Fenway and McVie stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. The receptionist was talking on the phone, the receiver pressed to his ear. He made eye contact with Fenway, then pointed to his ear with his free hand. Then, in a stage whisper: “I believe security is ready to review the footage.”
He listened for a few more seconds, then hung up. “Yes, they’re ready for you now. I can take you to the security office if you like.”
“I know the way,” Fenway said. “Is Ezekiel Washington on shift?”
The receptionist gave a nod as Fenway and McVie crossed the lobby into the hallway. Then Fenway stopped.
“You need to wait for me, Craig.”
McVie gave Fenway a mischievous smile and held up both hands with his thumbs touching and index fingers extended. “Whatever. I bring you down here early on a Saturday, and you abandon me in the lobby.”
“What’s with the hand gesture?”
“I just saw my teenage daughter, remember? I’m trying to be more hip.” McVie grinned and dropped his hand to his side. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
They separated, McVie leaving out the front door, Fenway following the hallway. At the security office door, she knocked.
The door opened, and Ezekiel’s head appeared. “Why, Coroner Stevenson,” the man said, opening the door farther. “Nice seeing you two days in a row.”
“Hi, Ezekiel. I need to see the camera footage from early this morning. The front parking lot as well as the recordings of the parking garage.”
“Come on in. Bobby told me you needed the recording cued up to midnight.”
Fenway smiled and stepped inside the security office, closing the door behind her.
“Oh, before we get started on the new video,” Ezekiel said, “I got Friday’s copy of the team’s sign-out sheet for the Toyota Corolla you were asking about.” He pulled open a file cabinet drawer at his feet and pulled out a folder. “On Thursday night, Annabel Shedd checked out the car. She hasn’t checked it back in yet.”
“Right. I forgot to ask earlier—you said you don’t keep the key here. Who usually has it?”
“Two keys—Coach Levinson has one, and Coach Sunday has the other.”
Fenway tilted her head. “Who usually signs the car in? The player who took the car, or the coach?”
“I don’t know the team’s protocol.”
“And what’s to keep Coach Sunday—or Coach Levinson—from taking the car out and not signing it back in first?”
Ezekiel shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned? Nothing. Now, if it’s against a team rule, it’s on them to enforce it.”
“Who else has access to the car keys?”
“I have no idea.”
“There isn’t a key that the team gave to the hotel? Maybe the valet key?”
“If there is, no one told me about it.”
That sounded like a no—but it was carefully phrased. Fenway nodded, not calling him out on the non-answer just yet. Ezekiel turned to the bank of monitors.
“It’s all ready to go. I’m starting at 23:45. Figured you’d want a little cushion.”
They reviewed the footage. After an hour sitting through sped-up recordings of both the parking lot and the parking garage, it was clear Fenway’s Accord had never entered.
Fenway stood to leave.
“Sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for, Coroner.”
“No worries. It was a long shot anyway.” She opened the door, then turned back around. “Oh—one more thing, Ezekiel.”
“Sure.”
“I couldn’t place your accent at first, but you’re from South Carolina.”
He raised his hand with an easy smile. “Guilty as charged.”
“Are you familiar with Shellmont University?”
Ezekiel slapped the table lightly. “Sure, sure. My daughter graduated in mechanical engineering from Shellmont. Summa cum laude, too. Proudest day of my life.” He beamed.
“Did you know that Paul Levinson was soccer coach when Zuri was there?”
His easy smile slowly slid off his face. “How did you know my daughter’s name?”
Fenway shrugged. “It’s an investigation. We cover all our bases.”
Ezekiel frowned. “My daughter didn’t play sports in college. I wouldn’t be able to name any of the coaches there.”
“You had no idea that Coach Levinson ran the women’s soccer program while your daughter—”
His dark brown eyes bored a hole into Fenway. “Absolutely none.”
Fenway opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question but saw the look on Ezekiel’s face and decided to change tactics. “That’s good. You’ll forgive me—I had to ask. They want us covering all the bases, you know.”
He nodded, his eyes wary. “I understand. You have a good rest of your day.”
“Thanks. You too.”
Fenway made her way through the hallway and back to McVie’s Highlander in the parking lot. He was engrossed in his phone and jumped slightly when Fenway rapped on the window.
Fenway opened the door after McVie unlocked it. “No dice. The Accord never came back here.”
“I have something—and it might be urgent.”
Fenway sat and put her seat belt on. “What is it?”
“I was about to get into the car when the player we met on the sixth floor ran up to me.”
“Darcy Nishimura.”
“She was about to get on the team bus to go to practice, but she saw me in the parking lot. She and I had an interesting conversation. Darcy said Maggie sent her an email this morning, and she just got it. She was worried about Maggie’s safety.”
“Wait—an email from Maggie? How early?”
“About five thirty. I think she was ready to show it to me, but she asked if I was with the police.”
“And you told her no?”
“Impersonating a police officer is a felony, Fenway, even for a former sheriff. I told her to forward it to you immediately. Fortunately, I had a few of your business cards in the center console. I think she was planning to send it to you before practice started.”
Fenway took out her phone and clicked on her email.
“Nothing but spam.”
“Check your junk folder.”
Fenway clicked again. “Empty. All right, I guess we have even more reason to go over to Nidever now.”
The ride to Nidever University seemed to take longer than usual. Fenway stared out the passenger window through the gray morning mist. The low clouds made it difficult to see too far, and McVie kept his lights on.
She looked over at him. She admired his jawline, the cut of his shirt, his eyes staring intently at the road ahead. Dark circles underneath, though. He looked tired.
When he’d been sheriff, sometimes the demands of the job made him tired, too, but he seemed to enjoy the work. Running his own business—Fenway wasn’t so sure. It seemed to take a lot out of him. Maybe part of it was the feast-or-famine business model of a P.I. agency, with fickle clients and seasonal work.
“Do you enjoy your job, Craig?”
McVie twitched his lips to the side and glanced at Fenway, then focused his eyes back on the road. “I don’t know. Sometimes I do. When I have an interesting case to work on, I get to use my investigative skills. Honestly, before you came along, I rarely got to use those at the sheriff’s office. It was always domestic disputes or busting drug dealers.”
“And now?”
“As a P.I.? Now it’s cheating spouses or parents who think their kids are on drugs.”
“All you did was move a little further back on the timeline, huh?”
“No—I get the people who don’t have enough evidence to get the cops involved. Most of the time, my clients are wrong.”
“Really? Even in the cheating spouse cases?”
“One client came in completely distraught. Her husband said he was working late, but she called him in his office and he wasn’t there. So I followed him the next time he said he was working late. He left the office on time—I thought for sure I’d follow him to a hotel. But no. He went to the beach down at Vista del Rincón, got out of his car, and watched the sun set. And then he got back in his car and started sobbing.”
“Sobbing?”
“Yep. About, I don’t know, five or ten minutes later, he got ahold of himself, started the car, and drove home. He went to Vista del Rincón twice a week, later and later, of course, as the days got longer.”
“So—what happened?”
“I told the wife. She didn’t want to believe me. She said she knew he was cheating. The next time, I took a video of the whole thing. She accused me of doctoring it, but she paid me.”
“Did you ever figure out why the husband was at the beach?”
“He’d gotten a big promotion at work a couple of months before he started ‘working late.’ I don’t know for sure, but my theory is that he hated it and didn’t want to tell his wife. Call it an educated guess.”
“You’d think it would be a relief to find their spouse isn’t cheating.”
“A lot of people are so sure, they refuse to believe anything else. They want their spouse to be cheating on them or want their child to be addicted to meth. They’re so convinced they’re right they won’t even look at the evidence in front of them.” He shook his head. “There are exceptions, of course, but mostly this job keeps whittling away at my faith in humanity.”
“Because people suck,” said Fenway.
“Right,” McVie said.
“You’re not driving out to Vista del Rincón after work and crying, are you?”
McVie’s mouth curved into a sad smile. “Not yet.”
Fenway tilted her head. “Have you thought about doing something else?”
McVie shook his head. “First of all, I know Piper took a big chance coming into my employ. And I don’t want to let her down. Second, I owe it to myself to spend at least a couple of years at this.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’ve got enough money in the bank where I could go without a client for a couple of months.” McVie looked at Fenway out of the corner of his eye. “And it doesn’t hurt that business is up.”
“Business is up? That’s great!”
“I don’t know if it’s because I’m a good investigator. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m now the only private eye in Estancia.”
Fenway bit her lip. “Was it a mistake for me to go out to dinner with you on Thursday night? Maybe your date shouldn’t have been a law enforcement representative.”
“Lots of deputies have side jobs.” McVie sighed heavily. “Callahan works private security, and I don’t think he’s the only one.” He turned his attention completely to the road in front of him. “When are you planning to give Dez an update?”
“Oh—now, I guess,” Fenway said, taking her phone out of her purse. Dez picked up on the first ring.
“I know, I know,” Dez said grumpily. “I got held up. I’m almost there.”
“Don’t bother—the Broadmere was a bust. We left a couple of minutes ago. The team is having their training camp again this morning, so we’re on our way to Nidever University.”
“McVie is still with you?”
“We’re trying to find Maggie.” Fenway paused. “How’s the safe house coming?”
“Still working on it.”
After Fenway hung up, McVie drummed his fingers on the wheel. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of stopping for breakfast.”
Fenway sucked in air through her teeth. “Why don’t you drop me off at Nidever and then go eat? You can bring me back something.”
“Oh, can I?” A smile touched the corners of his mouth as they passed the Nidever University campus sign.
“You know how irritable I get when I’m hungry.” She punched him lightly on the arm. “Hopefully this won’t take too long, and we can get Maggie into a safe house. I still want to spend time with you this weekend.”
“In that case, maybe I’ll use the time you’re at Nidever to put my reports together. So we can go to a movie or a real dinner date.” He pulled into the parking lot behind the soccer fields, then parked.
Fenway leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll text you when I’m done. Hopefully, Maggie is here and has my car.”
“Or maybe someone knows where she is, anyway.”
Fenway smiled, grabbed her purse, and exited the car. She took her badge out of her pocket and clipped it to the belt loop on her trousers.
The soccer pitch was about a hundred yards from the parking lot. Fenway felt her flats grow wet again as she trudged through the damp grass.
Much like the day before, the players ran drills on the field. They shuttled back and forth between two lines of orange cones while Coach Portello walked alongside, a gray windbreaker on, a Las Vegas Neons cap low on his head, a scowl on his mustachioed face.
Lorraine Sunday stood on the sideline in her black-and-gold Neons tracksuit, and as Fenway walked up behind her, she turned.
“Coroner Stevenson,” she said. “I’m glad to see you.”
“You are?”
Sunday nodded. “I received an email this morning—didn’t read it until I was on my way to the field, and to be honest, I was a little conflicted on what to do. Now that you’re here, I can show it to you.”
“What a coincidence,” Fenway said. “I’ve got something I want to show you, too.”
Sunday pulled her phone out and tapped on the screen. “Coach Portello and I both got this email, as well as a few of the players Maggie was close to.”
“Like Darcy Nishimura?”
“I believe so.” Coach Sunday handed the phone to Fenway, who began to read.
To: Lorraine Sunday, Rocky Portello, Annabel Shedd, Darcy Nishimura, Kylee Hathaway, Elena Campos
From: Maggie Erskine
Sent: Saturday, March 23 5:41 AM
Subject: I’m sorry
To my teammates and coaches—
I apologize for letting you all down. I had everything in the palm of my hand, and I let it slip through my fingers because I made some bad decisions.
I can’t undo what I did to Coach Flash. We had so much promise this season, and it’s all thrown away because of me.
I can’t go to jail and I can’t disappoint my parents.
If the police are reading this, the towels I used to clean up the blood are in a trash can at Paseo Fuentes Park.
—M
“We’re worried,” Lorraine said. “It looks like a suicide note.”
Fenway bit her lip and felt her heart race. “It ticks all the right boxes. Regret. Thinking she has no way out. Shame.” She rubbed her forehead. Sent before six o’clock—over two hours ago. She glanced up at Coach Sunday, whose jaw was tight, a vein in her forehead prominent. “What is it?”
“I called 9-1-1. But I couldn’t tell them where Maggie was. I assumed she was still being held by the police.” Sunday shook her head. “I debated calling her mother, but I didn’t want to talk to her without having more to say. I called Maggie’s phone, and she didn’t pick up.”
“So you just came to practice?”
“Rocky was driving when I read the message. I told him about it. He said he hadn’t checked his email yet.”
Fenway cocked her head. “He didn’t ask if she was all right? He didn’t turn around and go back to the Broadmere?”
“No.” Sunday hesitated. “To be honest, it felt like it wasn’t real.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not exactly the right word for it—but, you know, have you ever gotten an email from a co-worker that wasn’t accurate? It mischaracterized something you did, or misrepresented the facts so the co-worker could shift blame or something? Sometimes you can’t even put your finger on it; it feels, I don’t know—off.”
Fenway nodded. “Yeah, I’ve worked with those kinds of people.”
“That’s how this email felt. I hate to say Maggie was dramatic, but she was young. You’ve already seen how Coach Levinson set her up to think forcing her into a sexual relationship was okay. The email sounded off. It sounded like she was reaching out for attention—maybe a misguided attempt to say that if we got her back on the team, she wouldn’t kill herself. Or maybe setting herself up for an insanity defense for killing Coach Flash.” Sunday crinkled her nose. “It’s more likely to have the opposite effect, but you can’t tell Maggie that.”
“You shared your opinion with Coach Portello?”
“Yes. He said he thought Maggie’s confession was true, but he agreed the rest of it sounded like she was trying to get attention. Then he reminded me Maggie wasn’t on the team anymore. Our priority was the well-being of our current players.”
“He wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing?”
“Everyone deals with stuff like this differently,” Sunday said. “Maybe Rocky’s in denial. He’s acting like Coach Levinson is out sick.”
“Can you forward me that email?” Fenway said, pulling out her phone. She gave Coach Sunday her email address, and Sunday sent the email off. Fenway’s phone dinged with the receipt notification.
“One more thing, Coach Sunday.”
Sunday turned to Fenway, unblinking.
Fenway took the greeting card in the evidence bag out of her purse. “What can you tell me about this card?” She handed it to Sunday.
Sunday frowned. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Turn it over.”
Sunday blinked, then looked closer. “Am—Are you suggesting I gave Maggie something with this card?”
“Did you?”
“This isn’t my card.”
“That’s your name.”
“But it’s not my handwriting.”
Fenway looked up from the card to stare Sunday in the face. “It’s not?”
“No. I don’t know who wrote this, but it wasn’t me.”
Fenway ran a hand over her hair. “Excuse me for a moment.”
“I’ve never seen this before, Coroner.” Sunday frowned, a waver in her voice. “Someone’s trying to impersonate me.”
Fenway nodded and turned away.
Walking away from the field, trying to get out of earshot, Fenway tapped on her phone and forwarded the email to Dez, with Sarah on the cc: line. Then she called her.
“Fenway—I thought I might be hearing your voice.”
“Really?”
“As soon as I got off the phone with you, I got a call from dispatch. Maggie sent an email to some of her teammates and coaches.”
“Right—I forwarded it to you.”
“I was close to the Broadmere anyway, so we did a check of Maggie’s room. No answer at the door, so we got a master key and went inside.”
Fenway paused—why could Dez go in and not her? But of course—because the email looked like a suicide note. Exigent circumstances that Fenway hadn’t had earlier.
“No sign of Maggie,” Dez continued. “We found her laptop, though. Took it into evidence, and we called Patrick in so he might be able to bypass the login and see if it was the machine that sent the email.”
“Maggie confessed to killing Coach Levinson in the email,” Fenway said, “but something isn’t right. One of her coaches said Maggie was trolling for attention, but I don’t think Maggie ever went back to the Broadmere. She’s not on camera.”
“But haven’t you established that whoever killed Paul Levinson was able to use the stairwell and evade the cameras?”
Fenway clicked her tongue. “Yeah, yeah. Still, I think the email is suspicious.”
“You think someone else wrote it and is trying to frame Maggie?”
“Maybe more than Maggie,” Fenway said. She told Dez about the card she’d found wedged under the door. “If Lorraine’s card is fake, maybe the email is too. Someone could be trying to put the blame on Maggie. So they might kill her and try to make it look like a suicide.”
“We’ve already got an APB out on Maggie,” Dez said. “And an APB out on your car, too. I’ve pulled a couple of deputies to sweep the highway between P.Q. and Estancia, but she could literally be anywhere. If she sent the email from her phone and not the PC in the hotel, she could be halfway to Mexico by now, or halfway to Vegas—or she could really have intended self-harm. How many bridges or canyons or cliffs are there within a hundred-mile radius of Paso Querido?”
Fenway was silent.
“You’re at the university?”
“Yeah.”
“Ask all the players when they saw Maggie last. What her state of mind was, that kind of thing.”
“I’ll ask them if there are any local places Maggie talked about. Maybe she wanted to see the ocean one last time.” Fenway’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat. “Or the waterfalls up by Querido Pass.”
“Uh—look, Fenway, I know you were trying to do the right thing by keeping her safe. Taking her to P.Q. was the right thing to do. I probably would have asked for backup from someone I trusted—like McVie—if I had been in your situation. This situation with Maggie? You went above and beyond. If it turns out she did kill herself, and even if it turns out she murdered Paul Levinson, it’s on her. Not on you.”
“Thanks, Dez.”
“I gotta go. Patrick’s calling.”
Fenway ended the call and walked to the sideline of the soccer field.
She stood next to Sunday. “When was the last time you saw Maggie?”
“Thursday evening, before she and Annabel went to dinner. Girl was already a couple of drinks in.”
“Did Maggie mention anything she wanted to see around Estancia?”
“We’re here for training camp, not for sightseeing.”
“That doesn’t mean Maggie didn’t want to see the Querido waterfalls or go down to Vista del Rincón. I’m trying to find where she might be. Did she mention anything? Any particular beach? Whale watching? Going all the way to Yosemite, maybe?”
Sunday shook her head. “She was focused on soccer. When she wasn’t playing or practicing, she was going over strategy with Coach Flash—or, you know, she said she was.”
“Right.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe Maggie killed herself. Either she’s hiding out somewhere, hoping this will all blow over, or she ran.”
“Even if she never plays soccer again?”
Coach Sunday sighed. “I don’t know. You’re the expert.”
“The last time I spoke with Maggie,” Fenway said carefully, “she was heartbroken about getting kicked off the team. That was last night—and this morning, I was under the impression she hoped to fight her way back.”
“Fight her way back?”
“Maybe by talking to the owner.” Fenway glanced quickly at Sunday. “Or someone she trusted. Like a coach.”
“She didn’t reach out to me.” Coach Sunday clicked her tongue. “I wish she had.”
Fenway hesitated, then barged ahead. “Any thoughts as to who could have written that card?”
Coach Sunday shook her head. “It makes me angry. If she saw that card and thought I was being inappropriate, maybe that kept her from calling me. Maybe she got desperate and did write that stupid email.”
Fenway nodded, searching Sunday’s face for signs of lying—but it was hard to tell. “Are you familiar with a white Toyota Corolla? It seems to belong to the team.”
Sunday nodded. “We use it as sort of an errand car. Most of the players didn’t bring a car here, so we allow some of the players to check the Corolla out. Go grab groceries, go to dinner. There’s often a mad dash on the nights off. There’s a sign-out sheet.”
“Do the coaches ever borrow the Corolla?”
“Not since I’ve been part of the coaching staff,” Sunday said. “We either drove our own cars here from Vegas, or the team gives each coach a long-term rental.”
“But you hold the keys.”
“Oh—right, Coach Levinson has one of the Corolla keys, and I have the other.”
“I think I saw Paul Levinson’s red Italian sports car in the parking garage,” Fenway said. “Is it his personal car, or was it a rental from one of those exotic car places?”
“It’s his own ridiculous car. Didn’t you see the license plate?”
Fenway blinked, then remembered. “Oh, right—FLASHEEE, with three E’s at the end. I think our forensics team is examining his car. But I’m concerned about the Corolla. Do you know where it is now?”
“I expect it’s back in the parking garage,” Sunday said. “Where it should be.”
“Do you know if anybody took it out yesterday?”
“I know Annabel Shedd borrowed the car on Thursday night. I don’t know if anybody else took it out after she brought it back.”
“What’s the checkout process?” Fenway asked. “You said you had a sign-out sheet, right?”
Sunday nodded.
“First come, first serve?”
“The players can reserve the car if they want.”
“Did Annabel reserve the Corolla for Thursday night?”
“No, no one had reserved it, so I signed it out to her and gave her the key.”
“Honor system?”
“I admit it’s not efficient.” Coach Sunday tilted her head. “You have a lot of questions about Annabel taking out the Corolla.”
Fenway gave Coach Sunday a small smile. “And I’m afraid I’m not done yet. Do you remember what time Annabel said she’d bring it back?”
“She told me she’d bring the car back at player curfew.”
“When is that?”
“Ten o’clock on nights before practice.”
“Even when you’re not starting until after lunch?”
“Even then.”
Fenway tapped her chin. “Did she bring the key back?”
“Not to me,” Lorraine said. “But the players usually bring the key back the next morning if they’ve got the car out close to curfew.”
“And she would have given the key back to you?” Fenway asked.
“Well—she didn’t give it back to me. Annabel might have returned the key to the security office or given it to Coach Flash.” Coach Sunday smiled. “Most of the players are fairly responsible, but some of the younger ones haven’t been out on their own—especially the rookies. They might go out with the car and maybe have too much to drink at dinner. Or pop a tire in a dirt lot in front of a country western club. It’s better if Coach Flash and I both have a key so the two of us can do damage control if it’s necessary.”
“Not Coach Portello?”
“He doesn’t want to deal with the sign-out process. It’s just as well—we only have two keys anyway.”
“I see,” Fenway said. “And you don’t have the Corolla key now.”
Sunday shook her head. “With everything that happened yesterday morning, I didn’t think to ask Annabel for the key back. I expect security would contact me if they got it, but this early in training camp, we haven’t established a routine yet.”
“I see.” Fenway tapped her chin. “I’d like to talk to the players—find out when they last saw Maggie and see if they have any suggestions for where she may have gone.”
Coach Sunday wrinkled her nose. “You don’t think she went to turn herself in, do you? I know the email says she can’t go to jail, but—”
“She hasn’t yet. Not as far as I know.”
Sunday snapped her fingers. “Her parents.”
“What—Maggie might have gone to see her parents? They’re in Arizona—”
“No, no, that’s not it. Her father passed away two years ago.” Sunday pulled her phone out, tapped a few times on the screen, and held it out for Fenway to see. “Look. ‘I can’t disappoint my parents.’ Parents—plural. But she only has one.”
“Maybe her mother remarried?”
“No.”
Fenway frowned. “Maybe it was a typo. Or an autocorrect error.”
Coach Sunday took her phone back. “But wouldn’t Maggie have written, ‘I can’t disappoint my mom’?”
Fenway didn’t speak for a moment. Sunday might have a point—the email might be a hoax.
And that meant Maggie was in danger.
“You’re right,” Fenway said. “Thanks for your time.” She turned to the field; Annabel was running a passing drill with three other players. Fenway walked onto the pitch, making a beeline for Shedd.
“Hey!” Coach Portello’s voice boomed across the field. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Fenway kept walking, but Portello ran up to her. “I’m talking to you.”
“I’m about to interview a witness.”
“No, no. You talked to all the players already. I was accommodating yesterday—you took all my players away from practice. You’re not doing it two days in a row.”
“Yesterday’s interviews were about Coach Levinson’s murder investigation,” Fenway said. “Now we have a missing persons case.”
“This is outrageous.”
“You think it’s outrageous that your head coach was murdered and now your starting goalie is missing? I agree.”
Coach Portello took a deep breath, still walking beside Fenway. “I understand you have a job to do, but Maggie isn’t with the team anymore. You had her in custody all day yesterday, and I was led to believe she was the prime suspect.” He pursed his lips. “Do you know I received an email confession from her this morning?”
“I’ve seen the email, yes.”
“So why are you interrupting our training again? I have the monumental task of getting our players ready for our opening match, and without a head coach or goalie, I just leveled up in difficulty.”
“One of your players may have been involved in Maggie’s disappearance.”
“This is ridiculous,” Portello said. “It’s borderline harassment.”
“I only need ten minutes, Coach.”
Portello scowled and looked at the ground.
“I find it strange that Maggie was a member of this team for a year, yet you don’t seem to care if she’s missing.”
“She was a major talent, yes. I didn’t want her to leave. But it’s water under the bridge.”
“So that’s it? She’s no longer a player on your team, so you don’t care that she may be in danger?”
“I still have a job to do, if you haven’t noticed,” Portello said. “Besides, she was having an inappropriate relationship with Coach Flash, whether or not she was the one who beat him to death.”
Fenway bit the inside of her cheek. Portello sounded like he was blaming Maggie for her own sexual coercion. “If you prefer,” she said, taking a few steps closer to the assistant coach, “I can start with you.” She stared into his eyes—dark circles were underneath, and his skin was paler than the day before. Perhaps the head coach’s murder was taking a grimmer toll on Rocky Portello than he was letting on.
“Me?”
“Maggie was planning to talk to someone this morning about getting back on the team. Maybe it was you.”
Portello shook his head vehemently. “I don’t know anything about that. If she was planning to see me, she either changed her mind, or we missed each other.”
“Missed each other?”
“Well—I called her to see what her status was for practice today. Then I found out she’d been let go. So if she called me back, I didn’t get it.”
“Where were you this morning, Rocky?”
“Me? You think I had something to do with her disappearance?”
“Can you answer the question, please?”
“Okay. Lorraine and I met for a quick breakfast at half past six. We grabbed bagels and coffee, then we left the hotel. We were here a few minutes after seven.”
“Before that?”
“I showered and dressed.”
“You were in your hotel room all night?”
“What?”
“All night—from the time you went to bed until you left to meet Coach Sunday for breakfast?”
“Oh—uh, yes. All night.”
“You didn’t leave your room to get ice or a snack from the vending machine?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I had trouble sleeping. I thought about getting up, but I didn’t.”
Fenway nodded. “And whose decision was it to release Maggie?”
“Like I said, she was a distraction. She was Coach Flash’s project anyway—she’s got talent but no discipline.”
“So it was your decision?”
He set his jaw. “Sandra Christchurch made the call. Once housekeeping discovered her bracelet in Maggie’s room, that was it.”
“She thought Maggie had taken the bracelet?”
He sighed. “I tried to tell Sandra she hadn’t been in her room all day. But you already know Maggie was the prime suspect in the coach’s murder, and she was banging him. This was the last straw.”
Fenway blinked. She was banging him.
Did Portello not see Levinson as the bad guy in this situation? Did he think Maggie was the instigator, using sex to get the starting goalie position, rather than the victim of a predator?
Fenway stopped about fifty feet from where Annabel was running the drill. “Do you know anything about where the team’s white Toyota Corolla was at any time on Friday?” Fenway asked.
“That’s the car for players to use if they need to.” Portello frowned. “Given what happened yesterday, the players’ use of the team car is a policy I’d like to rescind.”
“Yes, but where was the Corolla yesterday?”
“How should I know? I don’t have a key for it. Coach Flash and Coach Sunday do. As far as I know, it’s wherever Annabel left it.”
“Ah. An excellent transition to my questions for Annabel.” Fenway turned away from Portello. “Annabel,” she called across the field, “can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Hey, hey,” Portello said, “I talked to you so you wouldn’t speak with my players. They have to get their heads in the game.”
Fenway unclipped her badge from her trousers and held it up. “If you’d known where the Corolla was, Coach, I might have the answers I need. But as you said, the car is wherever Annabel left it. And I need to know where that is.”
“You’re a real piece of work, Coroner.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Annabel jogged over. “Yes?”
Portello stared daggers at Fenway but turned on his heel and walked away.
“Let’s talk for a minute,” Fenway said, stepping sideways off the pitch, away from Portello. “I’ve got a few more questions.”
“Is it about the weird email Maggie sent?”
“I do have some questions about the email—but first, did you know a white Toyota Corolla tried to run her over yesterday?”
Annabel’s head snapped up. “What? No!”
“The team has a white Toyota Corolla,” Fenway said quietly. “You were the last person to check out the Corolla Thursday night.”
“You know where I was. I was having dinner with Maggie. You’re also fully aware Maggie didn’t come back to the hotel with me.” Annabel kicked at the turf with her cleat. “I left the restaurant, I came back to the Broadmere, and I went to bed.”
“Where is the key to the Corolla now?” Fenway asked.
“I gave it—” Annabel stopped, furrowed her brow in thought, and stared at the ground for a moment. “I guess I forgot to give it back. I would have returned it to Coach Sunday yesterday morning, but after we heard about Coach Levinson, it completely slipped my mind.”
“So you had a key to the Corolla all day yesterday?”
Annabel frowned and crossed her arms. “I didn’t take the car anywhere on Friday,” she said. “And if anybody says they saw me with it, they’re lying.”
“Where is the key now?” Fenway asked.
“I took it out of my purse when I came back from that fancy restaurant.” Annabel dropped her arms to her sides. “What did I do with it?” Her brow creased, then she brightened. “Oh, right, I knew I’d be seeing Coach Sunday on Friday morning, so I put it in my gym bag. But then when I heard Coach Flash was dead—I guess I forgot about it.” She looked at Fenway, then her eyebrows knitted. “Are you telling me you think I tried to run her over?”
“I’m covering all avenues of inquiry.”
“I was trying to protect her. Why would I try to hurt her?” Annabel clenched her fists.
Fenway shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what makes sense to me. It only matters what made sense to the killer at the time. And someone tried to run Maggie over with the car you last had in your possession.”
“I swear I didn’t try to run Maggie over. I didn’t even touch the car after I got back to the hotel on Thursday night.” Annabel’s chin quivered. “Did you ever think that there might be a bunch of other keys to the Corolla? The other coaches?”
Fenway shook her head. “Only Coach Levinson and Coach Sunday. And you have Coach Sunday’s key.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t touch the Toyota on Friday.”
Fenway rubbed her chin. She had yet to do an inventory of Coach Levinson’s possessions. Could his key be accounted for? For that matter, could Coach Sunday’s? Fenway had never seen the key. “If you still have the Corolla key, I need it.”
Annabel fixed Fenway with a steely gaze. “Come on,” she said thickly.
Annabel took off at a fast walk across the pitch, onto the concrete walkway, and across the quad. Fenway could barely keep up with her. Annabel said nothing, her shoulders tight. She didn’t look back at Fenway.
Annabel kept up the rapid pace, turning behind the athletic building offices. As Fenway went around the corner, a locker room came into view, a large W painted on the wall on the side of the building.
The soccer star pushed the door to the locker room hard, and its hinges squealed in protest. Annabel’s cleats clomped on the tile floor of the locker room with every step, the heavy footfalls echoing throughout the room, bouncing off the metal lockers and the hard surfaces of the sinks, the benches, and the floor. Annabel stopped at a locker about halfway down the first row, twisted the lock back and forth quickly, and opened the metal door. She thrust her hand inside. Grabbing her gym bag with the Desert Treasures logo, she rummaged around for a moment.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought for sure—” Annabel let out an exasperated sigh. “I thought the key was under my sweatshirt.”
“No key?”
“No sweatshirt. Hold on.” She dug in her gym bag further, then pulled out a key fob with the Toyota logo on it. She held it out wordlessly to Fenway, putting her bag back in the locker with her other hand, then slammed the locker shut.
Fenway took the key. “Thank you.”
Annabel glared at Fenway and stomped out of the locker room.
The door slammed behind her, and the locker room was eerily quiet.