The Little Black Dress

by Linda Palund

  “So in one year, he transformed our football team from the biggest losers in LA County to the first-place winners in our division. We became the most talked-about high school team in the LA area. Everyone thought the coach was so great that those same wealthy alumni paid his salary for the next four years. The gossip in the girls’ room is that he is a total brute who drives the players hard, has a foul mouth, and doesn’t take no for an answer. Maybe you’ve seen him in the halls? He’s kind of big and bulky looking but fit, with a big square head, weather-beaten face, and thick silver-gray hair that I am sure he dyes. He’s always dressed in light blue jeans, the kind they call ‘easy fit’ for big guys, and a light blue Levi’s jacket. Evidently, he works Luke, the quarterback, especially hard, but they seem to be buddies, which is interesting, come to think of it…. But Luke’s arm just gets better and better, so he must be doing something right, or so everyone thinks.

  “Rumor around school is that we always beat the other teams because we always beat the other teams, literally. The few losses we suffer are caused by penalties for ‘unnecessary roughness,’ and there is always a lot of fighting on and off the field. Our team took a lot of penalties for roughing up the passer, etcetera, last year—and pulling all kinds of unsportsmanlike shit on the field.”

  Seth interrupted me then. “Even around the school, the players seem to be always hyped up. They positively stalk around campus, not just as if they owned the place, but like it was their own little kingdom! I certainly try to stay out of their way. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think that this hotshot coach is feeding the team steroids!”

  “Now that is interesting. That would explain a lot.”

  “We’ve got a lot of that going around in Texas, as you’d expect, since everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas. If your kid’s not growing fast enough, you get him some steroids. It’s still illegal and dangerous for underage boys.”

  “And even I know that steroids can cause behavioral changes and aggressiveness! That would explain all these increased injuries and penalties for aggression on the field.”

  “Plus, it has lots of other unappetizing side effects. It really makes me wonder….”

  “So, now we’ve got something else to consider as well. It just convinces me more and more that the football team is going to be where we find our killers.” And then I looked at Seth’s eager but still geeky face plotting away across the booth from me, and I added, “But the more I think about it, the more worried I get about the danger we could be getting ourselves into. Especially you.”

  “But the tryouts for the baseball team are this Saturday. I’m not going to back down. I’m still willing to be the inside man.”

  “What are your chances of making the team, seriously?” I asked.

  “Seriously? I’ve been watching the other guys practicing. It’s going to be a cakewalk. But just remember, I’m not a jock. I just have this talent. You’ll see. Anyway, I’ll be in the locker room tomorrow ’cause we’ll be warming up before the tryouts start.”

  “Please be careful. I’ll be cheering for you, but only if you promise not to get yourself killed.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be a hero,” he promised. “I’ll just be your inside man.”

  CHAPTER 20

  MY INSIDE MAN

  SETH’S COVER turned out to be pretty phenomenal, because he stunned everyone, including me, with his performance on the baseball diamond at the tryouts. He hadn’t been exaggerating; he really was an incredible pitcher. It was obvious even to me. I was watching from the bleachers, a place I had never thought I would find myself. He was so amazing the baseball coach didn’t hesitate to make him the starting pitcher on the spot. I think the baseball coach was so shocked at his good fortune he snapped Seth up before Seth could think twice about it.

  When I told my family about Seth’s surprising baseball prowess, my brother and his friends were over the moon, thinking I had an actual baseball star for a boyfriend. From that day forth, whenever Seth came over to our house, he would immediately be hijacked into tossing baseballs around the backyard, so we had to dedicate a precious half hour to pleasing the kids before we could get down to the serious business of solving Carmen’s murder.

  Anyway, Seth had been right; making the team had been a cakewalk, and now that he was an instant baseball star, he had the perfect inside ticket to the locker room.

  “You won’t believe it, Lucy,” Seth told me at Pips after only a week of baseball practice. “Those jocks just love me. Even the football players love me.”

  “Well, everybody loves America’s favorite pastime,” I said, digging in to a fat slice of cheesecake. I was hungry again, now that we were doing something constructive.

  “The players are not only talking to me, but they actually seem to be talking to me with respect.”

  “You mean they’re not just snapping towels at you,” I said, secretly pleased.

  “All this attention is going to take some getting used to,” Seth confided. “Those guys on the football team are pretty intimidating. The sheer size of them is terrifying.”

  “Are you safe?” I asked. “Do they seem dangerous? You said they liked you.”

  “Yeah, they like me. I’m fine. They just make me feel puny.”

  “Well, you are pretty skinny, even if you are tall,” I said. It was true. Although Seth was at least six feet tall, that was far below average height for the football team, and a lot of those guys, including Skywalker, were over six foot four and hugely muscular, weighing in at over two hundred pounds. “How much do you weigh?” I asked, looking up from my cheesecake, which I was mashing with my fork for some reason.

  “Last time I weighed myself was in the nurse’s office last week. I weighed in at around 155 with all my clothes on.”

  “Well, then, you are puny!” I said, laughing into a forkful of cheesecake.

  “That’s not funny,” he grumbled.

  “Well, what’s your plan, anyway?” I asked.

  “I’ve been taking my time dressing so I’m still in the locker room when the football team finishes practice. That way I get to listen in on their chatter, which is usually pretty revolting, mainly about who they smashed that day and who they were going to screw that night.”

  “Ugh. Poor you,” I sympathized. “Have you found out anything interesting besides who they’re screwing?” I asked.

  “Well, one thing I’ve noticed right away is that Coach Billy seems to be far too buddy-buddy with some of the players, especially Luke and some of the bigger receivers, like Carl Brandt. They hang out together after practice. The way they talk about girls is even creepier than normal jock talk. Also, when the coach is in the locker room, there seems to be a lot of hush-hush, wink-wink going on, like they couldn’t talk out loud if I was in the room.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “I wonder what’s going on.”

  “My guess is it’s the steroids,” said Seth. “But I haven’t seen any yet.”

  In the second week of baseball practice, Seth started noticing something that really made him suspicious and uncomfortable.

  “Have you ever seen the coach’s new office?” he asked me during our free period. We were in the seniors’ lounge enjoying a cup of chemical brew.

  “I’ve seen the outside of it. I’ve never been inside,” I answered.

  When Coach Billy came to our school, the alumni had a special office built for him in a separate building attached to the PE department. It was situated between the boys’ locker room and the gym.

  “I heard it was supposed to be pretty snazzy, as offices go,” I added.

  “Yes, that’s what I hear,” said Seth. “But why does he need a separate building? The other coaches share offices inside the PE building itself, but Coach Billy has a whole separate building with its own entrance from the field walkway between the gym and the locker room.”

  “I guess it’s just to show what a big wheel he is,” I said.r />
  “He’s got a separate entrance into the PE building too. Anyway, since I’ve been there, I’ve seen the players flowing pretty freely in and out of his office. And you know who else?” Seth set down his mug of bitter brew and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “No,” I answered. “I don’t. Who else?”

  “Cheerleaders,” he said, “that’s who else.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, feeling suddenly dizzy.

  “When I’m warming up in the batter’s box, I can see the coach’s office door. It opens onto the walkway between the field and the gym. The batter’s box is just on the other side of the walkway. I have a good view of the gym entrance and the coach’s door.”

  “And?” I said, anxious to know what he was getting at.

  “You know that cheerleading practice takes place after school nearly every day. Well, I’m around most every day too. They work out inside the gym, and after practice the cheerleaders usually hang around for a while. Sometimes they watch the baseball practice, but mostly they’re just waiting for their football hunk boyfriends to finish their practice.”

  “And?” I asked, growing impatient.

  “Well, this week, I began to notice some of the cheerleaders actually going inside the coach’s office after practice. I never see them come out, but I figure they must use the inside door into the PE building, but still, what were they doing inside the coach’s office in the first place?”

  “Yes, exactly,” I agreed. “What were the cheerleaders doing in the football coach’s office?”

  “Then yesterday afternoon, I saw two cheerleaders arguing outside the gym, between the two buildings. One of the girls started to cry, and the other girl pulled her back inside the gym. Five minutes later, they both came out. The girl who had been crying looked like she had washed her face and put on more makeup. They talked outside for a few seconds, and then I saw the other girl push the girl who had been crying toward the coach’s office. She left her there and walked back inside the gym. I watched the other girl. She just stood in front of the coach’s door, staring at it for at least two minutes, but then I saw her finally knock on the door, and when it opened, she walked right in. I never saw her come out either.”

  “That’s very weird,” I said. “And it doesn’t sound good.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Seth. “It doesn’t sound very healthy.”

  “That’s putting it delicately,” I said, feeling nauseous.

  A FEW days later, Seth got a breakthrough in our steroid investigation. He called me from his car as soon as he left the gym and told me the whole story.

  It seemed that Carl Brandt, one of the running backs, a big, beefy guy who liked baseball a lot, sidled up to Seth that day when they were alone in the locker room.

  “Hey, hotshot,” he said, smiling warmly at Seth. He’d been friendly to Seth ever since the baseball tryouts had revealed Seth’s amazing curve ball. “How’d you like to improve your batting average?”

  “Why?” Seth asked. “Do you think I have a problem?”

  Carl just laughed. “Whoa, there, hotshot, everybody can use improvement. Look at how well the football team does. Not one loss all season.”

  “So what’s the secret? What do I need to do to make me a better hitter?” Seth asked.

  Carl took a little bottle out of his pocket and showed Seth these little white pills.

  “What are those? Some kind of speed, Dexedrine or something?” Seth asked, pretending ignorance.

  “No way, man, this is the real deal. ’Roids, man. Steroids.” Carl laughed again and slapped Seth on the back.

  “So, like, do all of you take them?” Seth asked.

  “Pretty much the whole team. I gained twenty-five pounds of pure muscle since I started on them. I used to be kind of weedy like you,” Carl said.

  “Golly,” said Seth, wondering what to say next. “Well, like, how much do they cost—and what’s the deal? Don’t I need to do something to make them work?”

  “Nah,” answered Carl. “You just take one of these little pills in the morning and go to your regular baseball practice and do your workouts like a good little boy, and you’ll see the change. You’ll have more energy, you’ll be able to throw faster, and you’ll be able to hit the ball harder in no time!”

  “So, where do you get them, man? Aren’t they illegal?”

  “Come on, hotshot, don’t give me that, you smoke dope, don’t you?”

  When Seth told me this, all I could think was “As if!” Poor Seth wouldn’t dare bring drugs into his house, not with random drug testing in the police department. Even Seth’s dad could be tested at random intervals, and just a whiff of marijuana could wind up in his dad’s bloodstream. Seth would never compromise his dad’s career.

  But he answered, “Yeah, of course.”

  “Well, we have a good supplier, and we get a good deal. I can get you a thirty-day supply for just one hundred dollars.”

  “But how can you be sure this is the right stuff? They just look like little white pills to me.”

  “See, man, this is the stuff the coach has us use. He knows the right stuff, and he gets it medical grade!”

  “Wow.” Seth tried to look enthusiastic. “Let me think about it. I don’t have much left in my allowance.”

  “Well, don’t wait too long.” Carl slapped Seth fondly on his skinny backside and left the locker room.

  CHAPTER 21

  TIME TO ACT

  “WELL, THAT should be enough, shouldn’t it?” I asked Seth that evening. “I think it’s time for me to talk to your dad before something else awful happens.” We were at Pips again, eating cheesecake and drinking our usual endless mugs of coffee. “I don’t think it’s wise to wait any longer.”

  Lately, we’d made a habit of meeting at Pip’s every evening after baseball practice so Seth could give me the rundown on his undercover work and to plan our next steps.

  “Don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves,” he warned me. “That’s not what the police would call evidence.” He put down his fork and looked at me without a trace of a smile. “I haven’t worn a wire, so it’s all what they call ‘hearsay’ and not admissible in court. And besides, it only means that the coach is a drug dealer, not a murderer.”

  “But at least we know for a fact that there is something definitely rotten in the Uni High School locker room and that Coach Billy is probably behind it. Shouldn’t that be enough to raise a warrant, or at least suspicions?” I said, disappointed. “I mean, it’s all beginning to make sense now. We already know that football is a brutal sport, especially the way our team plays it, but with steroids involved, it looks more and more as if some of our players carried out those brutal attacks.”

  “But why?” Seth asked. “Why kidnap and rape when they could get any girl in the school they wanted?”

  “Oh, but that’s just it. They couldn’t get Carmen or Stephanie. Neither of those girls would give any of those guys the time of day, football heroes or not. And remember, rape isn’t really a sexual act; it’s more about power—and maybe about anger? Maybe their egos couldn’t handle the rejection. But I don’t really care why they did it; all I want is to get some detectives down there to investigate, and pronto!’

  It had been three weeks since Stephanie’s murder and two weeks into Seth’s undercover locker-room ordeal. I knew there was a lot more to be learned, but time was slipping away, and now, with the addition of the cheerleaders’ inexplicable behavior, we needed to catch whomever was responsible before someone else got hurt—or worse!

  “You may be right. You probably are right. It’s all beginning to make a kind of disgusting sense,” Seth said, looking up from where he was neatly separating the filling from the graham-cracker crust of his cheesecake. “Carl is expecting me to buy into the steroids, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to stall him. I’m not really an undercover cop. I don’t want to act more suspicious than I already am.”

  “But they’re not suspicious of
you, are they?”

  “No, no, at least I don’t think so, but don’t worry, they still seem to love me. It just might start seeming suspicious if I keep hanging around the locker room after practice every day. Carl might think I have a crush on him.”

  “See what I mean?” I said, letting the waitress refill my mug. “We’ve got to act soon. What do you think I should tell your dad? Do I have any reason I can give for wanting to talk to him without letting him know you’re playing detective?”

  “Well, if you’re really determined to speak to him, I think you already have an in, being you’re still a key witness in Carmen’s case, and she was your best friend. It’s not out of line for you just to go to see him, if you want to.” Seth’s eyes were shining again, and I could see he was hatching a plan. “I mean, if he’s the chief investigating officer in a case you are personally involved with, it’s not out of line to want to simply talk to him. Come to think of it, you should be able to go to him and tell him anything you think might be pertinent to the case. We can make up some reasons for you to have your suspicions. Maybe you can just tell him that you have an uncomfortable feeling about some of the guys in the school, or maybe you can say you overheard something in the girls’ room?”

  “Yeah. I was thinking that might be how to play it. I wish we had something more concrete, though. I wish we could go to visit Jonny Freeman in the hospital.”

  “Have you heard anything more about him?”

  “Not really. None of the girls I know were into him, he was such a predator, so no one I know goes to visit him in the hospital.”

  “He’s still there?”

  “Oh yeah, his burns and injuries were massive. They’re still working on him. I think he’s going to be in the hospital for a while yet. He’s still getting skin grafts.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “My dad sometimes works at the UC Med Center, and he’s been trying to keep me updated on Jonny’s condition. I never really cared about how Jonny’s recovery was going before, but now that I think he’s involved, I’ve been asking. He told me something else that might be interesting. He told me that the coach and Skywalker are regular visitors.”