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have
been working out at the school gym at the time of the murder. He
had no alibi. His football coach often left him alone with the
keys, trusting Derrick. It was against school rules, but Derrick
had proven himself to be reliable, and after all he was the star
athlete. The coach probably loved him like a son.
    The coach was the last to see Derrick. That
had been at 5:45 p.m. on the evening of the murder. The coroner’s
report placed the time of murder at 7:00 p.m. According to the
arrest report, the detectives figured Derrick left the school
weight room shortly after the coach had left and proceeded to
ambush the girlfriend he loved and slaughtered her in front of her
home. His vehicle had no trace of her blood. There were no wounds
on Derrick’s hands or arms. Other than the murder weapon found in
his backseat there was nothing to link him to the murder.
    The murder weapon was enough.
    Had he not blundered and forgotten about the
murder weapon, Derrick would have pulled off one amazingly clean
murder. I’ve now had a chance to see the crime scene photos. The
murder was definitely not clean.
    Derrick, of course, claimed he was at the
school weight room until 7:30 p.m. that night, like he was every
night. A routine that anyone could have caught onto and used
against him.
    No one believed Derrick’s story. Except his
defense attorney Charlie Brown, although he was being paid
handsomely to believe his story.
    And me. But I was not being handsomely paid.
I hate it when that happens.
    I moved beyond the hallway, beyond the brick
walled central quad, beyond what was probably the school cafeteria,
beyond the gym, and toward the athletic department.
    It was spring, and so there was no football
to be practiced, which was why Derrick had been lifting weights
after school, rather than working out with his team. Instead, it
was baseball and track season. Beyond a chain-linked fence I could
see a varsity baseball game getting under way. Parents and some
students filled the small bleachers. To the north of the baseball
field was a track field, and it was a beehive of activity. I
watched a young girl sprint for about thirty yards and leap through
the air, landing gracelessly in a cloud of dirt. She dusted herself
off, and then headed back for another leap.
    I followed a paved pathway, bigger than a
sidewalk, but not big enough to be called a road. The pathway
skirted the softball field and headed toward a group of buildings
lined with doors. One of the doors was open, and inside I could see
shining new gym equipment.
    My old high school did not have shining new
gym equipment. It had well-used and badly damaged gym equipment. In
fact, we just had free weights and a few squat racks, come to think
of it.
    But it had been enough, if used correctly and
religiously. Both of which I had done.
    I stepped into the doorway and peaked in,
almost expecting to see a membership desk. What a spread. Gleaming
chrome equipment covered the entire room. Mirrors were everywhere.
Techno rock pumped through loud speakers situated in every corner.
Boys and a handful of girls were in there, all taking their
workouts very seriously. I was completely ignored. In fact, there
seemed to be a melancholy mood to the place, despite the rhythmic
pounding of the dance music.
    I spied some offices in the back and headed
that way, passing two kids lifting an impressive amount on the
bench. I calculated the weight. They were benching almost three
hundred pounds.
    Not bad for a kid.
    I came to the first office and knew I had hit
the jackpot. The sign on the closed door said Coach.
    Only the egocentricity of a football coach,
in an entire department of other coaches, went by Coach alone.
    I knocked on the closed door. Doing so, the
door creaked open, and immediately I sensed something wrong. Very
wrong.
    Coach was a big man, and from what I could
tell he had taken a bullet to the side of the head. Blood and brain
matter sprayed the east side of his office. A revolver was