Murder at First Pitch

by Nicole Asselin

  As the kids finished up their lunch, there was a quick clean up before leading the kids down to the field. After a quick bathroom pit-stop, the kids couldn’t keep their feet still when they made it out to the field. While they were taking the tour, the team had unloaded their baseball bags from the bus and left them on the field. As the kids dug through for their gear, trying to find their beloved bats and gloves, Billy and David Murphy came over to greet her and the kids.

  “Hey guys, welcome to the park! You ready to play some baseball?” The kids led up a resounding cheer. “Okay, pitchers line up on my left, infield and outfield on my right.” Billy pointed in each direction as the kids scrambled to their proper locations.

  “Pitchers, you guys will go with David here to work with the bullpen guys. All the rest of ya’s can come with me and we’ll start working on our outfield and infield drills.” The two groups separated and headed to their respective locations. With the kids down on the field being watched by the team, Madeline pulled her phone out of her pocket and went to sit in the shady part of the dugout.

  While she sat in the dugout with her feet pulled up next to her, she watched the kids run drills with the team. She used the phone app to take a few pictures to post on the team website and social media. Before any camp sign up for the program, she made sure the parents were aware that she could use the pictures of their kids for marketing purposes on the team’s social media accounts. She thought that covered any liability the team had, and so far, there hadn’t been any complaints that she knew about. So, she hoped that meant the program would keep going, and use the good publicity for the team benefit, too. Plus, the kids were super adorable when out working with the team.

  Madeline had forwarded all her work emails to her phone, so she never missed anything when she was wandering the field and ballpark. She scrolled through her emails and found four emails asking her for a comment regarding some news report from that morning. She hadn’t seen anything, so she did a quick search to find out what was happening. On one of the local Boston sites, she found a link that mentioned local murder and baseball club. She clicked the link and turned the volume on her phone up.

  After a brief ad for cleaning supplies, she heard the local news anchor’s voice. “And finally tonight, we bring you a story we told you about a few weeks ago. Local Christopher Dailey was found murdered in the Abington Armadillos ballpark two weeks ago today. So far, the authorities say there is no connection to anyone on the Abington team, but sources close to the baseball leagues say an investigation into Dailey’s illegal activities may be involving one or more of the Abington organization. While we wait for comment from the team, for now it seems as if this case is far from over.”

  Madeline ended the video. What do they mean, someone involved with the organization? Player? Coach? Front office member? So, the victim was a bad scout, a drug dealer, and a gambler. Definitely not characteristics of anyone she knew was involved with the team. Of course, she hadn’t’ been around nearly as much, but she was determined not to let this incident become the team’s legacy.

  She huffed to herself. She looked back to the field and saw the kids running bunting drills down the third base line. They were scheduled to be on the field for at least two more hours, so she quickly ran back to the offices to see if Davis had returned yet. As she rushed through the concourse, she pulled up her internet search engine to find different news stories about the murder. Not looking where she was going, she ran smack dab into a solid chest. Looking up, she realized it was Davis. “There you are!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Davis! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day!” Madeline pulled him into a hug, startling herself and Davis a bit. “After the last few days I got nervous when you weren’t here first thing this morning like usual. I left a note on your computer.” She babbled and backed away from Davis as she wrung her hands together. She felt so embarrassed about the random hug and could feel her face redden and felt a hot flash along with it. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart down.

  Davis looked down and tried to not make eye contact with Madeline, sensing her uncomfortableness. He shook his head as if to clear it. “We have to stop meeting like this. Sorry I didn’t tell you I would be late today. I had an appointment with this guy this morning that I couldn’t get out of. Has something else happened?”

  She told him about the reporter stirring up drama on the news and her daughter asking if her brother was a murderer earlier that day. She showed him the news report on her phone and intimated that there was some shady illegal stuff happening with the team. Davis looked thoughtful as he watched the video. He gestured towards the field and guided her to the seats in the grandstand.

  “The guy I was meeting with this morning was an old friend of Chris Dailey’s.” Davis said, putting air quotes around the word friend. “He did some time with Chris for gambling back in the day and had quite a few interesting things to say about the guy.”

  “Do you think he’s a suspect?” Madeline leaned forward excitedly.

  “Nah. He just got out of prison a week ago, so he has a pretty solid alibi for the murder.”

  “Couldn’t he have hired someone to off Dailey while in the joint?” She cringed as she heard her use of such weird language. Why didn’t she just say prison?

  Davis laughed. “I mean, it’s possible, but it just seems unlikely. I still think the person who did this had a more personal reason. You don’t just go around beating people with a bat unless you really mean it. Also, since the bat was left in the dugout, it’s possible this was a crime of passion or opportunity. Maybe the person didn’t go there meaning to kill Chris but got mad at something and just started swinging.” He turned in the ballpark seat and looked at her quizzically. “Wait a minute, are you still asking questions about this murder? Didn’t that note scare you into not wanting to be involved anymore?”

  She looked out towards the field and the players running drills. She wondered how she could make him understand her need to get this whole thing resolved. “Yes and no. The note was definitely scary. But too many people are still spreading rumors that my family and my team is behind this murder. That’s just not true. So, my fear of the note does not outweigh how important my family is.” She shrugged and looked back at Davis who was looking at her thoughtfully.

  “Well, I might as well tell you what I told Detective Stephenson since you’ll somehow find out anyway. The guy I met with said that Chris was heavily involved in some sort of prison gambling and steroid ring. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but basically Chris fancied himself a bookie even behind bars. He kept extensive connections on the outside and seemed to fall back into them when he was released a few years ago. The steroid thing was a bit weirder. One of his outside guys somehow smuggled them in and he facilitated the use by other prisoners. Now, with the scouting, he considered himself an independent contractor so he wouldn’t have to follow any particular scouting conventions. For some reason people still met with him even though it seemed shady from the jump.” Davis ticked off Chris’ various criminal activities on his hand.

  Something stuck with Madeline. “That bothers me. This is such a tight knit baseball community. Why would anyone take a flyer on this guy as a scout when we already have a relationship with legitimate scouts that we’ve all worked with through the years? Most owners I know wouldn’t just take the word of a guy they didn’t do an extensive check on. Heck, I found out about his shady past in about five minutes doing an online search!”

  She shook her head. “Wait, did someone vouch for him to get access to all the teams? That’d be the only way he could get into the circle of scouts.”

  “I asked the guy that, he wasn’t sure. He just knew the guy had some sort of connections to baseball on the outside.” Tapping his chin, Davis mused. “I wonder if we could find out though. You said you were introduced to Tom, the scout, right?”

  Madeline sat up straighter in the chair. Di
d Davis know that her Mom was setting her up with Tom? Why else would he randomly bring up his name?

  “Ummmm, yea, I met him at the Opening Day gala. Why?”

  “Why don’t you get in touch with him and ask if he knows how Chris got involved in the scouting world? The only thing I could find out is that Chris first worked with the Barnstable Barnstormers about six months ago. Before that, I have no idea. I would ask the owner, William, but he doesn’t seem like the most reliable person, and I wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers or cause more trouble for your family,” he said.

  Unreliable was the nice way of putting it. The owner of the Barnstormers was a notorious drunk who spoiled events everywhere he went. Madeline remembered how drunk he was getting at the concession party a few weeks prior. Definitely not a good look for an owner of a team. While not working for a major league franchise, the team owners represented their local community. They were supposed to be put together and represent their teams as professionally as possible.

  The Boucher family, for example, teamed up with local South Shore schools to provide the summer camp program, and during the school year (the team’s offseason), the field was open for kids to come in the afternoon and play in. During the holidays, the team sponsored local charities and even provided warm meals for local homeless. She tried to think of things the Barnstable team did outside of baseball, but was coming up blank.

  William Chase was known as the “bad boy” of baseball. He never got really close with any of the other team owners. As far as Madeline knew, William didn’t have any friends in the baseball world. That’s why it was so weird that he bought a baseball team. A man without connections rarely made it far in this business. She thought he lucked out at the time when the Barnstable team was ready to sell. They lived in the same town as the Cape Cod Baseball League, so they were in a prime position to recruit players when that season came to a close. She wondered why he chose to use Chris Dailey as a scout when the team probably had their own scouts in the system. Maybe she could grill one of the Barnstormer scouts about the relationship between Chris and the owner.

  Davis and Madeline agreed that she’d pump Tom for some information as soon as she could. Madeline thought that Davis didn’t need to know that she found Tom super cute or that her mother was trying to set her up on a date. Madeline wasn’t sure if Davis would care that she was going out with another guy, but she wanted to be able to keep her options open with him just in case.

  For now though, she still had to figure out what happened to Chris Dailey. That would be the only way to move on this season without any distractions. Davis got up from the stands while she whipped out her cellphone to dialup Tom. Before she could do that, she realized that even though they made tentative plans, they didn’t exchange numbers. She knew the person she needed to call who had the inside track on everyone involved with the team.

  She sent a quick text over to Eliza in the office. “Hey, can you get me Tom Baker’s phone number? He’s the local scout we use for the team.”

  Almost immediately a response came back. “Of course! I knew you couldn’t resist him,” followed by his number, a heart emoji, and a kissy face emoji. Madeline sighed, knowing that the gossip mill would be churning now.

  She pushed the number for it to go through as a telephone call. She took a deep breath and sighed in relief when after five rings it went to voicemail. Much easier to leave a message.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Tom Baker. I can’t get to my phone right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Beep.

  Madeline took a deep breath right before the beep. “Hey, Tom, it’s Madeline from the Abington Armadillos. We spoke at the gala the other night. I hope things are going well. I was wondering if you could give me a call back as soon as you get a chance. I’m working on a project over here and have some questions that you could possibly answer.” She rattled off her cell phone number and hung up.

  She looked out at the field with the kids running the bases. They had lucked out with a beautiful day. The kids looked like they were having a great time and even the chaperones were getting into it by fielding fly balls and swinging for the fences. She checked her watch and saw that there was about an hour left before the bus came to pick the kids up. She decided to take one more trip to the office to see if there was anything that needed to be done before the end of the day.

  Before she could make it to her office, Eliza stopped her in the waiting area.” Hey, girl, your mom is in her office and asked me to grab you as you went by. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her about you looking for Tom’s number.” She gave Madeline a conspiratorial wink as she made her way back behind the desk.

  Madeline rolled her eyes and gave Eliza the okay sign. She knocked on her Mom’s office door and went in. She gestured at the chair opposite her desk and Madeline sat down. “Maddie, we need to talk, sweetie. Ben has been telling me that you’re investigating that death here at the park. Do you think that’s wise? Your father and I have talked about it and we want to make sure you both stay safe. Let the police do their job and we can go from there. So far we’ve weathered this storm pretty well.”

  Madeline changed the subject so she wouldn’t have to lie to her mom about continuing to ask questions. “Did you see the latest news report? Someone forwarded it to me earlier.” Her mother shook her head. Madeline queued up the video and let her Mom watch it before continuing.

  “I believe that girl Jennifer is spreading the rumors about the team to get a better story. Now they’re saying something shady was going on behind the scenes with the team. That bothers me so much. It’s bad enough we’re trying to clear up this murder thing, but now they’re insinuating drug use and gambling? Oh, and catch this. Jennifer’s daughter is one of the kids at the day camp today and accused Ben of being a murderer in front of everyone.” Madeline shook her head. “I’m not actually investigating, Mom, just asking some questions.”

  Madeline decided not to reveal the weird phone call or threatening note that she got to her mother. There wasn’t any need to worry her since it wasn’t probably that serious. She had Davis to help her on that end. She also wasn’t going to tell her about meeting up with Tom to get more information about scouting and the Barnstable team.

  For some reason, that team was pinging Madeline’s intuition. She had a feeling that the key to everything might involve that team and their owner. Whether that meant the team owner or players on the team she wasn’t sure, but she was determined to find out. William Chase was the key she was sure of it. He was acting weird at that party, and then he accosted her at the game. He either knew something or was just supremely creepy. Or both. He could definitely be both.

  Before she left her mom’s office, she thought of something that she should check. “By the way, did William Chase ever set up a meeting with Dad? He stopped me on Opening Day to talk about a partnership or something like that.”

  Her mom thought for a moment, drumming her fingers on the desktop. “I don’t believe so. That’s something your father definitely would’ve told me about. We never really partnered with another team outside of the Foxboro team. And the only reason we do that is because of the relationship we have with that family, and the tradition of playing them on Opening Day. Barnstable is too new and too close to our market to want to partner with. Plus, I don’t like that William guy. He gives me the willies.” She shivered behind her desk.

  “No argument from me, Mom. I feel the same way.” Madeline left her office and made her way to her own desk.

  She had about 20 minutes before the camp wrapped up, which was just enough time to check her emails and social media accounts. Nothing crazy immediately jumped out at her on the public team sites. There were a few people asking if the investigation was ongoing at the park, but nobody outright accusing the family of being responsible in any way for the death. She clicked over to her email after uploading some pictures of the team practicing with the kids from that day.

 
; She had about thirteen emails, all with variations of the same subject from one particular email address. It was an unfamiliar address to her, which sounded off alarms in her head. The subject lines of the emails were all variations of her brother’s name and the victim’s name. In each email, it said “Your brother did it. You know it and I know it. It’s only a matter of time before the police know it.” After confirming that yes, all thirteen emails said the same thing, she zipped them in a file and sent it over to Davis via the office email system. Before she even exited out of the system, Davis was in her office.

  “Again? Okay, now things are getting weird. I’m going to talk to some IT folks I know and see if they can do any trace on this email address.” He shook his head and grabbed a piece of paper off her desk. “We’re going to figure out who is doing this and why. We’re also going to make sure the police are made aware of these threats as well. ‘Cause that’s definitely what they are. Threats or at the very least, harassment.” He scribbled down the email address and the timeline of all the emails. It looked like the first email was sent while Madeline was out with the kids getting the tour going.

  Davis and Madeline made plans to meet up at Centerfields after she got the kids back to their bus and Davis had time to work on his connections to see if they could figure anything else out. She closed out of her computer, grabbed her cell phone, and headed back to the field. The kids were just finishing up and the players were signing some autographs on the kid’s bats and gloves. Each kid had a wide smile and the players themselves all seemed in high spirits.

  Madeline waved at the coach of the kid’s team and gestured them towards the ballpark exit where the bus was waiting. They quickly rounded up the kids and headed that way. She waved to the manager and the players, reminding herself to thank them later for all they did that day. The team was special for sure. After all her hesitation, she was really starting to enjoy working with everyone in the organization. Of course, the murder put a damper on everything, but the day-to-day stuff was wearing down her defenses.