Blue Screen by Robert B. Parker Page B

glanced triumphantly at Roy Linden.
    “Good,” Roy Linden said. “Nice.”
    “Out of any park,” Erin said.
    “It’s what happens,” Roy Linden said, “you stay nice and compact.”
    “How was she?” I said.
    “Recovered.”
    “Erin Flint again?” I said.
    “Uh-huh.”
    Erin hit a ball that bounced weakly toward the pitcher.
    “Nice and easy,” Roy Linden said, “short swing. Bottom hand leads, top hand follows.”
    “Tell him to throw it higher,” Erin said.
    “If you don’t like a pitch, Erin,” Linden said, “just lay off it.”
    “And do what?” she said. “Just stand here?”
    “She does seem her old self,” I said to Jesse.
    “Buddy wasn’t there,” Jesse said. “Just her and the woman lawyer.”
    Erin hit the ball hard again.
    “Excellent,” Roy Linden said. “Head right on it. Excellent.”
    “She doesn’t know anyone who would want to hurt Misty. She doesn’t have any idea who might have done it. She still thinks it was meant to be her, trying to stop her from playing big-league ball.”
    “Just stand in the box,” Linden said to Erin. “Don’t swing. I just want you to pick up his release point.”
    “Just stand here?”
    “Tell me,” Linden said, “when he releases the ball.”
    “That’s boring,” she said.
    “You bet,” Linden said.
    “She have any thought about who it might be that’s trying to stop her?”
    “The old boys’ network,” Jesse said.
    I nodded.
    “You need to see it sooner,” Roy Linden was saying. “Focus. Try to see the ball leaving his hand.”
    “For crissake, Roy, as long as I see it, what difference.”
    Linden’s calm never faltered.
    “Sooner you see it, Erin, longer you’ve got to decide what pitch it is and whether to swing.”
    Jesse was staring at the pitcher as we talked. I realized he was watching for the release point, too.
    “Buddy sent her to college, her and Misty. It was probably her happiest time.”
    “She tell you that?” I said.
    Jesse smiled and shook his head.
    Erin said, “There.”
    “Slow,” Jesse said. “She needs to see it sooner.”
    “So why do you say she was happy in college?”
    “Way she talked,” Jesse said.
    He still looked at the pitcher and nodded when the pitcher released the ball. I doubt that he was aware of it.
    “She played volleyball, softball. Ran track.”
    “Dated?” I said.
    “I gathered, not too much,” Jesse said. “She was older than most of the college boys, and looked like she looks. Most of them were probably scared to ask her out.”
    “Plus she was already with Buddy,” I said.
    Jesse nodded briefly as the pitcher released the ball. His nod was still ahead of Erin’s recognition.
    “I’m not sure faithful is part of their deal,” Jesse said.
    “It might be part of the deal,” I said, “but I don’t think either of them would be ruled by it.”
    “Whaddya throw,” Roy Linden yelled out to the college kid pitching.
    “Fastball, curve,” the kid said. “Got a circle change but I can’t locate it.”
    “Throw what you got,” Linden said. “Mix them up. I don’t care about location. I want her to see the rotation.”
    “It still bothers me,” I said, “that the two girls concealed their relationship.”
    Jesse nodded, watching the pitcher.
    “They were still doing it,” I said, “even after Misty died. Erin was still not admitting that they were sisters.”
    “They lived in a culture of denial,” Jesse said.
    “I just see the ball,” Erin said.
    “You’ll get it, keep focused on the release point, see how the ball rotates when he lets it go.”
    “I don’t see anything,” Erin said.
    “Focus,” Linden said.
    “Culture of denial?” I said to Jesse. “Are you sure you’re a cop?”
    “God made her look like she does,” Jesse said. “To live up to that, she has to deny everything else.”
    “Even her sister?”
    “Sister knows,” Jesse said.
    “But pretending she’s not your sister doesn’t make her not know,” I