Hometown Hero Read online

  By the time the needle lifted and returned on the last Nat King Cole album, I realized that I wasn’t good. I’d somehow forgotten the last yarn-over more than once or twice, and my thirty-seven-stitch scarf was now twenty-five stitches. I was going to have to tear it all apart and start over, which seemed to be the way most of my knitting projects went. I wasn’t a quick study when it came to this hobby, but like Henry and his entertainment console, I persevered. And in the end I got great joy out of both the process and the finished product, no matter how ugly it might be.

  Actually, it wasn’t ugly, even with the weird shape caused by my inadvertent decreases. Maybe beauty was in the eye of the beholder, but this lattice pattern was quite pretty and the tomato-red silk/wool blend I’d splurged on felt marvelous in my hands. I held it up to my nose, closed my eyes, and inhaled. It smelled like home, like something warm and doughy and soft. I was going to really enjoy wearing this scarf. And that gave me the strength to unravel all the stitches and start again, this time with a background of Sarah Vaughan music.

  I joined the kids for lunch, then went back to my knitting and music while they finished the final touches on their raft for the regatta. Then I put together a picnic basket while they showered and got ready for the Fourth of July Concert in the park. The whole time Taco kept me company, and Eli’s ghost hovered near, a comforting presence that added to the sense of bliss I’d felt all this day. I loved having this family share my home. I loved knowing they were there, even if I was off in the parlor on my own knitting and listening to music. And I loved hearing the thunder of their footsteps as they came down the stairs, as we all made our way out the doors of my historic Victorian home and into the judge’s SUV to head to the holiday concert. Together.

  Chapter 3

  Swann Park was only a few blocks west of downtown and a favorite spot for both picnic goers and joggers throughout the year. A creek winded lazily through the long swath of green, skirting the picnic areas, the playground, the carillon and the concert band shell. Swann Creek flooded with enough regularity that residents could practically mark it on their calendars and remember to move their cars from the street-side parking into the alley behind their houses. Thankfully those homes were set on a hill, so when the overwhelmed sewer system backed up water into the streets, that water seldom made it into the basements of those who lived creek-side.

  This evening there was no rain, and Swann Creek was meek and tame, firmly contained by its banks. Instead of standing water, the streets were flooded with cars parked nose-to-tail and people loaded down with lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers.

  I would have been one of those people loaded down with lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers, but Judge Beck had taken charge of tonight’s outing and I found that all I’d needed to carry was my purse. Henry had two of our four chairs, Madison had the other two, and the judge was dragging our sizable cooler-on-wheels with the blankets tucked under his arm. The lawn around the band shell was quickly filling up, but I saw Matt Poffenberger waving at us and realized he’d secured us a space.

  “Daisy and Suzette are joining us,” I told him as Henry and Madison set up the chairs. “Will we have room?”

  “There’s always room.” Matt’s smile was infectious. “You’re still coming to the bingo game after the fireworks, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I told him as I spread out one of the blankets. Matt spent most of his time at the VFW organizing their fundraisers and events. He was involved in just about every charitable enterprise in Locust Point in some way or another. The late-night bingo game after the fireworks on the Fourth was to help purchase new playground equipment at one of the city parks. I’d invited Daisy and a few others from the neighborhood, turning it into a rare girls-night-out.

  “We’ve got some great baskets for the winners.” Matt took the cooler from the judge and wheeled it over next to his own. “I brought some beers to share. Is that okay with the kids here?” he asked.

  “The kids are not allowed to have beer,” Judge Beck teased. “And I’m driving or I’d drink the ones you brought for them.”

  “I’ll drive,” I told him. “You and Matt booze it up. The kids and I will stick with sodas.”

  “Did someone say beer?” Daisy’s voice rang out as she and Suzette made their way to us through the crowd. “Don’t you dare let that lush of a judge drink them all.”

  Matt laughed, flipping the lid on his cooler and making a show of counting the bottles. “I think I can spare one for you, Daisy. And Suzette as well.”

  “None for me, thanks.” Suzette held up a giant bottle of water. “Once again I’m trying to lose some weight.”

  No matter what the American Medical Association might say, Suzette was not what I would have called obese. She was pleasingly plump with a soft chin, broad hips, and a small stomach roll that occasionally escaped the waistband of her pants and obscured her belt. She also had thick, wavy brown hair that glinted gold in the sunlight, huge, soft, dark eyes, and dimples that creased her round face when she smiled—which was often. I knew her weight bothered her, and it broke my heart because she was such a pretty woman with a kind, giving personality. But it would take more than a sixty-year-old neighbor telling her so for her to believe it.

  Matt popped open three beers, passing one to Judge Beck and the other to Daisy, while I dug into my cooler for sodas for me and the kids.

  “Dad! There’s Chelsea over there. Can I go?” Madison asked, doing a little hop in her excitement. As if she hadn’t just seen her friend four hours ago.

  “Sure, go ahead.” Judge Beck was facing Matt, his back to where Chelsea was, so he didn’t see what I did—that Chelsea wasn’t over with her parents, but with a group of kids.

  And those kids include Holt Dupree.

  Holt was holding court. That was the only way I could describe it. He was tall and muscular, dwarfing the dozen nubile teenage girls that surrounded him, and dwarfing nearly all of the six worshipful teenage boys as well.

  I wasn’t about to rat Madison out, but I cast her a sharp glance, wondering if all her protests about Holt the other day had been the efforts of a girl with a hopeless crush. I remember being critical about guys that I secretly dreamed of but who were totally out of my league. It was a weird sort of self-defense mechanism for teen girls—reject them first before they had a chance to reject you. Although in my case, the dream-boy probably hadn’t even been aware of my existence.

  Holt Dupree clearly wasn’t aware of Madison’s existence either. I watched them carefully, noticing how he cultivated his crowd of admirers, but clearly had favorites. He flirted with all the girls, but the ones he seemed to be putting his arm around, or tucking the hair behind their ear, or putting his hand on their shoulder were all of a type—the blonde cheerleader type, in their mid-twenties and model-gorgeous.

  Except one. A young woman approached the football star with a wave. She looked to be about his age and was blond, but her looks were more girl-next-door than swimsuit model. She was attractive, but in a very average sort of way— the type of girl it would be easy to overlook, and difficult to remember once she was gone.

  Holt obviously remembered her. He looked up at her greeting, and a genuine smile creased his face as he pulled her in for a crushing hug. The spoke for a few moments, Holt ignoring the adoring fans, the far more attractive girls who were not-so-subtly trying to pull his attention from this newcomer.

  And then with another hug, and an almost sisterly kiss on his check, the girl walked away, never looking back. Holt watched her for a few seconds, then he turned back to his crowd, once more the football star amid his young adoring public.

  “Who’s that? She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.” I asked Daisy, nodding to the young woman making her way past us toward a rusted Honda on the street that looked to be the same age as her.

  Daisy turned to give the girl a quick glance. “Oh, that’s Violet Smith.”

  I shook my head, the name not enlightening me one bit as to
why I vaguely recognized her.

  “Her younger sister is Peony Smith.”

  “Ah.” Peony was a bit of a controversial figure around our home and among Madison’s other friends. Her clothing pushed the limits of the school dress-code policy, and she came across as a bit of a wild-child. Judge Beck always seemed a bit uneasy when Madison hung out with the girl. Madison’s other friends treated Peony with cool disinterest, but she seemed to be with them often in spite of the lukewarm reception—well, lukewarm from everyone except Madison who truly seemed to like the girl, much to her father’s poorly hidden dismay.

  And now that my friend had mentioned the relationship, I clearly saw that Peony looked very much like her elder sister. Put them in the same clothing and I wasn’t sure I could tell them apart from across the room.

  Daisy chuckled. “Seven years apart, but they really do resemble each other. Those Smith girls all look like they were stamped from the same mold. Rose and Gardenia too.”

  I smiled at the flower names, wondering if Daisy’s mother had read the same baby book as the matriarch of the Smith family. The family wasn’t personally known to me—well all except for Peony who had been at the house a few times this summer.

  “Those girls haven’t had it easy,” Daisy continued. “Violet managed decent enough grades at the community college to get in at a four-year. She qualified for a few need-based scholarships and took out the maximum in loans, but she had to work almost a full-time warehouse job on the side to help pay for it all. No wonder so few kids rise out of poverty and go to college with those sorts of hurdles.”

  Daisy’s vocation was working with underprivileged youth. She also volunteered at a crisis center that assisted runaways, pregnant teens, and victims of abuse as well as kids battling addiction. She knew everyone in town, especially those who had passed through her doors at some time or another in their lives.

  “And you helped her get some of those need-based scholarships?” There were plenty of reasons Daisy might know the Smith girls, but I was going to assume the least troubling of those reasons.

  She nodded. “I wish there had been more available.”

  And that said it all. Churches and other organizations had small scholarships of a few hundred dollars that were happily given each year, but a few hundred here and there didn’t go far when tuition as well as room and board added up to nearly as much as these kids’ parents brought home each year. Government aid, loans, and these small scholarships only went so far.

  “So how does Violet know Holt Dupree?” I asked. She didn’t really seem to be his type as far as girlfriends went, but maybe I was being too harsh in my judgement. The boy was putting on a show, acting the part of the celebrity. Who knows what he truly valued in a girlfriend when he was away from the public eye?

  “Oh, they grew up together. The Duprees and the Smiths are practically neighbors in Trenslertown.”

  Trenslertown wasn’t really a town. It was a tiny neighborhood that was, quite literally, on the wrong side of the tracks. There was a swath of land between the rail line and the highway, and in that section of land were a dozen or so houses—cinder block, plywood-sided, and clapboard, as well as a few old rusted mobile homes all hidden from view by overgrown briars and vine-choked trees. It was where Locust Point’s poor lived, generations stuffed into those drafty homes.

  Suddenly that warm greeting made sense. To everyone else, Holt Dupree was a football star, a local boy who’d made it big. To Violet Smith, he was that kid from down the street who’d experienced the same drafty winters and canned-bean dinners as she had. There was a brotherhood, and a sisterhood, in those who’d shared the same childhood circumstances. No surprise that he’d greeted her so warmly. Out of everyone who’d clustered around him, she’d probably been the only one who really, truly knew who he was beneath the shine of his NFL football contract.

  I turned my attention back to the celebrity. As the band started their sound checks, I noticed that Chelsea and Madison had been shuffled to the outer ring of admirers, not quite making the cut. I was torn between relief and irritation. Chelsea was adorable, but Madison was stunning with her dark, sable brown hair and hazel eyes. At almost sixteen, the girl had blossomed with long shapely legs and a trim, neat figure just like her mother’s. But she was very tall, pushing close to five foot eleven. There was a good chance she’d end up at six feet, and in spite of what I had said the other day, that did intimidate a lot of boys.

  I got the feeling it intimidated the even taller Holt Dupree, who seemed to like the five-foot-two-eyes-of-blue girls. And as much as his rejection of Madison might smart, I was relieved. He was twenty-two and heading to Atlanta for a pro-football career. She was almost sixteen with no chance whatsoever of holding a young man’s attention in a long-distance relationship, especially when he would most likely have women throwing themselves at him left and right.

  Besides the fact that she was fifteen, and that sort of thing would have been frowned upon even if they had remained chaste. Such a relationship would not have been good for a young man on the verge of what could be a lucrative professional sports career.

  “Is that…?” Judge Beck’s eyes blazed and he rose out of his chair, his eyes focused in on his daughter.

  I put my hand on his arm. “I’ve been watching her. He hasn’t said two words to her the whole time she’s been there. Let her be. I guarantee she’ll be back when the band starts.”

  The judge hesitated. I felt the muscles in his arm tense, saw the corner of his jaw twitch as if he were grinding his teeth together. Then slowly he lowered himself back into the seat.

  Just as I predicted, as soon as the band began the first set, Madison and Chelsea came back to us, grabbing sodas from the cooler and sitting on the blanket, their heads together as they sang along to the opening song.

  I still kept my eye on Holt Dupree. He was moving through the audience like some sort of pied piper, trailing an ever-growing crowd of admirers as he shook hands and kissed babies like a politician. He was garnering just as much attention as the band—more actually.

  “I don’t like that guy.” Matt leaned over, his mouth practically in my ear to be heard over the band.

  “Who?” I hoped he could read lips, because I wasn’t going to shout into his ear.

  Her jerked his head, and I assumed he meant Holt Dupree, although he could have been indicating any of the dozens of people surrounding the football player. I had to wait until the end of the first set and for the applause to die down before I could ask him why.

  Matt glared over at the crowd. “A friend of mine has a son who went to school with Holt—Buck Stanford. Buck played football, and he was better than Holt, but he got clipped after the play and tore his ACL. He had to sit out his junior year, which is when all the college recruiters come to check out the high school players.”

  I waited, thinking that there had to be more to the story. I doubted Matt would dislike someone based on a friend’s son’s jealousy.

  Matt turned to face me, and the expression on his face chilled me. “The hit that tore his ACL wasn’t from someone on the opposing team, it was another Locust Point High School player. It all looked like an accident with a big pile-up going for a fumble, but the kid who injured him was Holt Dupree.”

  “But if there was a pile-up, how did he know it was Holt?” I asked. “And how did he know it wasn’t an accident? Kids, and adults, get hurt in football all the time.”

  I knew next to nothing about football. Yeah, I loved going to the Friday night varsity games, and I knew enough to follow what team had the ball and when there was a touchdown, but beyond that I was clueless. I’d been that nerdy girl in high school who dated the chess club guys, and neither of my parents had been the type to watch Monday night football. Even when Eli and I had hosted Superbowl parties, I spent more time putting out snacks and watching the commercials than the game.

  Matt shook his head. “Nobody saw it, but Buck says it was Holt, and that it was intentional.”<
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  I’m sure he could see the doubt on my face. I didn’t want to cast aspersions on his friend’s son’s credibility, but in a pile-up, with all that adrenaline and excitement…it must have been an accident. Or another player from the opposing team.

  “Sometimes players have a lot of forward momentum,” Matt explained, “and occasionally a hit, a tackle, takes place after the play ends. Referees have to really scrutinize what happened, because sometimes it’s truly an accident that’s a split second after the whistle blows, and sometimes it’s a deliberate attempt to intimidate or disable a player on the opposing team, and cover it up by making it look like an accident.”

  “That’s…that’s horrible.” I suddenly thought back to all those high school games I’d gone to and wondered if there had been an immoral kid who could deliberately injure another.

  “Buck says Holt ‘tripped’ and fell into him right after the play had ended, and fell in such a way that he kicked Buck’s knee. He was a sixteen-year-old kid and he needed surgery and physical therapy. By the time he recovered enough to play, the season was over and so were his chances at a scholarship opportunity.”

  That was horrible—if it was true. I trusted Matt, but I got the impression he was one of those incredibly loyal guys who always backed his friends. And it would be very hard for a man whose son had been injured, who’d lost out on a huge, life-changing opportunity, not to see intent where there was none.

  Holt Dupree seemed to be every stereotype of a good-looking football player, but that didn’t make him the sort of guy who would deliberately injure and ruin a teammate’s chances.

  Nothing I could say would change Matt’s mind on this, so instead I made a sympathetic noise and patted his hand. “What’s Buck Stanford doing now? I’m assuming he went to college even without the scholarship?”

  Matt nodded. “Two years of community college, then he finished this year with a degree in business from the state university. He’s back in town, in Milford, working at his dad’s company.”