After four or five more unsteady steps, Randy fell—facedown on the grass.
“No one even tackled him,” Nancy heard Kristin say in disbelief.
The players clustered around Randy, waiting for him to get up, but Randy continued to lie prone.
He didn’t budge.
Chapter Eight
“Something’s really wrong!” Nancy shouted, jumping to her feet. “Randy passed out!”
She took off down the bleachers and darted across the field to where the players were circled around Randy, their jerseys a wall of orange.
Coach Mitchell ran in from the sidelines and grabbed a player. “Call an ambulance. Now!” he ordered, and the player went racing off to the locker room.
It wasn’t easy for Nancy to push past the crowd of players in their bulky equipment, but she managed to edge close enough to get a look at Randy. The team’s medic had turned him over, and Nancy could see that he was at least breathing.
“His pulse is steady but slow,” said the medic. “Okay, guys, move back and give him some air.”
Relieved, Nancy backed out of the crowd. Randy was still alive, but what had caused his sudden collapse?
She touched a nearby player’s shoulder pad, asking, “Do you know what happened?”
The player stripped off his helmet, then shook his head. “Not really. He just passed out.”
She questioned a few more players, but they all seemed genuinely confused and concerned about what had happened. If any of them had done something to Randy, they were doing a good job of hiding it. At one point Nancy noticed Coach Mitchell watching her. He nodded his recognition, then turned his attention back to Randy.
As Nancy wandered toward the stands, past the players’ bench, the water bottles caught her eye. They were scattered along the bench and in the grass below. Randy had been drinking from one throughout the practice, Nancy remembered.
She went over and picked up one of the bottles. The name Gonzales was printed on the plastic. One at a time she checked the bottles until she found the one labeled Simpson. An ambulance was just pulling onto the field, and Nancy ran toward it, Randy’s bottle in her hand. She approached the driver and handed her Randy’s water bottle.
“You may want to take this to the hospital and have it checked out.” Nancy nodded toward Randy, who was being lifted onto a stretcher by two attendants. “He was drinking from this all afternoon.”
“I’ll take it to the lab,” the uniformed woman assured Nancy, taking the bottle. A moment later Randy was inside the ambulance and the vehicle was pulling away, its emergency lights flashing.
Nancy turned as Bess appeared at her side, asking, “Is Randy okay?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy replied truthfully. “We’ll have to call the hospital later. But in the meantime—” She paused, seeing a husky figure trudging onto the field. “Oh, good. There’s Dean Jarvis.”
Nancy hurried over to him. “I saw the ambulance from my office and came right over,” the dean of students told her. “Is it true that Randy Simpson passed out?”
“I’m afraid so,” Nancy answered. “And I suspect that it wasn’t an accident. I’ve been investigating anonymous threats that Randy’s been receiving. Now it seems as if someone’s making good on those threats.”
The dean nodded brusquely. “I heard that you were working on this.”
Nancy quickly told him about Randy’s water bottle and how the ambulance attendant had promised to have the liquid analyzed. “In the meantime I’d like to search for evidence of foul play. Is there any way we can search the locker room?”
“Of course,” the dean agreed. “Just let me check with Coach Mitchell.”
He returned a few moments later, motioning for the girls to accompany him. Coach Mitchell caught up with them just as they were entering the men’s locker room. “Let me find the locker-room attendant. He might know something,” he said, slightly breathless from running.
A few minutes later the attendant came rushing in. Nancy could tell that he was flustered as he pointed out Randy’s locker and, after checking a master list for the lock combination, opened it for the dean.
As Nancy watched carefully, Dean Jarvis sorted through the contents of Randy’s locker: his clothes, towels, powder, a comb and brush, and a sports magazine. Nothing unusual.