“That’s not mine!” Jannie protested the second she saw it. “Dad, there is no chance that’s mine. You know that, right?”
I nodded. “Someone put that in her bag.”
“Who would do that?” Coach Greene asked. “And why?”
I looked over at Sharon Lawrence, who was stretching and talking with her friends, seemingly oblivious to what was happening across the track.
“I can think of someone, but I’ll let the police deal with that,” I said.
“You want me to call the police?”
“You touch it?”
Greene shook her head.
“Then yes, call the police. It’s easily proved whether it’s my daughter’s or not,” I said. “Either her fingerprints are on it or they’re not.”
The coach looked at Jannie. “Are they?”
“No way,” Jannie said.
“Was the bag open?” I asked.
“The bag was open,” Jannie said. “I got my hoodie out and came over.”
“Was that how you saw it, Coach?” I asked.
“Eliza Foster, one of my athletes at Duke, noticed it and called me over.”
“So it was put in there either before practice or right after Jannie put on her hoodie and came over to talk to me,” I said.
“Eliza would have no reason to do anything like that,” Greene said.
“I want there to be concrete evidence that this was absolutely not my daughter’s. Jannie will even provide a blood sample that you can drug-test. Right?”
Jannie nodded. “Anything, Dad.”
I got out my wallet, dug out a business card, and handed it to the coach. “Call this guy. Sheriff’s Detective Guy Pedelini. He’ll handle the situation correctly.”
Greene hesitated, but then nodded. She walked away with Jannie’s bag, punching in the phone number on her cell phone.
Jannie looked about to cry when she sat down beside me and Bree.
“You’ll be fine,” I said, hugging her.
“Why would someone put that there?” she asked, looking torn up.
“To get at me and Bree through you,” I said. “But it won’t work.”
Detective Pedelini showed up ten minutes later. I let him speak with Greene first, waiting patiently with Jannie and Bree. He put on gloves and bagged the vial. He nodded to me and then went to talk with Eliza Foster.
When he was done, he came over and shook my hand in the twilight.
“Coach says you want it tested.”
“I do.”
He looked at Jannie. “You’re willing?”
“Yes,” Jannie said. “Definitely.”
“Any idea who might do this?” Pedelini asked.
“I’d start with Marvin Bell’s niece,” Bree said. “If Sharon Lawrence would lie about a rape for him, she’d plant drugs for him.”
The sheriff’s detective pursed his lips, said, “I’ll talk to her. Meantime, take Jannie to the office. I’ll call ahead for someone to take the prints and blood.”
Pedelini walked off toward the other girls, who were acting annoyed that they weren’t being allowed to leave.
“Dad?” Jannie said as we stood up and got ready to leave. “Can you make sure I can still go down to Duke to train for the four-hundred on Saturday?”
“Meet you at the car,” I said.
I went over to Coach Greene, asked her. She hesitated.
“She’s innocent until proven guilty, Coach.”
“You’re right and I’m sorry, Dr. Cross,” she said. “In all my years coaching, I’ve never had anything like this happen. Unless those tests say different, Jannie can come run with us on Saturday and any other day she wants.”
I turned to leave, started toward the tunnel beneath the stands.
But Marvin Bell and his adopted son, Finn Davis, blocked the way.
“For such a big-time cop, you don’t listen so well,” Marvin Bell said.
“Yeah?” I said. “What did I miss?”
“Your niece brought up my name in court today,” Bell said.
“Your niece was testifying in court today,” I said.
“That’s bullshit,” said Finn Davis.
“It’s bullshit that she was testifying or that she’s Mr. Bell’s niece?”
Bell smiled sourly. “I warned you about besmirching my name in court.”
“Besmirching?”
“Slandering, whatever you want to call it,” Bell said.
“It’s only slander or besmirching if it’s not true,” I said.
Davis said, “Listen, Detective Asshole. That poor girl was raped by that sick fuck Stefan Tate. It took guts for her to go on that stand and face her rapist.”
“No argument there,” I said.
“Then quit trying to tear her down,” Bell said. “You go on and think anything you want about me, but you leave Sharon out of it. She is a victim in all of this, and I won’t have her made into a punching bag.”
“And I won’t have someone try to frame my daughter in retaliation.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Someone just put a vial of white powder in her gym bag,” I said. “That’s a sheriff’s detective out there investigating. I figure Sharon for the job.”
“Horseshit,” Bell said.
I took a step, got right in their faces, said, “No, gentlemen, horseshit is you trying to kill me and strong-arm my family. You’re on notice. I am officially declaring war on the two of you.”