by Alina Adams
And while they were talking, she asked, "Why didn't you tell me that when you mentioned Robby Sharpton's wasted potential, you meant as a human being, not just a skater?"
Toni sighed, "You know about what happened to Felicia, then."
"It's a matter of public record, hardly top secret stuff."
"I don't like to gossip," Toni said. Unlike the skating mothers who'd started off their diatribes with the same disclaimer, Bex actually believed her. Toni didn't gossip. She shared facts, and only when asked. Sometimes, she even had to be asked several times. Salacious was not her cup of ice chips.
"I know," Bex conceded. "And I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. It's just that, don't you find it a bit of a coincidence that Rachel Rose disappears and later it turns out her old partner had a little violence-with-women problem?"
"It wasn't then, and it isn't now, any of my business," Toni said. The silent implication being, "And it's none of yours, either."
Bex pretended she suffered from a hearing disorder that made her unable to hear subtext. Kind of like dog whistles.
She said, "So, do you think you could track down Robby Sharpton's number for me, Toni?"
“I’ll try," Toni said.
And, by the end of the day, she had.
God bless the skating grapevine.
Robby Sharpton, it turned out, was currently living in New Jersey. That bothered Bex on some level. She'd been hoping for a dark, decrepit, possibly Southern-gothic mansion covered in creeping half-rotted vines and shadows as the location for her confrontation with a potential killer.
Somehow, she doubted she would be finding that in New Jersey.
Instead, Robby Sharpton lived in a third-floor walk-up on the outskirts of a quasi-industrial neighborhood, where the sun shined particularly brightly off the hoods of a half-dozen parked cars on the day that Bex drove up for their appointment. He hadn't sounded surprised to hear from her, which also unnerved Bex somewhat. Was he lying in wait for her, ready to make innocent Bex his next victim in a tri-state, skate-themed killing spree?
Or, “Toni Wright called and told me she'd given you my number."
Oh. Or that.
He agreed to see Bex and to be interviewed on camera, even as he told her he wasn't sure why she would want to do it. "Been away from skating for a long time. Bet no one remembers me anymore."
"Actually, your name has come up quite a bit lately."
"Oh," he sighed. "That's a shame."
The man who opened the door to his one-bedroom apartment and let Bex in with a shrug was, no doubt about it, the same one who'd stared so belligerently up from the newspaper photos reporting on Rachel Rose's disappearance. Fifteen years later, his so-blonde-it-could-seem-white hair showed no signs of thinning. It still fell into his eyes the same way it had back when he was executing a blur-worthy sit-spin that made him look temporarily like the sheepdog always in conflict with Wile E. Coyote in the Bugs Bunny cartoons. He was so blonde, even his eyelashes and brows were white. They made his blue eyes seem nearly translucent and his nose and chin even sharper. Robby was dressed in jeans and a black tank top. The latter showed that his upper arms were still as developed as they'd been in the years when lifting one hundred pounds of girl over his head was all in a day's work, and the former emphasized that his thighs still benefited from the fact that, while lifting said girl, he'd also been turning at top speed, all the while balancing on a pair of sharp blades no wider than a sliver. In other words, the man was still fit. Heck, who was she kidding? The man was still buff. And not bashful about showing it off.
On the other hand, when it came to talking, bashful wasn't merely the moniker of Snow White's Least Remembered Dwarf. Robby, after sitting patiently while Bex adjusted her camera for maximum light and framing, proved to be the king of the monosyllabic answer.
While she was still setting up, in a combination of making conversation to fill the awkward silence and genuine curiosity, Bex noted, "You're in pretty good shape. Do you work out?"
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Bex got a flash image of a cement-covered prison exercise yard and large, sweaty men in bandanas lifting heavy objects while snarling. She considered the possibility that she really didn't want to hear the answer to her question, especially if it included a guy named "Bubba."
Alas, it was too late to hit the rewind button.
"Broomball," Robby said.
Bex relaxed. No prison yards or bandanas, thankfully. Broomball was merely the bastard-child offspring of hockey and ... um ... sweeping. Basically, grown men who found hockey too harmless got together, usually in the middle of the night, to play a game that followed more or less the same rules, but, instead of sticks, featured brooms and, instead of skates, used regular sneakers. And they wore no protective padding of any kind. From the few games Bex had seen, bleeding and bruising seemed to be a big part of the schedule.
Sure sounded like the perfect game for a wife-beater, Bex thought. What she said, however, was, "Oh. That sounds like fun. So you're still skating in a way?"
Robby shrugged. Silently.
He looked somehow smaller on camera than he did in person. (And no, it was not because the camera's viewfinder was only three inches high; Bex did hate it when even her own mind got sarcastic on her.) In person, Robby stood up straight, shoulders over hips, hips over knees, his chin jutted forward. Bex figured two decades of correct posture conditioning would be hard to shake— even after a stint in prison. But, sitting down for her camera, he slumped. His chest caved in and he couldn't stop looking at his fingernails. Bex could barely catch his eyes from underneath the bangs. It did not make him look like the most forthright or honest of interview subjects. Not that, for what Bex had in mind, that was necessarily a bad thing.
She decided to start gently. After all, leaping right in with, "Did you kill Rachel Rose?" seemed like it would tip her clever hand a little earlier than Bex intended. So, instead, she offered, "You know, Robby, there is still quite a bit of interest in you in the skating community."
"I bet." Bex tried to figure out if Robby sounded angry or sarcastic. Mostly, though, he just sounded tired.
"You were a great skater. Probably one of the best Pairs partners ever."
"I didn't make it."
"Well, I guess that depends on what your definition of making it is."
"Olympic Gold," Robby said. His tone made it clear there would be no room for argument.
"Is that why you and Felicia broke up your original partnership? Because you didn't think you could win the Olympic Gold with her?"
"Rachel was the better skater. It was Felicia's idea."
Okay, now Bex was sitting squarely in disbelief-land. The idea that a skater would urge her partner to skate with someone else was a fantasy even skating's version of J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't dream of trying to peddle as true. She thought of the ice-dance mothers back at the training center, who sat side by side every day, swallowing their mutual loathing, all so that their children wouldn't lose their partners and a shot at... whatever. And now Robby wanted Bex to believe that it was Felicia's idea he skate with Rachel? Besides, Lucian Pryce had already told her the notion was his.
"Look," Robby's head suddenly shot up, forcing Bex to jump and jerk while still holding the camera. Not a very smooth shot, but certainly one indicative of the force with which Robby sprang to life. "I know why you're here."
"You—you do?'
"This is about my jail time. That's all anybody is interested in about me. No one gives a fuck how I skated. It's about me and Felicia and what I did to her."
"Well, I—"
"I'm not denying I did it. I'm not. I beat her up. I loved her, but I hit her and I deserved to go to jail for it and I deserved for her to leave me after."
Bex nodded emphatically, not sure what he was looking for her to say but pretty certain that whatever it was, Bex wouldn't be able to think of it in time. So rather than ruining everything, she kept quiet. Which was kind of a first for her.
"I did my time, though," Robby continued, going from Bashful to (Really) Grumpy in the blink of a video frame. "It's funny. After skating for twenty years, jail just wasn't that hard. It's all about do this here and do this now, and keep your mouth shut and follow directions and stay cool, don't let anybody rattle you."
Well, that was certainly a unique perspective on the United States penal system. Prison is just one big ice rink, with wardens instead of coaches and ... Bex didn't want to speculate on what instead of medals.
"I'm sorry about what happened," Robby said. "I wish I knew where the hell Felicia was these days, so I could tell her myself." As fast as he'd revved up, he seemed to peter out. Grumpy was gone. Bashful was back. Robby peered into Bex's camera, blinking like she'd just woken him up and his eyes weren't adjusted to the bright light yet. "That's why I said I'd do this interview, you know. Because I thought maybe, if you showed it on TV, maybe Felicia, she would see it and she'd hear how I really am sorry."
"What about Rachel Rose?" Bex figured if he could bounce from mood to mood without so much as a warning, she could certainly do the same from subject to subject.
Robby stared at Bex queerly. "Rachel?"
"Your ex-partner..." Bex reminded helpfully.
"What about Rachel? Rachel took off years before any of this happened."
"Well, yes. I know. In fact I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, you've admitted that you had a bit of problem with women and with hitting and everything, and, you know, with Rachel disappearing so suddenly, I was wondering if, possibly, did you, when you were skating together, did you... did you... hit... Rachel? Maybe? Once or twice?"
There. Bex wasn't sure if she'd actually gotten her question out but she was pretty certain she'd set some sort of record for the most rambling words ever without actually getting to the point.
"Hitting your partner is stupid," Robby said.
Well, yes. Actually, Bex pretty much thought any kind of hitting was stupid, so she really couldn't argue with him there.
"You hit your partner, you hurt her bad, you can't skate anymore. Everybody loses. It's dumb."
Made perfect sense to her. But somehow, Bex suspected that abuse and logic rarely went hand in hand, especially in the heat of the moment. "Well, if it wasn't anything you did, why do you think Rachel disappeared like that, right when it looked like you two were about to hit it big?"
"Who the hell knows?"
"Well, actually, I was hoping you would. Did Rachel maybe say anything or do anything in those last few days that, in retrospect, offers a clue to—"
"Look, why don't you just ask her yourself?"
What? Was he recommending she hold a séance?
"Robby, I—do you... do you know where I can find Rachel Rose?"
Shrug. Back to looking at his fingernails. Not even Bashful anymore. More like Dopey. "No clue." And, then, just as Bex was getting ready to put away her camera since she clearly wasn't about to get any more useful footage and/or information here, Robby's head popped back up. Suddenly he was Happy, (or at least Happy's long-lost cousin, Pleasant), and certainly no longer monosyllabic. Robby asked, "If you do manage to track Rachel down, would you mind passing her whereabouts on to me? I really would like to get in touch with her again."
Bex had never actually met a psychopath before. Yet, walking down the stairs of his apartment building, Bex didn't let that lack of experience in any way stop her from classifying Robby Sharpton as one. Well, what else could it be? He had all the classic symptoms. At least, in as much as Bex understood them from that time she watched the middle half-hour of a Discovery Channel documentary on mental illness. There were the requisite mood swings (from reticent to confrontational in the time it took him to raise his head; plus all those Dwarf personas). The lame, false modesty ("Bet no one even remembers my name anymore.") mixed with macho bravado ("Jail wasn't hard."). The condescension ("Hitting your partner is stupid"). And the classic cat-and-mouse mind game he insisted on playing with Bex ("Why don't you ask Rachel yourself?"), obviously toying with her ("If you do manage to track Rachel down, would you mind passing her whereabouts on to me?"). It was textbook.
Plus, on top of everything else, Robby was a plain old liar. Even if Bex overlooked her instincts and the soon-to-be-discovered evidence and believed that Robby had nothing to do with Rachel's disappearance. Even if she believed that he'd never laid a hand on Rachel. Even if she believed that they were the best matched, most harmonious Pairs team since Caveman and Cavewoman first strapped bones onto their feet, held hands, and allowed their fellow Cave-People to pass judgment on them. There was still no way Bex could believe that Felicia Tufts had voluntarily passed her husband and partner over to Rachel Rose without so much as a twitch of resentment and a Rachel voodoo doll with a blade stuck into its heart. That was simply a skating impossibility.
And, since Bex knew without a shadow of a doubt that Robby was lying about this, logic dictated that he was also lying about everything else he'd told her.
Luckily, Bex also knew that she didn't have to take his word as gospel for anything.
Prior to even making the appointment to see skating's answer to Killer Bluebeard the Pirate, Bex had run another Internet search, and, this time, easily came up with the contact information for one Felicia Tufts (one-time Sharpton). Ms. Tufts lived in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. And Bex was on her way to see her now.
On her way to get some honest answers, for a change.
CHAPTER NINE
Felicia Tufts was not nearly as welcoming to Bex as Robby had been. Maybe it was because she didn't get the introductory vouching phone call from Toni. Or maybe it was because she was a... what was it... they actually had a specific word for it in skating…. Oh, yes: Maybe it was because she was a bitch.
Now, granted, Bex supposed that a total stranger calling you from out of the blue asking you to speak, on camera, about your failed athletic career, abusive marriage, jailbird ex-husband, and the mysterious disappearance of a perky, blonde rival you couldn't have possibly liked very much might be reason for a bit of initial, frosty hostility. But, Felicia had apparently decided to take crankiness to a whole other level.
"I have nothing to say to you, Ms. Levy," Felicia announced.
That is, she announced it after she'd left Bex cooling her heels in the lobby of her apartment building for forty-seven (yes, she started counting after she'd completed her tally of the number of gold buttons on the doorman's coat and lovely matching cap) minutes. The only reason Bex even finally managed to make it up to Felicia's sprawling two-bedroom co-op with the river views to knock on the door and receive her rebuff was because the jauntily dressed doorman went out to hail a cab for a teenage boy and his dog (was the kid taking his pet for a walk or a ride?) and Bex, taking advantage of the fact that he'd forgotten all about her by now, simply rode the elevator upstairs while no one was looking.
The woman who answered the door ("Felicia Tufts, I presume," Bex never got the chance to utter) was, predictably, twenty years older than the photo of Robby's Nationals-winning Junior Pairs partner that Bex had found in his old file. The blonde ballerina bun had been replaced with a trendy, short haircut, complete with recent salon streaks, and the tasteful gold studs in her ears with equally tasteful silver hoops. She was still barely an inch over five feet tall, still practically breastless. The only thing missing was the Miss America smile. In fact, there wasn't even a Miss Congeniality smile to be seen for miles as the former U.S. Junior Pairs Champion told Bex, "Please, go. I have nothing to say to you, Miss Levy."
"I saw Robby earlier," Bex blurted out, wishing she could stick her foot in the door like the traveling salesman of old. Alas, those traveling salesmen were canvassing dirt-floor shanties, not trying to maneuver atop a luxury-building carpet so lush, deep, and slick, it was all Bex could do to keep from sinking into it.
"How perfectly wonderful for you."
"He gave me an interview."
"More pure bliss."
&
nbsp; "We talked about Rachel Rose."
Felicia Tufts hesitated for the briefest fraction of a second, apparently temporarily without a sarcastic quip. Bex knew the feeling. She even sympathized. She also knew that this might be her only chance to chip at a chink in the armor, and she couldn't risk wasting it with empathy.
Before Felicia had a chance to regain her equilibrium, Bex pressed on. "I'm doing a story about what may have happened to her. Do you have any ideas?"
"Why?" Felicia blinked. It was the first time she'd blinked since Bex had snuck up on her. Surely, that had to mean something. "Why should I know anything?"
"She was Robby's partner. You were Robby's wife."
"And George Bush Sr. was president at the time, so what?" But, even as she snapped her albeit clever rejoinder, Felicia blinked again.
"May I come in?" Bex finally managed to glide her foot where she'd initially meant to all along. She must have caught Felicia mid-blink. The woman moved aside ever so slightly. Bex took it as an engraved invitation.
It's a shame she wasn't here to gawk. Residing as she did in a one-room studio in Hell's Kitchen, Bex often felt the urge to gawk upon encountering how the other half (oh, who was she kidding, the other one-sixteenth) lived. Alas, now was not the time nor place. She did, however, note that it seemed the other half actually had a room designated for the preparation and ingestion of food, rather than the area that, at Bex's place, was known as the two feet between her fold-out couch and TV stand. She also noted that none of the furniture had chips in it. This was probably what they meant by noblesse oblige.
Very briefly, Bex glanced at Felicia's cream-colored walls. Skaters and ex-skaters, she'd noted, had a tendency to plaster their walls (and coffee tables) with ribbons, medals, and trophies, alongside enlarged (to poster size) color photos of themselves winning and wearing said ribbons, medals, and trophies. Felicia's walls, however, were surprisingly bare of any such mementos. She only had art. It hung in antique frames. It wasn't stuck along each of the four edges by squares of rolled scotch tape. Bex made another mental decorating note.