A Score to Settle

by Donna Huston Murray

  "You sure?" I blurted.

  "Oh, yeah. Charlie was furious because he wanted to kick another field goal, and a call like that wasn’t likely to give him the chance." She wagged her head. "Tim must have changed the play in the huddle, because, you know, he threw for that touchdown."

  The women generously shrugged off the coach's miscalculation and moved on to other topics.

  Me? I had prickles on my arms and down the back of my neck.

  Chapter 18

  WHEN I WENT UPSTAIRS to change after the baby shower, the mauve phone practically begged me to call home. Chelsea answered.

  “Thank goodness you called. They’re driving me crazy.” We both knew she meant the “grannies.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Drinking your cooking sherry and toasting some old music theater.”

  Had to be the Valley Forge Music Fair, which has been gone for quite a while, much to my own sorrow. Not a bad seat in the house, and only ten minutes away. Unfortunately, the most recent billings had appealed to an aging crowd–for instance, Cynthia and Gracie.

  "Oh, dear! You better put on my old Fats Domino CD, maybe ask them to teach you the jitterbug.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “You’re the one who said they’re driving you crazy.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Is you dad there?”

  “Nope. At school.”

  “Anything unusual going on?”

  “He didn’t tell us anything, just that it’s quieter there.”

  Heading a school was the equivalent of three full-time jobs, three very worthwhile jobs, but three jobs nevertheless. Rip’s working at dinnertime on a Saturday night meant his usual eleven-hour days weren’t cutting it. That he had to work at school underscored the fact that I wasn’t there to run interference for him. Talk about a guilt trip!

  A few minutes later Ronnie's call from his hotel room in Green Bay, Wisconsin, caught me in a sweater and a slip.

  “Tomorrow,” I announced. “I think I’ll go home tomorrow. Michelle has tons of local support now, and...”

  "Why?” Ron interrupted. "I think you're doing great. Can’t you stick around a little longer? Please?"

  "I don't know squat," I insisted. "I've got more questions than answers, and frankly I'm totally confused."

  "No sale."

  "What?"

  "I said, 'No sale.' I don't believe you."

  "You're calling me a liar?" Memories of our childhood arguments returned. I could almost sniff the mowed grass of my back yard, almost feel the cool of a wading pool on my toes. Probably I shouldn't have taken off my stockings.

  "Naw. I'm just saying you're full of it."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Don't give me that girlie, all-insulted shit. This is your cousin Ronnie you're talking to. You have a mind like a vice. You never let go of a fact. You're smart, Gin. So don't give me that crap about being confused. I don't buy it."

  Despite his choice of words, I was flattered. And maybe I had gone a bit girlie on him, possibly because I’d just been to a baby shower.

  "Tell me what you've been finding out," he suggested. I could hear him sipping beer from a bottle.

  I realized he had missed a few things. "You know that touchdown pass Tim Duffy threw at the end of the game? He changed the play from a run to a pass in the huddle."

  "Good. That's good information. What do you think it means?"

  "Probably that he wanted to throw instead of run."

  Ronnie did not laugh. "Why?" he asked as if he were poking my collarbone.

  "I have no idea."

  "Sure you do."

  "Ronnie!"

  "Well, don't you?"

  "Okay. Ego. He was jealous of Doug's starting status and wanted to show off his arm, try to win the starting spot. Or else he just thought running was a terrible idea."

  "That's possible. Go on."

  "Patrick Dionne bungled a snap."

  "And that means?"

  "He was distracted? His hand slipped? How should I know?"

  "Go on."

  I stopped to think. "I don't like Bo Shifflett's wife."

  "Why?

  "She's one of those religious people with blinders on."

  "Explain, please."

  "Narrow vision. Can't see anybody else's viewpoint. That much rigidity always scares me."

  "Fanatical."

  "Maybe."

  "Holier than thou?"

  "Not quite. Egotistical is closer. Like she's dead sure she's right and everybody else is wrong, so she justifies anything she wants to do by pretending that God wants her to do it for our own good."

  "Capable of murder?"

  "All those people who started religious wars seemed pretty sure of themselves."

  Ronnie clunked the beer bottle on whatever table was next to him. "Go on."

  "Wanda Cross is mercenary as all get out."

  "Yes..."

  "So I can maybe see her flipping out over Walker's benching last week."

  "Enough to do bodily harm?"

  "Maybe, if she thought Tim was to blame. She's not exactly a benchwarmer herself, if you know what I mean."

  "I've never heard a woman described quite like that before."

  "Too locker-room for you?"

  "You really were a tomboy, weren't you?"

  "We're not tomboys anymore; we're liberated."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this Wanda Cross woman is assertive, the type to take matters into her own hands. Is that what you mean?"

  "Yes. She's aggressive as hell and has strong opinions about how a man should provide for his wife."

  "That doesn’t sound very liberated. Who else?

  "The owner of the team is curiously frugal for a billionaire. If he is a billionaire."

  "And you know this because...?"

  "We did lunch."

  "Omigod, Gin. How did you wrangle that?"

  "Don't ask. But if Tim Duffy told Bobby Frye he was going to tell the media the real reason Walker Cross was benched last Sunday, maybe to leverage himself ahead of Doug in the lineup..."

  "Bang. I see where you're going, but what was the real reason Cross was taken out?"

  "One point seven million dollars."

  "Wow." Ronnie took a moment to digest the magnitude of that. Then he asked, "What about Tim's widow?"

  "Alibi."

  "Jack Laneer or his wife?"

  "Alibis. They were seen at a restaurant."

  "Other players or coaches?"

  "I don't know. Willet Smith, his wife Lyn maybe."

  "Because Smith is backup QB now?"

  "Yes. I couldn't get a handle on Lyn, which made me suspicious, you know? She seemed fidgety, almost sneaky. Or maybe she's just uncomfortable around the other wives. They're intimidating if you're not used to women like that."

  "Liberated women, you mean?"

  "Sophisticated." The sort who often sent their kids to Bryn Derwyn Academy. Although Lyn Smith essentially had been a mouse, Angela Dionne seemed in way over her head, and Debbie Quinlan struck me as very well adjusted.

  "Forget that," I amended. "Never good to generalize."

  Ronnie was thinking, rattling the beer bottle on the table. "You don't have it yet, do you?"

  "No. That's what I was trying to say when you jumped all over me."

  After that we were quiet a while, just sitting in our respective rooms miles and miles from our homes. Ronnie was probably staring at a bland hotel watercolor. I spent the time rubbing my hand across the pattern of Michelle's guest room bedspread.

  "Do you think Doug's guilty?" Ronnie finally asked.

  Stalling, I switched the phone to the other ear. "Not really."

  "He's looking good for it though, isn't he?"

  "Something happened on the sideline," I said. "Something we haven't figured out yet."

  "If you say so."

  "I'm still going home, but can you do me a favor?"

  "Anything."

 
“Get me that sideline pass you offered for the Tomcats/Eagles game.” It was the only productive thing I could think of to do. Look around. Watch what went on. See whether anything suggested itself.

  "Tomorrow?"

  “You do owe me a big favor."

  Ronnie’s sigh almost ruffled my hair. "Okay, Cuz. I'll call the office, find out who's doing the game. You'll have to introduce yourself to the crew, work out some story why you're there.”

  "I’ll think of something.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  We were done, so I asked what kind of weather was predicted for his Green Bay game.

  "Rainy," the cameraman replied with surprising cheer. "I should get some great shots."

  Artistes. Go figure.

  Chapter 19

  BACK IN MY COMFORTABLE clothes, I went downstairs to make dinner for two; Doug was already in Philadelphia for tomorrow's game. I told Michelle I was headed there, too.

  "You're doing fine now, and I just can't get a handle on this...this problem you have, so Ronnie's going to get me on the sideline of tomorrow's game. Maybe that will suggest something."

  "Oh. Oh, okay." A crease of worry marred my cousin's brow, but she didn't tense up too badly and the crease soon disappeared.

  I tapped my fingers on the doorjamb, wrinkled my own brow. "There's one more thing I could do before I go if you're up for it."

  Michelle had been watching television in a pair of green lounging pajamas. Now she leaned forward in her straight-backed chair until her tummy seemed to reach her knees. She pushed her glasses back up her nose. "What's that?"

  "Speak to Pamela Wilkinson, Roger Prindel's old girlfriend."

  "Oh right. I've got the number Lyn Smith gave me. What should I say?"

  "The truth should do. Tell her we need some information about Roger for a very important reason, and ask if we can stop by early tomorrow before my flight."

  As it was presently Saturday evening, Michelle had to leave a message on the Wilkinson's machine. She wisely refrained from mentioning Roger's name in case Pamela's husband might hear the message, stating merely that she needed to speak with her about something important.

  Pamela called back an hour later, so Michelle was able to sketch out what we needed and explain about my morning flight.

  "We're up at dawn tending the horses, anyway," Michelle's old acquaintance told her. "If you can be here by eight, I'll have the coffee on."

  THE JEEP’S HEATER WORKED hard to warm our cheeks as the weak, early morning daylight swept across the frosted fields lining Princess Anne Road. Copycat white colonials had already given way to elegant old homesteads edged with crisscrossed split-rail fencing. No more gravel driveways and gutter weeds; now it was imposing stone entrances framing tree-lined lanes. Up ahead an especially pristine row of whitewashed stables trimmed with red made me think that some of the local livestock lived in greater comfort than many of us humans.

  Marking the entrance to a lengthy lane lined with sculpted pines, the Wilkinson's mailbox was decorated with a weatherproof red bow, reminding me that Christmas was eleven days away–another reason to hurry home. Tomorrow would make a week I had stayed in Virginia. Too long away from my kids. Not quite long enough for the trip to be considered a success.

  So it was with a less than optimistic attitude that I followed Michelle into Pamela Wilkinson's toasty kitchen. Muddy rubber boots dried on a mat below the row of jackets by the door. The fragrance of coffee made my head swoon.

  We had interrupted Pamela eating a piece of coffee cake. She brushed crumbs off her lips with her wrist before kissing Michelle from the side.

  "Sorry I'm such a mess," she apologized. "Just finished with the horses, and I was starved. Come in." She gestured for us to take seats at the end of the long room where a cluster of softly worn furniture draped with ratty quilts bellied up to a wall of windows. The view was of fields falling away to the south. In the near distance four thoroughbreds with thick winter coats huffed plumes of breath into the cold sunny air.

  "Is your husband home?" Michelle inquired in a way that alluded to the sensitive topic we had come to discuss.

  "Nope. Kevin does an early church service. Your timing is perfect." She wore a sweatshirt adorned with chickadees on a snowy pine branch, close fitting jeans and ragg wool socks pulled high over their hem, no shoes. Her face was young, her hair dark, curly, and short. She read me with hazel eyes that revealed nothing in return.

  "Would you like some coffee and cake?" she offered as she shooed a doe-eyed Cocker spaniel off the centermost seat.

  We accepted, and minutes later we were comfortably settled in with a second breakfast.

  Michelle had spent the interlude catching up with her lapsed friend; but when the small talk ran out, Pamela waved her coffee mug, smiled, and asked, "What's this all about?"

  Michelle folded her hands across her baby-bulge and answered honestly, "I'm worried that Doug will be accused of killing Tim Duffy." Then she gestured toward me. "Gin's trying to steer the police in the right direction before they even think of him."

  "And you believe Roger makes a more likely suspect?" Pamela’s gaze slid toward me.

  "We don't know," I answered. "That's why we're here–to ask your opinion."

  Pamela laced her fingers together and leaned forward. Her aspect conveyed no ambivalence regarding Doug's innocence, no offense on her ex-boyfriend’s behalf. "I don't know what I can tell you," she said with a wave of her head.

  Determined to get something out of our trip, I asked what Roger Prindel was like.

  "Sweet. And very generous when he had money. Trouble was, he never had much, and what he got he wasted."

  "How do you mean?"

  "He'd give me a gold bracelet one week and eat franks and beans all the next."

  A prickle started somewhere in my psyche. "How was his self-image?" I inquired as calmly as I could.

  "He saw himself as Mr. Bountiful, but there were long stretches when he was disappointed in himself, almost depressed because he couldn't treat me, or his friends, the way he wanted to. I tried to convince him that I didn't need things, just his attention. Of course, during the season he couldn't even give me that."

  "Did he ever gamble?" I asked scarcely keeping a quaver out of my voice.

  Pamela recoiled. "How did you know that?"

  "Some material I read.” Back in college, before Rip, I thought I was in love with a guy whose father was what racetrack people call a "horse degenerate," an inveterate gambler who behaved exactly the way Pamela described. A little research helped me understand that the gambling losses reinforce a chronically poor self-image, which may escalate into a full-blown personality disorder. Instead of a feel-good fix, the irresponsible spending after a win is actually the quickest route back to misery.

  Pamela's face had colored, and her hands wound tight together. "I promised not to tell," she said.

  "What's the difference?" Michelle remarked. "He doesn't bet on football, does he?"

  Pamela pinned her with those eyes. "No. No, of course not. Horses mainly, and other sports. Never football. He'd be banned from the game."

  "So he's discreet," I suggested.

  "Yes. Roger doesn't want even the slightest appearance of wrongdoing, so his brother bets for him. He says reporters are like starving vultures. They’ll go after anything."

  I thought of the pack of photographers always on the sideline of an Eagles game, almost enough to form their own team.

  "Is there something there?" Michelle asked.

  "If there is, I don't know what it is," I answered truthfully. Yet, I might have added.

  The other two women chatted about Michelle's impending motherhood while I sipped coffee and gazed out the window.

  About forty yards away stood a bay gelding with twitching ears and a regal bearing. Staring back at me, he seemed to know something I didn't know. Telepathically, I begged him to tell me, but he just turned tail and waddled away.

  The Cocker span
iel put an end to the baby conversation when he stole the last of my coffee cake.

  "Ack, Poochie, get away," Pamela scolded.

  "We better get moving," I told Michelle, and she rose to go.

  "Thank you, Pam," she said, extending her hand. "It's been lovely seeing you again."

  "I don't think I was much help, but I enjoyed seeing you, too." Another friendship back on firmer footing. Michelle wore a pleased expression all the way back to the car.

  Riding northeast along Princess Anne Road, I tried to assess what we had learned.

  "What if Roger did bet on the Tomcats–hypothetically," I added for tact. "As offensive coordinator, would he be able to control the outcome of a game?"

  My cousin laughed. "Pretty unlikely, Gin. Too many safeguards."

  I reminded myself that the Tomcats had won last week's game, beat the spread, made everybody happy. So what if Roger Prindel had a gambling disorder? It still appeared that he didn't have anything to with Tim Duffy's death. Too bad. I was running out of ideas.

  "Gin," Michelle said, touching my arm to secure my attention.

  "Yes?"

  "My water just broke."

  Chapter 20

  "DRIVE," MICHELLE begged, so I drove.

  What with the long winding driveways and the possibility that nobody would answer the door, stopping at one of the massive estates would just waste precious time. So I drove. Fast.

  When she wasn’t grunting and pointing where to go, my cousin gripped the sides of her seat, sweated, and scrunched up her eyes.

  Never mind that it was too early, the baby was on its way. Even if labor could be medically halted, the infant would be safer out in the world than in utero risking infection. So as urgently as I wanted to get Michelle to the hospital, it was even more critical that her baby get the proper medical attention as soon as possible. It was literally a matter of life or death.

  Up ahead on the right stood a lone commercial establishment, a roughly painted white clapboard affair with a parking lot–a country store, so it said. No cars. No people. Closed.

  I pulled into the lot anyway, braking with special thought for the mother-to-be grimacing in the passenger seat.