Three Strikes and You're Dead by Jessica Fletcher

man.
     
     
    “Has Harrison Bennett or anyone else associated with the team been quoted on the news?” I asked. “Have you spoken to any of the players?”
     
     
    “Spoke to Matt Muscarel, one of the guys on the team whose father is a pain in the butt, always insisting that I sign him. Matt’s a good kid, but he isn’t going anywhere. I ran into him this morning at Scorpions. Only news he had—and it’s just scuttlebutt from him—was that the TV reporter, Karen Locke, and Junior Bennett had a big fight last night and broke up.”
     
     
    “Broke up?”
     
     
    “Yeah. According to Muscarel, they had just started dating. It was a big secret because Junior didn’t want his dad to know because—well, the old man isn’t fond of reporters. Besides, the players were discouraged by Buddy Washington from having girlfriends during the season.” He laughed. “Seems old-fashioned in this day and age, but Buddy is an old-fashioned kind of guy. He sees girlfriends as a threat to a player’s commitment to the team.” Another laugh. “Buddy means well, loves his players like they were his own kids, but preaching celibacy is a bit much.”
     
     
    “And Scorpions?” I asked, remembering my nightmare. “What is that?”
     
     
    “A local breakfast and lunch place. Kinda like a New York diner, I guess, except no egg creams.”
     
     
    “Was his father with him?” I asked. “Was Muscarel with anyone?”
     
     
    “Didn’t see his dad. And believe me, if he was there I would have known it. That guy is always in my face. No, Muscarel was there alone.”
     
     
    Jack and Meg came downstairs. I handed the phone to Jack, who opened the sliding glass doors off the kitchen that led to the enclosed patio and pool—his shpool.
     
     
    “Ty’s in the shower,” Meg said. “He and Jack had a talk. Jack told me that he’s one hundred percent convinced that Ty had absolutely nothing to do with this. He said he could see it in Ty’s eyes more than anything.”
     
     
    Meg seemed relieved, calmer than I’d seen her all day, obviously relieved to have Ty home again. It must have been dreadful for her to think of him sitting in a jail cell.
     
     
    As we sat and sipped our coffee, I watched Jack through the sliding glass doors, pacing back and forth while speaking on the phone. He’d changed into a pair of khaki shorts and a green-and-blue-striped polo shirt. Eventually he came into the kitchen and put the phone back onto its base. “I spoke to Buddy Washington,” he said. “He says they’re planning a memorial for Junior at the stadium.”
     
     
    “Washington?” said Meg. “I thought you were on the phone with Sylvester.”
     
     
    “I was. He was at Washington’s house. Buddy got on the phone.”
     
     
    “I thought Sylvester was going to L.A.,” I said.
     
     
    “Must have changed his mind,” said Jack.
     
     
    Meg excused herself and went upstairs, returning a few minutes later to say that Ty was already asleep.
     
     
    The three of us went into the den, where I sank into a buttery-soft, ivory leather couch. Jack sat in what he called his “Archie Bunker chair,” worn around the edges but his favorite nonetheless. Meg curled her legs beneath her on the matching ivory leather love seat. The plasma-screen television set was too much of a temptation. Jack took the remote and hit the buttons until he got to Channel 5, WXYK. A commercial for the Arizona Diamondbacks played. It was interrupted by a blue screen that read, BREAKING NEWS. And there stood Karen Locke, in front of Jack and Meg’s house, right outside the front door.
     
     
    “This is Karen Locke reporting from the rented home of Judge Jack and Meg Duffy, foster parents of Ty Ramos, who has been accused in the murder of teammate Junior Bennett. We’ve learned that Ramos was released on two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ bail by a local judge with reputed ties to Ramos’s foster father, himself a judge in Jersey City, New