Surest Poison, The (9 page)

“The bank is just up Main Street on the
right. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks, Mr. Norris. It was a pleasure
meeting you. I’ll be looking for next Wednesday’s newspaper.”

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again,” Jaz
said as she shook his hand.

Sid struggled to repress a grin as the
young editor’s eyes brightened. He hadn’t been around Jaz all that long, but
it always amazed him the way her looks and natural charm could hook guys of
all ages.

Sid was about to get up when the phone on
Norris’s desk rang. The editor turned to answer it.

“They found what?” He grabbed a pencil
and started jotting notes on a pad. After a few “uh huh’s,” he dropped the
pencil. “Keep me posted on what happens. Okay?”

Sid stood as Norris put down the phone.
“Sounds like you got yourself a story,” he said.

“That was my contact in the sheriff’s
office. They found a body along Little Marrabone Road around the Davidson
County line. He’d been shot five times. They’re trying to decide if it’s in
Cheatham or Davidson.”

“I had to investigate an accident along
there once when I was with Metro,” Jaz said. “It’s a pretty lonely place at
night.”

The editor cut his eyes toward her. “I’ve
driven that way a time or two. As I recall, there aren’t any signs to tell
you when you enter or leave the county.”

Sid smiled. “I know one guy who hopes the
murder is in Cheatham County.”

“Why’s that?” Norris gave him a puzzled
stare.

“It’s a friend who’s a Metro homicide
detective. I’m sure he has his hands full already.”

“Maybe we’ll both be lucky. He’ll get to
stay home, and I’ll get a story for the newspaper.”

After they hurried out to the truck and
climbed in, Jaz looked across at Sid. “If that body is in Davidson County,
you can be sure it won’t be Bart’s case.”

“Why?”

“There have been a lot of changes in
Metro during the past few years. They split up homicide and assigned all the
detectives to the precincts. The only thing downtown now is a small cold
case squad. This end of the county is in the North Precinct.”

“And Bart’s in East.”

“Right.
And from what I hear, they don’t always talk to each other about what’s
going on in their areas.”

“So if this murder is the same MO as the
one he’s investigating, Bart might not know about it?”

“You’ve got it.”

Sid pulled out his cell phone. “I can
take care of that.”

He dialed Bart’s number and told him what
they had heard at the newspaper.

“Thanks for the tip, Sid,” Bart said. “I
used to partner with a guy in North. I’ll give him a call.”

12

The bank lobby
reminded Sid of one he had patronized in Lewisville. It had the usual
glass-topped table with slots for checking and savings deposit slips, the
wait-here-for-the-next-teller sign, and four windows with smiling young
women behind them. Not that much different from what you’d see in Nashville,
he thought. But there was a small town feeling about the place. Perhaps it
was the fresh-cut flowers, the coffee and doughnuts on the table, the easy
way they greeted each other by their first names.

“We’d like to speak to Sophie Bright,”
Sid told the diminutive woman with long brown hair who occupied a desk in
the lobby.

She glanced around at one of the small
glassed-in offices off to the right.
“Looks like she’s
on the phone.
Have a seat over there and I’ll tell her you’re
waiting. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Sid gave a slight shake of his head.
“Thanks. We’re fine.”

He and Jaz moved over to a couple of
comfortable chairs that faced a coffee table piled with magazines. A sofa
sat across from them, flanked at each end by large green plants. Jaz shifted
her gaze about the security cameras while Sid eyed Sophie Bright, who sat at
her desk with a telephone cradled at her ear. A large woman with short white
hair, she accompanied her conversation with hand gestures the listener could
only imagine.

A few minutes later, she came out of her
office and walked toward them. “I’m Sophie Bright,” she said with a pleasant
smile. “Did you want to see me?”

“Sidney Chance.” He handed her a business
card. “This is my associate, Jasmine LeMieux.”

The banker’s lively blue eyes gave Jaz a
quick appraisal. “I met your father, once.
A most
interesting gentleman.
It was one of the few occasions when I had an
opportunity to practice my French.”

Jaz’s expression turned pensive. “I still
miss him like it was yesterday.”

“I understood you had become board
chairman of Welcome Traveler Stores, Miss LeMieux. When did you get into the
private investigation business?”

Sid spread his hands. “She’s just helping
me on a volunteer basis. We’re both former police officers. She got me some
work for her company recently and found she couldn’t resist the lure of the
chase.”

“Come on in and tell me what you’re
chasing now, what I can help you with,” Miss Bright said.

They followed her into the small but neat
office and took chairs facing her tidy desk. Sid was impressed by the way
she had linked Jaz to Jaques LeMieux without hesitation. It looked like Carl
Norris had her pegged correctly.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the TCE
spill behind the HarrCo Shipping plant,” he said. “I’ve been retained to
find out the cause and who is responsible.”

She leaned on her elbows, hands folded.
“So how can I help you?”

“A company named Auto Parts Rehabbers
occupied the plant back in the mid-nineties and appears to be the culprit.
We haven’t found anybody who knows much about them. The only name I’ve
picked up is Tony Decker.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Decker. A handsome fellow,”
Miss Bright said. “I called on him to try and get his business for the bank.
I found him very cordial, although some others I’ve talked to, men, I might
add, thought otherwise.”

“You didn’t get his business, did you?”

“No. He said his financial backers had an
arrangement with an out-of-town bank. That was understandable.”

“Did you meet anybody else while you were
there?” Jaz asked.

“Mr. Decker introduced me to his Director
of Operations. His name was Pete Rackard. I remember a pair of shifty eyes
as his most prominent feature.
That and a limp.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. I wasn’t there very long. They were
polite, but they let me know they were very busy. I’m sure I was in the
way.”

Sounded a lot like Murray Estes’
experience, Sid thought. He looked up from his note pad. “Have you heard of
anyone else who worked for the company?”

Hands folded in a
steeple,
she tapped two fingers against her chin. “Mabel Urey once
told me a boy who lived down the street from her worked at that plant. She
was surprised because she’d never even heard of the place until then.”

“We’ve been out there,” Sid said. “Even
if you were looking for it, it would be easy to miss.”

“Mabel never was one to do much traveling
around.”

“Where does Mrs. Urey live?”

“I’m sorry. Mabel died two years ago. She
had breast cancer, and they didn’t catch it in time. She was the nicest
person, made the best pecan pie I’ve ever tasted.”

“Is there a husband or somebody else
living in the house?”

“No. She was a widow and had no
children.”

“Could you give me the address where she
lived?” Sid asked. “We’ll knock on some doors around there and see if we can
find the person she mentioned.”

He wrote down the address she gave him
and stuck the pad in his pocket. “We appreciate the information, Miss
Bright. You’ve been a big help. Do you mind my calling if I think of
anything else?”

“Please do. What happened with that
chemical pollution was a terrible tragedy for this community. I’ll be happy
to help any way I can.” She stood and walked them to the door. “By the way,
I remember someone mentioning they had seen Mr. Decker in Nashville. It was
a year or so after the plant closed.”

13

The rain had
changed to a light drizzle, just enough to be a nuisance and make a mess of
the windshield. They sat in Sid’s truck in the bank parking lot and
discussed what Sophie Bright had told them. The fact that Tony Decker had
been seen in Nashville a couple of years after Auto Parts Rehabbers closed
didn’t mean much. That was at least ten years ago.

Sid thumbed through his notes. “Maybe
we’ll have better luck tracking down Pete Rackard than we’ve had with Tony
Decker.”

“When I get back from my Board meeting,
I’ll get busy on him,” Jaz said. She glanced at her watch. “Right now you’d
better take me to my car. I need to head downtown.”

He started the truck and headed for the
restaurant. “Glad you came along this morning, Jaz. I
may need
more help down the line. After I drop you off, I’ll take a
run over to where Mabel Urey lived and see what I can learn about that
employee Sophie Bright mentioned.”

The address was not far off Highway 12,
Ashland City’s Main Street. Sid found a stretch of neat houses, most of them
brick, lined up like a row of squares on a checkerboard. It was an older
neighborhood, the street a narrow two lanes on a slight grade. Mature trees,
missing most of their leaves, dotted the yards. He pulled off and parked in
a space near Mabel Urey’s former home.

Sid donned his rain cap and headed for
the house beside the former Urey residence. He counted on his waterproof
windbreaker to keep him dry in the slow drizzle. After several punches on
the doorbell button, plus multiple knocks, he concluded there was no one
home.

The next house had a high-peaked roof
over a small porch. It looked a bit friendlier, with a sheaf of cornstalks
leaning against a post. A wreath fashioned of straw, dried fall flowers, and
small gourds hung on the door.

A woman he judged to be in her late
forties answered his knock. She wore a blue sweater and jeans, plus a
questioning look in her dark eyes.

Sid introduced himself and showed her his
P.I. license, a practice he had learned to follow whenever an interviewee
showed any reluctance. He explained his investigation of the TCE spill and
asked if she had lived on the street back in the mid-nineties.

“We’re from Birmingham originally,” she
said. “My husband’s job brought us here in 1995. He works for American
Universal.”

“The big plant over
by the river?”

“Right.
He’s in transportation. He’s responsible for scheduling and maintaining the
trucks.”

“Did you ever hear of anyone along the
street who worked for Auto Parts Rehabbers?”

She brushed back a stray lock of brown
hair. “I’ve never even heard of the company. Are they in Ashland City?”

“They were, but I guess they went out of
business around the time you moved here. Do you know if any of your
neighbors has lived here at least the past fifteen years?”

She thought for a moment, tapping a
finger against her chin. “Try Ethel Gardner. She lives the third house down
on this side of the street. She’s up in years and hard of hearing, but I
think she’s lived here forever.”

After his fruitless effort next door, he
thought it best to ask about other prospects. “Can you think of anybody
else?”

“No. I hate to admit it, but I don’t know
all my neighbors that well.”

“I can understand that,” he said.
“Anyway, thanks for your help.” He handed her a business card. “If you
should hear anything about Auto Parts Rehabbers, I’d appreciate your giving
me a call.”

“I’ll ask my husband tonight. If they
handled truck parts, I’m sure he’d know something about them.”

“Just for the record, could I have your
name?”

“Vickie Thomas.”

He walked on down to the third house, an
older white frame with tall, narrow windows. Noting the wrinkled look of the
woman who answered his knock, he could believe she had lived here forever.
She wore a faded yellow housedress and had her scrawny arms wrapped around a
fat black cat.

“Ethel Gardner?” Sid asked in a voice a
bit louder than normal.

She looked at him wide-eyed. “My, you’re
a big ‘un. I’m Ethel. Who are you?”

“Sidney Chance. I’m a private
investigator looking into the chemical pollution at the HarrCo Shipping
plant. You may have seen about it on television.”

“I don’t watch the news. It’s too
depressing. Come on in out of the rain, young man. You’ll catch your death
of cold.”

He smiled at the “young man” comment. She
sounded like his mother. Stepping inside, he looked around. The room was
crowded, but not with furniture. Rows of brown paper grocery bags filled
with an assortment of mail, magazines, and newspapers filled most of the
space. He hoped that was not an indication that he faced some sort of weird
eccentric. You never knew how much to believe from one of those.

Ethel Gardner lowered herself onto the
sofa, still clutching the cat. She waved Sid to the chair. “Private
investigator sounds exciting. Is it something like CSI?”

“It’s more like Jeopardy, figuring out
the right questions to ask.”

“I used to watch Jeopardy. Is that Alex
Trebek fellow still on it?”

Instead of waiting for an answer, she
proceeded to tell about all of the celebrities she had seen on the program
over the years. She appeared to have a decent memory and didn’t sound too
kooky. Sid listened as long as he could, with an occasional polite nod.
Deciding it was time to nudge her back to the business at hand, he broke in
when she paused for a breath.

“That’s very interesting, Miss Gardner.
But if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask about a boy who once lived on this
street and worked for Auto Parts Rehabbers.”

“Auto what?”

He spoke a little louder and slower.
“Auto Parts Rehabbers.
It would have been around
fifteen years ago. Does that ring a bell with you?”

She sat in silence, her brow rumpled, for
a full sixty seconds. “You know, that sounds like something I ought to
remember. My old mind doesn’t function like it used to, but seems like there
was a boy staying down at the end of the block.
Was
maybe a nephew, or something.
I don’t remember his name, but I think
that auto parts place was where he worked.”

“What’s the name of the people he lived
with?” Sid asked.

“Oh, they’re not there anymore. They left
some time back, about five years ago.”

His expectations deflated like a
punctured tire. “Do you recall their name, where they went?”

She reached both hands up to rub her
forehead and the cat leaped to the floor, stretched its legs,
sauntered
into the next room. “That was about the
time my husband died. My life was a confused mess back then. Talk to Vickie
Thomas up the street. I’m sure she could tell you.”

Right back where he
started.
Sid thanked her
and, after some lingering chatter, broke away.

Vickie Thomas came to the door, obviously
surprised to see him back so soon. He told her about his conversation with
Ethel Gardner. She said the people down the block who had moved away were
named Owens.
The Hershel Owens family.
Owens had
been a teacher in the county schools, but she couldn’t say for sure where
they had gone. It might have been Murfreesboro, she speculated, a
fast-growing town in the county just to the southeast of Nashville.