Read Online City of the Sun by David Levien - Free Book Online

kids doing the same. He sat for an hour and a half, as the team moved up and down the field, bunching around the ball occasionally, causing the coach to blow his whistle and wave his arms, which returned them to better spacing. Behr raised his miniature Zeiss 12 × 25 and glassed the streets bordering the field; he saw he was the only one in the watcher category. Parents began showing up, and the kids ran, muddy-cleated, to waiting cars. Behr opened his door, swung his feet out, and started toward the field. The coach oversaw the last of his players leaving and was picking up the orange cones that marked the field when Behr got to him.
    Coach Finnegan wore plastic-framed glasses, a fleece top, and a flexible knee brace on his right leg beneath baggy Umbro shorts. The guy had coached the Wayne Hornets for six years after moving there from Colorado Springs. Unlike the teacher, Andrea Preston, who was a pillar of the community, Finnegan, according to Behr’s background check, was divorced, delinquent on six alimony payments, and had once pleaded no contest to a bad check charge. Fines had been paid.
    “Must be cold,” Behr said, pointing at the coach’s red legs.
    “I always wear ‘em,” Finnegan said of his shorts, “even at the end of the year.”
    “You’re Finnegan?” Behr asked as a formality.
    “Uhm-hm. You?”
    “I’m here about Jamie Gabriel.”
    “He used to play for me.” The coach nodded. “Sad thing that happened. He was a striker.” The man’s face didn’t give anything away. “Any news?” he asked as an afterthought.
    “I work for the family,” Behr told him by way of a nonanswer. He wasn’t going to tell this guy shit. For many cops and investigators the major obstacle to detecting deception and finding the truth was their own natural tendency to believe people. Behr had no such problem: he’d seen too much ugliness. He couldn’t help his prejudice, either. He reserved a little dose of suspicion for men who worked with children. Female teachers had his baseline trust. Male college professors made sense to him. But adult men who worked with young boys chafed just slightly at the part of him that doubted humanity. He knew this was stupid, and he’d seen countless female criminals prove it so. Behr appraised the soccer coach. Could his emotional or psychological issues have led him to do the unspeakable? The guy seemed like a regular ex-jock; he was probably beyond reproach.
    “Ever seen anyone hanging around the field who shouldn’t be?”
    “You mean when Jamie—”
    “Anytime. Before or since.”
    “Haven’t. I’d question anyone like that,” the coach said, a real solid citizen.
    “Ever have a player mention an adult was bothering him?”
    “Only their relatives. Usual stuff. ‘My father won’t let me play because of grades.’ ‘My mother’s boyfriend’s an asshole.’ “
    “Gotcha.”
    Finnegan toed down a hunk of loose turf. Behr looked over both ends of the field.
    “How does transportation work?”
    “Parents do drop-offs and pickups. Team van for road games or parents can drive if they want. Anybody who’s not a parent who’s picking up a player has to be prearranged with me by phone. More than a few times I’ve had to refuse an aunt or uncle and drive a kid all the way home because the mother or father forgot to call.” The coach offered this with a half-smile. He was looking for hosannas for his commitment to youth safety. Behr hated like hell to disappoint him.
    He looked down at his notebook, closed it. “Well, that’ll do her. Call me if anything occurs.” He handed the coach a card and cut across the field toward his car.
    Behr drove the paper route before six, as was Jamie’s custom, rolling slowly down Richards through the neighborhood. He went down Cypress, around Grace, Sixteenth Street, Perry, and then Tibbs. He passed a jogger as he turned onto Tibbs, a large guy in nylon shorts, high athletic socks, and a thick terry-cloth headband, huffing