Prairie Hardball

by Alison Gordon

  I looked at my watch.

  “God, it’s almost one,” I said. “I’d better get going.”

  I took a last swallow of my beer and set it down on the bar. Jack knocked back the rest of his drink and signalled to the bartender for the bill. He insisted upon signing it to his room, then put his hand on my waist to guide me out of the bar.

  “I’ve got a bottle in my room, if you’d like a nightcap,” he said, while we waited for the elevator.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said.

  The elevator arrived. I pushed the button for the third floor. He leaned across me to punch four.

  “It’s up to you,” he said.

  The elevator stopped at my floor with a shudder. The door opened. Jack reached out and held it back with his hand.

  “Well, good night,” I said. “It was nice talking to you.”

  He touched my cheek with his free hand and kissed me gently on the mouth, lingering for a moment before letting me go.

  “It was very nice,” he said then, and smiled his killer smile while the elevator doors shut. It took me a moment to decide whether I was offended by his pass. I decided, somewhat to my chagrin, that I wasn’t. While I stood there regaining my composure, a door down the hall opened a crack, as if someone was peeking out. Embarrassed, I hoped that my indiscretion hadn’t been observed.

  I let myself into our room as quietly as I could. Andy was on the far side of the bed, asleep with his back to me. I undressed in the bathroom and crept in beside him. After a few moments, he rolled over, asleep, and curled himself around me, pinning me in his arms.

  Chapter 13

  The Hall of Fame Museum was still locked when we arrived the next morning just after eleven. Andy and I in the purple rental and my parents in the Chrysler had travelled from the hotel in convoy with the Goodmans, the Denekas and Edna Summers in Peter’s minivan. There had been no answer in either Virna or Jack Wilton’s rooms, so we expected to find them waiting, but there was nobody to greet us but a big ginger tabby.

  “Maybe they went to church,” my mother said, probably guilty that her family had been delinquent just this once.

  “Neither struck me as the church-going type,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll be here in a minute.”

  “But we agreed to all go in together,” Mum fussed.

  “Maybe they’ve gone to pick up Garth Elshaw,” I said. My father went over and peered in a window.

  “There’s no one inside,” he said. “You know, I’ve been here before, when it was still a church. It was a lovely one, too. Very historic. It was the first church in the Battlefords.”

  The date over the door was 1886.

  “Built thirty years before St. Andrew’s,” my mother said.

  “I’m surprised it’s still locked,” Shirley Goodman said. “It’s seven minutes past 11:00, and the sign says it opens at 11:00.”

  “Oh, be patient,” her husband said.

  “It is rather bad, though,” Shirley continued. “I mean, inducting us into the Hall of Fame and then keeping us cooling our heels out here like this.”

  “I’m sure someone will be here to open it soon,” my mother said.

  “I’m so excited,” said Meg Deneka. “I can’t remember when I’ve been so excited. But then I can’t remember anything anyway. Can I, Peter?”

  Her husband, who seemed distracted, smiled wearily.

  “Where are your grandchildren?” Edna asked. “I thought they’d be here.”

  “They’re long gone,” my mother said. “They were on the road just after breakfast. Amy had a birthday party she couldn’t miss, and Sheila doesn’t like to be away from Buddy too long. They don’t care about a bunch of dusty old bats and balls anyway.”

  “Now, dear,” my father said. “You know they would have stayed if they could. They were here for the important part, anyway.”

  “Yes, wasn’t that a nice evening,” Edna said.

  “I was just glad there was no trouble,” Shirley said, “and that letter writer didn’t get up to any tricks.”

  “Look, this is probably Virna now,” Peter Deneka said, as a station wagon pulled up and parked at the curb in front of the giant baseball bats.

  But it wasn’t the Wiltons. I recognized Ruth Fernie, one of the volunteers from the banquet. She came up the front walk with tiny quick steps, apologizing all the while.

  “With the excitement last night, we all slept in, and I’ve been running behind all morning. I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. What will you think of our hospitality?”

  We assured her that we had not been inconvenienced.

  “Mr. Shury will be very annoyed if he hears I kept Hall of Famers waiting.”

  We told her he wouldn’t hear it from our lips.

  “Well, I’ll just get the key, and you can have your tour.”

  She bustled around the side of the building, and reappeared in a moment, holding up the key and smiling.

  “Secret hiding place,” she said. “Really, I don’t know why we bother locking it. There’s nothing worth stealing. Don’t tell Mr. Shury I said that.”

  She unlocked the door and opened it wide.

  “Shall we wait for Virna?” my mother asked.

  “We agreed on eleven and it’s almost a quarter past,” Edna said. “I spent half my playing career waiting for Virna Wilton, and I’m not going to do it now.”

  She was first through the door, rolling her walker ahead of her, the rest of us following. We paused inside the door to let our eyes adjust to the shadowy room after the brightness of the morning.

  “I’ll just go get the lights,” Mrs. Fernie said. “Maybe you could sign the guest book while you’re waiting.”

  Shirley Goodman picked up the pen first, and had just begun to write her name when two things happened in quick succession. First, the lights went on. Then Ruth Fernie began to scream.

  The sound froze us for a moment, then Andy ran towards the front of the church. I was right behind him. Ruth was standing to one side of what had been the altar, in an area that was clearly the museum’s library, hands over most of her face, with only one eye peeking out. When we came to her, all she could do was point, wordlessly.

  Andy stepped in front of me quickly, but not before I’d glimpsed the garish tableau. At first I thought it was one of the plastic mannequins that were posed around the museum in the uniforms of long-defunct teams. But this one, in its jaunty yellow Racine Belles outfit, was more lifelike than the others. Or, more to the point, more deathlike. Even from the brief look I got, there was no doubt in my mind why Virna hadn’t made her appointment that morning.

  “Get the rest of them out of here,” Andy said, urgently. “Then find a phone and call the police.”

  I turned in time to intercept my mother coming around a display case. I grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and turned her around.

  “You don’t want to go back there,” I said.

  “Kate! Whatever are you doing?” she complained.

  I handed her off to Daddy.

  “Take her outside,” I said. “Get everybody outside and don’t let them back in.”

  Andy helped Mrs. Fernie to the front of the museum and found a chair for her, then went back to the body.

  “Is there a phone?” I asked her. She pointed to a cabinet displaying Hall of Fame souvenirs. I found the phone behind it, on a small shelf. I dialled 911, not sure if the service existed in the boonies, but it was answered immediately. I told the dispatcher the situation, and she told me to stay on the line. She was back in a moment.

  “There’s a car on the way,” she said. “How many people are on the scene?”

  “There are, let’s see, around ten, I think.”

  “It’s important that no one touches anything.”

  “Most of them are outside,” I
said. “The one that’s inside is a Toronto police detective. He knows about crime scenes.”

  I hung up and went back to join Andy.

  “They’re on their way.”

  I looked over at the organ. I could see now that Virna had been propped up into her grotesque pose at the organ, as if she was playing the thing. There was even sheet music on the stand, but I couldn’t make out the title.

  “What happened?

  “I can’t tell,” he said. “I didn’t want to disturb anything once I’d established that she was dead. We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner.”

  “Where are the police? They should be here by now.”

  “You go on outside with the others,” he said, gently.

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “I do. One of us with nightmares is enough.”

  I went outside. My mother, father, and Edna were comforting Ruth Fernie, who was in tears. The rest didn’t look too hot either. The Goodmans were sitting on one of the baseball bats. I could see the Denekas in their van. I went to talk to my parents.

  “The police are on their way,” I said.

  “Is it Virna? Is she dead?” my mother asked. “It can’t be true.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” I said, then turned to Ruth Fernie.

  “Mrs. Fernie, that hidden key you used, how many people know about it?” I asked.

  “Well, all the volunteers know. It’s not much of a secret.”

  “The murderer must have known,” I said. “Don’t forget to mention that to the police.”

  I went to speak to the others. Shirley Goodman was on me with questions the moment I got within earshot.

  “My God, Kate, what happened? I’m just sick.”

  “They don’t know that yet, Mrs. Goodman. We have to wait for the police and the medical examiner.”

  “But you think it’s murder? She didn’t just have a heart attack or something?”

  “This definitely wasn’t natural causes,” I said.

  “Poor Virna,” she said. “Why did it have to be her? She was just so much fun. She was so alive. And now . . .”

  She burst into tears. Her husband put his arm around her.

  “Does this have anything to do with those letters the women got?” he asked.

  “One of us might be next on the list,” she wailed, and looked around, as if expecting an attack.

  I reassured her as best I could, then went over to the Denekas. Meg looked confused. Peter held her hand, stroking it.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, querulously. “Why can’t we go inside? I want to see the museum.”

  “Not right now, Meggie,” Peter said. “We’ll come back another time.”

  “We’ll have to go in without Virna, that’s all there is to it. We can’t wait all day, can we?”

  Her husband smiled sadly at me, then turned back to his wife.

  “They won’t let us in right now,” he said. “There’s been some sort of accident. We’ll just wait here until the police come. Then we’ll go to the hotel and have a nice cup of tea.”

  “But I want to go inside. Why won’t you let me go inside?”

  I turned away and started back over to my family. A car pulled up and parked behind Ruth Fernie’s station wagon. I expected to see Inspector Digby, but Jack Wilton got out, smiling sheepishly, and walked over to me.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “You should have gone ahead without me.”

  I stared at him stupidly. My brain seemed to have seized up.

  “I’ve got to say I’ve got quite a head on me this morning,” he continued, ruefully. “I didn’t even come to until twenty minutes ago.”

  He stopped and looked closely at me.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Before I could answer him, we heard the sirens, coming around the corner.

  Jack looked wildly around the yard.

  “Where’s my mother? Where is she?”

  Chapter 14

  Andy was still inside the building when the first policemen arrived on the scene, a pair of uniformed officers, one burly, one slim, both impossibly young.

  “What are you doing here?” the big one asked.

  “Just securing the scene and waiting for you,” he said.

  “You’ll have to go outside,” said the partner. “God knows what you’ve messed up.”

  Andy didn’t bother to introduce himself, just smiled and stepped outside the door to wait for Inspector Digby.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Andy when he got there.

  “Virna Wilton. She’s dead. Probable strangulation.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “I checked for signs of life, then got out of the way.”

  Digby nodded and grunted his approval.

  “Don Deutsch is on his way with some of his people. I’m going to have to call in the medical examiner and the boys from the Identification unit. On a Sunday, no less.”

  He ran his hand over his brush cut wearily.

  “I’m closing off the scene. Constable Resnick here will control the door.” He turned to the bigger constable. “You know the drill, Dewey.”

  “Yes, sir. Everyone signs in and out, with time and reason for being here. No exceptions.”

  “And since you’re just another civilian in this jurisdiction,” Digby said to Andy, “I’m afraid you have no reason to be here at the moment.”

  “I understand.”

  “No offence.”

  “None taken. If I can be of any help, let me know.”

  Displaced, he left the building and came over to where I was sitting on the grass with Jack, who had his head in his hands.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Andy said, sitting beside him.

  Jack looked at him blankly.

  “Thank you,” he said, finally.

  “Can we get out of here, Andy?” I asked. “Can we go back to the hotel? These people shouldn’t have to wait in the sun.”

  “We’ll have to stay until they tell us what to do,” he said.

  “Is it going to take long? Poor Meg Deneka barely knows where she is.”

  “It will take as long as it takes. You know that, Kate.”

  “Maybe if you explained to them,” I said.

  “I’m just another witness here, remember. I’m sure they want us out of the way as much as we do. Be patient.”

  “Can you just tell me what happened?” Jack asked Andy.

  Andy has had a lot of experience at this sort of thing, talking to victims’ relatives, and he’s good at it. I knew enough to get up and leave them alone. A uniformed constable stopped me when I tried to get into the hall.

  “I need to speak with Inspector Digby,” I said.

  “You have to wait for him to come out.”

  A man carrying a medical bag came up.

  “Morning, Dewey,” he said, cheerfully. “Another Sunday shot to hell.”

  “Sign in, Doc. Inspector’s inside.”

  The doctor signed a log book. The constable carefully noted the time in and the reason for the visit in the space provided. I walked back to where my parents were standing, watching the police put up crime-scene tape. There were half a dozen in uniform. Other investigators arrived carrying cameras and other crime-scene equipment. Each signed in before entering the building. The press arrived, including a film crew, but they were kept behind the yellow tape with the rest of the civilians. Half the town seemed to be there, from kids on tricycles to seniors with walkers. They gawked at us as if we were the Sunday morning entertainment.

  Staff Sergeant Morris arrived, with a guy wearing a jacket and tie with jeans. I intercepted them before they got to the door.

  “Sergeant Morris, I need your help,” I said. He stopped.

  “Please
, can we get these witnesses back to the hotel? These are elderly people who have had a terrible shock.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Morris said, not unkindly. “It’s up to Sergeant Deutsch, here, who will be in charge of the investigation. This is Kate Henry, Don. She’s the daughter of one of the women ballplayers, and Inspector Munro’s friend.”

  He gave me a glance and a perfunctory handshake.

  “I’ll check out the scene and get back to you,” he said.

  They both signed the log and disappeared inside.

  I went back to Andy and Jack and sat down. Nothing was said until the thin constable approached us a few minutes later.

  “Inspector Munro, Inspector Digby would like to speak with you, if you’ll come with me.”

  Andy got up without a word and followed the constable inside the building, where he found Digby standing with Deutsch and Morris, watching the medical examiner at work on the corpse. They all shook hands.

  “This is turning into a busman’s holiday for you,” Digby said.

  “No, it’s your case,” Andy said. “You’re welcome to it.”

  “As a matter of fact, we could use your help, if you don’t mind.”

  Andy looked at the other two policemen. Morris smiled pleasantly. Deutsch looked at the ground, the muscle at the corner of his jaw working at his resentment.

  “What sort of help?” Andy asked.

  “I don’t have to tell you that we have to work very quickly on this one,” Digby said. “There are a lot of people to talk to, people who have plans to leave. We could use an extra hand, another pair of eyes and ears this afternoon, and you already know some of the women. Are you game?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Glad to be of help.”

  While Andy was being briefed, I was listening to Jack, trying, the best I could, to help him.

  “She was going to call to make sure I was up in time this morning,” he said, tears running down his cheeks. “I thought she had forgotten, or saw how drunk I was last night and was teaching me a lesson. Or being kind.”

  He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. His voice shook when he continued.

  “She was so full of life last night. I can’t believe that was the last time I’m going to see her. I can’t believe she’s not going to walk out of that place, laughing. Like it’s all a great big joke. She loved jokes. She and Wilma were always playing practical jokes on each other.”