Deadly Illusions

by Chester D. Campbell

  I was instructed to bring Jill downtown to the Criminal Justice Center in the morning for our official statements. Before we adjourned, I brought up my major concern.

  “We need to find my client, Molly Saint,” I said. “I have a hunch he’s got her drugged or tied up in a motel somewhere around here.”

  “I’ve already dispatched some guys to Rutherford County to get that black Ford Ranger,” Weatherly said. “The crime scene techs are examining everything in Rowe’s Dodge Ram. Hopefully they’ll find something that’ll lead us to her.”

  After the cops cleared out, I sat in the kitchen and talked with Jill and Sam and Wilma Gannon.

  “How’re you making it, babe?” I asked, holding her hand across the table.

  She smiled, a good sign. “Better. Wilma and Sam have done a lot of talking. I’ll have to say after what happened to Tim back in October, they know how to handle emotionally charged issues.”

  Their son Tim was the victim in the murder case Jill and I had solved down in Florida a few months ago. They were a perfect example of what friendship was all about.

  I had just jumped into the conversation when the phone rang. I answered the wall phone beside the counter. “This is Greg.”

  “Grant Crenshaw, Mr. McKenzie. I understand the police determined that Damon Saint, Molly’s husband, was the one who killed Chairman Bernstein.”

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

  “It was on the TV news a few minutes ago. Have you found Molly?”

  There it was again, that cold, unemotional question, as if she were no more than a bag of clothes. “No, but the police are searching for her. We think Damon may have left her bound and gagged in a motel. Maybe drugged.”

  “I see. Do you have any idea which motel?”

  What was with this guy? If we had any idea, we would already have rescued her.

  “No, Mr. Crenshaw,” I said. I looked around at Jill and shook my head.

  “Very well, Mr. McKenzie. I’ll see what I can find out elsewhere.”

  You do that, I thought. And quit annoying me.

  37

  Phil Adamson called early the next morning with word they had located Molly. The clerk at a sleazy motel on the southeastern side of the city saw TV coverage of the story and thought he recognized Chad’s black pickup truck. When he heard the wife might have been drugged and left in a motel, he recalled watching the pickup driver lead a woman who appeared drunk into the room. He called the cops.

  Molly was in a groggy, drug-induced haze when they found her. An ambulance had transported her to the hospital, where the doctors said it would be a few hours before she could answer questions coherently.

  “Since she obviously trusts you guys,” Phil said, “I think it might be useful for you to be on hand when she comes around.”

  We met Phil and a nerdy-looking FBI agent named Markovich around nine in a crowded hospital waiting room with abstract prints on the wall. I thought I recognized one as a weird Salvador Dali painting that showed a watch bent in the middle and hanging off a table like it was made of melted wax. A family ranging from white-haired grandparents to teens in baggy pants that barely clung to their hips huddled in one corner, the grownups talking in subdued voices. We moved to the other side of the room.

  “They say she’ll be ready to talk to us in a few minutes,” Phil said.

  Agent Markovich, who might have been fresh out of college but for the thinning hair in front, eyed me with a quirky grin. “Aren’t you the guy who got my boss all riled up a while back when you were with the DA’s office?”

  Jill nudged my arm. “It’s confession time, Greg.”

  “Guilty,” I said.

  Phil laughed, something I’d seldom heard him do. “Greg has a knack for getting people riled up. But he usually knows what he’s doing, like with this case.”

  “I knew some McKenzies when I was growing up in Chicago,” Markovich said. “The old man wore his kilt on ceremonial occasions. Us kids used to laugh about the skirt, but my dad warned me those old Scots could be pretty ferocious.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “My granddaddy fought with a Highland regiment in the First World War.”

  Markovich squinted his eyes. “Did they go into battle dressed like that?”

  “They sure did. My dad told me about a German he met right after World War II who’d been a junior officer in the Nazi 1st SS Panzer Division. The guy claimed the Waffen SS were by far the toughest soldiers around. But he admitted they were afraid of the Scottish Highlanders. They called them ‘Devil Soldiers Wearing Skirts.’”

  “No kidding?” Markovich chuckled.

  “It’s true. This guy said he was in one encounter between a dismounted 1st SS Panzer unit and the Highlanders. He said the first warning they had was when they barely heard bagpipes in the distance. There had been a lot of rumors about what the Highlanders would do if they ever got their hands on a German. As they listened, the sounds of the pipers kept coming closer and closer. They were playing ‘Scotland the Brave.’ It spooked the Nazis so much many of them dropped their weapons and ran. He said it was the only time he’d ever seen or heard of an elite Waffen SS unit breaking and running en masse.”

  “Hey,” Phil said, “don’t you know it’s a very bad idea to piss off a big, red-headed guy wearing a skirt?”

  He looked around at Jill and was probably about to apologize, but she was already laughing. At any rate, the conversation ended as a nurse in a flowery smock came out to tell us Molly was ready. We followed her down a brightly lit corridor with an antiseptic smell to a corner room where Molly’s bed had been cranked up to a sitting position. She looked pale and haggard, but her mouth turned up in a weak smile when she saw Jill and me.

  “Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie, I didn’t expect you.”

  Jill walked over and patted her puffy hand. An IV tube ran down to her wrist.

  “We’ve been looking for you for a week, Molly,” Jill said. “And it’s Greg and Jill, not Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie. I know you’re Darlene’s daughter. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  She hung her head. “I was afraid of what you might have heard about me in the past.”

  “Never mind the past,” Jill said. “This is Detective Adamson and Agent Markovich, Molly. They have some questions for you.”

  The nurse had brought in a couple of extra chairs, and we all sat around the bed. Phil led off with a question that made Jill cringe. I reached over and took her hand.

  “Are you aware of what happened to your husband last night, Mrs. Saint?”

  Molly exhaled a sigh. “I heard he was shot when he tried to kill you and Mr. McK…uh, Greg. I didn’t know what he had done, but I suspected it was something terrible.” She looked around at Jill and me. “When I went down to his workshop that morning I called you, I found a box packed with guns and knives. He had different kinds of clothes on hangers and wigs and false whiskers in a box.”

  Phil leaned forward in his chair. “Did you ask him about it?”

  “No. I was afraid to. But when he found out I had gone down there, he demanded to know what I was doing. I said I was just looking around and was frightened by what I saw. He told me it involved a hobby but wouldn’t say anything else. Then he said we were moving, that he had won a lot of money gambling and was to pick it up on Saturday. We were leaving Nashville and would buy a nice house where we were going. I didn’t know what to believe.”

  Putting the story together from what she could recall between obvious bouts with drugs, some fed to her in drinks, Molly told of spending Wednesday night in the motel. They left her car there and drove Chad’s truck to the farm in Gallatin, which he claimed belonged to a friend. She wasn’t aware he had returned to Antioch that night to set the house afire, but she remembered feeling strangely groggy the next morning.

  She considered making an attempt to get away, but knew Chad was always armed and feared he wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun on her. Saturday afternoon, he told her the gambling debt was b
eing paid by a man who would leave a pickup truck for him in the Gallatin Wal-Mart parking lot. He had her claim an envelope containing the key at the store’s Customer Service counter. The envelope was marked “Edgar.” Then she drove the Ford Ranger to the farm with Chad following her.

  Until they got back to the farm, he had acted cool but considerate. Once in the house, though, he burst into a tirade. He had gone through her handbag and found our McKenzie Investigations business card. After he threatened to beat her if she didn’t come clean, she confessed what she had done. That’s when Chad drove to a pay phone and called to threaten me if I didn’t drop the investigation.

  He apparently drugged her again that night and drove to Hermitage, where he burglarized our office. On Sunday he bought a newspaper, gave part of it to Molly but kept the main news section for himself. She didn’t think about it at the time, but realized now Chad was likely keeping up with the Bernstein murder case. That afternoon he told her it was time to move on, they would leave the next morning.

  So far he hadn’t harmed her. She decided to go along with him and watch for an opportunity to escape. She didn’t believe his tale about having won the money gambling, figuring it was more likely loot from a robbery. He stashed the cash in several cardboard boxes beneath a tarpaulin in the back of the pickup. She never saw it so had no idea how much money was involved.

  Monday they returned to the motel near Smyrna and got a room in back, where she had left her car parked against the fence. Molly drove the Ford Ranger, noting that now it had tinted vinyl sheets covering the windows. Chad followed closely in the Dodge. That afternoon, a strange thing happened. When Chad went out to get his shaving gear from his truck, he saw an old Chevy sitting in the parking lot with a lone black man inside. The man seemed to be watching him. Chad told Molly to go out to her car and see what would happen. When she did, the man got out of his car and started toward her. That brought Chad out of the motel. The man saw him and took off at a run, jumped into his car and sped away.

  Molly told Chad she had never seen the man before, but she didn’t know if he believed her.

  “Must have been Tony Yarnell,” Phil said. “He drove an old Chevrolet.”

  I agreed.

  Apparently Chad guessed that Molly was getting ideas about fleeing. After that her memory turned fuzzy as a misty haze. She recalled nothing concrete until a policewoman roused her in the motel early that morning.

  When Molly had finished, Agent Markovich spoke up. “Let’s go over the money again, Mrs. Saint. Did you see what he did with the boxes?”

  “No. I guess he left them in the back of the truck.”

  “The Ford Ranger?”

  “Yes.”

  “When I found it,” I said, “there was nothing in the bed but the plastic storage box holding the weapons.”

  “There was no money in the Dodge Ram or the Sentra, either,” Phil said.

  Markovich planted his fists on his hips. “Damn. He’s been roaming all over town. He could have stashed it anywhere.”

  “What about the farm?” Jill asked.

  That triggered a picture in my mind, a dirty shovel leaning against the wall at the back of the farmhouse.

  “I think you might’ve hit on the answer, babe,” I said. “I saw a shovel behind the house at that farm. It looked like it had been used recently.”

  Phil and Markovich gave me skeptical looks.

  “Remember my telling you about the bank robbery he was convicted of in Missouri?”

  “Yeah,” Phil said. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “He and his partner bought a shovel and buried the loot in a cemetery. The partner dug it up while our man was in prison. Remember, this guy’s real name is Chad Rowe. The partner was Damon Saint. He didn’t bother to tell Rowe about the money. I’m pretty sure Rowe killed him before taking over his identity.”

  “Where’s the farm?” Markovich asked. “If we have to, we’ll dig up the whole damned place.”

  I gave him directions.

  “Has the little pickup given you any leads on the source of the money?” Jill asked.

  “We’re working on it,” he said.

  When we left the hospital, Molly remained in a daze over what she had just learned about her husband. Jill and I drove to the Criminal Justice Center downtown, where we were to meet with Phil and Captain Weathers. I hoped for Jill’s sake it would not be a rigorous interrogation.

  38

  Normally a calm, deliberate person, Jill found it difficult to sit still as she waited to give her statement. I held her hand and assured her there would be no problem, she should simply tell them everything exactly as it happened. They interviewed us separately, which was normal. Afterward, while Jill had gone to the restroom, Phil told me she did fine, though she nearly broke down when it came to the point where she pulled the trigger.

  We sat in the Homicide office with its rows of shelves filled with case files and small desk cubicles. Each detective had a laptop computer connected to the network that contained all of the photos, reports, and evidence for every case. When Jill came back, Phil smiled at her.

  “Don’t worry about anything,” he said. “We’re recommending to the DA that the case be closed. Now the Bureau boys can start earning their pay. They’re probably working like mad checking all the call logs for Rowe’s phone.”

  “They won’t find anything,” I said. “He was too smart to make any calls from there. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to buy into that story Perry Vanatta told us.”

  “About the clandestine government mission?” Jill asked.

  “Right. He wouldn’t have called his old lawyer buddy from high school without a good reason. I’d guess the CIA may have hired him for some black operation. They might even have provided additional training.”

  Phil’s face clouded up. “Don’t tell me you think this Bernstein thing was a CIA plot.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I think he’s probably been freelancing as a hit man the past few years. Remember, he told us he married Molly for cover. Most of those guys are loners. His trips to help out an old Vietnam buddy could have been junkets to commit contract killings.”

  Phil pushed a large black binder aside and leaned an elbow on his desk. “I’ll agree he really acted like a pro on this case.”

  I thought about a couple of things Chad had mentioned to me. In the excitement of the moment, they hadn’t meant anything. Now they began to form the outlines of a picture.

  “Before you came in last night, Phil, he told me Molly’s nosiness had gotten her into big trouble with somebody else. Then when we were talking about Tony Yarnell being out to get her, he said something like I’ve already been hired to take care of her.”

  Jill gasped. “Do you think he planned to kill her?”

  “That was the implication. As if somebody thought she knew too much and wanted her eliminated.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” Phil said. “Knew too much about what, the Bernstein assassination?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure whoever ordered the killing wouldn’t have known Damon was the person hired for the job. It would have been handled through a third party who collected the money and then paid off Chad.”

  “Why don’t we talk to Molly and ask her what she might have known that could upset someone enough to want her killed?” Jill asked.

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “Want to go along, Phil?”

  He picked up the black binder. “Thanks, but I need to get everything put in this case file. If you find anything I can follow up on, let me know.”

  ———

  Molly looked like a different person when we got back to her hospital room. She had put on some makeup and was almost finished with her lunch. The smile she gave us was brighter then any I’d seen before.

  “What brings you folks back?” she asked.

  “I’m still troubled by some loose ends in this case,” I said. “From comments Chad made to me last nig
ht, I got the impression he thought you knew something about someone that would have worried them enough to want you out of the way.”

  She put her fork down and folded her arms. “Out of the way? You mean, like killed?”

  “That’s right. Think about it, Molly. Have you been anywhere lately or done anything that gave you insight into someone’s dirty deeds?”

  “That’s pretty wild. I haven’t been anywhere lately but home or at work. I certainly didn’t hear about any dirty deeds at work.”

  Jill and I looked at each other. I’m sure she had the same thought I did, about Grant Crenshaw’s odd calls inquiring if we had located Molly.

  “How close are you to Mr. Crenshaw?” I asked.

  She grinned. “As close as the next office. He has a secretary, and I’m the next office over. But that’s not what you mean, is it?”

  “Not quite.”

  “As his administrative assistant, I work with him on most of his projects. He makes a lot of money and he spends a lot of money. I can’t talk about anything specific. He’s a stickler for confidentiality.”

  Jill leaned against the counter beside the bed. “Has he had any problems lately?”

  “You can’t run an operation like that without having problems. He’s good at staying on top of things, putting out fires. I think he gets a lot of ideas from a group he belongs to. It’s made up of guys like him. I think they meet sort of informally.”

  “A local group?” I asked.

  “No. They’re from all over. He’s pretty close-mouthed about it. I don’t know who else is involved, but I know when he’s been to a meeting. They’ve had several recently.”

  “But you haven’t heard anything about any major problems, something that could have a disastrous effect on business?”

  She stretched her fingers and looked down at them. They glistened with a new coat of nail polish. “Oh, he’s been concerned for some time about rising interest rates and how they affect several big loans. But that’s not something he can do anything about.”