Read Online Strike Three You're Dead by R. D. Rosen - Free Book Online Page B

place. It was in the middle of a row of new, terraced town houses in alternating gray and mustard clapboard that didn’t quite belong in a neighborhood of old red brick. Like the others, Rudy’s town house was a bald-looking two-story building on a sodded knoll. He knocked on the door, waited, then tried the doorknob. It was locked. He circled around behind the row of houses and found a squat man in a sleeveless undershirt pushing a power mower across the backyard next door.
    “You live here?” Harvey asked.
    The man cut the motor and said, “In a way. I’m the manager of this complex. I’m just taking care of the yard here while the Beckwiths are away.” He wiped his hands on work pants coated with a fine spray of mown dry grass. “Something I can do you?”
    “I was wondering if I could get into Rudy Furth’s place for a minute. I left something there. Number four.”
    The man sized him up for a moment while Harvey tapped the folded newspaper against his thigh. Behind the man, Harvey could see the Burnside mansion where he lived, two blocks away and up College Hill beyond a parking lot.
    “Guess you didn’t hear the bad news,” the man finally said. “Mr. Furth is dead. Murdered, if you want to know the—it’s right there in your paper.”
    “I know,” Harvey said. “He was a teammate of mine.”
    The man inspected Harvey’s face. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re that catcher they got, Randy Eppich.”
    “My name’s Harvey Blissberg. I play center field.”
    “Yeah, that’s right. I recognize you now. You know, I catch a few games on the tube, but I haven’t been out to the park yet. Guess I should, though, new team in town and all.”
    “I was wondering if you could let me into Rudy’s place for a minute. He’s got a few things of mine in there I want to collect.”
    “I don’t know about that,” the man said, dragging a hand across his furry jaw. “The cops were already here yesterday, you know. Went through the whole place and told me to keep everyone else out of it. Now, maybe I could go in for you and get what you want if they haven’t already taken it, but I just don’t know about letting you walk in there yourself.”
    “He was a close friend of mine. I’d appreciate it.”
    The man leaned down and brushed some grass off the housing of the mower. “You know how it is,” he said. “I’ve got my orders.”
    “A couple of box seat tickets to tomorrow night’s game says you sometimes have trouble following them,” Harvey said, smiling. “The club’s playing good ball right now. I’ll have them hold the tickets for you at the press gate.”
    The man thought about it, wiping his hands some more, and said, “Come to think of it, I’ve got a couple of boys at home who wouldn’t mind seeing a major league ball game.”
    “Then why don’t we make it four tickets? Just in case you know someone else who wouldn’t mind. All I need is your name.” Harvey took out a pen and scrawled “Joseph Katavolos” in the margin of his newspaper.
    “Like I say,” the man said, getting his massive key ring out, “new team in town and all. Just don’t make a mess, hear? I’ve got to rent that place out.” Katavolos showed him into Rudy’s old town house, gestured at the door, said, “She’ll lock behind you when you leave,” and went back to his mowing.
    The town house had a modern, open interior with an atrium in the living area that rose all the way to a skylight in the sloping roof. There were a lot of oak floors and heavy beams and unfinished pine surfaces, and there was a wood-burning stove with a pipe that ran right up the middle of the atrium. It was perfect for a single relief pitcher whose idea of a night in was drinking Asti spumante with an airline stewardess.
    There was a butcher-block sofa upholstered in oatmeal Haitian cotton, where Harvey and Rudy had gotten smashed drinking Grolsch beer only a week before, a Scandinavian leather chair and ottoman, a teak