Dead Ball

by Judith Arnold

  “Nice of you to stop by,” he said, as if he were the host of a party she’d been invited to. “I’m Detective Howard Knapp.” He extended his hand.

  She shook it, trying to ignore the fat that padded his fingers like a layer of foam rubber. In his standard-issue blue uniform, he didn’t look like a detective. She wondered if he’d been given the title just yesterday, in honor of the Cavanagh case. At least he wasn’t wearing his visored cap today. When he turned to nod a greeting to the receptionist, Lainie noticed a small round bald spot resembling a leathery pink yarmulke at the back of his head.

  “Follow me,” he said, ushering her down the hall and through the door. They entered a squad room that, while populated with a few busy-looking cops and support staff, wasn’t exactly the high-energy hub she would have expected of a police station in a town plagued by murder. One murder might not constitute a plague, but still.

  She’d expected Knapp to lead her to a desk, but he marched her through the squad room, down another short hall, and into a small, windowless room, most of which was taken up by a Formica-topped table. The air felt beige and smelled of stale coffee, and one wall featured a shadowy mirror that Lainie guessed, from having watched enough cop shows on TV, was one of those two-way panes that allowed people standing on the other side of the glass to observe her.

  Knapp had brought her to an interrogation room. For God’s sake, she’d come here to tell the police about a woman she’d seen with Arthur Cavanagh the night before he died, not to be interrogated.

  “Why are we in here?” she asked, her voice steadier than her nerves.

  “It’s too noisy in the squad room,” he said smoothly.

  She didn’t believe him. Glancing at the mirror, she wondered who would want to spy on her telling Knapp about the blond woman, and why.

  Knapp nodded toward one of the molded plastic chairs at the table. It reminded her of the chairs in the Hopwell cafeteria—and the table looked like one of the cafeteria tables, as well. Perhaps the town had received a discount by buying its municipal furniture in bulk.

  Once she was seated, Knapp settled his ample bottom into a chair facing her. He placed a steno pad on the table and pulled a pen from the coiled binding. “I know you gave me your name yesterday, but I need it again.” He poised his pen over a blank page.

  “Elaine Lovett. I only wanted to tell you—”

  He held his hand up to silence her. “Address?”

  He could look it up in the Rockford phone book, but she obediently recited it. No sense antagonizing him. She was here to help; if he considered having her address helpful, she’d provide her address.

  “And your place of employment?”

  “Hopwell Primary School. I’m a teacher there.”

  “What grade?” he asked, as if that could be at all relevant.

  “Fourth.”

  Apparently, this concluded the getting-to-know-you portion of their meeting. “What were you doing at the murder site yesterday?” he asked.

  His brusque tone took her aback. “I told you yesterday,” she reminded him. “I’m a friend of Patty Cavanagh’s.”

  “You know one of the first things they teach you in the academy?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The criminal often returns to the scene of the crime.”

  “Well then, perhaps you ought to go back to the scene of the crime and keep an eye out for whoever murdered Arthur.” A little snide, but she couldn’t help herself.

  She should have helped herself. His gaze narrowed on her, and his pudgy fingers gripped his pen more tightly. “I think I’ll keep an eye out for you, instead.”

  This was not going well at all. In fact, it was going pretty badly. She considered reminding Knapp that she’d come to the station to help him solve a crime. But for some reason, he seemed to be viewing her as suspicious.

  Exercising the sort of patience fourth-grade teachers developed as a survival skill, she folded her hands primly on the table and considered her words before she spoke them. “I wasn’t returning to the scene of the crime yesterday. I didn’t even know for sure that there was a crime. I’d heard a rumor about Arthur Cavanagh’s death, and I went to Emerson Village Estates because I hoped it wasn’t true.”

  “You just drove over, hoping to see—what? A building under construction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did you rendezvous with Bill Stavik?”

  “Rendezvous?” she blurted out, incredulous. She forced herself to slow down and think before she answered. “I didn’t rendezvous with him. I have no idea why he was there. In fact, before yesterday, I had no idea who he was. I drove into the subdivision, discovered that the news about Arthur was unfortunately true, and left.”

  “Mr. Stavik left with you,” Knapp reminded her. “You went to the Old Colonial Inn together.”

  Had they been followed? Obviously. Two cruisers had been parked outside the construction site where Arthur had been found. One of them must have been used to trail her and Stavik—or else Knapp had radioed for backup.

  As if the entire Rockford Police Department had been needed to learn what Lainie and Stavik were up to. Which was absolutely nothing—and would remain absolutely nothing if she had anything to say about it.

  Yet the notion that the police had shadowed her while she’d been acting perfectly innocently, with the best of intentions, was even more unsettling than being interrogated. Why would Knapp have had her followed?

  “I really don’t know Mr. Stavik,” she said evenly. It was the truth, and she prayed for Knapp to believe her. “I gather he was an employee of Mr. Cavanagh’s, but other than that . . .” She drifted off, signaling that on the subject of Bill Stavik she was ignorant and therefore useless.

  Knapp tapped the tip of his pen against his pad and regarded her thoughtfully, as if she were a complicated specimen he was struggling to analyze. She glanced at his pad and saw tiny blue dots speckling the paper. If he was going to use his pen as a drumstick, he ought to close it first.

  “How long have you known Arthur Cavanagh?” he asked.

  “I’ve known his wife for about seven years. I didn’t know Arthur very well, although our paths crossed on occasion.”

  He leaned forward, as if she’d just said something utterly intriguing. “Where did your paths cross?”

  “At the school. His son was my student a few years ago. And I know Patty from soccer, and—”

  “Soccer?”

  “We’re both on the Colonielles. It’s a town team. I also know Patty from the PTO and other school activities. Sometimes Arthur would attend school functions. Those were pretty much the only times I saw him.”

  Knapp scribbled furiously on his pad, as if she’d said something profound. After he’d composed a good couple of paragraphs, he clicked his pen and leveled his gaze at her. He said nothing.

  She decided now was as good a time as any to reveal what she’d come to tell him. “Another time our paths crossed was the night before he died. I saw him in the lounge at Olde Towne Olé, having a drink with a woman. That’s why I’m here—I thought that information might be helpful to you.”

  Knapp’s olive eyes dilated, as if someone had removed the pits from them. He fell back in his chair, his weight causing it to squeak. “What were you doing in the lounge at Olde Towne Olé?”

  “I was having a drink with some soccer teammates.”

  “I’ll need their names.”

  Hell. Bad enough that Knapp knew who she was. After spending a few minutes with the guy, she would have liked to protect Sheila and Angie from him. But she couldn’t lie to the police. “Sheila O’Brien and Angela Lamola,” she said, barreling ahead without giving him a moment to write them down. “This was about six thirty. Our practice was cancelled due to a sprinkler problem at Minuteman Field, so we went to Olde Towne Olé to have a d
rink. We saw Arthur Cavanagh at the bar with a woman.”

  “Who was she?”

  “I have no idea. I’d never seen her before. My friends and I didn’t think anything of it”—okay, so she could lie a little to the police—“and I never would have even mentioned it if Arthur hadn’t turned up dead the next morning.”

  “Describe the woman,” he said.

  He might have added, “please,” but Lainie supposed courtesy was too much to ask for. “She appeared young—mid-twenties, I’d guess. Wavy platinum blond hair that fell past her shoulders. She was . . . well endowed.”

  “Height?”

  “I’m not sure. They were sitting at the bar, and I was sitting at a table.” She recalled her glimpses of them weaving through the lounge to leave. “A bit taller than I, maybe. Five-six or -seven.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “A tight white blouse and black pants.”

  “Shoes?”

  “I would assume so. I don’t think you’re allowed into restaurants barefoot.”

  Knapp scowled. “Was she wearing high heels or flats?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice her feet,” Lainie replied.

  “A lot of makeup?”

  “The Olde Towne Olé lounge isn’t very well lit,” she told him. “I couldn’t tell.”

  “It was lit enough for you to see her endowments,” he pointed out.

  “They had their own special glow.”

  Knapp drummed his pen against his pad again. This time the pen was closed and he didn’t leave the page freckled with ink spots. “So this was at six thirty,” he said. “Were they still in the bar when you left?”

  “No. They left—I’d guess it was about seven.”

  “And you were still drinking?”

  What exactly was the guy implying? That she and Sheila and Angie had spent the night getting hammered? “We were enjoying a leisurely drink,” she said.

  “Okay, so they left around seven. Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t follow them.”

  “Did you overhear any of their conversation?”

  She shook her head. “It was crowded and noisy. They pump mariachi music through the loudspeakers.”

  “Mariachi music?” He jotted the word down. “What’s that?”

  “You know—Mexican music, with guitars and trumpets. If you’ve been to a Mexican restaurant, you’ve probably heard it.”

  “Mexican food doesn’t agree with me,” he said. Lainie refrained from observing that, if appearances meant anything, most food agreed with him just fine. After studying the scribbles on his pad for a minute, he leveled his gaze at her. “Why didn’t you report this encounter yesterday?”

  “For one thing, it wasn’t an encounter,” she explained. “I saw Arthur on the other side of the lounge. We didn’t greet each other. We didn’t talk. I don’t think he saw me.” If he had, he probably would have gone straight home to Patty, or else approached Lainie’s table and introduced his voluptuous companion as his cousin. Or maybe he would have slunk away, embarrassed and fervently hoping Lainie wouldn’t tattle on him. “For another,” she continued, “I could hardly think straight yesterday. A murder in Rockford. It’s very upsetting.”

  He regarded her languidly, tilting his head in a thoughtful pose. “Here’s what I don’t get,” he said in a folksy drawl that jolted her nerves to attention. “You show up at the murder scene yesterday with some lame excuse, and then depart with the man who was allegedly the person to find the body. One day later, you show up here with a story about some woman who may or may not even exist.”

  “Of course she existed!” Lainie retorted, anger trumping her self-control. “Do you think I made her up?”

  “I don’t know. I’m wondering whether you might be just a bit too interested in Arthur Cavanagh’s death.”

  “I’m interested in his death because I knew him. And because his wife is my friend.”

  “She’s your friend,” he said, pouncing on the word. “A good friend, you’d say?”

  “Yes, we’re friends. We’re soccer teammates.” His size implied that he probably didn’t participate in team sports, which in turn would mean he wouldn’t understand how teammates bonded.

  “So, if you saw Patty’s husband with another woman, that would make you pretty angry, wouldn’t it.”

  Angie and Sheila had been angrier than she had—but that was because she’d naïvely allowed for the possibility that the blond woman was Arthur’s business associate. “If it turned out that Arthur was cheating on Patty, of course I’d be indignant on her behalf.”

  “Of course.” He flipped the page of his notebook and scribbled some more. “Women friends are kind of like a sisterhood about these things, aren’t they.”

  “I can’t speak for all women.”

  “Speak for yourself, then. If you learned the husband of one of your friends was cheating on her, you’d take her side, wouldn’t you.”

  “Depending on the situation, I guess—”

  “And you wouldn’t blame her for wanting revenge.”

  “Depending on the revenge—”

  “You might even help her get her revenge, right? Because she’s your friend. Because he betrayed her.”

  “You’re pursuing an interesting hypothesis,” Lainie said. “But it’s completely theoretical.”

  If her ten-dollar words intimidated him, he recovered quickly. “Okay, so you saw your friend’s husband at a bar where you were hanging out, and he was allegedly with a busty blonde.”

  “Not allegedly. He was with a busty blonde.”

  “But you didn’t recognize her.”

  “No.”

  “Because maybe she doesn’t exist?”

  Had she and Knapp been transported to Oz? Had they flown off to Neverland? Or had he recently watched an X-Files marathon on some obscure cable channel and gotten a little too caught up in the weirdness of it?

  “She exists. I saw her. So did the friends I was with.”

  “Another possibility,” Knapp said smugly, “is that you and Stavik invented her after you left the murder scene yesterday. Trying to throw me off the scent.”

  “What scent?” She sighed and closed her eyes. This was definitely not going well. So much for behaving like an upstanding citizen, doing her civic duty, and reporting what she’d seen. Knapp apparently considered her a liar, someone who’d schemed with Stavik, a man she knew even less well than she’d known Arthur.

  Did Knapp think Stavik had murdered Arthur? Stavik had mentioned that the police had questioned him for hours yesterday. He’d also mentioned that Arthur was a difficult boss and they didn’t get along well.

  Okay. Stavik was a married man who’d hit on her. He might be a murderer, too. But what did that have to do with her? Why would Knapp think she had anything to do with Stavik or Arthur’s murder? She was a schoolteacher, for crying out loud. A mother. A Colonielle.

  And she was in trouble. If Knapp suspected her of complicity in Rockford’s crime of the century, she had better get herself a lawyer. A criminal lawyer.

  The possibility that she might need a criminal attorney because some small-town policeman had a wild imagination caused her throat to go dry and her head to throb. “Officer Knapp,” she said, “I’ve told you everything I know. If you have no further questions, I’m going to leave.” A gutsy move, but she couldn’t just sit there and let him stare at her with his oily black eyes. She needed fresh air. She needed to get away from that weird two-way mirror. She needed to return to the land of the sane.

  He surveyed his notes one final time and then shoved heavily to his feet. “I suppose this will do for now,” he said. “I know how to reach you.” He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him out. Then he escorted her back
down the hall, through the squad room, and down the other hall to the building’s vestibule. “Don’t leave town,” he warned as he held the door open for her.

  She would damned well leave town if she wanted. She wasn’t going to remain trapped within Rockford’s borders just because this idiot cop didn’t have a better suspect handy.

  Shit.

  Sometimes even a fourth-grade teacher had to curse.

  Chapter Seven

  ARTHUR CAVANAGH’S funeral was Saturday morning. This created a problem because the Colonielles were scheduled to play their archrivals from Burlington at ten a.m., and the entire team wanted to attend the funeral. They were willing to forfeit the game, but to Coach Thomaston, a forfeit was the equivalent of surrendering to the enemy on the field of battle, and she persuaded the Burlington coach to reschedule.

  Coach Thomaston was one of the hundreds of mourners who crammed the pews at Our Lady of Mercy, the larger of Rockford’s two Catholic churches, which stood several blocks south of the town green on Liberty Road. The coach stood out in the crowd, not only because of her height and broom handle posture but because, in her austere black suit, she could have passed for one of the undertakers. As far as Lainie was concerned, people dressed in black for parties, not funerals.

  She’d had a tearful fight with Margaret two and a half years ago over her refusal to buy a black dress for Roger’s funeral. Her gray sheath had been appropriate, and she couldn’t see spending money on a stylish ensemble for an event as painful as her husband’s funeral. It wasn’t a fashion show, after all.

  She wasn’t wearing the gray sheath today. She hadn’t worn it since the day Roger was buried, and she doubted she’d ever wear it again. For Arthur Cavanagh’s service, she’d dressed in the lace-trimmed royal blue blazer and skirt she’d bought for her nephew’s bar mitzvah. It was older than her gray sheath, but one good thing about playing soccer on a regular basis was that all that running around kept her from gaining weight. Except for her two pregnancies, her shape hadn’t changed much since she’d first strapped on a pair of shin guards in college.