Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  She looked back at Erin. She said, "You skated so beautifully in the long program. It was your best long this season, don't you think?"

  Erin said, "It was okay. I could have been a little faster on the footwork section."

  "You deserved to win the gold. Everyone thought so." She looked at Francis and Diana. "Erin deserved the gold. Didn't she?"

  Francis said, "It's not just about how you skate. It's about how you skate in comparison to everyone else."

  "You don't think I know that?" Patty snarled. "You don't think I, of all people, know that? I know what it takes to win gold. It takes a perfect skate, and it takes an awake judging panel, and it takes political pull. A lot of political pull. Silvana Potenza could have given Erin that gold medal. She should have. She should have voted with the West. It would have been the right thing to do. It would have shown the damn Russians they can't always get away with their games. It could have sent a message."

  Francis asked, "Did you kill Silvana Potenza, Patty?"

  "She was going to ruin it." Patty nodded her head up and down, confirming the logic of her actions. "She was going to testify in front of the ISU and tell them she wasn't influenced, that the results were fair. The results weren't fair!"

  "You killed her," Diana said. "You left the arena, and you used the pay phone across from the refrigeration room to call Silvana's cell and lure her there. You turned off the light and poured water on the floor, knowing she'd have to step into the puddle to pull the switch and that it would electrocute her. You watched her go in and, after she was dead, you went and you planted this phony E-mail in her purse." Diana held it up for the camera to see.

  "Holy shit," Gil said.

  Bex smiled.

  It really was nice to have her work appreciated.

  "This E-mail is supposedly from Sergei Alemazov to Silvana," Francis said, "telling her how to vote in the ladies' long program, in Xenia Trubin's favor. Only it's a forgery. Silvana never printed it out. She didn't have a printer to do it on. You put this E-mail in her purse for the police to find. You knew it would be enough evidence for the ISU to strip Xenia of her gold and give it to Erin, instead. And, when you opened her purse, you saw the box of tissues. That gave you the idea to take them and then claim that's why you left. Erin, did your mother tell you she was going to get you tissues before she left, or after?"

  Erin's skin was no longer blue. It had gone gray. She sat rooted to her chair, shoulders slumped, eyes glassy with shock. When Francis asked her his question, it took her a moment to recognize that he was speaking to her, and another moment to find her voice.

  "I don't..." She had to stop, take a deep breath, more of a gasp, really, and start again. "I don't remember. I don't remember what she said."

  For her part, except for the fact that she was sitting straight as a board, her hands clutched in her lap, her eyes narrowed and focused, though distant, as if she were trying hard to remember something awfully important, Patty seemed to be in an equal amount of shock.

  "It wasn't Erin's fault," Patty insisted. "She didn't do anything wrong. She should still get her gold medal. She skated beautifully. It could have gone either way. It ready could have."

  "Mommy?" All of a sudden, Erin sounded like she was five years old. But the look on her face suggested someone ten times older. "Are they telling the truth? Did you kill Silvana?"

  "I did it for you." Patty seemed convinced that if she could just make Erin understand that one fact, it would make everything okay. "It was the least I could do. I'm your mother."

  When she first set this entrapment exercise up, Bex had sincerely hoped that her publicity-hungry policeman/stand-up comic friend could recognize a good cue when he heard one.

  She wasn't disappointed.

  As if on schedule, the door opened, and Stace Hale Jr., who'd been just outside, watching the live interview alongside the rest of America, stepped into the room and, after making sure that he was directly in front of the camera—I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeGil—pulled out his handcuffs and solemnly intoned, "Patty Simpson, you are under arrest for the murder of Silvana Potenza...."

  "Holy frickin' Mother of God," Gil's scream was so loud, Bex bet it could be heard not only in her headset but also throughout the entire room. "This, people, this! Are you paying attention? This is what I call good television! Bex, I can't wait to see how you top this, next season!"

  THE END

  On Thin Ice

  OTHER ALINA ADAMS TITLES

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  On Thin Ice

  PRINTING HISTORY Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2004

  Copyright © 2011 by Alina Adams Media.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  * * *

  On Thin Ice

  CHAPTER ONE

  "He is the best young skater in the United States," the voice on the other end of the phone receiver unequivocally pronounced. "And you are never going to see him."

  As the Senior—all right, only—researcher for the 24/7 Sports Network, Rebecca "Bex" Levy was used to out-of-the-blue phone calls praising this or that previously unheard of athlete. What she was not used to, however, was being told that she wouldn't be allowed to see him. After all, the point of said phone calls was usually to convince Bex to convince the 24/7 Sports top brass that said athlete was worthy of a 24/7 up-close-and-personal feature, preferably in prime-time. Rarely was the point of the phone call to taunt her about a feature she wouldn't be able to do.

  Which was why, rather than following her first instinct, which was to politely offer, "Well, thank you very much for sharing that with me," and hanging up, Bex, instead, stayed on the line, waiting for the explanation that she could only hope would be forthcoming.

  Oh, and Bex had another reason for continuing to listen. The voice on the other end of the telephone receiver belonged to one Mrs. Antonia Wright.

  Bex had met Toni a year ago, before Bex started working as the "24/7" researcher, back when she was just another struggling, freelance sports reporter, newly out of college and still barely earning enough to simply get by (granted, she was trying to do the getting-by thing in Manhattan, a borough where "simply" and "get by" couldn't even acquiesce to sharing a Central Park bench), much less begin making any sort of substantial dent in paying back her rather substantial student loans.

  Bex had written a cover feature for Black Maturity Magazine (she refused to let a little fact like being neither black nor mature stand in her way; Bex's other freelance clients included Boys' Life, Parents, and Cats, and she wasn't any of those things, either), chronicling Toni's struggle as the first African-American ice-skater to attempt competing within the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA). It truly was a fabulous and inspiring story, ranging from the first time seven-year-old Toni tried to pay her admission to a local ice rink and was told, "No niggers allowed," to her breaking the color barrier by joining a skating club so that she could perform at a local competition, to her triumphant win of a U.S. Pairs title with—oh, the scandal of it!—a white pairs partner. Afterwards, Toni went on to a rather successful professional career in a series of splashy and sequined ice shows before settling down to coach at the Connecticut Olympic Training Center in Hartford. These days, she was past sixty
years old and still lacing up her skates to get out onto the ice with her students. The woman was a marvel. And, when she talked, Bex listened. Even if, at the moment, Toni wasn't making a heck of a lot of sense.

  "I have this student," Toni backtracked. "His name is Jeremy Hunt. He is thirteen years old, and he's terrific, a prodigy. He started skating at eight—most people will tell you that's too late, I know I thought it was. But, then, he got all of his double jumps in six months, started landing triples within a year, passed his Senior test at eleven, and now he's doing quads! Quads, Bex! Good ones, not cheated—fully rotated. The Salchow, the Toe Loop, and even the Loop three out of five times. A quadruple Loop, can you believe it?"

  A year ago, Toni's words would have sounded like gibberish to Bex. A year ago, she hadn't been able to recognize an Axel on the ice from the one on her ten-year-old car. But, in researching and writing the article on Toni, she'd paid careful attention. And the older woman was an excellent teacher.

  So excellent, in fact, that Bex had no trouble running her current words through the Universal Skating Translator in her head, to come up with the following interpretation: While eight years old would still seem to be a rather young age on most normal planets, in the world of competitive skating, this Jeremy Hunt might as well have been named Grandpa Moses. Popular wisdom dictates that, in order to succeed at the sport, the potential Olympic and World Champion ought to begin his serious, daily training preferably by the age of eighteen months, private lessons by age three, and lessons with a top-ranked coach by no later than five. A boy who only takes up the discipline at age eight might as well scrape "Loser" onto his forehead with a rusty skate blade and prepare for a future as Eeyore's fuzzy rear end in the European company of "Disney on Ice." However, it seemed that Toni's student, Jeremy, had beaten the prognosticators by being somewhat of a talented fellow, and precociously mastering his double jumps—meaning he could take off from the ice, rotate twice in the air, and come down on one foot without his other foot, hand, chin, or chest also slamming into the ground beside him. Mastering the double jumps—Salchow, Toe Loop, Loop, Flip, Lutz, and especially double Axel, which, in spite of its name, actually required two and half revolutions in the air—was a process that some skaters took years to perfect. The fact that Jeremy did it in under six months was impressive. But, not as impressive as the fact that he then went ahead and mastered all his triples, as well. Mastering all of the triple jumps—Salchow, Toe Loop, Loop, Flip, Lutz, and especially a triple Axel, which, in spite of its name, actually required three and half revolutions in the air, was a process that took some skaters—well, never. Most skaters never mastered all of their triple jumps. And they especially didn't do it in one year. At the age of eleven. Of course, when it came to quadruple jumps, there were only a dozen men in the world who could actually land one successfully, much less land two-almost-three of them (and at least half of those who claimed to be landing quads cheated them somehow, either taking an extra half turn on the ice before they jumped, or after they'd landed). When it came to men doing clean quads, that is, four full revolutions in the air— no cheating—there were only a handful. And none of them were thirteen years old, that was for sure.

  "Oh, and Bex, this is the best part." Toni sounded almost religiously ecstatic as she unveiled her piece de resistance. "He can actually skate!"

  Come on, Universal Skating Translator—Bex cheered on her brain—do your stuff! Sure enough, after a moment, it kicked in with the code-breaker. What Toni actually meant to say was: "When Jeremy Hunt gets on the ice, he doesn't look like he is trudging from place to place through gravel, and he doesn't just perform like an acrobatic monkey, he actually knows how to stroke, to glide with a semblance of smoothness, to float the way you're supposed to if we're to keep this sport from becoming tumbling on ice, instead of the art it was always intended to be."

  All right, so maybe Bex embellished a little on that last part. But, it was exactly what Toni meant. She could tell from the excitement in her voice.

  Still, Toni wasn't as over-the-moon excited as Bex would have expected a coach to be when talking up a supposed find of this boy's caliber. There had to be a catch. Something Toni intended to tell her, but couldn't quite find the right words.

  Bex tried to guess, offering up her version of "Skating Twenty Questions." She asked Toni, "So, what's the problem? Does he leave it all on the practice ice?"

  In human language, what Bex meant was, "Is he good in practice, but then can't deliver in competition?"

  "Not at all," Toni assured. "If this boy can do it, he can do it, doesn't matter when or where."

  "Meaning he doesn't freeze up under pressure?"

  "Nope. Solid as a rock. Two minutes before competition, he's grinning and waving to his friends and clapping for the competition and jabbering about which little girl he's planning to invite to his eighth-grade dance. Nothing fazes him. I swear, when results went up at Sectionals last week and we saw he'd placed first, the smile he had is the same one he'd have had if he finished last."

  Translation: Sectionals were a qualifying competition. There were three in the country, divided into geographic regions—Pacific Coast, Midwestern, and Eastern. The top four skaters from each discipline advanced on to the U.S. National Championships. If Jeremy Hunt won his Eastern Sectional, it meant he had a very good chance of winning a medal—even a gold one—at Nationals. And a U.S. National Champion, traditionally, had a very good chance of going on to win a medal at the World Championships, or even at the Olympic Winter Games.

  "Not bad for a thirteen year old," Bex noted.

  "Except that there's a problem."

  Aha! Chalk one up for Bex's instincts. Of course, there was a problem.

  "It's Jeremy's father."

  Oh, yes, here it came. Bex took mental bets with herself on exactly what sort of cliché "problem" parent Mr. Hunt would prove to be. There were a limited number of types, and none of them was a barrel of monkeys. "What's wrong with him?"

  Toni took a deep breath and, in a voice that suggested she couldn't believe it herself, revealed, "Jeremy's father won't let him compete at Nationals."

  "What?" Bex sat up in her office chair, rubber wheels scraping the floor with a squeak equal in volume to her dismay.

  This was certainly a new one for her. Usually, when one said there was a problem with a skating parent, one meant that Mommy Dearest (and it was usually a Mommy Dearest, though a Daddy or two did sneak into the party once in a while) was beating her Skating Sweetie in the back bathroom with a hairbrush while screaming that Skating Sweetie messed up her combination jump on purpose. Or it meant that Mommy Dearest was keeping her Skating Sweetie on a diet so strict, gaunt Ethiopian children were sending Skating Sweetie humanitarian relief, or, at the very least, that Mommy Dearest had taken to calling up judges at their regular place of employment to demand an explanation for why Skating Sweetie hadn't qualified for Nationals, when anyone could see that she was the superior child in her flight, if not in the entire world.

  Although Bex had only been in the formal research business for a little over one season (last year had been her first and she was just three months into her second), she'd been writing about sports of all kinds for almost ten years now, going back to her high-school paper. And she'd never, ever heard of a parent trying to keep their child OUT of a competition.

  "Does the dad say why?"

  "He says that he has no problem with Jeremy skating for fun, but he doesn't want it consuming his life."

  Oh. Well, that certainly was a new one. Bex almost didn't know what to say. She stammered, "I, well, Toni, he's not exactly wrong in that, is he?" This was truly unprecedented. On the other hand ... "But why did he let Jeremy enter Sectionals if he wants him to do it just for fun?"

  "I asked him the same thing. Mr. Hunt—his first name is Craig—he said to me that local competitions are still fun. Nationals are where it gets crazy."

  Well, he was right and he was wrong about that. From where Bex sat
, she'd seen some pretty crazy behavior at local interclub competitions for skaters between the mature ages of five and five-and-a-half, but, okay, let Mr. Hunt have his opinion.

  Bex said, "This Jeremy though, he sounds to me like the type of kid who can handle big-time competition. Especially if he's got no pressure coming from the home-front."

  "Personally, I don't think it's that at all. Personally, I think Mr. Hunt is afraid of Jeremy losing. He dotes on that boy, he's afraid to see him hurt."

  "Again, Toni," Bex, as a civilian, was treading carefully now. You never knew with these skating people what exactly would set them off. One time Bex watched a skater go mental because someone mistook his teal costume for being blue. There were certain things these people took extra-special seriously. And you'd darn better take them seriously, too, if you wanted them to keep talking to you.

  Still, Bex bravely pressed on, "Is that so wrong?"

  "When you've got a boy of this talent, yes!" The fervor in Toni's voice reminded Bex that no matter how generally reasonable the older woman sounded, she was still a skater down to the freon in her veins. Of course, to her, Craig Hunt was spouting heresy. "Jeremy Hunt is the most talented male skater I've seen since Robby Sharpton. Do you want him to end up throwing his potential away the same way Robby did?"

  Actually, Bex had no idea who this Robby Sharpton was. She made a mental note to act out her job description and actually go research it. How hard could it be? She already had a pretty big clue. Apparently, the said Robby Sharpton never lived up to his potential.

  Toni went on, "What if someone had kept Fred Astaire from dancing? Or Caruso from singing? What if someone had taken away Van Gogh's paint brushes?"

  "He might have ended up with better hearing?" Bex was being flip, she knew she was being flip. But, she just couldn't help it sometimes. Not when it was this easy.

  Toni said, "This boy could be the star of the next Nationals. Doesn't 24/7 want to be the first one to tell his story?"