Deceived (14 page)

To Pu-Yi,
McKenzie's charge came absurdly slow, like a lumbering cow. He sidestepped it
easily, and hooked one thick arm around McKenzie's neck. The other still held
the gun. He pressed its barrel against McKenzie's temple
.

McKenzie
stopped struggling immediately.

"What were
you going to do?" Pu-Yi hissed in his ear. "Fight me?" He jammed
the gun barrel hard against McKenzie's skull. "Fight me now,
ass-hole."

Pu-Yi felt
McKenzie's body shudder, heard a weak whimper, and realized McKenzie had
started to cry
.

Like a woman. Weak.
Without courage
.

A feeling took
him then
—
the rage
—
and he tightened his hold, the muscles of his
biceps bulging and his forearm digging farther into McKenzie's throat, shutting
off the sobs. His other hand, the one that held the gun, he placed on the back
of McKenzie's head, and used it to drive McKenzie's head forward
.

Not even a gasp
escaped McKenzie as his wind pipe collapsed. For a moment he grabbed at his
throat, attempted to loosen the iron-like band that choked the life from him. Then
he clawed wildly at Pu-Yi, reaching up and behind him.

Pu-Yi felt
nails rake the right side of his face; he jerked back harder
.

McKenzie tried
to push backward with his legs to no effect
—
Pu-Yi had braced himself,
and outweighed McKenzie by at least twenty pounds.

Eyes bulging,
McKenzie's struggles grew first more frantic, then they slowed. A couple of
dozen seconds later they stopped entirely. His body hung limp from Pu-Yi's arm,
feet dragging on the floor
.

Surprisingly
light, was Pu-Yi's first thought, now that the struggle was over. He kept his
arm muscles taught and counted to one hundred, then let McKenzie's body sink to
the floor.

He remembered
his own face then, and his hand went to it. He swore as the fingers came away
tipped in red. Stupid, to have allowed himself to be marked. He pulled a
handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the fresh rivulets of blood from his
face.

From a pocket,
Pu-Yi removed a jack-knife. Opening the smallest blade, he scratched clean the
underside of the fingernails of McKenzie's right hand, the one that had
scratched his face, then buffed them quickly with the handkerchief. Finished,
he examined McKenzie's face. Blue; blood shot eyes popping from sockets
.

"You're
not a pretty boy anymore," Pu-Yi whispered, then hoisted McKenzie back to
his feet and began to drag him toward the balcony.

From behind the
counter, the police sergeant looked from the I.D. to Nick and Meg, back to the
I.D. again, then scratched his jaw determinedly. "The General Accounting
Office?"

Nick nodded,
accustomed to the reaction
—
more puzzlement than respect. "That's
right," he confirmed.

The sergeant's
confused look remained. "You two from the state house?"

"No. Washington.
GAO's a federal agency."

"Huh
…
didn't
know that. And what is it you want with the sheriff?"

"Information,
I hope," Nick answered patiently. "On an investigation I'm working
on." That threw the sergeant, as Nick thought it might. Even people who
had heard of the GAO rarely knew they conducted investigations.

"You guys
just like regular police? Someone doctors their books, they call you
—
that
sort of thing?" the sergeant asked, still looking at Nick's card.

There was no
use in explaining or taking offense. "Something like that." Nick
smiled, lips pressed together.

The sergeant
nodded, clearly unimpressed, and scratched his chestnut hair, coifed a bit too
carefully. "Maybe I can help you?"

"Thank
you, sergeant, but if the sheriff's available, I'd like to talk to him."

"All
right, Mr. Ford, Miss Taylor," the sergeant said after a pause. "Why
don't you just take a seat right over there and I'll go tell the sheriff you're
here." He pointed across the counter to a folding chair against the wall,
then disappeared into the back offices with Nick's card.

Nick offered
the chair to Meg; she refused it. They both remained standing, Nick surveying
his surroundings. Wood paneling; tile floor. Plaques, safety fliers, and wanted
posters on the walls. The station appeared workman-like and very clean. Nick
figured the force must be small
—
probably a couple dozen cops at most
—
to
match the small town. Cobbs Fork, thirty minutes from downtown Birmingham. A
main street lined with old men
—
chawing, watching, judging.

The station had
no air conditioning; two fans circulated hot air. Nick loosened his tie,
finding it oppressively hot and humid, hard to take a full breath. He rolled up
his sleeves trying unsuccessfully to cool himself

The sergeant
reappeared after a lengthy absence and crooked his finger in Nick's direction. He
led Nick into a cramped office which bore no resemblance to the orderly and
clean public area. An imposing bald man, tall with a well-lined face and dark
stains around his armpits, sat behind a steel desk. The man rose and stuck out
his hand. "Sheriff Conners," he announced.

Nick took the
sheriff's hand and returned the strong, firm grip.

The sheriff
gave Nick a quick appraising glance. Nick had seen the look before; he knew
what the man thought: a goddamn bean counter from Washington. Not that it
wasn't true, Nick supposed
—
he fit the bill. Nick felt about as out of
place here as he imagined the sheriff would in D.C.

Nick cast his
eyes down, then swore at himself for breaking the sheriff's stare. Bad enough
men like this intimidated him at times, did he have to let them know it? It
wasn't a matter of fear, certainly not envy, just discomfort. Men like the
sheriff didn't follow the niceties: the easy patter of polite conversations,
the conventions of dress and decorum. It bothered Nick that his position, his
looks and dress, created a look of derision in the sheriff's eyes, a gulf Nick
must work hard to bridge.

The sheriff
said, "The sergeant says you two are with the
…
General Accounting
Office, I believe he said."

"That's
right," Nick said, Meg echoing him.

"Investigators?"

"Right. Office
of Special Investigations."

Sheriff Connors
nodded. "Forgive me for saying so, but you two look more like the pencil
pusher type."

Meg, her jaw
set, said, "Nowadays we use calculators and computers."

The sheriff
laughed. "And what brings the General Accounting Office's Office of
Special Investigations to our little town?"

Nick took an
immediate dislike to the large man. "I came down to question somebody:
Andrew McKenzie."

Sheriff Connors
rubbed his temple. "Name doesn't ring a bell."

"I just
left his apartment building, found out he took a bad fall last night. He's
dead. I think your men were called to the scene."

Sheriff Connors
looked to the sergeant. "Would that be the
…
what was it, Earl? The
Eastbrook apartments?"

The sergeant
nodded. "Must be."

"That's
it," Nick verified.

Sheriff Connors
eased his bulk back into the chair. "Yeah, sure, one of our men answered
the call last night." He reached for a pack of cigarettes lying on his
desk, knocked one out for himself then held the pack for Nick, who shook his
head. "Bad timing," the sheriff continued. "Why'd you want to
talk to this McKenny?"

"McKen
zie
,"
Nick corrected. "His name surfaced in one of our investigations."

"What
exactly is it you were looking into?"

"Billing
irregularities in a federal contract."

The sheriff
immediately lost all interest. "Billing irregularities, huh?"

"We wanted
to talk to McKenzie about it. A matter of routine."

Sheriff Connors
kicked his boots onto the desk. "Looks like your routine came a day too
late."

The sergeant
made a half-hearted attempt to suppress a laugh.

Nick rolled
with the comment. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I read
the report this morning, but
…
hold on a second." Sheriff Connors
picked up his phone. "Tom, is Arnie around?
…
Good. Could you send
him in here." The sheriff placed the receiver back on its cradle. "Arnie
…
Officer
Gordon
…
was on the scene. You can hear it from the horse's mouth."

A young, lanky
cop with a sunken chest and acne scars across his cheek bones ambled in a
moment later. The sheriff pointed at Nick. "Arnie, this here is Mr. Nick Ford,
and this is Miss Meg Taylor. They came all the way from Washington, D.C. to
talk to us about that accident victim you covered last night. Andrew
McKenzie."

The young cop,
eyes wide, stuttered a "Uh-huh."

"Can you
fill them in?"

"Sure
can," Arnie replied eagerly and turned toward Nick. "Not much to tell
really. What do you want to know?"

"The
circumstances of death."

Arnie screwed
up his eyes, as if recounting last night's events was a Herculean effort. "Got
a call about two in the morning. One of the apartment owners discovered the
body, on the parking lot. Victim had landed on concrete, head first. Eight
floors below his balcony. A real mess." Arnie delivered the last sentence
with a school boy's zeal.

Sheriff Connors
cut in. "Mr. Ford came down here to question Mr. McKenzie about some
billing irregularities. I'm thinking he has a notion McKenzie's death wasn't
accidental."

Arnie shook his
head. "If you're thinking it wasn't an accident, Mr. Ford, I think you're
on the wrong track."

Sheriff Connors
tapped his ash into the tray, then took a puff and aimed the smoke in Nick's
direction.

"Why?"
Nick asked.

"McKenzie's
apartment wasn't disturbed. No money taken from his pockets; no sign of a
struggle. We searched his place, didn't find anything to make us suspicious. We
did
find an overturned step ladder on the balcony and a busted light
bulb in the balcony's fixture. Seems pretty clear what happened: while
replacing the light bulb he lost his balance."

Nick nodded. "Sounds
reasonable." Easy enough, of course, to push someone off a balcony, then
bust a light bulb and overturn a ladder, but he saw no reason to argue the
possibility. "Coroner confirm the fall killed him?"

"Sure did.
Told us something else too: McKenzie's blood-alcohol level was .21."

"The man wasn't
feeling any pain," Sheriff Connors contributed. "A minor blessing, I
suppose."

"We have
witnesses who saw him leave a bar shortly after one in the morning," Arnie
said. "From what they said, he was in no condition to step up on a
ladder."

"Makes you
wonder," Meg said, "why he got it into his head to change a busted
light bulb after all those drinks."

Sheriff Connors
answered. "You find out why drunks insist on driving eighty when they
can't handle fifteen, miss, and you'll have your answer."

Caution might
well be an early casualty of drinking, but that didn't explain away the
convenient timing of McKenzie's death, not to Nick's satisfaction. He directed
another question at Arnie. "You dust for prints?"

"On the
door knobs, the step ladder. I didn't see any reason to dust the rest of the
apartment after we got the coroner's preliminary report."

"Neighbors
see or hear anything?"

"No."

"You have
a file on McKenzie?"

"No. Never
been in trouble as far as we know. Heads a small engineering firm in
Birmingham. Inherited ownership from his father, I understand. A bit of a
playboy. That's about all we know about him."

"Unless
you have something else to tell us, that is," Sheriff Connors interrupted,
a hint of a smile curling his lips.

Nick shook his
head, and after a pause said, "I'd like to see McKenzie's apartment, if
that's possible."

Sheriff Connors
looked hard at Nick for a moment, then shrugged. "Why not? We're always
happy to help out our federal brethren. Arnie, why don't you run Mr. Ford and
Miss Taylor over to the apartment
…
Anything else we can do for you, Mr.
Ford?"

There
was
something else, and Nick was about to blurt it out, ready to use his federal
clout in the battle sure to follow, when he thought of Scott
.

Nick forced
himself to smile, then let the words come out as they would have from Scott,
who had used a hundred similar lines in Nick's presence in the past. "Just
one thing.
…
Name of a good restaurant for lunch. Something simple
—
nothing
that doesn't have a napkin dispenser on the table. Barbecue, chicken fried
steak. I don't get down south nearly as much as I should."

For the first
time the sheriff's face softened. He and each of his three officers offered a
favorite. Nick followed up quickly on the new found good-will. "And,
sheriff," he said, "could you call the coroner, tell him I'll be
flying in another medical examiner to confirm his preliminary opinion."

The good-will
dissipated instantly. "The coroner's report seems to fit the facts, Mr.
Ford. Drunk, McKenzie fell off the balcony. The fall killed him. Why do you
need another examination?" The sheriffs other question
—
who the hell
are you to come into
my
town and tell
me
how to do
my
job,
went unstated but clearly conveyed.

Nick again
thought of Scott. "It's paperwork and bureaucracy, sheriff. The D.C. way
of doing things. Do I think another examination is necessary? No. Will my boss
get on my case if I don't get one? Hell, yes. I'd appreciate it if you smoothed
things over with the coroner, let him know it's a matter of routine, that's
all."

Reluctantly,
the sheriff nodded. Scott would have been proud.