Designed to Kill (Greg McKenzie Mysteries)

by Chester D. Campbell

  When I turned off the TV, Jill looked around. “If you were right that he took the plans, what do you think happened?”

  “My gut feeling is he turned them over to somebody, and that somebody whacked him or had him whacked. Leave no witnesses.”

  “Was it Claude Detrich?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I should go down and ask him.”

  29

  Some people sing in the shower. Others follow the quickie routine—slap on the soap, rinse, hop out. I like to take my time and let the hot water relax my muscles and reinvigorate my gray matter. As the fine spray played over my shoulders Thursday morning, I pondered what I had turned up to date. Or, more properly, what we had turned up.

  Sherry Hoffman had been in love with Tim, Jill believed. Sherry had definitely been with him at our condo Friday night before he died. Had he rebuffed her, made her angry, so mad that she had stormed out, forgetting her jacket? What did she know about the missing plans, about the file in the laptop? I doubted she had killed Tim, but I couldn’t discount the possibility.

  Boz Farnsworth was a bit of an enigma. Jill thought he was jealous of Tim’s relationship with Sherry. He would not have been the first jealous lover to solve his problem with a bullet. But there was also the matter of the rebars and the concrete. He was a structural engineer and he had signed off on something he should have objected to. He also possessed a set of altered plans. Could Boz have murdered Tim to silence a voice that might have accused him of malfeasance, of knowingly permitting something that would endanger people’s lives?

  On the face of it, Claude Detrich was in the conspiracy up to his bushy brows. Had he changed Tim’s plans to cut costs? Did he plant Ollie O’Keefe in New Horizons to provide an early warning in case somebody got suspicious about the specifications? After the accident, Detrich could have called O’Keefe and instructed him to take the plans and clean out the company’s computer.

  “I know the hotel’s bound to have a monstrous supply of hot water,” Jill said from the bathroom door. “But you’re really going to put it to the test if you don’t hurry up and get out of there.”

  I stuck my head from behind the shower curtain like a turtle peering from its shell. “I’ve been reviewing the case.”

  “So who did it?”

  “I was just about to get to that when you interrupted.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “Yeah. And I was just about to give birth to a ten-pound kangaroo.”

  Like I said, she can express herself in unpredictable ways. I reached over and turned off the shower. “Coming out,” I said.

  After I finished dressing and tossed my shaving gear in the bag, I looked around to make sure we were leaving nothing behind.

  “Are we going to take our money and run?” Jill asked.

  “That’s my inclination.” I knew there were more important things on the agenda than feeding hungry slots. “Why don’t we check out of the hotel, stop somewhere for breakfast, then go by Evan Baucus’s house. I looked up the address in the phone book.”

  “I thought he wasn’t going to be back until tomorrow?”

  “True. So maybe Miss Greta’s at home. She might be more willing to talk than he would.”

  ———

  Around nine o’clock, we drove up to the large white frame house that faced the Gulf across the divided beachside highway. A huge, gnarled live oak with a twisted trunk and limbs flaring out in every direction partially obscured the structure. The two-story house featured four tall columns and a porch on each level that stretched nearly the entire width of the front. A concrete driveway led back to a portico at one side of the house.

  I parked the Jeep under the portico. A warm breeze bearing a distinct fishy odor swept past us as we walked up three concrete steps to a large door where a lighted bell button appeared beside a small meshed grill. After pressing the button, I looked up and spotted a miniature video camera mounted above.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice inquired from a speaker behind the grill.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Greg McKenzie,” I said. “Is this Mrs. Baucus?”

  “Yes. Are you collecting for a charity?”

  I smiled. “No. We’re from Nashville, Tennessee. We’d just like to talk to you for a minute.”

  The door opened shortly and a young woman with short blonde hair looked out. She had a pretty face and a curvaceous body overbalanced by breasts that seemed ready to burst free of a green tank top. Stenciled on the shirt was HEART FUND 10K RUN. No doubt one of the charities the Baucuses supported. I now understood the bank manager’s wicked smile.

  “Tennessee. You’re a long way from home. Would you like to come in?” She smiled broadly.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I ushered Jill ahead of me as we followed Greta Baucus into a small foyer. We followed her through a doorway and found ourselves in a sitting room that was permeated with the odor of incense. The furniture was Early American. I wasn’t sure if the chairs were antiques or reproductions, but they seemed sturdy as new when we sat down. Paintings of scenes that appeared to be from old New England towns hung on the walls.

  “What can I do for you folks?” Greta asked.

  She still smiled, but a closer look showed a bit of hardness about those pale blue eyes. I suspected she had a lot more mileage on her than thirty years would suggest.

  “We’re considering a sizeable investment in Perseid Partners,” I said. “Before we do anything, though, we wanted to get as much information as possible about the company and its leadership.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not involved in the company,” she said with a flip of her wrist. It set off a jangling sound among the half-ton of gold bracelets she wore. “My husband is out of town until tomorrow.”

  “That’s all right,” Jill said. “I think meeting a man’s wife can sometimes tell a lot more about him than meeting the man himself. Don’t you agree?”

  Greta shrugged and made a face. “I never thought about it that way. I guess...maybe.” Then she grinned. “You guys want something to drink? We’ve got any kind of booze you could ask for. Wines, red and white. Beer.”

  “Sorry,” Jill said. “I’m afraid we’re not morning drinkers. Decaf coffee is about as strong as we can take.”

  “I can do that. I hope you don’t like it with chicory, though. That stuff’s disgusting. Evan drinks it sometimes, but he’s not from around here. He just likes to pretend he’s one of the boys. Can I get you some coffee?”

  I smiled. “We don’t care for chicory, either. But if it isn’t a lot of trouble, we’d go for the decaf.” I looked around at Jill. “Okay by you?”

  She nodded.

  “Lord help us,” Greta said, “it won’t take five minutes. Be right back.”

  When she left the room, Jill looked around. “Is she for real?”

  I put a finger to my lips. After all the slippery situations I’d been involved in during my career, I didn’t trust any place not out in public to be free of eavesdroppers. And I had known a few public places to be bugged or covered by something like shotgun mikes.

  “We’ll discuss it later,” I said. “Let’s just follow the script.”

  “Nice furniture,” she said, smiling.

  I looked up at the wall. “Do you think that’s Vermont or New Hampshire?”

  “I’ve seen places like that from the air all over New England.”

  True to her word, Mrs. Baucus was back in five minutes with a silver tray bearing three Delft cups decorated with windmills. After handing two of them to us, she sat down, raised her cup and grinned. “Mine’s the real thing. Got to have my caffeine fix.”

  Jill and I took tentative sips of our decaf, then I looked across at Greta Baucus. “We’re a little concerned by what we’ve heard about the accident on Perdido Key last Friday,” I said, trying not to sound overly anxious. “Were you there?”

  She nodded. “It was a great party until that...that balcony thing. I don’t know anything about construction. All I’ve he
ard is that we didn’t have anything to do with what happened. It was that guy’s fault who designed the building. Come to think of it, wasn’t he from Nashville?”

  Jill set her cup on a coaster. “Yes. It was in the newspaper at home.”

  “Well, the whole thing was terrible. We’d planned to sleep in the penthouse that night, but after all that mess we had to stay in a unit on the first floor. It had been furnished as a sample.”

  “The rescue people, the police and the news media must have been all over the place,” I said. “Did they keep you up late?”

  “I think it was after midnight when the last one left. I wondered if Evan would ever get to bed. There was this really nasty sergeant from the sheriff’s office who kept nosing around asking questions. Evan finally came in and had a couple of drinks to calm him down. And wouldn’t you know, we’d hardly got to bed when the phone rang.”

  “Had something else gone wrong?” Jill asked.

  “No. It was just a friend who needed some help. Evan handed me the phone and said he had to go out. It was twelve-thirty by then. I don’t ever want to go through a night like that again.”

  “I can certainly sympathize with you,” Jill said. “I’ve had some pretty bad nights when Greg was called out, back before he retired.”

  “What did you do, Mr. McKenzie?”

  “I was in the Air Force.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I guess you’ve had some scary nights, too. Well, I hope this Sand Castle business doesn’t turn you off from investing in Perseid. Can you come back tomorrow and talk to Evan?”

  “We’re on our way out of town right now,” I said. “But I’ll get back in touch with him.”

  Jill held up a restraining hand. “Before we go, could we see your flowers? Mr. Quinn at the bank said you had some really terrific plants out back.”

  “Hey, that’s my pride and joy,” she said, eyes widening.

  Jill shook her head in frustration. “I’ve never had much luck growing flowers myself. I love to look at them, though.”

  “Then by all means, let’s go have a look.”

  We followed Greta through the rear of the house out to the lawn, which stretched back some 200 feet or so. Large live oaks dotted the area, Spanish moss hanging like gray beards from their limbs. The grass looked so smooth it could have been clipped with scissors. Beds of impatiens in various shades of red, hibiscus in purple and white, and several fall flowers I couldn’t identify filled shaped areas around a large brick terrace behind the house.

  “It’s lovely,” Jill said. “Are you the gardener?”

  Greta smiled. “I do a lot of it, but we have a man who comes out now and then.”

  At the end of the driveway in back stood a two-car garage with a long, narrow building beside it. I pointed at the smaller structure. “Is that a boat house?”

  She chuckled with a mischievous grin. “Yeah. It’s Evan’s secret boat house.”

  “What could be secret about a boat house?” Jill asked, shaking her head.

  “He’d kill me if I told you.” Greta Baucus laughed.

  “We don’t want to be responsible for any mayhem,” I said. “Thanks a lot for showing us around. We appreciate your hospitality.”

  “Sorry you couldn’t stay till tomorrow,” she said. “I know Evan would have loved to talk to you.”

  Somehow I doubted that.

  30

  We arrived back at Gulf Sands around noon. True to my word, I immediately put in a call for Sergeant Payne. He got back to me while we were eating lunch.

  “Did you turn up anything interesting in Biloxi?” he asked.

  I tried to put a smile in my voice. “Jill hit it big on the Wheel of Fortune machine.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I learned a few things of interest. I haven’t had time to put them in context, though. To draw any meaningful conclusions.”

  “I checked with Lieutenant Cassel before I called,” Payne said. “He wants you to come in at two o’clock. You know where our precinct office is?”

  “Right. The little house on Gulf Beach Highway.”

  When I told Jill, she frowned. “Do you want me to go along?”

  I shook my head. “I’m the culprit the lieutenant is after. You don’t need the Sheriff of Nottingham on your case as well.”

  “Nottingham? You fancy yourself as Robin Hood now?”

  “Would you believe Friar Tuck?”

  She grinned. “Sounds a little more appropriate.” Then she turned serious again. “I just might pursue a small project while you’re gone.”

  “Oh?” I wasn’t sure I liked the look on her face. It was a look that sometimes meant trouble.

  “I’ve been thinking about Sherry Hoffman. She lost her cool before you could find out much from her.”

  “That’s true. I’d like to know a lot more about her relationship with both Tim and Bosley Farnsworth. But I’m afraid she’s turned off on us.”

  Jill’s eyes twinkled. “She’s turned off on you, my dear. I never said more than hello during that visit.”

  “And you’re thinking you could get her to open up?”

  “I could surely try.”

  I had to admit the idea made at least a bit of sense. I knew that little tête-à-tête at the funeral home with Tara was no accident. Jill had always been someone people readily confided in. She was a good listener, sympathetic, not easily ruffled, non-judgmental.

  “So what are you proposing?” I asked.

  “I thought I would call and see if she might meet me somewhere in the area before you’re due at the lieutenant’s office. You could drop me off.”

  “Go ahead and give it a try,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

  I listened as she got Sherry on the line. “This is Jill McKenzie. I met you over at your house Tuesday afternoon. I feel terrible that we upset you so. My husband isn’t the ogre that he may have seemed to you. It’s just that his job always required him to dig really hard for the facts, then work to figure out their significance. Sometimes he isn’t too diplomatic, but he means well.”

  She grinned at my grimace.

  After listening a moment, she said, “I knew Tim fairly well. He was a delightful young man to be around. I know you must have felt his loss the same as we did. Frankly, I was impressed with your sincerity. I’d like the opportunity to make up for whatever grief we caused you the other day.”

  There was another brief pause. Then Jill said, “I had hoped we might be able to meet somewhere for a few minutes. I don’t want to take up a lot of your valuable time, but Greg has to be somewhere at two and he could drop me by.”

  She broke into a big smile. “That would be great, Sherry—I hope you don’t mind my calling you Sherry.”

  When she hung up, I said, “Sounds like you got a date.”

  “You are to drop me by her office at quarter till two. She’s taking me to a new coffee shop not far away. She said she’d bring me back to the condo.”

  ———

  After leaving Jill at Coastal Realty, I drove back to the Big Lagoon Precinct house. Lt. Nolan Cassel was seated behind a cluttered wooden desk when I entered the office. Although an average size guy, he appeared small compared to Sergeant Payne, who dwarfed the chair next to me. Cassel also looked tough as shoe leather, with short, bristly black hair, piercing gray eyes and a square jaw that translated “don’t mess with me.” I judged him to be mid-thirties.

  “So you’re Colonel McKenzie,” he said in a voice tinged with contempt. “The former DA’s investigator.”

  The emphasis he put on “former” left me with the impression that he had talked to someone in Nashville. Not someone friendly to me, for sure. But I had already decided to play it cool, try to keep the interview upbeat.

  I smiled. “That was a convenient little job to keep me from getting too bored after retiring from the Air Force.”

  “You were OSI, right? A criminal investigator.”

  “Correct. I als
o put in several years as a deputy for the St. Louis County sheriff in Missouri.” I chuckled. “That was probably before you were born.”

  His look said that didn’t win me any points.

  “And now you’re doing private investigations,” Cassel said.

  “Just looking into the death of a close friend’s son.”

  “Yes. I understand you’ve been interrogating people here in Escambia County. Are you familiar with Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to my meeting with Charlie Brown, or if he knew about some of my other interviews. But I was certain of my answer to his question. “I know absolutely nothing about Florida law,” I said.

  “Well, I’d advise you to become familiar with it. Florida requires people who conduct private investigations to be licensed. Operating without a license will get you a five hundred dollar fine for the first offense. Then it gets worse.”

  I held up my hand. “Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, but are you telling me a private citizen, receiving no compensation, can’t ask people questions about things that have been going on around here? That sounds like a First Amendment violation.”

  His jaw tightened. “It’s when you start telling people you’re a PI that you get into trouble.”

  “I’ve been telling people exactly who I am and what I’m doing.” I was only exaggerating slightly.

  “I think you’re walking a tight line, McKenzie. Are you carrying?”

  “No, Lieutenant, I do not have a weapon on me. However, I have my nine-millimeter Beretta with me in Florida. I have a valid Tennessee permit to carry it, which I am advised is recognized by the State of Florida.”

  “You’d better watch your step. We get any reports of you harassing people, you’re in big trouble. And another thing, if you come up with any evidence of wrongdoing on anyone’s part, you’d damned better report it.”

  I glanced around at Payne. “I told the Sergeant here about some missing plans for The Sand Castle. I don’t have any proof, but I strongly suspect a former employee named O’Keefe took them. Of course, that was in Nashville, not here. And, by the way, O’Keefe was found dead in the bay around Dauphin Island yesterday. His neck was broken.”