Die Like an Eagle Read online

  “That’s him,” Evan said.

  I winced. Biff Brown might not hate me yet. But only because he didn’t yet know who I was.

  Chapter 2

  Just then Michael and Chuck called for a water break, and the herd of small boys thundered toward us. Some of them went straight to the dugout where they had left their water bottles, and the rest swarmed off the field to collect water bottles from their fathers and beg for Gatorade and bubble gum.

  I found myself looking at the porta-potty. I’d been here half a dozen times before for practices—how had I missed BROWN CONSTRUCTION COMPANY stenciled on its side? To say nothing of the much more visible graffiti advising us, in bright yellow paint, that Brown stinks! Of course, usually when I was at practice, I was trying to shove the annoyances of my day job out of mind so I could focus on Michael and the boys. Well, and the annoyances of my volunteer job as Team Mom. Still—was it a good thing or a bad thing that until now I’d missed Brown Construction’s connection to baseball?

  With the fathers’ attention elsewhere, I walked a little away from the bleachers, pulled out my cell phone, and punched another of my speed-dial buttons.

  “I’m working on it,” Randall Shiffley said.

  “Working on what?” Technically, ever since I’d accepted the position of executive assistant to the mayor, Randall had been my boss. But he often behaved as if I was the one giving orders. Perhaps I’d done a better job than I thought of learning Mother’s people-management skills.

  “Whatever you’re calling about,” he said. “Everything you’ve asked me to do is on my to-do list, and I’m motoring through it. Don’t want anything to interfere with my enjoyment of Opening Day tomorrow.”

  “What I’m calling about isn’t on your to-do list,” I said.

  “Not yet anyway.”

  “How did the county end up giving Brown Construction the contract to do the renovations to the town square?”

  “Damn,” Randall said. “Yeah, that would have been before your time. What’s Brown done now?”

  “Absolutely nothing as far as I can tell,” I said. “I know we still have six weeks before the Memorial Day celebrations, but it doesn’t look as if he’s even started. And he’s dodging my phone calls. I’ve left daily messages on his voice mail for the last several weeks. And followed them up with e-mails, which he’s also ignored.”

  “Yeah, that’s Biff all right.”

  “So, getting back to my original question—why is Brown doing the town square? Instead of, for example, your family’s company, which usually comes in on time and under budget and never fails to return my calls.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said. “Trouble is, we started to get complaints about nepotism. Mainly from other companies we beat in a fair competition for contracts, but still—it’s a problem. That’s why I put my cousin Cephus in charge of the construction company for the time being. And then I decided we need to spread the work around a little. Award a few contracts to other firms, even if they weren’t necessarily the absolute lowest bidder, as long as they weren’t too far off. And even if those of us in the trade don’t consider them the most qualified.”

  “Oh, great,” I said. “So now we’re hiring overpriced, unqualified contractors just to keep them from suing us?”

  “Less qualified,” Randall said. “And not for anything mission-critical like the school roof. No way I’d let them get that. I figured the town square’s pretty safe—mostly regrading, resodding, doing a little spruce-up on the bandstand. Only so badly they can screw that up.”

  “You sure about that? Because under the circumstances, I suspect Biff’s company’s the one maintaining the county ball fields, and they’re not exactly in a condition that would inspire confidence in Brown Contracting’s landscaping abilities.” The rehydrated kids were back on the field where, as we’d been talking, I’d already seen two kids miss balls that had taken bad hops, thanks to the extraordinary number of bumps, dents, divots, hillocks, tussocks, molehills, and patches of tall dead weeds afflicting the field. And was it just the angle I was viewing it from, or was second base a good foot too far to the left?

  “Good point,” Randall said. “And yeah, Biff’s in charge of maintaining the ball fields—that’s part of our contract with the league. If I’d known Lem was going to get sick on us, I wouldn’t have agreed to that. Maybe you can figure out a way to wrestle that back from him. And if he does a half-baked job of renovations on the town square, or doesn’t get around to it by his deadline, which as I’m sure you have already noticed is the Monday before Memorial Day weekend, I can send in my guys to get the work done in time for the celebration, and then we’ll have solid evidence to show why we’re never giving them any more contracts.”

  “So I gather the optimal outcome is having them fail so we never have to use them again,” I said. “Under the circumstances, would you like me to stop bugging Biff so much?”

  “No, you keep on giving him the benefit of all the encouragement and reminders you’d give any other contractor. I have every confidence that Biff’s capable of hanging himself in spite of all your efforts.”

  With that we signed off. I looked back into the outfield where Biff was still leaning over the fence.

  Great. If I did my job for Caerphilly, I’d probably end up angering Biff and ending what had apparently been a rare stretch of relative peace for the Eagles. Maybe I could explain to Randall and get him to take over nagging Biff?

  No. Hell, no. If Biff wanted work from Caerphilly, he’d have to fulfill the terms of his contract, and that didn’t just mean putting in a lick and a promise on the town square, the way he’d done with the ball field. The town square had damn well better be in pristine condition, or I wasn’t going to sign off on payment. For that matter, I was going to have the county attorney take a look at the contract between Caerphilly and Summerball, to see if we had any scope for forcing Biff to improve the field. And if Biff thought he could take out his resentment on my boys—or my husband …

  I drew myself up to my full five feet ten and glared at Biff.

  Obviously he couldn’t really see me, but I was almost convinced he felt the heat of my stare. He glanced at his watch and then started walking along the fence on the first-base side of the field. I looked at my own watch. Only five minutes to six, when practice was over, and the Eagles would be expected to clear the field promptly to make way for the team that would be practicing from six to seven.

  The Eagles were occupying the third-base dugout. Over in the first-base dugout, another dozen or so kids were unpacking their gear. It was only practice, so they weren’t in uniform, but at least half of them wore brown t-shirts or hats with the word STOATS in bright gold letters.

  I strolled back to the Eagles’ side of the field where, in my absence, one of the fathers had fallen off the bleachers and banged his head. No, actually one of the bleacher seats had come off and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground.

  “I’ll be fine,” he was saying to the two others who were helping him up and dusting him off.

  “Let’s put that seat back on,” I said.

  “No, let’s leave it where it fell,” the fallen father said. “Maybe it will inspire Biff to get the bleachers fixed.”

  “Fat chance,” another said. “We should probably leave it down there so no one else comes to grief on it. If we just stick it back on the way it was, someone else could really hurt himself.”

  “I actually had in mind putting it back properly.” I rummaged through my tote, pulled out a wrench, and then picked up the bolt I could see had fallen on the ground. “I noticed at our last practice that a lot of things out here were falling apart, so I brought some tools. If a couple of you will hold the seat in place, I can bolt it back together.”

  We managed to find all but two of the bolts that had fallen out, and luckily I also had a slotted screwdriver large enough to tighten the loose screws on the side supports.

  “That should hold fo
r now,” I said. “And I’m sure I have bolts the right size in my workshop. I’ll bring some tomorrow to finish this off properly.”

  “Wow,” one of the men said. “I don’t think I know many women who travel with a full tool kit in their purses.”

  “You probably don’t know many women blacksmiths,” I said. “Is that Biff’s team over in the other dugout, getting ready to practice when we finish?”

  “Yeah,” one of the fathers said. “As usual, we get the five-to-six slot, the one that means a lot of us have to leave work early to get the kids here.”

  “And Biff’s team gets the six-to-whenever slot,” another added. “This time of year, they get at least an extra half hour of daylight, and if you think they’re not using it, drop by here at seven thirty and you’ll see them still hard at work.”

  “Probably not a good idea, dropping by to spy on him,” another said. “That’s how I got blackballed.”

  “I thought it was because you complained about prices in the Snack Shack.”

  “Could be,” the first said. “It’s not like he ever tells you why you’re out. Suddenly your e-mails don’t get answered and you can volunteer to coach or serve on the board all you like, you’ll never get picked.”

  Michael and Chuck, surrounded by their team, were strolling back toward us. I was struck by the contrast between the Eagles and the group now occupying the first-base dugout. The Eagles, resplendent in their black-and-red uniform t-shirts, were chatting with each other and with the coaches, skipping about, tossing balls back and forth, laughing—they were all smiling and happy. The kids in the dugout were scurrying and anxious, jumping when Biff or one of the other coaches barked an order. Not happy kids.

  “You know, I have an idea,” I said. “Michael and I live just a few miles down the road. Why don’t you all bring the boys over to our house for a while?”

  “Against the rules to have outside practices,” one of the fathers said. They all looked anxious, and some of them glanced over their shoulders as if afraid Biff might have heard.

  “No, no,” I said. “We’re not going to break the league rules. There will be no unauthorized practices.” The anxious faces of the fathers relaxed a little. “But there’s nothing wrong with trying to let the boys get to know each other and build up a little more team spirit, is there? Michael and I are having a picnic tonight at our house to welcome some visiting relatives. Why don’t you all come? And bring your families?”

  “I suppose that could be fun,” one of them said, sounding rather puzzled.

  “No actual harm in it,” said another, as if trying to convince himself.

  “I’d have to check with the wife,” said a third.

  “After all, we should do something to celebrate the start of the holiday,” I said, in case any of them had forgotten that they had both Friday and Monday off due to Founder’s Day Weekend, a town and county holiday. “And Michael has set up a pretty nice little baseball field in our backyard. Well, in my parents’ cow pasture, which is right across the fence from our backyard. So if the boys brought their bats and gloves—I’m sure they’re tired of practicing, but it if they felt like having a little pickup game…?”

  Light dawned in the circle of faces.

  “Awesome,” one said. As if they’d rehearsed the maneuver, the tight-knit knot of fathers split apart as each one pulled out his cell phone, took a few steps away from the others, and began punching buttons.

  “Honey,” I heard one say, “do we have anything on tonight?… Well, can we skip it? We’re invited to a baseball team picnic at the Waterstons. Yes, it’s important.”

  As I strolled toward our car, passing other fathers on their cell phones, I caught scraps of other, similar conversations.

  “Great idea,” Michael said. “I might have suggested it myself, but I had no idea we were having a picnic tonight.”

  “Well, we are now.” I had pulled out my own cell phone and was speed-dialing again. “Mother? Do you think you could organize a picnic at our house?”

  “Of course, dear.” She was almost purring at the idea. Next to decorating, entertaining was Mother’s favorite pastime. “When, and for how many people?”

  “In about an hour,” I said. “For three or four dozen people on top of however many relatives have come to town for Opening Day. A lot of them kids—we’re entertaining the boys’ baseball team and their families.”

  “About a hundred, then,” she said. “No problem. See you in an hour, dear.”

  I hung up to find Michael staring at me and grinning.

  “I’m not sure which surprises me more,” he said. “That you just ordered your mother to organize a picnic for a hundred people on an hour’s notice, or the fact that she agreed to do it so readily.”

  “I didn’t order her,” I said. “I asked her. She sounded delighted. But a hundred people—did she think I was lowballing the number of baseball guests, or do we really have forty or fifty relatives in town for Opening Day?”

  “Could be,” Michael said. “I’m delighted by how many die-hard baseball fans there are in your family.”

  Yes, we had a lot of baseball fans, and also a lot of Josh and Jamie fans. And when my relatives added in the likelihood—which I’d just made a certainty—of having at least one grandiose family party during their stay …

  “I hope a hundred isn’t an underestimate,” I said with a sigh. “And that not too many of them are planning to stay at our house.”

  “We’ll manage,” Michael said. “I’d better go round up our three.”

  “Three?” I echoed. “Oh, right—we’re giving Adam Burke a ride. Shall I call his grandparents to ask if he can come to the picnic?”

  “He was coming over after practice anyway for a playdate,” Michael said. “Why don’t you call and invite them to the picnic? I’m sure Minerva and the chief would both enjoy it.”

  With that he strolled off toward the dugout.

  I pulled out my cell phone and was about to call Minerva Burke, Adam’s grandmother. But it was Thursday. And 6:00 P.M. Minerva was director of the New Life Baptist Church’s justly famous gospel choir, and Thursday evenings from six to eight were one of their regular practice times. So instead I called Chief Burke.

  “Hi, it’s Meg,” I said when he answered. “Nothing’s wrong,” I added, because I’d long ago figured out that the chief was a bit of a worrywart when it came to his grandkids. “Adam’s playdate with Josh and Jamie is still on, but I wanted to tell you that we’re having a big picnic for visiting relatives, and a lot of the kids on the team are coming with their families, and you and Minerva are more than welcome to join us when you’re free.”

  “Thank you kindly,” he said. “We wouldn’t be able to get there until after choir practice, but if you think it will still be going on then, we’d be delighted to visit a while before we take Adam home.”

  “We’ll see you sometime after eight, then,” I said. “And Adam’s brothers are welcome, too. The more the merrier.” And then, since the chief seemed to be in a mellow mood, I decided to lead up to a question that had just occurred to me. “And since we’ve got a bunch of sports-crazy kids coming, all armed with the equipment they brought to practice, it’s possible that baseball may occur. It’ll be nice to have another witness that it’s just a pickup game, in case Biff Brown accuses of us of having an illicit practice.”

  “I will be happy to defend the Eagles’ honor should the occasion arise,” he said. “I see you’ve made Mr. Brown’s acquaintance.”

  “Not formally,” I said. “But his reputation precedes him. Does Biff have anything to do with Adam getting traded onto the Eagles?”

  “He has everything to do with it,” the chief said. “The boy shows signs of being a handy little ball player—”

  “I’d noticed,” I put in.

  “Thank you. And there was no way in Hades Minerva and I were going to let Biff anywhere near him. I had a word with Michael, just to say that I’d rather have Adam playing fo
r him, with a couple of kids he knew well, and we cooked up the carpool scheme to justify it. But I didn’t give Michael the whole story because—well, I hate to speak ill of someone, and I thought I’d give him—and you—the chance to form your own opinions of Mr. Brown.”

  “I’m afraid my opinion is already a negative one,” I said. “And I’ve never even spoken to the man. Although I’ve been trying to, ever since Randall assigned me the job of making sure Brown Construction fulfilled the terms of its contract with the town of Caerphilly.”

  “Good luck with that,” the chief said. “Because you’re going to need it. See you this evening.”

  I hung up and was about to head back to the Twinmobile, as we called the van we’d acquired when the boys were born. But as I turned, I almost collided with a woman who had been hovering nearby.

  “Sorry,” I said. And then I frowned slightly, because it occurred to me to wonder what she was doing here. She wasn’t an Eagle mother—I knew all of them. Which meant she had probably dropped off one of the Stoats.

  So what was she doing sneaking up behind me and eavesdropping on my conversation with the chief? Probably planning to tattle on us to Biff, I realized, as she backed away from me slightly, in the direction of the Stoats dugout.

  She was short and slender, and looked to be about my age, although her hair was graying and she was huddled into a thick brown sweater jacket as if braced against extreme cold, even though it was a warm April day. Was she ill? Her face was unlined, but pale and drawn. She was wearing her right arm in a sling, and in its folds I could see that her fingers emerged from a white cast or possibly a very bulky bandage.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  She shook her head, then turned and fled back to the parking lot. I saw her get into a battered, far-from-new compact car. But she didn’t drive away.

  Was she waiting till I left to tell Biff about our picnic plans? Maybe I’d absorbed a little too much of the Eagle fathers’ anxiety about Biff. She was probably just waiting out her kid’s practice. The ball field was only a couple of miles from our house, but someone who lived at the far side of the county might find it more convenient to stay.