5 A Sporting Murder

by Chester D. Campbell

  The pieces all suddenly fell together. Arnold had collected bets from Franklin. Somehow Arnold found out about our investigation from the CPA, and Franklin learned the young man planned to meet me Saturday night at the repair shop.

  “I think you’re mistaken,” Franklin said.

  His right hand rested on the open drawer. I suspected the worst as he started to lift it. I pushed my jacket aside and reached for my Sig. Before I could get it out, he had a 9mm Glock pointed at my head.

  “Hold it right there,” he said in as menacing a voice as I’d heard lately.

  I should have been ready for this. I sat there as angry at myself as at him.

  “You talked to Arnold and found out he planned to meet me,” I said. “You got there before I did and killed him. Why?”

  Franklin’s expression never changed. “He intended to tell you that Nick provided the money for Aregis to buy into the basketball franchise. If they’d have dug into Nick’s gambling operation, they’d no doubt have turned up all the bets I’ve placed with him. That would’ve ruined my business. I couldn’t take a chance on that.”

  I recalled Smotherman’s comment that it would kill Franklin if anything happened to his accounting practice.

  “Zicarelli had fired Arnold,” I said. “How did you happen to tell him about me?”

  “Nick is super-cautious. He doesn’t depend on the mail or telephones. He uses people like Wechsel to take bets and handle payoffs. When I called the young man to meet me for a large bet I wanted to place, he told me he’d been fired. He was mad as hell and wanted to get even. He’d overheard Nick talking about funding Coastal Capital’s efforts toward an NBA team. I told him a private investigator was looking for ways to botch the deal. I suggested he set up a meeting with you at seven-thirty, when Pete Lara’s place would be dark and deserted. That’s where we always met.”

  “You took his cell phone, didn’t you?”

  He nodded with a look of satisfaction. “I was afraid my phone number would be on his call list.”

  “And you hoped I would be accused of the murder, didn’t you?”

  “That was the idea, but you’re apparently too clever for that. My little IED didn’t work either. I don’t know how you escaped the doctored Scotch, but I got my share of Charlies with an M-16 in Nam, and this Glock is capable of doing just as good a job in the U.S. of A.”

  A shot suddenly rang out beside me. A bullet tore through the front of Franklin’s desk, missing him. A quick glance told me Jill had shoved her hand inside her purse and fired her small revolver. Realizing what had happened, a startled look on his face, Franklin turned the semiautomatic toward her.

  Chapter 34

  My law enforcement training kicked in and I reacted. The moment Franklin shifted his attention to Jill, I pulled my Sig. I swung it up in one swift motion and clamped my left hand against it as I squeezed off two rounds. He pulled the trigger on the Glock as the first bullet hit him. His shot went wild, striking the wall behind us. Two holes appeared in his sweater.

  The look of surprise he had showed moments ago seemed frozen in place. He dropped the gun and slumped onto the desk.

  I leaped up and swept the weapon out of his reach, just in case.

  Jill moved in behind me. “Is he…?”

  I felt for a pulse. It was weak. “He’s alive for now.”

  I took out my cell phone, punched in 911, and reported a man shot at Franklin, Gretchen, and Silverman. Then I called Phil Adamson.

  “You’d better get over to Gordon Franklin’s office,” I said, breathing hard, the adrenaline still surging.

  “What for?”

  “I just shot him.”

  “You what?”

  “He’s our man. I have him on tape admitting to Arnold Wechsel’s murder. He threatened us and pointed a Glock at Jill.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Not yet. I called for the medics.”

  “Sit tight. I’m on the way.”

  The ambulance arrived shortly, as did a couple of cops. Franklin was in shock and bleeding internally. The paramedics rushed him off to the hospital.

  “Who shot him?” asked a burly cop with short brown hair and alert blue eyes.

  “I did,” I said. “He threatened to kill us and fired that Glock on the desk at my wife. We’re private investigators.”

  He looked around at Jill, who had returned to her chair. “You his wife?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Greg has it all on his digital recorder.”

  He turned back to me. “Where’s your weapon?”

  I pulled my jacked aside to show the Sig in its holster. “I planned to give it to Homicide Detective Phil Adamson. He’s on the way.”

  The big cop grinned. “Just for my comfort, how about laying it on the desk there?”

  I lifted my gun gingerly from the holster and placed it beside Franklin’s Glock.

  The other cop, a shorter man with a boyish face that made him look like a new recruit, had been examining the front of the desk. “What happened here?” he asked, pointing to the splintered hole.

  “That was my attempt to distract him so Greg could get to his gun,” Jill said. She took out the snub-nosed .38 and showed the hole in the end of her bag. “He was concentrating so closely on Greg that he didn’t notice when I stuck my hand in here.”

  I was proud of her. She displayed the coolness of a veteran cop. Before I could say anything else, my cell phone rang.

  “You got company?” Phil asked.

  “Two officers,” I said. “The ambulance took Franklin to the hospital. Vanderbilt, I think.”

  “Let me talk to one of the officers.”

  I handed the phone to the big cop. “Detective Adamson wants to talk to you.”

  He listened a minute, then handed the phone back. “Get back to the entrance,” he told the younger officer. “Don’t let anybody in till Adamson gets here.”

  It was another ten minutes before Phil arrived. He was talking on his cell phone when he walked in. Jill and I and the big cop, who we now knew as Officer Bruce Vogel, sat chatting about a similar case he had been involved in. Phil snapped the phone shut and gave me a look I took as a precursor to bad news.

  “It’s definitely my case now. Franklin didn’t make it. Bled out from internal hemorrhage.”

  I shook my head. Better him than Jill, but it wasn’t what I had hoped for. “There’s my Sig on the desk. Two shots fired.”

  “And you got him on tape?”

  “Digital,” I said.

  I took out the mini-recorder and pressed the play button. Since the recorder was voice-activated, there were no sound gaps. It quickly reached the point where Franklin claimed we had told Brad Smotherman we suspected Nick Zicarelli was using Arnold Wechsel to collect gambling debts.

  “Who is Brad Smotherman?”

  The sharp tone in Phil’s voice prompted me to press the STOP button. “He runs Hatrick Brake Company,” I said. “Terry Tremont hired us to look into this NBA deal on behalf of an organization bankrolled by Smotherman, Gordon Franklin, and Mack Nelson, the country music star. They’re super-fans of the Predators.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me you suspected Wechsel was collecting gambling debts for Nick?”

  “We didn’t tell that to anybody,” I said. “Listen to the recording.”

  When it ended with the sound of guns firing, Phil looked across at me. “I counted four shots.”

  “Jill fired first,” I said, pointing to the hole in the desk. “I fired twice, and Franklin’s shot hit the wall over there.”

  He looked around, then leaned against the desk. “You were determined it was Franklin, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, in the end I guess I was. Zicarelli and Aregis had good reasons to be the killer, but they had no way of knowing I was on the case.”

  We were interrupted by the arrival of the crime scene crew. Phil briefed them on the situation, then moved aside as they began shooting pictures and gathering evidence, includi
ng the bullet lodged in the wall.

  Phil turned back to me. “Franklin apparently put your boy Izzy up to sending the bottle of Scotch. How do you suppose he knew about Isabell?”

  I’d wondered about that, too. “My guess is he got the details from Terry Tremont. I told Terry about Isabell because he was complicating my efforts.”

  “You must have given plenty of detail for him to be able to locate the guy.”

  “I’m sure I mentioned Nat Edge on Sheridan Road. I guess Franklin could’ve gotten a phone number out of the book.”

  “Isabell denied everything when we picked him up. I suspect he’ll change his tune now.” Phil suddenly grinned like he’d had a wicked vision. “I was ready to send for the shrinks when you called early this morning about that Cadillac.”

  “Turned out we were wrong,” I said. “He drives a Lincoln Navigator.”

  The grin faded. “Not any more, he doesn’t. I’m sure Wechsel’s mother will think he got what he deserved.”

  I was of the same mind. “I promised to let Jeff Price know what happened so he can tell her. She’s his sister-in-law.”

  Phil looked around at Officer Vogel. “That about does it for here, Bruce. Don’t know about you, but I’d like to go home and play with the toys Santa brought me.”

  “I guess you want my toys,” I said, holding out the recorder.

  Phil dropped it in an evidence bag and placed my Sig and Franklin’s Glock in two others. “I’ll get yours back to you as soon as the DA agrees it was self defense.”

  “I can testify to that,” Jill said.

  Phil smiled. “I think he’ll take my word for it.”

  I pulled out my cell phone. “I’d better call my client, see if he wants me to talk to the media.”

  As I punched in Terry Tremont’s number, Phil instructed the policeman to locate someone to come in and lock up the building. While I was explaining the situation to Terry, Vogel came back and said there were TV cameras outside.

  “Did you talk to your newspaper friend?” Terry asked.

  “We did, and he said he would work on the story. I need to call and tell him about this.”

  “My advice is you say nothing about working for me or for Protect Our Preds. The earlier story included the fact that Wechsel was an informant with some information for you. I’d suggest you say your investigation to find out what Wechsel had for you led to the NBA deal. The bomb that wrecked your car pointed to Franklin. When you confronted him, he confessed and threatened to kill you and Jill.”

  “That should work. Right now there’re some TV people outside the building waiting for us to come out, but I don’t want to upstage Wes Knight.”

  “Let the police handle it,” Terry said. “Find a back door and dodge the cameras.”

  I switched off the phone and turned to Phil. “I guess you heard what I said. I promised the story to Wes Knight, who helped me out on Nick Zicarelli. Terry said to skip out the back door and let the police handle the TV guys.”

  Phil jammed his hands against his hips. “You want me to face that crowd of electronic leeches alone? They won’t let go until they suck you dry.”

  “Tell them to talk to the department’s spokesman,” Jill said.

  “I’d have to brief him.”

  “Call him now,” I said. Then, grinning, I added, “You told me you don’t like cops who spend a lot time in front of cameras. I don’t want you despising yourself. Oh, one more thing. Terry Tremont asked that I not mention him hiring us on behalf of the Predator folks. He only wants me to say that our investigation into what Arnold planned to tell me led to the NBA deal, which is basically true.”

  Phil shrugged. “I won’t mention Tremont’s clients unless I’m asked. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  Phil called his PR man, who said he would brief the media at headquarters. Meanwhile, I got Wes at home and gave him the details of our confrontation with Franklin. I hated to admit that I had killed the man, but there was no way around it. The building manager arrived and turned off the lights inside so we could stay out of sight until it was safe to leave. Reluctantly, our detective friend went out to face the microphones. He gave a brief statement and sent them packing to the Criminal Justice Center.

  Chapter 35

  We bounded out of bed early on Sunday morning to check the newspaper account of our Christmas Armageddon. It merited a bold headline at the top of page one. Wes and a team of reporters did a masterful job of tracking down multiple aspects of the case. Louie Aregis denied everything, but Wes had already talked with his former employee in Pensacola. He quoted portions of Gordon Franklin’s confession regarding Nick Zicarelli’s funding of Aregis’ stake in the NBA consortium. He also mentioned that unnamed sources reported Coastal Capital Ventures was the target of a federal money laundering investigation.

  At press time, Metro Police, assisted by the FBI, were raiding Nick Zicarelli’s home in White House. They carried search warrants for gambling records. Grandpa was not available for comment. The most significant feature of the story for us came in a statement from Howard Hays, president of the Dollar Deal chain.

  “Those of us who started the effort to bring a National Basketball Association team to Nashville have, from the start, been mindful of the necessity to protect the integrity of the sport. In consideration of this deplorable development, we have decided to withdraw from the proposed acquisition of an NBA franchise.”

  Fred Rickets of Physicians and Surgeons Software concurred in the statement. Louie Aregis had no comment.

  While Jill and I sat at the kitchen table finishing our coffee with the last of the newspaper account, Phil Adamson called.

  “I decided to apply a little pressure on the cell phone company last night after listening to Franklin on your recorder. They came through this morning with some interesting logs. There were several calls back and forth between Arnold Wechsel and Gordon Franklin. He had called Nicole Columbo the day he died. And calls with a cell phone listed to ‘N. Zicarelli’ ended a couple of days prior to Wechsel’s death. Evidently old Nick wasn’t as careful as we thought. Looks like you scored big on this one, buddy.”

  “Thanks, Phil,” I said. “But you’re the guy who provided the links. I should have given you everything we had a little sooner. Maybe a guy would still be around rather than in the morgue.”

  “He would’ve gotten what he had coming sooner or later. You did what you had to do. Put it aside and move on. I need you and Jill to come downtown and give your official statements.”

  I told Jill what we had to do, then shrugged. “Maybe the preacher will forgive us for missing one more Sunday.” Instead of dressing for church, we donned our work clothes and headed for the Criminal Justice Center.

  Jill suggested we follow up the closing of the case with a dinner for the people who had helped us the most. I was a bit skittish after the way things had turned out Saturday night.

  “It smacks of a celebration,” I said. “I don’t know if that would be proper with Gordon Franklin not yet cold in the ground.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “I don’t recall you having that problem after the Damon Saint affair last March.”

  She had me there. I guess things look different when it’s your own foot in the shoe.

  “Say when and I’ll issue the invitations,” I said.

  With New Year’s Eve coming up Friday, we decided on Thursday night. I invited Sam and Wilma Gannon, Terry and Roberta Tremont, Brad and Maruko Smotherman, and Phil and Liz Adamson. I thought about adding Wes Knight to the list, but after my previous experience with off-the-record comments to news people, I thought better of it. I did invite Mack Nelson, though I was sure he wouldn’t come.

  We took down the Christmas decorations and replaced them, thanks to a little help from the Predators’ PR man, with a few pairs of ice skates, hockey sticks, and jerseys. Wilma came over early on Monday to help Jill get everything set up. Although hockey fans didn’t ta
ilgate, she decided to make it a strictly casual affair with barbeque pork and chicken, baked beans, potato salad, and all the rest. For dessert, she had ice cream in the shape of hockey pucks. They were regulation size, one inch thick and three inches in diameter.

  After everybody had arrived, we were seated at the table, about ready to eat, when the floodlight beep sounded. The doorbell rang by the time I got to the door. I opened it to find Mack Nelson standing there with his band leader, Deke Bragg, and the shifty-eyed security man, Rocky Topp.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Mack said. “Hope there’s still somethin’ left to eat.”

  They set their guitar cases in the living room and joined us for dinner. Hockey talk dominated the evening. While we were eating dessert, Terry made a little speech, which is a nasty habit of lawyers, praising Jill and me for our dogged pursuit of the case.

  I got up, bowed, and said, “I owe it all to my wife.” And sat down.

  Everyone applauded, except Jill.

  She got up and said, “I have a lying husband.” And sat down.

  That brought a roar of laugher.

  I had been dealing with a mix of emotions, and a pang of conscience prompted a sobering response. “In our euphoria over successfully closing the case,” I said, “let’s not forget the tragedy that led to the solution. Jill and I knew Arnold Wechsel as an ambitious young man looking forward to a bright future. He will be sorely missed by his family and friends.”

  That brought a long moment of silence. It was broken by Mack Nelson, who grabbed his cowboy hat off the back of the chair and plopped it onto his head. “If y’all will let us, we’ll play you a little music.”

  With that, everyone adjourned to the living room and enjoyed an impromptu concert. It was late when the party broke up. Jill and I stood at the door and thanked each of them for their support in getting the case solved. Phil Adamson and his wife were the next to last to leave.

  “I’m the one who should be giving the thanks,” he said as he shook my hand. “You saved me a lot of work, buddy. But please don’t wake me up in the middle of the night for awhile.”