Around and around the track circuiting the playing field the team jogged. Koesler watched, fascinated. These finely conditioned athletes ran so effortlessly. They were running ostensibly to loosen up from the aftereffects of yesterday’s game. Some needed more than others.
Lieutenant Harris informed one of the coaches that Niall Murray was wanted for interrogation. As Murray neared the group, the coach waved him out of the drill.
“It’s grateful I am to you for that.” Murray toweled his head as he stood with Harris, Ewing, and Koesler.
Introductions were made and explanations given, specifically for Koesler’s presence. The introductions and explanations were becoming less and less necessary. Word of the interrogations, their purpose and scope, was circulating throughout the team.
Yes, Murray was well aware of Hunsinger’s compulsive behavior; wasn’t everyone? Niall also knew of the Hun’s astigmatism and nearsightedness. Team members by and large were aware that Hunsinger kept some sort of device in the training room for cleaning, or “cooking,” his contact lenses after practice. Only after practice? Then did Murray know what Hunsinger’s postgame routine was? Of course. He took a cursory shower here and then went back to his apartment where he took care of his lenses, showered again, and prepared for the Big Evening. Everyone knew that.
“Were you aware of anything else being wrong with Hunsinger’s vision?” Ewing asked. “I mean, besides the astigmatism and nearsightedness?”
“Oh, then, you must mean that the poor man was colorblind.”
Murray’s unequivocal delivery of this unexpected answer stunned the officers and Koesler.
Harris recovered first. “How did you happen to know that Hunsinger was colorblind?”
“It came out of a night when we were, as they say, hoistin’ a few. For once, I used the brains I was born with and let the Hun get well ahead of me with the creature, and the poor man was after running off at the mouth about the bad tricks fate had played on him. Among them was the fact that he was colorblind. But once it was out and the Hun realized what he’d said, he swore me to secrecy. . I don’t suppose it matters anymore now, does it?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Ewing, “it does. Very much. Have you told anyone else?”
“Oh, I did not; certainly not! It was a secret! I told no one. I just thought. . now that he’s dead-”
“No, no. It is terribly important that you continue to keep this to yourself.” Harris was unsure how most effectively to extend the embargo on the knowledge of Hunsinger’s colorblindness. He decided to tread lightly; Murray seemed likely to react better to trust than to threats. “We can’t reveal the reason for this secrecy just yet. But it is most important to our investigation that you go right on keeping it a secret.”
Murray nodded, as if he had turned a key in his brain. The Hun’s secret defect would remain unrevealed by him.
“One final thing,” said Ewing, “can you tell us what you did yesterday?”
“Ummm. . I can. I think. Let’s see; we got up about half-five; went to six o’clock Mass. It’s over by seven. . no sermon, ya know. Too early. Left home about quarter past seven. Got to the inn just at eight. Had the pregame meal. Got taped up. Attended the special team’s meeting. Then it was out to the stadium. Got suited up. Then there was the warmups and the game.”
“And after the game?” Ewing had not bargained on such detail.
Murray blushed slightly. “Well, then, I shoulda gone straight home. But I didn’t. .”
“Oh?”
“Some of the lads convinced me we all needed some-what did they call it? — comin’ down from a high. So they took me to this party in Grosse Pointe. And I ‘m afraid I had a mite too much to drink.” He decided to omit the girl and the cocaine. After all, they had not passed the stage of being temptations, and he hadn’t actually used either one. “But then, before I did anything more foolish, Bobby Cobb came by and took me home where the wife got in her licks as well.”
Ewing looked up. He’d been taking notes. “That pretty well covers the whole day, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what you asked for, wasn’t it?” Murray seemed embarrassed, as if he had revealed more than was required. “You wanted to know what it was I did yesterday, did you not?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Ewing. “That’s what we wanted to know.”
“Will that be all then?” Murray had worked up a sweat while running and wanted to take a shower before catching a chill.
Ewing dismissed him with an admonition to remain available for further questioning.
Murray trotted down the incline toward the locker room. Hindsight told him, especially now that the Hun was dead, that all his suspicions about his relationship with Hunsinger had been accurate. Even that bit of advice the Hun had given before the field goal in yesterday’s game. Murray had been bothered on and off since then, wondering whether it might be a sin to think of doing it with your wife without actually doing it. He thought he’d ask some priest. He was pretty sure what the priests back home would say. But the priests over here appeared to be more liberal. Maybe he’d get a chance to ask that Father Koesler. He seemed to be the sort of priest you could trust.
“How about that!” said Ewing. “The only one so far who admits he knew Hunsinger was colorblind. . and he’s got an alibi for all day.”
“Do you take his word for it?” Koesler asked.
Ewing smiled. “Oh, no. Not any of them. We’re just gathering statements. Then we’ll check each one’s story. Somewhere in this crowd is the murderer. And the murderer will lie. He-or she-has to. But we’ll break it down and get whoever it is.”
“We’d better get to the trainer before he closes shop for the day,” said Harris.
“Right you are.”
The three men walked toward the locker room. There was an eerie stillness in the huge, empty stadium. Koesler was relieved to leave it.
It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. That was all the boy could think. His father agreed, but that was not his only thought.
The doctor had just been in the boy’s room and delivered the prognosis. The boy had a heart murmur so pronounced and so potentially threatening that there could be no thought of strenuous exercise in his future.
That was what was not fair. Young Jack Brown had been destined for a life of sports stardom. Everyone agreed on that. His father had pushed him along that trail from preschool days. When Jack reached the fourth grade, he was already bigger and stronger than his classmates. By bending a few rules, he played on the seventh- and eighth-grade extramural athletic teams from the time he was a sixth grader. By the time he was in the eighth grade, a Dallas high school coach thought enough of Jack’s ability that the coach moved the Brown family into his school district so that Jack could play there.
Then, during summer vacation between sophomore and junior years, he was stricken with polio. In 1944 many who contracted polio died. So young Jack Brown was extremely fortunate to be alive. That was the thought uppermost in his father’s mind.
Yes, it was not fair that such a budding athletic career should be ruined by a chance exposure to that dread disease. At the same time, they were lucky to have Jack still with them.
In due time, Jack was released from the hospital and returned to his school. Not long after the scholastic year began, football practice commenced. Jack could do no more than stand on the sidelines and watch his former teammates go through the drills. It hurt. But by then, he had pretty well adjusted to a life without the heady joy and challenge of athletic competition. He had no idea what he would do with that life.
The coach had a difficult time concentrating on practices with his best player reduced to a spectator. One day he asked Jack if he would accept the position of team manager. After talking the offer over with his parents, Jack took on the job. At least it would keep him close to the sports he loved.
There had never before been a team manager for this south Dallas school. So the job became defined as Jack performed it. He took care of the equipment, brought drinks onto the field, applied iodine and calamine lotion, and made some bandages. There was a scarcity of tape because of the war.
It was the beginning of a new career. Jack was awarded a partial scholarship at the University of Houston to act as assistant trainee in the university’s sports program. In 1951 he graduated with a degree in physical science.
