by Paul Hina
Emma."
"About the accident?"
"Right."
"What about it?"
"There are some lingering questions I have that keep nagging at me."
"And you want me to answer those questions?"
"I'd like you to try. For all I know, it could all be a wild goose chase, but I'd like to know for sure."
"It'd help if I knew the questions."
"Sure. It's just that some of what I want to say is indelicate. And, even as a contract lawyer, I don't like betraying the confidence of my clients."
"And you want to know if you can trust me?"
"Can I?"
"You'll have to."
"I suppose I will."
"Let's cut across the outfield here," Clay says. "Careful not to step on the foul line."
"Emma came to see me several months ago," Wayne says as they walk on the grass by the warning track. "She wanted to get some information on drawing up a Last Will and Testament for Brett. So, I gave her some info, answered some questions, and she brought Brett in the next day. He basically told me to leave the details to Emma. He only wanted to have a quick look at the thing before he signed off on whatever we drew up."
"Is it normal for a guy at Brett's age to want a Last Will and Testament?"
"No, not at all. But there were special circumstances in Brett's case."
"Like what?"
"For one, he was extremely wealthy."
"Brett?"
"Yeah, he was flush. His father was big in the oil business, and, when he died, he left Brett a good chunk of his fortune."
"But why would Emma need a will to be drawn up? As his wife, she would've gotten everything anyway, right?"
"If they were married, yes. But they weren't married."
"What?"
"That's the indelicate part of all this. They played it like they were married. He always introduced her as his wife, and she took his name in public, but that's as official as it ever got. And you can imagine how sheepish Emma was about it. She was ashamed, really. She knew what it would mean to her reputation if it came out that they were shacking up. That's just not done around here, and she was adamant that it stay private. They were engaged, but he was determined to wait until he got to the bigs before they were married."
"That seems random."
"That's what I thought too. Emma said he was superstitious or something. I just thought she was making excuses for him. He was probably just not ready to get married. Everyone knew how reckless he was with women, not to mention how rowdy he was in general. He didn't live his life like the kind of guy who was in a rush to settle down."
"Thus the need for a will."
"Right, you could go down the line in the dugout here and, to a man, not a single guy would tell you they were surprised that Brett was in an accident."
"But how does the will help Emma if she's in the car with him?"
"I'm getting to that," Wayne says. "Two days before the accident, Emma came in to see me about the will. She wanted to amend it. She wanted to add her brother as the sole beneficiary if something were to happen to both her and Brett."
"And Brett signed off on that?"
"He did. I took the amended will to him that night. I met him here at the box office."
"And he understood what he was signing?"
"Who knows? He barely listened to me when I explained the change, and he signed it without ever really reviewing it. He didn't seem particularly concerned about it. It was about an hour before a game, and he seemed distracted. Maybe I should've waited until he could meet me in the office, but Emma said she wanted it signed right away."
"Are those things usually handled with that kind of urgency?"
"Not in my office."
"So, what do you think she was planning?"
"I don't know, but it is out of the ordinary. And when you consider the circumstances—"
"It's certainly a pretty convenient coincidence."
"But there was something else."
"There always is."
"I saw Emma that night."
"The night of the accident?"
"Yeah."
"So? Lots of people did. She was at the game."
"No, I saw her after the accident."
Clay stops, plants a foot on either side of the left field foul line. "How do you know it was after the accident?"
"I didn't until I read about it in the paper over the next couple days. The sheriff's department said that the accident happened just after eleven."
"But that was just an estimate. From what I heard, the fire had been burning for awhile before they even got the call."
"Well, I saw her after eleven."
"And you're positive it was Emma?"
"Almost certain."
"Almost?"
"Ninety-nine percent sure it was her."
"And she was alone?"
"Yep."
"What was she doing?"
"Just walking."
"What time was it?"
"I don't know. Almost midnight. Maybe even a little after," Wayne says. "And, since the accident happened almost ten miles away, outside of Milpitas, the police couldn't be that far off on their timeline, could they?"
"It's unlikely. The sheriff isn't supposed to be in the business of making any guesses at all," Clay says, and starts walking again down the foul line toward third base.
"I wouldn't think so."
"So, who do you think was in the car with Brett if it wasn't Emma?" Clay asks, looking away from Wayne, almost as if he were talking to himself.
"I don't know who it was, but I'm reasonably sure it wasn't Emma."
"And you think that, since the bodies were so badly burned, it would've been easy for the sheriff's department to misidentify her."
"I have no idea how they go about identifying bodies. You'd probably know more about that than I would."
"Let's think about it. You show up at the scene of an accident. There are marks on the road that show that the driver lost control of the car. Then the car went off the road and rolled downhill. You can tell this by the car's location, the crushed shell of the car, and the destruction of the ground cover down the hillside. The car catches fire and burns for God only knows how long. The bodies inside are completely burned—burned damn near to bone. You identify the car from the plate, assuming you can. Then, if the driver fits the body type of the owner of the car, and the passenger fits the body type of the owner's spouse, or, in this case, his partner, then you make the obvious assumptions. You might do a little sleuthing if you see any evidence of foul play: make sure that neither the driver or the passenger have been seen since the accident, check their house, do some routine questioning of their neighbors or people they were with that night. Really, it seems like an open-and-shut case to me. My guess is that the most frustrating part of the whole case would be filling out the paperwork."
"You think that's how it's done?"
"Beats me. I'm not a cop. But, it seems to me, they're not going to use their resources to dig into a case if it doesn't look to warrant the cost and energy of digging."
"I suppose you're right."
"But they certainly would've spent more time on the case if someone had come forward to say they saw Emma walking around town late that night."
"Like I said, I didn't even know about the accident until the next day, and, even then, I wasn't sure of the time. It wasn't until the story started to trickle out that I started to think I should say something. But I wanted to be sure it was her I saw. I really didn't want to cause any trouble."
"So you called me."
Wayne nods.
"What took you so long?"
"I tried to just forget it. I've been resisting doing anything about it at all. But I just couldn't stop thinking about her. And, look, I have no idea what happened. I could speculate, but I'd hate to think that something unthinkable happened and I just sat on my hands."
"Something unthinkable did happen."
"Worse tha
n unthinkable then."
Clay stops again. They're both standing about ten feet from home plate. Clay is rubbing the hide of the ball, running his thumb up and down the seams, and looking into the visitor's dugout.
"You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette, would you?"
"Sorry. Don't smoke."
"Yeah, me too, I guess," Clay says. "So, you want me to find out if that was Emma you saw that night?"
"Yes," Wayne says. "Among other things."
"You want to know if the accident was actually an accident."
Wayne nods.
"And you want to know who was in the car that night with Brett if it wasn't Emma."
"And I want to know about the money."
"The money?" Clay asks. "Oh, the will. Emma's brother… What's his name again?"
"Kevin Dunham."
"And he's a mechanic, right? I think I've met him before."
"Yeah, he works over at Gene's Garage off Main, on Fourth, I think."
"I know the place," Clay says, and then looks back toward the outfield, focuses on the scoreboard. "One last question, though."
"Yeah?"
"Why are you willing to pay me to find all this out? What's in it for you?"
"Well, I won't pretend to have unlimited funds, but I'm certainly willing to pay for a little peace of mind. And, believe me, I haven't had any since the accident. I haven't been able to sleep, and I can't concentrate on my work. I just can't stop thinking about it."
"I get twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses," Clay says as he turns and walks over home plate.
"What do you mean by expenses? I mean, what do the expenses normally come to?"
"Depends on the job, and what I'm doing on any given day. It's mostly travel costs: gas, phone calls, lodging, that sort of thing. For the most part, though, this seems like a local case. So, I wouldn't expect expenses to get too high. Anyway, I'll itemize everything for you—keep the receipts and all that."
"And you'll be in contact with me?"
"Sure, I'll call you with a
