by E. C. Bell
I nearly slammed the phone down before she had a chance to answer. But I didn’t. That would have been rude, and the last thing a receptionist could be was rude. Especially to a cop who took as much of an interest in my life as Sergeant Worth did.
“Marie.” She sounded tired, but then she always sounded tired. “How did ball go last night? What do you think of Greg, the coach? Nice guy, huh?”
“Hi,” I replied, and nearly snorted unamused laughter when I noticed that my voice now sounded as tired as hers did—even though I’d had a pretty good night’s sleep. Over three hours, and that hadn’t happened in a long while, if I was going to be honest. “The game was good. Good. And Greg seems nice. So do the girls on the team.”
“How did you do?”
I frowned. “How did I do what?”
“In the game,” Sergeant Worth said. A hint of frustration etched her words in acid. “How did you do?”
“Oh!” I said, and regrouped. “It went fine. Just fine.”
There was a small expectant pause from Worth’s end and when she spoke irritation fought impatience in her voice. “What position did you play?”
“Right field.”
“And?”
“I never caught one ball,” I said. Might as well be honest. “Not even one.”
“Oh well,” Worth said. “You’ll catch on. It’s like—”
“Riding a bike,” I said. “Yeah. It’s been mentioned.”
“Did you get on base?”
The batting part of the game had actually gone quite well for me, so I told her about the two balls I’d hit, and how I’d even managed to get to first base once.
“That’s wonderful!” she said, sounding like I’d cured cancer or something. “I knew you’d fit in.”
Now, I didn’t know if I’d call what I’d done the evening before fitting in, but I thanked her for her almost-compliment anyway. “Even James had a good time,” I said. “And he made a friend. One of the dads. Or a grandad or something. He looked pretty old, anyhow.”
“Ah, they’ll all seem old to you two,” Worth said. “You young pups.”
I didn’t respond. I was pretty sure she was only ten years older than us, but whatever. She acted like she was ready for retirement, so maybe James and I did seem like young pups to her.
“The guy’s name is Andy something,” I said. “He said he knew you.”
“Oh.” She stopped for a moment, obviously thinking. “Probably Andy Westwood. He’s a bit of a pain in the ass, but nice enough, I guess.” She was silent a moment more, and I wondered if there was something James and I needed to know about Andy Westwood.
“He shows up for most of the games,” she continued. “His daughter used to play for the Blues, I think. But not anymore.”
“But he’s okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine.” She chuckled, shortly. “Don’t worry. James can handle someone like Andy Westwood.”
“Good,” I said. “And thanks for finding me a team to play for. I had a good time.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “I thought about telling Reg Meyers to give you a call—he’s the manager for the River Rats, a Division Three team—but you seemed too competitive for Div Three—”
“What do you mean?”
“Division Three is more like a beer league. Have a few laughs, smack the ball around, but no real competition in any of the teams. Not like Division One.”
“Division One?” I asked. Why did it feel like she was speaking a completely different language?
“Yeah. Jolene plays Division One,” Sergeant Worth said. “If you all do well enough, you could even go to Nationals. Greg must have told you. He loves going to Nationals. I think they’re in—”
“What?” Now that her words had turned into English, I couldn’t believe what she was saying. A beer league sounded perfect. “Why didn’t you tell me about the River Rats before I committed to Jolene?” I asked.
She stopped talking for a second. “Don’t you want to go to Nationals?” she finally asked. She sounded surprised.
“It isn’t about Nationals,” I replied. “I’m not that good. I’d probably do better in a lower division. You know?”
“That’s not what James told me,” she said.
“Why would James have an opinion about where I should play?” I asked, rather snippily.
“Well, he said he talked to your dad when you two were in Fort McMurray, and your dad said you were good. Really good. So, I thought that Div One would be better for you.” She fell silent, as though waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t, she spoke again, but her voice sounded wary, like she’d finally realized that perhaps there was a problem. “You’re okay with Jolene, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
“Good,” she said. As she nattered on, she acted like I wasn’t upset—which probably showed just how good my receptionist skills were. I didn’t give a thing away as I did a mini freak out about the fact that not only had I inadvertently committed to a Division One team, but I’d already played against a Division One team. Specifically, against a Division One pitcher.
I still had nightmares about the last Division One pitcher I’d watched back when I was twelve and Dad had taken me to a women’s softball tournament in Fort McMurray.
“We’re going to see the best of the best here,” he’d said, leading me by the hand to a softball diamond with two teams already playing. The bleachers were packed, as were the fences along both sides of the diamond. But Dad managed to push us both through the throng so that we were sitting right behind home plate. And I got to watch Shelley Ness.
I came away from that game terrified. That woman could throw harder than most men, and the batter she hit with an errant pitch lost a couple of teeth and bled all over home plate as Dad whispered in my ear that he believed Shelley had done it on purpose.
“She doesn’t make mistakes like that,” he said.
For weeks my nightmares had my teeth spraying everywhere as a pitcher laughed like some kind of a ghoul.
Luckily, the pitchers I’d faced when I played hadn’t been able to throw that hard, or that accurately, so I’d grown less afraid of them. That was why I’d stuck it out for three years, when I’d played the first time. But here I was in Division One, playing against pitchers just like Shelley Ness. For real this time.
“Maybe you can give me the name of that other coach,” I said, riding roughshod over her words. “The coach for the River Rats.”
“Why?” Sergeant Worth’s voice grew wary. “I thought you said everything went well—”
“Well, yeah, it went fine, but I bet Greg’ll try to find better players,” I blathered. “You know, so they’d have a chance at Nationals or whatever. I don’t want to sit on the bench. Maybe the beer league would be better for me.”
“Oh Marie, don’t worry so much,” Sergeant Worth laughed, her voice back to just sounding tired. “If you hit Rachel Wellington’s pitching, you can hit just about anybody. Except for the Blues pitcher, of course.” She laughed, and it sounded real, like she wasn’t taunting me. “I heard that Miriam Kendel is back. Nobody can hit her.”
“Oh.” A faint vision of spraying blood and teeth flashed before me, and I felt sick. “Well, that’s okay then.”
“Yeah. It’ll all be fine. And if you want to learn how to play the game for real, talk to Greg. He’s always willing to give players a couple hours of his time for a practice. He knows his stuff.”
“Oh. Maybe I will.” I waited a moment, but she didn’t say anything. “Do you want to speak to James?” I finally asked.
“No,” she replied. “I was just calling to find out how things went for you last night.”
“Oh.”
“Because, well, I did set you up with the team, now didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” I muttered. Wondered what her game was, and then I thought about the dead girl at second base. I needed to find out more about her.
“Who would I talk to about
a missing woman?” I asked.
“A missing woman?” Sergeant Worth’s voice snapped to attention, and I imagined her sitting ramrod straight and staring at the phone like she could see into my soul or something. “Why? Did James pick up a case?”
I thought about telling her the truth for about a microsecond, and then regained my sanity. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Just wanted to check and make sure that the parents called the police, and you know, reported her missing, before we start beating the bushes.”
“Oh,” Sergeant Worth said. “A missing person case. Those sometimes don’t turn out so well, you know. They could be dead. Or not want to be found.”
I thought about the girl on the softball diamond. Maybe Sergeant Worth was right. “I think James believes it’s a good case,” I said. “Who do I speak to?”
“Call Missing Persons. Here’s the number.” She listed it off, and I wrote it on the back of a handy envelope. All right, so I wasn’t the perfect receptionist with a pad of paper always at the ready. But at least I had the number of someone who worked in Missing Persons.
Now all I had to do was call and see if anyone there would let me look at the records. All of them. Without wanting to check with the good Sergeant to make sure my research was on the up and up.
“Thanks,” I said, staring at the number and wishing she’d end the call. “This should help a lot.”
“Glad of it,” she said. “I better let you go. Sounds like you’re busy.”
I looked at my mostly clean desk and shrugged. A teeny white lie wouldn’t hurt. “Yeah,” I said. “Worked off my feet, ha ha.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
I frowned. “Next Tuesday?”
“Yeah,” she said, and laughed. “We play against each other.”
Fabulous.
“See you then,” I said.
But as I hung up the phone, I seriously considered taking next Tuesday off. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was see Sergeant Worth recreationally.
Cops, I thought as I punched the number for the EPS missing persons department into my phone. They can be a pain in the ass.
THE CONVERSATION WITH Missing Persons didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped it would. I guess that me wanting to see all the files from 1970 to 1999 was a bigger deal than I thought.
True, the EPS dealt with nearly 1500 missing persons files a year, but still. I thought that going back a few years would make it easier.
“Check our website,” I was told. “We have some of the history up. You might get lucky.”
I went to the website. I knew I wouldn’t get lucky, because I never got lucky. But I got lucky. There she was. Simple as that.
Her name was Karen Dubinsky and she was nineteen years old when she dropped off the face of the earth. She had been missing since April 14, 1974.
1974. That explained the clunky sandals, the peasant shirt, and the godawful skirt. I guessed that she’d stayed on the “hippie” side of things, as opposed to the disco rage that seemed to have swept the entire world around that time.
I glanced at the rest of the short article but there wasn’t much to go on. She’d disappeared, her case was still considered open, and if anyone had any information please call.
Karen stared out from the school photograph that had been used on the website. She wasn’t smiling. Just staring, as though waiting for something—anything—to happen. Her hair was shorter than it had been when I saw her, but it was straight, with the part dead centre on her head, same as she’d worn it at the diamond. She looked like she was trying to emulate the chick from the ancient TV show, Mod Squad, but she wasn’t pulling it off. Not really. She just looked average. Like someone no one would look at twice. But she did look like she’d lost weight since the photo was taken—quite a bit of weight—and she was far from fat in the school photo.
She looked like she was wasting away before she disappeared.
I wondered if she’d been sick. Wondered if that was why she died. I scoffed and clicked off the computer. Humans didn’t go out into the woods to die. Animals did that. Humans ended up in the hospital, surrounded by their family. So, she probably had not been sick. Something else had been eating away at her.
I wondered what it was.
“HEY, YOU READY to go?”
James burst into the reception area of the Jimmy Lavall Detective Agency just after four, looking like he’d been to hell and back. His shirt sleeve was ripped at the shoulder, and I saw a few drops of blood on his cheek.
“What happened?” I gasped. I threw open the topmost drawer of my desk where I kept the first aid kit. I was always surprised at how many times we’d had to use that kit since I took the first aid course a few months before. I had the feeling other PIs didn’t need as many band aids and finger splints as we seemed to.
“Oh, nothing,” James said. “Mr. Comox decided to take umbrage with the fact that I was photographing him with his girlfriend as they left the motel.”
“How did he even know you were taking photos?”
“I got out. To stretch my legs, you know. And then there he was, with the girl on his arm, laughing his ass off on his way out of the motel room. So—” James shrugged. “I snapped a couple of shots. And he saw me.”
“You didn’t hit him, did you?” I asked. We didn’t need an assault charge now that the agency was actually bringing in some cash.
“No,” James said. He touched the ripped shoulder of his shirt, sighed, unbuttoned it, and pulled it off. I noticed a bruise starting to form on his ribs, which took away a bit of my pleasure at seeing him half-undressed. Not all of the pleasure, of course. But enough. “He was trying to get the camera away from me. That’s all.”
“But you saved the camera, right? Please tell me you saved the camera. Those things are so expensive.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Couldn’t have him wrecking our equipment, now could I?”
He walked to the closet door next to his office and opened it. Pulled a shirt off the hanger, and quickly dressed. I watched his face to see if he flinched in pain as he pulled on the shirt but saw nothing.
Maybe he was telling the truth about not being too badly hurt.
“And you got the money shot,” I said. “Right?”
“Pretty close,” he said. “Yeah.”
We smiled at each other. Closing a case was seriously satisfying even if he did get a bit beat up to do it.
“So, let’s go get you some cleats,” he said. “To celebrate.”
For a second I thought about saying no. I could finish invoicing and writing up the report for the case. But then I thought, what the hell. The paperwork could wait until the next day and shopping seemed like a great way to celebrate a win.
Even if it was for cleats.
I’D NEVER BEEN to United Cycle before, which wasn’t surprising. The store in the Old Strathcona area of Edmonton was all things sporting, and I was not. However, James knew his way around, and soon I was standing beside him up on the second floor wishing I’d worn heavier socks.
He had three pairs of cleats chosen, and the shoe boxes were sitting on the bench, waiting for me. They all looked the same as far as I was concerned. Spiky running shoes you couldn’t wear anywhere but on a softball diamond. And they were expensive. I pointed to the bottom shelf of the display wall.
“What about those?” I asked. They were half the price and looked like they’d do the job.
“Those are soccer cleats,” James said shortly.
“Oh.” I looked closer and saw that he was right. “Well, crap. Why are softball cleats so expensive?”
“I guess because people will pay,” James laughed. “Now sit down and try them on.”
I tried on the first pair, which was the least expensive of the three. They pinched everywhere but I tried to make them work. But even as I minced about in front of the full-length mirror, trying not to let the metal spikes nailed to the bottom of the shoes dig into the carp
et and trip me up, I knew they weren’t the ones.
“Maybe I can try a size bigger,” I said hopefully. “They aren’t that bad . . . ”
“Try on the other ones first,” James said. “And quit thinking about the price.”
I sighed, heavily, and set the cheap pinchy pair aside. Pulled the next pair out of their box and tried them on. They were better. Much, much, better. They moulded to my feet like they’d been built for me. One spot on the right heel pinched but I figured I could work that out because they were one hundred dollars less than the third pair sitting on the bench beside me.
One hundred dollars.
“These are great,” I said. “Let’s take them.”
“Try those on, first,” James said, pointing at the last pair.
“No,” I said. “These are good enough. Really.”
“Try them on,” James said again. “Or we aren’t leaving.”
Reluctantly, I pulled the second pair off my feet and dropped them back into their box—this last pair was going to have to be something pretty special to beat them.
Of course, they were. They slid on my feet, and I felt like I was coming home. No pinches, no pokes; it felt like my feet were being caressed and massaged by someone who really knew their business, with every step I took.
“Holy crap,” I whispered. “These feel amazing.”
The grin on James’s face let me know that no matter how hard I tried to convince him to get me the second pair, the cleats on my feet were the ones I was taking home.
“Thank you,” I said. “These are wonderful.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m glad to you like them. Now let’s go find you some sweats. And maybe a couple more pairs of socks. And a bat. Would you like your own bat? That purple bat looks a little heavy for you . . .”
I didn’t have to answer him because he’d wandered off down the aisles of sporting goods to find me everything I’d need to play softball for the next hundred years, I was sure.
I TOLD JAMES about figuring out who the dead girl was as he was paying for everything.