The Mystery of Jessica Benson (15 page)

It’s all good
, Kyle thought to himself. He was buoyed by
the crowd’s thunderous response and overwhelmed by the
support. “Hit the Road Jack” blared from the speakers,
ricocheting throughout the stadium. It was hard not to smile.

He wondered whether Karen was still out there or if she
and her partner had left earlier. She told him they had some
sleuthing to do, and he sorely hoped it would turn up something
positive, although that was a long shot as long as that partner of
hers was involved.

But even Kaufman’s nasty attitude couldn’t slap him
down today. The reporters were starting to corner him, so he
gave his best photo-op grin, and was immediately lost in the
jumble of questions from every direction.

Detectives Brandt and Kaufman watched the game from
the Coach’s box. They sat with several of the team VIPs as well
as some retired players. Karen was uncomfortable and wished
she could be outside with the real fans cheering, rather than
feeling intimidated by this group of dead heads. Will, however,
looked content sucking down draught beer and shrimp cocktails.

“After all,” he rationalized to Karen, “this is in the line
of duty. Ain’t it the fuckin’ life though?” Then he leaned close to
Karen and whispered, “They treat those players like big time
movie stars. They make more in one season than we’ll make in
our whole life times. How disgusting is that?”

Karen pulled back and said “Get over it. They get that
money to entertain assholes like you, for crying out loud. Most
of them are cripples by the end of their careers—if that makes
you feel any better!”

Karen frowned and shook her head. “Just don’t talk,
Will. Then no one will know how warped you really are.”
“Aw, what difference does it make anyway? This game
sucks. The Rockets never even showed up, none of them
Demons’ll be cripples from this romp in the park. Just what I
was looking forward to — Kyle Sands playing hero. There’s just
a couple of minutes left now. Why don’t we start down and try to
beat the crowds, huh? I told that moose Arnold that we’d be
looking for him after the game. He said he’d stay put in his
office once the players are safely out of the stadium. That guy’s
a glorified babysitter.”
“What about the trainer? Gloria? Did you ever get a hold
of her?”
“Nah, but she oughta be down there for awhile. I’m
thinking those players are looking for a
massage
after a game,
and the good Lord knows that little lady can probably give a fine
one.” He shot an evil wink at Karen.
“She’s not a masseuse, she’s a trainer.” Karen shot back.
“More like a physical therapist than a lap dancer, Will.”
“Masseuse, trainer, lap dancer—yeah, yeah, yeah. With
her looks, she probably does a lot more massaging than she does
therapizing.” A leer punctuated his sentence.
Karen smacked his arm and said, “Pig!”
They nodded to their hosts, thanked them for their
hospitality, and headed out and back to business.

At Will’s insistence, they attempted a shortcut through
the locker room to Luke Arnold’s office. They were stopped by
two security men warning that no media people were allowed
inside. A couple of months before there had been a controversy
because of female reporters in the locker room. Some of the
more ambitious media women, looking for exclusives, had
walked into the shower area while the players were still
showering. The entire team revolted, so the invasion of shemonsters was quashed. The vault of nudity would remain
sacrosanct, and all reporters, regardless of gender, were required
to wait in the media center for player interviews. Cops, however,
had never been figured into the mix so the detectives’ gold
shields gained them immediate admittance.

Many of the guys were already gone, but several
lingered — some clothed, some not. One or two of them
wrapped towels around their hips in deference to Karen but most
stayed defiantly naked. One of the nude players got into Karen’s
face. “You lookin’ for some action, sweet cheeks?” he smirked.

Karen was caught off guard but refused to be bested. She
stared into his face and then let her eyes travel down the length
of his body, then back to his face. She shrugged and said, “Gee,
and I always thought big hands were the clue to big dicks. What
a disappointment.” The player looked stunned for only a
moment, then burst out laughing. “You okay, girl! You got da
funk
.”

“Surely there must be a more unobtrusive route to
Arnold’s office,” Karen complained to Will while trying to avoid
eye contact with the remaining players.

“Oh, yeah. You’re a real shrinking virgin, aren’t you
doll?”
“It’s violet...shrinking violet you ass. I hope the players
aren’t as uncomfortable about this as I am.”
“Aw, butch up.”
Suddenly Karen froze. Kyle was coming out of the
showers, a towel hung around his neck and he was fastening
another around his hips. He flipped his head back, sweeping the
wet hair out of his face. His intense blue eyes set on Karen’s and
he, too, stopped short. Too quickly he said, “Uh, officers, I
assume you’re here to see me?”
“Never , pretty boy,” Will mocked. “You
assume
wrong, anyway. We’re just passing through for the view, so
don’t give us a second thought. Carry on.”
Kyle hesitated. “How about let’s not play games today,
huh, Kaufman? I’m wiped out from the one I just played on the
field. Just give me five minutes to get dressed, and I’ll meet you
outside the door.”
“No,” Karen protested. “Really, we’re not here for you
this time. We need to see Luke Arnold and were told this was the
quickest route to his office.”
Will shot an icy glare at Karen. “He’s not entitled to a
copy of our itinerary. Goddammit! Stop pandering to this asshole
already.”
Karen shook her head at him and muttered that they
were wasting time and should get going. Will nodded grudgingly
then turned toward Kyle, eyes blazing at the shaken player. He
spat, “Don’t get too comfortable, hot shot. Your turn’ll be
coming real soon. And I promise, you’ll know when we’re
coming for you!” Kyle stood silently watching them leave, his
jaw on the ground.
Once out of the locker room Will stopped and reached
for Karen’s arm. She turned to him as he hissed: “I’m warning
you, don’t get too attached to that piece of shit. He’s guilty as
they get and eventually I’m gonna take him down!”

Luke Arnold was just unlocking the door to his office
when the detectives arrived. His office was small, cluttered, and
smelled of sour sweat. Pictures, most of them off kilter, of the
security guard with various players and other celebrities lined the
walls. Stacks of old newspapers rose from the floor. A few
footballs filled a basket off to the side and a multi-line telephone
sat on a cluttered desk.

“Oh, detectives,” he said. “Um, you’re gonna have to
hold on awhile. There are players still in the compound and the
coach’s press conference is running late. You wanna just have a
seat here and I’ll get back to you when I’ve got the hatches
‘battened down,’ as they say?” He peered nervously from Will to
Karen and gave them a weak smile.

“We’ll just be taking up a minute of your time, Mr.
Arnold, and since we’re here right now, how about let’s just get
this over with. That way we’ll both be out of your way quickly
and you can, ‘
so to speak, batten the hatches down.
’”

Luke looked as though he had been stung by a wasp.
“But, uh, I still have work to do here. I can’t just sit down and
talk to you people. I told you when you called I have demands on
my time around here after a game.”

“We understand. We won’t be long,” Karen interrupted.
“Just answer our questions and you can get back to work.” She
knew they had an edge on him. He was distracted by his job and
that was a plus. His guard was clearly down. “If you cooperate
we can all get out of here a lot quicker.”

Luke sputtered, but finally dropped into the chair behind
his desk and mumbled something unintelligible.
“What’s that you’re saying?” Will asked.
“Nothing. Uh, I was just talking to myself, I guess. So
I’m sitting down now and I’ll do whatever I can to cooperate.”
“Good, good,” Will said. Then sarcastically, “Policemen
are your friends. So, how about you tell me why you forgot to
mention that you’d had an argument with the deceased the night
before she got that way.”
Luke’s eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to
speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat, and made a
revolting noise through his nose. Then he shook his head as if
clearing it and turned to the small refrigerator behind his desk.
He grabbed a bottle of water, gulped half of it down, then set it
on his desk. He hesitated again, picked the bottle back up and
finished it. Finally, he asked if Karen and Will wanted water or
soda. Both officers shook their heads.
“Whew! You get right to the point, don’t you? Yeah, we
had a disagreement, Jessica and me, so to speak, but it was no
big deal or nothing. How’d you know about it anyway?”
“We’re trained investigators. It’s what we do,” Will
replied. He turned to Karen and said, “Maybe we ought to take
him down to the station to finish our little talk. He’s asking too
many questions and not supplying enough answers.”
Karen nodded. Her reasoning might be different, but the
bottom line was to somehow get to the truth. Will’s thrust was
finding anything he could to destroy Kyle, and she felt sure that
whatever they learned would clear him.
“Hey, no. I’ll answer you whatever you want to know.
It’s just that...”
“
It’s just that
nothing,” Will snapped. “We questioned
you once before and you failed to give complete disclosure. That
doesn’t sit right with me and my partner and about now I got
zero patience for your sputtering. So, what was the fight about?”
Luke picked up a pen and started tapping it on his desk.
He was making funny noises in his throat, not exactly choking,
more like scratching. Finally he put the pen down and said,
“Okay, okay!” and blurted out the exact story Kyle related to
Karen the day before.
“So you’re saying that Ms. DiAngelo and the deceased
were doing the wild thing and you caught them. You don’t think
that’s important enough to tell us, but you go and tell Sands and
his buddy, who according to them knew nothing until they talked
to you. Is that correct?”
“Yes sir. Well, no sir. I didn’t go tell them. They came to
me about it. But they were real shocked when I told them Jessica
and Gloria were both lezzies!”
“And what about Gloria,” Karen questioned. “Did you
ever discuss this with her?”
“No m’am. Her and me don’t get along so well.”
“And it never occurred to you that this might be relevant
to this case?” Will prompted. “That maybe you should have said
something when we spoke to you the first time?”
“Oh, God! I was real nervous that first time the cops, uh,
detectives talked to me. This whole mess has me, you know,
upside down all the time. I mean, I’m used to dealing with the
players’ problems — drugs, driving drunk, beating up on their
girlfriends and their wives — but, damn! None of them’s ever
been charged with murder before.”
“No one’s been charged with murder or anything else
yet, Luke,” Karen said. “But if you want to help Kyle, you’ve
got to tell us
everything
you know, not just what you think we
need to hear. So let’s go over this again and make sure you
haven’t forgotten anything else.”
He blinked his eyes a couple of times and then nodded at
her. “Well, I don’t know if this is anything, but, um, Tyrell
Utley, uh, he was pretty friendly with Jessica too. I seen them
hanging around here sometimes when Kyle wasn’t around.”
“‘Hanging around’ doesn’t really tell us anything. Two
people can talk...”
“Oh, they weren’t just talking, m’am. One time when I
was in real early, I saw her drop Tyrell in the parking lot by his
car. And that smooch he gave her before she left, well, you don’t
have to be a genius to know when people are getting it on, if you
get what I’m saying here. Man oh man. I thought Utley had some
set of balls — uh, ‘scuse me m’am. — what with the bad blood
between him and Kyle on the field and all. And Jessica, well, she
was just Jessica, I guess. I see a lot around this place and just
keep my trap shut. My job is to watch out for the players and
that’s what I do. Up till now that’s worked real good for me, and
them.”
After a short silence Will started up again. “Withholding
information in a criminal case is an obstruction of justice, which
is a crime itself. I’d hate to have to arrest a security guard for just
doing his job. So let’s sum it all up now. You told Sands all
about his girlfriend’s little romp with another woman but not
until Benson was dead. Did you ever mention to him that you
saw Utley snuggling up to Jessica?”
Karen bristled at Will’s insistence on incriminating
Kyle, and Luke was falling right into the trap.
“No, uh, it never came up. I mean, him and James got
real worked up about what I said about Jess and Gloria. Okay, I
never saw Jessica arguing with Ty. I mean, that’s what this is all
about, right? Finding out who had grief with her, so you can
figure out ‘who did it,’ so to speak. Only times I saw them two
together — Tyrell and Jess that is — they looked to be real
friendly. Nope, no fights there.”
Karen sat forward in her chair. “It’s certainly gallant of
you to want to avoid causing any further problems for Kyle
Sands, but anyone Jessica Benson was seeing, good
or
bad,
could be a link to her murderer. “Does Utley know you saw him
with Jessica?”
“Oh, jeez, no! Tyrell, he has a whopping bad temper, so
I try and just stay clear of him. I once had to bail him out on a
DUI in the middle of the night, and he treated me like I was the
one who arrested him. He cursed me all the way to his house.
Uh, uh
, I try to stay out of his way. You’re not going to tell him
you heard this from me are you?”
Will flashed a quick smile at the rattled security guard.
“Nah, we’ll try to leave your name out of it. Just you better keep
your ear to the ground, and if anything else should come up, or
you remember anything you might have forgotten to tell us —
again
— give us a call. Here’s my card. Don’t lose it.”
He nodded to Karen, indicating he was ready to leave.
“By the way, Lucas” Karen spoke up. “Can you tell us
where we might find Gloria?”
“Uh, she split right after the game. Said she had some
personal business to attend to. I don’t expect her to be back
around here anymore today. You could maybe try her at home.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Will scoffed. “C’mon Karen, let’s get
outta here.”
She stood and followed her partner out of the office.
“What about DiAngelo?”
“DiAngelo can wait for now. We’ll deal with her
tomorrow. The team doesn’t usually practice on Mondays, but
Raymond told me he’d be working them some extra this week
because of the run for the playoffs. I wanna talk to Utley, too.
We might as well knock it off for today and catch everyone fresh
tomorrow. That good for you?”
“Sure. I could use a break. I’ll meet you at the station in
the morning. Eight-ish okay?”
“The Coach told me the team would be practicing by
6:30 in the a.m. I wanna get a jump on things.”
“So do you want to just meet at the team’s complex
early?”
“Yeah, six-ish. That work for you?”
“Whatever you say. You’re the lead detective.”
“Good. You bring the coffee.”