Sarah leaned over the chair in the sitting room, her chin in her hands, her eyes red-rimmed from the shock and strain of the hours since the banquet the night before.
“I’ve never seen anyone have a heart attack,” she said.
“My grandfather had one,” said Travis. “But he drove himself to the hospital–it wasn’t like this at all.”
“He looked like he was being strangled.”
There had been no hope for the mayor of Nagano from the moment Mr. Dillinger bent down over him. An ambulance had arrived quickly, and the body had been removed at once, but the shock lingered.
For once, even Nish was quiet. Suddenly electric toilet seats and drinking Sweat didn’t seem quite so funny. They hadn’t known the mayor of Nagano, none of them had even been introduced to him, but he had been thoughtful enough to come out and welcome them to his city.
They were feeling sorry for the mayor and sorry for themselves when the door opened and Muck came in. The coach was dressed much more normally now, in an old tracksuit and his team jacket. But he didn’t look normal. Muck’s face was grey and serious.
“It wasn’t a heart attack,” he told them.
“What was it?” The question, of course, came from Fahd.
Muck took some time answering. Travis, sitting closest to him, could see his big coach swallow several times. A muscle on the side of Muck’s cheek was twitching.
“The police say…he was…poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Travis repeated, hardly believing it.
“How?” Fahd asked again. “We all ate the same meal.”
“I told you that sushi stuff was poison,” Nish said.
“Shhhhhh,” Sarah ordered. This was no time for Nish’s stupid humour.
“They found traces of blowfish in his stomach,” Muck said.
“Blowfish?” Fahd asked. “What the heck’s blowfish?”
By lunchtime, they all knew everything there was to know about blowfish. Called fugu in Japanese, the blowfish is able to inflate its body by swallowing water or air so that it swells into a ball. The Japanese treasure the ugly creature as a great delicacy, and chefs are trained for years in how to clean the fish so that none of the poison that is found in some of its internal organs spreads into the flesh. Even so, about a hundred Japanese a year die accidentally from the deadly poison.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Muck had told them. “There was no blowfish on the menu. Someone had to deliberately put it on the plate he was served.”
“Who would want to do something like that?” Fahd had asked.
“The police have taken the two chefs in for questioning.”
Travis’s mind was racing. Why would anyone want to kill that nice old man? Travis had no idea. He knew nothing about the mayor, not even his name. And why would they kill him at the hockey banquet? In front of a couple of hundred peewee hockey players?
It suddenly struck Travis: I am a witness to murder. I have seen one human being killed by another human being. And the way murders are usually solved is by questioning the witnesses.
What did I see? Travis asked himself. Nothing.
What do I suspect? Nothing.
What do I know? Nothing.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Muck said after the Owls had discussed the matter at length. “It’s unfortunate, and we are all sorry for the mayor’s family. Mr. Dillinger is sending our sympathies to them. But the matter is now under investigation by the police–nothing to do with us, nothing to do with this hockey tournament. The best thing we can do is move on.”
“Do we know who we’re playing yet?” Lars asked.
Muck pulled out a schedule. He opened it, scanning sections he’d already underlined in red ink.
“Our first game is Thursday morning against the Sapporo Mighty Ducks.”
“The Sapporo Mighty Ducks,” Nish said with a sneer. “What a joke!”
“Maybe the rest of your ‘cousins’ will be on the team,” said Sarah.
“Very funny.”
“Are they any good?” Travis asked.
“Don’t know,” Muck said, stuffing his schedule back into his breast pocket. “That’s why we need to practise. We’re on in an hour–get your stuff. Mr. Dillinger and I have a little surprise worked up for you.”
“What?” Fahd asked.
Muck smiled. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise any more, now would it?”