Death on the Range: Target Practice Mysteries 1 (9 page)

“Could Honey have caused that? Paid off Owley? Put something in her water? Something? It would all fit perfectly.”

Mary perked up. “It would. Owley could totally have killed Honey if that was true. Who could blame her?”

I wiped my hands on my pants, knocking off the black-and-white dog’s hair on my dark jeans, and stood up. “How do we prove it?”

Mary pointed out the two questions she had written in her notebook. “Let’s start by proving that she purposefully sandbagged in the qualifications to go against Owley. Bruce was the only other person there.”

Moo hopped up and started dancing around.

“Hey, Batdog, you wanna go interrogate a potential villain?” He was always up for an adventure. “If I’m Batman, you’re Robin, and Moo’s Batdog, then Bruce is who?” I thought of his shorter height and overall body shape. Mary and I answered in unison. “The Penguin!”

***

We walked down the hallway and peeked in Bruce’s office. He was sitting in his office, whistling and looking happier than I had seen him since I had worked there. Mary passed me the notebook, and I looked at the two questions she had written.

“Hey Bruce, I wanted to ask you if it is true that after Honey finished qualifications she said she was going to shoot against Owley.”

His whistling stopped and eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

Looking at the next question I asked, “How did she know that she needed a seven or less in order to shoot against Owley?” I didn’t look up for a second, but then his heavy breathing filled the silence.

His face was red, his eyes flashed with anger, and his mouth was pursed. His nostrils flared as he huffed through his nose. For a second, I thought he was going to charge me like a bull. Instead, he started bellowing. “I don’t know what kind of accusation you’re trying to make, but get out of my office.”

His voice rose, and little flecks of spit flew from his mouth. I held up my hands to defend myself against his verbal attack. I coughed as the smell of garlic overwhelmed me. He must have eaten the center’s entire stock of garlic sausage for lunch.

“Bruce, you can’t talk to us like that. We work together; we’re going to see each other every day.” I was both concerned and confused.

“Not for long. I will not… work anywhere… where…” He was gasping for air while he yelled. A grimace took over his face. His hand fisted into his chest, and he doubled over.

“Are you having a heart attack? Sit down.” I raced over to help him into the chair.

He collapsed into the seat and covered his face with his hands.

His shoulders heaved, but his breathing slowed down. “I can’t. I just can’t anymore. I thought with Honey gone that no one would ever find out, but the guilt is killing me. ”

Mary walked over and patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, Bruce.” Her voice was gentle, slow, and quiet. “Did you kill Honey?”

He shook her hand off his shoulder. Pulling a stained handkerchief out of his pocket, he ran it over his face and blew his nose. “No, I didn’t, but she deserved it. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. She’s evil. She did whatever she wanted and didn’t care who it hurt. She threatened to destroy my career, my life’s work, if I didn’t shut up. There was nothing I could do to stop her anyway. I tried to stay quiet, but it wasn’t right.”

He sat there, staring straight ahead, muttering, “Not right,” under his breath.

I caught Mary’s eye. “I think we broke the Penguin.”

Mary looked at me, her mouth forming a perfect half circle frown, and nodded. I gestured to the chairs, and we sat down. I opened my mouth a few times, debating how to start.

“Bruce?” I waited for him to look at me before continuing. “I think everyone knew that Honey was only out for herself. It seems to be pretty common knowledge. Maybe the situation isn’t as bad as you think.”

He blew out a long breath and looked down at his hands. Looking up suddenly, he snapped his shoulders back.

“Right, I’m done. First, you need to know that Honey and I never clicked. I did my best to be a good coach for her and support her, but she often pushed back against my advice. Especially anything that involved hard work. She was always looking for a shortcut. As the Summer Games got closer, she seemed even less into training, but I couldn’t make her take advantage of the great opportunity. I had already applied for the job here.”

The color in Bruce’s face was starting to look healthy, and he sat taller.

“The first thirty-six arrows of qualifying were pretty standard. Her score was right where she had been, and everything was normal. There was a short break, and then we started the next scoring round, and everything changed. Her scores started slipping, but when I tried to talk to her, she would wave me off. She didn’t seem upset by her scores dropping, but she was checking this phone she got for international travel and was very focused on that. She started hiding it in her quiver pouch and would put her finger tab in there, check the phone, then pull the tab back out. I told her to get her head in the game, but she told me that she had it under control. That last end, when she shot the six, she stepped off the line and threw her arms around me and squealed like she had won a gold medal. That is when she said that she was shooting against Owley the next day.”

Mary was leaning forward, following his every word. Her brows were knit together tight.

“Someone was telling her the rankings and scores. Who?”

“No idea. Her family, one of the people she hired, basically anyone present could have done it. I didn’t even realize that she set it up on purpose until the next day.”

“What happened?” I leaned forward in my seat.

“Honey makes this big show about having a cold.”

Mary startled in her seat. “Yes, I remember that. I just mentioned it to Di this afternoon.”

“She made sure everyone knew about this cold on the day of the elimination matches. Her first match is Owley, just like she had said the day before. The first end for score, Owley raises her bow, hits her anchor, and Honey makes a soft
cough cough
noise. Owley let down, then Honey shot. Owley shot and hit a seven, which was unusual. Then the last arrow of the end was the same. Owley gets to full draw,
cough cough
, Owley lets down then shoots badly. I was shocked. The first time she did it, I thought it could possibly be deliberate, but after the second time I
knew
she was messing with Owley on purpose. Honey won that end and got two points.”

“Two points? Do I not know how elimination matches are done?” I looked between Mary and Bruce.

Mary waved a hand at me. “They changed them a few years ago to sexy them up. Each end you shoot three arrows. Whoever wins that end gets two points. If you lose, you get zero, and if you tie, then you each get one point. You keep going until someone gets six points. If you both tie at six points, then it is a single-arrow shoot off. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah. So Honey was cheating?”

Mary responded before Bruce could. “No, there is nothing in the rules about that kinda stuff.”

Bruce blustered. “But it is bad sportsmanship. True athletes win through superior effort, not mind games.”

“And you could say that Owley wasn’t the superior athlete if a little coughing distracted her.” Mary sat back, having made her point.

“It didn’t seem to be just the coughing so much as letting down. If she let down, then her next shot would be poor. Otherwise, she was nailing the gold. I have no idea how Honey knew, but she used it to her advantage. I begged her to just focus on her own game, but she said if I didn’t leave her alone to win she would tell everyone that I told her to do it.”

“
Ohhh
.” Mary dragged out the word in realization.

I looked between Mary and Bruce, waiting for an explanation of why it would be different. Bruce finally spoke up.

“First off, I’m not the kind of coach that would encourage head games ever. As a coach, it would be an even bigger deal to be accused of being behind it, because it would make other archers nervous around me. Who would want to ever attend a camp or training session with me in the future if they thought I would use their weaknesses against them in a future match? Even the archers who play mind games don’t brag about it.”

He ran a hand through his hair, causing tufts to stick up in every direction.

“NOUSAA would not be happy either. Funding and sponsorships were based on our performance at the Summer Games. If Owley had won, she very likely could have gone several more matches, but instead Honey was crushed the next match. Poor Owley, I felt so awful for her. I pulled her aside yesterday to tell her that I noticed that she didn’t recover very well after she let down. She said she already knew.”

“I think I saw you talking to her. At the range? In the afternoon?”

Bruce nodded.

“I saw you snap at Honey. What did you say?”

Bruce chuckled. “I told her, ‘Get out of my way, Spawn of Satan.’”

I snickered at the image of him saying that. Bruce was so straightlaced. The meeting I had with him last week to discuss his department’s needs had made this quality evident. He had been very exact about rules, procedure, and liabilities. “How in the world did you and Honey end up working together?”

Again, Bruce looked uncomfortable. He avoided my eyes and refocused on his hands.

“Oh for goodness’ sake, how many secrets do you have?” I blurted out.

“It’s no secret, at least not his part of the story,” Mary corrected. “Bruce was a college archery coach, and three members of the team were caught cheating in a class. Bruce had nothing to do with it. Why are you sensitive about that? He left, and that is when he started coaching Honey. She had blown through a half dozen coaches since I had known her. Would you be shocked to hear that she was high maintenance?”

I snorted in reply. “I’d be shocked if she wasn’t.”

“Honey wanted her coach to be with her every second and only pay attention to her. That made it impossible for them to work with other students, and eventually they would part ways. She had been on the lookout for a new coach for a while. So how did she convince you to take her on?”

Bruce blew out a deep breath before starting in. “I was only vaguely familiar with her. The collegiate circuit has their own set of tournaments mostly. I left the university job and was looking for another job. I knew they were building this center but it would be a year until it was ready. Honey came to me practically crying that no one would help her and that she only needed me through the Summer Games. It started out okay but it only got worse. I wanted to back out, but I felt guilty about leaving her hanging before such an important event.”

“That sure bit you in the butt.” I shook my head, feeling sorry for the guy.

“Puh-lease.” Mary drew out the single syllable into two long ones. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. Everyone knew Honey and wouldn’t doubt for a minute that it was all her idea. You are worrying about nothing. Go talk to Jess. I’m sure she’ll agree.”

For the first time since we had started talking, Bruce looked genuinely happy. A broad smile broke across his face, revealing a speck of pepper lodged between two teeth. “You really think so?”

“Totally. I mean, a few people might doubt you, you know that already, but anyone who matters won’t care. You’re just being too sensitive.”

Bruce picked up the phone and started dialing. “Excuse me, ladies.”

Mary and I got up to leave just as Bruce started speaking into the phone. “Jess, this is important. Can we meet in your office and talk?”

CHAPTER SIX

Moo led the way down the hallways from Bruce’s office to mine. He waited patiently for me to unlock the door then entered and curled up on his bed. Mary and I plopped down into chairs. Finally, we had some solid evidence.

“Clearly we can move Bruce to the top of the list.” I grabbed the notebook.

“Why? I’m telling you, no one is really going to believe that he forced Honey to play head games. That was such a Honey thing to do.” Mary rolled her eyes at me.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t matter. Bruce thought it would ruin his career, and that’s motive for murder. He was ready to throw himself off a bridge when we even asked about Honey purposely sandbagging during qualification. Or throw us off a bridge. We forgot to ask where he was during the murder.”

“Oh, good point. I told you we could do this.” She reached over and started flipping through the tablet again.

I drew a big arrow next to Bruce’s name to the top of the list. I still felt badly for him. He had a very strong stance on playing head games, and it must have been awful to be caught in the middle of them. “Would you really play head games with someone to win a match?”

Mary looked up at me. “Me? No. But I know people who have done it. I don’t. I have a strict rule my mom taught me. Eyes on your own paper, like in school, ya know? I focus on my shooting and my game. I think in the long run you have to do that to be successful.”

Mary had these moments of pure brilliance that blew me away, especially for her age. She had to be about ten years younger, but sometimes she seemed so much more mature.

“I assume we will want to talk to Owley next. We need to see what she knows about this. Did she know that Honey messed with her head? How mad was she about getting knocked out? Minx said that Honey gave Owley a hard time; maybe Owley snapped and killed her.”