06 Fatal Mistake by Marie Force Page A

his eyes but was unable to keep a tear from leaking out the side of his right eye. He brushed it away and opened his eyes. “She and Willie were very devoted to each other. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. We’ll reach out to make the team’s resources available to her.” He looked at Hill. “I’ve been in the business world my entire adult life, but nothing like this has ever happened before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
    “First and foremost cooperate with the investigation,” Hill said. “Ensure that everyone in your organization does the same.”
    “Of course. That goes without saying.”
    “Mr. Jestings, prior to last night’s error, do you know of anyone who had a beef with Mr. Vasquez? Anyone he argued with or had problems with?”
    “No. Like I said, he was very well liked. Here’s Bob now. You can ask him. He’ll tell you the same thing.”
    The gray-haired manager was stocky and thick through the middle with a ruddy, sunburned complexion. He wore a Feds ball cap and team jacket with jeans. “How come there’re cops all over the place?” Bob asked Ray.
    He gestured to Sam and Avery. “This is FBI Special Agent Avery Hill, an old friend of mine from Charleston, and MPD Lieutenant Holland.”
    Bob shook hands with both of them and sat next to Ray. “What can we do for you folks?”
    “Mr. Minor,” Sam said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you that Willie Vasquez was found dead this morning.”
    “ What? Dead?” Bob looked at Ray, who nodded grimly. “Oh my God. What happened?”
    “He was stabbed in the chest,” Sam said.
    “Where did this happen?”
    “We’re not sharing those details at this time.”
    “We have the right to know what happened to our friend and colleague,” Bob said, a hint of temper flashing in his blue eyes.
    “And we have the right to protect our investigation,” Sam replied. She loved when people talked about their rights, as if they trumped the rights of the victim. In Sam’s world, nothing trumped the rights of her victim du jour. “We need to know every move Mr. Vasquez made, from the time he was escorted off the field by your security personnel until the time he left the stadium.”
    Ray got up again and went to his phone. “Aaron, get Hugh up here, will you please?”
    “Mr. Minor,” Sam said, “when we spoke with Mrs. Vasquez, she told us she repeatedly tried to call you and all the other players last night when her husband didn’t come home. She said she was unable to get through to anyone other than Mr. Jestings, which led her to believe all their former friends had turned their backs on them in light of Willie’s error.”
    Bob’s face got even redder than it was naturally. “That’s not true! I got seven hundred phone calls last night. That’s seven zero zero . I turned off my phone before the game and didn’t turn it on again until this morning. If Carmen Vasquez called, that’s news to me. I’m sure our players were dealing with the same thing—a barrage of calls from their management and media requests and old friends wanting to commiserate.”
    “How would you explain that none of their spouses took Carmen’s calls either?”
    “Lieutenant,” he said in a patronizing tone that grated on Sam’s tired nerves, “people were upset about what happened in the game. Willie’s error cost this team a trip to the World Series. No matter how much we all liked him, that’s a fact. People were upset.”
    “Was anyone upset enough to kill him?”
    He maintained his composure, but his outrage at the question came through loud and clear to her. “No one on my team was upset enough to kill him.”
    After a knock on the door, a tall, blonde woman came into the room. Her blue eyes were red and raw from crying. Like the rest of the city, these people were taking a lost ball game a little too hard. “I got a message you wanted to see me?” she said to Ray.
    He introduced Jamie Clark to Sam and Hill. “Jamie is