Free Murder at Fenway Park by Troy Soos Page B

at the park.”
    “Do you think Mr. Tyler meant it about believing you, or was he just trying to sound supportive?”
    I was ashamed, but I filled in a detail I had previously omitted. “Well, I, uh, I got sick when I found the body. Tyler said a murderer wouldn’t throw up”—I decided I didn’t have to be completely detailed and skipped the fact that I vomited on the corpse—“at the scene of the crime.”
    I quickly looked at Peggy to see how she would react. There was no sign of amusement on her face. She said, “Oh. Well, he probably does believe you’re innocent then.”
    She fell silent and her brow furrowed a little—and I couldn’t help noticing that her frown looked very endearing. After some more minutes, she said, “I suppose you’re going to have to find out what happened somehow. But I don’t know how. Can I think about it, and we’ll talk when you get back?”
    “Yes, sure. I didn’t really know what I thought you could do. But just telling you about it helps.”
    I walked Peggy home through a light steady rain, neither of us saying much. She kissed me on the cheek when we got to her door, and I went home feeling much better that at least someone else was sharing my worries.
    But I hadn’t told Peggy everything. I didn’t tell her about the bat left on my pillow. I didn’t tell her that being considered a suspect wasn’t my only worry.

Chapter Nine
    T he weather cleared by early Sunday morning. It looked as if it would be a beautiful day for a picnic or a walk through the Arnold Arboretum. I wished that I could spend the day with Peggy in one of those deliciously genteel pursuits. Instead I was on my way to South Station to join my extremely nongenteel teammates for our long western road trip. And I was on my way to finding out what happened to the murdered man at Fenway Park.
    I’d decided that I would have to take some initiative and find out what occurred that first day I entered the Red Sox ballpark. I was going to start asking some questions. But what questions? And who would have answers?
    Should I look into the Fenway murder by itself or should I start with Red Corriden’s death and try to find the connection to the other man. Were their deaths necessarily connected?
    It could have been coincidence. Corriden was a likely enough mugging candidate: a young fellow in what was probably an unfamiliar city. He easily could have wandered into a rough part of town and stood out as an inviting robbery target. As for the dead man at Fenway Park, he was in a stadium that had just been filled with thousands of people including drunks, gamblers, and pickpockets. In the hectic congestion that followed the game, almost anything could have happened. He could have been pulled aside to be robbed, or maybe he met someone for a fight. After all, as much as I distrusted him, Bob Tyler was truthful about one thing: Boston is a big city with its share of violent crimes.
    Robert F. Tyler... I’d thought about his warnings to me, and concluded they were mostly scare tactics. It was obvious that he was lying when he pretended to be so concerned with protecting me, and I’d started to think—and hope—that maybe he wasn’t honest with me when he claimed I was Captain O’Malley’s leading suspect.
    Then there’s Jimmy Macullar. I didn’t have a clear read on him, but he seemed a decent enough man. The only strike against him was that he worked for Bob Tyler. Macullar could be my best bet for answering questions. He might not know much, but I had a feeling he was aware of a lot more than Tyler would want him to know.
    I decided I would talk with Jimmy Macullar on this road trip and see what I could find out. And then—I wasn’t sure.

    The train ride from Boston to Cleveland was a grueling one. I never could sleep in a sleeper car—especially not in the criminally uncomfortable upper berths to which rookies and utility players are assigned. This Pullman was even worse than usual. The heavy