Dylan Whitley stood at the sidelines: even from downfield the boy was unmistakable. He stood just north of six foot, making him one of the shortest quarterbacks anyone in Bentley could remember, but he was broad-chested and long-legged and possessed the sort of sturdy shoulders a town needed to drape its hopes on. He paced near the water coolers, poker-faced, only the mouth guard that bobbed fitfully between his teeth betraying any hint of anxiety.
Jamal Reynolds, the team’s backup quarterback, stood a few steps behind Dylan in a pristine jersey, murmuring something that made Dylan nod his head and chew his mouth guard harder. Clark struggled to remember the last time she’d seen Jamal play.
Crouched beside Dylan, adjusting a stubborn knot in his laces, was KT Staler, the wiry tight end whose performance on the field fluctuated so wildly he had earned the nickname Mister Powerball—with Staler you either got the jackpot or nothing at all. If Clark wasn’t mistaken, the skinny boy looked like he’d somehow lost even more weight lately.
Luke Evers, the Bison’s running back, stood beside the team’s offensive coordinator, raising an arm with a bicep the size of a honeydew to point at something on the coach’s clipboard. Evers was the sort of strapping boy that Texas athletics bred on a yearly basis. He only seemed to be getting bigger.
Interesting, Clark thought. Luke Evers had grown and KT Staler had shrunk. Clark’s mind, conditioned by three years on the force, began to speculate on reasons for this before she quelled it with a cigarette. She turned her attention back to the field. For an hour, just an hour, she would prefer not to be a cop.
The Bison readied their line to block the second play, the tight Lycra of their pants gleaming as they bent low. T-Bay Baskin, the Bison’s defensive captain, shouted and spat into the grass. The Cougar quarterback caught the snap. For a moment Clark lost sight of the ball as the Rattichville offense pulled a sweep to the left, spotting it again in the hands of the Cougar halfback. The boy was trying to hustle the ball wide, running toward the Bison’s exposed flank and looking for all the world like he was about to make it around.
Garrett Mason, the Bison’s safety and one of the biggest players on the team by a wide margin, took the halfback down at the waist. The slap of the two players colliding set Clark’s teeth on edge. The play had been a very long, very illegal flying tackle, and as the Rattichville halfback struggled to his feet, his body shaking as he held in a retch, Clark was certain the Bison had just earned themselves a penalty.
From somewhere behind her, she heard an odd scraping noise. Heard it again: a rustle, a hush. There, in the dark, she saw a man shuffle between two trucks, his crooked left foot trailing through the gravel behind him like a dead dog on a short leash.
“Do my eyes deceive me,” Clark said softly. “Or is Mr. Ovelle back in town?”
The deputies turned. Jason Ovelle, the man in the shadows, had been a miscreant since before he’d crossed the graduation stage of Bentley High, a few steps ahead of Clark herself. Unaware he was being watched, the man tugged on a truck’s door handle.
“And he brought some burglary with him.” Browder smiled.
Clark stubbed her half-smoked cigarette on the fence rail and tucked it behind her ear. She would have to be a cop tonight after all.
Ovelle, apparently still oblivious to their attention, limped into the shadows as the officers made their way across the parking lot—a galling cheer rose from the stands the moment they turned away, of course—but as Clark drew near she spotted the man digging beneath the seat of KT Staler’s rusted Tacoma. She started to run.
Ovelle froze at the sound, turned his head slowly to face her. He made no effort to escape.
“Evening, Officer.” He smiled. “Those boys is something, ain’t they?”
“They are indeed. Why ain’t you watching the game with us, Jason?”
The last decade had not been kind to Ovelle. A milky scar ran from his brow to the crown of his buzzed scalp. He was skinny, almost frail, and he stood with a permanent stoop. According to one story, an angry con had taken a folding chair to Jason’s ankle when he was serving a dime up in Huntsville on drug charges, but there was no telling if this was the truth. Jason had the sort of reputation that attracted stories the way a wound attracts flies.
He made a show of patting his pockets and turned back to KT Staler’s open Tacoma. “I would enjoy it, Clark, ma’am,” Jason said. “But I’m a little short. These bag boys owe me, see, and I—”
This was quite strange. Jason was a fuckup, a small-time hood, but Clark had never seen him do something so brazen as rooting through the door well of a star Bison player in plain view of an officer. She wondered what sort of wolf was pawing at his door tonight.
And then she saw the weapon on his hip: a nasty-looking hunting knife, a good eight inches long.
Clark’s hand hovered over her gun. Another cheer rose up from the field, the marching band boomed to life: the half had ended. If she and the other officers didn’t hurry they were about to have an audience, and God help them then. The men that ran Bentley could not abide a single joule of the spotlight being stolen from their Bison on a Friday night.
“Let’s talk about this at the station, eh, Jason?” Clark said.
“The station?” Ovelle stared at her, horror in his eyes. “But they’d kill me if I went to the station. I ain’t even supposed tobehere.”
“No, you surely ain’t.” She nodded at the Tacoma. “We would normally consider this breaking and entering.”
Panic fell over Jason’s face. He finally made to dash past Clark, his bad foot throwing up a little cloud of dust in his wake, but the moment he was within reach she tossed him against the rusted hood of the Tacoma. The air flew from his gut with a softpfft. Clark pinned his wrists against his shoulder blades, slid the knife from his belt, tossed it in the grass. “That’s enough now.” She shushed him like she would a child.
“You’ve killed me, Clark.” Jason gasped. “You’ve killed me.”
“Wrists, Jason. Please.”
Officer Jones appeared from the other side of the Tacoma and picked up the knife, glanced at the rust on its serrated edge, shook his head. “You alright?”
Browder appeared from behind a Jeep. “Audience incoming.”
Sure enough, there was a rumble of voices in the parking lot. Clark clicked home the second cuff.
