Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Game Change

  (A Nina Bannister Mystery)

  T’ Gracie Reese and Joe Reese

  To the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne women’s basketball team: Thanks, Mastodons, for the inspiration!

  “The principal is your pal.”

  Anonymous Spelling Tip

  CHAPTER 1: THE NAME PLATE

  “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

  ––William Faulkner

  On the twenty ninth day of November, a light snow began falling in Bay St. Lucy.

  This was an astonishing thing, a thing which had, in the memory of even the oldest residents, never happened before. Nor were the memories of these respected and august town dwellers in error; for a check of the state records showed that snow in November in southern Mississippi had last occurred in 1871.

  It was a miracle, a Thanksgiving offering, a Christmas present almost a month in advance.

  The feather fine flakes began falling around four in the afternoon, emanating like magic from a somber gray sky that blended with the ocean to eliminate the horizon line and wipe from creation all color except that of volcanic, gently scudding, ash. It was Friday. That meant there was a festive air about town anyway. But when the children stepped off the school busses and saw, felt, somehow even smelled, what was happening around them—

  ––well, when that happened, there was simply hell to pay.

  Snow in Bay St. Lucy!

  The polar tempest lasted for two hours, and, if it did not intensify, it did not actually stop, either, so that by the fall of darkness around six PM it had separated the town into two groups: those who were ecstatic (the children and the very old, the former having never seen snow and the latter having given up ever seeing it) and those who were panicking and driving like mad people to the nearest grocery store.

  “What will the roads be like tomorrow?”

  “We could be snowed in all week!”

  They would not be snowed in all week, of course, but that fact did not lessen the sales in the supermarkets, or prevent filling stations from setting records for gasoline purchases, or lessen the glee of Sam Dyers, whose hardware store sold out of its entire supply of electric generators (four) within the first hour of the storm.

  As for Nina Bannister, it presented her with a difficult dilemma.

  She could drive her Vespa to Bay St. Lucy High School, or she could walk.

  Staying home was not an option.

  There was a kind of temptation about doing so, of course, because she was a lady of that kind of mentality that envisaged every tomorrow, every next week, as a potential cataclysm, demanding the continual pantry presence of emergency stores. There was hot chocolate in her seaside bungalow/shack, of course—

  ––but there was always hot chocolate, even in the middle of July.

  So she did not have to go to the market to stock up on rice, milk, chili, potatoes, soups of various kinds, eggs, etc., because she already had those things.

  And if she chose to bundle up a bit, sit out on her deck, and watch the dusk-roiled ocean darken and mutter, while sipping chocolate and munching popcorn—yes, she had popcorn, too—then she could certainly do that.

  But not tonight.

  No, tonight was basketball.

  Women’s basketball.

  Tonight the Bay St. Lucy Lady Mariners played the Pass Christian Lady Pelicans, and Nina Bannister was going to be there.

  This love of women’s basketball had grown late in Nina’s life, and she did not quite understand it. Of course, she and Frank had been moderate fans of high school sports during their marriage, but as much out of civic duty as anything else. They went to the Friday night football games because it was pretty much required of them. Frank, a leading attorney with offices on the town’s main square, Nina, a young English teacher—they simply had to go, bringing their padded stadium seats and thermoses of hot coffee to get them through the sixty or seventy degree nights of September and October.

  But they didn’t really love the experience.

  It was all too distant. She could not recognize the faces of the boys in her classes, and if there was some recognition of the way they hurled opponents to the ground in precisely the same way they hurled fellow classmates into the metal lockers lining the halls during the breaks between classes—it still was not the same.

  She could, of course, recognize the faces of the girl students, but, as she watched them doing variations on the Can Can during halftime, with skirts no more than six inches long and legs stretching enticingly up into the Mississippi sky for all present to see, she wondered if they could have used a bit more covering, just as the boys could have used a bit less.

  No, it just wasn’t the Bannisters’ cup of tea.

  As for basketball, they went occasionally to watch the boys’ team play, just to say that they had been.

  No one went early to watch the girls’ team, of course, except a few parents.

  Girls’ sports really didn’t matter too much in those days.

  But somehow things had changed.

  The girls’ team was not referred to by those terms anymore; it was now the women’s team.

  It did not play on the same night as the men’s team.

  Of course there was still a problem with nomenclature. The ‘Lady Mariners’ indeed. (Nina wondered how the football team would have reacted, had it been forced to be called ‘The Gentlemen Mariners!’).

  But that was all right.

  Somehow, some time—she supposed it to have been a year ago, also in late November—she had wandered over to the gym during a Saturday afternoon game, and had, for want of anything better to do, paid her five dollar entry fee to watch Bay St. Lucy’s women play Portageville.

  How much it had all changed since her last memories of the sport!

  These women played like—

  ––well, no way to avoid saying it. They played like men.

  They ran the entire length of the court, and not the entire length of the half court.

  No town doctors were telling them that excessive sprinting could harm their ovaries and make them unfit for motherhood (and, yes, these things had actually been told to her and to her classmates as they were growing up); no one apparently told them to avoid real pushups, which might cause in them the growth of unsightly (and definitely unsexy) muscles.

  For these girls had obviously done a lot of pushups, and had very conspicuous muscles.

  And yet appeared, to judge by the way the boys in the stands were watching them, very sexy indeed.

  No, she had become hooked.

  So tonight, she had to go.

  How to get to the gym, though, remained an open question.

  She loved her Vespa, and, with it, she could cover the distance of approximately two miles in short order. No problem.

  But walking was healthier, even in the cold weather.

  It was perhaps healthier because of the cold weather. Increased blood flow, that sort of thing.

  She ruminated on the problem while, sitting at the kitchen table, the ocean coming and going outside her plate glass deck window, she savored a spoonful of microwaved vegetable soup.

  Her boots.

  They were sitting in the back of her bedroom closet.

  Snow boots.

  Boots that she had bought years ago during a winter vacation that she and Frank had taken in Aspen, Colorado.

  How lovely it had been, he and she trudging through the streets of Aspen, snow pil
ed high beside the sidewalks, she wearing her fur-lined silver Star Trek boots that made her look like Captain Kirk, all silver and spaceship-like.

  The boots had not been used for at least ten years.

  She could wear them!

  And that decided her.

  So that, a little less than one hour later, darkness having enveloped the town now, she found herself bending into a twenty-mile-per-hour wind, thinking of Jack London and various arctic expeditions, watching the scattered flakes illuminated blue by glowing street lamps, and watching, as it loomed up before her––the tall outlines of Bay St. Lucy’s new high school.

  Nina Bannister High School.

  How bizarre it all was!

  Ready by next fall.

  A huge and potentially beautiful thing, more industrial park than school, and named for her.

  She could never run that over in her mind without imagining how astonished Frank would be.

  Little Nina, teacher of obscure poems and eliminator of comma splices, for one brief shining moment the heroine of Bay St. Lucy.

  Heroine indeed.

  Eve Ivory. The Robinson Mansion. That horrible slide show, and the vision of her beloved town becoming a cross between Disney World and Las Vegas.

  And that one blinding moment of revelation that made her see what the rest of them were missing.

  Heroine indeed.

  And now it was behind her, the framework of the new school, replaced by the weathered carcass of the old school, the one she’d attended as a girl, and the one that had consumed most of her professional life as an adult. There, far to the right, the sea just visible behind it, the elementary school; and there, a bit farther on, the middle school. The high school beyond that, and then the gym, glowing as she knew it would be, its domed roof pulsing ever so slightly with the syncopations of the small but loud Bay St. Lucy brass band.

  She walked on, excitement growing in her, while the gymnasium loomed ever larger and its doors simultaneously sucked in and disgorged the winter soul of the town.

  There were infants in strollers, toddlers toddling, ten year olds with pigtails or baseball caps––depending on sex, young teenagers beginning to flirt in large physically dangerous groups, old teenagers doing something they hoped was illicit and that they were doing correctly, young marrieds, old stand-bys, ancients, and then the whole thing starting again, life’s complete circle all compacted here in the winter-radiant cavern that was THE HOME OF THE LADY MARINERS.

  She felt herself transformed into a bit of flotsam or jetsam floating fast now on the compacted stream of St. Lucy humanity that surged through the battered entrance doors and into the snack bar/ticket window/trophy case/restroom entrance womb that must be passed through before one could be birthed into the court area itself.

  “Hello, Ms. Bannister!”

  “Hey, Nina!”

  “Like your boots!”

  “Keeping warm?”

  “Program?”

  “Sell you a ticket tonight?”

  “We gonna win?”

  And Nina’s responses:

  “Hello Jason!”

  “Hey to you, Tom!”

  “Just barely!”

  “Love a program!”

  “If you’ve got any tickets left!”

  “Hope so!”

  Thank God for small towns.

  She made her way into the stands, showing her ticket to Fred Towson in his Lions Club blue vest, and then again, a few yards farther on, to Ted Llewellen in a Mason fez, these two civic organizations working skillfully and diligently together to make sure that no terrorists infiltrated the den of the Lady Mariners, or, at least, if they did so, they had tickets for the privilege.

  “Hi, Nina! Thanks for coming!”

  “Meg! Good luck!”

  She was walking in front of the bench now, passing within a yard or so of Meg Brennan, the coach. Meg was a perfect picture of a women’s basketball coach: short blond hair, slightly aggressive posture, blue sport jacket to go with even bluer Scandinavian eyes—she did not look as though she could have donned a uniform and raced onto the court to play point guard; no, she looked like she already had on such a uniform, there pressed and ready underneath her white blouse and gray slacks.

  “Go get ’em, Meg!”

  “We will, Nina!”

  Nina was prevented from saying more by the onslaught of the pep band, which, filling the fifteen rows immediately above the home bench, said:

  “BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  Rest rest—

  “BLAAAAAAAAAAAHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  Rendering even trivial conversation impossible.

  So Nina, team roster clutched in one hand, purse in another, began to make her way up toward the higher reaches of the bleachers.

  Every now and then, she turned to look at the court beneath her.

  A sea of blue and white (The Bay St. Lucy Mariners) pulsated on one end, and an equally turbulent body of red and white (Pass Christian: The Lady Pelicans) formed its own intricate patterns on the other.

  Layup lines.

  Passing drills.

  Players clapping, shouting encouragement.

  “Go girl!”

  “Hey babe, hey babe!”

  “Looking good, Alyssha!”

  “You go, Girl!”

  “BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  “BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  Rest rest—

  “BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  “BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH DE

  BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

  She found a seat near the top of the bleachers, spread herself out, took off several layers of winter clothing, yelled or whispered pleasant inanities to whoever was the appropriate distance away, and looked down at the scene below.

  Meg caught her eye again.

  Meg who, a few players gathered in a tight circle around her now, was drawing diagrams with chalk on the gym floor, pointing animatedly to them as though they were some cross between algebraic formulas and sorcerers’ formulas.

  Meg was a favorite in the town of Bay St. Lucy.

  They completely forgave her for being gay.

  In the first place, lesbianism and women’s sports went hand in hand, and everybody knew that.

  But more importantly, Bay St. Lucy had always prided itself as an artist community or a fishing village, or some cross between the two. Whichever one it was, it was populated by folk of a different sort, by people who, had they themselves been judged by the norms of conventional society, would have been cast into outer darkness and forced to serve penance until showing the willingness to go to work in regular jobs, and wear socks.

  So they completely understood Meg’s ‘arrangement’ with Jennifer Warren, proprietor of ‘Jenny’s Art Treasures,’ partially because it was none of their business and, more importantly, because it made them feel liberal and free.

  If such a relationship could not exist in a community of artists and beach bums, then where could it exist?

  But no matter. People were standing now to hear the band’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Some had their hands over their hearts, some simply stood straight as they gazed somberly at Old Glory and the Rebel Flag (Nina had long since come to terms with the fact that Mississippi wasn’t about to change its colors, and contented herself with the fact that the thing at least hung below its counterpart on the flagpole in the Northeast gym corner)—and some, teenagers mostly, could not stop engaging in a bit of mild flirting, hair pulling, beneath the gym rows, kicking or wild, purposeless giggling, despite the solemnity of the occasion.

  Their parents would have words for them later on.

  But the end of the song always forced Nina to the brink of tears.

  AND THE HOOOOOME

  OF THE

  BRAAAAAVE!r />
  The last lines always made her tear up and she wished for Frank, so she could hold his hand as they resumed their seats.

  But there were other things to think about.

  Because the game had begun!

  Pass Christian won the tip.

  Trouble there. They had a six foot tall girl.

  (Why did all the opposing teams always have a six foot tall girl?)

  Still, there was hope. Bay St. Lucy stole a pass, worked the ball down the court, and began a fancy outside semicircular weave, Alyssha Bennett dribbling hard to the right, slipping it behind her back to Sarah Gray, barreling left over the top of the key, Sonia Ramirez taking it right back in the other direction, Haley Stephens right there on another switch, everyone milling inside, screening, turning, heading out, then back in, then the ball back in Haley’s hands, shot clock now at ten seconds, now at eight seconds, back to Sonia and then—

  Bullet pass under the basket!

  Alyssha! All alone! Uncontested layup!

  The crowd went wild and began singing a fight song that The University of Wisconsin had somehow in the last century stolen from Bay St. Lucy and patented under the name “On Wisconsin.”

  GO YOU MARE-NERS!

  GO YOU MARE-NERS!

  FAT FAT FAT FAT FAAAAT

  (The word ‘fat’ being as close as southerners could come to ‘fight.’)

  “YEEEAHHH!”

  Braying like a bull (and as large as a bull), Jackson Bennett, the once quite young and naïve lawyer recruited as a partner by Frank, the now proud parent of a budding basketball star, leapt to his feet.

  “YEEEAH! GO MARINERS!”

  Jackson pumped his fists twice and then sat down again in a ten-foot space that he’d carved out for himself (obsessive male parents not wishing to be bothered with other human companionship while watching their offspring compete)—quickly returning to his task of filming the game on the small IPhone thrust out arms’ length and gripped between two hands.

  Elsewhere in the crowd, organized cheers began.

  WATERMELON WATERMELON

  WATERMELON RIND!

  LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD AND SEE WHO’S BEHIND!

  Pass Christian inbounded

  And Nina, watching the superbly confident young women representing her school and her town, each knowing exactly what to do, each with eyes fixed on her opponent—began to feel the melancholy she always felt (although she fought hard against it) while watching this team, or the volleyball team, or the softball team.