"He said they were going to ship her back to Mexico, so he married her to keep her in the country," Anjewierden said.

He'd been spending some time in Tucson, Heikki said, and liked it down there.

Anjewierden said he was concerned, but not entirely convinced he wasn't being conned by his joke-playing friend.

"Just be careful," Anjewierden told him. "You can get in trouble for that."

The two had planned to go to the Fiesta Bowl together a month or so later, but Anjewierden could never track Heikki down.

In late January 2005, Barry Makarewicz reached Heikki on his cell phone as his friend was driving out of town on his way to a new home.

He told Makarewicz about Ana but said the marriage was a secret. She was college-educated, he said, but couldn't get a job in this country.

Ana told police she had known Heikki for three years and that she had met him on the Internet. She had three children, ages 12, 13 and 17, from a previous relationship, but the children spent most of the time with their father. Ana's boys were well-spoken and polite, according to some of Heikki's Salt Lake friends who met them later. Ana had relatives in Mexico and frequently traveled back and forth between the two countries.

Neighbors and people who knew them as a couple said the two got along well and never fought.

According to interviews and reports, Heikki was working doing landscaping in Tucson for a while. But in February, about three weeks after his move to Arizona, he suffered an injury that marked his descent into what friends said was depression and drinking.

Heikki told friends he stepped off a curb wrong and slipped a disc in his back. One of his legs was partially paralyzed. In fact, he could hardly move. He certainly couldn't run.

Heikki tried to rehabilitate the injury, and even traveled to Mexico for treatment. Progress was slow, according to friends he called in Salt Lake City.

In early August, Heikki met the rest of his family in Lake Tahoe for his mother's 80th birthday. Heikki was walking, but with a limp. Ana did not attend the gathering, and Heikki did not tell his family about her.

It seems Ron Barness was one of the last people to see Heikki on the Salt Lake trails that were his second home.

It was mid-August, and Heikki was most likely passing through town on his way back to Arizona from Lake Tahoe. Barness was going down the Shoreline Trail behind the U. Heikki was headed up.

As acquaintances and neighbors in the Avenues, the two men had known each other since 1990. "Tucker's grown," Heikki noted about Barness' golden retriever. Heikki was friendly as always and asked about business at Barness' adventure travel company.

"We talked for a minute, then we both went on," Barness said.

It is unclear whether Heikki re-injured his back and leg or if he lost interest in running again when he returned to Arizona. No one saw him run a step after that.

On Aug. 22, Ana accepted a job teaching math to the 57 students of a rural high school up north. The couple packed their bags in Tucson and moved to the dusty town of Ash Fork, Ariz.

But soon things got bad. Very bad.

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Wednesday: Heikki's death in Arizona.

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E-mail: lucy@desnews.com