Murder at the Foul Line

by Otto Penzler (ed)

“No, I haven’t, but that’s not the point. Let me say it one more time. I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator trying to get insurance money for Grant’s mom. You talk to me, that’s as far as it goes. You tell me what I need to know, and that’s that. No one hassles you.

  “If, instead, you go and get your lawyer, you got trouble. Then I got no right to ask you questions, ’cause I’m not a cop. So then I gotta get a cop. And I gotta tell the cop that you won’t answer questions. Then the cop will ask you, and your lawyer will advise you, and the whole thing will be out of my hands. But you’ll be happy. At least you’ll be dealing with a routine you know.

  “If you wanna do that, fine. If you don’t wanna do that, you got another choice. You talk to me, and I go away. And no one asks you any more questions. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Particularly since you know even if I were a cop, nothing you say could hurt you anyway. So come on, let’s do this. I don’t wanna make you late for class.”

  Larry frowned, glanced at his watch. It was a gold Rolex. If the obvious display of riches embarrassed him any, he didn’t show it. “You got two minutes.”

  “Did Grant Jackson ever do drugs?”

  “No way.”

  “If he had, would you know it?”

  Grudgingly. “Suppose.”

  “Is there any chance he got the stuff from anyone else on the team?”

  “No way.”

  “If it wasn’t you, it was no one?”

  “Hey, look—”

  “No offense meant.”

  “Is that so?” His nostrils flared. He bent down in my face. “Now, see here. I don’ do drugs. No one on the team do drugs. You got that? We got drug screens. Wit’ a no-tolerance policy. You flunk one, you done. A guy was usin’, he be on the bench.”

  “I thought you had a designated pisser.”

  He started to flare up, then smiled. “Tha’s good. Gotta use that.”

  “Feel free. The point is, you guys know how to fake drug tests. So don’t give me the everybody’s clean. Coach Tom knows better than that.”

  Larry’s eyes narrowed. “He rat me out?”

  “Not at all. He just suggested you guys were in the habit of sharing urine samples when somebody was high.”

  He banged the door shut on a metal locker. Not violently, just absently, casually. Still, I felt the hall shake. “That so bogus, man. That happen two, three times, big deal. Not like somebody hidin’ a lifestyle, know what I mean. Junkie got a problem, junkie don’ get by. But there ain’ no junkie. There be a junkie, he be on the bench. Coach Tom nail his ass.”

  “How, if he keeps faking the urine sample?”

  “Yeah, but they do blood test too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, and there ain’ no way to fake that. A needle in your arm, ain’ no way to go borrowin’ no blood.”

  “If you were friends with the nurse, and she mislabeled a test tube or two?”

  He shook his head. “Ain’ no nurse. Coach Tom do it hisself. And, trus’ me, he ain’ gonna mislabel nothin’.”

  “Not even to protect his star?”

  “’Specially then. Few years back, he give a drug test, two guys flunk. Both starters, one a high scorer. An’ he sat ’em down. Din’ let ’em play. Championship year.”

  “Championship?”

  “Coulda been. Only, Coach Tom sat his stars.”

  “How long?”

  “Month. Missed the NIT playoffs.”

  “He sat ’em for a whole month?”

  “Tha’s the rule. You fail a blood test, you sit till you pass a blood test. And he don’t give ’em more’n once a month. Tha’s a fact. Blood test, I mean. Pee cup happen alla time.”

  I frowned. I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Let me be sure I understand this. The urine test happens all the time, but you can fake ’em. However, once a month you get a blood test that there’s no way to fake. And Coach Tom gives it. So if Grant was doing cocaine, Coach Tom would know. On account of the blood test.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When’s the last time you had one?”

  I found Coach Tom in the gym, working on the parquet floor. He had removed about a three-foot-square section of boards and was cleaning and sanding them. He didn’t look up when I came in, just continued to inspect the groove on the side of a board. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was there.

  He did.

  “Buckles,” he said. “Wood floor’s a sweet thing, but the wood swells and the floor buckles. Forms an air pocket, makes a little bump. You gotta take it up, put it back down. Don’t know how many hundred times I done this, one spot or another.”

  “You want to talk about Grant Jackson?”

  “I’d rather talk about my floor.”

  I figured that was true. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But there’s some things I need to know.”

  “And I suppose they’re so all-fired important you gotta ask. Boy’s dead, can’t you leave it be?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. I understand you gave blood tests, as well as urine. Tests that were impossible to fake.”

  “Oh, you understand that, do you?”

  “You did it yourself. You were in complete control. If someone tampered with someone’s blood sample, you were the only one who could have done it.”

  “Never happened.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it did. In fact, it’s legend. You sittin’ down your star players when you had a shot at the NIT.”

  “Ain’ nothin’ to it,” Coach Tom said. “Rule’s a rule.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. I set my briefcase down on the parquet floor, snapped it open, took out a sheaf of papers. “And I know you’re a stickler for playing by the rules.” I thrust the papers on the floor in front of him. “You know what these are? They’re lab reports. Going back the last ten years. Lab reports on the blood samples you had processed.”

  “So?”

  “There’s none for the day Grant Jackson died. According to the players on the team, you took blood that day.”

  “What if I did?”

  “According to the lab, you never turned it in.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t. With Grant collapsin’, it would be easy to forget.”

  “You’re saying you forgot to turn it in?”

  “If that’s what the lab says, must be.”

  “Then where are those samples now?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “If you didn’t turn ’em in, you must still have ’em.”

  “So?”

  “So let’s go take a look.”

  “Let’s not. What’s with you? First you say you’re workin’ for the mother, then you come around you want blood. What’s the deal?”

  “If you have a vial of blood you took from Grant Jackson on the day he collapsed, that would be rather valuable evidence.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did.” I picked up the papers, flipped through. “February 3, 1994. Drug screen for Harold Wilks and Alan Powers. Positive for cocaine. You sat them both, in spite of the fact you had a great team that year, with a shot at makin’ the NIT. It’s legend. All the players know it. Gives you a terrific hold over them.”

  “That’s not why I did it.”

  “Yeah, I know.” After a pause I added, “I’m probably the only one who does.”

  He looked up at me from his seat on the floor. “What you mean?”

  “This drug test in ’94 that sat your stars. According to the lab reports, it was three weeks after the last test. Only three weeks, when you always give four. A sudden, surprise test that netted two of your biggest stars. And knocked you out of the NIT.”

  He may not have heard me. He bent over, fitted a board back into the floor.

  “See, you talk a good game, Coach Tom. That’s what bothered me. You talk too good a game. The bit about fear of failure. That was pretty damn good. That sounded plausible. It took a while for me to figure out that if
it sounded that good, it probably wasn’t. And, sure enough, that’s the case. Fear of failure wasn’t the problem. It was fear of success.

  “It happened first in ’94, when a team got a little too good, went a little too far. Gonna get in the playoffs, get some national exposure. Get the alumni all excited. Raise money. Hire a name coach. Build a new gym.

  “I’m not sure which scared you more. Someone trying to replace you, or the thought of losing this.

  “Grant Jackson, same thing, only worse. He’s not just a great player, he’s a marquee player. He’s the type of player gets your team in the papers and on TV. And this gym isn’t set up for TV, is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. You’re very comfortable in your little gym, with a .500 team. It’s not just a job, it’s your whole life. Which Grant Jackson threatened to destroy.” I referred to the sheets. “Which is why, once again, we have a blood test a little early. It’s not on these sheets, but according to the guys on the team, it was the same day Grant Jackson died. Three weeks since the last one. A week early, just like before.”

  I shook my head. “A blood test that never got to the lab, where the blood disappeared.” I lowered my voice. “It must have been a tough thing to do. But I’m sure you thought you had no choice.

  “So there you are, with a needle in Grant’s arm, taking blood. Filling test tubes. Easy to switch; instead of an empty tube, a full hypodermic you squeeze back in. For a boy with a heart condition, a lethal dose of coke. Because Grant Jackson didn’t do drugs. Under any circumstances. Even before he knew about the heart condition. There was no way he would fall for a setup, like the coke you planted on your boys in ’94. That they found in their locker and couldn’t resist. And why would they? The drug screen wasn’t due for another week. Surely it would be out of their system by then.”

  He frowned, looked up at me. There were tears running down his cheeks. “Why you doin’ this?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t say “It’s my job,” because it wasn’t. And I couldn’t bear to say something clunky and holier-than-thou like “Because it’s right.”

  I turned and motioned to the door, where Sergeant MacAullif was waiting. He came in, introduced himself to Coach Tom, and delivered what had to be the calmest Miranda warning in the history of the NYPD.

  Richard was dumbfounded. “Grant Jackson’s a homicide?”

  “That’s right.”

  “His coach killed him because he would have made the team too famous and cost him his job?”

  “That’s a bit of an oversimplification.”

  “But he’s under arrest?”

  “That he is.”

  “Which makes it a brand-new ball game.” Richard rubbed his hands together. “Suddenly everyone’s liable again. The coach, the college, the doctors. Maybe even the police.”

  “Let’s not go overboard,” I said. I could envision MacAullif’s blood pressure if he got named as a defendant.

  “You signed this woman up. Even though I told you not to.”

  “I admit I exceeded my authority.”

  “Yes, you did, and it couldn’t have worked out better. You’re even entitled to the hundred-and-fifty-dollar initiative bonus for bringing me a new case.”

  “Two hundred and fifty.”

  “What?”

  “It went up to two hundred and fifty last year.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That kid, Patrick, who worked here for a month, brought you a case and wouldn’t give it to you for less.”

  “That was a special case.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re trying to justify paying a kid out of college more than the investigator who’s worked for you for years?”

  Richard paused, considered, probably realized the number of cases I brought him could be counted on the fingers of one hand. “Of course not, Stanley,” he said magnanimously. “Two hundred and fifty bucks it is. And a damn fine job.” He riffled through the fact sheet I’d given him. “The woman has nine dependents, no husband, lives on welfare, has no other visible means of support. Cruelly deprived of her only source of income. The insurance companies are going to fall all over themselves trying to settle this.”

  I figured that was probably true. Richard’s reputation as a fearsome litigator was well known. Opposing counsel were used to throwing large sums of money at him to keep him out of court.

  “So,” Richard said, “you get your bonus, I get a nice case, and a woman with nine dependents gets some much-needed relief. All in all, it couldn’t be better.”

  I sighed.

  I was thinking of Coach Tom, down on his hands and knees, meticulously, lovingly replacing the boards of his parquet floor.

  “Yeah,” I said flatly. “Couldn’t be better.”

  CAT’S PAW

  Laurie R. King

  You girls got the balls,” Lauren shouted at the girls on the court. Marisol bumped against Pilar with a stifled giggle while their coach pretended not to notice. This was a long-established, straight-faced game she played with her teams, or maybe with herself, an important part of which was keeping them in doubt as to whether their repressed spinster of a coach actually intended these outrageous double entendres, or if she was just a complete tongue-klutz.

  This particular Monday afternoon, the game was proving something of an effort. Lauren’s heart wasn’t in rude jokes. It wasn’t even in the practice, which at the moment involved an intricate figure eight pattern of dribbling and passing, an exercise two of the players had worked out themselves following the Globetrotters field trip the spring before. The girls had come up with the idea, but it needed close supervision to keep it from disintegrating into a pileup, and frankly, their coach wasn’t up to it today.

  The third time the tight configuration of weaving figures (one, two, three, and pass; one, two, three—) had collided and dissolved into chaos and irritation, Lauren gave up and set them to a simpler shooting practice. That was better. The rhythm and noises of their shoes and voices soothed her, allowing her eyes and mind to follow their skills and personalities, looking at both with an eye to the beginning of the season in a couple of weeks. Saturday’s informal preseason game, she saw, had helped draw them together, given them the unity of purpose she’d hoped for. The day had been a disaster in other ways, but in this it had been a success.

  After a while, she called them over for a brief talk about strategy (which boiled down to Teamwork!), then allowed them a short practice game before dismissing them for the day. She watched them snag their bags and chatter their way out the doors to their waiting rides, feeling pride and affection despite her grinding fatigue. Good team, she thought. Good bunch of girls. God, I’m tired.

  At the dinner table that night, bent over her solitary plate of overcooked pasta, Lauren squinted through gritty eyes as she made notes about the team. Her job was teaching social studies and history, but her love was coaching, especially basketball. It was not the girls themselves that gave her pleasure, although she had no doubt that they speculated furiously about her—she was scrupulous about avoiding physical contact, just in case. She was, however, not a lesbian. She was something far more rare, a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, and the pleasure she took in her girls was not for their bodies, but for their freedom. She craved their overheard conversations about hair and parents and boys, much as a prisoner craves a window, and if her own iron bars were made of emotional distance and a firm concentration on the game, she nonetheless secretly reveled in the social interaction of teenagers such as she had never been.

  She also drew comfort and pride in knowing that she was, if not exactly liked, then at least respected and (although they might not realize it, or admit it if they did) needed. Junior high school girls were so vulnerable, so adrift on a sea of hormones and insecurities, confusion and energy, that giving them a team to cling to was far more important than just something healthy to do after school. Lauren gave them self-respect and a sense
of their own strength, as individuals, as a group, and as a sex. She was aware, always, of the irony involved in their learning this from her, of all people. Hence, for her own amusement, the were-they-or-weren’t-they jokes, those faint overtures from the Lauren who might have been. Marisol coming on nicely, she noted on her pad: cocaptain? Tina, on the other hand, was getting just a bit too self-important for the team’s good: sit the bench for a while?

  By ten o’clock she was aching with fatigue and her eyes felt as if she’d been through a sandstorm. Pushing away the twinge of apprehension, she filled her cat’s bowl, set up the coffeemaker for the morning, and went to bed.

  And for the third night running, came awake within the hour, heart pounding over the noise that wasn’t there. She fumbled for the clock and groaned at the reading of its luminous hands. What the hell was going on, anyway? She hadn’t had insomnia for years, but for the last three nights she had. Ever since the cat.

  With thought of the cat, all hope of sleep shriveled up and crept into a corner to hide. Lauren threw off the covers, felt for her slippers, and pulled on her warm robe as she passed through the dim hallway to the kitchen. By the light of the open refrigerator door she filled a mug with milk and stuck it in the microwave for a minute, added a splash of cheap brandy and a shake of nutmeg, and went to turn on the Weather Channel on the television.

  Storms lay over the nation, although it was calm enough here. Timson, her arthritic Siamese, grumbled in to ask what the hell she was doing up this time of night. He sniffed in disapproval at the corruption of the good honest milk in her mug, curled into her legs, and went to sleep.

  The other cat had been black, or maybe a dark tabby. On the fateful Saturday morning, not even seventy-two hours ago, she’d been driving through San Jose with four of her girls, heading for a preseason meet with a middle school up in the Bay Area that was famous as the home of three actual, real-life professional women players. Somewhere behind Lauren’s car was a minivan with the rest of the team, driven by one of the moms. It was a clear, sunny autumnal morning: ho hum, another beautiful day in the paradise that was Northern California, and the girls were pretending to scorn the sixties and seventies rock of Lauren’s tape collection, although they seemed to know most of the words. Traffic was moving easily enough to allow the driver’s mind to wander, moving forward to the coming game, then back to the meeting she’d had a few days earlier with a prospective sponsor for the team. She was mulling over his proposal to grace their new uniforms with the name of his software company in letters larger than the girls’ own when the cat appeared.