To get my bearings, I first headed out to the main hallway that circled the park. Dusk had come, and few minutes of daylight remained. I quickly strode the hallway, my shoe leather clacking on the concrete floor. I stopped briefly at the entrance of each passageway and glanced at each view of the field. I remembered my first sight of the Fenway field, how the clay arc of the infield cut across the bottom left of the outfield grass, and looked for the same picture.

  I finally spotted it—dimty, but the layout was right.

  I walked into the passage, toward the field. Last time, the tunnel invited me in and drew me gently; now it repelled me. The walls squeezed together, and I had to force myself to keep stepping forward against their suffocating grip.

  A turn to the right, into the hallway where I’d found Corriden. It was almost completely black, and I preferred leaving it that way. Not until I thought I was close to the actual murder scene did I try to find a light. I felt a doorway—was this the one? And a light button; I punched it in.

  The bright yellow glare showed nothing but empty hallway. No body, no crusty patches of blood, no bat. Of course they would have all been removed. I wondered what happened to the bat... Tyler had it burned, probably. In the dressing room stove maybe? The Red Sox could have been warmed by the heat of a murder weapon.

  A closer look revealed one trace of what had happened here. A patch of wall adjacent to the doorway had an extra coat of whitewash. It was thicker and brighter than the rest of the paint on the wall. I squatted down, and could barely make out faint dark splotches under the white. I had no doubt they were splatters of Red Corriden’s blood.

  I stood, and looked back up the hallway, trying to remember exactly what I’d seen and heard the last time I was here. Then I closed my eyes and let memory take over. It was all in my mind, more durable than movie film. I replayed the entire episode, stopping at different points to study particular frames, rewinding to look at earlier scenes.

  When I was first approaching the field that April day, I’d heard a noise—the thunk. What caused the sound? The bat being tossed down by the killer? Then the killer must have evaporated—he couldn’t have walked away without me hearing his footsteps clomping in the corridor. It wasn’t the bat.

  I focused on the way Corriden had been slumped: legs stretched out, bent over at the waist, head down on the floor. The head. That was it.

  Corriden is standing, perhaps facing his attacker, when the beating starts. He staggers back to the wall, is hit again, and slides down. He’s sitting now on the floor, head and back balanced against the wall. His face is an easy target for the bat and the attack continues. Finally, the killer stops, his rage spent or his cruelty satisfied. He drops the bat and leaves. But is Corriden dead? No, there’s some life still in him, life that flickered out about the time I entered Fenway Park. Then a last gasp of breath or first spasm of death upsets his balance. He slumps down to his left, his head bouncing on the concrete floor. Thunk!

  That could be how it happened. I opened my eyes, and again scanned the wall for any signs that would indicate otherwise.

  The whitewashed patch of wall suddenly went black. An explosion roared at me through the runway and a delicate shower sprinkled my head. I ran my hands through my hair; it was dry. Then I felt wetness on my palms and biting pain. It was shards of glass that rained on me.

  I didn’t grasp what had occurred. The order threw me: black, boom, shower. But that’s how it happened... Somebody shot out the light!

  I hit the floor, ignoring the broken glass that crunched on impact, and rolled to the wall opposite the doorway. I laid face down in just about the spot where I’d found the bloodied bat.

  The thunderous gunshot had filled the tunnel—I couldn’t tell how far back it had originated, how close the shooter was. I remained motionless, listening. No sound of approaching footsteps, no more explosions.

  My planning skills could use some work. Staying late after the game ensured that fewer people would be around to see me, but it also left me isolated. If somebody was keeping an eye on me, I had put myself in easy view. And now no crowd remained to hear any gunshots. No one to come to my aid.

  My instinct was to crawl further into the tunnel, away from the shooter. I raised my body off the floor to make less noise on the broken glass. With my weight resting on knuckles and toes, I awkwardly began to crawl forward.

  After fifteen feet of walking like a crab, I stopped. My instinct was wrong again: I should head to the open, not further into the winding depths. I wasn’t sure where these passages led; going deeper could just get me into a corner. With the gunman following behind. And the sound of a shot kept muffled within the tunnel walls.

  I had been in a passage facing the field when I’d made a right turn into this one. So the next left should take me out to the field. That’s it. The shooter would expect me to head directly away from him. Maybe by doing the opposite, I could fool him and get away in the dark.

  I veered off to the left-side wall and scampered ahead on my knees, still keeping low. I dragged the fingertips of my left hand along the wall, feeling for a corner.

  About twenty more feet, and my hand lost contact with the wall. I almost keeled over from the loss of balance. Crawling around the corner, I breathed with relief. I was out of the line of fire.

  I plunged forward—and rammed my head into a door. The wooden bang sounded even louder than the earlier explosion. Idiot! This was no escape. And I’d just signaled the gunman where I was.

  No reason for silence now. I stood and felt my way back out of the doorway. From behind me, I heard the soft grate of a footstep on broken glass.

  I quickly continued in the tunnel until I felt the next gap in the wall. This time, I kept my hand out and walked straight to feel the width of the gap. It was wider than a doorway. I turned into it, a hard left. I walked steadily forward, my hands out in front like a bug’s antennae. Ten steps with no obstructions, then I felt a gentle draft on my face.

  I came out into the park along the right field foul line. Into fresh air that I inhaled deeply. Onto soft grass that quietly cushioned my footsteps.

  I trotted toward center field, feeling safe in the open. Nobody’s going to fire a gun out here—somebody in the neighborhood would hear the shot and call the police.

  A growling rumble came from the tunnel I’d exited. I hit the ground and hugged the turf to my chest. Grass blades stabbed the open cuts in my palms.

  I was wrong again. Bullets travel: the shooter could stay in the tunnel and fire out to the field—where his idiot target was standing in open view.

  At least this bullet wasn’t ctose—Ididn’t hear it hit anything. Or maybe it was—what sound does a bullet make when it strikes turf? It might schplat as softly as a shot of Clyde Fletcher’s tobacco juice.

  I lifted my head. There was light from a handful of stars and a quarter moon. It didn’t shine strongly, but I was sure I could be seen. Fortunately, wispy clouds rolled across the moon and cast wavering shadows on everything below. Even laying motionless, I would be a moving target, harder to hit.

  I remained near the middle of the park, resisting a temptation to get out of view. I might feel more protected along the sidelines or the outfield wall, but I could end up putting myself in closer reach of the gunman there. With my elbows, I dragged myself behind second base, to a spot more nearly centered in the field. If he came after me here, I could run away from him no matter from which direction he came.

  I lay on my stomach for some time, then propped myself up on my elbows and looked around the perimeter of the park. No one approached me, there were no more shots. Finally, I seemed to have made the right choice.

  The night air was getting cooler. I estimated that I’d been on the field for an hour. But it could have been three hours—or ten minutes. Everything was distorted. Everything.

  Fenway Park wasn’t even a baseball field now. A ballpark was a place of warmth and sunshine, where even in the chill of early April the summer game could be played before thousands of cheering fans.

  This stadium was haunted. The passing clouds filled the seats with mute darting ghosts. The grass felt dank, the air clammy. I wanted to sleep and dream—to see sunlit bleachers filled with straw hats and white shirtsleeves, to hear kids rooting, even hecklers taunting.

  It occurred to me that I could be stuck here all night. Assuming the shooter was gone, could I find my way to an exit? Would the gate be open if I did? The answers were “Maybe,” and “Unlikely.” And the assumption about the gunman might not be a wise one. I would spend the night here.

  I wasn’t going to sleep in the middle of the field, though. The dugout bench was a possibility. No, stay away from the sidelines—too accessible to the gunman. I looked around, and made my choice: I’d go into the stands and join the ghost crowd. And I saw my exit route: the hill in left field.

  I curled into a crouch position, then bolted for the left field wall. No shots followed my sprint. I hit the incline fast, and scooted up to the peak. With a leap and a stretch, I grabbed the top of the fence and swung my body over into the first row of seats.

  If the gunman was watching, he would have seen me. But he also would have shot, and he didn’t, so he must be gone. I took added precautions anyway. Keeping low, I crawled away from the spot where I’d gone over the wall. When I reached the middle of the center field bleachers, I stretched out between two rows of seats.

  Averting my eyes from the eerie shadows of Fenway Park, I stared up at the stars and moon and clouds. I lay with my hands over my head, palms up to bathe them in the night air. It must have looked like I was on the wrong end of a celestial stickup.

  I watched the stars glitter white and yellow, some steady, some blinking on and others fading out. Clouds washed over the face of the moon in dark blue streaks.

  Eventually, like a piece of film stuck before a hot bulb, the scene before me glowed red, melting into oblivion. Then the stars were gone, banished by the sun, and the sky was blue.

  When the sun was at about nine o’clock, I staggered my way through the stands and out to the main gate. Jimmy Macullar was there, stocking the concession stand with scorecards and pencils.

  He looked surprised to see. “You’re here early,” he said.

  “Uh, shoulder’s still bad. I want to ice it down before practice.”

  “Ice is no good. Dr. Pritchard’s Snake Oil, that’s the thing. Mix it with some liniment and rub it in good. Then throw. Lots of throwing. You’ve got to work out a sore shoulder.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll try that.” I walked off in the direction of the clubhouse. Now I’d be stuck in the ballpark until game time.

  I went to the dressing room and cleaned the cuts and scratches on my hands. Then I stripped off my clothes and napped on the rubbing table until batting practice.

  Chapter Eleven

  We were a confident team going into June.

  The Red Sox had possession of first place with a five game lead over the third-place Athletics. Washington was in second place, only three games behind us, but this was mostly due to an April hot streak; the Senators could be counted on to do their traditional nosedive soon, and we didn’t give them much concern.

  I think June is my favorite month for baseball. It’s late enough in the season so that the players are warmed up and their reflexes sharp, but early enough so that the accumulating aches and pains haven’t yet taken their toll.

  It’s the time of year when one can best appreciate the beautiful balance of the game. The warming weather has the pitchers’ arms loose, and gives them a more sensitive feel of the ball. But the batters have their hitting eyes honed, so the pitcher-batter matchup remains even. The legs of the base runners are limber, and they get quick jumps in their sprints to steal bases. But the catchers have developed snappier releases, so the catcher-runner duel also stays close. The critical matchups are ideally balanced this time of year, with all of the combatants at the peak of their powers, and every skirmish of mind and body a close and exciting contest.

  I had time to dwell on such thoughts of the game. Too much time.

  My nocturnal adventure in Fenway Park had left me in a state of mental paralysis. Trying to find out what had happened to Red Corriden accomplished nothing but put me in the path of a bullet.

  Who did the shooting?

  Did the Fenway tunnels have some deranged inhabitant who killed those he considered trespassers? Maybe that’s why Corriden was killed. And why I became a target when I went to the same place where Corriden had been.

  Or was I followed? Were the shots intended to kill me, or were they just a warning? Just? It was a hell of an effective warning. It stopped me—temporarily—from pursuing Corriden’s death any further.

  When I tried to take action, I ran into trouble. But I had a feeling that doing nothing could be worse. A moving target has a better chance than a sitting one.

  The first week of Peggy’s absence, I concentrated on baseball. By now I was on friendly terms with enough teammates that I could find players willing to pitch me extra batting practice or hit me ground balls to sharpen my fielding.

  Clyde Fletcher kept coming early to Fenway, too, in his continuing effort to conquer the left field hill. This had become a prime entertainment attraction for the team. The Red Sox players would stand along the left field foul line yelling encouragement and suggestions at Fletcher as he scrambled up the hill to catch the fungoes I hit out to him.

  Even the team’s biggest star got into the act. Tris Speaker spoke to me for the first time as I was hitting fly balls to Fletcher. With a deep rumbling voice, he said, “Let me hit him a few, kid.” He reached for the fungo bat, and I handed it over with pride. The way I chose to look at it, this meant Tris Speaker was substituting for me.

  Fletcher did get better, although he never made it up the hill as fast as I had. Most of the time now, he could run back to the fence without falling on his face. But all his hard work seemed to be for nothing; Duffy Lewis still played every inning for the Red Sox in left field during the games.

  By our second week back in Boston, with Peggy still on Cape Cod, I started to read the newspapers. Any page without box scores on it was unfamiliar territory to me, but I decided to explore the news sections and find out what was going on in the wortd—not due to any sudden interest in international affairs, but because I thought it would give me more to talk about with Peggy.

  Since the presidential nominating conventions were coming up, it seemed a good time to start following the campaigns. I read about the opening of the Republican convention in Chicago, expecting it would be straightforward and easy to understand. I assumed that President Taft would automatically be nominated to head the Republican ticket again. But then Teddy Roosevelt’s followers got mad at Taft’s nomination by what they called “conservatives” and went off to form a “Progressive Party.” Great—just when I start to follow politics, they complicate it by forming a third party. Well, at least it’s supposed to go smoothly with the Democrats; according to the papers, Champ Clark is an easy winner for their nomination. Not that it mattered—I wouldn’t be old enough to vote yet.

  Eventually, I exhausted the available pool of ordinary topics with which I tried to occupy my thoughts, and returned reluctantly to the murder of Red Corriden.

  In the weeks since my talk with Jimmy Macullar, I had reviewed our conversation a hundred times. After each rehash, I was a little more troubled than the time before. By now, my perspective was quite different from what it was immediately after speaking with him. It led me to a difficult and uncomfortable decision. I was eager to talk it all out with Peggy and was frustrated by her absence. What should have been an obvious thought finally dawned on me, and I put the address she gave me to use.

  It seemed a good idea to redeem myself for the winter’s omissions by writing to her. Damn, I hate to put anything in writing. If I had shown up at school more often, I might be more comfortable writing letters. But I hadn’t and I wasn’t.

  At Mrs. O’Brien’s, I sat down at the small writing desk in my room to endure the strange and perplexing experience of trying to compose a letter.

  Dear Peggy—No, that’s no good. Sounds too familiar.

  Dear Miss Sh—Oops, it should be “Mrs.”

  Dear Mrs. Shaw—Nope. That doesn’t sound right—too formal.

  Well, if I were talking to her, I would call her “Peggy,” so that’s what it’ll be here. Okay, now that that’s decided, what do I say?

  After two hours of intense labor, endless uncertainty, and a floorful of crumpled sheets of paper, I finally put together a letter that sounded pretty good:

  Dear Peggy,

  I am sorry your aunt is sick. I hoped to see you when I got back. Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis were good. I played okay. I hope your aunt will be fine. How are you?

  Sincerely,

  Mickey Rawlings,

  Deciding on the closing caused me more distress. I again didn’t want anything to sound either too formal or too familiar. I was tempted just to sign my name without any closing, but she might have thought that I didn’t know how to write a proper letter. Well, when she gets back I’ll just have to see if she’s pleased, disappointed, or insulted.

  She was pleased. Very pleased. And I discovered that, after all the time and agony I had put into its composition, the content didn’t matter a bit. Merely that I had thought to write was enough. I’ll have to keep this in mind for the future—maybe I can cut the time in half on the next letter if I don’t have to worry about what goes in it.

  It wasn’t until the third week of June that Peggy returned to Boston. We would overlap in the city for less than two days, then I was off on the Red Sox’s next road trip.

  As soon as she got back, she invited me to dinner. I had never been inside Peggy’s home before. It seemed excitingly improper to be alone with a woman in her house... at night ... with no one else there... just the two of us.

 

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