Dying to Play

by Mark Zubro

  WEDNESDAY 3:15 P.M.

  I wanted to get more information about Skeen’s parties, so I stopped by Campbell’s apartment. We sat out on a small patio under a gigantic oak tree. He said, “Did I make a fool of myself this morning?”

  “You showed interest, as did I. Timing seems to be the problem, not what we both might want.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “I wanted to ask about Skeen’s parties.”

  “I only went to one. I left pretty early.”

  “Any illegal drugs?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “But there’s got to be drugs around a baseball team at any level. You hear of high school kids using stuff.”

  “Just to be able to play, some guys will use local anesthetics or cortisone injections, or steroid injections, or home-brewed remedies of some kind, and that’s just to get in the game.”

  “I heard rumors of sex at the parties.”

  “Being a baseball player means hot sex. You don’t have to look far for it. Women hang around us. It’s not odd. Nobody took off their clothes while I was around.”

  “Who would I talk to?”

  “The biggest party guy on the team is Joey Blas.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Sleeping in his room.”

  Blas was asleep on top of the sheets. He wore vertically striped baggy brown and green boxer shorts. Campbell woke him up.

  “What?”

  “Gotta be up soon.”

  He shook his head. He stumbled to the shower. In half an hour he was in brown cargo shorts and a t-shirt. Campbell sat in on the interview. Normally, I didn’t want an audience, but I figured the shortstop’s presence would help solidify Blas’s confidence in me.

  Campbell said, “We’ve been trying to figure stuff out about Tyler Skeen.”

  “What stuff?” Blas asked. He had a rough, whiskey voice. He was the team’s leftfielder. He was tall and rangy. He sat drinking a protein shake. We were out under the oak tree. There was a slight breeze that seemed to irritate the humidity more than anything else.

  “You heard he was murdered,” I said.

  “I hear all kinds of rumors. I don’t know what the fuck is going on most of the time. Don’t usually care.”

  I said, “Those parties he threw were supposed to be a hell of a good time.”

  “Yeah,” Blas said. “I’m gonna miss ‘em. You shoulda come more often, Donny.”

  “Guess I missed a lot.”

  “Yep.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Blas yawned. “They were cool. There was always plenty to eat. Half the time when you’re in the minor leagues, you’re hungry.”

  I said, “I was in Tyler Skeen’s condo last night. Didn’t look like anybody did the dishes or ever cleaned much of anything.”

  “He had a cleaning service in once or twice a week. He just let it pile up until then.”

  “I was told drugs and booze predominated.”

  “And loud music and sex. His condo was pretty big. Everything about him and the parties was first rate.”

  I said, “Sex too?”

  He nodded and smiled and said, “Yep.” He sipped his shake, scratched his chest then pulled his shoulders and arms back and stretched his chest muscles. Then he twisted his neck, and I heard a crack.

  I asked, “Did Skeen provide the women?”

  “No need. There were plenty.”

  “Women from the town?” I asked.

  “Women from all over. Some of the guys brought their wives which was a little funny sometimes. The parties were kind of wild. Some of the wives got pissed off.”

  Pissed off wives? Sounded like a group I wanted to talk to. “Who was the most pissed off?”

  “I don’t know. I guess Jamie McDaniels’ old lady got pretty mad. Fred Johnston’s too.”

  “What did they get mad about?”

  “The parties were pretty crude. They’d put porno tapes on sometimes. The women didn’t like that. At least some of them objected.” He licked his lips. “Some of them didn’t.”

  “What happened when they objected?”

  “Tyler Skeen would laugh at them. Tyler laughed a lot. It was really a guy’s place. More guy parties. Women would come though.”

  “Party girls bought and paid for?” I asked.

  “I never had to pay.”

  “But some guys did?”

  “Probably. They never confided in me. You might try Stuart, my roommate. He didn’t have a lot of luck with the ladies most of the time. The one time I happened into a room where he was going at it, the woman was kind of overweight and would have looked better with a bag over her head.” He drank more protein shake, then emitted a prolonged belch. “You think Skeen was killed because of women?”

  I said, “Wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Which women in town were the most popular?”

  “Thinking of getting yourself some?”

  “Trying to figure out what the hell was going on out there.”

  “Why bother? Skeen’s dead. If people partied hard, don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  I said, “I’m new. I’m curious. Hate to have missed a good time.”

  Not that wild parties in some backwoods condo were my style. I preferred quiet dinners with one or two friends.

  Stuart Curry strolled out onto the patio. He had a beer in his hand. He pulled over a lounge chair and sprawled into it.

  “Miserably hot,” he said.

  Blas said, “Summers are like that I’m told.”

  Curry was a scrawny kid, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He had sloping shoulders and big ears. The utility infielder wore tight, cut-off blue jeans shorts. He’d pinch-hit in last night’s game and struck out.

  Blas said, “These guys are jealous because they didn’t get to have sex at Tyler Skeen’s parties.” He guffawed. “I told them even you got your ashes hauled.”

  Curry blushed.

  Blas said, “Who was that thing you were with?”

  “She wasn’t a thing,” Curry said.

  “Don’t get all huffy,” Blas said. “We’re just talking. Some of us are lucky with women. Some aren’t.”

  “I’ve had as much sex as some of the guys,” Curry said.

  “Even the batboy has more sex than you.” More Blas guffaws. “And he’s some pimply faced sophomore in high school.” He slapped his hand on Curry’s knee as if some cosmic joke had been made.

  Curry said, “It was Judy from out at the Pitstop TruckStop.”

  “Half the girls are from the Pitstop,” Blas said. “That’s not a big challenge.”

  “She was nice.”

  Blas laughed.

  Curry ignored him. He took a long pull from his beer bottle then held it by the neck and dangled it between his legs.

  I said, “They say that Tyler Skeen was murdered. That somebody mixed his meds. Anybody who was ever at one of the parties is probably going to be a suspect.”

  “How could they prove that?” Curry asked. “Maybe he just mixed them up himself.”

  “Maybe he was doing supplements,” Blas said. “Hell, half of us inhabit health food stores. We buy all kinds of shit on the Internet. Nothing illegal. There’s diet stuff and muscle builders that are supposed to be all natural.”

  Curry said, “I think most of that is bullshit.”

  Blas said, “Yeah, but nobody wants to be beaten out for a chance at the show by somebody who’s got a chemical advantage.”

  “Lot of that going around?” I asked.

  The two of them shrugged. I couldn’t tell if it was lack of knowledge or lack of trust. Campbell remained silent.

  I asked, “Anybody ever get angry at these parties? Anybody seem pissed off at Tyler Skeen?”

  “Yeah,” Curry said, “there was a big deal blow up last Friday night.”

  “When?” Blas asked.

  “You’d taken some girl out to the woods.”

  “You were watching?”

&n
bsp; “You were bragging, like you were adding another notch to your prick. You always want us to notice.”

  Blas gave an extended belch. “I’m a stud with a ten inch dick. What can I say?”

  I glanced at his crotch. I didn’t notice a prominent bulge in his baggy shorts. I hadn’t noticed anything unusual in the locker room. Then again he could have been a grower.

  “So what was the fight about?” I asked.

  Curry said, “It was the women who started it. Tyler Skeen had just put on a porn tape. Jamie McDaniels’ wife got pissed. She told Jamie she wanted to leave. He tried to calm her down. A couple of the women told her not to be such a stick-in-the-mud. Johnston’s wife joined in. Then Judy from the Pitstop suggested they both leave. She told them they were uptight suburban bitches, and they had to learn how to party.”

  “So what happened?” Blas asked.

  “Hair pulling and bitch slapping for a couple seconds was pretty much it. The husbands left with their wives. I didn’t pay much attention after that. I was busy with Judy. We had other things on our minds.”

  “I missed all that,” Campbell said.

  “Not our fault,” Blas said.

  Talk drifted off into the realms of sexual expertise. I tuned out. I wanted to talk to these women. I told the three of them I’d meet them at the park in a little while to work out. I got McDaniels’ address from Campbell and decided to try to talk to her before heading to the park.

  WEDNESDAY 4:07 P.M.

  Jamie McDaniels was not home. Good. I wanted to talk to his wife without him present. According to Blas, McDaniels’ wife came for occasional weekends and was currently on hand because she’d gotten a week’s vacation. Or maybe she was suspicious that her husband might be cheating on her and was checking up on him.

  Patty McDaniels was a slender woman with a slight abdomen roundness that suggested to my untrained eye that she might be pregnant.

  They were staying in a one-story apartment complex on the other side of downtown from me that might have been new and trendy in the late forties. She recognized me. She said, “Aren’t you the new guy?”

  I nodded.

  “Jamie’s not here.”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  She looked suspicious. “About what?”

  “Tyler Skeen’s condo. I heard some of the women were pretty fed up with what was going on.”

  “Got that right.” Her fury at the activity trumped her suspicion of me.

  “I heard it got pretty raucous at times.”

  “Why do you care?” The suspicion hadn’t been gone long.

  I said, “I heard someone may have tried to murder Skeen. Maybe mixed up his meds. I figured the women would know best who to suspect. The guys seemed to be pretty enamored of the whole scene out there, all the parties and good times.”

  I figured, give flattery a try.

  “You bet we were disgusted.” She held open the door for me.

  She offered me lemonade. I accepted. We sat in the living room of the tiny apartment. A baby slept in a crib next to an end table that featured an unplugged lava lamp. When she was seated, she began, “Jamie said he talked to you. Are you some kind of investigator?”

  “Yes. It might help if you could give me more information about those parties at Skeen’s.”

  “I’m not one of these extremists that’s out to ruin everybody’s good time, but I think people should drink in moderation. Those things were out of hand. Jamie felt he had to go to fit in. These guys have little stability in their lives. They’d rather go out drinking with their friends than stay home.”

  “What was your take on Tyler Skeen?”

  She glared out the picture window at the parking lot. “He was a bad man and a bad influence.” She looked at me. “Do they know what killed him?”

  “They’re waiting for tox screen tests to get back.”

  “I’m glad he’s dead. Yes, I know I shouldn’t be speaking ill of the dead. There were wild parties and wanton women after he got to this town. Jamie is a good guy. A nice quiet man with a focus on his career. That Skeen person was a menace. That’s why I came to town.”

  I followed up on her comment. “To stop your husband?”

  She snapped. “I trust my husband, but someone has to step in to take command.”

  “Any notion on who Skeen’s enemies might have been?”

  “They were all friendly to his face. I mostly talked to Jamie and none of the rest of them.”

  She had no notion about any of the town squabbles. She said, “I just want what is best for my Jamie.” She glanced at the kid in the crib. “And my child.”

  I left.

  WEDNESDAY 4:58 P.M.

  I headed for the park. I stopped at the vendors outside the stadium to get something to eat. As I took a bite of a bratwurst sandwich, I heard shouts at the players’ entrance. While I chewed and munched, I moseyed over to see what was up. Kosta Boone, the security guard, had one hand on the shirt collar and another on the back of the belt of a short guy who was maybe in his early twenties. Boone was hustling him out of the park. The short guy tripped on his own feet, and Boone half dragged him for several yards. Boone wasn’t all that big to begin with, but his quarry was even smaller.

  The guy in hand squawked and complained at the top of his lungs. None of the other hired help came to Boone’s assistance. I walked up to Boone and asked, “Anything wrong?”

  He said, “This is Edwin Hempil. You gotta watch out for him. He’s crazy.” I remembered he was the obsessed fan Murray had mentioned. I thought I recognized him as one of the ones who’d been on the fringe of those welcoming Skeen and his entourage to the park that first day.

  With one hand on Hempil’s collar and one on his belt, Boone shook him. Hempil’s feeble swats didn’t faze the not-very-large teenager. After a few moments of useless to-do, Boone gave him another shake and said, “He’s been warned not to come around here. I found him lurking near the door to the public access to the workout room.”

  I put my hand on Boone’s arm to forestall any more shaking then turned to Hempil and asked, “How’d you get in the gate?”

  “It’s early. There’s no one on the gates. There’s no one watching the fences. It doesn’t take much to climb over one.”

  After about every third sentence Hempil paused, his face scrunched up, his left eye twitched, and his body shook. It passed in less than three seconds. When he was silent, he did not twitch. His voice was an octave above a tenor whine. He was in his early twenties. He had the black glasses, white shirt, and pocket protector of the classic nerd. The tight leather pants on his narrow hips and engineer boots belied the tradition somewhat although they must have made him miserable in the summer heat. He had the greasy hair and the pock-marked face of the villain of a television movie of the week.

  “We don’t want you in here,” Boone said. “You’ve got to leave.”

  “I came in to try and investigate,” Hempil said.

  Boone said, “The police are handling that.”

  Hempil pointed at me. “I know who you are.”

  Boone said, “Mike King’s the new guy on the team.”

  “I’d like to talk to Mr. Hempil,” I said.

  Boone glared at me. “I’m not going to get yelled at again. If someone says anything, I’m going to tell them it’s your fault.”

  I said, “I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “He still can’t come in here.”

  Hempil and I walked to the park across the street.

  “How do you know who I am?” I asked.

  “I looked you up on the Internet. I keep a complete file on all the players. Anybody who’s ever been on the team, their background, playing statistics, families, everything about them.”

  As he spoke, the periodic pauses and twitches continued. I didn’t interrupt what he said or comment on his body movements. “When I looked you up, I found references to you in some news articles as a private eye. They were in a few gay papers. Ar
e you gay?”

  “Yes. Why is that important?”

  “A gay baseball player coming out could be a big deal, but I don’t think that’s what this is all about. Although maybe Knecht is going to try and be the new Branch Rickey. I found your college record. Good, but not major league caliber. No, I think you’re here investigating the murder of Tyler Skeen. Why bother disguising yourself as one of the team? Are you worried you might be found out? I won’t tell. Why didn’t you change your name?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was capable of shutting up or stopping twitching although he was asking some good questions. As for keeping quiet about who I was, near as I could make out, someone had posted the news in neon letters all over Butterfield.

  Hempil continued, “Murray’s gay. Nobody’s supposed to know.”

  I said, “He told me his family and friends know.”

  “A select few. That’s not out.”

  “Are you out?” I asked him.

  “Hey!”

  “Just a question.”

  “A lot of people are afraid of my… condition.” He got a leer on his face. “Their loss. A few aren’t. Their gain.” With his next twitch he gave a violent shake.

  I said, “I can only imagine what misery you’ve been through.”

  “I can’t stand most of these people,” Hempil said. “And I don’t trust any of them. You shouldn’t trust anybody in this town.”

  “Including you?”

  “Including me. They all think I’m crazy. I’m not very stable, but I’m not crazy. I think you should concentrate on members of the team. They make the best suspects. Personally, I think Knecht has cried wolf too many times. Nobody takes him seriously any more. I think everybody took him too seriously to begin with. Everybody in this town takes themselves very seriously. Who shot at you last night? Was it the killer? Why try and kill you? Were you close to the killer? It must have been someone you talked to. Don’t trust Rotella.”

  “Why not?” I thought Hempil might be having a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, and I wasn’t sure he was having a friendly relationship with reality, but he was talking, and he was a local. On a case you sifted everybody’s version of the world, and sometimes you came out with the truth.