J. Jance - Deadly Stakes

In Sunday school he found out that the Virgin Mary was Baby Jesus’ mother, but Joseph wasn’t exactly His father. Somebody called the Holy Spirit was. For a while A.J. thought that might be the case with him, too. Maybe his father was some kind of ghost, and that’s why no one could see him and why there weren’t any pictures of him.

By then he had a friend, a kid named Andrew who lived down the street. He didn’t have a daddy, either. Andrew said that was because his parents were divorced, but he had a picture of his father that he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. A.J. wished with all his heart that he had a picture in his drawer, too. Not that he didn’t love his mommy, but he had this feeling that something important was missing from his life, and he wanted it with all his heart.

By the time A.J. was in third grade, he had sorted out that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy weren’t real, and he was pretty sure there was no such thing as a Holy Ghost, either, at least not as far as he was concerned. Besides, he was almost nine and other possibilities had arisen that were both more interesting and more ominous.

Andrew maintained that A.J.’s father was dead, while Domingo, who lived down the block and was a year older than A.J. and Andrew, suggested that perhaps A.J.’s father, like Domingo’s uncle, had been shipped off to prison.

“When Uncle Joaquin went to prison,” Dommy explained, “my grandmother took his picture off the wall in the living room, threw it in the garbage, and said he was no longer her son.”

That simple statement had caused a knot of worry to grow in the pit of A.J.’s stomach. Maybe something similar had happened to his father. Maybe A.J. had done something wrong and his father had decided that he no longer wanted a son.

By fourth grade, A.J. was a genuine latchkey kid with his own house key and two hours to fill after he got home from school and before his mom came home from work. Some kids might have gotten into trouble. A.J. didn’t because he didn’t have time. He was far too busy. His mother made sure he went out for tee ball and Little League, for soccer and Pop Warner football. When it came to football, A.J.’s mother was the only mother who knew enough about the game to be one of the coaches rather than just sitting in the bleachers on the sidelines.

For most of his after-school activities, A.J. was able to make it to practices on his bicycle. For games that were farther away, his mother managed to organize complicated car-pool arrangements. On weekends when the dental office where Sylvia worked as a receptionist was closed, she did a lot of the driving to make up for what she couldn’t do during the week. During the summers, there were day camps and swimming lessons at the YMCA, along with two weeks of camp with the Boy Scouts, usually somewhere in the White Mountains.

So most of the time, A.J. was too busy with sports and school to spend much time getting into trouble or thinking about what he was missing. By the time he hit high school, he’d come face-to-face with the reality that, although he had participated in any number of sports, he wasn’t outstanding at any of them. He would never be big enough or strong enough to make a name for himself as a football player. He wasn’t tall enough for basketball or fast enough for soccer. As for swimming? Forget it.

With only a high school diploma and a certificate from a business school, his mother had made enough to scrape by and keep a roof over their heads, but there wasn’t much room in her budget for extras. From an early age, Sylvia Sanders made it clear to her son that he would need a college degree and that college didn’t come cheap. Since an athletic scholarship was out of the question, an academic one was the only possibility. That made keeping his grades up essential. His mother also made it clear that while they were saving for college tuition, his having a car at his disposal was a no-brainer.

“It’s not just the expense of buying a car,” Sylvia had explained when he brought up the subject two weeks before his sixteenth birthday. “The cost of having an inexperienced driver would send my insurance premiums through the roof. Add to that gas and upkeep, and you have a major expense-more than what you’re making stocking shelves for Madeline. Your legs work. Your bike works. Use ’em.”

A.J. grumbled about it, but that was the end of the discussion until a week later. It was almost time for his shift to start. He had ridden from school to the store and was in the process of locking up his bike when a man who was standing nearby, smoking a cigarette, spoke to him. “Hey, kid,” he said. “Aren’t you a little old to be riding a bike?”

A.J. felt a hot flush of anger. He was tempted to lip off at the guy. What business was it of his what mode of transportation A.J. used? Then he noticed the plastic bag sitting on the sidewalk at the guy’s feet. The Walgreens logo was clearly visible, and that meant he was a paying customer. Being rude to customers was something Madeline didn’t tolerate in her employees-not at all.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” A.J. muttered.

He started to shoulder his way past the guy and go inside, but the man with the cigarette wasn’t done with him. He dropped the still-smoking butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with the sole of his shoe.

A.J. wanted to say something to him about not using the sidewalk as an ashtray. After all, he’d be the one who would have to come out later with a broom to clean up the mess.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like your old man?” the man asked.

A.J. stopped in midstride. “You knew my father?” he demanded.

The guy grinned at him. “What’s the matter? Do you think I’m dead? Is that what your mother told you?”

For a long moment, A.J. was too shocked to speak. He looked the man full in the face, and then he saw it The resemblance to his own face was right there, especially in the eyes. All the things he had wondered about over the years-the questions he had long ago given up asking his mother-went roiling around in his head. He knew his father’s name. One day while his mother was at work, he had gone searching through the strongbox she kept on the top shelf of her closet. There he had found his birth certificate. On it, A.J.’s father was listed as James Mason Sanders. A.J. had tried Googling the name several times, using Andrew’s computer. He had found someone with that name who had gone to prison on charges of counterfeiting back in the mid-nineties, but he hadn’t been able to ascertain if that James Sanders was his father or even if his father was still alive. Now, to A.J.’s amazement, the man was not only alive, he was standing right there, laughing at him.

“She didn’t say you were dead,” A.J. said when he found his voice. “She said you were unreliable.”

Busy lighting another cigarette, James Sanders let loose in a burst of laughter that ended in a fit of coughing. “Unreliable,” he said, grinning. “She got that right, didn’t she!”

“What do you want?” A.J. asked.

“Wanted to see you, is all,” James said. “Wanted to know a little about you. Have you worked here long?” He nodded toward the store entrance.

“Three months,” A.J. said. “One of Mom’s friends is the manager.”

“That would be Bethany, maybe? Bethany Cole?”

A.J. shook his head. “Her name’s Ms. Wurth.”

“Oh,” James said, nodding. “That would be Maddy. She and Bethany and your mother were always great pals. Called themselves the Three Musketeers.”

A.J. glanced at his watch. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got to clock in.”

“Sure,” James said. “Go ahead. It might be best if you didn’t mention me to your mother-at least not yet. But about that bike. Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting yourself something with four wheels? Do you even have a license?”