Donovan’s first stop was
to talk to Coach Levitt. The Field House
was a short walk away, and it gave the detective a few minutes to gather his
thoughts. As he entered the building, the
smell of sweat and antiseptic greeted him, and his footsteps echoed as he made
his way down to the locker room. He
paused for a moment when he entered and wondered what it must have been like
for the team in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Donovan crossed over to the coach’s office, knocked on the door frame, and
leaned inside. The older man behind the
desk, his face weary, looked up and sighed.
“Coach Levitt?” said the detective, “My name is Kyle Donovan; I’m an
investigator from SAPD. Do you have a
few minutes?”
“Yeah, come on in.” The coach pushed back his chair to shake the
detective’s hand. “Have a seat.” He motioned to a chair then closed the
door. “What can I do for you today?”
“Well, first of all,”
Donovan began, “I want to offer you my condolences. I imagine that you were pretty close to your
quarterback.”
Levitt leaned back in his
chair and stared out into the locker room.
“He was a good kid,” he said quietly, staring at the nameplate above his
player’s locker. “Brian transferred in
at the beginning of the summer, joined the team, made it his own.” He blew out a breath, “Not gonna lie, I
figured we had a chance at a bowl invitation.
Now I got a lineup of scared kids wondering if they’re gonna be next.”
“We’ll wrap this up as
soon as possible,” Donovan assured him.
He took a breath, “I have a couple more questions, if that’s okay.” The coach nodded and the detective asked
delicately, “Did he get along with his teammates?”
The coach looked at him sharply, “These boys are competitive, but none of them would want something
like that. They’re a team,
goddammit.” His eyes blinked rapidly,
and for a moment, uncertainty flickered across his face. “No one would want that,” the words were
slower, quieter. His shoulders sagged
and he leaned forward, knitting his fingers together on his desk, “Can you do
something for me detective? Can you find
the person who did this to us?”
Donovan returned Levitt’s
gaze, promise in his voice, “We’ll take care of it.”
Before he left the
building, the detective stopped in the hallway, staring at the team poster. A young man in a football jersey appeared at
his side, glanced at Donovan, then turned back to stare at the poster. He asked quietly, “You the cop?”
“I’m Detective Donovan,”
he replied. He glanced at the young
man’s shirt. “Number 81, you’re Daniel Mosser.
You made that winning pass the other night.”
The wide receiver ignored
the officer’s comment and continued to stare at the poster. “I bet the coach said what a stud Brian was,
didn’t he?” A hint of bitterness crept
into his voice. “I don’t mean to speak
ill of the dead, but that guy was a bastard.
My friend Joaquin was supposed to be the starting quarterback, but then
Brian joined the team and started saying shit about him.” He shook his head. “The bullying got so bad that Joaquin quit.” The boy swallowed hard. “You don’t really want to wish someone dead,
but that guy had it coming.” For a
moment, it was as if the air was sucked out of the hallway. Suddenly, the young man punched the poster, turned,
and walked away.
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