Chapter 32
The sports agent’s office was in Chicago. Luckily, he was visiting a small high school just over the border in Ohio. A kid there had an arm that rivaled Cy Young and had the potential to go bigger with the right coach.
Harper Googled the agent and got a photo off his website. They parked at the school and headed to the field.
The line at the concession stand wasn’t long and Noah wanted food. He bought a sketchy hotdog on a stale bun and an equally stale bag of popcorn for her. Noah paid the modest fee to get in and they wandered past the fence and into the stands area.
A group of bleachers, mostly filled with supportive onlookers, watched the field. Several people at the fence shouted encouragement to the players, or in the case of one guy, called his kid worthless and an embarrassment to his family tree.
“You want to hold him down while I kick him,” Harper said. She hated negative parents. This guy helped no one by humiliating his poor kid in front of the crowd.
“You hold, I’ll kick. These are steel-toed boots.”
Both sent the father a shaming look and he flipped them off in response. Harper hoped that the son fled that jerk into college, or the pros, and never looked back.
She certainly would.
Scanning the crowd, they moved on. A few minutes later, she spotted the agent in the middle of the bleachers wearing a Cubs hat. He was a stout man with a tie tight enough to strangle his double chin, and two sweat stains under his arms.
He pulled out a stopwatch when the inning ended and the teams switched out. As Harper knew exactly zero about baseball, she assumed the new pitcher on the mound was the kid phenomenon in question. The agent focused on him as he warmed up.
“Up there.” She tipped her head up. Noah found the guy and headed that way. They took seats behind him. He was pale and trembling as if chilled on the warm day.
Instead of confronting him right away, they ate their subpar snacks and watched. The agent spoke into his phone during the first few pitches, talking in some sort of foreign baseball language that might as well be Latin.
Noah tried to explain in whispers in her ear. However, the shivers going down that side of her body, from his mouth so close to her lobe, made learning baseball speak impossible. She wanted to climb into his lap, press her face against his neck, and inhale his yummy scent.
A popcorn kernel caught in her throat and she coughed to expel it. Several parents turned to frown. The agent talked louder. Noah pounded her gently on the back.
“Should I perform the Heimlich Maneuver?”
Her scowl lost weight while swallowing the kernel with a sip of bottled water and tears rimming her eyes. “I’m going to Heimlich you with my Keds sneaker.”
Noah chuckled. “Don’t let Mignon hear you say that.”
She pulled herself together. “Mignon is starting to like me. By the end of the case, he’ll have me on his Christmas card list.”
Finishing off the hotdog, he said out of the corner of his mouth, “I wouldn’t wait by the mailbox.”
They watched the game and when the inning was over, Harper pounced. She tapped the agent on the shoulder. He turned in his seat. His Santa cheeks were sunburned.
“Excuse me, sir, but aren’t you Sherman Stiles, otherwise known as Sherman the Shark?” She got that off a few articles about the guy online. He’d been suspected of killing and eating fellow agents over stealing clients, but that was never confirmed.
“Who’s asking, honey?” He dragged a rude but appreciative ogle down her body, stopping the longest on her chest.
A rumble rose in Noah. Her grip on his arm kept him from launching the guy over the back of the twenty-foot bleacher onto the cement below.
An “I can handle this” look settled him down. If there was one thing a cheerleader learned from years of wearing skimpy costumes, it was how to deal with overheated men.
“I’m Harper Evans, formerly of the Lansing Mighty Muskrats. This is investigator Noah Slade. We need to talk to you about the death of Gerald Covington.”
Almost the entirety of her introduction seemed to go over his head. He placed a moist hand on her knee. “Please tell me you were a cheerleader.”
Of course he’d focus on that.
She bent his pinky finger backward. He whimpered and pulled free. “Geez. I was just trying to be friendly.” The reason he was called “shark” became obvious seconds later when he said with a yellowed-teeth grin, “Why don’t we discuss that corpse Covington back at my hotel? I have a hot tub and bubble bath. Swimsuits optional.”
His hand returned.
Her death grip, nails included, kept Noah seated.
“If you don’t behave,” she said in a low, even, and entirely dark tone, “and remove your hand, I’m going to snap off several fingers before you can work up a scream.”
He gaped and jerked back.
Her expression lightened. She refused to look, but it sounded like Noah choked on his tongue.
“Now, Sherman.” She released her PI. “I understand that you represent Dyshawn Hart? Is that correct?”
“That is correct.” He put his hands under his sweaty armpits where appendage removal was unlikely.
“We understand that you’re trying to renegotiate his contract,” she said. “Correct?”
“Also yes.” His upper lip was damp. “Dyshawn did not have proper representation when he signed with the Muskrats. Dyshawn’s dad also says his son was a week from turning eighteen when he signed the contract. If we can prove that, then Covington took advantage of an underage kid.”
Where his motives were out of concern for Dyshawn or greed, it didn’t matter. He had a reason to hate Gerald.
“Does Gerald’s death help your case against the team?” Noah said. Sherman dabbed his forehead on his sleeve. He looked shaky. He couldn’t be that upset about losing a couple of fingers. It wasn’t as if she’d actually do it.
“It might. It might not. I have lawyers checking everything. If there’s a hole, we’ll find it.”
Darn. So far, the man was straight forward. Still they knew he was within driving distance of the hotel during the murder. He could have easily completed the task with no one the wiser. But was he skilled enough to get in and out without being seen on video?
Harper leaned in. “Did you kill Gerald Covington?”
His red face went scarlet and he sputtered, “Of course not!” He jumped to his feet and knocked a chips and cheese dip container off his lap. Many eyes spun their way. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
Noah followed him up. “Settle d—”
Sherman eyes widened. He staggered backward, clutching his arm. Noah tried to grab him as Sherman pitched sideways, stumbling into a woman in a team jersey. She gasped as he kneed her in the back of her stadium chair.
“Ghaaaaaa,” the shark gasped and went down hard, his stout legs buckling under his bulk. He and the women hit the metal floor between the rows of seats, her muffled cries for help beneath the agent were nearly drowned out when the home team hit a home run and the crowd cheered.
“Oh shit,” Noah said and launched into action.