A Score to Settle Page 8

  Supratech held several technology companies under its corporate umbrella, all of which manufactured or developed complicated equipment that either made other equipment work better or cleaned up after their messes.

  Jack Laneer had come to the Tomcats' head coaching job directly from a Cinderella college team nobody outside of a neighboring Louisiana county ever heard of. In other words, he was a judiciously chosen bargain. The New York Times and the St. Louis Ledger sports columnists congratulated him for making the transition to pro coaching with ease. The Philadelphia Inquirer chose to wait and see, but that was no surprise. Philadelphians are like that.

  A book dropping in another aisle startled me into checking my watch. Yikes! I patted my computer monitor goodbye, deposited the materials I used on a rolling cart, and rushed out the door.

  "You're late," my pregnant cousin pointed out when I arrived at her hospital room. Dressed in a huge blue denim jumper and a pink blouse, she sat on the edge of her bed swinging an extra-wide red ballet flat on her toe, back and forth, back and forth. I figured Doug had selected the outfit in haste.

  "Sorry," I apologized, finally remembering that discharged hospital patients were about as eager to get moving as greyhounds leaving the gate.

  "Will you forgive me if I take you out to lunch?"

  Michelle's tension evaporated, leaving her wilted. "No, thanks,” she replied. “Let's just get home."

  She eased her bulk down from the bed and began to reach for a black overnight bag, but I beat her to it.

  We remained silent while a nurse transported her to the entrance curb in a wheelchair, silent really until we were half a mile from the hospital when Michelle finally asked why I’d been late.

  "Research at a library."

  "Find anything useful?" She was making an effort to sound interested, but she wouldn't remember my answer if she heard it at all; she was that exhausted.

  "Just some background. Nothing earth-shattering."

  That satisfied her for the moment. She lolled her head against the headrest and shut her eyes.

  She brightened as soon as we entered Broad Bay Point Greens and drove by the "Cart Crossing" signs. When I stopped in her driveway, she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the Jeep before I could turn off the ignition and do the same. Her eyes drank in the sight of the dark shutters against the earthy brick red, the frosted glass design on the door windows, the ornamental grasses rattling in the breeze, the seagull overhead, and the sky beyond.

  I handed my cousin her keys, and she entered her home beaming with pride.

  "How about some tomato soup and a tuna sandwich?" I offered.

  "Toasted cheese instead of tuna?”

  "I can probably manage that," I said, keeping it upbeat, keeping my worries to myself.

  We ate, and, as predicted, Michelle could scarcely wait to take a nap.

  "Mind if I go out for a while?" I inquired from her bedroom doorway.

  "No. No, of course not." She was already under the covers, her denim jumper replaced by a nightgown.

  "You’ll be okay until dinner?"

  "Yes. Go. Go." She wiggled a few fingers to shoo me out.

  I went, but still I worried–about her and Kewpie/QB.

  And about the timing of her recent crises, which came so suddenly after the news of Tim Duffy's death. Had it been caused entirely by stress? Or had it been brought on by something worse—real fear? I’d procrastinated my research on Doug until last and had never gotten to it.

  Biting my lip to punish my disloyal suspicions, I shook the thought away. Doug and Michelle had been at home together at the time of the murder. Having dinner. Watching TV.

  Doug and Michelle–together. That's what they said. So what if I hadn’t gotten to research Doug as a suspect? They said they were together, and that was enough for me. Let the police break their alibi if they could. I had plenty of other pots to stir.

  Plenty.

  Chapter 12

  PARTY CITY IN COLLINS Square claimed to be "The Discount Party Super Store," and so it was. Two weeks and one day shy of Christmas, the vast seasonal aisle to the right of the entrance resembled Didi's closet prior to a big date.

  The baby-shower aisle ran perpendicular to the holiday items, just in from the shelves facing the checkout. Pink and blue ribbons and paper storks, "It's a Boy" banners, tissue umbrellas, invitations shaped like Teddy bears, and a thousand other miscellaneous items hung from wire hooks on pegboard, not that you could easily find the pegboard. Every item was frivolous–yes. Silly–yes. Tasteful...no.

  Panic seemed to rise from my fingertips to my ears as I did the aisle up and back. Luella Hixson's dismissive, "You mean one o' them white bread with no crust cucumber sandwich kinda showers?" taunted me, and I developed a low-grade blush trying to imagine what a twenty-four inch tissue accordion baby bottle would look like in the home of Teal and Morani Todd.

  "It's for a good cause; it's for a good cause; it's for a good cause," I chanted as I loaded a plastic basket with my selections. A contraption you were supposed to hang from a chandelier made the cut. It opened into fluffy accordion-tissue streamers, four of them that swooped down the sides of your dining table. Pink and blue, of course. Plus a fourteen inch stork and a couple of balloons for the mailbox. Ordinary air from ordinary lungs would have to do–I refused to return for helium. I thought about little upside-down umbrella candy cups, but in the end I simply couldn't do it, not with Luella's "Lord, you white people slay me" echoing in my ears.

  The checkout clerk answered my inquiry about a baby store with a jerk of her thumb. "Babies 'R' Us" she added, straight across the street. Investigating a murder would not get me out of choosing a shower gift. Balancing the national budget and curing cancer would not get me out of choosing a gift.

  The entrance arches for Babies "R" Us were sheltered by a short Spanish tile overhang, but inside looked like every spacious baby-equipment store I'd ever seen.

  As my own kids were now eleven and thirteen, I requested guidance in my selection. Babies might not have changed, but baby-related products certainly had.

  "Prams are extremely popular," oozed the clerk. We had just passed one valued at $439.99.

  "Umbrella strollers are out?"

  "Um, well..." she hedged. "How about a vibrating hammock swing with a lounge chair?"

  "How about this bouncer seat?" I countered, framing it with my hands

  "Wrapped?"

  "Wrapped," I agreed. "Put a pacifier in the ribbon, okay?"

  By the time I paid up, I could scarcely wait to get over to the stadium to spy on murder suspects.

  EVEN AFTER A FORTY minute drive into Norfolk, a fifteen minute search for the stadium area, and a couple spins around the long block to find the entrance Doug recommended, I was still a bit early for ogling exiting Tomcats. A stroll around outside seemed worthwhile. Admire the sights. Get the lay of the land.

  Nimitz Stadium, named for Chester W. Nimitz, one of only two five-star Admirals from World War II, resided across from Norfolk's Scope Arena and was surrounded by St. Pauls Boulevard, Brambleton Avenue and Monticello. The lot where I left my car bordered on the latter, so I set out past the phone company's building toward the "newly expanded" Open House Diner. The Greyhound Bus station on the corner of Brambleton looked as overused and under-cleaned as every other bus station I'd ever seen.

  From the brief lawns gracing the street sides of the sports complexes, some winter-bare trees waved me around the corner onto Monticello. Now within sight was a three-story shopping mall named "MacArthur Center," its tightly bound parking garages still wearing the look of fresh cement.

  I reasoned that on game day lots of people would be in the area for lots of different reasons, allowing an escaping murderer to explain himself, or herself, without much difficulty. And still I couldn't imagine a crazed fan having the poise to calm down and slip away unnoticed. Someone connected to the victim who premeditated every move seemed much more likely.

  I retreated
, then turned right past Scope. The sun hung low at that hour, and already the short December day hovered near freezing. My eyes had teared up and my earlobes tingled from the cold conducted by my earrings, but I stood a moment longer contemplating the two sports complexes.

  If Scope arena was two sugar cookies with chocolate filling sewn together with zigzags of white thread, Nimitz was baklava–honey colored layers of wafer cut in the shape of a stop sign. The blimp perspective on TV revealed it to be a fragile gold ring with an emerald center, something the Super Bowl jeweler could really work with should the Tomcats ever rise so high.

  The lone guard inside the office entrance Doug suggested rose from his seat behind his curved desk. White-haired and lean, he puzzled over Doug's informal permission slip long enough to memorize it. Either he would send it along to the FBI for a fingerprint check, or he would let me in. I couldn't guess which from his expression.

  "Douggie's cousin-in-law, eh?" the man remarked after he formed his conclusion. "Know where you're goin'?"

  "I'm new in town."

  He gestured thata-way as he opened a gate at the end of the desk. "Whole bizness only been here two years anyhoo." He chuckled at himself then strode through the lobby toward a hall with elevators and a door at the end.

  On the way past I admired the welcoming decor: plush green Astroturf carpet, two orange sofas bracketed by walls displaying a huge aerial photograph of the stadium's opening day. Opening day because a ceremonial wedge of six twin-tailed F-14's flew overhead. Piloted only by top guns, these "Tomcats" looked a lot like the triangular staples used to secure pictures into a wooden frame. Norfolk was presently the only Naval Air Station that flew F-14's, so naming the city's professional football team after them seemed perfectly natural.

  The guard led me through the interior door into the lowest walkway that ringed the stadium, the only level with a cattle chute onto the field.

  "Locker room's over there. You can't go in," he added as he turned to leave.

  A cold blast of witch's breath blew in off the field, giving the hall the humidity and smell of a crypt. The walkway’s halogen lights added to the eeriness.

  I rested my back on the wall and my elbow on a green wire trash can.

  Two unmarked doors of gray metal punctuated the northern direction I faced, the locker room door to my right and the training room to its left, according to the news coverage I'd watched after the murder. Apparently the two rooms were connected inside.

  In between monitoring both doors I contemplated all the ways there were to make money from a football franchise: parking, tickets, endorsed souvenirs, concessions, stadium ads, programs and program ads, radio and TV ads and coverage, super box rentals and catering, and probably other frills I forgot.

  Attendance mattered for most all of those categories. Attendance depended upon a winning record, and a winning record depended upon the men who would soon file out of the two doors in the opposite wall.

  "Hey. Whatchu doin' ere?" He was twice my size, two eighty or more, and his confrontation two steps out of the locker room made me think of street gangs and rape.

  I told him I was waiting for my cousin.

  "Who you cousin?" he inquired none too sweetly. I wondered whether this was his usual personality or whether he secretly worried that I might shoot him.

  "Doug Turner."

  "Yeah? You want I should tell Douggie you here?" He was calling my bluff, or so he thought.

  "Not if he's in the shower," I said. "We're not that kind of cousin."

  Two eighty snorted his disappointment, turned and walked up the ramp without announcing me to anyone. I hadn't recognized him from my research, or from watching the games on TV.

  Still, he had offered me a chance to think about exactly who I was poking with my pin of suspicion. Men more than twice my size. Men with super physical prowess and cunning. College graduates almost to a man, for college football was their prep school and their farm team together, the stage from which they were selected for adulation and wealth most of us would never know.

  At the Thanksgiving table Aunt Harriet had asked Ronnie what a certain few players were like as people. Before answering Ronnie glanced at Doug with a conspiratorial smile, a smile that telegraphed that the question came frequently and would be answered with harmless, disposable words.

  Uncle Stan noticed, too, and cut through Doug's intended cotton candy with a cleaver.

  "I'll tell you," he said as if his cardigan sweater suddenly developed starch. He had been pouting at his teaspoon, dismissing it as a possible Dolly Parton's bathtub. Now he tossed it aside with a clank and spread his gnarled hands. "Plenty of them bastards are spoiled brats. Present company excepted, of course," he glanced placatingly toward Doug. "They got talents you and I can only dream of–phenomenal talents–twenty-ten vision maybe, superior eye hand coordination. A competitive streak the size of Canada. Strength, speed, stamina. Size and smarts." Stan paused to suppress a small belch, which nobody missed because we were collectively holding our breath.

  He waved a hand. "Ever since they was little, everybody's been telling them they was special, treating them special, making them think they stood out from the crowd just because they could knock other guys down and maybe catch a ball." He frowned his parental-style lament. "Their heads get turned, just like happens to movie stars and billionaires."

  Ronnie bunched his napkin into a wad and tossed it aside. "You're right, Stan," he admitted. "A lot of them are blessed and pampered and probably even arrogant. But what can you expect? If that many people fussed over you, sooner or later you might think you deserved it, too."

  Michelle nodded. "Either that or they go completely the other way and take no credit at all."

  "What do you mean?" Harriet asked.

  "Lots of the players are very religious," Michelle elaborated. "They think God's responsible for everything good that's ever happened to them."

  "Where do you stand?" Harriet asked Doug rather bluntly, even for her.

  "Yeah. How come you turned out so normal?" Stan wondered, too.

  Doug's blond complexion glowed crimson under the family's scrutiny. When he finally determined that yes, we truly expected an answer, he bucked up and gave us one.

  "I'm just a hired gun," he said. "When I'm out of bullets, they'll get another gun."

  Stan interrupted everyone else's silence. "Naw," he said, making us realize how wedded he was to his theory or how deeply he was into his cups.

  Generously, Doug helped him out. "Then again, whenever I got cocky, my mother refused to let me have dessert." He lifted a forkful of mincemeat and crust.

  Michelle raised her glass of cider. "Here's to your mother," she said, but Doug couldn't hold his smile. His mother was presently out in California alone, struggling to cope with her daughter's death.

  Shivering in the icy hallway outside the Tomcats' locker room, it was Stan's stubborn convictions that led me to think of another comment I heard. About the time the O.J. Simpson murder trial eclipsed the weather as the conversational topic for strangers, I had taken a camera to a repair shop in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.

  "It's football," the owner reflected as he tinkered with my old Yashika. "Gives players the impression they can get what they want with force."

  And another remark by a man in his sixties who still played club football: "You can hit people...and it's legal." This on a TV special about the prevalence of the game. The reporter's interview with a little boy in his first peewee year sounded much the same. Both athletes were pleased as punch to have found a behavioral loophole.

  Just then a maintenance guy burst around the corner, scaring a squeal out of me. He had intended to throw an empty cup in the trash can I was leaning on, but he braked to a halt and gawked at me.

  I told him I was waiting for my cousin.

  "Think I oughta frisk ya?" The name on his blue overalls said, "Frank," which he certainly was.

  "You and what army?"

  "Me and my little, aw, s
hucks, you're too easy." He turned on his heel and disappeared, but not before clarifying the point to which two-eighty had indirectly alluded. Women stood in this hallway regularly, waiting for their husbands or boyfriends; or, if they were fans, hoping for a glimpse of the players.

  The point was, it didn't take much strength to pull a trigger.

  Soon two men exited the locker room carrying gym bags. The darker one with a huge diamond stud sparkling from his left ear paused to hammer his finger in the air. "No way, man, Butkus hit much harder than Lambert. Man, that Butkus was a fuckin' truck." Since the speaker was in his late twenties, even younger than me, I understood the discussion to be rhetorical.

  When he glanced my way I held my breath. From all the TV close-ups I knew he was Walker Cross, #86, the receiver whose bonuses were in jeopardy because he lost so much playing time last Sunday. Laneer had benched him after he tripped reaching for an overthrown toss by Tim Duffy. I couldn’t be certain that he blamed the murder victim for his loss of playing time, but my personal guess was yes.

  Gold chains thick enough to provide snow traction for an eighteen-wheeler rested in the v of his open-throated shirt. He wore a baseball hat backwards on his shaved head, elaborate gym shoes, a gold nugget ring, and a thick gold watch. Everything about him screamed money and ego enough to flaunt it.

  Dismissing me as insignificant, he resumed his discussion.

  Cross's companion happened to be a direct beneficiary of Duffy's death–the fading star, Willet Smith, #17, formerly the Tomcats' third string quarterback, presently second in the lineup just behind my cousin’s husband. He wore a quiet, thoughtful expression in response to Cross's powerful personality. Lighter skinned and smooth-walking in his buffed loafers and camelhair sport coat, he wore his hair like lumps of yarn above a Fu Manchu goatee. His eyes might have been green or hazel. His slacks were black wool and perfectly creased.