5 A Sporting Murder

by Chester D. Campbell

  When my cell phone rang, I pulled it off my belt and answered.

  “What the hell’s going on, Greg?” Phil Adamson asked. “One of the guys called and said there’d been an explosion at your house.”

  “Unfortunately true. My Jeep is among the dearly departed.”

  His voice turned cautious. “Anybody hurt? What happened?”

  I told him about our minor injuries and my speculation regarding a bomb.

  “Jeez. You think it had to do with that Cadillac Escalade?”

  “That or Izzy Isabell, but who knows?”

  “Without a tag number or model year, tracking down that Caddy would be like taking the haystack apart straw by straw to find the needle.”

  “And you don’t have the manpower for haystack dismantling.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “From all the fire equipment around here, even a HazMat team, you’d think we’d been attacked by Osama bin Laden.”

  “That’s standard procedure when there’s a bomb report.”

  I changed the subject. “Anything new on the Wechsel case?” I hoped something positive might be salvaged from this ill-starred night.

  He was silent a moment as if debating his reply. “The computer guys determined that he had used software to scrub his hard drive of anything he didn’t want found. But there was one file he either hadn’t finished or forgot about. It looked like a draft of a letter. No name, no address, no salutation. Indicated he felt he’d been treated unfairly. Said he thought he had done as instructed. The fact he didn’t come back with the money wasn’t his fault.”

  The other job we’d heard about? “Anything else in it?”

  “The tone changed toward the end. Apparently he’d been fired, and he sounded really pissed.”

  I looked across at my Jeep, which appeared to be barely smoldering. “The people we talked to said Arnold was prone to outbursts of anger,” I said.

  “That’s the picture we got, too.”

  “But the letter gave no indication who it was directed to?”

  “None.”

  “Could it be the killer?”

  “That’s a possibility. It wasn’t anybody at the race car shop, though. He was still working there. When I talked to them, they sounded highly complimentary.”

  “I hope you can find out who it involved,” I said. My peripheral vision caught a stir among the HazMat crew. “We’re waiting for the fire investigator to come. I’ll let you know what he turns up.”

  Chapter 23

  After I’d punched off the phone, I began to wonder if the intended recipient of Arnold’s letter could be the person who had set off a bomb beneath my Jeep. If that was the case, he must believe we were getting close to identifying him. Too bad I didn’t have that kind of confidence.

  Jill leaned toward me and spoke in a soft voice. “Hadn’t we better get you checked out at the Emergency Room?”

  The ambulance had left for another call. I looked around. “I don’t know that we could get past this road block. Anyway, I want to see what the fire investigator finds.”

  “Might have known you’d be stubborn about it,” she said, a grim look on her face.

  “Come on, babe. You want to know what’s going on here as much as I do.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want you getting an infection in that leg.”

  “The medic cleaned it good and put an antibiotic on it. I’m fine.” I put on a false face to mask the pain I was trying to ignore.

  The HazMat crew had just decided there was no further danger when the investigator arrived. He appeared to be fortyish, with a straight slash of a mouth and a square jaw that gave him a determined look. He spoke to the district chief, then walked over to us.

  “I understand you were in the vehicle,” he said.

  “Right.” I introduced Jill and myself and explained up front that we were private investigators.

  His eyes appeared to give me a little more contemplative look and he held out his hand. “Buddy Ebsen. No relation to Jed Clampett. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  I detailed our arrival and the shocking explosion.

  “This happened before the fire?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “My guess is a ruptured gas line leaked fuel onto the hot engine block.”

  “Or possibly the catalytic converter. They generate quite a bit of heat. If you’re private investigators, are you working on a case that might have triggered this?”

  Actually, I had questions about its relation to the NBA affair, but I decided to attack it indirectly. “I was involved in something last Saturday night that might be connected.”

  I told him about Arnold Wechsel’s murder. He recalled reading the news story.

  “I asked Chief Yunker to have the policemen knock on doors around the neighborhood and find out if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary. Let me make some photos, then I’ll take a look around.”

  Jill and I watched as he removed a digital camera from his case and made a calculated circuit of the remains, snapping dozens of photos. He put the camera away and used a flashlight with a powerful beam to probe about the front of the vehicle. Returning to his equipment case, he pulled out a device that looked a bit like a Dustbuster.

  He looked across at me, knowing I’d be curious. “This is a bomb sniffer machine. It’ll detect what kind of explosive was used. I don’t usually carry it with me, but it was handy so I brought it along.”

  He moved back around to where a large hole in the driveway marked the location of the explosion. After aiming the odd-looking device around the area, he checked the read-out.

  “Just as I suspected. ANFO.”

  “What’s that stand for?”

  “Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The favorite materials for IED’s in Iraq and Afghanistan, most famously used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”

  “And readily available anywhere around Nashville,” I said.

  “Your attacker wasn’t skilled at this, or you’d be no better off than your car. If the ingredients aren’t mixed in exactly the right proportion, the explosive effects won’t be as powerful.”

  I looked at the metal skeleton, all that was left of my Jeep. “Glad we have something to be thankful for.”

  He reached for his cell phone. “I need to call for a wrecker and get this hauled off to our forensic lab downtown. We’ll scour it for any kind of trace evidence. I’ll check with the ATF and be back to comb the area in the morning.”

  Jill had called Wilma Gannon while I followed Ebsen’s probe of the fire scene. She and Sam drove up about the time the investigator finished. My leg wasn’t too happy with the way I had ignored it, so I made no objection to their offer to drive us to the Emergency Room. The hospital was only a few miles away on Old Hickory Boulevard. With the clock getting on toward midnight, accidents on the icy roads had brought more than the normal crowd of patients. We found seating scarce as clumps of concerned families and friends crowded the waiting room. I was shuffled back to a small treatment room where they had me stretch out on one of those comfort-defying beds. Jill gave lip service to my plight, but I knew she was secretly satisfied that I got what I deserved. When the doctor finally got around to me, he took Jill’s side and chewed me out for not coming in sooner. His sewing job didn’t feel as gentle as my mother’s technique in darning socks had appeared, but I suffered through it, got bandaged up, and joined Jill and the Gannons for the drive home.

  The remains of my Jeep had been hauled away by the time we got there. The hole in the driveway and a large area around it had been marked off with crime scene tape. Sam maneuvered around it and dropped us off at the house.

  “Anything else we can do for you?” he asked as we got out.

  “Thanks,” I said, no doubt sounding as weary as I felt. “You’ve already gone way above and beyond. Get on home and hit the sack before it’s time for the alarm to go off.”

  “The only alarm Sam knows about is the one that goes off o
n the weather radio,” Wilma said. “He probably won’t get up until you’re at the office.”

  Sam shrugged. “Don’t call early or you’ll find her in bed, too. You probably need to get a little extra rest yourself, Greg.”

  “If I don’t get to work on time, my partner might dock my pay,” I said.

  Jill reached over to pat my stomach. “I’ll dock your dinner plate if you don’t shape up.”

  When we got in the house, we found a message on the answering machine. Wes Knight wanted me to call him at the newspaper. I glanced at my watch. Way past their deadline. I knew it was safe to punch in the number.

  “You have reached the desk of Wesley Knight. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

  I smiled. “Hey, Wes. This is Greg McKenzie. I got a cut on my leg and had to languish in the Emergency Room for a while. Just got home. I guess you know something exploded under my Jeep’s bumper. If you can get anything out of the Fire Department, you’ll know more than I do.”

  I placed the phone onto its base and turned to Jill. I felt like I’d been wrung out and hung out. “Let’s call it a day, babe. Or a night. Or maybe a week.”

  Chapter 24

  The pain in my leg had diminished little if any by the next morning. It only added to my determination to track down whoever was responsible for the annihilation of my Jeep, as well as the threat to my wife, and possibly the murder of Arnold Wechsel. The newspaper included a brief mention of the explosion “of unknown origin” that still besmirched a sizeable section of our driveway. The story said no one was seriously injured. I had to agree, it could have been a lot worse if we hadn’t bailed out when we did. That hardly lessened the soreness of my stitched-up leg.

  After arriving at the office in Jill’s Camry, we replied to a few emails inquiring about the news item, including one from our insurance agent. We discussed what to do about alternate transportation while drinking our cappuccino.

  “Do you want another Jeep?” Jill asked.

  “I haven’t made up my mind,” I said. “It makes a good car for a PI. Not flashy, but not monstrous like some SUV’s. Has space for hauling equipment. Yet it’s decent enough to take for a night on the town.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “When have we had a night on the town?”

  “You’ve forgotten about Red Lobster after the symphony?”

  “Oh, horrors, how could I have forgotten that?”

  “And the dancing…”

  “Dancing?”

  “Remember those lobsters shimmying around in the tank?”

  She turned back to her computer, shaking her head.

  Vernon Quillen of Pensacola called to see if we were in. He was at the Music City Sheraton Hotel near the airport and said he would be here in fifteen minutes. He arrived right on time.

  About Jill’s height, some would call it average, he wore a heavy tan jacket but no hat. Looking at his polished dome, I wondered if his mama had told him he’d lose most of his body heat through that egg-shaped expanse of skin? That’s what I’d always believed until I read where research showed it was a myth. In striking contrast, his broad mouth was circled by a black goatee. It gave him a sinister look.

  I moved around my desk to greet him. “Mr. Quillen?”

  “Vernon,” he said, reaching out his hand.

  “I’m Greg. Are you in town on business?”

  “Among other things. I own a charter bus company and work closely with a firm up here. I’d been meaning to pay them a visit ever since we suffered all the hurricane damage back in September.”

  I introduced Jill and invited him to have a seat in one of the client chairs that faced my desk. “Sorry we don’t have a little more Florida-like weather for you,” I said.

  “It’s been pretty chilly in Pensacola. Not quite this bad, though. Your private investigator friend said you were interested in Louie Aregis.”

  “We are. What can you tell us about him?”

  Quillen unzipped his jacket and crossed a leg as he straightened up in the chair. “The bastard, if I may use the appropriate term”—he glanced apologetically at Jill—“took me for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Recently?”

  “I just discovered it a few months ago.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “He sold me on putting money into a new business he was helping to get started. He runs a venture capital firm, you know.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “Solar power. With all the sunshine Florida talks about, it sounded like a natural.”

  “Didn’t turn out that way?”

  “In a word, a big fat ‘no.’”

  “And you lost a quarter of a million dollars?”

  “Yeah. Money I didn’t need to lose.”

  “Did the company go under?”

  “With a thud. Obviously, Aregis didn’t do his due diligence. He claims he lost money on the deal, too, but I’m not so sure of that. I know he got his commission on my part of it.”

  Jill came over and stood beside my desk. “Would you have any recourse to get your money back?” she asked.

  “I talked to my lawyer. He says unless we can prove that Aregis intentionally deceived me or failed to inform me of some material fact that put me at more than normal risk, I’m not likely to have any luck.”

  I shuffled around in a file folder to find the data search results on Louie Aregis. “Have you done any background checking on the man since he did this to you?”

  Quillen folded his arms. “I didn’t hire anybody, if that’s what you mean.”

  “On your own?”

  “I looked into his lavish lifestyle. He had a fancy home on the bay not far from the Pensacola Country Club. It took a big hit from the hurricane, but he’d already left. His wife was the belle of the ball, her picture always showing up somewhere. I don’t run in those circles, but I have a few friends who do. I asked around.”

  When he paused, I prodded him. “What was their reaction?”

  “They viewed him as a shifty character. They’d take his money if he wanted to buy something, but they weren’t about to give him any of theirs. Wish I’d talked to them first.”

  “Did anybody get specific about it?”

  “One thing. I don’t know if anybody had any solid information, but they said his mother’s family in Miami had Mafia connections.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “We hadn’t heard that.”

  “What are you folks after him for?”

  “We’re looking into his relationship with a deal to bring an NBA team to Nashville.”

  “Crap. I wouldn’t touch that with a pair of ten-foot poles.”

  “He’s got some pretty big guns behind him,” Jill said.

  Quillen gave a disgusted shake of his bald head. “If they’re smart, they’ll use the guns to blow off his lying head.”

  Shortly after Quillen left, Buddy Ebsen, the fire investigator with the famous name, called. “I’m over at your place with an ATF agent, Mr. McKenzie. We’ve found evidence that someone may have hidden in the wooded area at one side of your driveway. He could’ve waited there and triggered the explosion. There’s a trail through the trees that leads out to the road. He likely parked his car in a smooth area across the street that may have been a driveway or access road at one time. According to the police, nobody saw anything, though.”

  “I know the place you’re talking about. Somebody started to build a house over there a couple of years ago, then changed his mind. We have to complain to codes now and then to get the weeds cut.”

  “If the guy who did this parked over there, he didn’t leave any evidence of what he drove. The area’s graveled, so there were no tire tracks.”

  “Did you turn up anything along the trail?”

  “Yeah. Near where our man must have hidden, we found a piece of white tape with handwriting on it. My ATF buddy says it contains a designation that indicates it came off a mobile ham radio transceiver.
”

  “Could a radio have been used to trigger the explosion?”

  “That’s exactly what I think happened. We looked for cell phone debris but didn’t find any. He could have used a very small receiver to trigger the detonator that would have been destroyed by the explosion. One tuned to the frequency he used on his handheld. Do you know any ham radio operators?”

  “Nobody comes to mind. What about that box beside the driveway? Did you learn anything from it?”

  “No. It was a generic corrugated box you can buy at any office supply store. It had no writing on it. No contamination from explosives, except for being blown several yards away. Also no fingerprints. It could have been used as a lure, but I’d say the guy was careful enough to wear gloves.”

  “Are you through with the scene? Is it okay to fill the hole in the driveway?”

  “Sure. We’ve got all we need.”

  “Thanks for calling,” I said. “Let me know if you find anything else. Okay?”

  “I’ll do what I can, Mr. McKenzie. Call me if you think of any connection with a ham radio operator. It’s a long shot, but you never know when something like that might pay off.”

  “What’s the story?” Jill asked when I put the phone down.

  I repeated what the investigator had told me.

  “Does any of that match with what you know about Lieutenant Isabell?”

  “No,” I said. “I never heard anything about him being involved in amateur radio.”

  “Do you think they might find additional clues from the wreckage?”

  “I would hope so, but don’t count on it.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Why don’t you give Nikki a call? See if you can coax something else out of her with what we learned about Nick Zicarelli.”

  She picked up her phone, and I turned to my computer, experiencing a return of that uneasy feeling about Arnold Wechsel. There was something about him that I was missing. What it could be still stumped me. I decided to try the old routine that had worked well in the past. Rather than use the computer, I took out pen and pad and began listing major points in the investigation. It started with finding the body at the repair shop. I added the visit with Pete Lara, the talk with Wechsel’s neighbor, the questioning of Richard Ullery, right down to the identification of Nick Zicarelli. I had begun to look for common threads among the information we had gathered when I heard Jill approach my desk.