Surest Poison, The (5 page)

He looked down as he tapped the pipe bowl
against his hand. “It was twelve or fourteen years ago, and the old memory
isn’t what it used to be.
Seems like it was Tommy, or
Terry, or . . . wait . . . Tony.
Yeah, that sounds right. I’m almost
certain it was Tony.”

“Would anybody else around Ashland City
know more about him?”

“I can’t think who it might be. I’d say
talk to someone at the bank, but they didn’t do their banking in Ashland
City.”

“Wasn’t that a little odd?”

“Certainly made
them
seem more like outsiders. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s about it.
Did you get my name at the Chamber?”

“From a nice young
red-head.”

“She hasn’t been there all that long,” he
said before clamping his teeth around the pipe stem. “I’m afraid they’re
going to have a public relations nightmare with this trichloroethylene
situation.”

Sid thanked him and walked out to his
truck. At least he had a name and a description now. Not much, but a start.

Jaz LeMieux
parked her late-model Lexus in front of the small frame house in Ashland
City around nine. Lavender and white chrysanthemums bloomed in pots on
either side of the front stoop. She walked to the door with a lively step,
dressed in snug-fitting black pants, a long-sleeved black shirt with an open
collar. Her red leather jacket matched the color of her car. A lean hound
dog peered around the corner of the house next door, where a scarecrow sat
between two grinning jack-o-lanterns. The street may not have ranked high on
the social register, but its houses looked neat and well kept.

An attractive, thirtyish woman with
smooth brown skin and large, troubled eyes still moist from crying answered
her knock.

“Thanks for coming, Miss Jaz.” Connie
Wallace had a voice reminiscent of a young girl’s. “Bobby’s granny said you
were on the way.”

“Hi, Connie.
It’s just plain Jaz, remember? You’re not old enough to talk like Marie.”

She showed a faint smile. “So be it. Come
on in.”

The neat living room appeared as Jaz
remembered it from a previous trip here with Marie. The mauve sofa and
chair, low coffee table, large TV would have looked at home in any modest
income area. The aroma of chocolate wafted through the kitchen door. A large
framed photo on one wall showed the couple with a small boy. Dressed in
their Sunday best, they appeared as in a pose for a church directory. The
boy had the same playful grin as his daddy.

“Is your son in school?” Jaz asked.

She nodded. “Bob Junior’s in fourth
grade.”

“Fine looking boy.
Does he know about his dad?”

“Only that he wasn’t here for breakfast.
I didn’t know what to tell him. I don’t know what’s going on
myself
.” She gestured at the sofa. “Please sit
down. Can I get you anything? I just put a pan of brownies in the oven.
They’ll be ready soon.”

She twisted slender hands and brushed the
corners of her eyes. “I had to be doing something.”

Jaz dropped onto the sofa. “Mmm . . .
that smell is delicious. I’ll have to pass, though.
Too
many treats instead of tricks last night.
I bet your brownies are as
tasty as Marie’s.”

Connie shook her head. “I can’t cook like
Granny.”

“Nobody can,” Jaz said. “Now, tell me
about last night.
Everything that happened.
Marie
said Bobby went out for something?”

The young woman sat at the opposite end
of the sofa. She wore well-washed blue jeans and a red and yellow striped
sweater that accented large breasts and a small waist. She seemed unsure
whether to bawl or go ballistic. Crossing one bare foot over the other, she
rested her heel on the thick pile of the beige carpet.

“Nothing unusual at first,” she said in a
plaintive voice, tilting her head in thought. “Bobby came home from work in
a good mood. He had talked to his boss about a raise and said it looked
good. He wants to buy me a car. I fixed supper while Little Bob finished his
homework. Fourth grade is a lot harder than when I was in school. I don’t
know if kids are supposed to be smarter or if they just push ‘em harder.”

Jaz swung her legs around to face Connie.
“I suspect it’s a little of both.”

“Maybe so.
Anyway, we finished supper around six-thirty. I told Little Bob to go get
his costume on so his dad could take him trick-or-treating. He was dressing
up as Batman. Then the phone rang and Bobby answered it.”

“Did he say who called?”

“Somebody he knew. The man said to meet
him at a burger
place,
he had some information
that could make Bobby a lot of money. Well, we could sure use it. We’re
paying on this house, and there’s the new car, plus we’re facing braces on
Little Bob’s teeth . . . .” Her voice seemed to run out of steam.

“What sort of information was he talking
about?” Jaz asked.

“Bobby didn’t say.”

“Did he tell you the man’s name?”

“No.”

“How did he know him?”

Connie’s fragile look seemed ready to
shatter. “I don’t know. Bobby was in such a hurry he didn’t say much.”

Jaz folded her hands and tapped her
thumbs. It sounded like somebody had lured Bobby Wallace out on a pretext.
“So Bobby agreed to meet him.”

“He said he’d get back as soon as he
could so he’d have time to take Little Bob trick-or-treating.” She blinked
to hold back the tears. “That’s the last we saw of him.”

“I have to ask you something, Connie. It
may sound crass, but it’s a question the police will ask if we bring them
in. Have you and Bobby had any marital difficulties?”

She shrugged. “We argue sometimes about
how to spend our money.”

“I’m thinking more in terms of problems
like with another woman, or another man.”

Connie’s mouth dropped open as she
stared.
“Heavens, no!”
After a moment, she gave a
grudging laugh. “We don’t have time for stuff like that. Bobby had rather
watch sports on TV than go out. And between looking after Little Bob and
working part-time cleaning houses, I stay busy.”

Jaz dismissed it with a wave of her hand.
“Sorry, but I had to ask.” She had developed a good sense for recognizing
when people were lying, and the look on Connie’s face was as sincere as any
she had seen in a long time. But it didn’t tell her anything about what had
happened to Bobby Wallace.

He might as well have stepped through a
looking glass.

6

Not long after
Sid returned to his office, Jaz called. She spoke in a rush.  “I don’t
like the looks of this at all.”

“What did you find?”

She told him what Connie Wallace said
about the phone call. She added that nothing had been heard of Bobby since
he left for the fast food place around seven last night.

“Has she talked to the police?”

“I got her to call them. You know that
drill. They’re skeptical until he’s been gone a bit longer. Anyway, they’re
all tied up with a big protest around the courthouse in Ashland City. It
involves your new case.”

“Arnie Bailey’s
chemical spill?”

“Right.
The folks around here are raging mad about the water pollution.”

“A sergeant in the sheriff’s office told
me yesterday he’d heard something like that was in the works. Did Bobby
Wallace have caller ID?”

“It didn’t tell us anything. I did a
quick check. The call was made from a prepaid phone. No way to trace the
owner. I looked into the fast food place where they were to meet, but the
manager on duty last night won’t be in until this afternoon. They wouldn’t
give me any information on how I could get in touch with him.”

“Did you find Bobby’s car parked there?”

“No. That was a problem for the cops,
too. I think they would have taken more interest if we’d found the car.”

“But did he ever get to the restaurant?”

“I have no idea.”

Sid considered it for a moment. “What if
somebody met him in the parking lot and coaxed him into another car? Then a
confederate drives his car away. Does Connie have any idea what he was
supposed to do after he met the guy who called?”

“No. I suspect it was all a ruse, but I
have no idea why.”

“No obvious enemies? What about problems
with the marriage?”

“I checked all that out. He was a hard
worker, well liked.
A nice young guy.
I first met
him several years ago when he came to visit his grandparents.”

“Okay, Jaz. Let me know if there’s
anything I can do. I need to head out that way to meet with Wade
Harrington.”

The detailed
directions provided by Bailey, Riddle and Smith took Sid through an area of
wooded hills and flat valleys where determined farmers squeezed in the
occasional cornfield or stretch of pasture. Jagged outcroppings of Middle
Tennessee limestone reared their knobby heads along the roadside. He located
HarrCo a few miles away on a narrow lane with no houses in sight. There was
no shortage of activity, however. Cars and trucks, mostly pickups, lined one
side of the road. A ragtag crowd carrying homemade signs protesting the TCE
spill milled about a chain link fence that surrounded the property. It had
the look of an early rehearsal for a labor dispute. Two sheriff’s patrol
cars sat in the parking area. Uniformed deputies stood at the gate, keeping
order.

Sid drove slowly through the protestors,
advising the officer that he was here on business. A new brick office
structure had been tacked onto the front of the old plant, which was built
of metal and concrete blocks. Though painted in the recent past, it
resembled an aging parent to the modern office wing.

Sid parked in a visitor slot and walked
inside. Samples of various-sized shipping cartons sat on display around the
small reception area. Framed pictures of Cheatham County historic sites
decorated the walls, including a shot of the Harpeth Narrows, location of
one of the oldest manmade tunnels in the U.S. Slaves hewed it out of a
limestone bluff in the early 1800’s to make a shortcut in the Harpeth River
that powered an iron forge. After a brief glance at the photos, Sid
approached a young woman absorbed in a stack of papers on her desk.

“Looks like you may be in the midst of
something big,” he said. “Mind if I disturb you?”

She looked up and smiled. “I was just
trying to get caught up after watching all that noisy mess out front. What
can I do for you?”

He handed her a business card.
“Sidney Chance to see Mr. Harrington.
Arnold
Bailey sent me.”

She took the card into an adjacent
office, then came back and ushered him in. A stocky young man in a shirt and
tie, sleeves rolled up at the cuffs, rose from the desk. A family photo that
included his wife and small son sat beside a plastic pencil holder with a
child’s drawing pasted around it. Wade Harrington had the ruddy, windblown
look of an outdoorsman, something Sid appreciated. An attractive arrangement
of wildlife prints covered one wall.

“Mr. Bailey told me about you,”
Harrington said, holding out his hand. “I’d sure like to see the last of
those country folks with all their signs out front. I hope you can find
who’s responsible for this. Be awful nice to get everybody off my back.”

He had a slow Southern drawl that did
minor surgery on words like “ever’body.”

Sid shook his hand. “A lot of those
country folks probably buy products shipped in your boxes, Mr. Harrington.”

He started to protest,
then
seemed to think better of it. “I guess
you’re right. I can’t blame them.”

“I’ll do my best to put the blame where
it belongs,” Sid said. He took a seat and looked across at Harrington. “I
noticed in the county records that you bought this place from Henry Keglar.”

“That’s right. It was around ten years
ago.”

“Had you heard that he lives in
Lewisville, goes by the nickname Hank?”

“I know nothing about him except that he
did live in Lewisville.”

“Did you deal with him in person?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He’s a huge man,” Sid said. “You would
have remembered him.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right.
Everything was handled through a real estate agent and a lawyer. As I
recall, Keglar didn’t even attend the closing.”

“Did anyone ever mention Auto Parts
Rehabbers?”

“I haven’t heard that name.”

“That’s who occupied the plant before
you.”

Harrington ran a finger beneath his nose
as if a mustache might have once dwelt there. “I had no idea who was here
before. All the equipment had been stripped out when I bought the place.
There weren’t even any old papers around like you might have expected.
Somebody did a thorough cleanup job.
Except for the TCE,
of course.
The inspectors say it was dumped out in back. I can’t
imagine anybody doing something like that.”