“Brooks,” she said. “His name is Brooks Hopkins. He’s 32, lives alone in that sweet little rental on Nightingale—the one with the old-fashioned window boxes?—and he used to be a police officer up in Kansas City. Rumor is he left KCPD not on the best terms, but nobody seems to know exactly what happened. Some people are saying he punched out his captain, but I don’t believe it. Never married, but was engaged once, no kids, no pets. Takes good care of his mother. Listens to classic rock on actual vinyl. Has a motorcycle that he only takes out on really nice weekends.” She looked thoughtful. “He has this sort of naughty and nice thing going—drives a bike, but likes his mom. It’s sweet.”
My mouth dropped open. How did Daisy find out all of this? “What, you don’t know his middle name?”
“Adam,” she said definitively. “After his grandfather on his mother’s side. God rest his soul.” She crossed herself. I’m sure the look on my face was somewhere between disturbed and awed. “What? He likes my cherry chocolate chunk muffins. We talked over breakfast.”
“You’re creepy.”
“Says the woman who’s obsessed with poisonings and who literally tried to kill me with a frozen hot dog.”
“Not true,” I said, turning onto the highway. “It was an imaginary hot dog, so it couldn’t have literally killed you. Besides, I’m not obsessed; I’m intrigued. And not just with poisonings, but with murder, in general. I’m interested in stabbings and strangulations and blunt force traumas, too.”
“And hit-and-runs?”
“Only one.”
“You caught the part where he’s single, right?”
“The coach?”
“No, Officer Blue Eyes.” She nudged my shoulder with each word.
“New subject, please.”
Her phone rang again. River Fork was a fifteen-minute drive at best, during which she mediated half a dozen fights, directed someone to the Band-Aids, and calmed a crier. By the time we reached the River Fork exit, I was exhausted, and they weren’t even my kids. But Daisy didn’t even seem to notice that her life was all about putting out fires.
The surprisingly large River Fork high school was just about a quarter mile south of the exit and visible from the highway. It was 3:00 and they had just dismissed for the day. We waited for the parking lot to clear before we pulled in.
“Why are we doing this again?” The woman who was unperturbed by a zillion child emergencies suddenly looked intimidated.
“You mentioned that Farley’s assistant had big, winning shoes to fill, and that made me think we should probably interview that person to see what their relationship was like. Or, you know, maybe get into Farley’s office and see what we can find.”
Daisy’s phone went off again—she picked it up on the first ring. “Mommy can’t talk right now. What?” A sigh. “Put Brant on the phone.” A pause. “Let your sister join your game so she’ll stop crying. Well, you might not care if she’s crying, but I’m sure Grandma does.—I don’t know why Jake smells, just move away from him until I get home. Yes, I’m sure I don’t need to talk to anyone. Just show Grandma where the Tylenol is and tell her I’ll be home in an hour or so.” She hung up. “So you’re saying I’m the brains behind this mission,” she said, as if we had never been interrupted. Again.
“I actually don’t think I said that.” I found a spot near the back of the lot and parked.
“But I was the one who gave you the idea to come here. You definitely said that, right?”
I pushed open the car door. “Does it really matter?”
“You know who says that?” she asked, following me. “The person who didn’t have the idea.”
“You’re impossible,” I said, although the truth was Daisy was one hundred percent as much brains behind this operation as I was, even if she continually tried to convince everyone that all she contributed to the podcast was baking tips. Daisy was super smart, and her improvisational skills were off the charts. “Now shush and just follow my lead so we don’t get found out.”
I had prepared a whole speech to talk my way past the front office, but it turned out that someone had propped the activities complex door open with a football helmet, so I motioned for Daisy to follow me and walked straight into the activities complex without so much as a word. Rule #1 of investigative journalism: Sometimes getting what you wanted was just a matter of acting like it was yours to begin with.
Actually, that may have been an Aunt Ruta Life Rule. I couldn’t quite remember. All I knew was it worked.
Coach Farley’s office was positioned between the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms and had three large windows that looked out into the gymnasium. The blinds were open, so I could see that it was unoccupied. Perfect.
I made a beeline for it, slipped inside, and closed the door after Daisy.
“Get the blinds,” I said.
“Me? Why?” Daisy yelped. “My job is to give the ideas. You do the executing.”
“When did we delineate these jobs? I don’t remember doing that.”
The boys’ locker room door banged open and a boy all padded up for practice came out, flanked by the man I recognized from football games as assistant head coach. He seemed occupied with instructing the boy.
“Down!” I whispered, and we both dropped to the floor. My mind scrambled for an excuse why we would be in the office if he were to come in. Correction—why we would be in the office on the floor? We’d probably have looked less fishy if we’d stayed standing. Rule #2 of investigative journalism: To look less suspicious, always try to blend in. Especially while
