Data was happy to be left alone, to move at his own pace on Nish’s great puzzle, which Data found both confusing and fascinating. Too many voices tended to cloud the issue, too many ideas sent his own mind in wild circles–but always, always returning to the one point that made no sense to him: the hockey bag that had no owner.
He kept his brain locked on that one troublesome fact. He wouldn’t let his thoughts drift off to puzzling over why, or how, the man in the water might have died before the dolphin. He refused to think about the snow globes and why the organizers would have a man checking the players as they left the rink. These were significant factors–they might even turn out to be critical clues–but Data had a gut feeling he couldn’t shake about the mysterious hockey bag.
Everything else might have an explanation. The man and dolphin might have been murdered by different people. The autopsy reports might even be wrong. And there might have been a problem with kids stealing from the tournament, even if Data had trouble believing they would do such a thing.
But there could be no easy explanation for the hockey bag. It wasn’t Nish’s, even though it was exactly the same as the one he’d been given and had his number on it. A mix-up would have been understandable, and at first that’s what it had appeared to be. But once it turned out that the Panthers had no number 44, and the only trolley Nish could have gotten mixed up over was the Panthers’–all the other teams’ equipment being locked up–it seemed to Data to make absolutely no sense at all.
But he had a notepad and he had a hunch. He rolled his wheelchair down past the dripping Zamboni, over a hose line, and down a corridor towards the large storage area at the back of the rink.
He could hear the high, dry song of a skate-sharpening machine. It didn’t sound like Mr. Dillinger’s, and he hoped it wasn’t. He was looking for another equipment manager, from another team altogether.
He rolled as fast as he could towards the sound.
Travis, Nish, and the rest sat in the stands, cheering on their teammates–Fahd, Gordie, and Sam–against a tough, quick team from California, the Arrowhead Rangers.
“Fahd may finally have found his game,” said Lars.
Travis nodded in agreement. It was somewhat surprising to see, but Lars was correct: in 3-on-3, Fahd was two or three times the player he was in regular hockey. Fahd had always moved so slowly and deliberately on the ice, but here, with more space to work in, his slowness worked at times to his advantage. It was just as Lars had said. And Fahd seemed able to keep track of his opponents far better when there were just three of them instead of five. He suddenly seemed smarter, niftier, slicker, and if he still lacked speed it was hardly a disaster, because, unlike in other games, he was always moving the puck just before an opposition player caught him.
Gordie and Sam were playing as expected. Gordie’s long reach was a great advantage on the smaller rink, and he was able to read his teammates well. And Sam, by sheer desire, was able to drive directly for the net from almost anywhere, panicking the Rangers so much they put two checkers on her, which only opened up either Fahd or Gordie for an easy pass and shot. And if the puck found Gordie, with his hard, quick wrist shot, it seemed to end up in the net every time.
The Owls’ threesome, with Jenny in net, was up 5–2 at the break. Mr. Dillinger had come around and was sitting with the others, and he started up a great cheer for the skaters before the puck dropped again.
“Muck’s betting they make the finals,” said Mr. Dillinger when he sat back down beside Travis.
Travis looked to make sure Mr. Dillinger wasn’t joking. He wasn’t. He wasn’t even looking to see Travis’s reaction–if he had, he would have seen Travis’s jaw drop.
The finals? Travis thought he had a pretty good fix on which threesomes were moving ahead, and he’d already figured on his own group, with Sarah and Nish; the Panthers’ top threesome; the Owls’ other elite team, Dmitri, Andy, and Lars; and perhaps a team from Winnipeg battling it out to see which two met in the “A” championship. He’d never for a moment considered one of the teams from the Canucks Division jumping up, even though they’d been told from the start that crossovers were possible. He’d figured the Elite Division had been given its name for a reason.
And yet he had to admit, they were playing extremely well. It was as if he was seeing skinny little Fahd for the first time. Fahd combined with Gordie’s shot and Sam’s strength made a formidable team, and the way Jenny was playing goal for them was equally astounding. Perhaps Muck was on to something.
Travis began watching his fellow Owls more closely. He was scouting them, even though he knew the four players on the ice almost as well as he knew himself.
There was something different about Sam. He began to focus on her, watching her even when she wasn’t directly involved in the play, and it took him several minutes to realize what had changed.
Sam was running out of gas. She was gasping when the play left her. And she was coasting when she should have been skating.
It was as if she had no breath left.
Data found who he was looking for. The equipment manager was in charge of the California team, the Arrowhead Rangers. His name was Mr. Williamson–sort of a skinny Mr. Dillinger, with a full head of grey hair–and he was both very friendly and helpful.
“Funny you should bring that up,” the Arrowhead equipment manager said when Data got around to asking his one important question. “We had the same thing happen here. I do my morning check–I like to sharpen all the kids’ skates right away–and I pull out the bags and then restack them when I’m done. Same darned thing happened to us.”
“What do you mean?” Data asked.
Mr. Williamson studied his nails as he thought about it. “We had one too many bags. I figured one of the equipment guys from one of the other teams simply got mixed up and put it with our stuff. All those new tournament bags look exactly the same. So I just handed it back in.”
“To who?”
“The organizers. They seemed pretty darned glad to get it, too.”
“What number was it?”
“Huh?”
“The number–do you remember the number on the side?”
Mr. Williamson ran a hand through his thick hair. “Oh, that number. Yes, as a matter of fact I do, son.”
“And it was?”
“Number 17. And you know what? We don’t even have a 17 on the Rangers.”
Data nodded and scribbled down the number on his notepad.
A number the Rangers didn’t have. Just like the Panthers never had a number 44.
What did it all mean?
Travis could tell Fahd was starting to understand his new abilities in 3-on-3. With time running out on the Rangers, Fahd picked up the puck behind his own net, began coming out the left side, then twisted back to the right. The Rangers’ quickest player swept around the net, chasing.
Fahd seemed so cool it was almost as if he was moving in slow motion. He tapped the puck back against the boards and turned again, just as the checker flew by and slashed his stick. It didn’t even matter; the puck wasn’t on Fahd’s stick anyway.
He picked off his own pass and began to move up ice at such a leisurely pace it looked like he was on a public skating rink instead of in a high-pressure hockey tournament.
Andy slammed his stick hard, calling for a pass on the other side. A second Rangers checker tried to take the pass away, and went down on one knee as Fahd casually faked the pass to Andy. The checker lost his balance and twirled off into the boards.
Fahd kept the puck and moved directly to the net. He motioned as if to make a drop pass–the pass that was working so well for the Owls–and again a Rangers player went for it, lunging behind Fahd in the hopes of plucking the puck away from Sam, who was waiting to pick it up.
But again no pass. Fahd still had the puck, each of the Rangers now out of his zone and only the goaltender left. Fahd held on, waiting, moving slowly past the net until the Rangers’ goalie flopped and kicked high with his pads in desperation.
Just as Travis had done against the Panthers, Fahd kept the puck and slowed even more, waiting while the goaltender drifted helplessly out of his own net, and then backhanded the puck high under the crossbar.
The stands exploded in appreciation. Travis could feel Mr. Dillinger’s big hand pounding into his back. He could hear a wicked, high-pitched giggle as Nish pumped a fist for Fahd. He could see Sarah dancing with delight.
He felt good for Fahd. He felt, for a moment, as if he no longer knew Fahd. Fahd, the star of the game? Never before–but he sure was now.