4 The Marathon Murders by CHESTER D CAMPBELL Page A

it gets worse.”
    She paused in the midst of
buttering a roll. “After we wind up this case, let’s take a week or so off and
go down to Perdido Key.”
    We owned a condo on the narrow neck
of sand that lay just off the Gulf coast southwest of Pensacola. I hadn’t been
all that thrilled about the place until our best friends sent us down there to
solve a murder. That was the energizing experience that had prompted Jill to
suggest, and me to accept, the idea of opening a private investigation agency.
The attitude adjustment had also mellowed my view of the Florida barrier
islands.
    “Sounds fine to me,” I said. “We
should be due a little R&R.”
    “Rest and
Recuperation.” She sighed. “I could use a bit of that when we get home.”
    “I will be at your beck and call,”
I said.
    “We’ll see about that.”
    It was almost nine when we arrived
at our cabin in the woods, actually a large two-story log house not far from
the county line. I had installed motion-triggered floodlights that bathed the
outside. On the inside, a sophisticated burglar and fire alarm system warned of
intruders. We’d had a couple of nasty experiences in the not-so-distant past,
so I always checked the place carefully on arrival.
    Finding everything in order, we
went in and prepared to unwind.
    “You are off duty, I presume,” Jill
said with mock gravity. “We have a new bottle of Riesling just dying to be
opened. I’ll go up and wriggle into my nightgown, then we’ll pop the cork and
indulge in a little pacification program.”
    “Yes, I’m off duty, thanks. Which means I get to watch you wriggle. ” I gave her a
lecherous grin.
    She waved me off. “Save the
wriggling for later.”
    I started toward the room we used
as a home office, calling back over my shoulder. “I believe pacification refers
to peaceful submission. That’ll work.”
    I dropped my briefcase on my desk,
was about to turn and walk out when the ringing phone stopped me. It was Kelli.
    “What do you have?” I asked.
    “It seems my Grandpa is a bit more
of a hardass than I was aware. He told Warren and me
several tales of run-ins he’d had over the years. I don’t know that any of them
would result in the sort of thing that happened today, but who knows?”
    I sat on the edge of the desk.
“Run-ins with who ?”
    “One was the head of a medical
equipment company headquartered in Nashville. Seems Grandpa nixed a
multi-million-dollar deal the company had arranged with the hospital shortly before
he retired. The man tried to get Grandpa fired and appears to have had him on
his list ever since.”
    “And there’s more?”
    “Well, he got the Teamsters Union
and the truckers association all riled up a couple of years ago when he went to
the governor and state legislature complaining about some of their activities.”
    That brought a grin to my face. I
admired the old guy’s spunk. He apparently thought a lot like me. He had no
intention of letting anybody run over him, ignore him or push him around.
    “House trashing sounds like
something the Teamsters might pursue,” I said. “But they would need some
current dispute to provoke it.”
    “Probably so. That’s all I was able to come up with at the moment, though. Have you heard
anything else?”
    “I hate to tell you this, but
you’ll need to check the newspaper in the morning. There’ll probably be a story
about the accidental death on Blair Boulevard.” I didn’t want to explain how I
knew, since it was an outgrowth of my inquiry into her past.
    “We expected that. Hopefully it
won’t be too detailed.”
    “I’m sure Phil Adamson did his best
to keep it low key. Anyway, thanks for the information, Kelli. Let’s compare
notes tomorrow after Jill and I meet with the TBI agent.”
    I hung up and found Jill standing
in the doorway holding a wine bottle and two glasses.
    “I thought you were off duty,” she
said.
    I walked over, took the bottle and
glasses from her, set them on my desk, threw my