Chapter Twenty
Tampering With the Witness
“Go, Rockets!” Dane gave three loud claps as his team went up for their last outfield inning. “Keep them from scoring and you’ll hang in there.”
The score was tied at zero. The Rockets didn’t have much speed, but at least neither did the Pelicans.
Not that Dane was at the top of his game as a coach, either. Fifty things on his task list distracted him, and he barely noticed when the first Pelican up to bat hit a single after the Rockets shortstop let it through his legs.
He checked his watch. It would take an hour to get to Chincoteague. Did he have time this afternoon? He had to. If Norvin North would agree to meet with him on a Saturday, there wasn’t much choice.
With only three reputable handwriting experts anywhere nearby— North, a guy in D.C., and a guy in New York City— Dane’s pickings were slim. Especially on this short notice.
“Sorry, coach,” the boys said when they came in after letting the Pelicans score three runs on them in the bottom of the ninth. “We should-a held them.”
Dane gave some high fives. “Next time. Now, come on. Let’s give them a sendoff cheer before we go gorge ourselves on orange slices and Capri Sun drink boxes.”
“They don’t come in boxes. They’re pouches,” a smart kid said as he put his mitt in the middle of the cheer circle. They shouted and threw their mitts in the air.
Dane waved goodbye and tore out of Maddox. He booked it across the Chesapeake to Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Above the water, the bridge was windy, and he hoped it wouldn’t shut down on his return trip; but fifteen dollars poorer and two hours later, Dane and his Dodge rolled across the Eastern Shore of Maryland and up onto Chincoteague Island— and possibly into career suicide. He couldn’t ask about Brooke’s case without actually presenting himself here as her lawyer.
Risks and rewards. He’d weighed them both as he pulled up at North’s house and knocked on the door.
“Thank you for meeting with me at short notice,” Dane said as he extended his hand to the short, balding man with the wire-rimmed glasses. He had to be eighty years old. More. “Do you get many requests now that you’ve retired from official service?”
According to Vonda, North had spent his career between Richmond and Charlottesville. That meant he was a big-city guy, not a Maddox or Naughton entity, which meant he might not be corrupted by the touch of Faro LaBarge.
LaBarge couldn’t have infected every person on the whole eastern seaboard, could he? He wasn’t exactly the plague. Close, but not quite.
“Things have been pretty quiet until lately.” North invited him in and gave him a chair to sit in, as a huge dog came up and greeted Dane with slobbery enthusiasm. “Now this week, out of nowhere, I have the phone ringing off the hook.”
No one had phones on hooks anymore. Maybe this guy was too old school for what Dane and Brooke would need for Tuesday.
“Speaking of phones,” he said as he reached to pull out the photo he’d taken at the bowling alley, but then— something stopped him. Instead, he redirected. “Sudden burst of popularity, eh?”
“Must be a lot of forgery going on in Virginia these days.”
This stopped Dane cold, his instincts heightening. “You getting forgery accusations from across the Bay?” Dane petted the dog’s head, and it sank down, setting its heavy chest on Dane’s feet. “Virginia’s a hotbed of it, eh?” He didn’t know how much fishing for information he dared do.
Turned out, the Norvin North pump didn’t need much priming.
“Second one today.” He rubbed a shiny spot on the top of his balding pate. “I mean, I go completely cold for three months, nothing but me and my TV Guide, and then, boom— out of the blue, I get handed a check for ten thousand dollars to work as an expert witness on a short-notice court case for a baseball’s provenance. Now you show up, Mister, er, Mister….I don’t recall your name.”
Seriously? LaBarge dug up the exact same handwriting expert to tap for help? Then a worse thought hit Dane. Had LaBarge reached out his slimy tentacles and tapped every handwriting expert on the eastern seaboard?
“Sounds like you’re very busy,” Dane said, rising. “And like you already got yourself a nice payday for today.” He made his way toward the door. “I’ve got a late-notice project, too, so I’ll venture to guess you’re too busy.”
Dane let himself out. Better to not leave his name. Loose lips and all.
And with no handwriting expert, chances were Brooke’s ship was taking on water even faster than before.
__________
Brooke almost didn’t know how to coach baseball with only herself as leader of the Batmen, she was so used to having a second voice calling out drills to them. But in their first game of the season, the kids faced the Gargantuas. Dane’s team had played earlier and wasn’t even scheduled for this complex of four baseball diamonds.
She was alone.
Then again, at least she didn’t have Quirt telling her how to coach, either, so there was an upside.
“Come on, Batmen!” She clapped and readjusted her coach’s cap over her ponytail as the wind whipped eddies of dust across the field.
Bottom of the seventh, they finally scored a run, and now it was top of the ninth.
“Okay, guys. If we can keep the Gargantuas from getting any runs, we win.”
“Why?” a kid asked. “There’s still one more at-bat.”
“But if we’re ahead, they just declare us the winner.”
“But I still want to be up one more time.”
Brooke sighed inwardly. They’d go over the rules again later. Meanwhile, she needed to keep them focused on their fielding, so she gave them a couple of strategies to work on, and then sent them out to field.
“Play your best!” she said.
A man stepped up beside her. “They can’t stop staring at you. You’ve got every boy on the team under your spell.”
Brooke looked up and saw Ames, his hand shading his eyes. “What are you doing here? No non-coaches in the dugout.”
“I don’t think you’ll report me.”
She might. What was he doing here? She needed to concentrate.
“Hey. Glad I found you out here.”
How had he found her, anyway?
Ames looked out toward a stand of trees in right field, not making eye contact with her. He fidgeted. “I really need to talk to you.”
“We’re talking about your needs, huh? Let’s get something straight. You married Charli LaBarge.”
“I did, but it’s over.”
Whatever. Cheaters always said that. “Let me guess. She doesn’t understand you. She doesn’t respond to your needs. You know that now. You’re a changed man.”
“No, really, it’s like I told you the other day— the divorce is final. I filed a year to the day.” Ames reached for her, but she stepped out of his grasp. “Brooke,” he said. “Babe. It was always you.”
Sure it was.
The second batter from the Gargantuas came up to bat. They already had a kid on second. How had she missed a second-base hit by the other team? She needed to concentrate. She was on the job, here.
“Look, Ames. I have a lot going on right now, not the least of my concerns rooted in being outright persecuted by your father-in-law. I don’t have time for you, for this.” She waved her hand back and forth between the two of them.
“Twenty minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
The batter swung and missed. Two strikes.
“Way to go, pitcher!” she yelled, and then turned back to Ames, wishing he would just leave.
“I know you don’t want to listen now,” Ames said. “You’re coaching. But after the game, I promise I can explain—”
Sure, he could. “Stop. Stop yourself right there.” She held up a hand and Ames shushed. “First off, you can finish telling me about LaBarge. You mentioned some obsession.”
Ames stood straighter. “I’ll tell you about that after you hear me out.”
Right, after he gave her an excuse as to why he jilted and then left her to be ridiculed by everyone in this whole dang town. No, thank you.
“How about this?” she said, as a better idea hit her. Dane couldn’t fault her for this one. Okay, maybe he could; but her gut told her to do it, even if it was dangerous. Dane’s feelings mattered to her deeply— as did everything she and Aunt Ruth had worked for. Winning the case mattered to him, too. He loved Aunt Ruth and didn’t want her dream to fail.
“More than anything you want me to listen to your side of what happened between us, right?” she said. “I tell you what. I’ll listen to you— but after the hearing. After you testify about whatever it is you know about Sarge LaBarge and his so-called obsession.” After he proved he wasn’t a spy for LaBarge.
Ames hesitated. “Testify. In court.”
“On the stand. About your father-in-law.” She was testing him, she knew. He, of all people, likely had an inkling of how slimy and lethal LaBarge could be. But Ames Crosby owed her. Big time. “On the record.”
“You don’t understand, Brooke.”
“I sure don’t.” She glanced up as the second batter struck out. Two outs, one on second, a heavy hitter sidling up to home plate, the Batmen’s pitcher looking scared. “But I will give you a chance to explain at least some of what you have to say. After court.”
Without a character witness against LaBarge, they had nothing to counterbalance all the lies he was allegedly concocting against Brooke. They needed to be prepared for that. She’d seen the venom in those bulging eyes the other day, when they threatened to prove she’d not only forged the will but had also conned Harvey Jarman, the sweet man she’d seen in the bowling pictures.
LaBarge had to be stopped.
Ames still didn’t answer, but he turned to stare out at right field again.
A text came in on her phone. She glanced at the team— the pitcher had lobbed two balls and a strike. Everything hung on this moment. “Go, Batmen!” she called softly, so as not to interrupt the pitcher’s concentration.
“You should know,” she said. “It’s a risk to put you on the stand during the hearing.” He could totally burn her. Then again, the longer she stood out here talking to Ames, the more she risked something even more precious to her than that baseball she’d thought until now she wanted more than anything. Now she knew something else mattered even more: Dane’s trust.
Everyone in little league could see her standing here talking to Ames Crosby. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, this information would fly into every ear in town. It could get back to Dane, who hated Ames and didn’t trust him as far as he could push him off the dock into the Chesapeake.
“You testify about LaBarge, and then after the hearing, I listen to whatever it is in the world it is you have to say.”
“With an open mind?”
That was hard to say. “As open as it can be.” There. That could be construed as truthful.
“Really?” He looked shocked and relieved at once. And vulnerable. Imagine that, Ames Crosby, vulnerable. Never in a million years would Brooke have expected such a thing. “Okay, testimony, then you’ll listen. Capiche?” He let his face go grim. Before she could stop him, he’d leaned in and kissed her cheek. The spicy scent of his cologne was a time machine that shot her back to when she loved him. “You won’t be sorry. I promise,” he murmured.
Brooke couldn’t help it. She believed the guy. Whether or not she should.
Ames bounded out of the dugout just as the pitcher threw a ball straight through the strike zone. Heavy Gargantua Hitter swatted it clean. It sailed straight over the shortstop’s head, where it plunked down on the lawn between left and center fields.
Neither fielder dove for it.
Heavy Hitter rounded the bases, and he made it to third, getting his compadre into home for a run.
Brooke sighed. “It’s okay, guys.” She clapped. “Make sure you call them.”
Then she remembered the text. It was from Dane. Norvin compromised. No expert available in the area. Sorry.
But— having a handwriting expert testify that the handwriting on the addendum was genuine was the crux of this whole case. Now what?
At least they had a character witness against LaBarge. Probably. Depending on what Ames actually said on the stand. And whether Dane would even agree to put Ames up there.
Brooke needed to tell him. She pulled out her phone to start to send him the text, but she stopped herself.
This conversation had better happen in person.
Meet me for church tomorrow?