Designed to Kill (25 page)

———

After leaving Jill at Coastal Realty, I drove back to the Big Lagoon Precinct house. Lt. Nolan Cassel was seated behind a cluttered wooden desk when I entered the office. Although an average size guy, he appeared small compared to Sergeant Payne, who dwarfed the chair next to me.
Cassel
also looked tough as shoe leather, with short, bristly black hair, piercing gray eyes and a square jaw that translated “don’t mess with me.” I judged him to be mid-thirties.

“So you’re Colonel McKenzie,” he said in a voice tinged with contempt. “The former DA’s investigator.”

The emphasis he put on “former” left me with the impression that he had talked to someone in
Nashville
. Not someone friendly to me, for sure. But I had already decided to play it cool, try to keep the interview upbeat.

I smiled. “That was a convenient little job to keep me from getting too bored after retiring from the Air Force.”

“You were OSI, right? A criminal investigator.”

“Correct. I also put in several years as a deputy for the
St. Louis
County
sheriff in
Missouri
.” I chuckled. “That was probably before you were born.”

His look said that didn’t win me any points.

“And now you’re doing private investigations,”
Cassel
said.

“Just looking into the death of a close friend’s son.”

“Yes. I understand you’ve been interrogating people here in
Escambia
County
. Are you familiar with Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes?”

I wasn’t sure if he was referring to my meeting with Charlie Brown, or if he knew about some of my other interviews. But I was certain of my answer to his question. “I know absolutely nothing about
Florida
law,” I said.

“Well, I’d advise you to become familiar with it.
Florida
requires people who conduct private investigations to be licensed. Operating without a license will get you a five hundred dollar fine for the first offense. Then it gets worse.”

I held up my hand. “Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, but are you telling me a private citizen, receiving no compensation, can’t ask people questions about things that have been going on around here? That sounds like a First Amendment violation.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s when you start telling people you’re a PI that you get into trouble.”

“I’ve been telling people exactly who I am and what I’m doing.” I was only exaggerating slightly.

“I think you’re walking a tight line, McKenzie. Are you carrying?”

“No, Lieutenant, I do not have a weapon on me. However, I have my nine-millimeter Beretta with me in
Florida
. I have a valid
Tennessee
permit to carry it, which I am advised is recognized by the State of
Florida
.”

“You’d better watch your step. We get any reports of you harassing people, you’re in big trouble. And another thing, if you come up with any evidence of wrongdoing on anyone’s part, you’d damned better report it.”

I glanced around at Payne. “I told the Sergeant here about some missing plans for The Sand Castle. I don’t have any proof, but I strongly suspect a former employee named O’Keefe took them. Of course, that was in
Nashville
, not here. And, by the way, O’Keefe was found dead in the bay around
Dauphin
Island
yesterday. His neck was broken.”

“He probably fell off a pier,”
Cassel
said. “Doesn’t sound like you have anything but speculation. Those videotapes at the Seashore should be enough to convince anybody. You realize you are the only person who has come forward with the slightest suspicion that Timothy Gannon’s death could have been anything but suicide.”

I nodded. “I’m well aware of that. But I also know of four people who had a motive to kill Tim. I’m not going to stop digging until I find out who did.”

———

When I arrived back at Gulf Sands, something unusual caught my eye. The parking area was still sparsely populated, with plenty of empty spaces up against the narrow flower bed that ran alongside the building. Only two vehicles were in the row next to the fence. One, a black Cadillac, had been backed into the parking space. Two men sat in the front seat.

My venture into the PI business, even though just a one-shot deal, had heightened my alertness. I had returned to my OSI roots, paying close attention to anything out of the ordinary. And people did not ordinarily sit in black Cadillacs at Gulf Sands parked so they could keep watch on the building. I might have suspected some of Lieutenant Cassel’s flunkies, but I knew they would not be driving a Caddy. The way the vehicle was parked, I couldn’t see the license plate.

While climbing the stairs to the second floor, I got a quick glimpse of the car. The two occupants were definitely looking my way. When I entered our condo, I called out for Jill but got no answer.

I froze, gripped by a sudden, irrational fear.

My session at the Big Lagoon Precinct had been mercifully brief, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that she had not returned. But a year-old memory of arriving home to a ransacked house and Jill missing left a hollow feeling in my stomach. I had almost lost her that time. I didn’t intend for it to happen again. As I looked around, however, everything appeared to be in perfect order, just as we had left it less than an hour ago.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, I moved to the bedroom window that faced the parking area. I was just in time to see the Cadillac moving toward the Gulf Sands exit. I could tell the license plate was not
Florida
or
Tennessee
, but the car was too far away to make out what state it was from.

I removed the steel pin that prevented anyone from opening the sliding glass doors and walked out onto the balcony. I hoped the salty breeze would help clear the confusion in my mind. Were those guys really waiting for me to return? If so, who were they, and what were they up to?

I was about to dismiss it as the work of an overactive imagination when I spotted Whitley down below, fishing something out of the swimming pool with a net attached to a long pole. He saw me at about the same time and waved.

“Afternoon, Whitley,” I said. “Hot enough for you?” The sun beamed brightly in a sky so blue it seemed painted on.

“This ain’t nothing, Mr. McKenzie. You know that. Now July and August, that’s hot.”

“Did you by chance notice a black Cadillac in the parking lot?” I asked.

He looked up. “You mean the one with the guy who asked about you?”

I frowned. “Asked what about me?”

Whitley lifted his cap and swabbed his forehead with a large red handkerchief. “He wanted to know which unit you lived in.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Of course.” He grinned. “Ain’t no secret, is it?”

I had to laugh, although the feeling I experienced deep down inside was not amusement. “I guess not. He want to know anything else?”

“Just if you still drove a Jeep Cherokee. I told him you did, that it was a brown one with a
Tennessee
license plate. I figured he was an old friend.”

“Well, if he was, he must have owed me some money,” I said. “He drove off right after I got here. Did you happen to see his license plate?”

“Sure. I was coming across on my riding mower when he stopped me. It was from
Louisiana
. Had some kind of
New Orleans
sticker on his bumper.”

I thought of Claude Detrich from
New Orleans
, and I remembered what had happened to Ollie O’Keefe from
New Orleans
. And I did not like the implications.

31

Jill made her triumphant entry shortly after
3:30
and my stomach eased. Her enthusiasm bubbled over like a fountain, so I decided to hold off any mention of the Cadillac from
New Orleans
.

“Wait till you hear what I found out,” she said, eyes dancing.

I ushered her over to the sofa. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Let’s have it.”

“Sherry is a very charming young lady,” she said, leaning back and brushing a hand through her hair. “I tried my best to pay the check. After all, getting together was my suggestion. But she made the waitress hand her the check and she wouldn’t part with it for anything.”

I mimicked Jill’s eye-rolling maneuver. “I guess she figured living with an ogre like me, you needed all the help you could get.”

“Dummy,” she said with a grin. “Like Charlie Brown told us, Sherry is terribly bright. I suspect she can be pretty intense, too, when she’s after something. She likes to be in control. And I think she gets her way most of the time. That business with Evan Baucus was apparently an exception.”

“Does that mean Tim was not an exception?”

“Well, yes and no. They had a rather torrid affair during his days at the Naval Air Station. He spent a lot of time at her house when the admiral was out of town. She told me her mother had died when she was young. That was something we had in common that helped us to bond.”

“How did she and Tim come to break up?”

“It was that penchant she has to control things. Tim was unhappy with his assignment, as Sam told you. He had decided to get out of the Navy and come back to
Tennessee
. But Sherry had other ideas. She wanted him to stay in the service and asked her father to put Tim on a fast track for a Navy career. When Tim found out what she had done, he went ballistic. He told her she was not going to run his life. He submitted his resignation and left
Pensacola
.”

“So he went to
Nashville
and approached
Tara
on the rebound.”

Jill nodded. “That’s about the way it went. Sherry also got married on the rebound, but it turned out a disastrous mismatch. The guy didn’t measure up to what she had seen in Tim.”

“Did they really have no contact until The Sand Castle?”

“Sherry never heard from him, but she never forgot him, either. It was a real shock when she encountered him at the condo project. When she talked about their meeting, I could almost feel the fire it had stirred inside her. Tim told her about his family back in
Nashville
, of course, but she couldn’t believe he didn’t experience the same depth of passion that had gripped her.”