Free Voice Mail Murder by Patricia Rockwell Page A

Trustees, we have decided that the best way to honor Coach Croft is to continue with this game. This is what he would have wanted. He was preparing the team for this game. He knew they were ready. He wanted them to play and he wanted them to win. He wouldn’t want them to mourn him by avoiding their task; he’d want them to honor him by going out there tonight and doing their best, playing their hardest, and winning this game!”
    A few people applauded uncertainly. Then a few more entered in until the crowd was showing its approval with its hands.
    “Yes,” said President Foster to this show of support from the crowd, “I can see that you agree that this is what Coach Croft would want. Coach wasn’t a quitter. He wouldn’t want his team to quit either.”
    More applause, this time more generous.
    “So, I’m going to officially transfer the reins of leadership over to Assistant Coach Jeff Dooley,” he noted. The young man standing next to him smiled weakly and nodded to the crowd. “Jeff is taking over for Coach Croft at our request. He worked closely with Coach and he knows what Coach wanted, how he worked and his approach. I’m sure he’ll make Coach proud. I ask you to give him your support.”
    The President turned to the young coach standing beside him and shook his hand, holding it for a long time as cameras flashed.
    “Okay,” he added, dropping the young coach’s hand finally, “enough talking. Let’s get this game on!” He flashed a bright smile at the bleachers, lifted both hands in the air in a victory pump, and then strode purposefully off the field. The young coach jogged over to the side of the field and conferred with his assistants, standing near the cheerleaders. As his assistants moved to follow his orders, Dooley leaned over to speak to a lithe, blonde woman standing near the cheerleaders. She smiled at him and patted his shoulder.
    Suddenly, the band broke out in the school fight song, and almost immediately, the home team entered the field to whoops and hollers, followed by the opposing team. Pamela felt sorry for the opponents who would, it seemed to her, have a difficult battle after that inspiring pep talk from the home school’s President.
    The game began and proceeded without incident that she could detect, although it would be unlikely that she would detect any incident in the play of a football game, about which she knew next to nothing. There was a lot of whistle blowing, pushing, shoving, players falling down, being knocked down, footballs being thrown around, and the announcer’s voice yelling various achievements in the game. None of these achievements meant anything to her—or to Rocky, it seemed, as she often turned to him for explanation of the rules and found him giving her a shrug. Her manly man was never much for team sports. She was able to chat at various time-out intervals with Mitchell, Laura, and Jane Marie, and attempted to gather any information that they had about the Coach. She did not, however, admit to her involvement in the case—and her knowledge of the voice mail with the seven messages but only three speakers—all of whom appeared to be possible suspects in the Coach’s murder.
    As the game ended (much to the delight of the home fans, as the team had apparently won with a dramatic score of 17 to 7), Pamela and Rocky tumbled out of the bleachers, moved along by the push of the excited crowd. There was a huge sense of invigoration. She assumed that if the team had lost, many fans would have blamed the administration’s decision to go ahead with the game, but seeing as how the team won, they probably would take that as exoneration for the executive decision to play.
    The couple was rounding a large, circular, concrete column on the ground floor of the stadium, when Pamela felt the corner of her jacket being pulled. She grabbed Rocky’s arm, stopping him, and turned around. Hidden behind the column stood Shoop, wearing his old grey overcoat and looking