“I think we need to visit Mr. Pete Lara, owner of the garage where I found Wechsel’s body. He’s Mexican, so you’d better brush up on your Español.”
After I retired from the Air Force, we had wandered around the U.S. for a while, then spent some time in a jacaranda-scented American military retirement community around Guadalajara, Mexico. Jill picked up the language a lot easier than I did.
“What did Lara tell Phil?”
“Not much. But immigrants, even legal ones, tend to talk more freely to people who aren’t cops.”
Chapter 5
I had a hunch Pete Lara might be at his shop today to clean up the mess. When I called, he answered. I told him I was the one who found Arnold’s body and I needed to come out and talk to him. He agreed to cooperate if it would help find who killed his friend.
We headed for the Dickerson Pike area and found the small auto repair shop much as it had appeared last night, although with no police cars or ambulances, the décor lacked all the flashing red, white and blue embellishment. Daylight did little to spruce up the neighborhood. The tired buildings looked as drab as ever beneath a leaden sky. A badly bruised car in need of a new paint job sat in front of the garage, awaiting its turn at some sort of rejuvenation. I parked near the door beside a recent model Chevy with a crumpled front fender.
Inside, the first thing I noticed was the floor tiles had been scrubbed to a shiny black and white. The smell of a disinfectant cleaner hung in the air. A short, stocky young man with bronzed skin and slick black hair stood at a small counter. He was making change from a cash register for a slim black youth with a rear-facing ball cap. Evidently Lara had decided to take customers today since he was here. The boy gave me a stare as he started out.
“That your red Chevy out front?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Looks like you had a little problem with a fender,” I said.
He grinned and tugged at his cap. “A mailbox hit me. One of them big brick jobs. You gotta watch them monsters. They’re mean.”
Jill and I broke out laughing as he sauntered out.
The mechanic approached us with a hesitant smile. He wore blue coveralls with a dark oily spot on one leg. “You have problem I can help with?”
“I’m Greg McKenzie and this is my wife, Jill. I called you about what happened last night.”
The atmosphere changed instantly. His eyes widened into large, dark orbs. “Greg McKenzie,” he said in a whisper. “Arnold tell me you come. The police ask why. I don’t know.”
“I don’t either,” I said, emphasizing it by spreading my hands. I explained the phone call I received the previous afternoon. “Did he give you any hint of what he wanted to talk to me about?”
He shook his head vigorously. “Private talk. He very mysterious sometimes. I let him use place before. We work together…auto diesel school.”
“Did he meet people here often?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“When did you last see Arnold?”
“Yesterday. He come get key.”
“How did he seem?”
“Seem?” Lara tilted his head with a puzzled look? “No comprende.”
I spoke slowly. “Was he in a good mood? Did he look worried?”
“He no look happy.”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“He was a mechanic at a shop that builds and repairs race cars. Do you know if he also worked at some other job?”
“He never say. He have plenty money.”
I thought of what Jeff Price had told me. “Did he like to gamble, do some betting?”
Lara shoved his hands in his pockets. “He ask me if I like make bet. I say no. I spend money on what I see, hold in hand.”
“Smart man,” Jill said.
“Did he take bets from other people?” I asked.
“He no talk about it.”
“Did he ever mention any other close friends, people he may have worked with?”
“Nobody at auto shop.”
“Maybe someone he’d met somewhere else?”
He shook his head slowly, looking down at his feet. I’m sure it had been a traumatic day for him. When he glanced up, his eyes widened as with a sudden thought. “Man named Dick…” After a pause, he said what sounded like “oo-your-ee.”
“Is that spelled U-L-L-E-R-Y?” Jill asked.
“Sí. Yes, yes.”
I glanced at her and rumpled my brows. “Thanks.”
“Arnold say he do something with race cars,” Lara said.
When we were back in the Jeep, Jill took out the ruled pad she used for note taking. “I wonder what those other meetings Wechsel had were about?”
“Would be interesting to know.”
“Shall we track down Mr. Oo-your-ee?”
“Thank goodness your Spanish is better than mine. Let’s do an online search. First we need to take a look at that apartment where Wechsel lived.”
We drove out to Antioch after stopping for lunch. This suburb on the south side of town looked like apartment city. It was littered with projects of all sizes, from fancy gated communities to small, cracker-box structures. They appeared to be popular with the young moderate income set. Arnold Wechsel had lived near Percy Priest Lake in a fashionable red brick building with a covered entrance for each cluster of four units, two up, two down. Several tarp-covered Sea-Doo watercraft occupied slots in the parking area. Small but colorful patches of winter-blooming pansies dotted the grounds. We found Arnold’s apartment upstairs, still draped with yellow and black crime scene tape. A knock at the door across from his brought the appearance of a young redhead in ragged jeans and a faded brown tee shirt. She was probably around thirty. She looked us up and down with an appraisal that seemed to say you two are out of your element. I wouldn’t have argued the point.
I handed her a business card. “We’re private investigators looking into the death of your neighbor, Arnold Wechsel.”
“What happened to him was awful,” she said. She made exaggerated movements of her mouth like someone practicing to be a public speaker. “I don’t know what else you’d want from us, though. The cops have already been here and grilled us like hamburger.”
“I’m sure we’ll be a bit more tender than the police,” I said. “We just have a few questions. May we come in?”
She had a naturally attractive face, until she frowned. “My husband doesn’t like me to invite people in when he’s not here.”
“I doubt that he’d object to us,” Jill said, holding out her PI credentials. “We’re licensed by the state.”
The woman looked at it, then glanced up at me. “You got one?”
I showed her my ID.
“Come on in,” she said.
We followed her inside. A neat arrangement of furniture upholstered in pale green faced a large-screen TV. From her sloppy appearance, I was a bit surprised at the look of the apartment. We sat on the sofa across from her. I gave my wife a slight nod since she was our designated female interrogator.
“How long have you known Mr. Wechsel?” Jill asked.
“He’d only been here a few months, but I ran into him now and then. He came and went a lot. Seemed like a decent enough sort of guy. He was big. Friend of mine on the bottom floor called him a handsome brute. Said his hair was the cutest in the universe.”
It sounded like she was confusing cosmetology and cosmology.
Jill found it difficult to stifle a grin. “Did he ever visit with you and your husband?”
“No. I don’t think Earl, that’s my husband, I don’t think Earl liked him. He could be sort of aloof, you know. I suppose that was the German in him.”
“Do you know if he had many visitors?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. I’m a waitress at Olive Garden, so I work nights a lot. There was only one person I recall seeing on a few occasions. He was tall and lanky and drove a white Mustang.”
She sounded like a nosy neighbor, probabl
y watched the action down below her window.
“Did you ever see him with a lady friend?” Jill asked.
“He never brought one around here that I’m aware of. Of course, I didn’t keep up with his every move.”
Of course.
“When you talked to him occasionally,” I said, “did he ever mention an interest in sports?”
She rested her chin on one hand and cut her eyes toward me. “He may have talked about football, like watching the Titans.”
“Nothing about basketball?”
“There’s no basketball court around here,” she said in a bit of a huff. “Anyway, I didn’t talk with him all that much. Mostly like ‘how ya doin’ or ‘nice day for a walk.’ Stuff like that.”
“Did he talk any about auto racing?”
She moved her head from side to side as if to jar loose a memory. “He may have said something about going to the Superspeedway.”
“Did you see him yesterday?” I asked.
“Matter of fact, I did. I’d just come back from the grocery and passed him on the stairway. He just breezed right by me like I wasn’t there. Must’ve had his head full of something.”
I leaned forward for emphasis. “Can you think of anything about Wechsel that would give us some insight into him? Something that might provide a hint as to why somebody might want to harm him?”
“Jeez. I didn’t know him all that well. One thing I remember, though, he must’ve had a touchy temper. I heard him out in the hallway on a few occasions shouting into his phone.”
“Did you hear any names?”
She rubbed her chin as she pondered the question. “Frank somebody? I don’t know. With that accent, I’m not sure. It was in the last few days, I think.”
Chapter 6
When we got back to the office, I did a database search on Richard Ullery while Jill updated the case file on all we had learned today. Sometimes we pursued certain aspects of a case alone, but most of the time we counted on the synergy of working together to produce the best results. As my mother always told me, two heads are better than one, even if one is a goat’s head. I was always a bit stubborn.
I had no trouble finding Arnold Wechsel’s friend. There were few Ullerys in the Nashville area, and only one Richard. When I saw his employer, Nashville Superspeedway, I knew we had our man. Other data gave his age as twenty-eight, divorced, holder of an associate degree in business from Vol State Community College. I suspected he also drove a Ford Mustang. He lived in an apartment complex in Hermitage, not far from our house.
“Got him,” I told Jill. “He’s practically a neighbor.”
“See if he’s home.”
He wasn’t, but his answering machine gave me his cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.
“Dick Ullery?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Greg McKenzie. I’m the man who was supposed to meet Arnold Wechsel last night. I hope you can help me out.”
“Man, that was a bad scene.” He gave a deep sigh. “Whoever shot him oughta get the nasty needle. Arnold was one cool dude.”
“We’ll have to catch the killer first. Maybe you can help. I live in Hermitage, not far from your apartment. I’d like to talk to you tonight if that’s possible.”
“You’re a private eye, right?”
“Yes. Arnold called and asked me to meet him. Have you talked to the police?”
“No. I guess I should, but I don’t need my name in the papers over some shit like this.”
I was a little surprised Phil hadn’t found him. Pete Lara must have held back when he talked to the detective. “Are you at the Superspeedway now?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I’ll be leaving shortly. Why don’t you come over around seven?”
As soon as we got home, Jill whipped up “a little something,” in Jill McKenzie terms. She sautéed fresh vegetables in garlic butter prepared with her unique blend of spices, to go with tilapia filets with a parmesan-encrusted topping. The finished plate looked like something out of a gourmet restaurant kitchen. After that mini-feast, we headed over to Dick Ullery’s apartment.
The entrance to the complex had been decorated in colorful flashing garlands. Spotlights bathed large foam snowmen that stood like frozen sentries at either side of the divided roadway. Wide parking areas flanked the brick and vinyl-sided buildings. We found a vacant spot among the mass of cars that included a 2002 Mustang outside Ullery’s unit.
I smelled wood smoke from somebody’s fireplace as I rang the bell. The man who opened the door stood a little taller than me at six feet plus. Lean as a greyhound, he had the haggard expression of a man at the end of a rough day. Must have been some mini-crisis since there were no races this time of year. We followed him inside a sparely-furnished living room. A gray sofa, a recliner, a large-screen TV, and a well-stocked bookcase with glass doors were placed seemingly at random. I suspected it was a symptom of a disorganized lifestyle. He invited us to have a seat on the sofa.
“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he said. “This business has bugged me all day. What could prompt somebody to do a thing like that? It makes no sense. Sure, Arnold could get a bit testy when something didn’t go his way, but…” His voice petered out.
“Did he ever talk about somebody named Frank?” I asked.
“Not that I remember. Who’s Frank?”
“A neighbor heard him talking on the phone to somebody named Frank. He sounded angry. Do you know of anybody he was having trouble with?”
Ullery sat with his arms leaning on slender thighs, hands gripping his knees, eyes downcast. “He didn’t always agree with stuff they did at that shop where he worked. I never heard him talk about any real trouble, though.”
“You work at the Superspeedway,” I said. “Is that how you met him?”
His eyes flicked up toward mine. “Yeah. I’m involved in PR. Arnold came out one day wanting somebody to show him around. I was elected. We hit it off pretty good. I found it interesting this young German guy wanted to be a NASCAR crew chief.”
“Is that what he was working toward?”
“Yeah. It was a long shot. Chiefs usually get there by working their way up through a pit crew.” He sat up suddenly and wiped his hands across his face. “Can I get you guys something? I need a beer.”
“Go ahead and get your beer,” I said. “We just finished dinner. We’re fine.”
He took a few quick strides into the kitchen and returned with a Bud Lite.
“I had planned to take Arnold out to meet my granddad next week,” Ullery said. “He lives on a farm up in Robertson County.”
“What was the occasion?”
“Granddad spent time in Germany as a prisoner of war during World War II. He wanted to talk to Arnold about the way things are over there now. He’ll really be disappointed to hear about this.”
“Sad,” I said.
Jill looked across at him. “We heard that Arnold was involved in something besides the auto shop. Was he working with a pit crew?”
Ullery took a swig of beer and set the can on the carpet beside the recliner. “He didn’t work with a crew, but he’d been hanging out with guys from the Victor Block Racing Team. They’re based in Nashville and race in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Not a bad idea, actually. Given a little time, he might have gotten on the team. He knew his way around the cars for sure.”
“Was he a gambler?” I asked. “The homicide detective said he had a lot of money in his billfold.”
“He did a little gambling now and then. I went with him to the boat a few times. You know, Harrah’s casino on the Ohio River up in Metropolis.”
Jill and I made that trek up I-24 to the Illinois side of the river occasionally. We looked on it as a recreational thing and set a fairly modest limit for what we’d spend. Sometimes we came back winners. Most of the time we didn’t.
“Did Arnold ever win big?” Jill asked.
“A few hundred bucks, at best. He talked about making bets a few
times, but I never heard anything that sounded like he’d scored any real hits at it.”
I thought about the problem a lot of players faced with borrowing to cover their bets. “Did he ever mention owing money to somebody, maybe a gambling debt?”
“Not a chance. He was a real nut about staying out of debt. I doubt he’d ever have bought a house, since he’d’ve had to borrow money to do it. Anyway, he was saving his money to go back to school.”
“Did he have any lady friends?” Jill asked.
“He might have, but he didn’t talk about it. Arnold was the most private guy I’ve ever met. He wasn’t real outgoing, didn’t make friends easily, but he was sharp as a filet knife.”
“That’s sharp,” Jill said with a gourmet grin.
“Do you know if he was working anywhere besides the race car shop?” I asked. “Another job might account for the extra money.”
Ullery took a gulp of his beer. “He was doing something for some guy, but I’m not sure who or what. He didn’t like people nosing into his business, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“Did he talk about this extra job at all?”
“Y’know, it’s funny, as shy as he was. He actually seemed to enjoy meeting people he never expected to meet and going places he never expected to go. He talked about that a bit, although he never said exactly what he was doing.”
“What sort of people and places?”
“As I say, he was a little short on details, but he mentioned once meeting an exec at a big hospital chain. The guy lived in a fancy house in Belle Meade. He talked about some others, but the only one I remember him mentioning by name was this Freddie Ford, the car dealer you see all over TV. Arnold said he was a real oddball.”
“When was the last time you saw Arnold?” I asked.
He looked thoughtful. “Would’ve been Friday afternoon. I was off and we met for a beer.”
“Was he in a good mood?”
Ullery stretched his fingers out and wiggled his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “Mood was a hard thing to pin down with Arnold. He could be up when you thought he was down, and vice versa.”
5 A Sporting Murder Page 3
