Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) (7 page)

“No,” I said.

Jill had a cell phone in her car. If she’d had a breakdown or run out of gas, she would have called me. Viewing the kitchen as a crime scene, I
visualized
what had happened. Jill had come home from the grocery, left the door unlocked as she put her perishables in the fridge, and was surprised by intruders. They trashed the house then, for reasons unknown, took her with them.

Why her car had been deserted on
Andrew Jackson Parkway
was another mystery. One I needed to look into.

I ran shaky fingers through my hair. What kind of law enforcement pro would let his wife be snatched right from under his nose? I had to get my act together, start performing like the skilled investigator I had once been. I had to find Jill.

I pulled on my jacket and hurried outside. As I climbed into my Jeep I felt the comfortable bulk of the Beretta, which I had not carried in a good while. I fired up the Jeep and made a speedy exit from the driveway. The location Sam gave me for the Camry was between a couple of subdivisions. There were no houses nearby. Though it was only about three miles away, there was a school zone to get through and a passel of traffic lights. I made it to the red Camry in something like five minutes.

I pulled in behind Jill’s car and set the parking brake. Striding up to the passenger side door, I found it locked. Same with the driver’s side. Pulling out my billfold, I fished among the spare keys I carried and found one for the Camry. Sliding in behind the wheel, I felt a tug at my heart as the smell of Jill’s perfume hit me. Taking a deep breath, I looked around. Nothing had been left on the seats. I opened the compartment in the console and there was her cell phone. Slipping the key in the ignition lock, I turned it to the right and the engine fired immediately. I shifted into drive and moved a couple of feet. The car ran perfectly.

Who had left it here and where was Jill?

I had to use my head . . . think. Why would anyone tear our house apart and then take Jill? Were they after something they couldn’t find? Did they think she could lead them to it?

I pulled out Jill’s cell phone and dialed our home number. I didn’t have much hope, but maybe there would be some sort of message about her. When I got the answering machine, I punched in the remote code. All I got was the twelve-year-old voice of our next door neighbor’s kid, who had picked up our mail while we were on our trip.

“This is Ricky, Miz McKenzie. Let me know when you get back and I’ll bring your mail over. Bye.”

He should have known we were back, I thought. I didn’t have time to call him anyway. Returning to my Jeep, I headed for home in a little more law-abiding fashion. Parking beside the house, I had just punched the entry code and opened the front door when I heard the telephone ring. I grabbed the phone off an end table beside the living room sofa and answered.

“Mr. Gregory McKenzie?”

“Yes.”

“Where is the scroll?”

I dropped onto the sofa. Finally. Some Arab sonofabitch. “The scroll?”

“The scroll you were given in
Jaffa
. It belongs to us and we want it back.”

The souvenir Dead Sea Scroll. Things began to fall in place. His voice, I realized, had the same accent as the bearded Arab, no doubt Palestinian, who practically forced the package on me in
Jaffa
. This man’s English was much better. Obviously I had been targeted in advance. Now the passport check just inside
Jordan
made sense. Whoever plotted this little caper had plenty of helpers scattered about the
Holy Land
and beyond.

“You will receive a nice reward when you hand it over,” the caller said.

When
, not
if
. I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but I didn’t like ultimatums. “Harm my wife and you’re dead.”

“Don’t overreact, Mr. McKenzie. Your wife is safe just as long as you do what we say. As soon as you have the scroll available, we will arrange a meeting.”

My voice rose with a mixture of anger and fear. “You ransacked our house and took my wife. Bad mistake.”

“Mr. McKenzie,” he said, “I would advise you to be most cautious in what you do. We intend to get our scroll back.”

And my threats were those of a toothless tiger.

“No harm will come to her as long as you produce the scroll,” he added.

“Let me talk to her,” I said. “I want to know that she’s all right.”

“You may talk to her when you have the scroll,” he said. “I will call back in three hours.”

“Wait–” I began.

But the line was dead.

Chapter
9

The wall clock showed
3:28
. If he had just waited a moment longer, I would have agreed to give him whatever he wanted to get my wife back. Now I faced an agonizing delay until
6:30
. I had let Jill down by failing to be here when she needed me, and now I had doubled the offense by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

There were things I could do, of course.
Now that I was certain of her abduction, t
he logical alternative was to call the police, get them on the trail of whoever was holding Jill.
B
ut I hesitated. In the wake of my visit with Sergeant Christie, I had some real doubts about how my report might be received. If they were willing to use a simple break-in as an opportunity to toss a little mud my way, I shuddered to imagine what a call like this might prompt.

But one thing I had no doubt about–though I had retired, I was a trained, competent criminal investigator and I did not intend to sit here and wait for three hours. I pushed up from the sofa and hurried up the stairs. I wanted to know what the devil I had brought back from
Israel
so important that Jill would be held hostage because of it.

In the bedroom I zipped open Jill’s carryon bag, pulled out the box and slit the tape with my knife. Surprisingly, inside was a brown plastic canister rather than the clay pot I expected. It was something akin one of those kitchen gizmos Jill would bring back from a Tupperware party. I pried it open and lifted out a rolled-up sheet of material rather like grimy, heavy paper. I realized what I held was not just any old scroll but a parchment document that could be ancient. I was afraid it might crumble between my fingers.

The lettering I could see meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t know beans about Hebrew, but it resembled some of what I had seen in
Israel
only days before. If it wasn’t a
Dead Sea
scroll, it was probably something close. No doubt I had broken somebody’s laws in transporting it from
Israel
to
Jordan
to the
U.S.
I had no idea what I was doing, of course. But I could picture me telling that to a Sergeant Christie or a Detective Tremaine.

Then I thought of David Wolfson, Jake Cohen’s Jewish friend in
Nashville
. Jake had always carried a Hebrew Bible with him. He said his friend was heavily into the Bible codes, which dealt with lettering in the Torah. Wolfson was likely fluent in the language as well. But could I trust him?

I had no choice.

Gingerly, I placed the scroll back into its can, put the lid on and took it down to my desk, where I had left the slip of paper with David Wolfson’s phone number. The first thing I saw was my favorite picture of Jill, standing beside her Cessna. I felt a catch in my throat but fought it off as I dialed the number. What I heard was a voice with a pronounced
New York
accent. “This is David. Not the king, the other one. If I’m not busy somewhere, I’m asleep, but I’ll check your message soon if you care to leave one. Shalom!”

I liked David. He had the kind of perverse sense of humor that appealed to me. I hoped he could be of help. After the beep, I replied, “This is Greg McKenzie, David. I have a message from your friend Jake Cohen in
Jerusalem
. Please get back to me as soon as you can.” I left my phone number.

After hanging up, I looked back at the desk and my eyes fell on the caller ID box. I reached out a finger and stabbed the “Review” button, shaking my head in frustration. I should have done that earlier.
Think
. I was too loose, erratic. And old, maybe.

The last call showed a number with the notation
PAY PHONE
. Fortunately, I had made several useful contacts during my brief tenure with the district attorney’s office, one of them being the local BellSouth security man. His name was Charles Hankins but he was known to most people as Chili. I hurried back up to the bedroom where I had left my phone list and looked up his number, then sat on the side of the bed and dialed. He was in.

“Chili,” I said, “this is your ex-buddy Greg McKenzie.”

“What do you mean ‘ex?’ Just because the DA, the police force and Harlan Walker Blackford have you on their shit list doesn’t mean I’ve disowned you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That’s damned comforting. How have you been?”

“Well, I thought I’d died a while back, but I didn’t see the obit. So I just keep on going like it never happened. What about you? You’re not in trouble again, I hope.”

“Maybe. I need a little favor, though.”

“Figures. Nobody loves old Chili just for his own sweet self. What can I do for you?”

Chili Hankins was not noted for his tender, loving disposition. More aptly his nickname could have been spelled “Chilly.” I gave him the pay phone number and asked if he would check the location. He promised to call right back.

Less than five minutes later, while I was unpacking my bag on the bed, Chili informed me that the call had been made from a phone next to an auto repair shop on Riverside Drive in East Nashville. Riverside was a main thoroughfare that started at Shelby Park and meandered back and forth, uphill and down, for better than two miles before becoming a street with a different name near Gallatin Road, in the Inglewood suburb. A divided roadway with one lane going in each direction, separated by a wide median of greenery, it was built many years ago and was probably the city’s first urban parkway. But it was not one you would likely take unless you lived nearby. I had combed the area once in search of a witness. A lot of the houses on
Riverside
had seen better days, but there were nicer and newer subdivisions on the east side toward the
Cumberland River
.

I thought it likely Jill was being held somewhere in the area, though that covered a rather large chunk of real estate. Add this bit of knowledge to the undecipherable scroll I possessed and I felt like the football running back who made all his yardage racing from sideline-to-sideline. I was getting nowhere in a great big hurry.

As I stood near Jill’s dresser, I saw a tissue hastily dabbed with a smudge of her lipstick. I swallowed hard as I caught the scent of her perfume hanging lightly in the air. I could almost feel her presence, but I couldn’t touch her. She was somewhere out there . . . and she was relying on me. After all these years, I know her. She was putting her nickel down on me.

Chapter
10

I had come back down to the office shortly after four when David Wolfson returned my call.

“What’s this about that old rascal Jake Cohen?”

“I just got back from a trip to the
Holy Land
,” I said. “He was our tour guide. He asked me to call and give you his regards.”

“Has he found a nice Jewish girl and settled down?”

“No, he’s still single. Seems to enjoy it.”

“Not surprising. I haven’t heard from him in awhile. I suppose he told you we were roommates at
Princeton
?”

“No, just that you were good friends, both New Yorkers. And Messianic.”

“Right. Jake was instrumental in my conversion, you know. He’s a real Bible scholar. Did he give you a sermon at every stop?”

“Not quite. But he could quote chapter and verse about every place we went.”

“I should go over and let him show me around sometime, but I’m allergic to gunfire. I was nearly killed by a crack head around
Central Park
. That’s the main reason I put the Big Apple behind me. Now
Nashville
’s getting almost as bad.”

“Jake told me you knew your Bible pretty well, too. The first five books, something about Bible codes.”

“Yeah, I’m a statistician. I’ve done a lot of analysis on the Torah codes. There are enciphered predictions in there about all sorts of things that later came to pass.”

“That sounds intriguing,” I said. “Makes me more curious about what I turned up.”

“What’s that?”

“When we got back from our trip, I discovered that I had somehow acquired an old document–”

“Somehow acquired?” There was a dubious note in his voice. “What the hell does that mean?”