Skeleton Key (15 page)

“
Maybe it was because he had plans with another woman,” Chief Hopper said.

Erika was immediately embarrassed and Clay was a little angry by the insensitivity of the remark.

“
That was uncalled for, Luke,” Clay said.

“
It’s okay, Clay. It’s humiliating, but most likely true. I’d noticed things—evidence, comments, looks from other people. I figured he was cheating on me. I have to admit, that was one of
my
reasons why I wanted Logan to go with him—to keep him from cheating.”

“
I’m so sorry, Erika,” said Clay.

“
Please…don’t be. He was what he was. I just feel stupid that I didn’t do anything about it.”

“
So what else to you remember?” Hopper continued.

“
I went to a cave in Northern Indiana. It wasn’t too long of a drive. I was back home at about five thirty or six. The train doesn’t leave East Lansing until 8:20 and wasn’t scheduled to arrive until after nine, so I got some work done here at home.”

“
Can anyone verify that you were here?”

“
What are you getting at, Luke?” Clay asked, obviously offended.

“
I’m just asking questions, Clay. Remember you told me to detect. Well, I’m detecting to the best of my ability.” He turned back to Erika. “Someone buried your husband, Erika, and I think there’s more to the story than just a train wreck. I want to get to the bottom of it, so I’m just asking lots of questions, hoping things’ll sort themselves out. Is that okay with you, Clay?” he asked somewhat sarcastically.

“
It’s okay, Clay, but the answer is no, Luke. Unless I got a phone call or something, I don’t think there’s any way I can prove that I was home. But I
was
. At least until around nine o’clock when the emergency sirens went off and I heard the ambulances and fire trucks. I could see smoke over toward the Depot. I got in my car and drove to the train station and saw the wreck. Everything else is kind of a blur. I found Logan. His face was red and bruised. Morty was bloody all over, and Adrian was missing.”

“
Do you remember anything else that might have seemed unusual or important in some way?” Hopper asked.

“
I just remember Morty saying that he thought that Adrian was in the engine car, but because they couldn’t locate him, maybe he had jumped. He even suggested that Adrian had exited the train before the wreck.”

“
What did Logan say? Morty said that Logan went to talk to Adrian just a few minutes before the wreck. Did Logan see him?”

“
Logan has never said
anything
about what happened that night.”

“
Could we talk to him right now?”

“
I think he’s asleep. This has been hard on him. Maybe today’s not a good time, Luke. Can you give him a little time?”

“
Sure, Erika. Thanks for the information. I’ve got some things to look into, but I’m sure I’ll eventually want to talk to Logan. Let’s go, Clay.”

***

As soon as they were in Hopper’s car, Clay jumped all over him. “You’re treating her like a suspect! How could you seriously think that?”

“
Listen, Clay. Obviously you like her. Who doesn’t? But she
is
a suspect. S
omebody
buried that body. You claim Morty has an idea who buried Adrian. If it was Erika, Morty’d keep his mouth shut about that for sure. Maybe they were working together. Listen, I don’t think she did anything, Clay, but I’d be making a mistake if I didn’t at least keep an open mind about the possibility. That’s why I didn’t tell her what Morty was thinking yet. She had a good motive for him to disappear. He was cheating on her. She claimed he didn’t love Logan. She had the opportunity to bury him—at least she hasn’t been ruled out yet. Let me do some investigating, and something will turn up. It always does—at least on the TV shows it does.” He smiled.

“
Okay. You do your job, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you. What’s next?”

“
I guess I’ll look into the records of the train wreck and see if I can find anything unusual. I’ll check Erika’s phone records. Maybe someone
did
call her. I’m gonna have to find out for sure if she really
was
out of town that day. Maybe the reason she needed Logan to go with Adrian is because she had some diabolical plan.” Clay gave him an unhappy stare. “I
know…
I’m reaching for possibilities. We also need to figure out what Adrian meant by the skeleton key helping us discover who buried him. We need to talk to Logan eventually too. If Morty saw him lying on the floor, maybe Logan saw him too. Maybe
you
can get him to open up with your mind tricks.”

“
I wouldn’t do that unless Erika gave me permission. These powers I have are not toys to be played with. When I influence people, there are often consequences. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

As they pulled back into the police station, Hopper said, “I’ll speak to the medical examiner again too. Maybe he can tell us something about the heart attack that Adrian claims he had…and I’m especially interested that Morty thinks he might have killed him. Could there have been a murder or attempted murder? Nothing much makes sense yet, does it?”

“
Nope, not yet. By the way, Tanner has a game tomorrow at Crisler Arena. I’ll be out of town most of the day.”

“
Give him my best wishes. I’ll call you when I have information. Thanks for your help, Clay.”

Michigan’s men’s basketball team was playing a Saturday afternoon game against Clay’s alma mater, Eastern Michigan University, at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor. Clay was seated in the stands with Zander Frauss and his wife, Lydia. Though Clay was actually grateful, he pretended to be a little put out and said, “By the way, you two, thanks for setting me up. Here I was thinking I was doing Erika Payne and her son a favor and I find that you sent me so she could help
me
. Seems a little sneaky to me.”

“
That was completely Zander’s idea, Clay. I actually made first contact in the real hope that
you
could help
them
. That Logan Payne is troubled, and I can’t seem to find a way to help him. Maybe
you
can.”

“
I plead the fifth,” Zander said with a grin. “Anything I say can and will incriminate me. But now that you’ve met her, it’s my guess that you’re actually not too upset with me. How do you like her?”

“
I’d like to tell you that you’re wasting your time messin’ with my personal life, Doc, but actually, as hard as it is to admit it to you, I like her.” Then Clay proceeded to catch Zander and his wife up on the case. “Tanner made a bit of a connection with Logan, Lydia, but it’s going to be hard to get them together because of college and basketball. The police chief and I are hoping to find out what Logan saw on that train, but getting him to open up sounds like a difficult proposition.”

“
You can always
make
him talk if you decide to,” Zander reminded Clay.

“
Hopefully I don’t have to resort to mind manipulation, but if that’s what I have to do to solve the mystery, I just might do it.”

The Star Spangled Banner
played and the lineups were introduced, so Clay’s attention was diverted. He was hoping that Tanner would get some quality playing time and do well.

***

Darius Williams, Michigan’s starting point guard was having a great first half. He played the first eight minutes, scoring eleven points and dishing out four assists. Tanner subbed and played three uninspired minutes—his entire stat line consisted of one foul and one turnover—before Williams reentered the game. Clay was a bit disappointed, but he rationalized that freshman often had to go through some growing pains. A guard from Eastern dribbled the ball across half court and tapped his head to indicate a play. He faked a pass to his right and then fired a pass across the court to a teammate, but Williams anticipated the pass perfectly and intercepted it. Williams dribbled quickly down the court, intent on taking the ball to the basket for two more points. The guard from Eastern Michigan who had made the bad pass sprinted down the court and set himself in the lane, hoping to draw an offensive foul. Williams took the ball right at him, jumped, and then did an amazing three hundred and sixty degree spin in mid-air to avoid the charge, but the defender leaned into him anyway. Williams flipped the shot up and into the basket just before taking the hit, which caused him to turn awkwardly before returning to the floor. The crowd erupted in a tremendous cheer in appreciation of the amazing shot, but the crowd noise turned into nearly a complete hush as they heard both the loud snapping of his right ankle in a complete fracture and the near scream of painful agony as Williams crashed to the floor.

The sight was awful. Williams’s foot was twisted in a grotesque angle causing the snapped anklebone to poke nearly through the skin. The foot was twisted sideways and down while the bone poked in the opposite direction. A cheerleader who saw the damage fainted right on top of the referee who was bending down to aid Williams. Other shocked cheerleaders and players alike turned away to avoid the horrific sight. Clay felt sick, the injury was so gruesome. The EMU player who committed the foul literally ran down the players’ tunnel where he threw up. Tears came to his eyes as Tanner watched his friend continue to yell out in pain. He fell to his knees in front of the bench and began praying for his teammate. Coach Beilein ran to Williams’s aid and held his hand while his starting senior point guard writhed around on the floor in anguish. Medical trainers rushed to his aid and the aid of the unconscious cheerleader. Once the referee pulled himself from under the girl, he helped his partners herd the players away from the scene.

The next ten to fifteen minutes dragged by in near silence as a medical team padded, iced, and wrapped Darius Williams’s foot and eventually lifted him onto a stretcher to wheel him away to an ambulance. The entire Michigan team was noticeably as upset as Coach Beilein. They gathered around their coach and he suggested that the players say a prayer for Darius. Tanner volunteered to lead his team, but as he was praying, he decided to make use of his mental powers. He had sensed accurately that his team was in no mental state to effectively continue the game. “As we finish out this game,” Tanner ‘prayed,’ “we will be able to block out our worries and concerns for Darius, and we will maintain one hundred percent focus and intensity. We will do everything in our power to win this game for Darius. Amen.”

As the Wolverines broke their huddle, their focus was undeniable. Tanner had to shoot the free throw that resulted from the foul on the Williams basket. He made it, and for the next twenty-eight minutes of playing time, the Michigan team put on an unbelievable performance. They turned a seven-point lead into a fifty-four-point victory. Tanner, as the only player whose mind was not manipulated, was the only player to miss a free throw the rest of the game. The defensive intensity was ferocious, drawing nine offensive charging fouls, diving recklessly all over the floor, and setting a team record for defensive deflections. And as their scoring onslaught indicated, their offensive execution was excellent as well.

In the locker room after the game, Tanner reminded his teammates about Darius, and the players simply congratulated each other without celebrating. Coach Beilein complimented his team on their focus and intensity and praised them for having a common goal and carrying out its execution as a team. Players looked into each other’s eyes in a seeming realization of how much they could accomplish when they were mentally focused. Tanner couldn’t help but wonder if it would be a turning point in the team’s season. He knew he’d influenced their mental toughness, but he knew that each player had simply played to the best of his God-given ability and gave the most that he could give. Maybe in the future, they’d be able to do it again on their own.

***

Tanner greeted his dad with a bear hug after the game. Clay looked in his eyes and saw sorrow. Maybe regret. Clay knew the feeling that regret brought when he felt he had abused his powers, so he was hoping the look was one of sorrow for the horrible injury to his son’s teammate. He led his son to an arena seat and they sat down next to each other to talk. “What’s on your mind, Son?”

“
As a coach, you never manipulated any of your players, did you?”

“
Getting my players to always play their best would be a nice advantage, wouldn’t it?” Clay responded. “But, no, Tanner. I assumed when I was young that manipulating others was wrong. As I got older, I figured it was
my
secret and as long as I didn’t use the power I possessed, and never told anyone about it, I could be happy and content. I wasn’t either of those things, but I kind of decided that my power was my own personal cross to bear, and I needed to simply accept the burden. When your mother was killed, I blamed myself. I told myself that it was because I had used my powers that all of the chain of events occurred that led to her murder. I’ve been grieving her loss ever since. But lately I’ve started to have a change of heart. The powers I possess are a gift that God has given me to use for His glory. Now it’s my job, or my goal, or my desire, to figure out how and when to use my gifts in a way that I’m proud.”