Authors: Gini Hartzmark
“Got to keep up my strength,” he whispered confidentially. “The team nutritionist has me on a ten-thousand-calorie-a-day diet.”
The secretary came back on the line and told me that regrettably Mr. Gorman was in a meeting. I told her that it was an emergency and left the number at Chrissy’s house as well as Jake’s cell phone number.
“You know you’re wrong,” said Jake, judiciously cleaning the gravy from his plate with a piece of rye bread. “Wrong about what?”
“Violence.”
“In what way?” I asked, curious to see what a man who makes millions of dollars trying to knock his opponents unconscious had to say on the subject.
“Violence is not all the same.”
“I agree. What I said was a generalization. Sometimes violence is necessary—in war, for example, or self-defense.”
“It’s more than that,” he declared. “There’s a place for violence. It’s okay when it’s in its place.”
“You mean the football field.”
“That’s one place.”
“What about what Fredericks did to that girl?”
“As far as I’m concerned he got what he deserved. Same thing with Coach when he choked that kid. That wasn’t part of the game and he got called on it.”
“Who did Coach choke?” I demanded, feeling the stirrings of something very much like fear in the pit of my stomach.
“Some kid back when he coached in Texas. A player. They fired him for it and he was banned from college ball for life. When Beau Rendell hired him I think he was working selling Chryslers.”
“Tell me,” I said, rising quickly to my feet and throwing down a couple of bills to cover my lunch, “do you remember what Coach Bennato’s wife’s name is?”
“Marie. Why do you ask?”
“And what about his daughter?”
“His daughter? I don’t know. She’s got some plain-assed name, I can’t remember. Bonnie, or Debbie or something boring like that.”
“Listen,” I said urgently. “I have to go. But I also have to talk to this agent Gorman. If he calls you, I want you to try to reach me.” I grabbed a pen that had been left behind by some autograph hunter and scribbled down the number.
“Where are you going?” he asked, surprised at my abrupt departure.
“I’ve got to get to Chrissy Rendell’s house. It’s a matter of life and death.”
I couldn’t believe I had been that stupid. It wasn’t Feiss who was behind Debmar, it was Bennato. It was Bennato who owned the land. It was Bennato who’d waited patiently for Beau Rendell to make good on his promise to make him rich. Bennato who’d lost his temper and confronted Beau. Bennato who’d reached up in a fit of temper and choked the object of his displeasure just as he had on the sidelines so many years ago.
Bennato hadn’t meant to kill Beau, but once he had, he’d done everything within his power to throw suspicion on Jeff. The sleeping pills, the whispered hints about dark secrets at the wake, the assurances that the police would get nothing out of him—all the while fitting Jeff for the noose.
Jeff had signed his own death warrant when he’d angrily told Feiss that all the obligations that his father had made were canceled. He was a dead man just as soon as he’d announced he was moving the team.
Bennato was in a position to set the fire that brought Jack back to Milwaukee. He’d probably been whispering his suspicions about Jack and Chrissy in Jeff’s ear from the minute he killed Jeff’s father. It has been said that football was nothing if not a violent game of chess. Bennato had spent his entire career planning strategy and coolly moving men across the playing field. A master of a violent game, he’d been playing Jeff, Chrissy, and the police from the first move.
As I pulled into the driveway I felt the first wave of misgiving when I realized that there was no security guard on the street. I told myself that he might be making a tour of the property or taking a bathroom break. Otherwise, everything looked exactly as I’d left it that morning, a peaceful house on a quiet suburban street.
I parked the Jaguar behind the Volvo in front of the house and walked around to the side door under the porte cochere because I knew that’s where Chrissy kept the key hidden. I lifted the mat, unlocked the door and returned the key to its place, and let myself in. The house not only seemed quiet but felt empty. I felt a shiver of dread and told myself that I was imagining things.
I went off in search of Chrissy. Finding the first floor deserted, I made my way upstairs, expecting to find her still asleep. Her bedroom door was ajar, but when I stuck my head in, I found it empty. The bed was still unmade and there were clothes on the floor. I noticed that the light was on in her bathroom and the door was open.
“Chrissy?” I called out. “I’m back.” There was no answer.
I looked inside the bathroom. The floor was wet and the air was still humid from the shower. Makeup was spread out all over the counter, scattered not just next to the sink but in it. Several compacts had apparently been knocked on the floor, and I noticed that the rug was askew. But what really made my mouth go dry was the Milwaukee Monarchs’ envelope that lay open on the counter. I quickly took a look inside. Where it had once contained dozens of pills it was now empty.
I ran through the house, calling her name, desperate to find her. Terrified, I told myself to get a grip. I was not just letting my imagination run away from me, but hypothesizing ahead of the facts. I hadn’t even looked to see whether the car was still in the garage. For all I knew, she’d poured the pills down the sink and run out to get a cup of coffee while I was charging around getting ready to dial the suicide hot line.
I walked through the kitchen and opened the door that led from the house into the garage. I immediately knew that there was something wrong. The overhead garage door was closed, but the engine of Jeff’s Lexus was running and the air was thick with exhaust. I fumbled in the dark for the switch to open the garage door, feeling the door to the house snap closed behind me as I worked my way along the wall, groping for the switch. I found it and immediately heard the garage door spring to life and begin to lift.
However, it had not risen more than six inches before it changed directions and closed again.
Panicked and beginning to cough, I hit the button again. The same thing happened, only this time the door opened only a fraction of an inch before reversing itself and moving down. Frantic, I groped for the doorknob to go back into the house, but was horrified to discover that it would not turn.
“Think,” I told myself.
That’s when I remembered that all automatic garage door openers were required to have a manual override. The one on my parents’ garage door looked like a small red handle on a rope that hung from the chain that controlled the door. Gasping and dizzy, I plunged into the garage, half climbed up the hood of the Lexus, and flailed in the general direction of the ceiling until my hand hit something that felt like string. I pulled as hard as I could and felt the mechanism release.
Then I slid down the passenger side of the Lexus and raced toward the entrance to the garage, scrabbling in the dark for the handle that I knew must be centered near the ground. I found it and I heaved, raising the door and letting in a tide of cold, clean air.
Bent over and coughing uncontrollably, I forced myself back into the interior of the garage, frantic to get Chrissy out of the car. I made my way to the driver’s side of the Lexus. With the light from the open garage door I could now see Chrissy slumped over the steering wheel. Feeling nauseous with fear, I yanked open the handle, sobbing in frustration to find that it was locked. I ran around the back of the car to the other side, noting that the exhaust pipe had been neatly covered over with duct tape. I tried the passenger door, too. It was locked, as well.
I raced to the back of the car and clawed desperately at the tape until I was finally able to pull it off only to receive a lungful of exhaust for my trouble. I briefly contemplated going back into the house to look for an extra car key but immediately discarded the idea.
I had no time.
Instead, I looked frantically around Chrissy’s immaculate garage, searching for something to use to break the windows. Unfortunately, it was not the usual repository of tools or garden supplies, but rather a yuppie car hotel. There were no rakes or shovels, instead a truckload of landscapers arrived for the yard’s weekly manicure and departed again when they were finished, taking their tools with them. I opened cupboards and looked on shelves, searching for a hammer or a brick. Instead I found neatly labeled storage boxes containing flower-arranging supplies and bundles of old clothes labeled for the Salvation Army.
Finally, I spotted Jeff’s golf clubs in the comer, each in its own furry shroud. I grabbed the first one that came to hand, ripped off the ridiculous cover, and swinging it like an ax, brought it down with all my strength on the windshield of the Lexus. I felt the shock of the impact reverberate up my arms, but the window remained intact and Chrissy did not stir. I continued beating against the glass, shouting with frustration. Suddenly the windshield gave way all of a piece and came raining down on Chrissy in a glittering hail of broken glass.
Immediately, I dropped the club and reached back through the shattered windshield to unlock the door. Then I opened the driver’s door and reaching across the body of my unconscious friend I switched off the ignition. Without stopping to think about her still-wet hair or the fact that she was dressed in only a T-shirt and a pair of lace panties, I grabbed her by her shoulders and dragged her from the car and laid her down on the driveway. I pushed the wet hair off of her face and noticed with relief that she was still breathing. I examined her face carefully, struck by something and hard-pressed to decide what it was.
I looked again, closely. There was no doubt about it; there was something funny about her lips. She’d applied her foundation and her lipliner, but that was all. She had not yet begun to fill them in with lipstick. Chrissy Rendell had not tried to commit suicide. No one as disciplined about her appearance as she was would elect to kill herself halfway through her makeup routine. What I was seeing, like Beau’s crumpled body at the bottom of the stairs, was a carefully staged scene.
I stood up and immediately saw Bennato coming at us slowly. He had a gun in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other. I suddenly realized that I felt no satisfaction in having been right.
All I felt was fear.
CHAPTER 27
“What a shame about the Rendells,” Bennato said, gesturing with the gun for me to step away from Chrissy. “They seem to be dropping like flies.”
“Let me see if I get how you mean this to play out,” I replied, moving slowly, unable to take my eyes off the hole at the end of that gray barrel. “Jeff, thinking that he’s going to find his wife in bed with Jack McWhorter, stumbles upon a homicidal burglar instead. Then, distraught, his wife takes an overdose of pills and tries to take a ride to oblivion.”
“Oh, she’ll do better than try,” he assured me.
“How did you get her to take the sleeping pills?” I asked.
“How does a man with a gun get anyone to do anything?” he replied coolly, waving me back into the house.
“Luckily for you Jeff remembered his father’s gun in the drawer and shot Fredericks,” I pointed out. For some reason the talking seemed to help keep me calm. As long as I was talking I was breathing.
“Fredericks would never have talked. Still, you know what they say. It’s better to be lucky than good.”
“You’re right. This way is less messy. All the loose ends tied up.”
Even with Bennato’s gun trained on me I made my way into the house as slowly as I could. The farther I got from Chrissy the more helpless I felt. Even though I was face to face with an armed man who had already killed twice, so far my fear was all for Chrissy.
Once I got to the middle of the kitchen, Bennato motioned for me to stop. I looked around the room and tried to assess my options. I was quite a distance from the stairs, the door, or the garage. Coach Bennato stood between me and the door into the rest of the house. The telephone was at his back.
“All the loose ends tied up except for you,” he informed me with an elaborate sigh.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “Right now the evidence tells your story. It’s doubtful they’d even have enough to arrest you, and if they did, with a good lawyer you’ll walk,” I assured him, trying to sound lawyerlike and reasonable.
“Oh, I think it’ll tell the story I want even after I shoot you,” he replied.
Normally threats like that are easy to speak, harder to honor. But Coach Bennato had already proved himself a killer. I had called it right. I was just another loose end that needed cleaning up.
My breath started coming in shallow, rapid little gasps that didn’t seem to be doing a particularly good job of getting oxygen to my brain. My thoughts ran wildly from one subject to another. I found myself wondering whether it would hurt when the bullets hit me, whether Chrissy had inhaled enough carbon monoxide to cause brain damage, how long it would take her to develop hypothermia lying in her underwear on the driveway, and how many bullets were in the efficient-looking automatic whose barrel I was staring down.
I watched with a sense of horrible fascination as Coach Bennato’s thumb traveled and came to rest on the hammer of the gun. It was a small gesture, less than a quarter of an inch. But if it’s true that all acts of violence are committed twice-—once in intent and the second time in action—I knew that I had just come a great deal closer to dying.
And then everything seemed to slow down. For the first time I knew that I was experiencing real fear. Not the fear of high places or the fear that comes with being alone in the dark. The kind of fear that is born from a thousand years of inbred instinct. The kind of fear that tells you what to do if you want to stay alive. Real fear will sometimes tell you to play dead or to stop breathing, tell you whether to run or stay and fight. What it told me was that there was no way out of that kitchen that didn’t involve getting shot. For some reason I accepted this dispassionately—a fact.