Page 47 of Final Inning

“Doctor, actually. And…yes, I have.”

“There is always that questioning of ‘could I have done anything differently’? Would it have changed anything? And…I could have. That day. It took me a long time to accept that.”

“Tell me. What could you have done differently? You were a child.” A thirteen-year-old girl who had been waiting for her dad to come eat hot dogs with her and her brother.

“I left my bat behind; if I’d been more responsible, my dad would have been with me. My brand-new softball bat. Four-ninety-nine, under warranty, and the one everyone wanted, but no one else’s parents could afford. Except mine. Because I was the lucky one. A teammate told me that day that I didn’t deserve it—I wasn’t a good enough player for that bat. The Mecklemelon ZX4, in watermelon skin, of course. If I hadn’t left my bat behind—my dad wouldn’t have been killed. Probably with that bat, doctor. Kind of hard to forget.”

“We don’t know what the weapon was.”

“No? I have read the autopsy results. I read them last night after Julian forwarded me a copy. I’m not as…sensitive as my brother, doctor. He spent the night at Hagan’s last night, but assured me it was just on her couch. My brother considers himself a gentleman, you know. He’s sweet. He has a bit of a thing for Hagan. He has for years.” She gave a small sad smile. Definitely a beautiful woman—but the hurt in her eyes, it was memorable. “I know what the medical examiner postulated. And…my bat was never found. I never got it back. What would I have done with it after that night—hung it on the wall?”

Knight understood. He did. He waited while the waitress took their drink order. “Let’s…go back to that day. What do you remember from before? It was a Saturday.”

He wasn’t good at cognitives—Miranda was much better at getting witnesses to relax—but he could muddle through. “Let’s start with the beginning of practice. Who all was there?”

She looked around the half-full diner. Then…breathed in deeply. “Everyone. Both teams.”

“Both?”

“Yes. We…had the afternoon time slot at field three. It was always field three. The sun…positioning was better. No one liked practicing with the sun in our eyes, like on fields one and four. Field two was the tee-ball field. We never used it. The older girls…there was a team that was an age division ahead of us. They practiced in the morning. Hagan was on that team for a while, until she aged out or something. She was always a few years ahead of us. She was really good. I loved watching her pitch. I was a catcher. I had all the good gear, too. My dad and I—we spent hours on field three. He could not pitch to me that well. But Hagan could. Sometimes, she’d stay late. Her and her friend. They would stay at the field. But they’d just play around, you know? Kept it fun. It should always have stayed fun. But…I lost that that year. Never felt it was fun again, and after my dad I just sort of stopped playing. Hagan would pitch to me sometimes, so I could practice blocking and framing. But most times, it was just me and my dad. Some of my best times.”

“How well did you know Hagan?” They’d start with Hagan—and work back to Harper. Get her relaxed and just remembering. Sometimes it was the little details that mattered.

“Just a little, really. She’s Julian’s friend, mostly. They ran around together a lot. When we were kids. I was five years behind her in school—we were in the same building, but not the same class. Harper was in between us. Julian was two years ahead of Hagan—they were often in the same class. So sometimes Harper was in my class, sometimes she was in the older class. Like…everyone in Buckbert knows everyone else.” She paused for a moment, and waved at a dark-haired young woman in hospital scrubs when she stepped into the restaurant from the rain. “Like her, for example…she grew up there, too. We were in class together. She comes from a big family—a lot of them were in my classes at Buckbert. Her family moved from Buckbert over a year ago. A lot of women leave Buckbert as soon as they can. Unless they want to repeat the cycle. Most women move out of Buckbert as soon as they can. At least, if they want any kind of life anyway. Buckbert is a trap, doctor. No other way to describe it.”

Knight really did not love small towns. Definitely not the way Miranda did. For damned good reason. “I can understand that. I am more city-oriented than small town myself.”

“My dad loved Buckbert, though. The whole idea of the great little small town life. Mayberry. He grew up in Oklahoma City. Foster kid. He was homeless for a while. I always thought he was just looking for somewhere to belong. Where people knew his name, his kids’ names. The…ideal, right? Even if it doesn’t really exist.”

Knight had known that. Dani had checked for every known relevant history of the man. Kevin had beat some really long odds—only to die the way he had. “How did your family end up in Buckbert?”

“Dad’s job. He worked for the only factory in the town—in management. He and Harper’s dad both. It is still going strong. They make plastic tubes for medical devices. Syringes, that kind of thing.”

“Okay, so…you knew Hagan growing up. And Harper.”

“And their friends. I remember Hila, too, Harper’s twin. She liked books. I used to trade books with her when I was around ten or so. Between the two of us, we had over a hundred, you know.”

“Can you close your eyes. Think back to that day at softball practice…was Hagan there?”

“No, actually she wasn’t. Hagan stopped playing by then, I think. She was almost eighteen—she’d already committed to the junior college a few counties over. She was working, and stopped playing for a while. She worked at the IGA then. We’d seen her before practice. Dad was talking to her at the register; he was reminding her that she had to keep getting the reps before college. But he told her he was proud of her for going. Hagan had a rough homelife. I think she was actually living with her friend’s aunt then, too. We went to the IGA first, to get Gatorade and my dad always got donuts before Saturday practice.”

“Okay, who else was in there? In the IGA?”

Her face pinched. “Johnson and the old sheriff were at the register ahead of us…and…my teammate. I went down another aisle. I didn’t like that teammate. Dad just nodded at them. I despise that man. Johnson.”

“Yes, I understand that feeling myself. What did they say between them?”

Blue eyes opened. “My dad said something to him. About…Jenny.”

That was a name they had not found yet. “We haven’t spoken with a Jenny. Can you give me her full name?”

“You won’t find her. Jenny. She was Johnson’s stepdaughter; she’s dead now. She was almost two years older than I was. Hagan would have known her better. Hagan and Harper…And…she told me once…Johnson was creepy. I remember…we were the only two at the school once, waiting for pickup. Mrs. H—she was watching the afterschool kids, and we were the only two left. She was crying—Jenny. I asked her why. She said…she didn’t want to go home. Her mom was out of town. She had to stay with her stepfather. And she did not want to go home with him. Because…she said…because of what he liked to do. I was only eleven. I didn’t know what she meant then. But now…I wonder…”

They’d profiled Johnson as a sexual predator with narcissistic tendencies and a power complex. The idea of a vulnerable young girl alone in his care didn’t sit well.

“What happened to Jenny? We didn’t know he had a stepdaughter.” Ted Johnson had been married three times, but no children had been reported as dependents on his personnel records Dani had accessed.

She just looked at him. “Jenny died a few months later, after she told me that, Dr. Knight. During the summer, right before I turned twelve. I think…I remember Julian and Dad talking about what had happened. Julian was seventeen or eighteen then, too. Jenny fell down the stairs and died. It was an accident.”