Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) (11 page)

“Jesus, Jill.” It was a prayer coming from deep inside. I had to find her soon.

Chapter
14

As I drove toward
Old Hickory Boulevard
, my cell phone rang. It’s one of those digital jobs with built-in caller ID and everything but a pager. Lately I hadn’t been all that keen on staying in constant touch with the outside world. The number showing was from
Tullahoma
.

“Hi, Ted,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I would have called back sooner,” he said in his flat
Boston
accent, “but I’ve been to one of those mandatory dinners.”

“I know how that goes.”

“Is Jill with you?”

“No.”

“Would it have anything to do with why a Metro Nashville detective called me late this afternoon?”

Damn. Now I knew what kind of inquiries Detective Adamson had been making. “What did he want to know?”

“Some background on you. Said it pertained to a missing persons investigation he was working.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I said I wasn’t authorized to give out that sort of information, that he needed to talk to the colonel.”

“Erikson?” He was commander of the 1st Field Investigations Region, which included all the detachments in the Air Force Materiel Command.

“Right.”

“There’s no telling what that bastard might say.”

“At least he knows you aren’t a wife beater.”

“Was it Detective Adamson?”

“That’s the boy.”

“Did he mention Jill?”

“No.” There was a pause, and when he spoke he sounded anxious. “Is something wrong, Boss?”

“I’m afraid something is badly wrong, Ted.”

As bad as things appeared to be, they could well be worse. What if Homicide decided to haul me off to jail as a suspect in Jill’s disappearance? Sure, I could produce the scroll and tell them an anonymous caller advised me they were holding her as ransom for the ancient document. But the only person who might vouch for that story was now dead. I had not confirmed that she was missing, and I had been seen around her car. I had also not reported the scroll, probably stolen, was in my possession. It was almost enough that I would have been willing to arrest myself. And the really frightening part was this:

I saw myself as the only hope Jill had of being released. In jail, I could do nothing to help her.

“You still there, Boss?”

“I’m here. I may need some assistance,” I said slowly. “Any chance you could take a day or two of leave and come up here?”

He hesitated a moment. “When? Now?”

“Yeah. Are you working any pressing cases?”

“Well, I’ve got a new drug investigation underway, but it’s still in the preliminary stages. Nothing Wally, my Number Two, can’t look after until I get back. I’ll have to tell Karen where I’m going.”

Karen was his new wife. Jill and I had been at their wedding, and Karen had been up to visit us once since their marriage. “Tell her Jill needs your help.”

“Can you talk?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here. I won’t be at home, though. Call my cell phone when you get to town and I’ll arrange a place to meet. We’ll be forever in your debt for this, Ted.”

“Just take care of yourself until I can get there. It won’t take long.”

A green rookie when he came to work for me several years ago, Ted had developed into one of the finest young investigators I knew. His dad was a poorly educated construction worker, and Ted had battled his way through adolescence in a tough
South Boston
neighborhood. After he had worked his way through college, his natural street smarts helped put him at the top of his class in the
Special
Investigations
Academy
. With Ted’s help, I could make it.

Realizing I hadn’t stopped long enough to eat since breakfast, I drove straight to the nearest hamburger joint. I stopped at the drive-in window and picked up a monster burger with everything on it, large fries and coffee. Pulling around to the parking area, which had a good view of
Old Hickory Boulevard
, I wolfed down my meal. Afterward I felt stuffed and a little sick. I looked around. No surveillance.

When the phone rang I caught the voice I had identified earlier as Palestinian.

“This is Greg McKenzie,” I said.

“I expected your answering machine.” He sounded surprised. “I was told you were not at home.”

I grinned at that slight victory. “I’m on my cell phone.”

“But I dialed–”

“You haven’t heard of call forwarding?”

“Oh,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Where are you?”

He ignored that. “Has anyone else contacted you?”

“Yes. The police called about my wife.”

“What did they want to know?”

“If I knew where she was. They found her car abandoned on
Andrew Jackson Parkway
. Somebody had called them, saying she was missing and hinting that I knew something about it.”

“We did not move her car or make any call. Who would have done that?”

“You tell me,” I said. “You people are the only ones who knew she was missing.”

“It was not me.”

“Well, it must have been some of your pals.” I knew there were at least three, from what Ricky Rogers had seen.

“Do you have the scroll?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and couldn’t resist adding, “you didn’t find it at Dr. Welch’s, did you?”

There was a pause, then he said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Forget it. Let me talk to my wife.”

“First we must complete arrangements for you to bring the scroll. You will get your wife in return. Here is how it will be done. We will meet at a vacant building on
Cowan Street
, down near the river.”

I knew the area. I had picked up a package for the church at a printer there. It was on the downtown side of the
Cumberland River
, a waterway that cut through the heart of
Nashville
and wandered snakelike across the county. It was an industrial section that would be dark and deserted at night.

“No abandoned warehouses,” I said. “We meet somewhere in an open area with plenty of light, where I can easily see you have my wife. Some place like a shopping mall parking lot.”

That seemed to fluster him. “I don’t know if that will . . . ” His voice trailed off as another muffled voice sounded in the background.

“One moment,” he said, covering the mouthpiece.

After a few moments he was back. “I will have to call you later.”

“Wait!” I said. “You told me when I had the scroll I could talk to Jill.”

“Later,” he repeated, sounding agitated, as the voice chattered again in the background. He hung up.

I punched the end button. I still didn’t know if Jill was all right. And I had no clue as to what was happening with her captors. But something had clearly stirred them up. Was it my demand to meet in the open? No, it couldn’t have been that. Only the man on the phone heard what I said. But someone nearby had become excited about something. I stared at the hamburger wrapper and stale cup. Just maybe I was getting an edge.

Chapter
15

I studied the number on the caller ID screen, then checked my watch. Almost ten. Flipping open the little black book I had carried around since my military days, I ran my finger down the pages until I found “Chili Hankins.” I punched in the number.

“Hankins,” he said, a voice like gravel.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” I said. “But I have another pay phone I need to locate. I owe you for this, Chili. I promise I’ll dance at your wedding.”

“More likely my funeral. What are you working on, threatening calls?”

“No. No threats. I won’t bore you with the details.”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t. What’s the number?”

I gave it to him along with my cellular number. I was staring about, watching the traffic on Old Hickory and checking the cars around the fast food restaurant, when Chili called back with word that this telephone was located beside a Piggly Wiggly store on
Riverside Drive
at Rosebank.

Switching on the interior light, I pulled a map from the glove compartment and located the street. The first pay phone was at the
Porter Road
intersection. It looked like Rosebank was about half a mile to the north. Did that bracket the area where they were holding Jill? Perhaps. When Ted got here, we would check it out.

My phone rang again. A breathless David Wolfson asked, “Have you been watching the
ten o’clock
news?”

“No,” I said. “I’m in my Jeep at a hamburger joint.” I knew what had prompted his call, however.

“Did you talk to J. Q. Welch?”

“Yes. And I saw on an earlier news show what happened. It must’ve been minutes after I left his house.” I hadn’t thought about it until now, but the people who bugged my phone had heard my conversation with David as well. But I couldn’t remember saying anything that would connect David to the scroll.

“It’s terrible,” he said. “Probably crack heads. Looks like nobody’s safe anymore.”

“It wasn’t crack heads,” I said. “They knew what they were looking for.”

“What do you mean?”

“For your own safety, I think I had better come over and explain some things.”

Fear crept into his voice. “What’s going on? I don’t–”

“Should I come by your house, or do you want to meet me somewhere?”

Silence.

“I have an apartment in
Antioch
,” he said.

He gave me the address, and I told him I would be right over.
Antioch
was not far from the airport, a southeastern suburb that backed up to
Percy
Priest
Lake
. It wouldn’t take me fifteen minutes to get there.

I had just reached
Bell Road
when the phone rang again. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was too early for Ted to be getting anywhere near
Nashville
. I pressed the talk button.

“Mr. McKenzie?” said a strange voice.

“Yes?”

“You must be on a cell phone,” he said. “We rang your doorbell but got no answer.”

That put me on guard. The anonymous Palestinian said he was told that I was not at home. Was this the guy who told him? “Correct,” I said.

“I wondered when you might be available for a little chat. We could come back to your house, or meet you somewhere else.”

“What did you want to chat about?”

“Apparently without your knowledge, someone used you as a courier to send an old document to the
United States
from
Israel
. Were you aware of that?”

I needed to keep my guard up. “Yes,” I said. “I am well aware of that.”

“Do you still have the document?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Excellent. We are prepared to compensate you well for your trouble. Where and when can we get together?”

If you are allied with the guys around
Riverside Drive
, I thought, it won’t be until they are ready to meet my terms. “I’m pretty busy right now,” I said. “Give me your name and phone number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I have the time.”

That should get him, I thought. If he was up to no good, he would not likely give out a name and certainly not a place I could call back.

“My name is Eli Zalman. I can’t give you a phone number as we haven’t checked into a motel yet. We just flew into town, rented a car and drove to your house.”

It made a good story, but I wasn’t ready to buy it. “What is your interest in the…document?” I asked.

“We’re from the
Temple
Alliance
in
Jerusalem
. I’ll explain when we get together. I hope it will be soon.”

“Call me when you get a phone,” I said.

The road was dark and traffic was sparse and I had an uneasy feeling about it. If they had the contacts and the expertise, they could probably pinpoint my location through the cellular phone transmission. I remembered one of the phone’s advertised features–it was
GPS
ready. Could that have been the reason for the call? I pressed my foot a little harder on the accelerator pedal.

Chapter
16

David Wolfson’s apartment was in a large complex of multi-story buildings fashioned of wood and brick, with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a fancy gate. David was on the ground floor. I lucked out on a parking spot not far from his unit. Lugging the bulky package under my arm, I stood at his door and rang the bell. Above me fluttered a blue banner on a staff. Emblazoned on it was a white dove and one word–
PEACE
.