Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death (21 page)

“Oh, right,” he said, making a face like he was impressed. “And you were fighting crime. Julianne, explain to me why you stay married to him again?”

Julianne smiled, but didn’t take her eyes off our son. “Because I love him.”

The nurse had arrived in the room as soon as I’d passed out. She’d hauled me into a chair and gotten me some ice and some juice. I came to just as Julianne was fully dilated. They tried to get me to sit and rest, but I refused. I sucked down two glasses of apple juice, crunched on the ice, and rinsed my face off with cold water before the doctor had arrived and ordered Julianne to push.

Once the baby decided he wanted out, he’d wasted no time. Five minutes later, our son arrived, red faced and howling, and Julianne and I both cried along with him. The tiredness and light-headedness were gone. I felt wide-awake and clearheaded. And ecstatic. Because I was no longer the only one with testosterone in my family.

“When’s he going to open his eyes?” Carly asked for the third time, staring at the tiny bundle cradled in Julianne’s arms.

“Soon,” Julianne promised, tucking the blanket in around his tiny chin. Then she reached over and touched Carly’s cheek. “Soon.”

“Cops came and arrested that clown you rode off with,” my dad said. “Think they might’ve detained Susan Blamunski, too.”

I wondered how Butch would handle that. Would he confess outright like he did to me or would he try to find a way to worm his way out of it? Either way, I was sure I’d have to end up talking to the police.

“And, after the shenanigans at the parade, I think we’ll be declining that company’s offer to drill on our property,” my dad continued. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”

“A lot of money,” I reminded him. “They’ll pay you a lot of money.”

He shrugged. “Eh. We got a little money. I don’t think I want all those yahoos digging around and squirting water everywhere. Sometimes, money isn’t worth it.”

After everything I’d learned in the previous few days, I had to agree with him.

“I have a question,” my mother said.

“What?” I asked, apprehensive.

“Do we have a name?” she asked. “He’s an hour old and I know names were not discussed publicly prior to his birth, but I’d like to think you might name that little boy soon.”

Julianne shifted in the bed and handed him to me. “Deuce is naming him.”

I’d forgotten how light newborns were. I cradled him to my chest like a football. He gurgled, his mouth a perfect O. His eyes squeezed shut tighter and his nose twitched and he was perfect.

I looked at Julianne. “Really?”

“Deal’s a deal,” she said, smiling.

“Oh dear Lord,” my father muttered. “This should be good.”

“Let’s name him Victor!” Carly said.

I laughed at that and looked down at my son. “Andrew, for Mom’s dad.”

My mother held a hand up to her mouth, pleased.

“Charles, for Julianne’s dad,” I said.

Julianne’s eyes were misty.

“And Eldrick, for you, Dad,” I said.

He looked surprised and, for once, had nothing to say. This may have been one of the greatest accomplishments of my life—causing him to go speechless.

I looked at my son. “Andrew Charles Eldrick Winters.”

“I like it,” Julianne whispered.

“And we’ll call him by his initials,” I said.

I could see all of them thinking, working the letters in their heads, coming to the same conclusion at about the same time.

“Ace,” Julianne said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. But she was smiling.

“Oh good Lord,” my father said, rolling his eyes. “I knew you’d do something goofy.”

“I think it’s cute,” my mother said.

“I like it,” said Carly, grinning at me.

“Me, too,” I said. I looked at Julianne. “How about you?”

She opened her eyes, still smiling. “Ace and Deuce. I don’t like it.”

My heart sank. “No?”

“No,” she said, but she was still smiling. “I love it.”

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1

“The King of Soccer is missing,” Julianne said into my ear.

I was standing on the sideline, sweating, concentrating on the swarm of tiny girls chasing after a soccer ball. As the head coach of my daughter’s soccer team, the Mighty, Fightin’, Tiny Mermaids, it was my sworn duty to scream myself silly on Saturday afternoons, hoping they might play a little soccer rather than chase butterflies and roll around in the grass. As usual, I was failing.

I gave my wife a quick glance. “What?”

“The King of Soccer is missing,” she repeated.

Before I could respond, my five-year-old daughter, Carly, sprinted toward me from the center of the field, ponytail and tiny cleats flying all around her.

“Daddy,” she said, huffing and puffing. “How am I doing?”

I held my hand out for a high five. “Awesome, dude.”

She nodded as if she already knew. “Good. Hey, are we almost done?”

“About ten more minutes.”

She thought about that for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Oh. Okay.” Then she turned and sprinted back to the mass of girls surrounding the ball.

Except for the ones holding hands and skipping around the mass of girls surrounding the ball.

I took a deep breath, swallowed the urge to yell something soccer-ish, and turned back to Julianne. “What?”

She was attempting to smother a smile and failing. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt the strategy session, Coach.”

“Whatever.”

She put her hand on my arm. “I was trying to warn you. Moises Huber is missing.”

Moises Huber, aka the King of Soccer, was the president of the Rose Petal Youth Soccer Association. He oversaw approximately two hundred teams across all age groups, close to two thousand kids, five hundred volunteers, and about a billion obnoxious parents.

He was also a bit of a jerk.

“Missing?”

“Hasn’t been seen in three days, and Belinda wants to talk to you about it.”

I shifted my attention back to the game. Carly broke free from the pack with the ball and loped toward the open goal. My heart jumped, and I moved down the sideline with her. “Go! Keep going!”

Several of the girls trailed behind her, laughing and giggling, not terribly concerned that they were about to be scored upon.

Carly approached the goal, settled the ball in front of herself, shuffled her feet, and took a mighty swing at the ball.

It glanced off the side of her foot and rolled wide of the goal and over the touchline.

My heart sank, and the gaggle of parents behind me in the bleachers groaned.

Carly turned in my direction, grinned, and gave me a thumbs-up. I smiled back at her through the pain and returned the thumbs-up.

She sprinted back toward her teammates.

Maybe we needed to practice a little more.

I walked back up the sideline to Julianne. “Why does she want to talk to me about it?”

“I think it has to do with you being a superb private eye and all,” Julianne said.

“I’m not a private eye.”

“Those fancy cards you and Victor hand out beg to differ, Coach.”

After successfully proving my innocence in the murder of an old high school rival, I’d reluctantly joined forces with Victor Anthony Doolittle in his investigation business. On a very, very, very limited basis. We were still trying to figure out if we could coexist, and the jury was still deliberating.

I frowned. “What does
missing
mean? Like he’s not here today?”

Julianne shrugged. “Dunno. But you can ask her yourself.” She tilted her chin in the direction of the sideline. “She’s coming your way, Coach.” She kissed me on the cheek. “And don’t forget. We have a date tonight.”

“A date?” I asked.

“Well, a date sounds classier than using you for sex,” she said, slipping her sunglasses over her eyes. “But call it what you like. Coach.” She gave a small wave and walked away.

I started to say something about being objectified—and how I was in favor of it—but Belinda Stansfield’s gargantuan body ate up the space Julianne had just vacated.

“Deuce,” Belinda said in between huffs and puffs. “Need your help.”

Her crimson cheeks were drenched in sweat, and her gray T-shirt was ringed with perspiration. Actually, it appeared as if all 350 pounds of Belinda were ringed in perspiration.

She ran a meaty hand over her wet forehead and smoothed her coarse brown hair away from her face. She took another huff—or maybe it was a puff—and set her hands on her expansive hips.

“Middle of a game here, Belinda,” I said, moving my gaze back to the field, which I found far more pleasant. “Can’t it wait?”

“No can do, Deuce,” she said. “This is serious business.”

Carly tackled one of the opposing girls, literally threw her arms around her and took her to the grass. They dissolved into a pile of laughter as the ball squirted by them.

“Um, so is this, Belinda.”

“Oh, please, honey,” she said, shading her eyes from the sun. “These little girls care more about what’s in the cooler after the game than the score. And these parents don’t know a goal from a goose. You are a babysitter with a whistle. Get over yourself.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Moe’s done and gone and disappeared.”

“Like, from the fields?”

“Like, from Rose Petal.”

Tara Little started crying and ran past me to her parents. We were now down a Fightin’ Mermaid.

“Since when?”

“Today’s Saturday,” she said, swiping again at the sweat covering her face. “Last anyone saw him was Wednesday.”

“Maybe he went on vacation,” I said.

“Nope.”

“Maybe he’s taking a long nap.”

“Deuce. I am not kidding.”

The pimple-faced referee blew his whistle, and the girls ran faster than they’d run the entire game. They sprinted past me to the bleachers, where a cooler full of drinks and something made entirely of sugar awaited them. Serious soccer players, these little girls.

I took a deep breath, tired from yelling and baking in the sun, and adjusted the visor on my head. “Okay. So he’s missing.”

She nodded, oceans of sweat cascading down her chubby face. “And there’s something else you should know.”

I watched the girls, red-faced and exhausted, sitting next to each other on the metal bleachers, sucking down juice boxes, munching on cookies, and swinging their legs back and forth.

There were worse ways to spend a Saturday.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Seventy-three thousand bucks,” Belinda said.

“What? What are you talking about?”

She shifted her enormous body from one tree stump of a leg to the other.

“Moe’s missing,” Belinda said. “And he took seventy-three thousand dollars with him.”

2

“All the summer and fall registration fees,” Belinda said. “Gone.”

The girls were now chasing one another, the parents were chatting, and Belinda and I were sitting on the bottom of the bleachers.

“How is that possible?” I asked. “He just walked away with that much in cash?”

“The bank accounts are empty,” she said. “They were full on Tuesday. Before he disappeared.”

“Could be a coincidence.”

“And I could be a ballerina,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “It ain’t a coincidence, Deuce.”

No, it probably wasn’t a coincidence. She was right about that.

“Don’t you guys have some sort of control in place for that kind of thing?” I asked. “I mean, with the accounts. Multiple signatures or something like that?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Last year, when Moe was reelected, he demanded full oversight. The board didn’t like it, but he said he’d walk without it. So they gave it to him.”

“Why did he want it?”

“No clue.”

I spied Carly attaching herself to Julianne’s leg. She was crying. Carly, not Julianne. Crying had become common after soccer games, the result of too much sugar and some physical exertion. It was less about being upset with something and more about it just being time to get home.

“I want to hire you, Deuce,” she said. “We want to hire you. The board. To find him and the money. You and that little dwarf, or whatever he is.”

A smile formed on my lips. I wished Victor was there to hear her description of him.

“I’ll need to talk to Victor,” I told her. “The little dwarf. To make sure he’s okay with it.”

“You two got so much work you’re turning away business?”

As a matter of fact, we did. Or rather, Victor did. Since our initial escapade, people had been seeking us out left and right. My agreement with Victor allowed me the flexibility to work only when I wanted to. Fortunately, he’d been more than capable of handling most of the work and I’d been left alone to play Mr. Mom to Carly.

“No,” I said, attempting to be diplomatic. “But we don’t take anything on unless both of us agree.”

She thought about that for a moment, then nodded.

Then her stomach growled.

“There’s one more thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“We can’t pay you.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “That’s gonna be a problem, Belinda. The little dwarf likes money. He tends not to work without it.”

“I mean, we can’t pay you up front,” she clarified. “Everything we got, Moe took. You find him and the money, we’ll pay you whatever we owe you.”

I knew Victor was going to have a coronary over that.

“I’ll talk to Victor and see what I can do,” I said, standing.

She pushed her girth up off the bleachers, wobbled for a minute, then steadied herself. She wiped a massive hand across her wet brow.

“Well, I hope you can do something, Deuce,” she said, a sour expression settling on her face. “Because that money? That’s all we got. It doesn’t come back, soccer don’t come back.”

“Really?”

“We are totally fee driven. Nothing in reserve. So unless you wanna foot the bill for uniforms and trophies and field space and insurance and who the heck knows what else, we need that money.”

I glanced over at the remaining girls. Carly had detached herself from Julianne and was now playing some bastardized version of tag. Her team wasn’t very good at soccer, but that didn’t stop me from espousing the virtues of team sports at a young age. They weren’t winning games, but I believed they were getting something out of playing.