Last Shot

by John Feinstein

  “But do you remember? If you back me on the fact that I only failed the one class last spring, their whole scheme comes tumbling down.”

  The dean sat back on the couch. “Maybe,” he said. “I mean, yes, of course I remember. I checked all athletes’ transcripts carefully to be sure they were eligible. If you weren’t, I would have known. But there’s still the F that Whiting gave you in the fall. Even without two F’s in the spring, that one would make you ineligible right now.”

  “But if we can prove they’re lying about one transcript, people would have to think they’re lying about the other one,” Stevie said.

  “Good point, Steve,” the dean said. “But you haven’t got proof. You’ve got the word of the player in question and the memory of a retired old man. And they have a physical transcript. Whom would you believe?”

  Chip buried his head in his hands and groaned.

  Susan Carol jumped in. “How do they have this transcript? Who could have changed the grade?”

  “Well, Whiting could change the one from last semester easily. Professors change grades all the time—usually from an Incomplete to a letter grade, or they grade someone up because they complete a paper or retake a test for some reason. But still, a professor changing a B to an F should have raised a red flag.”

  “Like with Dean Mattie?” Chip asked.

  “Who’s he?” Stevie said.

  “My replacement,” Dean Wojenski said. “Theoretically, yes. Although I have to admit I might have missed a mid-semester change. And there’s no reason to be looking for a grade change in March that hurts a student. That just doesn’t happen.”

  “But what about my Econ grade?” Chip said. “We know Professor Scott didn’t change my grade.”

  Dean Wojenski shook his head. “No, he didn’t, poor fellow,” he said. “And, unless he’s some kind of computer genius, Tom Whiting didn’t either. He must have had help.”

  “But from who?” Stevie asked.

  “Whom,” the old professor corrected. “That’s the question. Department heads can change grades. That’d be Ron Ratto in Econ. Or someone higher up in the school hierarchy. Deans, the provost, the president …”

  “That leaves a lot of candidates, doesn’t it?” Chip said.

  “I’m afraid it does, Chip,” Dean Wojenski said. “And some formidable ones. I’m starting to really worry for you here, Chip. There must be a lot at stake for these people. Trying to fix a game is a federal crime.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. Legal betting takes place across state lines, so gaming and gambling are policed by the FBI. Chip, I’m worried you might be in serious danger. And maybe your friends here, too. You don’t want to mess with these people.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Chip. “I’m so confused.”

  “I’m sorry—you came to me for help and I’ve been anything but helpful.”

  They all sat back in silence, feeling defeated.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Wojenski said, “how did you track me down? I got a message from someone at Davidson that you were looking for me, but before I could call back, I heard from you, Susan Carol.”

  “It wasn’t easy. No one at MSU would help me,” Chip said. “Everyone claimed to not know where you were or that they couldn’t help me find you because you were entitled to your privacy in retirement. It was really weird because, to be honest, most of the time I get whatever I want around that place.”

  “That is strange. But if there are higher-ups at MSU involved, I guess it makes sense.”

  “Yeah, but luckily I remembered you used to be at Davidson, so I tried the alumni office.”

  “Well, aren’t you resourceful. And someone there helped you out?”

  “Yes, Christine Braman,” Susan Carol said. “I thought you had talked to her. Didn’t you give her the okay for us to call you?”

  “No,” the dean said. “I mean, I was about to, but then I heard from you directly. What was her name again?”

  “Christine Braman,” Susan Carol said.

  The old dean sat back in his chair, clearly puzzled and disturbed. “I think we may have just found a key clue,” he said. “But it would make the story even murkier. Let me get some coffee and think for a minute—can I get you some?”

  They all said no, and he probably wasn’t gone for more than a few minutes, but Stevie was squirming with anticipation by the time he returned. So were Chip and Susan Carol.

  “Well, I’m not sure what to make of it, but that name does have something to do with you, so maybe there’s a connection,” Dean Wojenski said as he sat back down. “Chip, you’re too young to remember this, but when Coach Pritchett left Davidson to take the job at Northern Wisconsin, your dad was the number two assistant.”

  “Number two?” Chip said. “I didn’t know that. I always thought he was number one.…”

  “Because he was made the head coach, right? What happened was that Terry Hanson, who was the athletic director back then, leapfrogged your dad to make him the head coach because he thought your dad was, well, a better person than the number one guy. There were some questions about the number one guy, and a school like Davidson probably didn’t want to take a chance on him getting into trouble. Squeaky-clean image and all that.”

  “So who was the number one guy?” Chip asked.

  “Steve Jurgensen.”

  “I’ve heard that name,” Chip said. “From my dad, I guess.”

  “Really? Do you know anything about him?”

  Chip shook his head. “No.”

  “Well, his wife’s name is Christine. She works in the alumni office at Davidson, and her maiden name was—”

  “Braman,” Susan Carol broke in.

  “And she probably still uses that name at work,” Chip said. “Which explains why I couldn’t find her in the phone book.”

  Dean Wojenski continued, his audience now paying rapt attention. “Steve Jurgensen was angry, bitter that he didn’t get hired. He told people your dad had put the knife in his back to get the job, which, from everything I knew, could not have been further from the truth.”

  “My dad’s not like that,” Chip said.

  “I know, Chip. Anyway, Steve Jurgensen decided coaching wasn’t for him at that point, and as it turned out, they did him a favor. He’d gotten a law degree from North Carolina while he was a young coach, so he got a job in a Charlotte law firm and within ten years had become one of the managing partners. He started to give a lot of money to his alma mater, and, I don’t know, four or five years ago, they made him a member of the board of trustees. If I’m not wrong, he’s on the executive committee now, and on track to be chairman of the board in a few years.”

  “What’s his alma mater?” Susan Carol asked.

  The dean smiled. “Duke.”

  “Duke!” they all shouted in unison, looking at one another.

  “I don’t remember a player named Steve Jurgensen,” Susan Carol said. “And I know most of the Duke players going back to the 1960s.”

  “He wasn’t a player,” Professor Wojenski said. “He was a manager.”

  “A manager who became a coach?” Chip asked.

  “That’s not unusual,” Stevie said. “Lawrence Frank of the New Jersey Nets was a manager at Indiana.”

  “And Jeff LaMere at Virginia Commonwealth was a manager for Coach K,” Susan Carol added.

  “The difference is, he left coaching and got rich,” the dean said.

  Stevie could see Chip doing the same kind of mental two-plus-two that he was doing. “Okay, let’s just say this Steve Jurgensen is involved in this somehow,” Chip said. “He’s still carrying a grudge against my father and he wants to see him lose and Duke win. How does he hook up with Whiting?”

  “It would help explain why Whiting made the comment about playing Duke in the final,” Stevie said to Chip. “Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered to Jurgensen if you guys were playing UConn.”

  “Maybe not,” Chip said. “But if Jurge
nsen and Whiting are in this together, why would Jurgensen’s wife help us find you, Dean?”

  “Yes, why?” the dean said. “Maybe he knew I’d be unlikely to be much help and hoped you’d be discouraged. Maybe he thought you were on to something and he wanted to divert suspicion from himself by seeming to help you.”

  “But we can’t be sure that Jurgensen is involved at all, can we?” Susan Carol asked.

  “If he’s not, it’s one hell of a coincidence,” Dean Wojenski said.

  “I don’t believe anything is coincidence at this point,” Chip said.

  Chip stood up and looked at his watch. “I have to get back downtown for a press conference,” he said. “Thanks for seeing us, Dean Wojenski. You’ve been a big help.”

  “Not really, I’m afraid. What will you do, Chip?”

  “I’m handing it over to these two.”

  “Us?” Stevie said.

  “You bet. My guess is Steve Jurgensen is in New Orleans to watch his alma mater win the national championship tomorrow night. You guys have got to find him.”

  Once they were back in the car and headed back to New Orleans, Chip gave Susan Carol his cell phone so she could try to call Bill Brill. They knew the Duke team wasn’t staying at its assigned hotel downtown, but Brill had said the rooms were being used by alumni, fans, and donors. Problem was, neither of them could remember the name of the hotel. Brill would know.

  They got lucky. Susan Carol caught him walking out the door to get a late breakfast before the press conferences. It was getting close to noon and Chip was pushing eighty as he pulled onto I-10. Susan Carol talked to Brill briefly, said she wasn’t sure she would be at the press conferences—which were being held at the Dome—and then closed the phone.

  “He says the Duke players are out by the airport; the fans and alums are at the Embassy Suites, but the really big shots are at the Windsor Court,” she said. “He even had the phone number because he’s been trying to call the chairman of the board for a story he’s writing on their search for a new president.”

  “Well, if the chairman is staying there …,” Stevie said.

  “Right.” She dialed the number and asked for Steve Jurgensen. A moment later, she hung up. “She said she would ring the room. I hung up when it started to ring.”

  “Okay then,” Chip said. “We know where the guy is. Now—” He stopped himself and glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “What is it?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Company,” Chip said. “I think someone’s following us.” Stevie started to turn around but heard Chip say, “Don’t look back.”

  “Are you sure?” Susan Carol asked.

  “No. Could be a coincidence, but that black Town Car got on the highway at the same place we did, and he’s been staying the same distance behind us ever since.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Stevie asked.

  “I want to find out if I’m paranoid or not,” he said, suddenly swerving the car to the right onto an exit ramp. He pulled up the ramp, glancing in the mirror as he did. At the top of the ramp, he grimaced. “Our friend got off, too,” he said.

  Stevie felt a slight tremor go through him. “Maybe we should get right back on the highway,” he said.

  “Easy, Stevie,” Chip said. “Look, there are gas stations and fast-food places right here. I think we could use some gas.”

  He swung the car into an Exxon station on the right. As they pulled up to the pumps, they saw the Town Car go past them.

  “Hey,” Stevie said, “maybe … oh.”

  “No, they’re following us, all right,” Chip said as they all watched the car make a quick left into the Burger King diagonally across the street from the Exxon. “They’re just going to wait for us over there.”

  “What should we do?” Stevie asked.

  “Get some gas and get back to town,” Chip said.

  He hopped out of the car and began pumping gas while Susan Carol and Stevie kept an eye on the car. It had pulled around to the section of the Burger King parking lot that faced the gas station.

  “No one’s getting out,” Susan Carol said. “They’re just sitting there waiting for us to leave.”

  “Well, who is it? Why are they following us?” Stevie asked.

  “I could maybe find out who …,” Susan Carol said as Chip got back in the car. “Chip, go to the drive-thru at that Burger King.”

  “You’re hungry?” Chip asked.

  “No, but from the drive-thru window we’ll have a perfect view of his license plate. I have a friend who might be able to trace it.”

  They got lucky because there was no line. Chip ordered a hamburger, three fries, and three Cokes. When they pulled up to the window, Susan Carol and Stevie squinted at the back of the car while Chip paid. The windows were tinted, so they couldn’t see inside. Never had a car seemed so ominous.

  “Oh my God,” Susan Carol said. “It’s a North Carolina plate!”

  “Can you make it out?” Chip said, pulling a bag of food into the car and passing it to the backseat without looking back.

  “I can,” said Stevie, always proud of his vision. “DTC-145.”

  “Someone write that down,” Chip said, accepting his change, “and let’s get out of here.”

  Stevie didn’t need to write it down—he wasn’t likely to forget it—but Susan Carol whipped out her notebook.

  Chip pulled out quickly and they were back on the interstate in under a minute. Soon after, Chip glanced in the mirror and said, “They’re right back with us.”

  Susan Carol called her friend and gave him the plate number.

  “Who was that?” Stevie was incredulous. “You really know someone who can track down a license plate?”

  “He’s a friend. His father’s a big shot in the state police and he can get into his computer. Once his dad caught him checking out the license plates of all the teachers at school to find out if any of them had ever been in trouble.”

  “But he’s still willing to do this for you?” Stevie asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And he didn’t ask why you need to know this?”

  She blushed. “He kind of likes me. He said he’d call back as soon as he could.”

  That answer didn’t exactly thrill Stevie, but he resisted the urge to ask more questions.

  Chip looked at his watch. It was almost twelve-thirty. He asked Susan Carol for his cell phone back and dialed a number. “Tom, it’s Grabes,” he said. “Do me a favor, tell my dad and Coach Ames I’m not going over to the Dome with the team, that I’ll meet them there. I might be a minute or two late but don’t panic. I just had to do something.”

  He snapped the phone shut.

  “Okay, what now?” he said. “We know where Jurgensen is staying, but how does that help us?”

  “Should we try to find him at his hotel? Talk to him?” Stevie asked.

  “Or maybe just follow him?” Susan Carol offered. “See where he goes and who he talks to?”

  “He could talk to lots of people, but how will we know who they are?” said Stevie, feeling frustrated.

  “True,” Susan Carol admitted. “We don’t even know what he looks like.…”

  Chip’s cell phone broke into their conversation. It was Susan Carol’s friend, calling back with a name to go with the license-plate number.

  “Well, we don’t have to wonder how to find Steve Jurgensen anymore,” she said, hanging up. “He’s right behind us.”

  “What?!” Stevie and Chip yelled in near-perfect unison.

  The idea of following Jurgensen was decidedly less creepy than the reality of being followed by him.

  “Yeah,” said Susan Carol shakily, “how’s that for a coincidence?”

  “I knew he had to be connected …,” said Chip, slamming his palm on the steering wheel. “Damn it. I wonder if he followed us out there, too? That means he’s seen you guys. And if you went to see Wojenski with me, then he’ll know you know.…”

  “Oh, great,” sa
id Stevie, almost too scared to even process what that might mean.

  “Okay, don’t panic. These guys are more interested in me than in you,” said Chip. “If you guys come to the Dome with me, I’ll bet you can lose him there. You have press clearance and Jurgensen doesn’t. You have your credentials on you?”

  For once, Stevie was prepared. “I stuck it in the back of my notebook just in case,” he said. “Susan Carol?”

  “Got it.”

  “Okay,” Chip said. “Once we’re in, you guys can take off and probably not be followed.”

  “Probably not?” Stevie said.

  “Stevie, no guarantees right now,” Chip said. “You want out?”

  “No! That’s not what I meant.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “Who’s got an idea?”

  “I do,” Susan Carol said.

  “Of course you do,” Stevie said.

  Chip laughed. “Okay, little sister,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

  He picked up his speed a little more, and they flew along the highway, the black Town Car keeping pace not far behind.

  15: FINDING PROOF

  IT WAS ONE O’CLOCK precisely when Chip wheeled the car up to the gate behind the Superdome that was marked NCAA PERSONNEL ONLY. The Town Car was holding a block back. He rolled down the window as a guard walked up to greet them, waving his hand to indicate they were in the wrong place.

  “Chip Graber—Minnesota State,” Chip said to the guard, showing him his player pin and his driver’s license. “I’m due inside for the press conference right now.”

  “Sorry, pal, no one parks in here without a pass,” he said. “The van with the Minnesota State people just came through here a couple minutes ago.”

  “I know,” Chip said. “I had to run an errand with my cousins here, so I missed the team van. I was told to meet everyone here.”

  The guard was still shaking his head when a second guard walked over to see what the problem was. The first one hooked a thumb at Chip and said, “Kid claims he’s a player. He’s got a pin but no parking pass.”

  “Player, yeah right,” the second guard said. He bent down a little to look in the open window, and Stevie saw his eyes go wide. “Chip Graber? Holy …” He stopped before the next word came out of his mouth. “Bill, it’s Chip Graber. Open the damn gate, will ya? Chip, sorry, thought you’d come with the other guys. No one told us.…”