by Alina Adams
A stack of twenty postcards. Bex flipped through the scenic imagery of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, cable cars, cable cars in front of the Golden Gate Bridge rolling by Fisherman's Wharf.... Two of the postcards seemed to be missing. Oh, boy! Bex's first clue! She wondered what it meant. Clearly, it suggested that Silvana Potenza liked to send postcards.
Bex mustn't forget to write that down.
At the very bottom of Silvana's bag, Bex found a cell phone. It was the standard ISU-issued one, with their sticker on the back. Desperate to keep close tabs on their judges at every competition, the governing body made a practice of handing out local cell phones, then collecting them at the end of the event. Bex didn't know how the judges felt about the phones, but she personally found them very helpful. If she needed an unexpected question answered, all she had to do was refer to the handy-dandy phone sheet issued by the ISU and call the judge or official she wanted.
Except that, at the moment, the only question she really wanted answered was who killed Silvana Potenza. And she didn't think calling her would do the trick. Absently, Bex flipped open the dead woman's phone. For a moment, she even seriously contemplated dialing M for murder, to see what would happen. For the next moment, she seriously contemplated the stupidity of her impulse. And then, for the first time that day, Bex actually did something clever. She punched *69 to find out where the last call Silvana ever received had come from.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang. No answering machine, no rollover to a voice mail. Just ringing. It gave Bex time to contemplate what exactly she was expecting to hear.
"Hiya, Murder Central, here."
Okay. Now, she definitely wasn't expecting that.
"Uh ... hello?" Bex's gift of gab, so sparkling as long as the conversation sparkled exclusively in her head, wobbled like a skater landing on a bad edge. "Who—who is this?"
""Who's this?"
"I'm Bex."
"Hiya, Bex."
"Uhm ... hiya. Can I—can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
Interesting choice of words. "Why did you answer the phone Murder Central?"
"Oh, was that in bad taste? I didn't mean it. I was just making a joke. You know, because of the judge that died and everything."
"You know about the judge?"
"Well, yeah. I'm standing right here."
"Where's here?"
"I'm standing like five feet away from the room where they found her."
"You're in the arena?"
"Yup. I work here. I run the scoreboard. Name is Corky."
"Corky..."
"It's a nickname. For Zachary."
"I see."
"I couldn't pronounce my name when I was little, and so it came out sounding like—"
"Corky?"
"Right. It came out sounding like Corky."
"No. I mean, yes, I'm sure it did. But, Corky, what I meant was—is this an office phone at the arena that I called?"
"Pay phone."
"It's a pay phone?"
"Right. I was just walking by and the phone was ringing, and then I walked by again and it was still ringing, and I figured boy, somebody really needs to talk, so I picked it up and made that joke about Murder Central, 'cause I happened to be looking at all the police tape and all, but I didn't mean anything by it."
"Thank you, Corky," Bex said.
"No prob."
"It was very nice talking to you."
"Double the pleasure on this end."
"Well... bye."
"Bye, Bex."
She hung up the phone and told Stace, "The last person Silvana talked to called her from the arena pay phone right across from the refrigeration room where she died!"
"Is that a fact?"
"It is." Bex waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she prodded, "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Doesn't that give you any ideas? Doesn't that prove that maybe somebody lured Silvana and that, before she got there, they fixed up the room so she'd have to step into a puddle to pull the light switch, and—"
"Zap?"
"Exactly!"
"Who did it?"
"I don't know!"
"Exactly," Stace repeated.
Bex rolled her eyes. Gil's favorite phrase popped into her mind, "You're killing me, here, guys, you're killing me!"
As a last-ditch effort, she reached into Silvana's purse to see if there might not be some final item hidden in its suede depths that would make everything just fall into place.
Nope. Nothing. Bex flipped her hand around and felt along the walls. Her fingers brushed against a folded sheet of paper that had escaped previous detection by lying flat so smoothly, Bex had presumed it was part of the purse.
She pulled it out. She unfolded it.
She saw the printout of an E-mail sent to Silvana Potenza the morning before the ladies' long program. Listing the ladies' finish order as Xenia Trubin first and Erin Simpson second. And signed Sergei Alemazov.
Xenia's coach.
CHAPTER THREE
She refused to get excited about this. After all, if Sherlock Holmes had gotten excited about his first-ever, bona fide clue, the hounds of the Baskervilles might have eaten him before he ever had the chance to find a second one. So Bex remained calm. Eerily calm. Lest her premature excitement frighten the clue back into hiding.
She double-checked the date. Yup, definitely the morning of the ladies' long program. Hours before the final results were posted. And yet, here they were, the final results. Xenia first, Erin second, Jordan Ares third. Not their standings after the short program. Their standings after the long. Which had yet to take place. Yup. There it was. And signed by Xenia's coach, too. A chap with a definite vested interested in seeing his girl atop the podium.
And here was something else superinteresting. The piece of paper Bex was holding in her hand was smaller than a normal-sized piece of paper. About two and a half inches smaller, in point of fact. Which might not have meant anything to the average amateur sleuth. But an amateur sleuth who'd spent the last several months on the road desperately trying to make European-sized paper match up with American-sized hole punchers and binders knew one very important fact: European paper was smaller than American paper! Ergo, this E-mail had to have been printed on a European printer. Most likely by a European.
Was it time to get excited?
Yes, Bex thought it might very well be that time.
She thrust the E-mail printout at Stace and announced, "I need to take this with me."
"Uh ... let me think about that... No." Stace had obviously been honing his delivery at the comedy clubs, because it came out perfectly. Alas, Bex wasn't amused.
"Okay, then, not the original E-mail. But, can I at least have a copy?"
"Still sensing a no on the horizon, there, Bex. Sorry."
"How would you like to be a TV star?" Bex asked.
And waited.
She had his attention. Bex could tell because he had yet to utter a pithy refusal. "Here's the deal," she said. "We're doing a special about Silvana Potenza's ... uh ... death on Sunday, live during the exhibition show. Obviously we're going to need an expert to talk about how she died and everything."
"And who might that expert be?" Stace raised an eyebrow.
"You get me a copy of this E-mail, and I'll get you a spot on coast-to-coast national television." Bex hoped she at least sounded convincing, since everything following the word "and" was a big old puff of smoke. Bex was a researcher, not a producer. She had about as much control over who got on the air as Mickey, the roll-tape guy. Actually, Mickey probably had more, since he was physically in the truck and had access to buttons and switches and, if he really wanted to, could send the whole network into black with the click of a finger. Bex had access to nothing. Well, except this E-mail. And right now, she wasn't about to give that up for anything in the world. She would worry about the subsequent details ... subsequently.
Stace said, "Deal."
Okay. Now. Job descriptionally speaking, Bex was now obligated to scurry her tail right on over to Gil's and give him a full report. He would then take her E-mail, put it on the air, and promote the hell out of it. Other news outlets would inevitably pick it up. The Trubin/Simpson controversy would return to the front page. Ratings for the live exhibition broadcast would go through the roof. Bex would be a hero. The girl who saved figure skating from both controversy and obscurity.
Assuming she was right.
If she was wrong, if the E-mail didn't mean what they'd all jump to conclusions it meant, and if somebody could prove that was the case, 24/7 Sports would end up with egg on their faces, lawsuits galore would rain down upon them like locusts, the ISU would never sell them the rights to another championship, and Rebecca E. Levy (didn't legal depositions always use full names?) would go down in history as the woman who bankrupted a sports federation and a TV network. (Also, she doubted if, after all that, they'd let her keep her job).
Bex wiped a sprinkle of raindrops from the E-mail.
And decided to do a touch more investigating before going to Gil.
It didn't matter where any given championship was being held—Dubrovnik, Finland, or Paris, France—Bex's favorite place at a competition was always the official competitors' hotel. Not only because the sight of it meant Bex's twenty- hour day might finally be coming to an end and she might get a chance to rest her weary, throbbing head upon yet another pillow smelling of disinfectant (which, honestly, was preferable to yet another pillow smelling of rodent poison), but because, inevitably, the official hotel was where all the real action took place.
Sure, the arena was where people skated and fates were decided and tears of joy, sadness, or just plain old relief were shed. But the arena was also where competitors threw their arms around each other and posed for the press to dispel all those "rivalry" rumors, where female pair skaters and their gay partners stuck their tongues down each other's throats to prove that they really, truly were in love and engaged and no one should believe rumors to the contrary, and where coaches and former students who'd parted on the most vitriolic of terms shook hands and wished each other all the luck in the world.
Blech. Just watching that stuff made Bex feel like a tub of Crisco had been dumped over her head.
She much preferred the competitor's hotel. Namely, the backroom competitor's (and coaches and officials) lounge where neither reporters nor fans were allowed. (Bex, of course, didn't count as either.) While print media weren't allowed in the skaters' lounge, as Gil was so fond of reminding, television's purchase of the event meant they could be anywhere, anytime. And thank goodness for that. Because where else could you see the reigning men's champion (in full view of the female ice dancer who only a week earlier he'd held hands with as they strolled through beautiful, downtown San Francisco, pointedly stopping to gaze upon window displays of engagement rings as a 24/7 camera whirled in ecstasy) remove the pink feather boa from around his neck and use it to lasso one of his main competitors into a kiss and public grope? Or Canada's sweetheart, the underage spokesperson for her national antidrug campaign, light up a cigarette and follow it up with a glass of red wine? Or Russia's champion pair skaters, who publicly swore they would never, ever leave their beloved homeland no matter how bad the financial situation got, systematically walking from one federation president to another, handing out cards with a list of demands to be fulfilled before the pair agreed to switch beloved homelands?
It was the best show in town and the best place to find a skater during their downtime. Why not? The room had food, drinks, music, video games, and more intrigue than an episode of “As the World Turns.” In fact, one skater dubbed it “As the Toe Picks.”
Bex went in looking for Sergei Alemazov. She figured the author of the E-mail was a logical place to begin ferreting out its veracity. She searched around the coaches' table. She found Igor Marchenko, Jordan Ares's coach, and Gary Gold, Lian Reilley's coach, sitting side by side, each with a plate of food in front of them, dutifully cutting, chewing, swallowing, and taking sips of sparkling water all without once looking in the other's direction. Even when they reached for condiments, which required leaning across the other person, their eyes somehow managed to always be gazing some other way. So much for that "we're all one big, happy family" line everyone from the Connecticut Olympic Training Center was always laying on.
To Igor's left sat the Russian coaching contingent (as a Russian working in the U.S., Bex guessed Igor was some sort of table no-man's-land), a half-dozen former Soviets equally divided between sour-faced men in bright red coats and matching noses sporting either bad comb-overs or really bad toupees and, in one disturbing case, both, and zaftig women with teased hairstyles as big as their shoulders and bursts of hair spray crackling when they turned their heads—not unlike the northern lights. Unfortunately, Sergei Alemazov, the one Russian coach Bex had ever met who didn't fit the stereotype—honestly, the man was such an original he didn't fit any stereotype—wasn't there.
All right, then. On to Step B. If the Zamboni didn't come to the ice surface, the ice surface would just have to go to the Zamboni. And if Bex couldn't find Sergei, then Xenia, the next best thing, would just have to do.
Fortunately, she was much easier to find than her coach. As noted earlier, the current shade of her hair evoked nothing so much as a carrot burning in hell. Even among the peculiar skaters who periodically streaked their hair to match their costumes—pink, purple, and blue being the most popular colors—Xenia stood out. That afternoon, she was sitting all alone in the corner of the room, staring out the window and nervously tapping her fingers, painted to match her hair, on the windowsill. The other skaters seemed to be keeping their distance from her. Probably afraid that contested victories might be catching.
"Xenia?" Bex called the (for the moment) world champion's name and instinctively recoiled, all the while wondering what she was so scared of. Xenia Trubin may have looked tall on the ice, especially when she was performing her dance of down-with-capitalism, but she was barely five foot three. Which, while making her a virtual giant among the skating Lilliputian set, still placed her at an inch shorter than Bex. And sure, she was probably in better shape that Bex, and stronger, but she was hardly challenging her to arm wrestle. Still, there was something about the Russian champion, something about her air of wanting to be left alone, that was, in spite of logic, a bit intimidating. She was twenty-six years old, only two years older than Bex, but she'd been competing internationally for over a decade, and her world-weariness made her seem a half century older, and thus more formidable.
Xenia turned her head slowly, as if still in the process of deciding whether or not she wanted to do it. She saw Bex and raised her palm up toward the sky, questioning, "Yes? "
"Hi. I—I'm Bex Levy. I'm the 24/7 researcher. I talked to you before the competition started, to get information for our announcers. Do you remember?"
Xenia looked unconvinced, but she did manage a nod. "Yes."
"Can I ask you a couple of questions now?"
"You do not want to speaking with me."
That sure was news to Bex. "I—uh—don't?"
"No. Speaking is two people. You talk, I listen; I talk, you listen. But you do not want to listen. You only want I should to say I am sorry I win. You want I should say Erin Simpson is perfect flower in green garden of figure skating. How dare Xenia Trubin win title American Erin Simpson want. Yes? This is what you want? Sorry
much, I not say it."
"You believe you won fairly?" Bex asked, not accusing, truly curious to hear what Xenia thought about the whole fiasco. On the other hand, Bex had never met a skater who, no matter how badly they'd skated, didn't think they still deserved to win, if only on the artistic mark, on reputation, or even personality. So the surprise factor here was low.
"The judges say I win, so I win. When I am fifteen years old, my first world champion competition, I land seven triple jumps, more than any other lady. The judges say I no win. I no win. Is rules. Is sport."
"You know, I understand what you're feeling. It really isn't fair."
"Fair," Xenia snorted. "Only in America, people say fair, fair, fair. I ask question—you born in America, I born in Russia, somebody stranger born in Africa. Where is fair?"
Bex wasn't sure how to answer her question. She'd come prepared to talk skating and maybe a little murder. Not Philosophy 101.
"In America, skating costs much money, yes?"
"Yes," Bex agreed. "It's very expensive, you're right."
"So, when you pick American champion, you pick best skater in America, or best skater in America with money?"
"I suppose you're right...." How was it Bex had strode in ready to make like Emile Zola and "J'Accuse" everyone in sight, and suddenly here she was feeling like a Bible had been slipped under her palm and a promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, extracted?
"They close my ice rink in Russia. Sell it to Mafia to gamble on hockey games. Now, is hockey all day. One hour free for figure skating. Ice not good for figure skating. Many breaks. And no heating. Pipes break, nobody fix. Costs money. I visit American training centers. Good ice, warm air, sunshine in windows. We come to world championship. We compete. Is fair?"
"Well, no… But, if you factored in training conditions, you'd have to factor in things like injuries and genetic predisposition and—"