Three Strikes and You're Dead

by Donald Bain

  Ty came down a short while later and took a seat on the window bench. Meg, Jack, and I were still at the kitchen table lingering after dinner. Before Carter’s call he had begun to relax, probably relieved by the news that the murder weapon had been found and that it didn’t implicate him—at least not yet. But he was more tense now, fidgety, his foot bouncing up and down to a silent beat. “Cole leave?” he asked.

  “Yes. He said he’d give you a call,” Jack said. “What’d Carter have to say?”

  “Not much.”

  “Just called to say hello?” asked Meg.

  “Kinda, I guess. He’s pissed off—uh, I mean, annoyed—that he doesn’t have his car. The cops won’t release it yet. That really sucks.”

  “Are you finished eating?” Meg asked. “Can I get you some dessert?”

  “I’m not really hungry anymore. It was good, though.”

  Meg smiled.

  Ty stared down at his shoes, his eyes unblinking.

  When I’d first arrived at Jack and Meg’s house, and we’d stood in the foyer, I’d asked Meg what had happened to Ty’s feet. She looked at me, puzzled. “Nothing, Jess, why do you ask?”

  “Those look like casts,” I’d said, pointing to the footwear in the corner. They were calf-high white leather, tall and stiff, with a thick sole and toe.

  “Oh, Jess, those aren’t casts; those are Ty’s sneakers. Size thirteen.”

  “What did Sylvester mean by the September first deadline?” I asked Jack.

  Ty looked up sharply.

  Jack studied Ty as he replied to me. “The first of September is the last day that a team can file their postseason roster. So, for instance, if the Cubs were to make it to the play-offs—which they didn’t—they can’t call anyone up after September one. The roster has to be set by then. They can call up a player in September, but he can’t play in the play-offs.”

  Ty blew out a stream of air, frustrated. “Yeah, now just watch. Junior’ll be called up instead of me.”

  Jack and Meg looked at their foster son curiously.

  It took a moment before Ty realized what he’d said. “Oh, God,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand, his eyes distraught. “I forgot. It’s like a bad dream. Like it’s not real. That it isn’t happening. It never happened.”

  But it had.

  “You know you didn’t have to have Sheriff Metzger call me. You could have called me yourself,” Sheriff Hualga said, pulling his patrol car off the dusty road.

  “I didn’t want to tread on so short an acquaintance,” I said. “I wasn’t sure how my request would be received.”

  We were on our way to the crime scene. I had wanted to visit the place where Junior Bennett was murdered, but concern for the Duffys’ feelings, as well as Ty’s, of course, had kept me from asking them to drive me to a place that could only create painful memories. A call to Mort had resulted in a call from Sheriff Hualga, who had elected to take me there himself.

  In the light of day, the Crazy Coyote was a rundown roadhouse sitting in the center of an unpaved parking lot located on a two-lane road, midway between Mesa and Apache Junction. To its left was a pizza parlor, taking advantage of the meager menu offered at the Coyote. Off to the right was a secondhand car dealership fenced in with chain link topped by razor wire. Across the road, scrub grass and scraggly bushes stunted by the sun were the only vegetation in an empty lot.

  “Hard to see what the attraction is, isn’t it?” Sheriff Hualga said as I climbed out of his car.

  “When young people gather for drinks, the atmosphere is secondary,” I said. “Evidently, the management doesn’t pay close attention to the IDs of their clientele, and that’s very attractive indeed.”

  Hualga huffed. “I gave my staff a thorough dressing-down about this,” he said, taking off his cowboy hat and swatting it against his thigh. “The officer who was supposed to be patrolling this place on a regular basis came up with a million excuses why he didn’t know the patrons were underage.” He donned his hat again and adjusted the fit.

  “I really appreciate your accompanying me to the crime scene,” I said.

  “Your reputation precedes you, Mrs. Fletcher. Mort was full of praise for your investigating abilities.”

  “He’s a dear, but he does tend to exaggerate at times.”

  “Be that as it may, my guys combed this place pretty well. But if you’re going to find anything, I want to be here to see it.”

  “I can’t imagine any clues will jump out at me. I just wanted to get a feel for the scene, and perhaps talk to someone inside.”

  We tried the front door, found it locked, and walked around to the back. Yellow police tape fluttered in the light breeze caused by air currents rising from the scorched ground.

  “The cars have already been impounded,” the sheriff said, pawing through a line of tape, winding it around his hand, and tossing the wad into a Dumpster. “Here’s where Junior was parked.”

  “Isn’t that a handicapped spot?” I asked.

  “Supposed to be, but this kid was not known to follow the rules.”

  I glanced up at his face. Was he telling me he was sympathetic to Ty?

  “Don’t think just because Junior wasn’t one of Mesa, Arizona’s finest gifts to the world that he deserved to die,” he said.

  “I would never think that,” I said. “But I do wonder whether he’d been in any fights before.”

  “Meaning a personality like Junior’s was bound to irritate other people, and that there might be a record of that?”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “It seems that Junior always managed to evade the law in any other dustups he participated in. Whether it’s his father’s influence, or less than vigilance on the part of my predecessors or myself, he has no record, not like the long list of violations Judge Duffy’s foster son has to his credit.”

  “That was many years ago, Sheriff. He’s been a model citizen since the Duffys took him in.”

  “So they say. But to a jury, all those petty crimes, gang-related associations, and Mafia ties don’t match the image of the nonviolent, law-abiding, hardworking, ideal young man that your friends say he is today. And Martone, the district attorney, is eager to lay them out before the court and let the jurors judge the kid’s worth.”

  “A suspect’s past is not proof of a present crime,” I said.

  “Some people don’t see it that way. And you should know that Harrison Bennett, Sr., is very active in politics in this town and was a big contributor to the DA’s last campaign.”

  That’s not good news, I thought, but said, “I would hope that a political contribution would not sway the district attorney into pursuing a case where the evidence is scanty at best.”

  Hualga cocked his head at me and smiled. “I’m just trying to give you a picture of what you’re up against. The DA is not a happy camper about Ramos getting bail. And he sees it as a case of political influence on the part of Judge Duffy. Martone’s the kind of guy to look under every rock, if necessary. Look, if Ramos is innocent, I’m the first in line to help him. But if he did this, even if it was accidental, I’m going to come down on him in spades. And he’ll go away for a long time.”

  The affable dinner companion whose company I had so enjoyed was not in evidence today. Instead, a stern lawman had taken his place, one who nevertheless had accommodated the request of an outsider to intrude on his territory.

  We stood next to where the body had been discovered. An outline in white paint marked the spot. Dark splotches at the head indicated where Junior had bled into the porous earth. Homicide detectives had taken samples of the blood, leaving spoon-size scoops in the dirt.

  “Where did you find Ty?” I asked.

  “In Menzies’s car over there.” He pointed to the side of the bar.

  “Was he asleep when you found him?”

  “Oh, yeah. Out like a light, and reeking to high heaven. I wouldn’t have lit a match near him.”

  “Had he gotten si
ck?”

  “Not in the car anyway. We took his shirt. There were bloodstains on it. It’s over at the crime lab.”

  “You took his shoes, too. Why?”

  “Footprints. There were lots of footprints around the body and over there around the back door. And we also took them to check for any blood spatter.”

  “Did you compare the footprints around the body with Ty’s sneakers?”

  “Not my job. Forensics is looking at the crime scene photos and shoes.”

  “Did you take tire impressions as well?”

  He shook his head. “There were way too many cars. I’m not even sure the footprints will yield any information, but since there were some around the body, I figured we should have a record of them.”

  I stared down at the outline of Junior’s body and tried to visualize what happened that night. Did Junior get into a fight with someone else after Carter put Ty in his car? Were there other people in the bar who had a bone to pick with him? Had he fought with someone in the past, someone who waited until he was drunk to take revenge? Or could it have been a case not of murder but of self-defense? If only Ty could remember.

  “If you’re finished here, let’s go see if anyone is inside,” Hualga said.

  I looked at my watch. “There should be someone,” I said. “The sign on their front door says they’re scheduled to open soon.”

  Hualga harumphed but didn’t say anything.

  The interior of the Coyote was as dim as I had expected it to be, but not as shabby as the exterior. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. When they did, I saw that someone had made an effort to make the bar look like a classic Western saloon. Cowboy memorabilia was everywhere, including several dozen boots set up one behind the other on a long shelf, as if they were dancing the two-step all by themselves. Dark wooden benches lined the walls with tables in front of them, topped by bentwood chairs resting upside down on their surfaces. A woman was mopping the floor under the tables, but the aroma of beer so permeated the wood that her efforts were ineffective—at least in eliminating the smell.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” she said.

  “Ms. Wellwyn. This is Mrs. Fletcher, a colleague of mine.”

  “How do you do,” she said.

  “Very well, thank you. The sheriff has kindly allowed me to see the site of the murder, and I hope you won’t mind if I look around and ask you a few questions.”

  “You can ask away, but I wasn’t on the night Junior was killed. Kathy was bartending, but Ogden—that’s the owner—he let her go after the sheriff gave him a citation for serving underage customers. I don’t know that she could tell you anything anyway. She told me the bar was so busy she never saw a thing. Besides, the Diamondbacks game was on TV and she’s a rabid fan.”

  “What’s the occupancy permitted here?” I asked.

  “Sign says seventy-five, but we average about forty or fifty most nights.”

  “It was crowded the night of the murder?”

  “Kathy said it was the usual group. It’s been up a bit since then, people wanting to see inside the police tape where the murder took place. A bit ghoulish for my taste, but if we sell a few extra beers, they can come and gawk all they want.”

  I wandered around the bar, imagining the tables filled with baseball players and their girlfriends, members of the fan club. I examined the back door and the short hallway that led to it, calculating that between the televised game and the voices of thirty or forty patrons, the noise level inside would have been sufficient to muffle any arguments in the parking lot, no matter how heated. I told the sheriff I was ready to leave and thanked Ms. Wellwyn.

  “Sure. No problem,” she said as she took down the chairs and pushed them under the tables. “Come back anytime. Too bad about Junior. I heard he was a great shortstop.”

  Chapter Nine

  “A little to the left. Yes, that’s it. Oops, no. A little farther down. Yes, there. Now a teeny bit to the right. Perfect.”

  I’d been looking forward to having a massage from the moment I’d booked my flight to Arizona. Meg had raved to me about the fabulous health clubs in Phoenix and Scottsdale. They were a big part of the area’s appeal for her. Jack could keep those champion golf courses that he bragged about. Meg loved the rubs and wraps offered in the resorts’ award-winning spas.

  I had planned to explore some of those offerings when I arrived in Arizona. To my surprise—and sheer delight—sitting atop my pillow in the guest room at the Duffys’ was a gift certificate for a “Day of Beauty” at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. The Biltmore sits on thirty-nine acres, a grande dame of a resort with architecture inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. The hotel has played host to many presidents and celebrities throughout the years. Guidebooks call it “the Jewel of the Desert,” and it was only a forty-five-minute cab ride from Meg and Jack’s home in Mesa.

  While waiting for my massage appointment, I sipped a cup of soothing ginger tea in the spa lounge, a tranquil room complete with a tumbling waterfall and the silkiest chairs I’ve ever sat in. I skimmed through the pages of the latest Vanity Fair magazine and concluded that my wardrobe was completely outdated. There wasn’t a single peasant skirt or fringed shawl hanging in my closet at home. My boots were practical for rain or snow, and I didn’t even own a piece of black clothing, with the exception of a belt. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but the fashions in the magazine’s editorial pages and advertisements bore no relationship to my life at all. Just as well, I thought.

  Setting the magazine aside, I studied the ambitious guide to massages and treatments at the spa, many of which incorporated ingredients indigenous to the Southwest and inspired by Native American rituals, like Raindrop Therapy. I’d chosen the Cactus Flower Massage, which, true to its name, had massage oils infused with flowers from various cacti, as I discovered when I was brought down the hall into a small, dark room with aromatherapy votive candles flickering. New Age music played in the background, complementing the serene, relaxing mood.

  The masseuse, Lily, was a young woman, no more than twenty-five. I’ve had massages in which the masseuse engaged me in a dialogue for the duration of the treatment, defeating the effect I sought—to get away from it all and relax. Lily was well schooled; she spoke only if I initiated the conversation.

  I was dozing when she shook my shoulder and gently broke the bad news. “Mrs. Fletcher,” she said, in a singsong, spa-y voice, “your session has come to an end.” One of life’s biggest disappointments, I thought to myself. But fifty minutes of bliss had melted away the stress of the last few days. I felt marvelously rejuvenated.

  “Don’t worry though,” said Lily. “You don’t have to jump right up off the table just yet. Lie there for a few more minutes and take your time getting up.”

  While she began to put away some of the oils and other massage paraphernalia she shyly asked, “I heard that you’re a famous writer. Are you here on vacation?”

  “Yes . . . well, yes, I am,” I said, practically forgetting that this trip was originally planned as a vacation; with Ty’s arrest it had become anything but.

  “I’d love to be a writer,” Lily said. “I take classes at Arizona Community College. I get A’s and B’s on all my papers. My professors always compliment my writing. I love to write.”

  “That’s terrific, Lily. It’s wonderful to have a creative passion.”