Dying to Play

by Mark Zubro

  Jerry muttered, “Both?”

  I ignored his crack.

  “So we don’t know how or why,” Duncan said. “How about, what’s their goal? Who benefits?”

  “With Skeen dead the team saves millions.”

  We looked at each other. None of us piped up and said that was implausible. I continued, “We need to find out who the hell was moving the corpse.”

  “Whoever wanted to implicate you,” Jerry said.

  “Which could be everybody,” Georgia opined. “And this Old Charlie Hopper and his drugs and Skeen’s death. It just seems awfully handy to have a secret drug maker and a death by a confusion of meds.”

  “Are they sure it wasn’t accidental?” Duncan asked.

  “The medical guy was certain, but I’m taking nothing for granted. I’ve got a lot of people to follow up on before the game and then the team begins a road trip tonight. Plus, I’ve got to call Knecht. I’m not sure if he’s going to be my client much longer.”

  “If he’s not, are we still investigating?” Duncan asked.

  “Yes.”

  Georgia asked, “And only one of the hot guys you’ve fucked is dead?”

  “I’ve only had sex with one so far. And they don’t all die.”

  “Not usually,” Georgia conceded.

  Jerry asked, “Wasn’t there that guy in Australia, somewhere around Ayers Rock who…”

  “I never had sex with him, well, only in a Bill Clinton way.” Changing topics I said, “If Knecht still wants me, I’ll be going with the team on the trip. It’s only for the weekend. They, whoever ‘they’ is, should never have made this personal. I just have to figure out who ‘they’ is.”

  “Or are,” Georgia added.

  Jerry said, “Maybe one of us should follow you.”

  “Let’s think about that. Have you gotten anything more on Connor Knecht’s finances?”

  Duncan said, “The financial trail is complex, but I think I have a fairly complete picture. So far he seems to be as rich as he wants people to assume. I’ve found no problems with his companies or investments. The accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland and other tax havens I haven’t been able to examine.”

  Georgia asked, “So, he’s not sabotaging himself to collect insurance?”

  “And committing murder?” Jerry asked.

  “Did the financial meltdown hurt him?” I asked.

  “The rich didn’t get affected much by that,” Duncan said. “And I have no evidence that he was.”

  We finished our meal. Before we left, I called Knecht. In answer to my question he said, “You’re goddamn right you’re still on the case. The world may be against me, but I’ve got money. Lots of it.”

  “The cadaver-looking guy and the orange one in the suit meet with you?”

  “They tried to frighten me. No one threatens me. No one! Get them! Bring them all down.”

  I said, “I’ll keep investigating.”

  THURSDAY 1:37 P.M.

  I wanted to explore Old Charlie Hopper’s place and inspect some of those pole sheds. I drove out with Jerry. On the way we discussed possibilities.

  I said, “Even if he’s making all legal stuff, someone may have found lethal combinations of substances. Czobel had enough drugs in the place he was staying to start a health food store.”

  “Were they from Hopper?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I wondered if Rotella and Hopper had a deal. Hopper didn’t make a secret of what he was doing, so Rotella must know about it. Or maybe Old Charlie was just making and selling snake oil and making a fortune from it. Also quite possible.

  Using the topographical map from Duncan helped us put the whole area in perspective with nearby roads, trails, hills, valleys, swamps, woods. I wanted to leave the car as close as I could to the exact opposite end of the property from the house and farm buildings. We found a road that led in. I slowed as we neared it. There were no other cars around.

  Before I turned in, Jerry tapped my arm then pointed into two large trees near the entrance. “Surveillance cameras.”

  We drove a hundred feet down the road around a curve while Jerry examined the map on his phone. “Try another half mile down this way.”

  I drove ahead. He directed me when to slow. On our right was what might generously be called a bridle path between a field of corn and a field of soybeans. It led to a line of trees about a quarter mile distant.

  Jerry’s eyes searched the countryside. “Nothing electronic I can see.”

  “The whole place isn’t bugged?”

  Jerry shrugged. “They probably have stuff at the regular entrances, major roads. They don’t have a ten foot wall around the property or even a fence with razor wire on top of it. You know how many critters track through this kind of place? They’d be constantly setting off alarms. You can have a million camera monitors for all those square miles, but then you’d need enough people to watch them twenty-four hours a day. They’d need a room larger than the entire ESPN control room to house them all. And even with a wall around the place, for sure birds could get in and set off motion detectors.”

  I was hoping to find evidence of criminal activity, at the least a rural meth lab, or maybe a vast illegal drug making operation. My finding any of that on this huge property might be tough, but I wanted to get a start. Hopper was the most logical drug connection around.

  We followed the road between the fields. The Escort was not happy about the ruts and potholes we traversed. We got to the tree line, which extended to the distance. I went up the path for another quarter mile, where it began to peter out. I managed to turn the car around so it faced out. Every little edge counts when you might be upsetting gun-toting rural drug producers. We plunged into the trees, me to the left, Jerry to the right, and went in the direction the GPS said was the largest pole shed, which was several miles from the car.

  Bugs landed and bit. Butterflies dove and flitted. Trees were interrupted by fields of corn, one of alfalfa. Lots of trees and weeds as well, but I’m not a botanist so I wasn’t sure what kind they were nor did I much care if I didn’t know their specific names.

  I peered into the small sheds I passed, but saw nothing untoward. I eased around every corner with infinite care. I neither saw nor heard any other humans.

  After an hour and a quarter of uneventful stealth, I wound up next to the gigantic pole shed we’d agreed to meet at. I eased my nose around a corner.

  Jerry sat with his back leaning against the shaded wall. He smiled at me and waved me over. I slipped to his side. He said, “Took you long enough.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough to look in the windows on all four sides. Although why they call these things sheds is beyond me.”

  “What do you want to call them?”

  “From their size I’d say pole palaces.”

  “I’ll register your complaint with the Meth Lab Cartel. Did you see a secret drug lab manufacturing substances that would make a drug lord in Colombia envious?”

  “I found cows.”

  “Cows?”

  “Yeah, who knew? A barn in Wisconsin filled with cows.”

  “Cows?” I heard the defeat in my voice. I didn’t bother to correct his usage of the term barn. Let the grammarians and the farmers attack him. “Maybe there’s a secret underground lab.”

  “If there is, we’ll have to get into the barn, which wouldn’t be a big problem, but then we’d have to find it, which, depending on the mood the cows are in, could be a problem. And maybe he has other holdings. Why put your drug lab in the most obvious place? This is just the largest building near the main house. There’s lots of other buildings scattered over lots of square miles.”

  “This is depressing.”

  Jerry said, “I’ll come back tonight after I go over the schematics again with Duncan. We can find out more precisely how much land he has, which are most likely to be the most significant buildings and try and get a look inside them an
d as many others as I can. I can get you a full report.”

  I slapped an insect on my arm. “Bring lots of bug spray.”

  “Did you want to know that a sheriff’s car is parked in front of the house?”

  “You sure it’s the sheriff?”

  “It says sheriff on the side.”

  “The sheriff is in on a scheme with Hopper?”

  “Him or somebody from the department is paying a visit or having afternoon tea? Or it’s a drug deal? Or plotting murder? Figuring out the logistics of toting dead bodies? That’s what you get the big bucks to figure out.”

  We slunk away from the pole shed and melted into the trees. We took opposite sides out as we did in.

  When I spotted the rear of my car, a fullback-size college-age guy appeared from around the side of it. He faced the woods where I’d just emerged. He did the ka-ching thing with a shotgun and pointed it at my mid-section. His blond hair flowed down to his shoulders and gleamed in the sun.

  In a gruff voice, he barked, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Jerry came up behind him, yanked the shotgun out of his hands, thumped him with it on the side of the head. The guy collapsed. When I checked him, he was breathing comfortably. I pulled out his wallet and wrote down his ID information.

  “He’ll be okay?” I asked as we got ready to leave him.

  “He’ll wake up in about half an hour with a headache.”

  The Escort, with us in it, rumbled away.

  Most of the afternoon had been spent in the wilds of a placid farm. It was time to go to the park.

  THURSDAY 4:49 P.M.

  It was nearly five when I met Donny Campbell at the park for our workout. He pulled me into a corner of the locker room. No one else was around at the moment.

  “Everybody on the team has been warned by the representatives from the major leagues not to talk to you and that talking to you will cause them to never get a chance at the majors. Connor Knecht has put out a text message to everyone on the team that if they don’t cooperate with you, they will be off the team. Everybody’s upset. Their lives and their futures are at stake.”

  “Unless they’re the killer, they have nothing to fear from me.”

  “I know that. They don’t.”

  “I understand.”

  During the game, I sat on the bench. I tried not to be bored. I wanted to be asking questions and getting answers. Donny sat next to me and stayed close, his leg usually touching mine.

  We lost ten to one. Saying we were distracted was an understatement.

  THURSDAY 10:00 P.M.

  Duncan had found a bed and breakfast, perhaps the only one in town. Called Home at Last, he’d rented out the whole place, which consisted of five rooms. We each had our own room and were using the fifth as a command center.

  My room had two major improvements. One was that the air-conditioning worked. The other was that Duncan’s partner Andy had brought Caesar up with him. The dog greeted me with wagging tail and cheerful licks.

  I chatted with the owners, a gay couple who moved from Arizona in the past year. They expressed no knowledge of or interest in the town’s intrigues.

  In the command center Duncan had his laptop set up on a small desk. I gave him the college kid’s ID from that afternoon. Jerry had a series of maps of Hopper’s property spread out in front of him. He had a beer in one hand. A tape-delayed wrestling tournament played on the room’s television with the sound muted. Caesar sat at my feet closest to the air-conditioner. He’s no fool.

  Georgia breezed in just as I was going over what Duncan had found on the Internet about the personnel connected with the league and the big team. None matched my ersatz kidnappers. The kid in the woods was just that, a kid in the woods. No criminal record, was enrolled at the University, nothing nefarious about him.

  The three of them had attended the game that night.

  Georgia still wore her Salvation-Army-severe garb. She set down her black cracked alligator purse, kicked off her black-sensible shoes, threw her black short cut wig on the bed and said, “I got nothing. These people are frightened out of their minds. Charming as I know how to be did not cause them to brim over with secrets.” She dumped the contents of her purse onto an antique table. “These are samples of the wonder drugs readily available in town.”

  I said, “Let’s send all those out to be tested by a real lab.”

  Duncan said, “I’ll take care of it. We’re all staying here until you get back?”

  “Yes. We’ll be back from the road trip Monday morning. I want you three to be careful, stay out of the way of Rotella, and try and find out what has got this town so screwed up. Jerry’s going to reconnoiter out on Hopper’s spread.”

  THURSDAY 11:02 P.M.

  I threw my stuff together and headed for the park. We had a twelve hour bus ride scheduled to Bismarck, North Dakota. It was a group of tired and mostly silent athletes who met outside the park at eleven.

  Connor Knecht caught me in the poorly lit parking lot as the bus rumbled nearby. He said, “Watch yourself and watch my team. I’m worried.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m counting on you to protect them.”

  “I’ll do everything I can.”

  The best I can say about the bus is that it wasn’t a regulation school-use-yellow monstrosity. It wasn’t much above that level either. The seats were tattered. I saw places where the fabric, which seemed to be a cross between vinyl and wool, had been sewn together. At least the thing had seat belts, something regular school buses did not have.

  The overhead racks didn’t even have straps to keep equipment from falling all over. The guys had enough crap to cram it full so few things could move anyway. The pillows were little more than padded hand towels, standard airline issue. For a guy with a brand new stadium, Knecht sure cut a hell of a lot of corners. Then again, the taxpayers had footed the bill for the stadium. This was coming out of his own pocket and profits.

  Henry, the bus driver, tended to crack stupid jokes. He was a local college kid earning part-time money. While he drove the bus, he kept ear buds on and listened to music from his phone. I knew that wasn’t legal. Every pebble or dip in the road caused the vehicle to shimmy and jump.

  Donny Campbell had saved me a seat next to him about ten rows behind the driver. We talked for quite a while. I found out he grew up just outside Fresno, California. He enjoyed the same movies I did, had read some of the same books. He kept his leg pressed against mine.

  In the back several of the guys played poker. Some had earphones stuck in their ears.

  Somewhere around Rochester I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was still dark. I glanced at Donny. He was asleep. The movement of the bus felt odd. I thought we were skidding. Seconds later I knew we were. I threw one arm across Campbell’s chest. Then we were both shaking and the bus began to skid across the interstate. We flew off the road and hurtled down an embankment. The bus began to roll over.

  FRIDAY 2:27 A.M.

  I was conscious the entire time. It was a good thing I’d fastened my seat belt. The world began spinning. I threw my other arm over my face and clamped my teeth shut. Objects hurtled past my head. Gravity and motion tugged my body in about a million directions. My arm lost contact with Campbell. I couldn’t see what was happening to him.

  I wrapped both my arms around my head and tried bracing myself with my feet. The bracing did no good as the bus rolled over. Centrifugal force being what it is, only my seat belt kept me from flying aimlessly about the cabin. Others were not so lucky. Several bodies hurtled into mine. I got a shoe to the side of my head.

  I was upside down for several seconds as the bus did a three hundred sixty degree roll. I heard shouts and screams. The bus came to rest on the side opposite the driver. It slid another fifty feet on that side. I was traveling sideways to the ground. When the bus came to a rest, I checked myself all over. Nothing seemed broken. I reached over to touch Donny. He was unconscious.

  I undid my seatb
elt, crawled over Donny, and wound up standing on the window. I got my cell phone out. Still fully charged and this time within somebody’s service region. I got an operator who called emergency personnel. Near me I could see four or five other guys standing as I was. There were only a few dim emergency lights on. Moans and cries split the night.

  Including coaches, equipment guys, trainers and the team, there must have been over forty of us on the bus when it crashed. Many of the windows were broken. My feet slipped in other people’s blood. I trod on broken glass and metal. Even without the dead weight of all the unconscious guys blocking the way, that many people trying to stand upright at once or crawl or moaning in agony on the ninety-degree-turned bus caused chaos. Add that to the heaps of scattered equipment, and it was hard to move. Outside, the bus headlights offered a dim vision of knee-high corn stretching into the blackness. In the far distance I thought I saw moving headlights.

  Campbell wasn’t bleeding. I touched him gently. He didn’t awaken.

  I opened the emergency door on the side of the bus which was now above my head.

  I heard someone banging on the back door from the inside. It took precious moments to unhitch the broken door handle. They managed to create an opening about three inches wide. Not enough to get through.

  Most of the rest of us conscious ones began moving to the unconscious ones to see if we could be of any help. A few guys sat and stared. Several screamed. Others whimpered. One called out for his mom.

  If possible, it would be better not to move the injured until emergency personnel arrived to make accurate observations, but I could smell gasoline although I couldn’t see it. I saw a flicker of flame through windows nearest the right rear tires. A conflagration could kill all of us.

  Leaving anyone inside the bus didn’t make a lot of sense. There was a crush trying to get out the too-small opening in the back. The front exit was blocked because the bus had landed on that side. The front of the bus had crunched in. The metal was twisted and mashed together making exit from either of those windows impossible.