Designed to Kill (Greg McKenzie Mysteries)

by Chester D. Campbell

  “To answer the second part,” I said, “we’re not sure, but it looks like there’s some question about whether he should have certified that balcony.”

  With a twist of his mouth, Nixon said, “He’ll do his best to weasel out of it. You can count on that.”

  “You think so? How?”

  “Any way he can. If he can buy his way out, that would be the most likely route. He was always a bright guy, but he liked to do as little as necessary to get by. He used to pay other students to write essays and stuff like that.”

  “Somebody described him as a spoiled brat,” I said.

  “That’s probably as good a description as you could find. He had more clothes than he knew what to do with. Expensive TV and stereo. Tennis stuff, golf clubs, and, of course, a Corvette. He still drives one of those. Still plays tennis, too. I see his name occasionally on the sports pages. I think he’d like to be a pro. Old dad gave him whatever he wanted. Except for one thing.”

  “What was that?”

  “A private apartment.”

  “Why didn’t he get that?”

  “I think his parents hoped having another student rooming with him would have sort of a moderating effect on his ego.”

  “Did it?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I guess it’s hard to be humble when you have it all.”

  “Humility is not a word in Boz Farnsworth’s vocabulary. He didn’t lord it over me so much—I always just laughed him off. When you’re a fat kid, you learn to take the guff or you go into seclusion. But Boz enjoyed putting people down at every opportunity.”

  “How was he when he got out of school? Did you have any association with him afterward?”

  The waitress had brought our coffee, and Nixon took a big gulp, then set the cup down quickly. “Wow, that’s hot.” Wiping the back of a large hand across his lips, he looked at me thoughtfully. “After school? I kept up with him the first couple of years, I guess. With his dad’s help, he got on with a good engineering firm. I figured my chances would be best with the state. Boz wasn’t in that job long, though, before he quit and went with an Alabama company looking for engineers to give them a Florida presence.”

  “They must have offered him a better deal,” I said.

  “You can lay odds on that. Boz was always for sale to the highest bidder.”

  “A man who likes money?”

  “The more he gets, the more he wants.”

  “Was he the kind of guy who wasn’t too concerned about where it came from?”

  “Yeah. That’s my problem, I guess. I’ve always had too many scruples. I want to be sure everything’s on the up-and-up before I buy into something. I don’t think Boz ever worried about things like that.”

  Jill had been silent up to now. Of course, she never had a chance to get involved in any of my cases during the OSI days, but I had talked things over with her more often when I was with the DA’s office. And now that I was strictly on my own, I think she was enjoying the opportunity to take part in the action, as I had let her do at the dress shop.

  “Do you know anything about his girl friends, Mr. Nixon?” Jill asked.

  He grinned. “With that car and a full wallet, he always had plenty of them. I’ve heard he still likes to tour the bars looking for a pick-up, but as for any...no, I take that back. The last time I ran into him was about five or six months ago. When I mentioned my teenage daughter, he laughed and said kids weren’t for him, no woman was going to drag him to the altar. But then he told me there was one he might not mind trying it with. Didn’t say who, just that she was involved in real estate.”

  I reached under the table and squeezed Jill’s hand. I had been trying to think of a subtle way to broach that subject. She had barged right in and made it pay off. Maybe Sherry Hoffman was not who Farnsworth had been referring to, but there was also an odds-on chance that she was.

  “I guess you deal with a lot of contractors,” I said. “Ever hear of Tidewater Construction?”

  “Did they build The Sand Castle?”

  “Right.”

  “Sorry. I deal mostly with road builders. I have a good friend in Tallahassee who could tell you something about them, though. He’s with the contractors licensing board.”

  I accepted the offer and wrote down “Fred Rose” with a phone number at the state capital.

  At that point, the waitress arrived to crowd our plates onto the table. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I watched in fascination as Harold Nixon devoured the array of food that sat in front of him. He polished off everything down to the last crumb of biscuit. By the time Jill and I finished our pancakes, we had witnessed a gastronomic tour de force.

  I managed to get in a few more questions as we ate, but Nixon was too absorbed in his breakfast to provide anything else of significance. After thanking me heartily when we were leaving, he appeared to suffer a slight twinge of conscience.

  “I hope I didn’t give the impression that I think Boz is a really bad guy, somebody with no redeeming qualities,” he said. “Actually, he can be quite charming and charitable, on occasion. Some years back, he invited my wife and me to dinner at his country club. We had a great time. Admittedly, the occasions don’t come too often.”

  ———

  Inbound workers kept the traffic lively on the north side of Pine Forest Road and Blue Angel Parkway, but heading south we had to contend with nothing worse than a few school buses. As we drove along, Jill summed up what we had learned when she said, “Bosley Farnsworth is not someone you would want working against you.”

  “True,” I said. “And Walt indicated he hadn’t treated Tim too kindly.”

  She grinned. “But Boz is not without redeeming qualities.”

  “Yeah. Taking his old roommate and spouse to the country club. Sounds like a guy showing off to somebody who refused to take him seriously in college. I’d say it’s about time to call on Mr. Farnsworth and see what he has to offer in his defense. But first, we’d better check and see if Walt has reported in.”

  We turned onto Sorrento Road and soon passed the pair of strip centers that provided the last chance for groceries and other goodies before crossing over to Perdido Key. A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking area at Gulf Sands, where I noted my Grand Cherokee still numbered among less than a dozen vehicles outside our building. What a contrast to summertime, when the place would be teeming with all kinds of cars, vans, SUV’s and kids. Especially kids.

  We got back a little before nine and found the message waiting from Walt in Nashville.

  “Here’s the info on the two guys who departed,” he said. His voiced barked out from the answering machine tape. “The electrical engineer was Eric Jacobs. He’s originally from Gulfport, Mississippi. I called his home and talked to his wife. She says she was fed up with his drinking. When he told her he’d been fired, that did it. She told him to pack up and get out. Then she found he had emptied their bank account. Which wasn’t all that large to start with. She checked on their credit card and he’d screwed her again. Bought an airline ticket to Honolulu. That was on Tuesday.

  “The draftsman was Oliver—goes by the name Ollie—O’Keefe. Came from New Orleans. Former address there was on Carondelet Street. Don’t have a number. His phone here has been disconnected. If you need anything else, call me.”

  I jotted down the information on a small yellow pad I had used for notes on the Harold Nixon interview. Spotting the number in Tallahassee for Nixon’s buddy Fred Rose, I lifted the phone and punched it in.

  When I got him on the line, I introduced myself and told him his good friend Harold Nixon had suggested I call. “He said you could give me a little information on Tidewater Construction, Incorporated.”

  “No problem,” Rose said. “Give me a second to put the name in the computer.”

  I could hear him punching on the keyboard. A few moments later, he said, “Tidewater Construction, Incorporated was chartered in New Orleans. It’s headed by
Claude Detrich, also of New Orleans. The main office is currently in the Coastal Bank Annex in Biloxi.”

  “Do you have any information on other officers of the corporation, or its owners?”

  “Afraid not. But the Secretary of State’s office should have it. They’re required to register there. Want the number?”

  I said I did, wrote down the number and thanked him for his help. When I called the office that handled registration of foreign (meaning out of state) corporations, a nice young woman advised that Claude Detrich was listed as president, Evan Baucus as secretary-treasurer. The major stockholders were given as Detrich, with a New Orleans address, Baucus and Perseid Partners, both of Biloxi.

  Jill looked up from her book as I put down the phone. “You’ve been busy. Come up with anything interesting?”

  “You be the judge. Tidewater Construction, it appears, is a subsidiary of the company that developed The Sand Castle, Perseid Partners. Detrich and Baucus are officers and also stockholders.”

  “Hmm. So they would both have a lot to gain by taking short-cuts on the project.”

  “True. Depending on how much of the corporation they own. And here’s something else of interest. Detrich comes from New Orleans, as does Ollie O’Keefe, the just departed draftsman from Tim’s company. Think that’s a coincidence?”

  “I seem to recall my gumshoe mentor saying coincidences raise a red flag to a criminal investigator.”

  “You remember well, babe. Let me see if Mr. Detrich is around today.”

  I called the Tidewater Construction office in Biloxi and asked for him.

  “I’m sorry,” said the same person I had spoken with yesterday, “but Mr. Detrich won’t be in today.”

  I decided to don my actor’s hat. “Yesterday I was told he would be there today. Where is that old dog? I was one of his best buddies years ago. Haven’t laid eyes on him in a coon’s age. Now I’ve got a chance, he’s out fiddle-faddling around somewhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Where are you?”

  Not knowing if she had caller ID, I decided not to lie. “In Pensacola. But I’m headed that way.”

  “Well, if you really want to see him, you might drop in at the Gulf Royale Casino here. He stays at their hotel. I suspect you could find him at the slots or around the tables. Particularly after dark. What did you say your name was?”

  I laughed. “Didn’t say. I want to surprise him. Thanks.”

  I hung up quickly. Then I recalled what I had heard about his size and his reputation. I hoped he did not take too unkindly to surprises.

  23

  I parked in an empty slot in front of the low white brick building promptly at 10:30. A business called Maintenance Plus, which offered no clue as to what the firm might maintain or what the Plus might add, appeared to occupy most of the structure. A larger than necessary sign that proclaimed BF INSPECTIONS flanked the door at the opposite end. Parked nearby was a bright red Corvette.

  After last night’s storm, the morning sun was putting on a full court press. The glare would have made a welder squint. I straightened my sunglasses and stepped onto the asphalt, which already felt slightly mushy from the heat.

  “I’d bet that’s dad’s place,” Jill said. She indicated the acres of cars, trucks and SUV’s lined up with military precision at the big auto dealership next door.

  I nodded. “You’d probably win. The sign says DF MOTORS. No doubt it stands for Denton Farnsworth.”

  I had called Bosley Farnsworth to make the appointment, which he had grudgingly granted. He sounded a little too dangerous to try approaching with a crafty story, so I had calmly explained my mission to look into the facts surrounding Tim’s death. Opening the door, I followed Jill into a room with barely enough space for a small desk, unoccupied, and two gray metal office chairs. The walls were covered with framed photographs of a tall, tanned young man in various poses—wielding a tennis racket on a clay court, leaning against a Corvette (an earlier version, not the one outside), standing at the helm of what appeared to be an expensive yacht, looking through an opening in a concrete wall that might have been The Sand Castle at an early stage. He had wavy blond hair and blue eyes that conveyed a look of either amusement or scorn. Considering the young man was Boz Farnsworth, I felt relatively comfortable with the latter.

  “Mr. McKenzie?”

  I turned away from the photographs to face the genuine article, standing in the doorway of a larger office to one side. Dressed in a light blue knit shirt and dark blue slacks, he wore the same ambiguous look as the man in the photos.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is my wife, Jill.”

  He gave a nod toward Jill. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please come in.”

  We followed him into a room that looked fit for the prince he apparently fancied himself. Plush red carpet, matching window drapes, large curved desk of teak wood, leather chairs, wall photos of building projects he had likely worked on. A tennis racket and can of balls stood in the corner beside the desk, reminding me of what Harold Nixon had told us.

  “Please have a seat,” Farnsworth said, moving behind the desk. “Now what could I possibly tell you that you don’t already know?”

  “Considering that I don’t know very much,” I said, “probably lots of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m interested in anything you can tell me about the accident Friday night. You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. My date and I got there early. She’s thinking about running for the legislature and likes crowds where she can talk to people. It was quite a party.”

  “What time did Tim get there?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “He must have come in around eight-thirty. We ran into him right after he got there.”

  “How did he seem to you—upbeat, excited, depressed?”

  Farnsworth shrugged. “Not depressed, but not excited either. Like maybe he was preoccupied with something else.”

  “The accident happened around nine o’clock?”

  “Right.”

  “Were you near the balcony when it fell?”

  “We were standing near the combo—they had a keyboard, a guitar and a bass set up in the middle of the room. They were playing some Spanish song and people were dancing on the balcony. Then we heard this loud crunching noise and people started screaming. It was really scary.”

  “I’m sure you spoke with Tim after the accident. What did you talk about?”

  “We were all very concerned about what had happened,” Farnsworth said.

  “What ideas did he offer on what could have gone wrong?”

  “I think he said something about a concrete failure. That was obvious.”

  “What did he say regarding why he thought it had failed?”

  Farnsworth leaned back in the heavy executive chair and twirled a pencil between his fingers. He had that Mr. Cool look, the big cheese, completely in control. “Tim knew the rebars hadn’t been strong enough to handle the load. It was obviously a flaw in the design. His design.”

  “Did you think the rebars were too small when you saw them being installed?”

  There was a flicker of uneasiness in the blue eyes. “It wasn’t my job to question the design. My responsibility was to see that the plans were being followed.”

  Right, I thought. And you would feel no responsibility to report a murder about to happen if you saw it, would you?

  “Walt Sturdivant spoke with you yesterday,” I reminded him. “He said your set of plans was a copy. Where is the original of the plans?”

  “I presume Mr. Baucus has it. He gave me the copy when he hired me as Threshold Inspector. That’s all I’ve ever seen.”

  “So you don’t know if they might have been tampered with?”

  His look became a definite sneer. “That is highly unlikely.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “You’re getting into stuff that has nothing to do with me,” he said, raising his voice. He sat up and le
aned his elbows on the desk. “You’d best take questions like that to Evan Baucus or Claude Detrich.”

  I was reminded of the way some high-ranking officers had acted when I questioned them on criminal cases. They tried to get me out of their territory by suggesting other places to look. I would merely shift my focus and come back at them from a different angle.

  I smiled. “I plan to talk with them. Tell me about Mr. Detrich.”

  “What about him?”

  “What kind of problems have you had with him?”

  “None at all. He was always very cooperative. Readily corrected any minor glitches I pointed out to him.”

  I remembered Walt’s description of Detrich as a tough guy who didn’t like criticism. I suspected Farnsworth was embellishing the facts.

  “What about Evan Baucus, how did you get along with him?” I asked.

  “No complaints as far as I was concerned.”

  “What instructions did he give you when you were hired as inspector?”

  He shrugged. “Just see that it’s built right, according to the plans. He paid me, but my reports went to the county and the state. They don’t have the manpower to put someone fulltime on a project like this. I served as their eyes and ears.”

  “Are they pleased with the job you did?”

  “You’d better ask them.”

  He obviously wasn’t interested in providing me with any significant information. I clicked my ballpoint pen, which I stuck in my shirt pocket. This was a prearranged signal for Jill to do her thing.

  “Mr. Farnsworth,” she said, “what can you tell us about the relationship between Tim Gannon and Sherry Hoffman?”

  Caught off guard, he snapped his head to the side and stared at her. “Sherry and Tim?” He hesitated as if searching for an answer. His voice shifted out of the self-assured, at times condescending, tone he had adopted earlier. “I don’t know that there was a relationship.”

  Jill gave him an innocent look. “We understood they had been close since his time at the Naval Air Station.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah. Well, that was in the past, you know. A long time ago. They were just friends.”