by Carl Deuker
"I've never done it," I admitted, "but I can figure it out."
"I'll help you when I'm done with mine."
The man finished changing his flat just as I got my tire off the wheel. He talked me through the rest. When I finally had the tiny spare mounted, he wished me luck. "Remember—slow."
I eased the Focus out onto the main road and then crawled along in the right lane like a ninety-year-old woman. Sometimes I'd give it a little extra gas, but whenever the speedometer inched much above forty, the Focus shook so wildly that I thought the doors would fall off. It took me nearly twice as long to get home as it had taken me to get to the game.
Up in my room, I whipped out the one hundred words for Chet the Jet in ten minutes. Angel hadn't been the story, so I didn't feel bad about leaving him out. Kimi had e-mailed me a great photo of the dropped pass at the end of the game. Thirty minutes after I'd sat down at the computer, I hit the Send button. The next Lincoln Light was weeks away, so I could put off my articles for it. I got in bed, flicked off the light, and fell asleep.
19
THE NEXT MORNING, I had a message from Chet the Jet. Great article. Didn't change a single word.
The world is a crazy place. If somebody had told me six months earlier that a professional newspaper reporter would call something I wrote great, I'd have sworn that it would be the happiest moment of my life. Now it had happened, and all I felt was depressed.
After I ate a bowl of oatmeal, I drove down to the Ballard Locks to run. I used a bench by the roses to stretch, and then jogged to the fish ladder, up the steep hill, and across the footbridge toward the Magnolia neighborhood.
When I run, my eyes are open, though I don't really see anything. But that day, as I looked down into the ravine from the footbridge, I stopped in my tracks. What my eyes were telling my brain didn't make sense. Half in and half out of the creek that runs through the steep ravine was a great blue heron, dead. Somebody had impaled it with a stick.
I glanced around, uncertain what to do. Finally I started running again, but I'd only gone a few yards when I pictured the little kids who cross the bridge with their moms and dads. They'd see what I'd seen.
When I reached the Magnolia side of the bridge, I slowly worked my way down the slick, steep bank. The creek below was more like a river, swollen by Seattle's autumn rains and running fast. I didn't want to lose my footing.
After about ten minutes, I made it. I inched my way along the bank of the creek toward the dead bird. Just as I reached it, another heron came streaking low over the creek, nearly skimming my head as it swooped, and landed on a branch nearby.
I was determined to give the dead bird some sort of burial, but the live heron almost scared me away. I'd seen herons wading along the shores of Puget Sound. When they saw something to eat, they hit their prey with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. I'd read somewhere that their beaks were as sharp as ice picks.
Flies swarmed around the spot where the bird had been speared; dragonflies darted back and forth above it. The filmy eyes stared at me accusingly, as if I'd killed it.
It was too gross to touch, so I grabbed the stick and pulled, hoping to yank the bird out of the water. It was much lighter than I expected, and with a few tugs I was able to move it under some nearby blackberry bushes. After that, I laid some fallen Douglas fir branches and some morning glory vines on top of it.
The other heron watched as I covered the dead bird with branches and leaves. It wasn't exactly a proper burial, but it was better than leaving it out in the open. When I was satisfied that no little kid could see the bird from the bridge, I stopped. The live heron eyed me for a long moment, then suddenly flapped his huge wings and flew out of the ravine toward Shilshole Bay. My eyes followed him until he disappeared, and then I slowly worked my way back up to the bridge. I slipped a couple of times, scraping my stomach and arms. For a panicky moment I thought I'd never get back up, but I did.
I cleaned myself off a little and then took my normal run through Magnolia. Instead of thinking about Angel or Kimi, the whole way I kept wondering why anyone would kill such a beautiful bird. Maybe that's why the flash came to me just before I got back to the car. Maybe your best ideas come when you don't try.
It was his clothes: the Eagles cap, the Eagles jersey, and especially the Allen Iverson jersey. That wasn't a Nuggets or a Pistons jersey; it was a Sixers jersey. All the sports stuff Angel wore was Philadelphia stuff. Kimi and I hadn't found a single trace of him in Houston because Angel Marichal was from Philadelphia.
It had been right in front of us the first time we'd seen him.
PART FOUR
1
I CALLED KIMI as soon as I got home. I told her to try Philadelphia area codes with the phone number and explained why.
After I cut the connection, I paced my room, wondering how many area codes Philadelphia had. It couldn't be that many. And Angel was a city kid—he wouldn't be from some suburb. If I was right, Kimi would be calling back ... soon. I looked at my watch. How much time had gone by? Come on, I thought. Come on.
The phone rang. "Aramingo High School in North Philadelphia."
"Did you talk to somebody? What did they say?"
"It's the weekend, Mitch. All I got was voice mail. But it's a high school."
We talked for a few more minutes. She wanted to know what questions I was going to ask when I called Aramingo High on Monday. "I haven't really thought of that," I admitted.
"Well, you'd better start."
I said goodbye, closed my phone, and then just sat, doing nothing. I was on the verge of uncovering a real story—my first real story. I enjoyed the feeling for a full five minutes, and then I got to work. I had to dot all my i's and cross all my i's. Close wasn't good enough; I had to nail the story.
First I needed to establish that Angel had been a student at Aramingo High. I used Google to pull up the school's website. I clicked on the demographic tab first, just to get a feel for the place. Right away I could tell Aramingo was tough. The free lunch rate was 90 percent, more than double Lincoln High's. Judging from the number of suspensions, there must have been a fight every day. In my three years at Lincoln I'd never heard of a teacher getting hit by a kid. Fourteen teachers had been assaulted at Aramingo.
I printed the demographic report and then returned to the home page. It took a while, but I finally found a link to athletics. It was hit-and-miss for most sports, but somebody had posted the results of the football games. They were good—7–2 so far this year, 6–3 the year before, 8–2 the year before that. I kept searching for a link to photos, but there were no pictures of players, and there wasn't a roster, either. The football team looked like the best thing about Aramingo, but nobody seemed to care.
I checked the Philadelphia Inquirer's sports pages next. I typed Angel Marichal into the search box and got nothing. I double-clicked Archives, figuring maybe his history was somewhere hidden in there. A page popped up asking for a credit card number. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen. My mother would let me use her card, but I wasn't ready to ask yet. First I needed to talk to somebody at Aramingo High, and I'd have to wait until Monday morning to do that.
The last thing I did was to come up with a phony name for myself. What I did was to take the names of the two Watergate reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and mix and match. Should I be Carl Woodward or Bob Bernstein? I settled on Bob Bernstein because I figured that under pressure I could remember the double Bs.
I was just about to call it a night when there was a tap on my door. I went over and opened it up. I expected to see my mom, but my dad was standing there. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his gray hair was uncombed. "Something wrong?" I said.
He shrugged. "That's what I was wondering."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't seem yourself lately, Dan. You seem ... I don't know ... tense. It's been a long time since you've come in and watched a game with me, and at dinner you're awfully quiet. No jokes, n
o funny stories about school." He paused. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"Everything's fine, Dad. I've just been really busy."
He nodded. "Okay, but if you ever need to talk, I'm here. Remember that."
I watched him head downstairs, and it struck me that just as I'd been getting older, he'd been getting older too, and so had my mom.
2
I FIGURED SCHOOL STARTED around eight in Philadelphia, which would be five a.m. in Seattle. The first hour or so the office at every high school is swamped, so I decided not to call Aramingo High until nine thirty their time.
I watched the minutes tick off, one by one. Finally I keyed in the number. A guy answered on the first ring, but not an adult. "Aramingo High School," he muttered, the words slurring together.
I put on my most adult voice. "This is Bob Bernstein. I work on the sports desk of the Seattle Times in Seattle, Washington. We've got a football player out here who transferred from Aramingo to one of our schools. He's having a good year, and we're considering doing a feature story about him. Could you put me in touch with your football coach or assistant coach? I'd like to get some background information."
"The football coaches don't work here," he said. "They just coach."
"How about a phone number?"
"You kidding? We don't give out phone numbers. What's the guy's name? If he played on the football team, I can tell you about him."
"I'd prefer to talk to the coach," I said.
His voice grew sharp. "You want help or not?"
"Okay," I said, my mouth dry. "He would have played for Aramingo last year or maybe even a few years ago."
"What's the guy's name?"
I swallowed. "Angel Marichal."
"No Angel Marichal ever played here."
My heart sank. "You sure? How about just Angel? Maybe his parents divorced and he changed his name."
For a long time there was nothing but silence. I could feel the guy thinking. "What's he look like?"
His voice had changed from hostile to interested. It was as if we'd switched roles, and now he was pumping me for information.
"Mexican guy. Dark hair, dark eyes. Six three, over two hundred pounds. Strong and fast. Great arm. Quick feet. Hard tackler. "
"Position?"
"He's playing middle linebacker," I said, choosing my words carefully, "but that's because his team's got a helluva quarterback. My guess is he might have played quarterback at Aramingo."
"You sure he's not Puerto Rican? We had a Puerto Rican guy play quarterback a few years ago."
"I don't know. I guess he could be Puerto Rican."
"What's your number? I know somebody who's going to want to talk to you."
"Is this a coach who's going to call me?"
"Just give me your number."
"It's 206-879-3078. It's a cell phone."
"And your name again?"
I flushed. "Bob Bernstein," I said, thankful I'd settled on the double Bs. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the phone went dead.
3
THE GUY AT THE OTHER END wasn't interested in Angel's football career at Aramingo, and he didn't care about Angel's football career in Seattle. Something else was going on. But what?
The best thing was to take my time. I'd been on Angel's trail since August; I could give myself a few hours more. I turned my cell off. When the guy from Philly called—and I knew he'd call—his number would show up on my cell. I'd call him back when I was ready to talk to him, and not before.
I saw Kimi at lunch.
"So?" she said, her voice an excited whisper. "Tell me."
I described the phone conversation with the person at Aramingo.
"What do you mean it wasn't about football?" she asked.
"You can tell when someone is talking sports. This guy wasn't."
She looked at me, skeptical.
"You can," I insisted.
"Okay, then what was he talking?" she asked.
I didn't have an answer.
All day I fought the temptation to turn on my cell. When school ended, I did my normal run through a light rain. I now weighed 170 for the first time since I'd been a sophomore. I returned home, took a shower, and only then turned on the cell.
Two New Voice Messages, the screen read. I scrolled to the call log. Two messages, but there'd been four calls—every two hours, like clockwork, and all from the same number. This guy really wanted to talk.
I sat for a moment, preparing myself. The person at the other end didn't have to know what I suspected. I'd ask him about guys on the team two or three years ago. I'd pretend to be only mildly interested. Later, if I had to, I'd tell him more.
I took a deep breath and hit the call button.
One ring. Two rings. A third. Then a voice: "Yeah."
"This is Bob Bernstein in Seattle. I called Aramingo High—"
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted. "I know. I know." He paused. "This guy. This Angel guy. You fax me his photo and I'll tell you if he's from here. You got a fax machine, right?"
This wasn't what I'd planned on, but it made sense. What was the point of talking if it was the wrong guy? "Yeah, I've got a fax machine."
"All right. Here's the number." He rattled off ten digits, and I had him repeat them.
"And what's your name?" I asked.
"You don't care what my name is. This is about Angel."
"I do care what your name is."
He snorted. "Okay. My name is Juan Doe." A second later the phone went dead. Everything about the guy felt wrong, but he was my only contact.
My parents were still at work, but I knew they wouldn't mind if I used the fax. I went down to the little study off the TV room, laid Kimi's photo of Angel on the tray, and punched in the numbers the guy had given me. The machine sucked in Angel's face, whirred awhile, went silent, then spit him back out.
I'd barely made it back to my bedroom when my cell rang. "Where's he live?" the voice demanded.
"What?"
"Angel. Where's he live?"
"Hold on," I said, trying to put some steel into my own voice. "I'm the one asking the questions."
Silence.
"All right. How about we trade information? You tell me something I want to know; I tell you something you want to know. Fair?"
I didn't like it, but I didn't have a choice. "Okay."
"So," the voice said, "where's he live?"
"Seattle."
"Don't play with me. That's no good. I want a street and a number. We've got some homeboys out there who are going to pay him a visit, once you give me the address."
I thought of Angel's little house at 2120 Elmore, but I didn't say the address out loud—not to this guy. "There are probably a thousand kids playing football in Seattle," I said. "I don't know the home address of a single one. I'm a reporter, not the mailman. Now, how about you tell me about his time at Aramingo?"
"Hey, Mr. Reporter. You give me an address and I'll give you some information, including his real name."
"I told you: I don't know his address."
"Call me back when you've got it, and we'll do business."
4
I CLOSED UP THE CELL and tried to picture the guy at the other end. I didn't like the image that came up. There was something wrong about his voice. One thing was for sure—I didn't want to talk to him again. And maybe I wouldn't have to.
I had the name of Angel's school. I had a good idea of the years he played and his position, and I knew he had changed his name. Aramingo High had a terrible website, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be a record of his games on other websites. The place to look was the archives of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which meant I'd need a credit card.
I could call my mom at work, get the number, and start, but it didn't seem right to do it alone. Kimi had started us down this path; she should be with me as we neared the end.
I called her cell, but after one ring was transferred to voice mail. She'd mentioned her battery wasn't holding its charge,
so I tried her home phone. Her father picked up. "You a boyfriend?"
"No. I'm Mitch. I work with her on the newspaper. You've met me. Can I talk to her?"
"You the fat boy?"
I winced. "Yeah."
"She not home. I tell her you call, Mitch."
"Do you know when she'll get home?"
"Goodbye, Mitch." The phone clicked.
I lay down on my bed, closed my eyes, and started to think about just how big a bombshell I was about to explode. If everything broke right, Lincoln would win the semifinal game, and during that time, Kimi and I would nail down the story, making everything airtight. And then, right before the title game, we'd publish.
If all those pieces fell into place, Angel Marichal—or whatever his name was—would be declared ineligible. Lincoln High would forfeit all its victories. Coach McNulty would be fired. For the first time in the history of Washington, the state championship game would be canceled. A story like that would make ESPN's Sportscenter. I was imagining myself being interviewed when my cell rang.
"What is it, Mitch?"
I explained.
"I can't go out tonight. My aunt's here. You go ahead and print whatever you find on the Inquirer's website. You can tell me what you find."
I felt my body sag. The aunt again. I wanted us to make the discovery together. "How about tomorrow night? Could you come then?"
5
THE NEXT NIGHT AT DINNER I told my parents that Kimi was coming over to work on a newspaper article. As soon as I finished my explanation, my mom gave me a you've-finally-got-a-girlfriend smile.
"It's an article for the newspaper," I repeated. "That's all. I'm going to need to use your credit card to access some archives."