4 The Marathon Murders (17 page)

When we entered the office, the phone was ringing with great
excitement. At least that’s the way it seemed to me, having succumbed to a
pent-up feeling of anticipation over the possibility that one of the hooks we
had cast would finally pull in a catch. I found Warren on the other end of the
line.

“I just got off the phone with the
clerk at the motel in La-
fayette
.” He gave it the
local pronunciation,
then
chuckled. “I still wonder
what the Marquis would have thought of the way that sounds. Of course, he had
enough other names to choke a horse, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered.”

“What did the clerk say?” I asked.

“Julia Quinn called to check on her
messages.”

“Did she leave any for you?”

“I had told the clerk to ask her to
call Colonel Jarvis. She left me a weird message.”

“Does that mean cryptic?”

“Sure as hell is to me.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she rode a mule to find
where she needed to go. She hoped to have a full report of her journey on Colonel
McKenzie’s desk in the morning. What the devil do you make of that?”

I rearranged the clutter on my desk
as I considered her message.
“Sounds like she’s onto
something.
A mule is a drug courier. Could be the marijuana contact
Mickey Evans told us about. He’s led her to somebody key to the investigation.
I just hope she’s being real careful.”

“I’m sure she carries a weapon, but
you never know what you might run into.”

“Right.
This guy has already killed twice. He’d do it again in an instant.”

When I finished the conversation
and repeated Kelli’s message, Jill posed an intriguing question.

“How do you suppose she plans on
getting her report to your desk?”

“If it isn’t hand-delivered, it
would have to come by fax or email.”

“Does she know our email address?”

“It’s on our business card.”

She leaned back in her chair and
looked me straight in the eye, as any good PI would do when searching for an
unequivocal answer. “Do you plan to call Shelby Williams and check him
out,
maybe see if he’s been supplying Dallas Lights to any
of his friends?”

I rubbed my chin in a gesture of
futility. “I’d like to. But do you have any idea how many pages of
Williamses
there are in the phone book? It’s almost as bad
as Jones or Smith. And we know Shelby isn’t his real name.”

“So how do we find him?”

“We’ll try him in the morning at
Hedrick Industries. If that doesn’t work, you’d better be thinking up a good
excuse to call Roger
Rottman
.”

We checked the fax machine and email on arriving at the
office Monday morning but found nothing from Kelli. I didn’t like the
implications. Had something happened to keep her from sending a report? Maybe
we’d get something later.

Jill and I had discussed today’s
major police operation in Trousdale County after we got home last night. One
possibility was the investigation Sheriff Driscoll had alluded to earlier while
talking about Pierce Bradley’s “aerial spying.” If Kelli had gotten involved on
the fringes of the drug crowd, I hoped she didn’t wind up getting snared in the
law enforcement trap being sprung today.

“Want to draw straws on Allen
Vickers and Shelby Williams?” Jill asked.

I gave her my “pull-
eeeze
!” look. “You know I always get the short end.”

“Oh, and who winds up with the
squints from sitting in front of a microfilm reader?”

“Okay.” I decided to be
conciliatory. “Let’s not be arbitrary. I’ll take Vickers, you take Williams.”

She grinned. “I like a man who
declines to be wishy-washy. Anyway, that means you’ll have to do the detective
work. I know where to call Williams. You’ll have to find the name of Allen
Vickers’ software company.”

She was right, but it didn’t take
me long to come up with the firm’s name and phone number. With my usual luck,
though, Vickers was in a meeting. His secretary assured me the meeting
shouldn’t last long. She promised to have him call as soon as he came out.

Jill fared a little better. She
quickly tracked down Shelby Williams. He said he had given packs of the
cigarettes to several friends as a novelty thing. He was reluctant to talk
about it after learning we needed the information for a case we were
investigating. He said he had just returned Friday from a two-week trip to
Europe and was late for a meeting. He would be leaving town again tomorrow.
Jill finally convinced him that we merely wanted to ask the people a few
innocuous questions. He agreed to jot down some names and call them in before
the day was out.

“If he got back from a two-week
trip Friday, that certainly eliminates him as a suspect,” Jill said.

“We may have to check him out after
we see the other names.”

A few minutes later, I got a call
from Mike Geary, the owner and developer of Marathon Village.

“Good morning, Mr. Geary,” I said.
“You have a really interesting place over there. Did Shannon Ivey tell you what
we were after?”

“Yeah.
She
said you came over and looked at where Pierce Bradley’s man found those papers.
I’d’ve
gotten back to you sooner, but I have another
project under way down in Jackson.
Been tied up on it.
You found those papers yet?”

“No, they’ve disappeared.”

“That sounds mighty ominous.
Shannon said you think Bradley may have been murdered over those old
documents.”

“That’s our theory, but the police
haven’t bought it yet.”

“Why would anybody kill over some
ninety-year-old papers?”

“If we had the papers, we might
find the answer. According to what Bradley told Mr. Liggett on the telephone, a
note attached to the documents indicated his grandfather, Sydney Liggett,
planned to turn them over to the District Attorney.”

“Sydney was assistant treasurer of
the company.”

Jill came over and perched on the
side of my desk. I motioned to her to pick up on her extension.

“I’m bringing my wife in on the
conversation, Mr. Geary,” I said. “Her name is Jill and she’s my partner in the
agency.”

“Hi, Mr. Geary,” she said. “Glad to
hear from you.”

“A pleasure,” he said.

Picking up on his previous comment,
I asked, “Do you know who Sydney Liggett’s boss was?”

“Sure.
The
secretary-treasurer, Sam Hedrick.
He got involved in the company while
it was still successful, before things started going downhill.”

That nearly took my breath.

“Was he one of the owners?”

“He was a stockholder. I don’t know
how much money he had in the company. Probably not a lot, from what I’ve read.
He’d been something of a playboy, had gone through most of his family’s money
by that time.”

“From what we’ve heard, he was the
one who accused Sydney Liggett of embezzling funds.”

“Yeah.
They had a lot of problems that came out in the bankruptcy case. There were
accusations of company officers selling cars out the back door, the money not
on the books. The guy who designed the cars and served as general manager until
they canned him charged they priced the cars at a loss. It was a big mess.
After they brought Hedrick in as secretary-treasurer, it became apparent he knew
nothing about manufacturing cars. They named a new president to keep an eye on
Hedrick’s business habits, but this guy knew nothing about the auto industry,
either.”

“Sounds like the blind leading the
blind,” Jill said.

“That’s for sure. One of Nashville’s
leading investment people later said there was no one in charge, and no one
connected with the operation knew anything about making cars. They had a good
thing going at first but made several basic errors.”

“Such as?”

“Instead of concentrating on only two
models at first, like Henry Ford did, they tried to compete at three different
price levels and several different styles. Everybody, except a few that got out
early, lost their shirts when Marathon went under.”

“Was Sam Hedrick one of them?”

“He sure was.”

I thanked Geary and told him we’d
keep in touch. After we hung up the phones, Jill looked across at me.

“Where do you suppose Sam Hedrick
got the money to start Hedrick Industries a few years later?” she asked.

I tapped my fingers on the desk as
what we had just learned ran through my mind. “I have a hunch those missing
papers could hold the clue.”

Warren Jarvis called around nine, his voice tight as a
guitar string, to see what if anything we had heard from Kelli.

“Nothing,” I said. “No email. No
fax. No phone call.”

“I don’t like it, Greg.”

“Neither do I, but I’m not sure
what we can do about it.”

“Well, I’ve waited long enough. I’m
going up there. I intend to camp out at that motel and wait until she shows up
or
calls
.”

“I don’t blame you. Just let us
know of anything you learn.”

A short time later, I got the
promised call from Allen Vickers. He was a pleasant sounding man but spoke in
the hurried voice of a busy executive.

After identifying himself, he
asked, “What does McKenzie Investigations want with me?”

“Irving Glastonbury told me he had
talked to you, probably a couple of weeks ago, looking for a living relative of
Sydney Liggett, who was assistant treasurer of Marathon Motors.”

“He sure did. I told him about
Arthur Liggett. Are you related?”

“No, but a client of ours is. I
wondered who told you about
Arthur?
” I sat back and
waited for another disappointing reply but got a surprise instead.

“He wasn’t all that difficult to
find. I called a couple of people I knew who were related to some of the
Marathon folks. Stone Hedrick’s grandfather was secretary-treasurer when the
company closed. He knew right away who I was looking for.”

“Did you tell him about the papers
that were found over at the old Marathon office building?”

“Yeah.
He
seemed real interested in that. Of course, I told him I didn’t really know
anything other than what Irving had said, about the note regarding the District
Attorney. Do you have any more information on that?”

“No. The papers are missing, and
we’re currently looking for them.”

“Well, good luck. I know some folks
got burned. Fortunately, my great-grandfather was one of those who cashed in
his chips before things went sour.”

I hung up the phone and put a big
exclamation point after the notes I had taken. Jill peeked over my shoulder.

“Stone Hedrick?
Camilla’s father?”

I looked up.
“None
other.
More and more signs are pointing toward Hedrick Industries.”

Jill patted the heel of her hand
against her forehead. “It just dawned on me where the
Samran
plant name came from.
Sam for the founder and Ran for his
son, Randy.”

“Good one. I think you’re right.”

“Should we go up there and let me
do my thing with the office people, see if I can find out who the mysterious
Kayjay
is?”

I spun my chair around. “The
sheriff doesn’t want us up there, but as long as we stay out of his way, I
don’t see any problem.”

“Sheriff Driscoll doesn’t have any
say in Macon County anyway.”

“You’re right as usual, babe.
Before we do anything else, it might be fruitful to drop by and see Arthur
Liggett. I’ll bet Stone Hedrick is the man he told Kelli and Warren about. The
one who tried to get him fired.”

We arrived at the Safe Harbor
Nursing Home around ten-thirty. Liggett’s room had just been cleaned. He sat in
his recliner, dressed in a fresh shirt and tie, watching the latest financial
news on CNBC. I noticed the gray mustache had been trimmed. He looked up when
we knocked and walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Liggett,” Jill said.
She walked over to pat his arm, which he had stretched out to grip the chair.

“Well, I’m happy to see you two
detectives. What have you done with my granddaughter? I haven’t heard from her
in a couple of days.”

“I think she’s doing a little
checking of her own up in Hartsville and Lafayette,” I said. I gave his large,
unsteady hand a vigorous shake.

“Tell her not to forget her old
granddad.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t do that,”
Jill said.

“Mr. Liggett, you told Kelli about
having trouble with a man who tried to get you fired over an equipment order
you had cancelled,” I said. “Might that have been Stone Hedrick, the chairman
of Hedrick Industries?”

He frowned and twitched his
mustache. “You’re darned right it was Hedrick. The man is only interested in
making a buck.
Doesn’t matter if his equipment is the right
thing for your hospital or not.
I’m sure he would have happily swatted
me like a fly.”

I followed Jill’s eyes over to the
window, where a fly buzzed about the curtain. I felt certain Arthur Liggett was
not exaggerating his problems with Hedrick. “Were you aware that his
grandfather was your grandfather’s boss at Marathon Motors?”

His jaw sagged and his eyes
widened. “I had no idea. Do you think he had something to do with those papers
disappearing?”

“We think it’s a good possibility.
If we can nail something down, we’ll go to the police.”

Liggett’s eyes glared with a
determined look. “You bring that man down, Mr. McKenzie. Put him behind bars.”

As we walked out to the car, Jill
shielded her eyes from the sun and gave me an anxious look. “Mr. Hedrick and
Mr. Liggett sound like archenemies, don’t they?”

“There’s certainly no love lost.
But I have trouble translating that into murder.”

“Could Stone Hedrick know what’s in
those papers?”

“I suppose it’s possible. He took
over the business from his grandfather, so he was associated with Sam for
several years.”

I suggested we head home before
starting out to Macon County. I didn’t like the way things were shaping up in
this case. There had been too much violence already, and we seemed to be
closing in on a possible solution. In case we should encounter any more
trouble, I wanted to be ready. I intended to pick up my
Glock
27 and an ankle holster and let Jill get her little .38 revolver, which she
carried in a purse with a special pocket. The
Glock
was a recent acquisition, ideal for a hot weather weapon. Barely six inches
long, the .40 caliber pistol fit neatly beneath my trouser leg and could be
accessed quickly in a pinch.

We decided to save time by grabbing
a sandwich while we were at home. My watch showed well after noon by the time
we started back around Old Hickory Boulevard toward Madison. We began the
familiar trek up I-65 and Vietnam Veterans Parkway. Traffic remained a hassle
until we passed Gallatin. After that the roads became less traveled. The
brilliant August sun seemed to set fire to every shiny object along the highway
as we sped past gently swaying cornfields and sweeping green pastures dotted
with cows, white, black, brown and spotted.

We saw Warren’s rental car in front
of the motel in Lafayette. Shortly, we turned south on Highway 10 toward the
Samran
plant. It was near mid-afternoon when we rolled in
there. Monstrous cumulonimbus clouds—a term I had learned from Jill—stretched
skyward as their gray and white shoulders rose in the process of nurturing
their stormy offspring. I parked in the visitor lot and let down the windows
while Jill went in.

Happily, the cloud formations
blocked the sun. Unhappily, rather than cooling the temperature, they merely
increased the humidity. My shirt had begun to feel like a towel I’d used
following a shower. Thanks to the thick, high-topped socks I had donned, the
ankle holster was no problem. I considered sitting there with the air
conditioner running, but a glance at the gas gauge discouraged that idea.

As I sat there sweating, I tried to
piece together in my mind where we stood. Bradley had not given up the Marathon
papers before his murder, or there would have been no reason to toss Arthur
Liggett’s house the next day. An unknown assailant, assisted by Casey Olson,
had killed Bradley. The killer then did away with Olson, his witness. Mickey
Evans had identified a recent close friend of Casey’s from
Samran
,
a man known as
Kayjay
, who might possess information
about Casey’s plans and other associates. The killer had apparently dropped a
Dallas Lights cigarette when leaving Bradley’s home. He had also dropped or
discarded a Dallas Lights pack near the scene of Casey’s death. Shelby
Williams’ story had checked out, eliminating him as a suspect.

We now knew that Stone Hedrick was
aware of the hidden papers, that he detested Arthur Liggett. And it was
beginning to look like he had knowledge of what the papers contained. As I
thought about Hedrick’s involvement, I recalled my discussion with Camilla
Rottman
Friday night. I had mentioned a case where a man
was killed because he had something somebody else wanted. She had picked up on
our comment the day before about going to the police regarding a murder. And as
we were leaving, Jill told about our plans to attend Pierce Bradley’s funeral.
Jill didn’t mention the name, but Camilla would have known the identity of the
reference. She no doubt tied it to the case we were working.
Which
led to the question of Camilla’s involvement.

Immersed as I was in my mental
ramblings and lulled by the heat, I sat up, startled, when Jill opened the
passenger side door and slid onto the seat. I glanced at my watch. She had been
inside for almost half an hour.

“You must have made some headway,”
I said. “You’ve got that
chessy
cat grin.”

“You want to know who
Kayjay
is?
”

“I believe that’s why we came
here.”

“Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants,
it’s
Kirk J.
Rottman
.”

“Camilla’s son,” I blurted.

Jill gave me a knowing look. “I
notice you said Camilla’s, not Roger’s.”

“She’s the one who seemed to be
more concerned about him.”

“Well, he’s the maintenance
supervisor at the plant. He was Casey Olson’s boss.”

I got a sudden feeling of
apprehension. “You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

“No. They said he wasn’t working
today. Incidentally, several people from
Samran
plan
to be at Casey’s funeral tomorrow.”

How close was Kirk
Rottman
to Casey? I wondered. How much had they shared
about each other’s lives? I decided Mickey Evans might be the key to answering
those questions. I also wondered what Kelli had pumped out of her.

I started the car. “Let’s pay a
call on your young friend Mickey. I have several more questions that she might
be able to answer, now that we have a better idea of what we’re looking for.”

The grin returned. “Okay, dear.
You’re going back into Trousdale County. Just remember to stay out of Sheriff
Driscoll’s way.”

I intended to. “Why don’t you get
on your phone and find an address for Kirk. He could be in either Lafayette or
Hartsville.”

As we drove along, Jill got busy on
the phone while I kept one eye on the road and one on the huge cloud formation
with its anvil-shaped, flattened top. My pilot confidant had taught me this was
a fellow you should avoid. However, it appeared to be moving on a track that would
soon intersect with ours.

By the time we reached Highway 25
on the outskirts of Hartsville, I had to switch on my headlights. The clock on
the dash glowed 3:00 p.m. but the sky looked more like eight or nine at night.
Huge raindrops soon began to pelt the windshield, almost with the force of
hailstones.

“You’d better take it easy, Greg,”
Jill said. “This looks like it could be a
doozy
of a
storm.”

I slowed to 25 as we entered the
town and took the cutoff that would become Main Street. We passed few cars as
the rain battered down in torrents, creating impromptu streams along the
roadside. Streaks of lightning burned jagged holes in the darkened sky, and
thunder rumbled like a series of explosive eruptions that shook the earth. Wind
gusts made bushes along the street sway like dancers in a bizarre choreographed
routine.

We finally made it up the hill to
Mickey Evans’ house, where I was relieved to see her small Ford in the
driveway. I knew we should have called or checked the restaurant first, but I
didn’t relish the thought of making more than one trip out in this deluge. Ruts
in the driveway had already become mini-ponds.

“Want to try the umbrellas?” I
asked. The small collapsible jobs were stashed behind the front seat.

“This wind would blow them apart.
We might as well run for it.”

I jumped out and made a dash for
the porch, not in my best form with the weight of the ankle holster. Jill came
behind me. She huddled close to the wall in an attempt to avoid the gusty
sheets of rain.

The screen stood open, blown back
against the wall,
it’s
spring hanging down, stretched
out of shape. I pounded on the door loud enough to wake the dead.

No answer.

“Maybe she’s in the back and can’t
hear with
all the
racket this storm is making,” Jill
said. “Try the door.”

I turned the knob and pushed.

The door opened.

I tugged at Jill’s arm. “Get in
there before you drown.”

I followed her inside and closed
the door. Apparently the storm had knocked out the electricity as no lights
showed anywhere. With the shades drawn, I could barely see.

“What’s that smell?” Jill asked.

I didn’t answer. The odor had
assaulted my nostrils as soon as the door closed. It was a smell you never
forgot, once you’d experienced it. Shifting my eyes about the room ahead, I
stepped back with one leg, went into a half-crouch, and pulled the
Glock
from its holster at the other ankle. I detected no
movement. Turning to the nearest window, I tugged at the shade. It slipped from
my fingers and clattered to the top, ending with a bang that jangled my already
tense nerves. The storm had begun to pass, brightening the sky. Pale light
streamed through the window.