After Jill heard the message, her face went pale. “That poor girl. She sounded like she’d seen a ghost. What do you suppose she found?”

  I spread my palms. “Whatever she saw, it must have been a shocker. I hope she’s still at home.”

  I turned on the cell phone and stuck it in my pocket as we hurried out to the sidewalk that ran along the front of the shopping center. A pay phone hung on the wall two stores down. I dropped in a couple of coins, checked the number Molly had given us and dialed. After three rings, more than sufficient to trigger the ID, I hung up.

  “I hope she’s all right,” Jill said.

  “I’m sure she’s okay.” I didn’t feel as certain as I sounded, but I didn’t want to alarm Jill any more than necessary.

  As we headed back to the office, I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket.

  For the next several minutes, Jill sat at her desk and I sat at mine. The phone lay in front of me.

  Soundless.

  We both stared at it, hoping. But I heard nothing other than the hum of the refrigerator in the storage room.

  Shortly, the faint wail of an ambulance siren came from somewhere out on

  Old Hickory Boulevard. Then silence. Jill nearly jumped out of her chair when a car backfired nearby in the parking lot. I shook my head and glanced back at the silent phone. I had a feeling it was not going to ring. Either Molly was not at home or something had happened that I didn’t care to contemplate.

  I finally handed the cell phone to Jill. “I’d better call our friend Logan. Hopefully, he’s ready to roll. You talk with Molly if she calls.”

  I punched in the Opryworld Hotel number and asked for Jesse Logan’s room.

  “I finally got the okay to proceed with Operation Skullduggery,” he said. “If you and your wife can meet me tonight at the King Cole’s in Brentwood, I’ll show her what she needs to know about being a hostess.”

  “What time?” I asked.

  “How does seven sound?”

  “Fine with us. When did you figure on starting her at the Hendersonville location?”

  “She can go out there in the morning and put in an application. They’re short on help at the moment. She can say in the app that she fo
rmerly worked for us in the Atlanta suburbs. Let’s say Roswell. The manager will have to check through my office. We’ll see that she gets the job. With any luck, she can be on duty the day after tomorrow.”

  ———

  Brentwood was a wealthy boomtown on the south side of Nashville that housed the likes of country music stars and millionaire Titans pro football players. The natives tended to be restless at mealtime and regularly filled area restaurants like King Cole’s, which featured castle-like décor and moderately-priced meals. When we arrived, at least a dozen people sat or stood at the front while the hostess, a tall, slim blonde wearing a badge that read EDNA, busily wrote names on a sheet marked with columns for “# in party,” “smoke,” “non” and “1st avail.”

  I glanced about in the subdued lighting and spotted Logan coming over to greet us. He ushered us to a table near the front with a good view of the hostess station.

  Turning to Jill, he grinned. “I told Edna you were a hospitality magazine writer, working on a story about King Cole’s. When things slow down, you can talk to her and ask any questions you have.”

  After we had ordered coffee and cheesecake, Logan sat back and looked around. “This place reminds me of my first restaurant. It was in Birmingham. I was fresh out of college and signed on as an assistant manager trainee.” He had a nostalgic look in his eyes.

  “You’ve come a long way since then,” I said. “How long ago was that?”

  “Twelve years. I guess I’ve done okay for a kid from the projects who didn’t play football or basketball.”

  As we ate our cheesecake, Logan briefed Jill on the duties of a hostess. She asked for a little more detail on her relationship with the waitresses and the manager. Afterward, she walked over to the blonde named Edna and inquired about her position and how she handled problems with customers and employees. Meanwhile, I checked the cell phone in my pocket to be sure it was still powered up. It was.

  But Molly Saint had not called.

  I didn’t like the implication.

  ———

  Back home in time for the ten o’clock news, we got an update on the murder of Dr. Elliott Bernstein. Our friend Phil Adamson turned out to be the lead investigator for Metro. Knowing his background, it didn’t come as a surprise. Before becoming a homicide detective, he had won several citations as a patrol officer. I recalled what one of his colleagues had once told me, that a patrol officer does more in a week than an FBI agent does in a year. Phil had a degree in criminology and taught the subject at a tech school one night a week. On TV he sat solemnly beside the chief of police as Nashville’s top cop confirmed they were deep into the process of checking hotel records and interviewing employees. The chief reluctantly admitted they were only interested in black employees, but reinforced this reasoning by showing surveillance camera videos of the suspect in the black hat and trench coat.