Chapter Twenty-Seven
Statute of Limitations
All the oxygen sucked out of Brooke’s lungs, like someone had opened a jet plane window at thirty thousand feet. She’d wanted this, but it didn’t change how risky it was.
What would Ames say?
But if Brooke had misgivings about Ames’s presence on the stand, the look on LaBarge’s face proved he was a thousand times more horrified. Huh. Brooke would have actually probably liked to play cards with LaBarge because that guy did not have a poker face. Except something told her odds were high he’d cheat.
“This might be unusual, your honor,” Dane began, “but I’m going to ask the witness an open-ended question. I hope the court will allow it.”
The judge considered a moment. “As long as it stays relevant to the case.”
Dane v. Ames. She never dreamed she’d see them pitted against each other— so vis-à-vis. The contrast between them played out on the stage before her very eyes, but she only had eyes for Dane.
Dane walked with the lazy gait of the supremely confident, but was certainly calculating every step. His ever-present calm and casual exterior was a façade. Not in a bad way and not as a phony, because this guy was authentic; but in a way that masked from those whose opinions he didn’t value or those who hadn’t won his trust the deeper, more thoughtful and insightful side of himself.
Maybe he’d had to in order to survive as a Rockwell, and now he’d channeled the skill into other purposes, like convincing a judge or a jury he had it all figured out.
Please have it all figured out.
After preliminary questions of name, age, and occupation, Dane sent his opening volley.
“Dr. Crosby,” Dane asked, “would you please tell the court about your relationship with the LaBarge family?”
Oh. Brooke hadn’t expected Dane to get so personal. Ames shifted uncomfortably, and Brooke’s mind shifted— Ames could embarrass her by dragging her history with LaBarge into the open. LaBarge had been persecuting her specifically for years now. She couldn’t fathom why. It wasn’t like his daughter Charli needed beauty pageant scholarships to attend college. She was brilliant and could get academic scholarships, plus her daddy was richer than a pharaoh. There’d been no need to bribe judges at pageants. Or to steal Ames from her. Or to try to squash their family’s heritage of love of baseball by lying to get the ball from Jarman— and then from her. Over the years he had actively sought ways to completely crush Brooke, like a used cigarette.
And Ames held the power to expose all of that humiliation.
“I was married to Faro LaBarge’s daughter, Charli, until a few weeks ago. I lived with them at LaBarge Mansion for nearly a year.”
“So, I take it you knew LaBarge well.”
“Quite well, I would say.”
“And while you were married, and therefore legally a part of the LaBarge family …”
Ah, the empty air just narrowed to relevance. Good show, Dane. Brooke continued to bate her breath. Next she expected him to ask the obvious, What kind of a jerk is Sarge LaBarge at home? Or, How does he treat his family?
But Dane didn’t.
“Tell me, Dr. Crosby, during your time married to Charli LaBarge, did the extended family enjoy sports?”
Brooke leaned forward in her seat when the next answers unfurled.
“Yes, baseball.”
“It seems everyone likes baseball. You were a baseball player yourself, I hear.” Dane didn’t let Ames expound on that, but instead he asked, “Would you say Mr. LaBarge had a favorite team?”
Ames snorted. “I’d say he was obsessed.”
“With which team?”
“The Chicago Cubs.”
“The baseball team.”
“Yes.”
“And you used the word obsessed. Please explain for the court what you mean by that.”
“By obsession I mean the man had season tickets to the home games at in Chicago Wrigley Field. He flew there from Virginia for every game— didn’t miss one, even though Chicago is fifteen hundred miles from here. By obsession I mean he went to the away games almost as often. By obsession I mean he has an entire wing of the LaBarge Mansion dedicated to fan paraphernalia for the Chicago Cubs. By obsession I mean he hardly had another topic of discussion at any family gathering.”
Wow. That sounded really boring. Brooke liked baseball as much as the next person, more probably, and even had a hefty interest in collecting baseball stuff. But whoa, mama. And poor Ames had been forced to live at LaBarge Mansion for the year.
“I’d say those are hallmarks of obsession,” Dane said.
“Objection. Irrelevant.” LaBarge huffed heavily, on the verge of hyperventilating. With her medical training, Brooke knew the signs. She sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t, since as a nurse she’d be obligated to administer medical care.
“Overruled, Mr. LaBarge. Overruled.” Judge Vandalay shook her head. “Considering the object in question at the very heart of this trial is Chicago Cubs-related, I’d say this is highly relevant.”
“But it’s a Yankees ball!” he blurted.
“Played at a Chicago game, at Wrigley Field. Don’t think I don’t know my baseball history, Mr. LaBarge. I might be a little obsessed myself, albeit with fingernail care and my house cat, but I do my homework for my trials.” She turned to Dane. “Proceed, Mr. Rockwell. This is getting very interesting.” She leaned back and laced her fingers across her sizable belly.
Brooke let out her breath. Judge Vandalay was looking more and more fair and impartial, less and less like someone’s close, personal friend.
“Tell the court, Dr. Crosby. Did Mr. LaBarge confine his interest in the Cubs to the current team? Was he a fair-weather friend, just newly interested in them now that they’ve won a World Series?”
“No. In fact, I’d say he had an even greater interest in historical teams and statistics.”
“Such as— ?”
“He really liked the 1932 team. Thought they were the finest ever assembled by the club. I heard about it on multiple occasions.” Ames rolled his eyes to emphasize his understatement.
“For instance, did he have a favorite player on that 1932 team?”
Brooke heard this question, and puzzle pieces slid into place.
“Oh, yeah. The pitcher. He even named his daughter after the pitcher. Charlie Root.”
Charli LaBarge was named for a pitcher. Whoa. Wait, it wasn’t just a pitcher, it was the pitcher from The Called Shot. It started hitting Brooke that obsession might indeed be apt, especially regarding the ball Harvey Jarman left her in his will.
“Tell us more about his interest in Charlie Root.”
Ames described different aspects of the obsession, from posters and autographs to a special, themed birthday party, and then came the bell-ringer.
“Your former father-in-law seems like he had forged a personal connection to Charlie Root, and possibly to the Called Shot incident.”
“Sarge LaBarge worshiped Root. He deeply resented the fact that the guy had had an excellent career— with over two hundred wins— and that he was only remembered for the Called Shot, which Babe Ruth hit off him. LaBarge couldn’t stand it. He despised the Yankees, and loathed Babe Ruth more than any other player that ever lived. I heard him once planning a family bonfire for some signed photos he’d bought from collectors on-line. He wanted to destroy every vestige of any memory of Ruth. For instance, he knew somehow about Ruth Chadwick, that her father, Thunder Chadwick, had worked for the Yankees. He zeroed in on her and her family. It was strange, to say the least. And yeah, I’d call that obsessed.”
He’d targeted her family? Because of Grandpa Thunder— and Aunt Ruth? Dominoes started toppling in her mind, and Brooke’s mouth went dry. Obsessed? She looked around. Everybody in the courtroom would call that obsessed, too, from the looks of derision on their faces.
Dane just nodded, pacing to the other side of the judge’s bench. “Okay, Dr. Crosby. I’m now going to ask you to tell the court what you know about LaBarge’s interest in the Called Shot Ball.”
“Objection! Objection!” If LaBarge hadn’t looked like he was going to explode before, now he actually shook, rattling his desk like a pressure cooker gauge. “Objection!”
“Please calm down, Mr. LaBarge. Bailiff?” Judge Vandalay’s warning quieted him, but it didn’t stop his fit. LaBarge was foaming at the mouth.
“Dr. Crosby?”
“I know LaBarge had discovered the location of the Called Shot Ball. He’d known it for a long time, had made overtures to Harvey Jarman sometime in the past. He often spoke of what he’d do when he finally got his hands on it.”
“Which was?”
“Destroy it. Never let it be seen again.”
“But it hadn’t been seen; Jarman had kept it under wraps for decades. It had been a family heirloom. Am I correct?”
“I guess. I don’t really know its history. But what I do know is that he was counting on getting it at Jarman’s death. I think he got blindsided when the will was read a few weeks ago. At that point, I was going through a divorce from his daughter Charli, but I saw him go from obsessed to maniacal. He would stop at nothing to get that ball.”
“Did you know at that time who the new will designated as recipient? That it was Brooke Chadwick?”
“No, not until I saw it on the news.” Ames sent Brooke a look of a thousand apologies that she interpreted as a hundred things at once: he hadn’t been there for her, and it had broken his heart; he’d raced to her side the minute he was free. All that and more came through in his gaze before he turned back to the judge. “I’m just grateful I was there the night Miss Chadwick’s apartment had a bomb planted in it by someone in LaBarge’s organization.”
LaBarge blew his top. “I never hired anyone like that! This whole thing is fiction!”
Judge Vandalay banged her gavel uselessly as LaBarge shouted on.
“That girl has no interest in that ball. It’s nothing to her! If she gets it, she’ll just give it to a museum, and then even more generations will be subjected to that lie! Lie? Yes, lie! Babe Ruth never pointed his bat at center field. The video clips show him aiming his bat at the dugout where the Cubbies were heckling him. It’s a ridiculous falsehood concocted by a newspaperman that Ruth himself didn’t corroborate until years later when he thought it would be to his advantage.”
He was spluttering now, and climbing onto his chair.
“That Yankee publicity hog! He let the fake story in the newspaper ride, never shutting it down, never telling the truth, until he ruined the excellent career of a worthy competitor, of Charlie Root— a man who deserved to be in the Hall of Fame a hundred times more than that fat baby.” LaBarge waved his arms wildly, looking like the crazy weirdo he was. In the corner, the court artist was scribbling at a furious pace. “Unless I get my hands on that ball, it’s going to perpetuate falsehood, revisionist history, lies!”
Judge Vandalay’s gavel cracked on a repeating loop until the bailiff managed to tackle LaBarge and subdue him.
The judge, now standing, smoothed her robe and then her hair. “Further questions, Mr. Rockwell?” Dane shook his head. “Thank you, Dr. Crosby. You may be excused.”
Ames left the witness stand with a final plea to Brooke in his eyes.
“I will take a few minutes to write my decision. Court will recess for fifteen minutes.”
Brooke let out a held breath. LaBarge wouldn’t hurt her now. He’d been exposed.
“Thank you, Ames.” She walked over, but she didn’t shake his hand. “Man, talk about the LaBarge Mistake on the Lake.” She shook her head, not even sure if Ames knew the nickname for the Cubs. “You took a risk standing up to him.”
Ames’s mouth formed a grim line. “Someone had to. It was time. I’ll tell you more about why when we get a chance to talk after the ruling.” He looked hopeful. “You’re still going to honor that promise, right?”
Dane, standing at Brooke’s side, tensed. She looked up at him, opening her mouth to explain. She should have told him about her deal with Ames— she never meant to keep it from him. He hadn’t answered his phone. And now, he looked like he might never answer any call from her again.
The judge reentered the courtroom, and they all sat down. Brooke couldn’t breathe.