When I arrived at practice the next day, Kline was surveying the rugby pitch, fists on hips like a taller, dumber Napoleon. He was mad, and not without cause—their record stood so far at a predictable 0–7.
“We’re starting in ten! Look alive!” he shouted. It was true, the team did seem dead. Our fly-half was actually sleeping, on his side, at midfield. Larson, our eight-man, trotted by and kicked him in the small of the back. Without a flicker of interest, Coach Q looked up from his director’s chair and then back down at his copy of Men’s Health.
“We’re down to fourteen players, so many students have gone home. I don’t think the school would’ve let you back on if that wasn’t the case.” Kline looked me over. “So, have you been staying in shape?”
“Running five miles every day,” I lied. “But I’ll do whatever. I’m happy to be back on the team.” Another lie, delivered smoothly. I’d been practicing. “Where’s Randall? I haven’t talked to him since Elizabeth . . . you know . . . and I wanted to make sure we were on decent terms.”
Kline pointed. “He’s getting ready to drill with the backs. If you want to talk to him, make it quick.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “We’re starting in five!”
When I caught up with him, Randall was even redder-faced than usual. I wasn’t sure if it was from exertion or anger.
“Oh hey, the jackass is back,” he said, shoving past me on his way to the bench.
A bit of both, then.
“Randall, wait.” He slowed down slightly and I pulled up even. “Look. I wanted to say I’m sorry about Dobson. I didn’t know him that well, but I know he was your friend.”
“You have some issues, dude. That was fucked up. Going after him for saying what’s on his mind? He was just messing, and you jumped on him. Then he shows up dead. Fucked up,” he repeated, and dug his water bottle out from his bag.
I counted backward from five. “Charlotte Holmes is like my sister. Okay? He said the absolute worst thing he could have said. But I didn’t kill him, I promise that.”
“Then why do the police keep hauling you in? Why were you the one who found Elizabeth?”
“Wrong place, wrong time,” I said.
“Bullshit,” he countered. “I’ve seen that detective with you like a million times. You got hauled down to the station after Lizzie got hurt. Why does he suspect you, if you’re so innocent?”
“Same reason why you would, if you were them.” The words came out bitterly. That fear of winding up in an orange jumpsuit hadn’t entirely gone away—a bit of it lingered at the edges of everything I did, really—and I pulled from the truth of that feeling, laid it under my words.
Randall eyed me. “I don’t know, man.”
“Think what you want,” I told him. “But you should know I feel like shit about all of it. I’ve heard all these rumors that Dobson hung himself, and I can’t sleep, thinking I somehow drove him to it.”
A lie, of course, but I was baiting my trap. Holmes taught me that: people would much rather correct you than answer a straightforward question. Randall wasn’t an exception to the rule.
“Dude, you weren’t that important to him,” he said. “No, I heard that he was poisoned. I don’t know which one’s true.”
“Poisoned? From the dining hall food?”
“Maybe.” Randall shrugged. “But other people would probably be sick then too. I don’t know, he’d been eating these cookies his sister sent him, and they looked nasty. Maybe it was in those. Or that weird protein powder he had. That stuff was the wrong color. He said it was from Germany and expensive, but I didn’t buy it. Maybe your little friend slipped something into it.”
“Out on the pitch,” Kline hollered.
“All right,” Randall said, “later.” The venom was gone from his voice. I was happy about that, at least.
“You good?” Kline asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, so, he said something about protein powder? Do you . . . do you know a good brand?” I bent to lace a cleat so he couldn’t see my face. I wasn’t sure I could pull that one off: I wore cable-knit jumpers and read Vonnegut novels and had a girl for a best friend. I was about as likely to build up giant biceps as to build a colony on the moon.
“Talk to Nurse Bryony at the infirmary,” he said. “She has some prescription stuff she gets from Europe.”
I reached in my bag, ostensibly for my water bottle, and sent Holmes an urgent text. I just hoped her phone was on this time, and not pickled in formaldehyde or in pieces across her chemistry table.
Practice crawled by at a snail’s pace, especially once we began running plays. When Kline announced the last of them, I gritted my teeth and waited for my opportunity. Then I threw myself up for a catch in the most insane possible position, sprawling out like a diver going into water. I let myself go limp. My head bounced once, twice, three times against the frozen ground.
No one could say I wasn’t dedicated to my game.
I heard Kline holler, “That’s it! Watson! Watson!” and the rest of the team roaring.