Blood Ties (39 page)

I held myself back from telling him not to take that fucking tone with me. “I'm looking for Gary because he asked me for help. Not your business, Coach. Except there's this: Someone beat the crap out of a Warrenstown High girl yesterday, and I think it's all connected, all goes back twenty-three years, all has to do with me. See, I think people are getting the idea I was hired by the kids to look into this
old shit
. The kids, you know: Stacie Phillips, Tory Wesley, Gary Russell, Paul Niebuhr. And it's interesting: One of them's dead, one hospitalized, two are missing.”

“Two?” Ryder frowned. “Russell and who else? Niebuhr?”

“I know he doesn't register on you because he's not a jock, but he's been gone for days.”

All I needed now was a fishing pole, I thought, and one of those vests with a million pockets to hold things that, in the end, you never find a use for. But I kept silent, feeding out the line.

“What the fuck is going on?” Ryder asked. “Little snot-nosed shits, what do they want to know?”

“Not them,” I said. “Me. None of those kids has anything to do with it. And what I want to know is: What happened back then, Ryder? What's Al Macpherson hiding, and what are you hiding?”

Ryder gave me a long, calculating look. A good coach is flexible: He can alter his strategy, play to other strengths if he sees trouble with the game plan he originally set out.

So Ryder shrugged his shoulders, rubbed his neck, projected the air of a man giving in. “Macpherson was in trouble,” he said. “I didn't know if he did it or not and I really didn't give a shit.”

“I'm not sure I believe that. You were his coach. If you'd asked him, Macpherson would've told you. You'd have been the one person he'd have told.”

“Believe what you want.” He shrugged. “Warrenstown High girl,” he said. “Flashing her tits at a party. What's the difference who it was? She probably enjoyed it.”

Beside me, Lydia stood still, as unmoving as the kids on the TV screen. I knew that was because if she let herself, she'd break Ryder's neck.

“So you had a talk with Scott Russell?” I said.

“Just to make sure he was absolutely positive, what he saw. Because if he wasn't, we had a really big game coming up.”

“And the team needed both what Al Macpherson could contribute, and what Scott could. Is that what you told him, Ryder? Is that how you put it?”

The razor-edge smile again. “He'd improved a lot, Russell had. He was ready to start.”

“Jesus.” I looked into Ryder's eyes, and he into mine. Behind him, a play was frozen on the TV screen, home team and visitors straining after the ball.

“That's all,” Ryder said. “That's all there was, a talk with one of my players. Nothing illegal, maybe a little bad judgment, I'd rather it didn't get out, that's all. Now excuse me. I have work to do.”

“So do I,” I said. I stayed where I was.

“What does that mean?”

“The kid who killed himself. The story is, it was a teacher who came forward with the stalking thing. I just talked to John Letourneau, and he said he didn't know anything about it until the story started going around, just before the kid was arrested.”

Ryder shrugged. “Tunnel vision, Letourneau. All his life, something didn't happen right under his nose, he didn't know about it.”

Lydia spoke. “Even now, as police chief?” she said. “Like the fact that all your boys are on steroids? That's right under his nose. You think he knows about that?”

Ryder stared at her as though he'd forgotten she could talk. “Oh, Jesus God. What the fuck is this? The guys buy this shit, Andro, whatever the hell, at the health food store. It bulks them up, I'm all for it.”

“What I heard is, they get prescription drugs illegally, from a dealer,” Lydia answered.

“What you heard, toots, is crap. And if it was true, you think anyone in Warrenstown would give a shit? It makes them big. It makes them win.”

“What happened to Nicky Dalton?” I said.

“Dalton? Mommy's boy. Who the hell cares what happened to Dalton?”

“He joined the army right after graduation, and disappeared the day he came out. Nobody's heard anything about him since.”

“So?”

“Maybe he disappeared because he was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“I don't know yet. Maybe, whatever it was that made Jared Beltran kill himself.”

“That little perv killed himself because they were going to put him away for a long, long time. In a place where I promise you he'd have been a receiver, not a quarterback.” He smiled a nasty smile. It faded, and he said, “And about Dalton, when you find him, don't call me, because I don't give a flying fuck.”

He turned back to his TV screen, clicked the remote. The frozen play took up motion again: The guy the pass had been intended for caught it, hugged the ball to his chest, was immediately smashed and smothered by half a dozen opposing players, even more teammates. “Now,” said Ryder, settling into his armchair, absorbed in the action once more, “get the hell out.”

Lydia looked at me; I nodded. We turned, walked back down the silent hall. A janitor pushed a mop bucket along the corridor; the fumes of lemon-scented detergent filled the air.

“Alone with the ball, huh?” I said.

“I hope you're filled with admiration for my restraint.”

“I'm filled with admiration for everything about you, as always.”

“Did we accomplish anything, besides raising my blood pressure?”

“For one thing, I wanted to get across the point that if what I'm doing is what's getting everybody's back up, the kids aren't involved in it. I'm not sure Ryder's the guy to say that to, but I'm hoping it'll get around.”

“Are you sure it's true?”

I lit a cigarette, considered her question. “No.”

“Okay,” she said. “But anyway, we told him. Did he tell us anything?”

“I'm not sure. What did you get?”

“Well,” she said, “he admitted to something that could be construed as tampering with a witness. That could be bad for him, for his reputation, even if it wasn't actually illegal.”

“You mean, it could be true that that's all he's hiding?”

“Could be.”

“But you don't buy it.”

“No.”

“For a reason, or just because you hate him?”

“That's a reason. Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Did he remind you of Mr. Hamlin?”

“Stacie said that, too. That that's what Warrenstown loves about Hamlin: He's just like Coach Ryder.”

“Where do you suppose he learned that?”

“That coaching style? I hate to add to your disillusionment with organized athletics, but it's a fairly common one.”

“Bill, they use the same
words. Candy-asses. Pervs. Mommy's
boys.
Everyone else in the world says
momma's
boys
, except these two guys.”

I glanced at her as we left the school, walked together down the stone steps. “Well, I suppose Hamlin could have coached under Ryder,” I said. “Or played under him, when he was a kid.”

“Ryder's been at Warrenstown for thirty-five years, and Hamlin's not much older than that. That would mean Hamlin's either from here, or he worked here for a while.”

“That could be.”

“Why didn't anyone tell us that?”

We reached her Taurus, shadowed now that the sun was low. The wide lot was almost empty, just half a dozen cars spotted around the asphalt, none close to any of the others. I thought of Stacie Phillips, unlocking her car, her mind on the work she'd just done, or her plans for the evening, or anything but a man in a hockey mask grabbing her, kicking her, shouting over and over a question she didn't understand.

“And?” Lydia said, standing by her car, keys in hand. “Now what?”

The wind turned sharply, cut back across us, pulling Lydia's hair across her forehead, snaking under my open jacket. I zipped up, leaned against the car, stuck my hands in my pockets. I watched leaves skim the surface of the lot, watched the wind move through the branches they'd fallen from.

“Where to now?” Lydia asked.

“Shit,” I said. “I don't know.” I didn't want to get into the car, didn't want to head somewhere else, down another nowhere road to ask more futile questions, didn't want to keep going, playing a game where I didn't know the rules, didn't know where I stood, didn't even know what outcome I wanted.

Cops in two states were looking for Gary now, as they looked for Paul, and when they found them they'd find how all this tied together. Or not. But I had nothing they didn't have, except suspicions they didn't want to hear. And maybe they were right. If I'd been a cop, I'd be putting everything I had into finding Paul Niebuhr. Even the death of Tory Wesley would have to wait, never mind a case twenty-three years old, until the threat to a school full of kids was stopped.

“Come on.” Lydia's voice, though soft, was clear over the wind. “I'll buy you a drink.”

I turned my head to look at her. “I thought you said my case, my expense account.”

“It's a one-time offer. Because you look so pitiful.”

“That works? Looking pitiful?”

“In your case, it may be the only thing that works.”

I pulled the door open, got in the car. I was prepared to take her up on it, even if it meant admitting to pitifulness. She started the car, but we weren't out of the lot when my cell phone rang.

“Goddammit,” I said under my breath. I took the phone out, opened it. “Smith.”

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Scott's voice practically scorched my ear. “You sent the cops here! Bastard, I'm coming for you—”

“Don't bother,” I said. “We'll come to you.”

I thumbed the phone off, put it away. “The drink will have to wait,” I told Lydia. “But I'll need it more later. Make a left up here.”

“Where are we going?”

“To drop in on my relations.”

twenty-three

Lydia and I drove over to the development on the edge of town. The pale gray house sat peaceably in the twilight, brass lantern shining softly over the front door, windows glowing gold. Scott's Lumina sat behind Helen's Blazer in the driveway, as though guarding it from harm. Lydia parked the Taurus on the street.

“This won't be fun,” I said to her.

“For
you
.” She got out of the car, stood waiting on the sidewalk. I looked at her but didn't answer as we headed up the chrysanthemum-lined path.

At a nod from me Lydia pressed the doorbell, and the soft chimes I'd heard for the first time two days before, the bell at my sister's house, echoed from inside. For a moment, the twilit scene was peaceful, calm, just the graying sky and the carefully spaced houses, me standing next to Lydia in the glow of the lantern. Then the door flew back as though afraid, a brighter light sliced out onto the step, and Scott stood before us, his face red and twisted with rage.

“You cocksucker!” The still air exploded with his voice. “You son of a bitch! That's some fucking pair—!” The Doberman raced into the vestibule, drowned out his shouts with barking. She lowered her shoulders, planted her feet. She looked ready to rip the throat out of whatever was threatening her home.

So did Scott.

“We need to talk, Scott,” I said, my voice raised over his, over the barking.

The dog yelped more furiously, picking up on Scott's tone, his stance. Behind her, Jennifer and Paula appeared, coming to see what the noise was about. The dog growled and snapped. Scott looked at the girls, his face dark with the heat of his anger. He put a restraining hand on the dog's collar. “No,” he said. “Stay.” He stepped outside, closing the door on the dog, and on his daughters. We stood together in the twilight, Lydia and Scott and I, the dog's barking muffled now. No other sound came into the silence between us and nothing moved except the tops of the bare trees behind the house as the wind blew through.

I said nothing, waited. Scott finally spoke. “You motherfucker.” He locked his eyes on mine, spoke very deliberately, very slowly. “I ought to let that dog tear your heart out.”

“Scott, can we—?”

“
No, we fucking can't, asshole!
You tore one family apart for Helen, now you can't wait to do it again, can you? Jesus Christ, why couldn't you leave us alone? Who fucking asked you?”

Gary did
, I thought, but my blood was pounding in my ears and my fists were tight and that wasn't what I wanted to say to him. There were a dozen other answers surging through my mind, ways to show my brother-in-law that my anger burned as hot as his, my contempt ran as icy cold. I opened my mouth to speak, took a step forward. I waited to feel Lydia's hand on my arm, her cool reasonableness; I was ready to shake it off, to step to where Scott was, to let the heat of my anger ignite his. No one would get hurt in the firestorm that would come of that except Scott and me, and that would be all right.

But Lydia didn't touch me. Lydia didn't move. And I looked at Scott, saw he was ready too, and I thought, this is over. Scott and I will always be like this, never change. No one will ever win. This will never end, and so it's ended. It's over.

I stepped back, opened my hands. “This isn't why I came.” I wasn't sure that was true, but I had had another reason, too. I stood without moving, looked into Scott's eyes. Suddenly, for a second, the door and the stoop and the trees vanished. I was on an asphalt half-court in a Brooklyn playground, facing my opponent, both of us waiting. The explosive rage of my youth, that anger that never left me, was compressed into a small, tight, fiery place deep inside, where I could draw on it for the extra step, the burst of speed, the stretch in a jump; and as long as I could keep it there, not flowing through, around, over me, I could see clearly, keep a cold eye on my opponent, understand completely my situation. Only in a game or at the piano could I do this, when I was young. Now, there were other times, too. I breathed deeply, spoke to Scott.