Big Leagues

by Jen Estes

  The zoo might be nice, but Cat didn’t think there was a better place for a first date than a baseball game. Plenty of time between innings to get to know each other, plus good food, great entertainment and a lot of fun.

  Of course, that’s assuming your date doesn’t think sports are the scourge of the country’s educational system.

  He hesitated and tried to conceal a coy smile. “Well, I might have, by accident, caught another game on TV last night. When I was flipping to the Discovery Channel, of course.”

  Eyes sparkling, she hopped back on the washing machine. “You did? What’d you think? Even though they lost, Ballard was lights out, huh?”

  Benji blinked in confusion. “Uh … yeah, totally, he was. The pitching was really good, too.”

  Cat hid her smile behind the towel she was folding.

  “So who’s pitching tonight?” he said.

  “James, our only southpaw in the rotation. You familiar?”

  “Oh, James. We go way back, all the way from when he was a northpaw.” Playful dimples formed in his cheeks.

  “Well then, I probably don’t need to tell you this—you being his biggest fan and all—but he’s going for his eighteenth win of the season tonight. Should be a pretty big deal.”

  “You don’t say? Maybe he’ll end up with thirty by the time the season’s over.”

  “Ha! That would be something. He probably only has about ten starts left.”

  Benji shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say it was a sure thing.”

  She chuckled and threw a rolled-up pair of socks at him. He quickly caught them and her eyes widened. “Look at that! I might have to tell the skipper I’ve got a new catcher for him.”

  Benji grabbed the balled-up grant letter and tossed it in an empty washing machine. “Well then, screw this science gig! I’m going to Disneyland!”

  She shook her head. “Nah. I already see a flaw in the plan. They won’t listen to me. I can’t even get a few simple answers regarding Jamal’s broken ticker.”

  “They’re still giving you the cold shoulder?”

  She nodded glumly.

  “You’re a reporter, right?”

  “In theory.”

  “Then go get your report.”

  “Are you familiar with the cold shoulder? Of all the shoulder temperatures, it’s the most standoffish.”

  “Sometimes you gotta push for the big stuff. Take this Dear John letter about my funding. You think I’m gonna suck it up and say to the board, ‘Okay, brainless trust. You’re right. We don’t need safety goggles. We can reuse those broken beakers. Hey, we’ll make our own fetal pigs.’ ”

  Cat scrunched her nose.

  “Nope, I’m gonna raise hell until those idiots listen to me and get my department the budget we need.”

  “Aren’t you worried they’ll, you know, fire you?”

  “Hell no! If I weren’t trying to improve my classrooms, then I wouldn’t be doing my job. Besides, I don’t want to work for a place that doesn’t value science. Do you want to work for a place that doesn’t value … uh, hearts?”

  “Hmm.” She hopped off the washer. “Thanks, Benji. You actually helped me a lot.”

  “Well, don’t sound so surprised. I am a teacher and all.”

  She grabbed her laundry basket and headed for the door.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  She stopped in the doorway and turned to face him. “Like you said, to get my report. I’ve also got to wrangle up a couple of tickets for this weekend.”

  Benji grinned.

  Cat turned the corner, but poked her head back through the doorway a second later. “Oh! And by the way, those Bunsen boneheads you mentioned?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “They have an eighty percent graduation rate in our nation’s colleges—that’s three times the national average—along with a higher collective GPA than that of the non-athletes. Aside from whatever bully’s responsible for the baseball-sized chip on your shoulder, the majority of those dumb jocks go on to succeed in many prestigious professions, including medicine, technology and … oh yeah, biology.”

  He stood speechless in front of the dryer, a lone sock dangling from his hand. With a wink and a grin, she whipped her head out of the doorway and bounced off.

  29

  On her first day, Cat had learned Kevin Goodall was a hard man to find around Hohenschwangau. Now she was discovering he was an even harder man to keep around once you had him in your sights.

  “Doctor, can I take a few moments of your time? It’s about Jamal’s autopsy.”

  The doctor locked his office door and shoved the key ring in the front pocket of his chinos. “I’m afraid I don’t have time right now. I have to go to the batting cages to check the status of Smith’s strained oblique.”

  He headed down the hallway, Cat snapping at his heels. “Please, it will only take a few minutes. I’ve been trying to meet with you for two days.”

  He shook his head. “Why don’t we set up something for tomorrow?”

  “How about I walk with you to the cages? I’d like to see how Smitty’s doing, too.”

  He stopped and hesitated for several seconds before saying, “Fine, come along.” He took off again.

  Picking up her pace, Cat clicked on her recorder. “Thanks.” She brandished a notebook with several questions scribbled on the page. “Now when you said the medical examiner didn’t detect any illicit substances, does that mean he checked only for street drugs or did he test for prescription drugs, too?

  Dr. Goodall tried to sneak a peek at her notebook, but she had already retracted the pad.

  “Customarily, an autopsy doesn’t even have to include a tox screen. In Jamal’s case, mostly due to his age, tests were performed for controlled drugs, over-the-counter medicines and illegal substances.” Dr. Goodall pointed at her notebook. “Also, you should note that the specimens for analysis came not only from blood, but also from urine and skin tissue. This ensures accuracy. As the toxicology report confirms, Jamal had no drugs in his system, prescription or otherwise.”

  Cat tried to write quick enough to keep up with the doctor’s fast talk. Still scribbling, she peered up from the notebook. “Nothing, huh? That strikes me as kind of weird. Seems just about everybody takes some sort of magic pill—you know, like for allergies or heartburn.”

  The doctor shrugged. “Most of my players take nothing but vitamins. Of course, they’re in their twenties. Ah, to be young again.” He offered her a lighthearted smile but Cat ignored it.

  “Right, his age. That reminds me of another one. In all your years of practicing medicine, especially with athletes, have you come across a heart attack in a twenty-eight year old?”

  Dr. Goodall’s jaw clenched.

  “Cardiac arrest, not heart attack. There’s a distinction between the two. Yes, anytime a twenty-eight-year-old dies of natural causes, it’s an anomaly. Unfortunately, I’ve seen deaths in people of all ages.”

  Cat resisted an eye roll. “Yes, but we’re not talking about a drunk slamming his car into a guardrail. We’re talking about a very young and very healthy heart failing. Is that something you’ve encountered in your career?”

  Dr. Goodall stopped walking and faced her. “His death is definitely not unprecedented. Athletes’ hearts are … different. You have to remember these are men who work out daily with strength training, endurance exercises and high-impact aerobics. Their bodies are in a constant state of conditioning. Because of the intensive regimen, their hearts pump much more blood through their bodies compared to yours or mine. Because the human body is constantly evolving, their hearts adapt and thus, the size increases.”

  “Wait, you’re saying their hearts … they actually get larger?”

  He nodded. “Left ventricle. The muscle mass, the chamber size, the wall thickness, too.”

  “This is normal?”

  “It’s routine.” He raised an eyebrow. “This is fairly common knowledge, too.”

 
Cat flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “Huh. News to me. But it’s not like this supersized ticker is more likely to succumb to a heart attack, right?”

  Dr. Goodall held his finger up. “Cardiac arrest. No, I’m simply explaining athletes’ hearts are conditioned differently.”

  He took off again, and she hurried behind him. He peered at her through the corner of his glasses. “Now, there is a disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCOM for short. This is a heart condition that specifically affects athletes and a significant number of adults, around one in five hundred.”

  “H-C-O-M?” She jotted it down. “What can you tell me about that?”

  “Well, it’s a hereditary disease in which the walls of the left ventricle thicken, causing blood flow obstruction. If undetected or left untreated, this obstruction can result in cardiac arrest.”

  Dr. Goodall rattled off this information so quickly Cat was convinced he moonlighted as an auctioneer.

  She skimmed her notes. “But Jamal didn’t have this HCOM thing. I mean, these guys are tested for heart conditions in every physical from college up. That’s several times a year. You’ve never heard of a single abnormality in Jamal’s heart, right?”

  “Not that I could discern. Nor was there any documentation from prior physicians.”

  Dr. Goodall picked up his speed. Cat struggled to keep pace with his short but surprisingly nimble legs.

  “A heart condition. That’s pretty discernible, right? I mean, like, hard to miss.”

  They’d arrived at the batting cages, and he stopped before they approached the huddle of players.

  “Ms. McDaniel, that’s what I’ve said. Now, as you know, Jamal Abercromby died after sudden cardiac arrest. Every bit of information we have on his death was in the report I handed you in Erich König’s office. I’m sorry for Jamal’s death but, if you’ll excuse me, I still have twenty-five live players in need of my care. Consider me off record now.”

  He rushed off, leaving her with no more information than she’d started with. Cat frowned in his direction and contemplated a contingency plan.

  Doctors, mechanics, and lawyers hated people like Cat. The vast knowledge these professionals acquired through years of education and experience, she tried to obtain through a quick Internet search. She consulted Net Nurse, Auto Asker, Virtual Esquire or any other online expertise at the disposal of her wireless card. She’d once insisted to her OB/GYN that polishing off a seven-pound bag of M&M’s was a better treatment for PMS than exercise. Last year, she assured Ed the Mechanic the clunking sound in her Jeep had to be its carburetor, even after he informed her Wranglers hadn’t had carburetors since the year he piloted an AH-64 Apache in the Gulf. Back home, Cat had guaranteed the good folks at Sorbo Law Office her speeding ticket was null and void, due to the Illinois State Police patrolman mistakenly documenting her auburn hair as simply red.

  So after Dr. Goodall’s uncanny impression of a clam, she went straight to her genie in a modem for answers. She explored various medical sites and crosschecked every fact with the medical examiner’s notes. The search yielded thousands of results. Yet, on every website, one keyword showed up repeatedly in every case of sudden cardiac death—especially when the victim belonged to the elite group of the young and wealthy.

  Drug use. In particular, illegal drug use.

  Cat’s brow knitted in consternation at the unanimous verdict of the oracles of the World Wide Wizard. Then how did one explain the toxicology report?

  It said “negative.” Nothing. Nada. Nichts.

  Case closed.

  Besides, they were wedged right in the heat of baseball season. Cat wasn’t naïve enough to believe such troublesome activity never happened. It wasn’t unheard of for a professional athlete to use the offseason as a six-month bender, but as the snow melted away, so did the parties. From March to October, the players had neither the time nor the choice; they were tested for drugs every week without fail.

  Still, those search results were hard to explain away … Cat tapped the pencil on her desk.

  Let’s say, for argument’s sake, the autopsy cited a drug. Some drug, pick a drug, any drug. Coupled with Brad Derhoff’s results, that would make two substance-related deaths in the same organization within a month. Maybe it’s time we clear out the second floor and rename this place Betty Ford Stadium.

  She chided herself for insinuating that the team was to blame for one of its member’s suicide. Nevertheless, her traitorous fingers snuck back to the keyboard and searched for more information on Brad Derhoff’s death. When the results appeared, just as with Jamal, they didn’t tell her much more than she already knew. Besides a few quotes from Erich König asking the media “to show respect for the Derhoff family’s privacy in these trying times,” no other information had been publicly released.

  Sounds familiar.

  She wondered if anything had gone out to the Chips employees after Brad’s suicide. There had been a few e-mails after Jamal’s death; it would make sense the same had been done in Brad’s situation. She punched in her login ID and password to the local Intranet and ran a file search on all memos that had Brad Derhoff listed in the body. The computer scanned for a few seconds before beeping “No Results Found.” Cat’s eyebrows furrowed.

  This can’t be right.

  She double-checked for spelling errors and tried again. If anything, the records should have been in the hundreds, maybe thousands. There should’ve been e-mails as trivial as travel plans and interview requests to every archived memo that referenced an article Brad authored. The computer beeped. “No Results Found.”

  Nothing. Nada. Nichts.

  She peered out onto the office floor to see the entire department busy at work. She watched as Dustin typed away and dismissed any thought of asking him for help. Her eyes drifted over to Kiara, who was manning the file cabinet wall. The bubbly intern had been at Hohenschwangau since the beginning of the summer semester, meaning that she would have been present at the time of Brad’s death. Cat doubted the tragedy was something even the vivacious sorority girl could forget. Cat strolled out to the filing workstation.

  “Hey, Key.”

  Kiara looked up from her box of papers. “Hi!”

  “I’m going across the street for a smoothie. You want to come with? My treat.”

  “Seriously?” Kiara hopped up with a smile. “I’d love to!”

  The elevator opened with a single push of the call button. The two women stepped on, and Cat reached for the “door close.” She glared at her naked wrist as she did so. Kiara was exactly the type of girl who would appreciate her silver Cartier, so it just figured that she’d forgotten it on her nightstand during the morning’s rush.

  “You know, I’ve done my share of intern slavery, too. I think I read somewhere that filing is the go-to form of torture in one of Dante’s circles of hell. Number five, if I’m not mistaken.” Kiara giggled, and Cat gave her a wry smile. “So I thought you might need a break.”

  Kiara’s eyes opened wide and her mouth followed. Before the elevator moved, Cat was bombarded with fast-paced blather. “Well, my friend Lydie—she’s the one you met the other night when we were going out. Like, you so should’ve came with, by the way. We had some crazy fun, but she’s interning on the second floor, and she has to have, like, eight café mochas just to stay awake around all those nerdy accountants.”

  They slipped through the revolving door and out onto the sidewalk. Kiara stopped talking for only a second to take a gasp of the hot afternoon air. “I love this place. Pulp Gulp has, like, the best smoothies in the city. This location is the best one, too. Except after games ’cause the whole place is always packed and they get lazy with the toppings. I’m all, ‘helloooo, I said extra whipped cream!’ Plus, they don’t have enough seats for everyone. You’d think people would be so ready to go home after all those beers, hot dogs, cotton candy and pretzels but there they are, with room for a jumbo strawberry shake. Last week, I sat in the bleachers with some gir
ls from my sorority house and these guys who we thought were Phi Delts but they actually were from—”

  Cat’s arm shot out to grab Kiara’s sleeve, preventing her from walking into traffic. Kiara put her hand over her mouth as the taxi whizzed by.

  “Oopsy.”

  Kiara’s babble continued on through the menu selection. Cat dug through her purse and handed the annoyed cashier a ten. Should the subject ever come up—and Cat shuddered to think what circle of hell that would be in—she was prepared to answer Kiara Choi’s favorite kind of smoothie, her “sometimes-favorite” smoothie and the smoothie flavor Kiara only ordered when she was in a “fun mood.”

  Kiara’s cheerfulness was totally in sync with Pulp Gulp’s yellow tables and orange wallpaper. The sunlight streaming through the open picture windows magnified her bright smile, and the empty restaurant provided the perfect acoustics for her echoing voice. They snagged a corner booth, and Cat zoned out Kiara’s chatter as she raked her mind for the best way to bring the subject of Brad Derhoff into the conversation.

  What kind of smoothies did the last reporter like?

  Seen any good corpses lately?

  What’s the deal with that suicide?

  “So, you’re not from Las Vegas, right?”

  Cat blinked. “What? Oh uh, Las Vegas. No, I was with the Porterville team and before that I lived in the Midwest.”

  Kiara scrunched her nose. “So, do you like it better out here?”

  Cat nodded. “I do. Especially the job.”

  Kiara grinned.

  Bingo.

  “I know! Just being here is, like, totally amazing. You know what I mean? So many people wanted this internship, too. Lucky for me, my uncle works on the fifth floor and put in a good word with Erich.”

  Cat stretched her lips over clenched teeth and hoped that it passed for a smile.

  Yes, nepotism is lucky that way.

  Kiara grinned back. “I know what you’re thinking, but I have a four-point-oh GPA.”