Hook, Line, and Homicide by Mark Richard Zubro

Author:Mark Richard Zubro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

20

They found the coach, Elijah Sterling, sitting in front of his double-wide trailer in a clearing in the woods. Weeds and scruffy, uncut grass swept from tree line to mobile home. Tires and rusted toys and half-chopped logs dotted the clearing. Sterling’s bulk oozed from every opening in a cheap plastic lawn chair. The mound of beer cans and fast-food containers around him attested to the source of his bulk. Even Fenwick paled in comparison to the heft of this man.

Sterling glared at them in the glint of the sunlight. As they walked up the driveway, the corpulent coach said, “I hear you don’t like my boy, Scarth.”

“Lots of people didn’t like him,” Turner said.

“Jealous of his daddy’s money. Jealous of Scarth’s athletic ability. The losers and whiners and complainers in town didn’t like him. They were jealous of his looks, of his success, of his humor, of his joy at being alive.”

“Didn’t he make a lot of people miserable?” Fenwick asked.

“A lot of people prefer to enjoy their misery. I’ll show you the kind of boy he was.” He beckoned them into the trailer. The kitchen had dirty dishes heaped in the sink. The living room had three pieces of furniture: a thirty-six-inch television, a recliner, and a trophy case that stretched along one whole wall. Sterling drew them close to it.

He said, “See them. All of them. They were for teams of mine that won championships. Scarth could hit a hockey puck through the eye of an opponent at fifty paces. The boy was the best athlete I ever coached. He was the one who took the other kids on the team to another level. He knew how to play and how to inspire his teammates. He had a work ethic that I’ve never seen matched. He’d get to school early every day to work out with weights. He had specific exercises to do for specific muscle groups on specific days. He kept charts of his progress. Hell, he inspired me. It always made me proud to be a coach when I watched him play. He’d listen to suggestions. He wanted to be better.” He wiped incipient tears from his eyes. He abruptly walked out of the trailer back to his seat on the patio. He grabbed a handful of chips, stuffed them in his mouth, chewed a moment, took a long drink of beer, belched, farted, and scratched his balls. The escaping gas was loud enough to silence the local birds for several seconds. He took another gulp of beer, then used the back of his hand to wipe away tears.

“Hockey’s a violent sport,” Turner said. “Was he a violent kid?”

“No more than your average player.”

Fenwick said, “He had the strength to make his emotions felt in physical ways that other kids couldn’t stop.”

“He knew his strength. He knew when to stop.”

“He drank a lot,” Turner said. He noted the empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

“So do I. So does everybody in this godforsaken corner of the planet.

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