Die Like an Eagle (36 page)

“Nothing to do with his arrest tonight,” she'd said. “Since under law he hasn't been convicted of anything.” But apparently the contract contained a small clause requiring the contractor to keep the county apprised of his progress at appropriate intervals, and the detailed records I'd kept of my calls, letters, and e-mails to Biff were more than sufficient to prove he'd violated that clause. Once again, my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe saved the day. Although the timing made me suspect the county attorney was a lot more willing to act now that she knew Biff was likely to be so involved in multiple criminal investigations that he wouldn't have the time—or funds—to fight us. But no matter the reason, it made my morning just a little brighter, knowing that Randall's trucks were already on their way to the town square, laden with tools and sod.

Caroline and Cordelia headed over to the bleachers, with Rob carrying their gear. I pulled out my phone and checked my e-mail. Aha! An e-mail I had been awaiting very eagerly had come in while I was driving the ladies to the ball field. I looked around for someone to share the news with. Michael and the boys should be here, since they'd insisted on watching every minute of baseball practice available, including the Pirates and Red Sox practices at 7:00
A.M.
But where were they?

“Mrs. Waterston?”

I turned to find the gaunt figure of Samuel Yoder looming over me.

“Mr. Yoder,” I said. “Come to see your grandson play?”

“Yes,” he said. “I understand you're the one who suggested that Mr. Festus Hollingsworth get in touch with me about buying my farm.”

“I am,” I said. “I hope that's okay.” I wasn't sure, from his scowling expression, that it was.

“It's more than okay.” His voice trembled, and I realized what I thought was a scowl was probably his way of fighting back tears. “It's a blessing. I get to keep doing what I love—working on the land and with the animals—and your cousin says he'll worry about the financial side. A blessing.”

“I'm glad,” I said. I held out my hand, and he took it in both of his and shook it gently before turning and striding off toward the ball field.

“Meg! There you are.” I turned around to see Chief Burke approaching me, with Mr. Witherington in his wake. I strolled over to meet them.

“Do you have the key to the Snack Shack?” the chief asked.

“Or could you pick the lock again?” Mr. Witherington suggested.

“I have the key,” I said. “We weren't going to open quite this early.”

“Mr. Brown claims that the reason he was here at the ball field yesterday morning was to deposit the Caerphilly Summerball League files there so you would find them later,” the chief said. “If you don't mind?”

I led the way over to the shed and unlocked the door. Two black plastic file totes sat just inside the door, marked S
UMMERBALL 1
and S
UMMERBALL 2
. The chief opened them both and flipped through the files for a few moments before nodding and stepping back.

“Seems to be just what he told us,” the chief said. “Though if you don't mind, I'd like to take them with me for the time being. Mr. Witherington's going to file embezzlement charges against Mr. Brown, and we might need these for evidence. I'll have Kayla make you copies of everything.”

“Why not have her make an inventory, and I'll tell you what I need copies of?” I said. “No sense killing more trees than necessary, and I have a feeling Biff's records might be a lot more useful to you than they ever will to me.”

“Good plan,” the chief said, with an approving nod.

“I've accepted Mr. Brown's resignation as coach of the Yankees and the Stoats,” Mr. Witherington said. “I'm afraid you're going to have to scramble to find replacements.”

“Already taken care of,” I said. “My grandmother has volunteered to coach one of the teams, and just now I got an e-mail from Lem Shiffley. He doesn't feel up to running the league yet, but he'd be delighted to coach a team. I'll let the two of them settle who gets the Yankees and who gets the Stoats. Oh, and unless you have an objection, Tory Davis will be taking over as head coach of the Eagles. Chuck and Michael are fine with it.”

“As am I,” said Mr. Witherington. “In fact, I'm delighted with all three appointments.”

“And I hope you're all as pleased as I am to know that Mr. Adolph Pruitt is once again behind bars,” the chief announced.

“What for?” I asked.

“Horace matched some flakes of paint on Callie's truck to his truck,” the chief said. “A hit-and-run that results in more than a thousand dollars in damage is a class five felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison. And that's assuming we don't decide to go for attempted murder.”

“I assume this means we can all feel a little safer today,” I said.

“Absolutely,” the chief said.

I decided to take advantage of his visible good humor.

“By the way,” I said. “Have we figured out how Edna fooled Ideen Shiffley into giving her an alibi?”

“By staging a completely plausible attack of migraine,” the chief said, shaking his head. “Apparently Edna does actually suffer from migraines—so does Ideen, and they compared prescriptions before Edna retired to the guest room, drew the shades, and begged her hostess to make sure she wasn't disturbed till morning. Ideen was so busy tiptoeing around shushing her other guests that she never noticed the patient had flown the coop. She claims to have peeked every half hour or so, but I expect we'll find Edna resorted to the old pillow trick to fool her.”

“What is the world coming to when we can't even rely on a busybody like Ideen to keep track of people?” I asked.

The chief pursed his lips, and I suspected he was fighting the temptation to utter an uncharitable remark about Ideen. Fortunately for his conscience a distraction intervened.

“Meg! Jim! Chief! I've got fantastic news!” We all turned to see Dad bouncing across the parking lot waving a sheaf of papers in one hand, with Grandfather trailing behind him.

“It seems to be quite the morning for good news,” Mr. Witherington observed.

“Two of the doctors have already said yes,” Dad panted out when he reached us.

“What doctors?” I asked.

“Your father agreed to contact some of the leading orthopedic surgeons who perform Tommy John surgery,” Mr. Witherington explained, while Dad got his breath back. “Regardless of how much we deplore Mrs. Edna Johnson's crime, the fact remains that her son has been badly treated, and deprived of much needed medical care. So even though his injury did not happen from playing in a Summerball program, the league has decided to make a substantial donation toward his surgery.”

“And the online campaign we started to pay for the rest has already hit its goal,” Dad exclaimed.

“And your cousin Festus has found her a good defense attorney,” the chief said. “Not sure what kind of a case she's going to have, but who knows how any of us would react if something similar happened to the young ones entrusted to our care.”

“Maybe Dad can find her a good psychiatrist,” I suggested. “She could plead insanity. If anyone hurt Josh or Jamie the way Biff hurt her son, I might go around the bend.”

“It's possible,” the chief said. “And what happened to that boy should never have happened.”

“Meanwhile, who's going to take care of the kid while his mother's in jail?” I asked. “And afterward, if needed?”

“He has family,” the chief said. “Several aunts and uncles who are already falling all over each other to help out.”

“And one way or another, we'll make sure he's okay,” Mr. Witherington said.

We all stood looking solemn for a few moments.

“So what's that all about?” Cordelia had appeared, returning from the bleachers, and was pointing at something behind my back. “Randall, I thought you said your men had finished with the field.”

I turned to see several Shiffley construction trucks turning into the parking lot.

“Yes, ma'am,” Randall said. “The fields are as ready as they're going to be today. I'm just having my men unload some supplies for the next round of fixing up.”

“What now?” I said. “Is something else wrong with the field?”

“Nothing that hasn't been wrong with it for years,” Randall said. “As soon as today's games are over, we're going to start work.”

“On what?” I realized I probably sounded a little combative. “I'm sure whatever you're planning will be fine, but I'm the acting league president at the moment, and I've had more than enough surprises already this week. Just fill me in.”

“Take a look.” Randall held up a large rolled-up paper and shook it as if in triumph. Then he unrolled it and held it up so I could see. Dad, Grandfather, Cordelia, Mr. Witherington, and Chief Burke all crowded around to see as well.

It was a ball field. Not our ball field, because it had towering lights and spiffy new dugouts with wooden roofs. Along both sides were new, sturdy-looking bleachers covered with canvas sunshades, and to the right of the field, where the porta-potties now stood, was a building. A big sign saying “Snack Shack” hung over a wide service counter. You could see the suggestion of sinks and refrigerators behind the counter. And on the left and right sides of the building were arrows with the words
MEN
and
WOMEN
above them.

“It could take a few weeks to get the shell up,” Randall said. “And a few more to get it all built out and pretty. But we're going to make the sinks and toilets our first priority.”

“Awesome,” I said. “Of course, those improvements won't be free—in fact, by the look of it, they're going to cost a pretty penny. Both in my role as your executive assistant and my new role as acting Summerball league president, I should point out that neither the league nor the Caerphilly government has a whole lot of surplus cash to throw at this.”

“I have good news on the financial front,” Randall said. “I've had a donor come forward and offer to pay for all the improvements we want to do to the field. Wants us to rename the field, but we were planning to do that anyway.”

“As long as Biff isn't the donor,” I said.

“Actually, I'm the donor,” Grandfather said.

“You've already got a building at the college named after you,” Cordelia said. “And now you want the baseball field, too? Getting a little greedy, aren't you?”

“Actually,” Grandfather said, “I thought that might be a little over the top, so I was going to have them call it the Cordelia Lee Mason Field.”

Cordelia blinked a couple of times, then frowned.

“Why do you want to do a fool thing like that?” she asked.

“You said it yourself,” Grandfather said. “I've already got the theater building. And you're the baseball expert, not me.”

“I can pay for my own field, thank you very much,” Cordelia said. “Randall, you let me know how much you need for the field and I'll write you a check.”

“I already wrote him a check, dammit,” Grandfather bellowed.

“Folks, if you both want to donate baseball fields, there's also the elementary school field,” Randall said. “Needs at least as much work as the county field.”

“And if we could get that fixed up and reconfigured to Summerball standards, it would certainly make scheduling games and practices a lot easier,” I added. “And I know your great-grandsons would enjoy having a nice field to play on at school.”

Grandfather and Cordelia glared at each other for a few long moments.

“Suit yourself,” Grandfather said finally.

“Randall, you work up an estimate of how much both fields will cost,” Cordelia said. “And I'll give you a check for half. We'll talk about this field naming thing later.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Randall said.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Josh and Jamie came running out. “The game's about to start.”

“You go back and watch,” I said. “I'll join you in a few minutes.”

“No, Mommy,” Josh said, frowning and shaking his head. “You have to throw out the first ball.”

“'Cause you're the boss now!” Jamie crowed. “And you get to yell ‘Play ball!'”

“Here.” Jim Witherington tossed me a brand-new baseball. Luckily, I didn't disgrace myself by dropping it.

“Okay,” I said. “You guys want to come with me and make sure I do it right?”

I tossed the ball to Michael so he could carry it and I could hold hands with both twins as we walked out to the pitcher's mound.

 

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