The Red Zone

by Tim Green

  Wilburn was standing outside his office with a cup of coffee in his hand, involved in an agitated discussion with his secretary. When Wilburn looked up and saw the officers, he glanced nervously about like a cornered rat.

  "Mr. Wilburn;' said the first officer, showing his badge, "I'm Detective Lawrence, with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department, and this is my partner, Detective Gill. We need to speak with you, sir."

  "I need to speak with you also, Mr. Wilburn," Madison interjected, muscling her way into the group. "I did not come all the way from Texas to be put off without any explanation. If this is your idea of a negotiating ploy, I've got to tell you that my client will simply wait until the season is over and test the waters of free agency We have no interest in playing games, Mr. Wilburn. Let me remind you, it was this team's idea to negotiate this contract, not my client's."

  Wilburn seemed to have regained his composure, and he gave Madison a malevolent look.

  "Detective, please wait for me in my office," he said, swinging open the door on his right. "I'll only be a mom^it with Ms. McCall. Ms. McCall, why don't we step into the conference room?"

  Madison and Chris followed Wilburn across the hall into a long conference room furnished with a highly polished table surrounded by about twenty chairs.

  "Would you like to sit down?" Wilburn said pleasantly.

  Madison sat. Chris took the seat beside her, and Wilburn stood at the head of the table.

  "Now, Ms. McCall," Wilburn said, "since form seems so much more important to you than substance, you can now say that we sat down face-to-face and had a meeting. As you should already know, I am not willing to negotiate with you at this time. Circumstances have, shall we say, suddenly changed? And your threat of taking your client elsewhere is music to my ears.

  "However," he continued, "I think you will soon find that your client has concerns much bigger than his contract. Now you have seen me, and you know straight from me that the Marauders are no longer interested in pursuing a contract extension with Luther Zorn. Good day, Ms. McCall."

  With that, Wilburn started for the door.

  "I will be speaking with Mr. Chase about this meeting before the day is over, Mr. Wilburn. Obviously you and he are not on the same wavelength," Madison said forcefully, still in her seat.

  Wilburn stopped with his hand on the doorknob and said with just the hint of a grin, "Obviously not."

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter 11

  Martin Wilburn was able to convince the detectives to wait an hour before taking Luther Zorn in for questioning. Wilburn wanted his team to finish their practice without interruption. He had known the police would be coming. He'd spoken with Lawrence and Gill's superior that morning. The lieutenant had informed Wilburn of Evan Chase's death, as well as the fact that Luther Zorn was wanted for questioning.

  "I'd prefer not to disrupt the entire team," Wilburn explained to Lawrence, 4 as long as it's not necessary for you to talk to him immediately."

  "As I said," Detective Lawrence replied, "Lieutenant Kratch is running the investigation and he told us to check everything with you first, Mr. Wilburn. Right now, the coroner isn't even calling this a murder, although they say Chase was a pretty good swimmer."

  Wilburn assured them, "he was."

  "Word is his wife was running around with Luther Zorn," Lawrence said, scratching his ear. "I guess that's why Lieutenant Kratch wants to talk to him."

  "I suppose," Wilburn said. He knew about the affair between Luther and Vivian, and about their secret trysts. He was counting on that knowledge to give him leverage with Vivian, who would now be the majority owner of the team. In the last twelve hours, Martin Wilburn had moved from a position of weakness to one of strength.

  The owners death would be his windfall. Wilburn could now move the team. Of course, the better the team performed during the rest of the season, the easier personal seat licenses, season tickets, and luxury boxes would be to sell in Memphis. The better those sales went, the more money he would make on the back end. So, keeping the Marauders on an even keel was worth money to Martin Wilburn. As much as he despised Luther Zorn, he knew his importance to the team, and that it would pay to keep him playing through the season. Once the season ended, Wilburn would have no use for him. By then the deal would be in place, the team would be in Memphis, the money would be in the bank, and Martin Wilburn wouldn't care whether the Marauders won or lost.

  Wilburn had been assured that very morning by Pat Pdvet, the team's lawyer, that if Luther was charged and tried for the murder of Chase, the trial would be months in the coming. Luther should be able to finish out the season even if he ultimately ended up in jail. Next year, Martin could go get himself a different linebacker, a cheaper one.

  Martin Wilburn's dislike for Luther Zorn actually had nothing to do with Luther's affair with Vivian Chase. Luther had insulted him. During a plane flight home from a game in Chicago, Wilburn had been playing cards with some cronies in the first-class cabin. Back then, when real estate was still bad, Chase accorded Wilburn more respect. Back then, Chase had needed him. As much as anything, Wilburn's friends were thrilled with the prospect of meeting the enigmatic Luther Zorn. Luther was a mystery to most people, an exceptional and violent player who avoided the attention of the media.

  Thus the mystery, and thus the fascination. Wilburn had assured his friends of a personal interview with Luther as part of the trip. During the card game he sent his assistant, Myron Spellman, back to the coach section of the plane to retrieve his player.

  Myron returned looking very disconcerted.

  "Wheres Luther?" Wilburn snapped, momentarily looking up from his hand of cards.

  Myron tried to bend down and whisper into Wilburn's ear, which was doubly embarrassing. Wilburn had pushed the younger man away violently and declared, "Say what you got to say! I don't want you whispering in my ear like a school-girl!"

  Myron looked hopelessly at his boss and said in an apologetic tone, "Luther said he wouldn't come."

  This news hit Wilburn like a slap in the face.

  "You go tell that nigger, I own part of his black ass! If he doesn't want to wake up tomorrow missing a piece of it, he better get up here and say hello," Wilburn hissed. "See what he says to that!"

  Wilburn saw that this tack met with nods of approval from his friends, two of whom were city councilmen, men accustomed to dealing harshly with sedition. Myron disappeared again, but returned more frazzled than before.

  "He said he doesn't care, Mr. Wilburn," Myron dutifully reported. "He said you could go ahead and cut him . . ."

  Wilburn didn't react. He simply told Myron to sit down. But he smoldered quietly for the next half hour, drinking Wild Turkey straight up and losing three hundred dollars in pinochle.

  "Excuse me," he said to his friends, getting up after throwing down his last bad hand. He then quietly made his way to the rear of the plane, leaving his cronies to whisper among themselves.

  He found Luther sitting by himself, reading a book, not engaged at all in the celebration, gaming, and general tomfoolery that raged on around him.

  Wilburn leaned over and whispered in Luther's ear. "You just fucked with the wrong man, you half-breed ape. I promise you, you'll live to wish you'd kissed my ass tonight instead of sitting back here like some Shaka Zulu royal nigger. Just remember this! There's still a slave system in this world, and my skin may be black, but I'm the master."

  Luther had kept his eyes directed on the pages in front of him. His outward reaction was almost invisible, but Wilburn knew that the player had heard every word. Luther's eyes had frozen in hatred at the mention of the word half-breed. Wilburn muttered the word again, then turned and indignantly walked away. He had kept a close eye on Luther Zorn ever since. Now his observation was about to pay off.

  Chapter 12

  Luther was just pulling on a pair of faded jeans at his locker when Myron Spellman walked up to him and whispered that there were two detectives from the Sheriff's D
epartment who wanted to speak with him upstairs. Luther coldly assessed Martin Wilburn's lackey to be sure that the message wasn't a simple ruse designed to fluster him. Myron looked fearful and out of place. He wore slacks and loafers and a sweater-vest over a button-down shirt. His glasses were almost identical to Wilburn's, thin and round and gold. He blinked nervously amid the throng of naked beefy bodies.

  "Don't even think about lying to me, Myron," Luther rumbled, looking up from the seat in front of his locker. "I'll crush your skull."

  Myron shook his head fervently, saying, "No, they're there."

  "Who?" inquired Antone Ellison indignantly, walking up to his own locker from the shower as he vigorously swiped water from the backs of his arms. "Who's here to see the Main Man?"

  He spoke as if no one had the right to see his friend and the star of their team.

  Luther met Ellisons toothy grin with a dark stare. Even Antone could see that it was time to shut up.

  'Til be up when I'm dressed," Luther said calmly.

  Luther tried to maintain his composure. He focused on his locker room routine: rubbing cream into his feet, powdering his skin, brushing his hair, pulling on his shirt, sticking his feet into his worn soft leather driving shoes. Then, after one final remonstrative glance at Antone, Luther was gone.

  At the police station, while Martin Wilburn was breaking the solemn news of Chases death to the team, Luther was being shown into a plain white room furnished simply with a table, three chairs, and a two-way mirror. Bright fluorescent lights hummed, and filled the room with an unnatural glare. Luther tried to remain calm, but was unable to keep from grinding his teeth and rubbing his hands under the table. His jaw was fixed, but his eyes darted nervously about the surface of the glass mirror. After what seemed like a long time, a tall lanky man in a dark olive suit entered the room and introduced himself politely as Lieutenant Kratch.

  "As you know, Luther," Kratch said in a tired monotone, "you are not under arrest. You are not suspected of anything. As a matter of procedure, we have to ask you some questions to help us determine what may or may not have happened."

  Kratch's face was gaunt. His short dark hair and five o'clock shadow seemed to highlight the bags under his bloodshot eyes. Otherwise, his skin was'. Quite pale, especially considering the fact that this was Florida. In all, Kratch had the appearance of having just rolled off the couch after a fitful midday nap and he reminded Luther more of a ghoulish doctor than a police detective.

  "What if I don't want to say anything without a lawyer?" Luther said with an edge to his voice that he wished wasn't there.

  Kratch raised the dark bushy eyebrow above his one wandering eye as if this was something he had yet to consider.

  "I would have to wonder then if I hadn't made some kind of mistake in not arresting you and charging you with some kind of crime," he said. "I think that would be a pretty good indication that something was amiss where before I didn't think anything was amiss. Is something amiss, Luther?"

  "No," Luther said. "I just wanted to know. I don't know why I had to come down here to talk to you ..."

  The detective extracted a filterless Camel from a package he kept on the inside pocket of his coat and lit it.

  As Kratch exhaled, he spoke.

  "Well, it's so I can videotape this interview, Luther; it's simply a matter of policy for me. It's my normal procedure. I'm not really all that sharp, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't mind saying it. I think it's good for a man to know his weaknesses. Mine is my memory. I like to have things that I can go back to, to make sure who said what to me and when. You know, it beats the hell out of notes. Half the time I can't even read my own handwriting . . . Okay?"

  Luther nodded. "Fine."

  Kratch turned to the mirror and rolled off exactly who he was and who Luther was, the date, the time, and the fact that Luther acquiesced to the videotaping of the interview, that he was not under arrest, and that he was volunteering to talk. Kratch began by asking mundane questions about who Luther was, where he was from, his life history. Luther became frustrated and asked what the point was. Kratch raised his cigarette and apologized through the smoke, asking that Luther bear with him. Finally the questions came around to what Luther was afraid they would come around to.

  "Now," Kratch said in the same tired monotone he'd used for the past twenty minutes, "do you have some kind of sexual relationship with Mrs. Chase?"

  Luther stared at the detective. He wanted to smile. He wanted to be smug. It was, after all, a good one. Here he was, the prize stud, dipping into the bosss private stock. But Luther couldn't smile. He could feel that sickening sensation of fear crawling into his stomach. There was no thrill to go with it, though. It wasn't like sneaking around with the owner's wife, or running through a maze of three-hundred-pound linemen. Now, the fear stood alone. No one was supposed to know about Vivian.

  "How did you know?" Luther asked. He wasn't going to be stupid and deny everything.

  "It seems just about everyone knew except for Chase," Kratch replied pleasantly. "But that's the way it usually goes, doesn't it?

  "So," Kratch continued, "how much do you know about Mrs. Chase--I mean outside the bedroom stuff?"

  "Not all that much," Luther said, not certain how much he should or shouldn't divulge. "It wasn't a really big thing. We've been together a few times. It's not like it's some kind of fullblown affair. It's just a thing . . ."

  "So you don't know about her past?" Kratch said.

  "No," Luther said, wondering what that meant.

  "How about her future?" Kratch asked.

  "What do you mean?" Luther said.

  "I mean that she stands to inherit her husband's entire empire, including the team, all told about five hundred million dollars."

  "I hadn't thought about it," Luther said.

  "Had she?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Had she ever thought about it?" Kratch asked, exhaling a thick plume of smoke. "Or talked about it? I mean, about what would happen if her husband weren't around?"

  "I don't know what you're getting at, Lieutenant," Luther said firmly

  "Oh, you know what I'm getting at," Kratch said in a friendly manner. "It's okay. We both know what each other is getting at, don't we? I'm not asking you to speculate on anything. I'm just doing my job. I'm just checking the facts."

  "Well, there are no facts," Luther said, nearly wincing from the viselike wringing of his own hands.

  "Fine, thank you, Luther. I appreciate your help," Kratch said, starting to rise, indicating the end of their interview.

  "Oh, Luther," he said, stopping as he reached down to butt out his smoke. "One last thing. Were you in the vicinity of MacCarther National Park this morning?"

  Luther froze. His eyes narrowed.

  "Of course not," he said.

  "'Vfeah," Kratch smiled. "Just checking the details. Thanks, Luther. Hey, good luck in the game this weekend. Who are you guys playing?"

  "Minnesota," Luther said suspiciously, shaking the detective's long-outstretched hand. "At Minnesota."

  Luther drove less than a quarter mile from the police station before pulling into a vacant shopping strip. There was a pay phone hanging on the brick wall outside what used to be a drug emporium. Luther didn't want to use the cell phone from his car. He knew anyone could listen in.

  "Hello?"

  Vivian sounded tired.

  "Its me," Luther said. There was silence for a moment.

  "I need to see you," he said.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," she said. "Why did you come to the house, Luther?"

  "Why was I there?" Luther raged. "Why was I there? Why did you tell me to come, then wave me away?" "I didnt tell you," she said.

  Luther snorted at this. "Oh, this is great, Vivian! Why are you doing this? I got your note! I read what it said! Did you tell them I was there? They asked me, Vivian!"

  "I didnt tell them anything!" she retorted.

  "They know a
bout us," Luther said flatly. "They know."

  "Why did you come to the house!" Vivian demanded. "What were you doing here, Luther?"

  "I was doing what you told me to do!" he bellowed.

  "I didnt! I've told you to do a lot of things, Luther, but walking up off the beach this morning in broad daylight definitely wasn't one of them!" she said forcefully, then, "I have to go. Don't call again, Luther. Something bad is happening. Don't call me."

  "Vivian, don't tell me--"

  There was a click on the line. She had hung up.

  Luther tried calling back. He got a busy signal. He tried again, cursing. It was still busy. "Damn!" Luther screamed, smashing the phone against the wall so hard that it exploded into half a dozen pieces.

  Chapter 13

  Kratch was a bass man. His fishing cabin on Lake Okeechobee, which backed right up to a big hunk of state land, was remote enough so that only a handful of locals knew about it. There were plenty of fish, and it was quiet. When Kratch was out on his boat in the middle of that lake reeling in a lunker, he felt like he was part of the land. There was some Seminole blood on his mothers side of the family, and although Kratch looked as Anglo as Prince Charles, he fancied the Indian blood running through his veins.

  Kratch was an experienced fisher. He knew well that you didnt just yank your line out of the water as soon as you got a bite. He knew that the real monsters would swim up to the minnow on your hook, take it in their mouth, then run with it for a while. A big fish would shake the minnow a couple of times to stun it, then, wump! swallow the thing whole. If you tried to set your line too fast with a big fish, it would spit that bait and run. Only if you were extremely lucky would you hook a big one without letting him run.

  Kratch was going to let this one run. He'd felt the hit, but he wasn't letting on that there was a hook. Not yet. Not until it was buried in the gut. Then, he'd set the sucker, reel it in, and revel in the fight. Patience was essential. The thrill of the battle and the size of the trophy were the rewards. Kratch smiled to himself and tapped away at his keyboard, inputting the coroner's findings. Chase had in fact drowned; the marks on his ankle suggested he was struggling at the moment of his death. It was only one piece of the puzzle, but an important one. Reports were never fun, but they were essential. It was all part of the expedition. You didn't like to have to bail your bass boat either, but you did it. And while you were working, you thought about the big one.