I let go of Craig's hand and went to the water fountain to take a couple more headache pills. As I was straightening up, the clubhouse door opened.

It was a young police constable, in uniform, who looked from Craig to me thoughtfully. Craig looked scared again. I wiped the water off my chin.

"You can come in, Craig," said the constable. "They're ready to talk to you now. But will you ask Staff Sergeant Munro to come out here first?"

I did my best to look inconspicuous as the kid went inside. It didn't work. The cop walked towards me, hand resting on his billy club. He was huge.

"Hi," I said. "I was just trying to calm Craig down. He was pretty upset."

"Who are you, and how did you get here?" he asked, sternly. He was so young that I had trouble taking him seriously. He looked like a high-school actor playing a cop in the school play. Another sign of middle age. I tried to stare him down.

"I'm Katherine Henry, and I got here through the umpires' tunnel," I said. "I am a baseball writer for the Planet."

"But how did you get into the stadium?"

"Through the Titan offices," I said. "Is there any reason I shouldn't be here?"

"This is a crime scene, miss. You'll have to talk to Staff Sergeant Munro."

On cue, the door opened. The man who came out looked as much like a cop as I look like Dolly Parton. He wasn't big, he wasn't beefy, and he wasn't wearing polyester. He was slim and elegant, dressed in what looked like a good silk tweed jacket and pants with a fashionable pleat. His tie was loosened slightly and the jacket undone. I could see his gun.

He ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair.

"What's up, MacPherson?"

"I found this lady attempting to interfere with the witness, sir," the constable said. "She's a reporter."

"You make it sound as if I was molesting him, for heaven's sake. I was just trying to comfort him. He was almost in shock, in case you hadn't noticed."

Amusement flashed in Munro's eyes briefly, then he turned to his young colleague.

"Thanks for your vigilance, Constable," he said, dismissing him. Then he turned to me.

"You're Katherine Henry, aren't you? I've seen your picture in the paper. I'm pleased to meet you."

A bit taken aback, I shook his hand.

"I'm just as glad you're here. I can't tell you much for the record, but maybe you can tell me some things. You knew Thorson and the rest of the Titans well. I'd like to ask you some informal questions, if you don't mind."

"I'll do anything I can, but I have to get something back to my paper. When are you releasing information?"

"Not until we know more ourselves."

"Are you sure it couldn't have been an accident?"

"Not the way his skull was broken. There's nothing in the shower room that could have caused that kind of injury if he fell. Also some other things I can't talk about. There's no chance he wasn't murdered."

"Do you think it's connected to Sultan Sanchez's death?"

"It certainly puts a new light on it. You know all the people around the team. Do you have any idea of who might want to kill either one of them?"

"Couldn't Thorson's killer have been a stranger, too? Maybe it's just a coincidence."

"We don't believe much in coincidences where I work."

"It's crazy. Who would want to kill Thorson? Thorson had enemies, but not murderous ones. Some of his teammates didn't like him, and guys on other teams, but baseball players don't go around killing people."

I realized I was babbling and shut up.

"I thought Thorson was the biggest star on the team," Munro said. "He wasn't popular?"

"Well, the fans liked him, and he was still one of their best pitchers, but he wasn't the nicest guy. But that's no reason to kill him."

"Were you in the dressing room after the game yesterday?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Well, after we talk, maybe you could have a look around and see if anything seems out of the ordinary now."

I didn't want to go in there. But I couldn't pass up the chance.

"I guess," I said. "Is he, is it, still there?"

"No, no. The body has been removed. Would you mind?"

He held open the door, then stopped.

"Do you know if this lock is usually taped like this?"

The door was one of a pair of self-locking steel doors with a bar to open them from inside. Where the lock met the latchplate in the matching door, there was a torn scrap of adhesive tape.

"It looks as if the lock was taped to let someone get in here without a key," I said. "I don't know if it was like this yesterday or not. But a couple of times I've tried to get in this way after a game or when I arrive really early and it's been locked."

Munro grunted. Approvingly, I guess.

"Good," he said. "You're observant. You might be some use after all. We've already taken samples. It appears to be the kind of tape they use on bats."

The clubhouse was actually a complex of rooms off a zigzagging central corridor. Just past the dugout entrance was a washroom for players to use during a game. Around the corner was the equipment room. The bats and gloves were all over the floor.

Around the next corner was the main player area, with the trainer's room on one side of the corridor, the main dressing room on the other. I looked in as we passed. Instead of players and reporters, there were half a dozen men in suits. Instead of television crews, there was a police photographer. Instead of hilarity and celebration, there was the slow, sober work of observation, the beginning stages of the investigation.

Munro and I continued around the next corner, past the manager's office, where his colleague was questioning Craig, to the players' lounge. Someone had fired up the coffee machine, and Munro poured two cups. He handed one to me and we sat facing each other diagonally from two couches in a corner of the room.

"What connection was there between Thorson and Sanchez?"

"I can't think of anything except the obvious. They didn't have much to do with each other. I can't imagine that they would have seen each other off the field except at team functions or charity appearances. They didn't have much in common."

Munro nodded, taking notes in a spiral-bound book. The affability was gone. Now he was at work. I wasn't used to being on this side of an interview and didn't like it much.

"There are factions on the team, then?"

"Well, the Latin players tend to stick together, probably more for language than anything else. Blacks tend to be close to blacks, whites to whites. The religious group crosses race and language lines. The older players hang out with each other, as do the rookies. But there isn't hostility among the various groups, so they aren't factions in that sense."

"Who were Thorson's close friends?"

"No one on the team. He was a star. Some players were in awe of him, others resented him. He was a loner. He wasn't part of the clubhouse practical jokes or anything.

"I guess you could say that the other players tolerated him, but he wasn't really liked. Except for Archie Griffin, the rookie. He liked him. But he likes everyone."

"Who were his enemies, then?"

"I'm not saying he had enemies, just no close friends. Don't put words into my mouth."

"But there must have been some who had more reason to dislike him than others."

I didn't really like where this was taking us. Inevitably, I was going to cast suspicion on one of the players, and I wasn't in any position to do that. Besides, I couldn't believe any of them could have done it.

"Look, there were a lot of guys who didn't like him, but these men aren't criminals. Some of the fielders had a problem with him, for example, because he would blame them for his losses but give them no credit when he won.

"Others resented how easily success came to him. These would be the ones who had to struggle to make it to the big leagues and to hang on once they got here.

"The manager didn't like him because Thorson was a pipeline to Ted Ferguson, the owner. I could go on through the whole team and give you reasons. Hell, the clubhouse kids didn't like him because he was a lousy tipper. But none of this adds up to a motive for murder."

"I might be the best judge of that," Munro said. "What about people outside the team?"

Like his agent. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about Craven. I told Munro about my conversation with Morris, stressing that all I had was gossip and speculation. Then it was my turn to ask questions.

"When do you think he was killed?"

"It's hard to pin it down yet. The coroner could only say that it was sometime in the last twelve hours. So it could have happened any time during the night. Probably earlier rather than later. We'll know better after the autopsy."

He closed his notebook and stood up.

"You've been very helpful. Are you ready for the dressing room?"

I butted my cigarette and stood up.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Chapter 12.

The Titan dressing room was a mess. Socks and jock straps lay in soggy little heaps on the floor. The plastic sheets on the lockers hung askew, partially torn from their thumbtacks. The television platforms were still up.

There were champagne and beer bottles everywhere: on the floor, in the garbage cans, propped on the tops of lockers. There was even a full one inside a cowboy boot in front of Swain's locker. He must have gone home in his shower slippers. The room reeked of sweat and sweet wine.

Yellow tape outlined a path through the dressing room to the showers. In rest of the room, half a dozen men were picking through the debris, taking photographs and looking for clues in the chaos. The whole place was filthy with black fingerprint powder. I didn't envy them their work.

"You've got an impossible job here," I said. "There must be a hundred and fifty people who had a legitimate reason to leave fingerprints here yesterday afternoon alone."

"That many?" Munro looked alarmed.

"There are twenty-nine players on the roster. Add four coaches and the manager, the trainer, his assistant, the equipment manager, half a dozen bat boys and clubhouse kids. The ground crew. Security staff. There must have been sixty reporters and television people here before or after the game. The owner, the public relations director and other front-office people, and even the players' wives and girlfriends. It was a mob scene."

Munro looked gloomier by the minute. He ran his right hand through his hair again as he looked around the room.

"What time did you leave yesterday afternoon? Was Thorson still here?"

"Yes. There was a clubhouse meeting about Sanchez. The game ended just before four. I was here from about ten minutes after that until the meeting started, which must have been at four-thirty. Then there was a press conference after which I talked to the wives and waited for the players' meeting to be over. I guess I got back to the office at about five-thirty."

"How did the players react to the news?"

"They were shocked, of course, but they were mainly talking about whether they would play the rest of the season. They decided to wait until today to make the decision."

"And Thorson?"

"I didn't notice anything in particular. But his wife fainted when I told her."

"I wonder what that was about," he said.

"I've heard she's pregnant."

"Are there any problems in the marriage?"

"Not that I know of, but I wouldn't necessarily know. He screwed around a bit on the road. I don't know whether she knew about it or, for that matter, cared. Athletes have pretty strange relationships with their wives. They're not like real people. Or not any people I know. They live in a time warp, stuck in the fifties when daddy worked and mummy stayed at home. I sure couldn't be married to one of them."

Munro allowed himself a small smile.

"What was Thorson like after the game yesterday?"

"He was part of all the euphoria. He wasn't right in the middle of things, but he was here, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. It was his finest moment, and he was milking everything he could out of it. The only one he had any harsh words with was me, come to think of it. Does that make me a suspect?"

"Just don't leave town, lady," he said, but he was still smiling. He looked tired. I felt sorry for him.

"If we're through, I'd better write my story. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know."

We exchanged business cards, and I started out the door. In the hall, I ran into Moose. He looked awful. His face was pale and blotchy, his eyes bloodshot.

"What are you doing here? I've been leaving messages for you everywhere. We've got a press briefing in the boardroom. The rest of the guys are there already. Five minutes."

He brushed past me and went to talk to Munro. I phoned Jake from the pay phone in the lounge. They had cobbled a story together on the police desk, so I dictated a few paragraphs about Craig and told him I'd try to get some more for the final edition. Jake said they'd hold it until twelve-thirty.