Surest Poison, The (3 page)

“What sort of time frame are we looking
at?”

The lawyer referred to a sheet among the
papers in front of him. “They’ve scheduled a hearing in two weeks. I need
everything you can give me before then.”

“Okay, I’ll head down that way and start
shaking the trees.”

Sid pulled out of the garage and turned
up the hill north on Third Avenue. Nashville was built on a series of hills.
Not as steep as San Francisco’s, but steep enough to give anyone’s legs a
workout who chose to hoof it about town. He had just made the turn behind
the Courthouse when he noticed a dark green VW Beetle in the rearview
mirror. It looked similar to the one he had seen at the garage on the way
in. Checking back as he approached the bridge, he spotted the NRA bumper
sticker. That cinched it. He could think of no reason anyone would be
tailing him, but he kept an eye on it as he crossed the river and turned
toward Ellington Parkway. When he reached the Hart Lane exit, he veered off
and watched as the VW followed. After swinging into the street leading to a
Highway Patrol Driver Testing Station, he turned into the parking lot and
drove up to the building.

Glancing around as he walked, he saw the
Beetle had backed into a parking space in the last row toward the street. He
strolled into the building, turned, and looked out to see if anyone got out
of the car. No one did. After waiting a few minutes, he returned to his car
and drove out of the lot. He looked back toward the green vehicle to check
the license number, but it had already pulled out.

He headed toward Ellington Parkway and
took the long, curving exit onto I-65. He threaded into the HOV lane on the
far left and jammed the accelerator. It was only two miles to the RiverGate
exit, where he cut across two lanes, hit the succession of traffic lights
just right and swung into the parking lot entrance at his building. He saw
no sign of the VW.

It had been years since he’d encountered
anything like this. Why now? And who could it be? He walked across to his
office knowing there was nothing he could do except
keep
an eye out for anything else that sounded a discordant note.

3

Back at his
desk
, Sid started a computer file
with his notes from the meeting with Arnie Bailey. Jaz had coached him into
a new familiarity with the digital world. Not that he was a rookie. He had
used computers with the Park Service, as well as during his tenure in
Lewisville. He recalled the old days when he depended on his memory to store
much of the information he gathered. Now, at fifty-nine, he had experienced
the unreliability of that tactic.

To clear Wade Harrington, he’d need to
locate the management of the company that occupied the plant before HarrCo.
An alternative would be to find former employees who might tell how the
spill took place. A check of property records at the Cheatham County
Courthouse should provide the information he needed to establish ownership
of the plant prior to Harrington’s purchase.

As a police chief, he had designated
someone else to do the grunt work, dig through old records and surf the
Internet for elusive information. In the short time he had been a PI, he’d
become proficient at doing the job himself. Even so, he preferred to go
head-to-head, match wits and muscle with characters who thought they were
above the law, people who tried to use cunning to throw justice on its ear.
His new career required more leg work, more tact, less physical threat. But
the possibility he could take a twisted situation and make things right was
the lure that kept him in the business. That and the prospect he might
uncover the creep who had framed him in Lewisville, butchering his
reputation and his self-esteem.

Thanks to Briley Parkway, a limited
access route that stretched around a major portion of Nashville, the drive
to Ashland City took little more than twenty minutes. He kept a close watch
for a green VW, or any other suspicious vehicle, but saw none. Thinking
about that strange encounter, one thing seemed clear. Somebody knew he would
be in that parking garage at that time. He needed to find out who it was and
how they knew.

He located the Cheatham County property
records in a small but modern office building a couple of blocks down Main
Street from the old brick courthouse. A helpful woman at the Register of
Deeds office brought him a book that showed transfers of ownership for the
property where the plant was located.

She pulled off her glasses and jammed
them into an abundance of brown hair. “Isn’t that the place that’s been in
the news lately?”

Sid took the book and nodded.

“There was a man in here yesterday,” she
added, “said some toxic chemical in the water had made his neighbors sick.
He said they intended to demand the county mayor do something about it.”

“The state pollution people are working
on it,” Sid said.

“That who you’re
with?”

“I’m doing an independent investigation,
trying to track down how it happened and who was responsible.”

“Well, good luck.” She pushed the glasses
back over her nose and pointed at the book. “I hope that helps.”

He took the records over to a table and
leafed through the documents. The last entry recorded a transfer from Henry
Keglar to Wade Harrington, the current owner. The Keglar name sparked a dark
memory. Sid had logged several encounters with a man named Henry Keglar,
better known as Hank, during his days as police chief in Lewisville. There
had been whispers, he recalled, that Keglar was involved in shady dealings
regarding stolen property. That was shortly after Sid took the job. He
couldn’t turn up enough evidence to support an indictment, nothing stronger
than the word of unreliable witnesses. He’d never doubted Keglar’s
involvement. The man was a disreputable character who provided plenty of
other headaches during Sid’s tenure in the small town. His bar had been a
magnet for drunks and prostitutes and a variety of unruly characters. When
Sid saw the deed had been filed by Bronson Fradkin, a slick country lawyer
in Lewisville, he was certain this was the same Keglar.

Following the paper trail, Sid learned
Keglar had taken the property back through foreclosure from a company named
Auto Parts Rehabbers. He traced backward and found the auto parts business
took over the plant in 1992. When he checked the dates of occupancy, he felt
sure this was the firm responsible for the TCE spill. He wondered if the
operation had moved somewhere else or if it had closed as a result of
bankruptcy. One thing was
certain,
any attempt to
get information out of Keglar would be useless.

After leaving the Register of Deeds’
office, he noticed a sign for the Cheatham County Chamber of Commerce on a
small building a block from the courthouse. Cheatham was the smallest of the
six counties that surrounded Nashville. While most of the others had
populations well in excess of 100,000, Cheatham was home to less than 40,000
people. The Chamber, he reasoned, should have a record of Auto Parts
Rehabbers.

The reception area featured racks filled
with brochures on area businesses and attractions. Sid ignored the
literature and introduced himself to a young woman with short red hair and a
face sprinkled with freckles
who
stood behind a
counter just inside the entrance. She shook her head after he explained what
he was after.

“I wasn’t here in the early nineties,”
she said, “and neither was our current executive director.”

“Do you have any records that might cover
that period?”

“Let me check.” She walked over to a file
cabinet and pulled out a drawer. After thumbing through the folders, she
took one out and looked inside. “Here’s a list of members for that period,
but Auto Parts Rehabbers isn’t among them. Sorry. Is there anything else I
can help you with?”

“Who was the executive director back
then?” Sid asked.

“That would have been Murray Estes. He’s
retired.”

“Is he still around?”

“He was until a few months ago. He’s
living with his son, Murray Junior, in Nashville now.”

“Do you have an address?”

She tapped a finger against her chin. “I
don’t know if I should give out that kind of information, but I’m sure it’s
listed in the phone book. Anyway, since you’re a detective, I guess
it’s
okay.”

When he was a cop, there was never a
question. She wrote the address and phone number on a card, which he
pocketed along with a brochure on the town before heading out to his car. He
decided to make one more stop before he returned to his office. He drove
around the courthouse and swung in at the building behind it. Several
sheriff’s
patrol cars were parked in the lot. He
walked up the inside stairs to a second floor, glass-fronted entrance.

The cream-colored block corridor had two
open doors not far inside. The sheriff’s office was on the left, the desk
vacant. Various framed documents hung on the paneled wall behind it. On the
right, a pleasant-faced young woman sat at a desk in an office little larger
than a walk-in closet. An officer dressed in a tan uniform with sergeant’s
stripes stood in the doorway.

Sid smiled at the sergeant, who had
“Meyer” on his name badge and several
years
worth
of lines around his eyes. “You look like you might be the man I need to talk
to.”

“How’s that?” the
officer asked.

“I’m looking for a guy who would go back
at least to 1995,” Sid said. “That fit you?”

“I’ve been here longer than that. What
can I help you with?”

“My name is Sid Chance,” he said. “I’m a
private investigator from Nashville.” He showed his P.I. license and
explained that he was working on the HarrCo chemical spill case.

Meyer folded his arms.
“You a former police officer?”

“I was police chief in Lewisville for
around ten years.
Worked in law enforcement for the
National Park Service before that.”

The sergeant grinned.
“Thought so.
You’ve got the look.”

To Sid, that indicated an expression of
wariness, a tendency to check out the surroundings, a thin layer of tension
just beneath the surface. Mostly it meant a look of take no shit off
anybody. If that’s what Meyer referred to, he was right.

The deputy’s face sobered. “That mess up
around HarrCo has been a real pain. I’ve heard some folks are planning a
march on the courthouse.
You working
with the
state on this?”

“No, I’m working for HarrCo’s attorney.
It seems the spill took place while the plant was occupied by a company
called Auto Parts Rehabbers, somewhere around 1995. I wondered if you folks
might have had any problems out there back
then?
”

Meyer stood several inches shorter than
Sid, but he packed a much larger waistline. He leaned his bulky frame
against the door and shifted the holster on his hip.
“Problems?
I don’t recall any trouble with the management. They kept
a pretty low profile. We picked up a few of their workers, as best I can
remember. I know I handled one DUI.
Seems like there
were others.
As I recall, the ones we arrested had records. Maybe it
was some sort of rehab project.”

“What about names?”

“I don’t recall any, and I’m not sure I
could find that kind of paperwork after all these years.”

“What about the boss? Do you remember who
was in charge?”

“No, afraid not.
Wish I could help you, but that’s been a good while ago. As I said, we had
very little contact with them.”

Another dead end.

4

Though it was
not quite five o’clock when Sid turned onto his street, the dull gray
overcast that had lingered throughout the day brought a premature nightfall
to the neighborhood. What he saw switched on a frown. After years of
watching people in situations that ranged from the ridiculous to the absurd,
he had learned to be wary of subtle shifts in behavior. He noted the porch
lights were on at most of the houses. Some also had their eve lights on.
Then he spotted a large, toothy orange grin in a window.

It was Halloween.

His first Halloween
in four years.
In
Lewisville, it had been a night for
cruising
the
town to make sure harmless pranks didn’t mutate into vandalism. He had never
been at home to entertain small spooky creatures. Now he had no idea how
many kids might show up. Certainly not as many as in the old days before
deranged creeps put a serious crimp in trick-or-treating. Though he hadn’t
thought to prepare for tricksters, he remembered an unopened bag of
miniature candy bars in the kitchen. Something to test his will.

A strong gust sent yellow leaves
cascading across the hood as he slowed near the big maple tree in the
neighbor’s yard. His own lawn resembled a churning sea of geometric shapes,
billows of brown and yellow and red. His mother had told him the area was
dense with hardwoods before developers invaded.