Team Manager COACH!
Chapter 37
“SHERIFF, THIS IS BILL out on Carnation Road. Normal morning drive-by behind the bus.”
“What do you have, Bill?” True to his word, Tom had a deputy stationed near the Steinman’s house twice a day to be sure Les got on and off the school bus. He’d seen the kid get off the bus Friday night and walk calmly into the house. The father was already home. They hadn’t really checked over the weekend.
Home. What a life. Steinman was a squatter. The sheriff’s office had been unable to locate the owners of the property, but the taxes were paid up and there was no reason to investigate. A few years before, Steinman had quietly moved a single wide into the shelter of the trees. He’d had no difficulty getting someone out to dig a well and septic system. The electric company had even connected him to the power lines. This was all unincorporated county jurisdiction and there were really no building codes to enforce. And until last year, everything had been quiet and peaceful there.
“I have a no-show. Les Steinman did not board the bus this morning.”
“Can you see his father’s car?” Sheriff Moran had his phone out to call Steinman.
“Negative. No apparent signs of life around the property.”
“Stand by and observe. I don’t want you in there without backup. The kid is too unpredictable. I’m ten minutes away and calling for additional eyes near the school.” Moran turned on his lights and headed for the Steinman place. On the way, he mobilized another deputy and the volunteer fire department to monitor the school grounds. This was exactly what he was afraid of.
“What’s up, deputy?” Natalie asked when she saw the patrol car with lights flashing at the school entrance Monday morning.
“A school emergency drill,” the deputy said. “Do you have a student ID?”
“Sure.” Natalie and her sisters showed their school IDs and the deputy waved them through. The next car got the same treatment. They could see volunteer firemen checking each school bus and student walking in. “Strange,” Natalie whispered. She thumbed Dennis’s number on her phone and texted him.
*Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department are running some kind of emergency drill and checking student IDs.*
*Be careful! It could just be a drill. Or Les could be on the loose.*
*We’re watching and will get all the team inside.*
Daniella parked the car and they immediately got out to start scanning the parking lot and surrounding area. They spotted a State Trooper at the cemetery where the parking area was shared with the school. Other players arrived and were hurried into the building. Some upperclassmen saw what they were doing and started the same routines with the arriving middle school students.
They’d settled into their first period classes when the loudspeaker system crackled to life.
“This is Principal Morris. Many of you were disturbed this morning to discover the entrances to the school blocked and IDs checked. Be calm. There is no emergency at the moment. Sheriff Moran called me early this morning to let me know there would be a public safety drill to test the readiness of our first responders to meet any emergency. Many of you remember the sad occurrence at our school last spring. As soon as the new sheriff took office, in November, he had a meeting with all school principals and administrators in the county to discuss how to better respond to emergencies. Unless the school klaxon sounds with our emergency warning, students are encouraged to go about their day as normal with the single exception of not leaving the school building. You will find an adult volunteer or staff member at each exit. Please do not give them grief when you are told to stay inside.”
There was a buzz of relief among the students. Many remembered too well the sounding klaxon announcing the presence of an active shooter. They’d had a drill in the early fall to make sure all safe rooms were fully equipped and operational. It reminded them all of the spring’s crisis.
“Dennis, it’s Sheriff Moran.”
“Yes, Sheriff. I understand there’s a drill going on at the school. I’m over in Boone.”
“Stay there. It’s not entirely a drill. Les Steinman is at large. We have an all-points bulletin out for him and are organizing a sweep originating at the school and moving outward. I’m betting Steinman has no idea where you are, so stay there until you hear from me.”
“Yes, sir. Please protect my girlfriends.”
“We’ll do our best, Dennis.”
Dennis turned to Brenda who had a worried expression on her face he was sure was reflected on his own.
“They say that Les Steinman is on the loose,” he said.
“Call your mother. It’s not likely he actually knows who she is or even where you live, but it’s better that she pick up Peg today and bring her here for the night. We’ll rent a hotel room. I’ll message the rest of the girlfriends,” Brenda said.
They made their calls and went to class, just as their girlfriends were doing. There would be some word by the end of the school day, they were sure.
The state forensics investigator was at the Steinman house along with the county medical examiner. The house was a mess and the elder Steinman could answer no questions. His body was in a comfortable chair in front of the television. He’d bled out from multiple knife wounds. The house had been ransacked. A gun safe had been broken into. If Steinman had been honest when Tom visited on Monday, he had only a handgun in the safe. The man’s wallet and keys were gone, as well as the old Buick he drove. Tom had put out an APB for Les Steinman and the 1999 Buick Century. The county was on high alert, but State Patrol had been alerted for the entire state. Les was assumed to be armed and dangerous.
“It’s hard to tell. I’d say it all occurred soon after dinner Saturday night,” Richard Davis, the county medical examiner said. “The body has been here at least twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours could put him hundreds of miles away. Tom, I think you should call the FBI,” Alan Lapinski said.
“I’m not going to loosen the belt around the county,” Moran said. “There are too many vulnerable people he could go after.”
“Have we about run out of murderers in this county?” Lapinski asked.
“I sure hope so. I’ve seen enough in the past year to last my career,” Moran said. “I thought the sheriff’s job was mostly traffic stops.”
“Dream on,” Davis said. “I think we can get this out of here if you are both satisfied.” Lapinski and Moran agreed. A photographer snapped a couple more pictures and the doctor’s team moved in to bag the body and carry it out to the waiting ambulance for transport to the mortuary for autopsy.
“Where would you go if you were sixteen and had just killed your father?” Moran asked absently.
“Back to the scene of his first failure,” Lapinski said. “I’d be hidden out in the school building waiting for my opportunity to off the guy who stopped me last time.”
“If he is, he’s out of luck. The kid isn’t at school today.” Moran thought about the suggestion. Anyone could have come into the school over the weekend or early this morning. “The girls’ locker room,” he said suddenly. “If he’s waiting for revenge, he’ll wait there.”
Moran tore out of the driveway and headed toward the school.
The search was futile. Three officers entered the girls’ locker room when Ardith indicated it was empty. They opened every locker that did not have a lock on it. When they found nothing, they had Ardith and Jim lock the room and accompany them into the boys’ locker room. They went through the same procedure in vain. They searched every part of the athletic department, including the coaches’ locker rooms and offices, the equipment cage, and the expanded storage room where they’d put much of the new equipment they didn’t have any other room for.
The officers expanded the search from there and went through every classroom and office and janitor’s closet in the building. When they entered a classroom in the company of Principal Morris, the students were released and told to go home or get back on their bus for the ride home. All after school activities were canceled.
No sign of Les Steinman or his father’s car was found.
Officers scouted every road in the county and began working their way out from there. No sign of the missing car showed up. It was frustrating, but in a way, it was also a relief. It seemed the people of Bartley were safe.
For now.
The crew still stayed in Boone Monday night. Peg and Dot had a room in the Super 8 in Boone. Dennis and his girlfriends were used to sharing a king size bed and all piled into a single room.
An announcement during first period Tuesday morning said the danger that prompted the emergency drill on Friday had passed. Dennis got a call from Sheriff Moran telling him Les’s car had been found abandoned in Wichita, Kansas. The FBI had plotted the route and indicated they thought he was headed on south into Oklahoma or Texas. So far, no one had come forward to indicate they’d seen the fugitive. Police were checking all stolen car reports.
Less than half his normal contingent of athletes showed up for conditioning exercises Tuesday afternoon. Few people who weren’t actively engaged in one of the teams were there. The boys’ teams were finished for the season. The wrestlers had their final match on Saturday.
Dennis went over what he’d worked on with the crew over the weekend and Ardith picked up from there with the rest of the team. It was more important to keep the Angelines focused on the ball than to scrimmage. The girls were a little shaken by the whole Steinman thing and two of the younger girls decided their season was over and quit the team.
The regional final was played at the Chiefs’ gym, so neither the Angelines nor Eagles had home court advantage. The Eagles were listed as the home team and the Angelines as the visitors. The girls were happy just to get on the court where they understood the tension and pressure.
The first quarter looked like it would be another Angelines runaway victory and ended with the score at 20-7. The Eagles were a scrappy team, though, and outscored the Angelines in both the second and third quarters. The deficit was just too much for the Eagles to overcome. The last quarter looked like a shooting match between Natalie and the Eagles’ forward, Connie. It was the highest scoring quarter of the game and the Angelines captured it 24-23. The final score was 67-60.
The shoot-out between the two girls ended with both scoring twenty-three points for their team. The Angelines rode back to Bartley with a caravan of fans, celebrating their Regional Championship. As always, the boosters met the team at PJ’s for a pizza celebration. It was a little shorter this year as the 2A regional championships were played mid-week and kids still had to go to school in the morning.
Brenda called from the DMACC bus, traveling back from Nebraska after having won their game. Brenda had a record six assists and four steals in the game, but said her shooting seemed off and she scored only four points. Her team wasn’t even stopping back in Boone, but was spending the night at their next game site on the other side of Iowa. They would play the Trojans Thursday afternoon.
Morning assembly on Thursday meant a late start for classes, but everyone wanted to celebrate the Angelines’ victory and the principal wisely chose to hold the rally first thing in the morning. The team proudly held their trophy high to the applause of the students and gymnastics of the cheerleaders.
Then they had six days to wait for the State Tournament to begin. There would be two quarterfinal games on Tuesday night, but the Angelines would play at ten Wednesday morning. They all groaned about the schedule, but were just as interested in the Western Bears—the team the Angelines would meet. Olivia had gone to the region seven final the previous night and recorded the game. She showed the video to the Angelines Thursday afternoon.
“Look at those pipsqueaks!” Amy shouted. At 5'5" she felt she could talk about the two guards and a forward for the Bears who all were under 5'7", but dominated the game.
“Notice how those short players controlled the game,” Ardith said. “They took it outside. Those top three scorers hit eight of thirteen three-pointers and get this—twelve of fourteen free throws. These girls look like they trained with Dennis.”
“Boo! Hiss!” The girls catcalled.
“Ladies, we have our work cut out for us.”
It seemed like forever and went by so quickly they couldn’t remember anything but practicing. Saturday afternoon, the crew had traveled to Boone to watch Brenda’s game. She was shut down by a team that was much taller. She played only in the second quarter. The crew stayed in Boone for dinner after the game and spent the night in Tori’s barn.
The sixteen remaining girls on the team were all at Tori’s barn on Sunday afternoon so they could continue to practice. It was unfortunate that the team’s top shooters from the three-point zone were also the team’s tallest players. But they practiced one-on-one coverage and zone coverage.
Dennis noticed John McDonald, Randy Brown, Drake Vining, and John Armor all came out to the barn together to watch the practice for a while Sunday afternoon. There had been an incident in town late Saturday night that involved a broken window at Trinity. No one had seen anything, but the fathers were still leery about the possibility that Les Steinman wasn’t as far away as the sheriff thought. Everyone assumed that if he was still around, the basketball team and Dennis would be his target. Another local farmer had reported seeing a car cruising slowly up and down the county roads. The sheriff had a description and all deputies were on duty Sunday.
Tension only increased as nothing happened.
The team was at the school at 7:00 Wednesday morning to get dressed and on the bus to Des Moines at 8:15 for the first round of the State Tournament. The school granted time off for any student with a B average or above who wanted to take the fan bus into Des Moines for the tournament. The bus was filled and a dozen cars with families and boosters followed it. But fewer than a hundred fans hardly made a sound in the 17,000-seat arena. The cheerleaders still did their best to make noise. The downside of having five classes of schools competing was that thirty-five games had to be played to reach a championship in each class. Smaller schools got the morning games.
The Western Bears surprised the Angelines with a completely different line-up than they’d used to dominate the regional final. But the strategy was the same. They’d moved a taller girl to the forward position, but both guards were short and fast. They reminded everyone of Brenda. Dennis told them to remember what they’d seen on Saturday and dish it out the way the Tritons had. Sadly, Roberta had fallen hard early in the first quarter and it looked like she’d be out for the rest of the game. Amy, Leanne, Judith, and Tori started rotating through the guard positions with Diane and Rosie switching at center.
They came back from a 5-13 deficit at the end of the first quarter to close the gap to 21-24 at the end of the half. They still trailed by two at the end of the third quarter. Then something seemed to spark a return for the Angelines. Amy nailed two three-pointers to move the team ahead. Diane hooked a basket over the head of the Bears six-foot center. And in the Bears’ pressure to neutralize Natalie and Daniella, they gave the girls the opportunity to swish eight out of nine free throw attempts. The Angelines walked away with the victory and a position in the semifinals on Friday morning 50-43.
They stayed to watch the Cougars trounce the Cyclones 41-28 and knew who their next opponent would be. Besides not having many fans in the stands, the team and fans got back to school in time for their last two classes of the day and afterward went directly to their workout and practice, driving each other harder to excel.
Brenda’s team faced the Blackhawks in the Region XI Quarterfinals on Wednesday. The game was played at 5:30, and even though the crew left as quickly as they could after their practice, they only saw the last quarter. Brenda had eleven points in their 73-70 victory. Her team would play the Tigers in the semi-finals on Saturday.
In the meantime, the Angelines faced the Cougars in a Friday morning matchup. For the second time that week, Dennis cut his DMACC classes so he could attend the game. The high school had excused any student going to the State Semifinals Friday morning if they rode the fan bus. But there were still fewer in the stands than the Angelines had seen all season. Work, school, and life didn’t come to a halt just because the class 2A semifinals were on a weekday morning. And everyone expected that they’d be able to see the Angelines again in the State Championship game Saturday evening.
Low energy seemed to be equal for the Cougars as well as the Angelines. At the end of the first half, the score was tied at twelve—the lowest scoring game the Angelines had all season. The Cougars outshot the Angelines from the floor, but by the end of the third quarter, they were blowing up. They fouled an incredible number of times trying to stop Natalie and Daniella, putting their top scoring senior out of the game. Daniella hit eleven straight free throws and Natalie added five to give the Angelines a 46-32 victory. Roberta found her range and dropped in three three-pointers to contribute nine points to the total.
The team stayed to watch the Lynx and Hawks play in the second game. Their fans were just as sparse as the earlier game. It looked like the Hawks were going to dominate the game, leading by five at the end of the third quarter. But in the first three minutes of the last quarter, the Lynx outscored the Hawks 12-1 and took a commanding lead they extended into a 61-46 victory.
The game was over by 12:30, and the girls still had to attend their last two classes of the day after they got back to school.
Dennis and Lana collected uniforms after school and made sure they had all the warmups and cheerleader uniforms as well. They’d been the ‘away’ team against the Cougars, but would be the ‘home’ team against the Lynx.
“Want to come over to my house to do laundry?” Lana asked.
“Sure. We should pick up my iron and ironing board on the way.”
“I wish I could tell you to plan to stay, but… well, my parents aren’t quite that open.”
“I love you, Lana, and when the time is right, we’ll have a place,” Dennis said.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking since we talked. I sounded like such a desperate girl that night.” They pulled in at Lana’s house and put laundry in the washing machine. Fru Elsa immediately recruited them to help with dinner preparations, so the conversation was delayed until the uniforms were dry and the two set their ironing boards up to face each other.
“As grown up as we all want to be, we’re still teens, aren’t we?” Dennis said. “We aren’t independent. We have rampant hormones and rollercoaster emotions. Every decision we make and everything we say can’t be expected to be at the same level of maturity.”
“I visited Grandma Brown a couple of weeks ago. She said she finally had everything she wanted as a teenager. She has her own place to live, sets her own bedtime, sleeps with her boyfriend, has a drink if she wants one, and gets an allowance every month. Then she said, ‘And I’m too tired to enjoy it!’ I thought she was joking, but she was serious. Do we finally get all the things we want when we’re too old to enjoy them?”
“I guess that’s the way life is.”
“But, Dennis, I’m ready—sometimes. The thing is I’m not ready all the time. You know? Like right now, I think how nice it is that we’re sharing a chore—ironing our girls’ underwear—and when we’re done, we could just fix a cup of tea and then go off to bed to cuddle up and make love and then wake up together in the morning. It’s like we’re an old married couple. But instead, we’ll finish ironing and I’ll kiss you goodnight and you’ll go home. I’ll go to bed and diddle myself thinking about you.”
“Not really!”
“Yes, really. I do that a lot more now than I used to. Not just diddling myself, but thinking about you when I do,” she giggled. “Of course, sometimes I realize I’m thinking about Natalie or Amy or Judith. But usually—or at least half the time—I’m thinking about you. Especially after I’ve just kissed you goodnight.”
“I admit, sometimes I think about you when I’m doing it, too. Only it works the other way around. I find myself thinking about you and that starts me touching myself.”
“I’d touch you,” she sighed. “Someday soon.”
Dennis hung all the uniforms in the back of his car before kissing Lana goodnight and heading home. He was thinking about Lana and the possibility that they might make love sometime soon. He wouldn’t push her, but he had to admit he was getting a little frustrated from being so close. His dad had been one to seize the moment when he saw what he wanted. He wanted Dot and at the first opportunity, planted a baby in her. Randy, on the other hand, had once talked about the pleasures of delayed gratification and how waiting three years to have Elsa made bringing her home all the sweeter. Dennis assumed the story was meant to encourage him to wait longer for Lana.
The rear passenger window shattered and Dennis swerved away from the sound of a gunshot off to his right. He couldn’t see anything past the uniforms hanging in the back, so floored the accelerator and hunched over the steering wheel as he drove toward town, fumbling for his cellphone. He was sure he heard another shot and may have only imagined a third, but nothing else seemed to hit his car. He turned the wheel hard into the parking lot of the grocery store at the edge of town and skidded to a stop in front of the store. Keeping low, he ran for the store and ducked inside.
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