by Meg Cabot
I hand the pad and pen back to him. “Goodbye, Detectives,” I say, and turn to go.
“Aw, come on,” the detective calls after me. “Heather! Don’t be that way!”
“Can’t we all just get along?” Marty wants to know. He’s laughing so hard, he can barely get the words out.
When I get to the elevator, I turn and tell them what I think of them. With my middle finger.
But this just makes them laugh harder.
They’re wrong, what they say about a crisis bringing out the best in New Yorkers. It so doesn’t.
18
Don’t let love pass you like a headlight
Carrying your heart on through the night
No use in waiting for things to happen
Pull on over, put up a fight.
“Don’t Let Love”
Written by Heather Wells
I make it back to Fischer Hall in one piece…more or less. I can’t find a cab—there just aren’t any. The few cars I see on the road are cop cars. One of them bottoms out on Sixth Avenue, then sits there, its rear wheels spinning, while a bunch of people come out of the nearby coffee shop and Gap to help them get unstuck.
Not me, though. I’ve had my fill of cops for the day.
I’m still grumpy about the autograph thing when I finally step into my office…only to find Tom in my seat, and the door to his office closed. Behind it, I hear the murmur of Dr. Kilgore’s voice.
“Oh, come on,” I say, yanking off my knit hat. I can feel my hair floating in the air because of all the static, but I don’t care. “You’re telling me she’s here again?”
“For the rest of the week, I’m afraid,” Tom says glumly. “But cheer up. Tomorrow’s Friday.”
“Still.” I pull off my coat and slump into Sarah’s chair. “I feel violated. Who’s in there?”
“Cheryl Haebig,” he says.
“Again?”
He shrugs. “Her roommate got killed. She’s all broken up about it.”
I glower at the Monet print on the wall. “Lindsay wasn’t as great as everyone thinks she was,” I hear myself say.
Tom raises his eyebrows. “Hello?”
“Well, she wasn’t,” I say. “You know she totally sweet-talked Manuel into giving her his key to the caf. What did she need it for? She told him she left something in there that she had to get. But why didn’t she go to one of the RAs if that was the case? They’d have been able to let her in just as easily as Manuel, if all she needed to do was grab something. No, she went to him because he was on his way out to a date and she knew he didn’t have time to wait for her to get whatever it was, and would just hand over the key if she asked for it. So then she’d have it all night. She was working him. The way she worked all the boys. And the girls, even. I mean, Magda was gaga for her.”
“You seem to have a lot of issues with Lindsay,” Tom says. “Maybe you need to talk to Dr. Kilgore next.”
“Shut up,” I advise him.
He grins wickedly. “You got some messages.” And hands them to me.
Jordan Cartwright. Jordan Cartwright. Jordan Cartwright. Tad Tocco.
Wait. Who’s Tad Tocco?
“I’m getting coffee,” Tom says, getting up with his mug. “You want any?
“Yeah,” I say, barely paying attention. “Coffee’d be good.” Who is Tad Tocco, and why is his name so familiar?
Then, after Tom’s left the office, I yell, “Put some hot cocoa in it!”
“Okay,” Tom yells back.
Tom’s office door is tugged open, and Dr. Kilgore sticks her head out to look at me.
“Could you,” she says testily, “keep your voice down, please? I have a very distraught student in here.”
“Oh, sure,” I say guiltily. “Sorry.”
She glares at me and slams the door.
I slump more deeply into my seat. Sarah has left a copy of the school paper on her desk, open to the sports page. There’s a photo of Coach Andrews on it, clapping his hands and yelling at a blur on the court in front of him. The caption reads, Steven Andrews shouts encouragement to his players.
And my blood goes cold in my veins.
Steven. Steven Andrews.
And the next thing I know, I’m on the phone to the Athletic Department.
“Uh, hi,” I say, when someone finally answers the phone. “Is Coach Andrews in today?”
Whoever answers sounds cranky…possibly because he, like me, was forced to come in to work on a Snow Day.
“Where else would he be?” the cranky person asks. “He’s got another game this weekend, you know.”
The guy hangs up on me. But I don’t care. Because I’ve found out what I need to know. Coach Andrews is around. Which means I can go over to the Winer Complex and question him about his relationship with Lindsay….
No, wait. I can’t do that. I promised. I promised everyone I wouldn’t get involved this time….
But I promised Magda I wouldn’t let Lindsay’s name be dragged through the mud. And if Coach Andrews was sleeping with her, as Kimberly suggested, then that meant Lindsay was being taken advantage of by a person in a position of power. Well, as much power as a basketball coach can have over a cheerleader. At the very least, the relationship was completely inappropriate….
But what could Lindsay possibly have left in the cafeteria that she’d needed to give back to Coach Andrews so desperately?
There’s really only one way to find out. Which is why I get up from Sarah’s desk and, after stopping by the recycling pile at the bottom of the basement stairwell and snagging a good-sized box, I hurry out into the lobby, winding my scarf back around my neck and nearly colliding with my boss, who is carrying two mugs of coffee out of the cafeteria.
“Where are you going?” Tom wants to know, eyeing the box.
“Lindsay’s parents called,” I lie. It is seriously scary how easily these things trip off my tongue. It’s no wonder I can’t seem to find the guts to sing in front of anyone. It’s becoming more and more clear my true talent lies in a completely different direction than vocal performance. “They want somebody to clean out her locker over at the Winer Complex.”
Tom looks confused. “Wait…I thought Cheryl and her friends did that already. When they got the sweater.”
“I guess not,” I say, shrugging. “I’ll be back in a bit. ’Bye!”
Before he can say another word, I throw myself out into the wind and cold, using the box to shield my face from the snow. It’s slow going—no one has had a chance to shovel the sidewalks yet, due to the fact that the snow has only slowed down a bit, not stopped. But I have my Timberlands on, so my feet stay dry and relatively warm. And anyway, I like the snow. It covers the empty marijuana baggies and nitrous oxide canisters that litter the sidewalks, and muffles the sounds of sirens and honking car horns. True, car owners won’t be able to dig out their vehicles for a week, since the snowplows—their lights blinking orange and white, orange and white, as they go by, reflecting against high drifts piled on either side of the street—will just cover them again.
But it sure is pretty. Especially in Washington Square Park, where snow now completely fills the basin of the fountain, and has capped the statues of George Washington with wigs of winter white. Icicles glisten on the twisted black branches of trees from which, in another age, criminals were hanged. Only squirrels disturb the white expanse of snow beneath those trees, where once paupers’ graves, not green benches, rested. The dog run is empty, as are the play areas, swings dangling forlornly back and forth in the wind. The only signs of life come from the chess circle, which is, as always, occupied, by homeless people who eschew the dubious safety of the local homeless shelter, and diehard players who are willing to brave the elements in order to get in a good game.
This is how I like my city: all but empty.
God, I really am a jaded New Yorker.
Still, pretty as the town looks, I’m relieved when I pull open the door to the sports complex and am able to stomp t
he snow off my boots and onto the rubber-backed mats inside. My face slowly defrosts as I pull out my ID and show it to the security guard, who waves me through the hand scanner. The building, as always, smells of sweat and chlorine, from the pool. It’s pretty empty—most students don’t seem to feel the need to brave the elements in order to get in their daily workout.
Not so with the Pansies basketball team, though. I spot them as I look over the atrium railing, down on the parquet court below, practicing the slam dunks they aren’t allowed to try during a game, hanging on the rim, that sort of thing. The court looks bigger with all the bleachers pushed back. As I watch, someone passes Mark—I recognize his flattop—the ball.
“Shepelsky,” his teammate says. “Go for a layup.”
Mark expertly catches the ball, dribbles, then shoots. I swear there are three feet of air at least between the soles of his sneakers and the court. When he lands, I hear the same squeak of rubber on a smooth, shiny surface that I heard last night, when Manuel’s masked assailants fled the scene.
Not that that means anything. I mean, all sneakers sound like that. Besides, Mark and his friends were probably in the locker room while Manuel was being stabbed, getting reamed out by their coach. They couldn’t have had anything to do with what happened to him.
Unless.
Unless Coach Andrews was the one who sent them to do it.
I’m letting my imagination run away with me. Best to take myself and my box to Coach Andrews’s office and see if there’s actually anything to this crazy idea of mine before I start making up scenarios in which Steven Andrews is a Svengali with the ability to convince late-adolescent boys to do his smallest bidding….
Maybe in Division I schools, where the basketball coach is second only to God—even more important than the university president—would someone like Coach Andrews have his own personal assistant to guard his privacy. As it is, there’s just a snarky student worker sitting in the outer part of the Athletic Office, reading a battered copy of The Fountainhead.
“Hey,” I say to him. “Coach Andrews around?”
The kid doesn’t even look up from his book, just jerks a thumb in the direction of an open door.
“In there,” he says.
I thank him and approach the doorway, through which I see Steven Andrews sitting at a desk covered with what looks like playbooks. He’s got his head in his hands, and is staring dejectedly down at a piece of paper with a number of X’s and O’s on it. He looks, for all the world, like Napoleon planning a battle.
Or maybe me, making room assignments, since I still haven’t figured out how to work the Housing Department computer system.
“Um, Coach Andrews?” I say.
He looks up. “Yes?” Then, as I pull my hat off and all of my hair tumbles down in a staticky mess around my face, he seems to recognize me. “Oh, hi. You’re…Mary?”
“Heather,” I say, lowering myself into the chair across from his desk. I don’t mind pointing out that the office furniture in the Winer Sports Complex is way nicer than the furniture in my office. No orange vinyl couches here, no sirree. Everything is black leather and chrome.
I’m betting Coach Andrews makes more than twenty-three thousand five hundred a year, too.
Although he doesn’t get all the free Dove Bars he can eat. Probably.
“Right,” he says. “Sorry. Heather. You work over in Fischer Hall.”
“Right,” I say. “Where Lindsay lived.”
I watch his reaction to the name Lindsay carefully.
But there is no reaction. He doesn’t flinch or go pale. He just looks questioning. “Uh-huh?”
Man. This is one tough nut to crack.
“Yes,” I say. “I was just wondering…did anybody clean out her locker?”
Now Coach Andrews looks confused. “Her locker?”
“Right,” I say. “Her locker here at the sports complex. I mean, I assume she had one.”
“I’m sure she did,” Coach Andrews says. “But that’s something you’d probably be better off asking the cheerleading coach, Vivian Chambers? She’d be the one who’d be able to tell you which locker was Lindsay’s, and what the combination is. She’s got an office down the hall. Only I don’t think she made it in today. On account of the snow.”
“Oh,” I say. “The cheerleading coach. Right. Only…well, I’m here now. And I’ve got this box.”
“Well.” Coach Andrews looks like he really wants to help me. Seriously. I mean, the guy has a big game coming up, and he’s actually willing to take the time to help out a fellow New York College employee. One who makes way less money than he does. “I think I could probably get the number and combination from Facilities. Let me give them a call.”
“Wow,” I say. Is he being so super-helpful because he’s actually a nice guy? Or because he feels guilty over what he did to Lindsay? “That is so nice of you. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Coach Andrews says, as he picks up his phone and dials. “I mean, as long as the guys made it into work today…” Someone on the other end picks up, and Steven Andrews says, “Oh, Jonas, great, you made it in. Look, I got a woman from the Housing Department who needs to clean out Lindsay Combs’s locker. I was wondering if you guys had access to the combination. Oh, and also which locker it was, since Viv didn’t make it to work this morning…. You do? Great? Yeah, that’d be great. Okay, yeah, call me back.”
He hangs up and beams at me. “You’re in luck,” he says. “They’re gonna look it up and call back with it.”
I’m stunned. Seriously. “That’s…thanks. That was really nice of you.”
“Oh, no problem,” Coach Andrews says again. “Anything I can do to help. I mean, what happened to Lindsay was so terrible.”
“Wasn’t it?” I say. “I mean, especially since Lindsay—well, she was so popular. It’s hard to believe she had any enemies.”
“I know.” Coach Andrews leans back in his chair. “That’s the part that gets me. She was, like, universally liked. By everyone.”
“Almost everyone,” I say, thinking of Kimberly, who honestly doesn’t seem to have been all that fond of her.
“Well, right,” Coach Andrews says. “I mean, besides whoever it was who did that to her.”
Hmmm. He doesn’t seem to be aware of the animosity between Kimberly and Lindsay.
“Yeah,” I say. “Clearly someone didn’t like her. Or was trying to shut her up about something.”
Steven Andrews’s blue eyes are wide and guileless as they gaze into mine. “About what? I mean, Lindsay was a good kid. That’s what’s been so hard about all this. For me, I mean. For you guys, I’m sure it’s worse. I mean, you and your boss…what’s his name again? Tom Something?”
I blink. “Snelling. Tom Snelling.”
“Yeah,” the coach says. “I mean…he’s new, right?”
“He started last month,” I say. Wait. How did we get off the subject of Lindsay, and on to Tom?
“Where’d he come from?” Coach Andrews wants to know.
“Texas A & M,” I say. “The thing about Lindsay is—”
“Wow,” the coach says. “That must be a big change for him. I mean, going from College Station to the Big Apple. I mean, it’s been rough for me, and I just came down from Burlington.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I imagine that was tough. But Tom’s handling it.” I don’t mention the part about how he wants to quit. “About Lindsay, what I was wondering was—”
“He’s not married, is he?” Coach Andrews asks. Casually.
Too casually.
I stare at him. “Who? Tom?”
“Yeah,” he says. Suddenly I notice his cheeks are turning sort of…well, pinkish. “I mean, I didn’t see a ring.”
“Tom’s gay,” I say. I realize he’s a Division III college basketball coach and all. But really, how dense can this guy be?
“I know,” Coach Andrews says. Now his cheeks are red. “I was wondering if he’s in a relationship with anyone.”
/> I find myself shaking my head at him, blinking. “N-no….”
“Oh.” The coach looks visibly relieved—even happy—to hear this news. “Because I was thinking, you know, it’s hard moving to a new city and starting a new job and all. Maybe he’d want to grab a beer sometime, or something. I don’t—”
His phone rings. Coach Andrews answers it. “Andrews,” he says. “Oh, great. Here, let me grab a pen.”
I sit there while Steven Andrews jots down Lindsay’s locker number and combination, trying to understand what I think I’ve just learned. Because unless I’m mistaken, Coach Andrews is gay.
And seems to want to date my boss.
“Great, thanks so much,” the coach says, and hangs up the phone.
“Here you go,” he says, sliding the piece of paper he’s written toward me. “Just go on down to the women’s locker room, and you’ll find it. Number six twenty-five.”
I take the paper, fold it, and slip it into my pocket in a sort of daze. “Thanks,” I say.
“No problem,” Coach Andrews says. “Where were we, again?”
“I…I…” I feel my shoulders sag. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, right, Tom,” he says. “Tell him to call me sometime. You know. If he ever wants to hang out.”
“Hang out,” I echo. “With you.”
“Yeah.” Coach Andrews must see something in my face that alarms him, since he asks, looking suddenly anxious, “Wait, was that totally inappropriate? Maybe I should just call him myself.”
“Maybe,” I say faintly, “you should.”
“Right.” The coach nods. “You’re right. I should. I just felt like—well, you know. You seem cool, and maybe you’d…but never mind.”
This was, I decided, either the most elaborate attempt ever to draw suspicion away from a murder suspect, or Coach Steven Andrews was, in fact, gay.
