It was a mugshot of the victim! How did her brother know someone that had a mugshot?
She quickly scanned through the article and found out that Chris Dailey was busted for running an illegal betting ring out of his house on the North Shore of Boston. He had spent five years in prison before getting released for good behavior. After that, he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. She kept searching, but only found a couple of social media sites with his name that she would check later.
She stretched her arms behind her head and tried to wrap her brain around the events of the day. A rumble from her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since early that morning and it was now lunchtime. She grabbed her purse and ran down the hallway to the front desk. Eliza was there standing (or sitting) guard near her mom’s office door.
Eliza jumped up as soon as she saw Madeline approach. “Maddie! What the heck!? Why didn’t you call me when you found the dead guy?” Madeline shushed her with her hands and rolled her eyes.
“They told me not to talk to anyone.” Madeline rolled her eyes. “Anyway, are you in for lunch?” Eliza saw Madeline had her purse and grabbed hers as well. They walked out into the ballpark concourse and headed toward the only open food option during the off season.
Centerfields was located, as the name suggested, in the outfield of the park, just outside the stadium gates. A person could enter the sports bar from either side of the park, and the owners had been family friends for years. They provided great entertainment in the off season, and the rent they paid to the stadium helped the family keep the place afloat in the lean times. Plus, it was the perfect place for a quick lunch when working at the ballpark on a non-game day.
Eliza and Madeline were creatures of habit. They went to their usual booth overlooking the parking lot and ordered their usual meal of cheeseburgers, fries, and diet cokes. They didn’t have to place their orders anymore. Their waitress, Veronica, knew them and put the orders in before they could even sit down. After she placed the two drinks on the table and walked away, Madeline looked around to make sure no one could overhear her.
“Eliza, did you know a Chris Dailey?” If anyone would know who he was, it would be Eliza. Not only the receptionist at the ballpark, she had a way with names and faces that bordered on scary. If a person came to the park once, she’d remember them forever.
“Why? Is that the name of the dead guy?” At Madeline’s nod, Eliza scrunched up her face as if thinking back through her catalog of faces. “Wait! That name does sound familiar. He came in to talk to your brother a few weeks ago about a prospective scouting venture. It was before you started. It was about some college player, I think. He was only around for like fifteen minutes before he stormed out of the office. He didn’t seem too pleased at whatever your brother had to say to him. The guy was sketchy to the extreme, too. Didn’t look like a scout. More like a sleazy guy from a bar or someone who would be on the ponies or something.” She made a gagging motion. “I was definitely not a fan.”
Madeline sat back in the booth as her burger arrived at that moment. After the chaos of the morning, she knew she should eat. She had to keep her strength up to get through this mess.
Madeline realized her initial impression of the dude wasn’t that far off. She combined her impression with what she found online about his criminal history and knew he wasn’t the type of guy her brother should or would be associating with on the regular. She would have to get with Ben later that night to figure out the real story.
She tried changing the subject with Eliza and soon they were gossiping about other people they knew. Anything to take their minds of the murder for a few minutes. Eliza was always entertaining and had Madeline laughing at her observations in no time. It helped alleviate her stress immediately. Of course, she knew that the stress would come right back when they stepped back in the office.
After lunch, they parted ways at her desk and Madeline continued down the hallway to her office. Lunch had only taken an hour, and it looked like the detectives were still shut in her dad’s office talking to Ben. She casually slowed down before getting to her door when she saw her dad’s door swing open.
The two detectives were on either side of her brother and appeared to be walking him towards the front entrance. He caught her eye and gave her a quick, tenuous smile.
He tried to reassure her as he walked by. “Maddie, I have to go down to the station for some more questions. Can you get the paperwork in order for next week’s game?” Ben wasn’t handcuffed, but the detective flanking him on either side seemed serious. At her shocked expression, he smiled again, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back to work tomorrow morning.”
At that, the trio headed down the hall to the front gates of the ballpark. She wondered if he was being arrested. Since she didn’t see any handcuffs, she hoped it was a good sign. Hopefully they just wanted to ask him some questions. She turned as she heard her dad approach.
“Dad, what’s going on? Do we need to close the offices for the rest of the day? What do the police need?” Madeline peppered her dad with as many questions as she could think of. She didn’t notice Davis was in the hallway until he spoke up.
“I spoke with Detective Stephenson before they came in here, and he did mention that your brother is a suspect. They wanted him to go down for questioning, and of course, he’s cooperating. They haven’t arrested him yet, which is a good thing. The lawyer is meeting him at the police station so he should be covered. Chris Dailey was apparently a bad guy so it won’t be hard to find more suspects I would think. Your brother just told the police that the two men had a falling out over a baseball prospect deal.” Davis ran a hand through his hair. “For now, we’ll just act as business as usual. The crime scene people are finishing up on the field and the team should be able to resume access to it tomorrow. But I would recommend the team practice somewhere else for a few days. Is there anywhere else the team can go for practice while we figure things out?” He addressed that final question to her father, who stroked his graying beard in thought.
“I think so. There is a practice field down the street. Nothing fancy, but I’ll talk to Billy this afternoon before the bus gets here to work out the logistics. I’m sure the players will understand.” The team provided players with a shuttle bus from the local T stops and commuter rails, so they didn’t have to drive to every practice. A majority used public transportation, and this just provided them a way to get to the ballpark quickly from the subway stops.
Madeline whipped out a notebook to take a few quick notes on the updated plans. Her father looked at her before turning back into his office. “Maddie, work on getting some sort of family statement together just in case the press start calling. And make sure you get the website announcement about the Opening Day ticket giveaway up and running. I know you were working on it before everything happened.”
Of course, he was thinking about the team. With Opening Day so close, the family couldn’t let a little thing like murder derail the plans for the beginning of the season. She walked back to her desk with a million thoughts in her head about the murder. It’s not that she didn’t trust the police, but she thought she could maybe move things a little quicker by finding out more about the victim. Her brother couldn’t have been the only person to get in a fight with this guy. She settled back behind her laptop and wiggled the mouse. The page on her screen was on the article about Chris Dailey’s arrest. Starting tomorrow, she was going to find out everything she needed to know about that guy.
Chapter Four
The next day, Madeline woke up after a restless sleep. Seeing dead bodies is not something that helps ease a person into peaceful dreamland, that’s for sure. She stretched, reaching her arms behind her head and grabbed her phone. She found about ten text messages from Davis asking her to get to the stadium as soon as possible. All sent before 8:00 a.m., so it must’ve been serious. She quickly hopped into the shower, pulled her hair back into a headband, and dashed to her car.
One benefit from losing her job in the city was the new lack of a commute. Her house was in the town she grew up in and the ballpark was only a five-minute drive away. On nice days, she could even walk to the park if she wanted to, which she rarely did. Exercise was not her favorite activity in the world, so driving it was.
Her parents also ended up building a house near the park which was why they had such easy access to the ballpark as needed. Madeline and her brother grew up near the park and even when she got her job in the city, she bought a house close to the family.
Madeline pulled into a parking space close to the front entrance of the ballpark. She was surprised to see a television van out front. She knew it was a story, but the news seemed to be excessive. She thought at most it would be a newspaper or blog story. It didn’t look like they were filming at that very moment, so Madeline hoped she could rush in without anyone seeing her. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her face, took a hold of her purse and jumped out of the car. She walked as quickly as she could to the front door and was almost there when she heard her name being yelled across the parking lot.
“Madeline Boucher! It’s me, Jennifer Roberts! From high school! Remember!?” A tall, leggy blonde made her way over to Madeline from the news van carrying a microphone, followed by a chubby cameraman in a stained Red Sox T-shirt.
Madeline tried to get into the door pretending she didn’t hear the woman yelling her name. She shook the door, but it was locked and she couldn’t get her keys out of her purse in time. Of course. She plastered a smile on her face and turned around.
“Jennifer, so good to see you.” She cringed at the fake sound of her own voice. This whole thing was not going to be pleasant. “What can I help you with today? Are you here about the exciting plans we have for Opening Day next week?” Madeline smiled, knowing how much she was probably annoying the reporter.
Her camera guy turned towards Madeline even though she still had her hood pulled up over her face. Jennifer shoved the microphone dangerously close to Madeline’s face. “Do you or the Boucher family have any comment regarding the allegations of murder against the prodigal son, Benjamin Boucher?”
Madeline looked shocked and Jennifer repeated the same question twice.
Finally, Madeline blurted out, “No comment!” and turned away from the camera. She heard the door rattle behind her, and an arm reached out and pulled her inside the gates. She found Davis there with a grim look on his face. Jennifer Roberts was still outside yelling questions as he relocked it and led her to the office conference rooms.
“Davis, what’s going on? I thought everything was going to be taken care of yesterday. Why would she need or want a comment from me?” Madeline followed him into the conference room and looked at the assembled group. The whole family was there, minus Ben. Her mother was standing at the window with a wad of tissues in her hand. She was ripping them into tiny pieces as she stared out the window. Her father was at the head of the table with his hands forming a steeple in front of him. The rest of the table included Eliza, Davis, a few managers of the office, and Billy, the team manager.
“Maddie, please take a seat. We have some things to discuss today.” Her father gestured to the chair next to him. She sat down heavily still wondering what was happening. Why wasn’t Ben there?
“As you all know, there was a tragic incident here yesterday at the ballpark. A man was found dead in the visitors’ dugout. After investigating most of the day and night, the police department has ordered us to wait a day or two before opening the visitors’ dugout to players and personnel. They want to make sure they can officially clear the scene first.” He rubbed his hands across his face. “Davis, as security lead, you’ll be the point person with the police. They don’t believe the investigation will impede the schedule of Opening Day events we have, but that’s subject to change obviously. I’m going to hand over the rest of the meeting to you to discuss the rest of the security issues.”
Her father yielded the floor to Davis, who moved to stand in front of the room. “I know this is a hard time right now, but the police have assured me that they would do their best to make sure this investigation would go as smoothly as possible. I know you’re wondering where Ben is this morning. Well, he’s an official person of interest in the investigation, so we have decided to have him stay away from the ballpark for the time being.”
Madeline gasped at the last part of Davis’ speech. Her brother? A suspect in a murder? What in the heck was the world coming to? “There is no way Ben killed anyone. The police are looking in the wrong direction!” She jumped out of her seat and looked at Davis.
Warily, he looked at her and gestured her to sit down. “Maddie, we all know he didn’t do anything wrong, but for now it’s just easier to control the media and the investigation if he stays away from the ballpark. That way there is no semblance of conflict of interest, plus it will ease the distraction leading up to Opening Day. I don’t need to remind you that there will be some media here that day, and if we can keep the spotlight off the murder as much as possible, we have a chance to get out of this situation with very minimal damage.”
Her mom chimed in. “In regards to press, a simple ‘no comment’ should suffice. We’re crafting a statement now that will be released in the next few hours which will be the brunt of our comments on this horrible situation.”
At that, both of her parents got up and left the conference room. As she watched them head down the hallway to her father’s office, she sat in her seat for a few minutes longer, thinking about how everything changed since yesterday afternoon. She knew her brother couldn’t have murdered that guy, even if he was seen fighting with him. Plus, there would be no way her brother would get up that early in the morning to attack that man. If she got to the park around eight in the morning and spotted the victim at eight-thirty, it was way too early. Her brother didn’t usually make it into the ballpark until ten at the earliest. Dailey didn’t look like he’d been dead that long, so she just didn’t believe that her brother could do it. She felt confident in her timeline, even if most of her knowledge came from mystery novels.
She made her way to the office to craft up a statement for her parents to read regarding the murder and investigation. She typed it up, printed it out, and took another look to make sure it sounded good and professional. She hoped it would head off any more questions for the time being.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
It is with great sadness that the Abington Armadillos would like to announce there was a tragic incident here at the field that involved one person being killed. The police are investigating this event and will provide any other available details. The Boucher family and the team would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family of the victim and will continue to cooperate with the police in any capacity they deem necessary. Please contact the Abington Police Department with any other questions or queries at this time.
After attaching the release to an email and sending it over to her mother for dissemination, she leaned back in her chair. She reached into her office mini-fridge, one of the perks of working in her own office and pulled out a Diet Coke. Now that she had time to herself, she wanted to continue to learn more about the victim. At least she wanted to try and figure out who wanted him dead because she refused to believe her brother was guilty of this crime. She fired up her laptop and typed Christopher Dailey’s name into the search bar. She skipped over the article about his jail stint since she already looked at that. She found his social media pages and clicked on those. If there is one way to get to know a person, it’s through their social media presence.
“Ah-ha!” His Facebook page wasn’t private, so she could access anything he posted and anything anyone else posted on his page. She knew this would help her find some people who might have had it in for him. Shoot, even she didn’t know him, but she knew that she didn’t like him. She scrolled down through his postings to see if anything jumped out at her. About halfway through the page of mostly sports m
emes, she hit the jackpot. “Bingo!” she said out loud to her empty office.
Some woman named Claire Fraser had posted an angry screed about how Christopher had cheated her and her family out of money by promising their son a baseball career. He apparently took their money over six months ago and hadn’t delivered on any of his baseball promises since. Her son ended up depressed and hooked on drugs. The woman was convinced it was all Dailey’s fault.
Madeline thought that sounded interesting. So not only was he a bookie, he was a scammer of potential baseball players as well. She wondered if that was part of the connection with her brother.
While she ruminated on that, she peered at her desk calendar and realized she hadn’t finished some of her real tasks for Opening Day which was now five days away. She still had to get the word out and start some giveaways with the local radio stations. She knew that so far they had planned an Opening Day carnival with games and food, but she wasn’t sure how ticket sales were doing with all the drama going on. She decided to head down to her mother’s office to get a proper count. Her investigation into Christopher Dailey’s life would have to wait until another day.
Chapter Five
The rest of the week leading up to the Opening Day game passed by in a blur. Between getting the promotions out for upcoming games and fending off press, Madeline didn’t seem to have a lot of time to do any investigating on her own. The police had finally cleared the ballpark as a crime scene, so the team returned to the home field the day before the start of the season. Billy, the manager, decided to have a full day’s practice the day before the game since that was the first time they had been on the home field in a while.
Madeline took her computer out to the right field seats to work on one of the picnic tables in the outfield while the team practiced. The crack of the bat was just what she needed to get her mind in gear. The game was already sold out for Opening Day, which was good news. The Boston Red Sox also agreed to run a promotion with the team to give away free Sox tickets at team events during the season, the first event being the season ticket holder gala the weekend after the opening game. Even for a minor league team, they had a dedicated group of people who bought season tickets every year. Throughout the year, the team loved to hold a few events during the season to thank those ticket holders for their patronage.
Murder at First Pitch Page 3
