Sunset Beach(69)

“Thirty minutes of your time. That’s all I ask. I can meet you any place you say, any time you say. I could come in to your office if that’s convenient.”

“I’m about to clock out. I worked all weekend and I’m off tomorrow, because my son has a baseball tournament down in Sarasota.”

“What about tonight?”

“He’s got a game tonight.”

“I could meet you at the game,” Drue said, not caring that she sounded desperate.

“I actually like to watch my son play when I attend one of his games,” Hernandez said. “But, tell you what. I’m taking him early, for batting practice, at six. We can talk there. Lake Vista Park. You know where that is? Sixty-second Avenue South? Not far from Lakewood High School.”

“I know just where that is,” Drue said.

“See you there,” Rae Hernandez said. “I’ll be the stubby mom with the thick calves, wearing a white ball cap, a Red Wings jersey and a pissed-off expression.”





33


Lake Vista Park was teeming with kids and parents. It was still broiling hot under the late-afternoon Florida sun, and the stands of pine trees around the park offered little shade as she walked toward the playing fields from the parking lot. Drue wished she’d asked Rae Hernandez which baseball diamond her son would be playing on, but in the end, she gravitated toward a field where a dozen kids in red jerseys and mud-stained baseball pants were lined up.

She stood at the bottom of the bleachers, gazing up, hoping the detective would spot her, but none of the women fit the description she’d been given. The stands were mostly empty, with only a dozen or so people, mostly moms, with a sprinkling of dads, chatting, idly watching their kids taking batting practice.

There was a concession stand, so she decided to get a cold drink before resuming her search. The woman selling hot dogs and soft drinks was wearing a Red Wings T-shirt. “Do you happen to know Rae Hernandez?” Drue asked.

“Sure,” the woman said. “Her son Stephen is on my son’s team.”

“I’m supposed to meet her here, but I don’t actually know what she looks like. Could you maybe point her out to me? Do you know if she’s sitting in the bleachers?”

The woman looked amused. She leaned out the window of the stand and pointed toward the outfield, where a lone woman was sitting on a red folding stadium chair.

“That’s Rae out there.”



* * *



The detective had her eyes glued to the field. She had a scorebook open on her lap, and as promised, she was wearing a Red Wings jersey and a white baseball cap with her dark hair in a ponytail sticking out of the back.

“Detective Hernandez?” Drue said, as she walked up.

“That’s me,” Hernandez said. She handed Drue another folding chair. “You can sit here, ’til my husband gets here. He’s still at work.”

“Thanks for seeing me—” Drue started.

“Hang on.” The detective cupped her hands around her mouth as a makeshift megaphone.

“Choke up on the bat, Dez,” she yelled. “Come on now. Swing from your hips.”

Drue turned and watched as the boy squared himself in front of home plate. He looked smaller than the other players, whom she judged to be maybe ten or eleven. His white pants drooped over the tops of his red-and-white-striped socks, and the batting helmet seemed comically oversized for his head.

The pitcher was a tall, lanky black kid who rifled a fast ball at the batter. The kid whiffed at the first pitch.

“That’s okay,” Rae called. “Wait on it. Just keep your eye on the ball.”

The kid whiffed a second time, and his mother groaned. “He’s swinging too early,” she muttered. “We’ve told him and told him…”

On the third pitch the kid connected, hitting the ball with a resounding thwack, sending it spinning toward left field.

“Whoo-hoo!” Rae Hernandez jumped to her feet, pumping her fists in the air. “Way to connect, Dez!” She was, as advertised, short and stocky, her muscled legs tan in contrast to the white shorts and tennis shoes she was wearing.

“Great hit,” Drue said. “Your son looks like a real ballplayer.”

The detective took her seat again. “That idiot coach keeps messing with his swing. It’s making us crazy.” She turned to Drue, sliding her sunglasses down her nose. “Okay. Talk. You’ve got twenty minutes before the game begins.”

“I really appreciate your seeing me,” Drue started.

“You can thank Yvonne. I talked to her today after you called. She seems to think you can help her case against the hotel. Plus you were kind to Aliyah. That’s the only reason you’re here. That and the fact that you claim to have new information. But before we get started, let me ask you something. Are you like Jimmy Zee’s assistant or something?”

“You know Zee?”

“Every cop in town knows him,” Hernandez said. “My husband worked with him at the St. Pete PD, before Zee retired.”

Drue chose her words carefully. “We work together. He’s training me to do investigative work.”

She made a sour face. “Just be sure you don’t take any ethics lessons from him.”