Nothing added up.
It was two o’clock in the morning of yet another sleepless night. I was sitting in my darkened living room, perplexed that I was having so much difficulty connecting the dots.
It was what my father had said that kept creeping into my consciousness. How could Carson have gotten away with it? How is it no one blew the whistle?
Although Carson was smart enough to engage the two football players, in actuality, they were a pair of thugs with an intelligence quotient equal to that of your average plant. They may have been a threat, but it wasn’t severe enough to silence everyone.
I had trouble believing Coach Maxwell was in any way involved. He had an exemplary reputation and was a longtime fixture at the school.
Yet someone else had to have known.
Who could it have been?
It was during my interview with Becky Nyman that I stumbled upon the answer.
I was still working my way through the sixteen-year-olds when Becky’s mother, Clarice, phoned for an appointment. Following the death of Henry Carson, Becky’s mother told me that her daughter had begun to show unusual signs of stress. She was normally an easygoing youngster, warm and friendly, successful in her academics, excited to have made the swim team in her sophomore year.
But after Carson’s death, something in her changed. She became less outgoing. Her schoolwork suffered. She stopped hanging out with her friends. She became moody and withdrawn.
At first Mrs. Nyman thought it was a knee-jerk reaction to the coach’s death. But when Becky didn’t get any better, she became worried. “It was going around that some of the swim team girls had been to see you. She mentioned it to me and when I asked her about it, that’s when she broke down and told me.”
“Told you what?”
“I think it’s best she tell you herself.”
We were seated in my office, Becky and her mother, Marsha Russo, and me.
“What’s troubling you, Becky?”
“I don’t know. It’s probably nothing. I just haven’t gotten over the murder yet. I can’t get it out of my head.”
She seemed a hardy girl, although on the occasion of our interview, she appeared sallow and joyless. She was tall for her age, well developed, with strong arms and powerful legs. She was en route to becoming an attractive woman, blond, blue-eyed, and pretty.
“What can’t you get out of your mind?” Marsha asked.
Becky shifted in her seat and said nothing.
“Tell them,” her mother instructed.
“Coach Carson,” Becky said.
“What about him?”
“We didn’t get along too well.”
“Because?”
“I didn’t always go to his parties.”
“His play parties?”
“Yes.”
“Why not?”
“They made me uncomfortable.”
“You said you didn’t always go to them. How many did you attend?”
“Actually, only one.”
“And?”
She looked down and didn’t say anything.
“Let me guess,” Marsha said. “You didn’t approve of what was taking place.”
Becky looked up. “Yes.”
“How long did you stay at the party?”
“Let’s just say that I left only a few minutes after I got there.”
“And what did Coach Carson have to say about that?”
“He badgered me.”
“Meaning?”
“Every time there was a party, he insisted I show up.”
“And you continued to refuse.”
“I did.”
“Tell him,” her mother said.
She looked at her mother, then at me. “I went to see Miss Peterson.”
“The Principal?”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“When I told her what I had seen, she got angry with me. She said I was lying. That no such thing could ever happen at Freedom High. She told me that if I said one word about it to anyone else, there would be serious repercussions. She said there’d be a price to pay.”
“Miss Peterson told you that?”
“Yes.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few weeks before he was murdered.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“And you stayed on the swim team.”
“Actually, I tried to quit.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t let me.”
“Coach Carson?”
“Yes.”
“How were things between you?”
“Not good. He kept telling me to keep my mouth shut. That he was watching me. He told me to remember what Miss Peterson had said.”
“And that was it?”
“After he died, the football boys...they came around nearly every day. They’d hunt me down in the hall and start poking at me. They told me I was on their radar. They said I better keep my mouth shut. They scared me.”
“So you said nothing about it. Not even to your mother.”
“I was afraid to.”
“And you changed your mind because?”
“When one of the other girls said she had told you what was going on, and that the two football jerks were now in jail, I knew it was time.”
“To talk about it.”
“Yes.”
“To me?”
“And to my mom.”
“It’s very courageous of you, Becky.”
She looked at me. “I hated him. I really hated him. I wanted him dead. I only wish it was me who killed him.”