Assignment Austin

by Lucey Phillips

  Both women crashed to the floor, causing a rumble I could feel in my feet.

  The officials blew their whistles and signaled both women to go to the penalty box. Kara got to her feet quickly and started to skate away. Lacey’s teammates helped her up. But instead of going to take her penalty time, Lacey skated toward an official with a questioning posture—both arms extended to her sides, palms up.

  The crowd was standing and yelling. Most people cheered, while a few were booing. Lacey was shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words. The official shook her head and motioned toward her feet. It looked like she was saying, “tripping.”

  Lacey continued to shout, moving closer and closer to the official.

  Then, two members of the Violent Crown skated up to Lacey, squeezing between her and the official. Finally, after a short struggle, they guided Lacey away.

  Lacey shot Kara a fierce glare as she skated to the penalty area and went to one knee. Kara, breathing hard, looked straight ahead, as if she didn’t see Lacey. Sweat streamed down her temples while her entire face, and even her neck, flushed bright red.

  I wanted Kara to glare right back at Lacey, to prove to her that she wasn’t afraid, but she wouldn’t do it.

  Thirty seconds later, when both women were allowed to join the jam, Kara was again behind the Crown’s lead jammer. Wreckers blockers were able to wedge themselves between Lacey and another Crown blocker, creating a gap between the bodies that was just wide enough for Kara to turn sideways, in a move that looked like a ballerina’s plie, and slip through.

  She gained on Grinning Reaper, but just as Kara was about to pass, Reaper put her hands on her hips, calling off the jam. The Violent Crown was ahead now, but only by seven points.

  As the bout continued, Lacey and Kara were rarely on the track at the same time. I wrote down a few more notes about the teams, the fans and the venue.

  I wanted to be sure my story included the players’ flair for drama. From their theatrical, fictionalized names to their uniforms that had a costume quality, this sport was full of creative—not just athletic—expression.

  Several of the players wore thick black eye liner and dark lipstick, and many of them let their long hair hang loose or in braids from beneath their helmets. All wore team jerseys, but their bottoms were all different. From fishnet stockings to simple athletic capris, to tights with a cartoon superhero print, each uniform was an expression of individuality.

  When the halftime whistle blew, I got in line at the concession booth. While I waited, I watched a group of little girls running counter-clockwise in a circle, bumping into each other, shrieking and giggling. Future roller girls, I thought as I smiled to myself.

  “Hello? What do you want?” A woman’s gruff voice yanked my attention away from the children.

  The people who had been in line ahead of me had moved away and it was now my turn.

  “Uh, sorry…” I mumbled as I looked at the hand-written poster board menu and tried to decide what I wanted.

  “All we have left is pizza and Sprite,” the woman said.

  Then, for the first time, I looked right at the woman who was talking to me. And I froze. There was Rita, looking as impatient and annoyed as she did the last time we met.

  My instinct was to turn and walk away, but that would draw even more attention to me.

  “Um, Sprite,” I said as my voice cracked.

  Rita turned and walked toward a cooler behind her. I fumbled in my bag for cash, feeling my face burn with nervousness. She hadn’t seemed to recognize me from our encounter at the gym, but she might remember any second. My platinum blonde pixie cut had a way of standing out in people’s memories.

  I was smoothing two crumpled dollar bills on the counter when Rita set the green plastic bottle in front on me.

  “That’ll be two.”

  “Thanks.” I slid the bills toward her, grabbed the bottle, and walked away without looking up. I was lucky—she didn’t seem to recognize me from the gym.

  I made my way back to my spot in the bleachers. I sat down, opened my drink, and looked back toward the concession stand to watch Rita serve customers. She didn’t ever seem to smile. Was that grief, I wondered, or just her personality?

  She nodded at an older woman as she handed her change. Then Rita looked into the stands—right at me. I glanced away, down at my lap, but I’d already seen it—an angry spark of recognition in her eyes.

  I pretended to be intensely interested in the scoreboard, not daring to look in Rita’s direction.

  The Crown had turned their small lead into a huge one. Even though there were still twelve minutes left on the clock, something in the way the Wreckers skated, their posture or the slope of their shoulders, showed that they had given in to defeat.

  Finally, when there were only two minutes left on the clock, I casually glanced toward the concession booth. Rita wasn’t there.

  | Eleven

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to hold your hand?” Colin asked me.

  “No.”

  “Can I take pictures then?”

  “What? No. Gross.”

  He laughed. But I didn’t feel like laughing. I was sitting on an examination table at a little Austin medical clinic, waiting for a nurse to come remove my sutures. A tiny white tray holding an assortment of pointy, shiny tweezers, scissors and forceps sat on the table beside me.

  The nylon knots protruding from a pink, healing cut on my knee were a memento from my last assignment, Las Vegas, where I’d been assaulted by a drug dealer’s goon. Even though that happened less than two weeks ago, it felt like a different lifetime, or a different world maybe.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out, looked at the number, then rolled my eyes while I pressed the “ignore” button. Colin watched me slide the phone back into my pocket.

  “Your mom?” he asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “The eye roll,” he said with a laugh. “Is she doing okay?”

  I shrugged and looked down at my leg again. Colin didn’t say anything else—he was always respectful, careful not to push.

  The exam room door opened and a nurse in navy blue scrubs walked in.

  “Ready, Jae?” she asked me as she wheeled a stool up beside me. “That’s a pretty name—unique. Is it a family name?”

  “It’s short for Jameson,” I said, feeling color blossom in my cheeks. I should have outgrown embarrassment over my name years ago, but I never did.

  “Like the whiskey?” the nurse asked with a smile and crinkled nose.

  “Yep,” I said. “My parents really liked their alcohol.”

  She shrugged. “Well, I think ‘Jae’ works for you. It’s a confident name. Womanly.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said. “It’s definitely you.”

  “You’re gonna feel a little pressure here,” the nurse said.

  I bit my lip and turned my face toward the wall. The suture removal didn’t hurt. It felt strange, though. The release of tension when the nurse clipped a stitch, followed by the gritty sliding of thread from my skin, was creepy.

  After a few more tugs, she was done. And for the first time in days, the itchy sensation in my leg was gone. I exhaled.

  “Better?” the nurse asked.

  I nodded. Colin was motionless in a chair in the corner. I didn’t know if he watched the procedure or not.

  The nurse put an adhesive strip of cloth across the healing wound and gave me a little lecture about being extra careful with that site.

  “The skin is still fragile,” she said.

  A few minutes later, we were back in our rental car. I texted Quinn while Colin drove.

  “Any luck with the phone?”

  She replied, “Still working on it. Found something on Neil. Check your email.”

  I found Quinn’s message and opened an attachment. It was a series of screenshots. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. When I figured it out, I whispered, “Wow.”

  “Wh
at?” Colin asked.

  “Quinn. She hacked the Austin P.D.”

  Colin raised his eyebrows and looked at me.

  I held up my phone. “These are Rocky Kruger’s notes on the Myer murder.”

  “Wow,” Colin said quietly. “What do they say?”

  I skimmed the screenshots. “I think it’s all about Neil.”

  “Well, does he have anything solid?”

  “I don’t know. But according to this, Neil is, like, the only suspect. Kara told me the cops said Neil wasn’t home when Myer was killed. But in here it just says ‘sleeping/home/no collaboration.’”

  “So they were trying to set Kara up? Get her to say something?” Colin asked.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  I opened another attachment. “This is a news article, from New Orleans, about a murder case that was called a mistrial after the lead detective was found to have falsified evidence. The detective’s name was Henry Kruger.”

  “What? You think it was Rocky?”

  “Here’s a picture—it’s definitely him,” I said. “That was only two years ago. It says there was a mistrial because of fabricated evidence. They let the guy off, but then, later, they found DNA evidence and the guy really was guilty.”

  “So Rocky planted evidence, but the guy he planted evidence on really was guilty?”

  “I guess so. Maybe he thought the case was weak, but he just had a hunch, or something, that the guy was guilty.”

  “Do you think that’s what he’s doing with Neil?” Colin asked.

  “Must be,” I replied. “Because if they had anything—any good evidence at all—they’d have arrested him by now. But I’ll have to get into those notes.”

  Colin shook his head. “I can’t believe Quinn got that stuff. And she’s never gotten caught?”

  “Nope. It’s kind of scary,” I said with a laugh. “Good thing she’s on our side.”

  “Hey, are you hungry?” Colin asked, slowing our car. “There’s a taco truck.”

  “Okay.”

  We got our food and went back to the car. There were no tables, so Colin opened the back hatch of our car, and we sat there, with our legs dangling over the bumper.

  After I finished my tacos, I took out my pen and paper and started scrolling through Rocky’s notes.

  “Okay, let’s see who Rocky has written down as persons of interest,” I said. “First one on the list is T. Minter. It says ‘co-owner of gym, left business six months ago.’ Alibi: Naples, FL.”

  “Does it say how he verified the alibi?” Colin asked.

  “Um, it looks like he talked to a secretary.”

  “That’s kind of flimsy.”

  “Yeah. Okay, so the next suspect is the wife.”

  Colin nodded. “That’s pretty basic.”

  “It says Rita Myer, at Chavez Boulevard home of niece, Lacey Myer. Noon until police notification at 7p.m.”

  “Is there any corroboration on that one?”

  “Just an interview with Lacey,” I said. “Here’s a few more: Bonnie Key, Arnold Brown, and Rick Navarro.”

  “What beefs did they have with Myer?” Colin asked.

  “For Bonnie, it doesn’t say—just that she was working the day of the murder. She’s an athletic equipment sales rep. It looks like Arnold Brown is a bartender who got in some sort of altercation with Harris last year. He doesn’t have an alibi, just home alone. Rick Navarro rents the storefront beside SoCo Athletics. It looks like they had some sort of parking dispute. But he was at work during the murder.”

  “Wow. Looks like a lot of people had a reason to kill this guy.”

  I looked down at my notepad. “Minter, Rita, Bonnie, Brown, and Navarro.”

  “And Neil,” Colin added.

  “So that’s six suspects.”

  “Do you think Lacey’s a suspect?”

  I looked back over Kruger’s notes. “It’s hard to tell. She’s listed as Rita’s alibi. But maybe they’re each other’s alibis. She wouldn’t really have a motive, though.”

  “I guess not. You hear about spouses murdering each other. But niece/uncle murder isn’t something you hear about. She didn’t stand to inherit anything, right?”

  “Nah, everything should go to the wife,” I said. Sighing, I shoved my notebook back into my bag. I rubbed my temples. Staring at the phone screen had given me the beginnings of a headache.

  “You okay?” Colin asked. His eyes were soft with concern.

  I nodded.

  “Maybe you just need to walk away from this one,” he said. “You already have plenty of material for your story, right? You’ve been through enough lately, you know?”

  I looked over at Colin. I didn’t have a good response. I just wanted to help Kara. And now that I knew Rocky had a history of falsifying evidence, there was a stubbornness inside me that wanted to stop him from trying that with Neil.

  Colin met my gaze. Then he leaned close and hung an arm lazily around my shoulder.

  “I know,” he said. “I know you need to do these things.”

  | Twelve

  Mia’s tattoo shop, InkRage, was a surreal hybrid of a sterile doctor’s office and a colorful, irreverent art gallery.

  Colin and I were there to do a story about Mia and the other tattoo artists who owned the shop with her. It would be easy for Colin to get some great, colorful photographs. And for me, it would be a way to show readers how Austin was a place where creative entrepreneurs thrived.

  Colin and I said hello to the receptionist, Angel, who was also a player on the Wreckers. Then Mia introduced us to the other artists, Dane and Buzz.

  She gestured toward a table covered with a thin sheet of paper—just like at the doctor’s office.

  “What do you think? Want to try some body art?” Mia asked. “I’m thinking a watercolor style, you know, soft edges, probably a nature or celestial theme.”

  “Uh.” I giggled and shook my head. “I’m sure it would be beautiful, but, um, I don’t think so.”

  I looked at Colin. His lips were pressed together, holding in a smile.

  “Okay,” Mia said with a shrug and a smile. Then she turned to Colin. “How about you, Colin? I know you appreciate the finer visual expressions in life.”

  “I do,” he said, smiling. “I have this compass on my chest. Got it when I was nineteen. I have been thinking about getting it touched up.”

  Colin pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal the navy blue image.

  “Not bad,” Mia said. “I could touch that up a little. Some white accents and gray shading would really make a difference.”

  “I have been wanting to do something with it…” Colin said.

  Mia smiled. “So that’s a yes?”

  “I’m totally taking a picture of this,” I said.

  “No way. I’m not going to be in your story,” Colin said.

  “That’s not fair! You take pictures of me all the time,” I said. “You have to.”

  Mia looked from me to Colin, then back to me.

  “So, what’s the deal with you two? Is this, like, a workplace romance? Are you work-married?”

  I shrugged and bit my lip to hide a giggle. Colin kept his cool—neither smiling nor attempting to answer her.

  “Hmm. Touchy subject? Okay, I get it,” Mia said. “Didn’t mean to pry.” Then she winked at me before motioning for Colin to lie down on the table.

  Colin took off his shirt and got onto the table. He didn’t look scared, but he wasn’t relaxed either. Maybe there was a glimmer of anticipation in his eyes.

  “Are you cool with me free-handing this?” Mia asked while she cleaned Colin’s skin with antiseptic.

  This all seemed to be happening so fast—for something so permanent.

  “Are you, um, sure about this?” I asked Colin.

  “I saw her portfolio. Mia’s really good,” he said. He reached one arm up and back, resting his head on his forearm.

  “Don’t worry, Jae,” Mia said. “I’ll take good care of h
im.”

  My cheeks started to warm in embarrassment. I needed to change the subject. I picked up Colin’s camera. It was more complex that the one I’d used, but I knew the basics.

  “Seriously?” For the first time, Colin sounded genuinely irritated.

  The edge in his voice startled me, and I put the camera down.

  “Aw, come on, Colin,” Mia said. “Be a good sport.”

  He sighed. “Sorry. Sorry I snapped. You can take my picture.”

  His tone was softer now. I didn’t know what to do.

  “You can take my picture,” Mia said with a grin. “This article is going to be awesome for the shop. There’s a lot of good tattoo shops in Austin—it’s hard to stand out.”

  I took a few photos of Mia’s face as she concentrated on her work. Her colorful purple-frosted pixie cut and bright sleeve tattoos were an interesting contrast against her white medical-looking apron and latex gloves.

  “So, Jae? I needed to ask you about something.”

  “Okay?”

  “You know, Kara is like one of my best friends. I’m worried about her. I’m scared for Neil. You don’t know him, but I do—and he’s not a murderer. There’s no way he did that to Harris Myer.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been talking to Kara. And we are working on it—a lot, actually. The lead detective on this case is—well—I don’t have a lot of faith in his techniques.”

  Mia looked up from her work to level her gaze at me.

  “I get it. It wouldn’t be hard to make Neil look guilty, but I don’t think it was him. He’s working overtime every week to support Kara—to help pay her tuition. And it’s not like her Ph.D. in anthropology is going to make them rich or anything. He’s just helping her go after her goals.”

  I still wasn’t completely convinced, but I nodded along anyway.

  “Kara’s a complete wreck. She’s pale. She’s losing weight,” Mia said, shaking her head. “Neil is her family. And what’s happening to him—it’s an injustice.”

  Colin looked at me.