by R. J. Lee
“It was nice chatting with you, Claude,” Ross said, more than relieved to get up out of the armchair from Hell. “I’m going to leave you to your TV shows now.”
“Didda help you any?”
“Yes, you did, sir. I came to a definite conclusion.”
“Well, you can come back anytime you want. I’ll be right here in my recliner,” Claude said, his grin even wider than before. “Maybe you and me, we could watch a football game together or somethin’.”
“I appreciate the invitation. You have a good night, now.”
After Ross had signed out at the front desk and headed toward his car, he decided that the visit with Claude Ingalls had not been a complete waste of time. There was one conclusion that Ross thought nearly impossible to escape. There was someone in the RCC that Saturday afternoon who thought Brent Ogle was telling enough of the truth to murder him in a fit of rage, even if no one would ever know all of the story. That was all there was to it.
Then, once he was settled in the front seat of his car, he shot Wendy a text:
thru with Claude Ingalls; a bust.
scrolling thru microfiche at library.
ur place or mine later?
I’ll drop by yours; still need to tell u about Gerald Mansfield.
okay, I’ll be waiting; take care.
u 2.
Wendy sat at the library microfiche table, dizzy from all the scrolling she had done of the Citizen’s account of the 1990 high school football season. She had yet to get to The Four-Second Game, but she plowed ahead knowing her goal was not far away. Finally, there it was, complete with the sports page headline in bold caps:
MIRACLE FOR THE DEVILS:
LAST SECOND WIN
Beneath that were two photos side by side: one of Brent Ogle celebrating in the end zone with his teammates, and another of the grim look on Coach P. J. Doughty’s face as he stood on the sideline when the game was finally over. Wendy scanned the copy quickly, noting that the reporter had included a lengthy quote from Coach Doughty afterward:
We thought we had it won. Our guy, Mike Besser, broke up that last pass play like he was coached to do. Our guys on the sideline started jumping up and down because we knew we had it. But then I looked up at the scoreboard clock, and somehow there was still one second left on it. Now, how is there still one second left when there was only four seconds before Brent Ogle’s toss into the end zone? You can’t get off two plays in four seconds.
Wendy couldn’t help but commiserate with the man. The look of devastation on his craggy face in the picture was overwhelming. She scrolled ahead somewhat and eventually landed on an article announcing Coach Doughty’s dismissal at the end of the season. The tone of the piece was disingenuous, stating that the man had decided to step down for “health reasons” and “was grateful for the opportunity to coach the St. Mark’s Saints all these years.” There was also another statement that “he, his wife, and his daughter were going to miss Rosalie and that it was a unique place to live.”
Wendy went back to the actual coverage of The Four-Second Game and studied the picture of Coach Doughty again. It came to her immediately that she had seen the photo before. But where? She scrolled back, but this time in her brain. Of course—at Brentwood. It had to have been among the many shots of football games that Brent Ogle had obviously hung on the walls of his eponymous home as the spoils of his athletic career. Imagine that. A photo to remind The Baddest Devil of Them All to gloat over another man’s lack of success. It was hardly a stretch to picture Brent doing something like that and enjoying it fully.
Wendy spent the rest of her time making notes and penning a couple of questions that she intended to review with Ross when they got together. This whole business of The Four-Second Game was less than edifying, no matter what Ross had or had not discovered at the retirement home. Not only that, it continued to be her firm belief that Brent “playing around with it” so wickedly had led to someone’s uncontrollable rage and then his brutal murder.
* * *
Ross’s bachelor apartment in his Whiteapple Village complex was somewhat minimalist. True, it had all the basic requirements of modern life—a kitchenette, a living room/ dining room combination, a master bedroom, a guest room, and one full bath. But it was hardly what anyone would call luxurious, and it was haphazardly decorated in a style that only an oblivious man dedicated to his career could improvise. There was no artwork on the walls, just photos of scenes from his police work. The furniture style was random—wicker here, upholstered pieces there—and though Ross was not color-blind, the overall impression was that he definitely had to be with the clashing palette scattered everywhere. Orange doodads on the shelves, for instance, did not go with black whatnots, except at Halloween, which incidentally was fast approaching. Nor did royal-blue drapes go with brown shag carpet. The entire place desperately needed an interior decorator’s touch, but that was obviously not something that was on Ross’s front burner.
“So, Claude Ingalls was a dead end in my estimation,” Ross was saying to Wendy as the two of them sat at his small dining room table having a cup of coffee together. “He’s gone over the hill a bit, and I wouldn’t trust a thing he says now at his age.” Ross revealed the rest of his conversation out at the retirement home, and Wendy could no nothing but shrug.
“It’s remarkable that he’s even still alive,” she said. “But I think your point is well taken.”
“What did your stint at the library turn up?”
“The full account of The Four-Second Game in real time, of course. And a heartbreaking picture of Coach Doughty after the loss. The way he was hanging his head, you would’ve thought somebody close to him had died. When I was out at Brentwood visiting with Carly Ogle earlier this week, I noticed that the same picture was one of many Brent had hung up all over the place. I think you’d have to call it rubbing it in . . . forever.”
“At the very least. What else did you find?”
Wendy put down her coffee mug and glanced at her notes. “I wrote down this question, and I think maybe it falls under the category of backstory.”
“Shoot.”
“I wrote: What happened to Coach Doughty and his family? Where did they go? Does anyone know that?”
Ross thought for a moment and said, “I guess you weren’t able to find anything about it, then.”
“No. When you think about it, there’s no reason for the Citizen to have followed them. Apparently, they left town, and that was that.”
“Maybe your daddy knows something,” Ross said. “That was his era.”
“I could ask him. Or you could at work tomorrow.”
“Write me a little note from your pad to remind me.” He took another sip of his coffee, as she printed the message for him on a piece of paper and handed it over. Then he said, “Now, what’s this business you couldn’t wait to tell me about Gerald Mansfield?”
Wendy went into details about the afternoon’s twin sightings, and they both let that sit for a short while. “My sleuthing skills tell me that we’re not talking about a coincidence here,” she said finally. “It all just goes against my instincts. The guy is an odd duck, and I’ve thought so from the first time I laid eyes on him.”
“Do you think you’re in any danger?”
“I have to admit I hadn’t looked at it that way,” she told him. “It was more that I thought his behavior might have some bearing on the case. And then it also occurred to me that if he were spying on me for some reason, who was behind it? I just don’t figure Gerald Mansfield for the type who strikes out on his own. He regularly takes orders out there at the RCC to keep the course looking like it should, and so I was leaning toward the idea that he might be taking orders from someone else in this instance, too.”
“He works closely with Deedah Hornesby and Mitzy Stone all the time,” Ross said. “Miz Stone made a big deal out of how well the two of them ran things out there when I interrogated her.”
“Teamwork,” Wendy said, almost under her breath.
/>
“Yes, there’s that idea again that Bax came up with. That more than one person might have been involved in Brent Ogle’s murder.”
Wendy put the palm of her hand on her forehead as if she were testing it for a fever. “We just seem to be going round and round, don’t we? Is there ever gonna be a breakthrough in this case?”
“Patience, sweetie, patience. There are cases that go on for years, and some that simply go cold and are never solved.” He finished off his coffee and added, “Do you want me to put a tail on Gerald Mansfield for you? I can ask Ronald Pike to do it tomorrow and see where the guy goes. But don’t get your hopes up. Mansfield may end up staying at the RCC all day long working. It’s a bit unwarranted for us to walk up to him and ask him to explain why he was eating at The Toast of Rosalie and what he was doing getting into his car later on. At least, not at this point. Frankly, it would come off as police harassment. Let’s just see what a little concerted surveillance turns up first, okay?”
Wendy was smiling, fully accepting his observations. “Sounds like a solid plan to me. It’s not like me to be this paranoid, of course. Do you think I might be getting there, though? ”
“I seriously doubt it. You have the proverbial sound mind. In any case, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, of course.”
She blew him a kiss, and he caught it. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“All the same, I appreciate you telling me about Mansfield. It’s been my experience that you never know what will break a case open.” He paused and looked her straight in the eye. “Now, are you not gonna tell me anything about this ‘outta left field stuff’ regarding Hollis Hornesby? You know you promised to share anything you turned up with the department.”
“So I did,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s what you’ve been looking for, but at the art gallery, Hollis said he followed the deck around from the portico all the way to the hot tub and discovered Brent Ogle’s body and that he got so panicky that he rushed into the hallway, and he was the one that knocked Carly Ogle down.”
“Was he now?” Ross said, sounding not as surprised as Wendy thought he would.
“You think he’s not telling the truth?”
Ross shook his head emphatically. “I didn’t say that. If he is, though, it really doesn’t clear things up all that much. He’d be admitting only to discovering a dead body. He should have come forward in the first place and told us that, though. I’m taking a dim view of his withholding it from us.”
“He said that he was afraid it might incriminate him if he mentioned it,” Wendy added.
“He was right, of course. It does put him in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong time, however you wanna look at it.”
“Then he asked me if he should come clean with you.”
Ross was smiling now. “Let me take a wild guess here. You told him to do just that, right?”
“Well, you have to admit it’s something you didn’t know before. If he’s leveling with you, at least you would know who the man in the hallway was. If I recall, you said to me at one point that whoever knocked Carly Ogle down wasn’t necessarily the person who killed her husband.”
“You have a good memory,” Ross told her. “I did indeed say that. Hollis is coming in tomorrow and we’ll see if there’s anything more he’s not letting us know about.”
“Then I did good?”
“You know you did,” he said, leaning over and planting a little kiss on her lips. “Now we’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.”
CHAPTER 12
Ross was sitting in Bax’s office the next morning, having just summarized for his boss the brainstorming session that he and Wendy had conducted energetically the evening before.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t get anything out of Claude Ingalls,” Bax said. “It was worth the old college try, though. He was no spring chicken back when he was working as the clock operator for all those high school games. It seems we’re back where we started. Was Brent Ogle telling the truth or not? But I do agree with both you and my daughter that it really doesn’t matter that much now. Somebody believed him, and at that point his fate was likely sealed. I think that’s the basic assumption we have to go on without a doubt.”
“Do you think it’s worth putting someone on a surveillance detail on the other matter?” Ross said next. “Maybe Pike could do it if we’re not too busy.”
“It’s okay by me unless things get hectic around here, as you say. Wendy’s my only daughter, and I’d rather be safe than sorry in case Mr. Mansfield really is up to something no good. Human behavior never fails to surprise me, of course. You tell Pike to go ahead and then report back to me.”
Ross gave him a thumbs-up and then said, “There was something that came up as a result of Wendy’s doing her research at the library. She—or rather both of us—wondered if perhaps you knew where Coach Doughty and his family went after he was let go thirty years ago.”
Bax leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. “Let me see now.” There was a significant pause. “I seem to recall that he moved to somewhere in Alabama. Maybe Mobile. Or was it Montgomery? I’m not sure. What I heard was strictly by the grapevine, not firsthand—a contact on the school board that was particularly fond of him mentioned it to me once.”
“Do you remember who that was?”
Bax nodded eagerly. “I do, as a matter a’ fact. It was Earnie Grayson. His family and mine went way back. Unfortunately, Earnie is no longer with us. I went to his services a good ten years ago, so he’s not around to confirm what I just said about the coach moving to Alabama.”
“Is there anyone else who might know where he went?”
“You’re talking about thirty years ago,” Bax said. “I also believe the rest of Earnie Grayson’s family has moved away from here, too. Why the sudden interest in where the coach went? ”
Ross threw out his best smile. “You know Wendy—how determined she is once she’s gotten something into her head. She’s latched on to this idea of the importance of backstory that we all discussed, thinking it might be of significance where this case is concerned.”
Bax leaned back and laughed. “That daughter a’ mine is something else, isn’t she? Every day I think she gets closer and closer to giving up reporting for good and signing up to be a cop alongside me.”
“You don’t think that’s a bit of wishful thinking? She says she’s never been happier being a part of the newspaper business—now that she’s working with Miz Slover instead of Dalton Hemmings.”
“Good ole, bad ole Dalton. Prob’ly is wishful thinking on my part about Wendy,” Bax said. “But you can’t blame a father for hoping. Anyhow, you go tell Pike to give it a shot on Gerald Mansfield’s whereabouts, and we’ll see what’s what. If Pike says there’s anything that looks suspicious going on, we’ll bring Mansfield in for another interrogation. We can always tell him that it’s an official matter regarding the investigation.”
Ross rose from his chair and said, “Never a dull day when you’re involved with Wendy Winchester.”
“You said a mouthful, son.”
“I’ll text her about the surveillance detail right now.”
* * *
It was about five minutes after Wendy received Ross’s text that her doorbell rang, and she felt a spurt of adrenaline beneath her sternum as she was sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, scrolling along on her phone screen. Her brain returned immediately to the session she and Ross had had the evening before. Could that possibly be Gerald Mansfield at her door for a purpose unknown? There was that fledgling paranoia kicking in again.
She rose from her chair, thinking she was acting positively silly but still tentatively approaching her small foyer. But all apprehension vanished immediately when she caught sight of Merleece Maxique through the glass pane, holding up something round and aluminum covered with her right hand.
“What in the world?” Wendy said, giving her friend a peck on the cheek and
welcoming her in.
“Good mornin’. I thought I’d surprise you with this applesauce pie. Maybe I shoudda called ahead, but I took a chance anyway that you still here and not at work yet,” Merleece said. “I make two a’ these last night, and I know you like ’em since you make me give you the recipe.”
Wendy took the pie with delight and gestured toward the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s have us some coffee together and chat like girlfriends. I’ve always got some time to spare for my Merleece.”
“You not gone be late for work?”
“That’s one of the nice things about my new editor,” Wendy said. “We do punch in and out like we’ve always had to, but as long as we get the work done, Lyndell’s not all that much of stickler about a few minutes here and there.”
“I heard that,” Merleece said, raising her index finger in the air. “Miz Crystal the same way. She never waitin’ at the door pointin’ to her watch. I tell ya, I couddn’n put up with that if she did. No way.”
Once they were settled at the table with their mugs in hand, the visit began in earnest. “It threw me a bit when I saw you out on the porch,” Wendy said. “I thought, ‘We’re in between your cleaning days. Or have I lost track of time?’ I’ve been known to do that once in a while.”
Merleece arched her brows. “You know, I could come in erry week instead of two weeks if you want, Strawberry. Miz Crystal coudd’n stop me if I put my foot down and I tell her I want to come. I got her wrapped round my little finger.”
“Things still about the same at Old Concord Manor?”
Merleece leaned in with a sassy wink. “You know they never gone change. But I tell ya, Strawberry, Miz Crystal pitch a fit to end all fits the other day.”
“What happened?”
Merleece could not suppress a hearty laugh. “When I come to work one mornin’, she was moanin’ and groanin’ all over the place and coverin’ up her face with her hands like an actress in the movies. I near ’bout thought somebody had up and died. But no, that wudd’n it.”
