Surest Poison, The (11 page)

“Ah, I got the CIA,” she said.

“Funny.” His voice lacked any hint of
humor.

“Just checking in.
I’m back from the Scar Wars.”

“That bad?”

“I exaggerate. Except for a few
disagreements with the chief financial officer and the director of
marketing, I thought everything went as smooth as a well-tuned engine.”

“Nice to hear.”

“What did you learn today?” she asked.

Sid filled her in on his interviews in
Ashland City and his talk with Hershel Owens. “Have you had a chance to
check on Pete Rackard?”

“I have.
Very
interesting fellow.
Item number one, he was Tony Decker’s cellmate in
prison. After several minor brushes with the law, he was sent up for beating
a man half to death in a fight outside a bar. Item
two,
he grew up on a farm near Lewisville. He worked as an auto mechanic there.”

“Item three?”

“He now runs an auto repair shop in
Franklin.”

That put him in Williamson County, a few
miles down the road from where Jaz lived. A recent census report listed
Williamson as one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. The former
convict had moved into the middle of the high-rollers.

“What’s the name of his shop?” Sid asked.

“Rack’s Auto Repair. According to my
information, it’s doing quite well.”

Sid paused. “With the rush hour traffic,
I’d have a rough time trying to get down there before they close.”

“I can talk to him,” Jaz said. “It won’t
take me long to get over there.”

“Okay. See if you can get any line on
Decker, or the TCE spill. But you’d better get a move on. Don’t be late for
the Felons game.”

She snickered. “Don’t
worry,
I’ve got the bells out, ready to strap on.”

15

Sid was
looking
over the notes he had
scribbled about Pete Rackard when Jerry Jackson, the electronic
countermeasures expert, called.

“I found your client’s problem,” Jackson
said.

“How bad was it?”

“Did you go by his office and talk to
him?”

“Yes.”

“Then somebody knows whatever you told
him.”

“You found some transmitters?”

“One in the phone,
one on a shelf behind his desk.
I have them if you’d like to add to your gadget collection.”

“Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“It wasn’t a very sophisticated
operation, but good enough.
Probably monitored from a
setup nearby that would be checked every few hours.
They must have
pulled it out. I did a search for the receiver but couldn’t find anything.”

“Any idea
who’s
behind it?” Sid asked.

“It has all the earmarks of a guy I’ve
run into before.
Same equipment, same M.O.
He’s a
PI out of Atlanta. There’s no way to tell who the client was.”

Sid thought about the two hoods
who
had knocked on his door last night. “I have
another job for you, Jerry. I want you to set up an alarm system and some
cameras at my house.”

The rain had
ended, but clouds shrouded the early evening. Headlights glistened in long
streaks on the wet pavement as Jaz drove through Old Hickory Boulevard
toward Hillsboro Road. It would be a less hectic route this time of day,
bringing her into Franklin near the location of Rackard’s repair shop. She
drove through an area of homes and pastureland that had supported a thriving
plantation economy until the Civil War reared its ugly head. Now the
peaceful scene of rolling countryside populated by horse farms and
high-ticket homes, Williamson County had attracted the headquarters of
several major corporations.

Jaz parked her Lexus in front of Rack’s
Auto Repair, located in a brick building with tall, arched windows that
resembled old-time structures in the historic downtown area. Cars pulled in
through overhead doors on one side. Dressed in jeans and a matching blue
shirt, she walked up to the high-topped counter in the small lobby area. A
young man in coveralls, his red ball cap turned backward, grinned at her.

“What do you need, ma’am?”

Jaz smiled back and leaned her elbows on
the counter. “I need to talk to Pete Rackard.”

His eyes took in her face and as far
south as he could manage. “Sure. He’s in the back, just finishing up, I
think. You’ll have to leave your car overnight if you want anything done,
though. We’re about to close.”

Jaz handed him a business card, a plain
one she’d just had printed with her name, phone number and Private
Investigator. “Just get him for me, okay?”

“My pleasure,” he said. He glanced at the
card as he walked into the open area of the garage.

Typical young, over-sexed male, she
thought. While he’s back there, he’ll be working on a good opening line to
find out if I’m available. Dummy ought to know I’m old enough to be his
mother.

He was back in a couple of minutes with a
big grin on his face. “Pete’ll be with you in a minute. He told me to see if
I can help you. Can I get you a Coke or something?”

“What flavors does something come in?”

That put a wrinkle in his forehead.
“’Scuse me?”

She laughed, folding her hands, showing a
large diamond on her right ring finger. It had belonged to her mother.
“Just kidding.
I’m fine. I’ll check out the décor
over here.”

She turned to a wall half-covered with
kids’ artwork, showing their ideas of cars in different locations and
situations. One imaginative youngster had placed a long green car up on the
back of a smaller blue one. Good ad for a repair shop, she thought. A sign
identified the display as the work of third graders at a local school.
Rackard was attempting to appear civic-minded, a bit of a change from Auto
Parts Rehabbers.

A couple of minutes later, Jaz turned as
she heard someone approaching. She saw a large man whose bulging belly hung
over his belt like a sack full of Jello. He wore grease-smudged jeans and a
dark gray work shirt, and he walked with a slight limp. He looked her up and
down with wary eyes.

“I’m Pete Rackard,” he said, folding his
arms. He gripped a faded shop cloth in one hand.

“Nice meeting you, Mr. Rackard.” She gave
him a congenial smile. “I’m looking into a situation that occurred at the
place where you worked about a dozen years ago, where you were Director of
Operations—Auto Parts Rehabbers.”

She paused.

Rackard stared at her in silence.

She waited, watching his face begin to
twitch. She knew she could out-stare him.

After a long pause, he said, “So what’s
your question?”

“You worked for Tony Decker. I’d like to
talk to him. I’d appreciate your giving me his address or phone number.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“You haven’t been in touch with him?”

Rackard gritted his teeth. “I just said I
don’t know where he is.”

“So you did. However, I’m sure you
remember when a lot of trichloroethylene was spilled or dumped behind the
plant. How did that happen?”

He sucked in a deep breath, pulled the
business card from his shirt pocket, and glared at it. “This little chat is
over, Miss LeMieux.” He pronounced it “Lee Mewcks.”

Jaz kept her cool, businesslike demeanor.
She wasn’t about to let him rattle her, or so she thought.

“I know,
it’s
closing time,” she said. “I can come back tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll be under a car.”

He spun around and started back into the
shop. She saw another mechanic looking at them, a grin twisting his
odd-looking mustache.

“Maybe I should come back with a police
escort,” she said.

Rackard stopped, glanced over his
shoulder. His dark eyes bored into hers.

“Yeah.
You do that . . . bitch.”

16

The Miss
Demeanor
and Five Felons Poker
Club convened at eight o’clock. Sid ate teriyaki chicken at a nearby
restaurant and made it back to the office by seven. He set about arranging
his reception area for the “meeting.” The room contained a two-seat sofa,
four metal chairs with cushions, a coffee table, and a small end table with
a lamp. To accommodate the players, he pushed most of the furniture against
the wall, brought in two additional chairs from his office and a round
folding table he stored in the supply room. Mike had sent it to him to use
for conferences, but up to now he hadn’t found a need for a conference. He
also brought in a cooler filled with iced beer.

Jaz arrived as he sat at his desk going
over information about a deadbeat dad he had retrieved using data recovery
software she had suggested. When he saw the disgusted look on her face, he
guessed a different kind of recovery program was in order.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“Mr. Pete Rackard is an SOB.”

He leaned back in his chair. “That must
mean he wasn’t real cooperative.”

“In spades.
As soon as I mentioned Decker, he threw up his defenses. Said he didn’t know
where Decker was. And when I asked about the TCE dump, he suggested I get
lost.”

“We need his phone logs. You can bet he
put in a call to Decker after you left.”

Jaz sat in the remaining chair.

“I’d be surprised if he didn’t,” she
said. “I have a friend who can check it out.”

Sid noticed the frown continued to tug at
the corners of her mouth. “What did he do to get you so bent out of shape?”

“He threw the B-word at me. I hate that.”

She wasn’t easy to upset, but he knew the
so-called B-word was one thing she couldn’t stomach. “So who just called
whom an SOB?”

“That was only payback. Anyway, just
repeating initials doesn’t sound all that bad.” Her features softened into a
contrite smile. “I’ll get him.”

He didn’t doubt that. She had the
training to handle herself in any situation and the determination to pull it
off. Mike Rich had shown him a video shot by a television cameraman back
during her time as a Metro policewoman. It showed her taking down a robber
who was attempting to flee the scene of a convenience market holdup. The guy
had made a terrible choice of time and location. Not only had Jaz just
gotten out of her police car in front of the store, a TV news crew was
setting up nearby for a remote feed. The video showed the robber, a bulky,
bearded man, coming out of the store with a large paper bag in one hand. He
had stuck the gun back in his belt. As Jaz walked toward him, somebody
opened the door and yelled, “Stop him!” The fleeing robber took a swing at
Jaz. She blocked the blow and whacked him a good one with her nightstick. He
went down hard. She was right on top of him with her Glock drawn.

At the sound of the outer door opening,
Sid glanced up at the small monitor mounted on the wall facing his desk.
“Wick is here,” he said. He walked out to the reception area.

“What’s up, Sidney?” Wick Stanley asked.
The patrol sergeant, a fifty-year-old version of Joe Average in after-work
denims and a blue Titans jacket, stuck his hand out.

Sid grinned as he shook it. “I feel lucky
tonight, Wick. Hope you brought plenty of quarters.”

Wick shifted his eyes as Jaz came out of
the office swinging a small handbag. “Man, you’d better be lucky if you want
to beat that gal. I never saw a woman play poker like her.”

“All in the technique,” Jaz said.

She was a smiler at the poker table. A
lot of players tried to maintain a neutral look, but she smiled all the
time, good hand or bad. She slipped around to take her traditional spot at
the table. Each of them gravitated to the same chair whenever they met. Wick
insisted it would be bad luck to do otherwise.

“Have you heard from Bart today?” Wick
asked.

“Sid talked to him this morning,” Jaz
said. “We heard about another murder victim shot five times with a
thirty-eight.”

Wick moved across to his chair. Without a
feature unique enough to stand out in a crowd, he would have made a great
undercover man, Sid thought. Wick had no interest in detective work, though.
He liked to be out on the street, dealing with the rough and tumble of
everyday life.

“I heard about that new victim,” he said.
“Got some of the guys speculating serial killer.
We don’t need one of those around here. The crackheads and pushers are
making things miserable enough for everybody.”