5 A Sporting Murder (16 page)

We arrived early at the arena, located downtown at Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The first of Nashville’s hotly-disputed, big-ticket,
publicly-funded sports projects, and the smallest at only $150 million, the
arena was fronted by a twenty-two-story tower that squeezed down to what looked
like a radio station antenna on top. The arena itself, viewed at night from
high up in a downtown hotel, resembled a clamshell opening with bared teeth, if
clams had teeth. We picked up the tickets Smotherman had left for us and took
an elevator to the Suite Level.

With the distinctive Hatrick Brake
Company logo at the door, we had no trouble finding the correct location.
Inside, it featured a counter with a variety of snack foods, a large flat-panel
TV screen above, and another table with a roll top food warmer. A row of chairs
behind a serving counter faced the ice rink, with two rows of seats beyond, angled
down toward the ice. A small Christmas tree covered with colorful lights and
ornaments stood in one corner of the room. A green wreath and garlands of red
and silver decked the walls.

“Glad you could make it,” a beaming
Brad Smotherman said as he hurried over to welcome us. He wore similar casual
garb to what we’d seen at his office.

“We take in a game now and then,” I
said, “but we’ve never been to the suites before. Nice location.”

“We’re almost on the red line, and
we’re high enough to get an excellent view of the ice.”

The red line was hockey’s
equivalent of football’s fifty-yard line. I gazed out over the expanse of white
below. Although this was more like a working vacation, I gave the work part top
priority. “When will Mack Nelson be here?”

“Just talked to him. He’s on the
way. Gordon said he’d drop by, also. He’s in a different suite. Sample the food
and make yourselves at home. There’s a restroom over there if you need to use
it. I think that’s where my wife is now.”

He introduced us to a couple of
visiting automaker execs and one of his top company staffers who would be
watching the game with us. One of the Detroit types talked about how he enjoyed
getting away from all the snow, although the frosty air made him feel like he
was back home. Moments later an attractive Asian woman came out of the restroom
and headed toward us.

“Maruko,” said Smotherman, “meet
the McKenzies, Greg and Jill. My wife, Maruko.”

She shook my hand and then Jill’s.
“You’re the ones working with Terry Tremont. So nice to meet you. I’m happy you
were able to be with us tonight.”

She had dark hair that nearly
covered her forehead and fell short on the sides. Dressed in a white shirt with
the Predator’s sabretooth tiger logo, she had a pretty face that showed few
hints of being as old as her husband. I’d always marveled at how some Japanese
women did such a great job of masking their true age.

“We’re looking forward to the
game,” Jill said. “Hopefully we’ll also come up with some ideas that will make
it worthwhile from Terry’s standpoint.”

“I’m sure that would make him
happy,” I said. “Incidentally, the Christmas décor looks great. I suspect
that’s your doings, Mrs. Smotherman.”

“Please, call me Maruko. And you’re
a good detective, Greg. That was indeed my idea. I love this season.”

I told Brad about the latest
developments in our investigation, including our suspicions regarding Nick
Zicarelli’s connection to Arnold Wechsel. When I related what Louie Aregis had
told Jill about their negotiations with an NBA owner, he pounded his fist
against the countertop.

“Crap! We need to crank up our
efforts. We need proof that something off-color is going on with these guys.”

Jill darted an anxious look my way,
but before I could reply, everyone’s attention shifted to the suite entrance. The
door opened and three chattering young men made their entry as noisy as a flock
of pigeons. I recognized Mack Nelson in his dust-brown cowboy hat, jeans, and square-toed
boots. A lean, wiry young man, he looked rugged enough to have come off a
ranch. But I knew he hadn’t. He grew up on the south side of Memphis, the son
of a pizza shop manager. A shorter man, a little older, also wore a cowboy hat.
The trailing figure appeared middle thirties, hard as a cedar post, with dark,
searching eyes. A security type if I’d ever seen one.

“Hi, everybody,” Nelson greeted us.

Smotherman patted him on the
shoulder and shook his hand. “Come in, Mack. Meet our guests, Greg and Jill
McKenzie. I told you they needed to have a few words. I thought we could get
that done before the game starts.”

Mack shook hands and nodded to
Maruko.

“I appreciate your coming,” I said.
“We’ve already talked to your two Protect Our Preds partners, and we need to
touch bases with you. I’m sure you know about the murder of a young guy named
Arnold Wechsel last Saturday. We think it’s tied in with this NBA deal, and
we’re trying to track down the connection.”

Mack Nelson nodded. “I haven’t had
much time to read the local papers, but Brad told me about what’s been goin’ on.”
He looked around and motioned to the man in the cowboy hat. “This is Deke
Bragg, folks. He’s my band leader. He keeps me on key and all that good stuff.
The fella over there against the wall givin’ y’all the evil eye is Rocky Topp.
Swears that’s his real name, but I dunno. Anyway, he’s paid to see I don’t wind
up like that Wechsel boy.”

After a quick trip to the snack
bar, Brad, Mack, Jill, and I pulled chairs together next to the wall. I gave
Mack a brief summary of what we had uncovered so far, adding a bit about the
explosion in our driveway the night before.

His hazel eyes widened. “They blew
up your car?”

“That’s right. We have no proof
that somebody associated with this case did it, but that seems the most likely
explanation.”

“Dang. Maybe I’d better lend you my
man Rocky.”

“The best thing you can do is think
hard about anything you know that might help us pin down what’s going on here.
Brad tells us you were the one who picked up the rumor that something wasn’t
right about the NBA situation.”

He crossed his legs and wiggled the
boot from side to side. “Actually, it came from a member of the band. I
promised I’d leave his name out of it.”

“Exactly what did he hear?” I
asked.

“He’s got a Porsche Carrera GT that
his brother bought just before he died. It’s a high performance car that he
gets serviced at a race car shop. Seems he was over there last week and
overheard a mechanic talkin’ on the phone. He sounded real put out. He was
sayin’ something like ‘I can ruin that basketball deal if I tell what that
man’s done.’”

Jill and I glanced at each other.
It had to have been Arnold.

“Did he say what the mechanic
looked like?” I asked.

“No. Just told me what he heard.”

“I need to talk to him,” I said.
“This could be the break we’re looking for.”

Mack narrowed his eyes and twisted
his mouth. “He doesn’t want to get involved, and I promised I wouldn’t use his
name.”

“After what Louie Aregis told them
tonight, this could really be important, Mack,” Smotherman said. “That musician
has to talk to Greg.”

“Why don’t you ask him to call us,”
Jill said. “We don’t care about his name. We only need to know exactly what he
heard, and who he heard it from.”

Mack folded his arms and looked
around. “Okay, I’ll give it a try.”

“Do more than try, son,” Smotherman
said. “See that he calls Greg.”

The hockey game started a few
minutes later, and we watched the action as fans yelled and screamed around us.
Ice hockey is the fastest game in sports and the crowd really gets into it. The
constant movement tends to keep you on the edge of your seat through all three
of its twenty-minute periods. During the first break, while the Zamboni
resurfacer cruised about smoothing the ice, Gordon Franklin wandered into the
suite.

He talked to Smotherman a moment,
then walked over to where Jill and I sat.

“Enjoying the game?” he asked, the
hint of a smile on his face. It was about as animated as we’d seen him.

At this point, the Preds were ahead
1-zip.

“It’s been pretty exciting,” Jill
said.

I stood and looked down at him.
“Good game so far. Have you had any thoughts about what’s been going on with
this basketball group?”

“No. I’ve been out of the office a
couple of days. I’ve had nothing on my mind but profit and loss statements,
cash flow reports, and the like.”

“We haven’t been so lucky,” I said.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t heard about the bomb
that destroyed my Jeep?”

His face took on an
I’m-not-believing-this look. “Heavens, no.”

I gave him the short version of
what happened in our driveway.

He rubbed his chin as though
stroking a beard. “I’d say you’d better be careful what you’re doing.”

“We plan to. And I pity the guy who
did this when I find him,” I said.

“When?”

I smiled. “When.”

“Well, good luck,” he said before
heading over to the food counter.

The Ducks scored in the second
period, and the game remained tied until the last minute of play. When the
Preds scored on a power play with 20 seconds left, the crowd went wild. Jill
and I stood and cheered along with everybody else.

After the clock on the scoreboard flashed
double zero, I turned to Brad Smotherman. “Thanks for setting this up. We
enjoyed the game, but now we need to get home and wait for that phone call.”

“I hope it proves productive,”
Smotherman said.

He wasn’t the only one. After that
earlier outburst, I had the feeling we were on a short leash with this case.

The phone rang just after eleven o’clock.

“Mr. McKenzie?” said a hushed male
voice.

“This is he.”

“Mack Nelson said I should call
you. What is it you want to know?”

“Could you describe the mechanic
you overheard talking on the phone?”

“Well, he was a big guy, six feet
or more, and young. And he had an accent.”

“German?”

“I’d say it was.”

“Did he use any names, maybe who he
was talking to?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Can you recall his exact words?”

“I’m not positive, but it was like
‘damn him, I can ruin that NBA deal if I tell what he’s done.’ Then he said
‘I’m not sure who to tell, but I’ll find out.’”

An icy wind moaned in the trees Friday morning. The gas
heating unit shifted into overdrive as the mercury hovered in the low 20s. I
used a plastic bag to cover my damaged leg before getting into the shower. The
steamy water considerably improved my outlook, and Jill had to coax me out with
a caution that breakfast would be cold if I didn’t hurry. Turned out she had
fixed hot oatmeal, which tasted especially good with plenty of butter and brown
sugar. The coffee helped, too. I used it to wash down two Texas-sized cinnamon
rolls. Oddly, she didn’t object to the double dose of pastry this time. I
presumed she felt magnanimous because it was Christmas Eve.

“I’m not sure how much we can get
done today,” Jill said, “since most businesses will be closing early. A lot of
them will have Christmas parties. I remember years ago going to some real doozies
at my dad’s office. Not much work got done.”

I reminded her of one pressing
matter. “We need to check into who sent that bottle of Scotch yesterday.”

Jill looked around from loading the
dishwasher. “I wonder if the Fire Marshal’s office, or the ATF, or the TBI Lab will be working as usual today?”

“I’ll give Jed Clampett a call when
we get to the office and see if I he’s turned up anything.”

“Would this be a good day to look
for you a car?”

“Maybe. Let’s see how it goes.”

I checked the driveway carefully
when we left for work. I wouldn’t be surprised at another attempt on our lives
by whoever had planted the bomb, but I expected any new effort would come in a
different form. That prospect plus Izzy Isabell still running loose out there
meant we’d have to remain as vigilant as soldiers on patrol.

I drove straight to the local office
of Express Delivery Service, off Elm Hill Pike near the airport. An older man
with an abundant white beard that made him resemble a character out of a
nursery rhyme greeted us from behind the counter.

I handed him a business card and
explained our problem with the package I had received yesterday.

“I need to talk to whoever accepted
it,” I said. “We’re trying to identify the man who brought it in and gave a
false identification.”

He squinted through his large,
round glasses. “Who was the package to?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Greg McKenzie
was on the card.”

“Yeah, I remember. That was me,” he
said. “It was a young fellow, not much more’n a teenager. He gave me a piece of
paper with your name and address written on it. Paid with a twenty-dollar
bill.”

“Do you still have the paper with
the address on it?”

“No. He wanted it back. Don’t know
why.”

I did. Lieutenant Isabell, if he
was the culprit, had probably paid the boy well to bring in the package and
retrieve anything that might be used as evidence.

As soon as we arrived at the office, Jill put on water for
cappuccino.

“I’ll go up the street and get us
some doughnuts,” I said. “That’ll be our office Christmas Party.”

She laughed. “Don’t bother, dear. I
brought some banana bread from the freezer. It’ll be thawed enough for
partying.”

She had just turned on the computer
to check our email when the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and saw it
was from Germany.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

When I answered, Jeff Price had a strange
tale to relate.

“Arnold’s mother got a mystifying
call a little while ago that really freaked her out,” he said. “It showed Arnold’s cell phone number in Nashville, but when she answered, nobody was on the line.
She called back and it rang but nobody answered.”

Arnold’s cell phone. I slapped my forehead
with the palm of my hand. Idiot! What was I thinking? Now I knew what had been
bugging me the past several days.

“Do you have Arnold’s number,
Jeff?” I asked.

“No, but I can get it for you.”

“Please.”

“I’ll call you right back.”

I switched off the phone and turned
to Jill. She stared at me like I had lost my mind, and that’s the way I felt.

“Arnold had a cell phone,” I said.
“Remember, his neighbor said she heard him talking angrily on the phone in the
hallway to some guy named Frank.”

Jill shook her head. “And neither
of us caught it when Phil Adamson said he found no evidence that Arnold used a cell phone.”

“I must be losing my marbles. That
should have rung a bell immediately.”

As Jill stirred our cappuccino a
few minutes later, Jeff called back with the number.

“This should be a big help,” I
said. “The homicide investigator didn’t think Arnold had a cell phone. When we
find out who he’d been talking with, maybe it’ll give us something to go on.”

“Do you have any likely suspects?”
Jeff asked.

“Some possibilities, but not one I
can pin the tail on. That’s what troubles me. I’m pretty sure the murder
relates to the case we’re working, but there’s no clear motive yet.”

“Let me know when you find
something. Lisle and her sister are getting really uptight over this.”

“I’ll call you as soon as we find
some answers.”

 I promptly put in a call for Phil,
but it went to his voice mail. I left word to get back to me as soon as he
could, that it was about Arnold Wechsel’s cell phone. I figured that would whet
his appetite.

I had better luck finding Buddy
Ebsen, the fire investigator, but that was the extent of my luck.

“Did you turn up anything from the
wreckage of my Jeep?” I asked.

“Evidence that a blasting cap was
used to trigger the bomb. We had figured that anyway. Have you thought of any
link to a ham radio operator?”

“Not since I was in Vietnam thirty years ago, and that was just to make a phone call home.”

When I told Jill, she gave me a
sideways glance. “What did you expect, a miracle?”

“I didn’t expect one, but it sure
would’ve been nice to encounter one.”

“Why don’t we drop by the Jeep
dealer’s and check out the new Grand Cherokees? I read where this year’s model
is a complete change from the old one. That’ll be your Christmas present.”

Sounded good to me. Nothing else
was making a lot of sense these days. Of course it created a bit of a dilemma.
I still hadn’t bought her a present. We had agreed not to buy each other
presents, but I figured she’d be disappointed if she didn’t get something. We
headed off to the nearest Chrysler dealer where, as expected, a glad-handing,
eager young salesman accosted us the moment we stepped into the showroom.

“Merry Christmas, folks,” he said
with a grin as wide as Detroit. “You’ve come at just the right time for the
best deals of the year. What can I show you?”

He was a bit on the hefty side with
short brown hair and a predatory look that was like a neon sign shouting “Buyer
Beware!”

“Let’s see what you have in Grand
Cherokees,” I said, confident my partner could handle anything he might throw
at us.

“Come right this way. We have a
real beauty in a Limited with a five-point-seven liter Hemi V-8 engine. Got
power the old Cherokee could only dream of.”

We followed him across the showroom
to a shiny red SUV that looked much sharper than my old model.

He launched into his pitch. “Has a
new suspension that gives better handling, leans less in corners, and gives a
better quality ride. The turning radius is tighter, too. Great in crowded
parking lots or driving off-road.”

“Does this one have four-wheel
drive?” I asked.

“You need four-wheel drive?”

“I do. When you’re on surveillance,
you need to be able to go anywhere.”

His eyes widened. “You follow
people? You must be a detective.”

“Private investigator.”

“Hey, man, that’s cool. This one
doesn’t have four-wheel drive, but we have plenty that do.” He moved around to
open the hatchback. “Look at all the cargo room. You can put all kinds of surveillance
equipment in here. This baby has a lot more room than the old Cherokee. Has
power adjustable floor pedals, rain-sensing wipers, adjustable roof rails,
eight-way power passenger seat—”

“What about gas mileage?” Jill
asked.

“Depends on the engine you choose.
Comes in V-Six or V-Eight. The six gets sixteen in the city, twenty-one on the
highway. With the eight it’s fifteen and twenty.”

“Better than I was getting with the
old one,” I said.

“It comes standard with four-wheel
anti-lock disc brakes and a tire pressure monitoring system. You can get it
with GPS navigation built into the radio.”

I had heard enough. “If you have a
Limited in black with all that, I’ll take it.”

He checked the records and returned
with word that they had one ready to go. The price was more than $34,000, but
my hard-nosed business manager got a nice chunk knocked off before we signed
the deal. When it was all over, we drove back to the office in separate cars. As
I was pulling into the shopping center parking area, my cell phone rang.

“I tried your office first,”
Detective Adamson said. “What’s this about a cell phone?”

I steered toward a parking spot
beside Jill’s car as I told him what Jeff Price had said about the cell phone
and what we remembered from the conversation with Arnold’s neighbor.

“Damn, Greg. I should have dug a
little deeper into that. But there were no financial records—”

“It’s pretty safe to say he worked
for Nick Zicarelli, probably collected money for him. I’d wager Zicarelli paid
him in cash, and Arnold likely paid some of his bills the same way.”

“You’re sure about old Nick?”

I went over our interrogation, what
we’d pried out of him, and Nikki’s response.

“I’ll get on this cell phone angle
and request a log of Wechsel’s calls,” he said. “I’d have to say Christmas Eve
isn’t a very good time to accomplish something like this. I have to get a
subpoena to start with.”

“I understand. We also followed up
this morning on the Scotch bottle delivery. It was sent from Nashville by a guy
using a fictitious name and address. He used a young man, practically a
teenager, to take the package to the delivery outfit. So no description. But he
gave a fake address on Sheridan Drive. I’ve no doubt it was Isabell.”

“Probably true, but we need some
evidence. I’ll check back with the fingerprint techs. They were supposed to
send the bottle on to the TBI toxicology lab. I talked to a buddy there who
promised to push it, but again, it’s Christmas.”

The Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation crime lab was state of the art. It would be only a matter of
time, but time was the problem. Everybody wanted to be off for the holiday.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” I said,
not really holding out much hope.

“Thanks for the cell phone tip.
Merry Christmas to you and Jill.”

I gave him our regards and glanced
over at Jill’s Camry. I didn’t know how she managed to get here before me. I’m
usually the fast guy in the family. But seeing her car reminded me of what I
needed to do. I detoured by the jewelry store a few doors away and looked for a
pin in the shape of a violin sparkling with diamonds. Jill had admired it recently,
mainly because of her mother’s symphony career, but she thought it way too
expensive. I had it gift-wrapped and trudged back through the cold to the
office. When I got there, I told Jill that Phil planned to go after the cell
phone logs but didn’t expect to get any quick results.

“Maybe we should wrap it up here and
head for the fireplace, too,” she said. “We can put our milk and cookies out
for Santa early.”

“Hmph,” I grunted. “From the looks
of his belly, he’d probably rather have beer and pretzels.”

“Oh, boy, some nosy elf is sure to
pass that on to him.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve already got
my new Grand Cherokee Limited. I’ll be warm and comfy while the old guy is
freezing his jolly red butt off in a topless sled.”

“I think I’ll nominate you for the
Grinch Award.”

When I reached my hand in my inside
jacket pocket to see if I’d left the gift receipt there, I felt something else.
I pulled out a folded sheet of paper and opened it.

“Dang, I may qualify for that
award.” I handed her the paper. “Sam gave me this the other night. It’s a
family the church was contacted about. I said we’d take care of it, but with this
case keeping us in a tizzy, I completely forgot.”

She read down the list. “Greg, we
should’ve bought this stuff three days ago. There are two kids to buy for, and
groceries. The stores close early.”

The phone rang. RT Investigations’
number showed on the caller ID.

“Getting ready for Santa, Red?” I
asked.

“He just came.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, in the form of the guy who
used to work for Louie Aregis.”

“Great. He give you some names of Nashville investors?”

“Five. You want to write them
down?”

I grabbed a pen and jotted the names
on a pad as he called them out. With number five, I whooped. “Bingo!”

“You know him?” Red asked.

“We just talked to him yesterday.
Send me your bill, friend. Our client will happily pay it.”

“There’s more, but I don’t know how
you could use it. Remember my FBI friend in New York? He’s in Florida now. We
were talking yesterday about some money laundering schemes they had run into that
involved investment firms. When I mentioned Aregis’s name, he said he couldn’t
give me any details but Coastal Capital was the target of an investigation.”

Jill sat there biting on her lower
lip when I put down the phone. “What did he say?”

“Nick Zicarelli is one of Aregis’s
clients.”

She slumped back in her chair.
“He’s obviously got scads of money, and he’s a basketball fanatic. I’ll bet he
put up the cash for Louie Aregis to buy into the NBA franchise.”

“And Arnold found out about it. He
got mad when Zicarelli fired him and decided to be a whistleblower.”