Three Strikes and You're Dead (21 page)

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Authors: Jessica Fletcher

BOOK: Three Strikes and You're Dead
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“No,” I said firmly. “I can’t speak as to whether or not Ty ever used drugs when he was younger. I rather doubt it. But I definitely do not believe that he is involved with drugs now.”
 
 
“How can you be so sure, Mrs. Fletcher?”
 
 
“If Ty were doing drugs, he wouldn’t be the wonderful player that he is,” I answered.
 
 
“I can name plenty of major-league players—good ones, too—who’ve been involved with drugs,” he said.
 
 
“Are you a baseball fan, Sheriff?” I asked gently.
 
 
“Nope. Not my sport. Never got into it. Too slow.”
 
 
“It’s true, Sheriff, that a number of recently celebrated stories about major-league ballplayers and drugs have made the news. However, you should also know that the minor leagues have a very strict drug-monitoring policy. A player would have a very tough time surviving in the minor leagues if he was doing drugs—any sort of banned substances.”
 
 
The sheriff sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Sounds like you’re a big baseball fan, Mrs. Fletcher.”
 
 
“Since coming to Mesa, I’ve been reminded of how much I always enjoyed watching a baseball game. Ty and his promising career added an extra fillip to that. It’s been a number of years since I attended a game as exciting as that championship the other night.”
 
 
“Always exciting when a game, any game, is won in the final minutes. Tell me something. How do you come to know so much about the minor-league drug-monitoring policy?”
 
 
“There’s no mystery to it,” I said. “Earlier this summer I attended the wedding of a friend’s daughter at the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown. I spent a long weekend there and took a tour of the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the tour, our guide spoke at length about the minor-league drug policy. Ironically, when I got back home, the local newspapers were filled with stories about a player on the Portland Sea Dogs, a Boston Red Sox farm team, who was suspended because he’d failed the drug test. It was a big deal because the boy was from the next town over from Cabot Cove, where I live.”
 
 
“So you’re a Red Sox fan, Mrs. Fletcher?”
 
 
“Perhaps if I followed baseball more closely, I would style myself a fan. But the Rattlers’ game the other night was one of the few games I’ve attended in person, although I do recall seeing a local Little League game about fifteen or twenty years ago because the ten-year-old son of a friend was playing. I remember that I didn’t enjoy it because the parents were more fiercely competitive than the youngsters.”
 
 
“What a shame.”
 
 
Do it now, Jessica,
I thought to myself.
He’s in your corner.
 
 
“Sheriff, do you suppose I could take a peek at the police report? Perhaps there’s something in it that I could—”
 
 
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Fletcher. That’s official police business, part of an ongoing investigation.”
 
 
“I understand,” I said.
 
 
“Look, Mrs. Fletcher, I can appreciate the predicament you’re in. It’s my understanding that you came to Mesa for a little R and R with your friends the Duffys. Right?”
 
 
“Right.”
 
 
“And you’re still here in Mesa, days after their son has been arrested for murder, not to vacation but to give the family support.”
 
 
“It’s true. My visit to your lovely state and city is no longer a vacation. I am now a friend to friends in need.”
 
 
“I understand you were at the Biltmore Spa the other day with Meg Duffy.”
 
 
His question took me by surprise, and I hesitated before answering.
How did he know that?
 
 
“Yes, we were,” I said.
 
 
“Was that the vacation part of your stay here, or the friend helping a friend in need?”
 
 
“Actually, a bit of both. When I arrived, the Duffys gave me a gift certificate for a day at the spa. A few days after Ty’s arrest—when things had calmed down somewhat—and at the insistence of Meg and Jack, I went to the Biltmore to use the gift certificate for a little of that R and R you alluded to.”
 
 
“And Meg Duffy also had a certificate?”
 
 
“No. That was my doing. I felt that Meg could use a massage, too, and offered to buy her a treatment.”
 
 
“And that would be the friend helping a friend in need part, right?”
 
 
“I suppose so.”
 
 
“Mrs. Fletcher, are you aware that several of the players work at the spa as personal trainers, and that H.B., Junior Bennett’s father, is a frequent, almost daily, client?”
 
 
“I didn’t know that before I arrived for my treatments, but I learned it when I was there.”
 
 
“How did you learn it?”
 
 
“My masseuse told me,” I answered.
 
 
“I ask this,” he said, “because someone brought it to my attention and I found it curious that Mrs. Duffy was at the spa at a time like this.”
 
 
I looked at him and waited for him to continue.
 
 
“A word to the wise, Mrs. Fletcher. There are lots of rumors flying around, lots of gossip if you will, lots of nasty accusations. How the family comports itself at this time is under scrutiny, maybe unfairly, but that’s what happens.”
 
 
He was right. Despite my good intentions, my efforts to help Meg through this difficult time may have backfired.
 
 
Hualga continued. “What little evidence we have points to Ty as not only having a motive for this murder but having opportunity. He’s my prime suspect. There are no witnesses other than Ty’s best friend to say Junior was still alive when Ty was sleeping off a bender in the car. That means his alibi is weak; it still places him on the scene at the Crazy Coyote that night, and that makes it difficult.” He looked at me, took a deep breath, leaned over his desk, and said, “Between you and me, the police report isn’t conclusive. The evidence is circumstantial. Also off the record, I’m not convinced the right man is under house arrest. I think our killer may still be out there.”
 
 
“Excuse me?” I said.
 
 
“Here,” he said, handing me a file folder. “Changed my mind. You take a look. But if anybody asks, I didn’t give it to you.”
 
 
He winked and leaned back in his chair.
 
 
I skimmed the report. Nothing jumped out as being strange. But then I got to item number five on page seven: “Footprints found at scene adjacent to the body (inconsistent with forensics).”
 
 
I continued to read, going as fast as I could for fear Hualga would change his mind and take it away from me. According to the report, the murder weapon, the aluminum bat, was found in “Dumpster number 7345, on the northwest corner of Thompson Stadium.” No other details were given.
 
 
I handed him the police report and asked, “May I see the forensic report?”
 
 
The sheriff smiled. “I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never read any of your novels. I intend to rectify that. I’ll bet you’re a real good mystery writer.”
 
 
“I try to be. The problem is that while I’m supposed to be writing fiction, reality too often rears its ugly head.”
 
 
He gingerly opened another folder and handed me a document stamped FORENSICS. “I can let you take a quick look,” he said, “but I have to get going in a minute. Detective Raff will give you a lift home.”
 
 
“I appreciate that,” I said, knowing that meant I wouldn’t have the report in my hands for very long. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly privy to all of his files and reports, but I was glad nonetheless.
 
 
“The only fingerprints found on the bat were Junior’s?” I said.
 
 
“That’s what it says.”
 
 
I turned a page, looking for the details. There had been a single thumbprint on top, and some latent prints, inconclusive, beneath a blood smear on the head of the bat. The neck of the bat, where a batter would grip it, had been wiped down with a cloth; the forensics team had recovered white cotton fibers that had clung to the metal.
 
 
“We never found whatever the killer used to wipe off the prints,” Hualga said.
 
 
“White cotton,” I said. “That could be a T-shirt, and almost impossible to trace, unless you found the garment itself.”
 
 
“We didn’t, and we checked every Dumpster in the vicinity of the Coyote as well as Thompson Stadium. It wasn’t Ramos’s shirt. He was wearing blue.”
 
 
I sat up pencil-straight in my chair, repositioned my glasses, and scanned the paper à la Evelyn Wood searching for the word “footprint.”
 
 
 
 
Myriad footprints found at scene. Appear to be made by sneaker-type shoes, sizes varying between 9 and 13. One set of prints found, not consistent with sneaker sole print.
 
 
 
 
Behind the report was a set of police photographs of the crime scene, including close-ups of the footprints. I studied them carefully before returning the folder to Sheriff Hualga.
 
 
Chapter Thirteen
 
 
“Thank you for meeting with me like this,” I said. “I really appreciate being able to talk with you about what happened that terrible night at the Crazy Coyote.”
 
 
“Sure, Mrs. Fletcher,” Ty’s friend and teammate, Carter, said in his usual friendly tone. “Anything we can do to help Ty.”
 
 
“The very best thing you can do is just tell me the truth. In other words, don’t embellish the story because you feel it might make Ty look better.”
 
 
“Just the facts, ma’am,” said Carter in an attempt to emulate Jack Webb from
Dragnet
, the popular TV series of yesteryear.
 
 
Another of the players, Sam Bobley, slapped him on the arm and said, “You’re too much, man.”
 
 
I’d asked some of the players to meet me, with the promise of lunch. Actually, I’d asked Carter to arrange it. He’d called the Duffys to speak with Ty and I had answered the phone. Ty was in the shower and the Duffys weren’t home. It was a spur-of-the-moment act on my part, asking Carter if he’d be willing to get some of the players together to meet with me. He readily agreed, and suggested we all meet at Burrito Heaven, an upscale fast-food eatery in Mesa.
 
 
It turned out to be not exactly heaven, but it was a good place for us to gather. A busy restaurant with a tin roof, the place had a noise level loud enough to buffer our conversations so that others wouldn’t overhear. At the same time, we managed to secure a large booth in a corner of the spacious room that separated us somewhat from other diners. Carter ordered a burrito practically the size of the hedgehog that had dashed in front of me near Hedgehog Lake; I ordered a taco salad with spicy chicken.
 
 
Three players besides Carter had agreed to join me for lunch. There was “Speedster,” or Sam Bobley, the smallest kid on the team (everything being relative, that made him about five-eleven). He was also the fastest, hence his nickname. Another kid, who was called “Murph,” had come. His real name was Billy Murphy, and he was a catcher on the team, the huskiest of the players and the most reserved, at least at this juncture. Billy Nassani, the first baseman, was already familiar to me. He was one of the team’s leading home-run hitters, and he had hit a beauty during the game I’d attended on that fateful day. Home-run hitters have a way of being remembered. Carter assured me that these were the smartest kids on the team and would be the most articulate about what had happened.

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