4 The Marathon Murders

by Chester D. Campbell

  I leaned back in my chair and tapped my fingers on the desk. “Why don’t we split up. You’re a much better library researcher. How about you head for the Nashville Room to see what you can find out about Marathon Motors. I’ll check the Chamber for any leads there.”

  She gave an exaggerated imitation of a pout. “You hog all the choice assignments. I get the dregs.”

  “What’s so choice about a visit to the Chamber?”

  She planted her hands on her hips and did her Lucille Ball impression. “You don’t fool me, old boy. You’re going down to check out the shapely young things who answer the phones, while I get a headache with my face buried in a microfilm reader.”

  I laughed as I walked over and popped her on the bottom. “You’re the youngest shapely thing I’m interested in, babe.”

  My wife was amply endowed, and I would put her up against a lot of women half her age. I gave her a peck on the cheek to emphasize the point.

  It was around nine o’clock when we turned into the garage that adjoined the main library downtown, the asphalt already feeling mushy beneath an impassioned sun. I still wasn’t convinced about global warming, but our little corner of the globe was damned sure doing its part today.

  Jill took the escalator up to the library while I literally sweated out the three-block jaunt down Commerce Street to Third Avenue. The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, which I had recently heard was the third largest chamber in the U.S., had its swanky suite of offices in the Commerce Center Building. The location bordered on The District, a quaint nickname for the row of Victorian commercial structures along Second Avenue that had been converted to prime tourist territory. It included the Wildhorse Saloon, the big dining, dancing and live country music emporium that was part of the Opryland Hotel empire.

  I strolled into the Chamber lobby and approached the young woman at the front desk. She had long blonde tresses partially obscuring the one blue eye. Her teeth could have graced some dentist’s whitening ad. As I gazed at the twinkling eyes and coquettish smile, I remembered Jill’s comment about my checking out the shapely young things. I smiled in return.

  “I’m Greg McKenzie, one of your members,” I said. I handed her my card.

  She glanced at the inscription. “Hi, Mr. McKenzie. What can I do for you this fine summer morning?”

  “This fine sweltry morning.” I fanned my face with the small note pad I always carried in my shirt pocket. “I have a little question for you. If somebody called looking for information about a local businessman from many years ago, who would you refer them to?”

  “That’s an easy one. I’d turn them over to Craig Audain.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He works under the senior vice president for Business Services. He’s been around the Nashville business community forever.”

  Audain sounded like my kind of guy. “Is he in?”

  “Sorry. He’s out of town.”

  “Is there some way I can get in touch with him?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” She brushed the blonde hair from over her eye. It promptly fell back into position, a Veronica Lake hairdo, if anyone remembers Veronica. “He’s on a business recruiting trip that’s so hush-hush I don’t even know where he went.”

  I twisted my face into what must have appeared a frown of frustration. She hastened to add, “I’m really sorry. If you’d like, I’ll make a point of giving him your card just as soon as he gets back.”

  “Is there someone else the caller might have been referred to?” I asked.

  “Who was the person they were inquiring about?”

  “A man named Sydney Liggett. He was assistant treasurer of the old Marathon Motor Works.”

  Her face brightened. “I remember that. It was just a few days ago. And I did switch the call to Mr. Audain.”

  Just my luck. Industry recruiters could be as secretive as Pentagon spooks. I’d need more than bloodhounds to track him down. “When do you expect him back?”

  “In the next few days.”

  “Then I’d certainly appreciate your asking him to call me just as soon as possible.”

  I left the Chamber, jerked my Titans cap down on my forehead, and walked toward the library, fuming over this unexpected setback. I had counted on the Chamber contact pointing me toward anyone else who had knowledge of the Marathon papers discovery. I saw two possibilities. Maybe I could turn up someone who had a reason to want those papers. Or, perhaps I’d find somebody with a better take on what they might concern.

  I strode up the sidewalk almost oblivious to the blare of horns along the street and the hickory smoke wafting from a restaurant whose sign I nearly collided with. A trickle of sweat down my back kept me from ignoring the fiery red ball that peeped around downtown Nashville’s most prominent landmark, the Batman Building—actually the BellSouth Tower, its twin spires rising skyward like Batman’s ears.

  I hated having to confess to Jill that I had struck out on our only promising lead. As I mulled over what little we knew about Pierce Bradley, I realized we had yet to establish any family connections. Since he seemed to be well known around Walnut Grove, he must have parents or siblings in the area. The farmer type with the corncob pipe in his pocket at the convenience market had mentioned something about “Reba’s boy.” His mother must live nearby.

  When I got to the Nashville Room, where comfortable chairs invited curious minds to lounge and absorb a wealth of knowledge about the local scene, I found Jill at a table with a book-like file of clippings, jotting notes on a ruled pad. She looked up as I scooted onto the chair beside her.

  “This is fascinating,” she said. “I’m a native Nashvillian, but I’d never heard of an automobile called Marathon. Southern Engine and Boiler Works built the car originally down in West Tennessee, in Jackson. Marathon Motor Works split off in 1910 and moved here. They bought a factory and built an office building on Clinton Street. By 1912, the plant was producing sixty cars a month. It was the only car completely manufactured in the South and was sold in every major American city, as well as in Europe, South Africa, South America and Australia.”

  “Impressive. What were the cars like?”

  She pushed a sheet toward me. “Here’s a picture.”

  Photographed beside Nashville’s full-size replica of the Athenian Parthenon in Centennial Park, the Marathon was a sleek black touring car. With the top down, the flat, rectangular adjustable windshield was slanted at a rakish angle above the steering wheel. It had gas headlamps and two side oil lights. An online engine gave it a long high hood you could lean against.

  “What did it sell for?” I asked.

  She flipped a few pages. “Based on an Olympic theme, they had three models. The Champion sold for eighteen hundred dollars as a seven-passenger touring car. The Winner was thirteen-fifty, the el cheapo Runner, nine-fifty.”

  “A tad less than my Jeep.”

  “About twenty thousand cheaper than my little red Camry. I haven’t found the whole story on what happened to the company, but there were mentions of mismanagement that brought on lawsuits by suppliers.”

  “Did you find anything about the current rehab?”

  She looked down at her notes. “A fellow named Mike Geary bought the buildings and has been restoring them. He’s rented suites to musicians, photographers, artists, and such. His office is in the old Marathon administration building. He calls his development Marathon Village.”

  My cell phone rang. I moved to a corner beside the windows as I caught a disapproving glance from a librarian behind the nearby counter.

  “I’ve found something that might be interesting,” Kelli Kane said. Up to this point she hadn’t exhibited a great deal of emotion, but I caught a touch of excitement in her voice now.

  “What do you have?”

  “A packet of letters dating back to the nineteen teens and twenties. They appear to be from my great-great-grandmother, Grace Liggett, to her sister in Texas. She writes in a beautiful script. I haven’t read m
uch yet, but she talks about Sydney’s problems at work. Before I go any further, I thought I’d visit Grandpa and ask him about them.”

  “Let us know what you turn up,” I said and switched off the phone.

  I relayed the message to Jill, who nodded as she gathered up the clipping book and stuck it back in its place on a nearby shelf. “They have stuff on every local business you can imagine in these volumes,” she said. “What did you find at the Chamber?”

  “The guy we need to talk to is out of town. Incommunicado.” I explained the situation.

  “Bummer. Where does that leave us?”

  “I need to call Mrs. Nelson at Allied Construction and see what she knows about Pierce Bradley’s next-of-kin.”

  “You make it sound like he’s no longer with us.” She gathered up her note pad and pen, shoving them into her large handbag.

  “Not necessarily. True, next-of-kin is an old military expression with that connotation, but us civilians use it in a lot of contexts, too.”

  “Okay. Let’s get out of here so you can call her without raising too many eyebrows.”

  When we got down to the garage, I checked my call list and re-dialed Allied Construction. I asked the secretary if she had heard anything from Pierce Bradley. She hadn’t. I asked what she knew of Bradley’s family.

  “I’m not sure about his mother,” she said, “but I think his father died recently. He has a sister in Hartsville. She’s called here for him a couple of times.”

  “Do you have her name?”

  She asked me to hold while she looked for it. A minute or two later she came back on. “It’s Patricia Cook. That’s Mrs. A. B. Cook.”

  I shut off the phone. “We have a name. I’ll bet it’s the Pat I found in his cell phone. Let’s head for the office and check her out. Then we can hit the road to Trousdale County.”

  “Good. I’ve been worrying about Bradley’s dog out back. If he’s not being cared for, you know something has happened to Bradley.”

  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.”

  Chapter 5

  “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?”