Prairie Hardball

by Alison Gordon

  “That’s true. Edna was always kind with her tips. She’d buy beer for the rest of us back at the rooming house.”

  “I thought drinking and smoking were forbidden,” I said.

  “In public, sure. But no one had to know what went on in the rooming house,” Edna said. “Including, by the way, what your mother isn’t telling you, which is how she made her extra money.”

  She paused for effect.

  “At the card table. Helen was the best poker player in the whole darned league.”

  I looked at my mother, stunned. She smiled.

  “Well, I was pretty good,” she admitted.

  “Virna, too,” Edna said. “They used to clean out all the rookies on pay day, until the chaperone got wise to it.”

  “After that, we had to keep the money off the table and pretend we were playing rummy if the chaperone came in,” my mother said. “And we didn’t gamble any more with anyone who couldn’t afford to lose.”

  “Now I find out my lady wife was a card shark,” my father laughed. “If I’d known, I could have sent you to Las Vegas once a year to supplement the parish income.”

  “Oh, those were good times,” Edna said. “I’d give anything to go back. Wouldn’t you, Helen? Back to when everything was a big adventure.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, then smiled at my father. “I’ve had a good life since then, too.”

  I looked at my watch.

  “I should get you all back to the hotel so I can get in a couple more hours at the Hall of Fame and finish the piece I’m writing for the weekend. These stories were just what I needed. Now all I need to do is fill in some of the stats.”

  “We’re glad to help,” Edna said. “Just don’t forget to send me a copy.”

  “I won’t. I bet you could help me solve another little mystery I’m working on, too. Just out of my own curiosity.”

  “What’s that?” Edna asked.

  “Who Jack Wilton’s parents are.”

  “What do you mean?” my mother asked. “Virna was his mother, and his father was killed during the war.”

  “Oh, Helen, you always were so naive,” Edna said.

  I told them what the autopsy report had said.

  “Well, well,” Edna said. “I must say, I always had my suspicions.”

  “Do you think he could have been Wilma’s son?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t that be something?” Edna asked, clearly intrigued. “But wait a minute. She wasn’t close to Virna until after the baby appeared. Those first few years—I remember because we were rookies together in ’44—that year Wilma was friends with what’s her name, Marilyn Dyck from Manitoba. Remember, Helen? So that can’t be it.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s any of our business anyway,” my mother said. “With both Virna and Wilma passed away, that secret’s gone to the grave. I think we should leave it there.”

  “Oh, I’ll figure it out, Mother,” I said. “That’s what I do best.”

  Chapter 34

  When I got back to the Hall of Fame, it was locked up tight, and the key was back on its hook. Once inside, I left my raincoat to drip by the front door and went back to the desk. Everything was as I had left it, with one exception. I had left Virna’s scrapbook open to the article about the flower shop. Someone had taken a ballpoint pen and scribbled over the picture of Virna and Wilma with an angry-looking scrawl.

  I checked the rest of the files and nothing was missing. There had been two people around when I left the museum earlier: Ruth Fernie and Morley Timms. Mrs. Fernie had more pressing things to concern her than an old clipping. It had to be Morley. At least he might know something about it.

  I found the phonebook and looked up his address. My tourist map showed me that his house wasn’t far away. In Battleford, nothing is far away. I locked up, then took a drive.

  He lived on 16th Street, on the edge of town in a sort of jumped-up trailer park. All the trailers were grounded, set in small yards on paved streets. There were air conditioners sticking out of most of the units. It was nicer than a trailer park, more permanent, but it was as if it was only pretending to be a neighbourhood.

  I went up the path to Morley’s door past neatly tended flowerbeds filled with brightly coloured nasturtiums.

  I knocked on the door. Nothing happened at first, but I saw a sheer curtain move at the window, and Morley’s face peered out. I waved and smiled, and a moment later he opened the door. What hair he had was ruffled as if he had just got out of bed.

  “My goodness, I’m sorry to keep you standing out here in the rain,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine who it was.”

  He fussed as I came through the door.

  “I don’t get many visitors, and those that do come don’t knock,” he said.

  His living room was amazing, crammed full of more stuff than I had ever seen before, things, objects, doo-dads, all arranged in an obsessively tidy fashion. Shelves covered three of the four walls, well-built shelves that held collections of what to others might be junk, here treated with the respect usually reserved for precious art.

  “I could make some coffee,” Morley suggested, breaking an awkward silence. “Or tea. Would you like some tea?”

  “I’d love a cup of tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I’ll put on the kettle,” Morley said. “You just make yourself to home.”

  I looked around. A faded brown corduroy reclining chair sat directly across the room from the television set. A radio was playing on the shelf next to it, and a reading lamp stood beside it. It was obviously Morley’s favourite. A loveseat upholstered in a yellowish plaid fabric clashed with the moss-coloured shag carpeting. There were also a desk and chair. I wandered around the room, looking at his things, looking for clues to Morley Timms’s peculiar life.

  There was a three-shelf library: Pierre Bertons, military histories, and novels set in the old west, arranged in alphabetical order. There were no records or CDs or, at a glance, anything to play them on. Each shelf seemed to have a theme. One held a box full of tickets to sporting events, arranged chronologically since 1947; back issues of the Saskatchewan Historical Baseball Review; and an old-fashioned glove, clumsy and overpadded. God knows how anyone caught a ball with one of those things. A photocopy of the picture Morley had shown me at the museum earlier, the one of the Battleford Mounties, was tacked to the wall behind the shelf.

  Continuing the sporting motif in the next shelf was a tackle box full of lures, leaders, lead weights, and fishing line. Old fishing and hunting licenses were stacked in a neat pile. Photos of him with Garth Elshaw and a dead deer, ditto with dead geese and dead fish. A curling trophy from 1979. I saw his broom propped in a corner, next to a shotgun.

  I moved to the next section, nearest to the desk, which was full of stationery supplies: pens and pencils held together in bundles with elastic bands; a box of paperclips and those brass doohickeys you poke through holes in paper and bend back; a plastic container of thumbtacks and pushpins; a pad of pink message slips; a stapler sitting between a box of staples and a staple remover; a stack of empty used file folders and a box of labels. A three-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the door. I looked at it longingly, but I could hear the kettle whistling in the kitchen. I looked back at the shelf, then picked up a bundle of marking pens and ballpoints, in a whole range of colours from ordinary black and blue to red, purple, lemon-yellow, hot-pink, and a lurid bright green that rang a small bell of recognition somewhere in my brain.

  I replaced the bundle of pens, just as Morley returned carrying a tray, on which there were a teapot with strings from two bags hanging out, two mismatched cups and saucers, and a cream and sugar combo from two different sets. He put the tray down on the table and smiled, warily. I smiled back.

  “Shall I be Mum?” I asked, picking up the teapot and pouring. We busied ourselves with sugar and
milk, then sat down, Morley in his recliner and me on the two-seater.

  “What I came to talk about, Morley,” I began.

  “I’m glad you came,” Morley said quickly. “Like I said, I don’t get many visitors. It’s a change. Is the tea all right?”

  He took a sip of his, slopping some of it in the saucer when he replaced his cup.

  “Don’t be nervous, Morley,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you if anyone else came into the museum after I left. Ruth Fernie, maybe?”

  “No one came in,” he said, shifting uneasily in his chair.

  “When did you leave?”

  “After I finished mopping the floors.”

  “Not long after I left, then.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Well, when I got back from lunch, I found this.”

  I took the defaced clipping out of my purse and held it out to him. He looked away.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said.

  I almost didn’t hear him, because I had just remembered where I had seen that bright green ink before, the bright green and all the rest that had been used to write the threatening letters. I looked at Morley, wondering if I should confront him about it.

  “Are you mad at me for scribbling on the picture?” Morley asked.

  “No, I’m not mad, just confused. Why?”

  Morley shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I just did.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “She was my sweetheart, once,” he said.

  “Yes, we talked about that. You were engaged.”

  “I didn’t tell the truth before, when I said I was sick after the war. I was sick in the head. I just ruined everything.”

  “The war hurt a lot of people, Morley. Not just physical injuries. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I wasn’t brave. I was a coward over there and people died because it was my fault. I couldn’t marry her. I wasn’t good enough for her anymore.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “No. But I knew, and that’s why we didn’t get married.”

  “Maybe you should have told her. You don’t know what she would have said. Things might have turned out very differently for you. That must make you sad.”

  “No, I’m not sad. Only when I think about that time. When she went away. When she left me and went to play baseball.”

  “So memories about her upset you,” I said. “That’s understandable. Is that why you scribbled on her picture?”

  He nodded his head.

  “But you knew I might guess it was you, didn’t you?”

  “I almost took it away, but I thought you needed it for your article.”

  “Or maybe some part of you wanted to be caught,” I said, carefully. “Is there something else you’d like to tell me?”

  “No, I just got mad, seeing that picture. It brought back bad memories. It was stupid, I guess.”

  “Yes, but you still did it,” I probed, “and you brought attention to yourself.”

  Silence.

  “Is there something else you’d like to tell me?” I asked, one more time, not wanting to push too hard.

  “No, there isn’t anything else.”

  “You know, Morley, I was just looking at your things here,” I said. “You’ve got quite a collection of pens. Coloured pens.”

  “People throw them away,” he said. “Good things they just throwaway. I keep them. That’s all. No crime in that.”

  “Mr. Timms, some of the women from the league, like my mother, like Virna Wilton, got letters before they came for the induction,” I said, gently. “Letters telling them not to come. Letters written in all different colours of ink, like yours.”

  Morley drank his tea, looking miserable.

  “Those letters,” I continued, “said that women like my mum don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Is that what you think?”

  “She’s not like the rest,” he said. “She’s a nice lady.”

  “Yes, she is,” I said. “But those letters she got frightened her. Why do you think the person that sent the letters wanted to frighten a nice lady like her? Or Mrs. Deneka, the poor old soul. Why would he want to frighten her?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to make them not come. And, see, it would have been better if they stayed away. If they did what the letters said, because look what went and happened.”

  We were getting into some uncharted territory. I should back off and call Andy. But I didn’t want to lose the moment.

  “Yes, Morley,” I said. “Look what went and happened. Virna Wilton died.”

  “I didn’t mean it to happen,” Morley said. “I never meant it to happen. I swear it.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it,” I said.

  He hunched in his big chair, his hands clasped between his knees, looking like a guilty, frightened child, rocking slightly back and forth.

  “Go ahead, Morley,” I said. “You’ll feel better when you talk about it.”

  “I didn’t know what was going to happen, I swear it,” he said. “I didn’t want them to come is all. Like I said, it brings back memories, bad feelings. I thought if I scared them they would stay away, and then I wouldn’t have to have the feelings.”

  “So you wrote the letters,” I said.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. It was wrong. Will I have to go to jail?”

  “That depends, Morley. It depends on what else you have to tell me.”

  “That’s all. That’s all I have to tell.”

  He looked up, suddenly, with a new fear on his face.

  “You mean you think I killed Virna myself?”

  “Did you? Maybe not meaning to?”

  He shook his head wildly.

  “Did you see Virna Wilton that night? After the banquet was over? Did you talk to her?”

  “No, I swear to God I didn’t.”

  “I saw you in the bar that night. Virna was there, too.”

  “I was just there to keep Garth company. No harm.”

  “I believe you, Morley,” I said, and I did. The poor old man was terrified. I put out my hand and patted his. He burst into tears.

  Chapter 35

  It took me about half an hour and several cups of tea to calm Morley down. In truth, confession had taken away a great load of stress from an old man not accustomed to it. I tried to reassure him that the Mounties were unlikely to put him in jail for writing the letters. By the time I left, he seemed to be his chirpy self again, to the point that he was offering to show me his extensive string collection. I took a pass, and headed across the river to North Battleford.

  I took the old highway, the scenic route down the valley to the low bridge over the North Saskatchewan River, a sluggish, meandering stream the colour of mud. The bridge touched down on Finlayson Island halfway across, a park with walking trails that I wished I’d had time to explore, but I figured I better go talk to the police about Morley.

  Once at the RCMP detachment, I had to state my business to a receptionist through a speaking vent in the presumably bulletproof enquiries window. I asked for either Andy or Sergeant Deutsch, and gave my name. She punched up a number on her phone, spoke, and buzzed me in. Andy came out of an office door into the central office area, clearly surprised to see me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I have some news for you,” I said. “Is this a bad time?”

  “What sort of news? What have you done now?”

  “Relax, it’s nothing dangerous. I think Sergeant Deutsch should hear it too.”

  He sighed and took my arm, leading me into the GIS office, where Don Deutsch and Hugh Grenfell both sat, drinking coffee.

  “Kate, this is a surprise,” Deutsch said, pleasantly enough. He got me a chair. “Would you like a coffee?”

>   “No, I’ve just had tea. And I have some information that might be important.”

  “Try us.”

  “I found out who wrote the letters,” I said. “It was Morley Timms. He told me he did.”

  “He told you,” Andy said. “Just like that. What, you were hanging around, you and Morley, just shooting the shit and he said, by the way, I wrote those letters everybody’s so worked up about?”

  “Well, no. I kind of figured it out and asked him about it.”

  “Maybe you should back up a pace or two and explain how this happened,” Deutsch said.

  I went through the defaced clipping and going to ask Morley about it; seeing the pens and realizing that they were similar to the ones that had been used to write the letters. That’s where Andy interrupted me.

  “At which point it didn’t occur to you to just get out of there and come talk to us?”

  “I didn’t want to lose the moment,” I muttered.

  Deutsch rubbed his hand across his eyes.

  “Didn’t want to lose the moment. Jesus wept.”

  “So Old Morley admitted he did that?” Grenfell asked.

  “Yes. It wasn’t hard to get him to admit to writing them. He wanted to talk about it.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He apparently has some sort of bad feelings about the league that have to do with his past with Wilma. He thought he could scare the Belles into staying away. It’s kind of sad. He won’t have to go to jail, will he?”

  Deutsch looked at Andy.

  “Like you said, she has an uncanny way of getting right in the middle of things.”

  “Look, I didn’t know when I went there,” I said, “but I was looking around his place while he made tea, and I saw all these different coloured pens he had, so . . .”

  “So you decided to play detective,” Deutsch said.

  “Then, he was really stressed, so I told him he wouldn’t have to go to jail.”

  “Oh, you played detective, judge, and jury, too,” Andy said.

  “I’m sorry, okay? He also said he didn’t have anything to do with the murder. I believed him.”