by Mike Reuther
He turned to the guard holding Jeannette. “Yes. Escort that woman from the premises. Immediately.”
“What about him?” Emerson said, nodding toward me.
Miller looked blankly at Emerson then back at me as if he couldn’t decide. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave as well Mr. Crager.”
I smiled at Miller. “Fine,” I said. “Emerson takes the fall for you.”
Miller tried his best to smile.
“Shut up Crager,” Emerson said.
Now I turned to Reba. “Why did you do it? Emerson here would have been happy to kill him for you? After all, he had the most to gain.”
She glared at me.
“I said shut up Crager,” Emerson said.
“What in the name of God are you talking about Mr. Crager?” Miller said.
“You don’t know? Emerson didn’t kill Lance Miller. Maybe that’s who you thought did it. After all, that was the plan wasn’t it? Have your groundskeeper stick a knife in him. No one would suspect you got him to do it anyway. They’d pin it on the crazy druggies running around the city, or better yet that shady character, Mick Slaughter. After all, Mick’s the one with the drug connections. He’s the one you got the hotel clerk to say went upstairs the night of the murder. And Mick’s the one who had the beef with Lance back in June over drug money. Lance swore out the complaint with police against him without specifying the details. Yeah. Mick was the perfect fall guy all right, and with Lance out of the way you didn’t have to worry about your wife playing around on you.”
Miller looked at Reba. “What’s he talking about?”
“Ha,” she said. “He’s crazy.”
“Am I? Tell me this? What were you doing up in Lance’s room that night of the murder? Playing footsy?”
Miller’s mouth fell open. “Reba for God’s sake.”
Reba crossed her arms and glared at me.
I looked at Miller. “She didn’t tell you? I guess you really did think Emerson did it. Your wife was about to have a rendezvous upstairs with Vaughn. I’m sure you know him Miller. He’s one of the ballplayers on your payroll. Apparently, Lance found out your wife and Vaughn were about to get cozy with each other. He burst into the room and whisked her away. Ain’t that romantic? And well … you can guess the rest.”
“Oh sure,” Reba said. “And then I killed Lance.”
“Let’s put it this way honey. The passion between you lovebirds was still there. You two had been on the outs all summer. He was apparently making plans to get back with his ex-wife here though, and that wasn’t sitting too well with you. Sure. You killed him. Why not? That knife is just the sort of blade the Spinelli gives its customers at banquets.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“I think I can. The Spinelli Hotel insignia is engraved on the handle. My guess is it has your prints all over it.”
Everyone looked at me.
“You and Lance fought that night,” I continued. “You left his room and went back down to the banquet and got a knife from off the table. At least that’s my theory. And I think it’s a pretty good one. Probably you stashed it in your purse. It was small enough. Then you went back up to Lance’s room. Probably you apologized to him. At any rate, you got back into the room. Maybe you two smooched a little and made up, or pretended to, but you were still seething about being the wronged woman, and so you stuck the blade in his back.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said.
“Is it? You sure as hell didn’t get into a struggle with the guy. He had no wounds on his hands or arms. Yeah. You slipped it into his back all right. Then, you took the back elevator down to the ballroom. But not before putting that steroid pill under the bed. By then, the program was all over, and everyone was cleared out of the place. Maybe you began to panic. The statue was sitting right there in the ballroom. There was no one around. You still had the knife in your purse. You saw the slot in the foundation of that statue and dropped it in there.”
“I knew it,” Jeannette said. “I knew it was you, you whore.”
“If it weren’t for you, you gold-digging bitch, he might still be alive,” Reba sneered.
“Okay. Nobody move,” Miller said. He was holding both hands around a pistol and pointing it unsteadily at his wife.
“Ronald. What are you doing?” Reba said.
“Put down the gun Miller,” I said.
“No, I won’t,” he said. “I want to know why you did it Reba.”
“Ronald please,” she protested.
“Why didn’t you just do as we planned,” he said. “You and I could have started over. I was willing to wipe the slate clean.”
“C’mon big guy,” I said. “Drop the gun.”
“Why Reba. Why?”
“Drop it Miller,” I said.
“Ronald please,” his wife pleaded.
“It’s not right,” he blubbered. “It’s just not right.”
And then he dropped the gun and broke down.
I picked up the gun and helped Miller to his feet. He continued blubbering like a baby. About then, a fleet of police cars came screaming into the parking lot.
“But how?” Reba asked. “How could you know?”
She was no longer so pretty. Her face looked defeated and worn.
“Mick was one step ahead of you,” I said. “He knew enough of what was going on with the team to see that a jealous woman may have a bigger ax to grind with a ballplayer than even a drug dealer. And he had the real connections with police. Put the squeeze on the cops real good too. Even if they’d have tried to hang him for the murder he was going to come out with all sorts of juicy stuff: like a corrupt police force led by a drug-taking chief who liked to shake down the street dealers. And there was Miller, his ball club losing games and drowning in red ink. Let’s just say, Mr. Mick Slaughter was willing to bail out our failing businessman and his wife if he was left alone. That left either you or Hampton or even Jeannette here. Quite frankly, I don’t think Hampton had it in him. And Jeannette. Well, she had no reason to kill him if he was returning to her. That left only you honey.”
The Aftermath
Reba, of course, went to jail where she belonged. The trial probably dragged on a little longer than it should have. But once the lawyers were done the jury wasted no time convicting her on first degree murder charges. She got a life sentence.
The trial itself, with its intriguing mix of sports, complicated romantic entanglements, and a murder, attracted a feeding frenzy of media types to town.
And why not? It had its share of moments. I got to say that. The defense tried to establish that someone else may well have had a motive for killing the ballplayer. Mick’s name was mentioned more than once during the trial, and Miller, in a long testimony in defense of his wife, painted a picture of the muscleman’s drug dealing activities. Which didn’t do Mick a whole hell of a lot of good. Not long after the trial ended, the police made a raid on Mick’s Gym. He now awaits trial on drug trafficking. It will be interesting to see how that comes out. League officials, who have the final say on sales of ball clubs, forced him to give up plans to buy the team.
Hampton flew down from New England for the trial and proved to be a key witness for the prosecution, and in the process became somewhat of a celebrity. Each day, with the wrapping up of another day’s proceedings, Hampton and the journalists covering the trial would repair to the Spinelli Hotel’s lounge where the professor would regale them with stories of Centre Town’s sordid past. Last I heard, he had signed a contract with some publishing house to write about the murder.
Emerson and Walter went to New York where the hot shot pitcher won some key September games for the Mets. But over the winter he hurt his arm, and his future in baseball doesn’t look good. And they say there isn’t a God.
I’m continuing on in Centre Town. The publicity from the trial didn’t hurt my business any. In the months following the thing, I was up to my ears in cases, especially those involving wayward husbands. Things got
so damn busy I had to hire an assistant to help me with the office work. Interesting enough, I ended up putting Jeannette on the payroll. The woman badly needed a job and proved to be one hell of a secretary.
Pat and me continue to do our little dance. God only knows where we’re going with that. At any rate, it seems as if I’m settling into my old hometown. I actually quit drinking a few months ago, and even began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at a downtown church. Hey. Everyone but murderers deserve a second chance in my book.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
The Aftermath