Free Dream Chasers by Barbara Fradkin Page B

have taken to her romantic tryst, she had taken her English notebook, complete with doodles, notes on Shakespeare and poems. That notebook was now awaiting forensic examination by Lyle Cunningham. Lyle would be looking for fingerprints and bodily fluids. It would never in a million years cross his meticulous mind to look for hidden clues in a verse of poetry. Clues to her dreams and plans.
    Clues to a secret lover, perhaps?
    * * *
    Jenna Zukowski drained the dregs of her Tim Hortons doubledouble and tossed the cup onto the back seat just as she turned into the Pleasant Park parking lot. She was still only half awake, seven thirty being an insanely early hour to be arriving at work, but she wanted to catch the school athletic practices to see if there were any likely candidates for her suspects list. Sports had never been her forte; beyond the obligatory high school gym classes and a woman’s self-defence course at university, she’d always given physical exertion a wide berth. She could not grasp the appeal of whacking some stupid ball around a court or field, and the thought of sitting through several hours watching someone else do it held even less appeal. Yet to judge from the hockey madness that had gripped the whole city in the last month of the Stanley Cup playoffs, perfectly reasonable people went nuts over it, and a talented sports superstar could make more in a season than she could ever hope to make in a lifetime of humanitarian service.
    She parked the car and headed towards the sports field, where she could see a clump of boys running around the track. They wore thin nylon shorts and sleeveless shirts and kept up a long, steady stride. Even at a distance she could see the sweat soaking through their shirts. Already at this hour, the sun packed some punch, threatening another humid day.
    She veered over towards two middle-aged men who were sitting in the bleachers, baseball caps pulled low over their eyes against the sun. One was watching through binoculars and yelling at someone in the group to “pick up your fucking feet!” The other had a clipboard in his hand and a whistle dangling from his mouth. The official coach, she decided. His gaze remained on the track as she approached, but the other man lowered his binoculars and swivelled to watch her. She could see his eyes travel the length of her body before settling on her chest. She felt her cheeks burn. “Moron,” she muttered, instinctively tensing up.
    She had formulated an admittedly lame opening question about how the sports students were coping, but the more the man leered, the more tangled her tongue became. When she began climbing the bleacher stairs, the lecher punched the coach lightly on the arm and smiled broadly, showing a crooked row of nicotine-stained teeth.
    â€œHey Ken, this may be your lucky day.” The coach pulled his eyes from the track and turned to her with a distracted frown. On closer inspection, she saw that he was not much older than she was, perhaps thirty at the most, but years of overeating and inaction had given his flesh a doughy look. In contrast, the older man’s stubby body rippled with muscles, each one proudly defined by the soft lines of his black silk shirt. A bodybuilder, she thought with disgust. The guy gets better all the time.
    The coach removed his whistle from his lips. “Can I help you?”
    â€œAnd if he can’t, maybe I can,” black shirt said.
    â€œPut a sock in it, Vic.” The coach rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him.”
    â€œI’m looking for the gym teacher,” Jenna said, suddenly hoping neither of them fit the bill.
    â€œYour lucky day too, sweetheart,” Vic said. “You found him.”
    â€œOne of them, at least,” the coach amended. “I’m Ken Taylor.”
    Jenna introduced herself, and before she could get out the first word of her speech, Vic folded her hand into a hearty grip. His thumb stroked her hand.