Chapter 11

WHAT YR EMAIL. More pix.

Agent Brisco looked at his cell phone and determined who the call was from. Ah, yes. Amy. The girl from Bartley. He shot her his email address and turned to his computer. The pictures were definitely better quality, but didn’t really show anything significant. Then there was the picture of the man with a baseball bat. It looked like someone was falling in front of him. Finally, there was a picture of the back of a van. He zoomed in on the license plate and sharpened the image. He jotted down the Illinois plate number.

Brisco went back to the pictures she’d sent the first time and stopped on the pictures of the exchange going on at the van. He verified that both vans were Dodges, but could only assume the license plate number in the second shot was of the same van as the first. He sat back in his chair contemplating what to do. He texted Amy.

R U safe?

Right now. Think they know.

Don’t go out. Stay inside.

Thumbs up emoji.

Who man with bat?

IDK. He saved me.

Brisco nodded. He didn’t think she’d still be alive if she’d been that guy’s target. He went back through his notes from the past two weeks. When they raided the crack house in Ames, a similar van had been seen moving away from the scene and there was nothing left in the house. The lab was there, but there was no product. He ran the plate number and discovered it was stolen. So, the vehicle could have come from anywhere and just switched plates in Illinois. There was so little to go on, but it bore further investigation.

He added it to his work pile.

Practice was rough the next week. With only nine girls on the team now, they couldn’t scrimmage five-on-five. They tried working four-on-four and four-on-five, but it just wasn’t giving the right experience. Finally, Arvid had enough. She blew her whistle.

“I’m picking starters this week,” she said. “We need to be ready for the game Thursday night. We’re not getting anywhere with unequal teams.” The girls were quiet, sitting on the bench and sipping their water. They all knew things weren’t going well.

“I didn’t want to do this, but Dennis, I want you to play point guard on the red team. I’ll shuffle you girls around on the blue team until I see what I want. Then we’ll start seriously fine-tuning. We’ll start the blue with Daniella and Roberta at forward, Rosie at center, Leanne at guard and Natalie at point. Don’t start thinking this is your starting team. I’m putting the tallest girls together against the shortest to begin watching. Red team, Dennis at point, Brenda guard, Amy and Judith at forward, and Diane at center. We’ve got the short team vs. the tall team. Seriously, show me what you’ve got.” She blew her whistle and they took the floor. Dennis had to run back to the equipment locker to get himself practice jerseys. He was in his sweatpants and T-shirt like usual. He didn’t have shorts with him.

Amy inbounded the ball to Diane and they brought it downcourt. Diane passed to Dennis who immediately shoveled it off to Brenda. By that time, the other two girls were in position. Brenda tried to drive around Natalie but was turned back quickly. She passed back to Dennis and he moved into the key, handing the ball off to Judith as he set a pick against Daniella. As soon as she was clear, Judith launched the ball at the rim. It teetered and fell through the basket.

“Team Red!” Dennis hollered as they pelted back up court. They did the best they could, but once the blue team got the ball under the basket, the height showed itself and Roberta launched a layup and scored. It took a while for each team to find a rhythm with their teammates but both sides were surprised to find how balanced they were. After five minutes of playing hard, Ardith whistled a stop and switched Brenda with Natalie. “Rosie, move to forward. Roberta, center on red team. Diane, forward on red. Let’s go.” She blew her whistle as soon as jerseys had been changed and each team had a chance to check in with their teammates. The game continued.

Dennis was having fun at the point guard position. He called plays and passed the ball, occasionally dribbling as he assessed where his players were. Then he’d pass, set a pick if needed, and let his teammates score. Ardith blew her whistle and moved people around again. At one point, Dennis passed the ball to Natalie and set a pick on Daniella, allowing Natalie to drive around them and shoot for three points.

Unfortunately, Daniella backpedaled right into Dennis, knocking him to the floor and then fell on top of him. It was not quite an anime moment, but Dennis did find his face pressed into Daniella’s abundant chest. She quickly rolled off him.

“Are you okay?” she said, reaching out a hand to him.

“No problem,” he said.

“Hoo. That was exciting.” Both got up and laughed it off.

At the end of an hour, all the girls had played on each team and several had switched positions.

“That’s enough scrimmage for now. I want you to run layup drills. One on one. Two lines. Dennis will toss the ball to one or the other and that person drives. The leader on the other side will defend. When the ball has been shot, go to the end of the opposite line. Ready?” She blew her whistle and Dennis started feeding the balls out to the players as Ardith observed and shouted instructions to the two players. They were all hot and sweaty by the end of practice.

“You need to come in and take a shower with us,” Amy teased Dennis. “You’re as sweaty as the rest of us.”

“Um ... uh ... That’s okay. I think I can make it in and out of the boys’ locker room okay. JV won’t finish practice for half an hour,” he said. He turned red in the face.

“Amy, you’re teasing,” Natalie chided her. Amy turned to the taller player innocently.

“Who says?” she said wiggling her eyebrows. Then she darted into the locker room. Natalie rolled her eyes.

“Kids,” she muttered. Then she and Dennis both laughed. He grabbed a towel from his supply and ran into the boys’ locker room to take a quick shower and dress. He was on his way out of the locker room when the JV team started pushing their way in. No one said anything to him, but there were some hard looks tossed his way from the sophomores who had their season cut short by the scandal last year. Of course, they all considered it Dennis’s fault, even though they had participated in the bullying.

Si Goodman stopped Dennis just outside the locker room. Dennis cringed against the wall. “Hey, don’t worry. I know we were wrong last year. I’m sorry. I’ll try to straighten the other guys out. We shouldn’t have ... done any of that, even if the older guys threatened us. I don’t know how you survived it, but thanks for not ratting everybody out. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Si reached toward Dennis but the team manager didn’t offer his hand. Si grimaced and nodded his head, following his teammates into the locker room.

Dennis got his things together and waited on the other side of the girls’ locker room for the last of them to come out, pushing the towel cart.

“I’m driving tonight,” Brenda said. “Leanne and Rosie, you’re with Dennis and me.” Dennis delivered the towels to be laundered to the dock and joined the girls heading to the parking lot. He sat quietly in the front seat looking straight ahead with his hands clenched. Brenda noticed. “Dennis? Did something happen? You don’t look good.” He shook his head.

“It’s just ... spooky to go back in there and see those guys. Nobody did anything.”

“Leanne and Rosie, I’m dropping you off and taking Dennis for a shake at PJ’s. This is a manager and captain conversation. Got it?”

“Yeah,” both girls nodded. When each got out of the car, she put a hand on Dennis’s shoulder and gave him a little squeeze.

Dennis started to get out, too, but Brenda caught his hand. “Hey, come on. How often do you get invited for a shake by the most beautiful senior at Bartley High?” She grinned at him and started laughing. He settled back in his seat as Brenda drove them to the little café.

They sat in a corner and sipped on their shakes, Brenda waiting for Dennis to say something.

“Do I have to take my shirt off and hold you against my breast in order for you to talk to me?” she asked. He blushed and then shook his head.

“That would be nice but I don’t think they allow it in the café.”

“Yeah, it was nice. Now tell me what happened that got you all spooked.”

“Si,” he said.

“Did he threaten you?”

“No. He said he was sorry. He said ‘thank you for not ratting the rest of us out.’ And he offered to shake hands.” Dennis was breathing heavily and tears were near the surface.

“And?”

“How can I just shake hands with a guy who shoved his dick down my throat?” Dennis blurted out. The silent tears dripped. Brenda quickly moved around the table and put her arms around him, pulling him to her. His head fell on her breast as it had in the locker room. She just rocked back and forth a little, trying to soothe him.

“I’m not half naked, but this is still pretty nice, isn’t it?” she said. He sniffed and nodded, then pulled back wiping his eyes. “Let me tell you a little something. I’ve never quite been in your situation, but when I was a freshman ... Well, I guess the guys would say I was pretty well stacked. It was obvious that I’d become a cheerleader. What I didn’t know was how these older high school kids would treat me. I got cornered by a player one night and ... he made a pass at me and started telling me how we were going to have sex soon. I panicked, but he had me trapped. I thought I was going to be raped right there in the hallway. Then Paul was suddenly there beside me and pushed the guy away. Paul’s always been one of the most popular guys in our class. And he’s gotten even more handsome as we’ve gotten older. But he backed the older player down and made sure he was always available to escort me when I was alone.”

“He’s your boyfriend now?”

“No. Not really. We’re friends and sometimes we get together, like at the Armors’ party. But we don’t really date. I didn’t date anyone all my freshman or sophomore year. I could have, but I just kept telling guys my parents wouldn’t let me date yet. Not that they would have cared. Mom got me on birth control as soon as I had my first period and said, ‘Have fun.’ They just assumed that built like I am, I’d be a slut. I think everyone assumed that.”