4 The Marathon Murders (3 page)

We had just taken the I-40 exit to
Hermitage when the phone rang. Jill pulled it out of the small scabbard
attached to my belt and answered.

“What?” It carried the sound of
disbelief. “Here, tell Greg about it.”

I took the phone and stuck it to my
ear. “What’s happened?”

“I was followed over here to the
nursing home,” Kelli said. “The guy was pretty sharp. I’m trained for
anti-surveillance, and I tried a couple of elemental maneuvers to shake him. He
stuck right with me. I didn’t want it to be obvious that he’d been made. Since
I didn’t care who knew where I was going, I ignored him as long as possible. I
tried to get a license number, but he wouldn’t cooperate.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“None whatever.”
The words came across knife-edge sharp. “But I’d sure as hell like to find
out.”

“What do you make of it?” Jill asked as we pulled into the
parking lot near our office. “Who could it have been?”

“I don’t know, unless Warren has
some competition.”

“Be serious, Greg.”

“Okay. It could relate to this
case, of course. But knowing her background, it might be something else
entirely.”

“You say ‘knowing her background,’
but what do we really know about her?”

I smiled as I got out of the car and
went around
to open
her door. “You ask good questions,
babe. I think it’s time we learned who Miss Kelli Kane really is.”

Back in the office, I got on the
computer and did a quick check for Kelli Kane in Seattle. It brought up
nothing.

“Her mother must have been a
Liggett and married a Kane,” Jill said. “Could we track it from this end?”

“If Kelli’s forty-
five, that
would probably put her parents’ marriage back in
the late fifties. We could ask our newspaper buddy, Wes Knight, to look into
it, but I doubt their computerized files go back that far.”

“What if we just ask him to do a
search on Kelli Kane?”

“If she grew up in Seattle, they
won’t likely have anything, unless it has a Nashville tie-in. But it’s worth a
try.”

I caught Wes at the newspaper office,
and he agreed to do a search for any stories involving Kelli Kane. I had fed
him enough news tips that he was usually willing to help us out.

While waiting to hear back from
Wes, we ran a check on Pierce Bradley’s sister, Patricia Cook. We found her at a
Hartsville address. Her husband, A. B. Cook, was listed as an officer at the
local bank. I called the Cook’s home number, which was the one listed in
Bradley’s cell phone. Patricia answered. I identified myself and asked if she
might be able to help me find her brother.

“Why’s a detective looking for
him?” she asked.
“He in trouble?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What’s he done?”

“Nothing that I
know of.
I just need to get some information from him.”

“Well, I can’t help you. I have no
idea where he is.”

Her tone indicated she not only
didn’t know where he was, she didn’t give a damn, either.

“Mind telling me when you last saw
him, Mrs. Cook?”

“Mr. McKenzie, it’s a personal
matter that I don’t care to go into, but my brother and I have not been on very
good terms of late. The last I saw of him was when he stormed out of here
Monday afternoon.”

“You haven’t heard from him since
and have no idea where he went?”

“That is correct.”

Obviously, this was getting
nowhere. I thanked her and hung up. When I repeated the conversation for Jill,
she shook her head.

“That could be the reason he didn’t
show up at the nursing home Monday night.”

I agreed. “If he was all bent out
of shape, he might have decided to hell with it, cut out and got soused.”

“If he was a
drinker.”

I'd had some less than stellar
experiences with alcohol during my younger days, but I had long since learned
imbibing was best pursued in moderation. Not everyone followed that course,
though. I thought about contacting Mrs. Nelson at Allied Construction again,
but she probably didn't know anymore about Bradley’s drinking habits than she
did my own. While Jill and I were discussing the possibilities, Wes Knight
called with the results of his file search.

“I found something for you. A Kelli
Kane, the granddaughter of Arthur Liggett, a Nashville hospital administrator,
came to Nashville in nineteen eighty-four. She helped set up a congressional
hearing on public housing.”

“Who was she working for?”

“Congressman
Gerald
Minchie
of Seattle, Washington.
She was
a staff assistant.”

“Interesting.
Did you find anything else?”

“Looks like
that’s about it, Greg.”

“Thanks, Wes. I really appreciate
it.”

“No problem. Anything here I might
use in a story?”

“Sorry, it’s just a routine thing.”

“Well, keep me in mind next time you
turn up something juicy.”

I gave him a bit of a chuckle.
“Wes, you’re on my speed dial under J for Juicy.”

Jill digested that bit of news
while tapping a carefully manicured finger against her chin. My wife believes a
successful businesswoman pays close attention to her grooming. And though she
doesn’t pack her closet with expensive clothing, she keeps a careful watch on
things like fingernails and hair. Of course, the charter air service she ran
during my Air Force career didn’t require her to do a great deal of dressing
up.

“Do you want to try Seattle or
Washington next?” she asked.

“Washington,” I said, feeling it
offered more fertile ground.

We hit pay dirt at The Washington
Post web site. A search on Kelli Kane not only fleshed out her career as a congressional
aide following graduation from the University of Washington, it revealed her
marriage in 1985 to a young diplomatic officer, John Hunter. A search on Hunter
turned up postings around Europe until 1996, when he was killed during a
terrorist incident in Italy. The trail ended for Kelli Kane Hunter about the
same time. It made sense. After her husband died at the hands of terrorists,
she was ripe for recruiting by a clandestine agency. It would take more than
our best reference channels to ferret out which shadowy group had coaxed her
into its ranks.

At least now we knew a bit more
about the young woman whose ancestor we had been hired to track. I still had
one nagging question—what had Kelli meant by her “as long as I’ve known him”
comment about Arthur Liggett?

I was still stewing around over
that one when Kelli called back, this time furious.

“Now I know what that bastard was
doing!” She almost shouted into the phone.

“Who?”

“The louse who
tailed me to the nursing home.”

“What was he doing?”

“Making certain I was out of the
way. I’m glad I found these letters before I left. There’s no telling what
would have become of them.”

“What happened?” I motioned for
Jill to get on the line.

“Drawers dumped out on the floor,
cushions pulled off chairs and sofas, sheets stripped off the beds. I’d bet
they were looking for those papers Mr. Bradley promised to bring to us.”

She may have been right, but what
in those1914 files could have prompted someone to go to such lengths was beyond
my imagination.

“Have you called the police?” Jill
asked.

Her reply came in a terse, “No. And
don’t you even think about calling them.”

Jill’s eyes popped open wide.
“But—”

“I suspect Kelli’s employer
wouldn’t be too happy if her name appeared in a police report,” I said.

“You’ve got that right.
Especially if it could lead to a newspaper story.
Please
keep in mind that I want absolutely no publicity to come out of this.”

I switched on my most reassuring
tone. “We always keep our clients’ identities confidential, unless they agree
to have it otherwise.”

“There will be no otherwise in this
case.”

I reached for a pen and pad. “I
think we’d better come take a look. What’s the address?”

Arthur Liggett lived in a large two-story brick off Blair
Boulevard, a main artery into an area of once genteel homes not far from the
sprawling Vanderbilt University campus. Liggett was one of the few long-time
residents who had not fled to the suburbs in various waves of migration that
followed World War II. Renters or upwardly mobile singles and families who had
bought in during recent decades occupied most of the picturesque old houses.

A
squarish
,
three-story yellow brick with a porch that ran the full width in front, its
roof anchored by six white Ionic columns, Grandpa Liggett’s house featured a
small, flat-roofed projection with two windows that likely opened onto a
partial top floor. In contrast to most of the homes along the street, this one
boasted a driveway of two concrete strips at one side. I parked my Grand
Cherokee behind Kelli’s rental car shortly after noon. We headed for the front
steps.

Pressing a button beside the
oversize mahogany door produced the sound of chimes. A Kelli Kane different
from the one we had encountered earlier opened the door. This was probably
closer to the real Kelli, shorn of the suave public demeanor. She wore a
sweat-dampened, faded Yellowstone National Park tee shirt over well-worn brown
jeans. Floppy sandals adorned a strong pair of feet with bright red toenails. I
suspected the earthy young woman with a certain natural charm was seldom seen
in the clandestine world she occupied before coming to Nashville. At the
moment, however, the charm appeared a bit bent out of shape, as evidenced by
the anger that darkened her eyes.

“Come on in,” she said, waving a
hand. “I’ve been searching for identity clues they might have left behind.”

I looked past her into the room.
“What did you find?”

“Zilch.”

A strong smell of tobacco smoke
greeted us just inside the door. Now that I had become a confirmed non-smoker,
the smell was enough to bring a twitch to my nose. It also told me the origin
of Arthur Liggett’s emphysema. In the living room, elaborate ornamentation on
the chairs and a large sofa struck me as French provincial, though I admit I’m
no authority on period furniture styles. I knew Jill would straighten me out if
I had it wrong. Tapestries bearing ancient Roman scenes hung on the walls. I
suspected the décor had not been altered in many years. The only modern touch
was a large screen TV at one side of the room. A massive brass umbrella stand
with some kind of figure on top stood near the door.

“The worst mess is in here,” Kelli
said, leading us down a hallway papered in subdued brown stripes to a room her
grandfather used as an office. She moved with an athletic grace that hinted at
a strict fitness regimen. I had worked out with fitness machines at an earlier
stage in life. Now the closest I got to weights was in weight watching.

Drawers had been pulled out of a
file cabinet, their contents dumped on the floor. Books and papers were strewn
about, swept from shelves along one wall. It looked like the aftermath of a
hurricane down in the neighborhood of our Florida condo, but it didn’t appear
to be the work of professionals. For one thing, the chair and sofa cushions in
the living room hadn’t been cut open.

“I’ll have to get this cleaned up
before Grandpa comes home,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d hate for him to
see what they’ve done. He’s an exceptionally neat and organized person. This
would kill him.”

“By the way,” I said, “yesterday
you made the comment that as long as you’d known
him,
your grandfather had never been a complainer. That sounds like you haven’t
known him all that long. What’s the story?”

She arched a well-sculptured
eyebrow. “You’re quite perceptive, Greg. Warren told me you had the reputation
of being an excellent investigator. I can see why.”

“Be careful you don’t give him the
big head,” Jill said, grinning as she folded her arms.

Kelli leaned against her
grandfather’s large oak roll-top desk, its pigeonholes now
bare
thanks to the burglar’s handiwork. “My dad, Vincent Kane, ran a liquor store.
That made him persona non grata to the
Liggetts
,
particularly my grandmother, who was a straight-laced Southern Baptist. She
would have nothing to do with him and absolutely forbade my mother to marry
him.”

Jill gave me a knowing look. “I can
sympathize with your mother. My father tried to talk me out of marrying Greg.
He didn’t have a very high regard for career military men. He finally gave in
when I refused to budge. Obviously, your mom ignored her mother’s protests,
too.”

“She did, but Grandma refused to
relent. Mom and Dad wound up eloping and moving to Seattle. I had no contact
with my grandparents until after I graduated from college.”

“And went to work for the
congressman,” I said without thinking.

Her glance bore an icy sheen. “I
thought we had a deal.”

“We only checked a couple of open
sources,” I said with a shrug.
“Newspapers, to be exact.
You were chronicled in the press for several years.
Practically
a minor celebrity.”

Her frown deepened. “Then I’m sure
you found out about John Hunter.”

“And his death at
the hands of terrorists.
We noticed that Kelli Kane Hunter faded from
the headlines after that. I saw no reason to look any further.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “You
would have found nothing. Unfortunately, there was no way to erase my past. My
parents were killed in the San Francisco earthquake in 1989. Not long after
that, my grandmother died. Grandpa Liggett retired a couple of years later. He
tried to stay in touch with me after that. I was living in Europe at the time,
but I kept in contact as best I could. It’s been more difficult in recent
years.”

Kelli brushed supple fingers across
her damp forehead and turned toward the doorway. “Damn this heat. Would you
like something cold to drink? I think I’ll run up Grandpa’s electric bill and
keep the air conditioner running full blast.”

Compared to outside, it felt fine
in here. She stopped to adjust the thermostat as we followed her into a large
traditional kitchen that hadn’t been trashed like the office. A few dish towels
lay where they had been tossed from a cabinet drawer.

“Grandpa obviously doesn’t do a lot
of cooking,” Kelli said. She opened a refrigerator that looked almost bare and
took out three soft drink cans. Jill chose a Coke. Being a non-cola person, I
took the Sprite. Kelli set them on the table and brought us glasses. “Let’s
just sit here and talk, if you don’t mind.”

Jill and I joined her at a vintage
kitchen table with a plastic top that reminded me of one I ate at as a wartime
tyke in St. Louis. Kelli scored several points with me when she moved a crowded
ash tray from the table to a counter. Opening a cardboard box filled with
letter-sized envelopes, she pulled one out.

“These are the letters I found in
the attic, the ones from my great-great-grandmother. Her younger sister had
bundled them up and stored them. Grandpa said a cousin found the box when her
mother died. She recently mailed it to him, but he hadn’t had time to read any
of them.”

“Do they date back to the time
Sydney disappeared?” Jill asked.

“Right.”
She glanced at the envelope in her hand. “This one sets the stage. It was
written early in 1914.”

She opened the flap and pulled out
a brittle sheet of paper filled with dainty penmanship in blue-black ink. She
read:

“Dearest Sister,

“Things have not been going at all
well in Nashville. As you know, Sydney does not like to talk business at home.
He spends much of his time tinkering with his woodworking hobby, building
cabinets and that sort of thing. But he has been so gloomy of late that I
finally prodded him into telling me something about what was wrong. Still, he
would only say some things were being done at the
company
that were
not right, and he was afraid Marathon may not survive. I asked
what sort of things and he would only say it involved money, what else? I got
the impression his boss was doing something that he didn’t approve of.

“It is affecting young Henry, too.
His father has been too preoccupied to take him hunting, which he always loved
to do. I am quite worried. I hope things get resolved for the better soon. I
look forward to your reply.

“
Your
loving
sister, Grace.”

“Henry was Albert’s father, right?”
Jill asked.

“Yes. Grandpa was about fifteen
years old then. Henry must have married at nineteen or twenty. Grandpa was born
in 1920.” She thumbed through the envelopes. “Look at these four-cent stamps with
Jefferson and Washington on them. Quite a difference from what we have to pay
today.”

“The letters were written with an
old nib pen, too,” Jill said. “I’ll bet you never used one of those.”

Kelli looked up. “My mother had a
fountain pen when I was little, but I cut my writing teeth on a ballpoint.” She
pulled out another envelope. “This is from one written a week after the
disappearance.”

She opened the letter and read:

“We still have no word from Sydney.
They’re saying awful things about him. His boss at Marathon claims he took a
lot of money and some papers from company files. They say he embezzled funds
and ran off, but that’s preposterous. The day before he disappeared, he told me
he had found something terribly disturbing. He wasn’t sure who to tell about
it, things were in such a mess.”

Kelli looked up. “She must have
been referring to those papers that Pierce Bradley had.”

I leaned an elbow on the table.
“That would be my guess.”

“Have you read all the letters?”
Jill asked.

“No. There are quite a number of
them. I’ll check out the rest as soon as I can.”

I glanced at my watch, saw it was
around one. “We’d better get moving. We need to take another look around
Bradley’s place up in Trousdale County. Could you make copies of any letters
that discuss Sydney’s disappearance or the problems at Marathon Motors? They
should help us with some background.”

“Sure. Warren will be back this
afternoon. I’d imagine we can find a Kinko’s somewhere nearby.”

I took a final swig of my Sprite
and pushed back from the table. “Have you met any of the neighbors around here?
Maybe one of them saw somebody snooping about while you were gone.
A car in the driveway maybe.”

“I haven’t met any of the
neighbors, but I think they’re young couples who work.”

“We’ll knock on a couple of doors,
then head for Walnut Grove and see what we can unearth about Mr. Bradley. We
should be able to get a better reading on his house in the daylight.”

Kelli joined Jill and me as we
started toward the front of the house. I noticed the air conditioner had kicked
in full blast, dampening the pervasive smell of tobacco smoke, and lending a
touch of cold storage locker to the living room. Her mood turned gloomy as we
approached the front door.

“Grandpa is having a difficult time
with this nursing home stay. I sure hope you can give him some good news soon
on this Marathon Motors business.”

I hoped so, too, though at the
moment that task seemed on a par with attempting to start a ninety-year-old
touring car.