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by Jason Bennett
Chapter 8
The ballpark was empty when I arrived. A few of the player’s cars sat in the parking lot, so I decided to find Rusty and ask him about the column. My deadline was tomorrow, and I was hopelessly behind.
I walked into the locker room: it had a familiar musty smell to it that comforted me a little, after what I’d just been through. It was a sensation I was accustomed to, which was very different than most of what I’d felt during the last week.
I found Rusty sitting at his locker. He was dressed in the typical locker room pre-game outfit: compression shorts, jock, undershirt, and baseball cap. When I interrupted him, he was completing the outfit by pulling on his socks.
“Rusty,” I said, walking up to him and patting him on the back, “can I ask you a few questions about the column real quick? I need to get it finished today, and I’m a little behind.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, looking through his gym bag. “If you have to.” He continued hunting through his back and locker until he found what he had been looking for – his stirrup socks, which he then began pulling on.
I sat down on a bench to his left.
“I was looking through some stats from the last week,” I said. “I noticed that you haven’t had any playing time. Why not?”
“I’m not the manager,” he said without looking up. “Shouldn’t you be asking Augie?”
“Well maybe,” I said, “but I know you and Augie well enough to know that from your point of view, it would take close to an act of God to keep you off the field when you’re scheduled to start. So what’s up?”
“I been a little sick,” he said, pulling on his second stirrup sock. “Had the flu for a few days.”
“Okay,” I said, “so how do you feel your role on the team changes, when you can’t play?”
Rusty turned around and began digging in his bag again. “I don’t know, really,” he said. “Maybe you should ask Augie.”
“Come on, Rusty,” I said. “You’re not helping me much, here.”
“Look, I don’t much like interviews,” he looked at me for the first time and spoke very quickly. “And like I said, I been a little sick. I’m just not feeling up to it.”
“Alright, alright.” I said. This was not the interview I had expected, or wanted. I was irritated, and facing the distinct possibility that for only the second time in my career with the Southport Times, I might have to run an encore column. And this was not the time in the season when I should be doing that.
“Good luck,” I threw back over my shoulder as I walked out of the room, and headed towards Jerry’s office.
***
Jerry Case’s ballpark office satisfied only utilitarian needs, as he spent very little time there. One metal desk sat in the corner, and a four-drawer file cabinet sat on the opposite wall. The interior office offered no windows, and only one door. The walls had been painted a dull off white and no artwork of any kind hung on the walls. The only chair in the office – besides his wheeled desk chair, was a wooden kitchen chair he offered to visitors.
I walked to the office not expecting to find Jerry there. To my surprise, I found him sitting at his desk, reading through papers of some sort.
I planned to tell him what I somehow had known all along. He had asked me to try to keep Olivia’s drug connection out of the papers, which I had done to the best of my abilities. But today, my suspicions had been confirmed. My abilities weren’t even necessary. The drug connection we all had been so sure would pan out into an arrest and conviction for Olivia’s murder turned into a blind ally. Jerry needed to know that, even though it was neither official, nor common knowledge. I owed him that much.
I watched him through the half-open door for a few seconds. He busily flipped pages, underlined sections of text, crossed out others, and dog-eared pieces of paper. His pace was furious, as if a deadline loomed – but perhaps that judgement drew too much from my own experience.
I hesitantly knocked on his door. His head snapped upwards and he looked at me without recognition for a moment. When he realized who I was, he waved me in.
I walked in and grabbed the wooden chair, pulling it up to his desk.
“How are you, Carson,” he asked me as I sat down. “I didn’t see you after the ceremony.”
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“Just a few revisions to a business plan I’m working on at the bank.”
“Working pretty hard, huh?”
“Trying to make up for some lost time. I haven’t gotten much work done, recently.”
“I can understand why.”
He continued to work while I sat next to him. I hated what I was about to tell him. I knew all he wanted to hear was that the murder of his only child had been solved. When he learned that exactly the opposite was true, I had no idea what his reaction might be.
I decided the only way to break this news was to do it directly.
“Jerry, they’re releasing Jake this afternoon. They don’t have anything on him – and he has a rock-solid alibi.”
He didn’t say a word at first. He disengaged his pen from his pile of papers, and stared at his desk.
I watched him crumble. His façade held well, but I could see inside – much deeper than he wanted anyone to see. My mind flashed back to the first time I had met Jerry Case. In this very ballpark, very soon after getting my job with the Times, I had come to interview him about a completely different story.
I was writing an article about a real estate project his bank was financing, and as a new reporter, I decided that making a solid first impression, with him and with my employers, would be fundamental to my success in this town.
I found him in his office that day, too. He didn’t know me from a bleacher bum, but I had strutted in and presented myself so ridiculously that he got a kick out of me.
“Quit the show, kid,” he had said to me. “Be yourself, you’ll get much further, much faster.”
I don’t remember exactly what I said in response, but I remember never having been so embarrassed, and he saw that in me. He invited me to stay for the game, as his guest, and we walked through the ballpark.
As I thought about all this, he went back to work.
“What next,” was all he said to me.
“I don’t know, Jerry, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry this wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be.”
“Well, at least I know it wasn’t the drug thing. That’s a bit of a relief, you know? I don’t have to worry about her reputation being smeared any more.”
He looked pathetic when he said that. He was trying desperately not to look disappointed.
“I’m sorry this wasn’t the answer, Jerry.”
“Not your fault, Ozzie. You did everything you could do. Let the cops handle it.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. I sat for a long minute, trying desperately to think of something else, something, what . . . consoling? Maybe that wasn’t going to happen. I decided that Jerry probably needed some time alone. He’d get in touch with me, if he needed me.
My mind went back again to that first time we had met. His remark had reminded me so much of my father, that at the time it startled me a little. Maybe that was where my loyalty came from.
“I have to get going now, Jerry,” I lied. “Call me if you need anything.”
I stood up and walked out of his office. I don’t remember ever feeling as low as I did that moment.
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