Die Like an Eagle Page 8

  “I’ll look into it.” The chief made a few more notes. “Did Randall happen to say which cousin? Or which Pruitt?”

  “His cousin Cephus, and I don’t know which Pruitt, but probably one whose kid is on the Yankees.”

  The chief nodded and scribbled.

  “My money’s on Biff as the target,” Dad said. “After all, people don’t very often yell ‘Kill the umpire’ in real life.”

  “And when they do, they’re usually just venting,” Horace added. “Has anyone ever really killed an umpire?”

  “Not since 1927, to the best of my knowledge.” Yes, the chief would know something like that. “And baseball was a much rowdier game in the late eighteen-hundreds and early nineteen-hundreds. I doubt if this murder has much to do with baseball—historically, most of the violence against umpires, or for that matter players and coaches, has been committed in the heat of the moment—during the game or shortly thereafter.”

  “Yeah,” Horace said. “And there’s not much baseball going on around here between ten p.m. and two a.m., so heat of the moment won’t fly as a mitigating circumstance.”

  “And remember,” the chief added, “Lem Shiffley didn’t use Mr. Henson as an umpire in the fall season, so to my knowledge, Mr. Henson hasn’t officiated at a game since the end of last year’s spring Little League season, a good nine months ago. I’m sure a few parents are still complaining about some of his more egregiously bad calls in the playoffs, but I have a hard time believing that any of them would still be in the throes of homicidal rage. I’m not discounting Shep’s—or Biff’s—involvement in baseball as a possible motive, but I suspect we’ll need to look off the diamond for the killer’s motive.”

  And I suspected he’d be relieved to find the motive outside baseball. After all, the chief was such a passionate Baltimore Orioles fan that he’d named his sons after his favorite ballplayers. And at least one of his sons had followed suit—the one whose untimely death, with his wife, in a car crash had made Henry and Minerva the custodial grandparents of Frank Robinson Burke, Jr., Calvin Ripken Burke, and Adam Jones Burke.

  “Well, idle speculation won’t solve this,” the chief said. “Horace, if you’re finished here for the time being, why don’t you head over to Mr. Henson’s place to search there?”

  “You’ve made arrangements with Sheriff Whicker, then?” Horace slid out of the banquette and picked up his forensic kit.

  “No,” the chief said. “If at all possible, I’d like for you to see it exactly the way he left it, not the way it will look after some nosy Clay County deputy finishes contaminating anything that might have evidentiary value.”

  “Yeah,” Horace said. “They’re not so good on subtleties like chain of custody.”

  “So I’ll make my call once you’re parked in front of the house,” the chief said. “And you can be there waiting to keep an eye on them.”

  “Might help if you could send Vern along, too,” Horace said. “He’s better at handling those Clay County deputies.” Probably because, in spite of the longstanding tension between inhabitants of the two counties, Vern, like his counterparts in our neighboring jurisdiction, was a good old boy who’d grown up hunting the local woods while Horace, like me, was not originally from around here.

  “Good idea,” the chief said.

  Horace waited while the chief called Vern to issue his instructions, then nodded to us and left the trailer.

  “I should go, too,” Dad said. “I’m going to see how soon I can arrange the autopsy.”

  He slid out of his end of the banquette, nodded farewell to us, and dashed out of the trailer with a look of happy concentration on his face.

  “You know one thing I like about your dad as a medical examiner?” the chief said. “He’s stopped asking me if I want to watch the autopsy. He’d love it if I did, and he’s quick to call me in if there’s something I really need to see, but he doesn’t badger me about watching. Unlike his predecessor, who seemed to think I was falling down on the job if I wasn’t right there looking over his shoulder every second. Definitely an improvement.”

  He didn’t have to mention the fact that, unlike Dr. Smoot, his predecessor, Dad was not obsessed with vampires and didn’t show up at crime scenes wearing a black velvet cape with a red satin lining and sporting fake fangs. But I knew that was another big factor in his approval of Dad.

  “He hasn’t stopped asking me to the autopsies,” I said. “But that’s because he still hasn’t entirely given up hope that I’ll suddenly change my mind and apply to med school so I can follow in his footsteps.”

  The chief chuckled at that.

  “And speaking of following in his footsteps, I’m going to see if he can give me a ride.” I slid out of the banquette, stood up, slung my tote over my shoulder, and turned for the door. “If he’s going to the hospital he’ll have to pass by the town square. The still completely unrenovated town square.”

  “I can arrange a ride if your father leaves you behind.” The chief closed his notebook and folded his hands on top of it. “Just one more thing—are you at all exaggerating your difficulties in contacting Mr. Brown?”

  “No,” I said. “Randall put me in charge of managing the contract with him about six weeks ago, and last night, when he crashed our party, was the first time I ever saw him or spoke to him.”

  “A pity,” the chief said.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to get a little anxious about whether the town square is going to be usable for the Memorial Day festivities,” I said.

  “Actually, I meant a pity because I would have liked to have heard your opinions on Mr. Brown and his business practices. In fact, I still would, if you manage to see enough of him to form opinions.”

  “What exactly do you suspect him of?” I asked.

  The chief pursed his lips and frowned slightly. I could see he was torn. On the one hand, I was a civilian, and he strongly disapproved of amateur interference in his police work. On the other hand, as a member of the town and county government, I wasn’t just any civilian, and I hoped he knew from past experience that I wasn’t like those annoying amateur detectives in the mystery books Dad was so fond of reading. If I found evidence I’d bring it to him, not hide it and try to conduct my own investigation.

  “We’ve received complaints about him,” the chief said finally. “Anonymous complaints, which makes it blasted difficult to know whether to pay any attention to them or not.”

  “What were the complaints about?” I asked.

  “At first, that Brown was cheating people,” the chief said. “The letters told us to look at his company’s books and see how badly he was cheating people.”

  “And was he?”

  “Blessed if I know,” the chief said. “Since a few anonymous hate mails didn’t exactly give me cause to demand to see Mr. Brown’s financial records. I talked to a few people who’d hired his company to do projects. None of them were falling over themselves to recommend him, but no one had any specific complaints. A little grumbling about how long everything took and how expensive it all was, but you get that with almost any contractor. Not much more I can do without him finding out I’m investigating him and complaining of harassment.”

  “The letters don’t give any clues?” I asked.

  “Apart from the fact that they were all mailed either here or in Clay County, no.”

  “What about people who work for Biff?” I asked. “Or even better, used to work for him?”

  “So far everyone I’ve found still works for him, and is from Clay County to boot—which gives them two reasons not to talk to me, even if I wanted to tip my hand. And something like half of them seem to be related to him, which makes three reasons. Apparently he uses a lot of transient labor—immigrants, many of them; legal as far as I can tell, but even if I could track them down, they might not feel inclined to speak to law enforcement, so I didn’t try too hard. I’d done what I could and found nothing, so I put it aside.”

  “In that part of your
brain where you keep stuff that bothers you because right now you can’t do anything about it,” I suggested. “But there’s always hope for the future?”

  “Yes,” the chief said, with a slight smile. “Nothing I can do without evidence, but I was definitely going to keep my eye on him. And I filled in Randall when all this first happened, about six or seven weeks ago, which might mean he took the accusations of cheating seriously enough to want your eagle eye on Mr. Brown.”

  “Could be,” I said. “Especially since if Randall accused him of cheating, Biff could try to pretend he was doing it to discredit a rival.”

  “Whereas you would be perceived as a more impartial witness.”

  “Impartial.” I shook my head at that. “I’m Randall’s friend and Randall’s employee, and last night I made it pretty clear how I feel about Biff’s management of the Summerball League. Not sure anyone will buy that I’m impartial.”

  “You’d be surprised,” the chief said. “At any rate, after a few weeks our anonymous complainant switched tunes and began accusing Mr. Brown of using his business as a cover for running a drug trafficking enterprise.”

  “I’m not sure I see how a construction business makes a good cover for selling drugs,” I said.

  “He also runs a scrap metal and used equipment parts business,” the chief said. “A glorified junkyard, really. And no more thriving than his construction business.”

  “But I bet it’s mostly a cash business.”

  “And one that gives people a reason to go out to his premises,” the chief said.

  “Still,” I mused. “Does it really sound all that plausible, or does it just sound as if the anonymous letter writer is saying anything he can think of to cause problems for Biff?”

  “Most likely the latter,” the chief said. “And I think if Mr. Brown really were running a drug business here in Caerphilly, I’d have noticed by now. But at least this accusation was both more concrete and more capable of being proven—or disproven. So I have had my officers keeping a close eye on Mr. Brown’s establishment for the last several weeks.”

  “I’m dying to ask what they’ve learned,” I said. “But I know better than to ask nosy questions about police business. Although if you’re about to arrest the head of the boys’ baseball league as a drug kingpin, it might be nice to give the parents a heads-up so we can figure out how to explain it all to the kids.”

  “And make plans for the celebration, no doubt,” the chief said, with a chuckle. “No, either Mr. Brown is considerably more clever than I give him credit—”

  “Fat chance,” I muttered.

  “—or he’s not Caerphilly’s leading drug lord, and our anonymous informer was either misinformed or, more likely, just trying to cause trouble for Mr. Brown. And ironically ended up doing him a favor.”

  “By giving him an alibi for the murder?”

  “Exactly.” The chief took his glasses off, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Not that he would have been our only suspect, or even our primary one—Mr. Henson had a complicated domestic situation and a volatile personality—but we’d have looked closely at Biff in any case.”

  “I expect you still will,” I said.

  The chief cocked his head slightly and raised one eyebrow.

  “Doesn’t he look to you like the kind of guy who’d hire someone to do his dirty work?” I said. “He does to me.”

  “I’ve always found contract killing a particularly troubling crime,” the chief said. “There are few things as evil as callously killing another human being for profit.”

  “Or hiring someone to do so,” I said.

  “Agreed,” the chief said, nodding. “Just as evil, and also remarkably stupid. People who are willing to commit cold-blooded murder rarely have qualms about turning their hand to blackmail. Yes, we will definitely be considering whether Mr. Brown might have reason to want his brother dead.”

  “Isn’t hired killing a hard crime to solve?” I asked.

  “Only in the movies,” the chief said. “And maybe in the kind of lofty socioeconomic circles where rich people hire contract killers for fees larger than most third world countries’ gross national product and transfer the funds via bank accounts in the Caymans. I doubt if Mr. Brown would have any idea how to find such a killer, even if he could afford to hire him. No, if Mr. Brown hired the killer, someone will have seen him handing some shifty character a thick wad of money. Or some good old boy will turn up with a huge, brand-new truck when everybody knows he’s got no money and even less credit. Or someone will get drunk down at the Clay Pigeon and brag about doing it.”

  “The Clay Pigeon?”

  “That’s the latest incarnation of that unsavory drinking establishment next door to the Clayville Rifle Range,” the chief said. “They still haven’t figured out that no matter how often they change the name, the state and federal authorities will still find them.”

  “I don’t get over to Clay County much,” I said. “And I can’t say I’ve ever been to a bar there.”

  “I strongly recommend that you remain unacquainted with its loathsome premises.” He shuddered slightly. “No, if Mr. Brown hired someone to kill his brother, we’ll find him out sooner or later. Look, I realize that in the course of your work with the boys’ team and for Randall you’re probably going to encounter Mr. Brown. I’d appreciate any information you happen to run across, but be circumspect. He may not have committed the murder himself, but there’s still a very real possibility that Mr. Brown engineered it and, if that’s so, he will tend to be very intolerant of people asking questions about his affairs.”

  “Understood.” I stood up and shouldered my tote again. Then a thought hit me. “So, you were able to get a list of his customers.”

  “Only in Caerphilly County,” the chief said. “Building permits are a matter of public record, so Mr. Throckmorton in the town clerk’s office was easily able to supply me with a list of those issued to Brown Construction.”

  “I asked him for the same list last night,” I said. “I was planning to talk to some of Biff’s clients, to see if I could get any tips on how to work with him. I assume getting a similar list of his building projects in Clay County would have been almost as easy.”

  “But considerably less discreet,” the chief said. “For all I know, Mr. Brown could have friends or even family in the Clay County clerk’s office. I wouldn’t risk it.”

  Was he warning me off, or just explaining why he wasn’t asking for such a list?

  “When I get my version of the list, I’ll probably still contact a few people on it,” I said. “Purely for the purpose of seeing if any of them have a magic formula for making Brown Construction do its blasted job.” Unless he wanted to warn me off. The possibility seemed to hang in the air between us for a few moments.

  “Good luck,” was all he said.

  I nodded, and left the trailer.

  Chapter 9

  When I stepped outside I looked around to see what was happening. The chief’s deputies were still combing the baseball field and the parking lot. I had the feeling the department was going to go way over its budget for brown paper evidence bags this month. Nearby, Dad and Aida were still conferring about something.

  “Definitely a lot of blood,” Dad was saying. “And of course, since he was shot in the head—”

  I decided this was not a conversation I needed to overhear. I tuned them out, pulled out my cell phone, and called Michael.

  “Coach Waterston of the fabulous Caerphilly Eagles!” he answered. I could hear juvenile cheering and giggling in the background.

  “The boys handling this okay?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let me take a few steps to get away from the small pitchers with big ears. Okay. I think they’re doing fine, mainly because most of the adults around them are taking this whole thing pretty much in their stride. No idea how Biff’s teams are taking it—we’re making sure we keep our distance just in case. I mean, for all I kno
w, Shep could have had a kid on one of those teams. If he has kids—does he?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “If he did, I assume they’d be playing in Clay County. Apparently he lived there. So what’s the plan?”

  “Everyone was planning to spend all day at the ball park,” he said. “And we have no idea whether baseball is canceled for the whole day or not. So I invited the team to hang out at our place. Your mother’s organizing the food—we’ve got tons of leftovers anyway. The kids can practice a little, and swim in the pool, and go for rides in the llama cart, and they’ll all be together, bonding as a team.”

  “And if you get a call that the team has to be at the field in ten minutes or forfeit the game, you’ll be ready,” I said. “Because I bet that would be Biff’s style of doing things.”

  “Bingo,” he said.

  “I’m catching a ride in with Dad and will join you for the ceremony. Got to run!”

  Actually, the reason I was in such a hurry to hang up was not that Dad was leaving—he and Aida were still talking animatedly about something—probably something gory. As I watched, Dad pointed to a spot right between his eyes, and then to a spot on the back of his head. Yes, they were discussing bullet trajectory. More conversation I didn’t want to overhear.

  But the conversation Biff was having—that I wouldn’t mind overhearing. He was standing toe to toe with a tall, skeletally thin man with gray hair and a gray Amish–style beard, full all around the face but with the upper lip and chin shaved bare. Though I doubted if the man was Amish—he was dressed in faded jeans, a green John Deere t-shirt, and a bright red baseball cap.

  And they were clearly not having a friendly discussion. Biff was shaking his fist, and I could see spittle flying from his mouth and landing on the man’s shirt. The taller man’s hands were by his side but his fists were clenched, and if I were Biff I’d have taken a step or two backward before those fists came into play.

  Not for the first time, I wished I could read lips. But since I couldn’t, I decided to move a little closer. I set off toward Dad’s car in a diagonal that would take me closer to the two of them, but so gradually that I hoped they wouldn’t notice.