Double Play, Page 5

about money with Ramsey. He was famously paranoid that gamblers were going to try and skip town without paying him. And it wasn't just gamblers that worried Ramsey. He often had his own guys followed out of fear that they might be siphoning from the top, or trying to start new card games on the side. So, he was constantly having people followed, and wanted detailed reports of where they went, and where they spent their money.

  If you spend your life around criminals the way Ramsey did, you serve yourself well by being paranoid. But Ramsey was taking it to a pathological level. Clay always wondered why Ramsey never seemed to realize that he was probably losing more money paying Jack to follow his associates than he was from any thievery. Besides, anyone who owed money to Ramsey never skipped town. They never made it. Ramsey was ruthless with people who owed him money, and even worse to employees who stole from him. The mythology ran the gamut from teeth yanked with pliers, to fingers and hands lost to power equipment, to men left to freeze to death in butcher shop meat lockers. Clay had no idea if any of it was true, but the mythology created a genuine terror of Ramsey as a heartless thug that would go to any lengths to get paid.

  He went by Ramsey, or Bay Ramsey. Clay was never sure if Ramsey was his real surname, but Bay was a nickname. He started out as a foot soldier for a big San Francisco bootlegger during prohibition. But when it was becoming clear that prohibition was going to be overturned, he, like a lot of other guys who worked in the bootlegging racket, started looking for another way to make money. Some guys started dealing drugs. Other guys dealt girls or started burlesque houses. Ramsey dealt cards.

  He started with small card games in speakeasies, but when word started to spread about the kind of money that was being wagered at his games, the games got bigger. Ramsey's card games became famous for going from evening to daylight the next day, and for the huge cash payouts that were being won. Word on the street was that if you were playing poker in the Bay Area at a table that wasn't run by Ramsey, you were just practicing so that you'd be ready if you ever got his call.

  When it came to cards, Ramsey quickly became King of the Bay. Thus, the nickname Bay Ramsey. Still, Clay never heard anyone refer to him as anything other than just Ramsey.

  But being King wasn't enough. Ramsey was never one to rest on his laurels, and it wasn't long before he moved from running private tables in hotel rooms to starting underground gaming rooms all over the Bay Area, including one in Fremont. So, when Sam said Brett was going to a card game in Fremont, Clay knew exactly where he was going. There was no other game worth playing in town.

  Still, Sam could be right. The accident could've just been an accident, and Ramsey might only be a distraction. As Sam said, 'It's best not to complicate these things.' But this is the kind of curiosity that Clay would never ignore just because it was complicated. Clay enjoys the complicated things. He enjoys the scattered puzzle. That's why he stays in this business.

  If Wayne was right about Brett's financial situation, though, what motive would Ramsey have to harm him? Sure, Ramsey's paranoid, but mostly he's paranoid about losing money. So, if Brett was spending his money at Ramsey's tables, then why would he risk losing Brett's revenue?

  And then there is the matter of the other woman.

  Wayne told Clay that Emma had come into his office to change the will only days before the accident, leaving all of Brett's money to her brother Kevin. Then, conveniently, Kevin is the sole witness that saw Brett and Emma leaving Eddie's Bar the night of the accident, and he also identifies Emma's badly burned body. And, according to Sam, Kevin was the only solid ID source the police were able to get, even though he had the most to benefit from both Brett and Emma being pronounced dead.

  However, since Wayne never told to the police that he saw Emma that night, they don't have any idea about the business of the will, or Kevin's potential benefit. But, again, this is the kind of curiosity that would complicate an otherwise open-and-shut case—the kind of complication that creates a lot of paperwork for a Sheriff who doesn't like paperwork, and who looks just a little too comfy in his big chair to go through a complicated investigation.

  When Clay approaches the area of the accident, he slows the Fleetmaster down to a crawl and starts looking for the telltale tire marks. He drives for half a mile or so before he spots a set of dark black skid marks that pull hard to the left. Clay pulls off onto the road's shoulder—what little there is of one—and stops the car. He grabs a baseball from the floor by the passenger seat and gets out of the car. He stands over the black skid marks, goes to crouch down so that he can get a closer look, but a sharp pain jolts over his thigh. So, he stands, and just bends over the mark to get as close a look as he can. Sam wasn't kidding when he said that Brett left evidence of his speed on the road. It's a pretty dark tire mark, especially when you consider its been on the road for two weeks now. As Clay looks up the road, he can see the marks zig from left to right and back again before it stops at the edge of the road. From these marks, it's clear that Brett lost control of the car. And there's no question he was going too fast, but that's not particularly surprising. Brett was a young, hotshot ballplayer—a star, really. He was the exact kind of guy who thinks he's indestructible—until he's not. Clay was that kind of guy once too. But if Brett had gone to poker games in Fremont before, and there's no reason to believe he hadn't, then he would've known how treacherous and curvy the road gets as you leave Milpitas.

  There are many reasons why a driver might lose control of their vehicle. The two main reasons are mechanical error and driver error. One of the most common mechanical errors that causes someone to lose control is a tire blowout, but that's not what this is at all. Besides, a blowout would've been an easy thing for the sheriff's department to spot at the scene during their initial investigation. And if it took them as long as Sam says it did to get to the car because of the fire, then Clay imagines they spent a hell of a long time looking at these skid marks while they waited. They would've noticed anything out of the ordinary.

  As far as driver error is concerned, Brett could've been distracted by something that was going on in the car, or just not paying attention to the road for whatever reason. Maybe he was just showing off. He did, after all, have a girl in the car with him.

  Or, it could have been a simple act of God. Maybe an animal jumped into the road, and Brett swerved to miss it. Or maybe he had a close call with another car that caused him to swerve and lose control. There are too many variables when you start to unravel the threads, and it's easy to see why Sam wouldn't have wanted to pull the threads. Particularly when the most likely scenario is staring you right in the face, and pulling any of those disparate threads is more likely than not to get you nowhere but where you were when you started.

  Clay follows the tire marks all the way to the edge of the road, and looks down the hill. According to the newspaper reports, the car turned over and started to flip as it went off the road, and it continued to roll as it went further down the hill. Who knows when the fire started, but it looks as though it was able to spread over a pretty large swath of real estate before it was contained. It must've been quite a fire.

  Clay would've been able to see more if he had gotten here before they cleaned up the hill. It's already been reseeded and covered with straw. But it's easy to get an idea of the size of the fire by the area they've reseeded. Still, Clay wants to get a view from the bottom of the hill, or at least to the place where the fire stopped.

  He clutches his baseball tight in his hand, and takes a step down onto the hill. The hill isn't steep enough for him to worry about losing his footing on, but it is steep enough for him to know that it's going to give his leg fits. And it does. He tries to keep his steps slow and deliberate, but every step sends a new agony over his body. But he keeps walking, keeps digging into the hide of that ball with the tips of his fingers.

  When he gets to the bottom of the hill, he turns and stares back up at the road. He's not certain that this is where the car stopped, or if this is just where th
e fire stopped, but if this is where the car stopped, it would've made for quite a fall. It had to have been a massive wreck, particularly when you consider their velocity before they went off the road. Hell, he's probably standing about fifty yards from the road. The crash itself most likely killed them—fire or no fire. But, from downhill, looking up, Clay can definitely understand why it took so long for the cops to get to the car: treacherous ground, blazing fire in dry summer conditions. The whole scene must've been a terrible mess.

  And, if someone wanted to orchestrate a horrible mess of an accident, this is exactly where you'd want to do it.

  But Clay sees zero evidence of foul play here. The only thing he sees at the moment is an uphill climb that's going to be twice as painful as coming downhill. He tosses his ball high in the air, catches it, takes a deep breath and digs in.

  Three

  Maggie's left the front gate by the box office—the one that goes straight out to the field—unlocked for Clay. He goes through the gate and stops to listen to the sounds of baseball being played. He can hear Red, the Braves' manager, yelling out to the infielders. He can hear the crack of