The Whistle Blower Read online

  She wasn’t so sure it was luck. She looked at the sky, wondering if one of Bob’s tasks was keeping refs from falling into the abyss. Then she wondered why she was looking at the sky. She wasn’t sure Bob even spent any time up there. If he did, she certainly couldn’t picture it. And just where had Bob been lately? He was the worst investigative partner ever. No, that wasn’t true. She’d rather work with an elusive angel than with Detective Slaughter.

  She took off her hat to give her head a few seconds to cool off. She hated to do this, as she felt more exposed with her hat off. She was delighted with how much anonymity the hat granted her, even if it was mostly in her head. But right now, she needed a break from the black fabric. It was eighty-two degrees out with a hundred percent humidity—unseasonably hot for September. But this was Maine. So on Saturday, when the youth pastor needed some heat, it would be forty-six degrees with a wind chill of twenty.

  The trainer helped the injured girl off the field, and the substitute trotted out into her spot. As Moose put his whistle to his lips, Sandra put her hat back on and got into position. She couldn’t believe how sweaty she was. Her clothes were soaked. She’d be embarrassed, but no one would get close enough to her to know how gross she was, so it was okay.

  The clock started and Sandra refocused herself and didn’t let herself look at the ground. Bob will keep me on my feet. Once she’d stopped hyper-focusing on the holes in the field, she began to find her rhythm. She missed a few fouls, but Moose called them from the other side of the field, and the Lisbon moms seemed to be a pleasant bunch. For starters, there weren’t very many of them, and those who were there were looking at their phones.

  She did get hollered at once, by the away coach, but she knew she’d made the right call, so his screaming didn’t affect her much. She was surprised at this. In other parts of life, having a man scream at her in public would’ve wreaked havoc on her emotional health.

  At some point, Sandra realized she was having great fun and almost giggled in surprise. When the ball rapidly changed direction and she had to turn and sprint down the field, she felt like she was flying. She wasn’t, of course. On a logical level, she knew she couldn’t be going that fast. She was chasing young girls, and they weren’t very fast, yet she felt like she was soaring. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so free, and she didn’t want the game to stop.

  Then, at halftime, Moose said something about a second game, and a voice in Sandra’s head suggested that maybe she should be pacing herself. “There’s a second game?” she asked, breathing hard.

  Moose laughed. “There sure is. There are usually two games when you have a middle school assignment. This is the seventh-grade girls. The eighth-graders play next, and you’ll be surprised how much stronger and faster they are. A year makes a big difference.”

  Uh-oh. Sandra wasn’t sure she had the energy for a second game. She put her hands on her hips, still panting. “I think I might die, even if the sinkholes don’t get me.”

  Moose laughed again. “This humidity isn’t helping. But you’ll be fine. Make sure you drink your water.” His sparse hair was dripping wet, and he used his sleeve to wipe some sweat from his eyes. “We can always go a lot farther than we think we can.”

  “You should put that on a T-shirt,” she said as she trotted back across the field for the second half—without touching her free water.

  Chapter 42

  Moose hadn’t been kidding. Eighth-grade girls were a lot faster than the seventh-graders had been, and Sandra decided that she was going to start a petition to ensure that the fast kids always played first.

  With every step, Sandra was sure she couldn’t take another, but the steps just kept coming. She dug into reserves she didn’t even know were there.

  And perhaps it was this exhaustion that emboldened her to hand out her first card.

  An angry-looking fullback on the blue team definitely committed obstruction as she protected the ball long enough for her keeper to scoop it up, but as the keeper went for it, it squirted away from her, and white took it away and headed for the goal. For reasons Sandra couldn’t imagine, the Lisbon coach went ballistic. He wanted her to call the obstruction, even though that would mean forfeiting his girls’ breakaway. Almost laughing at the man, she tried to ignore him.

  But he wouldn’t stop. One of his strikers got a shot on goal, which she blew, and the ball went out of bounds. As blue set up for a goal kick, his screaming got louder and more obnoxious. Sandra finally allowed herself to look at him, and what she saw alarmed her. His face was as red as any face had ever been and he was jumping up and down like a toddler mid-tantrum.

  Sandra knew how to deal with a toddler tantrum. She knew she had to be more stubborn than the child. She looked at Moose, asking permission with her eyes, and he gave her a slight nod.

  She blew the whistle, held her arms up to stop the clock, and then headed toward him.

  He stopped shouting and glared at her, his hands on his hips. He knew what was coming. A hush fell over the crowd. They knew what was coming. She couldn’t even believe what she was doing, but she was going to do it, no matter what. No way was she going to let a toddler best her.

  She stopped twenty feet short of him and took out her little black folder. Then she pulled the yellow card out and held it up in the air.

  Then she restarted the game, trying not to smile when Moose winked at her.

  The coach was quiet for the rest of the first half, and she steered far clear of him for halftime.

  “Well done,” Moose said when she trotted over to him.

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. It takes most new refs a while to get up the courage to card a coach.”

  She was surprised to hear this. “Well, he was being a psycho.”

  “Yes, he was. But still, good job.”

  She tried not to beam with pride, but she was feeling pretty good about herself, like she was finally in control of something, and like she’d found a way to stick up for herself. It was a heady moment.

  During the second half, she had to stop the clock for a different, slightly more peculiar reason.

  A chubby black cat tried to join the game.

  Sandra first caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye while the ball was on Moose’s end of the field. He strode out onto the eighteen and then lay down in the sun. Sandra glanced at the goalkeeper, they shared a giggle together, and Sandra thought that was the end of it. She refocused on the game, figuring the cat would flee the scene as soon as the ball headed his way.

  This was not the case. The cat seemed completely fearless as twenty eighth-grade girls bore down on him at full speed. Maybe he didn’t see them coming? Most of them definitely did not see him there. Sandra didn’t know what to do. She panicked. She couldn’t stop the game for a cat, could she? But she couldn’t let the cat die, could she?

  She blew the whistle and stopped the clock. Everyone stopped running and stared at her. Now what? Nothing in her meager training had prepared her for this. It hadn’t been on the test. It wasn’t on the YouTube videos. But there everyone was, staring at her, waiting for her to move. She glanced at Moose, but he was still a hundred feet away, and though he would reach her eventually, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

  So, she approached the cat. He watched her coming, but he didn’t move a muscle. Until she bent over to scoop him up. Then he leapt to his feet and sprinted a mere three feet away—just out of her grasp. A few of the girls giggled, and she thought about carding them too. But she tried to be a good sport.

  Moose finally reached the action. She looked at him and mouthed, “What do we do?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Great. She strode toward the cat, who waited until she reached him and bent over before running away again. This was getting embarrassing, and she was losing her patience. Perhaps God was trying to humble her after her first-half pride surge. She went for the cat again, faster this time, and he scurried away, dis
appearing for a moment among a bunch of shin guards. “If anyone else wants to grab him, go ahead,” she said.

  No one moved.

  She lunged for him again. This time he let out a cry that made it sound as though he were being tortured. No one had touched him. This was not funny anymore. She thought about telling all the girls to run at him at once, but he didn’t run away from them—only her. Maybe she should just let them play, let him get run over.

  The goalkeeper who had begun this journey with her came alongside her. “Can I try? I’m really good with cats.”

  Sandra nodded eagerly. The petite goalie got down on all fours and started making a clicking sound with her tongue. A few girls laughed at her, and Sandra shushed them. She crawled toward him, holding one limp hand out toward him. Much to Sandra’s shock, the cat edged toward her and then nuzzled against her outstretched fingers.

  The goalkeeper let out a little grunt as she dove for the cat. He tried to dart away, but her body blocked his path as she landed beside him, nearly surrounding him with her body, and holding him to her stomach with one hand.

  All the girls cheered. The crowd cheered. Even the yellow-carded coach clapped. The goalie stood up, holding the wayward feline in her arms. She looked at Sandra as if to say, “What do I do with him now?”

  Sandra had no idea. She looked at Moose, but he appeared to have no idea either. They all stood around for a minute just staring at the cat. Finally, the away coach hollered, “I can just have someone on my bench hold him.”

  Sandra glanced at the cat, who did seem content to be held. That was lucky. She nodded, and the goalie delivered the cat to the waiting coach like a maternity nurse hands off the newborn.

  Sandra gave her favorite goalie ample time to return to her goal, and then she started the clock, fervently hoping she wouldn’t have to stop it again. Ever.

  Chapter 43

  Sandra felt like a million bucks. She also felt like she might drop dead from exhaustion, or heat stroke, or both, before getting to her minivan.

  But she didn’t. Though her legs felt like jello, she made it to her van and climbed inside. She took off her hat, started the van, and blasted the air conditioning at her face. The air was as hot as a furnace, but the promise of the iciness to come was enough to comfort her. She took a long drink from the water bottle she’d brought from home and kept in the locked van, and then sat there panting.

  She couldn’t believe how much fun she’d just had. Whether or not she ever figured out who killed Frank Fenton, she thought she’d continue being a soccer official. She just didn’t want to give it up. She hadn’t received her first paycheck yet, but she thought she’d do this for free if she had to.

  She eased her van out into the slow trickle of traffic. No one was in a hurry, as the driveway to the Lisbon Middle School fields was a mile-long dirt road that sported even more potholes than their soccer field did.

  But Sandra was in no hurry. She turned up the Casting Crowns and sipped on her water bottle, and by the time she reached the tar road, the air-conditioning was actually cold.

  Only five minutes later, she turned it down because she caught a chill. Her wet clothes grew more uncomfortable with each mile. And with each mile, she grew more excited about getting home and stepping into a hot shower. As she was daydreaming about this hot shower and the cozy flannel pajamas that would follow, she realized with dismay that she had to go to the bathroom. She’d gotten a little carried away with the hydration. Really, going to the bathroom wasn’t such a formidable task, but she hated to go anywhere in her fluorescent yellow costume, especially when it was dripping wet and plastered to her body. She drove by two gas stations that probably would have worked, but they appeared too busy. She was hoping to find one that was a bit more deserted.

  And then there it was on the horizon, a small mom-and-pop shop that might not even have a bathroom. But at least there were no other cars in the driveway. She pulled in and parked right beside the door. Despite her enthusiasm for the restroom, it took her a while to climb out of the vehicle. Her legs, which had been absolute champs for four thirty-minute halves, had stiffened up during her drive. As she waited for them to cooperate, she had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She looked around, expecting to see Bob—but she didn’t.

  What she did see was difficult to process. A flurry of motion and a flash of red. Someone was close to her, too close to her; absurdly, her first concern was how sweaty she was. But then her head exploded in a pain that didn’t make sense. Something had hit her—hard. Her stomach rolled, and her knees buckled, but someone grabbed her from behind before she could fall the rest of the way to the ground.

  At first, she felt gratitude. Someone had kept her from falling. But then her brain made a disturbing calculation: that person had hit her. And now that person was dragging her. She opened her mouth to scream and managed a bellow she was proud of. She tried to scream, “Fire!” but only managed a high-pitched “Fi!” before a hand clamped over her mouth. She gasped for air and tasted the saltiness of his hand, which, absurdly, made her angrier than any of this incident had thus far. A salty hand in her mouth was gross, and her chest filled with rage. She bit down on that nasty hand with all her might, and her attacker cried out in pain before calling her an incredibly impolite name. “If you want to live through this, you might want to be more cooperative,” a voice hissed into her ear, and she knew that voice.

  Oddly, this knowledge comforted her. She wasn’t being kidnapped by a stranger. She was being kidnapped by a fellow soccer ref.

  Chapter 44

  Birch Kabouya tried to push her into the trunk of a car, and she fought like she’d never fought before. She rammed her arms out ahead, before her head could hit the bottom of the trunk. She sank her fingernails into the dirty carpet and then braced herself with her arms as she drove her right foot back like a psychotic mule. How she wished she were wearing soccer cleats! Or a stiletto.

  Again, he cried out, and the pressure of his hands eased off just enough so she could flip over and kick again with her other foot. This time she brought the foot from ground toward sky and connected to a sensitive part of his body with a satisfying force. As he groaned, she screamed with all her might. She didn’t bother with the fire ruse this time; she just let out a primal wail from the core of her being. As she screamed, she feared that most of the sound was being trapped by the trunk and she scrambled to get her head back out into the open air. Unfortunately, her last flip and kick had left her terribly off balance, and as she struggled to get back in control of her body, he put one hand on the top of her sweaty head, grabbed her leg with the other, and then forced the rest of her small body into the trunk. She grabbed his dreadlocks with one hand, not getting as many of them as she wanted, and tried to yank herself back out of the trunk, like she was falling off a cliff and his hair was her safety line.

  One strong punch to her stomach ended this attempt. Suddenly, her only mission in life was to breathe again, and as she gasped for air, he tucked her one free foot into the trunk and slammed it shut. As she tried to catch her breath, her fingers frantically searched the trunk, looking for the little emergency release that would set her free. On some level, she knew that any kidnapper worth his salt would have removed this release in advance, but this wasn’t his car, so maybe he hadn’t thought of it. Besides, was Birch the sharpest knife in the drawer? He had, after all, abducted her in broad daylight in a public place. She vowed to herself that from now on, she would only pee at the busiest gas stations she could find. And as her fingers searched the darkness, and as she tried to catch her breath, she heard Birch on his Bluetooth connection. “Yeah, I got her. Meet you at the camp.”

  Oh good. They were going to have a soccer ref meeting at a camp. The car picked up speed, and she tried to relax, tried to think. There must be a way out of this, must be something she could do.

  Oh! Duh! Why hadn’t she prayed yet? She squeezed her eyes shut and begged for rescue. “Please, God, don’t le
t me die. My babies need me. Please get me out of this. Please send Bob. Actually, wait. If you have better angels available, please send them. I mean, nothing against Bob, but I’m not sure he’s much of a fighter.”

  Tears threatened to spill as she prayed, and she wondered why she was fighting them. Then, after a while, she didn’t, and they poured out of her eyes and onto the floor of her least-favorite person’s borrowed trunk.

  How far are we going? With each passing mile, her fear of dying decreased, and her fear of peeing in her pants increased. Not that she would mind soiling Birch’s borrowed trunk. It was the least she could do. But she didn’t want to pee in her pants. That would be gross and embarrassing. And eventually, she would be rescued, and wanted to retain her dignity for that moment.

  She took a deep breath and then said, as loudly as she dared, “Sorry to bother you, Birch, but I really need to go to the bathroom.”

  No response. Had he heard her? She waited a second and then tried again. “I promise to behave. I just really need to go.” And there she was, lying again. “I can go anywhere. Just let me out in the woods somewhere.” She didn’t know where they were, but this was Maine, so there were woods nearby.

  “We’re almost there.”

  Aha! He had heard her! This was good, right? She should get him talking. She’d read somewhere that hostages should humanize themselves, right? She needed to form a relationship with Birch.

  “How much farther?”

  “Shut up!”

  Okay, maybe he didn’t want her to be humanized. She considered her words carefully. “When women have babies, their bladders get pretty pathetic.”

  Nothing from the front.