The Prophet

9

THE DESIRE TO KEEP calling the police caught Kent off guard, and it was impossible to shake. Every ten minutes his mind returned to it: Maybe they know something more now. Maybe Salter will tell you. Maybe there’s some question you can answer that they haven’t thought of yet. Maybe you can ask them to confirm that Gideon Pearce had nothing to do with this.

It was the last part, the ludicrous one, that stalked him with the most diligence, utterly absurd yet utterly relentless. The man who had murdered his sister in the autumn of 1989 died in prison years later, convicted of the crime, and rightfully so. The rational mind reminded Kent of this over and over, but the heart frequently shows nothing but disdain for rationality, and his heart called forth the question time and again.

Two murdered girls, separated by twenty-two years. How many people had been murdered in this country since 1989? This state, this county, this town? They weren’t all linked. But in Kent’s heart these two were.

He did not call the police. If they needed him for anything, they would call. Until then, he would serve only as a distraction and a hindrance. So he turned to football, to the best of his ability. They had lost a practice during a playoff week, and while it had been the right thing to do, it was also a costly thing. The team didn’t meet on Sundays, just the coaches, and that meant player preparation would not begin until Monday. Kent’s team was already forty-eight hours behind the opponent. Forty-eight of 144 prep hours gone before they even started. That was the sort of thing that lost you football games.

The burden of making up that lost time belonged to him.

At the start of his coaching career, he’d spent hours charting plays and breaking those plays down into percentages, until he could show Walter Ward that he understood an opponent’s tendencies better than the opponent did.

“They blitzed thirty-six times when the ball was between the twenties,” he’d inform Ward. “But if it was in the red zone, they never brought pressure on first down. Not once.”

Ward believed in precision, he believed in preparation, but he often dismissed Kent’s detailed scouting reports with a flat smile, altering his own game plan little. If they just played Chambers football, he’d always say, things would work out fine.

These days, under Kent’s leadership, Chambers football meant being the most prepared team in the state. And thanks to computers, the ability to understand your opponent was available in a way it had never been before. The team subscribed to a database called Hudl that was used for sharing game video. It wasn’t a cheap program, but one of the boosters, a dentist named Duncan Werner, covered the cost. Kent loved Hudl. Not only could he easily watch video for every situation he desired, but also the stat breakdown was remarkable.

Blitzes by field position was one click away. Blitzes by down and distance was another. Want to know the percentage of running plays an opponent used on first down? Or maybe how often they passed out of a specific formation? Just click. By Friday morning, Kent would be able to quote these tendencies without pause. He would understand the mind of the opposing coach, what he wanted and what he feared. From that he would be prepared to avoid their strengths and hammer their weaknesses. You would not surprise him on the football field, you would not surprise his team. They would see teams that were bigger, stronger, and faster, but never would they see a team that was better prepared.

Never.

On Saturday afternoon he sat on the living room floor with his back against the couch, a laptop computer to his left, a notepad to his right, and, every few seconds, a Nerf basketball in his lap. He was tossing it around with Andrew, who approached the task more like a rabid German shepherd than a budding athlete, and Lisa was doing homework, though she had none to do. That was her thing these days, always announced formally—she was going to do her homework now. Just so you knew. Then she’d arrange books at the table and spend her time drawing. Kent’s favorite touch, the one that he and Beth laughed themselves silly over when their daughter wasn’t around, was the slide rule. She’d come across the antiquated math device at a neighbor’s garage sale, purchased it with her own money, and insisted on keeping it at hand, finding the look much more sophisticated than a calculator.

The idea of being a student had suddenly appealed to her. A recent perfect score on a multiplication test prompted her to announce with gravity that she was hoping she could get a scholarship because she understood the Ivy League schools were very expensive. Kent asked where she’d heard of an Ivy League school and was met with a sigh.

“They’re the good ones, Dad. The really good ones.”

All right. He’d told her if they were that good, then yes, a scholarship was probably a great idea, because his bank account was not nearly so good.

“Dad? You’re not watching.”

This from Andrew. Kent flicked his eyes up from the screen, said, “Playoffs, champ. Playoffs. We multitask now, okay?”

The word multitask left his son blank-faced, but then Kent tossed the ball and Andrew charged after it, banging down the hallway. Kent looked back at the script again. Hickory Hills was an option-heavy team, and fast enough to pull it off against most of their opponents. He wasn’t worried about his team’s speed, though. They’d just have to widen their gaps on the line, and shade to the strong side because that’s where the quarterback wanted to go most of the time.

“Hackett’s article is up on the website.” Beth had emerged from the kitchen, her gentle blue eyes grim.

“It’s bad?”

“No. But they mention Adam.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police explained that she was trying to find her father. And that Adam… that he got it wrong.”

Kent let out a breath and tossed the Nerf basketball one last time, Andrew chasing after it wildly, nearly wiping out an end table in his pursuit, and then he rose and went into the kitchen where she had the laptop open on the granite-topped island.

The home page of the newspaper’s website was devoted entirely to Rachel Bond. Pictures of her were now joined by pictures of a desolate cottage surrounded by investigators. Five stories were linked around the photographs, one headline reading: TRAGEDY FAMILIAR TO KENT AUSTIN.

He closed his eyes for a moment, bracing. Reading your own press was always an uncomfortable thing. Kent never felt anything but uneasy dread over it. You weren’t in control of the way you were about to be presented, weren’t in control of the context of your remarks or, with many reports, even the accuracy of your remarks. You were someone else’s version of yourself, fed to the public to create their version of you, a disturbing disconnect. We will build a new you, thanks. The one we want.

He’d spent his life in the public eye of the town, and so far the town hadn’t snapped on him. He always felt as if it might. You drifted around in front of enough people for enough time, eventually someone would take a swipe, and then the rest would join in. Eagerly.

He worried more for his family than himself when it came to the media. He’d seen good coaches, good men, turned into objects of scorn with swiftness and alarming hunger, and he always thought it went harder on them if they had children old enough to be aware of it. Lisa was nine and Andrew was six. They were excited to see their father in the paper, particularly this season, when his team was unbeaten. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with this story. They understood a little about it, but now they would want to know more. They would want to know the very sorts of things he didn’t wish them to hear, ever.

Your sister was murdered, Daddy?

Yes.

Did he do anything else to her?

Yes.

He could hear Beth talking to the kids now, everyone’s tone light, theirs in a natural way, hers in a forced way, and he blocked it out and clicked on the link and read the story.

CHAMBERS—He’s won six regional titles and has his team in position to claim another, but on Saturday morning Kent Austin sent the Cardinals home with a prayer and no practice.

It was not a day for football.

The horrific Friday night slaying of a classmate has the students of Chambers High School reeling, and a school that was once basking in gridiron glory is now awash with tragedy.

It’s an experience all too familiar for Austin.

When the Cardinals coach was 15, his older sister, Marie, was abducted and killed.

Marie Austin, 16 at the time of her death, was last seen walking home from school on the evening of October 2, 1989. Confusion within the family left her without a ride, and she attempted to walk home. She never made it.

Three days later, her body was found in the Lake Erie shallows. Her killer, Gideon Pearce, was not apprehended until January of 1990. A Chambers native who’d moved to Cleveland, Pearce was already facing charges for the assault and battery of a minor at the time. His trial in that case had been scheduled for September 22, but Pearce, out on bail, disappeared in early summer and did not surface again until the Rocky River Police Department stopped him for driving a truck with an expired license plate. They soon discovered that the truck was stolen, that Pearce had an active warrant, and took him to the Cuyahoga County Jail. There, when his belongings were confiscated, they found a football card, part of a set made for the previous year’s high school all-state team. The player was Adam Austin, Kent and Marie’s older brother, an 18-year-old star defensive back. The card had been in Marie Austin’s possession on the day of her disappearance.

It was the first lead in what ultimately became a quick trial and conviction. More of Marie Austin’s belongings were found, and Pearce confessed within 48 hours of his arrest. He avoided the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, and he was still in custody at the time of his death from cancer in 2005.

Now, 22 years later, tragedy has revisited the Austin family. Kent Austin was familiar with Rachel Bond, and, according to police, Bond contacted Adam Austin for help in locating her father after a series of letters led her to believe that he’d returned to the Chambers area.

Kent swore under his breath. It wasn’t Hackett’s fault—reporting the facts, salting his retrospective with all relevant connections—but all the same, Kent wished his brother’s name had not come up. Hackett treated it gently, but this would be only the start. There would be more calls, and more articles, and they would not be so gentle.

Adam Austin could not be reached for comment [Hackett wrote] and, understandably, Coach Kent Austin does not discuss his sister’s death often. When he does, though, he acknowledges that it shaped his life.

“Everything that I’ve done,” he says, “I’ve done because of what happened to Marie.”

Austin’s primary passion is in ministry. Specifically, prison ministry. He makes one visit each month to lead a Bible study in the same prison that housed his sister’s murderer.

“Comfort was a hard thing to find, after losing Marie,” he says. “I found what I could in two things: football and faith.”

Nine years after his sister’s murder, Austin sat down with her killer.

“It was not easy,” he admits. Asked what the conversation consisted of, Austin pauses and wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “I prayed for him.”

And Pearce?

“He laughed at me.”

Asked if he regrets the visit, Austin shakes his head emphatically. He’s made many other trips. Working now with Dan Grissom, a minister from Cleveland, Austin has made dozens of visits to the state’s prisons, meeting with inmates who have been convicted of the same crime—murder—that took so much from Austin and his family.

“It’s the right test,” he says. “The critical one. I could harbor hate or spread love. I don’t think there’s anything in between, coming out of something like that. I really don’t.”

Just Friday night, Austin was asked if he considered the unbeaten regular season his team had just completed to be a defining moment in his career. With his unique blend of patience and bristle, a hallmark familiar to those who have covered the coach, he answered that he didn’t care much for the term “defining moment,” and that if he did have one, he hoped that it wouldn’t come on the football field.

For a man who doesn’t believe in defining moments, though, he speaks of his visit with Gideon Pearce as a critical decision, if nothing else.

“It changed some things in me that needed to change,” he says. “Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. From the decision itself, to the execution of the decision… hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I knew who he was and what he had done. I knew what my heart called me to do, and I knew what my faith called me to do, and I didn’t like that those things were at odds.”

When he returns to his team after a prison visit, he’ll bring some stories with him. Reminders of good men who made bad decisions.

“To spread my faith among the people who had challenged it seemed imperative,” he says of his mission. “We’ve done good work over the years. We’ve seen men change. I’m proud of that, more proud of that than anything we’ve done on the football field.”

Austin has always made it clear that victories are not the priority of his coaching career. Preparing young men to make the right decisions, to consider the effects of each action and choice, is what the game offers to him.

“This is not a game won by individuals, and it is surely not a game won by selfish choices,” he says. “We’re concerned with the weight of responsibility. We’re concerned with the idea that your individual mistake, your poor decision or poor effort, impacts many more people than yourself. We understand that this is a game of little consequence. We also understand that the lessons of the game are not empty.”

Something else Kent Austin understands is playing through grief. The investigation into his sister’s murder took time. During that time, the Cardinals—Kent was not playing with the varsity squad yet, but Adam Austin was a senior and a star and Kent was on the sidelines as a backup quarterback—reeled off six straight victories and claimed the state championship, the last in school history. Tributes to Marie Austin were made before every game. Players wore her initials on their jerseys. Fans lifted signs bearing her name in the stands. Moments of silence were held.

“Of course it meant a great deal,” Austin says. “The team, the community, they meant a great deal to us as a family.”

Now, as this current undefeated team pursues its first title since that year, its head coach says that he hopes the community is prepared to respect the wishes of Bond’s mother.

“That’s a family choice,” he says. “We are all thinking of Rachel, and the family, we are praying for them. We will not confuse the game of football with the realities of life, however. Our scoreboard does not alter anything, our scoreboard is of no consequence. I don’t think anyone’s mind is on football right now. What we as a coaching staff are not concerned with is what happens on Friday night. We are concerned with helping these young men cope with a tragedy.”

There is no one more prepared to offer that help than Kent Austin.