I headed for the park. I stopped at the vendors outside the stadium to get something to eat. As I took a bite of a bratwurst sandwich, I heard shouts at the players’ entrance. While I chewed and munched, I moseyed over to see what was up. Kosta Boone, the security guard, had one hand on the shirt collar and another on the back of the belt of a short guy who was maybe in his early twenties. Boone was hustling him out of the park. The short guy tripped on his own feet, and Boone half dragged him for several yards. Boone wasn’t all that big to begin with, but his quarry was even smaller.
The guy in hand squawked and complained at the top of his lungs. None of the other hired help came to Boone’s assistance. I walked up to Boone and asked, “Anything wrong?”
He said, “This is Edwin Hempil. You gotta watch out for him. He’s crazy.” I remembered he was the obsessed fan Murray had mentioned. I thought I recognized him as one of the ones who’d been on the fringe of those welcoming Skeen and his entourage to the park that first day.
With one hand on Hempil’s collar and one on his belt, Boone shook him. Hempil’s feeble swats didn’t faze the not-very-large teenager. After a few moments of useless to-do, Boone gave him another shake and said, “He’s been warned not to come around here. I found him lurking near the door to the public access to the workout room.”
I put my hand on Boone’s arm to forestall any more shaking then turned to Hempil and asked, “How’d you get in the gate?”
“It’s early. There’s no one on the gates. There’s no one watching the fences. It doesn’t take much to climb over one.”
After about every third sentence Hempil paused, his face scrunched up, his left eye twitched, and his body shook. It passed in less than three seconds. When he was silent, he did not twitch. His voice was an octave above a tenor whine. He was in his early twenties. He had the black glasses, white shirt, and pocket protector of the classic nerd. The tight leather pants on his narrow hips and engineer boots belied the tradition somewhat although they must have made him miserable in the summer heat. He had the greasy hair and the pock-marked face of the villain of a television movie of the week.
“We don’t want you in here,” Boone said. “You’ve got to leave.”
“I came in to try and investigate,” Hempil said.
Boone said, “The police are handling that.”
Hempil pointed at me. “I know who you are.”
Boone said, “Mike King’s the new guy on the team.”
“I’d like to talk to Mr. Hempil,” I said.
Boone glared at me. “I’m not going to get yelled at again. If someone says anything, I’m going to tell them it’s your fault.”
I said, “I’ll take full responsibility.”
“He still can’t come in here.”
Hempil and I walked to the park across the street.
“How do you know who I am?” I asked.
“I looked you up on the Internet. I keep a complete file on all the players. Anybody who’s ever been on the team, their background, playing statistics, families, everything about them.”
As he spoke, the periodic pauses and twitches continued. I didn’t interrupt what he said or comment on his body movements. “When I looked you up, I found references to you in some news articles as a private eye. They were in a few gay papers. Are you gay?”
“Yes. Why is that important?”
“A gay baseball player coming out could be a big deal, but I don’t think that’s what this is all about. Although maybe Knecht is going to try and be the new Branch Rickey. I found your college record. Good, but not major league caliber. No, I think you’re here investigating the murder of Tyler Skeen. Why bother disguising yourself as one of the team? Are you worried you might be found out? I won’t tell. Why didn’t you change your name?”
I wasn’t sure if he was capable of shutting up or stopping twitching although he was asking some good questions. As for keeping quiet about who I was, near as I could make out, someone had posted the news in neon letters all over Butterfield.
Hempil continued, “Murray’s gay. Nobody’s supposed to know.”
I said, “He told me his family and friends know.”
“A select few. That’s not out.”
“Are you out?” I asked him.
“Hey!”
“Just a question.”
“A lot of people are afraid of my… condition.” He got a leer on his face. “Their loss. A few aren’t. Their gain.” With his next twitch he gave a violent shake.
I said, “I can only imagine what misery you’ve been through.”
“I can’t stand most of these people,” Hempil said. “And I don’t trust any of them. You shouldn’t trust anybody in this town.”
“Including you?”
“Including me. They all think I’m crazy. I’m not very stable, but I’m not crazy. I think you should concentrate on members of the team. They make the best suspects. Personally, I think Knecht has cried wolf too many times. Nobody takes him seriously any more. I think everybody took him too seriously to begin with. Everybody in this town takes themselves very seriously. Who shot at you last night? Was it the killer? Why try and kill you? Were you close to the killer? It must have been someone you talked to. Don’t trust Rotella.”
“Why not?” I thought Hempil might be having a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, and I wasn’t sure he was having a friendly relationship with reality, but he was talking, and he was a local. On a case you sifted everybody’s version of the world, and sometimes you came out with the truth.
“Rotella’s been mean to me. Some of his deputies too. Except Raul, the guy you saved. He’s nice, but Rotella hates my dad. My dad’s a judge. He didn’t want Rotella to be police chief. Before he was chief, that asshole tried to arrest me once. He got in a lot of trouble for that. Rotella’s not real popular among some segments in town, but when the last chief retired, nobody in town could agree on a local replacement. He was a compromise which means everybody’s unhappy he got the job. I think he’s unhappy he got the job. I think some of his deputies were really pissed.”
“You don’t believe all the threats are real or the fires arson?”
“Arson? Ha! That whole outhouse thing was a couple of teenagers from the local high school pulling a prank. All the local kids know who did it. Nobody’s going to tell because it’s all gotten mixed up with this adult bullshit.”
“What about when somebody tried to burn down the stadium?”
“Knecht could have done that himself.”
“Why?”
“He’s an asshole. He won’t hire me. Says I scare little kids.” He hadn’t missed a twitch yet. Imagining the teasing he must have endured all his life, I felt sorry for him. “Knecht hates my dad. He gave rulings against him. My dad opposes his projects. Knecht hates opposition. He is a hateful, mean man. I think he’d try to kill people who oppose him. Knecht is crazy. Some of the townspeople who are against him are nice to me. They never make fun of me. Knecht does.”
“You like Tyler Skeen?”
“Over the hill. Playing days should have been over years ago.”
“You know baseball.”
“I’m not stupid like people think.”
“Didn’t I see you in the crowd greeting Skeen at the park?”
“Yeah. The entourage paid me. They didn’t know who I was, but that blond reporter, Czobel, was nice to me, too.” A smile delayed the twitch for a millisecond.
“You liked him.”
“He was nice.”
Had he and Czobel had some kind of relationship? Had the reporter taken advantage of Hempil? Used him? Paid him? Or Czobel was desperate one night and was willing to take any local guy who was willing? The same as he’d done with me?
“How did that crowd scene work every day?”
“Not all of us went every day. We kind of switched off. I guess it was for the pictures they took so they wouldn’t look the same.” He wasn’t that oblivious.
“Do you know Old Charley Hopper?”
“Of course. Is he a suspect?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“Who and what you ask about means something. I’m not stupid.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I apologize.”
He met my eyes for nearly half a minute in total silence without twitching. “No one’s ever apologized to me.”
What a life he must lead.
He took a deep breath and twitched. “Old Charlie’s nice to me. He gives me potions. Sometimes they help my twitching. Nothing’s going to cure it, but he can make up anything.”
“Anything that would kill somebody?”
He drew away from me. “Charlie’s a good guy.”
“Someone could have taken advantage of him. Got him to make something he didn’t know would be used to kill somebody.”
“No, Charley is smart, although I don’t like the college kids he uses, and the undocumented workers are all afraid of him, but they all laugh at me behind his back. The illegals make homophobic comments in Spanish. They think I don’t understand.”
“How do you know they’re undocumented?”
He gazed at me a moment then mumbled, “I guess I don’t.” He stopped talking for a few moments and the twitching subsided. After half a minute, he sighed and resumed, “He’s got some mean ones now. Big guys. To help him with heavy things. I don’t like them.”
“Do they help Charlie do illegal things?”
“Charlie doesn’t do illegal things. He’s nice to me.” This was his first show of anger. I backed off and switched topics. “Who do you think might be behind all this?”
He looked as if no one had ever asked his opinion before.
Hempil paused a moment, nodded, then glanced around at the people milling around the ballpark. He leaned close to me. “I know stuff that would help.”
“If you’re willing to tell me, I’d be interested.”
He scooted closer to me. His left arm and leg brushed mine for an instant. He smelled like deodorant and male sweat, not offensive.
He whispered, “You know Skeen was married?”
I nodded.
“Well, he was dating Deborah, a waitress at Millie’s. You know Millie’s?”
I noticed his twitching became less violent. I said, “I’ve stopped there.” Then asked, “You ever go to any of Tyler Skeen’s parties?”
“Trying to see if I’m a suspect?”
“Yes.” He may not quite be on the same wavelength as the rest of us, but no matter what the town might think, the guy had some smarts.
“I got in a couple times. Anybody could.”
“You look around?”
“Yep. I know everything about him. I found out what his injuries are. I found out what kind of medicine is usually prescribed for them. I found out the kind of snack foods he likes. I found out he gets his clothes made by designers. He even flew one out here to make him a couple pairs of jeans. Isn’t that kind of a big waste of money? They’ve got zillions of jeans at local stores. I don’t think being rich is as good as it’s cracked up to be.”
“Who’d you tell all this to?” I asked.
“I put out a weekly news bulletin on the Net. I have to do it anonymously or I’d be caught. Don’t worry, I haven’t put out anything on you yet.”
If it was on the Internet, a determined killer didn’t have to get into Skeen’s apartment to find out about his meds. Sure, it could be just as simple as Skeen could have casually mentioned what he was taking in the course of any number of conversations. From everything I’d heard, he certainly loved to talk about himself. With the immense amount of data on the Internet, how would a killer happen on this one site? Then again if you searched Skeen’s name, Hempil’s site might eventually show up.
I said, “It could be dangerous for you to know all these things. I can’t protect you.”
“You’re investigating.”
“I have a license. Do you want to accidentally get yourself into the middle of something that could get you hurt?”
“I’ll be careful.”
“No more sneaking into the park.”
“Okay.”
A gentleman with grizzled-cut gray hair shuffled toward us. He used a cane in his halting steps. Hempil said, “Shit. That’s my dad. Kosta Boone musta called him. Can’t anybody in this town keep their mouth shut? I gotta go.”
Hempil took tentative steps toward his father. When he got to the older man, Edwin reached out a hand. His father slapped it away. I heard one imperious word, “Come.”
Edwin Hempil slunk after his father. Just all too sad.