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Authors: Jessica Fletcher

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BOOK: Three Strikes and You're Dead

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Jack stroked his chin. “No, he didn’t. She’s older than he is, for God’s sake.”

“That’s not important,” I said. “I doubt her station knows, or they wouldn’t have let her cover the story. At least I hope they wouldn’t.”

“These days the news desk might think it’s just another interesting angle,” Meg put in.

“They might,” I replied, “but I don’t think Ms. Locke is playing straight with them. It makes me wonder what else she isn’t telling.”

Chapter Eight

“The guy’s a dweeb,” said Ty. “Got these thick Coke-bottle glasses and greasy hair and he wears tourist kind of clothes. You know, Hawaiian shirts and stuff.”

I was glad I hadn’t packed mine.

“He’s at most of the games,” Ty continued. “He thinks he knows a lot about baseball, but he’s no expert in my book.”

Ty was speaking unfavorably of the self-appointed president of the Rattlers Fan Club. Jack, Meg, Ty, and I sat inside at the kitchen table. A rare rainstorm had just rolled through, scattering the reporters on the front lawn and cooling down the temperature—a degree or two anyway. Meg and I had planned to go to a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant to pick up takeout, but thought better of it when we saw the media still parked outside. Instead, we’d decided to cook a pot of pasta and put together an avocado and tomato salad. Meg made her much-celebrated fresh-lime-and-garlic salad dressing and put it in the refrigerator to chill.

“If I’d known it was going to rain on those reporters, I would have waited, and gone to El Niño’s,” she said, filling a large pot with water, placing it on the stove, and adjusting the heat.

“This is nicer,” said Jack, handing his wife a glass of white wine.

“If I didn’t have this stupid thing on my ankle, I could have gone for you,” Ty said, pouring himself an iced tea. “I don’t like the idea of you going to a restaurant and having people stare at you.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Meg said.

Ty gave her a skeptical look and changed the topic. “Now, this is the
real
Arizona iced tea, not that bottled kind,” he said, taking a big sip and putting his glass down. He stretched his arms over his head, dropped them, and rolled his shoulders.

We were all functioning on little sleep and lots of nervous energy. Ty hadn’t slept very long, just an hour and a half, after spending half the night sitting up in jail. Jack, Meg, and I had all tried to nap in the afternoon, but it was difficult to rest with Ty’s fate looming so large.

“I remember that guy, the fan club guy,” said Jack. “I’ve seen him at the games. What’s his name?”

“I’m not sure,” said Ty. “But I don’t think he was that much of a Rattlers fan as much as he was a Junior Bennett fan. He was always clapping for Junior.”

“What about him?” Meg said.

“He was there. At the Coyote. I just remembered. Junior was dissing him, running down the way he dressed, his looks. It’s true, the guy’s a dweeb, but still, Junior really ripped him. The guy was bummed. Junior was his hero.”

“Some hero,” Jack said. He looked at me. “Do you need a translation, Jessica? Junior was rude to the president of the fan club.”

“I got the gist of it,” I said.

“Yeah, but he should have been used to it by now,” Ty said. “Junior was always putting him down.”

Jack’s cell phone rang and he pulled it from the pocket of his slacks. He looked at the screen and pushed TALK. “Yes?” he said. “No, I didn’t. How do you know? You sure? Well I’ll be damned. No. No. It’s okay. Yes, come on over. Plan to eat. We’ve got plenty of pasta to go around. Okay. See you then.” He slid the phone back in his pocket. “That was Cole. He’s on his way over.”

“Is that it?” asked Meg, disappointed. “Sounded like he had some good news.”

“I’m not sure if it’s good or bad,” her husband said.

“What does that mean?”

“It seems . . .” Jack paused. “It seems that they’ve found the murder weapon.”

“Oh,” said Meg, her voice small. “And?”

“And, it was a baseball bat.”

Ty put his head down on the table. “They’re going to pin this on me, I know it.”

I sensed Meg’s eyes searching for mine. I looked at her and then at Ty. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I said. To Jack I said, “Where did they find it?”

“In an open Dumpster in back of the stadium, according to Cole,” he replied. “He just heard it on the car radio. They found blood on the bat and they’re sending it for testing. But Cole says they’re confident it’s the one that was used to kill Bennett. There is one funny thing about it though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Jack kept his gaze on Ty as he answered. “It’s an aluminum bat.”

Ty sat up straight in his chair.

“Why is that funny?” I asked.

“I haven’t used an aluminum baseball bat since high school,” Ty said, watching his foster father. “I didn’t even bring an aluminum bat to Arizona.”

“I know that,” said Jack. “Sylvester does, too. That’s why he wanted to be the first to tell you the news.”

A weight seemed to have been lifted from Meg’s shoulders. “Well,” she said, “that young man had better like pasta.” She took a fistful of spaghetti, broke it in half, and dumped it into the boiling water. “Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“Wooden bats were once used exclusively in all baseball leagues, from Little League through high school, college, and in professional ball,” Sylvester said, taking a second helping of pasta and tomato sauce.

“But not anymore?” I asked.

He shook his head, his mouth full. After he swallowed, he continued. “They tend to break. Even a Little Leaguer can split the wood with a good hit. That’s dangerous, not to mention expensive, especially when budget time comes around. The leagues have to figure out how many bats they need to make it through a season.”

“But I would think an aluminum bat would cost more than a wooden one,” I said.

“It does, Jessica,” Jack put in. “They cost a bit more initially, but they last a whole lot longer.”

“They last longer, but they’re not necessarily safer, Mrs. Fletcher,” Ty said, reaching across the table for the salad.

“Why not?”

Sylvester didn’t wait for Ty to respond. “Because the ball tends to fly off an aluminum bat at a much faster rate, which could pose a risk to the pitcher,” he said, giving a sharp nod when Jack offered to fill his wineglass. He appeared as tired as the rest of us, with dark circles under his eyes and a heavy shadow on his strong jaw. The weariness seemed to intensify his good looks. It made him less pretty, more striking. I noticed that his manner was straightforward. He wasn’t as bent on plying us with his charm as he had been with me at the baseball dinner. I liked this Sylvester better.

“But in Little League and high school, they don’t hit the ball that hard,” Ty added. “So it’s okay to use an aluminum bat.”

It occurred to me that we’d gotten away from the fact that an aluminum bat had probably been used to bludgeon Junior Bennett. I weighed whether or not to bring the topic back to its source and decided against it. The general conversation was more suited to dinnertime anyway, I thought.

“I like it that the professional leagues use wooden bats,” Meg said. “It’s traditional and baseball is a traditional game. Some things should stay the same, and not change.”

“It also separates the men from the boys,” Sylvester said. “Players and officials associate aluminum bats with the amateurs. Once a kid gets drafted into the pros, he needs to adjust to hitting with a wooden bat. Some do, some don’t. A player who was a power hitter, a star on his high school or college team, could hit miserably in pro tryouts.”

There’s a trade-off in everything in life,
I thought.

“That’s what made Ty so attractive to scouts,” said Sylvester.

“And to agents,” Jack put in archly.

“Touché,” said Sylvester, raising his wineglass to Jack and draining it. He turned to me. “It’s unusual for a player to adjust so quickly to hitting with a wooden bat, Mrs. Fletcher. That’s the sign of a pure, natural talent.”

Ty’s mouth quirked up. It was the first time I’d seen a smile on his lips since he’d been home. But it faded quickly. “Yeah, but all the talent in the world won’t mean diddly if I’m convicted of murder.”

We were crowded around a small table in the kitchen. The patio table seated eight, but even though it was the end of summer, it was still too warm to eat outside. More important, we wanted to limit the chances that a reporter lurking behind a fence or in a tree could listen to our conversation. Convinced that every click we heard outside was the sound of a camera shutter, we found the safety of the kitchen’s four walls comforting, if confining.

The phone rang constantly. Jack was in charge of answering it. He’d look to see who was calling and sometimes he’d pick up; other times he’d let the machine get it. He’d turned the volume down so that we weren’t privy to the recorded messages. It was better that we didn’t know—as much as I was curious about who was on the line. When he did take a call, Jack retreated to the patio, pacing back and forth, his hand over his mouth to muffle his speech. He’d come back in, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead, a combination of the stifling Arizona heat and stress.

Another call came in. Jack picked up. “Hello, Carter. Yes, okay, thanks for asking. Ty’s right here. Hold on.”

He handed Ty the phone.

“Hey,” Ty said, and went to the sliding doors to go to the patio.

“Better not,” Jack said. “Better stay inside.”

Ty took the phone upstairs.

“Nice of Carter to call,” Meg said to me. “He’s Ty’s best friend on the team.”

“What position does he play?” I asked.

Sylvester answered. “He’s an outfielder—and a good one. I’d say he has a fairly good chance of making it to the Show.”

“They have a lot in common, Carter and Ty,” Meg said. “He had a tough upbringing, too. His family was poor, single mom, rough neighborhood.”

“Tougher than Ty’s in many ways,” Jack said. “Carter’s dad was murdered when the kid was six years old.”

“Oh, how awful,” I said.

“Even worse than you think. It was a drug-related killing, but it was a case of mistaken identity. Carter’s father was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He died, leaving Carter and his two sisters with a mother who suffered from bouts of depression.”

“She had good reason to be depressed,” Meg said.

“He’s another one that baseball saved,” Sylvester said, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

“What about his sisters?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think they live with an aunt and uncle.”

“Carter always feels guilty that he’s not helping out with them,” Meg said. “Poor dear.”

BOOK: Three Strikes and You're Dead

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