Homicide in High Heels (26 page)

I moved on to the cabinets, pulling them
open one by one as the third Giant struck out and our guys came up
to the plate. I was vaguely aware of a couple of our guys coming up
to bat, getting base hits.

"Bucky's up next," Ramirez called over his
shoulder. "It's his first at-bat since the murder."

I had to admit to a little curiosity. I
moved to watch over Ramirez's shoulder as Bucky assumed his batting
stance. The pitcher spit, wiggled his hips, and stared Bucky down
before drilling a ball toward him. Bucky swung and missed, and the
sound of the entire crowd letting out a disappointed breath
reverberated through the sound system speakers.

"Damn," Ramirez muttered under his breath.
"He's gotta do better than that if he wants MVP this season."

I took the seat next to Ramirez as our
server came back with the drinks and wings. Three sips later, Bucky
had struck out.

"Poor guy," I said honestly. "I'm surprised
he was playing at all."

"It's the sports equivalent of the show must
go on," Ramirez said around a healthy bite of chicken wing.

I went back to my rifling through the
cabinets as another player came up to the plate. I opened the first
cupboard and found a variety of different liquor bottles. Most of
my alcoholic knowledge came in the variety of wine and flavored
martinis, but I noticed Scotch, Gin, and Brandy all in fancy
crystal bottles. All probably old and very expensive. I closed the
cabinet back up.

I opened the second one as I heard Ramirez
cheering on the player who apparently had hit a double. I glanced
at the Jumbotron and saw him slide into second base, then stand up
with a large mud streak down the front of his uniform. The crowd
cheered, and another player came up to bat taking his turn to face
the grim pitcher.

I looked through another cupboard. This one
held baseball caps with the Stars insignia on them. Probably
promotional freebies for the Ratskis to give out to their guests.
Promotional T-shirts sat in another, and schedules of the game and
menus like the one our server had brought in the cupboard next to
that. I was beginning to feel like there was nothing here. This
might be Ratski's private box, but there was nothing personal about
it. Clearly this was just a place for business deals to go
down.

"Here comes Ratski," Ramirez said, leaning
forward in his chair.

I walked up behind him to peek at the guy
swinging for the ball, but he wasn't wearing Ratski's number.

"Where?" I asked.

"Over there," Ramirez said, pointing off to
the right. Just to the side of the foul line, I noticed Ratski
jogging toward the field, not from the dugout, but from up a long
narrow stairway that looked like it lead somewhere down below the
action.

"What's down there?" I asked, craning to
see.

"Batting cages. It's where the guys can warm
up before they take the plate," Ramirez told me.

"Does everyone do that?" I asked.

Ramirez shrugged. "Not every player. Some
guys need more warm-up time than others."

"Like Ratski," I mumbled, sinking into the
club chair beside my husband. I sipped at the cold beer as I
watched Ratski walk up to the plate. We had one guy at second. I
glanced up at the scoreboard. Two outs.

Ratski spit on the ground, shuffled his feet
around a little, and nodded toward the pitcher.

The catcher did some complicated hand
signals down by his knees, and the pitcher nodded, squinting his
eyes. He threw his first pitch, and Ratski swung hard enough that
his bat cracked in half. Unfortunately, the ball went foul, flying
up into the stands.

Ramirez moved a little bit farther forward
on his seat. Much more and he'd be kissing the glass.

Ratski got a new bat, some guys came out to
talk to the pitcher on the mound, and the action generally slowed.
I felt myself getting antsy. I knew I was right in the middle of
the hornet's nest, but I couldn't figure out how to poke it.

Ratski came back up to the plate and swung
at the next pitch. This time his bat connected perfectly, and it
sailed far enough into the air that the crowd was on its feet in
anticipation of a home run.

Unfortunately, it bounced off the far wall,
instead, landing on the dirt.

But Ratski had taken off like a shot,
running faster than I would've thought a guy with a beer gut like
his could. He quickly rounded first and second base to make a slide
right into third.

The crowd cheered, the roar deafening. My
husband cheered right along with them. "A sweet RBI! That's what
I'm talking about, Ratski!" Ramirez said clapping. Apparently,
personal feelings had no place in baseball. If Ratski was bringing
the team to a win, Ramirez was happy.

Then it hit me. I looked over at that narrow
staircase to the right of the foul line again. I blinked as I
watched another player come jogging up, bat in hand.

The batting cage the last stop before a
batter hit the field. It was the perfect place to hide a little
pre-game pick-me-up.

I knew it. I knew that the drugs were down
there, and if I could find them, I bet that Ratski's prints would
be all over them.

I looked over at Ramirez. He was completely
engrossed in the game as our new player came up to bat, hoping to
at least get a single to get Ratski in for a two run lead.

"I'm gonna go walk around," I told him.

He nodded as he stared down at the action
below. "Uh-huh."

I made my way out of the box, and took the
escalators down through the Stadium back to the main floor. The
place was buzzing with sports fans in line at the beer stands,
eating hot dogs with relish, onions, ketchup, and mustard, and
purchasing hats, banners and foam fingers at stands scattered all
through the causeway. I tried to get my bearings. The other times
Dana and I had crashed into the private areas of the stadium, we'd
gone through the players' entrance. I knew there must be a way to
get there from the main public floors. I just wasn't sure what it
was.

I walked toward the right side of the
stadium, which is where I had seen the batting cage. I got to about
the point in the main causeway where I thought the batting cages
should be. But how to get down below was a whole other question. I
looked out onto the field. I noticed our guys were there, tossing
baseballs to each other. The inning must have ended. I looked up to
one of the many scoreboards mounted near the ceiling and saw that
Ratski had indeed scored us a run.

A vendor wearing a tray for delivering
frozen lemonade walked past me. Most of his slots were empty, just
a couple of melted drinks sloshing around in the middle. The guy
veered left and went to a spot along the wall painted with a mural
of film strips and palm trees. He pushed on a panel of film strip,
and the wall opened, allowing him to slip inside. Had I not seen
him do it, I never would have noticed the slight door-shaped crack
in the mural.

I did a quick over-both-shoulders to see if
anyone was watching me, but clearly everyone in the vicinity was
engrossed in their own snack runs before the action started up
again on the field. I made my way over to the door and gave it a
shove. It opened as quickly as it had for the lemonade guy, and I
walked through, letting it shut behind me.

I found myself in some sort of utility
hallway. People in the staff uniforms of jeans and Stars T-shirts
passed me in both directions, none of them paying much attention to
me, even though in my sporty pink capris, long sleeved wrap top,
and strappy slingbacks I feared I stood out like a sore thumb. I
wished I had grabbed one of the T-shirts and ball caps from the
private suite before heading down here. So much for my powers of
disguise.

Then I remembered the press pass. It was
still in my purse. I quickly rummaged through and grabbed the
little laminated square identifying me as a member of the
Informer
staff and slipped it around my neck. I might be a
little bit out of place in the service hallway, but at least I
looked like I belonged in the private areas.

My heels click-clacked on the cement floor
as I walked through the throngs of stadium employees. I had no idea
which way the batting cages were, but I hoped I was close. I turned
down a hallway that led to the left, went right a couple more
times, then left again and found myself in what looked like
offices. Wrong turn. I turned around, backed up, and went left,
left, right, right, left…,and pretty soon I had no idea where I
was. I could have been close to the batting cage or I could've been
all the way back to the point I'd started at.

I was about to give up and ask one of the
guys walking by carrying peanuts or cotton candy where the players'
area was, when I spotted one of our mascots—the huge Charlie
Chaplin—wobbling his way down the hall to the right. If he was
going to the field, that must be the direction I wanted to go as
well. I trailed him, trying to look like I
wasn't
trailing
him, and, wonder of wonders, came to a stairway that opened up to
the locker rooms at one side and a corridor that led to the field
down the other.

I took the corridor to the field, and on the
right side, after two more turns, I hit pay-dirt. A small
nondescript doorway opened up on to a squat, cement batting cage.
It wasn't much to look at. A rectangular room below ground, covered
in mesh netting above and Astroturf below. I gingerly stepped
inside, it was empty. With our team on the field, none of our
players should be warming up at the moment.

But I knew my time was limited.

If I was going to find Ratski's stash, I had
to find it now. I quickly scanned the batting cage. Honestly, there
weren't many places to hide something. There was a rack of bats to
one side, a couple bins of balls on the other, a small TV monitor
mounted in the corner displaying the current action on the field,
and the pitching machine itself at the far end.

Ratski had to put the drugs somewhere that
only he would be able to find them. He wouldn't want every other
player who came in to stumble upon them. I quickly scanned through
the balls and the bats and dismissed those. There was nothing out
of the ordinary, and they were way too public.

Behind the pitching machine there was a row
of metal lockers, much like the ones that graced the walls of my
high school. Only these were dingier and more rusted. Utilitarian
but not very pretty. Then again, I didn't think anyone was giving
out Good Housekeeping awards for a nice batting cage.

I gingerly stepped over discarded gloves,
balls, bats, and what I could've sworn was a jockstrap (but I
wasn't going to look at that closely. Ew!). Luckily for me, none of
the lockers seem to be locked. I opened the first and found more of
the random paraphernalia like on the floor. The next one had rolls
of ace bandages and some white powdery stuff that looked a lot like
the resin I'd seen gymnasts use on television.

I moved onto a large cabinet next to the
lockers. It held helmets of all different shapes and sizes. I
quickly picked one up and noticed a name written with a Sharpie on
the inside. "Davis." Each player had his own! I dropped the helmet,
quickly scanning through the others until I finally found one with
the name "Ratski" on it.

I picked it up and turned it over in my
hands. It was thick plastic on the outside and foam padding on the
inside. I ran my fingers over the padding. I was starting to feel
desperation bubble up to my chest as I glanced at the television
monitor. Our guys were still on the field, but I noticed that the
other team had two outs, and their current at-bat player was
tipping foul balls. I didn't know a lot about baseball, but I'd
learned enough in the last few days to know that my seconds were
numbered before one of the Stars players came in here to start
warming up.

I quickly moved my fingers over every
slightly sweaty inch of the helmet…until they encountered a small
bump just along the back rim.

I felt my heart rate pick up, my stomach
fluttering with hope. I gingerly lifted the edge of the foam,
peeling it back just enough to reveal a small, green, condom
wrapper, just like the one Janel had tried to sell me.

I pulled it out with my nails, so as not to
erase any fingerprints that might be lingering on the wrapper. I
held the package up to the light. I'd bet my favorites Via Spigas
this was exactly the same stuff that Janel had given us at the
Glitter Galaxy.

I heard the crack of the bat above me as the
Giants player finally connected with the ball.

The collective groan of the crowd was so
loud that I almost didn't hear the person walking into the cages
behind me.

Almost.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at
attention, and I spun around, ready to hold my press pass in front
of me to anyone who accused me of trespassing.

As it turned out my press pass was not going
to save me.

"Maddie, you just have such a hard time
staying where you're told to, don't you?" Beth Ratski said.

It might have been a flippant conversational
question… had it not been for the gun in her hand, pointed straight
at me.

"Beth?" I asked, hearing the note of
surprise in my own voice. "What are you doing here?"

Beth took a step forward, the gun never
wavering.

"It doesn't matter what I'm doing here,
Maddie," Beth said, her eyes cutting to the green package in my
hands. "It's all about what you're doing here."

"I don't understand," I stammered, taking a
quick step away from her. Though, the truth was there wasn't
anywhere for me to go in the small cage. It was a cinder block
rectangle, hemmed in on all sides except for the exits that Beth
and her shiny little gun were blocking.

But Beth shook her head. "Maddie, the time
for playing dumb has passed."