5 A Sporting Murder

by Chester D. Campbell

  “I’m not sure how much we can get done today,” Jill said, “since most businesses will be closing early. A lot of them will have Christmas parties. I remember years ago going to some real doozies at my dad’s office. Not much work got done.”

  I reminded her of one pressing matter. “We need to check into who sent that bottle of Scotch yesterday.”

  Jill looked around from loading the dishwasher. “I wonder if the Fire Marshal’s office, or the ATF, or the TBI Lab will be working as usual today?”

  “I’ll give Jed Clampett a call when we get to the office and see if I he’s turned up anything.”

  “Would this be a good day to look for you a car?”

  “Maybe. Let’s see how it goes.”

  I checked the driveway carefully when we left for work. I wouldn’t be surprised at another attempt on our lives by whoever had planted the bomb, but I expected any new effort would come in a different form. That prospect plus Izzy Isabell still running loose out there meant we’d have to remain as vigilant as soldiers on patrol.

  I drove straight to the local office of Express Delivery Service, off Elm Hill Pike near the airport. An older man with an abundant white beard that made him resemble a character out of a nursery rhyme greeted us from behind the counter.

  I handed him a business card and explained our problem with the package I had received yesterday.

  “I need to talk to whoever accepted it,” I said. “We’re trying to identify the man who brought it in and gave a false identification.”

  He squinted through his large, round glasses. “Who was the package to?”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Greg McKenzie was on the card.”

  “Yeah, I remember. That was me,” he said. “It was a young fellow, not much more’n a teenager. He gave me a piece of paper with your name and address written on it. Paid with a twenty-dollar bill.”

  “Do you still have the paper with the address on it?”

  “No. He wanted it back. Don’t know why.”

  I did. Lieutenant Isabell, if he was the culprit, had probably paid the boy well to bring in the package and retrieve anything that might be used as evidence.

  As soon as we arrived at the office, Jill put on water for cappuccino.

  “I’ll go up the street and get us some doughnuts,” I said. “That’ll be our office Christmas Party.”

  She laughed. “Don’t bother, dear. I brought some banana bread from the freezer. It’ll be thawed enough for partying.”

  She had just turned on the computer to check our email when the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and saw it was from Germany.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  When I answered, Jeff Price had a strange tale to relate.

  “Arnold’s mother got a mystifying call a little while ago that really freaked her out,” he said. “It showed Arnold’s cell phone number in Nashville, but when she answered, nobody was on the line. She called back and it rang but nobody answered.”

  Arnold’s cell phone. I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. Idiot! What was I thinking? Now I knew what had been bugging me the past several days.

  “Do you have Arnold’s number, Jeff?” I asked.

  “No, but I can get it for you.”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll call you right back.”

  I switched off the phone and turned to Jill. She stared at me like I had lost my mind, and that’s the way I felt.

  “Arnold had a cell phone,” I said. “Remember, his neighbor said she heard him talking angrily on the phone in the hallway to some guy named Frank.”

  Jill shook her head. “And neither of us caught it when Phil Adamson said he found no evidence that Arnold used a cell phone.”

  “I must be losing my marbles. That should have rung a bell immediately.”

  As Jill stirred our cappuccino a few minutes later, Jeff called back with the number.

  “This should be a big help,” I said. “The homicide investigator didn’t think Arnold had a cell phone. When we find out who he’d been talking with, maybe it’ll give us something to go on.”

  “Do you have any likely suspects?” Jeff asked.

  “Some possibilities, but not one I can pin the tail on. That’s what troubles me. I’m pretty sure the murder relates to the case we’re working, but there’s no clear motive yet.”

  “Let me know when you find something. Lisle and her sister are getting really uptight over this.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as we find some answers.”

  I promptly put in a call for Phil, but it went to his voice mail. I left word to get back to me as soon as he could, that it was about Arnold Wechsel’s cell phone. I figured that would whet his appetite.

  I had better luck finding Buddy Ebsen, the fire investigator, but that was the extent of my luck.

  “Did you turn up anything from the wreckage of my Jeep?” I asked.

  “Evidence that a blasting cap was used to trigger the bomb. We had figured that anyway. Have you thought of any link to a ham radio operator?”

  “Not since I was in Vietnam thirty years ago, and that was just to make a phone call home.”

  When I told Jill, she gave me a sideways glance. “What did you expect, a miracle?”

  “I didn’t expect one, but it sure would’ve been nice to encounter one.”

  “Why don’t we drop by the Jeep dealer’s and check out the new Grand Cherokees? I read where this year’s model is a complete change from the old one. That’ll be your Christmas present.”

  Sounded good to me. Nothing else was making a lot of sense these days. Of course it created a bit of a dilemma. I still hadn’t bought her a present. We had agreed not to buy each other presents, but I figured she’d be disappointed if she didn’t get something. We headed off to the nearest Chrysler dealer where, as expected, a glad-handing, eager young salesman accosted us the moment we stepped into the showroom.

  “Merry Christmas, folks,” he said with a grin as wide as Detroit. “You’ve come at just the right time for the best deals of the year. What can I show you?”

  He was a bit on the hefty side with short brown hair and a predatory look that was like a neon sign shouting “Buyer Beware!”

  “Let’s see what you have in Grand Cherokees,” I said, confident my partner could handle anything he might throw at us.

  “Come right this way. We have a real beauty in a Limited with a five-point-seven liter Hemi V-8 engine. Got power the old Cherokee could only dream of.”

  We followed him across the showroom to a shiny red SUV that looked much sharper than my old model.

  He launched into his pitch. “Has a new suspension that gives better handling, leans less in corners, and gives a better quality ride. The turning radius is tighter, too. Great in crowded parking lots or driving off-road.”

  “Does this one have four-wheel drive?” I asked.

  “You need four-wheel drive?”

  “I do. When you’re on surveillance, you need to be able to go anywhere.”

  His eyes widened. “You follow people? You must be a detective.”

  “Private investigator.”

  “Hey, man, that’s cool. This one doesn’t have four-wheel drive, but we have plenty that do.” He moved around to open the hatchback. “Look at all the cargo room. You can put all kinds of surveillance equipment in here. This baby has a lot more room than the old Cherokee. Has power adjustable floor pedals, rain-sensing wipers, adjustable roof rails, eight-way power passenger seat—”

  “What about gas mileage?” Jill asked.

  “Depends on the engine you choose. Comes in V-Six or V-Eight. The six gets sixteen in the city, twenty-one on the highway. With the eight it’s fifteen and twenty.”

  “Better than I was getting with the old one,” I said.

  “It comes standard with four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes and a tire pressure monitoring system. You can get it with GPS navigation built into the radio.”

  I had heard enough. �
��If you have a Limited in black with all that, I’ll take it.”

  He checked the records and returned with word that they had one ready to go. The price was more than $34,000, but my hard-nosed business manager got a nice chunk knocked off before we signed the deal. When it was all over, we drove back to the office in separate cars. As I was pulling into the shopping center parking area, my cell phone rang.

  “I tried your office first,” Detective Adamson said. “What’s this about a cell phone?”

  I steered toward a parking spot beside Jill’s car as I told him what Jeff Price had said about the cell phone and what we remembered from the conversation with Arnold’s neighbor.

  “Damn, Greg. I should have dug a little deeper into that. But there were no financial records—”

  “It’s pretty safe to say he worked for Nick Zicarelli, probably collected money for him. I’d wager Zicarelli paid him in cash, and Arnold likely paid some of his bills the same way.”

  “You’re sure about old Nick?”

  I went over our interrogation, what we’d pried out of him, and Nikki’s response.

  “I’ll get on this cell phone angle and request a log of Wechsel’s calls,” he said. “I’d have to say Christmas Eve isn’t a very good time to accomplish something like this. I have to get a subpoena to start with.”

  “I understand. We also followed up this morning on the Scotch bottle delivery. It was sent from Nashville by a guy using a fictitious name and address. He used a young man, practically a teenager, to take the package to the delivery outfit. So no description. But he gave a fake address on Sheridan Drive. I’ve no doubt it was Isabell.”

  “Probably true, but we need some evidence. I’ll check back with the fingerprint techs. They were supposed to send the bottle on to the TBI toxicology lab. I talked to a buddy there who promised to push it, but again, it’s Christmas.”

  The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab was state of the art. It would be only a matter of time, but time was the problem. Everybody wanted to be off for the holiday.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” I said, not really holding out much hope.

  “Thanks for the cell phone tip. Merry Christmas to you and Jill.”

  I gave him our regards and glanced over at Jill’s Camry. I didn’t know how she managed to get here before me. I’m usually the fast guy in the family. But seeing her car reminded me of what I needed to do. I detoured by the jewelry store a few doors away and looked for a pin in the shape of a violin sparkling with diamonds. Jill had admired it recently, mainly because of her mother’s symphony career, but she thought it way too expensive. I had it gift-wrapped and trudged back through the cold to the office. When I got there, I told Jill that Phil planned to go after the cell phone logs but didn’t expect to get any quick results.

  “Maybe we should wrap it up here and head for the fireplace, too,” she said. “We can put our milk and cookies out for Santa early.”

  “Hmph,” I grunted. “From the looks of his belly, he’d probably rather have beer and pretzels.”

  “Oh, boy, some nosy elf is sure to pass that on to him.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ve already got my new Grand Cherokee Limited. I’ll be warm and comfy while the old guy is freezing his jolly red butt off in a topless sled.”

  “I think I’ll nominate you for the Grinch Award.”

  When I reached my hand in my inside jacket pocket to see if I’d left the gift receipt there, I felt something else. I pulled out a folded sheet of paper and opened it.

  “Dang, I may qualify for that award.” I handed her the paper. “Sam gave me this the other night. It’s a family the church was contacted about. I said we’d take care of it, but with this case keeping us in a tizzy, I completely forgot.”

  She read down the list. “Greg, we should’ve bought this stuff three days ago. There are two kids to buy for, and groceries. The stores close early.”

  The phone rang. RT Investigations’ number showed on the caller ID.

  “Getting ready for Santa, Red?” I asked.

  “He just came.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, in the form of the guy who used to work for Louie Aregis.”

  “Great. He give you some names of Nashville investors?”

  “Five. You want to write them down?”

  I grabbed a pen and jotted the names on a pad as he called them out. With number five, I whooped. “Bingo!”

  “You know him?” Red asked.

  “We just talked to him yesterday. Send me your bill, friend. Our client will happily pay it.”

  “There’s more, but I don’t know how you could use it. Remember my FBI friend in New York? He’s in Florida now. We were talking yesterday about some money laundering schemes they had run into that involved investment firms. When I mentioned Aregis’s name, he said he couldn’t give me any details but Coastal Capital was the target of an investigation.”

  Jill sat there biting on her lower lip when I put down the phone. “What did he say?”

  “Nick Zicarelli is one of Aregis’s clients.”

  She slumped back in her chair. “He’s obviously got scads of money, and he’s a basketball fanatic. I’ll bet he put up the cash for Louie Aregis to buy into the NBA franchise.”

  “And Arnold found out about it. He got mad when Zicarelli fired him and decided to be a whistleblower.”

  “If that’s true, you know who stood to gain the most by killing Arnold Wechsel,” Jill said. She picked up a pencil and twirled it nervously.

  The same thought had occurred to me. Nick Zicarelli appeared capable of committing murder, but how would he know Arnold was to meet me at that auto repair shop? The young man was no dummy. I didn’t think he would risk leaking his intentions to the guy most likely to take whatever steps necessary to stop him. I had little doubt Arnold planned to tell me that Zicarelli was buying into the NBA franchise by proxy. I suspected the old man had even offered to pay the cost of moving Coastal Capital Ventures to Nashville so he could get in on the deal. Without Arnold to testify, though, we had no proof of anything. As I thought about it, I realized there was another man with just as much to lose if Arnold talked.

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

  “I would if we had something substantial to give him. Think about it, Jill. Louie Aregis would have as much of a motive to kill Arnold as Zicarelli. And he’s short enough to have fired with an upward trajectory like the autopsy showed. By contrast, Zicarelli would appear too tall.”

  She looked crestfallen. I also reminded her where we stood without Arnold to corroborate.

  “At least you should call Terry,” she said.

  I agreed. After I explained the situation, our client remained silent for a few moments, no doubt mulling over the possibilities.

  “I don’t handle criminal cases these days,” he said, “but I spent a few years in the DA’s office after law school. Metro Homicide could pull Zicarelli in, but they wouldn’t get far. He’s a wily old fox. As soon as they asked more than his name, rank, and serial number, he’d have his lawyer in there. I suspect he doesn’t do business over a regular phone, so they’d find nothing going that route.”

  “And I’m sure he only deals in cash with his gambling patrons.”

  “True. The money is probably laundered through his real estate activities and then goes into his investment account with Coastal Capital. You’d have to subpoena their records to prove his money was going into the kitty for the basketball project.”

  “I just learned from a good contact that Coastal Capital is the subject of an FBI money laundering investigation.”

  “That’s good to know,” Terry said, “but it probably won’t help us. Those investigations can go on for months, even years. We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “What if the newspaper got onto the story, started looking into the connection between Zicarelli and Aregis? It might stir up enough questions that the NBA commissioner’s office would start their ow
n investigation. They could decide the possibility of a professional gambler being involved was enough to kill the deal.”

  “Could you get the newspaper interested?” Terry asked.

  “I know a reporter who would probably jump at it.”

  “Get him jumping.”

  Chapter 30

  When I told Jill what our client had agreed to, she checked her watch, sighed, and held out the list Sam had given me.

  “When are we going to get everything on this list?”

  “As soon as we have lunch with our favorite reporter.”

  I picked up the phone and punched in Wes Knight’s number.

  “Have you had lunch?” I asked when he came on the line.

  “No, I’m taking off early. Slow news day. Nothing much to write about but Christmas stories. All that good news is depressing. The wire services can handle things from here on.”

  “How would you like a bombshell of a story, my friend?”

  “Is this for real or some kind of joke? Seems like I’ve been dealing with jokers all day.”

  “How about the possibility of a professional gambler being involved in this NBA franchise deal?”

  “Hmm. You asked about Nick Zicarelli the other day. Is he involved?”

  “Name somewhere we can buy you a sandwich, and I’ll give you the whole story.”

  “My editor frowns on reporter bribery, but I’ll be glad to meet you.”

  We agreed on an Arby’s not far out West End Avenue from the newspaper office. I turned to Jill. “As soon as we finish with Wes, we’ll go on a shopping spree.”

  When we got to the restaurant, Jill suggested splitting a turkey and Swiss sandwich. A half was a decent size, though I would have preferred to tackle the whole thing by myself. I placed the order and we took our coffee to a booth by the window. I saw Wes and waved as he headed for the entrance. When he joined us with a milk shake and a sandwich piled high with roast beef, I decided I hated Wes Knight. I had to admit, though, that thanks to Jill’s efforts, he made me look almost slim. He was a big man with a full face and a small beard that reminded me of Burl Ives.

  “How’d you get your order so quickly and we have to wait?” I asked.