5 A Sporting Murder (20 page)

We bounded out of bed early on Sunday morning to check the
newspaper account of our Christmas Armageddon. It merited a bold headline at
the top of page one. Wes and a team of reporters did a masterful job of
tracking down multiple aspects of the case. Louie Aregis denied everything, but
Wes had already talked with his former employee in Pensacola. He quoted
portions of Gordon Franklin’s confession regarding Nick Zicarelli’s funding of
Aregis’ stake in the NBA consortium. He also mentioned that unnamed sources
reported Coastal Capital Ventures was the target of a federal money laundering
investigation.

At press time, Metro Police,
assisted by the FBI, were raiding Nick Zicarelli’s home in White House. They
carried search warrants for gambling records. Grandpa was not available for
comment. The most significant feature of the story for us came in a statement
from Howard Hays, president of the Dollar Deal chain.

“Those of us who started the effort
to bring a National Basketball Association team to Nashville have, from the
start, been mindful of the necessity to protect the integrity of the sport. In
consideration of this deplorable development, we have decided to withdraw from
the proposed acquisition of an NBA franchise.”

Fred Rickets of Physicians and
Surgeons Software concurred in the statement. Louie Aregis had no comment.

While Jill and I sat at the kitchen
table finishing our coffee with the last of the newspaper account, Phil Adamson
called.

“I decided to apply a little
pressure on the cell phone company last night after listening to Franklin on your recorder. They came through this morning with some interesting logs.
There were several calls back and forth between Arnold Wechsel and Gordon
Franklin. He had called Nicole Columbo the day he died. And calls with a cell
phone listed to ‘N. Zicarelli’ ended a couple of days prior to Wechsel’s death.
Evidently old Nick wasn’t as careful as we thought. Looks like you scored big
on this one, buddy.”

“Thanks, Phil,” I said. “But you’re
the guy who provided the links. I should have given you everything we had a
little sooner. Maybe a guy would still be around rather than in the morgue.”

“He would’ve gotten what he had
coming sooner or later. You did what you had to do. Put it aside and move on. I
need you and Jill to come downtown and give your official statements.”

I told Jill what we had to do, then
shrugged. “Maybe the preacher will forgive us for missing one more Sunday.” Instead
of dressing for church, we donned our work clothes and headed for the Criminal
Justice Center.

Jill suggested we follow up the closing of the case with a
dinner for the people who had helped us the most. I was a bit skittish after
the way things had turned out Saturday night.

“It smacks of a celebration,” I
said. “I don’t know if that would be proper with Gordon Franklin not yet cold
in the ground.”

She gave me a skeptical look. “I
don’t recall you having that problem after the Damon Saint affair last March.”

She had me there. I guess things
look different when it’s your own foot in the shoe.

“Say when and I’ll issue the
invitations,” I said.

With New Year’s Eve coming up Friday,
we decided on Thursday night. I invited Sam and Wilma Gannon, Terry and Roberta
Tremont, Brad and Maruko Smotherman, and Phil and Liz Adamson. I thought about
adding Wes Knight to the list, but after my previous experience with
off-the-record comments to news people, I thought better of it. I did invite
Mack Nelson, though I was sure he wouldn’t come.

We took down the Christmas
decorations and replaced them, thanks to a little help from the Predators’ PR
man, with a few pairs of ice skates, hockey sticks, and jerseys. Wilma came
over early on Monday to help Jill get everything set up. Although hockey fans
didn’t tailgate, she decided to make it a strictly casual affair with barbeque
pork and chicken, baked beans, potato salad, and all the rest. For dessert, she
had ice cream in the shape of hockey pucks. They were regulation size, one inch
thick and three inches in diameter.

After everybody had arrived, we
were seated at the table, about ready to eat, when the floodlight beep sounded.
The doorbell rang by the time I got to the door. I opened it to find Mack
Nelson standing there with his band leader, Deke Bragg, and the shifty-eyed security
man, Rocky Topp.

“Sorry we’re late,” Mack said.
“Hope there’s still somethin’ left to eat.”

They set their guitar cases in the
living room and joined us for dinner. Hockey talk dominated the evening. While
we were eating dessert, Terry made a little speech, which is a nasty habit of
lawyers, praising Jill and me for our dogged pursuit of the case.

I got up, bowed, and said, “I owe
it all to my wife.” And sat down.

Everyone applauded, except Jill.

She got up and said, “I have a
lying husband.” And sat down.

That brought a roar of laugher.

I had been dealing with a mix of
emotions, and a pang of conscience prompted a sobering response. “In our
euphoria over successfully closing the case,” I said, “let’s not forget the
tragedy that led to the solution. Jill and I knew Arnold Wechsel as an
ambitious young man looking forward to a bright future. He will be sorely
missed by his family and friends.”

That brought a long moment of
silence. It was broken by Mack Nelson, who grabbed his cowboy hat off the back
of the chair and plopped it onto his head. “If y’all will let us, we’ll play
you a little music.”

With that, everyone adjourned to
the living room and enjoyed an impromptu concert. It was late when the party
broke up. Jill and I stood at the door and thanked each of them for their
support in getting the case solved. Phil Adamson and his wife were the next to
last to leave.

“I’m the one who should be giving
the thanks,” he said as he shook my hand. “You saved me a lot of work, buddy.
But please don’t wake me up in the middle of the night for awhile.”

Jill grinned. “I’ll keep him away
from the phone after nine o’clock. I promise.”

When we got to church on Sunday, it was a new year and, I
hoped, a new beginning. But after greeting a few people, I wasn’t sure. I
couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being looked at differently than I had
been before I shot and killed a man. Several offered condolences for what we’d
been through.

John Jernigan remembered my
interest in Gordon Franklin and said, “I had no idea it would be something like
this.”

“You gave me the key clue with that
info about the Military Amateur Radio Service,” I said. “That started all the
pieces falling into place.”

He gripped my arm. “I’m just
thankful you got out of it alive.”

Dr. Trent laid it all to rest with
a comment during his sermon. Looking directly at me, he said, “Sometimes, in
the face of crises, we are forced to take actions not of our choosing. On such
occasions, it is important to make sure that what we do is always for the best
of motives.”

Looking around at Jill, I knew what
had motivated me to make that fatal move. And I had no regrets.

First a bit of explanation about
the adventures of Greg and Jill McKenzie, and this book in particular. The
first book in the series took place in November of 2002, the second a year
later, the third the following spring, the fourth that summer, and now this one
around Christmas. So in Greg-time, it’s still 2004. To avoid confusion, I call
the location where the Nashville Predators play simply “the arena.” In 2004 it
was the Gaylord Entertainment Center. Now it’s the Bridgestone Arena. Also, the
Homicide Division back then worked out of the Criminal Justice Center. Now
homicide detectives have been spread out among the precincts, much to many
people’s chagrin .

I have several to thank for their
help with this book. The character Louie Aregis is named after the 6th degree
black belt owner of Aregis Taekwondo in Goodlettsville (Nashville suburb),
where grandson Justin Jones qualified for his probationary black belt while
this was being written. Aregis wanted to be a bad guy. Michael Bunch of the
Nashville Fire Department, a certified arson investigator, provided help with
the bombing scenario. Rudy Kalis, sports director of WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville, gave advice on the local sports scene. A source who prefers to remain anonymous
gave me some valuable insights into the background of the local criminal
element. Forensic guru Dr. Doug Lyle helped with a poison question.