A Score to Settle Read online

  More by Donna Huston Murray

  The Ginger Barnes Cozy Mysteries:

  THE MAIN LINE IS MURDER #1

  FINAL ARRANGEMENTS #2

  SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS #3

  NO BONES ABOUT IT #4

  A SCORE TO SETTLE #5

  FAREWELL PERFORMANCE #6 (e-book pending)

  LIE LIKE A RUG #7

  FOR BETTER OR WORSE #8

  The Lauren Beck Crime Novels:

  WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, Book #1

  Hon. Mention 2015 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards

  GUILT TRIP, Book #2

  Hon. Mention 2018 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards

  A Traditional Mystery:

  DYING FOR A VACATION

  A SCORE TO SETTLE

  By Donna Huston Murray

  A Ginger Barnes Cozy Mystery #5

  A SCORE TO SETTLE

  Copyright © 1999 Donna Huston Murray

  Revised 2013

  All rights reserved.

  THIS E-BOOK IS LICENSED for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share it with another person, please purchase it as a gift. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  YOU ARE INVITED TO contact the author via her webpage: https://www.donnahustonmurray.com

  Chapter 1

  DECEMBER, 1999

  "YOU KNOW the doctor only told you to read the sports page because it's so boring, right?” Said as I delivered my husband’s toaster waffles. “Box scores and statistics. Who got arrested for mouthing off at a night club. Boorrr-ing."

  Rip’s blood pressure had been up at his recent physical, so our doctor had written an actual prescription ordering him to read the sports page. Razzing my husband about it was my way of reminding him to slow down and relax.

  His eyes tightened as he extended his hand, and I slapped the Philadelphia Inquirer onto it with a crooked smile.

  To you, Robert Ripley Barnes may be just another forty-two-year old guy in a blue buttoned-down shirt and a patterned tie, but when his cheeks shine with that spicy after-shave and his damp, dark hair looks a little too perfect, I can scarcely resist mussing him up and giving him a really good reason to stay home.

  Rarely works. Okay, NEVER works. Apparently it would be bad form for the head-of-school to chastise a teacher for tardiness if he’s guilty of it himself. Not for nothing do they say, “It’s lonely at the top.”

  "Just curious,” he said as he snapped open the paper. “Did you collect this from the driveway in that outfit?"

  Clutching my pink bathrobe closed at the throat, I answered, “Maybe,” scarcely above a whisper. Rip’s job hadn’t moved us to Philadelphia's famously upscale “Main Line” all that long ago, and I guess I was still adapting. Perhaps an overcoat to run out for the paper?

  Then again, who was around to care? Certainly not Letty MacNair, the zany recluse next door to our left. Her whole wardrobe improved tenfold when she discovered sweat suits at KMart. And nobody else could even see our driveway through the unkempt bushes and trees that edged our yard.

  Still...

  "Maybe you should start picking up your own paper," I suggested, but Rip wasn’t listening.

  "Doc said you wouldn't get it," he groused, abandoning the last of his coffee.

  "The paper?"

  "The sports page thing. I shouldn't have told you."

  "Nonsense," I said, happy to resume the game. "Just because I think it's soap opera fodder doesn't mean..."

  "Gin," he interrupted.

  "...that you can't read it to your..."

  "Gin!" Rip grasped my arm. Then he turned the first page around for me to read.

  "TOMCATS' QUARTERBACK FOUND MURDERED," screamed the three-inch headline.

  My heart pounded and my mouth went dry. “Doug’s dead?” My cousin Michelle’s husband. They were expecting their first child in March.

  "No, no," Rip said, patting my hand. "I thought that, too. Keep reading."

  "Tim Duffy Shot in Stadium Training Room," the subheading clarified.

  I couldn't help it; I sighed with relief. Without question, losing Doug would devastate the fragile mother-to-be.

  I scanned what little the police had released. "After the Tomcats' 28–20 victory over the Houston Hombres, backup quarterback Tim Duffy lingered in the training room to use the whirlpool...body discovered by a security guard closing up...police theorize that a crazed fan hid in the stadium...no suspects as yet...shocked the sports world...great loss..."

  A color photo showed Tim Duffy kneeling with a blue on blue helmet under his arm as he stared off into two-dimensional space. A worldly shrewdness emanated from his shadowed eyes, plus a ruthlessness most ambitious people were wise enough to hide. Otherwise he was just another extremely fit, brown-haired athlete who would never see his thirtieth birthday.

  "Too close," I remarked, folding over the paper as our thirteen-year-old approached.

  "What's up?" Chelsea asked as she glanced between her father and me. Today’s yellow pullover highlighted the nutmeg-colored hair she had inherited from me.

  "Teammate of Uncle Doug got shot," Rip answered honestly. Our kids’ friends were well aware of the Barnes family’s connection to the newest expansion team.

  Chelsea's onyx eyes widened and her lips formed a perfect, choir-boy O.

  "Wow," our son, Garry, piped up, dropping his backpack at his sister’s heels. Genetics had given him his dad's hazel/green eyes and dark, straight hair. Still only eleven, he was an awkward, ingenuous kid who occasionally came up with astonishingly mature remarks. At the moment I couldn’t tell if he was amazed or thrilled by the awful things grown-ups did to each other.

  "Where'd it happen?" he asked.

  "Training room in Nimitz stadium. Duffy stayed late to use the whirlpool."

  "Wow," Garry repeated. "I wonder if Uncle Ronnie was there."

  We had been with Michelle's brother, Ronnie Covington, scarcely two weeks ago on Thanksgiving. What had begun the afternoon as a title-of-convenience for Garry had evolved into a gold-plated badge of honor. “My Uncle Ronnie is a cinematographer for NFL Films!”

  Chelsea's thoughts had gone another direction. "Premeditated?" she wondered aloud as she settled onto her chair.

  "Not necessarily." Rip cast me a glance that said, “See what your snooping started?”

  I sympathized with him. I did. The painfully human problems that crossed a head-of-school’s desk on a daily basis were enough to make any father protective. But kids needed to develop a sense of justice, too, and a willingness to do the right thing.

  "Lots of people carry guns," Garry observed as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I bet with the big bucks those players earn, they really need 'em, too."

  I wanted to dispute my son's logic; but unfortunately, he was probably right. Instead I went to collect waffles for him and put in some for his sister.

  Gretsky, our young Irish setter, wandered in, glanced around with proprietary interest, then trotted over to his breakfast. His chewing sounded like footsteps on crushed rock.

  To change the subject Rip asked if we wanted to hear the entries for Bryn Derwyn’s mascot. In the small private school’s brief decade and a half of existence, nobody had agreed on a name for the sports teams, so each coach made up his or her own. The completion of a new gym was the perfect time to correct the problem. Rip, of course, had the deciding vote.

  "Do tell," I encouraged him.

  Fork in mid-air, he consulted the ceili
ng as if seeking heavenly intervention. "Dorks, Druids, Banshees, Baby Elephants..." punctuated with the fork.

  "You're kidding!”

  He swore he was not.

  "What else?"

  "Dragons, Deer, Dickenses, that by the chair of the English department, of course. The Doldrums, by the faculty at large." It was that time of year, early December. Winter vacation never came soon enough at a school.

  "Whatever will you choose?"

  Rip shrugged.

  "Make one up yourself, Dad," Chelsea suggested.

  "Wouldn't be kosher," he muttered as if he were tempted to do exactly that.

  Minutes later our kids hurried out to their bus, leaving Gretsky to spin out his frustration in the front hall.

  Rip and I cleared dishes in a mutual mood of gloom while the dog tip-toed back and forth between us. Then Rip, too, went to collect his overcoat.

  At the front door he grasped my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, "You know the murder can't possibly have anything to do with Doug or Michelle." He wiggled my shoulders a little until I lifted my chin. “You know that.”

  “Yes,” I agreed grudgingly, and he pulled me in close.

  The phone rang, and Rip released me to reach around the corner to answer it.

  "Hold on," I stalled my husband as he twisted the doorknob. At this hour it was probably a teacher calling in sick, delayed by car trouble, something like that. Yet after the greeting, I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, "It's Ronnie."

  Unfortunately, I had already operated as a “concerned citizen” too many times to suit Rip, so a call from that particular cousin right after an NFL player's sensational murder alarmed my mate. I could tell by the flint in his scowl.

  "It's about Michelle,” I quickly added. Probably something worrisome about the baby judging by Ronnie’s voice.

  Rip mouthed a silent “Call me at work,” then shut the door hard behind him.

  As I settled my backside on the kitchen counter and the receiver against my ear, I thought of the Morton's salt slogan, "When it rains, it pours."

  Maybe it could be our family motto.

  Chapter 2

  "IS THE BABY STILL OKAY?" I asked Ronnie anxiously. His sister, Michelle, had suffered at least one miscarriage I knew of and recurrences were always an unspoken fear.

  "So far," he answered. "I think. But it's serious, Gin. She and Doug are both pretty freaked out."

  Growing up, Ron always called me "Cuz," in spite of–or perhaps because of–my protests. His using my real name now underscored our new, totally adult relationship and emphasized the gravity of his phone call. With that one-word change, Ronnie's fears for his sister and her baby raced along the wire and burned straight through to my bones.

  A needed breath softened my voice. "Exactly what happened?"

  "All I know is they're keeping her in the hospital a few days. When she gets out, she'll have to take it really easy."

  A bachelor in his mid-thirties, Ronnie was unfamiliar with the grittier details of childbearing and seemed eager to keep it that way. Who could blame him? I've been through it all twice, and I run away screaming from any conversation that starts with, "My labor lasted..."

  "So what do you want me to do?"

  Ronnie chuckled. "Didn't your dad call you Tink, or Tinker, or something because you were always trying to fix things?"

  The memory physically hurt. "Briefly," I admitted. "Until some other kids picked up on it." And altered it to mock me–Tinkle Bell, Stinker...

  "Good old Tink,” Ron said, remembering. “I knew I called the right cousin."

  That was it, the one unguarded line that brought all my childhood affection for my cousin rushing back. Suddenly I longed for the chance to mend what time and distance had done to our relationship. And, as it turned out, I was about to get my wish.

  "Come on,” I urged. “Out with it."

  Ron got to his point by way of the mulberry bush. "Since it's Doug and Michelle’s first year in Norfolk, they don’t know anybody well enough to ask them for help. And of course Doug's mother is way the hell out in California. Plus she works, and anyway she hasn't really come to grips with Coren's suicide." Doug’s sister. Yet another tragedy, but farther removed, having occurred on a thinner branch of the family tree. I didn't really know the details, and I certainly couldn't ask.

  "It's much too early," I sympathized. Two months to adjust to a daughter's death? I doubted that two lifetimes would be enough.

  "And Harriet and Cynthia are..."

  "...are Harriet and Cynthia," I finished for him. My mother and her sister were endearing eccentrics who "meant well," as they say, and sometimes even did well. But no one would mistake them for practical women. Either one could be counted on to cause Michelle more work and anxiety, not less. Then, too, my mother didn't drive and Aunt Harriet shouldn't.

  As far as useful relatives on the Siddons side of the family went, that left me and Gloria, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Stan's overachieving daughter. Gloria holds the World's Busiest Woman title hands down–just ask her.

  I began to wonder exactly what I was talking myself into. "So what do you want me to do, Ronnie? Go down there? Clean the house? Cook a little? What?" During the season did professional football players go home for dinner like regular people? And if so, what did they eat? Roast ox? A pig in a blanket?

  "Sure, Gin. That would really be nice. I think having somebody sensible around would really calm things down, and believe me, after this scare over the baby both of them need all the calming down they can get."

  "I'll have to make a few arrangements for myself, but I can probably work something out."

  "Great. Thanks, Cuz."

  I laughed a little uncomfortably over the confession I was about to make.

  "You know," I began. "The way you quizzed me on Thanksgiving I thought for a second you wanted me to go down there and see what I could find out about the murder."

  I laughed again at the folly of such a thought. Armies of police and lab technicians were already on the case. The media was no doubt poised to saturate the news with non-reports of the authorities' non-progress for weeks to come. The most scrutinized murder investigation of the year? Ha! Experts would be dining out on the lurid event for years. The more I thought about my ridiculous knee-jerk notion, the giddier I got.

  My cousin laughed a little, too, but not quite enough.

  "Sorry," I finally apologized into the silence. "Tension. Once the cork's out."

  Ronnie said, "Don't worry about it," then added, "To tell the truth..."

  Not sufficiently sobered, I interrupted. "Oh, do tell the truth, Ronnie.” Said like a little girl, or perhaps an embarrassed adult who suddenly felt defensive.

  "To tell the truth," Ronnie resumed. "You're not that far off."

  Thunk. The sound of the other shoe falling. I waited for my lungs to re-inflate, then I rattled off, "Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute," in my cousin's ear. "Back up. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

  "What do you think I'm saying?"

  "That Doug and Michelle are more than marginally affected by the, the...shooting?"

  "Go on..."

  "I can't. That's as far as you've taken me, Ronnie. Dammit. You go on."

  "I told you Michelle was in the hospital because of stress, didn't I?"

  Had he? "No. I don't believe you mentioned that. No. I'm sure you did not."

  "Well, she is."

  "Stress over the murder?"

  "Yes. No, not exactly. Well, maybe."

  "Ronnie!"

  "Okay," he said. "Okay. I guess I better explain." He paused to gather his breath. "They're both distressed about the murder, okay?"

  "Did Doug have anything to do with it?"

  Silence.

  "Ronnie. I suggest you tell me absolutely everything you know. I will not, get that, WILL NOT, go down to Norfolk to become an accessory after the fact."

  "Whatever that is."

  "Right."

 
; "Doug didn't have anything to do with it."

  "But ..."

  "But they're both afraid... Oh, hell, Gin. Tim Duffy and Doug have a history, okay. I'd rather let Michelle tell you about it. I can only give you the bottom line."

  "By all means–go straight to the bottom line." My arms had crossed my chest like the steel bar on a warehouse door, something Ronnie could surely sense.

  He sighed. "Michelle really is having trouble keeping the baby," he reaffirmed, "and she really doesn't need to be worrying about whether her husband might be suspected of murder. And Doug is obviously in the middle of his very crucial first season with the Tomcats, and he really can't afford to be worrying about his wife. So I figured you've been through more stuff like this than the rest of us, and maybe you could like, reassure them, or something."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it."

  "Does Doug have an alibi?"

  "He was with Michelle."

  My throat clenched.

  "Gin?"

  "Yes, Ronnie?"

  "Will you go?"

  "Yes, Ronnie. I'll go."

  Chapter 3

  HEAPING HOUSEHOLD DETAILS on top of the myriad of responsibilities Rip already carried would have been unrealistic, not to mention unkind. I phoned my mother.

  "Gin, how nice to hear from you," she began as if my call had no other purpose. "I'm just waiting for Gracie."

  "Who's Gracie, Mom?" Keeping track of Cynthia's friends was as pointless as it was impossible.

  "You remember Gracie. My high school chum who lives in Montclair. Her Ralph died a few years ago, so we've been back in touch. She's coming down for a visit."

  My hopes sank. "I guess that answers that," I muttered mostly to myself.

  "Answers what, dear?"

  "I'm going to Norfolk to help Michelle out for a little while. I was going to ask you to stay here while I'm gone."

  "Oh," she exclaimed, "Oh!" as if my one sentence told her everything. "You're going down there to investigate why that terrible man was shot, aren't you?" It was not a question. Mother had made up her mind.