and denied it. Didn’t get outraged, didn’t throw a tantrum, no dramatics. Just looked me in the eye and said he didn’t do anything to Meredith. It seemed genuine.” She looked away for a moment, her eyes searching the diner. She brought them back to me. “But there was something in Meredith. Hurt, pain, I don’t know. I don’t think she was lying.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it forced me to start thinking about everything from a different perspective. I could keep saying that Chuck wasn’t capable of doing the things he was being accused of, but if I was going to figure out what happened, I was going to have to admit to at least one thing. These people had been around Chuck a lot more than I had in the previous few years. And I needed to start listening to what they were saying.
“I know why Chuck would lie,” I said, the words feeling funny as they came off my tongue. “No one would want to admit doing that. But why would Meredith lie?”
“I don’t have an answer for that,” she said, looking genuinely confused. “Like I said before, it’s not like her.”
Which put us right back where we started. Right smack in the middle of nowhere.
She saw my frustration. “Sorry. It’s all I’ve got.” She looked at her watch. “I need to get going.”
I looked at the check, threw some cash on the table and we walked outside. Fog shrouded the bridge, the muted lights casting an eery glow over the water.
“Have you talked to him?” Kelly asked. “How’s he doing?”
“Someone beat the shit out of him,” I said. “He’s in the hospital, unconscious. He’s a mess.”
She stopped. “You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. So I haven’t gotten to talk to him yet.”
She shook her head, clearly shaken. “Jesus.”
“She have a boyfriend?” I asked as we started walking again. “Meredith?”
Kelly nodded. “Yeah. A kid I don’t care for all that much. Remember I said how Chuck looked me in the eye? This kid never looks me in the eye.” She grimaced. “I hate when kids are like that.”
“Know his name?”
She pulled her keys from her bag and opened her car door. “Sure. Derek Weathers.”
NINETEEN
It wasn’t a coincidence that Meredith’s boyfriend shared the same name with the kid that had been tailing me in Seaport Village. I was sure of that. Not when I’d already spotted Meg, her teammate, with Matt, who’d been Derek’s sidekick in following me.
The next morning, I stopped by the hospital. Chuck’s eyes were still closed, he wasn’t moving and the doctor told me there’d been no change. I pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat, holding his hand, feeling awkward and unsure of what else I was supposed to do.
Doubts were creeping into my head, like feathers brushing my skin. Why had he been spending so much time with Meredith Jordan? It was one thing to work with her on her game, but both Stricker and Kelly Rundles indicated they had at least considered the thought that something else was going on between them. I didn’t want to believe that Chuck put himself in that kind of situation. I felt guilty for considering it, but it was getting harder to ignore the possibility.
I squeezed his hand, willing him to wake up and tell me the truth, tell me what he’d gotten himself into.
But he didn’t, and after awhile, I left.
***
I left a message for Jane Wiley, letting her know that I was still plugging away and asking her to call me if she knew anything more about either Chuck’s assault or the charges the Jordans had made. I didn’t tell her that the plugging hadn’t gotten me anywhere yet.
I decided to head back to Jon Jordan’s home. I wanted to know how Gina Coleman knew Chuck and why she’d recommended him for the coaching job.
The huge gates were in place and I pressed the button on the intercom.
“I promise not to hurt you this time,” Gina Coleman said over the speaker. I could tell she was smiling.
“Thanks.”
I waited at the gates for a couple of minutes until she arrived in her BMW. The gates opened like a bird’s wings and she got out of the car. She was in workout clothes and covered in sweat. I might’ve found her attractive if she hadn’t dropped me to the pavement the first time we met.
“Wanna shake my hand?” she asked, smiling.
“Not really.”
“Then why are you back?”
“You gonna call Jordan and tell him I’m here?” I asked. “He threatened me with much bodily harm.”
“He does that. A lot.” She shook her head, disapproving. “But he’s not here right now, so you’re alright.”
“But if he drove up here in the next ten seconds…”
“I’d do what he told me,” she said. “I work for him. Bottom line.”
“Great guy.”
“No. Great salary.”
Figured I couldn’t argue with that.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Chuck?” I asked.
She leaned against the hood of her car, the sweat on her forehead and arms sparkling in the sun. “Didn’t know I was supposed to.”
I didn’t say anything, letting my silence tell her that answer was worthless.
She stared at me for a moment, then looked down at her shoes, pretending to inspect the laces. Finally, she caved. “I work for Jon. It wasn’t my place to start telling you things.”
“You do know Chuck, though?” I asked.
She thought about it, then nodded.
“How?”
She looked away from me, then looked back and said, “Park your car on the street.”
When I hesitated, she said, “Don’t worry. He’s out of town today. It’ll be fine.”
I did as she said. She swung up next to me in the BMW and I got in the passenger side. The car smelled like brand new leather and clean carpeting, as if it had just arrived from Germany. Gina smelled like a mixture of salt and soap.
She hadn’t answered my question, though.
“How?” I repeated.
She made a U-turn and we headed thru the gates and onto the Jordan property. “We went to elementary school together,” she said. “Then junior high.”
I never thought of Chuck having had a life before I’d met him and it was odd to hear someone say they knew him when I hadn’t.
“His dad was at the air station at El Toro. Then he was moved to Coronado.”
“El Toro? In Orange County?”
She drove us down a winding, hilly road lined with thick shrubbery. “Yeah. We lived in San Clemente. He lived across the street from me.”
“I didn’t know he lived up there,” I said, as much to myself as to Gina. “He never mentioned it. I knew his dad was transferred to Coronado, but I just assumed they’d always been in San Diego.”
The road forked amidst a grove of massive eucalyptus trees and she veered to the left. “We used to play together at the park across the street from our houses. Every afternoon, we’d come home from school and head over. I’d go down the slide and he’d jump off of it.”
Now that sounded like Chuck.
We pulled up to a single-story ranch house with a terracotta roof and walls of expansive windows. She shut off the engine and we got out.
