LITMIR.BIZ

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would like it,” Roy chuckled.

      “Thanks,” I said. “And don’t let him know I’m coming. And I’ll call you if I need more smart remarks.” I hung up before he could retaliate.

3

      The next morning, after an early workout at Moto’s, I worked my new Pathfinder LE over to I-81 and south to I-40 West and on into Knoxville. I knew the area well from having attended so many University of Tennessee football and basketball games when I was younger. I had not called ahead. If Slack had a file on Ronnie Fairchild I wanted it intact. I had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be, but why take chances?

      The day was cool and overcast with battleship gray clouds that threatened rain. I was dressed to the nines in a blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, and a red-striped power tie. My trench coat lay over the passenger seat and my briefcase with laptop securely inside lay in the passenger-side floorboard. A suitcase packed for two days nestled behind the driver’s seat—I didn’t plan on spending the night but it paid to be prepared. With my radar detector on, I made Gay Street in an hour and fifteen minutes.

      Thomas Slack Investigations was on the second floor of an older but well-kept office building. Why did private investigators always have offices on the second floor, I wondered—life imitating art? I opened the door and encountered a very pretty young blond receptionist. Cherokee Investigations could use one of those, I thought.

      The phone rang. “Tom Slack Investigations,” said a pleasant voice. A pause and then, “I’m sorry, he’s on another line. Can I take a message? Uh-huh, uh-huh, right, okay.”

      She smiled at me and started to say something and the phone rang again and the scenario repeated itself. Before she could hang up it rang again and she put the call through to someone. Then it was quiet.

      “Sorry, can I help you?” she asked.

      “Busy day, Emily?” I asked. I guessed her name not because I am such a crack investigator but because the nameplate on her desk read Emily Wright.

      “Not really,” she replied.

      I was witnessing a thriving investigations business for the first time. Can’t say that I liked it. I handed her my card and requested, “Tom Slack, please.”

      “Is he expecting you?”

      “No. As a professional courtesy I thought he might work me in,” I continued. It was meant as a joke. She didn’t laugh.

      “One moment, please.” She walked down the hall and around the corner—not an unpleasant sight. She returned quickly.

      “Mr. Slack is with a client. He said to wait and he will see you.”

      I hung up my trench coat and waited. Then I waited some more. I am not good at waiting. Fidgeting in someone’s waiting room is almost as bad as sitting in traffic. I am notorious for walking out on appointments that make me wait and for exploring secondary roads when traffic is backed up. My doctor gives me his first morning appointment for my annual physical since a few years ago I walked out of his office after having waited an hour. He actually called to apologize. My doctor does not want to make me angry. As a personal favor, I handle his investments. His investments are doing quite well.

      But I was going to wait for Tom Slack for as long as it took. I may be impatient, but I am not stupid. I had driven a considerable distance to see Slack and I had come unannounced for a reason. So I waited.

      It wasn’t long before a fortyish-looking man with close-cropped blond hair came walking purposefully down the hall. He wore a slight smile. He stopped and considered me. “Mister Youngblood?”

      I stood and shook the extended hand. “Don will do just fine,” I answered.

      “Tom Slack. Call me Tom. Come on back.”

      I grabbed my briefcase and followed him down the hall and around the corner and down that hall to the end where we entered his office. It was, of course, a corner office and as far from the reception area as he could get and still be in the building. His office was about twenty feet square and immaculate. It was tastefully decorated in a male persona and everything was in its place. Slack had rugged good looks on a frame that appeared to be in very good shape and stood about five feet ten inches tall. His eyes were ice blue, bright and intent. A picture on the wall explained it all. Tom Slack was an ex-marine colonel.

      “I didn’t know Mountain Center had a private investigation firm,” he said.

      “We don’t really,” I replied. “I just kind of dabble. Small stuff.”

      “Well what brings you to Knoxville?”

      “I need to ask about someone your firm investigated a while back. A Ronald Fairchild. You were hired by Joseph Fleet or more probably by Roy Husky.”

      “I really cannot comment on any case unless the client gives permission,” Slack said. “You should know that.”

      “No problem,” I said as I took my cell phone from my coat pocket, “What is your direct number?” He gave it to me.

      I dialed Roy’s beeper. We sat and stared at each other as we waited. It wasn’t long before Slack’s phone rang. “Put it on speaker, please,” I said. He did.

      “Tom Slack,” he answered.

      “This is Roy Husky,” came the voice through the speaker.

      Before Slack could reply I interjected, “Roy, Youngblood here. I need Fleet’s permission to see the file we discussed.”

      “Permission granted,” came the reply with a tint of humor. I could picture Roy smiling.

      “How do I know this is Roy Husky?” Slack asked.

      “Remember the bar we met at, Mr. Slack? Remember the girl . . .”

      “Okay, okay,” Slack said hurriedly. He picked up the phone. “I’ll be sure he gets everything we have.” He listened for a moment, smiled, said “Okay” and then hung up and pressed the intercom button. “Emily, get me the file on Ronald Fairchild. It’s five or six years old.”

      We waited.

      “How long you been a P.I.?” he asked.

      “A few years,” I smiled. “Although there is still some doubt that I really am one.”

      “I might need your help in your area sometime,” Slack said. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or just making idle conversation while we waited on the file.

      “Anytime,” I said.

      The door opened and Emily came in with a file. Slack briefly looked at it and then passed it to me as his phone rang. He answered and got absorbed in the conversation, as I got absorbed in the file. There wasn’t a lot there. By the time Slack was finished with his telephone call, I was finished with my first pass through the file. Slack’s investigator on the case had been an ex-cop, Ed Sanders, who had spent two days in Connecticut a few weeks before Ronnie and Sarah Ann were married. According to the file, Ronnie Fairchild was who he said he was and from a rich and prominent Greenwich, Connecticut, family. Trent Fairchild III, Ronnie’s father, headed a very successful investment firm. Ronnie had one older brother, Trent IV. Obviously, Joseph Fleet had been pleased with the report. “Any chance of talking to Ed Sanders?” I asked.

      “Not unless you believe in seances,” Slack cracked.

      “Dead?”

      Slack nodded.

      “When?”

      “A few days after he came back from Connecticut after working this case.”

      “How?”

      “Car wreck. Drunk.”

      “Anything suspicious about the accident?”

      “You

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