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.After making some off-the-cuff remarks about Detective Mark Tremaine at a friend’s retirement party, I was shocked to find my comments splashed across the front page by a young man I had met at the dinner.Turned out he was a reporter.It cost me my job and resulted in other grief among the Nashville police that still lingered.Tremaine was from a cop family.His dad was retired from the force.An uncle was in communications, and his brother-in-law was a patrol sergeant.That no doubt accounted for a lot of my troubles with the department.But the newspaper tried to make amends, I guess, with a nice feature story a few months ago after Jill and I had solved the murder of a young Nashville architect/engineer down in Florida.The guy who interviewed us and wrote the story was Wes Knight, a veteran reporter with an unruly mop of salt-and-pepper hair and a who-gives-a-damn attitude.After we opened McKenzie Investigations, he called to say he’d like any tips we could give him on newsworthy cases.“Hi, Wes,” I greeted him when he answered the phone.“This is Greg McKenzie.How’s the news business?”“Pretty dull at the moment.This Elliott Bernstein story has some possibilities, but the most exciting thing has been the battle between the local cops and the FBI.Seems there’s been a lot of wheel spinning.Maybe this deliveryman thing will pan out for them.You heard anything new?”“Sorry, I’ve been too wrapped up in my own work.”“Anything I could use?”“Not yet.But I might have something before long.” I thought about the King Cole’s case, but I didn’t want Jesse Logan going into cardiac arrest.“I could use a little help with some background on a guy whose name I came across.”“Somebody from Nashville?”“Gallatin.”“What did he do?”“Got caught for a bank robbery in Kansas and did some time.It was around twenty years ago.Think you’d have something in your files?”“Very likely.What’s his name?”“Warner Chad Rowe.”“Shad Roe?”Shaking my head, I spelled it for him.“Anything else you can tell me about the guy?” Wes asked.“He’s a Vietnam vet and he spent a few years in Leavenworth.That’s about it.”“Okay, Greg.I’ll see if we have anything.Want me to fax you whatever I find?”“That’d be great, Wes.”“Are you in a hurry for this?”“Actually, I am.I really appreciate your help.”“Just remember me when you break something.”“I’ll remember.”I had considered the possibility of giving Wes what we had on the man posing as Damon Saint for a little speculative news story.No doubt that would shake the missing car ferryman out of the bushes, but after that threatening phone call, I didn’t like the idea of his sneaking out to Hermitage and burning down our house in the middle of the night.He was obviously not a man to toy with.“If Molly’s husband tracked down his old Army buddy and killed him for taking all the bank robbery proceeds,” Jill said from her desk across the way, “don’t you think that’s enough to warrant a call to Detective Phil Adamson?”“If we had a way of proving it,” I said.“What if we took this wedding photo to Indianapolis and showed it to that carpet cleaner, Perry Vanatta?”“We already know Molly’s husband isn’t Damon Saint.There’s a possibility Vanatta may have seen Rowe with Saint, but he told us he has no idea what happened to Saint just before he disappeared.”“So there’s nothing we could accomplish in Indiana.”“I didn’t say that.”She came over and perched on the edge of my desk.“Okay, Mr.Detective, tell me how we could accomplish something besides sitting here on our derrieres.”“If we wanted to use a lot of your aviation gasoline and lots of our high-priced time, we could fly to Indianapolis and start questioning everybody around Saint’s old neighborhood.We could also question people around his old place of business.We might turn up something, and we might not.After this many years, neighbors could have moved.And chances are those who didn’t would have forgotten who they saw around Saint seven years ago.”“So you’re suggesting we just sit here and wait.”I got up and sat beside her on the desk, reached an arm around her waist and grinned.“We could do a little high-powered necking while we wait.”“A little high-powered neck breaking might be more appropriate.We have to do something to find Molly, Greg.I can’t stand not knowing what’s happening to her.”I slid off the desk and walked toward Mr.Coffee.“Right now our best bet is to follow up on Chad Rowe.I have a hunch the newspaper files will give us some leads to pursue.Want some coffee?”“No thanks.” She moved back to her desk and sat down at the computer.“I’d better finish with this bill for Leisure Foods Group so I can get a little money to pay for our high-priced waiting.”———The fax machine beeped into action about an hour later.I gathered the sheets and took them to my desk.A story datelined Kansas City, Missouri, May 2, 1980 gave details of the bank robbery and Rowe’s capture.There was mention of his service with Army Special Forces in Vietnam, identifying him as a weapons specialist on an A Team.A sidebar datelined Gallatin, Tennessee, reported Rowe was a 1967 graduate of Gallatin High School.His parents lived on a small farm on the outskirts of the town, which was located a few miles from Hendersonville, where Jill had played hostess at King Cole’s.A later story covered Rowe’s trial in U.S.District Court in Kansas City.According to information brought out in the trial, he had bummed around the country after Vietnam looking for a good job.But the establishment frowned on guys whose only skills were in fighting and killing.He worked at some menial jobs in the food service industry but managed to lose them, usually after a drinking spree.In the late seventies, he came up with the idea of using the clandestine skills he had learned as a Green Beret for robbing banks.The heists were carefully planned, including detailed surveillance.Rowe admitted working with a colleague but adamantly refused to give any information, even though he was offered the possibility of leniency in sentencing.“If Damon Saint was the buddy and made off with all the loot, I can see why Rowe went after him,” Jill said after reading the news stories.I agreed.“I’d be surprised if Rowe didn’t clean out Saint’s bank account and arrange the house sale.The cleaning business and the house were probably paid for out of what they took in the robbery.Let’s see what we can find in Gallatin.”Before we could pursue anything along that line, the phone rang.Jill answered and handed it to me.“This is Greg,” I said.“Mr.McKenzie, my name is Bert Quincy.A friend recommended that I call you.You may recognize the name.I’m a member of the school board and run a company called Computers ’n Stuff.Your agency bought a printer from us recently.To put it simply, I need your help in the worst way.”I had a bad feeling about this call.I hoped his use of “worst” did not prove prophetic.“What can we do for you, Mr.Quincy?”“I have a deliveryman named Larry Inman who’s in big trouble.The police are accusing him of something that is patently absurd.I need you to help me prove his innocence.”23Quincy’s office at the computer store was small but tasteful.Norman Rockwell prints on the wall, windows that probably offered a view of the parking lot masked by heavy sheers.We sat in comfortable chairs across from his tidy desk, a sharp contrast to mine, as he detailed the problem.“Larry has worked for me the past nine years,” he said.“He’s an excellent employee, has never been in any kind of trouble I know of, yet they’re trying to say he killed Dr.Elliott Bernstein.”I frowned, stirring uncomfortably in my chair
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