“Is she all right?”
“She’s called the police and she wants the rally to be canceled.”
“But…but…people will have driven all this way to get here! We won’t be able to notify them first. This will do irreparable harm to our efforts!”
“Be that as it may, she wants to have the police conduct their investigation right away, and she does have a point.”
“Which is?”
“Which is that someone tried to strangle her. We can’t just ignore it.”
“No, but we don’t have to sacrifice the entire cause either!”
“Please, Stuart, I’m the proverbial messenger here. Why don’t you take this up with Stephanie? She’s sitting in the front row and has probably overheard every word we’ve said anyway.”
“She couldn’t have heard us,” he said in a whisper.
“Sound carries unbelievably well here.”
“Evidently so,” he muttered under his breath as he headed off the stage toward Stephanie.
Now that I thought about it, the male voice that I’d overheard backstage had sounded an awful lot like his.
The next morning was Saturday. That meant Nathan’s soccer game. School board members could be murdered or nearly strangled, but soccer marches ever onward. Karen refused to come with us, and we wound up dropping her and BC off at the house of a friend who also owns a cocker spaniel. Jim and I, on the other hand, try to never miss one of Nathan’s games. Now it was a particularly much-needed release.
Stuart had somehow managed to persuade Stephanie into letting the rally take place last night, on the condition that all of the people who’d been in the vicinity at the time of the assault were held for questioning during and after the rally.
Because Lauren and I hadn’t been in the immediate area and so weren’t suspects, we were told to stay in the audience, while Tommy and two of his officers took the board members’ statements in separate dressing rooms, as I learned later from my father. Meanwhile, Carol Barr’s and Stuart’s planned speeches had to be scrapped. The teachers and experts that spoke did an excellent job, though attendance was not what we’d hoped-less than a hundred, which was almost as depressing as the maelstrom surrounding the board itself.
In contrast, Nathan’s game started out well, with Nathan’s team leading three to nothing at the end of the half. Gillian was there, sans husband, watching and rooting for the team. She shot me an extra-long gaze-borderline see-how-important-sports-are? stare, when her son scored one of the goals.
During halftime, with Jim sitting in on the team meeting with most of the dads but none of the moms, Gillian came up to me. Seeing her in direct sunlight made her look older than normal, the lines around her eyes and on her forehead clearly visible. Perhaps the same was true for me—an unpleasant thought. “They’re playing well today, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Yes. That was a nice goal Peter made.”
She beamed. “Yes, it was. Thanks. I hope he’ll get the opportunity to develop his game as he gets into middle school in a couple of years.”
I had to resist rolling my eyes, knowing she just couldn’t keep from digging it in about the sports-versus-arts thing. “Gillian, doesn’t it ever strike you how shameful all of this underfunding is? How our parents put us baby boomers through school, giving us every conceivable opportunity? Don’t you remember how it felt when we were in high school ourselves? We were going to make this world a better place as soon as we were old enough to vote and be in power. Yet here we are, with a higher income bracket than our parents had, bickering about which opportunities we’re going to deny our children.”
Gillian’s face fell. “You’re right, Molly. Of course. It is shameful. But when the only choice available is the lesser of two evils, you have to hold your chin up and choose one.”
“Is that truly what this has come down to…the lesser of evils? Or has somebody made horrible, wasteful spending decisions that we’re all paying for now?”
While I was speaking, somebody stepped up from behind me. I turned to see that my parents had arrived late to watch the game. “Mom. Dad. Hi.”
Dad, however, merely gave me a somber nod, then said to Gillian, “I wonder if that’s what Sylvia’s killer thought he or she was doing. Choosing the lesser evil by committing such a reprehensible crime.”
“We may never know,” Gillian said, then sighed and forced a smile. “On the bright side, the boys are up by three goals.” The referee blew his whistle, signifying the start of the second half. “Excuse me while I reclaim my spot on the sidelines.”
Gillian walked off just as Jim called out, “It’s time to go over your rotations.” This was Jim’s quasi-coaching role on the team. He made sure the boys knew who was supposed to be playing which position. There were four rotations—or line-ups—in each half. Nathan and Peter were both sitting out this first rotation of the second half. Not being friends, they ignored each other and watched the game.
Our current lineup was a disaster. My parents and I rooted loudly, but it was one of those times in sports where you can almost swear that you see the field tilting so that your team is forever required to go uphill. By the time the whistle had blown for the new players, the opposing team had scored two goals, whereas our team had not taken a single shot The next rotation was at least evenly matched. Neither team scored. Nathan’s team had only to keep the other team from scoring for two more rotations and they would win.
The third rotation, too, seemed to be evenly matched, with Nathan again sitting this one out. My father must have decided to extend the olive branch to Gillian and was now sitting beside her. As time was expiring, Jim came over to Nathan and crouched in front of him to be at eye level. “Nathan, you’re going to be in at goalie for the last rotation.”
“No! I hate playing goalie!”
“It’s going to be fine, Nathan,” Jim said. “You do well at goalie, and the team needs you.”
“But I—”
Just then the other team kicked a rocketing shot. The ball hit the goalie on the shoulder and rebounded to the other team’s center forward, who kicked it easily into the goal, tying the score.
Nathan gasped and the parents on our side groaned. The referee blew his whistle, which I thought was in honor of the goal, but he cried, “Last rotation.”
Our goalie dropped to the ground. Cries of: “Are you all right?” went up from us mothers. The assistant coach from behind the goal helped him up. He was sobbing. The coach had to half carry him to the sidelines.
“Are you hurt?” one of the dads asked.
“No, but I blew the save,” he cried as he flopped on the ground right next to Nathan and me.
Nathan grabbed my jacket sleeves with both fists and looked into my eyes, his face pale. “Mom. Please don’t make me be goalie.”
“You have to, sweet boy. You can do it.”
My mother stepped beside me to help with the cause. “You’re going to be great, Nathan,” my mom said, pumping her fist.
“Nathan!” Jim swung his arm, emphatically gesturing at Nathan to get onto the field. “Go! They’re waiting for you!”
My son wouldn’t loosen his grip on my clothing. “We’ll all still love you even if you let them get a dozen goals, Nathan,” I said desperately. “Just do your best and have fun out there.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head.
“Nathan! What’s wrong with you?” the coach hollered.
I dropped onto both knees to force Nathan to look at me despite his lowered chin. “Nathan, listen to me. There will be a thousand moments in your life like this one, when you have to do something that you’re afraid you’re going to fail at. You need to do this for yourself. You need to go out there and try your hardest and realize that you can overcome your fear. Now go be a goalie.”
Nathan started to cry. He let go of me though, turned, and slowly made his way toward the goal.
I got to my feet and said to Mom through my forced smile of encouragement, “I think I
’m going to throw up.”
“You’ll have to get in line behind me,” my mother replied, who was also speaking through her put-on smile for Nathan’s benefit.
Nathan got into position and cast one last long, despairing glance at my mother and me. We were still beaming away like a pair of idiots.
“Tell you one thing, Mom. Once this game is over, I’m telling his coach that I’ll rip his hair out if he ever forces Nathan to be goalie again.”
“There’s the spirit,” she muttered.
The game started up again. With the score tied, both teams were going at each other all out. Being the latest to have scored, the opponents were riding high with confidence, which translates in sports vernacular to their having the momentum. Our team simply could not get the ball out of our side of the field.
While I knew, rationally, that each rotation was only six minutes in length, this one was taking an eternity. So far, both teams kept managing to intercept each other’s passes and keep the ball pretty much in the middle of the field. Neither team had gotten a hard shot on goal.
Finally, though, the other team’s best player-a tall, string-bean of a boy—got the ball away from our right wing and dribbled toward the goal. Nathan’s eyes widened as the boy neared. The boy made a nice stutter-step that fooled our sweeper—the last defender other than Nathan as the goalie. Just as the boy tried to make a shot on goal, the sweeper blatantly pushed him.
The referee blew his whistle. “Goal kick,” he cried. “Oh my God,” I cried.
“What’s a goal kick?” Mom asked me.
“It means he’s probably going to score on Nathan. It means he gets to take an unimpeded shot on the goal from close range.”
“I can’t watch,” Mom muttered, turning her face. “Tell me what happens.”
That meant that I had to watch, but it did seem like the least I could do for my son. It probably felt that way because it was the least I could do.
The other team whooped with excitement at the referee’s ruling, one of the other team’s members slapping their best player on the back and saying, “All right, Kyle! You never miss these!”
The teams got into position, only Nathan, his teammates unable by rule to help him between the ball and the goal. The other boy took a couple of steps back. He kicked the ball with so much force that I could have sworn I felt the vibrations in my feet from my stance on the sideline. Simultaneously, Nathan sprang to his left. He managed not only to block the shot, but to catch the ball.
With no hesitation, Nathan ran to the top of the semicircle in front of his goal and drop-kicked the ball. It went soaring to the center line of the field, where Peter, Gillian’s son, gained control of it. Peter and ball kept going down the field. He joked past their sweeper and kicked the ball past their stunned goalie.
Peter raised his hands and cried, “Yes!”
The referee blew his whistle. “Game’s over.”
Nathan, Peter, and their teammates celebrated like the young children that they are, as did all of us not-so-young children on the sidelines. Gillian and I even hugged each other, which was truly silly, as we should have known better than to attach so much importance to our children’s game. The team did their “Two-four-six-eight-who-do-we-appreciate?” cheer for the other team, and then finally stopped celebrating enough to join their parents.
My mother let out a big sigh of relief, as did my father. Dad said, “That was a little too nerve-racking for me.”
“Me too.”
It took a long time for Nathan to make his way over to me, for he first basked in Jim’s and Grampa’s praises. When he finally reached me, he said, “You were right, Mom. It’s kind of fun to be goalie.”
Several minutes later, Peter announced that he wanted Nathan to come to his house to play, which was a first. Gillian said that that was fine with her, and we arranged for me to pick him up in another three hours, which would correspond nicely with my running taxi service for my daughter.
The play arrangements made me a tad uncomfortable. I couldn’t quite believe that Peter and Nathan were going to be able to bond on the strength of one soccer play, but there was no harm in giving the boys the latitude either to surprise us or to learn that lesson for themselves.
Jim and I went home, which was strangely quiet without dog and children. The message light on our answering machine was flashing. I pressed the play button and recognized Sam Dunlap’s reedy voice as he identified himself, then said, “It seems I was wrong about the school board members having nothing dark in their pasts. I just now stumbled across something big that you’ll find real interesting. If it pans out, it’ll help you and your father considerably. I’m meeting with someone in Saratoga to discuss it this afternoon. If you get this message in time, meet me at the racetrack at two p.m. Otherwise, leave me a message at my office, and we’ll make other arrangements.”
“That’s strange,” I said to Jim. “I wonder why he’d choose a location like that.”
“It’s one nobody could miss, I guess. A public location, and all.”
“But it’s off season. I’d be surprised if the gates are even unlocked at this time of year. It strikes me as so… fishy. Why wouldn’t he just come over here or have me go to his office?”
“Are you certain it was his voice?”
“Positive.”
“You’d better play it safe. Give Tommy a call and have him meet us there.”
“Us?”
Jim raised an eyebrow and peered at me. “You don’t honestly think I’d let you go meet a private investigator alone, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said, embarrassed at the realization that I’d neglected to tell Jim of my previous meeting with Sam. “That would be foolish.”
Chapter 15
I’m All Ears
Jim was not especially companionable as we drove into Saratoga. For the third time in fifteen minutes, he said, “We shouldn’t meet with a private detective under these circumstances. We should wait for Sergeant Newton.”
As I’d responded twice before, I said, “I know. I agree in theory, but it’s way more likely the detective is going to skip town before he gives me important information that could clear my father than he is to lure us out here to shoot us. I mean, come on, Jim. Do you think he’s been plotting to do me in and figured he’d do it at the racetrack, just to add some…local ambiance or something?”
Jim furrowed his brow even further—his eyes were narrowed to furious-looking slits—and said nothing. I’d left a message on Tommy’s machine, but I knew that he checked his machine so frequently that he might even beat us there by putting on his siren and speeding.
Despite the tense circumstances, I found myself appreciating the old-money classiness of the area and looking forward to seeing the track. Though the town is a mere twenty-minute drive from Carlton and my sister and I were wild about horses, we’d rarely been there when we were children. The races in August caused the population to swell exponentially, and my parents tended to consider the possibility of parking problems an unsolvable obstacle.
“This is a wonderful little city, isn’t it, Jim? Everywhere you look there are these pretty redbrick buildings, wrought-iron gates, wood trim. I guess with those kinds of building materials, it’s probably hard to build something ugly. Then again, there are plenty of unattractive prisons out there…”
“Hmm,” Jim muttered, not listening.
“Liberty Park,” I said wistfully as I eyed the circular area directly in front of us. “If there’s a prettier park in a city, I’ve never seen it. If we’ve got time after we’re through with our rendezvous, we should take a stroll. There are all these marvelous gardens and natural spa fountains, stone carvings, benches—”
“Isn’t there more than one racetrack here?” Jim interrupted, focused on the task at hand.
“Yeah, but I’m sure he meant the one right off Union Avenue.” I wasn’t paying much attention to where we were, and anyone who trusts me to give directions is in trouble, a
fact Jim knows better than anyone. We soon saw the racetrack, looming in all its splendor alongside the road.
Knowing Jim’s tendency to drive past places while erroneously anticipating well-marked entrances, I pointed. “Here’s a public parking area, Jim. Let’s park the car here and walk.” Jim put on the blinker, but grumbled, “You think he’s going to meet you in the grandstands, right? That’s clear on the opposite side of the track.”
“I know, but I’ve never gotten the chance to be this close to the track when the place is deserted.”
We parked and, while zipping my jacket to brace against the brisk autumn breeze, I dashed across the street and through an open gate to walk along the beautiful white picket fence. I kept an eye on the oval track, imagining the voice on the loudspeaker boom: “And they’re off.” I could almost hear the thundering hooves, feel the vibrations through the soles of my tennis shoes. Jim came along behind me and soon caught up. I’m not sure if he shared my sense of reverence-and judging from his mood, it was unlikely—but we didn’t speak as we made our way along the track toward the wooden grandstands.
The stands themselves were part of an enormous structure. It hit me again how odd it was that Sam said to meet him here. If he was so paranoid about being seen with me that he wanted to meet me far outside of Carlton’s city limits, a simple instruction to meet me at a restaurant would have made more sense. The racing season had ended a good six weeks ago, so I expected the chain-link gate around the grandstands to be locked, but it wasn’t.
A chill that I couldn’t explain ran up my spine as I entered the building. “Something seems wrong,” I said to Jim. “Maybe we should wait for Tommy to get here after all.”
“Wait where?” Jim asked. “Should we go back to the car?”
Part of me wanted to say yes, but I held my tongue, thinking again about how frustrating it would be if Sam Dunlap-cum-Jacobsen gave up on me while, merely out of paranoia, I was waiting across the street. I felt torn. I’ve learned to trust my instincts and yet am forever prone not to heed them. “Let’s just see if he’s here.”
Death on a School Board (Book 5 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 16
