I prayed she wouldn’t notice that I’d been messing with her laundry, but I needn’t have feared. She was focused on her dog.
“Come here, Henry.” She patted her knees. “You want some fresh air, don’t you?” Paulette no doubt wanted some time away from her drunken hubby, so I braced myself for the cold.
The moment we were outside, I saw that my car was gone, and I was surprised that Vince had actually gone to get us coffee.
Henry strained at his leash, ready to sprint down the driveway, but Paulette asked me to hold him while she lit up. The three-legged beast was freakishly strong. Fortunately for my shoulder sockets, he decided to take care of some business. When I surrendered his leash to Paulette, she let Henry pull one arm taut as she took a long drag. Her smoke hovered, white, just like my breath. I sank my hands deep in my pockets, resolved to let her break the silence. A car roared by, and we passed two houses with Hawkeye flags flying next to their front doors.
“Twenty-four years,” Paulette said. “That’s how long Zach kept away from the bottle. When we found out we couldn’t have children of our own, I begged him to quit so we could adopt.” She smiled sadly. “And he did. He joined AA and never touched the stuff again until…” Her voice caught. “He loves Varenka so much. You should have seen him the day we left Russia with her.”
The wind whipped my hair across my face and made my eyes water. What an irony that Varenka had been drunk the night DeVoster raped her.
“He didn’t have a drinking problem when I married him,” Paulette said. “He had a full ride to UNI. A basketball scholarship. But his freshman year, his parents were killed in a car accident. Zach was driving. It wasn’t his fault, but he blamed himself. One of his arms got messed up real bad, so he couldn’t play for a while. All he did was drink.” She stopped and yanked on Henry’s leash. “He’s not usually as bad as he was today.” She leaned over and ground out her cigarette on the sidewalk. Then she handed Henry’s leash to me and dropped the butt in a neighbor’s trashcan. It clanged hollowly when she replaced its lid.
“Does Varenka know about his drinking?”
“The police got him all riled up today,” Paulette said, “and they haven’t treated our Varenka well to begin with.”
“Does she know about her dad?” I asked gently.
Paulette gazed past me, toward the other side of the street.
“Does she?”
“I hope not.” Paulette reached for Henry’s leash. “She’s just like him. Always blaming herself for things that aren’t her fault.”
“So he was sober the last time Varenka and Kate visited you?”
“Oh sure,” she said quickly. “We played spades and stayed up until some ungodly hour—past 3:00—watching Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.”
This was the third time I’d heard the Mockingbird story, and it had never rung more false. “It must have been hard for your husband not to drink right after learning about DeVoster’s redshirt and watching Varenka struggle in her first game.”
Paulette pulled her pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and shoved them back in. Across the street, a huge black dog barked, pacing along a chain-link fence.
“Zach couldn’t bear it if Varenka lost respect for him.” Paulette held the leash with both hands as Henry leaned toward his nemesis. “He always wanted to be her hero. It was hard for him to see how much she admired Coach Swanson.”
I decided to let Paulette lead the conversation away from the night of the murder. “Her high school coach?” I prompted.
“He was good to her, really took her under his wing. Of course, she was the best player he’d ever had.”
My car crept past with Vince at the wheel.
“One night Zach overheard Varenka telling me that Coach Swanson was like a father to her.” Paulette shook her head. “Cut him to the quick. He couldn’t compete—not with someone who made twice as much money and who was shaping Varenka into a star. That’s how he saw it anyway.”
Vince turned right at the next corner. I had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be long before he’d drive by again.
“James Swanson was real torn up about what happened to Varenka.”
Paulette’s comment was a transparent attempt to cast suspicion outside her own family. “Shelly’s father,” I said. “A tall man?”
“Got at least three inches on Zach.” Paulette’s voice brightened.
“He was torn up?”
“We don’t run in the same circles, but I heard he was furious. And I believe it. Right after it happened, he wrote a letter to the editor, saying that all decent folk should stay away from the men’s games at Iowa.”
A measured, intelligent response, I thought, far from murderous.
“I wish he hadn’t done that,” Paulette said. “Lots of fools wrote back. There were dozens of letters defending DeVoster. Innocent until proven guilty and crap like that. It just made things harder.”
It probably also made Zach feel all the more inadequate. Varenka’s former coach had made a public stand against DeVoster while he—her own father—had done nothing.
Henry sniffed the base of a tree, and Paulette once again turned his leash over to me. The wind made it difficult for her to light up, but she finally managed, her reddened hand cupped at her mouth.
Vince drove by again, slower this time. What was he thinking? That Paulette White and her three-legged mongrel would attack me in broad daylight? More likely, he’d give her an excuse to end our conversation. I’d need to finish my questions before she noticed him. “How serious was Tyler Bennet about your daughter?”
Paulette slipped her lighter into her pocket and resumed control of Henry. “You’re wasting your time if you think he killed DeVoster. You couldn’t ask for a nicer boy. Gentle and considerate. Too gentle for his own good, maybe.” Paulette exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Varenka told me that the reason he didn’t get more playing time was because he wasn’t aggressive enough. She said he lacked the killer instinct. Those were her exact words.”
I figured a guy could develop such an instinct pretty quickly if a woman he loved were raped. “So what happened with them?”
“I wish I knew.” She flicked her cigarette, and the ashes whirled away, never making it to the ground.
“Did he talk much about DeVoster or his teammates?”
“Not really,” she said. “He was closest with one of the managers. Roshaun.”
Vince again, slower still.
Paulette gazed at my Omni. “That poor man must need directions,” she said.
As she headed the curb, I gave Vince my laser glare. Lucky for him, Paulette quickly returned after giving him directions to Casey’s (which, in her opinion, had the best coffee in town), and I made one last attempt to learn more about Varenka’s former boyfriend. “Some of your daughter’s teammates believe that Tyler Bennet killed DeVoster.”
“I’m sure they do.” Her voice had a nasty edge.
“What do you mean?”
Paulette paused and took another puff on her cigarette. “You know some of them are lesbians. Like it or not—that’s just how it is.”
I was lost, and it must have shown.
“Come on,” she said, “You know how they feel about men.”
I clenched my teeth and forced a smile.
We passed two completely dead lawns. Henry barked at a cat that vanished behind a row of mums, and Paulette nodded toward the flowers. “Zach planted ours,” she said. “He knows they’re my favorite. He’s a good man.” She inhaled the last drag of her cigarette. “You won’t tell anyone about today, will you?”
Chapter Thirteen
After Vince and I discovered that Kate’s and Shelly’s parents’ weren’t home, he wanted to go back to Iowa City (simply so he could spend the rest of Sunday with Richard) while I wanted to interview Roshaun’s parents in Waterloo. I was sure they could tell me something about their son’s friend, the too-good-to-be-true Tyler Bennet. Unimpressed with my plan, Vince kept grumbling
about how the Andersons might not even be home, and he refused to be mollified even after I told him he could come in with me. He abandoned his grousing only when a rock DJ mentioned Marilyn MonHerky.
“Un-be-lieve-able,” the DJ boomed. “One family drove ninety miles just to get their photo taken with the now infamous bird.”
“What a boon to Iowa’s sagging tourism industry,” Vince commented.
“It’s good clean family fun—a crime scene photo opp,” the DJ guffawed.
Sometimes I envied people who worked at stations where they got to make jokes out of everything. Alternative radio can be a little short on humor.
“Speaking of raptors,” the DJ said, “let’s listen to some Eagles.”
As they strummed through “Hotel California,” we drove through Waterloo, trying to find the Andersons’ street. We passed a chiropractic clinic, a violin shop, a nail boutique, and a falafel joint. Finally, we took a left at a bus stop and, about a mile later, found ourselves in a neighborhood not unlike our own. Victorians had been converted into apartments, cars lined both sides of the narrow street, and house numbers were harder to find than parking spots. We pulled over, only partially blocking a driveway, and walked toward the Andersons’, three houses down.
Francine Anderson had her son’s wiry build and ready grin, but she was lighter skinned, a cinnamon to his molasses. She also moved and spoke much more quickly. I’d barely begun to explain our presence when she threw the door open wide. “Come in, come in before you heat the whole neighborhood. Mind the pumpkins.” She darted in between the orange construction-paper orbs that covered her living room carpet. Some had peace signs drawn with wide, wobbly magic markers. “My little ones did those,” she said over her shoulder. “We’re decorating the Center for Thanksgiving.”
“The Center?” I asked.
“The Youth Center,” she said. “Where Regan and I work.” Before Vince or I could comment, we were in her kitchen, and she was peering into her oven. Francine was the kind of woman who expected you to keep up. “Regan is my husband,” she explained. “He’s not—absolutely not—named after the so-called president.” She headed toward a table strewn with papers and removed what looked like a paper mache turkey from one of the chairs. “Magnificent, isn’t he? Roshaun and Shelly made him for me when they were here. He’ll be our Thanksgiving piñata. The littlest Rivera boy asked why we had one at Christmas, but not Thanksgiving, and I told him there was no reason in the world why we shouldn’t have a piñata for every holiday.” Francine lifted the bird and studied its underside. Her hair was closely cropped with just a trace of white near her temples. “They did a good job,” she declared. “It’ll take some mighty whacking to get the best of this guy.” She set the doomed creature on the kitchen counter. “I’m heating up a frozen pizza,” she said. “Care to join me?” She pulled some plates from a cupboard. “I know it’s too early for dinner, but believe it or not, I forgot to eat lunch.”
I caught Vince’s eye and smiled. Maybe I’d have a chance to question Francine once she started eating.
“Frozen stuff is all I’ve had time for,” she said. “I didn’t even cook for my baby the last time he was here.”
“When was that?” I knew full well, of course, but I wanted to hear Shelly’s alibi for myself.
“Friday night. With his girlfriend Shelly. I didn’t even have any milk on hand. He and Shelly got woke up in the middle of the night when Ida called, and all they had to drink was—”
“Who’s Ida?” Vince asked.
“Regan’s great aunt. She’s got Alzheimers, but no one will admit it, least of all her, so Regan goes to Chicago and tends to her when we have only two and a half days to finish a grant for the Center.”
Vince nodded politely, no doubt sorry he’d asked.
“Regan is with Ida, and I’m sitting here in the middle of the night working on the grant when Ida calls—”
“What time was that?”
“Around 2:00. Just like I told the police. I remember saying, ‘Ida, it’s nearly two in the morning,’ but she doesn’t care. She says there’s a strange man in her house. I try to tell her it’s Regan, her soft-hearted nephew, my husband who’s too kind for his own good.” Francine shook her head and pulled the pizza out of the oven. “Point being, Ida’s call woke up Roshaun and Shelly, so they came into the kitchen and started eating Oreos.” She turned to Vince and me, her eyebrows raised.
It was our turn to comment, but I was at a loss.
“There was no milk!” she said. “No milk at all for my sweet son and his girl. That’s how busy I’ve been.” She sliced through the pizza as if it were to blame. “Grab a plate,” she ordered, dashing to the table.
As we seated ourselves, she noted that she’d never forget what she was doing when she first heard about DeVoster’s death.
I gamely took the bait, hoping to steer the conversation toward some of my suspects.
“I was gazing out my kitchen window,” Francine said, “watching Roshaun and Shelly play HORSE in the driveway. They’d gone and got some milk first thing in the morning, bless them, and some bacon. I was about to fry it up and make pancakes when the phone rang. I thought it would be Regan or Ida, but it was…” She curled the tip of her tongue around the bottom of her front teeth, thinking. “One of the women players. With a stutter.”
“Kate Timmens,” I said.
“That’s right.” Francine served the pizza. “When I finally figured out what she was saying, I thought omylord, it’s really going to hit the fan now. A rich white athlete—the cops are going to be falling all over themselves trying to find out who did it. Reminds me of the time my cousin Fred—”
“What exactly did she say?” I asked.
“She just wanted to make sure Shelly knew there was going to be a team meeting that afternoon.”
“Did she use the word murder?” Vince asked.
“Goodness, I don’t remember,” she said. “I was worried about how my baby and his girl would take the news. Roshaun wasn’t real close to Dave, but still…I couldn’t bring myself to tell them right away. I just stood in the window watching them out there in the driveway. They were laughing and they looked so happy—the whole controversy has been rough on them—I just wanted to give them a moment’s peace.”
Francine’s voice caught. She seemed to need a moment herself, so I studied the objects on the buffet behind her: a delicate blue glass vase with dried flowers, a wooden giraffe that might have been an African carving, and several photos. Most of them featured her and a man I assumed was Regan with kids from the Center, but there was a childhood one of Roshaun, both his tiny arms wrapped around a basketball. There was also his senior portrait and next to it, the senior portrait of a girl with the same smile and lots of braids. She seemed vaguely familiar. “Your daughter?” I nodded toward the photo.
“My youngest.” Francine struggled with her crust, and as her fork finally sliced through it, a piece shot across her plate. She prodded it back to the center, her mouth tight.
It must have been hard, having to tell her son about DeVoster. “How did Roshaun and Shelly react after you told them?”
“They stood there a few moments. In shock, poor things. Then they started packing their bags. Wouldn’t even eat breakfast.”
“What did they say about it?”
“Shelly is always real formal and reserved around me. You know, wanting to make a good impression.”
“Maybe you overheard her and Roshaun talking?”
As Francine shook her head again and gazed at her plate, Vince pointed at his watch.
But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Do you know anything about DeVoster’s relationship with his teammates?”
“He made sure they all knew it was his team.” She frowned. “Why? Do you think one of them did it?”
Finally, the opening I needed. “I wonder about Tyler Bennet.” I paused for a moment, careful not to reveal Varenka’s secret. “He played behind DeVoster. Maybe he wanted
to keep DeVoster from returning to the team.”
“But we keep hearing what a nice guy he is,” Vince said.
“Oh, he is,” Francine gushed, “he is.”
“He’s friends with Roshaun?” I prompted.
She nodded. “Red—that’s what they call him—he’s come home with Roshaun a few times. Gave me quite a surprise the last time. He’d turned vegetarian. A big Iowa boy like him—imagine! But he told me my ham looked delicious. That’s how polite he is. Helped me with the dishes after every single meal.”
“Have you seen him since the rape?”
“No.” Francine sighed. “His last visit was about six months ago. I keep telling Roshaun to bring him, but he says Red isn’t tight with anybody on the team anymore.”
If Bennet was a nice guy, it wasn’t surprising that he’d shun DeVoster, but his distance from the entire team seemed odd.
“He gets along with everybody just fine and mentors the younger players,” Francine said. “Just likes to keep to himself, I guess.”
He didn’t sound like a killer—not like Lexie Roth with her penchant for stalking and castration. Or Zach White with his empty bottle and full heart. I didn’t want Varenka’s father to be guilty. It would be too large a burden for a young woman to bear—knowing that her once sweet and gentle father had killed on her behalf.
“Who else do you suspect?” Francine asked.
“We just started our investigation,” Vince said.
I was glad I could trust him to keep quiet about things that mattered. I knew he’d never tell anybody about Varenka’s identity or her father’s drinking.
“Do you have any thoughts about who did it?” I asked Francine.
“No, not really.”
“You must have some thoughts,” Vince said.
“This is thirdhand,” she warned. “Something Roshaun told me—not exactly in confidence, but—”
“We’re not interested in spreading rumors,” I assured her.
“When Roshaun was bringing Coach Bly a tape, he overheard a phone conversation. Coach was saying stuff like ‘my player did nothing wrong’ and ‘your daughter crawled into his bed drunk.’” Francine met my eyes. “Right before hanging up, Coach said ‘you threaten my player one more time, and you’ll be sorry.’”
Murder by Mascot Page 10