dressing room was a mess. Socks and jock straps lay in soggy little heaps on the floor. The plastic sheets on the lockers hung askew, partially torn from their thumbtacks. The television platforms were still up.
There were champagne and beer bottles everywhere: on the floor, in the garbage cans, propped on the tops of lockers. There was even a full one inside a cowboy boot in front of Swain’s locker. He must have gone home in his shower slippers. The room reeked of sweat and sweet wine.
Yellow tape outlined a path through the dressing room to the showers. In rest of the room, half a dozen men were picking through the debris, taking photographs and looking for clues in the chaos. The whole place was filthy with black fingerprint powder. I didn’t envy them their work.
“You’ve got an impossible job here,” I said. “There must be a hundred and fifty people who had a legitimate reason to leave fingerprints here yesterday afternoon alone.”
“That many?” Munro looked alarmed.
“There are twenty-nine players on the roster. Add four coaches and the manager, the trainer, his assistant, the equipment manager, half a dozen bat boys and clubhouse kids. The ground crew. Security staff. There must have been sixty reporters and television people here before or after the game. The owner, the public relations director and other front-office people, and even the players’ wives and girlfriends. It was a mob scene.”
Munro looked gloomier by the minute. He ran his right hand through his hair again as he looked around the room.
“What time did you leave yesterday afternoon? Was Thorson still here?”
“Yes. There was a clubhouse meeting about Sanchez. The game ended just before four. I was here from about ten minutes after that until the meeting started, which must have been at four-thirty. Then there was a press conference after which I talked to the wives and waited for the players’ meeting to be over. I guess I got back to the office at about five-thirty.”
“How did the players react to the news?”
“They were shocked, of course, but they were mainly talking about whether they would play the rest of the season. They decided to wait until today to make the decision.”
“And Thorson?”
“I didn’t notice anything in particular. But his wife fainted when I told her.”
“I wonder what that was about,” he said.
“I’ve heard she’s pregnant.”
“Are there any problems in the marriage?”
“Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t necessarily know. He screwed around a bit on the road. I don’t know whether she knew about it or, for that matter, cared. Athletes have pretty strange relationships with their wives. They’re not like real people. Or not any people I know. They live in a time warp, stuck in the fifties when daddy worked and mummy stayed at home. I sure couldn’t be married to one of them.”
Munro allowed himself a small smile.
“What was Thorson like after the game yesterday?”
“He was part of all the euphoria. He wasn’t right in the middle of things, but he was here, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. It was his finest moment, and he was milking everything he could out of it. The only one he had any harsh words with was me, come to think of it. Does that make me a suspect?”
“Just don’t leave town, lady,” he said, but he was still smiling. He looked tired. I felt sorry for him.
“If we’re through, I’d better write my story. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”
We exchanged business cards, and I started out the door. In the hall, I ran into Moose. He looked awful. His face was pale and blotchy, his eyes bloodshot.
“What are you doing here? I’ve been leaving messages for you everywhere. We’ve got a press briefing in the boardroom. The rest of the guys are there already. Five minutes.”
He brushed past me and went to talk to Munro. I phoned Jake from the pay phone in the lounge. They had cobbled a story together on the police desk,
Dawn Rae Miller
Stacey Lynn
B A Shapiro
J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn, Talon Konrath
Hags
Rebecca Pawel
Dandi Daley Mackall
Rosina Lippi
John Updike
Stephen Le