Murder at First Pitch

by Nicole Asselin

  Trying to buy time, Madeline spread her hands out. “Look, I don’t know anything, truly. The only thing I know for sure is that you didn’t go to high school with me. That’s it! And as far as I know, that’s not a crime.”

  Madeline heard the passenger door in the front clang open as Ashely exited the van. Madeline could only hope that Ashley would come to her senses and get some help for her. Madeline also hoped Eliza would remember to check on her and could summon help since she hadn’t returned yet. She only wished she knew how long it would take. Madeline didn’t trust Jessica not to hurt her. She had a crazy look in her eye, and now looked even crazier as she was held captive in the back of her van.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jessica seemed to be getting more anxious with each passing minute. Madeline wanted to get her talking to give someone a chance to investigate why a news van was parked near Island Grove. The park itself wasn’t that big, and locals used it as a fishing place all the time. It was surrounded by water on three sides, and further inside the park was an old Girl Scout campground and swimming hole. There were two parking areas, one in a residential neighborhood and one near the train tracks of the commuter rail into Boston. Jessica was smart—crazy, but smart. She probably parked on the side near the train tracks which was more isolated, shielding whatever her plan was from prying eyes.

  They hadn’t been gone from the Abington stadium for that long. Madeline knew the ride over must have only taken a few minutes. Even though there was no light let in from the back windows, she could see a sliver of sunlight through the door to the cab. Hopefully Jessica wouldn’t try to hurt her in broad daylight. Then again, she did kidnap Madeline in broad daylight from her place of work, so who knows what she thought was a good idea.

  “I told Chris not to get involved with your family. We had a good thing going with William, why involve more people if we didn’t have to. Instead, he had to approach your brother and HAD to try and get him involved. The drugs were practically selling themselves and William was more than happy to help. Why did we need your family?” Jessica questioned while shaking her head.

  Madeline saw that she was ranting at that point. She was content to let her talk, at least she knew that Jessica couldn’t hurt her while she was talking. She didn’t notice any weapons in Jessica’s hand, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t clock her pretty hard. When she pushed Madeline in the van she felt pretty strong. Madeline on the other hand was pretty adverse to most exercise and probably not in shape enough to fight anyone off. She just had to keep her talking and hope that someone would come along or Ashley would get a backbone and decide to help her. One could hope. She didn’t seem like the strongest person mentally. If they could get out of the van, then maybe Madeline would have a fighting chance.

  Jessica was still talking while Madeline was pondering her options. “After all Chris and I did to set up this venture and William wanted to back out, and then Chris had to go and get involved with your brother. It’s not like we planned at all. We were supposed to stay small. Focus on making money by selling the drugs to the kids playing for the Barnstable team. William was only too willing to help me since I am the mother of his daughter. I could keep that kid away from him for years if he didn’t cooperate. Then, he got a conscience and was going to spill all to you. Of course I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Looking at her in horror, Madeline said, “So you leveraged your child to sell drugs? And murder your own boyfriend?” Her head snapped up and her eyes bored into Madeline’s.

  She let out a brittle laugh. “Boyfriend? Chris wasn’t my boyfriend. He was my brother. We weren’t raised together; in fact, I didn’t even know about him until after I hooked up with William. Oh, don’t look at me like that. We all do what we have to do in this world to get by. My brother wasn’t a good guy. The world is better off without him. Now, I just have to deal with you, too.” She got a manic look in her eyes. “After I take care of you, I’ll move somewhere completely different and change my life. No one would ever think that the mild-mannered TV reporter would be involved in a murder.”

  Jessica began to rummage around a small black duffel bag she had grabbed from the front seat. Pulling a roll of duct tape out, she started tearing strips off. While she did that, Madeline could’ve sworn that she heard another car pull into the parking lot. Jessica seemed too distracted to notice. Madeline wondered why Ashley didn’t raise the alarm for her partner, but before she could do anything, Jessica lurched across the van and taped Madeline’s mouth shut. Taking two more strips, she then bound Madeline’s hands in front of her and then taped her feet together, too.

  Her options for escape were dwindling fast.

  “Now, Maddie, I can call you Maddie, right? Not that it matters. I’m going to be right back and we’re going to take a walk to the lake. So stay where you are.” She laughed manically, looking at Madeline bound in front of her. She opened the door to the cab and shoved Madeline headfirst into the front two seats and shut the door behind her tightly.

  Frantic, Madeline kicked her legs and pressed buttons along the radio with her hands and feet, hoping that one of them would alert people nearby. She must have kicked the headlight lever because the lights bounced off the trees in front of the van. Using her taped feet, she slammed her feet on the steering wheel hoping to get to the horn. Finally, she hit it in just the right place and the horn blared loudly through the quiet park.

  Suddenly, Madeline heard a thud against the side of the van. After a chaotic few seconds, the passenger side door opened, and she saw Detective Stephenson standing there with Jessica in handcuffs. He looked at her shocked, as her head was upside down on the passenger seat and her legs were hanging on the steering wheel column.

  The detective handed off Jessica to a patrolman and helped Madeline untangle herself from the cab of the van. She saw Davis and Eliza standing near the squad car that was taking custody of Jessica. She was swearing and yelling every name in the book at the young officer as he pushed her head down into the waiting cruiser. Madeline wasn’t close enough to hear everything, but she imagined that the police officer was hoping that Jessica would exercise her right to remain silent as soon as possible.

  Breaking through the crowd of police, Eliza came running up to Madeline and threw her arms around her neck. Unfortunately, Madeline was still taped at the hands and her mouth so all she could do was let out a muffled yelp. Davis appeared next to Eliza holding a Swiss army knife. Cutting the tape off her hands and gently easing the tape off her mouth, he squeezed her arm with a look of concern in his eyes. Madeline smiled gratefully at him and looked around at the chaos.

  “How did you guys know where I was?” She asked both of her friends.

  “Well, I got a bad feeling when you left to go meet her outside. So, I paged Davis on the walkie and he went into the parking lot with me to find out. She must’ve just taken you because your cell phone was lying on the ground.” Eliza said with tears in her eyes. “We called the police right away and I told them about the missing news van from that part of the parking lot. The police spotted the van in the Island Grove parking lot and Detective Stephenson brought us over.”

  “Well, Eliza, am I ever glad for your intuition. Jennifer or Jessica or whatever was behind everything. Apparently, they had some sort of steroid ring running and were blackmailing William to participate. She is the mother of his daughter and was planning to skip town.” Taking a deep breath, Madeline tried to calm her racing heartbeat. It was just starting to sink in to her about how dangerous the situation was and how close she was to being seriously hurt or worse.

  Davis looked at her with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to head to the hospital to get checked out?”

  Madeline shook her head. Luckily, she didn’t feel too injured. The most Jessica did to her was push her hard into the van. No lasting injures. Other than the psychological effects of being kidnapped by a crazy murderous news reporter. That would probably be something she would need to
work through later when things calmed down. “I think I just want to let my parents know everything is okay and it’s finally over.”

  Madeline knew she couldn’t leave right away. The police needed her statement. Detective Stephenson let Davis drive Madeline over to the police station which luckily wasn’t too far away. She met the detective in a small conference room. Handing her a cup of tea, he sat down in front of her with a tape recorder. “Are you ready to give your statement?”

  Madeline nodded and the detective pressed the small button on the old school tape recorder. She wondered if the town knew you could record conversations with cell phones now. Somehow, she didn’t think it would be an appropriate time for that conversation.

  She took a deep breath and began with finding the picture of William’s daughter at his office when he was injured. That led to her investigating Jennifer and finding that she was actually Jessica Jenkins. That dovetailed into finding how she was connected to Chris Dailey. She didn’t think there was anything serious about it, but now she realized that William was going to confess to her when he got injured. That must have been why he was so adamant to meet her in the past few weeks.

  Detective Stephenson looked across the table at her and shook his head. “Madeline, we’re glad you’re okay. We were actually looking for Jessica when we got the call about you being taken. William Chase woke up this morning and told us everything. He gave up the whole steroid scheme with Jessica and Chris. How his child was being leveraged for cooperation in the ring. Even the murder of Chris by Jessica. Jennifer. She apparently had taken the keys from one of the cleaning crew at the park and arranged to meet Chris in the dugout. She hoped that it was the type of location that couldn’t connect to either of them. When he tried to back out of their deal, she took a bat from the visitor bin and bashed him over the head. Then she got Ashley involved. When Jennifer, or Jessica, kidnapped you today, Ashley knew things were serious. Even though we had a general idea what happened, Ashley helped fill in some of the blanks when we picked her up at the van.”

  Madeline shuddered. She couldn’t believe Jessica would murder her own brother. She didn’t even seem to have remorse when she talked about it in the van. It was almost clinical the way she talked about the steroid ring and both William and Chris.

  “We have enough evidence against her now with William’s testimony to charge her with murder, and of course with her kidnapping you as well. We are really glad you’re okay. You have some good, smart friends there who know how to take care of you. The police will be in contact with you to get some more information.” He stood up and turned to leave the room. As he reached the door, he turned around one more time. “But maybe lay off the investigations for a while. Not that we don’t appreciate what you found out, but maybe next time leave the police work to the actual police, okay?”

  Madeline gave him a salute and smile. No worries there. She could put this whole thing behind her and get back to the baseball season. She definitely didn’t want any more drama in her life. She had enough to last her for weeks. She took one more cleansing breath before leaving the conference room. Davis was sitting in the waiting room looking at his phone. He must’ve heard her come out because he looked up and jumped out of his chair.

  “Ready to go? I’ll give you a ride. Your car can stay at the ballpark tonight and I’ll drive you to work in the morning. Is that okay?” He guided her out to his car. His hand on the small of her back felt so comforting, she didn’t want him to move it.

  “Thanks, Davis. I appreciate your help. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you and Eliza didn’t think to come looking for me.” Madeline brushed a tear off her cheek. Uh-oh, things were probably starting to hit her.

  They pulled up in front of her house and Davis turned to look at her. He seemed to be looking for something to say. She didn’t want to break the spell in the car. It was so comfortable and safe that she wanted to stay in that moment forever.

  Finally, he sighed. “Maddie, I’m really so glad you’re okay. When Eliza first told me what you were going to do, I freaked out. I mean, I knew you were questioning things, but I never thought that it would go this far.” He looked out the front window and cleared his throat. “I don’t know if this is inappropriate or not, seeing as you are sort of my boss, but I want to take you out sometime. Outside of the office, I mean. Like a date.”

  Her heart beat fast in her chest. All her high school dreams were coming true. He wanted to take her on a date. If she hadn’t been tied up in a van a few hours ago, she probably would’ve jumped him right then and there.

  Instead, she smiled at him. “I would love that.”

  Breaking into a relieved smile, he nodded. “Great. I have tickets to the Sox game next week. We can do dinner beforehand. Now, I’m going to wait until you’re locked up inside. I know the bad guys have been caught, but I just want to make sure you’re safe. You are okay, right?”

  Madeline assured him she was fine. She just wanted to go inside, snuggle with the cats, and have the largest glass of wine she could find to try and forget the afternoon. He sat in his car as she scrambled out and pulled her keys from her purse. Luckily, Eliza had put her purse in the car when they heard she was found. She didn’t want to have to go back to the ballpark to pick anything up after the police station. She needed time to process everything that happened.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The next day, Madeline slept through her alarm for the first time in forever. She surmised that the pint glass of wine she had the night before had a large effect on her sleeping in the next morning. Every muscle ached, and she still felt the red welts on her wrists from where Jessica had taped them. She reached over to her nightstand, knocking one of the cats in the head and looked at her phone. It was 9 a.m., and she knew she should probably get up and call Davis for a ride to the ballpark.

  Stretching, she sniffed and found the aroma of bacon wafting down the hallway from her kitchen. She heard humming and realized her mom was in the kitchen. She pulled on an oversized college sweatshirt and stumbled down the hallway, rubbing her eyes.

  “Good morning.” Her mom turned around at the sound of her voice and dropped the spatula she had been holding. Pulling Madeline into a big hug, she squeezed until Madeline couldn’t breathe. “Mom, I’m really okay.”

  “Oh, sweetie. Davis called and told us everything as soon as you had been taken. Eliza then told us the rest while you were at the police station. She let us know you were okay and in good health. I used my key this morning to let myself in. I didn’t think you’d be going into the office early like you always do.”

  She picked up the spatula and flipped over the pancakes on the griddle. They were Madeline’s favorite kind, chocolate chip. Perfect recovery food.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’m glad you’re here. I’m just so glad everything is over.” The cats trotted into the room and started winding themselves around her legs. She went over to the small pantry and filled up two bowls of cat food. All three cats immediately left her side to gobble down food. Cats were such fickle creatures.

  Pulling up a chair to her kitchen island, she sat with her chin resting on her hand. Thinking of all the events from the day before, she still couldn’t quite believe that Jennifer Roberts, the reporter, was really Jessica and responsible for a murder. It was crazy. “Mom, did you know that William Chase had a secret life?”

  She placed a large stack of pancakes in front of Madeline. Turning off the stove burners, she came and sat down, too. “You know, we never really had that much information about him to begin with when he bought the Barnstable team. Usually the other teams like to get together with the new owners of teams as a sort of welcoming committee. We never got the chance with William. He was very secretive and ran his team like a major league organization. I guess it’s not that surprising that he had a whole other side of him.”

  “What do you think is going to happen to his team now? I can’t imagine he’s going to get away with being part of the steroid rin
g,” Madeline said.

  Her mother looked thoughtful. “I honestly don’t know. The team itself will probably undergo massive drug testing, and then, with the results of that, they might be suspended for the rest of the season. In regards to actual ownership of the team, who knows?”

  She poured another cup of coffee and handed Madeline an iced tea to wash down the breakfast. “Now, are you up to coming to the field today? We have some announcements to make that we wanted to do last night before things got crazy. I just want to make sure you feel up to it.”

  Madeline thought for a minute. She thought going to the park might be helpful. Better than sitting at home thinking about everything. “Of course, let me run upstairs and shower. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready.”

  Shooing her away with her hands, her mother went about cleaning up the dishes. Madeline loved when her mom took care of her, it brought back such good memories. Dashing to the shower, she hopped in. After a quick shower, she changed into jeans and a team shirt. Pulling her hair back in a headband she headed back to the living room in just about fifteen minutes.

  On the way to the ballpark in her mom’s care, they listened to some Top 40 radio station that her Mom loved. She loved being the person who heard new music first. It was adorable. By the time they arrived at the field, they were both singing along to some new song they heard. It made her mom feel like one of the cool kids.

  Laughing, they got out of the car and headed to the front entrance arm in arm. The field was being worked on for the game that weekend. When they walked into the front office, Madeline saw a crush of people standing around Eliza’s desk. At the sound of the door opening, everyone turned around and rushed around her at one time, shaking her hand, giving her hugs, and generally asking if she was okay.