Father Knows Death Part 27

She opened her eyes, still smiling. "Ace and Deuce. I don't like it."

My heart sank. "No?"

"No," she said, but she was still smiling. "I love it."

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1.

"The King of Soccer is missing," Julianne said into my ear.

I was standing on the sideline, sweating, concentrating on the swarm of tiny girls chasing after a soccer ball. As the head coach of my daughter's soccer team, the Mighty, Fightin', Tiny Mermaids, it was my sworn duty to scream myself silly on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, hoping they might play a little soccer rather than chase b.u.t.terflies and roll around in the gra.s.s. As usual, I was failing.

I gave my wife a quick glance. "What?"

"The King of Soccer is missing," she repeated.

Before I could respond, my five-year-old daughter, Carly, sprinted toward me from the center of the field, ponytail and tiny cleats flying all around her.

"Daddy," she said, huffing and puffing. "How am I doing?"

I held my hand out for a high five. "Awesome, dude."

She nodded as if she already knew. "Good. Hey, are we almost done?"

"About ten more minutes."

She thought about that for a moment, shrugged, and said, "Oh. Okay." Then she turned and sprinted back to the ma.s.s of girls surrounding the ball.

Except for the ones holding hands and skipping around the ma.s.s of girls surrounding the ball.

I took a deep breath, swallowed the urge to yell something soccer-ish, and turned back to Julianne. "What?"

She was attempting to smother a smile and failing. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt the strategy session, Coach."

"Whatever."

She put her hand on my arm. "I was trying to warn you. Moises Huber is missing."

Moises Huber, aka the King of Soccer, was the president of the Rose Petal Youth Soccer a.s.sociation. He oversaw approximately two hundred teams across all age groups, close to two thousand kids, five hundred volunteers, and about a billion obnoxious parents.

He was also a bit of a jerk.

"Missing?"

"Hasn't been seen in three days, and Belinda wants to talk to you about it."

I s.h.i.+fted my attention back to the game. Carly broke free from the pack with the ball and loped toward the open goal. My heart jumped, and I moved down the sideline with her. "Go! Keep going!"

Several of the girls trailed behind her, laughing and giggling, not terribly concerned that they were about to be scored upon.

Carly approached the goal, settled the ball in front of herself, shuffled her feet, and took a mighty swing at the ball.

It glanced off the side of her foot and rolled wide of the goal and over the touchline.

My heart sank, and the gaggle of parents behind me in the bleachers groaned.

Carly turned in my direction, grinned, and gave me a thumbs-up. I smiled back at her through the pain and returned the thumbs-up.

She sprinted back toward her teammates.

Maybe we needed to practice a little more.

I walked back up the sideline to Julianne. "Why does she want to talk to me about it?"

"I think it has to do with you being a superb private eye and all," Julianne said.

"I'm not a private eye."

"Those fancy cards you and Victor hand out beg to differ, Coach."

After successfully proving my innocence in the murder of an old high school rival, I'd reluctantly joined forces with Victor Anthony Doolittle in his investigation business. On a very, very, very limited basis. We were still trying to figure out if we could coexist, and the jury was still deliberating.

I frowned. "What does missing mean? Like he's not here today?"

Julianne shrugged. "Dunno. But you can ask her yourself." She tilted her chin in the direction of the sideline. "She's coming your way, Coach." She kissed me on the cheek. "And don't forget. We have a date tonight."

"A date?" I asked.

"Well, a date sounds cla.s.sier than using you for s.e.x," she said, slipping her sungla.s.ses over her eyes. "But call it what you like. Coach." She gave a small wave and walked away.

I started to say something about being objectified-and how I was in favor of it-but Belinda Stansfield's gargantuan body ate up the s.p.a.ce Julianne had just vacated.

"Deuce," Belinda said in between huffs and puffs. "Need your help."

Her crimson cheeks were drenched in sweat, and her gray T-s.h.i.+rt was ringed with perspiration. Actually, it appeared as if all 350 pounds of Belinda were ringed in perspiration.

She ran a meaty hand over her wet forehead and smoothed her coa.r.s.e brown hair away from her face. She took another huff-or maybe it was a puff-and set her hands on her expansive hips.

"Middle of a game here, Belinda," I said, moving my gaze back to the field, which I found far more pleasant. "Can't it wait?"

"No can do, Deuce," she said. "This is serious business."

Carly tackled one of the opposing girls, literally threw her arms around her and took her to the gra.s.s. They dissolved into a pile of laughter as the ball squirted by them.

"Um, so is this, Belinda."

"Oh, please, honey," she said, shading her eyes from the sun. "These little girls care more about what's in the cooler after the game than the score. And these parents don't know a goal from a goose. You are a babysitter with a whistle. Get over yourself."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Moe's done and gone and disappeared."

"Like, from the fields?"

"Like, from Rose Petal."

Tara Little started crying and ran past me to her parents. We were now down a Fightin' Mermaid.

"Since when?"

"Today's Sat.u.r.day," she said, swiping again at the sweat covering her face. "Last anyone saw him was Wednesday."

"Maybe he went on vacation," I said.

"Nope."

"Maybe he's taking a long nap."

"Deuce. I am not kidding."

The pimple-faced referee blew his whistle, and the girls ran faster than they'd run the entire game. They sprinted past me to the bleachers, where a cooler full of drinks and something made entirely of sugar awaited them. Serious soccer players, these little girls.

I took a deep breath, tired from yelling and baking in the sun, and adjusted the visor on my head. "Okay. So he's missing."

She nodded, oceans of sweat cascading down her chubby face. "And there's something else you should know."

I watched the girls, red-faced and exhausted, sitting next to each other on the metal bleachers, sucking down juice boxes, munching on cookies, and swinging their legs back and forth.

There were worse ways to spend a Sat.u.r.day.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Seventy-three thousand bucks," Belinda said.

"What? What are you talking about?"

She s.h.i.+fted her enormous body from one tree stump of a leg to the other.

"Moe's missing," Belinda said. "And he took seventy-three thousand dollars with him."

2.

"All the summer and fall registration fees," Belinda said. "Gone."

The girls were now chasing one another, the parents were chatting, and Belinda and I were sitting on the bottom of the bleachers.

"How is that possible?" I asked. "He just walked away with that much in cash?"

"The bank accounts are empty," she said. "They were full on Tuesday. Before he disappeared."

"Could be a coincidence."

"And I could be a ballerina," she said, raising an eyebrow. "It ain't a coincidence, Deuce."

No, it probably wasn't a coincidence. She was right about that.

"Don't you guys have some sort of control in place for that kind of thing?" I asked. "I mean, with the accounts. Multiple signatures or something like that?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Last year, when Moe was reelected, he demanded full oversight. The board didn't like it, but he said he'd walk without it. So they gave it to him."

"Why did he want it?"

"No clue."

I spied Carly attaching herself to Julianne's leg. She was crying. Carly, not Julianne. Crying had become common after soccer games, the result of too much sugar and some physical exertion. It was less about being upset with something and more about it just being time to get home.

"I want to hire you, Deuce," she said. "We want to hire you. The board. To find him and the money. You and that little dwarf, or whatever he is."

A smile formed on my lips. I wished Victor was there to hear her description of him.

"I'll need to talk to Victor," I told her. "The little dwarf. To make sure he's okay with it."

"You two got so much work you're turning away business?"

As a matter of fact, we did. Or rather, Victor did. Since our initial escapade, people had been seeking us out left and right. My agreement with Victor allowed me the flexibility to work only when I wanted to. Fortunately, he'd been more than capable of handling most of the work and I'd been left alone to play Mr. Mom to Carly.

"No," I said, attempting to be diplomatic. "But we don't take anything on unless both of us agree."

She thought about that for a moment, then nodded.

Then her stomach growled.

"There's one more thing," she said.