The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant

by Tee Morris

  I thought that would be the end of it, and this would be my cue to make a date for us.

  I was wrong.

  “A total stranger—” she continued, “—who waltzes in here, planning to monopolize my time for his own means.”

  Again, my hands went up. “Guilty as charged.” Now it was my turn to lean in, giving her a look that was less cold than hers, more mischievous. “And being a lover of mystery, I would think you would show no hesitation in joining me on this little quest for knowledge.”

  She nodded. “I can’t stay mad at you, and I can’t say no to you, Billi.” She stood at her desk, “Where are we headed?”

  “Periodicals, and maybe the Archives.” I said, following her deeper into the library. “I’m needing a look-see at some Sports pages.”

  She stopped, straightening up to her full height, which was not that much on me. No. Gertie wasn’t a Dwarf, but she was no beanstalk either.

  “Just a moment,” she snapped. “We’re looking up past Sports sections?”

  “It’s for a case.” Gertie didn’t move. “I swear!”

  Her head nodded slowly, but the stare remained chilled like a windy Chicago winter. “We shall see, Mr. Baddings.”

  She called me “Mister Baddings”. Ouch.

  We continued to a series of tables and desks with scribes of all kinds hunched over books, magazines, and newspapers. Some were taking meticulous notes, others were cross checking periodicals with other tomes, and a few appeared to be reading just for the fun of it.

  What were those precious few thinking? Lucky dinks.

  “How far do you want to go back?” she asked.

  “Not that far back,” I said, standing up on my tiptoes as I could look at the newspapers hanging on rack after rack. “Just to last week.”

  “All right, how does…” Gertie said, scanning the library’s collection. “…April 30 sound?”

  “A good start.”

  The newspaper’s fluttering resounded throughout the library, only a few readers disturbed by the two of us taking a seat at a vacant table. I scanned the Sports section, looking for scores. My finger finally found the Baltimore Mariners, playing the Brooklyn Robins. That game was not as harsh as the one I had seen, but the Robins were in the same encampment with the Cubs. Mariners—4, Robins—2.

  “Let’s pull a few more papers,” I said. “And if you can pull out other cities—New York Times, Baltimore Sun, and Philadelphia Inquirer—that would be great, doll.”

  “Sure thing, sweetie,” she replied cheekily.

  I caught the warning. It looked like I was going to preoccupy her day, subjecting myself to her undivided attention, her wily charms, and that sweet accent of hers.

  The things I do for this job.

  ###

  Our afternoon’s efforts were now spread across three of the library’s larger tables, the previous occupants who were reviewing their books within earshot of us long gone. Some of those determined bookworms loosed dirty looks upon us before slamming their books shut and moving elsewhere to resume their study. In silence.

  We had progressed back into April, close on the beginning of the season; and now with other publications at my fingertips, I was matching up game dates with host cities. Just as people expect carnage and destruction when Orc hordes are seen closing in on a shire like a black wave of death, Sports writers from each town made predictions of a complete and total trouncing from the newcomers to the League. From the looks of the scores, the Mariners did anything but disappoint.

  In Brooklyn, the Robins’ wings were clipped. April 28th, Mariners—11, Robins—1. April 29th, Mariners—8, Robins—3. April 30th, Mariners—4, Robins—2.

  In Pittsburgh, the Pirates found themselves outgunned. April 25th, Mariners—9, Pirates—2. April 26th, Mariners—6, Pirates—5.

  On their visit to Boston, April 19th, Mariners—3, Braves—0. April 20th, Mariners—6, Braves—1. April 21st, Mariners—2, Braves—5.

  Hold on. The Braves beat the Mariners? The Braves winning a game against anybody was about as likely as domesticating a sea dragon. To beat a team as hot out of the box as the Mariners? Might as well as get a foot massage from a Goblin, and walk away with all your toes attached!

  “Now, baseball—where I come from—is not that popular. If these were Rugby scores, I would probably have a fighting chance, but these are just numbers I’m looking at.”

  “Numbers can carry a lot of punch,” I said with a chortle. “Ask anyone in the financial end of town.”

  “Well then, talk to me as if I don’t know any better because…” She stopped as her eyes hopped from Sports section to Sports section. “…well, because I don’t know any better.”

  “If I give you the details, I’m taking the chance that I spill the beans on my client, and you know I really can’t do that and stay working. If I lost my job, I would probably have to apply here.”

  Gertie bit her bottom lip lightly and then gave me a curt nod. “Best you not tell me anything about your client, then.”

  “I can tell you this much without putting anyone in a bad place.” I then motioned to the earliest Sports page open in front of us. “The Mariners, aside from the one game with—” I couldn’t believe I was about to speak this team’s name and refer to them as winners, “—the Braves, have been enjoying a very good premiere season. The team is a handful of rookies and yet they are all playing like seasoned pros.”

  “You know this from these scores?”

  “Well, from these scores and from seeing them play yesterday.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Billi, maybe I am not grasping this, as I lack the same anatomy that you possess, but could this team just have an unanticipated stroke of luck? The right people, the right manager, and incredible timing?”

  This would have been a great place to talk about the smell of electricity in the air. Luck? Well, if you consider working with sorcery as a way to guarantee your luck, then yes. Yes, this could be a team that got very lucky, continuing to control that luck from town to town, from game to game. I would have also agreed that it took a great amount of luck to somehow master this magic without any formal training, apply it to America’s homegrown sport on a consistent basis, and not suffer any severe consequences from it. We could have wiled away the hours well into the next day, kicking around ideas of just how lucky the Mariners were as a team and how they were luckier still in having kept control of this major league spellcasting.

  Yeah, I would have loved to chat with Gertie about this…

  “Call it a detective’s hunch,” I said instead, my mind running through its collection of words. I needed to pick and choose carefully, “but I’m thinking ‘luck’ isn’t their secret weapon.”

  Her eyes jumped again from newspaper to newspaper before she asked, “So, you’re looking for some sort of pattern?”

  “That, or maybe a Sports writer picking up on a detail that everyone else misses.”

  “Ah,” Gertie whispered, “you’re looking for another Hugh Fullerton.”

  Full of surprises, this librarian. “You know who Hugh Fullerton is?”

  “Being a librarian who wants to know all the history of her new home, you tend to read up on a few names and their stories stick with you.”

  “But weren’t you telling me just a moment ago,” I asked, raising a bushy red eyebrow, “that your interests do not extend into the great American pastime that is baseball? Are you keeping secrets from your gumfoot friend?”

  The specs slipped off her face, and her stare reminded me of an Elven archer’s, narrowing her pair of peepers on a target before loosing that single arrow destined for an enemy’s chest. “Let’s try this again. These,” she said, motioning to the open papers, “are just numbers and names to me. Nothing more. The stories behind these names and numbers, and the stories that bring about an effect on society, do hold my fascination.”

  The things you learn in a library.

  I returned to the newspapers with Gertie serving as a
second shadow. My eyes searched the commentary columns along with the scores, hoping to catch Fullerton’s skeptical echo amidst the words of the true believers who heralded the Baltimore Mariners as the best thing to hit baseball since the Sultan of Swat. Early on in the season, there were articles from Ring Lardner that could be best described as biting. Humorous, I’d give him that, but humor that made you feel extremely unclean afterwards. Lardner’s opinions were putting the greenhorn team under the magnifying glass while just south of him in New York the Mariners were being exalted and lifted into the higher echelons reserved only for legends. Grantland Rice, in his opposing commentary, called them “…the heroes of the emerald diamond, the return of baseball to its roots of innocence and wide-eyed wonder. When you watch the Mariners play, you remember why this sport is so great.”

  By the time I got to the present day newspapers, even Ring’s voice softened up a bit, and that was speaking a kraken’s roar. It wasn’t too difficult to read between the lines that he had taken the Black Sox pretty hard, so for the Mariners to sway Ring only gave them legitimacy.

  Maybe my client needed to focus less on the opponent and look more into the reason why the Cubs were falling short this season.

  “Billi, you’re looking as if you just lost your best friend.”

  I looked up at Gertie and managed a smile. Yeouch, that hurt. “I just got to realize something about my heroes. At the end of the day, they eat their dinner, piss in a pot, and sleep in a bed. Just like me.” My groan reverberated throughout the library. “Sorry, Gertie, but I’ve been chasing my tail on this one, and I’m not happy about that.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Maybe I could salvage something out of this dungeon of disappointment. “So, I owe you a dinner at Mick’s, don’t I?”

  She glanced at her wristwatch and smiled. “It’s a bit early, but by the time we get there I think I’ll be ready for the special.” The paper seemed to take flight like a giant albatross, its gossamer wings spreading wide for an instant only to fold back and supplant its bird-like image with that of a flimsy banner waving in the breeze.

  “Gertie,” I said, catching a glimpse of the headline. “Put that paper back on the table for a minute.”

  She froze. A master sculptor could have used her as a model for a town square’s statue. The newspaper fluttered back to the table, and Gertie replaced her specs back on her nose.

  Her fingertips went to the upper corner of the paper. “Leave it alone,” I said as I moved from chair to chair, to get next to her.

  “What is it?”

  “That,” I said, pointing to the front page.

  THEFT AT RODIN MUSEUM BAFFLES POLICE

  PRICELESS SKETCHBOOKS STOLEN!

  “I heard about this!” my chili-loving librarian gasped. “This museum finally opened to the public last year, displaying an impressive collection of Auguste Rodin sculptures. They have—sorry, had—a few of his notebooks, one of them containing the original notes and preliminary sketches of Eternal Springtime and I Am Beautiful. If I recall, the journal containing the ideas for The Thinker was also stolen.”

  “The Thinker? That’s the one where it looks like—”

  Gertie interrupted my words. “Yes, Billi, that’s the one where the gentleman appears to be relieving himself.” She shot me a stern look. “We might want to change our dinner at Mick’s to an early lunch instead so that I can take you to a museum afterward. Get some proper culture in you.”

  I chortled, but then went quiet. “So long as the museum in question isn’t the Ryerson.”

  Gertie shrugged. “What’s wrong with the Ryerson?”

  I grumbled, returning to the paper. “Another story, for another date.”

  In the corner of my eye, I swore I caught a hint of Gertie smiling.

  The article pretty much said what Gertie had just relayed to me. This museum, while it could have been hit a lot harder, was picking up the pieces from a pretty serious heist that had occurred in the wee small hours of the morning. What was baffling to the Philadelphia cops was the lack of evidence. Guards didn’t see anything. No alarms were tripped. Everything had been accounted for. The only thing the museum’s hired muscle had noted as unusual were a few strong gusts of wind that seemed to sweep through the hallways when the museum was opened.

  “I don’t see the connection between baseball and a museum heist in Philadelphia.”

  “Gertie, Gertie, Gertie,” I chided. “What do we say in Snoopers about mysteries and the clever dicks found therein?”

  She rolled her eyes, her mouth twisting as if she were sucking on a really sour pomegranate seed.

  “Open your eyes, listen close, and above all—take nothing for granted,” she huffed.

  “It’s like my boy Sherlock says: When you have eliminated all which is impossible…”

  Gertie chimed in as I finished, “…then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So, Detective Holmes, perhaps you can enlighten me on what you’re seeing that I’m not.”

  “Well now, let’s not put the cart before the pack beast, Miss Watson. One step at a time. This crime was in Philly, and it happened in the early morning hours of May 8th. Gertie, what does your paper say about the game on the 7th?”

  “Well,” she began, returning the paper to the Sports section. “On the 7th, the Mariners scored seven runs, and the Phillies nil.” She looked up from the stats. “What the hell is a Phillie?”

  “Make like a Kodak and focus, Gertie. What about the game on the 8th?”

  She went to the other side of me, scanned the paper, and read, “Mariners—3, Phillies—2.”

  I looked at my own Philadelphia paper and the score from the May 6th game. Mariners—9, Phillies—2.

  “Let’s go to New York,” I said, motioning to the papers across from us.

  When I climbed up into the chair before the three newspapers, I heard a low growl. I thought for a moment that somehow a baby Troll had broken loose from its nursery. Gertie’s hand moved to her stomach. I didn’t bother to make eye contact. I’m sure she was letting me know with her gaze that she was going to be patient. For now.

  We returned to Brooklyn where the Mariners were letting the Robins have it. At least, until the last game of their stay. April 30th, Mariners—4, Robins—2. I swallowed hard and closed the newspaper to take a look at the front page.

  AMERICAN SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT BANK ROBBED

  DOORS CLOSED FOR GOOD

  The headline story reported that American Savings and Investment had just managed to avoid the full sting of the Stock Market Crash, but there was a lot riding on this particular branch surviving in New York. If it prospered, then the business might live on through to the next decade.

  That was before this robbery. On this morning, the vault was clean, its bones leaving no meat for any financial carrion. American Savings and Investment announced they were cutting their losses and calling their campaign done.

  My eyes jumped to the closest newspaper, a May 3rd St Louis Post and Dispatch that reported a close shave for the Mariners: Mariners—2, Cardinals—1. As I had with New York, I returned to the front page to read the headline.

  Gertie’s gasp told me I had just earned a few more runs on her scorecard.

  CITY ART MUSEUM HEIST!

  PRICELESS RENAISSANCE OIL PAINTINGS STOLEN!

  “Shall we make this a grand slam?” I asked Gertie. “Where to?”

  Her stomach protested again, but she wasn’t listening to it this time.

  “Never been to Boston,” she mused.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Back to Beantown. April 21st, Mariners—2, Braves—5. I closed the newspaper.

  PRESIDENT HOOVER ADDRESSES

  AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS

  That would have been too easy. My eyes continued to scan the front page, and halted on another headline. Perhaps not as prominent as the President’s talk, but news enough to get on the front page.

  ADAMS SAVINGS
& LOAN ROBBED

  BANK STRUGGLES TO STAY IN BUSINESS

  I motioned to the open papers. “Find me another close game with the Mariners. One they either lost or came close to losing.”

  Gertie leaned over the table, her gaze going from Sports column to Sports column until she found…

  “Cincinnati. April 17th, Mariners—0, Reds—4.”

  I swallowed. “Close the paper.”

  FIRST NATIONAL BANK ROBBED

  VAULT CLEANED OF CURRENCY!

  “All right,” Gertie spoke, her voice tight and dry, “I wouldn’t call this coincidence anymore.”

  “It’s anything but.” Gertie was now looking at me quizzically. “I was on a crime scene this morning.” I said, closing up newspapers.

  Her head tipped down as she looked at me over her specs. “Come again? You were on the scene of a robbery?”

  “Nope. Murder. And attempted robbery.”

  “Ah,” Gertie huffed. “And you were going to tell me this…”

  “Over our chili special, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said, her eyebrow now stuck in a somewhat skeptical jaunt.

  “I’m thinking I’ve got—” I took hold of Gertie’s wrist and whispered a choice Gryfennosian curse. “—I’ve got tonight to figure out what the Mariners are casing.”

  “They have a game tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, the end of a two-day stretch. Today was their break, and they appear to have bungled the burglary. If you and I have stumbled onto what I think we’ve stumbled onto, they’re either making a play for the same mark or they’re casing a new joint. I’ve got two days to figure out this bit of court intrigue before the Mariners head home.”

  She looked up from the paper closing in front of her. “Back to Baltimore?”

  “Not if we can help it,” came a third voice walking up behind us.