Murder at the Foul Line (17 page)

Lincoln snorted. “Play better? Tha’s a good one. You never seen him play. Grant didn’t
need
to play better. Grant was the
best.
”

“That bother you?”

“What?”

“That your brother was the star and not you?”

Lincoln took a sip of coffee. Like MacAullif, he seemed to be composing himself, holding himself in, framing a moderate response.
“Do I wanna be Grant, sure I wanna be Grant, but I ain’t, Grant’s Grant, so I’m glad of that. When I find out who
did
give him dope, that sucker in trouble.” He jabbed a finger in my face. “You hear me? You hear what I say?”

“I hear you,” I said.

I’m not sure I believed him.

Larry White was suspicious. “You a cop?”

“No, I’m not.”

“You sure?”

“I think I’d know.”

“If you a cop, you gotta say.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“If you a cop, I ask you direct, you gotta say. Tha’s the law. You don’ say, you can’t bust me anyhow, don’ matter what I
do.”

“I don’t wanna bust you.”

His eyes widened. “You a cop? Then you can’t bust me, even if I whip out a
ki
-lo, ask you if you wanna
buy
.”

“Is that right?”

“Truth. Leroy say so.”

“Savvy guy.”

“Damn right. He been
aroun’
. He done
time
.”

I blinked in despair over a generation that regarded a jail sentence as a qualification, had to remind myself I liked Robin
Hood as a boy.

“Now we got that out of the way, you mind answering a few questions?”

“You make it quick. I gotta get to class.”

I knew that. I had located the administration building, looked up his schedule, and ambushed him coming out of math. He’d
been easy to spot. He was the one who had to duck to get out the door.

“You were there when Grant Jackson collapsed?”

“Course I was. Durin’ practice.”

“What did you see?”

A girl with a Cedar Park College sweatshirt put her book bag in one of the metal lockers lining the hallway. She flashed us
a look as she went by.

Larry White frowned. “Hey, man,” he said. “Maybe you can’t bust me, but
she
think I’m talkin’ to a cop.”

“That bad for business?”

He frowned. “Hey! What you mean?”

“Lemme speed things along for you, Larry,” I said. “I pulled your record. You got drug busts. I don’t give a damn, except
how it relates to Grant. If Grant got coke from you, I gotta know.”

He shook his head. “No way!”

“And if Grant got works from you, I gotta know.”

His head kept shaking. “No way!”

“The medical examiner says Grant was a virgin, never shot
before. If he wanted to shoot coke, he wouldn’t have the equipment. He’d have to get a hypodermic. I’m wondering if he got
it from you.”

“No way! Christ, man, you say you not a cop, then you come on like this. I ain’ talkin’ to you. I get my lawyer.”

“That would be a very bad move.”

“You ain’ seen my lawyer.”

“No, I haven’t, but that’s not the point. Let me say it one more time. I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator trying to
get insurance money for Grant’s mom. You talk to me, that’s as far as it goes. You tell me what I need to know, and that’s
that. No one hassles you.

“If, instead, you go and get your lawyer, you got trouble. Then I got no right to ask you questions, ’cause I’m not a cop.
So then I gotta
get
a cop. And I gotta tell the cop that you won’t answer questions. Then the cop will ask you, and your lawyer will advise you,
and the whole thing will be out of my hands. But you’ll be happy. At least you’ll be dealing with a routine you know.

“If you wanna do that, fine. If you
don’t
wanna do that, you got another choice. You talk to me, and I go away. And no one asks you any more questions. Sounds like
a pretty good deal. Particularly since you know even if I were a cop, nothing you say could hurt you anyway. So come on, let’s
do this. I don’t wanna make you late for class.”

Larry frowned, glanced at his watch. It was a gold Rolex. If the obvious display of riches embarrassed him any, he didn’t
show it. “You got two minutes.”

“Did Grant Jackson ever do drugs?”

“No way.”

“If he had, would you know it?”

Grudgingly. “Suppose.”

“Is there any chance he got the stuff from anyone else on the team?”

“No way.”

“If it wasn’t you, it was no one?”

“Hey, look—”

“No offense meant.”

“Is that so?” His nostrils flared. He bent down in my face. “Now, see here. I don’ do drugs. No one on the team do drugs.
You got that? We got drug screens. Wit’ a no-tolerance policy. You flunk one, you done. A guy was usin’, he be on the bench.”

“I thought you had a designated pisser.”

He started to flare up, then smiled. “Tha’s good. Gotta use that.”

“Feel free. The point is, you guys know how to fake drug tests. So don’t give me the everybody’s clean. Coach Tom knows better
than that.”

Larry’s eyes narrowed. “He rat me out?”

“Not at all. He just suggested you guys were in the habit of sharing urine samples when somebody was high.”

He banged the door shut on a metal locker. Not violently, just absently, casually. Still, I felt the hall shake. “That so
bogus, man. That happen two, three times, big deal. Not like somebody hidin’ a
lifestyle
, know what I mean. Junkie got a problem, junkie don’ get by. But there
ain’
no junkie. There be a junkie, he be on the bench. Coach Tom nail his ass.”

“How, if he keeps faking the urine sample?”

“Yeah, but they do blood test too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and there ain’ no way to fake that. A needle in your arm, ain’ no way to go borrowin’ no blood.”

“If you were friends with the nurse, and she mislabeled a test tube or two?”

He shook his head. “Ain’ no nurse. Coach Tom do it hisself. And, trus’ me, he ain’ gonna mislabel nothin’.”

“Not even to protect his star?”

“’Specially then. Few years back, he give a drug test, two guys flunk. Both starters, one a high
scorer
. An’ he sat ’em down. Din’ let ’em play. Championship year.”

“Championship?”

“Coulda been. Only, Coach Tom sat his stars.”

“How long?”

“Month. Missed the NIT playoffs.”

“He sat ’em for a whole month?”

“Tha’s the rule. You
fail
a blood test, you sit till you
pass
a blood test. And he don’t give ’em more’n once a month. Tha’s a fact. Blood test, I mean. Pee cup happen alla time.”

I frowned. I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Let me be sure I understand this. The urine test happens all the time, but you
can fake ’em. However, once a month you get a blood test that there’s no way to fake. And Coach Tom gives it. So if Grant
was doing cocaine, Coach Tom would know. On account of the blood test.”

“That’s right.”

“When’s the last time you had one?”

I found Coach Tom in the gym, working on the parquet floor. He had removed about a three-foot-square section of boards
and was cleaning and sanding them. He didn’t look up when I came in, just continued to inspect the groove on the side of a
board. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was there.

He did.

“Buckles,” he said. “Wood floor’s a sweet thing, but the wood swells and the floor buckles. Forms an air pocket, makes a little
bump. You gotta take it up, put it back down. Don’t know how many hundred times I done this, one spot or another.”

“You want to talk about Grant Jackson?”

“I’d rather talk about my floor.”

I figured that was true. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But there’s some things I need to know.”

“And I suppose they’re so all-fired important you gotta ask. Boy’s dead, can’t you leave it be?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I understand you gave blood tests, as well as urine. Tests that were impossible to fake.”

“Oh, you understand that, do you?”

“You did it yourself. You were in complete control. If someone tampered with someone’s blood sample, you were the only one
who could have done it.”

“Never happened.”

“No, I don’t suppose it did. In fact, it’s legend. You sittin’ down your star players when you had a shot at the NIT.”

“Ain’ nothin’ to it,” Coach Tom said. “Rule’s a rule.”

“Yes, it is,” I said. I set my briefcase down on the parquet floor, snapped it open, took out a sheaf of papers. “And I know
you’re a stickler for playing by the rules.” I thrust the papers on the floor in front of him. “You know what these are? They’re
lab reports. Going back the last ten years. Lab reports on the blood samples you had processed.”

“So?”

“There’s none for the day Grant Jackson died. According to the players on the team, you took blood that day.”

“What if I did?”

“According to the lab, you never turned it in.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t. With Grant collapsin’, it would be easy to forget.”

“You’re saying you forgot to turn it in?”

“If that’s what the lab says, must be.”

“Then where are those samples now?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“If you didn’t turn ’em in, you must still have ’em.”

“So?”

“So let’s go take a look.”

“Let’s not. What’s with you? First you say you’re workin’ for the mother, then you come around you want blood. What’s the
deal?”

“If you have a vial of blood you took from Grant Jackson on the day he collapsed, that would be rather valuable evidence.”

“Well, I don’t.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did.” I picked up the papers, flipped through. “February 3, 1994. Drug screen for Harold
Wilks and Alan Powers. Positive for cocaine. You sat them both, in spite of the fact you had a great team that year, with
a shot at makin’ the NIT. It’s legend. All the players know it. Gives you a terrific hold over them.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Yeah, I know.” After a pause I added, “I’m probably the only one who does.”

He looked up at me from his seat on the floor. “What you mean?”

“This drug test in ’94 that sat your stars. According to the lab reports, it was three weeks after the last test. Only three
weeks, when you always give four. A sudden, surprise test that netted two of your biggest stars. And knocked you out of the
NIT.”

He may not have heard me. He bent over, fitted a board back into the floor.

“See, you talk a good game, Coach Tom. That’s what bothered me. You talk
too
good a game. The bit about fear of failure. That was pretty damn good. That sounded plausible. It took a while for me to
figure out that if it sounded that good, it probably wasn’t. And, sure enough, that’s the case. Fear of failure wasn’t the
problem. It was fear of success.

“It happened first in ’94, when a team got a little too good, went a little too far. Gonna get in the playoffs, get some national
exposure. Get the alumni all excited. Raise money. Hire a name coach. Build a new gym.

“I’m not sure which scared you more. Someone trying to replace you, or the thought of losing this.

“Grant Jackson, same thing, only worse. He’s not just a great player, he’s a marquee player. He’s the type of player gets
your team in the papers and on TV. And this gym isn’t set up for TV, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. You’re very comfortable in your little gym, with a .500 team. It’s not just a job, it’s your whole life.
Which Grant Jackson threatened to destroy.” I referred to the sheets. “Which is why, once again, we have a blood test a little
early. It’s not on these sheets, but according to the guys on the team, it was the same day Grant Jackson died. Three weeks
since the last one. A week early, just like before.”

I shook my head. “A blood test that never got to the lab, where the blood disappeared.” I lowered my voice. “It must have
been a tough thing to do. But I’m sure you thought you had no choice.

“So there you are, with a needle in Grant’s arm, taking blood. Filling test tubes. Easy to switch; instead of an empty tube,
a full hypodermic you squeeze back in. For a boy with a heart condition, a lethal dose of coke. Because Grant Jackson didn’t
do drugs. Under any circumstances. Even before he knew about the heart condition. There was no way he would fall for a setup,
like the coke you planted on your boys in ’94. That they found in their locker and couldn’t resist. And why would they? The
drug screen wasn’t due for another week. Surely it would be out of their system by then.”