Die Like an Eagle Read online

  “Keeps us honest,” Randall said. “But confusing to outsiders, since we locals have gotten pretty loosey-goosey about using town and county interchangeably when we talk about the government. But it works for us, and pretty well.”

  “Nice to know both town and county are in such capable hands!” The cousin lifted her wine glass as if to salute us.

  “Looks as if you’ve got a vote of confidence from the Hollingsworth clan,” I said.

  “I think the hands she was talking about were yours,” Randall said. The cousin giggled slightly. “But since I’m the one who was smart enough to hire you, I will bask in my share of the compliment. By the way, one of my cousins told me something that you might find interesting. Even useful.”

  Randall, like me, was blessed—or afflicted—with a remarkably large and close-knit extended family.

  “Cousin Cephus has a kid on the Red Sox,” Randall went on. “He was there picking his kid up when Biff’s Yankees were starting their practice, and he overheard a regular knock-down drag-out between Biff and one of the Yankee parents. One of the Pruitts, as it happened.”

  “Did he hear what they were arguing about?” I asked.

  “They shut up as soon as they realized he was nearby.” Randall shook his head. “But it was a real doozy—they weren’t just arguing; a couple of the other Yankee dads had to pull them apart. And Cephus was pretty surprised, because up to now, Biff and his team parents have been tight as ticks. Especially the Pruitts. If there’s a crack happening … well, might be something that could be exploited to fix some of the problems we’re having.”

  “In the league, or with Biff and the town square?” I asked.

  “Either,” Randall said. “Both.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “Of course, exploiting a possible rift between Biff and the Pruitts would be a lot easier for someone the Pruitts didn’t already hate. Which wouldn’t be me.”

  “Or me,” Randall said. “Just keep it in mind.”

  I nodded.

  Just then Cordelia strode over holding an empty plastic cup.

  “Any chance of a refill on the lemonade?” she asked.

  “I’ll get it!” The cousin grabbed the glass and scampered off toward the picnic tables. Cordelia leaned against the fence to survey the action on the field while she waited.

  “So where did you learn to play baseball?” I asked.

  “In Peoria,” she said. “I was on the Redwings. In the All American Girls Professional Baseball League,” she added, seeing my slightly puzzled frown. “Under my maiden name, since we weren’t quite sure people back in Richmond would find it quite respectable.”

  “Meg, why didn’t you ever tell me your grandmother had played women’s professional baseball?” Randall asked.

  “I didn’t know she had,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, turning to Cordelia. In the past year or so, I’d often tried to get Cordelia to sit down and talk about her life in the decades between her giving up Dad for adoption and our discovery of her, but every time I thought I’d mapped out her life she’d drop another biographical bombshell.

  “Didn’t know you’d find it all that interesting,” she said. Just then the cousin returned with the refilled lemonade. “Let’s talk about it later,” Cordelia said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do with these kids.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” I said as she strolled back onto the field.

  The practice ended around eight o’clock. The zoo security desk called at eight thirty to tell me that the tracking devices were on the move. Even though practice was over, I was relieved to hear that Biff was headed away from us. Out of curiosity, I asked her to text me the location when he stopped moving. When she did, a little quick online research revealed that Biff had gone back to his construction company’s offices. By that time all the baseball players had gone home or been sent to bed, and Michael was gently suggesting to the last few die-hard Xtreme Croquet players that everyone needed their rest to be up bright and early for tomorrow’s game.

  “No classes for four days,” Michael exclaimed as we were settling down to sleep. “And the picnic was a great way to start off the holiday.”

  “I wish we’d done it weeks ago,” I said. “All those parents I was complaining about as unfriendly and uncooperative and lazy—they’re very nice people who were simply scared of having it backfire on their kids if they crossed Biff. Now that we know what the problem is, I’m sure we can figure out a way to deal with him.”

  “And if you need an alibi, just ask,” Michael mumbled, already half asleep.

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” I said—but softly enough that it wouldn’t wake him if he was already asleep. “I don’t want anything to happen to Biff. I just want him to behave.”

  Chapter 5

  Friday dawned bright and clear—and I was up to see it, unfortunately, since we had to be at the ball field by eight for the pregame practice. Getting both boys and Michael into their uniforms was astonishingly tiring and time-consuming. And then came loading the Twinmobile with all the gear and supplies we needed.

  As Michael worked to fit everything into the back of the van, I flipped open my notebook and scanned my checklists. Waters. Juices. Snacks. Ice. First aid kit. Sunscreen. Insect repellent. Hand sanitizer. Even toilet paper, because Biff didn’t seem to have assigned anyone to restock the porta-potty from week to week.

  I suddenly had a dizzying premonition that this was the first of who knew how many early morning expeditions to the ball field. I could almost see the boys in their red-and-black shirts and white baseball pants getting taller and taller until they approached Michael’s towering six-foot-four frame, and myself spending who knew how much time in the bleachers. It wasn’t a bad prospect—I shared Michael’s love of baseball, and never got tired of cheering the boys on no matter what they were doing. But it was a curiously daunting prospect. This was an occasion. A momentous occasion. The boys’ first real baseball game. I felt we should mark it somehow. And—

  “Meg? You ready? We don’t want to be late.”

  I hopped into the van and gave up trying to mark the momentous occasion. As with so many other parenting milestones, I focused on making sure we all survived it. I turned on my phone and tried to find the e-mail from Mother in which she’d sent me a list of which cousins were working what shift in the Snack Shack.

  At the ballpark, the bleachers on our side of the field—the third-base side—were already a sea of red and black, worn by a cheerful mix of Eagle families and my relatives. The overflow were settling into a sea of brightly colored folding camping chairs. My cousin Rose Noire and a sari-clad Indian woman that I now knew was Sami Patel’s grandmother were staffing the Snack Shack, and Osgood Shiffley, one of Randall’s cousins, was warming up the grill. I could smell the charcoal already, and long before lunchtime the smell of the hot dogs and hamburgers would begin tempting people to have a second breakfast.

  The crowd on the first-base side seemed a little more subdued. Most of the Stoats fans were also wearing their team colors, and the overall effect was drab and dispiriting. I could understand why Biff had chosen the color, but it really didn’t make for a very decorative crowd.

  I thought of going over and introducing myself to my counterpart on the Stoats. I spotted a woman holding a clipboard who seemed to be passing out something to people sitting on their bleachers—probably the Team Mom. But just as I was about to put a cheerful expression on my face and head over, she turned around, spotted me looking at her, and glared at me. Maybe I’d have gone over anyway and tried to establish friendly relations, but I recognized her: one of the Pruitts, the family who had run Caerphilly until a group of concerned citizens had helped organize the popular campaign that broke their stronghold on the town government and sent some of the worst Pruitt crooks to prison. From the look on her face, I suspected she recognized me as one of those concerned citizens.

  Okay, maybe not so great an idea to wander over and try to
strike up a casual conversation. Sooner or later I’d have some concrete reason to talk to her—coordinating Snack Shack schedules or something. In the meantime, I’d keep it civil. So I smiled back as if she’d blown kisses instead of glaring, and hurried back to my team’s bleachers as if I had some task to do there.

  “Where’s Biff, anyway?” one of the parents on the bleachers asked.

  “I hear he’s wining and dining some bigwig from Summerball National,” another said.

  “No, that’s the bigwig out there on the field with Randall,” the first one said.

  I strolled over to the chain-link fence that separated us from the field and looked around for Randall and the bigwig. They were standing on the pitcher’s mound, gazing at the outfield, where the Stars and Stripes rippled gently against the cloudless blue sky. The breeze also rippled the colorful banners hung on the outfield fence, advertising a dozen or so local small businesses—I noticed that while Brown Construction had a banner, rival Shiffley Construction was absent. The loudspeaker system was blaring out a steady stream of music—already we’d heard “Centerfield,” “The Boys of Summer,” “Celebration,” “We Will Rock You,” and now “Start Me Up.”

  While tapping my feet to the Stones, I studied Randall and the bigwig. The bigwig was actually more than a head shorter than Randall, and his well-cut gray pinstripe suit couldn’t conceal the fact that he was pretty scrawny and hollow-chested. Randall gestured at something to their left, and when the bigwig turned his head to look, I got a sideways view of the remarkably thick lenses in his wire-rimmed glasses.

  If the bigwig’s expression was anything to go by, Randall hadn’t yet succeeded in charming him. Randall spotted me and nodded—no doubt suggesting that perhaps it was time I tried my hand with the bigwig. I sighed, and squared my shoulders. Damn Biff for inviting the bigwig, anyway. All I wanted to do was watch the game with my family and friends and—

  “Mrs. Waterston?”

  I turned around to see Mason, looking highly anxious.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I need the porta-potty,” he said. “And someone’s in it.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be out soon,” I said.

  “It’s been occupied all morning,” he said. “And I finally went and stood outside the door and I knocked, and no one answered, and I really need it. The game starts in five minutes.”

  “If you really can’t wait, you could go into the woods,” I suggested.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I … um … I don’t just need to pee.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  I’d go see Randall and the bigwig when I’d taken care of Mason’s problem. I strode toward where the porta-potty stood in its solitary splendor. Mason scurried along behind me, face contorted with discomfort that was probably approaching actual pain.

  Damn Biff Brown anyway. Was he really so stupid that he thought one porta-potty enough for the number of spectators we expected today? As I hurried through the crowd I mentally called Biff several names I wouldn’t have wanted to say aloud with Mason around. When I was finished helping Mason, maybe I’d tackle Biff on the question of more porta-potties. Or maybe I’d just call Randall and have him deliver some and charge them to the league. Get the health inspector, who happened to be one of Randall’s cousins, to find some health or safety violation to justify it.

  First things first. I arrived at the porta-potty and knocked briskly on the door.

  “Is anyone in there?” I called. Stupid question, obviously, since the word OCCUPIED appeared in the slot above the door handle, showing that the latch had been turned from the inside.

  Or was it a stupid question? No one answered. And I heard no signs of stirring inside. I knocked again, even more loudly.

  “If anyone’s in there, speak up,” I said. “Otherwise I’m going to pick the lock.”

  No answer. I unslung the tote that I’d been carrying over my shoulder and rummaged through it. Yes, as I’d hoped, I still had the tools I’d been carrying yesterday, including the large-sized screwdrivers, both Phillips and slotted, plus a hammer and an assortment of screws, nails, and bolts. Everything I’d need to give the bleachers and the dugouts and anything else that looked rickety a once-over when I had a chance. The slotted screwdriver should be just the thing to tackle the porta-potty door.

  I stuck the screwdriver blade into the crack of the door, just under the level of the OCCUPIED sign, and moved it up until it hit something. It took a couple of tries, and if my blacksmithing hadn’t given me good hand and arm strength, I couldn’t have managed, but eventually the latch gave way and I succeeded in flipping it up.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” I said to give anyone inside a last warning—though by this time I was pretty sure the porta-potty was empty. If there had been anyone inside, they’d definitely have spoken up since my efforts had not only made considerable noise but had also rocked the porta-potty. I fully expected to find that this was just someone’s idea of a joke—figuring out how to flip the lock closed from outside, and then doing it on Opening Day. When I found the culprit, I was going to give him or her a piece of my mind—and I’d already thought of several likely suspects. In fact, one of them, my brother, Rob, was lurking nearby, no doubt pretending to be waiting his turn to use the porta-potty while in reality chuckling to himself.

  But I was wrong. When I jerked the door open, I found someone slumped facedown on the floor in a crumpled heap. Male, pudgy, wearing khaki pants and a mud-colored Brown Construction t-shirt. A Yankees baseball hat had half fallen off his head.

  “Biff,” I muttered.

  One arm had flopped down into the doorway when I opened it. I grabbed the wrist. No pulse, though I could tell the second I touched it that there wouldn’t be. The skin was cold.

  My first thought was that at least now there’d be no one to complain if I arranged for a whole flotilla of porta-potties. Not a very nice thought, but an honest one.

  First things first. I stepped back, making sure to keep my body between Mason and the porta-potty door. I pulled out my phone, but before dialing 911, I shouted “Rob! Come here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Rob asked as he strolled up.

  “You know Mason,” I said. “Take him somewhere and find him a real bathroom. Our house might be the closest place. The porta-potty’s out of order.”

  “How can a porta-potty be—holy cow!” He had gotten close enough to see over my shoulder. “Okay. Can do. Come on, Mason.”

  “But the game’s starting any minute,” Mason protested.

  “Not now it isn’t,” I said. “I’ll explain later, but you’ll be back in plenty of time for the game. Go. And Rob, on your way past the bleachers, send Dad over here.”

  Rob and Mason hurried off. I dialed 911 and prepared to tell Debbie Ann, the dispatcher, that there was a dead body at the ball field.

  Chapter 6

  “You found the body where?” Debbie Ann sounded incredulous. Or was it disgusted?

  “In the porta-potty here at the youth baseball field,” I said. “I think it’s Biff Brown. I haven’t looked at the face yet—I didn’t want to disturb the body.”

  “Are you sure it is a body?” Debbie Ann asked. “Maybe I should send an ambulance, unless you’re really sure he’s dead?”

  “Reasonably sure,” I said. “His skin’s cold, and I can’t find a pulse. I’m trying to get Dad over here to make it official. Adam Burke’s on the boys’ team, so the chief should be somewhere here at the field. Could you—”

  “Here I am.” I looked up to see the chief standing at my elbow.

  “Never mind,” I told Debbie Ann. “He’s here.”

  “Don’t hang up,” the chief said. He squatted just outside the doorway and checked Biff’s wrist. He looked surprised.

  “He’s cold,” he said.

  “Body temperature drops around a degree and a half per hour after death,” I said. “Sorry; I know you know that better than I do. Force of habit. When
I was a kid, Dad used to quiz us about stuff like that around the dinner table.”

  “Must have made for some interesting meals,” the chief said. “It’s just that I could have sworn I saw Biff an hour or so ago doing something in the outfield. He couldn’t possibly have gotten that cold that quickly. I suppose I must have seen one of his workmen instead. Tell Debbie Ann we have a suspicious death. She knows the drill.”

  “I heard that,” Debbie Ann said. “I’m on it.”

  As I was putting my phone back in my pocket, the first few bars of “Dixie” sounded out from somewhere in the porta-potty.

  “Cell phone,” the chief and I said in unison.

  “It’s in his back pants pocket,” I added, pointing.

  The cell phone trilled again. Wincing, the chief pulled out his handkerchief, reached over with it to tug the phone out of the corpse’s pocket, and pressed a button to answer it.

  “Shep!” snapped a voice on the phone. “Where the hell are you? The game was supposed to start five minutes ago, and you haven’t even put on your uniform yet. I’ve got it in my car. Answer me, you son of a—”

  “That sounds like Mr. Brown on the phone,” the chief said to me, drowning out a torrent of words from Biff that was in serious violation of the posted field rules against using unseemly language in front of the kids.

  “Then who’s this?” I asked, pointing to the body.

  “Is this Mr. Brown?” the chief said into the cell phone.

  A few moments of silence on the other end.

  “Yeah, this is Biff Brown,” the voice on the cell phone said. “I was calling my brother Shep’s phone. Who the hell is this? Let me talk to Shep, dammit.”

  “There’s no call for strong language,” the chief said. “This is Chief Burke. If this is your brother’s phone, I’m afraid I may have some bad news. Could you meet me by the porta-potty?”

  “You mean now?” Biff asked.

  “Right now,” the chief said. Then he cut the connection and wrapped the phone in his handkerchief before pulling out his own phone and dialing a number.