“Guy misses a fly ball, and he’s dead twelve hours later? Makes me wonder what kind of world we live in.”
Before he could hold another door for her, she snatched it open and strolled into the palatial foyer. “You and I know all too well what kind of world we live in.”
“True.” He seemed to know exactly where he was going as they entered an area of the ballpark that looked more like the lobby of a fancy office building than a baseball stadium. At the reception desk, he gave his name and asked to see Ray Jestings.
“He’s not accepting visitors at the moment,” the young woman at the desk said. “I’d be happy to give him a message for you.”
Hill glanced at Sam, and in a moment that was far more in keeping with her groove with Cruz, they placed their badges on the counter, right next to each other.
The woman’s eyes darted between the two badges.
“FBI and Metro PD,” Hill said. “Let us up.”
“I need to make a call first.”
“Make it snappy,” Sam said. “We don’t have all day.”
The receptionist scurried into a back room, keeping her gaze fixed on them through a plate glass window as she placed the call.
While they waited, Sam looked around a reception area decorated with life-sized photos of Federals players as well as the ballpark and a large portrait of the team’s handsome young owner.
“What if we discover that your childhood friend ordered Vasquez killed when he blew the biggest game in franchise history?”
Hill chuckled. “Are you impugning my professionalism, Lieutenant?”
“Never.”
“Right... Do you want my help or not?”
“As much as it pains me to admit it, I need all the help I can get with this one.”
The receptionist returned about two seconds before Sam was going after her. Sam’s body was about an hour from full shutdown mode. She needed to get as much done as she could before her gas tank hit empty.
“You can go on up to Mr. Jestings’ office.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sam said. “It took ten minutes to arrive at that foregone conclusion?”
“I’m sorry,” the young woman said, her chin quivering. “We’re all very upset today. No one more so than Mr. Jestings.”
Oh for crying out loud
, Sam thought as she followed Hill onto an elevator with no buttons. Apparently, it had one destination only.
“That poor girl,” Hill said as the elevator whisked them upward. “You turned her into a quivering wreck.”
“I hate receptionists. They’re always standing between me and the people I want to talk to.”
“You’re endlessly amusing, Holland.”
“Need I remind you that you’re not allowed to be amused by me?” If he was going to be around again, Sam wanted to set the boundaries early on.
His smile faded. “No reminders necessary. I’m painfully aware of your blissful marital status.”
Hill’s use of the word “painful” left her feeling uneasy as they stepped into the office suite that housed the Feds’ top management. As she followed Hill to a hallway lined with team memorabilia that ended with yet another receptionist, Sam dashed off a text to Malone, letting him know they’d cracked the Feds’ inner sanctum.
This receptionist was male, mid-twenties and looked like he’d been crying. “Agent Hill,” he said. “It’s so nice to see a friendly face on a rather glum day around here. We were so close.
So
damned close.”
Little did he know, Sam thought, that the team was about to have much bigger problems to contend with than a lost ball game.
“A tough loss for sure. Could I talk to Ray? I won’t take much of his time.”
“Yes, of course. I told him you were on your way up.” He glanced at Sam and then back at Hill.
“This is Detective Lieutenant Holland from the Metro PD.”
“The senator’s wife.”
Whereas she’d revealed her marital status willingly to Carmen Vasquez, here it bugged her. She loved being Nick’s wife, but on the job she preferred being known for her own accomplishments rather than who she’d married. “Am I? I had no idea.”
The young man frowned at her. “Go on in. He’s expecting you.”
On the way past, Avery patted the younger man on the shoulder. “There’s always next year.”
“That’s what we’ve been telling ourselves all morning.”
In one of the biggest offices Sam had ever seen, Ray Jestings was the picture of devastation. He sat in a gigantic leather executive chair behind his desk, staring out at the ballpark to his right. Beyond the park, Ray’s view of the city extended past the Capitol and into Maryland.
“Hey, Ray.”
“Avery.” Jestings got up and came around the desk to hug his old friend. He was tall and lean with dark hair beginning to turn gray and looked like he hadn’t slept yet either. “What brings you here?”
“This is Lieutenant Holland from the Metro PD. I’m afraid we’ve come with some bad news.”
“I don’t know if I can take any more bad news.” He spoke in the same honeyed South Carolinian accent as Avery’s.
“This is a lot worse than a lost ball game,” Sam said, earning a frown from Hill. Maybe she was getting a tad cranky after the night without sleep.
“What’s going on, Avery?” Ray asked, his gaze bouncing between Sam and Hill.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Willie Vasquez was found murdered this morning,” Hill said.
Ray stared at them, unseeing, as if trying to process what Hill had said.
“Ray? Why don’t you sit down?” Hill put his arm around the other man and led him to the arrangement of chairs that overlooked the ballpark below.
“Someone killed Willie?” he asked, seeming genuinely shocked and devastated by the news.
“I’m afraid so,” Avery said. “I’m so sorry.”
“People were mad about what happened last night. But that someone could
kill
him...”
A knock on the door preceded Ray’s assistant as he came into the office, white-faced and wide-eyed. “Mr. Jestings, there’re cops all over the building demanding entrance.”
Ray’s dark eyes narrowed with rage that he directed at Sam. “I run a clean organization here, Lieutenant.”
“If that’s the case, then you have nothing to worry about. Let my people in so they can do their jobs.”
He nodded to the assistant, who scurried from the room, closing the door behind him.
“You can look all you want but you won’t find anything to tie this organization to what happened to Willie. He’s a valued member of this ball club.”
“Even after what happened last night?” Sam asked.
“Especially after what happened last night. No one wanted that win more than Willie did. He was a fierce competitor, a superior athlete and teammate. We all felt terrible for him, but no one felt worse than he did. The poor guy was in tears after the game.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“I’d like to speak to your general manager, team manager, security director and anyone else who had access to Willie after the game last night.”
Jestings looked to Hill, seeming to seek guidance.
“Get them up here,” Hill said. “The more you do to aid in the investigation, the less we’ll need to look at you and your team.”
“Me and my team? You know me, Avery. You know I could never hurt anyone, let alone a ballplayer I loved and respected.”
“Who cost your team its first trip to the World Series,” Sam interjected.
Once again, Ray’s furious gaze landed on her. “And you think I’d put that ahead of a man who had a wife and two small children at home? That I’d put winning ahead of his health and safety?”
“I don’t know you at all. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t have the answers to those questions just yet. But your friend Hill is right. The more you cooperate, the more your people cooperate, the less time we’ll spend here when we could be out finding the person who did this.”
After a charged moment of silence, Ray got up, went over to his desk and made a call. Weariness clung to him as he leaned against the desk. “Aaron, will you please ask Bob and Jamie to come up? Thank you.” He returned to the sofa. “I’ve asked our manager, Bob Minor, and trainer, Jamie Clark, to join us. They were with Willie longer than I was last night. Our general manager, Garrett Collins, is out today. The security director, Hugh Bixby, is dealing with police at the moment.”
“You were with Willie after the game?” Sam asked as she made a note to pay Collins a visit at home.
“For a short time. He was inconsolable. We kept the media out of the locker room so he wouldn’t have to face their questions.”
“Walk me through everything that happened from the time Willie was brought off the field by team security,” Sam said. “I need to know who was with him, what was said, when he left, how he left.”
“Bob and Jamie will be able to speak more to that than I can. I was with him briefly in the training room after the game.”
“Who were his friends on the team?” Hill asked.
“Again, Bob would be better able to speak to that, but from what I observed, Willie was friends with everyone. His teammates respected and admired him. We all did. Have you seen Carmen?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “My partner is with her, and her brother is on the way from the Dominican Republic.”
Ray closed 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 the team’s trainer.” To Sam, he said, “Um, should I tell her?”
“Go ahead.” That made one less person Sam had to tell.
“Tell me what?” Jamie asked, looking from Ray to Bob.
“Willie was killed last night,” Ray said.
Her legs buckled. “No. No, no,
no
.”
Ray reached for her and caught her in his arms when she would’ve fallen. Bob scooted over to make room for Jamie on the sofa.
Sam glanced at Hill and caught his eye. It was interesting, she thought, that Jamie’s response to the news had been almost exactly the same as that of Carmen Vasquez. Very interesting, indeed. She’d worked with Hill enough by now to conclude that he too found the reaction odd, based on the way he’d tuned into Jamie’s intense reaction as well as the subtle lift of his eyebrow.
“Ms. Clark,” Sam said after water had been brought in for the other woman, “we’re very sorry for your loss. As you can imagine, we have a lot of ground to cover in our investigation and it would help to know anything you can tell us about Mr. Vasquez’s movements after he was escorted from the field.”
She took a tissue from the box Ray offered and wiped her tears. “I’m not sure what transpired between the field and the training room, but I was with Willie last night after the game. I might’ve been the last member of the Feds organization to see him alive.”