4 The Marathon Murders (10 page)

I picked up Friday’s newspaper from the driveway as we
returned from our morning walk. I pulled it out of its plastic bag, a useless
precaution with the rain only appearing these days in afternoon deluges, and
checked the front page. Gasoline prices were going up, as usual.
TennCare
, the
state’s version of Medicaid with added benefits for the uninsurable, garnered
more headlines.
The latest news from Iraq and a drug-related double
murder finished off the morning’s top stories.

“Casey Olson didn’t make page one,”
I said as Jill and I rounded the driveway where our house popped into view like
a secluded mountain cabin. Except the only thing around that remotely resembled
a mountain was the small knoll that it sat on.

“How about the
inside pages?”

I stuck the paper under my arm.
“Hard to walk and read an unfolded newspaper, babe.
I’ll
check it when we get to the house.”

As we came through the door, I
grabbed a towel I had left on a chair and began wiping my face. My Titans ball
cap felt soaked around the sweatband. Friday was destined to be another
scorcher.

Jill started up the stairs toward
our bedroom. “I’m getting my shower,” she called back.

I felt like I’d already had mine.
Walking into the kitchen, I spread the newspaper out on the table. The story
occupied a choice spot at the top of page one of the local section. The
headline read: “Second murder reported in Trousdale County.” The account
offered little we didn’t already know, except for some background on Olson,
listed as age twenty-four. He was identified as a maintenance worker at the
Samran
plant in Lafayette, a small town about fifteen miles
north of Hartsville in Macon County. The company made high-tech hospital
gurneys. Olson’s background showed destructive tendencies—he had competed often
as a demolition derby driver.

After showers and breakfasting on
instant oatmeal and fat free muffins, we headed to the office. I had just
settled down at my desk when Phil Adamson called.

“Was your pal summoned to the DA’s
office yesterday?” he asked.

“He was, and apparently got along
famously with your young prosecutor.”

I told him about Warren’s fortunate
mention of Marathon, which struck a positive chord with the antique car buff.

“Well, I hope he’s still in a good
mood when I report the latest development,” Phil said.

I leaned back and shook my head.
“And that would be?”

“We got an anonymous tip this
morning, no doubt brought on by that news story, that we should dig a little
deeper into Warren Jarvis’s past. The guy even gave us the date for an article
in a Las Vegas newspaper.”

I tried to recall what Jarvis had
told me about his career. Then it hit me. “He was stationed at
Nellis
Air Force Base outside Vegas years ago. What was the
story about?”

“According to the paper, Captain
Jarvis was with a bunch of hot-shot fighter pilots at a bar one night when a
guy starts making snide remarks. They got into a scuffle and Jarvis shoves the
guy, who falls and hits his head on the corner of a table. He went into a coma
and died a couple of days later.”

Cops get very uncomfortable when
they find a pattern of activity. I knew what Phil was thinking. Did Jarvis make
a practice of overreacting in a violent manner? Had he used more force than
necessary to stop Harold Sharkey? The big problem was that Jarvis hadn’t even
touched the PI.

“Did you check on the outcome of
the case?” I asked. “Was Warren Jarvis charged with anything?”

“The newspaper didn’t say. I’ve
contacted the Vegas PD for more info. They haven’t gotten back to me.”

I felt a pang of conscience that
told me I should do something to help my friend out of this mire. “Were you
able to ID the guy who called in the tip?”

“No. He used a pay phone. You know
how many anonymous tips we get.”

I did. And I knew Phil wasn’t
concerned about who had called, just was there any truth to the tip.
Unfortunately, there had been. I was concerned, however. Either it was a friend
of Harold Sharkey looking for revenge, or someone out to make trouble for
Warren. I’d just have to wait and hope for the best.

When I told Jill what had happened,
she sat there and rubbed her forehead, then looked up. “One more reason we need
to find some answers to this Marathon business as quickly as possible.”

I decided to try Agent Fought
again, see if I could pry any new insights out of him. When I reached him on
his cell phone, he tossed me a fast one.

“Did you find a link to my case?”

I couldn’t bluff my way out of
that. I decided to try candor. “No, I’m afraid not. But it isn’t for lack of
effort. Things just don’t seem to be meshing for us. I guess you know how that
goes.”

“Been there, done that.”

“I understand from Sheriff Driscoll
that you have another body to deal with. Does it look like Casey Olson’s murder
is tied in with Bradley’s?”

“Fits your red car tip, doesn’t
it?”

“Right.
But there are too many little red cars around.”

“I’ve seen my share. The crime lab
boys are analyzing mud from Olson’s car to see if it matches the soil at the
lakeside. They have some other trace evidence they’re looking at, also.”

“Have they come up with anything
regarding that piece of stainless steel tubing you found in the Jeep?”

“Not its origin, but the ME says it
was probably used for a blow to the back of Bradley’s head to make sure he was
out of it before they drove his Jeep into the water.”

“Does that mean they’ve turned to
drowning as the real cause of death?”

“Right.
The doc said the lungs and sinuses contained bits of debris, indicating he was
still breathing when he entered the water.”

I cringed at the picture that
conjured up. Drowning must be one of the most unpleasant ways to go. Drowning
was a new twist, and I made a note on my legal pad. “Has the ME completed his
autopsy report?”

“Not yet, but he’s released the
body. Bradley’s sister is planning a funeral for tomorrow morning.”

That was definitely an event we
would attend. “Getting back to Casey Olson, has the autopsy produced anything
interesting there?”

“I’m not sure what you consider
interesting, but we have a nine millimeter bullet. We’d like to know whose gun
fired it.”

“Do you have any theories on that?”

“Not that I’m prepared to say.” I
heard another voice in the background,
then
Fought
spoke hurriedly. “I’ve got somebody waiting for me. I have to go. Let me know
if you come up with anything.”

It had the ring of don’t call until
you have something for me. Fought didn’t sound overly interested in talking
about the case, except for a few obvious pieces of evidence. At least he wasn’t
shutting us out cold.

“Don’t forget our party tonight at
the
Rottman’s
.” Jill looked across as I sat there
doodling with my pencil. “I haven’t decided what I’ll wear.
Something
a bit dressy but not flashy.”

As much as I hated it, I knew I’d
have to dress up. “Will my business suit do?”

“Sure. This won’t be a formal
affair. Just
be
your usual charming self and you’ll be
the hit of the party.”

“Oh, boy.
It’s getting deep in here. As you have been known to say, babe, flattery will
get you everywhere.”

She gave me her
beta-eating-its-neighbor smile. “I’m counting on it.”

“One thing we haven’t done,” I
said, “is check out the place where it all started.”

“Where what
started?”

“The Marathon
murders.
We haven’t been to Marathon Village to see where they found the
papers. Maybe there’s something around the place that will give us a lead.”

You could get to Twelfth Avenue and Clinton Street much
easier back when touring cars were at their prime. Just travel out Charlotte
Avenue from the State Capitol, turn right at Twelfth, go north a few blocks and
there you were. But modern engineers came up with a design they called the
Inner Loop, a multi-lane monstrosity that channeled three interstate highways
around downtown Nashville. Besides altering street patterns, its path split
neighborhoods apart. A public housing project north of Charlotte became so
rundown the city finally abandoned it. The section around Clinton was part
industrial, part residential. It had become a high crime area and a hangout for
drunks and homeless men. A railroad line ran past it to the north.

We found the Marathon Motor Works
buildings refurbished into decent looking brick structures. The two-story,
block-long factory stood on the north side of Clinton Street. The
administration building, with three floors, sat across from the west end of the
plant. Its large square entrance had been restored to the original glass
façade, faced by a geometric design of metal rods. A glass door in the center
opened onto a lobby floored with tile laid early in the last century. Not
surprisingly, the walls and stairways showed considerable wear and tear. Taking
into account the shape it must have been in a few years ago, the place looked
quaint but attractive.

Blow-ups of old Marathon ads, some
from the
Saturday Evening Post
, lined the walls, along with copies of
documents dealing with the car’s history. We entered the office on the left,
where a dark-haired woman in a casual looking tan shirt stood behind a long
wooden counter.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“We’re Greg and Jill McKenzie,” I
said. I gave her a business card and told her we were looking into the old
sheaf of papers that had been found in the building.

She started to smile but caught
herself. Her look turned somber. “Mr. Bradley told me about that. I was shocked
to hear what happened to him. Wasn’t that awful?”

“It was,” I agreed. “We think
there’s a possibility those papers had something to do with his death.”

“Really?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s scary. What could be in there that would make
somebody do something like that?”

“That’s what we’d like to find
out.”

“Did Mr. Bradley tell you what the
papers were about?” Jill asked.

She looked thoughtful. “Just that
they were dated back in 1914 and mentioned some man’s name. He said he was
going to see if he could find a living relative.”

We were in a large area that opened
onto a conference room on one side and what appeared to be an office around the
corner. “Is Mike Geary in?” I asked. “We’d like to take a look at where those
papers were found.”

“I’m sorry, Mike’s in Jackson
today. He bought a building down there where they first worked on the Marathon.
I know he’d want to talk to you. When he found out about those papers, he said
he’d like to get them back for the archives. He’s compiled a lot of historical
stuff on Marathon.”

“If we can locate the documents,
I’m sure we can get copies for him.”

Jill had been looking at a
photograph on the counter. “Are these yours?” She pointed to the photo, which
showed the woman holding two small children.

The woman nodded, smiling. “That’s
Billy and Brenda. Oh, pardon me for not introducing myself. I’m Shannon Ivey,
Mike’s girl Friday. If you’d like, I’d be glad to show you where the carpenter
was working when he found those papers he gave Pierce.”

“That would be great,” I said.
“Jill brought our camera. Would it be okay if she shot some pictures?”

A tall woman, Shannon Ivey had a
voice that carried and a laugh that reverberated. “Hey, shoot anything you
like. Mike is turning this place into a Marathon museum. He’s got a couple of
restored cars in the back.”

She came out from behind the
counter and led us toward the front of the building, then around to an area
that was still being renovated. A ladder stood in one corner, a power saw
beside it. One wall was bare to the brick, which must have measured almost two
feet in thickness. Weathered oak paneling gave a vintage look to another
section.

She pointed to an area that had
been stripped of its paneling. “This is where he found them.”

Examining the wall up close, I saw
two small holes in the mortar.

Mrs. Ivey noted my interest. “I
think he said there were nails in the wall there that held up the papers.”

Jill had her camera out and took a
few shots of the area.

“Is the carpenter who found them
still on the job?” I asked.

“No. I think they moved him to another
project. Things have been slow this week without Mr. Bradley.”

I thanked her for her help, and we
started out.

“Would it be okay for Mike to call
you sometime about those papers?” she asked. “I’m sure it would tickle him to
death to get his hands on something like that.”

“Sure. No problem,” I said. “In
fact, tell him to call when he gets back. I’d like to find out what he’s turned
up in digging around among
all that
old Marathon
memorabilia.”

Since we didn’t know what kind of
fare we might get at the
Rottman’s
tonight, I
suggested we try a nice Italian restaurant for lunch.
One
with a reputation for great cannelloni or manicotti.
But Jill was in a
torture mood and insisted on stopping at a place that specialized in salads.
When we got back to the office, I called Warren.

“Have you heard anything else from
the assistant DA?” I asked.

“No. Should I have?”

I told him about my conversation
with Detective Adamson. He was livid.

“Who the hell would bring up
something like that? It was years ago, and nothing ever came of it. The
authorities in Vegas ruled it purely an accident. I’d like to get my hands on
whoever tried to stir that up.”

“Calm down,” I said. “If that’s all
it amounted to, I imagine Adamson will let it slide.”

“Maybe so, but it’s damned disgusting.
Who could have made that call?”

“It could have been a friend of
Sharkey’s, though I’m not aware that he had many friends.”

Jarvis paused for a moment. “I
don’t know anyone around Nashville, so I have no idea what else it could have
been about.”

I didn’t, either, though in the
back of my mind I couldn’t dismiss the Marathon angle. “What have you and Kelli
been up to today?”

“She’s been over to see her
grandfather. Look, Greg, she’s an action-oriented person. I hope you can come
up with some ideas on what she can do to help. She gets out and runs like a
sprinter to work off some of that pent-up energy.”

I told him what we had learned from
Agent Fought and about our visit to Marathon Village. “We’re going up to
Trousdale County in the morning for Pierce Bradley’s funeral. We’ll probe
around for some new leads while we’re there. Maybe we can come up with
something to keep Kelli busy.”

“I hope so. She’s going to wear out
the soles on her running shoes. I don’t know how much longer I can hold her
down here. She’s like a rocket waiting for ignition. Thank goodness you sound
better than when you left us yesterday.”

“Sorry for that little
performance,” I said. “Kelli isn’t the only one suffering from acute
frustration.”

“I know it’s been rough, but we
really appreciate all you and Jill have done.”

“Thanks. And don’t worry, we’re not
giving up. I’m hopeful we’ll come up with some new leads in Trousdale County
tomorrow.”

Jill had been listening to the
conversation from her desk. She looked across with a gentle gaze. “Why don’t we
concentrate on tracking down the Three Tees’ missing heir and let the Marathon
buggy idle for a bit?”

I swung my chair around and gripped
the armrests. “I’m not happy with my performance, babe. I should have done
more.”

“Come on, Greg. We’re in this
together.”

“True.”

“I have faith in you.”

“Thanks.” I forced a smile. “Let’s
track down Mr. Yancey.”

The search turned out to be so
simple it would result in one of our smaller bills to the lawyers. Since Terry
Tremont had provided the missing brother’s social security number, we used our
on-line resources, made a couple of phone calls and soon located Norris Yancey
in Wenatchee, a town of about 30,000 on the Columbia River almost in the center
of Washington State. I called Terry to give him the information.

“Hey, you guys are great,” he said.
“Nate will be here in about an hour. Any chance you could come by and give him
the details? The client is always more impressed when it comes from the horse’s
mouth.”

I wasn’t sure I cared for the metaphor.
Since we were billing on an hourly rate, however, I didn’t mind reporting in
person what could have been given on the phone.

“That’ll work,” I said. “We can
come by your office before heading home. Got to get ready for a party at Roger
and Camilla
Rottman’s
, something Jill got us into
with a symphony donation.”

“You’re traveling in high society
there, buddy.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. I
don’t even know the people.”

“Roger is one of those that helped
give Nashville the reputation of a son-in-law town. You
know,
guys who came to Vanderbilt, married young debs and got cushy jobs with papa’s
company. Camilla was a Hedrick.”

“As in Hedrick
Industries?”

“You got it. Anyway, see you in
about an hour.”

When I told Jill what Terry had
said, she looked down at her nails and ran a hand through her hair. I could
almost hear the wheels turning in her head, playing a message that said: you
should have gotten your hair done today.

“I ought to have known that about
Camilla,” she said. “I think Dad sold some insurance to Mr. Hedrick years ago,
back when the company was a lot smaller. Now it’s an international behemoth.”

I leaned back in my chair and
clasped my hands behind my head. “I’ll bet the
Rottmans
put up enough cash to have something named for them at the new symphony hall.”

“Probably.
But knowing you, I don’t expect you to be intimidated.”

She was right there. One of my
basic tenets had always been never let anybody intimidate you. And I stuck by
it, though sometimes it meant suffering the consequences, as with the general
at Minot AFB who busted the rung out of my career ladder.

Located in a high rise office building downtown, Tremont,
Tisley
and
Tarwater
occupied a
corner suite with a panoramic view of Nashville’s northern and eastern
environs. The hills that circle the city and play havoc with weather
forecasters were somewhat obscured by typical summer afternoon cumulus
buildups. A frumpish woman with round spectacles and graying hair ushered us
into the senior partner’s office, which resembled a living room more than an
office. It included a plush white sofa and chairs arranged around a dark wooden
coffee table. The “desk” was a small table at one side of the room.

Terry met us with hand outstretched
in greeting, the cuffs of his white shirt turned back. A bear of a man in his
mid-forties with eyes crinkled at the corners by frequent laughter, he seemed
perfectly sized for the spacious office. I had learned to appreciate his style.
He took nothing for granted but everything in stride.

“Hi, Mrs.
McKenzie . . . Greg.”
He shook hands with both of us like priming a
pump, a sparkle of humor in the twist of his lips. “Have a seat. Nate Yancey
should be here any minute.”

“What a lovely office,” Jill said.
It was her first visit. She gazed around at the green plants and blooming
flowers.

Terry took one of the chairs as we
sat on the sofa. “I like to feel at home when I’m working.”

“Well, you’ve surely succeeded.”

Before I could add a comment, the
secretary re-appeared with a gangling, black-haired man who showed a broad grin
as he walked in.

“You must be the private eyes,” he
said, looking from me to Jill. “Terry says you found my brother.”

After Terry made the formal
introductions, Nate Yancey joined us in one of the plush chairs.

“We found your brother Norris in
Wenatchee, Washington,” I said. “He seems to be happily engaged as an installer
for a cable company out there.”

“The hell you say. That boy used to
tinker around with radios. I guess he’s moved up to television. Last I heard of
him, must have been at least ten years ago, he was somewhere in Texas.”

“You haven’t had a letter or
anything since?” I asked.

“Nope.
I
don’t think he knows how to write or use a telephone. I’m surprised my dad
didn’t cut him out of the will. Dad turned the business over to me a while
back, but he kept hoping to hear something from Norris. Guess we should’ve
hired you sooner.”

Terry shifted a clipboard on his
knee, where he had been jotting notes. “Nate runs Big Red Express. You can’t
miss those red trucks.”

Jill grinned. “I think I’ve
encountered a few of them.”

“Hope they didn’t do anything
wild,” Yancey said. He stared at her for a moment, his brow furrowed. “Did you
know you guys were in a dangerous profession? I saw where a local PI got killed
the other day at the home of an old nut named Liggett. I know all about that
man.”

That perked me up. “How did you
know him?”

“He got really steamed at the
truckers a couple of years ago. Claimed trucks were running him off the
interstate, all kinds of stuff. He even went to the governor, tried to stir
things up in the legislature. I just ignored him, but some of the others
weren’t so willing to take it lying down.”