Three Strikes and You're Dead Read Online Free Page A

certainly not knowledgeable enough to second-guess a manager’s decision to use a pinch hitter. But it seemed to me that, personal considerations aside, what should have mattered at that moment was winning, regardless of who got the winning hit.
     
     
    Oh, well, I thought as Meg and I left the locker room and waited for Ty by the players’ entrance, it will all be forgotten in the glow of victory.
     
     
    At least I hope it will be.
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
     
    “I’d also like to offer up a big thanks to the Dominican Republic for their number one export to the U.S.—baseball. Amazing how a tiny, poor country can manufacture such incredible talent. It’s a great way to climb the ladder. Let’s give it up for our neighbors south of the border—um, south and east of the border. They produced a helluva shortstop.”
     
     
    A discernible hush fell over the already quiet room, only to be interrupted by the shuffling of feet and nervous repositioning of bodies on chairs, myself included. Ty slapped his hands together and shouted, “Yeah, let’s hear it for the D.R., baby.”
     
     
    The room responded with tepid applause.
     
     
    At the microphone, Theo Thompson, owner of Thompson Tools and Hardware and corporate sponsor of Thompson Stadium, looked down at a lady who was pulling on his sleeve. “What? What’d I say wrong?”
     
     
    “Not the most politically correct speech,” I whispered to Sheriff John Hualga, seated to my left.
     
     
    Hualga shrugged, brow furrowed. “He means well. Theo puts his foot in his mouth sometimes,” he whispered back, “but this team would be playing on a Little League field without him. He built that stadium with his own money, gives away tickets to the kids who can’t afford them. He’s one of the nicest fellows you’ll ever meet.”
     
     
    The same could be said of John Hualga. Before I’d left Cabot Cove for Arizona, our sheriff and my friend, Mort Metzger, had urged me to look up Sheriff Hualga, whom he’d met at a forensic conference in Salt Lake City years ago. “Terrific guy,” Mort had said. “You’ll love him.”
     
     
    It was pure coincidence that I ended up at the table with him, and I quickly saw why Mort held him in such high regard. Despite his formidable appearance—he was short and solidly built, muscular arms protruding from the sleeves of his tan uniform shirt, cheeks slightly pockmarked, made more evident by the oily sheen of his face, shaved temples next to a crop of coal black hair on the top of his head that seemed to protest whatever he might do with a comb—his most striking feature was his laugh. It came easily and bubbled up from deep within. Well read and well spoken, he had a keen sense of humor. A most likable man. Before Theo Thompson had commandeered the microphone, the sheriff and I had been discussing the origins of names.
     
     
    “ Hualga means ‘moon’ in Mohave,” he’d said. “Mohave is a Western Arizona tribe, one of twenty-one tribes in the state. Have any idea what your name means, Mrs. Fletcher?”
     
     
    “As a matter of fact, I do,” I replied. “ Fletcher means ‘maker-of-arrows’ in Middle English.”
     
     
    “Mort tells me you’re straight as an arrow,” he said. “Do you always hit your target?”
     
     
    “I try to, but I’m afraid, like everyone else, my aim isn’t always perfect.”
     
     
    He chuckled. “That’s not what I hear.”
     
     
    Seated across from us at the table were Jack and Meg Duffy, who’d communicated their reaction to Thompson’s remarks with grimaces and raised eyebrows while clapping politely. Meg, perfectly coifed with her Anna Wintour haircut and minimal but deftly applied makeup, looked across to me. She gently shook her head and smiled. Jack was fond of casual dress when not on the bench, and tonight was no exception. His ten-gallon hat sat on the empty chair beside him. He wore a colorful Southwestern-inspired shirt with green cacti, a light brown