Offside Trap

by A. J. Stewart

I made a smoothie from kale, Valencia oranges, dates and pineapple for brunch, then slipped into the Mustang and cruised down the freeway. The worker bee traffic in Fort Lauderdale was done, and it was an easy drive. I felt good. Wisps of clouds painted the sky and gave the birds something to look at. I wanted to chat with Angel, ask her some questions about Maxx and the preppy guy selling it. I parked near the gym even though it was the wrong side of campus. It’s the ten-minute walks I do when I park away from stuff, rather than the morning runs, that keep the muffin tops at bay. And with a girlfriend who beats me in sit-ups, keeping the muffin tops at bay is important. I knocked at Angel’s door, and one of her roommates told me I’d missed her. She had just left with the soccer team. Tampa. Due back Sunday night. I thanked the roommate and got a perfunctory whatever for my trouble.

  I was heading back toward the quad when I heard the low rumble. The Crown Vic and the Dodge Charger both have it, but the Charger is more throaty, like Pavarotti with a cold. I was in such a good mood I considered sprinting across the quad to see if they would get out and run, but thought the better of yanking the chains of guys with guns. I stopped walking. The police cruiser pulled up beside me. The window came down. The cop inside looked like he’d been sprayed into the car through the window and then expanded on impact. Like that foam they used in insulation, or dairy whip. He was altogether too big for his seat, for the car and for his uniform. I should have run for it. There was no way this guy was getting out the same day. Stepping out of his vehicle looked like a weekend project.

  “You Jones?” he said. He spoke through his nose, like a Texan without the accent. I nodded.

  “Steele wants a word.”

  “I’ll be sure to drop by the station house sometime.”

  “He’s on campus. In the security office.” The cop may have jinked his head to the back seat, or it may have wobbled under the weight of keeping it upright. “Get in.”

  “I’m good. I’ll walk.”

  “I wasn’t asking.”

  “Good. ’Cause I wasn’t listening.”

  A pudgy hand appeared from the darkness of the cabin and grabbed the radio handset.

  “He won’t get in the car.”

  A voice came crackling back. “Make him.”

  “He says he’s gonna walk.” Words of more than two syllables left him breathless.

  “He doesn’t know where we are.”

  The cop swiveled his head like Jabba the Hutt. “You don’t know where it is,” he said to me.

  “I might not be related to Columbus, but I can read a map.” I turned and walked away. It was true—I didn’t know where the security office was. So I could have been headed for the New World. I strolled over to the quad where some bright city planning major had placed a campus map. The spot on the map where I was had been rubbed away by a thousand pointed fingers. I never understood the need to touch the position on a map, like you weren’t really there until you pressed yourself into being on the chart. An enterprising soul had scribbled in a sharpie pen, vous etes ici, on the rubbed away circle. I found the campus security office in a cluster of green buildings marked Life Sciences. I wasn’t sure if there was meaning in that, but it was the sort of thing a philosophy major could spend weeks thinking about. I continued my stroll and found the campus security building without incident. It had a big blue light out front. It was more of the same white concrete with brick veneer at the base. The fat cop sat in his car out front. He watched me approach. I wondered how he passed any kind of fitness test at the Academy. When I got level with the car he wound the window down again.

  “He’s waiting.” It was incredibly useful information, and I wanted to thank him for it.

  “Don’t pull the string to inflate your life vest until you leave the plane.” He frowned and I walked inside. The campus security office looked like the cashier’s window at the DMV. If the signage was anything to go by, its main function was to issue parking permits and collect payments for parking fines. Four kids were in line for one or the other. It seemed fleecing students was a growth business. There was a solitary door to the interior so I went through it. The guy issuing the fines gave me a sideways glance, but I didn’t stop to measure his level of displeasure. Steele was sitting at a desk in the rear of the office. He was in uniform, but not a cop’s uniform. That was blue—this was khaki.

  “What’s up?” I said as I reached his desk.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  “I’m good.” I stayed standing. Steele wasn’t that tall, but he sat as erect as he stood. He looked up at me from his boxy head. He might have had a haircut. It was hard to say. It was like trying to guess whether they’d cut the greens on a golf course.

  “You been busy,” he said.

  “I don’t get paid if I sit around on my backside.”

  He stared at some papers on his desk like he was reading the evening news.

  “Chatting with coaching staff, chatting with students, visiting the hospital, attending memorial services, going to parties.” He looked up at me. “You been meeting lots of folks.”

  “It’s part of the college experience, don’t you think?”

  “Didn’t you already have your college experience?”

  “I’ve got my second wind.”

  “But what you haven’t done is chat with me. I thought we had a deal. You get to stay on my campus, you share what you learn.”

  “I haven’t learned much.”

  “Then tell me what you think.”

  “I think your officer outside needs to cut out the donuts.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I can hit a pitching wedge about a hundred ten yards.”

  He frowned. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I could pitch a golf ball from this office to where Jake Turner overdosed.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s right in your backyard. Hell, it’s practically your living room.”

  “So?”

  “So, embarrassing for you, I think.”

  “I don’t care. You think I care?”

  “No, I don’t think you do. If you did care, you’d actually be doing something to solve this crime.”

  “I’m doing plenty, pal.”

  “You’re sitting in this office in your natty little rent-a-cop uniform, doing nothing but sending the doughboy out on rounds.”

  “You think you know what’s going on here?”

  “Let me see. You don’t know anything. You’re not doing anything to learn anything. You give the only guy actually investigating this thing, namely yours truly, some hogwash about not being able to get inside, so you can share my information. Seriously? This is how you guys investigate? Can I assume you’ve given up on any drug-related crime in the city, or is it just here on campus? Oh, that’s right, President Millet doesn’t hold any sway off campus. I thought you were just inept when you said you couldn’t get tapped into the party scene. Until I went to a party, and it took me half an hour to find the same drugs that killed Jake, even though I was the oldest person at the party by an uncomfortably large margin. So I’m thinking, why can I do this if you can’t?”

  “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

  “You know where I’m going—you just don’t like it. You’re throwing the game, you’re sandbagging. You want to know what I know, not so you can use it to investigate, but so you can cover it up.”

  His face was a blank. He looked like a furry cardboard box. He didn’t take his eyes off me. He reached out and picked up his phone. Hit a button and put the handset to his ear. Eyes still on me.

  “It’s Steele. Get him.” He waited, then: “He’s here. He’s got nothing to say.” He listened for a moment, and then put the phone down without another word. He stood, checking his belt, shifting the weight of his weapon so it sat right. Then he picked up his keys, and they clinked in his hand.

  “Let’s go see the president.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  STEELE HEADE
D FOR an electric vehicle that looked like a golf buggy on steroids. I walked past and headed for the quad.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “You could do with the walk.” He was a big guy, but not fat. But I didn’t care.

  “You want me to arrest you?”

  I smiled over my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s the thing you want to do right now.”

  I kept walking toward the quad. I heard the footsteps behind, and then Steele dropped in beside me. He marched. Literally. Hands beside, eyes front. There was cadence to it. I found myself dropping into step with him, the way you walk to a beat when you listen to music. I tried to keep out of step just to make a point, but couldn’t. It was hypnotic. I guess that was the point. Armies marching hundreds of miles did best when the troops weren’t thinking about how far they were walking. We strode across the quad, under the palms as they cast dollops of shade on the grass. Up the steps and in through the glass front of the administration building. Steele hit the button for the elevator and then stood back, ramrod straight. We came out the elevator into the wood paneling and glass dome. The receptionist gestured that we go in.

  President Millet was sitting behind his desk, attempting to look busy. Like he hadn’t been waiting since Steele’s call. I bet he’d been pacing. He was that sort of guy. He looked up as if we’d interrupted his train of thought.

  “Ah, Steele,” he said. “And Mr. Jones. Take a seat.”

  I sat. Steele didn’t. Millet steepled his fingers and put them to his lips. Then he gave me a knowing smile.

  “You misled me, Mr. Jones,” he said, like I was a three-year-old with my hand in the cookie jar. I didn’t speak.

  “You told me you worked for the Turner family.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  He dropped the steeple but not the smile. “You allowed me to believe that you worked for the family.”

  “What you believe is none of my concern.” I could feel the university-speak creeping back into my vocabulary. I needed to spend some time at Longboard’s.

  “Well, now we know you do not represent the family. So the question is, whom do you represent?”

  I didn’t speak.

  “Mr. Jones?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whom do you represent?”

  “Who I work for is none of your business, Mr. Millet.”

  “It’s Dr. Millet.”

  “You perform any surgery today, Dr. Millet?”

  The grin faded and then reappeared. He was like a used car salesman. Or a politician. Yes, a politician. The thought of which sent me off in a whole other direction.

  “You well know, Mr. Jones, that I am not a medical doctor. But I can assure you, I worked just as hard to achieve my PhD.”

  “Coal miners work hard. PhDs get cardigans to ward off the chill in the library.”

  “I see,” he said, steepling his fingers again. It was like watching a puppy who had learned a new trick. “Well, given your reticence to divulge your purpose on this campus or to assist Officer Steele in his inquiries, I am afraid I can no longer tolerate your unauthorized presence on campus. I have students’ welfare to think about. So I must ask Officer Steele to escort you from the grounds, and that you not return, lest you be charged with trespass.”

  I held his eyes. They didn’t waver. Millet was a cool piece of work.

  “I understand why you’d want to cover up Jake Turner’s death. Even if that is a stupid and pointless thing to do. But what I don’t get is why you want so badly to kill off athletics.”

  He smiled. “I don’t want to kill athletics, Mr. Jones.”

  “All evidence to the contrary. There isn’t a single person I’ve spoken to who doesn’t see you culling the athletics program. Even the crucial ones.”

  He scrunched his brow. “Which ones would be the crucial ones, Mr. Jones?”

  “You don’t think any of them are?”

  “Quality research institutions are not built on sports.” He said sports like he’d eaten a moldy olive.

  “You’re hardly MIT.”

  He stiffened, like a small jolt had shocked his body. “We punch above our weight. And I intend to see us do more. This part of the world is screaming out for a world-class research institution. I intend to make us that institution. The Caltech of the Southeast.”

  “And sports has no part in that?”

  “No.”

  “Caltech has an athletics program. So does MIT and Harvard. Doesn’t seem to do them any harm.”

  “But does it do them any good?” he said, standing. I didn’t move.

  “Officer Steele will see you out.”

  I stood. The whole office was starting to feel like the Seafood Bar at The Breakers. Something very fishy was going on. I walked to the door with Steele.

  “One question, Mr. Jones,” said Millet. “Why the interest in sports? Whom do you represent that is so interested in the athletics program?”

  I turned to him. He was standing behind his desk like it was a fortress.

  “My client is interested in the death of Jake Turner. A star student-athlete. And you’ve got me wondering if him being an athlete isn’t the salient point.”

  “I hardly think so. Good day, Mr. Jones.” He dismissed us with a wave of his hand. Being dismissed like I was the hired help always endeared me to a person. Steele walked me back to my car. As I unlocked the Mustang he spoke.

  “You think there is a link to Jake Turner being an athlete?”

  “You actually think I’m gonna share anything with you?”

  He didn’t move. He was like a flagpole. Then his face broke, in the tiniest way. The way a face looks different in the sunshine than when a cloud drifts across the sky. Less color to it. Softer around the edges. It was so fleeting that I had to consider that I hadn’t seen it at all.

  “If you come back on campus, I will have no option but to arrest you.”

  I got in my car and started it up. Steele turned his eyes down but stayed at attention.

  “The kid died on my watch. Despite what you might think, I do take that seriously.”

  I punched the transmission into drive. “Not seriously enough,” I said, hitting the gas and heading off campus.

  I was sure I’d be back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE PALM BEACH County judicial facility takes up three city blocks north of the main drag in West Palm. It dwarfs anything else in that part of town. It is the kind of massive edifice that, were it a library, would convince a visitor of the sophistication and intellect of the townsfolk who lived there. But it wasn’t a library—it was a courthouse. I parked in the lot next to my office and walked up Banyan in the late afternoon sun. My stomach tightened and reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since my smoothie for brunch. Or maybe it was the person I was about to see. But I wasn’t buying that. The state attorney’s office was in the building between Third and Fourth Streets. I made my way through security and was issued my visitor tag. I got to the office for State Attorney Eric Edwards. His secretary must have gotten a call from downstairs because she was waiting for me. She said he was on the phone but wouldn’t be long and offered me something to drink. I figured she didn’t mean an ice-cold beer, so I declined. She smiled and went back to her work. Either she was very professional, or she liked me. There needs to be a high level of friendliness and professionalism in the support staff of people who get elected to their jobs, so maybe that was it. But I thought I saw that little extra glint in her eye that suggested she liked me, or she didn’t like her boss. Either way, I was only seated about a minute before she told me I could go in.

  The state attorney for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit had a cracking view of the parking lot. His office was government model, sufficiently up the totem to demand decent furnishings. A small conference table, a large desk, plenty of bookshelves. Flags behind the desk for the United States and the state of Florida. The shelves and walls dotted with pictures of Eric Edwards with the famous and infamous. The governor, at leas
t one Supreme Court justice, a bunch of men in suits and women in evening gowns, whom I recognized from the society pages of the Palm Beach Post. Donors, I guessed.

  Eric came out from behind his desk. The desk was covered in papers, but the papers were all in orderly stacks. Eric looked as trim and vibrant as ever. The state attorneys are hardly on the breadline but they don’t make anything like their colleagues in private practice. Even so, Eric Edwards always dressed immaculately. He wore a charcoal pinstripe suit, which only served to make him look taller and thinner. And he was marathon runner-thin. He had cheekbones a supermodel would kill for, with dark features and a permanent three o’clock shadow. As he put out his hand I caught a whiff of something fruity, possibly Calvin Klein.

  “Miami, good to see you. Come in, take a seat.” He gave my hand a good pump and grinned his perfect orthodontic work. It was disconcerting to say the least. I rifled through my brain files for motive. Perhaps he was hard up for votes and decided he needed every last one in the next election, even mine. I dismissed it as unlikely. He looked handsome and well spoken on camera, and was in with the rich red-voting set in Palm Beach who bankrolled his campaign. He might have decided to take a new tack in dealing with people like me, who are essentially on the same side, purveyors of justice, if you will. I suspected Eric still had FDLE guys tailing Sally, so I wasn’t ready to accept that Eric had overlooked my relationship to Sal. I wondered if he had finally forgiven me for sleeping with his ex-wife, but put in his shoes I wouldn’t have, so I dismissed that out of hand. The final idea I came up with was that Eric was up to something. I chose to keep that thought close at hand.

  “I’m good, Eric. You?”

  “Fighting the good fight,” he said. It was like a tagline from an SNL character. “What can I do you for?” he said as he sat back behind his desk. He smoothed his pink tie with his hand.

  “I’m working on something down in Lauderdale. You heard of a guy called Dr. Stephen Millet?”

  “Rings a bell. Enlighten me.”

  I told him about Jake Turner and President Millet. I didn’t mention the sandbagging job by Steele or who hired me.