Deadball Sample

A fast-paced, compelling legal thriller with great characters.

DEADBALL

By James Sheehan

CHAPTER ONE

New York City, January 2013

Frankie Schmidt kept his leather jacket on as he settled into his favorite seat at Norm’s, his neighborhood bar, and caught the bartender’s eye. He was still freezing, and it would take a couple of drinks before he’d warm up enough to take the coat off. He nodded ever so slightly at the bartender who nodded back. A moment later a Wild Turkey on the rocks appeared on the bar in front of him. Frankie raised a finger in thanks while at the same time reaching for his drink.

What the hell is that guy’s name, he thought but nothing came to mind.

Frankie couldn’t remember ever knowing the guy’s name. He’d only found this place a few months ago. It was good to move your regular haunt every few months in case the department decided to do an IA investigation for some crazy reason or another. On that first day, Frankie had walked in and asked for a Wild Turkey on the rocks. He repeated that scenario a dozen or so times and like two old dogs learning different tricks, the bartender, whatever the fuck his name was, simply picked up the glass when he saw Frankie walk in the door, scooped the ice and headed for the Wild Turkey. The nods came later after they got to know each other better even though they never spoke another word to each other. It was a male bonding friendship thing or some shit. I don’t know your name, but you nod to me, and I’ll nod to you, and we’re cool.

No nods were needed for the second or the third drink. The glass was empty, No Name filled it. You pour; I’ll drink. Simple.

One good thing came out of the relationship. There was one less person in the world calling him Frankie. That name had been with him since he was a snot-nosed kid from the West Side. He was ready to be ‘Frank.

I’m forty-five for Christ’s sake! He always introduced himself as Frank but somehow everybody eventually ended up calling him Frankie. It was as if somebody from the old neighborhood was shadowing him and kept whispering in the ear of everyone he met-” His real name’s Frankie.”

The call came while he was nursing his third drink-nursing being a very loose term. The third one usually took four swallows versus two for the first two. He hated to answer it but what the hell. This was the life he chose. This was what he wanted to do. Or so he thought.

“We’ve got a body.” The voice on the other end of the line said. It was a female voice but far from soft.

“Where?” He asked, reaching into his jacket pocket with his left hand, pulling out a wad of bills and throwing a twenty on the bar.

“One Sixty-Eight East 81st, apartment 3C.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

He got up from his seat at the bar and gave the so long nod to his friend, No Name, as he headed for the door.

He arrived twenty-five minutes later after a quick drive over the 59th street bridge, now known as the Ed Koch Bridge after that loud mouthed son-of-a-bitch who had once been the Mayor of New York. Frankie’s father told him Koch had been an obnoxious bastard but a pretty good mayor.

“You’ve got to be a little bit of a prick to run this city, Frankie.” He’d told his son. Frankie was nine at the time.

The apartment on 81st was alive with uniforms and technicians by the time he arrived. The body was in the bedroom on the floor in front of the bed. It was a large room in a large apartment. Whoever it is has got to be well off, Frankie thought. Apartments in this neighborhood don’t go cheap.

He put on his latex gloves and squatted down next to the body and his partner, Trisha. Trisha didn’t even look up. It was like she knew he was there from his scent.

“White male, late twenties, gunshot wound to the left temple.” Trisha said.

That much he could tell on his own. Trisha continued. “From the powder residue around the temple, the shot was from very close range. Could be a suicide.”

“Or a professional hit.” Frankie added, thinking out loud. It was what they did, comparing notes by throwing words into the air. “Any suicide note? A gun? How long ago?”

“Coroner says a day, maybe less. No note but there was a gun.”

“Where?”

“In his left hand.”

“Your theory is getting stronger. It might be a winner if the bullet matches up and he’s left-handed.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily have to be left-handed.” Trisha said.

“How so?”

“He could have just used his left hand for some reason.”

“Not likely. If you’re gonna shoot yourself, it’s gonna be with the dominant hand.”

“Where’d you learn that one? In detective school?” Trisha chided. They were squatting over the dead body and kidding each other like they were having coffee at the local diner.

“No, I saw it on TV. We didn’t have detective school in our day. Had to learn shit the old-fashioned way–from the cop shows–Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue.” Frankie deadpanned.

“You’re aging yourself, Frankie.” Trisha said as she stood up. She had risen up the ranks a lot faster than he did–a sore subject that they usually handled with humor.

She knew it bugged him that she had made it to homicide so quickly and he knew it bugged her that he was the experienced hand. It was small shit though. Stuff they used to pick at each other, but it never got in the way of the job. They both knew they had each other’s back.

Trisha White was tall, about five eight, with short dark hair and she was tough. It took Frankie a long time to understand why a good-looking woman like Trisha wanted to become a cop. For him it was easy. The job paid well, and he was a big guy who didn’t mind kicking somebody’s ass from time to time. After a few years of watching Trisha kick ass, Frankie understood. She didn’t mind that part of the job either.

“The gun already bagged?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind?”

“Glock 17. Just like ours.” Trisha said. “Easy trigger.” Trisha wasn’t quite ready to give up the dominant hand argument. Many police units used Glocks as standard equipment although a lot of police departments around the equipment although a lot of police departments around the caliber round–much more efficient at stopping a target. Trisha and Frankie were allowed to keep the 17 if they wanted and they did because they felt it was more accurate and easier to shoot.

Frankie shook his head as he stood up. Trisha was stubborn, but she did have a point. The 17 was an easy weapon to shoot from either hand.

The dead guy was once again on the floor by himself.

“Who found the body?” Frankie asked.

“An old man,” Trisha checked her notes. “Name’s Bernie Roche. He apparently had a key and did some odd jobs for the deceased. He was pretty shook up. The uniforms took his information and told him to go home before I arrived.”

“I guess we can talk to him later. Do we have a name for the deceased?”

“Yeah. His wallet was on the dresser. His name is Newton Conrad. We’re trying to contact next of kin right now.”

“Newton Conrad. There’s a baseball player who played for the Urbs named Newt Conrad.”

“Yeah.” Trisha said. “One of the uniforms said the same thing.”

The Urbs, The New York Urbanites or the Suburbanites, whichever story you believed, were the other, other baseball team in New York. They began play in 1978. At one time there were three major league teams in New York–The Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. The Dodgers and Giants both left town in 1957, paving the way for the Mets who started in 1959.

The Mets originally opened in the old Polo Grounds where the Giants had played. So, the theory, at least at the beginning of the franchise, was that the Mets replaced the Giants. Even though New York had grown considerably since the sixties, nobody had replaced the Dodgers until 1975 when Pete Owens got permission from the City of New York and Major League Baseball to start a new franchise in Brooklyn. Interestingly, the stadium was built at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues right where the Long Island railroad and the New York City subway system converged, which was the same site where Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had wanted to build a new stadium. Local folklore had it that Robert Moses, who controlled all city building at the time, nixed O’Malley’s proposal because he wanted the team to relocate to Queens. O’Malley moved to Los Angeles instead and The Mets eventually ended up at Moses’ preferred site in Queens.

Owens decided to name his new team the Urbs and indicated that the name was just a nickname, although he never said what it was a nick-name for. Two theories emerged: The locals from Brooklyn thought that, since Brooklyn was the center of New York for blue-collar sports fans, the nickname, the Urbs, was short for the Urbanites. Most residents of Manhattan (Yankee fans) considered Brooklyn to be a suburb of the City, even though Brooklyn was a borough just like Manhattan and, for that matter, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. So, Yankee fans, claimed that the nickname the Urbs was short for the Suburbanites. It was meant to be a slur and the Brooklyn fans, who always had a chip on their shoulder when it came to the Yankees and Manhattan, took it as a slur. Owens liked the rivalry, so he wasn’t about to clarify what the nickname stood for. The funniest part of the whole controversy was that the Yankees were located in the Bronx and the Metropolitans (The Mets) were located in Queens–proving that rivalries in sports did not have to be grounded in any sort of facts. Sports fans liked to fight over silly shit.

Frankie was squatting next to the body again, gently adjusting the face to get a good look. He usually never looked at a corpse’s face at the scene even in a case such as this where the wound was to the head. He’d see the pictures soon enough. This early in the proceedings he chose to skip the up front and personal stuff. It was an old habit, and a bad one developed from years of looking at dead bodies.

“Holy shit!” He finally said.

“What?” Trisha asked. She was still standing.

“This is the Newt Conrad who played second base for the Urbs for the last four years. He had his best year ever last year-hit thirty home runs, twenty more than he’d ever hit in any one year before. It was his contract year, and he just signed a fiveyear deal with the Dodgers for thirty million.”

“He left New York for LA? I thought we had the big money?”

“Not lately. I hear the franchise needs cash and they’ve been threatening to leave town.”

“Really? What franchise would leave New York City?”

“The Dodgers and the Giants.” Frankie said. “The LA Dodgers were originally the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the San Francisco Giants were originally the New York Giants.”

“Wasn’t that years ago?”

“Yeah, but New York was still New York years ago.”

“Maybe so. I just can’t see it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense. People get pissed off they do stupid things. But I don’t think the Urbs are leaving. They’re just holding the City up for a new stadium. It’s part of the game. Although I’ll bet that’s what everybody thought in the late fifties when the Dodgers and Giants threatened to leave.”

“I don’t have a clue about that stuff,” Trisha said. “But I can tell you, suicide or not, we’re going to have a shit storm on our hands when the press gets a hold of this. I’m just wondering..”

“Yeah, I know.” Frankie said, finishing her sentence. “Why would a guy who just signed a thirty-million-dollar deal kill himself?”

“I guess money can’t buy happiness.” Trisha said.

“You’re right. Cars, women, jets–but not that elusive thing called happiness. That’s for poor folks like us.”

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