J Rain: Dark horse

“Was Derrick the only African-American in school?”

“No. There are three others. The papers were incorrect.”

“Was he a good student?”

“Exceptional. He carried a 4.0 GPA. Was on his way to USC for a full football scholarship. The world was his oyster.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t call USC an oyster, Mrs. Williams. Maybe a parasitic tiger mussel that’s currently infesting the Great Lakes.”

“Nice imagery. UCLA fan?”

“And their best fullback.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I can see that. You are a big boy.”

“Was Derrick capable of killing?” I asked.

She spread her hands flat on the desk and smiled at me. “Derrick was strong and excelled at a violent sport. Physically he could have done it. If you are inquiring about his psyche, you are barking up the wrong tree. Derrick and I rarely crossed paths. He kept his nose clean, as my father would say.”

“And being in charge of discipline, you would know.”

“I would.”

“Can you tell me anything about Amanda?”

“She was more trouble. But petty stuff, really. Nothing serious.”

“Like what?”

“Skipping class, smoking on school grounds.”

“She and Derrick an item?”

“Yes. The whole school knew that. He was our star athlete.”

“And black in a nearly all-white school. Did he ever have any problems with racism?”

“As far as I knew, he was wildly popular among his fellow class mates.”

“Amanda was in the school band?”

She paused, then shrugged. “I do not know. Maybe.”

“I was told she quit. Any reason why?”

“Refer to my prior comment.”

I didn’t like the answer. Mrs. Williams probably had access to Amanda’s file, and certainly would have read it since the murder. Band membership would have been in the official records.

“And Knighthorse,” she said, “I am definitely not the kind of principal you wish you had in high school. Students are never, ever pleased to be sitting where you are now.”

I smiled. “I’m not a student. And it’s not a bad view from here, Mrs. Williams.”

Most women would have blushed. She did not.

I left her office.

The campus was sprawling and clean. The hallways were lined with yellow lockers. Most sported combination locks, although a few were padded with locks of considerable fortitude. These were blocks of titanium padlock perfection that were engineered to protect far more important things than school books and pencils.

My footsteps echoed along the now-empty hallway. Just a half hour earlier it had been filled to overflowing with students. Within these hallowed lockered halls, plans for parties had been made, drug deals had gone down, students had been harassed, asses pinched and thoughts of teenage suicide pondered.

In the police report, Derrick claimed to have been working out at the school gym at the time of the murder. He had no alibi. His football coach often left him alone with the keys, trusting Derrick. It was against school rules, but Derrick had proven himself to be reliable, and after all he was the star athlete. The coach probably loved him like a son.

The coach was the last to see Derrick. That had been at 5:45 p.m. on the evening of the murder. The coroner’s report placed the time of murder at 7:00 p.m. According to the arrest report, the detectives figured Derrick left the school weight room shortly after the coach had left and proceeded to ambush the girlfriend he loved and slaughtered her in front of her home. His vehicle had no trace of her blood. There were no wounds on Derrick’s hands or arms. Other than the murder weapon found in his backseat there was nothing to link him to the murder.

The murder weapon was enough.

Had he not blundered and forgotten about the murder weapon, Derrick would have pulled off one amazingly clean murder. I’ve now had a chance to see the crime scene photos. The murder was definitely not clean.

Derrick, of course, claimed he was at the school weight room until 7:30 p.m. that night, like he was every night. A routine that anyone could have caught onto and used against him.

No one believed Derrick’s story. Except his defense attorney Charlie Brown, although he was being paid handsomely to believe his story.

And me. But I was not being handsomely paid. I hate it when that happens.

I moved beyond the hallway, beyond the brick walled central quad, beyond what was probably the school cafeteria, beyond the gym, and toward the athletic department.

It was spring, and so there was no football to be practiced, which was why Derrick had been lifting weights after school, rather than working out with his team. Instead, it was baseball and track season. Beyond a chain-linked fence I could see a varsity baseball game getting under way. Parents and some students filled the small bleachers. To the north of the baseball field was a track field, and it was a beehive of activity. I watched a young girl sprint for about thirty yards and leap through the air, landing gracelessly in a cloud of dirt. She dusted herself off, and then headed back for another leap.

I followed a paved pathway, bigger than a sidewalk, but not big enough to be called a road. The pathway skirted the softball field and headed toward a group of buildings lined with doors. One of the doors was open, and inside I could see shining new gym equipment.

My old high school did not have shining new gym equipment. It had well-used and badly damaged gym equipment. In fact, we just had free weights and a few squat racks, come to think of it.

But it had been enough, if used correctly and religiously. Both of which I had done.

I stepped into the doorway and peaked in, almost expecting to see a membership desk. What a spread. Gleaming chrome equipment covered the entire room. Mirrors were everywhere. Techno rock pumped through loud speakers situated in every corner. Boys and a handful of girls were in there, all taking their workouts very seriously. I was completely ignored. In fact, there seemed to be a melancholy mood to the place, despite the rhythmic pounding of the dance music.

I spied some offices in the back and headed that way, passing two kids lifting an impressive amount on the bench. I calculated the weight. They were benching almost three hundred pounds.

Not bad for a kid.

I came to the first office and knew I had hit the jackpot. The sign on the closed door said Coach.

Only the egocentricity of a football coach, in an entire department of other coaches, went by Coach alone.

I knocked on the closed door. Doing so, the door creaked open, and immediately I sensed something wrong. Very wrong.

Coach was a big man, and from what I could tell he had taken a bullet to the side of the head. Blood and brain matter sprayed the east side of his office. A revolver was still in his hands. The blood had not congealed, and was dripping steadily from the wound in his open head. His eyes were wide with the shock and horror of what he had done to himself.

Music thumped loudly into the office.

No one had even heard the shot.

Sanchez and I were working out at a 24 Hour Fitness in Huntington Beach. It was mid-day, and the gym was quiet. I had worked up a hell of a sweat, and was dripping all over the place. Sanchez didn’t sweat; at least not like a real man. And I let him know it again.

“I save the sweating for the bedroom,” he said, finishing off his third and final set of military presses. “Women like that.”

“You married your high school sweetheart. You don’t know shit about what women want.”

“Fine,” he said, wiping down the machine. “Danielle likes it when I sweat. Shows her I take my lovemaking seriously. Besides, Danielle is a lot of woman.”