5 A Sporting Murder Page 5

  “That’s the basic idea. We’ve hired a PR firm to convince the public and the city fathers that it wouldn’t be the best thing for Nashville. Gordon Franklin and Mack Nolan joined me in putting up money for the project.”

  “We’re supposed to see Franklin at eleven-thirty. I understand he’s a CPA.”

  “A very competent CPA. He lives and breathes number crunching. I suspect his boxers have dollar signs on them. If anything happened to that accounting practice, he’d be ready for the grave.”

  “How did he get interested in hockey?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it’s the only thing I’ve seen that makes him blossom out. He’s a bachelor and a very private person. Don’t be surprised if he seems a bit terse. I guess an outgoing personality isn’t a requirement for being a CPA.”

  “We haven’t been able to get an appointment with Mack Nolan,” Jill said.

  “He’s a fast-moving young guy at the top of his form. Ice hockey is something of a passion for him. I think it’s a way to let off steam from the hectic pace he keeps between public appearances, recording sessions, and whatever else he does. It’s sure better than popping pills like so many of them do. You may have to corner him at a Pred’s game.”

  “What about this rumor thing Terry Tremont mentioned?” I asked.

  Smotherman leaned his elbows on the desk, striking a thoughtful pose. “It was Mack who received a report that something may not be kosher about the NBA deal. Terry suggested bringing you in to check into it.”

  I glanced at Jill and caught her brows going up.

  “Have you ever heard of an Arnold Wechsel, Mr. Smotherman?” I asked.

  He gave me a blank stare as he pondered the name. “No. Not that I can recall.”

  “Did you see the story in the morning paper yesterday about a murder at an auto repair shop in the Dickerson Pike area?”

  He leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers. “I saw the headline but didn’t read the story. That is an area I’m not familiar with.”

  I wasn’t surprised, but I told him about the phone call from Wechsel and that I was the one who found the body.

  “My, God!” His eyes narrowed, and his face took on a pinched look. “He said it would blow your mind?”

  “Words to that effect. I have no idea what he was talking about. It’s possible, perhaps probable, the murder had some connection. We just don’t know at this point.”

  He cocked his head to one side and spoke persuasively. “This could be the tip of the iceberg we’ve been hoping to find.”

  “The question is who knew we had been hired besides Terry Tremont and you? How did Arnold Wechsel know about us?”

  Smotherman’s brow wrinkled. “I called both Franklin and Nolan.”

  “Did you talk to Nolan?”

  “No. I left word with his manager.”

  “That would be Mr. Oakley?” Jill asked.

  “Right.”

  “Did you tell him about us?”

  “Yes. I told him you’d been retained by Terry to assist us, but I didn’t say exactly why. I asked him to have Mack call me.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Did he?”

  “Not until late last night. He was in California.”

  “And you told no one else?”

  He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Only my secretary.”

  I challenged him with the same request I had given Terry Tremont, that he make sure his secretary had not passed the information on to others.

  “What do you plan to do next?” he asked.

  “It looks like we’re back to basic detective work,” I said.

  Jill opened her handbag, took out a small notebook and began jotting notes on it. “We’ll need full backgrounds on Howard Hays and Fred Ricketts,” she said. “In addition to Louie Aregis.”

  “I have a good contact in Metro Homicide who should be able to provide some help with the murder of Arnold Wechsel. Which brings up the point of confidentiality. Is it necessary that our relationship to Protect Our Preds remain private?”

  Smotherman frowned. “We’d prefer the other side didn’t know we’re looking into their operation. Total secrecy is impossible, of course. Just avoid connecting us with your investigation.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll work as quietly as possible.”

  Chapter 9

  Back at the office, Jill got out our large travel cups, heated water, and shoveled in spoonfuls of cappuccino mix, our favorite beverage. McKenzie Investigations occupied a small nook in the strip center, its broad front window artfully painted with a scene from the Gardens at Versailles. The yellow, white and purple blossoms contrasted sharply with the reds and greens of Christmas decorations that dominated the stores on either side of us.

  Before we huddled around my desk for a strategy session, I called Colonel Grigsby at Andrews Air Force Base. I asked him if Lieutenant Isabell had been released from prison.

  “He’s one of those I’m supposed to be informed about,” the colonel said, “but I haven’t heard anything. I’ll check into it and give you a call.”

  When I got off the phone, Jill sat at the table with our cappuccino cups.

  “Grigsby doesn’t know anything,” I said. “He’ll let me know. Got your notes ready?”

  “Who do we start with?”

  “Let’s start at the top.”

  “That would be Mr. Louie Aregis, the investment fellow. His company is Coastal Capital Ventures. Since the Cumberland River provides the closest thing we have to a coast, maybe he should change it to Riverfront Capital Ventures.”

  “I think Brad Smotherman would be happy to see him go back to the Gulf Coast. Let’s check him out with a database search. Why don’t you get onto that? I’ll see if I can track down Red Tarkington.”

  “The NCIS agent in Pensacola who helped us down there last year?” Jill asked.

  “Right. Last time I talked to Ted Kennerly, he said Red spoke of getting out of the Navy and taking a shot at the PI business in Florida.”

  Ted was a former OSI protégé currently the Special Agent in Charge at Arnold Air Force Base south of Nashville. We had kept in touch over the years. I’d used him on occasion to get info from places he had privy to but I didn’t. Tarkington worked with us some years back on a joint-service case at Pearl Harbor and became close friends with Ted. They communicated frequently by phone and email.

  I reached Ted at his office. “Have you heard anything more from Red Tarkington about going the PI route?” I asked.

  “Sure have, Boss. He’s already out of the service.”

  Ted still used the “Boss” nickname I had when I was his Special Agent in Charge. “When did it happen?”

  “About a month ago. He was working on getting a private investigator license. I understood he plans to set up shop in Pensacola. The way things are down there, I imagine there’s lots of opportunity for fraud in reconstruction. Probably a good climate for an investigator. What’s going on? Jill hasn’t resigned as your partner, has she?”

  Ted and Jill had a special relationship after she flew him to Boston to be with his dying mother when he couldn’t get there by commercial air.

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “We have a new case that involves a man who recently moved his business here from the Panhandle.”

  “I bet Red could help you out. Hold a sec and I’ll get you his phone number.”

  I wrote down the number, sent regards to Ted’s wife, Karen, and hung up. Jill was still digging around on the Internet.

  “Come up with anything yet?” I asked.

  “I’m checking a couple of sources. Looks like there’s no shortage of info on Aregis out there.”

  I went back to the phone and punched in Red Tarkington’s number.

  “This is Greg McKenzie,” I said when he answered.

  “Hi, Colonel. I was asking Ted about you recently. He said you folks had solved another murder up there. Are you branching out into homicide?”

  “
Hardly,” I said with a chuckle. “Right now we’re doing an investigation that’s linked to a guy who moved his firm here from Pensacola a few months ago. Ted said you planned to get into the PI business. That true?”

  “I’m working on getting set up. Got my license. Ready to rent an office and line up some clients.”

  “We’d like to be your first, Red. We need you to look around down there for anything that might appear questionable about one Louie Aregis or his company, Coastal Capital Ventures.”

  After getting Red onboard, I recalled that he had been a civilian cop before joining the military, serving in the Louisville, Kentucky Police Department. I told him about Izzy Isabell.

  “I may need to talk to somebody up there,” I said. “Do you still have any contacts?”

  “Call Lt. Bob Dobyns.” He spelled the name for me. “Bob is in the Criminal Intelligence Unit.”

  I had just gotten off the phone when a visitor arrived. We didn’t get a lot of walk-ins in our out-of-the-way location, and this one hardly bore the look of a prospective client. After stepping through the door, he hesitated, shifted his bleary eyes about, and approached my desk. Beneath a brown fedora that looked like it had been twisted into a cylinder a few times, he wore a gray sweat shirt, over that a long black coat. The tail of the coat had evidently been snagged on a nail. From his appearance, he might have been a down-and-out PI from an old pulp novel. He had a bristly beard and his hands showed no sign of having been introduced to soap lately.

  “You Greg McKenzie?” he asked.

  I nodded. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have some information you need.” His voice was scratchy, like a well-worn 78 rpm record.

  “What makes you think I need it?”

  “It’ll cost you to find out.”

  I had been exposed to enough pseudo-snitch winos to be a confirmed skeptic. I stood and faced him. He was a couple of inches shorter than me. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want any of our money.”

  “It’s about that shootin’ Saturday night.”

  Now he had my attention. “How does it involve the shooting?”

  “How?”

  “Yeah, what do you know that’s worth my giving you any cash to find out? Do you know who fired the shot?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you see the shooter?”

  “I heard him shoot and saw him run out to his car.”

  “What kind of car did he drive?”

  “Now we’re talking cash.” He grinned, showing a couple of missing teeth.

  “Tell me the make of the car and a license number and I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

  His reddened eyes flared like Roman candles about to fire. He jammed his fists against spindly hips. “Twenty! You think I’m some idgit asshole? You know how much it cost me to ride a bus out here? Make it a hunnert.”

  I checked him out a little more closely. He was nobody’s fool. “Why did you come here instead of to the cops?”

  “I don’t like cops. They’re nothin’ but trouble.”

  “How do I know you aren’t just making this up?”

  “Gimme fifty now and the other fifty when you check it out.”

  I had to admire his tenacity, but I wasn’t about to put out that kind of money on faith alone. “How would I find you if I came looking?”

  “I hang out around Dickerson Pike and Trinity Lane. Just ask for Fingers.”

  I wondered if that nickname had come from a habit of picking pockets or doing a little shoplifting. “Tell me somebody out there who’d know you.”

  He looked down, obviously scratching about for an answer. “Tommy at A and R Café. He gives me a cup of coffee now and then.”

  I reached down and flipped through my phone book to the café’s listing. I called the number and asked for Tommy.

  “You’re talking to him,” a lively voice said.

  “I have a guy here who goes by the name of Fingers,” I said. “He tells me you know him.”

  “Afraid so. He’s harmless, though. Always hanging around the area. He trying to talk you out of some money?”

  “A little business deal. He wants to sell me some information. Is he believable?”

  Tommy paused a moment. “My caller ID shows McKenzie Investigations. Are you the man who found that body over here Saturday night?”

  I looked across at Fingers and wondered what was coming. “Right.”

  “I guess I’m responsible. I gave him your name.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “He asked me if there was something in the newspaper Sunday about a shooting around here the night before. I read the story to him—he’s not too good at reading. He wanted to know where your office was. I had no idea he’d go out there.”

  “He rode the bus,” I said. “Sounds like he might be legitimate, doesn’t it. Do you think I could find him over there if I came looking?”

  “Long as you don’t plan to make him rich. I know where he sleeps when it doesn’t get too far below freezing.”

  I thanked him and hung up. I pulled out my billfold and counted out two twenties and a ten. I laid them on the desk but kept my hand on them.

  “The information, please,” I said.

  He took a scrap of paper from his coat pocket and tossed it on my desk. It had the three-letter, three-number combination found on Tennessee license plates.

  “What kind of car?” I asked.

  “One of them big sport utility trucks. Black. Not sure what make. It was too dark.”

  “Where were you when you saw it?”

  “In front of the building next to the repair shop. His truck was parked on the street.”

  “Could you identify the man?”

  “Naw. I didn’t get a good look at him. Didn’t look too big, though, even bundled up in that wind.”

  “But you’re sure of this number?”

  “Sure as my name’s Fingers O’Malley.”

  I pushed the bills toward him. He grabbed them and hurried out the door. I picked up the phone and called Phil Adamson.

  “You did what?” he said when I told him about Fingers.

  “I paid him fifty bucks for the license number of Arnold Wechsel’s killer. Sounded like the SUV we saw on the street last night.”

  I read off the tag number.

  “Hold on and let me check it out.” I listened to muffled office noises for a couple of minutes until Phil came back. “Hang on while I check one more thing.”

  After another two or three minutes, he said, “My friend, you just got snookered. That number is registered to a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Hardly what I’d call a big black SUV.”

  “Maybe the plate was stolen from the VW,” I said.

  “I called the owner. She’s a retired schoolteacher who confirmed the plate is still on her Volkswagen.”

  Chapter 10

  When I told Jill what Phil had found, she just shook her head. I walked over to where she stood beside the printer. It whirred away, spitting out a succession of sheets from her data search on Louie Aregis.

  “I still think Fingers O’Malley saw something,” I said.

  “He sure as heck saw that fifty dollars on your desk.”

  Okay, so I took a gamble and it appeared that I lost. I’d deal with Mr. O’Malley later. I pointed at the paper tray. “Find some interesting stuff?”

  “You be the judge.”

  She handed me the first page. Aregis was born in 1969 in Orlando, Florida, where his father was employed at the developing project that would become known as Disney World. He grew up in the Orlando area. After graduating from Florida State University in Tallahassee with a degree in finance, he took a position with a brokerage firm there and married his college sweetheart, a Pensacola girl. Three years later, the family moved to Florida’s westernmost city where Louie went to work for Coastal Capital Ventures, the firm owned by his wife’s father. Aregis took over the business four years ago after his father-in-law’s death.

&n
bsp; “Looks like he married well,” I said.

  “Reminds me of the way they talked about Nashville in my younger days,” Jill said. “It was called ‘The Son-in-Law Town.’ Young Vanderbilt graduates married the daughters of wealthy businessmen, then moved up to cushy jobs.”

  A St. Louis native, I knew little about Nashville prior to moving here. My only connection had been a tour of duty at the former Sewart Air Force Base in Smyrna, just south of the city. That was my first OSI assignment, which provided me the opportunity to meet Jill, a college student in the aviation program at nearby Middle Tennessee State.

  When she spread the sheets from the data search across her desk, she pulled out one and handed it to me. “This is something you might want to dig into a little more deeply.”

  It included a reference to a Tallahassee newspaper story from Aregis’ college days. Nineteen at the time, he was involved in a shooting incident at his fraternity house at Florida State. According to the story, he shot a fraternity brother in the arm with a .38 caliber revolver. There were conflicting accounts from witnesses about an argument, but both he and the victim described it as an accident. Aregis said they were horsing around with the gun when it discharged. He told police he had found the weapon in a clump of bushes behind the house. A later story said authorities traced the revolver to a Miami man who had reported it stolen a few years earlier. The university disciplined both boys and no charges were filed.

  I skimmed through the other pages Jill had printed but saw nothing that jumped out at me. I decided to save it for later.

  “Let’s split up the other two NBA investors and do searches on them,” I said.

  “Okay, I’ll take the easy one. Everybody knows Howard Hays. See what you can dig up on Fred Ricketts.”

  “I thought the senior investigator got first choice,” I said.

  “If the senior investigator wants something besides leftovers for dinner, he’d better get busy on Mr. Ricketts.”

  I should have known better. In a battle of wits, I always got the nit. I turned to my computer and fired up a database search. I soon learned that Ricketts was owner of Physicians and Surgeons Software, Inc., better known as P&S Software. Originally from Indianapolis, he had been in upper management with one of Nashville’s major hospital chains before striking out on his own. The firm was headquartered in Brentwood, which bordered Nashville on the south and was home to many medical-related companies. According to supposedly reliable reports, Ricketts planned to take P&S public soon, giving him millions to devote to new projects, like an NBA team. One interesting side item said he was part-owner of an IndyCar racing team.