Greg McKenzie Mysteries Boxed Set—Books 1-4

by Chester Campbell

  We got back a little before nine and found the message waiting from Walt in Nashville.

  “Here’s the info on the two guys who departed,” he said. His voiced barked out from the answering machine tape. “The electrical engineer was Eric Jacobs. He’s originally from Gulfport, Mississippi. I called his home and talked to his wife. She says she was fed up with his drinking. When he told her he’d been fired, that did it. She told him to pack up and get out. Then she found he had emptied their bank account. Which wasn’t all that large to start with. She checked on their credit card and he’d screwed her again. Bought an airline ticket to Honolulu. That was on Tuesday.

  “The draftsman was Oliver—goes by the name Ollie—O’Keefe. Came from New Orleans. Former address there was on Carondelet Street. Don’t have a number. His phone here has been disconnected. If you need anything else, call me.”

  I jotted down the information on a small yellow pad I had used for notes on the Harold Nixon interview. Spotting the number in Tallahassee for Nixon’s buddy Fred Rose, I lifted the phone and punched it in.

  When I got him on the line, I introduced myself and told him his good friend Harold Nixon had suggested I call. “He said you could give me a little information on Tidewater Construction, Incorporated.”

  “No problem,” Rose said. “Give me a second to put the name in the computer.”

  I could hear him punching on the keyboard. A few moments later, he said, “Tidewater Construction, Incorporated was chartered in New Orleans. It’s headed by Claude Detrich, also of New Orleans. The main office is currently in the Coastal Bank Annex in Biloxi.”

  “Do you have any information on other officers of the corporation, or its owners?”

  “Afraid not. But the Secretary of State’s office should have it. They’re required to register there. Want the number?”

  I said I did, wrote down the number and thanked him for his help. When I called the office that handled registration of foreign (meaning out of state) corporations, a nice young woman advised that Claude Detrich was listed as president, Evan Baucus as secretary-treasurer. The major stockholders were given as Detrich, with a New Orleans address, Baucus and Perseid Partners, both of Biloxi.

  Jill looked up from her book as I put down the phone. “You’ve been busy. Come up with anything interesting?”

  “You be the judge. Tidewater Construction, it appears, is a subsidiary of the company that developed The Sand Castle, Perseid Partners. Detrich and Baucus are officers and also stockholders.”

  “Hmm. So they would both have a lot to gain by taking short-cuts on the project.”

  “True. Depending on how much of the corporation they own. And here’s something else of interest. Detrich comes from New Orleans, as does Ollie O’Keefe, the just departed draftsman from Tim’s company. Think that’s a coincidence?”

  “I seem to recall my gumshoe mentor saying coincidences raise a red flag to a criminal investigator.”

  “You remember well, babe. Let me see if Mr. Detrich is around today.”

  I called the Tidewater Construction office in Biloxi and asked for him.

  “I’m sorry,” said the same person I had spoken with yesterday, “but Mr. Detrich won’t be in today.”

  I decided to don my actor’s hat. “Yesterday I was told he would be there today. Where is that old dog? I was one of his best buddies years ago. Haven’t laid eyes on him in a coon’s age. Now I’ve got a chance, he’s out fiddle-faddling around somewhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Where are you?”

  Not knowing if she had caller ID, I decided not to lie. “In Pensacola. But I’m headed that way.”

  “Well, if you really want to see him, you might drop in at the Gulf Royale Casino here. He stays at their hotel. I suspect you could find him at the slots or around the tables. Particularly after dark. What did you say your name was?”

  I laughed. “Didn’t say. I want to surprise him. Thanks.”

  I hung up quickly. Then I recalled what I had heard about his size and his reputation. I hoped he did not take too unkindly to surprises.

  Chapter 23

  I parked in an empty slot in front of the low white brick building promptly at 10:30. A business called Maintenance Plus, which offered no clue as to what the firm might maintain or what the Plus might add, appeared to occupy most of the structure. A larger than necessary sign that proclaimed BF Inspections flanked the door at the opposite end. Parked nearby was a bright red Corvette.

  After last night’s storm, the morning sun was putting on a full court press. The glare would have made a welder squint. I straightened my sunglasses and stepped onto the asphalt, which already felt slightly mushy from the heat.

  “I’d bet that’s dad’s place,” Jill said. She indicated the acres of cars, trucks and SUV’s lined up with military precision at the big auto dealership next door.

  I nodded. “You’d probably win. The sign says DF Motors. No doubt it stands for Denton Farnsworth.”

  I had called Bosley Farnsworth to make the appointment, which he had grudgingly granted. He sounded a little too dangerous to try approaching with a crafty story, so I had calmly explained my mission to look into the facts surrounding Tim’s death. Opening the door, I followed Jill into a room with barely enough space for a small desk, unoccupied, and two gray metal office chairs. The walls were covered with framed photographs of a tall, tanned young man in various poses—wielding a tennis racket on a clay court, leaning against a Corvette (an earlier version, not the one outside), standing at the helm of what appeared to be an expensive yacht, looking through an opening in a concrete wall that might have been The Sand Castle at an early stage. He had wavy blond hair and blue eyes that conveyed a look of either amusement or scorn. Considering the young man was Boz Farnsworth, I felt relatively comfortable with the latter.

  “Mr. McKenzie?”

  I turned away from the photographs to face the genuine article, standing in the doorway of a larger office to one side. Dressed in a light blue knit shirt and dark blue slacks, he wore the same ambiguous look as the man in the photos.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is my wife, Jill.”

  He gave a nod toward Jill. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please come in.”

  We followed him into a room that looked fit for the prince he apparently fancied himself. Plush red carpet, matching window drapes, large curved desk of teak wood, leather chairs, wall photos of building projects he had likely worked on. A tennis racket and can of balls stood in the corner beside the desk, reminding me of what Harold Nixon had told us.

  “Please have a seat,” Farnsworth said, moving behind the desk. “Now what could I possibly tell you that you don’t already know?”

  “Considering that I don’t know very much,” I said, “probably lots of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m interested in anything you can tell me about the accident Friday night. You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. My date and I got there early. She’s thinking about running for the legislature and likes crowds where she can talk to people. It was quite a party.”

  “What time did Tim get there?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “He must have come in around eight-thirty. We ran into him right after he got there.”

  “How did he seem to you—upbeat, excited, depressed?”

  Farnsworth shrugged. “Not depressed, but not excited either. Like maybe he was preoccupied with something else.”

  “The accident happened around nine o’clock?”

  “Right.”

  “Were you near the balcony when it fell?”

  “We were standing near the combo—they had a keyboard, a guitar and a bass set up in the middle of the room. They were playing some Spanish song and people were dancing on the balcony. Then we heard this loud crunching noise and people started screaming. It was really scary.”

  “I’m sure you spoke with Tim after the accident. What did you talk about?”
<
br />   “We were all very concerned about what had happened,” Farnsworth said.

  “What ideas did he offer on what could have gone wrong?”

  “I think he said something about a concrete failure. That was obvious.”

  “What did he say regarding why he thought it had failed?”

  Farnsworth leaned back in the heavy executive chair and twirled a pencil between his fingers. He had that Mr. Cool look, the big cheese, completely in control. “Tim knew the rebars hadn’t been strong enough to handle the load. It was obviously a flaw in the design. His design.”

  “Did you think the rebars were too small when you saw them being installed?”

  There was a flicker of uneasiness in the blue eyes. “It wasn’t my job to question the design. My responsibility was to see that the plans were being followed.”

  Right, I thought. And you would feel no responsibility to report a murder about to happen if you saw it, would you?

  “Walt Sturdivant spoke with you yesterday,” I reminded him. “He said your set of plans was a copy. Where is the original of the plans?”

  “I presume Mr. Baucus has it. He gave me the copy when he hired me as Threshold Inspector. That’s all I’ve ever seen.”

  “So you don’t know if they might have been tampered with?”

  His look became a definite sneer. “That is highly unlikely.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “You’re getting into stuff that has nothing to do with me,” he said, raising his voice. He sat up and leaned his elbows on the desk. “You’d best take questions like that to Evan Baucus or Claude Detrich.”

  I was reminded of the way some high-ranking officers had acted when I questioned them on criminal cases. They tried to get me out of their territory by suggesting other places to look. I would merely shift my focus and come back at them from a different angle.

  I smiled. “I plan to talk with them. Tell me about Mr. Detrich.”

  “What about him?”

  “What kind of problems have you had with him?”

  “None at all. He was always very cooperative. Readily corrected any minor glitches I pointed out to him.”

  I remembered Walt’s description of Detrich as a tough guy who didn’t like criticism. I suspected Farnsworth was embellishing the facts.

  “What about Evan Baucus, how did you get along with him?” I asked.

  “No complaints as far as I was concerned.”

  “What instructions did he give you when you were hired as inspector?”

  He shrugged. “Just see that it’s built right, according to the plans. He paid me, but my reports went to the county and the state. They don’t have the manpower to put someone fulltime on a project like this. I served as their eyes and ears.”

  “Are they pleased with the job you did?”

  “You’d better ask them.”

  He obviously wasn’t interested in providing me with any significant information. I clicked my ballpoint pen, which I stuck in my shirt pocket. This was a prearranged signal for Jill to do her thing.

  “Mr. Farnsworth,” she said, “what can you tell us about the relationship between Tim Gannon and Sherry Hoffman?”

  Caught off guard, he snapped his head to the side and stared at her. “Sherry and Tim?” He hesitated as if searching for an answer. His voice shifted out of the self-assured, at times condescending, tone he had adopted earlier. “I don’t know that there was a relationship.”

  Jill gave him an innocent look. “We understood they had been close since his time at the Naval Air Station.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah. Well, that was in the past, you know. A long time ago. They were just friends.”

  I wasn’t certain, but the part about wanting to run for the legislature made it pretty clear Sherry Hoffman was the date Farnsworth had mentioned taking to the party, the real estate woman he had talked about with Harold Nixon.

  “Do you know if she left The Sand Castle with Tim Friday night after the accident?” Jill asked.

  Farnsworth sat back, folded his arms, took a deep breath. His look hardened. “No. He left before I did, shortly before eleven. She wasn’t with him. You’ve talked to her, of course.” His tone was returning to normal, and the message was clear—he knew. He had already talked to her.

  “We visited with Miss Hoffman yesterday,” I said, nodding. “She was quite forthcoming.” Let him stew over that one, I thought. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Farnsworth. We may be back in touch later.”

  He didn’t offer his hand as I got up. Jill and I headed for the door.

  Chapter 24

  On the drive back to Perdido Key, we were overtaken first by a fire truck screaming by on the way to God-knows-where. Then a boxy ambulance of the Escambia Emergency Medical Service raced around us, its siren wailing. About the time we departed the Pensacola city limits, a sheriff’s patrol car appeared in the rear-view mirror and stayed on our tail all the way to Blue Angel Parkway. I began to wonder if Sergeant Payne had called out the reserves to keep watch on my wanderings.

  When we weren’t commenting on the sirens and red and blue lights, Jill and I discussed the meeting with Boz Farnsworth. First I congratulated her on another sterling performance. “You were great, babe. We’re beginning to click like an old vaudeville team.”

  “Fibber McGee and Molly?”

  I laughed. “Maybe a magic act. You’re pulling rabbits out of the hat that I’d’ve had a hard time coming up with.”

  “Good. I want my share of the profits.”

  “What is fifty percent of zero?”

  She gave me a smug look. “Okay. I’ll settle for an extra hour at the Wheel of Fortune machines in Biloxi.”

  I grinned. We had emptied two quarter Wheel of Fortune machines on our last trip to the Mississippi coast casinos. Though we enjoyed playing the slots, we weren’t serious gamblers. We always carried a few hundred dollars, and that was our limit. If we came back with more than we took, so much the better. Otherwise, we figured we had gotten our money’s worth. As recreation, it was a lot cheaper than what some of our friends spent on going to the Titans’ games.

  “Deal,” I said.

  After a brief silence, she asked, “What’s your take on Mr. Boz?”

  “He did his best to paint Tim as the guilty party. I’m not sure he really believes it. He knows he should have caught that error when it happened, regardless of what the plans showed.”

  “He made Detrich sound like Mr. Rogers in the neighborhood.”

  “That was an obvious lie. Remember what Walt said? But why would Boz lie about Detrich?”

  Jill spread her palms. “I don’t know. But I would say there is definitely something between Bosley Farnsworth and Sherry Hoffman. It’s beginning to look like the eternal triangle.”

  “You think he was jealous of Tim?”

  “If he wasn’t, he sure did a good job of making it look that way.”

  I glanced around at her. “That would add another suspect with a motive to shoot Tim. The field is getting crowded.”

  We arrived back at Gulf Sands around noon. I needed to talk with Walt Sturdivant and called Nashville while Jill fixed sandwiches for lunch. I had a hunch about Mr. O’Keefe, and following up hunches had solved many a case during my career.

  “This is Greg,” I said when Walt picked up the phone. “I got your message about the guys who left New Horizons. This Ollie O’Keefe, what age fellow was he?”

  “Just a kid. Early twenties. He seemed pretty competent, though.”

  “Well, I have some questions about the areas of his competence.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just a hunch I plan to look into. Can you check back and see if he listed a previous employer?”

  “Sure. I’ve still got his file on my desk. Hang on a second.” He was back in a moment with, “Paige and Wilson Contractors in New Orleans.” He spelled it out for me. “Will that be any help?”

  “I hope so. Another question. You mentioned s
omething yesterday about Boz’s plans calling for the wrong strength concrete. I presume that would have had an impact on the balcony.”

  “You’re damned right. It would have cracked much easier. And it would have cost a lot less. Detrich saved a bundle of money on concrete and steel on that job.”

  “Had any luck unscrambling the hard disk on the laptop?”

  “I called a place that said they should be able to handle it. Haven’t had time to get the machine over there yet. That’s the next thing on my agenda.”

  “Good luck,” I said. “Keep me informed.”

  After lunch, I got back on the phone, this time with Paige and Wilson Contractors in New Orleans. I told the woman who answered that I was with an employment agency and needed to verify the employment of someone who had worked there a few years ago.

  “I don’t know how far back our records go,” she said. “I’ll let you talk to Maria.”

  Maria came on with a heavy Spanish accent. After I repeated my employment counselor routine, she speculated that the name might still be in the computer. She began the search, humming a tune I remembered from a high school Spanish class, and soon found a match. “Yes. We have the name. Was job foreman. Quit in March 1998. That all you want?”

  “Do you know where he was before he came to New Orleans?”

  “Dallas, Texas.”

  “Thanks very much,” I said. Then I put down the phone and turned to Jill. “Claude Detrich used to work for Paige and Wilson, the same as Ollie O’Keefe. Want to guess who’s probably going to show up on the Tidewater Construction payroll soon?”

  “You think O’Keefe took The Sand Castle plans?”

  “That would be my guess. Of course, I’d have to find him to have any chance of proving it.”

  “Didn’t Walt say the draftsman was going back to New Orleans?”