by E. C. Bell
Jasmine did not respond. Just stared at me. I’d seen her do that to her kids, too. Classic Mom move.
“I’ll deal with it when I get back,” I said. “On Monday.”
“Promise?” Jasmine asked.
What was the deal with having to promise all the time?
“Of course,” I said. “I promise. Absolutely.”
“See that you do.” She smiled, and gave me a quick hug. “You’re so much better than you were when you came back, after your mother and everything,” she said. “I just want you to be—”
“Sane?” I said.
“Happy,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I said, and shrugged. “Well, happier, anyhow. And getting out of town with everybody? This is like—a family thing. It’s going to be great.”
Just as long as James got the information out of Andy Westwood the cops needed. But I didn’t tell Jasmine that. She didn’t need to know.
Stage Three
Winning the Game
Marie:
The Weekend Away
I THOUGHT THAT James was going to wreck everything before we left for Camrose, because he hadn’t been able to find a good way to broach the Karen Dubinsky situation when he went for coffee with Andy “Womankiller” Westwood.
“I tried,” he’d said, as we loaded the suitcases into the SUV he’d rented for the weekend. “I even brought up the Coffee Factory. Thought if I mentioned that we’d just started going there, he’d talk about being an original customer. You know, opening the door for some of your fairly in-depth questions. But he didn’t bite. Not even a nibble. It’s like he didn’t even know the place.” He frowned, rammed the last suitcase into the back, and slammed the door closed. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go in the conversation, so we were done. You’ll be happy to know he won’t be at Provincials, though. He doesn’t go to them. ‘I just like hanging around John Fry,’ he said. ‘Watching the ladies play.’ It creeped me out, the way he said it.”
I was going to yell but Jasmine and the kids trooped out of the house so I didn’t. We all just jumped into the van and headed off to our big adventure. Of course, we had to go back for Millie, but once we got her in the van too, we were off for real.
The weekend was great. My team made it to the semis, by the skins of our collective teeth, then lost a heartbreaker to the Chimo Angels—minus Sylvia Worth, which gave me a couple of bad moments, I must admit. I asked her coach where she was. He said that she’d been called to work that morning, so I texted her repeatedly, until she finally, grouchily, replied.
I’m working, she texted. I told you I’d let you know about the exhumation. Nothing yet.
So, we watched Miriam Kendel and the Blues win the tournament, and then we left.
The kids slept on the drive home. So did Millie. I was suffering badly from another sunburn and couldn’t sleep even though I was exhausted, so as we drove back to Edmonton, James, Jasmine, and I made plans to do the same thing next year. Which meant I’d be playing ball next year. The idea didn’t bother me at all.
We dropped Jasmine and the kids off at her house and I went with James and Millie back to his place. I was a teeny bit surprised at myself. After all, we’d spent the whole weekend together. I thought I’d want alone time, but I didn’t. Then I thought James would. But he was happy I decided to stay with him, and later that night, when I was safe in his arms and almost asleep, I was too.
I thought, for a moment, that I should try Sylvia one more time, but I didn’t. She was working and she would have called me if anything was going to happen on Diamond Two. She’d promised me she would. So, I slathered myself in sunburn lotion, and slept like a lamb, instead.
Karen:
Finding Me
THE POLICE SHOWED up at Diamond Two just as the sun was rising on Sunday morning. I watched two of them run out the yellow caution tape and wondered where Marie was. She said she’d be here when the police came so she could help me stay at the diamond.
The police—and there were a lot of police—brought in heavy equipment, including a little excavator, and in no time, they were tearing up the infield all around second base.
“The remains are in this area,” the woman in charge said. I didn’t recognize her. “The witness wasn’t certain how deep the burial is, though. So be careful.”
First the excavator tore up the shale. Nearly a foot deep, the shale was. When all of it was scraped away, humans with shovels replaced the machine.
They dug down two feet, then three.
“I don’t think there’s anything here,” one of the officers said.
“Just keep going,” the woman said. “And be careful. There won’t be much left—”
She’s talking about me, I thought. About my body. I felt myself tighten. Looked down at my hands, and they were grey. Dark grey, as though all the light was being sucked from them by the excavator and the shovels. I was so afraid.
They dug down a half foot further and the first feather of plastic appeared.
“We got something,” one of the shovelers announced.
“Stop,” the woman said. She signalled to two other people who’d been standing by the backstop. They were dressed like surgeons, right down to the plastic gloves, and they carried boxes that looked like something a mechanic would use to carry his tools. “Get in there,” she said. “We need everything. Everything.”
The two jumped into the hole, and carefully scraped the earth away from the plastic. First they used small shovels, then trowels, and then brushes.
“We got a body,” one of them announced, and soon my grave was surrounded by a horde of police officers including the woman in charge.
“The plastic looks new,” one of the officers said. “No way this is a forty-year-old burial.”
“Plastic doesn’t break up underground,” one of the people in the hole said and turned to the woman in charge. “Let’s get it out of here and back to the lab.”
The woman in charge waved the other officers away from the hole and, as they edged back, gestured to a vehicle idling beside the fence. Two men pulling a stretcher walked to my grave. I could see the black body bag and knew that soon my body would be encased in another roll of plastic. But this time, my body would be taken away.
“Please let me stay,” I muttered, as I watched them carefully remove the dirty roll of plastic that held my body. I could see the tartan of the blanket within it. “Please let me stay.”
Quickly and efficiently, the two men placed the plastic roll in the body bag and zipped it closed. They rolled the stretcher off the diamond and to the waiting vehicle. Then, the body bag was placed in the back, and the door slammed shut.
“Please let me stay,” I said, as I watched the vehicle drive out to the parking lot. The parking lot was the furthest I’d ever wandered from the ball diamond, and my body, in more than forty years.
I felt the first pull as the vehicle turned onto the street, heading west. I resisted, or tried to, and for a moment or two, I thought I was going to be all right. But then the vehicle turned a corner and disappeared and it felt like I was suddenly trapped in a huge vacuum. Pulling me, tearing me away from the diamond.
“I want to stay!” I screamed, and fought the pull as hard as I could, but it was no use—I was being dragged, inexorably, to the vehicle that was taking my body away. I screamed, “Let me stay let me stay let me stay!”
That didn’t happen.
Marie:
Losing Karen
SYLVIA TEXTED ME at nine on Monday morning, just as James was parking the car at the office. I was going to make a crack about her contacting me so early, but her brief text beat the humour out of me.
The exhumation was done on Sunday, the text read. They didn’t let me know. I’m sorry.
“Oh my God,” I cried. “I have to go to the diamond right now. They exhumed Karen’s body yesterday. She’s alone, James. I was playing ball, and she’s all alone.”
James did
n’t even blink. “Let’s go,” he said, and put the car in reverse.
WE DROVE HELL bent for leather to the ball diamond, but when we got there, the cops had the parking lot blocked.
“No entry,” the cop said. “Contact the Ladies League if you’re supposed to be playing today.”
“We are part of the investigation,” James said, brazenly. “Let us in.”
“Name?” the cop asked.
“Oh, we aren’t on your list,” James said. “But Sergeant Worth gave us permission—”
“If your name’s not on the list, you are not getting in here,” the cop said. “Have—who did you say? Sergeant Worth? Have her put your name on the list. Then, I can let you in.”
“Can’t we look around?” James asked. “Just let us stand by the fence for a minute.”
“No, sir, you can’t,” the cop said. “This area is off limits until the investigation is concluded. Unless your name is on the list.”
“How long is the investigation going to take?” James asked. “Any idea?”
The cop looked around, sighed like he wished that James was talking to anyone else in the world, then looked back at James. “A day or two,” he said. “At the outside.”
“What are we going to do?” I whispered to James. “I have to get in there.”
James shrugged and turned back to the cop. “A day or two isn’t going to cut it. We have to get in there, now.” He smiled. “Come on. Just let us in there for a minute.”
The cop didn’t answer, but his face tightened. It looked like he was going to start the whole “let me see your licence and registration” thing, so James finally gave up and backed out of the entryway.
I was ready to lose it, but James was cool and calm.
“There is more than one way to skin a cat,” he said, and drove around the block to the other parking lot. Its entryway was blocked, too. But the two ball diamonds that lined the street, Diamond Four and Five, were not surrounded by the yellow tape. And they backed onto Diamond Three, which backed onto Diamond Two.
“Think this is smart?” I asked, fairly surprised that I was the one exercising any caution whatsoever, but James shook me off.
“You have to get in there,” he said. “For the ghost.”
He stopped the car by Diamond Four. I opened the car door and then stopped when I heard a strange noise. A keening, like wind through the branches of a dead tree. I looked at the poplar trees that edged the street, but none of them were moving. And I didn’t feel any wind.
“Do you hear something?” I asked.
James shook his head. We walked quickly between Diamond Four and the outer fence of Diamond Three, hoping to skirt it and come in on the back end of Diamond Two’s outfield.
Of course, we ran into another cop guarding the pathway that would have led to Diamond Two.
“This area is closed,” he said.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said. “Before we practice.” I waved back in the general direction of Diamond Four. “Be a pal.”
“Sorry, Miss. No entry at this time.” He pointed past Diamond Three. “There’s a Tim Hortons on thirty-fourth. Maybe you can use the bathroom there.”
“Thank you,” I said to the helpfully unhelpful cop and turned away. Heard the noise again. Keening. It seemed to be coming from somewhere behind the cop.
“What is that?” I asked, turning back to the cop. “That noise?”
“I don’t hear anything, Miss,” he said. “Now, please, move along.”
“All right,” I said. “We will.”
I grabbed James by the arm and led him back the way we’d come. Past the fence that surrounded the outfield of Diamond Three. That was when I saw the first dead ball player.
She floated down the path toward me, her mouth wide, her eyes awash in glowing tears. “Marie!” she called, when she saw me. “What have you done?”
Another ghost floated in from somewhere. And another, and another. They were all calling my name, and they all looked angry. No. Not angry. They looked completely undone.
“James,” I said. “Go to the car and wait for me.”
“I think if we try coming in a little further down,” James said, completely ignoring my words. “We might be able to sneak past that guy—”
Four more ghosts floated in. One of them was Joanne, the crazy ghost. She saw me, and I swear her eyes almost glowed red.
“This is all your fault!” she screamed. “All your fault.”
What the hell happened?
“James,” I said, interrupting his break and enter plan. “You have to go to the car. Now.”
“Why?” he said. Then he glanced around. “Oh, is Karen here? You know, you could talk to her in front of me. I won’t make a—”
“Jesus, James!” I yelled. “It’s not Karen. It’s a bunch of them. And they don’t look happy. I think I’m dealing with a situation here.”
His smile dissolved, and he looked around like he would actually be able to see them or something. “I should stay,” he said. “You know, protect you.”
I snorted. “You can’t protect me,” I said. “Now go. Please.”
He reluctantly headed back to the car. I was left alone with the undone ghosts. More had appeared in the time it had taken me to convince James to leave. Now, it looked like I was dealing with most—if not all—of the dead ball players. Except for Karen. I couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Where’s Karen?” I asked.
My question stopped them, momentarily. Then, as one, they began wailing again, and I finally realized what the keening sound had been. It was coming from the ghosts of Diamond Two.
“Where’s Karen?” I asked again. I was starting to feel afraid.
“She’s gone!” One of them—it was Joanne—had spoken and she was bearing down on me with her hands outstretched and her mouth open wide. “The police took her body and now she’s gone! And it’s all your fault!”
What?
“She can’t be,” I said. Joanne roared up to me, through me, and I put up my wings of steel to stop that foolishness. “Joanne, stop that.”
She looked surprised, but she stopped, as did the others. They formed a rough circle around me and I could feel their anguish, their fear pressing down on me from all sides.
“She never left the diamond before,” one of them said. “But now she’s gone. She’s gone!”
Another of them, it was Rita, I recognized her from their attempted swarming the first night I came to the ball diamond, walked up to me and put out her hand. Touched my shoulder. And I felt it. It was nothing more than a gentle nudge, but I did feel it. “You have to find her,” she said. “Find her and bring her back.”
Then another ghost walked up to me, and nudged me. And another and another. Finally Joanne whacked me, hard. When my head snapped back, she smiled.
“We’ll do more to you than that,” she said. “If you don’t find Karen and bring her back to us. Now.”
“I will,” I said. “Don’t hit me again.” I wondered how they’d all developed the ability to touch things in the living sphere but figured I’d have to find out another time. Right now, I had to get away from these ghosts before they really hurt me.
“Find her and we’ll stop,” Rita said. “It’s all up to you.”
“I will,” I repeated. I took a step in the direction of the car and they gave way, letting me pass. Once I was clear of them and their overwhelming feeling of loss and despair, I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I walked to the car like I didn’t have a care in the world.
When I got in, I turned to James. “Get me out of here, James,” I said. “I have to find Karen. Now.”
Karen must have followed her body wherever it had been taken. So now it was up to me to find her body, and her spirit. To convince her spirit to follow me back to the diamond, so that her crazed friends would quit hurting me.
Dammit. Dammit anyhow.
OF COURSE, JAMES was confused, and I yelled. Then I cried, dammit, but as we dro
ve away from the diamond, I pulled myself together and called Sylvia Worth.
“Why didn’t you call me before they started the exhumation?” I said. “You told me you would. For God’s sake, they exhumed her on Sunday. Sunday!”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was working another case, and I wasn’t contacted about the exhumation. I texted you as soon as—”
“That wasn’t good enough,” I yelled. “Jesus, Sylvia you promised me!”
“I was at another murder scene,” she said coldly. “I texted you as soon as I could. The body will be at the ME’s office.”
“I have to see it.”
She gave me the address. “I’ll let Dr. Remington know you’re on your way,” she said. “I’ll meet you there.”
Good, I thought as we drove across town. You show up, Sylvia, and I can yell at you in person.
THE OFFICE OF the Medical Examiner was in a nondescript building in a nondescript part of the city. If I had been behind the wheel I probably would have driven past it, but James didn’t. We entered the building and spoke directly to Dr. Remington, who was waiting for us.
“Sergeant Worth will be here shortly,” she said.
“I need to see the body that was brought in from John Fry Park,” I said.
Dr. Remington’s eyes flashed to James and back to me. “I think that would be unwise,” she said. “At this time.”
I was ready to start my yelling and crying thing again to get things moving but then Sylvia showed up, and soon we were on our way to the basement where the bodies were kept in cold storage.
I didn’t actually need to see Karen’s body, of course. I just had to get into the same room, to see if her ghost was there. Still clinging to the last bit of her meat and bones.
