Homicide in High Heels (11 page)

We quickly gave the guard our names and
slipped into the cool subterranean part of the stadium.

"So where are the locker rooms?" Dana asked,
our heels click-clacking on the polished floors.

"Your guess is as good as mine," I replied.
"This place is a maze."

One that, as it turned out, branched off
into locker rooms almost 180 degrees from our starting point. By
the time we reached the pair of white doors labeled "Players'
Lockers," my pale pink tank was sticking to my back despite the air
conditioning, and my poor feet were regretting my decision to pair
my white capris with two-inch leather pumps.

"Wait. Here," I panted. "I need. A
lookout."

"Maddie, you need to come to the gym with me
more often," Dana chided. I noticed that despite the fact she was
dressed in leather pants and stilettos, she had barely broken a
sweat during our indoor hike.

I shook my head. "Just let me know if anyone
is coming," I told her. Then I quickly slipped into the locker
room, leaning against the doors to catch my breath as I got my
bearings.

The term "locker" was deceiving, as this
place bore no resemblance whatsoever to those rooms full of metal
lockers in high school. Instead, it was more like a room full of
open closets lining the walls. Each closet was painted in the
team's signature orange and blue colors and held a wooden rack,
where pressed uniforms hung, shelves for shoes and cleats, and a
cupboard for personal items.

I walked to the first locker. Above it a
name plaque was affixed reading "Zander." The name was vaguely
familiar to me. I gingerly tugged on the door to the cupboard,
which swung open easily. While they were lockers it appeared they
weren't actually
locked
. Inside was a variety of first aid
tapes and creams and a sheaf of papers that looked like coach's
notes. Nothing particularly interesting or incriminating.

Then again, Zander wasn't on my immediate
suspect list.

I quickly moved down the row until I came to
on labeled "Ratski."

I glanced over my shoulder at the doors.
While I was alone for the moment, I had no idea how long that would
last. Kendra had said the team was taking another practice day to
prep for the doubleheader opening their series against the Tigers
tomorrow. Which meant that at any minute some player might need to
change his shoes or put on more deodorant or do whatever players
did in locker rooms.

Which meant I had to hurry.

I tugged on Ratski's cupboard door and
immediately regretted it. Something reeked to high heaven. If I had
to guess, week-old socks. Eww. I gingerly poked around, not really
wanting to encounter anything too personal of Ratski's. If I
touched a jock strap, I was so leaving this evidence thing to
Laurel and Hardy.

Unfortunately, I found much the same as I
had in the other locker—a variety of muscle creams, first-aid
braces, and some papers. Nothing that screamed "illegal drugs." No
suspicious prescription bottles, no contraband baggies. No smoking
gun.

Bummer. Call me crazy, but I'd really wanted
Ratski to be the bad guy.

I looked down at the collection of papers
grabbing one at random and quickly scanning it. Lots of notes in
shorthand, some diagrams. If I had to guess, notes for the field. I
put it back, shuffling through the stack.

And an envelope fell out.

I bent down to pick it up, glancing at the
door as I did. Still closed. For now.

The envelope was unsealed, and I quickly
slipped my hand inside, pulling out a single sheet of lined binder
paper.

Being away from you while you're on the road
is pure torture. I can't wait for you to get home so I can be with
you again.

I felt my eyebrows rise. While I'd been
hoping for a letter of blackmail from Lacey, this looked more like
a love letter. I couldn't help myself. I had to read a little bit
more. Ratski had struck me as the last type of guy to inspire love
letters from his wife. Maybe I'd misjudged him.

Nobody here understands me like you do,
schmoopy. I can't wait to see you again. All my love
.

Schmoopy? I stifled a giggle.

Just as I heard a sound from the
doorway.

"What are you doing here?" came a low,
gravelly voice I knew all too well.

Ratski.

I quickly ducked behind a row of chairs in
the center of the room.

"Oh, uh, well, I was just…waiting for a
friend…" I heard Dana stalling at the door.

I quickly looked around for any place to
hide. Unfortunately, the room was a wide open rectangle, offering
precious few pieces of furniture to hide behind.

"Who are you?" I heard Ratski bark at
Dana.

"Me? Oh, just a baseball fan. A big, big
fan."

"Really?" I heard Ratski's voice soften.
"Well, you're in luck, because
I'm
a fan of pretty baseball
fans like you."

Gag.

While Dana was doing a bang-up job of
giggling like Ratski's line had scored points with her, I knew she
couldn't hold him forever. I scanned the room for another way out
and spotted a door at the far wall.

"Hey, I recognize you," Ratski said.

I froze.

"You're that actress, right? The one who
does the lawyer show?"

I let out a breath. Right. Of course he
recognized her. As the star of
Lady Justice
, Dana's face was
plastered all over the billboards gracing the 5 during sweeps
week.

"You got me," Dana said. "But I am really
such a fan of
yours
."

She was laying it on thick. Luckily, Ratski
was eating it up.

"Hey, you think maybe I can get an
autograph?" I heard Dana ask.

"I think maybe that can be arranged," he
answered.

Dana did another flirtatious giggle.

"I've got a pen inside," I heard Ratski
say.

Uh-oh.

I jumped up from behind the chairs and made
a dash for the far door. I heard Dana mumbling something else,
trying to keep Ratski at bay, but I knew she couldn't hold him
forever. Luckily, the gods of breaking and entering were with me
because as my hand grabbed the doorknob, it turned easily. I
quickly pushed it open, slipping into a room that looked like a
smaller version of the one I'd just been in.

"In the locker room?" I heard Dana say,
unfortunately much closer. "Wait, is it okay for a woman to be in
here?"

"Honey, I've had lots of women in here,"
Ratski crooned back, his footsteps echoing just on the other side
of the door.

I quickly scanned the room. In the corner I
spotted what looked like part of a Charlie Chaplin hat. I must be
in the mascots' changing room. I opened one of the lockers, and
sure enough there was the Marilyn Monroe outfit.

"Look, dollface, I gotta get changed. But,
you can stick around for the show if you like," I heard Ratski
say.

Eww. Unless I wanted to subject Dana to
Ratski au-natural, we had to get out fast. I grabbed Marilyn's
cheap polyester replica of her famous seven-year itch dress and
threw it on over my tank-top and capris. Then I plunked the heavy
foam head on top of my own, blinking to adjust my eyes so I could
see out of the mesh hole that was Marilyn's mouth.

"Uh, wow, look at the time. I gotta go," I
heard Dana say on the other side of the door.

"What's your rush, doll?"

It was now or never. I opened the door and
quickly wobbled my way into the players' locker room, bouncing off
the doorframe a little as I did. Marilyn's head must've weighed
fifty pounds, easy.

"Hey, watch it," Ratski shouted as I tipped
toward him. I noticed his right eye still bore a purple-ish ring
around, courtesy of my husband.

"Sorry," I mumbled. Then I grabbed Dana by
the arm. "Come on, you're late for practice," I told her, hoping
she played along.

"Practice?" Dana asked

"You know, for the celebrity halftime
show."

Dana blinked at me. "Uh…seventh inning
stretch?"

"Yeah that's what I meant," I said, feeling
Ratski's eyes on my back. "Come on, let's go." I shoved her ahead
of me, almost knocking her over with my giant head as I waddled
toward the door.

We made it into the hallway without
incident, and several wrong turns and collisions with the corridor
walls later, we finally made our way to a door marked "West Parking
Lot Exit." I ditched the costume in an empty office, and we made a
break for it back into the warm sunshine.

Unfortunately as I blinked against the
natural light, I realized we'd lost our way in the underground
maze.

"Crap," I said scanning the vast empty
parking lot on the west side of the stadium.

"I don't see our car," Dana stated.

"Yeah, that would be in the east lot."

* * *

After a half-mile hike back to the car, both
Dana and I were sweating and panting. We both agreed that our first
order of business was cold drinks. We drove to the nearest Jamba
Juice—me ordering a Peach Pleasure with frozen yogurt on the side,
and Dana ordering a fresh squeezed orange juice with a wheatgrass
shot on the side.

"You were so right about Ratski, Mads," Dana
told me sipping her OJ across from me in the blessed air
conditioning of the Jamba bar. "He is a total pig. Please tell me
you got something on him?"

I shook my head. "Sorry. Nothing in his
locker screamed drug use. The only thing I found was a love letter
from his wife which was interesting but hardly a smoking gun.

Dana scrunched up her nose. "Poor Beth. Here
she's writing him love letters, and he's asking me out."

I raised an eyebrow. "He asked you out?"

"Oh yeah." She nodded. "He slipped me his
card and said his wife has a book club meeting tonight, so if I met
him for dinner he'd make me his 'MVP' all night long." Dana made a
gagging motion with her index finger then shook off invisible
Ratski cooties.

I bit my lip, that teeny tiny little light
bulb going off in the back of my head again. "What would I have to
do to persuade you to keep that date?"

Dana shot me a horrified look. "Maddie, what
would I tell Ricky?"

Ricky Montgomery was Dana's fiancé, who,
like her, was an actor. Only Ricky had already achieved movie star
status and was currently shooting an action movie starring as a
Marvel comic book character. And the only thing hotter than Ricky's
shirtless pecs on a thirty-foot tall movie screen was his jealous
temper where Dana was concerned.

I shook my head. "I'm not saying you should
date
date him. But it could be a great way to pump him for
information about whether or not he's using."

Dana sighed. "I guess. But are we sure that
Ratski is even the one who killed Lacey? I mean, if these
performance enhancers are so easy to get, it could be any one of
the players?"

I slurped at my Jamba, sucking extra hard to
get a large piece of peach up the straw. "Okay, let's play devil's
advocate for a moment and say that Lacey was killed by someone
else."

"Someone she was blackmailing over
something," Dana added before pounding back her wheatgrass shot.
Amazingly she didn't even shudder.

"How about this," I started. "What if Lacey
found out one of the other players was using PEDs and threatened to
go public with that info."

Dana nodded. "That would be some dirty
laundry you wouldn't want to air on network television."

"It's also great blackmail fodder."

"Okay, so how would Lacey find out?" Dana
asked.

I pursed my lips together. "Through
Bucky?"

"I don't know," Dana said. "It seems like
those guys are all pretty tight. I can't imagine him sharing that
kind of pillow talk."

"Well maybe it wasn't
pillow
talk
that got her the information. More like
girl
talk."

Dana raised an eyebrow. "You think one of
the wives told Lacey her husband was doping?"

"Not necessarily. But Lacey worked for Liz,
and she was at a lot of the same events as the wives. It's possible
she overheard them talking about it."

Dana nodded. She looked down at her watch.
"I've got an hour before I have to be on set. Plenty of time to
catch up on some girl talk of our own."

* * *

While
Baseball Wives
was a "reality"
TV show, Dana found out through a few well-placed calls that they
were actually shooting on the Sunset Studios lot today. According
to her agent's assistant's assistant who was dating a PA on the
show, several of the Baseball Wives favorite haunts were actually
located inside studio walls for convenience purposes. Kendra's
elegantly furnished parlor where she hosted intimate get-togethers,
which often turned into knock-down, drag-out cat fights, was
actually a re-purposed sitcom set. The gourmet kitchen where Beth
was known to mix up the girls' night cocktails, famous for
loosening the ladies' lips, did double duty as a celebrity cooking
show set. And today the wives were on the set of Liz's Bellissima
boutique…only this version was not on Melrose. Apparently filming
in the actual location required such a number of permits, not to
mention extra security and local police efforts to control curious
tourists, that it had been more cost effective for the producers to
build an exact replica of the boutique within the studio walls.

After Dana showed her credentials at the
guardhouse, we swapped out my minivan for a golf cart—the studio
lot's preferred means of conveyance. We quickly made our way to
Studio 4B, home of Bellissima 2, and slipped in the warehouse
doors, unnoticed among the myriad of sound guys, PAs, wardrobe
consultants, and makeup artists rushing around like an underpaid
yet fabulously dressed army. In the center of the commotion was Liz
DeCicco, being simultaneously powdered by a makeup artist, sprayed
by a hairstylist, and miked by a sound guy.