4 The Marathon Murders by CHESTER D CAMPBELL Read Free Book Online Page A

on it,
too.
    I stepped outside and closed the
door.
    “What did you find?” Jill asked.
    I told her about the blood and the walking
stick. Then I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m calling the sheriff.”
    I punched in 911 and soon had the
dispatcher. I identified myself and asked to speak to the sheriff.
    “Sheriff Driscoll isn’t here.”
    “Is there somewhere I could find
him? I have some important information I need to get to him.”
    “You’ll have to head out to the
lake then, around Pine Cove. That’s where he and most of the deputies are.”
    “Has there been a drowning?”
    “Right. And a car in the water.”
    It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“Do you know what kind of car?”
    “They said it was an old
military-style Jeep.”

Chapter 8
     
    Following the dispatcher’s directions, we headed back to
Highway 25 and turned toward Hartsville. After half a mile, Old Highway 25, a
narrow two-lane road, angled off to the right and wound through green swaths of
pasture and woodland. Jill quizzed me as I drove.
    “If it’s Bradley’s Jeep, how did it get from his house to the lake?”
    “Somebody could have driven it
there with him tied up in back.” I was already stewing over the possibilities,
certain in my mind that the Jeep in the lake was Bradley’s and his body was
inside.
    “How did the driver get back?”
    “It would have taken two people,
one in another car.”
    “So we’d have a murderer and an
accomplice.”
    “Looks that way. You’re thinking like a detective, but let’s not get too far ahead of
ourselves.”
    We soon crossed a bridge where a
rain-swollen creek fed into the end of the lake. After passing several
scattered houses, we turned onto Boat Dock Road, then Boat Dock Lane. We finally
found the gravel road that was unmarked except for a crude sign nailed to a
tree. From there it was downhill the rest of the way to the lake. Not far past
a small frame house that seemed to have been squeezed into the heavily wooded
area, two white patrol cars sat at the side of the road. Just beyond, a narrow
trail led through the trees. Looking around at all the tall evergreens, it
wasn’t difficult to see why this area had been named Pine Cove.
    I pulled off as far as I could and
parked behind one of the patrol cars, which had Metro Sheriff painted on the
side, along with Hartsville/Trousdale County. Although the smallest county in
the state area-wise, and one of the least populated, Trousdale had established
a metropolitan form of government a couple of years ago with its county seat,
Hartsville. We heard voices coming from the lake as we got out.
    “Looks like a small clearing back
through the trees,” Jill said.
    “Yeah. And
what appears to be a tow truck backed up to the water.” I checked the ground as
we walked past the patrol cars. “I hate to tell you, babe, but this trail looks
wet and rough.”
    The rain must have hit this area
before we arrived. After some unpleasant experiences traipsing about muddy
scenes in dress shoes, Jill had learned to keep a pair of walking shoes in the
Jeep. I waited while she changed.
    Fresh tire tracks plowed through
the soft ground, leading us past knee-high weeds and an occasional mud puddle.
After passing a few towering oaks and sycamores that provided a leafy canopy overhead,
we saw two other white police cruisers off to the side.
    A hefty man in a tan uniform and
white hat stood near the water, bellowing and waving off a couple of power
boats out in the lake. “Get those damn things away from here!”
    A choppy wake washed up near the
shore.
    Approaching him, I called, “Sheriff
Driscoll?”
    He turned, a frown on his tanned, leathery face. I took him to be late fifties, a muscular
man with a fringe of gray peeking out beneath the hat brim.
    “That’s me,” he said. “Who would
you be?”
    I introduced Jill and myself and
handed him a business card.
    “Got a license?”
    I showed that to him, also. “We’ve
been looking for Pierce Bradley