Run into Trouble Page 16

  Drake shook his head. “Grace wasn’t in any position to be delivering letters.”

  Fred didn’t want to be accused of murder, but he also didn’t want to get fired for participating in a betting ring. Drake wondered whether Casey had talked to him about that. He still had his job. Trouble seemed to bounce off him. But then, he did have a resemblance to a ball.

  Drake decided to try a different tack. “What’s your theory as to what happened to Grace?”

  Fred pondered that. “She obviously expected to meet somebody in the parking lot. That means somebody contacted her the day before, either by phone or in person. It would have had to be somebody she knew quite well. Knew and trusted. If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t one of you, it could have been one of the other runners. The roommates vouched for each other. Everybody was asleep. Peaches was the other person she knew at the motel. His gun hadn’t been fired. Of course, he might have had another one.”

  Melody stared at him. “Are you accusing Peaches?”

  “I didn’t say that. You asked me what happened. I was just trying to examine the evidence.”

  Drake was about ninety-nine percent certain that Peaches hadn’t had anything to do with Grace’s death. Fred was trying to deflect the inquiry away from himself. There wasn’t any sense in pursuing this further at the present time.

  Drake stood up. “Melody and I are tired, dirty, and—as you’ve probably noticed—smelly. Please excuse us while we go get cleaned up.”

  Melody stood also, and they filed out of the room.

  CHAPTER 24

  Today’s run goes from Port San Luis to Cayucos, north of Morro Bay. The first part of the run is free-form, meaning that you get to pick your own route. You can follow the road to the nuclear power plant that’s being built, but be advised that the first part of it is very hilly and curvy. Once you get past the site of the power plant under construction, there are other small roads you can take. From Los Osos you can take South Bay Boulevard past the swamp and turn left into Morro Bay State Park. Take Main Street into Morro Bay and surface streets through Morro Bay, which is dominated by the picturesque Morro Rock. Stay off the part of Route 1 that is freeway, but get on it again before you reach Cayucos.

  ***

  “It’s days like this that make me wonder why I ever got into this race.”

  Drake was panting hard running up the hill from Los Osos. He and Melody had determined that the road to the nuclear power plant was the only practical route after perusing available maps. Melody never panted as hard or sweat as much as the men, but she was struggling. Still, she tried to sound optimistic.

  “It’s days like this that separate the winners from the also-rans. If we can pick the best route, we may be able to gain some time on the others.”

  “If…at the moment it appears that everyone else is copying us.”

  Or vice versa. One of the maps Drake had gotten his hands on was a topographical map that indicated altitude changes. He motioned for Melody to slow down a little and let the other runners pass them. He had the topo map in his hand, folded to show this stretch of the road.

  “The road switches back on itself and passes quite close to here at a higher altitude. There appears to be a path connecting the two sections. If we can find it and follow it without killing ourselves in the process, we may be able to cut off quite a bit of distance.”

  Several minutes later, the two plunged off the paved road onto a dirt path of dubious parentage. They ran on the hard, dry clay, trying to avoid ruts and fissures, between sections of dense and prickly brush that they didn’t want to have to bushwhack through. After a few anxious minutes, during which the steepness of the terrain made them wonder whether they were headed in the right direction, they came upon the other section of the paved road.

  They turned onto it, thankful for the firmness of the asphalt and the knowledge that they knew where they were and took a quick glance to the right before they ran to the left.

  Melody said, “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Since we didn’t spend that much time on the shortcut, I think we can safely assume that we’ve taken the lead.”

  ***

  They still had the lead when they passed Diablo Canyon where the nuclear power plant was under construction. They ran across a cow pasture to connect with a road that went through Montana de Oro State Park.

  Melody watched the placid animals watch them and tried to look for cow pies at the same time. “We’ve seen seals, birds, crabs, and cows today. I’m assuming that all but the cows are native to this area.”

  Drake laughed. “It’s not the cows you have to worry about, it’s the bulls. Although I suspect you won’t find a bull in the same pasture with cows.” He shifted his gaze to the blue water beyond the cliff. “If I’m not mistaken, that rock is called Lion Rock.”

  Melody looked at the large rock that did indeed resemble a lion.

  “What’s that in the water next to it?”

  “It’s a boat of some sort.”

  They detoured closer to the cliff but kept running. Something didn’t look right to Drake.

  “That’s a bad place for a boat. It appears to be a very rocky area.”

  “The way it’s tilted, I suspect it’s come upon hard times. It’s a strange looking boat. I’ve never seen a boat that looked like that.”

  “It looks like a small submarine.”

  Drake flashed back to the day on the beach at Malibu. He vaguely remembered seeing a shape in the water that rapidly disappeared after the shells were fired. At least he thought he had seen a shape. Maybe it was his imagination filling in details. The Navy and Coast Guard still hadn’t found anything. This place was remote enough that there was a good chance nobody else had spotted the boat if it hadn’t been there long.

  “I’m going to report this to Blade.”

  “Maybe there’s a pay phone in the park.”

  “I’m not in any hurry to start World War Three. Let’s wait until we finish the run. Especially since we’ve got an excellent chance of gaining on everybody.”

  Melody looked behind them. The closest runners were specks in the distance. “Anything you say, guv.”

  She had seen enough violence in her life to echo Drake’s sentiment. She hoped that the boat would not turn out to be sinister. They angled over to the park road and continued their fast pace, determined to put more distance between themselves and the other runners.

  ***

  Drake and Melody ate dinner in a Cayucos restaurant with several of the other runners. Nobody mentioned seeing the boat at Lion Rock, so the two didn’t bring it up. Either the others didn’t go close enough to the cliff to see it, or they didn’t think it remarkable. Regardless, Drake and Melody didn’t want to be the ones to start rumors.

  They had moved into fifth place during the day’s run. Although they had gained on the two leading teams, they were still far behind them in elapsed time.

  Tom invited the two to join a card game in one of the rooms of the motel. Melody, who had lost her roommate and needed to take her mind off Grace, said she would sit in for a while. Drake was still following his nightly routine of bathing, stretching, and going to bed early. He excused himself.

  The message light on Drake’s telephone was flashing when he returned to his room. The message was to call a number collect. No name. Drake recognized the number as one belonging to Blade. He had talked to Blade earlier. Blade must be working late. Drake placed the call. Blade answered, repeating the number. The operator asked him if he would accept the charge from Oliver Drake.

  Blade said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  The operator said, “Go ahead,” and clicked off the line.

  “Well, you old son of a bitch, you may be on to something.”

  “Always glad to be of service to my country.”

  “We haven’t yet landed personnel on the objective, but we’ve got choppers doing flyovers and taking pictures. It looks like the real thing.”

  Blade was taking prec
autions in case somebody was listening in, so it must be important. How important, Drake wondered? “Is this going to start the big one?”

  “Too soon to tell. Curious things going on. This place is remote, but not that remote. We think that it’s only been there a short time, probably since last night.”

  “It was abandoned and drifted onto the rocks?”

  “Unlikely, considering its location. Also, strange coincidence. You were present at the original incident. Now you’re the one who makes this discovery.”

  “The other runners were present in Malibu. And any one of them could have made this discovery.”

  “True. But you’ve all got the same employer. I’m sending Slick up there. He’ll meet you tomorrow.”

  “Not during the run. We can’t afford to stop.”

  “You’re really into this thing, aren’t you? I fear for your energetic lifestyle. When I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes. All right, Slick will meet you tomorrow evening.”

  “I’m not sure where we’re going to stay—”

  “Don’t worry your pretty head about that. I think we can probably find you. Don’t underestimate us.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Today’s run goes from Cayucos to San Simeon (Hearst Castle) by way of Cambria, a lovely tourist trap. If you’re up to it, we’ll take a tour of Hearst Castle this afternoon. Stay on Route 1 the whole way, but be very careful. In some places there isn’t any shoulder. Run single file on the left side of the road along the narrow stretches and keep a sharp eye out for cars. The good news is that the road is fairly flat. The altitude never gets much above 200 feet. Because it’s Saturday, there will be weekend traffic.

  ***

  What they didn’t expect to see were hitchhiking hippies, off to commune with nature in the Big Sur where their troubles would vanish in a puff of smoke. The girls, ranging from twenty-something to teenage, wore long hair and long skirts with loose blouses covering bare skin and lugged bedrolls or backpacks. The boys had equally long hair, and except for their dress, it was sometimes difficult to tell one sex from the other from behind.

  Most were headed north; they stationed themselves on the right side of the road, trying to grab rides with weekenders who had carloads of children. When a Volkswagen camper with flowers painted on the sides that wasn’t already packed came along, it was like manna from heaven to them.

  The runners and the hippies stared at each other as the former flashed by. They came from two different worlds, separated by a narrow strip of asphalt. Drake saw good looking girls and wondered what would happen to them if they were picked up by the wrong man. That made him speculate about free love. Which made him wonder when some of them had last washed, as he got a closer look at straggly hair and dirty clothes.

  Melody interrupted his reverie. “If I were the mother of those girls, I’d lock them up until they were thirty-five.”

  “You’re too young to be their mother. You’re not even thirty-five, yourself.”

  “I’d lock myself up, too. I’m thinking ahead. I might get married some day, you know.”

  Married. Drake pictured himself being married once in a while, but never seriously. However, it did have its attractions, abundant sex being one of them. He decided to change the subject before Melody guessed his thoughts. “It looks like we’re going to be running in a posse all day. No chance to excel on this road. We’ll be on it for a long time.”

  “There will be other opportunities. We’ve moved up to fifth place. Who would have guessed that when we started out? At least we shouldn’t lose ground to anyone.”

  In fact, several of the teams were lagging behind the group with various ailments affecting feet and knees.

  Melody spoke again. “What do you think Blade’s up to? Isn’t this a job for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines?” She sang, “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Lion Rock.”

  “Blade sees a conspiracy based on the fact that we were present at Malibu and also the ones who found the sub.”

  “So we’re working for the Russkies?”

  “Not us. Somebody at Giganticorp.”

  “Meaning Casey. He’s the top dog. Why would he do that?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’s an idealist.”

  “Idealists are fine as long as they don’t actually try to do anything. You said that Slick is going to meet us at our motel, which I understand is in Cambria. At least he’s not going to show up in his Porsche around the bend somewhere.”

  “I nixed that idea. This isn’t like the first time when we were so far behind that stopping for a few minutes to chat with Slick didn’t matter.”

  They were passing a house on the ocean side of the road with a sign that read, “This place dangerous to dogs, children, and reasonable people.” The yard was strewn with junk.

  Drake smiled. At least they were warned.

  ***

  Drake and Melody were amazed at the magnificent buildings and the Olympian style swimming pool on the barren hillside above the sea. They were even more surprised at what they saw within the buildings.

  Melody read the information brochure. “It says that Hearst collected items in hundreds of different categories. Including ceilings. I say, who in their right mind collects ceilings?”

  They were gazing up at one of those ceilings at the moment, brought over in pieces from some medieval castle in Europe and reassembled in its current habitat.

  “The man thought big. You can’t deny that.”

  Drake and Melody jerked their heads down to the horizontal. There was no mistaking that resonant voice. Slick smiled easily at them from behind his dark glasses. They helped him take on the coloring of a tourist, along with a garish sport shirt and white sneakers. Only his powerful-looking arms and flat stomach gave away the fact that he probably wasn’t driving one of those campers with the wide outside mirrors that the runners had to dodge all day, like a matador evading the horns of the bull.

  Drake said, “I’m glad to see that you enjoy the finer things in life.”

  “Thought I’d absorb a little culture while I was up here. Let’s stroll over to the pool.”

  They could talk outdoors without being overheard. There wasn’t anything unusual about tourists chatting with each other. Among the Greco-Roman columns that surrounded the pool, they felt as if they had been carried back to an ancient age.

  Melody couldn’t resist asking about the topic that had occupied her thinking all day. “What did they find out about the boat?”

  “Ah yes, you’ve been out of touch in your own little world. Well, it’s going to hit the six o’clock news. What is being published is that it is indeed a miniature submarine, equipped to lob shells of the sort that destroyed the homes in Malibu. It appears that several such shells were fired by it.”

  Slick paused, prompting Drake to ask, “What isn’t being published?”

  “All of the written material in the boat is in Russian, including the signs that say, ‘Watch your head.’”

  “Why is that being suppressed?”

  “The president doesn’t feel that we have enough information to make it public. There’s no sign of a crew, no sign of any enemy ship that might have come in to pick one up. The Navy and Coast Guard have the coast blanketed. The boat has suffered very little structural damage, and wasn’t in danger of sinking. Too many things don’t make sense.”

  “You mean the president doesn’t want to start World War Three? That’s novel. I was young at the time, but as I recall, Roosevelt was aching for an excuse to get into WW Two.”

  “Don’t knock it. Wars hot and cold keep folks like you and me in beer and Porsches. Vietnam’s not going to last forever. I know a little bit about your employment history. Both of you had top secret clearances. Which is why Blade authorized me to tell you this stuff. That and he needs your help.”

  Melody looked at the columns being reflected off Slick’s dark glasses and wondered, not for the firs
t time, what color his eyes were. “What does he want us to do?”

  “You have access to Casey without arousing suspicion. He’s the fair-haired child of the military, because he’s got lots of brass on his board. Also, to give him credit, he’s delivered weapons’ systems on time, within budget, something not all our suppliers do. Of course, he’s always looking for new markets. One thing he’s developing is a mini sub, similar to the one we found.

  “For several reasons, including the coincidence of you being present at both Malibu and Lion Rock, we think he’s got a dog in this hunt, but we don’t know what his game is. Anything you can find out would be appreciated.”

  Drake had a thought. “Any idea where the sub was manufactured?”

  “It was built using the metric system, but the whole world uses metric except us. That’s something we want to find out. Casey’s giving a campaign speech on network television tonight at eight. Give it a listen. Maybe you’ll get some clues.”

  Melody said, “We only see Casey when he decides to drop by, and we never know when that will be. He was just here because of Grace’s murder.”

  “He likes Running California, and he likes you guys. He’ll show up oftener than you think.”

  “Where did they take the sub?”

  “It’s being towed to Monterey, even as we speak.”

  Drake, newly money conscious, said, “You mentioned beer and Porsches. Is any of that going to filter down to us?”

  “To be honest with you, since you’re off the books, you may wind up with Green Stamps.”

  “So we’re doing it for our love of humankind. Where are you going from here?”

  “Thought I’d take a drive up the coast to Monterey. This rugged beauty turns me on.”

  *

  Drake and Melody ate together but not with any of the other runners, so that they could discuss their role as spies. Actually, double agents in a way, since they were being paid by Casey. They decided that because of the things that had happened so far in connection with Running California, this duplicity didn’t bother them, but they didn’t come up with any earthshaking plans either.