Greg McKenzie Mysteries Boxed Set—Books 1-4

by Chester Campbell

  “Hi, Wes,” I greeted him when he answered the phone. “This is Greg McKenzie. How’s the news business?”

  “Pretty dull at the moment. This Elliott Bernstein story has some possibilities, but the most exciting thing has been the battle between the local cops and the FBI. Seems there’s been a lot of wheel spinning. Maybe this deliveryman thing will pan out for them. You heard anything new?”

  “Sorry, I’ve been too wrapped up in my own work.”

  “Anything I could use?”

  “Not yet. But I might have something before long.” I thought about the King Cole’s case, but I didn’t want Jesse Logan going into cardiac arrest. “I could use a little help with some background on a guy whose name I came across.”

  “Somebody from Nashville?”

  “Gallatin.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Got caught for a bank robbery in Kansas and did some time. It was around twenty years ago. Think you’d have something in your files?”

  “Very likely. What’s his name?”

  “Warner Chad Rowe.”

  “Shad Roe?”

  Shaking my head, I spelled it for him.

  “Anything else you can tell me about the guy?” Wes asked.

  “He’s a Vietnam vet and he spent a few years in Leavenworth. That’s about it.”

  “Okay, Greg. I’ll see if we have anything. Want me to fax you whatever I find?”

  “That’d be great, Wes.”

  “Are you in a hurry for this?”

  “Actually, I am. I really appreciate your help.”

  “Just remember me when you break something.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  I had considered the possibility of giving Wes what we had on the man posing as Damon Saint for a little speculative news story. No doubt that would shake the missing car ferryman out of the bushes, but after that threatening phone call, I didn’t like the idea of his sneaking out to Hermitage and burning down our house in the middle of the night. He was obviously not a man to toy with.

  “If Molly’s husband tracked down his old Army buddy and killed him for taking all the bank robbery proceeds,” Jill said from her desk across the way, “don’t you think that’s enough to warrant a call to Detective Phil Adamson?”

  “If we had a way of proving it,” I said.

  “What if we took this wedding photo to Indianapolis and showed it to that carpet cleaner, Perry Vanatta?”

  “We already know Molly’s husband isn’t Damon Saint. There’s a possibility Vanatta may have seen Rowe with Saint, but he told us he has no idea what happened to Saint just before he disappeared.”

  “So there’s nothing we could accomplish in Indiana.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She came over and perched on the edge of my desk. “Okay, Mr. Detective, tell me how we could accomplish something besides sitting here on our derrieres.”

  “If we wanted to use a lot of your aviation gasoline and lots of our high-priced time, we could fly to Indianapolis and start questioning everybody around Saint’s old neighborhood. We could also question people around his old place of business. We might turn up something, and we might not. After this many years, neighbors could have moved. And chances are those who didn’t would have forgotten who they saw around Saint seven years ago.”

  “So you’re suggesting we just sit here and wait.”

  I got up and sat beside her on the desk, reached an arm around her waist and grinned. “We could do a little high-powered necking while we wait.”

  “A little high-powered neck breaking might be more appropriate. We have to do something to find Molly, Greg. I can’t stand not knowing what’s happening to her.”

  I slid off the desk and walked toward Mr. Coffee. “Right now our best bet is to follow up on Chad Rowe. I have a hunch the newspaper files will give us some leads to pursue. Want some coffee?”

  “No thanks.” She moved back to her desk and sat down at the computer. “I’d better finish with this bill for Leisure Foods Group so I can get a little money to pay for our high-priced waiting.”

  The fax machine beeped into action about an hour later. I gathered the sheets and took them to my desk. A story datelined Kansas City, Missouri, May 2, 1980 gave details of the bank robbery and Rowe’s capture. There was mention of his service with Army Special Forces in Vietnam, identifying him as a weapons specialist on an A Team. A sidebar datelined Gallatin, Tennessee, reported Rowe was a 1967 graduate of Gallatin High School. His parents lived on a small farm on the outskirts of the town, which was located a few miles from Hendersonville, where Jill had played hostess at King Cole’s.

  A later story covered Rowe’s trial in U. S. District Court in Kansas City. According to information brought out in the trial, he had bummed around the country after Vietnam looking for a good job. But the establishment frowned on guys whose only skills were in fighting and killing. He worked at some menial jobs in the food service industry but managed to lose them, usually after a drinking spree. In the late seventies, he came up with the idea of using the clandestine skills he had learned as a Green Beret for robbing banks. The heists were carefully planned, including detailed surveillance. Rowe admitted working with a colleague but adamantly refused to give any information, even though he was offered the possibility of leniency in sentencing.

  “If Damon Saint was the buddy and made off with all the loot, I can see why Rowe went after him,” Jill said after reading the news stories.

  I agreed. “I’d be surprised if Rowe didn’t clean out Saint’s bank account and arrange the house sale. The cleaning business and the house were probably paid for out of what they took in the robbery. Let’s see what we can find in Gallatin.”

  Before we could pursue anything along that line, the phone rang. Jill answered and handed it to me.

  “This is Greg,” I said.

  “Mr. McKenzie, my name is Bert Quincy. A friend recommended that I call you. You may recognize the name. I’m a member of the school board and run a company called Computers ’n Stuff. Your agency bought a printer from us recently. To put it simply, I need your help in the worst way.”

  I had a bad feeling about this call. I hoped his use of “worst” did not prove prophetic. “What can we do for you, Mr. Quincy?”

  “I have a deliveryman named Larry Inman who’s in big trouble. The police are accusing him of something that is patently absurd. I need you to help me prove his innocence.”

  Chapter 23

  Quincy’s office at the computer store was small but tasteful. Norman Rockwell prints on the wall, windows that probably offered a view of the parking lot masked by heavy sheers. We sat in comfortable chairs across from his tidy desk, a sharp contrast to mine, as he detailed the problem.

  “Larry has worked for me the past nine years,” he said. “He’s an excellent employee, has never been in any kind of trouble I know of, yet they’re trying to say he killed Dr. Elliott Bernstein.”

  I frowned, stirring uncomfortably in my chair. “Do you know what they’re basing that on?”

  “He made a delivery at the hotel the morning Dr. Bernstein was shot. Afterward, he stopped in a strip center parking lot to eat his brown-bag lunch, same as he always does. But, of course, he has no proof of where he was.”

  “Did he see anyone while he was there? Someone who might vouch for his presence?”

  “No one he knew.”

  “I’m sure the police searched his house,” I said. “Did they find a gun?”

  “I’d hardly think so. Larry couldn’t afford a gun. He’s still paying off his mother’s medical and funeral expenses.”

  Quincy told us how Inman had lived with his mother in the projects after his father had deserted them when the boy was fifteen. He graduated from high school in 1982 while unemployment was at high levels. Unable to find a job to help his mother make ends meet, he enlisted in the Marines. Inman was wounded in 1984 when the Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed. He was discharged four years later
and found a job as a truck driver, living with his mother and helping pay their expenses. Mrs. Inman made her living cleaning houses. After a few years, they had saved enough to make a down payment on a small frame house in a marginal section of town.

  “He came to work for me when we started the business in the mid-nineties,” Quincy said. “A few years later, his mother contracted viral cardiomyopathy and had to quit working. After undergoing a lot of expensive tests, she was placed on the list for a heart transplant. With all the medical expenses, they fell behind on their mortgage payments. The bank foreclosed shortly before his mother died, still waiting for a transplant. That was six months ago. Larry was forced to rent a small apartment.”

  I shook my head. “It sounds like he has a motive, to get back at the banking business.”

  “But the Federal Reserve doesn’t have anything to do with mortgage foreclosures.”

  “In a way it does,” Jill said. “The Fed establishes reserve requirements the banks must meet, and it sets the funds rate at which banks can borrow from one another. If a bank is running short, it has no option except to call in its loans, or foreclose.”

  “Maybe so,” Quincy said, “but do you think a blue collar worker would have any idea of that?”

  I rubbed my chin. “You have a point. Does Inman have an attorney?”

  “He can’t afford one, and I don’t trust the public defender to get really excited about his case.”

  “So what do you want us to do?” I asked.

  “Find some proof that will get the police to let him go. I’ll pay your fee.”

  I turned to Jill. “What do you think? It could delay work on Molly’s case.”

  “I don’t like that aspect of it, but this sounds like something that would be hard to turn down.”

  I knew what she meant. I was certain my report to Phil Adamson was what had led to Larry Inman’s predicament. From what Quincy had told us, I wasn’t convinced of Inman’s innocence. I also didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship with Phil, but I felt a moral obligation to make certain I had not caused a gross injustice.

  “All right, Mr. Quincy. We’ll take the case. And we will do everything in our power to learn the truth. That’s all I ever promise a client.”

  He nodded. “That’s all I could ask. Thank you.”

  Chapter 24

  Jill was moodily silent as we drove back to the office. When I sat down at my desk, she stood there with her arms crossed.

  “Why don’t I go ahead with the Molly Saint investigation while you look into Larry Inman,” she said.

  I didn’t even like to consider the prospect of her being accidentally confronted by the man we knew as Damon Saint. “I think we both need to work both cases,” I said.

  “Meaning you don’t think I’m capable of handling an investigation by myself.”

  “Serendipity, babe. There’s a better chance we can stumble onto something significant working together rather than separately. Let me get Phil on the phone and feel him out. Then we’ll decide what to do next.”

  The look she gave me said volumes about my duplicitous nature, but she sat at her desk like a stoic in marble while I called Adamson’s cell phone. He had told me all the detectives used their own phones. The department provided radios, but the investigators didn’t want to discuss sensitive information where all the world could listen in on their scanners.

  “I understand you picked up Larry Inman,” I said when Phil answered. “What did you find out?”

  “Thanks for the tip, Greg. He had motive and opportunity, and his alibi is as leaky as my radiator.”

  “What about the gun and the black outfit?”

  “We haven’t found them. But he could have ditched them in a dumpster.”

  “I presume you’ve had some guys dumpster-diving.”

  “Yeah. No luck yet. The guy’s an ex-Marine, you know. Qualified as an expert rifleman. He’s got a fiery temper, too. Had to be restrained once during interrogation.”

  “Has he admitted anything?”

  “Insists he’s innocent. Nothing new there.”

  “Look, Phil,” I said. “I have to tell you this. Inman’s boss, Bert Quincy, wants us to look for evidence to prove he’s not guilty.”

  “Oh, brother. I’d better tell you the rest of the story.”

  I really wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “What’s that?”

  “Mark Tremaine is handling the Inman angle. You’ve got your work cut out for you, buddy. The way it looks, the guy is guilty as sin.”

  “If we turn up anything exculpatory, I’ll let you know.”

  “There’s something else,” Phil said.

  “Oh?”

  “The FBI is looking into Mr. Quincy. They’re concerned he might have put his boy Inman up to this.”

  Jill looked across at me after I hung up the phone. “What did he say that caused your hair to turn grayer?”

  “Mark Tremaine is heading the Larry Inman investigation.”

  She nodded. “That would do it.”

  My critical comments about Murder Squad Detective Tremaine had involved a high-profile missing person case in which he had pursued one possibility to the exclusion of all else. My choice words about his obstinate behavior had been blown up to imply I was demeaning the entire department. Now that things were almost back to normal, I didn’t relish poking in the hornet’s nest again.

  “I presume Phil wasn’t too happy about our new client, either,” Jill said.

  “Probably not, though he tried to make it sound more like he only pitied us.” I told her what Phil had said about the violent outburst.

  She stared at me. “Sounds like something you might do in similar circumstances.”

  “I might,” I said. “But, fortunately, I’m not being grilled by Mr. Tremaine. Phil mentioned one other complicating fact, though.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “He says the FBI is interested in the possibility that Quincy might have talked Larry Inman into committing the murder.”

  “Really, Greg.”

  “My feelings exactly. Let’s go check out where Inman lived and see what his neighbors have to say.”

  The deliveryman occupied one side of a brick and vinyl-siding house in an area a mile or two off Old Hickory Boulevard that was block after block of nearly identical rental duplexes. Some looked neat enough to be featured in a homes magazine, while others could have passed for junkyards. Inman’s lay somewhere in between, with a few scraggly shrubs in front and a clean lawn. Quincy had given us a key to the place, which Inman had given him in case of an emergency, and we let ourselves in.

  “He’s not much of a housekeeper,” Jill said, noting papers scattered about the floor around a small table in the living room.

  I took in the area with a quick glance. “More likely the work of a cadre of untidy detectives.”

  “What are we looking for, Greg?”

  “The police have already carted off anything of evidentiary value. I’d just like to get a feel for the guy, how he lived, what he valued.”

  We found pictures of Inman the Marine, Inman and his mother, and Inman with an attractive young woman. A Bible lay on the bedside table. The place where he had been reading was marked with a laminated obituary chronicling his mother’s death. A pair of ticket stubs from a movie theater had been dropped on the floor among the debris from the cops’ search.

  “Looks like there may have been a girlfriend,” I said. “Let’s see what we can learn from the neighbors.”

  Nobody was home in the other side of the duplex, so we tried the house next door. A young black woman in bright red capri pants balancing a small child on her hip answered the door. The tot eyed us suspiciously. I introduced Jill and myself. The woman gave her name as Lakeesha Echols. I asked if she were acquainted with her neighbor.

  She nodded. “I know Larry. He must be in big trouble.”

  “Did you see the newspaper story this morning?”

  “No. But I seen the
cops haul him away.”

  “Well,” I said, “we’ve been hired to help him. What did you see over there?”

  “After they took him away in the police car, them crime scene people spent a lotta time in there. What’d he do?”

  “We don’t think he did anything wrong, Lakeesha. By the way, do you know if Larry had a girlfriend?”

  “I met her once, but she don’t live around here.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Franny something. Said she works at a shoe store in the mall at Rivergate.”

  Lakeesha didn’t provide much else of interest except she had never seen Inman with a rifle or heard him mention guns. He was a nice guy who talked a lot about his mother but never said anything about banks. As usual, I gave her one of our cards and asked that she contact us if she heard anything else.

  As we turned to leave, I noticed a small black Ford pickup, probably a Ranger, passing slowly down the street. The tinted windows masked whoever was inside. I tried to catch the tag number, but it was too far away. Probably nothing, but I had an odd feeling about that vehicle.

  Back in the car, Jill looked around at me. “Rivergate is on the way to Gallatin. Or better yet, we could catch it on the way back. It’s one o’clock. Let’s grab a bite of lunch and head for Sumner County.”

  She wasn’t about to let up on the search for Molly, and I couldn’t blame her. As for Larry Inman’s case, the cops needed to come up with something more solid before the DA would jump onto it. We had made a start on our investigation on his behalf. The next move would have to wait while we got back to the more pressing question of where were Molly and Damon Saint/Chad Rowe?