Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  Again with Robby Sharpton. Bex made a mental note to look into this guy further. She didn't need to do a feature on him, she just needed to satisfy her own curiosity.

  Craig continued, rattling off a whole list of names, from which Bex only recognized Rachel Rose and Felicia Tufts, Sharpton's two Pairs partners. The other dozen or so just wooshed over her head. The only thought that stuck was the question of why, for a man who cared so little about skating, did Craig Hunt seem to know so much about it?

  "I wish you'd reconsider," Bex said, and then, since she didn't think her own reason of because I've got a good bit of money and most of my career riding on this story would prove particularly compelling, added, "because I think you're really hurting your son's chances of doing something fantastic with his life."

  "You know what, Ms. Levy?" Craig looked over Bex's shoulder, saw Jeremy coming out of the rink, his heavy skate-bag slung over his shoulder, and gestured for him to hurry up. He waited for Jeremy to silently and with a plaintive look at Bex, drop his bag in the trunk and slide into the passenger seat before telling her, "I really don't care."

  And drove away without another word.

  “Well,” Bex said, plopping down on a snack bar bench next to a resting Toni, "I'd say that went well."

  Toni smiled. "Is it time for me to apologize for dragging you into this?"

  Bex shrugged. "I let you drag me. How can anyone see that kid skate and not want to make him a star?"

  "Did you ask Mr. Hunt that?"

  Bex sighed. "He certainly has his reasons all nicely enumerated, doesn't he? I take it he's had lots of chances to practice his speech-making?"

  "Craig Hunt and I have been having the same conversation for five years. At first, I didn't want to press it too hard. I'm not proud to say it, but I was too scared."

  "Of Craig Hunt? Is he dangerous?" Bex recalled Jeremy's plaintive expression as he got into the car with his dad and, for a moment, wondered if the story here was a lot more twisted than just a father and son disagreeing over a teenager's hobby. "Is he abusive?"

  Bex felt a little sick just thinking about it. Here she'd been so focused on getting the story she needed to keep from getting fired, she might have totally overlooked a desperate kid in need of salvation having nothing to do with skating.

  "Oh, no, no." Toni shook her head. "Well, at least not that I know of. Sad to say, but I've worked with kids who were being abused. Jeremy doesn't show any of the symptoms. He's too sunny, too good-natured. Not that I'm an expert or anything. God knows, I've missed danger signs before and lived to regret it. But no, no, I was afraid of Craig Hunt for a completely different reason. A rather, I'm sorry to admit, selfish one."

  Bex didn't know what to say. But, if there was one crucial thing she'd learned from sitting, cramped, on the floor of a room where a seasoned feature producer was doing an interview, it was to keep quiet. Because it was amazing what a person would say to fill up the silence, rather than in response to a direct question.

  "My first six months coaching Jeremy," Toni continued, "I couldn't believe what a major talent he was. I'd never seen anything like it, and I've been doing this for a lot of years. I was convinced it was just a matter of time before Mr. Hunt realized what amazing potential his son had and promptly switched him to a better-known coach. Gary, perhaps, or maybe even Igor. I was, frankly, resigned to it before our first year was even up. But, then an amazing thing happened. Mr. Hunt never said a word about switching coaches. He just paid my bills and made polite small talk and never even asked how good did I think Jeremy was? Some parents, they ask me that every blessed day. Every day, every lesson, can you imagine? 'How's he doing? How's she coming along? When do you think that Axel might be ready for competition?' Mr. Hunt never said a word. Finally, even though I was scared of losing Jeremy as a student, I figured I should say something to them both. One morning, I got up my courage, and I laid it out for them. I told Mr. Hunt that he had a very talented kid, that I honestly thought Jeremy could go all the way, that the Olympics were not outside of the realm of possibility; and I never, ever tell anyone that. It makes the parents too excited and the kids too lazy. Except, in this case, I thought I should make it clear that I wasn't just blowing smoke. Only, you know what, Bex? It was like I'd never spoken at all. Mr. Hunt just thanked me for my kind words, smiled that noncommittal smile he has, and walked out of the rink. Never brought it up again. I was the one who kept pushing for Jeremy to compete. And he just kept giving me that speech of his. I didn't push him too hard the first few years because, like I said, I was terrified of losing Jeremy to another coach. But, now... now it's just ridiculous. That boy has exceeded my wildest expectations and his father... his father.... Oh, I am sorry I got you into this, Bex. This is hardly your problem."

  Bex asked, "Do you think everything is on the up and up with those two?"

  "What do you mean? Granted, Mr. Hunt is a very strange man, yes, but, well, this is skating. Normal people don't choose to spend their lives falling down in the cold at four a.m., so the standards are a bit different."

  Bex smiled. That's what she loved about Toni. The woman at least had some sense of perspective about where and who she was. And who she was working with.

  "Mrs. Reilly told me that Mr. Hunt told her Jeremy's mother died from breast cancer. Jeremy said it was a car accident."

  "Mrs. Reilly," Toni said, "has chosen to spend her life in the cold at four a.m. I would not count her as my most reliable source of information. She could have misunderstood. Or, most likely, miseavesdropped."

  "Hmm," Bex said. Because it was the sound that best matched her mood. And then she asked, "So what do we do next?"

  "We?" Toni stood up, balancing with some difficulty on her skates upon a carpeted floor. "You still want to be involved in this, Bex?"

  "Well, I kind of, sort of staked my career on it."

  "Oh, Bex..."

  "I know. Not one of my shiniest moments. But hey, I suppose I could convince myself that I'm one of those people who loves a challenge."

  "In that case, what can I do to help keep you from the unemployment line?"

  "I want to try talking to Craig Hunt again. Maybe away from the rink and Jeremy and everything, he'll be more reasonable. Do you have his home address? I could go there. I've got nothing but time on my hands, right now."

  "I presume he's at work at this time, Bex. Although how do you figure barging in on him at home might make him more reasonable?"

  "Well, where does he work?" Bex hoped that by asking another question she could cover up her lack of an answer to the first one. The one where Toni wanted to know just how exactly did Bex figure that barging in on Craig at home—or at work—might make him more reasonable?

  Toni hesitated. She looked at Bex for a long beat, thinking God-knows-what, and all of it probably accurate. She sighed. And then she said, "I'll write down both addresses for you."

  Craig Hunt, Bex learned, worked for a small, mom-and-pop electronics store, Hiroshi Electronics, as a sort of jack-of-all-trades salesman and Mr. Fix-It on call for the customers.

  "The man can fix anything. He touches an appliance or a computer and it just hums back to life, like magic," Mrs. Jennifer Hiroshi, a slender redhead in her mid-fifties standing behind the cash register, told Bex in response to her questions about their employee. "If we could only count on him to show up when he says he will and actually tell us when he won't, he'd be perfect."

  "Son-of-a-bitch skips out with no notice so regularly, I tell Jenny—consider his being in one day notice that he won't be in the next." Mr. Michael Hiroshi, his graying jet black hair tied into a ponytail at the base of his neck with a rubber band, laughed at his own joke, then admitted, "It's not that funny. But we put up with it. Why? Because he's friggin' good. When Hunt's here, he gets more stuff done in a day than two guys I hired last summer for a test run did in a week. And, besides, Jenny feels sorry for him. Single dad, blah, blah, bring out the violins."

  "Did Mr. Hunt come in toda
y?" Bex asked.

  "Ha!" Mr. Hiroshi barked. “Today is what? Wednesday? He worked Tuesday, Monday, and yeah, even last Friday. I'd say he figures he deserves a break today."

  "That," Jenny laid a vaguely restraining hand on her husband's arm, "would be a 'no.'"

  He winked at her affectionately in response, then turned his attention back to Bex. "Why are you looking for him, anyway? He owe you money? Because Craig Hunt is just an employee here. We've got nothing do with where he goes or what he does. Or who he owes."

  "It's a ..." Bex faltered. "It's a private matter."

  "Well, then, we've certainly got nothing to do with anything like that."

  "So, even though he was supposed to be at work today—I mean, Jeremy told me his dad was going to be at work today—you've got no idea where Craig Hunt is?"

  "Not a clue."

  "Thanks for your help," Bex said. And tried to suppress a mild feeling of panic.

  Driving from Hiroshi Electronics to the address Toni gave her for Craig Hunt's home, Bex told herself not to panic. There was no reason to panic. Why the heck was she panicking? After all, she'd heard it herself from the no-reason-to-lie Hiroshis: Craig Hunt didn't show up for work all the time. There was nothing strange or suspicious about today. In fact, considering his record, wouldn't Craig's actually showing up for work be more suspicious, under the circumstances? So why was Bex panicking? There was no reason to panic.

  That is, until her buzzing the Hunts' door elicited no answer.

  But, still, no reason to panic.

  Why was Bex assuming that a man who regularly skipped out on work would then spend his free day at home? That was silly. There was no reason to assume that. Bex was sure that Craig and maybe even Jeremy were probably playing hooky somewhere on the streets of the great city of Hartford. It was probably a family tradition. Something they did all the time. A bonding thing. There was no reason to assume that Craig and Jeremy not being around meant anything at all.

  That is, until she found the presence of mind to call their building's superintendent. And was informed that, a mere hour ago (probably while Bex was talking to the Hiroshis) Craig Hunt had asked the super to cancel his cable TV and throw away (not hold; throw away) his mail.

  And took off for parts unknown, Jeremy and two suitcases in tow.

  The super didn't remember if Jeremy had been carrying his skate-bag.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Now, Bex thought, might be a good time to panic. It was, after all, one thing not to get an interview. It was quite another to drive the subject into hiding. Actually, maybe she should feel proud of herself. She bet that didn't even happen to the 60 Minutes guys that often. But, then again, the 60 Minutes guys had other people they could interview. Bex's only two options had just fled the scene. And taken her one, pathetic little reel of tape with them. She wasn't just back where she'd started. She was now also down a piece of 24/7 digi-beta stock. Which Bex had a very strong feeling Gil would make her pay for.

  Sitting on some rung of the depression ladder that fell a notch below doom, gloom, and pestilence, Bex did the only thing she could think of. She returned to the rink. To whine.

  But first she asked Toni, "Is this maybe something Craig and Jeremy do all the time? Just take off for vacation in the middle of the day? In the middle of the week? In the middle of the school year? With their cable turned off and their mail in the trash?"

  "No," Toni said.

  "Oh," Bex said.

  "But, they do travel a lot," Toni admitted. "All over the world, too. Though they always tell me about it in advance. It's not like Jeremy to just not show up for a lesson. They know it's my livelihood. They're very considerate about giving me plenty of notice. And Jeremy is always bringing back souvenirs from Europe and Asia. They even went to Africa on safari last year. Mr. Hunt may not want Jeremy's life disturbed by skating, but he certainly has no compulsions about pulling the boy out of school whenever he gets the whim to take a trip."

  Bex thought about it. "Maybe Mr. Hunt is an international drug dealer."

  Toni looked at her funny.

  "Or a spy. Maybe they're both spies. That's why Jeremy can't go to Nationals or ever be photographed. Because it will blow his cover. He's not really a thirteen-year-old skating prodigy. He's a fifty-five-year-old Lithuanian ex-National champion turned double agent."

  "Yes," Toni said. "There's a lot of spying to be done at the ice rink. Is he exploring the possibilities of triple Axels as a weapon of mass destruction?"

  Now, normally, Bex was a major fan of sarcasm. In fact, she suspected that, sans sarcasm, the bulk of her conversations would be limited to simple declarative sentences like, "See Jane run." Alas, Bex's overall love of sarcasm had a teeny, tiny little caveat: She really only liked it when said sarcasm flowed from her to someone else. She wasn't so big on the vice-a-versa.

  So, rather than admit when she'd been outsnottied, Bex changed the subject. She asked Toni, "But don't you think their lifestyle is a little weird?"

  Toni pointed to Lian Reilly through the glass separating the snack bar from the ice surface. She said, "Lian's father lives alone in the family's dream house in San Jose, California. Lian's mother lives in a one-bedroom apartment down the street so that Lian can train here. Lian gets up every morning at three a.m., skates for three hours, does an hour of stretching, an hour of home-school, an hour of ballet, then three more hours of skating. She goes to bed at six p.m. And, you know what, Bex? I don't see anything wrong with what she, her mother, or her father are doing. So, under the circumstances, what exactly would I know about defining weird lifestyles?"

  "I see your point," Bex said. And then she added, with less sarcasm, lest it come bouncing back and smack her on the nose, "I'm sorry it looks like I cost you a student, Toni."

  Toni shrugged. "I told you, I've been expecting to lose Jeremy from the first lesson I gave him. I never expected to have him for five years. It always happens that way. Let them show an ounce of potential and it's bye-bye, Ms. Wright. The saddest part is, sometimes I really grow to like the kids. Not as skaters, necessarily. Just as kids. Those are the really tough ones to let go."

  "Like Jeremy?"

  "He's a good boy. And, I know this sounds egotistical, but I just don't trust that any other coach will really care about him as much as I did. I mean, they'll care about the medals he can win them and the money he can pay them, but as soon as he isn't useful anymore, they'll drop him like the technical mark after a fall in the short program."

  Universal Skating Translator: The short program required a mandatory deduction for every element not completed. Dropping someone like the technical mark of a short program meant dropping them down really far and really fast. What, in the real world, would be called a "hot potato."

  Toni continued, "I've seen it happen—coaches dropping a kid they've practically raised without a word of warning, and it's tragic. The more sensitive kids don't know what hit them." She looked out onto the ice and spied a girl of about seventeen, her chestnut hair tied back into a ponytail, her knee supported by a cloth brace as she slowly skated around the rink, biting her lip either in determination or pain. Toni said, "That's Sondra. She and her partner were fourth at Nationals last year. They had a really good chance of making the World Team. But, then Sondra got injured and, while she was still in surgery, her coach had a new girl lined up for her partner—someone younger and smaller. The worst part was, Sondra had been living with her coach, sharing a room with the coach's daughter, for Pete's sake, traveling with the family for vacations— for the last six years. She called her 'my other mom.' Well, her other mom sold her down the river."

  Bex said, "You know, Toni, I have a feeling Craig didn't take Jeremy out of town so he could find him a better coach. I really think there is something more going on here."

  "Oh, I know, I know. I was just... just thinking out loud, I guess. When you get to be my age, the kids sometimes blend one into the other. But, there are some you remember. And wonder if there was
anything you could have done to change the situation."

  The look on Toni's face suggested she was having a rather wistful moment. A combination of "Regrets, I've had a few" and "The Road Not Taken," thrown into a blender with "Thanks for the memories." The woman had led a fascinating life, and Bex was sure that even her regrets were more interesting than most people's achievements.

  But, they were talking about Bex's future now, not Toni's past. So Bex mentally promised to respect her elders in a little while. Just as soon as she got this whole potential-for-losing-her-job situation under control. She pressed on, "Do you have any idea where Jeremy and Craig might have gone? Did Jeremy ever talk about their having, I don't know, a vacation home somewhere?"

  "No. No vacation home." Toni came out of her reverie with relative ease, apparently having reached the conclusion that, no, there wasn't anything she could have done to change the past, so let's move on with it. "It was mostly the exotic vacations that they took. I can't even think of any place they went to more than once, to be honest."

  "Exotic vacations to Europe and Africa cost a lot of money. Craig Hunt was practically a repairman. And he was paying for daily skating lessons on top of that. How much are those?"

  "About a dollar a minute for five twenty-minute lessons a week. Plus ice time."

  "And the cost of his skates?"

  "Four hundred dollars for good boots, about the same for blades."

  "Right, so let's say a thousand dollars a year just for equipment, and another," Bex did the math quickly in her head, happy that five times twenty made such a malleable number and rounding off the weeks in a year to make her life easier, "plus five thousand dollars for lessons, then ice time and rink admission and clothes and other incidentals, and this is easily costing Craig Hunt almost ten thousand dollars a year. So, how does a guy who fixes toasters and computers for a living—when he feels like showing up, that is—how does he afford skating, and safaris in Africa, and jaunts to Europe at the drop of a hat?"