Greg McKenzie Mysteries Boxed Set—Books 1-4

by Chester Campbell

  “Are you going to call Metro?” Jill asked.

  “Why?” I said with a shrug. “We know who’s been here. Nothing of intrinsic value was taken. It would just be a waste of their time and ours.”

  “How did he get in?”

  A door in back opened onto a narrow hallway leading to an exit at the rear of the building. I only used it to carry out the trash. A cardboard box that had held some copier supplies sat next to the door, and I could tell it had been pushed aside. Finding no damage to the door or locks, I could only conclude that in addition to his other talents, Damon Saint was an accomplished lock picker.

  “He came in through here,” I said. “Breaking and entering must be one of his specialties. Maybe he picked that up while cleaning carpets. You know, so he could get in if the customer had forgotten to leave a key.”

  “Really, Greg.”

  “Okay. Mr. Saint is one bad customer, if not an employer. He’s given us the slip, but if we keep pushing to find him, which we will, he’s going to come calling again. Maybe next time we’ll get lucky and meet him face to face.”

  “I’m not so sure I’d call that lucky,” Jill said, frowning.

  “I intend to be ready.”

  “Couldn’t we ask the police to put out an APB—isn’t that what it’s called? Maybe they could find his truck.”

  “All Points Bulletin. That would be helpful, but like Phil Adamson said, we don’t have enough to get them involved.”

  “What about this break-in?”

  “Mr. Saint’s been trained for special operations. I’m sure he left no prints and we haven’t picked up the slightest clue to the burglar’s identity. Metro won’t even send an officer on something this inconsequential.”

  “But what about Molly? She’s missing.”

  “She is as far as we’re concerned. But both Wayne Marshall and Flossie Tarwater would say she’s with her husband, wherever they moved.”

  “Wouldn’t the fire inspectors have asked the police to locate him?”

  “It’s possible. But since they only want to question him, it isn’t likely. At least not yet.”

  “But we can’t just sit here and do nothing. Molly’s life may be in danger.”

  She was sitting at her desk and I gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. “I hate to admit it, babe, but we detectives are not omniscient. Sometimes that’s all we can do—just sit and wait. Tomorrow morning, we’ll board your Cessna and see if we can’t pick up the trail.”

  Chapter 18

  Actually, the trail heated up about an hour later while I was pecking away at the computer, getting all the King Cole’s details laid out for Logan and the Hendersonville cops. When the phone rang, Jill answered it.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “This is Jill McKenzie. Thanks for calling.” Then she motioned for me to listen in. I picked up the phone on her desk as she mouthed Peggy Davidson.

  “I just came into the office,” Peggy said, “to catch up on a couple of things. I saw the note saying you needed to talk to me about Molly Saint. Sounded sort of urgent. You’re a private investigator? What’s going on?”

  “Molly came to us last week,” Jill said. “She told us she was afraid of her husband and wanted us to check him out. She said you were a good friend.”

  “Yeah. We’ve been buddies since I came to work at Maxxim. I really appreciate the way she’s taken to my mother. Mom and I live together. She’s getting up in years and has a growing problem with Parkinson’s Disease. Molly treats her like a second mother, brings her little gifts, sits and talks with her.”

  “I understand the two of you go out a lot.”

  “Yeah. I enjoy her company. I know her pretty well, too, and, frankly, I’m surprised she came to you about Damon.”

  “Do you know if they’ve been having problems?” Jill asked.

  “Well, she was getting awfully fed up with the way he’d been treating her.”

  “She mentioned he had refused to take her to a concert at the Gaylord Center.”

  “Yeah. That was certainly one thing that bugged her.”

  “What else?”

  “You met her. You may have gotten the impression from the way she dresses and all that Molly’s got a pretty healthy appetite for some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like sex.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t think she was too pleased with Damon on that score.”

  If Damon had suffered the Vietnam wound Ray Orman described, I wasn’t surprised. But it shouldn’t have taken Molly five years to reach that conclusion.

  “When we saw her, Molly was definitely showing fear,” Jill said. “I doubt that came from any disappointment over being neglected or sexually deprived. Did she talk to you about what she was afraid of?”

  I had to admit Jill was becoming quite adept as an interrogator. I’d have to coach her a bit, though, on phrasing her questions so they couldn’t be answered with a simple yes or no. This time it didn’t matter.

  “I know she thought his Army experience might have inclined him toward some kind of violent behavior,” Peggy said. “He was a Vietnam vet, you know.”

  “We know. But she told us he had never struck her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why be afraid?”

  “She was probably afraid of what he might do if...”

  When Peggy’s voice trailed off, Jill prompted her. “If what?”

  “I don’t know. Just, well...”

  Peggy Davidson obviously knew something she didn’t want to talk about. I didn’t think it would be wise for me butt in, so I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Push her.”

  Jill spoke in a firm but calm voice. “What was she afraid he might find out, Peggy?”

  “It’s something very personal. I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to talk about it.”

  “Let me explain the situation,” Jill said. “Molly left a message on our answering machine Wednesday morning while we were out of town. She had discovered something in Damon’s basement workshop that really shook her up. She wanted us to call her, but in a way her husband couldn’t find out about it. Then we learned she and Damon had moved out of their house late that night. We haven’t been able to locate her. If you know something that might explain what’s going on, you need to tell us now.”

  There was a long pause while Peggy apparently digested all of that. Finally, she said, “Molly went down there? She had talked about doing it but never dared to. And they moved out? Didn’t tell anybody?”

  “That’s right. And I’m sure it was not Molly’s idea.”

  Peggy spoke hesitantly. “What I was saying–or didn’t say–what I mean is Molly has been having an affair with one of our drivers.”

  “At Maxxim?”

  “Yeah. He’s a long haul driver. I think it’s been going on at least a couple of months. Last week Molly told me something happened and his wife had found out about them. She was afraid of what might happen if the guy’s wife told Damon.”

  I decided it was time for me to make my contribution. “Miss Davidson, this is Greg McKenzie, Jill’s husband. We operate the agency together. We need the name and address of the driver. There’s a chance he might have had some contact with Molly. For her safety, we need to find her as soon as possible.”

  Grudgingly, she gave us the driver’s name—Mitch Grooms. He lived in Donelson, a suburb to the west of Hermitage. His wife’s name was Ermine. I had always thought that name a bit highfalutin, considering the expensive white fur it brought to mind. Then somebody pointed out to me that it was just a weasel.

  Peggy said she had once met the snotty Mrs. Mitch Grooms, whom she called a first-class bitch. Since I hadn’t had a lot of experience with different classes of the breed, I assumed that meant the woman was not too pleasant. Evidently both Mitch and Molly had reasons for straying from the hearthside.

  This added an entirely new ingredient to the equation. Clearly Damon Saint was not happy wit
h his wife for some reason. Did it involve her relationship with Mitch Grooms rather than anything to do with his basement workshop? Maybe, but that didn’t explain burning down the house. The questions continued to mount while the answers were getting almost as scarce as ermine coats at an animal rights convention.

  When we got off the phone, I checked my watch. “I should have this King Cole’s report finished by five,” I said. “We can take it to the hotel and leave it with Logan, then have a go at Mr. Grooms.”

  “What if Ermine is there?” Jill asked.

  “Then we just might ruffle her fur.”

  Jesse Logan glowed like a hundred-watt bulb when he read the results of our investigation. He was so pleased he wanted to buy our dinner, and I figured it wouldn’t be polite to refuse. We left the Opryworld Hotel around seven and headed home. After looking up the number, I called Mitch Grooms. Jill listened in on another phone.

  A male voice answered, which I assumed was not Ermine.

  “Mr. Grooms?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Greg McKenzie. I’m with McKenzie Investigations. Molly Saint hired us because she was afraid of her husband, and now she’s missing. I need to know if you have heard anything from her in the last day or two.”

  “You’re shittin’ me, man. Did my wife hire you?”

  “We got your name from Molly’s friend Peggy Davidson,” I said. “Molly’s life could be in danger.”

  “I’m sorry if she’s got problems, but I got problems, too. Lucky Ermine isn’t here right now or I wouldn’t even talk to you.”

  “I appreciate your situation, Mr. Grooms, but do you have any idea where Molly could be?”

  “I haven’t talked to her since I saw her at work a week ago Friday. Hell, my wife would have me in court if I even looked like I wanted to call Molly. Anyway, I was told Molly was off all this past week. I was on a run for four days.”

  This was not the most productive interview I’d had lately. In fact, it was getting nowhere. I decided to make one more try.

  “Has your wife said anything that would lead you to believe she has been in communication with Damon Saint about this?”

  “No. She never mentioned him. But she can be pretty hotheaded at times. She said she’d kill Molly if she ever caught her around me.”

  I gave him our number and asked that he call if he heard anything about Molly. When I hung up, Jill looked across and shook her head.

  “Somebody else out to get Molly,” she said.

  “True. But I suspect Ermine is the least of her worries.”

  Chapter 19

  Monday morning was another cool one, but what I didn’t like was the looks of the sky. Dark gray clouds cluttered my view. Something seemed to be running behind, pushing them along at an unhealthy pace. And like most of the weather around here this time of year, it came straight out of St. Louis.

  “Maybe we should wait until tomorrow,” I said as we finished breakfast. The radar on TV showed a mass of white stuff obscuring the map between Nashville and St. Louis.

  “We can’t afford to wait,” Jill said. “Anyway, that overcast isn’t very thick. We can get above it and fly in the sunshine.”

  I frowned. “Looks like a pretty stiff wind up there.”

  “So it’ll take a little more flying time. The distance is about the same as Indianapolis. Come on, Greg. I’ve got every kind of instrument you can think of on that airplane. Even if we had to fly IFR all the way, there’d be no problem. Don’t be such a wimp.”

  “Wimpiness has nothing to do with flying. It’s based on a whole different set of criteria.”

  “Criteria, being plural, is a set.”

  When she starts correcting my English, I’m in trouble.

  “Well, I have known some wimps who really loved to fly,” I said.

  “I’ll get the flight attendant to serve cocktails the whole trip. You won’t even know you’re off the ground.”

  “Just be sure you have an extra-large barf bag.”

  I drove to Cornelia Fort Air Park, realizing this was my last opportunity to exercise some control over my destiny for an uncertain future. Jill did a thorough inspection of the Cessna, called for another check of the weather and filed her flight plan. I tried to think of some other good reason we shouldn’t pursue this mission, but failed. Finally, I strapped myself in, listened to the engine roar to life, heard Jill talk a lot of pilot jargon on the radio, and we took off into what quickly became an impenetrable shroud of white.

  True to Jill’s word, we popped out on top after a short climb and glorious sunshine bathed us from the rear. Clumps of clouds still lurked about the sky, however, and we encountered a rash of bumps in the road. Preferring my bumps and grinds in a chorus line, I closed my eyes and pretended to doze. One thing I had learned early on was that flying does wonders for your religion. I spent most of my time uttering brief prayers.

  After a span of time that seemed just short of eternity, I heard Jill request landing instructions at Lambert Field. Opening my eyes to find we were descending through a cloud bank, I promptly closed them again. A short time later I heard the screech of tires and knew we were rolling on solid ground.

  Jill parked the Cessna and we headed for the hangar to make the usual ground arrangements. The temperature was considerably lower here than in Nashville, and I was glad I had donned a well-lined jacket. After Jill finished her paperwork, we rented a car and got directions to the address for Orman’s Gun Shop. Cities have a habit of changing over a forty-year span, and St. Louis hardly appeared the way I remembered it from my early days. The skyline looked different, the streets looked different, the traffic damned sure looked different.

  We found the street in a suburb on the north side and followed the numbers down to a row of store fronts that included everything from shoe repairs to carpet remnants to pawn shops. Orman’s was located next to a small video rental place that advertised enough X’s to confuse a Roman timekeeper. We parked in front of the gun shop, which could have passed for the county jail with all the bars across its windows.

  A bell jangled on the door as Jill and I entered, and though the place was not overly large, it appeared Orman had not lied when he said he stocked most any kind of gun you could ask for. Shotguns, rifles and handguns of every variety lined the walls and showcases. Ammunition boxes, cleaning kits, targets and various other accessories filled the shelves.

  A man who could have been anywhere in his fifties or sixties sat on a stool behind a counter near the front. Nearly everything about him appeared gray–shaggy beard, long hair, skeptical eyes, flannel shirt. He was small but stocky, with leathery skin. The cardinal on his white ball cap provided a lone touch of color. Judging from the animal heads mounted high on the walls, he was a hunter.

  “Good morning,” I said with my friendly-greeting smile. “Are you Ray Orman?”

  He nodded. “Sure am. What can I do for you?”

  I handed him our card. “I’m Greg McKenzie, and this is my wife, Jill.”

  He glanced at the card, then back at me. “You called Saturday about Damon Saint. What the hell’s he done to prompt you folks to come all the way to St. Louis?”

  “As I told you on the phone, Damon’s wife Molly hired us to look into him. He had made some threats that were quite worrisome. But before we could get very far with our investigation, she left a message on our answering machine to call her back as soon as possible. She was really excited about something. But when we tried to call, we found they had moved.”

  “To St. Louis?”

  “I don’t think so, but we don’t know where. I’m hopeful you can tell us something about him that might point us in the right direction.”

  Orman leaned his elbows on the counter and shook his head. “Like I said, I’ve not heard anything of him in some eight or ten years.”

  “It seems about seven years ago he turned his carpet cleaning business over to the guy who worked for him,” I said.

 
“That when he went to Nashville?”

  “Apparently. He told the guy in Indianapolis he was being sent on a clandestine government mission.”

  “Christ. That damned boy had some wild ideas. He was a good soldier, though. I trained him.”

  “Are you retired from the Army?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Master sergeant. I’d been saving up for a long time, bought this shop when I got out. Was you in the Army?”

  “No, I retired from the Air Force. I was with the Office of Special Investigations.”

  “That’s like CID, right?”

  “Right. We were Air Force detectives. You say you trained Saint. Were you with him in Vietnam?”

  “Part of the time. He was the demolition man on my team. For a while we were assigned to a Special Ops Group reconnaissance team composed of Americans and Nungs.”

  “What are Nungs?” Jill asked.

  “It was a tribal group originally from the border area between North Vietnam and China.”

  “You must have been gathering intelligence,” I said.

  “Yeah. We did a lot of hit-and-run operations. After that they transferred us to the Phoenix Program.”

  “I’ve read some reports on that one,” I said.

  “I think there were lots of reports on it. A lieutenant I knew was called to testify before Congress.”

  “How about enlightening me,” Jill said.

  “We worked with what they called a PRU—Provisional Reconnaissance Unit of the South Vietnamese army,” Orman said. “We were charged with rounding up and neutralizing Communist guerillas who were members of the National Liberation Front.”

  “And how do you neutralize someone?” Jill asked.

  Orman just grinned.

  “It’s a euphemism,” I said, “for what the CIA used to call terminate with extreme prejudice.”

  Jill’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “The PRU’s were tasked to assassinate NLF leaders,” Orman said. “They would go into villages and round up anybody who looked or sounded like they might be friends of Charlie. The PRU’s had monthly quotas to fill. Sometimes they went overboard.”