RESORT TO MURDER (8 page)

"You jerk. You stupid....” They were spared
the rest by the sound of a door slamming loudly. Muffled shouts
still carried through, but were unintelligible. Something crashed
against a wall.

Maggie looked over at Dyna through the
fence, and her face looked startled and bewildered. She shook her
head and shrugged, indicating to Maggie she had no idea what was
going on.

Maggie hesitated. She thought of getting
closer to the sports shop to hear better, but then the shouting
ended. She waited a moment, wondering what would happen next, if
Rob would still show up for her lesson, and decided all she could
do was go to her court and wait. She signaled to Dyna, pointing
toward it - it was two courts farther down - and walked on. No
other courts were occupied, and Maggie was doubly glad that Dyna
would be lingering nearby.

She had uncovered her racquet and was trying
some practice swings when she caught sight of Rob walking rapidly
from the sports center. This could be a grim tennis lesson, Maggie
thought, and worse, a very uncommunicative one. As he drew near,
though, she was surprised to see a calm expression on the tennis
pro's face.

"Ready to attack that backhand?" he called
as he looked up and saw her watching him.

"Sure am," she called back lightly, but she
wondered if someone else with Rob Clayton's voice was back in the
center, shouting and throwing things, or if Rob had the most
amazing ability to switch emotions she had ever encountered. If he
did, it was great from the cooling-down side. What was he like in
the flaring-up mode though? Did he lose control as quickly as he
seemed to gain it, become violent in a moment, perhaps enough to
kill?

Maggie didn't have time to mull this over
because Rob hurried onto the court and got down to business right
away.

"Let's see what you're doing now," he said.
He set up his ball basket near the net, and motioned her to stand
at the baseline. Then he began tossing balls for her to hit.

"Not bad, but this is where you’re going
wrong.” He demonstrated with his own racquet, then went through the
proper motions of the backhand with her. He tossed more balls at
her, keeping up a constant patter of instruction, and Maggie
struggled to follow it all.

"Turn your shoulder more, that's right. Now
follow through - you didn't follow through on that one. See where
your ball ended up?"

She was swamped with detailed directions.
She felt clumsy and uncoordinated.

"Hey, that's a good one. Perfect!"

Maggie beamed. This was fun. She hit a few
more. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of it."

"Oops, you didn't step forward enough on
that one. Always remember....” Back to square one.

The sun beat down on the court. Maggie wiped
sweat from her face and pushed back the short brown waves of hair
that were rapidly tightening into what Joe teasingly called,
"little Shirley Temple curls."

"Do you think we could take a break?” Maggie
finally asked, breaking into Rob's steady stream of
instruction.

"Arm getting tired?” He glanced at Maggie
and checked his watch. "Yeah, let's sit down a while.” He took her
racquet from her, leaned it against the net, then led the way to a
shaded bench beyond the fence. Maggie noticed he had barely worked
up a sweat. His white tennis shorts and shirt still looked crisp
and fresh, the skin of his neck below the dark hair was tan and
dry. She wrapped a towel around her own damp neck and dabbed at the
edges of her hairline.

"Try to work on what you just learned," Rob
said, "practicing until it feels natural, automatic.” He filled a
paper cup with water from a cooler and handed it to her, then
filled one for himself.

"I don't know if it will ever feel natural.”
Maggie held the cold cup against her temple, then forehead and
cheek. "I'm obviously not one of those natural athletes."

"Even a natural athlete has to work at it,
and work hard."

"I guess you've played for a long time?"
Maggie asked, glancing over.

"Since I was four," he grinned back at her,
"and could barely hold a racquet."

"No kidding? Someone said you played at
Wimbledon. Is that right?"

Rob's grin faded, and he squinted at the
sky. "Yeah, that's right. I had to qualify, but it was a dream come
true. Something I spent years working towards. Did pretty good too,
until, well, let's just say Wimbledon demands 100 per cent of its
players, and suddenly I crashed down to about 25 per cent."

"An injury?"

He gulped his water and threw the cup down,
then picked it up again, tossing it into the nearby trash basket.
"I don't like to talk about it much. I thought I was beginning a
career on the tour, and it didn't work out. That's that.” He raised
an eyebrow as he turned and looked at her with an easy smile. "I'd
much rather talk about you. Understand you're a teacher. That
right?"

"Yes.” Maggie heard his flirting tone now
and felt annoyed. He seemed to be able to turn it on so easily. Was
he just trying to avoid talking about himself? She gave him a cool
look and said, "Math. High school."

"That's great."

"The math is great, but sometimes the system
is less than wonderful, like when they give me someone who hasn't
mastered multiplication yet and expect me to get him into quadratic
equations by the third quarter."

"Yeah, but isn't it great when you start to
see some improvement, and know you brought it about?"

Maggie looked at Rob, surprised. "Yes, it
is. It's one of the reasons I went into teaching.” She took a sip a
water, then, watching Rob's face closely, said, "Did you know that
the girl whose body I found, Lori, was a student of mine back in
Baltimore?"

Rob looked back at her steadily, and she
noticed a tightening at the side of his mouth. "I had heard that. I
wasn't sure it was true. Made it pretty tough, huh?"

"You could say that. Did you know her?"

His gaze moved in the general direction of
the murder scene. Bits of yellow tape from the investigation still
clung to a few trees. "Well, yeah, I know just about everyone here.
I ran into her now and then. Nice kid."

"She was. You didn't know her well,
then?"

"No."

"Someone gave me the impression you two were
seeing each other."

"Your `someone' doesn't know what they're
talking about."

Maggie shrugged. "Lori was a good kid. I had
high hopes for her when I taught her. I remember she enjoyed math.
I wonder if she planned to do something with it?"

"Social work. I think. I mean, I think I
heard someone say that's what she wanted."

"Mmm.” A `nice kid' he ran into now and then
whose college major he just happened to know? Maggie was sure he
was holding back on her.

"So you didn't...." she began, but Rob
suddenly jumped up from the bench and looked at his watch,
scowling.

"Hey, I've got another lesson coming in a
few minutes, but we could go over those backhand moves a few more
times if you're up to it."

"Sure, why not.” Maggie followed him back on
the court, frustrated at having their talk cut short, but unable to
come up with a way to extend it without sounding like an
interrogator. This detective work was harder than she thought.

They repeated the same toss, swing, and
critiques as before, and Maggie tried to concentrate, but her mind
kept going back to their conversation. It wasn't enough. She should
have kept him talking. She should have asked him where he was at
the time Lori was killed. But he could easily lie about that,
couldn't he, and how would she know?

She remembered how cool he was when she
arrived for her match with Dyna yesterday. Would he have been so
calm and casual if he had murdered someone a few hours earlier? But
then, he had arrived for her lesson today looking quite calm, and
she had heard him shouting and throwing things just minutes
earlier. Maggie swung at a ball and missed.

"Your mind is wandering," Rob called. "That
was an easy one."

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm getting tired."

"Our time is up anyway. Here comes my next
lesson."

Maggie turned and saw a pair of energetic
tow-headed ten year olds, accompanied by a tired-looking mother,
scrambling down the path.

"Hey Tyler! Hey Travis!” Rob greeted them
with light boxing punches as they came onto the court, and they
shrieked and giggled as they protected themselves. "Okay, you two,
before we start I want to see three jogs around the court to warm
up - next to the fence!"

The boys took off with noisy energy, and
Maggie packed up her things.

Rob handed her her towel along with a few
final words of advice. "You should practice alone before you play
any games. If it doesn't get to be automatic, you'll just go right
back to your old way of hitting."

She thanked him and promised to try. As she
reached the gate she turned to watch for a moment. Rob had joined
the twins in their run and they giggled at something he said. She
smiled, but found herself wondering just who was the real Rob
Clayton. There seemed to be a few sides to him that didn't quite
fit together.

Maggie walked on down the path back to the
sports center, her towel draped under her damp curls. She checked
out the court Dyna had been on earlier, but her friend was nowhere
to be seen. Did she leave already? Maggie looked around again, then
walked over to the sports shop building. She glanced around inside
from the doorway and saw no one at all.

"Did she think I had left when Rob and I
were taking our time-out on the bench?” Maggie murmured to herself,
puzzled.

She walked back out and started alone on the
mulched path back to the hotel. She had gone about a hundred feet
when she heard a stick crack somewhere behind her. She turned
around and called,

"Dyna?” No answer.
Where
is
she?
Maggie wondered, feeling annoyed now. She didn't like these woods
any better than she had the first time and decided to pick up her
pace and get out into the open as soon as she could.

About another minute had gone by when she
again heard the sound of someone stepping on dry sticks. She
whirled around and called sharply, "Dyna, is that you? Who's
there?"

At first there was silence, then Maggie
heard footsteps coming towards her, beyond the last curve in the
path. A man in rumpled work clothes came into view. He walked
lazily, hands in pockets, and wearing a grin that looked to Maggie
more frightening than if he had been holding a weapon.

"Your girlfriend," he said as he came
closer, "got held up."

***

CHAPTER 11

"Who are you?” Maggie tried to ask it with a
measure of authority, as in, "Where is your hall pass", or, "Why
aren't you in homeroom?” She took a deep breath and tried to hide
the fear she actually felt.

The man grinned even more. "Don't matter,
but I happen to work here.” He pulled a hand out of his pocket and
pointed to the Highview logo on his dark cotton shirt. On the
pocket below was machine-stitched, "Eric". He seemed to be in his
mid-twenties, medium built, and might have been called good-looking
with his even features and dark hair except for a certain
shifty-eyed smirkiness about him. He tilted his head to one side,
looking at her teasingly, and said, "Saw you talking to ol' Rob
back there."

"Yes?” Maggie watched him carefully. He
hadn't made any threatening moves, but his manner was a long way
from putting her at ease.

He pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and
bit on it, moving it from side to side with his tongue,
lizard-like, and she relaxed some. Disgusting as the sight was, she
somehow felt he was now less likely to make any aggressive move
towards her. Her grip on her racquet eased.

"Ol' Rob tell you all about his great tennis
career?"

"Why?"

"Oh, I just wondered if he tried to snow you
like he's tried to snow all the others, that's all."

"Snow me?"

"Yeah," he grinned, and wiggled his fingers
in a downward motion in the air, "snow, like that white stuff comes
outa the sky, or like...."

"Look, I've got to go.” Maggie turned and
started to walk away. He fell into step with her and she knew there
was nothing she could do about it. But at least she was moving.

"He tell you he got hurt at Wimbledon? And
that's why he don't play the tour no more?"

"What does it matter what he told me? Why do
you care?"

"Just trying to do a good deed.” He grinned
at her , catching the toothpick before it fell.

"Well, thanks anyway, but...."

"Truth is he got kicked off the tour.
Dropped by his coach. Like to guess why?"

"I'm sure you'd like to tell me."

"Beat up his girlfriend.” He paused, then
added with obvious satisfaction, "Yeah, that's right," when Maggie
turned a stunned face towards him.

When she didn't comment, he went on. "Got
arrested and everything, only the girlfriend decided not to press
charges and they had to let him go. Over there in England, you
know, this was."

"Is this true?” Maggie searched his face for
credibility. She had done the same to scores of teen-aged boys
trying to get away with one thing or another at school. This face,
however, was harder to read.

"Sure it's true. The
police couldn't hold him, but his coach knew what happened. The
tournament guys knew. 'At's why he got kicked out. But he likes to
tell his own story about it, make the girls feel so
sorry
for him. I just
thought I'd save you some trouble.” He went on grinning the whole
time he talked, and Maggie was still unsure how seriously to take
him. Was he making up a story to get back at Rob for some
reason?