Fenway’s insides roiled.
As Lorraine Sunday walked back to the field, Fenway and Deputy Huke followed, but Fenway slowed her pace until Sunday was out of earshot.
“I thought you were just going to observe,” Fenway said.
“You were digging for evidence of the victim’s crimes,” Huke said evenly.
“I was—” Fenway pressed her lips together and took a deep breath in through her nose. “I needed to establish motive.”
“You hadn’t yet established the suspect’s whereabouts during the time of the murder.”
“Donald—Deputy Huke—I am your superior—”
“With all due respect, Coroner, the sheriff may have asked me to assist you, but you are not in my chain of command. I followed protocol on questioning witnesses.”
Fenway lifted her hand up—she almost held an index finger in Huke’s face—then dropped it to her side.
Huke didn’t say anything.
“And what were you doing calling out our witness like that for lying like that? She’s the first one I’ve talked to who doesn’t seem to be actively—”
“Just because she’s willing to talk doesn’t mean she’s truthful.” Huke furrowed his brow. “I thought you’d be happy. You got the answers you needed.”
“What you did was risky.”
“To whom?” Huke asked, cocking his head. “Ms. Sunday was ready to end the interview.”
“What would have happened if your plan had backfired?”
“Then you blame me for being new and overly ambitious, apologize, kick me out of the room, then tell her some amusing anecdote about when you started the job. Then she might tell you a story from her soccer playing days, then you ask her, more subtly, if she has anything else to add.”
Fenway stopped in her tracks. “You really thought that all through?”
“It’s one of the standard interrogation methods. I create a situation of conflict through direct confrontation, and you resolve the conflict through engagement and empathy. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think the direct confrontation would work by itself.”
It sounded like a fancy way to describe good cop bad cop, which she’d thought was only something that happened on TV. “You take a class for this?”
“Intermediate Interrogation Techniques. It’s offered through our extended learning program. I took it a couple of months ago. Goes toward my professional certification.” He took a few more steps. “Deputy Salvador isn’t the only one who wants to get promoted to detective, you know.”
Fenway nodded and began walking again, down the concrete path toward the field.
“What next?” Huke asked.
“Annabel,” she said. “She’s running drills on the other side of the field. Can you ask her to join us?”
The path ended at the edge of the grass, then Fenway’s shoes squished on the lawn as she continued toward the players. She walked past Coach Portello, still standing at the sideline.
He cleared his throat. “I understand you’re just doing your job, Coroner.”
“A man has been murdered,” Fenway said evenly.
Portello nodded. “We’ve all been through a trauma.”
“Some of the players, more than one,” Fenway said before she could stop herself.
Portello bristled. “Is that supposed to be some crack at me?”
Interesting—she’d hit a sore subject. Sunday’s words—that Levinson had victimized more players than Annabel and Maggie—ran through her head. She started to speak, then stopped. She didn’t want to take the bait.
“I asked you a question, Coroner,” Portello said. “What did you mean with that last statement?”
Fenway chose her words carefully. “You told me this morning that Coach Levinson might have cheated with a player. Now that he’s been accused—”
“It’s awful, all right?” Portello snapped. “What do you want me to say?”
“You were close to Coach Levinson—”
“I had no idea what he was doing.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” she said sharply. From twenty yards away, Huke turned his head. She lowered her voice. “The owner is alleging Coach Levinson is guilty of sexual coercion, sexual assault, and statutory rape—”
“We don’t have—”
“And from what I know,” Fenway said over him, “the Neons didn’t stop it. The league didn’t stop it.”
Portello gritted his teeth before he spoke. “I don’t know any details.”
Fenway scoffed. “You told me this morning he’d been cheating on his wife! How did you know that if you had ‘no idea what he was doing’?”
“I’d heard rumors. Nothing definite.”
Fenway took a step next to Portello on the sideline, following his gaze to the players. “You were Levinson’s right-hand man for a long time. At Shellmont University. Even before that. You knew what he was doing.”
“I don’t—” Portello barked, turning suddenly away from the field, his eyes losing focus.
Fenway took a small step toward him but waited.
After a moment that seemed like an hour, Portello closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what was going on.” He clenched and unclenched his fists.
“If you knew he was taking advantage of his players,” Fenway said evenly, “and you knew he wouldn’t stop, you’d know it was only a matter of time before his actions would screw up your job prospects.”
Finally, Portello glanced at Fenway’s face. “You think I did it? That makes no sense. He wasn’t hurting me. He wasn’t withholding playing time from me.” Then he looked at the ground and chuckled. “When I think about who could have done it, I automatically think it was one of them.”
“One of who?”
“One of the players who was sleeping with him—like Maggie. Maybe he didn’t give her enough attention last year. Maybe he refused to leave his wife. Who knows?”
Fenway shook her head. “You can do better than that, Rocky. Paul Levinson wasn’t having an affair with his players; he was sexually coercing them.”
Portello scowled. “Consenting adults. The players could have left at any time.”
“Not if they wanted to keep playing for the league,” Fenway said, trying to tamp down her rising blood pressure. “Levinson put them in a position where they couldn’t say no.” She looked at Portello out of the corner of her eye. “And at Shellmont—when you were there—he sexually coerced a minor, too.”
Portello sniffed, then raised his eyes and looked across the field at the players.
Not a big reaction from the assistant coach. He knew. Maybe he’d seen Annabel’s report.
Fenway followed Portello’s gaze; Huke and Annabel Shedd were walking toward the sideline. “Come on, Rocky. I might be the same age as some of your players, but I’m not stupid. You knew. Or you suspected.”
Portello looked down at the ground, kicking the grass for a moment, then he raised his head and looked Fenway in the eye. “There was some rumbling, I guess.”
“When?”
“Last year. I could see the interplay between Maggie and Coach Flash. He took her under his wing—but then, everyone knew she’d be starting in goal for us this year.”
“Interplay—what do you mean by that?”
Portello sighed. “At first, I thought Maggie had a crush on him. But he was married. I figured the whole thing was kind of innocent.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know she had it in her.”
“Had what in her?”
“You know. The ability to kill another human being.”
Fenway looked up. Huke and Shedd were only about fifteen yards away. She raised her hand slightly toward them, palm out, and Huke stopped and said something to Annabel, who also stopped walking.
“You honestly believe Maggie killed him?” she asked, lowering her voice.
“Who else would it be? I saw them interacting. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now with the charges, his firing—hell, his murder—everything looks different.”
Fenway tilted her head. “You and he were on the same floor. The ninth.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“The two of you always on the same floor when you travel?”
“Sure. Makes it easier for strategy sessions, especially if there’s an injury we didn’t foresee, whether it was one of our starters or one of theirs.”
Fenway took another small step forward. “All the times last year when the Las Vegas Neons were on the road, in new cities, strange hotels—you mean to tell me the coach stayed on the same floor as you, but you never saw Maggie go into his hotel room?”
Coach Portello crossed his arms. “Maybe I did see them hanging out a lot more than might have been appropriate, you know, for a normal coach and player. But Maggie wasn’t a normal player. She’s our future. I didn’t think anything of him putting her on a pedestal—because without her, we have no chance at the trophy.”
“Coach Levinson isn’t the first coach in the league who’s been accused of sexual misconduct with his players,” Fenway said quietly. “In every other circumstance, the people in power knew complaints were made, sometimes years ago, and they did everything they could to cover it up.” Fenway glared at Portello, but he didn’t return her gaze. “Maybe you’ve convinced yourself you didn’t know anything, but you knew what he did.”
“I never—” Portello caught himself, cleared his throat, then ran his hand over his face. “Didn’t you say you needed to interview some of the players?”
Fenway motioned to Annabel standing next to Deputy Huke. “I certainly did.”
He grimaced. “Our offense runs around her. You can’t take someone else?”
“She and Maggie went out to dinner last night,” Fenway said. “Don’t you think it would be irresponsible of me not to follow up?”
Portello sighed. “Fine.” He motioned to Annabel.
Deputy Huke walked over to them, Annabel following close behind.
“Fifteen minutes,” Portello said.
“This is a murder investigation, sir,” Huke said. “It will take as long as Coroner Stevenson needs.”
Fenway glanced at Huke’s face. “It’s all right, Deputy. I can follow up later if I need to.”
Huke pressed his lips together. “Coroner, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Uh—I suppose.”
Huke motioned with his head toward the quad, and the two of them walked about fifty feet away.
“What’s this about?”
Deputy Huke looked at the ground for a moment. “I didn’t hear everything you and Coach Portello discussed,” Deputy Huke said in a low, firm voice, “but I didn’t hear many questions regarding the murder.”
“As I mentioned,” Fenway said, feeling her jaw tighten, “I’m establishing motive.”
Huke squared his shoulders and turned to Fenway, a skeptical look in his eye. “In my year on the job, I’ve been called to the scene of bar fights and some domestic altercations.” He took a deep breath, placing his feet slightly farther apart. “In every one of those cases, the assailant has attempted to convince me that the victim deserved to be hit. It’s easy for me to shut that down because the law is clear.” Huke swallowed hard and drew himself to his full height. “I understand this is a sensitive situation, Coroner, but I suggest—”
Fenway cut Huke off. “I need to know who covered up for Paul Levinson.” She caught her voice rising in volume. Then, softer: “Anyone who set up these clandestine meetings between our murder victim and his players had a good reason to want him dead. Levinson could have dragged other people down with him. Now he can’t.” She jerked her head toward Coach Portello. “And he might say that he was worried about his job, but he sure thinks he’s going to get promoted to head coach.”
“Then you should be asking details about how he found the body, or if he knew where to find the murder weapon. I get it—Levinson was a bad guy. But putting the victim on trial—”
“Deputy Huke,” Fenway snapped, though her voice faltered. She steeled herself; she wasn’t going to let memories of the Russian Lit professor make her sound weak. “Don’t tell me how to run my investigation.”
Huke blinked, then stood up straight. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
Fenway felt a sharp sting in her hands and realized she’d balled up her fists so tightly that her nails were digging into the flesh of her palms. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice caught in her throat.
Her phone rang in her purse. “Hold on,” she told Huke.
It was McVie.
“I have to take this,” she said, and her voice was rougher than she expected.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Fenway turned her back on Huke and strode away.
Suddenly, her vision swam. What was she doing? She was in the middle of a set of suspect interviews—and she’d just left two of the biggest suspects standing on the sideline while she caught flak from a deputy, then took a call from her boyfriend.
She blinked and tapped Answer. “Hey, Craig—sorry, I can’t talk.”
“Just wanted to say dinner is up the air tonight. Megan wants to talk with me. She might not be coming over tomorrow.”
Fenway sighed. “I was really looking forward to this—and it’s the first night in a while where you don’t have to work when I come over. You’ve been so busy with this case—”
“I know,” McVie said. “But if Megan doesn’t come over tomorrow, you and I can spend all weekend together.”
Fenway gritted her teeth.
“Is—is everything okay?”
Fenway took a deep breath in, held it to the count of ten, then exhaled.
“Fenway?”
“It’s the case,” she finally said. “Too many ways things can go.”
“Oh,” McVie said. “You know, if you need to bounce ideas off—”
“I’ve got a couple of suspects standing about fifty feets away,” Fenway said. “I’ll call you later.”
“Not if Megan—”
“Right, right,” Fenway said. “Not if Megan and you are having your discussion. Maybe this weekend. Got it.” She clicked End Call before McVie could respond.
She turned on her heel in the wet grass and strode back onto the pitch. “All right, Annabel. Let’s get moving.”