There wasn’t an honest bone in Buzz Bixby’s body. The Encino High School’s head football coach was an equal-opportunity scoundrel. Bixby cheated and lied his way to the top and screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t? Student reporter Hannah White’s interview with the coach is a nonstarter when she discovers varsity football hero Dean Snyder standing over Bixby’s battered corpse holding a bloody trophy. Despite how guilty Dean looks, Hannah is convinced he’s innocent. When Snyder is arrested for Bixby’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out how Hannah thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Logic said to either run for help or to run for my life, but a combination of fear— if Dean did it, now discovered, would he kill me too— and the curiosity to learn the answer kept my feet frozen to the spot inside the doorframe.
Dean’s body shook like a leaf in a rainstorm as he stared at the bloody trophy in his hand as though he just discovered it. Either Dean was doing an Academy Award-worthy acting job for my benefit or he was even more terrified than me. Flip a coin.
A reporter has to make snap judgments. Is it the same as trusting your gut?
Dad’s voice whispered inside my head. “Trust your gut.”
I guess the answer to my question is yes…
“Dean,” I spoke his name in the same soothing tone you do to a frightened animal.
He looked up at my voice, surprised to hear his name called. His eyes filled. “It’s not what you think.”
Fairly confident Dean had no plan to smash my head to smithereens with the trophy, I took a few tentative steps into the office.
I dipped my head towards the trophy still in his grasp. “Okay. Then what is it?”
Dean’s voice quivered. “After practice, I came here to talk to the coach.”
“About what?”
“To convince him to give me the starting position.”
The train has already left the station so, in my book, a big waste of time. Just sayin’.
I pursed my lips. “The word around campus is Bixby was a lame duck with no say in anything anymore.”
Dean scowled. “He still had a lot of sway with Coach Bender. Bixby could convince Coach Bender to make the change if he wanted to.”
“Why would he?”
Dean huffed with righteous indignation. “To do the right thing. Because I earned the spot and he knew it.”
For Donna’s sake, I gave it my best shot to believe him. But Dean’s story had more holes than a dozen glazed donuts.
I framed my hands like a movie director. “So, maybe this happened? You met with him. No matter how much you pleaded, Bixby still refused your request. You got angry. You never meant for it to happen, but things went way out of control.” I pointed to the trophy. “You grabbed the trophy off the shelf behind the Coach’s desk and in a fit of rage, you hit him with it on the back of his head.”
Dean yelped, “No! I never got the chance to talk to him.” Dean waved the trophy at Bixby’s torso scrawled across the desk. “I walked into the office and found him slumped over the desk with the back of his head bashed in.”
“How long have you been here?”
Dean scrunched his eyes closed. “Ten minutes. Maybe less. I-I’m not sure.”
“Besides the trophy, you move anything else?”
He shook his head.
“Where was the trophy?”
Dean pointed to the carpet under the coach’s desk. “On the floor next to the coach’s desk. I tripped over it when I stood next to him.”
“What on Earth ever made you pick it up?”
Dean shrugged.
“So, other than pick up the trophy for some idiotic reason, did you do anything else?”
He made a sour face.
I peppered him with questions. “Call 911? Try to help him? Check his pulse? Perform CPR? Anything?”
Dean hung his head. “No.”
My jaw dropped. “What the heck is the matter with you?”
He bunched his shoulders.
“ If you’d at least called 911 he had a chance of being saved.”
He pointed the trophy at the corpse. “Is he dead?”
It’s not as though I’m an expert on the subject. The only dead body I’ve ever seen in person was Cindy Butler’s Grandma Ethel’s at the old lady’s funeral last June.
Dean bent over to examine the coach’s crumpled body. “I’ve never been around a dead body before. How do you tell?”
Good gravy. The back of the guy’s head is smashed in like roadkill. How much more proof do you need?
I rolled my eyes. “Well, since he hasn’t so much as twitched since I got here, I’d say it’s a safe bet the next game Bixby coaches is gonna be played in the stadium located at the Great Beyond.”
I used my shirt sleeve to pick up the phone receiver.
Dean gulped. “Who are you calling?”
Is this guy for real?
“Donofrio’s Pizzeria. Dead bodies give me the munchies.” I smacked his forehead with the heel of my hand. “For crying out loud, Dean! Who do you think I’m calling? The police!” I tsked, “Something anyone with a brain does the minute Bixby’s body is discovered.”
Dean whined as cranky as a toddler who needed a nap. “Why? No one knows we’re here. Can’t we just leave and let somebody else call the cops?”
I gritted my teeth. “Because it is against the law to leave the scene of a crime.”
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