Private

Fred went on, his face getting redder. “New York lost by three. At the time, the calls just looked bad. There was the usual talk in the sports press that eventually faded as the play-offs moved ahead.”

“Okay, Jack.” Dix spoke next. “Fast-forward to the third game of last season between the Vikings and the Cowboys. Different set of circumstances but basically the same scenario.”

My uncle jumped in again. He wanted to tell the story play-by-play. “This time the Vikings get a forty-yard pass called back at the end of the second quarter that would’ve sent them into the locker room ahead by seventeen points.”

Fred was gesticulating angrily, telling me that another questionable holding penalty wiped the pass off the board. “As they lined up at the end of the fourth quarter for what would’ve been the winning field goal, the Vikings get called for an illegal shift which nobody, nobody saw except the referee.

“Again it takes them out of field goal range, the game goes into overtime, and they lose.”

I saw where these stories were going, of course. Bad calls happen in football and people scream about the officials and then they get over it. For Fred Kreutzer, Evan Newman, and David Dix to come to me, it meant they had more to go on than alleged bad calls in a couple of games.

Newman said, “We’ve looked at the tapes ad nauseam, Jack, including last Sunday’s game in San Francisco. We see a pattern. All told, eleven games stink badly over two and a half years. Nine of the losing teams had winning records and seven of them made the play-offs.”

My uncle said, “A lot of people lost a lot of money on these games. They’re starting to wonder if there’s something funny going on.”

“Why come to me?” I asked. “Why not take this to the commissioner first?”

“We don’t have any proof,” said Dix. “And frankly, Jack, if something did happen, we don’t want the commissioner and the press and the public to hear about it. Ever.”

Chapter 18

EMILIO CRUZ CAME through my office door first, and Del Rio arrived maybe five minutes after the owners had left. I waved them both into chairs. “We’ve been tapped by three NFL team owners,” I said, “and they could be representing a dozen more. One of them is Fred Kreutzer. Fred is my mother’s brother.”

Cruz lifted his eyebrows. “Fred Kreutzer is your uncle?”

“He is. He and some other owners think that games are being fixed. They see a pattern of long-odds underdogs winning too often, and based on questionable calls.”

“That’s nuts.” Cruz frowned. “You can’t cheat at football. You can’t predict a game-changing play, and even if you could, there are cameras on every move. Every second is under a microscope.”

“If that turns out to be the case, we’ve got happy clients,” I said, “and nice paychecks. We’ve been guaranteed double our rate for fast, thorough, and very confidential work.”

“They’re saying the players are rigging the games?” Del Rio asked.

Del Rio is my age, but the years he spent at Chino aged his face and shattered his faith in people. I think the sanctity of football is one of the few things he still believes in.

“Fred says that they didn’t find any player infractions, just calls that may have been crooked. Or else the refs were seeing optical illusions.

“Before we make any decisions on this, let’s talk about the Cushmans. I saw Andy this morning,” I said. “The press is all over him. He hasn’t been charged, and he wants to get out of town. I told him to check in to a hotel and not tell anyone but me where he’s staying.”

“He’s got good reason to worry,” said Del Rio. “Whoever killed Shelby got in and out of the house with the skill of a Beverly Hills proctologist. I’m looking into contract killers. I’ve got a couple of leads. We’re going to break this one, Jack.”

I asked Cruz and Del Rio if they could work both cases, and they said they could. That was the usual response at Private-we hired the best, at very high pay, and they expected long days and challenging cases.

“I want you to do thorough background checks on Shelby and Andy,” I said.

“What are we looking for that you don’t already know, Jack?”

“The answer to one simple question: Why would anyone kill Shelby Cushman?”

“No problem,” said Del Rio. “Two cases for the price of three? I can go with that.” We all laughed, then Cruz and Del Rio left and went to work.

I had been alone in my office for about sixty seconds when Colleen stepped in and closed the door.

“Your eleven o’clocks are here, Jack. I don’t like the looks a’ them.”

“No? They’re just lawyers,” I said.

Colleen grinned. “Just lawyers. Sure thing. Smirky lawyers. Sweaty lawyers.”

A minute later, she showed the two men in. I knew them by reputation.

Their names were Ferrara and Reilly, and they represented Ray Noccia, head of the Noccia crime family.

Chapter 19

I SHOOK HANDS with the men coming through the door and offered them seats.