Daniel Palmer - Helpless

“What I’m worried about, Sergeant Murphy, Craig, is the repercussions of false allegations.”

“If it’s a prank, Tom, we need to get to the bottom of it fast,” Powers said. “I’m here to reinforce the fact that we’re viewing this as a prank and only that. I’m here to protect you, Tom.”

Tom shook his head. “If you want to protect me and this team, you’ll put a stop to this right now.”

“You’re making a way bigger deal out of this than you should, Coach Hawkins,” Murphy said. “We won’t show the girls anything they shouldn’t see. The copies of the notes I brought have everything racy blacked out. Well, to be honest, the page is mostly black, but there’s still some stuff they might see that will help us ID the account creator.”

“Why don’t you just look at who made the damn account?”

“Gee, Coach, you’re a bit out of the know on how this technology stuff works,” Murphy said. Tom hadn’t been spoken to in that way since boot camp. “These kids make secret profiles all the time so they can bully each other online. Bogus email addresses. Fake profile pictures. Bottom line is we don’t know who made this Tumblr account. But we will soon enough.”

Tom clenched his hands. Murphy looked down and saw Tom’s tightly balled fists. He looked Tom in the eye and gave him a smile, as if to say, “Go ahead. Take your best shot.”

“I can’t tell you how much I’m against this, Craig.”

“Your objection is noted, Tom. But I’m following police advice here, and it’s not your authority to dictate how I run my athletic department. Sergeant Murphy has assured me this is the best way forward.”

“Forward into hell,” Tom wanted to say.

“Okay, call them together,” Murphy ordered.

Tom bowed his head, sighed, and blew his coach’s whistle.

The girls didn’t need another blast. They all came running.

Vern Kalinowski got the girls into a row, their toes touching the white line that marked the playing field’s boundaries. Sergeant Murphy stood beside Powers. Murphy had his hands on his hips and watched the girls as they lined up. He looked like a dog licking his chops in anticipation of a juicy bone. His juicy bones.

Tom marched over to where Powers stood. He believed he still had time to prevent the coming disaster. He wasn’t worried about himself as much as about Jill.

“You’re a minute away from making me an outcast in this town.”

Powers gave Tom his best “come on, now” look, which Tom wanted to rub off with his knuckles. “Let’s not blow this out of proportion, Coach. We have every confidence that we’ll find the prankster within this group here.”

“And if you don’t?”

“If we don’t, then we’ll keep digging.”

“And how do you expect me to coach these girls after this, Craig?”

“The same way you always do,” Powers said. “You stand strong. Once we figure out who’s responsible, the whole incident will blow over. Trust me on this.”

“And what about my daughter?” Tom lowered his voice and asked the question through clenched teeth.

“We thought about that, too,” Powers replied, also in a low, secretive voice. “We know you two haven’t had the easiest time adjusting, what with her mother’s death, the circumstances, and you moving back to Shilo and all. I don’t want to imply anything here, Tom, but, well…”

A thick vein on Tom’s neck, usually visible only when he was working out, began to pulse for another reason. Every muscle in his body felt tense—on fire. “Say it,” he demanded.

“It’s just one theory, but…”

“You think my daughter is behind this?”

Powers looked around, worried that someone might have overheard. “Consider the timing.”

The thought churned Tom’s stomach. His chest tightened while his mind explored the unfathomable. Could Jill have done it? No! That was impossible to believe, but… but what if she had somebody do it for her? But why? Revenge for all his perceived wrongdoings?

Is it possible she thinks I had something to do with her mother’s death? he wondered.

Tom rubbed his hands back and forth through his hair. He glanced over at Jill, who stood in line, stone-faced and still. Unlike him, not a bead of sweat glistened.

Powers called for the girls’ attention. Tom considered leaving the practice field altogether in protest but decided to stay. Murphy had it all figured out from the start—Tom Hawkins, stay or go, was about to be branded guilty of something.

“Hello, girls,” Powers began. “So, I bet you’re wondering why the gathering.”

There were murmurs. Some said, “Sure.” Most stayed silent.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. Somebody sent me a link to a Web blog on Tumblr.com,” Powers explained. “The page contains some very graphic content, with serious allegations pertaining to Coach Hawkins and one of you players. Now, we don’t believe these posts are authentic. If we did, Coach Hawkins would not be standing here with us while we confronted you all.”

The girls weren’t ignorant. They knew “graphic content” meant sex.

Tom looked up and down the line, studying his team carefully. He didn’t doubt that somebody had taken the trouble to create the salacious posts. The question on his mind—Powers’s and Murphy’s, too—was who and why.

Tom’s ability to read body language wasn’t helping at all. The girls were openly and obviously nervous: fidgeting with their shorts, bouncing on their heels, looking at the grass. If they were in on it as a group, perhaps they feared they’d all been busted. More likely, they were feeling anxious because some plus-sized cop was parading in front of them, wearing mirrored shades and doing his best O.K. Corral strut.

Tom caught Jill’s eye. She held her father’s gaze for a beat. A pained expression washed over her face seconds before she looked away, and that hurt Tom more than any prank ever could. The SEALs had taught him how to maintain control over his emotions. But it took every bit of his training to keep from shouting out to her, “Baby, don’t you believe it. Don’t you believe for one second I would ever do that!”

He mouthed the words to her, though.

“This is not a joke,” Powers continued. “Some of you may know Sergeant Murphy here from the D.A.R.E. program. Sergeant Murphy and I have discussed this situation in detail over the past several days, and we are in agreement that one or more of you girls know who created the account and wrote these posts.”

Murphy took that as his cue. “I’ve brought handouts with me,” he said. “Printouts from the blog. I’m going to pass them out to you, then collect them before we break. Anything inappropriate, we’ve blacked out with marker. Now, the reason I’m showing you this is because we want you to come forward with information about who created these posts. If you recognize something about the writing that can help us identify that person, well, great. That’s what we want to know. But as a team, you should be very aware that there are serious consequences for this sort of behavior. It can cost you a lot more than some embarrassment.”

Murphy walked the line and, as he did, handed each girl a piece of paper. The girls didn’t hesitate to read what they could. Widening eyes and dropping jaws made it clear to Tom that their imaginations were filling in what the black marks had taken out.

Vern moved in close to stand a whisper’s distance from Tom. His assistant coach made little effort to conceal his deep concern. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Vern, have you heard any of the girls talking about me?”

“Talking? About what?”