Brian Freeman - Marathon

In the conference room at the back, Serena found the man she was looking for: Troy Grange. Maggie’s boyfriend.

Troy’s full-time day job was as the senior health and safety manager for the Duluth port, but he’d coordinated safety issues for the marathon as a volunteer for years. Like Stride, he was a Duluth lifer, one of those solid, decent men who made the city work. Troy got up to shake her hand, and Serena, in her heels, towered over him. He had a shiny bald skull, cheekbones like pink golf balls, and a deceptively heavy physique. He was as round as Max Guppo, but Troy was a muscleman who could bench-press three hundred and fifty pounds without breaking a sweat.

“Detective Stride,” he greeted her formally, even though they were friends. He added with a smile, “I like calling you Stride, you know. It fits you.”

“I like hearing it,” Serena replied. “You know, Maggie nearly choked when I told her I was changing my name, but I never had much of an attachment to Dial. It came with a lot of baggage.”

“I understand. Have a seat. Do you want some coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

Troy poured her a cup from a silver Thermos on the shelf near the window. She could see the back-alley parking lot behind the marathon building. The coffee was lukewarm and not very good, but she drank it, anyway.

“Speaking of Maggie, there’s a little less bark in her snark these days,” Serena said. “Do we have you to thank for that?”

Troy laughed. He had a big Santa Claus laugh. “Well, I try to keep her smiling, but she does like to blow off steam. When she’s mad at me, wow. She can be like a ninja with that tongue of hers.”

“I’ve had the pleasure,” Serena said, grinning.

“You should see her with my girls, though. She’s amazing. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“You know, I actually would,” Serena said.

Troy leaned across the conference table with his big hands folded together. His brow knitted into wrinkles. “So, what’s the latest? How can I help?”

Serena gave Troy the background about Eagle’s murder and explained her theory about the placement of the bomb. When he heard it, Troy rocked back in his chair and stroked his multiple chins.

“You think the bomb was there before the race began?” he murmured. “Intriguing idea. That would explain a lot of things. I was honestly puzzled by how this guy could have gotten a bomb past the dogs.”

“Me, too.”

“So I assume you want to check our photo records from Tuesday night?” Troy asked. “To see if you can identify the guy that Eagle was working with?”

Serena smiled. Troy was smart. “Exactly. If we can spot Eagle, I’m betting our bomber isn’t far behind. Even if he wore some kind of disguise, it would be helpful to get eyes on this guy.”

“When exactly did this happen?”

“According to the 911 call, the incident happened at 8:35 p.m. last Tuesday. That’s less than half an hour before the store closed. Some of the staff had already clocked out, which I assume wasn’t an accident. This guy must have checked out the store multiple times to pick the optimum time to make the drop.”

Troy pushed himself out of the chair. He was nimble despite his heft. “Okay, let’s check our feed. We archive the photo records on a computer in the main office. The FBI already has copies of everything from Friday and Saturday, of course.”

“The camera itself is mounted on the roof, right?” Serena asked.

“Right.”

Troy shouldered through the office, and Serena followed. He had an open-toed, muscle-bound walk, and his footsteps were heavy. He found an empty cubicle near the office door and squeezed himself onto the three-legged stool in front of the computer. His thick fingers manipulated the keyboard like a pro.

“This is from thirty seconds ago,” he said, pulling up a photo aimed toward the boardwalk beyond the Inn on Lake Superior. “The camera shoots every few seconds, shifts angles, and shoots again. We get 180-degree coverage along Canal Park Drive. It’s always on.”

“How’s the resolution?” Serena asked.

Troy zoomed using the computer mouse. He enlarged the photo, focusing on a Chevy pickup in the hotel parking lot across the street, until the license plate of the truck was crisp and clear.

“Pretty darn good,” he said, smiling.

Serena felt a rush of adrenaline. She wanted to see the bomber’s face. “Let’s go back to last Tuesday.”

“Sure.”

Troy called up files in a subdirectory, and he scrolled down, hunting for the photo archives from Tuesday evening. As he did, Serena saw his face take on a darker cast. He reviewed the list three times, and then he opened up the directory of deleted files. When he didn’t find anything, he pushed away from the desk and bumped his right fist against his chin.

“What’s up?” Serena asked.

“The files from Tuesday night are missing,” Troy told her.

“Missing? Were they erased?”

“It doesn’t look that way. They just don’t exist. We have photos up to Tuesday afternoon, and then nothing again until Thursday morning.”

“How does something like that happen?” she asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” Troy called out in a booming voice. “Hey, Decker? You here? Where are you?”

A young man who couldn’t be more than twenty years old popped his head around the side of the cubicle. He had bushy blond hair and an equally bushy beard. “What’s up, Troy?”

“Serena, Arlin Decker. He’s our PR and marketing intern. Arlin, Serena’s with the DPD.”

“Nice to meet you,” Decker said. He wore a marathon T-shirt and jean shorts, and he leaned against the cubicle wall. “What do you need, Troy?”

“The photo files from Tuesday are missing,” Troy said.

Decker’s face fell. “Oh, yeah. Shit, sorry, I kept meaning to tell you about that. We got it fixed before race day, so I figured, no big deal.”

“Got what fixed?”

“The camera feed went down last Tuesday, but nobody even noticed it until Thursday, when we started testing everything. You know what it’s like in those last few days before the race. Everybody’s crazed. As soon as we realized the camera was down, we got the video people in to check it out and get it up and running again.”

“What was the problem?” Serena asked.

“The cable was unplugged. Stupid, huh? Thing just came loose from the computer here, and somebody must have stepped on it, because the prongs were bent. Had to have the company bring a new one. The camera was working fine, but we lost all the data.”

Serena looked at Troy, who waved Decker away. When they were alone, she murmured, “Somebody sabotaged that cable.”

“Looks that way,” Troy agreed.

“Is there a way of pulling together a list of people who were in the office on Tuesday afternoon? I need to track them all down.”

Troy groaned. “Four days before the race? We had people in and out of here all day long.”

“Like who?”

“Oh, man. The chaos is pretty much twenty-four hours a day at that point. You want a few examples just off the top of my head? We had meetings with the advance teams for the bands who were performing on Friday and Saturday nights. We had a VIP tasting for the spaghetti dinner, and believe me, nobody misses that. We finalized arrangements for transport and housing of the elite runners and several of the specialty runner groups from various charities and religious organizations. We had reps from the health care group sponsoring the fitness expo having a meltdown about the map for the booths, because two participants dropped out at the last minute. We had a mouse in Lorena’s office, so she was going nuts about that. We had the bus company CEO warning us about a possible drivers’ strike, which never materialized. Do you want me to go on? Because that’s just scraping the surface, Serena.”