Dead Ball

by Judith Arnold

  “Two blinks. I guess that means no,” he said, smiling despite the resignation in his tone. “Wherever you got those photos from, put them back, okay?”

  “I will,” Lainie said, not bothering to add that she’d make copies of them first.

  Chapter Twenty

  LAINIE ARRIVED at Minuteman Field Saturday morning, clad in her black nylon shorts, her red Colonielles jersey, her shin guards, and her cleats. The home game against Ashland was listed on the season schedule, which Lainie had received weeks before she’d been banned from the team. She’d fastened it to the refrigerator with one of her Audubon Society magnets, and it had goaded her every day when she’d come inside after her jog through the neighborhood or a soccer ball workout in the back yard.

  She was all done with being afraid. She was fed up with chronically leaking tear ducts and dreams about prison cells and phone calls from Jodie Blumenthal, asking Lainie what she should do about her mute daughter. If she could steal photos of Arthur meeting with his mistress, she could do anything.

  Well, not quite anything. Much as she’d love to return to her classroom, she couldn’t defy Frank Bruno. She’d urged Hayden Blumenthal’s mother to pressure him to allow Lainie to return to work, but so far he hadn’t relented.

  The Colonielles weren’t a job, however, and Coach Thomaston couldn’t fire her. And Sheila and Angie had had a valid point when they’d said it wasn’t right that Patty should be faring better than Lainie.

  Damn it, she was going to fare well, too. And she was going to use expressions like “damn it” whenever she damn well wanted.

  Sheila was the first Colonielle to spot Lainie as she approached the field from the parking lot, lugging her gear bag. Sheila was the only Colonielle not in a red jersey; as goalie, she wore a yellow and black vertically striped shirt that used to remind Lainie of a bumblebee, but now reminded Lainie of jail. She wondered if she’d still be making such associations once this whole disaster was behind her.

  It wasn’t behind her yet. Peter hadn’t phoned to tell her that Michael Hucker had dropped the charges against her. She took heart in the fact that thinking about the pending charges no longer made her eyes tear up.

  “Lainie!” Sheila shrieked, which alerted the rest of the team to Lainie’s arrival. Most of the team gathered around her, hugging, kissing. and otherwise letting her know she was welcome. Several mentioned how desperately the Colonielles needed her, after their 6-3 loss to the Natick team a few nights ago.

  One player who didn’t approach Lainie was Patty. She hung back, reserved and well groomed, her face frozen into an impenetrable mask.

  Coach Thomaston’s brow contracted in a frown as she stalked across the field toward Lainie. “Warm-up dribbles,” she barked at the team, emptying a sack of soccer balls onto the field. When Lainie reached with her foot for one of the balls, the coach planted herself in front of Lainie, their noses barely an inch apart. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’m a Colonielle,” Lainie said, refraining from saying “damn it,” though she certainly thought the words. “I’ve paid my dues in every sense of the word. I’m on this team, and I should be playing.” She stared defiantly at Coach Thomaston, daring her to argue. Lainie had gone one-on-one with cops, private investigators, and assistant district attorneys in the past couple of weeks. She wasn’t going to let Coach Thomaston intimidate her.

  “It could get uncomfortable,” the coach warned.

  Lainie shrugged. After a night in a holding cell, she could handle uncomfortable. “That’s not a problem for me.”

  Thomaston’s jaw twitched. Her eyes darkened. Then she stepped aside and nudged a ball toward Lainie, who jogged out onto the field with it, feeling truly alive for the first time in days.

  A small but enthusiastic crowd gathered at the field to watch the game. Karen showed up, accompanied by one of her old high school friends who had also returned to Rockford after college. Sheila’s husband and children were there, and Brendan shouted, “Go, Ms. Lovett!” every time Lainie sprinted past him. The game ended in a five to one victory for the Colonielles. Lainie had scored one of the goals, and she’d spent most of the game on the field, subbing out for only a couple minutes in each half.

  Coach Thomaston said nothing, which Lainie took to mean she was back on the team. After the ritual “good game” hand slapping, the players drifted apart, grabbing their bags, chugging water, and meandering back to their cars.

  Karen intercepted Lainie near the sideline, said, “You were fantastic, Mom!” and announced that she and her friend would be heading into Boston and would probably be home late. “Home late” meant they’d be club hopping. Now that Big Brad was out of the picture, Karen was on the prowl.

  Lainie refrained from speechifying about the risks of drinking and driving and engaging in unsafe sex. She’d given Karen those lectures enough times. If Karen hadn’t absorbed them by now, one more lecture wasn’t going to help.

  She caught Karen in a quick hug, not wanting to smear her perspiration all over her daughter, and waved her off. Turning back, she saw most of the players had dispersed and scattered throughout the congested parking lot. She searched the lot not for her Volvo but for Patty Cavanagh’s Range Rover.

  She spotted it parked not far from her car and jogged across the lot. “Patty,” she said, just loud enough for Patty to hear. She didn’t want to yell and attract attention.

  Patty slammed the tailgate of her SUV shut and turned. Her eyes narrowed as Lainie closed in on her. Unlike Lainie, Patty didn’t have a single bead of sweat dampening her face. Every hair was where it belonged, and her uniform still looked crisp despite the humidity in the late-spring air.

  “This is awkward,” Patty said tersely.

  “It’s about to get more awkward,” Lainie warned. “Come here.” She beckoned Patty to follow her to the Volvo. Patty looked leery, but she abandoned her car for Lainie’s.

  Lainie opened the trunk and pulled out the envelope containing the photos of Arthur and his lady friend. She handed it to Patty, who scowled, lifted the flap of the envelope, peeked inside, and then gasped. “How did you get this?”

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is, you knew. You knew he was seeing someone else, and you lied about it.”

  Patty’s mouth popped open and shut a few times. Finally she found her voice. “My husband is dead, Lainie—and the police think you’re at least partly responsible for that.”

  “The police are wrong,” Lainie interjected.

  “He’s dead. Whether or not he was faithful to me is nobody’s business.”

  “He was with that woman the night before he died,” Lainie said, jabbing the envelope with her index finger. “That makes it the police’s business. I told the police, and Knapp believed I’d invented this woman to deflect attention from myself. Ridiculous theory, but that’s what he thought. If you’d told him about the woman, I wouldn’t be in the trouble I’m in now.”

  “You wouldn’t be in the trouble you’re in now if you’d stayed away from Bill Stavik. He’s a homicidal maniac. He killed my husband.”

  “How do you know she didn’t kill your husband?” Lainie asked, pointing at the envelope again. “How does anyone know that? You kept her existence a secret.”

  “Which I had every right to do. I don’t know how you got hold of these photos, but if you stole them—”

  “You can have the originals back, but I’ve made copies, and I’m prepared to show them to the police. Then they’ll know you lied, and they’ll wonder what else you’re lying about. And they’ll scratch me off their list.”

  “All right, all right.” Patty let out a frustrated breath. “What do you want to do about this?”

  “I want you to tell me who the woman is. You could tell the police about her, too—that would be helpful. But they’re such dunces, they might not kno
w what to do with this information. I know what to do with it, so you may as well tell me.”

  “I don’t know who she is. I got the photos and that was that.”

  “Does she live in Burlington?”

  “What?” Patty’s eyebrows shot up. “How the hell should I know where she lives?”

  “I saw her at the game in Burlington. I thought I was imagining it, but now I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. She was there, wasn’t she?”

  “I didn’t see her. I wouldn’t have recognized her if I had. I barely glanced at these photos when I got them. I put them away and was trying to figure out how to talk to Arthur about her. But he died before we ever had that conversation.”

  “Why did Bill Stavik insist that Arthur would never have an affair?”

  “Bill Stavik murdered my husband with a nail gun. Why should anyone believe anything he says?”

  Because he didn’t do it, Lainie almost blurted out. Because I believe him. “Find out who this woman is,” Lainie said, aiming her finger at the envelope one final time. “If you don’t, I will.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you do, Lainie,” Patty said, trying but failing to sound haughty and indifferent. “You’re crazy, too. I’m surrounded by crazy people, and I’m sick of it. Just stay out of my life.” She spun and hurried away, her cleats crunching on the gravel.

  Lainie watched her climb up into the Range Rover. The engine growled as she backed out of her space and tore away, her oversized tires spitting pebbles.

  Lainie smiled. It was kind of fun, in a shamefully sadistic sort of way, to see someone else panicking and on the verge of tears. It was also fun to feel she was doing something—taking steps, saving herself.

  Of course, she was far from saved. And she was still afraid. But she appreciated the fact that someone else was just as afraid as she was.

  SHE SAW A figure standing at the foot of her driveway—not a kid but a man, and he hadn’t come by skateboard. He’d come by pickup truck.

  The anger she’d felt the last time she’d seen Stavik was missing today. Maybe because she’d scored a goal in the game. Maybe because she’d confronted Patty. Maybe because she’d stared down Coach Thomaston.

  She turned onto the driveway and pushed the button on the garage door remote. In her rearview mirror, she watched Stavik follow a few paces behind her car. By the time she’d turned off the engine he was inside the garage.

  He looked tired, a bit haggard. Being charged with murder was obviously more corrosive to the spirit than being charged as an accessory to murder. But his eyes were still blue and beautiful, and his shoulders were still broad . . . and she still had no idea whether he’d hidden the BlackBerry in her purse.

  She climbed out of her car. He didn’t crowd her, but instead lingered near the recycling bins stacked against the wall. “Lainie,” he said.

  She remained silent. She wasn’t sure how much she trusted him or how she was supposed to feel about him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I heard about your meeting with that assistant district attorney. What’s his name? Fucker?”

  She grinned and shook her head. “Hucker.”

  “He wanted you to sell me out, and you didn’t.”

  “How do you know what I told him?”

  “Your lawyer and my lawyer keep in touch. Your lawyer told my lawyer you could have told them I put the BlackBerry in your purse, and they would have dropped the charge against you. But you didn’t tell him that.”

  “I told him the truth,” she said.

  “Lainie.” At last Stavik took a step toward her, and another one. His eyes looked suspiciously shiny. Good lord, was he suffering from sob-at-the-drop-of-a-hat syndrome, too? “Thank you,” he said again.

  “Don’t thank me for being honest. And speaking of honest”—she popped open her trunk and pulled out her bag—“why didn’t you tell me you were a member of People for the Preservation of the Planet?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You gave them money.”

  He smiled. “They pissed the hell out of Cav, so yeah, I gave them money. How could I not support them in their noble mission to annoy him?”

  “They did more than annoy him,” Lainie argued. “They picketed his funeral, for God’s sake. They vandalized Patty’s SUV. What else did they do?”

  “Does it matter? They pissed him off. That was worth a few hundred bucks in my book.”

  She closed the trunk with a thump that echoed against the concrete walls and floor. Turning, she found Stavik close to her.

  “You don’t think I killed Cav, do you,” he said.

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  “But you don’t think I killed him.” He angled his head slightly, scrutinizing her in the garage’s shadows. “Come on, Lainie. Be as honest with me as you were with Fucker. You don’t think I killed Cavanagh.”

  All right. She’d be honest. “I don’t think you killed him.”

  His smile spoke of relief more than triumph. “It’s so hard having the world view you as guilty when you know you’re innocent. I don’t have to tell you that. Knowing that at least one person besides your own lawyer, who you’re paying to prop you up, actually thinks you’re innocent . . . I feel reborn.”

  She laughed. “Isn’t that an overstatement?”

  He didn’t join her laughter. “No. Not at all. That’s exactly how I feel. You look like you’re feeling better than the last time I saw you, too. You look fantastic.”

  “Another exaggeration,” she argued. “I’m all schvitzed. Sweaty,” she translated when he frowned.

  “I like sweaty women.” He leaned toward her and brushed her lips with his. Her body twinged, pins and needles tingling through her flesh as if circulation had just been restored to sleeping limbs. One teeny tiny kiss from Stavik felt so good it hurt.

  She shouldn’t do this. She’d kissed Stavik once, and barely a day later her life had imploded. Peter had told her to stay away from Stavik, and she hadn’t listened to Peter, and she’d paid a dreadful price.

  Stavik had paid a price, too—a much higher price than she had, if the hollows in his cheeks, the shadows circling his eyes, and the tension in his body were anything to judge by. But he’d demanded honesty from her, and she’d been honest. She honestly believed Stavik was innocent.

  And sex with him had been so good. This wasn’t about love, about commitments or creating a family or growing old together. It was about right now, two people savoring a moment of freedom with the keen awareness that their freedom could be snatched from them at any moment.

  She returned his kiss. His mouth opened; so did hers. He ran his hands down the back of her jersey and then up to caress her neck, to frame her face. They kissed until a quiet moan escaped her, or maybe he was the one moaning. She couldn’t tell.

  She pulled away, wondering how he could possibly want to kiss her when her hair was limp with perspiration and slowly unraveling from her braid, and her face was undoubtedly streaked with dirt, and she was dressed in clothes that, while well suited for soccer, did little to flatter her figure. “I need a shower,” she murmured.

  “So take a shower.”

  He wound up in the shower with her. They soaped each other, spread lather over each other’s skin, shampooed each other’s hair. They kissed. They laughed. They tried not to slip on the slick surface of the tub. Then they wrapped themselves in towels and tumbled onto Lainie’s high bed, which didn’t seem so high when Stavik stood next to it, and they peeled off each other’s towels. They didn’t have a condom, so they improvised, using hands, tongues—whatever worked.

  Pleasantly exhausted afterward, they lay side by side, catching their breath, their wet hair leaving damp spots on the pillows. Stavik stroked his hand up and down Lainie’s arm, he
r side, the curve of her breast.

  She’d never before thought of sex as something separate from love. For that matter, she’d never thought of it as something separate from Roger. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Stavik—other than trusting that he wasn’t a murderer. He was handsome and great in bed, and she definitely wanted to get to know him better.

  But love . . . In her mind, love equaled Roger. She couldn’t get past that.

  What amazed her was that she didn’t mind. A nice Jewish girl, a schoolteacher, a mommy—yet there she was, lying naked with a man she didn’t love, and she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it, just as she hadn’t felt guilty about stealing Patty’s photos, or about elbowing her way back onto the Colonielles. Maybe guilt had gone the way of tears for her. She was beyond it.

  “If I wind up behind bars,” Stavik murmured, “can I count on you for conjugal visits?”

  She was tempted to say yes for no better reason than that his hand felt so lovely caressing her. “If you wind up behind bars, so will I.”

  “They’re going to clear you, Lainie. I’ve still got a dagger hanging over my head.”

  “They won’t clear me if I don’t testify that you put the BlackBerry in my purse.”

  “What’s with BlackBerries, anyway? My daughter keeps saying she wants one.”

  Lainie turned her head toward him, surprised. “You’ve seen her?” The last time they’d spoken, he’d told her his ex-wife had barred him from any contact with his daughter.

  “No.” He sounded sad. “We’ve talked, though. When she gets home from school and her mother’s still at work, she phones me.”

  “I’m glad.” He hadn’t been convicted. He didn’t deserve to be deprived of his daughter. “So she talks about BlackBerries?”

  “She’s dying to have one. It’s a status thing at her school. Blackberries or smart phones. All the cool kids have them, and everyone who doesn’t have one wants one.”

  Lainie wondered if any of her students might own a BlackBerry. Not that any of them could have had access to Arthur Cavanagh’s BlackBerry, so none of them could have planted the thing in her purse. “I’ve never seen any of my students at Hopwell with a BlackBerry.”