One good thing about all the sports they make me play at this school is that I didn’t need to turn on the lights to find my way around. Dorbinette knows the layout too, because he directs our school plays. But he didn’t know that a bunch of us had already set up the gym for a big obstacle course competition.
I heard him fall in kind of a breathy, squishy way, which probably meant he was still at the inner tubes before I was over the low jumps, and it sounded like he’d fallen twice more by the time I swerved around the big plastic tunnels you’re supposed to crawl through. Then I dove out the doors that lead to the playing field at the back of the school.
I thought I was so smart. I’d scaled smaller fences than the one that divided the field from the school parking lot, where I could see Stewart and the other cops talking around their cars as I ran. Then I looked up and saw that the school board had been busy putting up a taller fence with barbed wire along the top. How could I have missed that? They’d been talking about better security forever, but they hadn’t done anything about it. There was no way I could climb that thing, not with a guy like Dorbinette on my tail. I screamed really loud, but Stewart didn’t seem to hear me. I guess he was too far away. I’m a fast runner, but without any exits from the field except back into the gym, which you can’t get back into without a key anyway, Dorbinette would be chasing me around in circles for a long time before somebody noticed and did something about it. If he ever got out of the gym, that is. Last I’d heard from him he was cursing about his head. I hoped he’d hurt it bad.
That was when I had my bright idea, the one that made me think I’m pretty smart after all. I ran to the equipment shed, zipped open the combination lock, and hauled out Coach Flannigan’s golf clubs. I figured his five iron was my best option, given the distance I was dealing with. And then I just dropped those marbles down in a row and shot them, one after another, over the fence and into the parking lot. Turns out marbles break up pretty good when you smack them like that, but I made my point. I got Stewart’s attention by dropping a marble right into his cap when he took it off to wipe his head. By the time Dorbinette staggered out into the field about fifty yards away from me, the cops had him covered.
Detective Stewart was pretty happy with me. Turned out Dorbinette had been behind all those jewellery store hits, and he’d been hiding a lot of diamonds and stuff in Caitlin’s mother’s marbles until he could sell them to somebody else. Mrs. Anderson kept saying that she didn’t know he was a criminal and that she wouldn’t have kicked out her husband if she’d realized Dorbinette was just using her to hide stolen goods, sneaking down to her studio when she was asleep. I figure she’s got to be pretty stupid if she really didn’t notice what he was up to. But either way, Caitlin must have caught him, and he’d killed her at the school after marking up that stall door so people wouldn’t go snooping around back at the Andersons’ house.
Coach Flannigan was even happier. I guess some of those shots I made with his five iron were super-amazing, and not just because I didn’t bean any of those cops with a broken marble. He made some calls, and I did some tryouts. It turns out I’m one of the best new golfers anybody’s seen in years and years. So now I’m going to be rich and get to do whatever I want, because a bunch of companies want to give me tons of money to wear their clothes whenever I play golf. And I’ll probably get to do the LPGA tour next year, too. Pretty good, huh?
MARY KEENAN is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose first novel was shortlisted in the annual St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic contest for Best First Traditional Mystery. Her short story, “The Bedbug’s Bite”, won first place in a contest run by A&E Television on its www.mysteries.com website.
STRAIGHT LIE
Was the ball that killed the golf pro
An accidental shot?
The detective who was on the case
Felt that it was not.
The suspect pleaded innocence:
“Sir, I just play for fun.”
The thing that really cinched the case?
His second hole-in-one.
JOY HEWITT MANN
ALTHOUGH, ON THE OTHER HAND…
PAT WILSON AND KRIS WOOD
I settled my stole firmly around my shoulders and turned to see how he was doing. As usual, he’d gotten his stole wound up in his cincture. “Father Donald,” I said, “let me do that.”
I knew it would be easier to disentangle the snarled fringes and knots myself, rather than watch Father Donald fumble ineffectually with the mess. You’d think after twenty years in the ministry, he would have figured out how to put the stuff on right the first time. I remembered to duck as his right arm shot out from the shoulder, stiffened, held and then snapped back to his sides.
The first time, I’d gotten a black eye, but after six weeks of his exercise regime, I’d learned to be wary. At any moment, he was likely to squat, stretch, twist or flex without warning. Father Donald was a large man, and woe betide any poor, unsuspecting lay reader who got in his way. Frankly, I wished that Molly Thubron had never given him the book. It went with him everywhere, and even now lay open on the vestry table, Flex-er-Cise: Twenty Weeks to a New Physique. I sighed. Six down, fourteen to go. It was going to be a long summer.
“Oh, shoot. I got it tangled again, didn’t I? I don’t know what I’d do without you, not that I couldn’t do anything, but it’s easier, well not easier, but takes less time, although on the other hand, time isn’t really an issue, although some people get annoyed when the service doesn’t start on time, not everyone though, some come in late themselves, though they probably have a good reason, although my sister Dorothy always says there’s no good reason for being late for church…”
I tuned Father Donald out with the ease of long practice. Five years as his lay reader and I knew that, at the most, only one of every forty words was worth taking note of. His other arm suddenly shot out, held and snapped back. I took the opportunity to slip the green chasuble over his head and roll the collar down smoothly.
“There,” I said. “You’re ready to go.”
“Okey-dokey.” He squatted down. “Uh…could you give me a hand?” I heaved him back up. Maybe he wasn’t getting fit with his new regime, but the weight training sure was paying off on my biceps.
“Where’s my trusty server?” It was a question he asked every week with just the same note of anxiety.
Little Mindy Horton, prudently positioned behind the door well out of the way of Father Donald’s gyrations, waved the processional cross and said: “Right here. You want me to start out now?”
“Just a minute, Mindy.” Another small trick I’d learned. “Father Donald. Here is your hymn book, prayer book, announcements sheet, sermon papers, Gospel folder.” I knew better than to give them to him any sooner than this moment. “All right, Mindy. We’re ready to roll.”
I opened the vestry door, and Mindy started out. I followed, Father Donald close on my heels. The notes of the opening hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, trickled reedily from the electric organ, under the quavering fingers of Edith, our fill-in organist. I’ll be glad when Boris is back, I thought. His annual holiday in Portugal always meant we had to endure three weeks of Edith’s fumblings. She wasn’t a bad pianist, if only we had a piano in the church. As it was, she was terrified of the electronic Hammond organ and never played above a whisper.
Mindy and I settled into our accustomed places, and I waited for the service to unfold as it always did, although with Father Donald in charge, it tended to be a little more fluid than perhaps the church fathers had intended. I watched him tuck in a couple of knee-bends as he stood behind the lectern. I wondered how it looked to the congregation as his