Inside we found double doors to a typical bank lobby. We saw a line of teller positions stretching across the back and cubicles labeled LOAN OFFICER at one side. The doors were locked, however, as it was well after normal banking hours. But another door next to the elevator was lettered with LEONARD QUINN, BRANCH MANAGER. The sign indicated the office was open until five o’clock. I was impressed. A banker who didn’t keep banker’s hours.
We went inside and found a secretary with short white hair who told us the manager was in and would be happy to see us. She ushered us into a fairly spacious office with simple but tasteful furnishings. I introduced Jill and myself. Mr. Quinn invited us to be seated. He appeared late forties, a short, heavyset man dressed in gray gabardine slacks, short-sleeve white shirt, blue tie. His jacket hung on a coat tree beside the desk. With a relaxed smile, he leaned back in his plush executive chair, the one extravagance in the room.
He spoke in a slow drawl. “How can I be of service?”
“We’re a couple of retirees from Nashville, Tennessee,” I said. “I wondered what you could tell us about your next door neighbors, Perseid Partners?”
“Were you thinking about investing in one of their properties?”
“We had that in mind. But first we wanted to dig up a little more information on whom we’d be dealing with.”
“More folks should do their research that well,” Quinn said. “My congratulations.”
“So what can you tell us?”
“We handle some of Perseid’s accounts. They seem to be doing all right. There was a bit of a problem in one of their projects last weekend, though. A balcony fell at a new condo in Florida. They say it was an engineering design situation.”
“I heard about that. A couple of people were killed.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was quite a blow to them.” He swung his chair to one side, then the other.
“Does Tidewater Construction build all of their projects?”
He nodded. “To the best of my knowledge.”
“I notice their office is next door also.”
“Yes. The company is headed by a Mr. Detrich. I really don’t know much about him.” Quinn smiled. “He uses a different bank.”
I pointed to the brochure. “There didn’t seem to be anything in here about it, but I understand the Partners is a subsidiary of a corporation called Perseid, Limited.”
“That’s true. They don’t give out much information on the company. All I’ve seen are a few innocuous news releases, but I’m told it’s an international conglomerate headquartered in the Caymans. I believe the home office is in George Town.”
Interesting. I wondered if Evan Baucus was sunning himself in the Caribbean, or if he was being skewered on a tropical grill because of the accident.
“What can you tell me about the president, Mr. Baucus?” I asked.
Quinn swiveled around in his chair and leaned his arms on the desk. “He’s been on the coast for three or four years now. Was originally from out in California. Los Angeles, I believe. He’s full of big ideas. Quite a talker. I’ll have to say he’s been good for Biloxi. Patron of the arts and all, you know. Generous with the charities.”
I consulted the brochure again. “Says here he was formerly involved in a venture capital firm and was a residential real estate developer.”
“That was apparently in California, not around here.”
“Is he married?”
“About two years ago he married a local girl, Greta Teeter. She’s the daughter of Harrison County Commissioner Art Savage.”
I gave him a questioning look. “I thought you said her name was Teeter?”
“She was previously married to a local boy named Teeter. He was a cocky little cuss who wasted all his time and money racing stock cars. When he started dipping into her cash, she threw him out. Literally, I understand.”
“Sounds resourceful,” I said, grinning.
“Greta is only about thirty, half the age of Evan Baucus. Good looking girl.” His smile held a touch of wickedness. “She likes to play the dumb blonde, but I don’t believe it. Her daddy’s a smooth-talking old country boy with good connections. Some folks think she just married Baucus to improve her lot.” He gave a short chuckle. “She did that.”
I studied the picture in the brochure for a moment, then held it up for Quinn. “Looks like he has a great suntan. Is he a big golfer?”
“You’d think he was, or a tennis player. But I’ve never run into him around the courses or on the courts. Maybe he spends a lot of time in his back yard. He bought a nice old house on the beach highway west of town. Has some really gorgeous flowers out back. I’ve been there to some of his parties.”
A clock on the wall indicated closing time was approaching, and I figured we had taken enough of Mr. Quinn’s time. I thanked him and Jill and I headed back out to the street. She looked around, grinning.
“The Cayman Islands. Shouldn’t we pay him a visit down there?”
“Sorry, babe,” I said. “We might not make it back for your Friday therapy appointment.”
“Killjoy.” She gave me a playful punch in the ribs.
I checked my watch. Five till five. “Let’s head back to the hotel, get a bite to eat and hit the slots.”
“Now you’re talking my game.” She linked her arm in mine as we started for the Jeep.
———
We had just reached the hotel when my cell phone rang. A New Orleans number showed on the ID screen. I punched the TALK button and answered.
“Is this Mr. McKenzie?” a high-pitched voice asked.
“Right. Mr. O’Keefe?”
“That’s me, lad. Patrick O’Keefe. What’s so urgent? You sounded as mysterious as my parish priest.”
And Patrick O’Keefe sounded as if he could be an Irish tenor. “Thanks for returning my call. I was trying to locate Oliver O’Keefe and I wondered if you might be related?”
“Oh yes, quite related. Ollie is my son.”
“Would he be there, by chance?”
“No. I see you’re calling from Nashville. He was to have left there Sunday, but he hasn’t made his appearance here as yet. I don’t know where he could be. Dallying around, I suspect.”
“Well, I need to talk to him urgently.”
“What about?”
“I’m afraid it’s rather confidential, Mr. O’Keefe. Incidentally, I come from Nashville, but I’m presently in Mississippi. You have my cell phone number. I’d appreciate your having him call me as soon as he gets there.”
Mr. O’Keefe promised he would.
———
We strolled into the casino around seven o’clock. The place was lively but, with row after row of slots, there was probably room for a few hundred other players. The hum of stair-step musical notes coming from the machines, the ding-ding-ding of wins being racked up, and the clatter of coins dropping into the trays created a constant din that left Jill and me raising our voices as we walked along. Colorful neon displays touting heavy progressive jackpots topped clusters of slots. Some machines featured wheels overhead that occasionally spun around, giving a few lucky souls a fresh supply of coins, or tokens for dollar and up amounts.
In the center of the long room, small groups of players were gathered around the tables, where dealers in black pants, white shirts with wingtip collars and black bow ties doled out cards, raked in the dice, or spun roulette wheels. Jill and I looked around in every direction but saw nothing of anyone resembling Claude Detrich. We had just sat down at adjacent half-dollar Blazing Sevens machines when my cell phone rang.
“Win a bundle,” I said. “I’ll take this over near the restroom where I can hear.”
I hurried across to the alcove marked MEN, punched the button and said hello. When the caller asked for Mr. McKenzie, my pulse kicked up a notch. Was this Ollie O’Keefe? In my rush I hadn’t checked the ID.
“This is Mr. McKenzie,” I said.
“Sergeant Upton here, Mobile County, Alabama Sheriff’
s Office. I understand you’ve been looking for Oliver O’Keefe. Can I ask you why?”
I frowned, confused. “I don’t mind telling you, Sergeant, but what the devil brought this on?”
“Then tell me, okay?”
“Oliver O’Keefe quit his job as draftsman with a Nashville firm last week. About the time he left, they discovered some plans were missing. I wanted to ask him about it.”
“Was he suspected of taking the plans?”
“That’s a good possibility.”
“Well, I’m afraid he won’t be answering any questions,” said Sergeant Upton. “His body was found this afternoon on the shore near Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island. He appeared to have drowned, but his neck was broken also.”
27
Jill swiveled in her chair as the machine noisily counted off a win of eighty coins. The look on her face, though, had shifted from pleasure to pure dismay.
“His neck was broken?”
“Right,” I said. “They found his car in another part of the island. They’re waiting for the autopsy to decide exactly what happened.”
“Do they suspect foul play?”
“They consider it a definite possibility. I asked the sergeant if they found any plans in his car. They didn’t.”
We had no time to discuss young O’Keefe’s death any further. As I looked off toward the section of the casino that housed the high-ticket slots, I saw a big man lumbering along dressed in a bright red shirt and blue jeans. I recognized Detrich immediately, though he appeared to be cultivating a new feature I hadn’t heard mentioned before—a mustache that ended at a thin line of beard, making a hairy full circle from his upper lip around his chin.
“There’s our man,” I said. “Do you want to keep on playing while I go approach him?”
She pressed the button to cash out, and coins began clattering into the tray. “Let me collect my payoff and I’ll go with you. You may need a witness if things get out of hand.”
I grinned. “I’m the cowardly lion. If things get out of hand, I’ll run.”
“Yeah. I know how you run. In Israel it almost cost you your life. I’m going with you.”
Jill toted her plastic can full of half dollars as we walked toward the row of machines where Detrich sat in front of a slot labeled $10. I noticed he had eighty tokens showing in the credit window. Unlike us peons, who rarely patronized even the dollar machines, he obviously was a high roller.
I sat down at the machine next to him and looked around. “I hope this is your lucky night, Mr. Detrich.”
He glanced over at me, frowning. “Do I know you?”
“Not until now,” I said, smiling. “My name is Greg McKenzie. I’m an investigator. I’ve been asked to look into that accident at The Sand Castle. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Here at the casino?”
I shrugged. “That’s where we are.”
He grunted, then asked, “Got some identification?”
I pulled out my billfold and showed him my military ID. Behind the window across from it was a bronze coin with the OSI insignia and SPECIAL AGENT at the top. “I’m a retired special agent in charge with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. This isn’t an official inquiry, Mr. Detrich. I’m making it on behalf of a close friend.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s his interest? He own one of the condo units?”
“I’d rather not say just yet.”
“You wouldn’t, huh? What sort of questions you got?”
“I understand the accident was caused by the use of rebars too small to carry the load and concrete of insufficient strength.”
“You been talking to the county building inspector?” he asked.
“I’ve talked to a number of people. They seem to agree on the basic cause.”
“They’re probably right.”
“I wondered why you used the particular rebars and concrete you did?”
“Jesus...that’s what the damn plans called for.” The way his nose flared reminded me of a snorting bull.
“Were the plans you worked with an original or a copy?”
“A copy.”
“A copy of what?”
“They were a copy of the plans Tim Gannon gave to Evan Baucus. What do you think? Damn, you ask stupid questions.”
A short-skirted waitress holding a small round tray stuck her smiling face between Detrich and me. “Would you gentlemen like something to drink?”
“A Bud,” Detrich said. Another snort.
“Scotch and soda,” I said. Then I looked around at Jill standing beside a slot behind us. “You want something, babe?”
“How about a strawberry daiquiri,” she said.
The waitress flounced away as Detrich turned to check out Jill and the plastic can she held. “Who’s the dame?”
“My wife,” I said. “She came along for a little fun.”
“Hmph. Why don’t you quit messing up mine? Go play with her.”
I wondered if he had intended that to be a double-entendre, but decided it was probably not his style. “Sorry,” I said. “Just a few more questions. What reservations did Bosley Farnsworth express about the rebars or the concrete?”
“None.”
“Shouldn’t he have?”
“Hell, Gannon was supposed to be a competent structural engineer. We assumed he knew what he was doing.”
“At what point did Baucus ask you to cut corners on the project?” I asked.
He glowered. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Just what it sounds like, Mr. Detrich. When did Baucus instruct you to deviate from the plans?”
“We didn’t deviate. We didn’t cut corners. My people constructed that building exactly the way Gannon designed it. Period. Now get the hell off my back.”
He squirmed around in his chair like he was about to get up. I held out my hands in a calming gesture. It didn’t bother me so much that I wasn’t a match for him physically. I still remembered a few karate moves I had learned in my younger days and was ready to use them, though somewhat more slowly. But I wasn’t interested in getting thrown out of a casino tonight.
“Okay,” I said. “I accept that. I just heard that you had wanted to change some things to save money. I thought maybe Baucus had pressured you to keep costs down.”
“You’re damn right he wanted to hold costs down. Wouldn’t you?”
I ignored the question. “Getting back to Tim Gannon, where did he stay when he came down to Perdido Key?”
“A condo down the beach from The Sand Castle. I think it’s called Gulf Sands.”
“Were most people involved in the project aware of that?”
“Where he stayed? Of course. You think he was hiding or something? He said it belonged to some guy from Nashville.”
“I guess you have a place on the beach, too.”
“Yeah. I got an apartment farther down...if it’s any of your damn business.”
I tried to soften my tone, to make the next question sound totally harmless. “I know all the commotion and all the carnage Friday night must have been terribly stressful.”
“Yeah, it was bad, all right.” He twisted his face to one side. “People hurt, some killed.”
“What did you do to wind down after that?”
“I didn’t do nothing different. After that damned deputy got through with me somewhere around eleven, I headed for the bar down the beach where I usually hang out.”
I gave a sympathetic nod. “Some of the others go with you?”
“Nah. But Boz was there. We talked a little about what had happened, agreed it had to’ve been Gannon’s fault.”
“What time did you get away from the bar?”
He started to answer, then stiffened, his face turned ugly. “What the hell do you want to know that for? What’s it got to do with any accident? You’re getting awfully damned nosy, Mr....what was it—McKenzie?”
I saw his fists clench as he started to rise.
28
I
might have enjoyed a little tussle with Mr. Detrich in earlier days. I had been a scrappy cuss during my youth and particularly while I was with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office. My dad used to say I was as combative and tough and uncompromising as my Scottish grandfather, Alexander McKenzie, a sergeant with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment. But now was not the time to mix it up with the contractor.
The waitress returned just as I stood up. I reached for my drink, dropped a tip on the tray and turned to Detrich. “Sorry I took so much of your time. Hope you have a winner there.”
I grabbed Jill’s good arm and steered her away before he could say anything else. We moved all the way to the other side of the casino, where we found a row of quarter Wheel of Fortune machines.
“I don’t think Detrich is likely to frequent anything this cheap,” I said. “Let’s try this for a bit, then head for the room.”
“Fine by me. I’d say you’ve agitated enough folks for one day.”
Jill hit a lucky streak and we were three hundred dollars to the good when we retired to the fifth floor. I called that a good night’s work...or play. But the digital clock beside the bed showed it was barely ten. Hardly the time to call it a day. I had figured lingering in the casino any longer would not have been productive, however. I checked a couple of times and found a growing collection of beer bottles beside Detrich’s machine. Any more questions and he would probably have blown like a stick of dynamite.
I was convinced the contractor had not been playing by the rules. Either he was lying through his teeth or somebody else had done a slick job of substituting bogus instructions for those Tim had specified. And from my observation, Detrich resembled the rough, antagonistic character Walt had described much more than the easy-to-please, agreeable person Boz Farnsworth had tried to paint him.
Jill and I watched the TV news, which dealt mostly with an upcoming local election and a five-car pileup on I-10. But one story near the end of the newscast snagged our attention. A Mobile sheriff’s sergeant talked about a body found on Dauphin Island. He reported the Medical Examiner’s preliminary finding had created some unanswered questions. Young Oliver O’Keefe had probably been dead since Sunday night. More disturbing, his neck had been broken before his body found its way into Mobile Bay.
Designed to Kill (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) Page 13