She could be right, but I’d withhold judgment until I had more to go on.
Back at the office, Jill got a call from Wilma Gannon. In contrast to her conversations on our home phone, Wilma always kept it short when using our business line. Jill soon hung up and turned to me.
“We’ve been invited to dinner at the Gannons.”
I looked across at her with a diabolical grin. Since Sam was not the type to put on weight, Wilma never worried about calories.
“That’ll be three nights out in a row,” I said. “We’re on a roll.”
“Don’t get your mind set on candied yams and yeast rolls and Wilma’s chocolate cake. This is a one-night stand. I’ll have you back on your low-fat diet tomorrow.”
I knew it was time to let that subject drop and turned instead to Nikki Columbo. Since we’d had no word from her, I suggested we head for her Green Hills apartment and have an in-person confrontation. We needed to find something concrete to move our investigation forward.
Before we were ready to leave, however, the phone rang. Red Tarkington.
“I talked to the man I told you about this morning,” he said. “The one who says Aregis gypped him out of a lot of money. He found out about it not long before Aregis moved Coastal Capital Ventures up there. The guy, name’s Quillen, is still pretty steamed and wants to talk to you. Said he’d be in Nashville tomorrow. I gave him your number.”
“Thanks, Red. We’ll be looking for him.”
We traveled through a cold, steady rain all the way to Green Hills. Nikki’s address took us to a vine-covered brick building on a quiet side street. This was an area of older homes in a fashionable section of town that attracted a mix of upwardly mobile young people, successful business types, and retirees. A high-rise for retired teachers was located not far away. I wondered if the vintage structure where Nikki lived might be owned by Zicarelli Properties.
A red Mazda Miata sat in a parking space outside the door to Nikki’s apartment.
“It looks like she’s here,” I said, pulling into an adjacent space. “I’ll wait until I see you’re inside, then I’ll drive over to a coffee shop on Hillsboro Road and wait for you. Call me when you’re ready to leave.”
“No doughnuts,” she said. “Just coffee.”
I gave her a peevish frown. “You know you could be charged with cruel and inhuman treatment? You’re lucky I don’t rat on you to the UN.”
She looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or backhand me, but she got out and raised her small, collapsible umbrella. I watched her ring the doorbell. After a moment, the door opened and Nikki Columbo looked out. They exhanged a few words. Following a bit of hesitation, Nikki opened the door wider and Jill stepped inside.
I had high hopes. In situations like this, Jill displayed a motherly demeanor backed by a sincere and understanding attitude that caused people, particularly women, to pour out their hearts. She wasn’t judgmental, and she knew when to listen and when to talk. She had been a great interviewer in previous cases.
I found a small coffee shop, ordered coffee and a Danish, a low calorie one, at least in my imagination. I took it to a table that faced a TV tuned to an afternoon news-talk show. A couple of characters with hearsay knowledge of the military argued vehemently about the war on terror. Listening to them, I could almost feel my blood pressure rise.
I was about ready to throw my refill at the TV when the cell phone rang.
“Found your man Izzy,” Phil Adamson said.
“Where?”
“One of our guys, Eddie Bledsoe, has an interesting pastime. He drops in on libraries and looks around at who’s using the computers. You’d be surprised at what he turns up occasionally. Anyway, this morning he visited the Main Library downtown, and who should he see but Izzy Isabell, pecking away at the keyboard.”
“I wish the detective could’ve gotten on there after Izzy,” I said, “and checked out what he’d been doing.”
“Hey, if we tried something like that, the librarians would be on us like a flock of mother hens with claws bared.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Detective Bledsoe is a sharp guy, though. He noticed Isabell was writing notes on scratch paper beside the computer. He hung around until the guy got up and left, taking his notes with him. Bledsoe saw a couple of sheets of blank scratch paper lying there. He grabbed them as he followed Isabell out to the parking garage. Made a real score. Got the license number off the truck and turned the note paper over to forensics to see if they could get impressions from what your guy was writing.”
Detective work like that was music to my ears. “Gotten any results from it?”
“Not the notes. The Kentucky plate was registered in another name. Hasn’t been reported stolen. We’ve asked Louisville to look into it.”
“Let me know what they find,” I said. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye out for Izzy. I have a crow to pick with him.”
I told Phil about the glaring scratch across the side of my Jeep and the note I’d found.
“Too bad they didn’t leave a name, so you’d have a witness.”
“That’s probably not the worst he’ll do. From what the parents said about him being on drugs, he’s probably gone back to his old habits.”
Phil agreed. “I passed along info on him to the folks in narcotics.”
When I snapped the cover shut on the phone, I got a missed call alert showing Jill had tried to get me while I was talking to Phil. I called her back.
“I’ll be ready by the time you get here,” she said, not sounding too pleased.
I hurried out to my Jeep with what coffee was left in the Styrofoam cup and headed for Nikki Columbo’s apartment. They must have been near the door when I arrived since it opened as soon as I knocked. Jill stood beside the young woman whose downcast look resembled that of a chastised teen.
“I’m sure everything will work out fine for you,” Jill said. “This was a terrible tragedy for everyone. We intend to find out who’s responsible. Right, Greg?”
I had no idea where this was going but nodded soberly. “You can count on it.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,” Nikki said.
“Call me when you feel like it,” Jill said. “Anytime. Bye.”
I hurried around to the driver’s side to escape the rain. After we were both seated, I looked across at Jill. “That didn’t sound too promising.”
She gave a deep sigh. “I’ve never run into one quite like her. When it came to a subject she didn’t want to talk about, I couldn’t budge her with the sweetest honey in the hive.”
“I trust that means you didn’t come up with anything startling.”
“That’s for sure.”
“What did she have to say about Arnold?”
“They hadn’t been dating for long. They met at the restaurant, as you suspected. He was by himself and looked very lonely. Nikki struck up a conversation and learned that he was from Kaitserslautern. She had studied German in college and spent some time at the University of Tubingen, which is in the state next to the one where Arnold lived.”
I drove toward Hillsboro Road, which would take us back to I-440.
“I imagine Nikki knowing his language helped draw him to her,” I said.
“I’m sure it did. And she was quite impressed with him. She said Arnold was a determined young man and had his heart set on landing a job in auto racing. There was a school in North Carolina he wanted to attend and was saving his money for it.”
“Was that why he wanted an extra job, to earn money for school?”
“Apparently. But she wouldn’t talk about his job. She got real defensive, said it was something personal.”
“With a background in German studies, I presume she’s had a problem finding a job in her field. That why she’s working at a restaurant?”
A pickup truck roared out of a side street and slashed across three lanes of traffic in front of us. I hit the antilock brakes and gave thanks we didn
’t go into a skid. My first thought was Izzy Isabell, but the truck wasn’t blue. If it hadn’t been for the seatbelt, Jill would’ve gone airborne. She reached out to the dash to steady herself.
“What an idiot! And in this rain.” She exhaled like a hiss of steam. “At times like this I have to agree that Nashville drivers must be the world’s worst.”
I waved a hand. “I’ll not argue the point. But let’s get back to Nikki.”
Jill pulled her seatbelt tighter. “She said Villa de Este was a temporary job until she could find something that would make use of her German abilities.”
“What did she say about the Zicarelli connection?”
“She started to deny knowing anything about it until I told her we knew her mother was Belinda Zicarelli. I said I imagined she had relatives here. She didn’t want to talk about it but slipped up once and mentioned ‘Grandpa.’ I presume it would have to be Grandpa Zicarelli as there are no Columbos around here.”
“Did she exhibit any of that fear we saw last night?”
“Not so much fear as a deep concern about giving out personal information. She’s definitely holding something back.”
“Hopefully we can figure a way to get it out of her. It sounded like you parted on a friendly basis.”
“I was very sympathetic about her loss and tried to comfort her. She’s a confused young lady at the moment.”
As I merged into the traffic on I-440, known locally as the Outer Loop, I got a strange feeling that we were being followed. I searched the mirror for any familiar vehicles. With the afternoon’s thick clouds leaving a darkened haze and poor visibility from the rain, it was a difficult task. Nothing raised any alarms, but I couldn’t shake that odd premonition.
Chapter 20
Not long after we made it back to the office, my Realtor friend called.
“I found the owner of Zicarelli Properties,” she said. “His name is Niccolo Zicarelli. I hear he goes by the name Nick. Italian, obviously.”
“Know anything else about him?” I asked.
“Just that he owns several pieces of commercial property around town. Investment property. Some pretty good sized investments.”
I thanked her and relayed the information to my partner.
“It has to be her grandpa,” Jill said. “She must have been named for him. Nicole is the female version of Niccolo. I’ll check the databases.”
She punched the name in on one of our high-powered search sites and soon had a few interesting facts. Nick Zicarelli, age eighty-one, once owned a private club known as the Sporting Executives Club in the northwestern suburbs of Nashville. For the past quarter century he had been involved in real estate investments and was reputed to be a professional gambler. There was no record of him having served any jail time.
“The newspaper should have plenty on him,” Jill said. “Why don’t you call Wes Knight?”
I figured Wes might have the answer without looking in the files. He had as many gray hairs as I did. He’d started with the newspaper about the time I signed on as a St. Louis County deputy just out of the University of Michigan, my warm-up for the Air Force. I got the reporter on the phone and told him I was looking for information on Nick Zicarelli.
“It’s a good thing you asked an old timer like me, Greg. The young ones probably wouldn’t have any idea who he really is. Forty years ago, he was quite a colorful character around town. Tall and good looking.”
“I ran across something about a Sporting Executives Club.”
“That was his baby. He started out as a waiter there, married the boss’s daughter, and soon took over. It was a great place to eat and drink and do a little gambling.”
“Wasn’t that slightly illegal? How did he stay out of trouble?”
“His heyday was back before the advent of Metropolitan Government. The club was located outside the city limits, so all he had to worry about was the sheriff.”
“And he didn’t really have to worry about the sheriff,” I said.
“You’ve got it. Zicarelli helped them get elected and provided free drinks and meals. It was a hangout for lawyers and judges and cops, among others.”
“Sounds like a cozy deal.”
“It was. I understand they used to have some pretty high stakes poker games at the tables.”
“What happened?”
“Metro eventually wrecked his little red wagon.”
“That’s when the police department took over the whole county?”
“Right. Things didn’t change overnight, of course. The heat eventually got to him, though. He tried to go legit, but the place had lost its charm. He eventually closed it down in the seventies.”
I glanced at my note from the Realtor. “He must have done pretty well. I hear he owns a lot of commercial real estate around town.”
“Yeah, he made a small fortune off that club. I’ve heard he’s still involved in gambling, but on a more discreet basis. Nothing like the old days. Now he’s Mr. Nice Guy. He gives money to all the favorite causes, and he’s still pals with the politicos. That’s the face the younger reporters see.”
“Did he come over from Italy?”
“No, he’s a local boy. As I recall, he was a standout basketball player in high school. Instead of getting ready for college, though, he dropped out of school and joined the Army after Pearl Harbor. He got some commendations in Europe. I remember he was cited for shooting a bunch of Germans in some battle. Hometown hero, y’know.”
I thanked Wes and repeated the conversation for Jill.
She tapped a pencil on her desk with a look that told me the wheels were turning rapidly inside. “The story sounds sort of familiar now. I don’t believe my dad patronized such places, but he may have sold him insurance. Maybe Nick Zicarelli had been giving Arnold advice on gambling, which Nikki didn’t approve of.”
“That could account for her reluctance to talk about the relationship.”
She brushed the idea aside along with a lock of black hair. “But it doesn’t give us any hint of who killed Arnold Wechsel, or why.”
I thought about that for a moment. Dick Ullery talked about Arnold going places and meeting people while working at this mystery job. What if his mother’s suspicions were correct, that somehow gambling had been involved? And what if Arnold had been contacting these people about bets, collecting money or making payoffs?
“Maybe we could get some insight into what Arnold was up to if we contacted one of those people Ullery told us about,” I said.
“Like the TV pitchman, Freddie Ford?”
“Right. He’s full of himself on his commercials. Let’s go see how he does off-camera.”
“You don’t suppose his name is really Ford, do you?”
“Why not? He could have made it Ford for advertising purposes. Maybe I should go to court and change my name to P.I. McKenzie.”
The look I got said that idea wasn’t worth the effort it took to express it.
With the first phase of homebound traffic clogging the outbound lanes of I-40, we had no trouble making our way toward town where the Ford dealership was located just off an interstate exit. The rain had finally stopped, but eighteen-wheelers still tossed nasty showers our way as they passed. We turned in beside a monstrous Ford logo sign and pulled up to the dome-shaped building. It was clearly a monument to the man we had come to see. In the showroom we faced a larger-than-life poster of Freddie Ford with his finger pointing in an “Uncle Sam wants YOU!” gesture.
I stopped at the Customer Service counter, where a young woman wearing a heavy wool sweater tidied up her desk. “We’d like to see Freddie Ford, please,” I said.
“Could one of the salesmen help you?” she asked in an eager voice no doubt reserved for prospective customers.
“It isn’t about a car. It’s a personal matter.”
“Oh. Let me see if he’s available. Could I have your name, please?”
“Greg and Jill McKenzie,” I said.
She picked up her phone,
punched in a number, and spoke too softly for me to hear. She put down the phone and nodded toward a hallway. “You can go on back to his office. It’s the last room on the left.”
We passed an empty office and another that appeared to be the torture chamber, the place where the sales manager browbeat customers who had the temerity to think they could negotiate a rock-bottom deal on one of Freddie’s new Fords.
A large, flat-screen TV dominated the owner’s office. I presumed he enjoyed watching himself perform. A short, stocky man with lively eyes and a quick smile, he spoke in the strong tones of a carnival barker.
“Come in, folks.” He bounded around the desk. “Welcome to Freddie Ford.”
He pumped our hands with a strong grip, and I half-expected him to launch into one of his familiar sales pitches.
“We’re Greg and Jill McKenzie,” I said, handing him our card. “We’re private investigators. Do you recall reading or seeing about a young man named Arnold Wechsel who was shot over in Northeast Nashville last Saturday night?”
He backtracked to brace his hands against his desk, frowning. “Arnold Wechsel? Did he used to work for us? The name doesn’t sound familiar.”
I tried a disarming smile. “A friend of his told us he was quite excited about meeting you recently. He was a young German, a big guy, six feet tall.” I held up a hand to mark his height.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head.
“His mother in Germany asked us to find out anything we can about his life over here. According to his friend, Arnold met you in some kind of business relationship.”
His face brightened. “I probably sold him a car. Frankly, I sell so many I can’t remember all the buyers. You’d be surprised at how many I sold just this past week.”
“No, he didn’t buy a car.”
“You sure?”
“He drove an old model Corvette. I believe he talked to you about a betting matter.”
A Sporting Murder (Greg McKenzie Mysteries Book 5) Page 11
