Prairie Hardball

by Alison Gordon

  “Only 117 knitting days left,” I joked. She smiled, vaguely.

  “We missed you at breakfast this morning,” Daddy said.

  “We slept in, I’m afraid. It’s been a busy few days.”

  “You haven’t been idle, then.”

  “I’m still working on the article about the league, Mum. I’m going through the files, and I want to interview you.”

  “I don’t think so, dear,” she said. “My story isn’t very interesting.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. “You were all so daring to leave your small towns, to go so far away and do something so adventurous. Seeing you all together this weekend has really made me realize that. I’d love to talk to you about it. Please?”

  My mother looked quite surprised.

  “Well, I suppose so, if you like,” she said. “When would you like to talk? Right now?”

  “Well, actually, I’d like to go back to the Hall of Fame this morning, if I can borrow the car, and finish what I started yesterday. Maybe after lunch.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Andy took it to the RCMP detachment. They seem to have found a local suspect to question.”

  “I certainly hope they’ve found the man,” my father said.

  “Yes, and that there was no connection with anything from back then,” my mother said. “I must confess, I found it very uncomfortable to think it might be someone we knew.”

  “Well, I’ve been feeling like a prisoner,” my father said, “stuck here in the hotel, with everybody afraid to go anywhere.”

  “Where is the rest of the crew this morning?” I asked. “Edna and the Denekas.”

  “Edna is sitting with Meg in her room,” my mother said. “Poor Peter had some things he had to do, and didn’t want to leave her alone. She needs looking after.”

  She sighed.

  “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”

  “It’s strange how she can be quite with-it one moment, then get lost in another time,” I said.

  “Well, Peter says it’s gradually getting worse. This wandering has just started recently. Poor Meg. I feel for her.”

  “Well, touch wood everything’s all right so far,” I said, tapping my knuckles lightly on my father’s head.

  He smiled up at me.

  “Can I have the keys then? I’ll come back at lunchtime.”

  My mother opened her purse and handed them to me. “Drive carefully,” my father said, as he has done every time I have left him for almost thirty years.

  The rain hadn’t let up. I stopped at the Petro-Canada station for a fill-up and bought a Pepsi to drink while I worked. I got to the Hall of Fame just after ten. There was an old pickup truck parked out front. I went around back for the key, but it wasn’t on the hiding hook. Swearing under my breath, I went to the front door and tried it. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

  I didn’t see anyone at first, but the lights were on. I was about to call out when I saw the legs. There was a body sprawled on the floor on the very spot where Virna Wilton’s had been found, this one with the head and torso jammed under the organ’s keyboard.

  Chapter 32

  I didn’t scream, but I probably gasped. Rushing across the room, I managed to knock over a mannequin, which crashed to the floor. In response to all this commotion, the corpse began to move. The feet twitched first, then the legs. Then, slowly, it slid out from under the organ and revealed itself to be the very alive Morley Timms.

  “Mr. Timms, you scared me half to death,” I said. “I thought you were, well, never mind what I thought. What on earth are you doing there?”

  He began to laugh, showing the gaps in his back teeth. He had a high-pitched giggle.

  “You thought I was a goner, eh? That’s a good one. Wait’ll I tell Garth.”

  I began to laugh, too, giddy with relief.

  “I was just trying to get ahold of this,” he said, holding out some sort of knob. I took it and could see it was one of the stops from the organ.

  “Things got a bit messed up here, I guess you’d say, and Dave Shury asked me to come in to tidy up and fix anything that needed it.”

  He pointed to one of the display cases.

  “See, I replaced the glass there, where it got cracked, and I’m cleaning up the mess those police left.”

  “That’s a lot of work,” I said. “I hope I won’t be in your way over here.”

  “I’ll be glad of the company,” he said. “It was a bit spooky in here alone. Creepy-crawly.”

  “I know what you mean. I was working here yesterday, and every time I heard a noise, I jumped out of my skin.”

  “Probably just the mice,” he said. “There are some around. Church mice. No one told them that it’s not a church anymore.”

  “Maybe it’s a new breed. Hall of Fame mice.”

  “Famous fame mice,” he giggled.

  I sat down and opened a new box of files.

  “I’d better get to work,” I said.

  “They got the guy, you know,” Morley said, hanging around the desk. “The one who killed Virna.”

  Clearly, the whole town knew about the suspect.

  “That man shouldn’t have been let out of jail, you know,” Morley continued. “They should have thrown away the key. A man like that who beats up old women, they should string him up by the necktie.”

  I made noncommittal hmming noises in my throat, opened another file and opened my notebook. I didn’t feel like opening up a capital punishment debate with Morley Timms.

  “Are you writing a story about the museum?”

  “Well, not really. More about the women’s baseball league.”

  “You should write about the museum,” he said.

  “Maybe I will some day. Now I’d really better get to work.”

  He took the hint, and got back underneath the organ, his round bum stuck comically in the air. I began going through the files and scrapbooks of the Saskatchewan women who had played for other teams. In the early days, much was made of these exotics from the frozen north. One woman, the league president claimed, travelled to Saskatoon by dog sled to catch the train for spring training in Chicago. Added to the geographical stereotypes were the sexual ones, unintentionally hilarious with forty years’ worth of hindsight. I particularly liked the picture of a catcher, with her mask pulled up on her head, looking into her compact mirror while powdering her nose.

  I scribbled notes happily, knowing that I had the angle which would amuse the readers while honouring the women of the league and their real accomplishments.

  While I worked, Morley Timms pottered around, whistling tunelessly under his breath. From time to time I would look up and catch him staring at me. Then he’d flash a goofy grin and start looking busy. I thought about the stories Gladys Bieber had told me about him in his youth, when he was a charming heartbreaker. I could see traces of it in that smile.

  After about half an hour, I put down my pen and stretched. I opened my Pepsi, which was still cold, drank some.

  “Sorry I didn’t know you were here, Mr. Timms. I would have brought you a cold drink too.”

  “Never mind about that,” he said, straightening up from the cabinet he had been rearranging. “And you don’t have to call me Mr. Timms, either. Just call me Morley, like everybody else.”

  “All right, Morley. Do you do a lot of work for the museum?”

  “There’s always something that needs being done. Fixing things up, running errands for Mr. Shury, going to the post office and things like that.”

  “You must be a baseball fan, then.”

  “Lifelong.”

  “Did you ever play?”

  “I was captain of the Battleford team back before the war. It was a good one, too. Crackerjack. I’ll show you a picture.”

  He le
d me to a wall covered in framed photos and pointed.

  “See, I’m in the Hall of Fame, too,” he said, proudly.

  It wasn’t a very big picture. A faded ink inscription indicated that the Battleford Mounties were Prairie League Champions in 1941. I looked more closely, but couldn’t recognize Morley Timms, there being no egg-shaped old men in the picture. I asked him for help, and he pointed to the player in the centre of the front row, hat off and grinning, in contrast to his more serious teammates. Then he pointed to another player, a tall, handsome man in the second row.

  “That there’s Garth Elshaw,” he said. “Centre fielder.”

  “What position did you play?”

  He pointed to himself and laughed.

  “Shortstop, what do you think?”

  “I bet you were good,” I said. “And after the war, did you play again?”

  “I wasn’t in such good health,” he said, uncomfortably. “But we played overseas, Garth and I. We showed those English a thing or two. We even played on board our ship. Except every time someone hit a home run, the ball would end up in the drink.”

  He laughed merrily at the thought.

  “Well, it’s too bad you had to give it up. I bet it brought you a lot of pleasure.”

  “Nothing to be done about it.”

  “And Garth Elshaw? Did he play afterwards?”

  “No. He coached some, is all.”

  “Wilma was an outfielder like her brother, wasn’t she?”

  “Garth and me, we taught Wilma to play.”

  “You were good teachers, then,” I said. “I wish I’d known her. She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

  I watched him for a response, but aside from a small sigh, he didn’t reveal anything.

  “She was the best I ever saw,” he said. “Best woman, anyways.”

  He turned away from me abruptly.

  “I have to get back to work,” he said. I stayed and looked at the photo for a while, then hung it back on the wall and went back to the desk. I dug out Wilma’s files and Virna’s scrapbooks. I found the newspaper clipping about the flower shop and put it on the desk, then pulled out the article about Wilma from her file. Morley had filled a pail with suds and was busy mopping the floor. I waited until he came close to the library area.

  “I was just reading this article about Wilma,” I said. “It says that you and she were engaged to be married.”

  He kept mopping, in slow, thoughtful circles.

  “That was a long time ago,” he finally said. “Lot of water under the bridge since then.”

  “I guess she had her career.”

  “We were both different when I got back,” he said.

  He smiled then.

  “I guess we weren’t neither of us the marrying kind,” he said.

  “Did you keep in touch?”

  “Never saw her again.”

  “But I thought she came back to visit Garth and his family in the summers.”

  “Didn’t visit me.”

  He kept mopping the same section of the floor with a vehemence inappropriate to the task. It suddenly struck me that he was mopping the place where Virna had been found, as if to clean the stain away.

  “You’re going to wear yourself out, Morley,” I said. “Or wear out the floor.”

  He stopped swabbing and looked at me.

  “I guess you learned your technique in the navy,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Swabbing those decks, I mean.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “A lot of the fellows hated it, but I never did mind. I’d just sing a song, maybe, just in my head. I think it’s kind of restful. Calming, like.”

  “I know what you mean. I feel the same way about ironing.”

  “Ironing. I like that too. I like keeping things nice.”

  “A lot of people spend a lot of money to get that calm. If everyone ironed instead, the psychiatrists would all go broke.”

  That set him off. He laughed his high-pitched giggle and began to mop again.

  “Psychiatrists would all go broke. Ha!”

  I realized it was time to join my parents for lunch. I folded up my notebook and got up.

  “I have to go now. I have an appointment. But I’d like to leave these papers out for later. Think they’ll be safe?”

  “Won’t bother me,” he said.

  “Well, maybe I’ll see you later. If not, I know where to get the key.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  “It’s been nice talking to you.”

  “Same here, Miss Henry. It’s been a pleasure.”

  “That’s not fair. If I call you Morley, you have to call me Kate.”

  “Okey-dokey, Kate.”

  As I let myself out the door, I could hear him singing the song my father used to sing to me, “K-k-k-katie, my beautiful Katie.” Smiling, I stepped back into the wind and rain.

  I had just got into my car when Ruth Fernie pulled up next to me in her station wagon. She put on her emergency brake, then scooted across the front seat and signalled for me to roll down my window.

  “Please, Miss Henry, can I talk to you for a minute? I don’t know where else to turn.”

  Chapter 33

  Rather than get both of us wet, I got out of my car and got into Ruth Fernie’s.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” she said. “I was just driving around trying to figure out what to do when I saw you. It was like a sign.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s my nephew, Nathan Rowley,” she said. “The police think he’s the one who killed Mrs. Wilton. They have him at the police station right now.”

  “Your nephew’s been arrested?”

  “He’s there at the police station again this morning. But he never did it, I promise you.”

  “I wish I could help, Mrs. Fernie, but I don’t see how.”

  “You can talk to your friend the policeman and tell him about Nat. How he’s not the same as when he did those crimes before. He learned his lesson.”

  She began to cry.

  “I just don’t know what to do. He’s all I’ve got. My late husband and I never had any children. Nat was my sister’s boy. She died when he was a teenager. Her husband shot her, then took his own life. After that Nat went wild. But now he’s settled down and is a good boy. I know it.”

  “Did you talk to the police? Tell them this?”

  “Yes, but I just got him into more trouble.”

  “How?”

  “They asked me if I heard him come home that night, and I said yes. Then they asked me what time, and I said the wrong time. I said half past twelve and he told them one o’clock.”

  “So you didn’t really hear him.”

  “No, I was asleep,” she said. “But I believe him when he says he didn’t do it. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “I think you should get him a lawyer, right away,” I said.

  “He has one. From before. He drove out from Saskatoon this morning.”

  “Then you can be sure that his rights are being protected,” I said. “Another thing you can do is find some other people who can vouch for him. Like his employer, or your minister.”

  Giving her a project was the most helpful thing I could think of. It took her mind off her fears and gave her something to occupy herself. I promised her I would pass on her messages to Andy when I saw him and got back into my own car for the drive back to the hotel.

  My parents and Edna were waiting for me in the lobby. Despite the weather, I suggested an outing to the place Deutsch had taken us to the night before, just to combat everybody’s cabin fever.

  “A capital idea,” my father said. “A new menu is just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Where are the Denekas?” I asked. “Should we invite them, too?”

  “I don’t th
ink so,” Edna said, quietly. “Meg isn’t up to it today. He ordered food up to the room.”

  After a certain commotion with umbrellas and discussion about who would drive and whether or not Edna would need her walker or just her cane, we got the show on the road. There was a table just finishing when we got to the restaurant. By the time we had ordered, we were all feeling a bit more cheerful than we had in days.

  Probably so that mood wouldn’t end, no one brought up the murder or the investigation. I led the conversation back to the old days of the All-American Girls. All I had to do was ask a couple of questions and my mother and Edna were unstoppable for the next hour. With Edna’s prompting, my mother loosened up and told some of the stories that hadn’t made it into the official histories.

  “Remember the time in Fort Wayne when we kept Max Humphreys up all night in the lobby?” Edna asked, and they both laughed.

  “He was the manager that year, and no one liked him,” my mother explained. “He was very strict about curfew. Two hours after the game his girls had to be tucked into bed. So one night some of us went to get something to eat after the game, and when we got back, we could see that he was sitting in the lobby watching the door.”

  “Meg put us up to this,” Edna interrupted. “We sneaked around to the fire escape at the back of the hotel and got in that way. He waited all night to catch us coming in.”

  “In the morning, we just waltzed down to breakfast,” my mother said, “and there was nothing he could do. He was some mad. And the funniest thing was, we hadn’t even missed curfew. We were back well before time.”

  “Oh, we had some good times,” Edna said.

  “What kind of money did you make?” I asked.

  “The starting salary was fifty-five dollars a week,” Edna said. “And believe it or not, that was darned good pay back then.”

  “Easy for you to say,” my mother said. “Sluggers like you could supplement it. The rest of us had to make do.”

  “What do you mean?” Andy asked.

  “Oh, nothing illegal,” Edna said. “After a home run, I would run down the first-base line shaking hands with the fans, and darned if there wouldn’t be a little folding green in some of the hands. But I always shared, didn’t I, Helen. Be honest.”