Deadly Illusions Read online

  “A smart guy who wanted to set up a meth lab here would have put in an exhaust fan to suck out any toxic fumes.”

  Marshall turned his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “The process of cooking down a bunch of ingredients such as pseudoephedrine, lye, acetone, muriatic acid and Coleman lamp fuel can produce some deadly by-products, such as phosphine.”

  “What the hell’s phosphine?”

  “Remember the Nazis’ gas chambers during the Holocaust? Phosphine was one of the gases they used.”

  “I remember you mentioned the possibility of Damon Saint dealing drugs when we were in Indianapolis,” Jill said.

  Marshall glared. “Are you telling me he was making drugs down here in my basement?”

  I shook my head. “I’m telling you it’s a possibility. You’ve probably read in the paper about the big meth problem in Tennessee.”

  “Yeah. But I thought it was in the counties outside Nashville.”

  “It’s anywhere. He could have made methamphetamine here using a hot plate. His wife told us he claimed to be making jewelry in the basement. But you’d expect some sort of stool to sit on for tedious work of that kind. From the size of that vise and the roughed-up look of the bench, I’ve got my doubts. The way he cleaned out this place, though, we’ll probably never know for sure. Crime scene techs might be able to come up with some trace evidence.”

  Marshall looked up from the bench. “You plan to have them check it out?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have access to that kind of resources.”

  “Could you ask Detective Adamson to check it out?” Jill asked.

  “If I had something to go on besides speculation.”

  11

  “I still think we ought to contact the police,” Jill said as we drove back to the office.

  “On what grounds?”

  “The meth lab?”

  I shook my head. “We have no proof whatever.”

  I had looked all around for garbage bags but found none. Damon Saint appeared to have cleaned the place out like a professional. Not surprising, I thought, considering his experience with Pro-Kleen Carpet Care. But after we had left, I thought of one place I hadn’t checked—the drawers in Damon’s workbench. No doubt he had looked inside, but had he pulled them out? Sometimes papers would fall behind drawers and be missed. There could be other places a more thorough probe might turn up something useful. I needed to go back for another look.

  “What about that call from Molly?” Jill asked. “She obviously saw something down there that really shook her up.”

  “True. But, unfortunately, we have no idea what it was. Maybe drug paraphernalia. Maybe the carcass of some canine he caught.”

  “I didn’t see any blood,” she said. Then her eyes narrowed. “It was something that scared her to death, Greg. Flossie Tarwater didn’t detect any coercion, but I’ll bet Damon walked Molly to the car and opened the door to make certain she got behind the wheel. Then he followed her to be sure she drove where she was told to. We have to help her. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  I finally surrendered and agreed to call Phil Adamson when we got to the office, provided Jill would rustle up a cup of cappuccino. Addicted to the stuff, we used a powdered French Vanilla mix rather than a noisy machine.

  “Hi, Greg. How are you making out with the new client?” Phil asked.

  “Great. Jill’s going to work at the restaurant tomorrow night as a hostess. Hopefully she can dig up some leads worth following. How’s the Bernstein case going?”

  Adamson gave one of his patented growls. “Nothing we can hang our hats on yet. We’ve been interviewing hotel employees. Got a couple of black room service guys with no alibis. We have a possible motive, but haven’t been able to link it to them.”

  “What’s the motive?”

  “Seems the hotel had to pass up a proposed pay hike after the Fed made a big jump in interest rates. It affected the convention business and some people got laid off.”

  “Interesting. It sure would have helped if somebody had seen the guy, though.”

  “Oh, they did. A couple of women from housekeeping passed him in the tunnel. But they didn’t pay much attention, thought he was an actor dressed for the mystery party some convention was holding that night. We found a few other employees who were in the parking lot around that time, but they don’t remember seeing anything.”

  “Are the Bureau boys giving you any trouble?” I sipped gently on my cappuccino to avoid a roasted tongue.

  “Trouble! They’d like to move us out of the way, but the chief ain’t budging. He says they want us to do their job with the small crap like bank robberies. He’s not about to give in to them on a high profile case like this. It’s supposed to be a joint effort.”

  “Sounds like a little turf war.”

  “Yeah. I don’t agree with the way things are going. Sure would be nice if everybody would share what they know. It’s like the old federal problem with homeland security. But the Bureau doesn’t want to tell us what they’re doing, so we’re reciprocating.”

  “A typical joint effort,” I said.

  “We’re checking out a few other things. The surveillance cameras gave us some good shots of the guy, but not a full face. He had a porkpie hat pulled down and the collar turned up on his coat.”

  “We saw it on TV last night,” I said. “At least you’ve got something to go on. That’s better than we’ve done with the Molly Saint case.”

  “Molly Saint? Name sounds vaguely familiar. What’s it about?”

  “She talked to somebody down there before she came to us. Maybe it was your office. She says she’s afraid of her husband and asked us to check him out.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s where I heard of her. She didn’t have near enough to make a case, as I recall. We told her we investigated crimes, not people’s suspicions. I don’t suppose you’ve turned up anything.”

  “There’s definitely something wrong here,” I said, toying with my cup. “We just haven’t been able to put a finger on it yet.”

  I gave Phil a quick brief on what we had learned in Indiana, about Molly’s call to us and what we had found at the house in Antioch. “Any way you might be able to help us on this?”

  “I don’t see how right now, Greg. We’ve really got our hands full with Bernstein. The chief’s got everybody running their asses off. If you get something more solid on Molly, though, give us a call.”

  “Thanks, Phil. I will.”

  “By the way,” he added. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you not to let out any of the stuff I’ve mentioned. The captain would fry me in an iron skillet.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m an old hand at this confidentiality game. But I’m curious, why’d you decide to confide in me?”

  “You’re a top-flight investigator, Greg. I have a lot of respect for you. I know you get around town a lot. I figure if you have the big picture and you see or hear something we might need to know, you’ll give me a shout.”

  After I related Adamson’s remarks to Jill, I told her I didn’t see what else we could do for Molly unless she got back in touch, even though we hadn’t earned all the money she’d given us. We didn’t charge the flight to Indiana to her account. I could probably have gotten most of the information by telephone, though experience has shown a face-to-face interview is much more productive. Anyway, Jill said she needed the flight time to get back up to speed after several idle months resulting from rotator cuff surgery.

  “I think I’ll call the freight line and see if Molly’s there,” Jill said. “Maybe she’s checked in with them.”

  While she talked with a woman at Maxxim Motor Freight, I got on the other line and checked our answering machine at home. Surprisingly, we had a message from the manager at the Hendersonville King Cole’s. He had received an okay from the Atlanta office and wanted Jill to come in tonight. The hostess scheduled to work had called in sick.

  Jill frowned as she hung up the p
hone. “Molly took a few days off, as she told us. They’ve heard nothing from her.”

  I nodded. “Did you by chance inquire about the girl in the office who was Molly’s close friend?”

  “Her name is Peggy Davidson. She’s an insurance clerk who works with Molly. She’s in Memphis for a couple of days. Getting clued in on a new insurance carrier who’s taking over the company’s account. I left word to have her call me when she gets back.”

  “Good thing we don’t need to do anything at the moment,” I said. “You’re wanted in Hendersonville in a little over an hour. I’ve got to get busy making arrangements on my end.”

  ———

  After contacting Logan, I took Jill home and made a few phone calls. One was to a young man I had met who was interested in learning something about detective work. I had taught him a few surveillance techniques and promised to use him occasionally. I asked him to find a good observation post around King Cole’s and count the customers going in that night.

  Jill left for Hendersonville in her Camry about the same time I headed out to the Opryworld Hotel.

  Logan’s room had a balcony that looked out over the Riverwalk area, which was several times larger than the Lakeside section. Its soaring canopy of glass covered buildings with a New Orleans look, plus a river that ran around the area with flatboats carrying passengers. Among the buildings inside the Riverwalk was one that housed the hotel’s major restaurant, which had the tall white columns of an old Southern mansion. Palm trees, tropical greenery and brightly blooming flowers lined walkways along the riverbank.

  After showing me the view, Logan invited me to have a seat at a round table near the doorway to the balcony.

  “It’s a good thing I went out to the bank today,” he said. “Got all the arrangements made.” He opened a leather attaché case on the table. “Here are the marked bills. Have you had time to line up your customers?”

  “I’ll bring a couple of parties of four,” I said. “We’ll have two checks for each table.”

  “I’ve counted the cash, but you’d better do it again. I want to be sure we agree.”

  As I thumbed through the stack of currency—twenties, tens and fives, five hundred dollars in all—I reflected on the plan I had devised. I would take the friends I had recruited out to King Cole’s and have them order expensive dinners. We would pay with cash. King Cole’s cash.

  ———

  We arrived at the restaurant around seven. I had brought Sam and Wilma Gannon, our friends whose son Tim was the victim in the murder case we had solved back in the fall. My “date” was another member of our Sunday School class, Dee Webber, a silver-haired widow whose husband had headed a local fast food firm. I let Sam sign up with Jill so she would be calling for the Gannon party instead of McKenzie.

  Just behind us were two other couples from Gethsemane United Methodist Church in Hermitage. They had been briefed on what we were doing. Leading the party was a guy named Burton Pace, who was a retired deputy sheriff from just across the line in Wilson County.

  After a brief wait, Jill managed to seat us at nearby tables but with different servers. As she placed the menus in front of us, she smiled at Dee.

  “That’s a handsome guy you’ve got there,” Jill said. “Your husband, I presume?”

  “You’re not suggesting I would go out with somebody else’s husband, are you?” Dee asked with a grin.

  “You never know these days.”

  We ordered wine and steak or lobster, running up a nice tab. The rather humdrum conversation did little to liven the evening. The subject that brought the most reaction involved an effort to re-zone several parcels of property near our church from single family to multi-family, a move that would allow construction of an assisted living facility. The proposal had touched off a storm of squabbling in the area.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Sam said. “I’ll bet that section of Hermitage has a lot of folks in our age bracket. Wilma and I might be looking for a place like that before too long.”

  “I don’t know.” Dee Webber gave a slight shake of her head. “Having too many old folks around might be a bit intimidating if you’re not ready for it.”

  “Jill keeps telling me we’re only as old as we think we are,” I said. “Sometimes I get the feeling she still thinks like a kid.”

  “That’s interesting,” Wilma said with a smirk. “According to Jill, you’re the one who’s prone to act like a kid.”

  There’s a difference between kidding and acting, but I didn’t want to get into that. Meanwhile, I did my best to keep an eye on Jill, on how she made out with her hostess chores. I noticed she frequently cast glances at the waiters, particularly when they were carrying checks.

  Our server turned out to be a talkative young fellow who said he was a student at Volunteer State Community College, just up the road toward Gallatin. He did a fair job of bringing hot rolls and keeping our coffee cups filled. After we had stuffed ourselves with food and drink and dessert, he brought checks for Sam and me that each totaled more than fifty dollars.

  I had arranged for Sam to sit next to me. Turning my wrist at just the right angle, I photographed the checks with one of my latest pieces of spy gear, a watch camera. The gadget was barely larger than a sports watch. It displayed hours and minutes just like a regular timepiece, but when you pressed a button, the display showed what the camera lens saw from the side of your wrist. I had provided Burton Pace with another miniature digital camera, that one about the size of a pen. Sam and I put our cash out, leaving generous tips that would require no change.

  “Have a nice night,” Jill called out as we left.

  After taking leave of my friends at a parking lot in Hermitage, I headed home and downloaded the digital images from the watch and pen to my computer.

  ———

  Jill came dragging in a little after eleven and sprawled on the sofa like a three-year-old rag doll.

  “I hope you enjoyed stuffing yourself,” she said, blinking tired eyes. “I haven’t spent so much time on my feet in ages. I’m beat.”

  “I thought an old shopper like you would have no problem.”

  “Fighting impatient customers and waiters convinced you’re ignoring them is not like shopping.”

  I patted her on the shoulder. “Want me to make you some coffee?”

  “I don’t want to even think about food or drink.” Then she glanced up with a troubled look. “Have you heard anything from Molly?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Maybe we’ll hear something tomorrow. But we’d better get to bed now. Remember, we have to be at the bank when they open the night deposit bag in the morning.”

  12

  Promptly at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Jill and I met Logan in a private room at the bank in Hendersonville. Stacks of bills lay on the table before us. We went through them one-by-one, comparing the numbers to those on a list the bank had made up the day before. Only one twenty-dollar bill from the cash my dinner companions and I had used showed up in Thursday night’s proceeds.

  “Where’s your photos of the checks?” Logan asked.

  I took them from an envelope and laid them on the table. He had gone by the restaurant earlier and picked up King Cole’s copies of the checks from the night before. He would have them back before the manager came in. We soon determined the checks for our meals were missing. However, we found other checks with the same transaction numbers in the pile, showing only pie and coffee. The difference amounted to over two hundred dollars.

  “How could that happen?” I asked.

  Logan had a look of disgust on his face. “The manager must have a little computer program of his own that slips in to change the data. The question is, how many are in on it?”

  When he compared the checks with the head count my man had done outside the restaurant, Logan said either a lot of people got free meals or a sizeable amount of cash was missing.

  Jill looked around. “I talked to one of the waiters about how much money you c
ould make there. It was Charlie, the boy who had your table, Greg. Something he said made me wonder—wait till Sunday, that’s when you can really cash in.”

  “The only thing different about Sunday is the buffet from eleven to three,” Logan said.

  I turned to Jill. “Did they ask you to work Sunday?”

  “Not yet. The girl whose place I took is supposed to work tonight. I’m scheduled for Saturday.”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll be rested up by then.”

  “Did they give you a rough time last night?” Logan asked with a grin.

  “It wasn’t all that bad,” she said, fudging a bit, I’m sure. “I’m just not used to that much standing at one time.”

  “Why don’t you try to talk to a few more waiters tomorrow night,” I said. “Make them think you’re interested in getting some of that extra money. See what they say.”

  Logan looked thoughtful. “There’s one possibility I’ve heard of with a buffet. You could hold out a few tickets and use them over and over again with different customers, then pocket the money.”

  “It’s a one-price buffet?”

  “Right.”

  “What about drinks?” I asked.

  “After a few customers, you’d have whatever you needed—checks for two people, three people, with drinks, without.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Don’t they have the time printed on them?”

  “That’s right. You could tell by the time whether a ticket was old or not.”

  “It might be worth laying on another meal monitoring project,” I said. “We still have plenty of cash left.”

  Jill liked the idea. “I’ll bet we wouldn’t have any trouble recruiting some church folks for the Sunday buffet.”

  “Good,” Logan said. “Let’s do it.”