Chapter 9 #2
“There are two floors beneath the main arena floor,” Mark says as we walk down a long, dark grey hallway. “This floor is primarily the team’s floor. It has our practice ice, training and rehab facilities, practice locker room, my office and so on.”
“Practice ice?” I question. “There are two ice rinks? Why?”
“Well, the one up above, on the arena floor, is typically only there on game days during the season. They do a lot of other events on non-game days, and they tear down the ice rink for that. Concerts mostly, but sometimes MMA, boxing, or wrestling events, and every now and again there will be some weird religious conventions. The practice ice is always here.”
“Does that mean there are two Zambonis, too? Have you guys got a game day locker room?” I wasn’t anticipating there being two sets of locker rooms. That’s going to throw a wrench into things.
“Yes to both,” Mark says with a hint of amusement. “Everyone is always so interested in the Zambonis.”
“Well…” I start but trail off.
“Yes?” Mark prompts.
“No. Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“You were going to say the Zambonis are the only interesting part of the whole thing, weren’t you?”
I shrug, but glance over when I feel his eyes boring into me. “Fine. Yes! But it’s true. It’s so true that you knew it without me even having to say it!” I assert.
He laughs. “Anyway, if you keep going down this hallway and hang a right when it ends, you’ll get to the Zamboni room. I’d show you, but the last thing I want is for you to meet the Zamboni driver and decide there are better prospects out there.”
“Whatever,” I grumble, reaching out to shove his shoulder. He stumbles a step before regaining his balance with a smile on his face. “So, show me the other things you mentioned. Maybe the Zamboni will be out on the practice ice.”
“It’s not.”
“How sad for me,” I quip.
“Indeed. Anyway. This is the equipment room,” Mark comments as he stops at a door and opens it.
“Is this what a hockey store looks like?” I ask as I look at a well-organized room filled with rows of sticks, skates, jerseys, and pads. There’s a lot of black and amber, and the team’s snarling bear logo is everywhere.
“Something like that.” He shuts the door, and we continue walking down the hallway.
“The locker room is up ahead on the left, and the drying and laundry rooms are—” Mark’s words cut off when someone steps out of the locker room, and he grabs my hand, pulling me to a stop before taking half a step in front of me.
“Hi Coach,” someone says. Garret Fischer, my brain supplies a fraction of a second later, and I have to fight to keep my hand from tensing on Mark’s when the realization hits me.
His tone is possibly the most disdainful I’ve ever heard one person use when addressing another.
I’d be impressed if I weren’t so busy trying to restrain myself from violence.
“Fischer,” Mark begins with a warning note in his voice.
“Garret Fischer,” he says, ignoring Mark and extending his hand toward me.
Mark steps between us before I can decide how to respond. “Why aren’t you on the ice right now?”
“I pulled a muscle,” Garret replies, not even trying to be convincing. “I’m headed to see the PT.”
“Then go,” Mark orders. Garret’s eyes flick to me, then he turns and walks in the opposite direction.
“Friend of yours?” I murmur once he’s out of earshot.
“The bane of my existence is more like it.” Mark forges ahead, giving me an overview of a few other areas prior to ending in his office, but his mood has obviously soured. “When should I meet you on Wednesday?” he asks after shutting the door.
“My last pa—” I’m interrupted by the ringing of Mark’s office phone.
“Sorry,” he says before picking it up with a quick, “Hello.” He pauses to listen. “No. That’s not what…” He pauses again.
Seeing my chance, I whisper, “I have to go. I’ll text you about Wednesday.”
“Hold on,” Mark interjects, cutting off whoever is speaking and placing them on hold. “You’re okay finding your way out?” he asks.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I’ll be driving tonight, so I’ll call you sometime tomorrow. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Sorry about this,” he says, gesturing vaguely.
“No problem. I’m the one who interrupted your day.” I press a quick kiss to his cheek, then make my way to the door as Mark resumes his call.
I retrace our steps, remembering the public restroom we passed.
Considering I have yet to see another woman, it’s as good a spot as any to spend the remainder of the day hiding out.
When I enter the bathroom, the lights flicker on.
They must be controlled by a motion-activated sensor, and the fact that they were off proves this bathroom doesn’t get much use.
I open my bag, pinning it between the edge of the sink and my hips, and pull out the roll of tape, the Sharpie, and a sheet of paper.
Then I write Out of Order on the paper and tape it onto the second to last stall before going in and locking the door.
The stall is nice, as bathroom stalls go.
It’s one of the ones that has walls and a door that go all the way to the floor.
I take a seat on the floor and pull the book from my bag. It’s going to be a while.
It’s just after midnight when I finally unlock the bathroom stall and creep out. I finished Deep Blues by Robert Palmer a couple of hours ago and have been staring at the wall, bored out of my mind since then. I should have brought a second book.
During the time I spent hiding out, a grand total of two people came into the bathroom.
It’s safe to say the NHL is a boys’ club.
And it’s never a good thing when a microcosm of men is fawned over by a mesocosm of women.
All it does is make those men believe they deserve attention for existing.
In the best case, you end up with a bunch of guys who have no clue how many misogynistic viewpoints they hold.
In the worst, you end up with guys like Joey Carmichael and Garret Fischer who think they’re entitled to women’s bodies simply because they want them.
No one should ever be put on a pedestal. Especially not a professional athlete.
I open my bag, putting on my baseball cap and tucking my hair into it.
Then I pull on the N95 surgical mask, a pair of gloves, and the black plastic poncho.
I slide my bag under the poncho before stepping into the hall.
The hat and mask will obscure my face, the gloves will ensure I don’t leave fingerprints anywhere I shouldn’t, and the poncho will obscure my clothes and body shape, just in case they’re monitoring any of these halls with CCTV.
The baseball cap has the California state flag—the Bear Flag—emblazoned on it.
Mostly because I was feeling petty. California is adjacent to Oregon, and in a fight between a grizzly and a black bear, a grizzly wins every single time.
It was the closest I could come to poetic justice without writing a manifesto.
The hall is quiet and dimly lit. I go to the practice locker room first, since it’s on this floor and I know where it’s located.
I can use it to get my bearings before trying to find the one on the main floor.
When I reach the door, it’s locked with a keypad.
I have the snap gun, but I only want to use that as a last resort, so I take out the penlight and shine it over the lock.
The only number on the keypad that shows signs of use is the nine.
They really can’t be that dumb, I think, but I press nine-nine-nine-nine anyway, and the light flashes green.
When I try the door, it’s unlocked. I bet they use the same code for the arena-game-day-whatever locker room.
There’s almost no chance they’re going to make them remember more than one code if the only code they can remember is ‘just press nine for a while.’
There’s a bench with stalls behind it wrapping around the room.
The stalls are marked with both a last name and a number—presumably the same number that’s on their jerseys, but I haven’t bothered learning anyone’s numbers, so I’m not certain of that.
I find the one labeled Carmichael and then double-check that there are no other Carmichaels on the team.
There aren’t. I open his stall door and find exactly what I was expecting—a bunch of hockey gear plus some other odds and ends.
I close it and decide to take the opportunity to do some recon on the other four players.
I’m not going to poison them all—that would be too easy—but I may be able to learn something useful while I’m here.
There’s nothing of interest in Garret Fischer’s stall.
There’s an EpiPen in Matt Davidson’s, and I wonder what he’s allergic to.
In Rhys Steichen’s stall, I find an address book and shove it in my pocket.
Either he’ll assume he misplaced it or someone took it.
Brandon Miller also has nothing of interest.
I leave the locker room and look for stairs to the next floor.
At the same time, I’m starting to wonder how I’m going to get out of here.
I’d been thinking I’d go out the way I came in, but if that guard station is staffed twenty-four hours, which it likely is, the chances of being seen are pretty high.
Do I wait until daylight and try to leave via one of the main floor exits? That seems just as dangerous.
It occurs to me that this may be a terrible idea, and I consider abandoning my plan. If I leave now, everything will be okay. They’ll only ever check the security footage if I give them a reason to. A reason like poisoning Joey Carmichael with cyanide while he’s on the ice. I don’t though.
I find the stairs and climb up them, wondering if there was ever a moment where my dad considered stopping, but didn’t.
I’ll have to go see him tomorrow. Maybe I’ll ask.
I reserved a hotel room online and checked in using their app, so at least I’ll have that to make it look like I spent the night in Walla Walla if anyone ever checks.
It won’t stand up to scrutiny if they look too closely, but hopefully no one ever will.
I pause to consider my exit strategy again at the top of the stairs.
As dangerous as going out the way I came in is, it’s still the best option.
I’ll just have to hope that whatever guard is there now is as distracted as Terrance was.
When I open the door, I place a wad of tape into the strike plate to ensure I don’t get locked out.
Then, I follow the same path as I did below, hoping the game-day locker room will be in an identical location on this floor.
If it’s not, I’m going to be aimlessly wandering around for a while.
I’m almost to the locker room door when I hear footsteps in the distance.
I freeze, but the footsteps are moving away from me rather than toward me, so I hurry the last few feet to the door and press nine-nine-nine-nine into the lock.
The light flashes green and I’m in. The room is dark, and I find Joey Carmichael’s stall in the same place as it was downstairs.
I open the stall door, searching for his gloves and his socks.
When I find them, I remove my N95 mask, replace it with the respirator from my bag, and put on the goggles.
Then, I take out the bottle of cyanide pills and begin splitting the capsules apart.
There are seventeen capsules, which means four are going into each glove and sock.
That’ll leave one extra. I’ll smear a bit of it into his mouth guard and dump the remainder in his jockstrap.
The cyanide is like a powdery table salt, and he might feel it when he puts on his gloves or socks, but I’m counting on the adrenaline of the first game to keep him from examining things too closely.
Skin contact with sodium cyanide alone likely wouldn’t be a big deal, but add some sweat into the mix—say the way Joey Carmichael’s hands and feet probably do when he’s in the middle of a hockey game, and it’s suddenly a very big deal.
If I planned this right, and Joey Carmichael is part of the second line this season, as everyone is predicting, he should drop dead on the ice before the first intermission.
I wonder if they’ll play the rest of the game or cancel it when that happens.
Initially, people will speculate that it was a heart attack. But within a few days, they’ll know it wasn’t. Then things should really get interesting.
After I finish emptying the last of the pills into his gear, I close the stall door and check the stalls of the four other rapists.
These are much more impersonal than the ones in the practice locker room were.
They’re all filled with black and amber uniforms, but other than that, I find nothing.
I remove my gloves, shove them into my pocket inside out, and replace them with a fresh pair.
Then, I take off the respirator, shove it back into my bag, and put the N95 mask back on as I listen at the door.
Finally, hearing nothing, I step into the hallway and make my way to the stairs once more.
I remove the tape from the strike plate prior to closing the door, then leave the building, pausing before each intersection to listen for movement, but I don’t encounter anyone else on my way out.
Less than ten minutes later, I’m standing in the parking garage, staring at the guard station.
There’s a light on, but I can’t see anyone inside.
I approach it cautiously, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible, but eventually the exit narrows so much that I have no choice but to come into view of whoever is on duty.
When I do, the guard is asleep with his head on the desk, using his arms as a pillow.
I sidle past the guard, out onto the street, walking a couple of miles—taking off the poncho, mask, and gloves after the first mile, putting them all back into my bag—before catching a bus back toward my office.
There are only a handful of people on the bus when I climb on—a couple of homeless people trying to be somewhere safe and warm for the night plus a few people probably going to or from late-night jobs.