Fatal Judgment. Andrew Welsh-Huggins
which somewhat to my surprise he did, along with a grass-cutting service he ran with a couple of buddies. His life of camps and trainers and physical therapists was about as far as you could get from the summers I spent tossing footballs through swing tires and over fields of corn so high I couldn’t see my receiving buddy on the other side. But apparently it amounted to the same thing, since the kid could throw, even if he couldn’t listen.
He tried again, better this time, but his spiral still had the slightest wobble to it, like a diving falcon with a hitch in its wing. There probably weren’t five coaches in Ohio who would deem the flaw worth remarking on. But the ball might as well have been rotating end on end for all I could stand it. Instead of returning the toss, I cradled the ball and crossed the field to where he stood, eyeing me like a ref he knows is delivering bad news.
“What.”
“You’re doing this.” I imitated his follow-through, which was stopping just short of where it should go. “Which is why you’re getting that wobble.”
“There’s no wobble.”
“There is. It’s subtle, but it’s there. And it’s going to add up.”
“What do you mean?” He took a step back, crossing his muscular arms across his chest. He’d shot up in the past school year and was now an even six foot, though with my height I didn’t think he was done growing yet. Between his camps, his lawn job, and the free weights in Steve’s basement—weights I paid for, thank you very much—he was an impressively fit-looking kid. At the moment he was wearing shorts, socks, and practice cleats and nothing else. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two high school–age girls crossing the field in shorts and tight T-shirts, and it wasn’t me they were eyeballing.
“I mean, you can get away with it at the level you’re at now. It’s good enough. You’ll win games and you’ll be in the paper and on TV.” I glanced at the girls. “You’ll have a lot of fans. But there’s five hundred other guys your age throwing the same spiral with the same hitch, because their release is a little funky. They’re all going to be in the paper too. But they’re not the ones headed for the next level, because they’re competing against the five guys your age who figured out how to throw without the hitch. To complete the follow-through. Those are the ones you need to worry about. If you care.”
Mike didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He’d seen the girls and was doing his own reconnaissance. Then he looked back at me.
“So, 1 percent?”
“What’s that?”
“Five of five hundred. One percent. That’s what I’m supposed to shoot for?”
“You’re supposed to shoot for even less than that. I mean otherwise, what’s the point?”
“Is that what you did?”
I thought back to my own high school career. Starting quarterback in the state finals as a freshman. And that was just the beginning.
“Don’t worry about what I did. We all know how that ended.” Sports Illustrated had recently included my arrest for point-shaving my senior year at Ohio State on a list of the fifty stupidest athletic mistakes of all time. I said, “Worry about where you want to go. You’ve got the talent to do anything you want. You just need to listen.”
He uncrossed his arms and shook them out, glanced at the girls, crossed his arms again, and looked at me.
“All right. Show me what you’re talking about.”
I did. After that, we threw for twenty more minutes. His last five throws were textbook, rifle shots of perfectly spiraling bullets destined for the best of the YouTube highlight films.
“That’s good,” I said, after he nailed yet another. “Let’s call it a day.”
“Why?”
I jogged back to him. “You don’t want to push it. You’ve got your engine at perfect calibration. You rev it too much and you’re back to square one. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“You used to throw until it was so dark you could barely see the ball,” he said accusingly. “Over and over and over again. Grandpa told me that.”
“I’m sure he did. And you know where he was when I was icing my elbow at the kitchen table? In front of the TV with another beer. Trust me on this. A lot of times, less is more.”
“Fine. If that’s what gets me to 1 percent, then whatever.”
“What did you say?”
He favored me with the universal my-dad’s-a-doofus expression. “What you said, remember? Five out of five hundred. One percent. Or better yet, less than 1 percent. You just told me that.”
“Yes, I did.”
But suddenly I wasn’t thinking about football any more. I was thinking about angry words flung at me an hour earlier.
You milk every conversation until it’s dry.
Listen carefully for once, all right? You have practically zero percent feelings for anybody but yourself.
Practically zero, Andy.
One percent milk. Could it be—?
“I’ve got to go.”
“Go where?” Mike said. “I thought we were having lunch.”
“We were. I’m sorry. You still are.” I fished into my wallet and handed him a twenty. “Something’s come up.”
“Like what?” He looked at the bill as if I’d deposited a dog turd on his palm.
“Like a friend who’s in trouble.”
“Who?”
“Nobody you know.”
He shook his head and sighed. He turned and started walking away, back toward the high school.
“Wait. I’m sorry about this, Mike. It’s just—”
He waved off the objection. “It’s OK. You knew where Grandpa was. And I know where you are.”
“Mike—”
He jogged across the field without responding, headed in the direction of two girls in shorts and tight T-shirts.
7
I DROVE FASTER THAN I should have back to Laura’s condo. My suspicion might be nothing, and if that was the case, Pinney, the sheriff’s detective, was right. Better to leave the detecting to the real investigators. Plus I’d have the added pleasure of knowing I’d blown off my son for no reason. But for better or worse, my conversation with Mike loosened a nagging thought in the back of my brain, like a screw with a stripped head I’d finally been able to budge. I wouldn’t be able to rest until I pulled it all the way out. A few minutes later I parked once again outside Laura’s condo, inserted the purloined key into the lock on her door, turned the handle, and stepped inside.
The cat materialized a couple of seconds later. I ignored it as I walked into the kitchen, approached the refrigerator, and tore the grocery list off the pad of paper affixed there with a magnet. I held it close and read. Eggs, bananas, 1 percent milk; 1 percent underlined. The notation that gave me pause that morning. Who gets that specific on a list only she will see? I thought about almost the same words spoken by Laura in a different order and very different context. Practically zero, Andy. A coincidence, or something more? Had she been trying to tell me something over the phone at the sheriff’s office, send a coded message as someone listened in? I continued reading. Carrots, oranges, yogurt. Coffee, paper towels, chicken.
My heart sank. There was nothing here. The groupings were random, to be sure, lumping carrots with yogurt and paper towels with chicken. Even I knew those items were on opposite sides of any store. Hardly in keeping with Laura’s orderly approach to things. But so what?
I