The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(49)

“Why?”

“The man is seventy-eight.”

My mouth fell open, but I quickly closed it. Gaping mouth wasn’t a good look on anyone. “How was he going to help you clean up the mess?”

That time his mouth fell open. He couldn’t fathom where I was getting my intel. It took him a moment to answer. Finally, he said, “He wasn’t going to help me get rid of the body, if that’s what you mean. He was going to help me”—he lowered his head, embarrassed—“help me call the police and turn myself in.”

A tingling sensation ran up my spine. He was going to take the blame for the death, to sacrifice himself, for the players.

“It wasn’t what you think. He was an ass. I’d planned to tell them that he attacked me. I had no choice but to fight back.”

“But he was beaten up rather severely.”

He reached over and pulled a baseball bat from underneath his desk.

“Pretty. What’s her name?”

He grinned. “Betty.”

I liked her. “Look, Mr. McCoy, I don’t know how he died yet, but if he did die from the injuries sustained here—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “I understand.” He pushed a button and gave me the DVD from the recording. “This is the only copy. If he did die from those injuries, I go with plan A. I’m good with that. I have a feeling a jury will sympathize.”

“I agree. But just in case—”

“I know, I know.” He wrote down the names of all the players that were there that night as well as his lawyer friend.

“No one will see this, Mr. McCoy, unless absolutely necessary.”

“You gonna tell me who your informant is?”

I looked over at Domino. He sat at the bar, a mischievous grin on his face. “Tell him his brother told you.”

Realizing that I was probably walking into a trap, I said, “Your brother?”

Mr. McCoy nodded. “Yep. That would be just like him to come back from the grave to haunt me. And get me convicted of manslaughter in the first.”

I laughed softly. “If it helps, he still has a great sense of style.”

That time, Mr. McCoy barked a boisterous laugh.

I walked out with Domino asking, “Why is he laughing? What’s wrong with my sense of style?”

I would only go talk to the football players as a last resort. The odds of any of them hunting Hector down and finishing him off were slim at best. Why would they? They had their careers to worry about. Hector did threaten them, but without knowing their names, he would’ve been hard-pressed to find any of them.

On the way out, Cook texted me a picture of a woman, square-jawed with short brown hair and splotchy skin. I called my B.F.F.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“Unless the injuries sustained in the fight had something to do with Hector’s death, I don’t want to bring this to the table. I do, however, want you to check arrest records just in case there’s something we should know. I’ll give you the names when I get back.”

“You got it, boss.”

“How’s Amber’s case coming? I take it this is the assistant coach?”

“It is. I don’t have anything on her yet, but the coach has a serious social media addiction. I’ll get something on her eventually.”

“I just need enough to intimidate her. To scare the bejesus out of her. We can threaten a lawsuit and all kinds of other fun stuff. Is she Deaf?”

“Nope. She’s hearing. A CODA. Her mother was Deaf.”

A child of a Deaf adult. Oftentimes, CODAs were some of the strongest advocates in the Deaf community. But there were those rare cases where CODAs resented their Deaf and hard-of-hearing parents. They were cynical and apathetic to the extreme. I’d met a couple of them in the past. They had learned to manipulate adults at an early age. That tainted a person’s soul.

“Okay, have we heard anything about Hector’s cause of death?”

“Not yet. They’re keeping it under wraps in the hopes of preventing violence between criminal factions.”

“Damn. I need that info.”

“We could always ask Robert.”

“I hate to get him involved. The lead detective, Joplin, dislikes Uncle Bob almost as much as he dislikes me. And that’s saying a lot.”

“Well, I am Robert’s wife. Surely he could share a little info. It’s called pillow talk.”

“You guys talk about dead people amid coitus as well?”

She laughed and hung up. In my face. That happened to me so often.

I hopped in Misery and settled onto Idris’s lap—such a lovely place to be—but I’d barely turned the key before getting another call.

I picked up with my best professional greeting. “Davidson Investigations. We don’t sleep so you can.”

Oh, I liked that. I searched for a pen and paper to jot that down when a woman’s voice came on the line. “Charley Davidson, please.”

“This is Charley,” I said. Giving up on the jotting things, I craned my neck to make sure I missed the Porsche behind me as I backed out. ’Cause that would be expensive.

“Hello, my name is Kathryn, and I’m a volunteer at Presbyterian Hospital. I’m calling to let you know that your friend was admitted a couple of hours ago.”