= Foul Play
  A Teagan LaRue/Fox Stint Puzzle Mystery
  by Tim Kissman

The late night tour of Hillsdale College's athletic facility wasn't nearly as exciting as the nail-biting basketball game Detectives Teagan LaRue and Fox Stint had watched earlier in the evening. As Hillsdale alumni, Teagan and Fox had suffered while their team lost to the Pittsburgh Institute 98-97 on a last second three-point shot. Everyone in the gym had seen that the Pittsburgh player's foot was on the line. The shot should have only been worth two points, thus sending the game into overtime. But since Teagan and Fox were guests of Teagan's close friend Bernie Thickets, Hillsdale's head coach and the leader of the tour, they feigned an interest in the building, even when all they wanted to talk about was the obvious missed call.

"And this is the film room," Bernie opened the door to a classroom equippedwith several video monitors hung on the wall. "We watch at least six hours of film a week. We can't be too prepared."

Teagan couldn't hold back any longer. She looked very uncomfortable in her blue and white Hillsdale basketball sweatshirt instead of her trademark business suit. "How can you prepare for the refs, Bernie?" Teagan asked. "I can't believe how well you're taking this."

"It's just a game, Detective," Bernie said. He shut the door and motioned them to the hallway for the next stop on the tour. "We've been on the losing end of a few bad calls lately and I need to pick my fights. With any luck we'll still make the playoffs and I don't want to upset the refs too much. We may see them again. Besides, his foot may have been outside the line. Until I see the tapes I'm not going to get too upset. Let's check out the officials' locker room. We just renovated it."

"His foot was on the line," Fox tried to keep the subject rolling. "Even I saw that and I wasn't even watching." He looked at Teagan, "What did that announcer say about it?" His cupped his hands around his mouth and mimicked the public address announcer's voice, complete with the echo "Three-ee-ee? Three-ee-ee? That looked like two-oo-oo feet on the line-line-line. The refs blew it again."

It was enough to make the three chuckle as they walked down the hall. The announcer they were talking about, Miles McGee, was a Hillsdale celebrity for his unique voice and sharp wit. He loved the game and the athletes, but abhorred poor officiating. He usually ridiculed the refs during the game by questioning calls and teasing the officials.

Bernie opened the door to the referee's locker room and froze in mid-stride. Asking what was the matter, Teagan and Fox pushed their way past him and into the room.

"Oh, no," Teagan moaned.

On the floor in front of them, Miles McGee was sprawled across the tiled floor, with the unit used to operate the scoreboard next to his bloody and lifeless head. It was plugged in a nearby socket, lighting up the controls, most noticeably the blinking overtime switch, which was labeled simply as OT.

The laughing stopped as Teagan and Fox went to work.

* * *

It took less than five minutes for Teagan and Fox to seal off the locker room and call the crime scene unit. While waiting for the additional officers to arrive, the detective duo rounded up the four referees who used the facility right after the game. They were the only ones who had access to it during the entire night. Fox found them in the parking lot, still complaining about how the fans had reacted to their calls.

It was still the topic of conversation when they were herded into the locker room. They calmed down and lined up as they were told. Teagan listened as each one was asked for an alibi, starting with the head referee (and the one who'd blown the call at the end of the game) James Quail.

"I don't know what happened here," Quail said. He was in his 60s, near retirement, and had been officiating at Hillsdale for the past twenty years -- plenty of time to be ridiculed by McGee. "I did as I do after every game. Showered, got dressed and headed for my car. My crew was still in here when I left. Heck, Thornapple wouldn't have caught me in the parking lot if it weren't for my flat tire. McGee was in here, putting his equipment away like he always did. When I left, he was alive."

Quail was referring to Otis Thornapple, a tall and very skinny man. McGee often referred to him as Ichabod Crane, even though he'd been disciplined and fined for the biased statement. "I didn't kill McGee," Thornapple said. He had a scratchy, tired voice from defending his calls during the game. "I came in here and showered, then changed and left. Simple as that. James was out in the parking lot fixing his tire so I stopped to help and we started chatting. The fans were ruthless tonight."

Along with Quail and Thornapple, Sal Braze was the other on-court referee. He had to continually adjust his thick glasses as he spoke. "I didn't even shower tonight," Braze said. "I needed to get home after the game, so I just got dressed. Hillsdale's athletic director asked me to come upstairs for a minute for the game checks. I was about to come back to the locker room, but by that time everyone was outside in the parking lot so I took their checks to them. Then we started chatting and you guys came along."

Jason Meemic was the last referee questioned. In a normal collegiate game, three referees were on the court, while a fourth managed the clock and served as a back-up official in the event one of the on-court officials was injured. "I didn't see anything," Meemic told the officer. The youngest of the four, he said he didn't know McGee that well, even though McGee called him Screech. "I came in here to take off my uniform and get dressed. I usually don't shower because I don't work up much of a sweat flicking a shot clock switch back and forth. I can tell you I was glad to get away from McGee, though. He was letting the crew on the floor have it. He even chewed me out a couple times for their calls and I didn't have anything to do with it."

When the interview finished, Fox approached with a preliminary death report about McGee's murder. "He died from excessive bleeding caused by massive head trauma." Fox said. He paused a second and looked at the body. "No kidding. The medical examiner thinks the scoreboard machine caused the death. He said he couldn't tell for sure until he gets back to the office."

"What a way to go." Teagan paused for a second and walked over to the machine, which was now unplugged and being put into a plastic evidence bag. "Someone bashed his head in with the scoreboard machine."

"Hopefully we'll get some fingerprints off it," Fox said. "You think a bad call and some ribbing is cause for murder?"

"Yep, and I'm sure we'll find our killer rather quickly," Teagan said.

"And how do you know that?" Fox asked.

"Because he's in this room," Teagan said. "This case is a slam dunk."

(The solution is in a seperate file.)

Since the age of six, Tim Kissman has loved writing. After graduating from Hillsdale College in 1994, Tim began his writing career as a columnist while working his way to editor at two small Michigan newspapers. Tim's column, No Experience Necessary, appears in 17 newspapers across Michigan. A collection of his columns appears in his first nonfiction book, No Experience Necessary An Uncanny Small Business Survival Guide. Tim has two children's books to his credit. Michigan's Tree-mendous Gift was published in November 2001, while Shuck-Shuck and the Princess of Namssik is slated for late 2002.

Copyright (c) 2002 Tim Kissman

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