The game had halted as everyone stared toward the other dugout. Another ballplayer had arrived: a young man, broad in the shoulders, with blond hair fringing his cap. Through his narrowed vision, Poppy watched as he stepped down into the opposing dugout by first base and sat at the end of the bench.
The ballplayers in the other dugout didn’t greet their new teammate. Still, every eye on the field and on the other bench was staring at him like he’d been delivered from the sky.
The umpire called, “Play ball,” and Craig turned slowly back to face the latest batter. On the third pitch he lined out to the shortstop for the third out.
The guards team filed back into the dugout. Westin sat next to Poppy, manhandling a water bottle and glaring toward the other bench where the newcomer still sat after his teammates took the field.
“What’s going on, Craig?” Poppy asked. “Who’s the new guy?”
Craig shook his head. “It’s that kid—Kieran Mullaney,” the shop steward said, his voice sharp-edged and low. “The one suing about the LB5 explosion last fall—and now it turns out he caused the explosion.”
Poppy looked back at the far bench. So that was the tech in the Covington report. Several of Poppy’s teammates were still looking in Kieran’s direction as well.
“The kid was a newbie,” Westin went on. “Had a little over a year on site before the explosion. Can’t believe it—starting a lawsuit when he made it happen at LB5. Now he’s got the guts to show up here.”
The other team was still warming up for the inning as Westin set his water bottle down. He took the three steps out of the dugout, striding over to the third baseman, who turned at his approach. Craig spoke with him for several seconds before returning to the dugout.
Poppy watched the exchange with growing worry. As he came back to the dugout, Westin cornered several of his teammates at the other end of the bench for a whispered conference. After a moment, Craig came back and sat down again beside Poppy.
“He’s just a kid, Craig,” Poppy said. “Let it go.”
The steward turned on him. “You were at LB5 that night, you went to the hospital. I can hear you’ve still got something going on in your lungs. You didn’t start a lawsuit, did you? And you sure didn’t pull any sabotage out on the grounds.”
“No,” Poppy said quietly.
Craig looked away. “Of course not.”
As the security guards finished their turn at bat and took the field once more, Poppy surveyed the field through the fog of his headache. He watched as Craig shifted Hank Carisella from center field to first base. At six foot four and weighing over two-fifty, the former tackle on the Sherman football team was the biggest man in the guards’ union. Craig then walked over to the first-base umpire—Terry Wolner from the machinists local—for a whispered discussion, before stepping back to the mound.
Poppy sank back into the cloud of his headache, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. He listened to the occasional chatter on the field, the thump of throws hitting leather. Then the field grew quiet again and he opened his eyes. Kieran was striding to the batter’s box.
Poppy felt his stomach twist. He looked younger than Michael.
As the young man took practice swings, Poppy watched the guards’ outfielders each shift up, as though to get a closer look at the specimen at the plate. In that same moment, Hank Carisella took a step in tight toward first base.
Craig eased a straight, fat pitch across home plate—big as a basketball, Poppy thought—and the boy stepped in and hit it sailing far out over the center fielder’s head.
Kieran dropped his bat and sprinted toward first, but the center fielder was just jogging for the ball, more intent on looking across his shoulder toward first than fielding. Poppy watched, mystified, as the umpire turned away from the play—but he was the only one, because the rest of the fielders and the whole of the opposing dugout were fixed on the young man gathering speed down the chalked line toward first. As he approached the base, the mountain at first didn’t step away, but forward—raising a shoulder and elbow and leaning in as though he were charging a ball carrier racing for a touchdown.
The thud was so loud that Poppy found himself standing as Kieran’s feet went up and his body went down, as hard as if he’d hit a telephone pole. Then it was silent again—as quiet, Poppy thought, as that moment before the sirens went off that night on the roof of LB5. He glanced around: twenty other faces, including the umpire’s, were joined with him in a silent chorus of stares at the boy writhing in the dirt, his hands cradling his face.
Kieran’s moans were audible across the field. The kid was stupid coming out here this afternoon, Poppy told himself over the agony of the sound. Not a single one of the boy’s teammates was coming to help him up. The hostility from his fellow workers had to be as thick as oil: how could he miss it? Poppy cursed the stubbornness or stupidity of the boy as he rolled to his knees with blood pouring from between the fingers over his face. He wanted to be angry, but what he really felt was guilt and a welling of shame so powerful it crowded away even the throb of his headache.
The boy was up on his feet now, with Hank Carisella stopped only a yard away and others around the field coming closer. Worse yet, the kid had dropped one bloody hand to his side and was staring at the first baseman, showing no signs of leaving.
Poppy came out of the dugout, jogging across the field as Carisella took another step toward the boy. He pushed past Craig Madsen and the catcher, approaching the kid from behind. The gap between the boy and Carisella was down to a foot when Poppy reached the kid’s shoulder and squeezed between them.
“What’re you doin’, pops,” a voice called out. Carisella pulled back half a step and stared down at him, perplexed.
Poppy stared back. “Keepin’ a bunch of fools with security clearance from losing ’em by starting a brawl,” he said, grabbing the boy’s arm and pulling him out of the shrinking scrum.
Relief flooded Poppy when the boy let himself be dragged away. All the way to the parking lot, with the kid in tow, the tension from the field felt like a target centered on Poppy’s back. He knew they wouldn’t touch him—but he didn’t want to test how far he’d go for this boy if they tried to drag him away.
Only once he’d started the truck and begun to drive, with the boy seated beside him, did Poppy feel himself begin to relax.
Chapter 17
They were already two miles away from the field when the boy spoke for the first time.
“I’ve gotta get my car.”
“Get somebody to drive you back later,” Poppy said. “It’s not such a great idea to go back to the field right now.”
He glanced at the boy. The nose was definitely broken, though the bleeding had slowed. “You’ve gotta get that straightened,” Poppy said, nodding toward his face. “I’ll take you to the ER.”
“Later. I just want to go home,” the boy answered.
Poppy shook his head. “Trust me. You want it straightened now. Before it starts to heal—and before you let folks at home get a look at it.”
It was nearly an hour and a half at the hospital before they were back in the car, the boy holding an icepack to his face and muttering directions to his house. Poppy had kept his peace until now, but knew he had to ask. He opened his mouth—when Kieran spoke up again.
“Thanks for getting me out of there.”
“Sure.” He paused. “I’m Patrick Martin.”
“Kieran Mullaney.”
The ice broken, Poppy couldn’t hold it back. “Did you do it?”
The boy looked at him from behind the pack. “You mean LB5? No.”
Silence.
“If you thought I might’ve done it, why’d you get me out of there?” the boy asked.
Poppy thought about his own experiences the past month—how nothing about the explosion was making any sense. Maybe he believed the boy’s denial just because Covington clearly didn’t. Was that why he’d helped him? Then Poppy pictured his own son
facing off against that crowd at the game and realized he didn’t have a single answer to share.
“Listen,” he said, ignoring the question, “why’d you go to the game? I mean, you must’ve known there’d be some hostility after what they printed in the paper.”
Kieran shook his head. “I got a call from somebody on my team saying they were short. I thought it’d be okay.”
Someone inviting him to the game? That made no sense. There wasn’t a friendly face on the field from either team when the boy arrived.
They pulled up to a stop sign. Kieran raised his hand to point toward a spacious-looking rambler half a block down to the left. Before driving over to it, Poppy reached in the back of his cab, pulling out a spare work shirt he kept behind his seat and handing it to Kieran. Then he reached back again for a bottle of water.
“You’ve still got some blood on your neck and hands. Clean yourself up a bit. And the shirt’s large, it ought to fit you.”
Kieran looked at him cautiously, then moved to comply.
The boy was still sitting in the truck, looking down, pouring water on the edge of his own bloodied shirt to wipe his hands, when a white van pulled across the front of Poppy’s truck, drawing to a stop in front of the boy’s rambler. The side windows were opaque, denying Poppy a view of the driver as it passed.
Two men appeared from the far side of the van, both wearing jeans, ski masks, and work gloves. One carried a dark bag: he ran up the lawn, disappearing on the side of the boy’s house. The other stayed close beside the rear fender of the van.
Poppy watched, stunned. The man at the rear of the van scanned the quiet neighborhood—his eyes coming to rest on Poppy’s truck.
Within seconds, the other man came back around the house—the bag now crumpled and empty in his hands. With a final lingering stare at Poppy, the watcher at the rear of the van joined his partner, disappearing around the far side of the van. Poppy heard the thud of a sliding door.
“What the . . .” Kieran muttered, facing up now—then he was out the passenger door. Poppy threw open his own door and tried to chase after as the van screeched away from the curb, turning left at the next block.
Kieran followed the van at a sprint, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to get close. Farther back, Poppy slowed his own jog, coughing from the effort. Then he turned back toward the side of the house where the man with the bag had disappeared.
The house was bordered by a long, narrow vegetable garden. Several vines twined around metal trellises, some bearing tiny tomatoes. Poppy glanced around.
A patch of black caught his eye, nestled against the concrete foundation of the house. Poppy leaned closer. It was three dead crows buried head first in the loamy soil, their black feathers splayed around them. Wrapped around one was a medallion attached to a chain.
Poppy was bewildered at the image, but he knew instantly what the medallion was: a standard-issue radiation dosimetry badge. He reached down to turn it over and see the coloration—green for safe and deepening hues of red for radiation.
He stood and stepped back. Even in the shade, the bright red of the badge’s surface was as scarlet as a freshly opened wound.
“What is it?”
Poppy looked over his shoulder at Kieran just as the boy’s eyes widened with recognition.
“I’ve got a Geiger counter in my truck,” Poppy said. Without waiting for a response, Poppy jogged once more to retrieve the Eberline 530 counter from the tool compartment in the bed of his truck. It was an old model, a gift from his father when he’d retired in the early eighties. But Poppy’d kept it in good shape and always charged.
When Poppy returned, Kieran had been joined by two women: a younger one, maybe sixteen, and a woman nearer Kieran’s age. Kieran had them both back up several yards. Not waiting for introductions, Poppy stepped in front with the gray box in one hand and the wand in the other, extending the wand in the direction of the carcasses.
The static was unbroken as he waved it back and forth, carefully moving closer and closer to the red medallion and the birds. At last he stood directly over them. The static still didn’t waiver, humming with the low, steady clatter marking an absence of radiation. Poppy felt his shoulders relax.
“What’s going on?” the older girl said—then the younger one shouted in alarm, “What happened to your face!”
Before Kieran could answer, Poppy held up a hand. “I’ve gotta go,” he said.
The young man nodded. “Thanks again.”
Why was all this happening, Poppy wondered as he walked slowly back to the truck. Especially now—so long after the explosion. Was it the article about the new Covington report in the Courier? Could it be because the case was in litigation?
But then in the wake of that article, why’d the kid get a call to attend a game where everybody there wanted to take his head off?
Poppy started the truck and turned left, passing Kieran and the two women talking at the side of the house. Then he took another left at the corner where the van had turned to leave, circling back to head west toward home.
It was sitting around the curve, just far enough up the block to be invisible to the house. For an instant he thought about stopping—or maybe turning around and telling Kieran. Instead, Poppy pressed the pedal to pass by as quickly as he could.
It was the white van, its occupants hidden behind the reflections off its darkened windows. And the reappearance of the van wasn’t the only thing that startled Poppy.
As he raced past, he saw that the van had no license plates.
It was past midnight when Emily pulled her Hyundai into the Riverside ball-field parking lot with Kieran seated next to her. The dark shape of Kieran’s lonely Corolla was visible across the lot, moonlight glinting off the back window.
The evening had been an emotional roller coaster. She’d been shocked at the vision of the dead crows and dosimetry badge at the side of the house, then seeing Kieran’s battered face from the game. At her insistence, they’d taken pictures of the scene before cleaning it up—then all had agreed to tell Kieran’s mother that he’d had an accident at the game. Amanda was already struggling with her own health issues; she didn’t need this worry about her son. Kieran had also overridden Emily’s protests and insisted they not call the police: that would have made it impossible to keep it secret from his mother.
But then, miraculously, the evening had morphed into something . . . better. Maybe it was the enforced silence about the traumatic events or the great desire she and Kieran clearly shared to escape it all for a while. But as time passed through the birthday dinner and opening gifts, there came a point where Emily realized that a whole hour had gone by in which she hadn’t thought about the case or the softball game or her disappointment in her father or even the terrible symbols buried at the side of the house. As the night rolled on, she could almost imagine that Kieran and she were back at college, entertaining his visiting mother and sister, secure again in the comfort of their shared secrets and burdens.
They approached the car in the stillness until her lights shone on the driver’s door. “Look.” Kieran pointed.
It all came crashing back in on Emily again. Visible in the headlights, a front tire was flat. Her eyes rose to the front windshield. A spider web of cracks covered its surface.
Emily was shaking as she helped Kieran get the spare and jack out of the trunk—from the cold or the renewed anger and fear, she didn’t know. He handed her a jacket out of the back of the Corolla, and she stood beside him in the chilly evening, surveying the wreckage of the already aging car as he changed the tire.
Mercifully, they’d slashed only the one tire. Twenty minutes later, Kieran finished, then stowed the flat and tools in the trunk.
“Can you see alright to drive home?” she asked as he turned to face her.
He nodded. “Well enough.” As he spoke, she could see the weariness in his battered face in the full light of the Hyundai’s car lights.
“I should’ve given you
a gift for your birthday,” she said, trying to conjure something to lift him. “I . . . I got too caught up in the lawyer-client thing in my head.”
He shook his head. “Seriously, Emily, don’t worry. I was just glad you came. It felt like old times.”
Emily nodded her agreement, smiling to hide the ache at seeing him so discouraged again. Then, without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
She pulled slowly away, and for an instant thought he might follow. But he didn’t. Just fashioned a smile with his lip as big as a thumb and both eyes darkly rimmed. Emily nearly laughed.
She drove back to the Annex replaying the end of the evening in her mind. It was confusing and heady. That was because of the crows, she told herself. And the damaged car.
Except that was a lie. The celebration this evening had taken her back to before her mother died. Back when Emily still clung to hope she would recover and things could be as they had been. Back when a part of her still secretly idolized her father, before that had faded and their stunted relationship had crystallized into something more distant and edged. Before Emily had defeated loneliness by plowing long hours into law school and career. Defeated it, or kept it at bay.
Her headlights closed in on the Winchester Bed and Breakfast and her father’s car parked out front of the Annex. Emily pulled to the curb, turned off her car, and sat quietly in the dark.
She had to keep a handle on what she was starting to feel about Kieran, Emily told herself. He was a client now. This was her first private case; all she needed was for something to start and to get caught in an ethics violation. Then there was the promise to her father.
She got out of the car into the evening stillness. Who was she kidding, she thought, walking up the sidewalk to the Annex. She didn’t care about the ethics of it. And she didn’t care what her father would think. He hadn’t had a voice in her life for a long time now.
For an instant, she recalled standing beside him at her mother’s funeral. They’d been shoulder to shoulder, yet his presence hadn’t shielded her from the pain. The image was so vivid that for a brief moment her chest ached.
Critical Reaction Page 13
