The Whistle Blower

by Robin Merrill

  The green moms were most unhappy with this decision. She couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but one voice rose above the rest. “Let them play, ref!” She tried to tune them out while wondering if they were right. Had she been too quick to blow the whistle? As she was wondering this, a white player elbowed a green player in the face, and the women behind her erupted. “Are you blind? Call it both ways, ref!” A few expletives reached her ears, and her jaw would have dropped open in righteous indignation if it hadn’t been clamped firmly around the whistle. Now she didn’t know what to do. Blow the whistle or don’t blow the whistle? She wished she was on the other side, dealing with the subs.

  “It’s okay!”

  She hadn’t even realized Birch was that close to her until she heard his voice. She looked at him, her eyes wide with incredulity.

  He laughed and slapped her on the back. “No, really. First one was a great call. You missed the second one, but so what? Get your head back in the game. You’re doing great.”

  Feeling only moderately encouraged, she tried to focus. But the green moms continued to scream at her throughout the first half, and when it was time to cross to the other side, she felt like she was crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land.

  Chapter 35

  The second half of Sandra’s first game was no better. She could no longer hear the moms. Now she could hear the coaches, and they were equally angry with her. Five minutes in, she was in tears.

  A few things were going in her favor, though. First, she was sweating so profusely that no one knew those were tears streaming down her face. And second, her muscles were so warm that she wasn’t in much pain.

  She hadn’t meant to, but she’d effectively quit blowing the whistle. She didn’t realize she’d done it until Birch told her to stop being “whistle-shy.” Then, she’d searched for a reason to blow it, but there hadn’t been one. The game dragged on and on, and she swore to herself again that this would be the grand finale of her officiating career.

  Then, after the game, as she was preparing to bolt for the safety of her minivan, the two officials flanked her and began pouring praise upon her head. At first, it didn’t help, but slowly, she was persuaded that maybe she hadn’t done so badly. Birch told her that it was the best first game he’d ever seen. She’d told him he was a liar. Harold, though, was more convincing. He praised her for how well she knew the rules, claiming that this was the hard part, and told her she just needed to be more confident.

  She was certain that that would be the hard part.

  Harold stooped to pick up his backpack, which was behind the scorekeepers’ table. He pulled out a water bottle and took a long drink from it. That niggling voice popped into her head again: You’re supposed to be figuring out a puzzle here. You’re not actually a soccer ref. You’re just pretending to be one. “I can’t believe people last as long as they do in this gig,” she said, trying to steer the conversation in a helpful direction. “How old was Frank? Ninety? So he had like seven decades of moms screaming at him?”

  Birch stared off in the distance, pretending he hadn’t heard her, but Harold guffawed. “Frank Fenton? He’s been deaf as a dead dog for the last six of those decades.”

  She laughed too. “Maybe that’s who killed him—one of those angry moms.” And then right there in that second, she knew the clue that had been on the tip of her tongue since her shadow game: the water bottles!

  The men started walking toward the parking lot, and she scampered to stay between them.

  “Do you know how he got the poison into him?” she asked, though she was certain they had no idea.

  “Can’t begin to imagine,” Harold said, sounding soberer.

  Birch still refused to look at her, but said, “You seem awfully fixated on Frank Fenton.”

  Worrying she’d already blown her cover, she said, “Sorry, I guess I am. I’ve never knelt beside a dying man before.”

  Birch’s eyes snapped toward her. “That was you?”

  Oops. Consider cover blown. She nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Sorry you had to do that,” Harold said, sounding sincere.

  “So you watched a man die and decided to take his job?” Birch no longer sounded friendly.

  “Not exactly.” That wasn’t how it had happened, but she couldn’t exactly tell him how it had happened, now could she? “Um ... I’ve just always loved soccer,” she lied, “and have been thinking about reffing for a while now.” Her voice trembled with guilt. She was the worst liar in the world. Neither man said anything, their silence confirming that neither of them had bought her bologna. At the same time, they picked up their pace. They were almost to the parking lot. She was almost out of time.

  “So,” she said, trying to make up for the ground she had so efficiently lost, “thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”

  Harold smiled down at her. “Don’t mention it. Anytime. I do a lot of middle school games, so we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” He pointed at Birch with his chin. “This guy will be off to bigger and better things, but don’t worry, I’ll have your back.”

  They’d reached the tar. Wordlessly, Birch split off for his Beetle, and Harold went in the opposite direction, leaving her with nothing to do but climb into her minivan. As she turned to do just that, she saw that Birch had a stuffed panda hanging from his rearview mirror. Her belly did a flop. Was that a coincidence? Had her subconscious mind seen that before? Did her dream actually mean something, and if so, what? Birch caught her staring at him, and she turned and scurried to her pandaless van.

  She started the engine, turned up the Casting Crowns, and called out into the empty space. “Bob! Are you there?”

  A voice came out of nowhere. “Be right there. Give me a sec.” Though the voice clearly belonged to Bob, its distinctive quality of disembodiment made her whole body break out in gooseflesh. Had that voice been audible, or had he just telepathically communicated to her? Was she supposed to sit here with her engine running or drive away? How long was an angel sec? Could be millennia. She wanted to get home. She was suddenly starving. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d make it home. An image of the Burger King logo loomed in her mind.

  Bob appeared beside her. “Great job out there!”

  Relief washed over her. She didn’t think he’d lie to her about her performance. In fact, she didn’t think angels were allowed to lie at all, but even if they were, she didn’t think Bob would. So she’d done okay. Her angel had said so.

  “Where’s Sammy?”

  “With Ethel.”

  Bob beamed. “I’m so glad that’s working out.” The I told you so was implied. “So, what’s up?”

  Should she tell him about the pandas? She shouldn’t, should she? He would think she was crazy. Maybe she was crazy.

  “You sounded like you had a development,” he pushed.

  Oh yeah. “Do the police know how Frank was poisoned? Because I think the poison was in his water bottle.”

  He furrowed his brow. “I haven’t heard how he was poisoned, so no, maybe they don’t know. Why do you think it was in the water bottle?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but if Mike White did it, he had to do it shortly before he died, right? Is there such a thing as a slow-acting poison?” The more she talked, the more foolish she felt. “I don’t know. I was just thinking that, at each of my games so far, the school has given us free waters, and the refs drink them. So, it would be an easy way to poison a ref.”

  “I don’t think Mike White was anywhere near that game that day.”

  Her stomach sank. Maybe she was wrong.

  Bob looked out the windshield, squinting. “You should drive away. Those moms look angry.”

  Shoot. She’d forgotten all about her new fan club. She threw the van in reverse, and, without even consulting the backup cam, lurched out of her parking spot, threw the van into drive, and sped away.

  “I think you might be onto something,” Bob said, and Sandra felt prouder of h
erself than she ever had. “The water bottle makes sense. And Mike could’ve had someone else do it.”

  Once she was safely on the road and sure she wasn’t being followed by a horde of soccer moms, she said, “I don’t think I’m going to drink the free water anymore.”

  Bob snickered.

  She tried to hide how pleased this made her. It was quite rewarding to make an angel laugh.

  “I think we need to share your theory with the police.”

  Chapter 36

  Sandra agreed with Bob that she should share her brilliant water bottle theory with the police. But how? And what if they already knew that? She’d sound like an idiot! So, she didn’t call that night. She spent the evening rubbing peppermint oil into her sore muscles and helping her kids with homework. Then she fell asleep on the couch. So, it wasn’t until four in the morning when she woke up with a crick in her neck that she started agonizing over the imminent police contact. On some level, she knew she shouldn’t be scared to call them. They were the good guys, after all. But she feared she would annoy them and get into trouble for interfering. She’d never been in trouble in her life. She didn’t want to start now.

  Therefore, she needed to call anonymously.

  Once she’d decided on that course of action, relief washed over her, and she almost fell back to sleep, but a new thought prevented that: how? How does one do anything anonymously in this day and age? Her bladder announced imminent danger, and she got up and crept through the darkness. As annoyed as she was to have to use the bathroom so often, she did do her best thinking in there—probably because that’s the only time she was ever alone.

  No way she could email the police. They could trace it back to her, couldn’t they? But would they bother? Just what kind of budget did the state police have? Maybe she could email from a library, with an anonymous email? Yes! That was a great idea. But how would she know if they got the email? So, maybe she should call them. Did pay phones exist anymore? Should she buy a prepaid cell phone and use that? What did they call those things on Hawaii Five-0? Burn phones ... burned phones ... fire phones ... whatever. She guessed it didn’t matter what they were called. She would do that. If it worked for fictional Hawaiian drug lords, then it would work for her, wouldn’t it? She hoped so.

  With sleep now just a silly fantasy, she got up to make some coffee. She’d taken five steps in the right direction before she realized that the pain in her legs was ninety percent better. The ache that remained wasn’t really pain at all—more like a faint memory that pain used to be there. She would’ve leapt for joy, but she feared reinjury. So, she was humming “Who You Say I Am” when Nate scared the snot out of her with a kiss on the back of her neck. She jumped what felt like a foot into the air, and her whole body broke out in goosebumps.

  He laughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Startle me?” she cried. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” She tried to slow her breathing. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Especially when I’ve been crime fighting.

  He looked at her suspiciously, but then appeared to give up on figuring her out and reached into the cupboard for a coffee mug. “Why are you up so early, and why are you in such a good mood?”

  “I’m up because the couch woke me up, and I’m in a good mood because I’m no longer in pain.”

  He opened the fridge and stared inside as if consulting a crystal ball.

  “The creamer’s on the right door shelf.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled out the half and half. “That’s awesome that you’re feeling better. I’m impressed. Soon you’ll be in such good shape you’ll be running 5Ks on the weekends.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. Want some eggs?”

  “Really? Yeah!”

  Don’t act like I’ve never made you breakfast before. Though, in truth, she hadn’t in quite some time. Part of her was jittery about getting him out of the house so she could get back to crime fighting, which was ridiculous, because she still had to get the kids up and to school before she could go fire-phone-shopping.

  After she’d finished scrambling, she placed his plate in front of him and kissed him on the cheek. “Bon appétit. I’m going to go hop in the shower before it’s too late.”

  He chuckled. “Nah, you’ve still got time. Sit.” He patted the table beside him. “Eat with me.”

  She wasn’t hungry, but she sat down with her coffee, touched that he wanted to spend time with her.

  “So, you think you’re going to stick with this reffing gig?” He put a forkful of eggs into his mouth and then said, “You enjoying it?”

  “I am.” She said that because she thought that’s what she was supposed to say, but once she’d spoken those two words, she realized with some shock that they were true.

  Chapter 37

  As soon as Sandra had Peter and Joanna delivered to school, Sammy and she took a giant step deeper into their sleuthing careers and went fire phone shopping.

  With no idea where an upstanding individual should buy a fire phone, she went to Walmart, where a nice young man in a blue vest welcomed her to the technology department. This wasn’t great news, as she was trying to be sneaky. She should’ve worn her black reffing hat. And a small matching one for Sammy. Oh well, too late now. She told the salesman that she didn’t need any help, and she grabbed the eight dollar flip phone off the rack.

  He met her at the checkout. “Don’t you want some minutes for that?”

  Minutes? She stared stupidly down at the phone.

  “That’s just the phone.” He had the most monotone voice she’d ever heard. “You need to buy the card to activate it if you want to use it.” He pointed at the thousands of cards hanging right around the phones she’d just browsed through.

  “Oh, uh ... yes.” She headed toward the cards, but quickly became overwhelmed. There were a dozen different brands, and each brand seemed to use a different language. And though the man in the blue vest wasn’t doing anything except standing behind his counter, she felt enormous pressure from his waiting. She told herself this was foolish, to just calm down, but her anxiety only grew. Then Sammy began to blat, and the top of her metaphorical teakettle started to rattle around. So, she just grabbed the shiniest card and hurried back to the counter. Once the cart was moving, Sammy stopped crying. Score one for Mom.

  “Uh ... this card isn’t compatible with the phone.”

  You can’t be serious. “Okay.” She took a deep breath, pushing the cart away and then pulling it toward her, trying to trick Sammy into thinking he was moving. “Which card do I need?”

  “One of the blue ones.”

  She looked. All the cards, except for the orange one she’d picked, were blue. “So, any of those blue ones will work with this phone?”

  He didn’t look at the cards. “Yeah. Or you can get a phone that works with this card.”

  She didn’t trust him. “Would you mind going and getting me a card that matches this phone?” She forced a smile and glanced down at Sammy. “The baby seems to like this spot.” When in doubt, use the kid.

  “How many minutes do you want?”

  She thought for a second. “I don’t know, three?”

  “Three?” He looked as if she’d just said she wanted to adopt a brontosaurus: He wasn’t sure it could be done, and he wasn’t even sure such a thing existed.

  “Can you just get me the smallest amount possible?” she said through clenched teeth.

  He left her then, and she was grateful that he didn’t seem to mind going above and beyond his duty. He returned within seconds. “Is thirty days okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He rang her up. “Sixty-one dollars and two cents.”

  “Sixty-one dollars?” she repeated, too loudly. She tried to quiet down. “That was the cheapest one?”

  “You didn’t say the cheapest. You said the smallest amount of minutes.”

  It was a good thing she wasn’t a real criminal. She was terrible at it. She dug through he
r purse, but as she feared, she only had fifty dollars and change. Tears threatened, and she didn’t know what was propelling them the most, frustration or embarrassment.

  “You okay?” His monotone had finally given way to variance, but he didn’t sound concerned. He sounded alarmed.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. Just trying to think.”

  “We take credit cards.”

  No kidding, I never would’ve thought of that. But even a criminal as unskilled as herself knew that there was no point to buying a prepaid if she was going to use plastic to pay for it. She paused. Or was there?

  “Do you know if the police can trace this phone back to this store?” she asked without thinking.

  As his eyes widened, her cheeks warmed accordingly.

  “Why, what are you going to do with this?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just doing a science experiment with my son.” She begged the floor to open up and swallow her. She needed to stop lying. Because it was wrong, but mostly because she was so terrible at it. “So do you know?”

  He shook his head. “No, sorry. I don’t know.”