Rough Trade (7 page)

“Is that what that’s for?” I asked. “I thought it was a small still. The crowd out there looks like they would prefer gin. Who are all those people?”

“I don’t know most of them. I think they must be neighbors. Of course, Coach Bennato’s wife, Marie, was the first to arrive. She and their weird daughter, Debra, brought along a lovely tuna casserole. I don’t know when they even had time to make it. They must have cooked it in the car on the way over....”

“Well, put that thing away. You don’t have to entertain anybody today. Where’s Jeff?”

“He’s still down at the stadium. Harald Feiss called a couple of minutes ago and said that they’d be leaving soon.”

“So do they know what happened yet?”

“According to Harald, they think Beau either had a heart attack and fell down the stairs, or he fell down the stairs and had a heart attack. I guess at this point it doesn’t matter....” She began slowly winding the cord to the coffeepot into a careful bundle, a task that seemed to require all of her attention. “I know it sounds awful to be even thinking about money at a time like this,” she continued finally, in a small voice, “but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have any.”

“It’s not awful,” I assured her. “Under the circumstances it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“So what’s all this going to mean?”

“Financially? It’s hard to say without knowing what Beau’s testamentary plans were.”

“You mean like his will?”

“Yes, that and any irrevocable trusts he might have set up. Who handled his estate planning, do you know?”

“I’m sure it was Harald Feiss. He handled all of my father-in-law’s business and financial affairs.”

“I know that Beau relied on him heavily for advice,” I began, carefully, “and the last thing I want to do is put pressure on you and Jeff, but the two of you should probably decide fairly quickly how you feel about continuing that relationship.”

“We both think that Harald’s an ass,” said Chrissy simply. “If Beau had had someone who knew what they were doing advising him, he’d never have gotten into this mess in the first place.”

“Then you’re going to have to decide who you want acting on your behalf. I guarantee you that Harald is expecting to take charge of things, especially until after the funeral. He’ll see it as a kindness—”

“Will you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Help us.”

“Of course, I’ll help you,” I replied without hesitation. “But no matter what, handling Feiss is going to be a delicate business. Don’t forget your father-in-law wasn’t just his closest friend, but his most important professional connection. This has to be disastrous for him on every level. No matter what, you want to keep him on your side. Not only is he a minority shareholder in the team, but he’s the person who has the most intimate knowledge of Beau’s business affairs. To put it another way, he knows where all the bodies are buried.”

“Yes,” replied Chrissy, “but that’s only because he’s the one who buried them.”

In the end it was Coach Bennato not Harald Feiss who brought Jeff back from the stadium. They slipped into the house through the garage after having somehow managed to avoid the news crews who’d begun to congregate on the front lawn hoping to get footage of the still-arriving mourners, or better yet, the grieving family, to air during the five o’clock news. Both men had the empty, sheep-like ( look that I have come to associate with sudden grief. Pale-faced and shaken, even their tread was gingerly, as if in the aftermath of calamity they had suddenly lost their faith in everything including the ability of the floor to remain solid beneath their feet.

“You’d better take him upstairs and make him lie down,” said Bennato to Chrissy, a note of something very close to warning in his voice.

Chrissy nodded wordlessly and took her husband by the hand. Jeff, bewildered and completely undone by grief, was apparently in no condition to resist. Chrissy put her arm around her husband’s waist and, as if helping an invalid, led him from the room murmuring words of comfort and encouragement.

Coach Bennato, no stranger to Beau’s kitchen, immediately made for the liquor cabinet. As he opened the doors it was pretty clear that Beau Rendell would have never died from thirst. Bennato selected a bottle of Balvenie single malt Scotch from among the dozens of bottles and helped himself to a generous dose. Although legendary for his nerves of steel, as he poured his drink his hands shook badly, like an alcoholic in need of a drink or a temperate man suffering from shock. He knocked it back in a single shot and quickly poured himself another.

Now that we were alone I found it strange to see Coach Bennato in person. He was much bigger than I’d imagined from all the shots of him pacing up and down the sidelines. He also seemed older and, if anything, less genial. In person you could see that the wrinkles in his face were as deep as channels and that his knuckles, like his nose, bore the signs of having been broken more than once during his career as a player.

The man himself was a mass of contradictions. One local sportswriter who described him best said that Bennato had the face of a parish priest, the vocabulary of a sailor, and the temperament of Attila the Hun. Mercurial, methodical, and prone to sweeping fits of both rage and generosity, he had at some point in his long career been the winningest and losingest coach in the league. He’d been hated, loved, reviled, and carried off the field in triumph.

He was a cagey and complicated man. Born in Palermo, in either a tenement or a manger depending on who was telling the story, he immigrated to America with his parents when he was three. His father found work in the oilfields and he spent his childhood moving from one dusty wildcatting site to another along the Texas panhandle, proving himself with his fists in every new town.

Legend has it that it was a judge who ordered him to play football. Bennato was fourteen and had been hauled before him after one scrape or another and he’d been given the choice of working his aggression out on the gridiron or in juvenile hall. I had no idea whether the story was true. He played second string in college, spent an undistinguished season in the pros, and immediately went into coaching, landing a spot as an assistant to Joe Patemo in his first year at Penn State.

After three years at Penn State, Bennato returned to Texas and landed his first head coaching job. Apparently his fiery temper served him well, and after ten years as a head coach he had two national championships under his belt and a reputation for fashioning winning teams out of losers. Celebrated for his ability to turn green young men into effective gladiators as well as for giving rich boosters something to open up their wallets for, by all accounts he was on top of the world.

Then a second-string quarterback said something Bennato didn’t like, and Bennato grabbed him by the throat, an action that was only remarkable for the fact that it was captured on national TV. The very same people who stood up and cheered when the players knocked each other down and ground their opponents’ faces into the mud recoiled in horror at this display of violence. The boy’s family sued. The university, eager to avoid the publicity of a trial, pressured Bennato to avoid the courtroom at any cost. The ensuing settlement forced him into bankruptcy while the scandal sent him into obscurity—which is where he remained until four years later when Beau Rendell offered him a coaching job.

“Who are you?” demanded Bennato, setting down his glass and apparently realizing for the first time that he was not alone in Beau Rendell’s kitchen.

“Kate Millholland,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m a friend of Chrissy and Jeff’s.”

“Tony Bennato,” he said, taking my hand and giving it a rough tug. “If you’re a friend of Chrissy’s, then maybe you should be the one to go upstairs and give her this,” he continued, pulling out a business envelope bearing the Monarchs logo and handing it to me.

“What is it?” I demanded, lifting the flap and looking inside. It was full of small white tablets, dozens of them.

“Sleeping pills. The team doctor wants Jeff to take two of them now. The rest are for later.”

“He doesn’t need them,” I said, handing the envelope back to the coach.

“You don’t understand—” protested Bennato, refusing to take them back.

“Yes, I do,” I cut in. “Sleeping won’t help anything.” I knew what I was talking about. If I’d taken every sleeping pill that was pushed on me after Russell died, I would have been out longer than Sleeping Beauty.

“You’re not listening to me,” protested Coach impatiently. “He has to take them.”

“He’ll be fine now that he’s with Chrissy.”

“I’m not concerned about whether he’s fine or not,” snapped Bennato. “The cops are going to be here pretty soon, and when they show up, I think it’ll be better for everybody if Jeff’s sound asleep.”

“Why do you say that?” I demanded, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Let’s just say that things got a little out of hand at the stadium.”

“In what way?”

“I was in the front office when they found him. Beau said he wanted to see me about something so I left practice and went upstairs. When I got there the security guard had just found him.”

“Where was he?”

“Lying at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to his office. I guess the guard was making his normal rounds and literally stumbled upon him lying in the dark on the D concourse.”

“Dead?”

“Probably, but there was no way of knowing at the time! The security guard called the paramedics and I went and got the team doctor out of the training room.”

“Where was Jeff?”

“At first we couldn’t find him. We turned the place inside out, looking for him. It turns out he was in the john washing his hands.”

“So when did things get out of hand?” I asked.

“When we told him about what had happened to his father.”

“Why? How did he take it?”

“He went berserk,” replied Bennato with no attempt to conceal his distaste.

“What do you mean?”

“He ran downstairs to where the paramedics were working on Beau, yanked them off of him, and shoved them aside. Then he grabbed his father by the front of his shirt and started shaking him.”

“Maybe he was trying to revive him,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so,” replied Bennato, taking another sip of Scotch and rolling it around as if he was trying to wash away the bad taste in his mouth. “Not unless you think he was trying to wake him up by screaming, ‘You asshole! You asshole!’ ” at the top of his lungs.

* * *

I found Jeff in his old bedroom lying curled up on his side on the bottom bunk of his childhood bed. Chrissy knelt on the floor beside him, stroking his hair. The room itself was a time warp of purple and gold. There was shag carpeting on the floor and curling posters of Monarchs players gone by on the walls. I wondered when the last time was that he had crossed the threshold.

I was obviously less appalled by Jeff’s behavior at the stadium than Coach Bennato was. From my perspective, given the Rendells’ financial straits, it was as understandable as it was regrettable. Unfortunately, neither the paramedics nor the scores of front office personnel who must have witnessed the outburst had any idea of what had been behind it. They were probably on the phone right now peddling their eyewitness accounts to the tabloids.

However, it did raise another issue, one that hadn’t occurred to me until I spoke to the Monarchs coach, and that was what, if anything, to tell the police about the team’s financial situation. The police conduct a routine investigation of every unattended death, and in the case of someone as prominent as Beau Rendell they would go out of their way to make sure that every
i
was dotted and every
t
was crossed. They were sure to have questions about what had prompted Jeff Rendell’s outburst over his father’s body, and they would be expecting answers.

Even though the door was open, I knocked softly on the doorframe. Jeff did not seem to hear, but Chrissy looked up, her eyes wide with distress.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said. “But I need to talk to you guys for a minute.”

“What is it?” asked Chrissy in a whisper.

“I need to ask Jeff whether he talked to the police at all while he was still down at the stadium.”

Jeff shook his head.

“What would the police want with Jeff?” inquiried Chrissy.

“They’re going to want to talk to everyone who was anywhere near Beau before he died. They have to try am piece together what must have happened by talking to anyone who was at the stadium this morning.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” said Jeff, practically in a whimper.

“I don’t think you should,” I replied. “At least, not until we’ve worked out what to tell them about what’s happening with the team and the bank.”

“Oh, god, I never thought about that,” gasped Chrissy. “If you tell the police about it, you might as well put the whole thing up on billboards. Someone will leak it.”

“That’s why I agree with Coach Bennato. It’s best if Jeff doesn’t talk to the police right now. Let them find out more about how Beau died. The more they know, the fewer questions they’ll have left. I guess the team doctor prescribed some sleeping pills for Jeff,” I ventured, opening the envelope, taking out two of the pills, and handing the envelope to Chrissy. “I think it’s best if you hold on to these,” I said. It didn’t seem like a particularly good idea to give handfuls of barbiturates to someone in Jeff’s frame: of mind.

Jeff propped himself up on one elbow. “Why don’t you get me a glass of water so I can take these things?” he asked his wife.

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” she replied, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead before getting to her feet to fetch it.

Jeff waited until she was out of the room before he spoke, and then it was in an urgent whisper.

“Did Bennato tell you how I acted when they told me what happened to my dad?” he asked miserably.

“You went into shock,” I replied.

“I went insane.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”