Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries)

by Campbell, Chester D.

  “We appreciate his help, Jay. I’ll just pull up in front and you can send him out with the mail.”

  Traffic was much lighter now on the outbound side of I-40, while a steady stream of cars was headed toward downtown Nashville. I figured they were probably en route to a Predators hockey game, an evening of theater or a tour of the live music bistros. I envied their ability to face the evening with pleasant anticipation.

  Chandler Road looked dark and foreboding as I approached the Rogers’ home, but I knew it was just my mind playing tricks. Their driveway circled in front of the house, and I stopped near the porch, then tapped my horn. Ricky came bounding out the door with a paper grocery bag. He was a gangly youth, mostly arms and legs. I lowered the window and accepted the mail bag as he came around.

  “Hi, Ricky,” I said. “Your dad told me you saw Jill leaving with some people earlier.”

  “Those men,” he said, smiling. Ricky had a way of speaking that sounded like shorthand. His mother told us it was from an older brother talking incessantly, forcing Ricky to work to get a word in edgewise.

  “Were there two of them?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

  “Three.”

  “Did you see their car?”

  “Was a van.”

  “Minivan?”

  He shook his head. “A big one.”

  “What color was it?”

  He thought a moment. “Green. Dark green.”

  “Anything else you remember about it?”

  “Had a white swirl painted on the side.” He spun his finger in a spiral. Then he looked at me and frowned. “Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, no.” I forced a smile. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering. You’re a pretty observant young fellow.”

  “Mom’s a bird watcher. She taught me to look for small things.”

  “Very good, Ricky. How much did Jill say she’d pay you?”

  “She said ten dollars. If you think that’s too much . . . ”

  I had my billfold in my lap and pulled out three fives. “As a matter of fact, you’re going to get a bonus.” I handed him the money. Then I said, “But don’t tell your dad.”

  As he darted back into the house, I glanced at the digital clock–6:40. It was past time for Jill’s kidnapper to call.

  I looked at the silent phone on the seat beside me and pulled around the driveway, my heart beating a little faster. A dark green van with a white swirl on the side. If the kidnappers didn’t call back soon, I’d head for the Riverside Drive area and start patrolling the streets. It would be a helluva long night.

  I checked my telltales when I reached the house and found them all intact. I took the neatly wrapped scroll into the office and laid it on a table beside my Beretta, which I had pulled from its waist position. Then I checked the cell phone to see if those two missed callers had left voice mail. The first message was from Detective Phillip Adamson. He was cryptic.

  “We’ve made some inquiries,” he said. “I don’t have anything new to report. I wondered if you had heard from your wife? I’ll check with you in the morning.”

  Inquiries? That had an ulterior sound to it. Inquiries.

  The second message was from Ted Kennerly, special agent in charge of the OSI detachment at Arnold Air Force Base near Tullahoma, about seventy miles south of Nashville. Arnold was home to the world’s most sophisticated wind tunnels that tested aircraft and space vehicles in both subsonic and supersonic airstreams, simulating conditions in flight. To civilians it was known as Arnold Engineering Development Center. When Kennerly first came to work for me as an agent, he went by the name Teddy, but I convinced him that Teddy Kennerly sounded a little too much like a guy who’d had a major problem with driving off bridges. He agreed that Ted would probably win him a bit more respect in the field of law enforcement.

  His message was about as revealing as the one from Detective Adamson. “This is Ted Kennerly, Boss. You have my pager number. Please give me a shout.”

  “Boss” was what agents called their commanders, and it stuck even after retirement. I had told him he could call me Greg, but he stayed with Boss as a sign of respect. We had invited him up for dinner on weekends several times before he got married. He loved Jill’s cooking, said it was as good as his mom’s. This was the first I’d heard from him in a couple of months. He had a 1-800 pager number, which I dialed and left a voice message saying I was back home.

  The last message was from Sam Gannon, inquiring what was the problem with Jill’s car. It occurred to me that I might get Sam to drive me over to Andrew Jackson Parkway so I could bring her car back. I didn’t like leaving it there in the middle of nowhere, especially at night. I hoped the cops had not hauled it off, particularly in light of my comments about the Peterson case. It seemed unlikely since Adamson’s investigation was still in the early stages. Also, I didn’t want to lie to Sam, so I thought of a way to say what I believed was the truth.

  “I’m not sure what was wrong with Jill’s car,” I said when I got him on the phone. “But it’s running now. She’s gone to East Nashville with some folks. If you’re not busy, could you take me over on Andrew Jackson so I could bring her car home?”

  “Sure,” Sam said. “Be there in fifteen minutes.”

  While waiting, I rushed about straightening things in the living room, just in case I had to invite Sam inside. I planned to meet him out front, though, so that wouldn’t be necessary. I had started putting things back in place at the back of the house during the afternoon.

  When the outside lights flashed on, I grabbed my jacket, stuck the gun back in place and headed out the door, carefully re-inserting my broom bristle. The temperature was down in the low forties by now, and I zipped up snugly as I climbed into his minivan.

  “Is it still sitting where I saw it?” Sam asked.

  “Right. I checked it out and it’s running okay.”

  “Did you have to get a mechanic?”

  “No. I don’t know if the engine got flooded or what. By the way, I’ll have to get you to come over and look at those videos with me.” I changed the subject deftly. “They should look good on the big screen.”

  “I’ll bet. You’ll have to put something together to show at the next class meeting.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Jill said.”

  “I was talking to Wilma’s nephew Kevin this afternoon–that’s her brother’s boy, you know, the one who’s a Metro policeman. He said his wife has been pushing him to take her to the Holy Land. I think somebody at their church was trying to get up a tour. He might be interested in seeing your videos.”

  I had forgotten about Wilma’s nephew being a Metro cop, a patrol sergeant, in fact. I had met him months ago, back before the John Peterson/Mark Tremaine affair. After I had been written up in the newspaper, Kevin told Sam he didn’t think I was very smart to say what I did to a newspaper reporter. He sympathized with my views on Tremaine, however.

  “I had some dealings with a couple of other Metro officers today,” I said. “Next time you talk to Kevin, ask him what he knows about Sergeant Christie and Detective Phillip Adamson.”

  “They give you a hard time?” Sam was aware of the harassment.

  “Nothing too bad, but I’d like to know a bit more about them.”

  “Why don’t you call Kevin? He’s at home tonight. I mentioned that you and Jill were on the trip with us. He said there was a story in the paper while we were gone about some lawsuit involving Peterson. They dredged up all the old stuff, including the part about you. Kevin said there’s still a lot of animosity toward you among some of the people."

  I nodded. “How well I know.”

  Sam waited until I got Jill’s car started, then he headed on home. I didn’t waste any time getting back to my house, either, though I still had the call forwarding set to ring my cell phone. It had remained silent, and my nerves were getting raw. I looked up Kevin’s number and called him.

  “This is Greg McKenzie,” I said. “I hope I’m not c
alling too late.” The wall clock showed it was approaching nine p.m.

  “I was just reading the paper,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I felt a little more at ease over in Israel where they look each other in the eye before they shoot.” I offered a chuckle to keep it light. “Sam tells me the paper mentioned me while we were gone.”

  “Yeah. They haven’t done you any favors.”

  “That’s for sure. The reason for my call, I wondered if you know a patrol sergeant named Christie?”

  “Gerald Christie?”

  “Short guy, fortyish, short brown hair.”

  “That’s Gerald. You run into him?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.”

  “I can imagine. He’s Mark Tremaine’s brother-in-law.”

  I winced. If that was the luck of the draw, my luck wasn’t worth two cents. But something other than chance had brought the sergeant to my door. “I figured I wasn’t one of his favorite people,” I said. “What about a Detective Phillip Adamson?”

  “I know Phil pretty well. He’s a competent guy. As far as I know, he doesn’t have any axes to grind.”

  “Good. I wondered about that, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “Uncle Sam’s told me about some of the problems you’ve had,” Kevin said. “I’m sorry about that, but there’s nothing I can do. Some people at the top resent what you said, even though they should know you didn’t mean it for publication. Shit rolls downhill, you know.”

  “In other words, Phil Adamson might not be inclined to do something unless somebody above told him to.”

  “It’s possible. But don’t sell him short. He’s a sharp guy with a lot of drive. He finished number one in the recruiting class I was in.”

  “Thanks,” I said, none too happily. “I appreciate the info.”

  I began to wonder just how dangerous was the corner I had backed myself into. Jill smiled behind my eyes. Hang in there.

  Chapter 13

  As the clock’s hands crept toward nine, I was ready to start swinging from the rafters. Two and a half hours had gone by and still no call from Jill’s captors. Not a peep out of them. Something had gone wrong. If these guys were al-Qaida trained, they could have put me under surveillance, but I’ve always been good at spotting a tail. I prayed that it wasn’t a problem involving Jill. I even considered calling Detective Adamson, but I wasn’t desperate enough to risk her well-being on a cop I had some doubts about. I also debated turning to the FBI. Kidnapping was their bailiwick. But I ruled that out as well. Some six months earlier, I had locked horns with the Bureau’s senior special agent in Nashville over a jurisdictional dispute and, in my own inimitable fashion, managed to infuriate the entire local FBI office. I had to keep at bay the thought that my temper was cutting me off from help, that I was in part responsible for Jill’s situation.

  In the kitchen I retrieved another pack of Spearmint from the supply Jill kept in a drawer. Staring at it, I thought about how she had always been there to support me. When I had first announced my intention to quit smoking, after Breezy Hollo’s death, Jill suggested I try some of those patch deals the drugstores display like snake oil in their “Kick the Habit” section. I declined. Plastering my arm with a bunch of weird stick-ons was as bad as chewing some atrocious gunk with varying amounts of nicotine. I would simply quit. Period.

  That was a few months ago. Everything had changed. Remembering I had once kept cigarettes in my workbench, I went out to the garage and started clawing through the drawers. The bench was a long wooden job that sat against the wall next to the open bay where a third vehicle would have been parked. One end had a heavy vise clamped to it, the other a grinding wheel. The wall was covered with pegboard where tools hung on hooks.

  I found lots of useless junk in the drawers but no smokes. Jill had probably thrown away any I had left there.

  Checking the Beretta still stuck under my belt, I had another thought. If things got nasty, I might need a backup weapon. Pulling a half-inch hacksaw blade from a drawer, I turned on the grinder and pressed the blade against the carbide wheel. The motor’s whine and the metallic screetch made such a racket I was afraid I wouldn’t hear the phone, so I kept glancing up at the small red light mounted above the bench. I had it wired to activate with the telephone ringer circuit.

  It took only a couple of minutes and a colorful shower of sparks to grind the blade to a razor edge with a fine point. I took the homemade dagger into the living room and secured it behind the lapel of my jacket by forcing it into the fabric with an inch protruding. Switching on the TV, I tuned in the Fox channel, which had a news show at nine.

  “Nashville registered another murder tonight,” the blonde-haired anchor was saying. “It happened a short time ago in the Music Row area.”

  The scene switched to a shot of half a dozen police cars flashing blue lights. They were parked at the side of a darkened street. Some were double-parked. They could use a few parking tickets on the windshields. As the camera panned the crime scene tape, my stomach suddenly knotted up at the agonizingly familiar sight of Dr. Welch’s walkway and porch. The anchor’s voice continued:

  “According to Metro homicide detectives, the victim lived alone and was apparently working in his study when he was surprised by intruders. Police have not identified him, but next door neighbors said the house was owned by Vanderbilt Divinity School Professor Julian Welch.”

  I stared as she droned, “Police said robbery may have been the motive. The study and other parts of the house had been ransacked as the killers apparently searched for money or valuables. The victim was shot once in the head. Our Bob Lemons talked to one of the neighbors.”

  The close-up showed a woman, early forties, dressed in a short red coat, her hair rolled up in curlers.

  “I’d just finished washing my hair when I heard what sounded like a shot,” she said, eyes wide. “Not real loud, you know, but definitely a bang like a gun. It sounded like it come from over toward the professor’s house.”

  “Did you look out after you heard the shot?” the reporter asked.

  “I peeked out the window. It’s sorta dark around here, you know, so you can’t see too good. There was this dark-colored van parked out in front of his house. I seen two men hurry out to it and drive off. I couldn’t tell anything about ’em. They was wearing dark clothes.”

  “Do you know how long the van had been there?”

  “Not really. Earlier I saw something like a Jeep Cherokee parked there.”

  I winced.

  The anchor came back on and said a statement was expected shortly from the Metro Police Department spokesman. Meanwhile, an overturned eighteen-wheeler had blocked the southbound lanes of I-65 at Harding Place. Traffic was beginning to snarl as badly as during rush hour. So what’s new?

  I muted the sound and sat there for a moment staring at the TV.

  Dr. Julian Quancey Welch was dead.

  But how did they know about him? I was certain no one had followed me. If they were skilled professionals, they would not have parked their van in front of the house and fired a gun that could alert neighbors. Then I thought of something anybody with an elementary knowledge of electronics could do.

  I hurried back to the office, got a screwdriver, removed two small screws and lifted the cover off the molded plastic handset of the combination telephone/answering machine. A tiny transmitter was lodged inside the mouthpiece. Most likely a small repeater was secured to a tree in the edge of the woods, picking up the signal and re-transmitting it across the county. To East Nashville? I was no electronics expert, but on examining the bug I felt reasonably sure it was the type that would only pick up conversations on this phone, not the one in the bedroom I had used to call Chili Hankins. But were there others?

  I looked in a closet and pulled out an electronic surveillance sweeper I had bought back in my OSI days. I checked all around the house but located no more electronic bugs. That was another bit of evidence that I was not dealing with professionals. Rea
l pros would have left more than one device, in case the first was detected. But that one had been enough to tell them I was taking the scroll to Dr. Welch’s house. It even provided them with his address. I stood there feeling old. It took a moment to get it all back together. Think. Think.

  Had they been watching when I went in with the scroll can and came out carrying a large package like a picture? Did they assume I had left the scroll with the professor? More important, now that they knew I had not left it there, wasn’t it likely they would be on the way over here? I could make a stand, but what about cop help? Unlikely, especially if they heard the TV broadcast about the Jeep Cherokee.

  When I went back to the office to get the scroll package and reset the call forwarding to my cell phone, the photo of Jill on my desk stopped me. Jill and her Cessna. I remembered the day I shot it on the flight line. I had gone shopping with her afterward. We had strolled through a jewelry store where she looked at a ruby ring several times–ruby was her birthstone. Each time, she instructed the clerk to put it back. She didn’t think I had noticed, but a little later, while she was in a dress shop, I went back and bought the ring. Along with her engagement and wedding rings, she was never without the ruby.

  “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?”