5 A Sporting Murder (12 page)

I watched as Jill opened the door and slid out. The blast
had occurred up front on my side. I wasn’t sure what damage it might have done.
I grabbed the door handle and slammed my shoulder just below the window, praying
it would open. With a crunch, the door swung to the side. I bounded out and ran
around the back, yelling at Jill to call 911. Reaching the other side, I found the
door ajar where she had jumped out. I reached in and probed under the dash for
the fire extinguisher I kept stashed against the frame.

The Jeep suddenly shuddered with a
loud whoomp! Jill’s high-pitched scream sent me dancing backward. I saw flames
leap above the engine compartment. My hand clutched the extinguisher, but I
knew it was too small to fight a fire like this.

I grabbed Jill by the hand and almost
dragged her down the driveway toward the street. Smoke boiled up and flames
brightened the area as if somebody had lit a huge bonfire. I held her tightly,
noticed the upper lip curled between her teeth as we watched in awe, totally
absorbed by the pyrotechnic display.

I thought of my initial reaction
that it must have been a bomb. In our driveway? Who could have put it there,
and why? Was it former Lt. Izzy Isabell? I recalled the box in the grass. Had
it been placed there as a lure, intended to make me slow down or stop? The
troubling events of the past few nights painted a confusing picture. I had ruled
out Isabell as responsible for the SUV parked nearby in the street. And this
was multiple times more serious than a scratch on the side of the car. Did that
mean it was related to the Wechsel murder? The phone call while we were gone,
and the intrusion that set off the outside floodlights last night could have
been anybody. It left a garbled picture. Was this meant as a warning, or did
somebody want us dead?

Sirens blaring in the distance
abruptly broke my concentration. I squeezed Jill more tightly. “It sounds like help
is on the way, babe.”

The moonlight was enough to show
the distress in her eyes. “Who could have done this, Greg?”

“I don’t know, but we’d better
figure it out before they succeed in whatever they’re after.”

Headlight beams swung into the
driveway, highlighting the blazing Cherokee. I turned to see the psychedelic display
of red lights as the fire truck rumbled toward us. More lights followed, apparently
from a Metro ambulance. The firefighters jumped off the truck and swarmed
around us. I heard more sirens in the distance.

“Is that your car?” asked a fireman
who seemed to be in charge.

“What’s left of it,” I said.

“You reported a bomb?”

“That’s right. It exploded under
the front of my Jeep.”

“Were you in it?”

“My wife and I were. We got out
before the fire started.”

Another siren entered our driveway.
I glanced back and saw one of the smaller vehicles driven by district chiefs.

“Were either of you injured?” the
fireman asked.

My leg felt sore, but in all the
confusion I hadn’t bothered to check the aftermath of whatever had hit me. I
looked down and saw a tear in my pants leg.

“A piece of metal apparently hit my
leg,” I said, pulling up my pants.

A paramedic from the ambulance had
walked up and shined his flashlight toward my foot. It showed a cut that left
the top of my sock a soggy red.

“You’re going to need some
stitches,” he said.

Frustrated at my inability to have
any impact on the situation, I stared at the heavily-clad firemen standing
around. “Are you going to put the fire out?”

“Nobody goes close to it until the
HazMat crew gets here,” one of them said. “There may be explosives that haven’t
detonated.”

The paramedic had been examining my
leg. “Come on back to the unit and let me clean that up. We need to get both of
you to Summit ER and let them check you out. There could be internal damage.”

I’d been in wrecks with more shock
than this that didn’t cause internal damage, but I’d deal with that later. The
medic, a lanky fellow in uniform coveralls with a solicitous bedside manner,
took me by the arm and led me to his ambulance. Jill followed us. On the way,
we encountered the district chief.

“HazMat should be here any minute,”
he said. “What’s the situation?”

“The situation is my Jeep is
toast,” I said. “Why do you need HazMat?”

He gave me a look reserved for the
uninformed. “They’ll have to check it out for anything hazardous before we can
turn the investigators loose.”

More sirens pierced the cold night
air as the blue lights of a Metro police car pulled in, followed by another
fire engine and a ladder truck. You’d have thought we’d been under siege by terrorists.
I suppose that’s what they were assuming.

The chief hurried on up to where
the firemen stood, and the paramedic began working on my leg. Moments later we
were joined by a Metro cop wearing sergeant’s stripes. He was short and stocky,
in his forties. I recognized him immediately, Sgt. Gerald Christie. He pushed
his cap back to show a receding hairline.

“Looks like you have a problem, Mr.
McKenzie.” His tone resembled a taunt more than a concern.

“Just a small one, Sergeant
Christie,” I said. “The Fire Department is taking care of it very well, as you
can see.”

The officer smiled. “I’ll go see what
the Police Department can do to help.”

My one and only encounter with the
sergeant had come two years earlier when local affiliates of a Palestinian
terrorist group ransacked our house and took Jill hostage. After noting that he
obviously enjoyed my misery, I learned he was the brother-in-law of Murder
Squad Detective Mark Tremaine. The detective had unmercifully tormented John
Peterson, a young husband whose wife, Tessa, had disappeared, ignoring other
possible suspects. It led to my supposedly off-the-record diatribe that
appeared on page one of the morning paper, ending my brief investigative career
with the District Attorney’s office.

He walked toward the firemen as the
paramedic finished patching up my leg.

Jill frowned, her gaze following
the sergeant. “Is that the man you told me about after the scroll affair?”

“That’s jolly old Saint Gerald,
Mrs. Tremaine’s brother.”

“He didn’t sound too concerned,”
the paramedic said as he completed the tape job.

“We aren’t exactly friends,” I
said. “His only concern is that I suffer enough.”

“I’d better get you folks to the
ER,” the medic said. He squatted and shoved his first aid paraphernalia back into
the bag.

“Thanks,” I said, “but that won’t
be necessary.”

“You need some stitches.”

“My wife can take me later. I
appreciate your concern, but we’re private investigators. We need to find out
what’s going on here.”

“If you decline to let us transport
you to the hospital, you’ll have to sign a release,” he said.

I turned to Jill. “You’re okay,
aren’t you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, “but you need
that leg looked into.”

“It’ll be okay until things are
wrapped up here.”

Sergeant Christie returned as I was
signing the release.

“Looks like you have a nice pile of
rubble decorating your driveway,” he said. “I’ve called for a couple of officers
to keep people away from the scene.”

I ignored him. A few people from
the neighborhood had gathered out in the street, but the HazMat team’s arrival
kept them from trying to get any closer. Jill and I walked back to where the
district chief stood. I heard one of the firemen yelling and saw two people
coming through the trees that separated our property from the neighbor next
door. I recognized Jay Rogers and his son, Ricky.

“It’s okay,” I called out. “They’re
my neighbors.”

The fireman herded them over to
where we stood. A tall, lanky man with long arms apparently made for swinging a
tennis racket, Jay looked across at the debris.

“Are you two okay?” he asked,
showing genuine compassion in contrast to Sergeant Christie’s blasé attitude.

“Just a little cut on my leg” I
said. “Jill bumped her head. We got out before the fire started.”

“It made one heck of a blast. I was
in the shower and thought we’d had an earthquake. What happened?”

“I wish I knew. Something exploded under
the front of the Jeep. Then it caught fire.”

“Sheesh! It’s sure lucky you got
out when you did. Anything we can do to help?”

“Did you see any cars or trucks
over here tonight?” I asked. “Anything that might have looked strange?”

Jay cocked his head thoughtfully.
“It would’ve had to be back in the cleared area for me to see anything. I
didn’t hear anything, either.”

I patted him on the shoulder.
“Thanks anyway, Jay. I think everything’s under control. We can use Jill’s car
until I get a chance to find a new one. That Jeep had seen its better days.”

It had survived a battering down in
Orange Beach a year ago and wound up with a new paint job. Now it lay beyond redemption,
nothing left but a smoldering chassis. Izzy Isabell’s defacing scratch was
nothing but a memory. Losing my faithful Jeep hit me almost like losing a loyal
hunting dog, but what I felt at whoever had put Jill and me in jeopardy was
pure outrage. I wanted to track him down and make him pay.

First I had to deal with the here
and now. The chief insisted that Jay and Ricky move out to the street. I didn’t
think it was necessary since the flames appeared to be dying out around my Jeep.
However, the bulky-suited hazardous materials specialists remained clustered
nearby.

When my cell phone rang, I pulled
it off my belt and answered.

“What the hell’s going on, Greg?”
Phil Adamson asked. “One of the guys called and said there’d been an explosion
at your house.”

“Unfortunately true. My Jeep is
among the dearly departed.”

His voice turned cautious. “Anybody
hurt? What happened?”

I told him about our minor injuries
and my speculation regarding a bomb.

“Jeez. You think it had to do with
that Cadillac Escalade?”

“That or Izzy Isabell, but who
knows?”

“Without a tag number or model
year, tracking down that Caddy would be like taking the haystack apart straw by
straw to find the needle.”

“And you don’t have the manpower
for haystack dismantling.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“From all the fire equipment around
here, even a HazMat team, you’d think we’d been attacked by Osama bin Laden.”

“That’s standard procedure when
there’s a bomb report.”

I changed the subject. “Anything
new on the Wechsel case?” I hoped something positive might be salvaged from
this ill-starred night.

He was silent a moment as if
debating his reply. “The computer guys determined that he had used software to
scrub his hard drive of anything he didn’t want found. But there was one file
he either hadn’t finished or forgot about. It looked like a draft of a letter.
No name, no address, no salutation. Indicated he felt he’d been treated
unfairly. Said he thought he had done as instructed. The fact he didn’t come
back with the money wasn’t his fault.”

The other job we’d heard about?
“Anything else in it?”

“The tone changed toward the end.
Apparently he’d been fired, and he sounded really pissed.”

I looked across at my Jeep, which
appeared to be barely smoldering. “The people we talked to said Arnold was prone to outbursts of anger,” I said.

“That’s the picture we got, too.”

“But the letter gave no indication
who it was directed to?”

“None.”

“Could it be the killer?”

“That’s a possibility. It wasn’t
anybody at the race car shop, though. He was still working there. When I talked
to them, they sounded highly complimentary.”

“I hope you can find out who it
involved,” I said. My peripheral vision caught a stir among the HazMat crew. “We’re
waiting for the fire investigator to come. I’ll let you know what he turns up.”

After I’d punched off the phone, I began to wonder if the
intended recipient of Arnold’s letter could be the person who had set off a
bomb beneath my Jeep. If that was the case, he must believe we were getting
close to identifying him. Too bad I didn’t have that kind of confidence.

Jill leaned toward me and spoke in
a soft voice. “Hadn’t we better get you checked out at the Emergency Room?”

The ambulance had left for another
call. I looked around. “I don’t know that we could get past this road block.
Anyway, I want to see what the fire investigator finds.”

“Might have known you’d be stubborn
about it,” she said, a grim look on her face.

“Come on, babe. You want to know
what’s going on here as much as I do.”

“Yes, but I don’t want you getting
an infection in that leg.”

“The medic cleaned it good and put
an antibiotic on it. I’m fine.” I put on a false face to mask the pain I was
trying to ignore.

The HazMat crew had just decided
there was no further danger when the investigator arrived. He appeared to be
fortyish, with a straight slash of a mouth and a square jaw that gave him a
determined look. He spoke to the district chief, then walked over to us.

“I understand you were in the
vehicle,” he said.

“Right.” I introduced Jill and
myself and explained up front that we were private investigators.

His eyes appeared to give me a
little more contemplative look and he held out his hand. “Buddy Ebsen. No
relation to Jed Clampett. Tell me exactly what happened.”

I detailed our arrival and the
shocking explosion.

“This happened before the fire?”

“Definitely,” I said. “My guess is
a ruptured gas line leaked fuel onto the hot engine block.”

“Or possibly the catalytic
converter. They generate quite a bit of heat. If you’re private investigators,
are you working on a case that might have triggered this?”

Actually, I had questions about its
relation to the NBA affair, but I decided to attack it indirectly. “I was
involved in something last Saturday night that might be connected.”

I told him about Arnold Wechsel’s
murder. He recalled reading the news story.

“I asked Chief Yunker to have the
policemen knock on doors around the neighborhood and find out if anyone saw
anything out of the ordinary. Let me make some photos, then I’ll take a look
around.”

Jill and I watched as he removed a
digital camera from his case and made a calculated circuit of the remains,
snapping dozens of photos. He put the camera away and used a flashlight with a
powerful beam to probe about the front of the vehicle. Returning to his
equipment case, he pulled out a device that looked a bit like a Dustbuster.

He looked across at me, knowing I’d
be curious. “This is a bomb sniffer machine. It’ll detect what kind of
explosive was used. I don’t usually carry it with me, but it was handy so I
brought it along.”

He moved back around to where a
large hole in the driveway marked the location of the explosion. After aiming
the odd-looking device around the area, he checked the read-out.

“Just as I suspected. ANFO.”

“What’s that stand for?”

“Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The
favorite materials for IED’s in Iraq and Afghanistan, most famously used to
blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”

“And readily available anywhere
around Nashville,” I said.

“Your attacker wasn’t skilled at
this, or you’d be no better off than your car. If the ingredients aren’t mixed
in exactly the right proportion, the explosive effects won’t be as powerful.”

I looked at the metal skeleton, all
that was left of my Jeep. “Glad we have something to be thankful for.”

He reached for his cell phone. “I
need to call for a wrecker and get this hauled off to our forensic lab
downtown. We’ll scour it for any kind of trace evidence. I’ll check with the
ATF and be back to comb the area in the morning.”

Jill had called Wilma Gannon while I
followed Ebsen’s probe of the fire scene. She and Sam drove up about the time the
investigator finished. My leg wasn’t too happy with the way I had ignored it,
so I made no objection to their offer to drive us to the Emergency Room. The
hospital was only a few miles away on Old Hickory Boulevard. With the clock
getting on toward midnight, accidents on the icy roads had brought more than the
normal crowd of patients. We found seating scarce as clumps of concerned families
and friends crowded the waiting room. I was shuffled back to a small treatment
room where they had me stretch out on one of those comfort-defying beds. Jill
gave lip service to my plight, but I knew she was secretly satisfied that I got
what I deserved. When the doctor finally got around to me, he took Jill’s side
and chewed me out for not coming in sooner. His sewing job didn’t feel as
gentle as my mother’s technique in darning socks had appeared, but I suffered
through it, got bandaged up, and joined Jill and the Gannons for the drive
home.

The remains of my Jeep had been
hauled away by the time we got there. The hole in the driveway and a large area
around it had been marked off with crime scene tape. Sam maneuvered around it
and dropped us off at the house.

“Anything else we can do for you?”
he asked as we got out.

“Thanks,” I said, no doubt sounding
as weary as I felt. “You’ve already gone way above and beyond. Get on home and
hit the sack before it’s time for the alarm to go off.”

“The only alarm Sam knows about is
the one that goes off on the weather radio,” Wilma said. “He probably won’t get
up until you’re at the office.”

Sam shrugged. “Don’t call early or
you’ll find her in bed, too. You probably need to get a little extra rest
yourself, Greg.”

“If I don’t get to work on time, my
partner might dock my pay,” I said.

Jill reached over to pat my
stomach. “I’ll dock your dinner plate if you don’t shape up.”

When we got in the house, we found
a message on the answering machine. Wes Knight wanted me to call him at the
newspaper. I glanced at my watch. Way past their deadline. I knew it was safe
to punch in the number.

“You have reached the desk of Wesley
Knight. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

I smiled. “Hey, Wes. This is Greg
McKenzie. I got a cut on my leg and had to languish in the Emergency Room for a
while. Just got home. I guess you know something exploded under my Jeep’s
bumper. If you can get anything out of the Fire Department, you’ll know more
than I do.”

I placed the phone onto its base
and turned to Jill. I felt like I’d been wrung out and hung out. “Let’s call it
a day, babe. Or a night. Or maybe a week.”