Greg McKenzie Mysteries Boxed Set—Books 1-4

by Chester Campbell

  Just as I figured. Attempting to come up with anything significant now would likely be a useless exercise. No telling how many hands had been on the door handles, not to mention all around inside the vehicle.

  “What if the medical examiner had determined otherwise?” I asked.

  “Then we’d have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. We’ve had it right here since the wrecker hauled it in.”

  “Sergeant Payne told me about the gun and that he had looked for a note,” I said. “Did the crime scene techs check the car before it was moved?”

  “You’ll have to ask the Sergeant.”

  “Did you find a big blueprint case?” Walt asked. “Tim probably would have kept it in the Blazer.”

  The deputy shook his head. “Nothing but the usual contents of the glove compartment. Gas receipts, insurance card, registration slip, Band Aids, that sort of thing.”

  “There should have been a key to my condo,” I said.

  “Not unless it’s one of these.” Deputy Erwin held out Tim’s key chain, which was attached to a white medallion bearing a large orange T.

  I shook my head as Walt took the keys from him and started to slip into the Blazer. Logically, Walt was well aware that Tim had died in this vehicle, but the full impact did not hit him until he glanced down and saw the large splotch of dark red on the seat. His face blanched as the horror hit him.

  “Oh, shit,” he mumbled.

  Jill saw the blood, too, and turned away, shaking her head, eyes closed.

  Now they knew why the deputy had suggested taking the Blazer to a car wash. “We’ve got an old beach towel in the back of the Jeep,” I said. “I’ll lay it across the seat and cover that.”

  I walked over to my Jeep to grab the frayed towel, then spread it out on the seat of the Blazer. At the sound of a car driving up, I turned to see a white police cruiser with green stripes and markings of the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Sergeant was painted on the front fender. The deputy who stepped out, carrying a brown plastic bag, was awesome in size. He made my somewhat stocky five-ten frame look undernourished.

  The sight brought a momentary flashback to my childhood, when I would stand in awe of my father, a huge Scot with a bushy black beard and a boisterous laugh. He looked like a character out of the movie Braveheart. One of the main differences between him and the deputy was a Santa-size belly. A master brewer with Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, my dad took product loyalty to the extreme.

  “Sergeant J. W. Payne,” the deputy said as he strode toward me. “You must be McKenzie.”

  “That’s right, Sergeant,” I said. “This is my wife Jill, and this is Walt Sturdivant, vice president of New Horizons Architects and Engineers.”

  The deputy shook Walt’s hand, then spoke in a deep, resonant voice. “You worked for Mr. Gannon?”

  Walt nodded. “I plan to drive the Blazer back after taking a look at The Sand Castle.”

  “I expect the Building Inspection Department folks will want to talk to you. They’re putting together a team to investigate what kind of flaw caused that accident.”

  “The Sand Castle was designed to last a lifetime,” Walt said, eyes narrowed. “If a balcony fell, the contractor must have screwed up.”

  “That’s not the tale they’re telling,” Payne said.

  Walt frowned. “The contractor?”

  “Yes, sir. And the developer. I understand they say the design was faulty.”

  “That’s a crock.” Walt’s voice was almost a growl. “We’ll see when they check the plans and specs.”

  I pointed to the bag the sergeant held. “Is that Tim’s personal effects?”

  “His billfold, change, articles from his pockets. I’ll need you to sign for them.”

  He held out an inventory sheet with a place for my signature. I compared the contents of the bag with the list, then took the ballpoint he offered and penned my name.

  “Sergeant, did your crime scene techs check out the car and the area around it at the Seashore?” I asked.

  His face hardened into stone. “There was no call for it. This was an obvious case of suicide.”

  “You didn’t consider the possibility that a thorough check of the scene might turn up evidence of foul play?”

  Payne’s teeth clenched and his jaw twitched. “I was sure it wouldn’t.”

  I decided I had provoked him enough for the moment. “Did you ever find my condo key?”

  “No, sir.” He struggled to keep his composure.

  “What about a large case with blueprints in it?” Walt used his hands to describe the case’s dimensions.

  Payne shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

  “Did you see anything resembling it in our condo?” I asked.

  “No, sir. I guess it could have been covered up somewhere.”

  That seemed unlikely. A condo key was missing, also a case full of plans. I had no idea what that might mean, but I didn’t like the sound of it. “We haven’t been to Gulf Sands yet, Sergeant. I’ll give the place a thorough going over when we get there.”

  Payne cocked his head. “How long you intend to stay down here?”

  I shrugged. “That depends on what I find.”

  He raised the Stetson to mop his brow with a large white handkerchief. The sun was merciless, the afternoon still hot. “What would you be looking for?”

  “Tim Gannon’s dad is one of our closest friends. He asked me to find out who killed his son.”

  The big man’s scowl deepened. “Excuse me, sir, but we already know that. The man obviously killed himself. The Medical Examiner certified it as a legal fact.”

  I held the bag of Tim’s belongings in one hand and took Jill’s arm with the other, turning her toward my Jeep. “Let’s just say I’m a born skeptic, Sergeant Payne. After I’ve assembled some of the details, maybe we can get together for a little powwow.”

  “There’s one thing you need to know before you go flying off on some sort of crusade, Mr. McKenzie.” There was a sharp edge to his voice. “I didn’t mention it on the phone Saturday because our investigation wasn’t complete.”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “What do I need to know, Sergeant?”

  “There are surveillance cameras at the ranger station where you enter the National Seashore. They cover both the entrance and exit lanes. The ranger went through the whole night’s tapes. They show Mr. Gannon’s vehicle going into the park just before one a.m.”

  “And what did it show coming out?” I asked, though I was sure I knew the answer.

  “Nothing else went in or out between midnight and six in the morning.”

  I felt Jill’s hand squeeze my arm. She knew things had just become much more complicated. But I wasn’t ready to back down.

  “Did anyone check the beach for tire marks?” I asked.

  “Tire marks?”

  “Right. Someone could have driven up the beach. Trucks do it all the time doling out and picking up rental chairs and umbrellas. They could have parked up by the picnic area and walked in.”

  Payne smiled and shook his head. “You’re really grabbing at straws now. Let me tell you what happened that night. You’d have thought the roof had fell in on Gannon when I told him two people were dead. His face turned white as a sheet and his hand shook when he picked up a glass. A little later, I saw him looking out the door at that crumpled hunk of concrete. He just shook his head like he’s thinking, what in God’s name have I done?”

  “What time was the accident?”

  “Somewhere around nine. I was just winding up with a DUI down the beach when I got the call. It was 9:20 when I got there. The fire and rescue people had arrived, and the paramedics told me we had two casualties. They had fallen fifteen stories from that balcony. I went right up to the penthouse and confronted Gannon and this Baucus fellow with what they’d done. Gannon was real shook up, but Baucus quickly let it be known he wasn’t responsible. He just put up the money and ran the show.”

  “More bul
lshit,” Walt said from the driver’s seat of the Blazer. “Was Detrich, the contractor, there?”

  The deputy stood for a moment with his large hands on his hips and stared at Walt. “He was there. I didn’t know who he was at first. I saw him standing with Baucus, being interviewed by a TV guy. When I went over to talk to him, he said he didn’t know what had happened. He’d just built the building according to the plans he’d been given.”

  “I’ve heard enough of this crap,” Walt said. He looked across at me. “I’m going to check in at the motel and get a bite to eat. I’ll be out to see you in a couple of hours.”

  “Can you find the place okay?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Tim took me over there once when I was down.”

  As he slammed the door, I turned back to Payne. “When did you last see Tim?”

  “I guess it was after ten-thirty, maybe around eleven. The firemen and rescue people had left. The injured had been taken care of. The place was still crawling with news people. I got everybody out of the penthouse and closed it off with crime scene tape. Gannon really looked like hell. They said he’d helped pull some people off the balcony. His shirt was sort of ripped and his arms were scratched up. I didn’t see him drinking, but there was lots of booze up there. And I’d seen him having some words with Baucus and Detrich. Don’t know what that was all about. Gannon went out the front entrance looking real haggard and hollow-eyed. That’s the last I saw of him until Saturday morning at the Seashore.”

  Walt roared past in the Blazer as Jill and I got into my Jeep. I looked around at her. “You’ve been awfully quiet, babe. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking you’ve got big problems, Greg. Were you serious about somebody driving up the beach?”

  “You’re damned right I was. You’ve seen the trucks. It would have been no problem.”

  “Well, that deputy’s mind is made up, and you’re not going to change it.”

  I nodded as I started the Jeep and headed for the gate. I certainly wasn’t going to change any minds without some evidence. Right now I had a sergeant convinced Tim left The Sand Castle despondent and suicidal, a developer and a contractor ready to swear the accident was Tim’s fault, a missing condo key and two sets of missing plans. I also had an engineer persuaded that the design was flawless and the contractor likely was not. In short, I had a puzzle with lots of pieces that didn’t match.

  Chapter 11

  The setting sun cast long, slanted shadows across the Intracoastal Waterway as we crested the Theo Baars Bridge, a high-arched span that connected the mainland to Perdido Key. This twelve-mile-long sandspit where we had bought our condo was known as Old Gulf Beach when Baars got the county to build a road onto the key in 1924. After two efforts at constructing a resort hotel in the area died with the 1929 crash, the island languished for the next four decades. In the 1960’s, the Department of the Interior put it on the map as Perdido Key—perdido being Spanish for “lost,” as well as the name of the nearby bay that a bunch of dumb pirates got lost trying to find. Development of houses and condos got under way in the seventies, and by the end of the decade the National Park Service had bought up the eastern half of the key to save the land from further destruction by four-wheel dune buggies. The area became part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

  Just before Perdido Key Drive swung to the right, paralleling the surf on its way to Alabama, we turned left onto Johnson Beach Road, which dead-ended at the entrance to the National Seashore. Swinging back toward the darkening waters of the Gulf, we headed for the parking lot behind Gulf Sands Condominiums. A cluster of plants with dark blue blossoms flourished among the spiky shrubs that lined one side of the road, the wiry trunks of palm trees stretching high above the other. We found less than a dozen cars nosed up to the crossties that flanked a flower bed and concrete walkway in front of our building.

  Jill swung her head around as I parked near the elevators at the center. “Looks like we’ll have the place to ourselves,” she said.

  The building was a box-like structure without the fancy lines of newer condos, but each unit had a large balcony that faced the Gulf, only yards from the broad white sand beach. The structure was eight stories high with eight units on each floor. There would be lots of unlighted rooms tonight.

  “It was probably like this Friday night,” I said. “Nobody around to notice Tim’s comings and goings.”

  I could have used a witness to his demeanor, as well as the time he left for the Seashore. I hoped I would be able to confirm one thing with the Medical Examiner, however—the time of his death.

  After rolling a baggage cart out of the storage room, I piled on all of our bags and boxes. We always brought too much. Boarding the elevator, we lumbered toward the second floor. The narrow balcony that served as a walkway at the front of the building was deserted as I pushed the cart along, its screeching wheels echoing through the early evening quiet. Since Jill’s left arm was still too weak to be of much use, she carried only a handbag slung over her right shoulder. Dr. Vail had forbidden her to hold anything heavier than a cup of coffee in her left hand.

  She unlocked the door and switched on the hall light, then propped the door open for me to roll in the cart. Walking ahead of me, she stopped beside the dining room table, stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.

  “Do you smell that?”

  I hadn’t noticed anything in particular. “What?”

  “Shalimar. Somebody’s been in here wearing Shalimar.”

  “If you say so. You’ve got a sharper nose than mine. However, Sergeant Payne didn’t impress me as a man who would use Shalimar. I’d say he was more a Giorgio of Beverly Hills type of guy.”

  “Be serious,” she said. “Nobody should have been in here but Tim and the deputy. I guess Marilou would have been with him to unlock the door, but she doesn’t use Shalimar.”

  Marilou Edens was in charge of the condo office. Besides keeping the owners happy, she had a staff that handled rentals.

  “I’ll check with her in the morning,” I said. “Maybe a female deputy came along with the Sergeant.”

  As I unloaded the cart, Jill moved about turning on lamps. The sun was almost gone, leaving the living room in near darkness.

  “Oh, oh.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. Such an observation could only mean she had found something amiss. I walked over to where she stood beside a cushioned rattan chair. “What is it?”

  She held up a woman’s lightweight velvet jacket, a well-tailored red garment with an expensive look. Jill held the collar open to show the label stitched inside. “It’s from The Bodde Shoppe. Isn’t that in the Cordova Mall?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Expensive ladies shops weren’t high on my list of places to frequent. I moved closer to study the jacket, which bore the familiar scent of Shalimar. “There are some initials marked very small in the corner of the label,” I said. “Appears to be SH.”

  Jill dropped down onto the sofa and patted the cushion. “Sit down, Greg. There’s something I need to tell you. I didn’t want to bring it up while Walt was with us.”

  When she goes into a serious mode like this, I know it’s time to pay attention. I sat down and leaned my arm on the back of the sofa. “Okay, let’s have it.”

  She stared back with a somber expression. “Remember when we were at the funeral home this morning before the service, and I wanted a cup of coffee?”

  “Yeah. I stopped to corner Sam and ask a few questions about Mr. Sturdivant. I could have used some coffee, too, but you didn’t bring me any.”

  She ignored the mild reproach. “Well, Tara followed me back to the kitchen. We were in there alone. I offered her some coffee, but she declined. Obviously, she just wanted to talk. I’m still not really sure why she chose me. Maybe because she was so distraught and felt she needed to tell this to someone, but she didn’t want to go into it with her mother or Wilma.”

  When she paused, I prompted her. “Go into what?”

 
“She said she and Tim had been having some problems. At first it stemmed from his determination to spend most of what he was making off The Sand Castle project on improving the business. She insisted they should build a new, larger house. For one thing, she thought the boys needed separate rooms. But then, after he came home from Florida a few months ago, things seemed a bit more complicated. He was terribly preoccupied, distant at times. But she couldn’t get him to talk about why. She was never sure if it was something about the project...or somebody.”

  “Another woman?”

  “That was the implication. I don’t think she was really accusing him of anything. It was just a suspicion, but something that obviously had bothered her.”

  I glanced back at the jacket with the initials. “And you think this might be the other woman?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just hope for Tara’s sake this jacket got here some other way.”

  “I agree. But one thing’s for damned sure. If some woman was here Friday night, we need to talk to her.”

  Chapter 12

  Walt Sturdivant showed up just before nine o’clock. Opening the door created a draft, letting the breeze rush through toward the balcony, sweeping across the dining room table like a sudden gale. Papers scattered about where I had been scribbling notes for follow-up.

  Jill and I had changed into shorts, but Walt still had on the long-sleeve white shirt and dark trousers he had worn to the funeral and on the drive to Florida. The pipe protruded from his shirt pocket. A newspaper was stuck under his arm. When I invited him in, Jill, ever the perfect hostess, approached him immediately.

  “Would you like some supper?”

  “I grabbed a bite on the way over,” he said in that rapid-fire voice. “I’ve been busy.”

  He looked ready to chew glass.

  I frowned. “What have you been doing?”

  “First, I read the accounts in the newspaper. Here, you can have it.” He shoved the folded paper toward me. “They included some quotes from Baucus and Detrich. The same old crap that police sergeant was giving us. After nearly gagging on that, I couldn’t wait till morning to check out The Sand Castle.”