by Jen Estes
“The stats need to be upda—”
“I’ll update the stats. I’ll handle all the postgame. Please, just get out of my face. I can’t even stand to look at you.”
“I really am sorry.”
She looked away from his pleading eyes. “You’re sorry you got caught.”
“I don’t know what you’re so mad about.” He exhaled a deep huff. “The pills didn’t even seem to bother you at all. I figured they didn’t work.”
“Then why’d you keep doing it?”
He shrugged helplessly. She pointed to the door. “Just go, Dustin.”
34
Benji joined her on his couch with a coffee mug for each of them. She frowned at the sight of the brown liquid and sat the drink on the other side of his coffee table.
“So? Out with it. Did you find out anything?”
“I’d say so. We can probably rule out a laser death ray in Dustin’s basement. Criminal mastermind he’s not.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. First, does he laugh like this?” He paused dramatically before bellowing, “Muahahahaha!”
Cat grinned. “Negative.”
“Oh.” Benji shrugged. “Well then, that does hurt the case.”
“Let me ask you this, since you’re such an expert and all. Is there a supervillain who poisons his rival’s coffee with an over-the-counter laxative?”
Benji raised his eyebrows and gestured for her to stop. “Wait. What?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like. I followed Dustin to the break room tonight and saw him spiking my drink.”
“With Ex-Lax …?”
“Well, I think it might have been the generic.”
“Ah, so he’s immature and cheap. Not evil, however.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I don’t think he murdered Brad or orchestrated the mugging. His brand of vigilante justice is practiced by thirteen–year-olds at summer camp. If I come across itching powder in my bra, then we can point the finger at Dustin.”
Benji snapped his fingers. “The Joker!”
“Excuse me?”
“You asked for a villain. He did the same thing to Batman.” His face fell mockingly. “Oh wait, no. That was a cyanide pie. Still, kitchen vengeance.”
She suppressed a smile. “Moving on.”
“So, Dustin’s off the perp list. Who else? I mean, was anyone else up for the job?”
“I’m sure there were a few other candidates, but I’ve gotten the impression the contest was down to me and Dustin.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes drifted toward the coffee table. She smiled at the inscription on Benji’s mug: RIP Pluto: 1930-2006.
He shook her knee. “Hey, you’re not giving up, are you?”
“There’s nothing more to do.” She shrugged. “We were wrong.”
“About one little hypothesis. That just means we generate another.”
“Another?”
“Sure. It took Darwin two decades and a cruise to four continents to perfect the theory of natural selection.”
“I don’t even have a passport.”
Benji chuckled and reached for the Pluto mug. “Let’s start with what we know. You said things got strange at Hohenschwangau. When, exactly?”
“Oh, the weirdness started before I arrived, with Brad Derhoff’s suic— uh, death.”
“Let’s start with that. We already have the end result, so our work is half done. Now all we need to do is figure out how we got there. You know, like make an algorithm.”
“Al Gore with whom?”
“Algorithm.” He gave her a scrutinizing frown. “Have I mentioned we have some great science classes down at the campus that many adults take to refresh their—”
“I’ll add it to the list. First German, then Karate. Maybe after that.”
“Anyway. An algorithm is just a problem-solving method, like a flow chart.”
Benji stood up, grabbed a notebook off the counter and sat it between them on the couch. He drew a set of boxes and arrows on the paper.
“Okay, so Derhoff’s death.” Benji scribbled the words inside the box. “Easy enough.”
She rested her head on her hand and watched him. “Benji, I really dig this whole um, Rubik’s Cube thing you got going on, but all the boxes in the world won’t give us any more information than we know.”
“Yes … but I’m writing in pencil.” He wiggled the no. 2 in her face.
“As opposed to … crayon?”
“As opposed to ink. Trial and error, with an eraser.” He pointed at the tip of the pencil. “Now we can make up possible explanations to start hypothesizing until we form a theory and complete our algorithm.”
“Ah. You want to take it one base at a time.”
“If you say so. Now, Brad Derhoff is dead?” Benji drew two arrows and labeled them yes and no.
Cat leaned in. “Ooh, I know this one. Yes.”
“Okay. Suicide or murder?”
“Suicide.”
Benji’s line stopped. “That’s a killing point.” He looked up at her and frowned. “If you’ll excuse the term.”
“Beats ‘dead end,’ I guess. Okay then, let’s go with murrr-der.”
He gave a mock stern look and drew an arrow. “Now, did he die before baseball season or after?”
“It was midseason. Only a few days before I moved in here.”
“After, okay. Timelines are key but more so, intentions. What—”
Cat’s eyes flashed. “Oh! Something to do with baseball?”
Benji ran out of room on the paper and grabbed another sheet, moving both pages to the coffee table. He labeled another box “Baseball related?”
Cat scooted down to the floor to join him. “Judging from his redacted files at Hohenschwangau, I’m thinking a big fat yes.”
“Now, we got a death in the middle of the season with ties to the game.”
“I guess my next question would be why? Why kill Brad Derhoff? Aside from arrogance, he was a nice enough family man.”
“Can you think of a possible motive that could point us in a specific direction?” Benji tapped the pencil on the coffee table as he waited for her answer.
“We’ve already ruled out for his job.”
Benji drew a corresponding arrow. “Okay, that’s a killing point.”
“I guess … I mean, he’s a reporter. Maybe he found something out? If he were going to talk …”
“How better to keep him quiet?”
Cat jumped up and started to pace the living room. “A secret.”
“What could he possibly know about baseball that would be worth killing for? I mean, it’s only a game.”
A bitter laugh escaped her mouth. “Only a game? It’s so much more than that. It’s a business. A business worth billions.”
“Billions? A billionaire might consider that worth killing for.”
Cat’s mouth fell open, and she grabbed the pencil from his hand. “Erich König? You can’t be serious.”
“Corruption starts at the top.”
“It’s Erich König, though.”
“What? He’s too handsome and charming to be a killer?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s just, he’s Erich König, the Geiz ist geil! dude. I don’t get the mustache-twirling, black-hat-wearing vibe from him.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he earned his billions by rescuing kittens and painting rainbows.”
“Benji.” She hung her head.
He grinned. “Hey, it’s just the scientific method. Trial and error, remember?”
She handed him the pencil back. “Fine. I’ll play along.”
“So, it’s a business. Every industry has its unforgiveable crimes, right?”
She shrugged.
“You know, like a cop who steals, a firefighter who commits arson, a zookeeper with a bestiality fetish.” Cat’s eyes widened in horror at his last parallel. Benji laughed and put up an open hand. “Sorry. Making a point.
So what’s a cardinal sin in baseball?”
“Off the top of my head?” She closed her eyes for a second. “Steroids, gambling and cheating.”
“The latter of which is usually accomplished with the former and benefits the middle, right?”
“All three are extremely difficult to accomplish and very easy to catch.”
“Difficult?” He squinted at the paper. “How do you figure?”
“Betting? Not Erich König. He won’t even let us organize an office pool. I guess owning a casino taught him gambling’s a fool’s game.”
Benji nodded. “Yeah. He actually made waves by saying something similar in an interview back when his casino first opened. Genius.”
“Besides, he was filthy rich even before he had the team.”
“Okay, steroids?”
“Not possible.”
Benji responded with a raise of his eyebrow, and she relented. “Well okay, possible. Not exactly worth killing over.”
“Hmm. Unless the whole team was culpable.”
“An entire team? Wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. Despite the headlines about the bad apples, most players are strongly against shrinking their own um … apples … just to get a little extra speed on their pitches or yardage on their home runs.” She shook her head. “Besides, a scandal of that magnitude would be impossible to keep quiet.”
“You mean almost impossible.”
“No, I mean impossible. This isn’t the first time I’ve considered the scenario. There are trainers, clubhouse staff, former players, all of whom have more to gain by exposing the truth than keeping quiet for what, a little hush money?”
She stopped pacing, looked down at the papers on the coffee table and frowned.
“Besides, there aren’t many other ways to cheat in baseball, at least not by winning. Throwing a game is nearly unprecedented and hasn’t been documented for almost a century. Anyway, the Chips are winners. Been winning like it’s going out of style.” She paused. “At least until this week.”
Benji nodded in agreement. “There has to be something, though. What about referees? They can be paid off.”
“Umpires, and no. An ump can’t even make a questionable strike call without outrage from the other team, their manager, the coaches and the forty thousand fans at the ballpark. Anything more than that and he’d be branded a cheat by every website, blog and chat room before the pitcher’s next windup. Also, like any job, umpires are monitored.”
“Seriously?”
“Daily. Controversial calls are reviewed by supervisors and the umps are graded. The ones with the highest marks work the postseason games.”
“So the reward for good work is more work? That system is flawed.”
Cat chuckled. “Maybe.” She picked up the flow chart. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting a little too carried away with this. I lost my remote in the move and my TV’s been stuck on the Sleuth channel.”
Benji stood up and walked over to her, taking the papers out of her hands. “Maybe. In my experience, you should trust your gut.”
Her eyes trailed down his shirt. “Your gut? Is that a technical term, Bill Nye?”
Their bodies were inches apart now. “Well, ‘trust your alimentary canal’ doesn’t have quite the same ring.”
She ignored his joke and placed her fingers on his firm stomach. “I’m more of a hands-on student, anyway.”
Benji smiled coyly and moved his head closer to hers.
Cat lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “So uh, Benji?”
“Yes?”
“I j-just wanted to say thanks. You know, for everything. Last night and tonight. For not treating me like a screwball. Even though I might be.”
Benji didn’t reply. Cat looked down at her hand on his flat stomach and pulled it back slowly. “I should go.” She didn’t budge.
Benji inched closer, reached out and took her hand back. “Or you could stay.”
Cat moved into his space, and he met her halfway, his lips pressing hungrily into hers. Her eyes fluttered closed and a small moan escaped her lips. The whimper of pleasure was the report of a starter pistol. There was no turning back. His hands graced her every curve; hers toyed with the muscles hidden under the soft cotton t-shirt. They stumbled down to the hallway, where she laid her body onto his. His back hit a wall and he pulled her closer.
When they broke apart for a panting breath, Cat took his hand and led him to the moonlit bedroom. She pushed him onto the fluffy comforter. Benji needed no further encouragement, and he lured her down with a soft tug on her arm. She straddled his lap and gently traced her fingers along his face, studying the way the moonlight glowed on his chiseled jaw. She lowered her head to his, the jolt sending her hair forward and enveloping them in its strawberry scent. Brushing back her hair, Benji brought his lips back to hers and ran his fingers up the back of her shirt. His touch sent a warm tingle along every nerve of her body.
While he watched, Cat pulled out of his embrace and reached behind her back to work the zipper on her dress. His eyes caressed her body as she rose up on her knees and pulled her dress over her head. She tossed the fabric aside and wrapped herself around him again.
Benji ran his fingers up her bare thighs, now wrapped around his waist. His lips met hers once more, this time with greater urgency, then traveled south. She gasped as he trailed down her neck with his lips, following the path down to the hollow of her throat and across the top of her breasts. Cat stirred and tugged at his t-shirt. They broke apart from each other’s embrace just long enough to pull the soft cotton over his head.
Now that they were both naked, he took control. He wrapped his arms around her waist and flipped their bodies around. Her laugh rang out in the quiet apartment. Benji tossed his hair back and they shared a smile in the moonlight, each lost in the other’s eyes.
Cat was used to waking up in beds that weren’t hers, but this one had a warm familiarity that the hotel rooms did not. Memories of the night before flooded through her and her head sank into the feather-filled pillow. Rolling over gently, she saw that Benji was still asleep. The green sheet concealed the long limbs that had wrapped around her all night long. Tendrils of thick black hair curled fetchingly into his face. She wanted to rip off the sheet and feel his smooth, warm body beneath her once more—to wake his full, parted lips with hers. Instead she slid out from under the tangled pile of cotton.
Tippy-toeing across the room, Cat searched for the clothing that had been discarded so carelessly only a few hours earlier. She slipped the dress over her shoulders and, leaving the zipper undone, searched all over the room and under the bed for her missing bra. Finally she concluded that it must have eloped with one of Benji’s lost socks. Creeping out of the hallway, she found the same notepad on his counter he’d used the day before and wrote, in a similar vein:
Early game day. You’re a pretty cute sleeper. Maybe one of these mornings we can actually wake up next to each other.
She smiled and set the pen down.
Stopping halfway to the door, she returned to add a smiley face to the bottom of the letter.
Cat stood in her shower, hypnotized by the stream. She closed her eyes as the hot water glided over every inch of her body, a welcome reminder of Benji’s lips the night before. The memory brought a coy smile to her face. He’d surprised her. Since the hot July afternoon when she’d returned his comic book, Cat had indulged in several fantasies about an evening with Benji, but each scenario had included a Princess Leia costume and kinky roleplaying. Instead, there had been no roles, just play. Only Cat and Benji, two neighbors exploring each other’s bodies and souls. The hot water began to cool. She shut off the faucet and tried to let the memories of last night do the same. First pitch was at twelve o’clock, and that meant she needed to be at the park in forty-five minutes, looking like a woman whose passion was baseball and not a sexy biology teacher.
35
Two hours earlier, the Chips had chalked up their fourth loss of the las
t five games.
If not for yesterday’s extra innings and a negligent catcher, it’d be five out of a miserable five.
Cat and the rest of her colleagues tucked their tails between their legs and retreated to the fourth floor. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon drafting her latest addition to the website—an article about why the fans should not panic—when she had started to panic. However, Cat’s pulse wasn’t hammering about the team’s currently downward spiral but something much worse: Yastrzemski was missing.
Ryno, Gehrig, Banks, Yastrzemski, Robinson and Clemente. If the traveling demands of her chosen profession didn’t preclude Cat from having pets, the names of her favorite baseball legends would have been honored by giving them to a mutt, two tabbies and a few goldfish, instead of six plastic hunks of imported wires. Of those six digital recorders, the red one, more commonly known as the aforementioned Yastrzemski, had strayed from the pack. She rifled through the stack of papers, hoping the recorder was hiding under the weak stat sheet or dismal scorecard.
“Hey, you, everything okay?”
Cat looked up at Kiara, who was watching her from the doorway.
“Uh, no, Key, it’s really not. Have you seen my red recorder?”
“Nope. I’ll help you find it. Don’t worry. Where’d you last have it?”
Cat flipped up the various folders on her desk and threw them aside. “If I knew that, why would—never mind.” She pulled open her desk drawer and saw the other five safely in place.
Kiara peered over the desk. “Why do you have so many?”
“What?” Cat looked up and frowned, exasperated. “Oh. They help me be in six places at once in the clubhouse. Sometimes there’s more than one interview going on at a time. So I just drop one off, hit record and voilà, digital ears.”
“Well, how come you can’t use one of the other ones then?”
“I don’t need to use one. I need to find this specific recorder because it’s got Ron Bouv—” Cat stopped and smiled at the intern. “You, my dear, are a genius. I put the damn thing by Ron’s desk after the game and I must have forgotten to pick it up when I left.”