A Hopeless Game

by Daniel Carson

“And now for the business at hand, and the reason we invited Doc to join us,” said Granny. “Hope, you’re a pain in my rear, but you’re also the smartest girl I know when it comes to this stuff. So tell us, do you really think that turdball Coach Mossback killed himself?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then that’s good enough for me. Someone killed him, and you haven’t figured it out. And the reason you haven’t figured it out is not because you’re not smart enough. We know that much. It’s because you missed something. And we figure a meeting of the Buck’s Diner Murder Investigation Club is the best way to clear it up.”

  “Okay, first of all, I have to know when all of you decided on that name.”

  “On the way to church this morning. Talk about inspiration.”

  “And second, maybe I did miss something. So what do you suggest?”

  “Easy,” said Granny. “We start at the beginning.”

  I went through everything. I talked about me and Arnie finding Coach Mossback’s body hanging in the furnace room, my investigation of the scene with Alex Kramer, my interviews of the suspects, my theories, finding Arnie Duncan, the sad story of Kevin Sunderland, and his and Mandy’s rock-solid alibis. I went through all of it.

  And then Granny made me go through all of it again.

  It was on the second go-around that Dr. Bridges chipped in by describing in detail his examination of the body. And that’s when something struck me that hadn’t before. As he talked about all the various samples he had sent off to the state homicide office, one of the things he mentioned was that Coach had a full bladder, so he’d taken a sample of urine and included that in the shipment.

  “Wait a second, Doc. Did you say his bladder was full?”

  “Yes. Quite full, actually.”

  “I thought hanging victims sort of lose control of their bodily functions.”

  “Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.”

  “But you’re sure Coach Mossback had a full bladder.”

  “Yes. It’s not hard to tell.”

  “That’s weird. Because when Alex and I examined the scene for the first time, the floor under Coach Mossback was wet. Alex even bent down and smelled it, and said it smelled like urine.”

  Dr. Bridges frowned. “When was this?”

  “Sunday around noon.”

  He rubbed his chin. “And I pegged the time of death at Saturday afternoon.”

  “Is this important?” Granny said. “So he peed himself, and he still had some left over. Trust me, it happens when you get to a certain age.”

  “I suppose he might have urinated a little and still had a nearly full bladder,” Dr. Bridges said. “But if that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine the floor would be still wet half a day later.”

  Although it was a curious point, it didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere, so Dr. Bridges continued with the recap of his examination. But I was still thinking, the gears turning, and suddenly I shot out of my seat.

  “I’ve been focused on the wrong thing this entire time! I’ve been thinking so much about who did this, that I forget a more important question. How they did this.”

  Granny frowned. “You gotta poop, or did you actually figure something out?”

  I shook my head. “I definitely don’t have to poop, and I didn’t figure it out. The Buck’s Diner Murder Investigation Club did!” I grabbed a piece of bacon, then kissed Granny on the cheek. “Sorry to eat and run, but I’ve got a murder to solve.”

  Chapter 34

  I tried the Sunderlands’ home phone, and when I got no answer I thought I’d try the next most obvious spot. Sure enough, when I arrived at his place of business, I heard the roar of the chain saw emanating from somewhere in the back.

  The front door was unlocked, so I walked in and made my way to the frigid garage. Kevin was alone back there, making another sculpture.

  As I entered, he looked at me through his goggles a second, as if considering whether to even give me the time of day. But then he turned off his chainsaw and set it on his workbench.

  “What are you doing here, Hope?” His voice contained no more warmth than the room. “I’ve got to finish up this sculpture so Mandy and I can get out of town for a much-needed vacation.”

  “I’m here to apologize if you can believe it.”

  “Why would you apologize?” he said.

  “Because Sheriff Kramer checked out your alibi—yours and Mandy’s. They checked out. I know you already know that, because the sheriff said he spoke with you this morning. But I still wanted to come by and offer my apologies.”

  He scratched his chin with his finger. “Apology accepted. Now if you don’t mind…”

  I walked closer, circling around to his left. “It’s just that I want to explain something. Sometimes I get focused so much on who might have committed a crime that I forget what can be an equally important piece of the puzzle. How they committed the crime.”

  “Hope, I really need to get back to it. Ice melts, remember.”

  I ignored the remark. “You see, when we first found Coach Mossback’s body, the floor beneath it was wet. The sheriff explained that sometimes people lose control of their bodily functions when they’re hanged. Which made sense. So I didn’t think too much of it after that. Until today, that is.”

  “Again, I’m sure this is all fascinating, but—”

  “Then this morning, Dr. Bridges told me that during his autopsy, he found that Coach Mossback’s bladder was full. Not just a little tinkle in there. He said full. So I’m thinking: If his bladder was full, why was the area under him completely soaked?” I raised my finger. “And as the internet says… the answer may surprise you.”

  “Surprising or not, I’m really quite busy.”

  “Your plan was brilliant, Kevin. Simple, but brilliant. Let’s be real—what Coach Mossback did to you years ago was absolutely horrible. And he never paid for it, which made it all worse. In fact he became the most celebrated football coach in the state. So you had a strong motive to kill him. A very strong motive.”

  Kevin Sunderland said nothing.

  “So it had to be you, right? I was practically certain of it. Except, of course, for your alibi. Which is ironclad. Because right around the time Coach Mossback died, you were in Boise. You couldn’t possibly have done it.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “But what if… you figured out a way to kill Coach Mossback without even being there?”

  For a moment, his face drained of color. But then he regrouped.

  “That’s ridiculous. How would I do something like that?”

  I smiled. “The wet spot, of course.” I continued to circle him as I spoke. “Here’s what happened. On Friday night, well after the game, you left your house and walked to the Mossbacks’ house. I checked your home address. You live near Coach Duncan, and he’s already told us that he’s within walking distance of the Mossbacks’ house. Plus it’s an open secret that Mrs. Mossback isn’t there on the weekends and that Coach Mossback game-plans and falls asleep drinking beer. So all you had to do was sneak downstairs and inject him with something that would make him easier to deal with. The right dosage of flunitrazepam would do that trick. Roofies. To make sure he didn’t cause you any problems.”

  Kevin started looking around nervously. But I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “And then you went to work. You dragged him to the furnace room. Somehow you hoisted him up to the rafters without breaking his neck. I’m guessing you used a harness of some sort. Maybe the kind football players use to carry sleds around. You cuffed his hands behind his back so he couldn’t possibly get out. But then, before you took off the harness and let him swing from the noose, you put something under Coach Mossback. And this was your little stroke of brilliance.” I pointed to his ice sculpture. “You made Coach Mossback stand on a block of ice.”

  The expression on Kevin’s face changed. He knew I’d figured it out. He knew I had him. And that made h
im dangerous. I had to be careful.

  “I’m guessing you waited for Coach Mossback to wake up before you left. You didn’t want him to fall off the ice by accident and ruin your plan. Besides, you wanted him to know who’d done this to him. And once he was awake, well… Randall Mossback didn’t want to die. So he did the only thing he could: he stood on that block of ice as long as he could. And slowly, steadily, it melted.

  “You work with ice; you knew exactly how long it would take to melt. You knew exactly what size ice block you would need. So you knew that it would be Saturday afternoon when Coach Mossback finally couldn’t be supported by the ice block any longer and would slowly suffocate to death.

  “Can you imagine that? How scared he must have been? Being left alone for an entire day? Being left alone to die?”

  “I wanted him to know how it feels,” Kevin growled.

  “You got your revenge.”

  All he did was nod.

  “I do have one question, though. Why did the wet spot smell like urine?”

  “It was no special trick to pour a little urine on the floor before I left,” he said coldly. “I couldn’t take any chances.”

  “No, you couldn’t. Everything had to go off without a hitch.” I paused. “Did Coach Mossback even remember you after all these years?”

  Kevin shook his head. “He remembered the incident. But he didn’t recognize me. Didn’t recognize my name. Never once realized that the greatest football player he ever coached had a dad who might just have been the worst football player he ever coached. I was the weak link. The weakest. Until that night. Because just before I left him, I looked him in the eye. He was crying and blubbering for his life, the same way I did all those years ago. That night, he was the weak link. And you know what I did?”

  “No, Kevin, what did you do?”

  “I laughed at him. Just like he did to me. And I said to him, ‘Who’s the bad man, now, Coach?’”

  “You are.”

  “That’s right. I am the bad man.” He picked up his chainsaw and started it up. “You shouldn’t have come here alone, Hope. You really shouldn’t.”

  I smiled and yelled over the roar of the saw. “Believe it or not, I thought you wouldn’t talk so freely if I brought the sheriff along.”

  “You were right about that.” He stepped toward me.

  “But I brought him along anyway and let him listen to us through your secretary’s intercom.”

  Kevin spun around to see Sheriff Kramer pointing a gun at his head. “Mr. Sunderland, put the saw down. You’re under arrest for murder.”

  Chapter 35

  When Sheriff Kramer explained that he’d been listening the whole time, Kevin Sunderland broke down and confessed to everything. This time officially.

  He explained that he and his parents had moved away from Pleasant View after the goalpost incident, and he thought he’d never see Coach Mossback again. With a lot of therapy, he tried to move on… and did. He got a good education, became a successful accountant, married a wonderful woman, and had an exceptional son. And it was clear that athletically, this son was nothing like his father. Elliot was gifted. But Kevin never pushed him. He wanted Elliot to do his own thing.

  It was a mere quirk of fate that decided “Elliot’s own thing” would make him the best football prospect central Idaho had ever seen.

  But just before Elliot was set to enter high school, tragedy entered their life. Mrs. Sunderland got sick and died. The only silver lining was that her death drew father and son even closer together.

  Which was why it was so devastating when Kevin learned that Hopeless High had hired a new football coach.

  Randall Mossback.

  Kevin had moved on… but not entirely. He’d always carried a deep-seated hatred for Mossback. And now that hatred resurfaced. The thought of that man coaching his own son… it was almost too much to bear.

  When Coach Mossback took the job, there was a parent meeting. Kevin went. Mostly because he was curious to see if Coach would remember him. He didn’t. He didn’t even remember his name. The horrific event that had shaped the course of Kevin Sunderland’s life was apparently so inconsequential to Randall Mossback that it was utterly forgotten.

  This only fed Kevin’s hatred.

  Kevin wanted to withdraw Elliot from football immediately. But he knew he couldn’t. The boy loved the sport. He was great at it. It was going to take him places. Like to college. So Kevin did the next best thing: he told his son what to expect. In particular, he told him he’d heard some rumors about one particular drill… and he told Elliot that if he was ever put in a position of making a choice such as the one that was rumored at the end of that drill, to never, ever use it to pick on someone weaker than him.

  And perhaps that would have been that… if not for the fact that this past year, one of Elliot’s teachers, Mandy Broderick caught Kevin’s eye. Kevin had avoided women since his wife’s death, but Mandy was easy to talk to, and slowly they found they had a lot in common. Eventually, they started dating.

  And then she shared something about herself. She confessed that she’d had a little fling with Coach Mossback.

  Somehow, it was that which finally sent Kevin over the edge. It was that which caused him to let his anger take over. He put together his plan. And then he waited for the perfect time to execute it.

  The rest, he said, was exactly as I’d laid it out.

  There are times in life that I really wish I wasn’t right. And this was one of those times.

  I found Fireman Bob and the rest of the guys washing their fire truck in the station driveway. When they saw me coming, they started slapping Bob on the back and chanting his name.

  “Hey everyone. Hello, Fireman Bob,” I said.

  He flashed his big goofy grin. “What are you doing here, Lucky Charms?”

  “I have to see Chief Albrecht. But also”—here I raised my voice to be sure everyone would hear—“I just wanted to tell you, for the record, that making out with you was quite possibly the best experience of my life.”

  Fireman Bob scratched his head. “It was?”

  I winked. “Yes, Fireman Bob, it most certainly was.”

  And as I walked into the firehouse I heard the guys hooting and hollering and chanting Bob’s name again.

  I found Chief Albrecht in his office, feet up on the desk, halfway through a sub sandwich, mayonnaise squeezing out of the corners of his mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “Just wondered if you would mind calling that insurance adjuster and telling him that in your opinion, the fire at the Watering Can was not arson and that the insurance company should pay the claim quickly. Like, tomorrow.”

  He brought his legs off the desk and sat up straight, wiping the mayonnaise off his face. “And why on earth would I do something like that?”

  “Because of this.”

  Last night, Darwin had texted me the files I was after, and I printed them out. Now I plopped those files down on the chief’s desk.

  You see, the way I figured it, there had to be a reason Chief Albrecht was always concluding these fires were arson. And the obvious reason… was that he was in cahoots with the insurance company so they wouldn’t have to pay claims. He was probably getting kickbacks. The trick was finding a way to prove it. And then I had a thought. Something Granny used to tell me when I was young and foolish. She told me that the way we are some of the time is the way we are all of the time. And I figured, if Chief Albrecht was a cheat in this instance, maybe he was a cheat in other areas of his life.

  That, it turns out, was not difficult for someone like Darwin to prove.

  The color drained from Chief Albrecht’s face as he looked over what I’d brought him. Copies of falsified tax returns. A firefighter’s exam that was clearly not written in his own handwriting. Pictures of him kissing a woman who was very much not his wife.

  The man practically wilted.

  “W-w-what do you want?”

&nbs
p; “I want you to call the insurance company right now, and tell them to pay Mr. Tanaka’s claim. And then I want you to retire and move on out of Hopeless.”

  “And if I do all that?”

  “Then you and I never have to talk ever again.”

  It was the following evening, and I was sitting on my couch, streaming some mindless shows, when a knock sounded on my apartment door. My stomach sank. I hoped this wasn’t Fireman Bob trying to parlay our imaginary makeout session into a real makeout session.

  But I rose to my feet and opened the door.

  It wasn’t Fireman Bob.

  It was Sheriff Kramer.

  “What are you doing here, Alex?”

  “Well, um, Granny told me to. She wants me to bring you downstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “Hope, when that woman tells me to do something, I try not to question it.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  Alex led me downstairs and into the Library. And to my great surprise, the moment I entered, the entire bar broke out into applause.

  There was Granny and Bess. Katie and Chris, Celia, Lucy, and of course Dominic. Flo and Zeke and Cup and Stank. Dr. Bridges and Pastor Leif. Juan the gardener and his niece, April. Mr. Tanaka. And a few others. Heck, Fireman Bob even showed up. But he was in the back. Up in the front, right next to me, stood all six foot two inches of ruggedly handsome Alex Kramer. He was the only one not clapping. He was simply smiling… smiling at me.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Granny stepped forward. “Granddaughter, we threw together this little gathering as a way for us to show you how much you mean to us.”

  I reached out and put my hand on her forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

  She knocked my hand away. “I’m serious. It occurred to us that you, my girl, have had a pretty profound impact on our community since you’ve been here… and we wanted to thank you for being here. For being part of our lives. And for letting us be part of yours.”

  “For real?”

  Granny grabbed me by both shoulders and held me firm. “Yes, Granddaughter. For real.”