Double Play (35 page)

Cat shuffled into
the kitchen for yet another coffee refill. Benji was already there,
preparing a concoction of scrambled tofu. His hair was wet from
the
shower, reminding
her that she still had to get ready before she could leave for the
office.

“
At
least let me make you breakfast. I can actually see your stomach
acid devouring the lining of your duodenum.”

She grabbed the
bag of bagels from the bread box. “Just
pass
me the cream cheese,
please.”

“
One
tub of Philly’s finest coming up.” He handed it to her and stuck
his head back in
to
the
fridge. “Hey, what’s this?”

She sliced her
bagel. “Orange juice? Milk? Chinese leftovers? You’re going to have
to be a little more specific.”

“
Okay,
this can of beer with a weird graphic of … I don’t know, a furry
stein?”

Cat dropped the
butter knife. “It’s a coconut.” She grabbed the
bottle
out of his hands. “Where’d this come
from?”

“
The
fridge, remember? Orange juice, milk, Chinese leftovers, weird
coconut beer.”

“
No I
mean, where? That beer wasn’t in there last I looked. How did it
get in our fridge?”

“
It
was right here.” He opened up the fridge and pointed to
the
front of the middle shelf.
“When was the last time you
looked
?”

“
Uh, I
ate out for lunch and dinner so
 
… yesterday morning. Quinn and I had breakfast
before I left to go to Joel’s house.”

“
Well,
maybe Quinn picked some up before he left town.”

She shook her
head. “You don’t understand. This is Hawaiian beer
. You
can’t get
it
anywhere around here. I know because I
had to special order it for Spencer’s birthday last month. It’s his
favorite.”

“
When
was Spencer over?” His jaw began to clench.

“
He
hasn’t been over here since … the poker game.”

“
Well,
maybe it’s
a
leftover.
If you remember, that night was cut short.”

“
I
would’ve noticed it before
this
.
It’s gotta
be
new.”

“
Are
you saying Spencer broke into our house and left it for us? Is he a
beer fairy?”

His eyes fished
for a response but Cat didn’t laugh. “No, I’m saying he must’ve
been a guest in this house at the bequest of someone
else.”

“
Well,
I think you can rule out me. It’d have to be
 
…” Benji’s eyes flashed.
“Quinn?”

She nodded.
“Quinn.”

“
He
was here that night, the night of the poker game. Maybe he didn’t
leave as early as he said.”

“
That
son of a bitch.” She slammed her hand down on the counter. “He knew
about their con the whole time.”

“
Knew?
He was in on it, I’ll bet you anything.” Benji
paused for a beat
. “Sorry, poor choice of
words.”

“
He
probably came by yesterday to pick up his share of the payoff.” She
stared at the beer. “
And
all
this time he
was
let
ting
me take the fall for him.”

“
Pretty careless of him to leave evidence
of his presence here.” Benji was examining the label, turning the
bottle around in his hands.

“
He must not have realized Quinn had
made an effort to stock more than one of his special brew. First
time I’ve known Quinn to consider anyone’s preferences but his
own.”

Benji put the bottle down on the table as
if displaying Exhibit No. 1. “
Well, you’ve got to tell
Detective Kahn.”

“
Then
he’ll know I lied.”

“
So?
Just explain
that
you
thought you were covering for an innocent friend. He’s human,
surely he can understand that.”

Cat pointed at
the stovetop clock. “The Hudson press conference is in an hour.
It’ll have to wait.” She grabbed her bagel and headed into the
bedroom.

Benji followed on
her heels. “Uh, don’t you think this is a little more
important?”

She took a bite
of the bagel and flung open the closet doors, grabbing the first
dress she saw. “No
,
I
don’t. Spencer’s not going anywhere. Unlike Quinn, he’s got a job.
He’ll be front and center for George Hudson’s public
flogging
and I plan on turning the
tables on him.”

Cat circled the
employee parking lot twice before finally finding a spot for the
Jeep. Roger’s parking policy of “first come, first serve” was
democratic
and all, but
the outside media took advantage of his fair-mindedness. News vans
and satellite trucks stole their rows, taking up two to three spots
each. They’d probably been here for hours, just waiting to catch a
glimpse of George Hudson.
Things
couldn’t have worked out better for the
sports rags. Baseball fans still had two rest days before the
championship series would start and instead of
having to fill
the sports segments with
pitching predictions and tedious replays, they
’d
scored the story of the year. The same
reporters who had covered the divisional series were now squeezed
into the Soldiers
’
meeting room, anxiously awaiting George Hudson’s press
conference.

Cat spotted
Spencer talking to a couple of national reporters near the coffee
pot. He
caught sight of
her and gave a cheerful wave. She charged him and before she knew
what she was doing, her hand reared back and slapped him across the
face.

The reporters
gasped and the room fell silent.

Spencer’s hand
shot up and clasped his
reddened, plump
cheek. “Cat!” He grabbed her arm and
escorted her to the hallway. “What was that for?”

“
You
forgot something at my house.” She reached into her purse and dug
out the beer
bottle
,
shoving it in
to
his
chest with a hard thrust.

“
Beer?
Cat!” He looked around the empty hallway and snaked it into his
jacket pocket. “Have you been drinking?”

With each
innocent bat of his eyes, her anger intensified.

“
Oh
you are lucky I don’t make you wear that beer to the press
conference.”

“
Will
you just talk to me and tell me what is wrong?”

“
Don’t
play dumb, Spencer
. T
hat
beer was in my fridge this morning and it wasn’t yesterday morning.
I know you were at my house yesterday afternoon before Quinn left
town.”

“
Because you found a Hawaiian beer in your fridge? Cat, this
could be anybody’s.”

“
Don’t
you dare deny it. I know exactly how hard that beer is to
get
.
I went through hell
finding it for your birthday, though it wasn’t even close to the
hell I’ve been through this last week in covering for you.” She
crossed her arms. “Now you’ve got thirty seconds to tell me exactly
how you were involved before I tell Detective Kahn I lied for you
the night of the poker game.”

His eyes flashed
with uncertainty and darted around the empty hallway. “Cat,
I
—
”

“
Just
tell me, how much money did they pay you? Or was your involvement
in exchange for something else, like my job? Was that the
deal?”

“
No,
of course not! I didn’t
 …
okay. Keep your voice down. That night, I
was there when everybody started talking about, you know, throwing
games and stuff. I didn’t know they were serious, Cat, I swear, and
I left when it was still just a bunch of laughs.”

“
Did
you still think it was all hijinks and giggles when the team
started losing?”

“
I
thought it was just a coincidence that the Soldiers were playing so
poorly. It wasn’t until the game five debacle that I realized they
really did do it so yesterday, I came by your house to ask Quinn if
it was true.”

“
With
beer?”

He rolled his
eyes. “You know your brother, it’s not like I could exactly
interrogate him so I came by with a tiny cooler, you know, under
the guise of hanging out and throwing a few back. We got to talking
and he told me it was true. That’s it, I swear.”

Cat scoffed.
“Really? So you, a sports reporter, found out that baseball players
were fixing games, information
that
came to you well before the next day’s print
deadline, and yet it didn’t even make today’s paper? This scoop was
a career maker and I’m supposed to believe you just blew it
off?”

“
I
didn’t say anything for you
r
sake
. Because Quinn’s your brother
,
you’d be implicated
,
too. I kept it secret for
you.”

“
For
me?”

“
After
the way you covered for me, how could I not? Besides, even if you
hadn’t saved my ass, I would never
 
… Cat, you mean the world to me. I thought you
knew that.”

He removed his dark glasses and rubbed his
eyes, then his temples. He
reached out for her arm but she
backed away, searching his face for the truth.
His brown eyes begged her for mercy. He was
desperate to be believed, and he
looked
sincere
.
However, a good enough con-man would know how to work the
innocent look.

“
Please believe me.”

“
I
don’t know.”

“
You’ve known me for almost a year. Do you really think I would
do this to you? To the team?”

“
Everybody
's got
a
price. If the money was good enough
—
”

“
What
money?” Spencer jokingly pulled out his empty khaki pockets. “I’m
still broke. Don’t you think I would’ve left town if I
’d
got
ten
a wad of hush money?”

“
Why
didn’t you say anything when we talked this morning? You sounded so
shocked by the news.”

“
I was
shocked! I didn’t know George Hudson was involved.”

“
You
still should’ve told me what you knew.”

“
I was
going to, I swear, but it was so early and there was so much chaos.
I was trying to think of the right way to tell you because this is
exactly what I was afraid of
—that
if you found out I was hiding something, you’d
stop
trust
ing
me.”

His explanation sounded plausible
.
Hadn’t she been
dancing
around the truth with both Roger and Detective Kahn
?

“
I
guess I can kind of understand that.” She peeked in the conference
room. “We should get in there.”

“
I’m
not going anywhere until I know things are okay between
us.”

“
We’re
okay. Not great but okay.”

“
Really?” His eyes widened with hope.

Cat sighed.
“Yeah.”

“
I’ll
take it.” He smiled and gestured to the door. “After
you.”

Stepping
in
to
the room
, they became the immediate center of attention
. She
smile
d
ruefully at
Spencer. “I’m used to
this by now.”

Then all
eyes
fixed on the area
behind them and the
murmur
ing stopped
. The
vultures had only circled her and Spencer
,
but when George Hudson entered the room,
they came
to roost
. Cat
and Spencer scrambled to
claim
the last two chairs. Camera
s
flashe
d
as George took a seat.
Following dutifully behind was
Kiki,
her
skirt suit a size
too small, with two straight-faced lawyers in tow. James Hudson
filed in last and stood stoically behind his brother’s
chair.

The
second
lawyer wiggled his way
through the two brothers to sit on the opposite side of George. He
covered the microphone with his hand as he whispered into George’s
ear. George solemnly nodded. Cameras flashed again as he pulled the
microphone stand closer and cleared his throat. Cat leaned forward
in her chair, double checking that her recorder was
activated.

“
Good
morning, friends and colleagues.”

Cat smothered a
smile. Now they were
‘
friends and colleagues
.’
A
t
all prior
press
conferences, they
had hardly
merited
a curt nod.

“
I
called this meeting today to address the distressing allegations
that have been made against me. I know that you all must have
questions of your own, but due to the gravity of these accusations,
my attorneys have advised me not to comment
…
as
eager
as I
am
to defend myself to the City of Buffalo.
Although
I feel I have
nothing to hide, I have to trust that this country’s great justice
system will prevail
.
Until
then I
must
refrain from discussing the
case.”