5 A Sporting Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

here.”
    “I doubt that he’d object to us,”
Jill said, holding out her PI credentials. “We’re licensed by the state.”
    The woman looked at it, then
glanced up at me. “You got one?”
    I showed her my ID.
    “Come on in,” she said.
    We followed her inside. A neat
arrangement of furniture upholstered in pale green faced a large-screen TV.
From her sloppy appearance, I was a bit surprised at the look of the apartment.
We sat on the sofa across from her. I gave my wife a slight nod since she was
our designated female interrogator.
    “How long have you known Mr.
Wechsel?” Jill asked.
    “He’d only been here a few months,
but I ran into him now and then. He came and went a lot. Seemed like a decent
enough sort of guy. He was big. Friend of mine on the bottom floor called him a
handsome brute. Said his hair was the cutest in the universe.”
    It sounded like she was confusing cosmetology
and cosmology.
    Jill found it difficult to stifle a
grin. “Did he ever visit with you and your husband?”
    “No. I don’t think Earl, that’s my
husband, I don’t think Earl liked him. He could be sort of aloof, you know. I
suppose that was the German in him.”
    “Do you know if he had many
visitors?” I asked.
    “Not that I know of. I’m a waitress
at Olive Garden, so I work nights a lot. There was only one person I recall
seeing on a few occasions. He was tall and lanky and drove a white Mustang.”
    She sounded like a nosy neighbor,
probably watched the action down below her window.
    “Did you ever see him with a lady
friend?” Jill asked.
    “He never brought one around here
that I’m aware of. Of course, I didn’t keep up with his every move.”
    Of course.
    “When you talked to him
occasionally,” I said, “did he ever mention an interest in sports?”
    She rested her chin on one hand and
cut her eyes toward me. “He may have talked about football, like watching the
Titans.”
    “Nothing about basketball?”
    “There’s no basketball court around
here,” she said in a bit of a huff. “Anyway, I didn’t talk with him all that
much. Mostly like ‘how ya doin’ or ‘nice day for a walk.’ Stuff like that.”
    “Did he talk any about auto
racing?”
    She moved her head from side to
side as if to jar loose a memory. “He may have said something about going to
the Superspeedway.”
    “Did you see him yesterday?” I
asked.
    “Matter of fact, I did. I’d just
come back from the grocery and passed him on the stairway. He just breezed
right by me like I wasn’t there. Must’ve had his head full of something.”
    I leaned forward for emphasis. “Can
you think of anything about Wechsel that would give us some insight into him?
Something that might provide a hint as to why somebody might want to harm him?”
    “Jeez. I didn’t know him all that
well. One thing I remember, though, he must’ve had a touchy temper. I heard him
out in the hallway on a few occasions shouting into his phone.”
    “Did you hear any names?”
    She rubbed her chin as she pondered
the question. “Frank somebody? I don’t know. With that accent, I’m not sure. It
was in the last few days, I think.”

Chapter 6
     
    When we got back to the office, I did a database search on
Richard Ullery while Jill updated the case file on all we had learned today.
Sometimes we pursued certain aspects of a case alone, but most of the time we
counted on the synergy of working together to produce the best results. As my
mother always told me, two heads are better than one, even if one is a goat’s
head. I was always a bit stubborn.
    I had no trouble finding Arnold
Wechsel’s friend. There were few Ullerys in the Nashville area, and only one
Richard. When I saw his employer, Nashville Superspeedway, I knew we had our
man. Other data gave his age as twenty-eight, divorced, holder of an associate
degree in business from Vol State Community College. I suspected he also drove
a Ford Mustang. He lived in an apartment complex in Hermitage,