“Right, and you do a lot of volunteer runs for charity as well, don’t you?”
“We do all kinds of events,” he confirmed. “We do sun runs in the spring for training to get new runners out. We do marathon runs. We do trail runs. We do a running-for-money thing,” he noted, “and then we generally give it to injured runners or some of the training camps that need extra funds. We’re really quite busy in a socially responsible sense.”
“Did you ever have anybody make threats or anything like that? Or has anyone ever attempted to hurt somebody and had to be kicked out of the group or anything major like that?”
He replied, “We did have a couple get into an argument in the parking lot.”
“Did they come to blows or anything?”
“The woman tried to run him over with a car,” he stated.
Kate stopped. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They solved it amicably, and they were running afterward, so it wasn’t that bad, but it was shocking for most of us.”
“You want to tell me some more of those details, please?”
He explained, “They’d gotten into a dispute on the trail, and she had accused him of jumping in front of her. She was really popular and very competitive,” he noted. “You understand that some runners are, and some aren’t. In this particular case, she was quite competitive.”
“And beyond that?”
“Well, she went to get in her vehicle and drove forward. He wouldn’t get out of the way, and he kept saying, ‘Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me. Is this what you’re really all about?’ And she surged forward in her car and actually hit him. He was pretty shocked that she would do something like that, and I think she was shocked that she had actually done it. She hopped out immediately, apologizing like crazy, saying she hadn’t done it on purpose.”
“Did he believe her?”
“I don’t know. They weren’t ever what I would call friends again, but they certainly managed to continue to run.”
“Do they still?”
“I haven’t seen him in a long time,” he mentioned. “I thought he moved to Alberta or something. He just drifted away eventually. He wasn’t nearly as mouthy right afterward, which maybe was a good thing.”
“Was he before?”
“Oh yeah, he was one of those guys who knew everything and who generally grated on the nerves of a lot of the members, but you can’t really mow him down based on his personality,” he protested.
“No, of course not,” she said. “That’s not why I’m even asking. I’m just trying to figure out if any of these recent murders has something to do with disgruntled past runners.”
“I can’t see it,” he replied. “We’re all about health, and, you know, being the best people that we can be physically.”
“I get that, but physically healthy doesn’t always mean emotionally healthy.”
He snorted. “No, you’ve got that right. Sometimes they’ve got the most immature attitudes of anybody I know.”
“So, I know it probably sounds like an imposition, but I just need to check out that this guy is in the clear. What was the name of the woman, by the way?” When he gave the name, she stopped and said, “Pardon?” He repeated the woman’s name. “Jenna? That’s one of my dead victims.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah,oh my Godis right,” she snapped. “Was she alone in the whole thing?”
“Yes—and no,” he replied slowly. “That best friend of hers was involved too. Egging her on, you know? She was good at that. The both of them were. If one wasn’t egging the other on, it was in reverse. The two of them had this weird relationship.”
“How much did you interact with them afterward?”
“Well, they came for quite a while, and then they distanced themselves. They haven’t been part of the club for a long time.”
“And what about him?”
“Same thing. All parties involved were disciplined for their behaviors. I mean, that’s not exactly the stuff we as a club want to get a name for.”