5 A Sporting Murder (4 page)

Shortly after we swung into the clearing beyond the woods, motion-activated
floodlights bathed the house in a glow bright enough to reveal every knothole
in the logs. I looked around but saw nothing amiss. Activating the opener, I
pulled into the garage and closed the door behind us. We had keyless entry pads
on all the outside entrances, including the one from the garage into the house.
I punched in the current code and opened the door for Jill.

“Who do you suppose it was?” she
asked. She had remained quiet as a rag doll on the way back home.

“He didn’t intend for us to find
out.” I hung my jacket in the hall closet beside her fur-collared coat.

“Do you know anybody who drives a
black Cadillac Escalade?”

Though the night was dark and the
visibility poor, the vehicle was obviously a luxury SUV and we’d agreed that
was most likely the model.

“I can’t think of anybody who
drives an Escalade of any color,” I said. “But I’d sure as hell like to know
who this one was.”

She gave me a beady eye. My wife has
never learned to appreciate my four-letter vocabulary, which is why I use it
sparingly. I followed her into the large country kitchen, her favorite part of
the house, and sat at the round maple table that matched the cabinets.

Jill leaned against the counter. “Do
you think he was watching for us?”

“He was certainly up to no good.
Why else would he leave in such a hurry? And without lights.”

“What should we do about it?”

“We’re going to keep a careful eye
out for anything else that doesn’t match the ordinary. And we’ll be armed like
pirates whenever we go out until this case is solved.”

She poured water into the coffee
maker. “Then you think this has something to do with Terry Tremont’s case.”

“What else could it be? Either that
or Arnold Wechsel’s murder, which are probably one and the same.”

She spooned in Columbian coffee,
pressed the switch, turned, and grinned. “Armed like pirates, huh? That means
armed to the teeth. Do I have to go around with a knife in my mouth?”

Jill was not the type to cave in at
the prospect of danger. She had faced down more than a few crises at the
controls of an airplane. She accepted that a potential menace should be respected
but not dreaded. She had also bought into my practice of countering
intimidation by finding a way to laugh at it.

“The knife is optional,” I said. “But
carry that little .38 in your bra.”

I said it as a joke, but what I had
begun to feel was far from amusement. I drummed my fingers on the table. “Having
said that, I’ll have to admit I don’t like this one bit.”

“Could Phil help us?”

“I’m afraid Phil doesn’t have time
to check out every Escalade owner in Metro and surrounding counties. But I need
to tip him off about Dick Ullery.”

When I got Detective Adamson on the
phone, I gave him a friendly needle prick. “Did I disturb your nap again?”

“Big joke. I haven’t been home long
enough to stretch my arms, much less stretch out on a recliner. If you’re
fishing for new developments, you’ve cast your line in the wrong stream, buddy.
There ain’t any.”

“Maybe I can help out,” I said.
“Have you come across the name Dick Ullery?”

“Damn, Greg. I should’ve known
you’d outflank us.” He sounded a bit miffed. “Ullery’s name turned up this
afternoon. We haven’t checked him out yet. What do you know about him?”

“Jill and I just came from his
apartment. It’s not far from our house.”

I told him what we had learned from
the Superspeedway employee.

“I suppose I should talk to the
chief and see if I can’t deputize you to join my team on this.”

“Not a bad idea. If Arnold’s murder turns out to be unrelated to our case, I’m not sure Terry Tremont will pay
our bill. Do I get overtime?”

“Ha! They tell us to close our
cases in double-time. Forget the overtime.”

Jill brought my coffee over and set
it on the table.

“Be glad you’re not in the military,”
I said. “We were on duty twenty-four/seven at the designated pay rate.”

“Yeah, it’s tough all over. Thanks
for the tip, though. For your information, the ME is releasing the body. They’re
supposed to contact the family about sending him back to Germany.”

“What did the autopsy show?”

“One interesting point. This isn’t
general knowledge, so keep it under your Titan’s cap. As you know, he was shot
at close range through the cheek. The bullet had an upward trajectory. It was a
hollow-point nine millimeter. The TBI lab is running tests on it.”

That meant the bullet would give up
any secrets it held. The firearms section of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
Forensics Lab did great work. I wasn’t through with Phil yet, though. I took a
sip of coffee and told him about the Cadillac SUV lurking on our street.

“What the hell,” he said after
hearing my story. “You think it’s related to Wechsel’s murder?”

“If it isn’t, I have no idea what
it could mean. We don’t have any other cases that would warrant something weird
like this.”

“I’ve heard you talk about the
possibility of some old case from your Air Force days coming back to haunt
you.”

“That’s always a possibility. I’ve
worked some grisly cases, but nobody’s threatened me in years.”

“Want me to ask Patrol to keep an
eye on your place?”

“It couldn’t hurt, but I don’t know
that it would help, either.”

“I’ll pass the word along. Let me
know if anything else happens.”

I awoke the next morning to an icy north wind rattling the
windows. The deck of surly clouds looked low enough to reach out and grab a
handful. The forecast called for temperatures to hover below the freezing mark,
which meant we’d be traipsing about like Eskimos. Jill wasn’t the best morning
person, particularly on a frigid day like this, but I managed to coax her out
of bed with the smell of hot coffee. Jeff Price called from Ramstein Air Base while
we were eating breakfast.

“I hope it isn’t too early for
you,” he said. “It’s afternoon over here.”

I glanced at Jill, whose eyes still
looked like they’d been raised to only half-staff. “We’ve been up for a while.
Did your wife get word they’ve released Arnold’s body?”

“They contacted her sister. I think
they’re flying him back here tomorrow. Have you come up with any information?”

I told him what I could about our
investigation so far. “What about you?” I asked. “Learn anything additional
about Arnold that might be helpful?”

“His mother said she’s really been
worried the past couple of months. He talked about all this ‘easy money’ he’d
been making. She knew he liked to bet on things before he left here, but he
denied gambling in the States. I didn’t tell her otherwise. Still, she had a
feeling this new job was somehow related to it.”

I thought about what Dick Ullery
had said regarding people Arnold had met. Could they be involved with gambling?

When we were ready to leave for
work, Jill eyed the kitchen clock. “We’d better skip the office if we’re going
to make it out West End for our eight-thirty appointment with Bradley
Smotherman. Rush hour isn’t over yet.”

I agreed. You never knew what you’d
run into on I-40. It was like playing Russian roulette, hoping to click on an
empty lane. Our office was near the longest entrance ramp to the interstate I’d
ever encountered. It must have been more than a mile long. I-40 would take us
downtown to the Broadway exit and a short drive out to Smotherman’s office. But
with the morning rush, all bets were off.

I didn’t have any real concern that
we might encounter a problem this morning, but I wasn’t taking any chances,
either. I holstered my 9mm Sig-Sauer P-229 before we hit the road. As it turned
out, despite five lanes of traffic, a rear-end collision near the airport
slowed us to the point that we made our appointment with only minutes to spare.
I didn’t envy the cops who stood in the icy wind, arms waving in an attempt to
keep traffic from stalling, which it did anyway. Maybe they were just moving to
keep from freezing. I’d worked in a hell of a lot worse conditions. I served a
tour at a base in Minot, North Dakota where the average temperature in December
was minus thirteen degrees. Nashville hadn’t seen a snowflake this month,
though the dark folds of cloud jammed together overhead looked capable of
producing a flurry or two.

We had just passed where West End split off from Broadway when a red light caught us. I turned to ask Jill if I
needed to adjust the heater and my gaze hit on the driver of a pickup truck in
the next lane. He had a sharp, angular face, with a chin that seemed almost
pointed. I did a double take.

The man looked around at me and
grinned. Then the light changed, and he took off.

Jill saw my frown and asked,
“What’s wrong? The light’s changed. Let’s go.”

I gunned the Jeep, keeping the
truck in view. It was a light blue Ford F-150. I couldn’t see the license
plate. Solid traffic in the right lane prevented my getting behind him. I
pounded the steering wheel angrily as he turned off West End at the next
intersection. There was no way I could follow him.

Jill leaned toward me. “What’s
going on, Greg?”

“Izzy Isabell was driving that
truck,” I said. “I’d swear to it.” I recalled the last time I saw him, being
led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

“Is that the navigator you arrested
on drug charges?”

“Right. It was back in the late
eighties. While he was in jail, he talked about arranging the murder of some
witnesses, including me. He was real unhappy that I caught him in the first
place.”

“Was he from Nashville?” Jill
asked.

“No. Louisville.”

“Are you sure that was him in the
truck?”

“He has a face I could never forget,
even with a little age on it. And he grinned when he looked at me. He obviously
knew who I was. It’s possible he was following us.”

“If he’s out of prison, shouldn’t Colonel
Grigsby have called you?”

“I need to check with him and find
out what’s happened.”

My former OSI commander, the
colonel kept tabs on the whereabouts of incorrigible criminals we had put away.
He advised us when somebody who didn’t have our best interests at heart got put
back on the streets. That included Izzy Isabell, a name his parents had given
him for Lord knows why. The lieutenant, a navigator on a KC-135 Stratotanker,
always carried a heavy briefcase for his maps and charts and whatever else he
required to get the tanker to its rendezvous with jets that needed air-to-air
refueling. I finally got proof that it had also contained bricks of cocaine.

If anyone doubted Bradley Smotherman’s addiction to ice
hockey, the sign on his office suite provided the unequivocal answer—Hatrick
Brake Company. A “hat trick,” of course, was when one player scored three goals
in a game. Terry Tremont had told us that Smotherman grew up in Rochester, New York, one of the original hotbeds of pro hockey. His company manufactured
disc brake assemblies. He relocated here when Nissan’s arrival made Middle
Tennessee a favorite spot to build new auto plants and make parts that went
into the assembly of cars.

Besides all the jungle-like
greenery of contemporary office décor, the reception area featured a mock-up of
the driver side of a sports car with the wheels missing to show the brake
assembly. Two bright-eyed young blondes occupied desks shaped like they’d been
designed by someone with a scroll saw and a free-form mindset. I handed the
nearest one my business card.

“Greg and Jill McKenzie,” I said
with my best PR smile. “We have an appointment with Mr. Smotherman.”

She glanced at a sheet on her desk
and returned my smile with one straight off a tooth-whitening commercial.
“Please have a seat. He’ll be right with you.”

She spoke on the phone as we took
our seats in softly upholstered earth-toned chairs. Looking around, I saw the
Predators’ influence in hockey posters and paintings on the walls. We had just
settled in when the receptionist’s phone rang. She turned to the other girl,
who’d have made a great model for
Sports Illustrated
’s swimsuit issue.

“Dolores, take Mr. and Mrs.
McKenzie back to Mr. Smotherman’s office.”

As we followed Dolores through a
door to a long hallway, the hockey motif jumped out at us. Wallpaper up to
chair rail height featured a succession of hockey sticks, pucks, skates, helmets,
and other items peculiar to the sport. I was forced to admit, Bradley Smotherman
had to be the quintessential fan.

He met us at the door and ushered
us to an area at one side of the ample office where several chairs were
arranged around a low walnut coffee table. The walls sported framed hockey
scenes.

“Welcome to Hatrick,” he said in
his clipped New York accent.

I had dressed in my best new-client
outfit, white shirt and tie, dark blue blazer. Jill looked stylish as usual in
a burgundy suit. But our host, with ruddy cheeks and short brown hair, could
have just stepped out of a hockey arena suite. Decked out in black slacks and
an open-collared white knit shirt emblazoned with the Pred’s sabretooth tiger
logo, he looked early fifties.

“Please have a seat,” he said,
moving to one of the chairs. “Would you like coffee or a Coke?”

Jill shook her head.

“Thanks, we’re fine,” I said. I let
my gaze sweep around the office. “You must be quite a hockey fan, Mr.
Smotherman.”

He feigned a frown, then laughed.
“Now where did you get that idea?”

“I’m sure Terry Tremont gave you
some background on us,” I said, bypassing the small talk. “We’d like to know
the circumstances that led to our being brought in.”

“Fair enough. I understand you’re
retired Air Force. I was a Navy pilot after college. Trained at Pensacola.”

Jill’s eyes brightened. “We have…make
that
had
a condo on Perdido Key, before the hurricane turned it inside
out a few months ago. We always watched the Blue Angels practice when we were
down there.”

“Sorry to hear about your condo. I
wasn’t quite good enough for the Blue Angels. I did my share of low-level
buzzing, though. That was back in my younger days.” Smotherman chuckled, then
abruptly switched the topic. “How familiar are you with the effort to bring a
National Basketball Association team to Nashville?”

“I’ve read some of the newspaper
accounts and heard a bit on TV,” I said.

“Then you probably know of the
attempt back in 2001 to bring the Grizzlies here from Vancouver. We opposed it,
but the idea never got past the talk stage before they decided to move the team
to Memphis. This effort is more dedicated. The front man for the deal is a
smooth-talker named Louie Aregis. He’s a venture capitalist who recently moved
his investment company here from, would you believe, Pensacola?”

“We saw the name,” Jill said, “but
it didn’t mean anything to us.”

“I’m told he has plenty of cash,”
Smotherman said. “And he has some well-heeled partners in Howard Hays and Fred
Ricketts.”

I noted his easy manner of
speaking, the mark of a man who was sure of himself.

“I know Hays heads the Dollar Deal retail
store chain,” I said. “He’s in the news frequently. Who is Ricketts?”

The Hatrick president folded his
arms. “He runs a company in Brentwood that designs software for medical
practices. Their group proposes to use the Preds’ arena for basketball. It
would take a lot of coordination between hockey and basketball schedules, but
that’s not the main problem. The fan base here will support two professional
teams. Three…I don’t think so.”

“You’re afraid it would cause the
Predators to fail,” I said.

“Likely both teams would fail.”

“Okay. I see your problem. So
you’re creating a campaign to discourage support for the basketball franchise?”

“That’s the basic idea. We’ve hired
a PR firm to convince the public and the city fathers that it wouldn’t be the
best thing for Nashville. Gordon Franklin and Mack Nolan joined me in putting
up money for the project.”

“We’re supposed to see Franklin at eleven-thirty. I understand he’s a CPA.”

“A very competent CPA. He lives and
breathes number crunching. I suspect his boxers have dollar signs on them. If
anything happened to that accounting practice, he’d be ready for the grave.”

“How did he get interested in
hockey?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but it’s the only
thing I’ve seen that makes him blossom out. He’s a bachelor and a very private
person. Don’t be surprised if he seems a bit terse. I guess an outgoing
personality isn’t a requirement for being a CPA.”

“We haven’t been able to get an
appointment with Mack Nolan,” Jill said.

“He’s a fast-moving young guy at
the top of his form. Ice hockey is something of a passion for him. I think it’s
a way to let off steam from the hectic pace he keeps between public
appearances, recording sessions, and whatever else he does. It’s sure better
than popping pills like so many of them do. You may have to corner him at a
Pred’s game.”

“What about this rumor thing Terry
Tremont mentioned?” I asked.

Smotherman leaned his elbows on the
desk, striking a thoughtful pose. “It was Mack who received a report that
something may not be kosher about the NBA deal. Terry suggested bringing you in
to check into it.”

I glanced at Jill and caught her
brows going up.

“Have you ever heard of an Arnold
Wechsel, Mr. Smotherman?” I asked.

He gave me a blank stare as he
pondered the name. “No. Not that I can recall.”

“Did you see the story in the
morning paper yesterday about a murder at an auto repair shop in the Dickerson
Pike area?”

He leaned back in the chair and
laced his fingers. “I saw the headline but didn’t read the story. That is an
area I’m not familiar with.”

I wasn’t surprised, but I told him
about the phone call from Wechsel and that I was the one who found the body.

“My, God!” His eyes narrowed, and his
face took on a pinched look. “He said it would blow your mind?”

“Words to that effect. I have no
idea what he was talking about. It’s possible, perhaps probable, the murder had
some connection. We just don’t know at this point.”

He cocked his head to one side and
spoke persuasively. “This could be the tip of the iceberg we’ve been hoping to
find.”

“The question is who knew we had
been hired besides Terry Tremont and you? How did Arnold Wechsel know about
us?”

Smotherman’s brow wrinkled. “I
called both Franklin and Nolan.”

“Did you talk to Nolan?”

“No. I left word with his manager.”

“That would be Mr. Oakley?” Jill
asked.

“Right.”

“Did you tell him about us?”

“Yes. I told him you’d been
retained by Terry to assist us, but I didn’t say exactly why. I asked him to
have Mack call me.”

I thought about that for a moment.
“Did he?”

“Not until late last night. He was
in California.”

“And you told no one else?”

He cocked his head thoughtfully.
“Only my secretary.”

I challenged him with the same
request I had given Terry Tremont, that he make sure his secretary had not
passed the information on to others.

“What do you plan to do next?” he
asked.