5 A Sporting Murder

by Chester D. Campbell

  Jill spoke in a quiet voice. “Was Arnold Wechsel collecting a gambling debt from you, Mr. Ford?”

  He looked shocked. I’m sure he hadn’t expected that coming from her.

  “No!” he shouted after a telling pause. He turned toward the doorway in an obvious effort to be rid of us. “I’m sorry, I have to go check with my staff before closing.”

  Chapter 21

  We bypassed the office and drove straight home to freshen up before heading for the Gannons. Our brief interview with Freddie Ford left us more than ever convinced that Arnold had been a party to some sort of gambling activity. Whether it involved Nick Zicarelli was less certain. We needed to do more digging on that score.

  When we arrived at our friends’ house, the unmistakable aroma of seafood greeted us. Wilma brought out plates heaped with shrimp, scallops, and strips of flounder along with steaming, buttery baked potatoes. A green salad tossed with balsamic vinaigrette and parmesan croutons rounded out the meal. And she had made fudge brownies, my favorite. I watched carefully to time my plate refills with moments when Jill turned her head to talk with our hostess. Sam grinned like a chimp as he watched my little game.

  After dinner, we adjourned to the den, Sam and I with our coffee mugs. The room had a bit more of a homey look than two nights ago. Fewer candles danced about and comfortable, casual furniture replaced the long table and folding chairs. Sam had gone by the church this morning to return the chairs and encountered the preacher, who apologized for missing our class party.

  “He also wanted to know if our favorite snoopers had gone AWOL,” Sam said, looking across at me.

  Jill and I had missed the last two Sundays. She’d flown us down to Ft. Lauderdale in her Cessna a couple of weeks ago for a consultation with a PI friend and a few days of R&R. This past Sunday we were mired deep in the Wechsel murder and Terry Tremont’s case.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  Sam gave a twinkle-eyed shrug. “I told him if he read the papers he should’ve known you’d be out tracking down a murderer.”

  “I can imagine his comeback.” The good reverend loved to needle me.

  “He said he’d noticed you spent a lot of time looking for bodies these days.”

  “Dr. Trent sounds more like our favorite homicide detective, Phil Adamson,” Jill said.

  I didn’t know she’d been listening, but I agreed. “Those homicide guys have a good reason for making jokes about their cases. It keeps them from going bonkers over all the blood and gore.”

  “After that comment, I leveled with the preacher,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “I told him you’d been to Florida. He said that was an acceptable excuse. Just don’t miss this Sunday.”

  Following that bit of repartee, Wilma and Jill began to take apart the state of education in the public schools, and Sam brought me up to date on his basketball-playing Dollar Deal friend.

  “He says his boss is concerned about Aregis’s grandstanding,” Sam said. “He thinks they’d be better off keeping things a little more low-key until they have something positive to announce.”

  I sipped at my coffee, debating a refill, as I digested that observation. “Sounds like there might be a bit of disharmony in the ranks.”

  “He didn’t get specific, but I got the feeling Howard Hays wasn’t real happy with the way Aregis has been acting.”

  “Hays is the most prominent party in the group,” I said. “He doesn’t want anything to go wrong that would reflect on his reputation or that of his company. Did it sound like a serious disagreement, like they night be souring on the deal?”

  “Oh, no. My friend is still all pumped up over the prospects. He’s really looking forward to it.”

  “Has he mentioned any teams they’re courting?”

  Sam leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Not that I recall. He said earlier that they were looking at several prospects.”

  “I guess it all boils down to finding a team owner who’s willing to consider selling.”

  “Would your client be happy if they can’t find one?” Sam asked.

  I set my coffee mug on the small table between us and smiled. “True. Personally, I’m not too concerned about whether or not we get an NBA team here, but I damned sure want to know who killed a man who called me and wanted to talk about it.”

  “Greg!”

  Jill caught me off guard, though I realized I had raised my voice a bit. And I knew I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was getting a bit touchy over the lack of progress in finding who had killed Arnold.

  “Sorry, babe,” I said. “I’ll watch my tongue.”

  “You’d better, if you don’t want me to wash your mouth out with soap.”

  “Yes, mom,” I said, and grinned.

  Wilma caught my attention with a wave. “You know you two are invited over Saturday for Christmas dinner. Tara will be here with the grandsons.”

  Tara was the widow of the Gannons’ son, Tim, whose murder we had solved down at Perdido Key a year ago. It was the event that prompted us to go into the PI business.

  “The way this case is going,” I said, “I’m hesitant to make any commitments. There’s no telling when something might break and we could find ourselves ankle deep in alligators.”

  We left the Gannons’ at nine o’clock. The clouds had broken up, freeing the ground heat to fritter away and the temperature to dip below freezing. The formerly wet streets now showed icy spots beneath a bright gibbous moon, which bathed nearby lawns in its pale glow. The gusty wind had died down. I turned on the heater to clear a few frosty patches from the windshield.

  I swung onto Chandler Road and headed for the McKenzie spread. Traffic was light, almost non-existent. We oohed and aahed at the houses with strings of glittering lights and yards decorated with Christmas scenes. That was one chore I didn’t have to worry about, since our house was invisible from the street. Some lawns featured mangers and shepherds, while others spotlighted a jolly old gent in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Closer to home, my mind wandered to the Cadillac Escalade from Sunday night and the question of whether it could be related to Arnold Wechsel’s murder.

  I dismissed the thought as I pulled into our driveway. The landscape appeared quiet and peaceful, but about halfway into the wooded area, the headlights picked out a box large enough to hold a basketball. It sat just off the driveway. I slowed and stared.

  “Where did that thing come from?” I pointed it out to Jill.

  She leaned forward in her seat. “Maybe it fell off a delivery truck.”

  “Possibly, but delivery trucks don’t usually go around with their doors open in back. I’ll check it out.”

  “Don’t bother it if it looks suspicious.”

  “I won’t.”

  I eased the car forward. As I was about to stop, a blast rocked us. The front end of the Jeep reared up like a bucking bronco. I felt my body slammed back against the seat. The thunderous roar was deafening. My head seemed about to split. A second jolt shook me as the vehicle fell back to the driveway.

  I thought I’d been blinded. Then I stared and realized the lights had gone out.

  “Jill…babe!”

  I reached for her frantically. She hadn’t made a sound.

  My thoughts were a jumble? What had happened? Was she badly hurt? I remembered the void it left in my life when she was abducted two years ago.

  I felt her arm move and grabbed her hand.

  “Greg?” Her voice sounded weak to my ringing ears.

  “Are you hurt?” I could see only a dim outline in the dark.

  “I think…I must have…must have bumped my head.”

  I realized my left leg hurt and vaguely recalled something hitting it during the chaos.

  “Something banged my leg,” I said. “Does anything hurt besides your head?”

  “I don’t think so.” She sounded a bit clearer. “What happened?”

  I looked out the broken windshield and saw the hoo
d up and twisted to the side. It looked like we’d been hit by a mortar. The windshield had disintegrated into small particles of glass scattered about, nothing large enough to cause an injury. Turning to the window, I spotted pieces of debris scattered about in the moonlight. As I clawed the cobwebs away from my head, I realized what had happened.

  “It was an explosion,” I said. “Some kind of bomb is all I can think of.”

  “A bomb?”

  A pungent odor jerked me upright.

  Gasoline.

  I hit the seat belt release and leaned across to press Jill’s. “Get out of here before this thing goes up in flames!” I yelled.

  Chapter 22

  I watched as Jill opened the door and slid out. The blast had occurred up front on my side. I wasn’t sure what damage it might have done. I grabbed the door handle and slammed my shoulder just below the window, praying it would open. With a crunch, the door swung to the side. I bounded out and ran around the back, yelling at Jill to call 911. Reaching the other side, I found the door ajar where she had jumped out. I reached in and probed under the dash for the fire extinguisher I kept stashed against the frame.

  The Jeep suddenly shuddered with a loud whoomp! Jill’s high-pitched scream sent me dancing backward. I saw flames leap above the engine compartment. My hand clutched the extinguisher, but I knew it was too small to fight a fire like this.

  I grabbed Jill by the hand and almost dragged her down the driveway toward the street. Smoke boiled up and flames brightened the area as if somebody had lit a huge bonfire. I held her tightly, noticed the upper lip curled between her teeth as we watched in awe, totally absorbed by the pyrotechnic display.

  I thought of my initial reaction that it must have been a bomb. In our driveway? Who could have put it there, and why? Was it former Lt. Izzy Isabell? I recalled the box in the grass. Had it been placed there as a lure, intended to make me slow down or stop? The troubling events of the past few nights painted a confusing picture. I had ruled out Isabell as responsible for the SUV parked nearby in the street. And this was multiple times more serious than a scratch on the side of the car. Did that mean it was related to the Wechsel murder? The phone call while we were gone, and the intrusion that set off the outside floodlights last night could have been anybody. It left a garbled picture. Was this meant as a warning, or did somebody want us dead?

  Sirens blaring in the distance abruptly broke my concentration. I squeezed Jill more tightly. “It sounds like help is on the way, babe.”

  The moonlight was enough to show the distress in her eyes. “Who could have done this, Greg?”

  “I don’t know, but we’d better figure it out before they succeed in whatever they’re after.”

  Headlight beams swung into the driveway, highlighting the blazing Cherokee. I turned to see the psychedelic display of red lights as the fire truck rumbled toward us. More lights followed, apparently from a Metro ambulance. The firefighters jumped off the truck and swarmed around us. I heard more sirens in the distance.

  “Is that your car?” asked a fireman who seemed to be in charge.

  “What’s left of it,” I said.

  “You reported a bomb?”

  “That’s right. It exploded under the front of my Jeep.”

  “Were you in it?”

  “My wife and I were. We got out before the fire started.”

  Another siren entered our driveway. I glanced back and saw one of the smaller vehicles driven by district chiefs.

  “Were either of you injured?” the fireman asked.

  My leg felt sore, but in all the confusion I hadn’t bothered to check the aftermath of whatever had hit me. I looked down and saw a tear in my pants leg.

  “A piece of metal apparently hit my leg,” I said, pulling up my pants.

  A paramedic from the ambulance had walked up and shined his flashlight toward my foot. It showed a cut that left the top of my sock a soggy red.

  “You’re going to need some stitches,” he said.

  Frustrated at my inability to have any impact on the situation, I stared at the heavily-clad firemen standing around. “Are you going to put the fire out?”

  “Nobody goes close to it until the HazMat crew gets here,” one of them said. “There may be explosives that haven’t detonated.”

  The paramedic had been examining my leg. “Come on back to the unit and let me clean that up. We need to get both of you to Summit ER and let them check you out. There could be internal damage.”

  I’d been in wrecks with more shock than this that didn’t cause internal damage, but I’d deal with that later. The medic, a lanky fellow in uniform coveralls with a solicitous bedside manner, took me by the arm and led me to his ambulance. Jill followed us. On the way, we encountered the district chief.

  “HazMat should be here any minute,” he said. “What’s the situation?”

  “The situation is my Jeep is toast,” I said. “Why do you need HazMat?”

  He gave me a look reserved for the uninformed. “They’ll have to check it out for anything hazardous before we can turn the investigators loose.”

  More sirens pierced the cold night air as the blue lights of a Metro police car pulled in, followed by another fire engine and a ladder truck. You’d have thought we’d been under siege by terrorists. I suppose that’s what they were assuming.

  The chief hurried on up to where the firemen stood, and the paramedic began working on my leg. Moments later we were joined by a Metro cop wearing sergeant’s stripes. He was short and stocky, in his forties. I recognized him immediately, Sgt. Gerald Christie. He pushed his cap back to show a receding hairline.

  “Looks like you have a problem, Mr. McKenzie.” His tone resembled a taunt more than a concern.

  “Just a small one, Sergeant Christie,” I said. “The Fire Department is taking care of it very well, as you can see.”

  The officer smiled. “I’ll go see what the Police Department can do to help.”

  My one and only encounter with the sergeant had come two years earlier when local affiliates of a Palestinian terrorist group ransacked our house and took Jill hostage. After noting that he obviously enjoyed my misery, I learned he was the brother-in-law of Murder Squad Detective Mark Tremaine. The detective had unmercifully tormented John Peterson, a young husband whose wife, Tessa, had disappeared, ignoring other possible suspects. It led to my supposedly off-the-record diatribe that appeared on page one of the morning paper, ending my brief investigative career with the District Attorney’s office.

  He walked toward the firemen as the paramedic finished patching up my leg.

  Jill frowned, her gaze following the sergeant. “Is that the man you told me about after the scroll affair?”

  “That’s jolly old Saint Gerald, Mrs. Tremaine’s brother.”

  “He didn’t sound too concerned,” the paramedic said as he completed the tape job.

  “We aren’t exactly friends,” I said. “His only concern is that I suffer enough.”

  “I’d better get you folks to the ER,” the medic said. He squatted and shoved his first aid paraphernalia back into the bag.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but that won’t be necessary.”

  “You need some stitches.”

  “My wife can take me later. I appreciate your concern, but we’re private investigators. We need to find out what’s going on here.”

  “If you decline to let us transport you to the hospital, you’ll have to sign a release,” he said.

  I turned to Jill. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but you need that leg looked into.”

  “It’ll be okay until things are wrapped up here.”

  Sergeant Christie returned as I was signing the release.

  “Looks like you have a nice pile of rubble decorating your driveway,” he said. “I’ve called for a couple of officers to keep people away from the scene.”

  I ignored him. A few people from the neighborhood had gathered out in the st
reet, but the HazMat team’s arrival kept them from trying to get any closer. Jill and I walked back to where the district chief stood. I heard one of the firemen yelling and saw two people coming through the trees that separated our property from the neighbor next door. I recognized Jay Rogers and his son, Ricky.

  “It’s okay,” I called out. “They’re my neighbors.”

  The fireman herded them over to where we stood. A tall, lanky man with long arms apparently made for swinging a tennis racket, Jay looked across at the debris.

  “Are you two okay?” he asked, showing genuine compassion in contrast to Sergeant Christie’s blasé attitude.

  “Just a little cut on my leg” I said. “Jill bumped her head. We got out before the fire started.”

  “It made one heck of a blast. I was in the shower and thought we’d had an earthquake. What happened?”

  “I wish I knew. Something exploded under the front of the Jeep. Then it caught fire.”

  “Sheesh! It’s sure lucky you got out when you did. Anything we can do to help?”

  “Did you see any cars or trucks over here tonight?” I asked. “Anything that might have looked strange?”

  Jay cocked his head thoughtfully. “It would’ve had to be back in the cleared area for me to see anything. I didn’t hear anything, either.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks anyway, Jay. I think everything’s under control. We can use Jill’s car until I get a chance to find a new one. That Jeep had seen its better days.”

  It had survived a battering down in Orange Beach a year ago and wound up with a new paint job. Now it lay beyond redemption, nothing left but a smoldering chassis. Izzy Isabell’s defacing scratch was nothing but a memory. Losing my faithful Jeep hit me almost like losing a loyal hunting dog, but what I felt at whoever had put Jill and me in jeopardy was pure outrage. I wanted to track him down and make him pay.

  First I had to deal with the here and now. The chief insisted that Jay and Ricky move out to the street. I didn’t think it was necessary since the flames appeared to be dying out around my Jeep. However, the bulky-suited hazardous materials specialists remained clustered nearby.