Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.

I sometimes partner with my daughter, but on this occasion, she was at softball practice.  And she was having to deal with a new coach.  The report is first-person for Sophia, and I requested she write this report due to conversations bordering on active criminal investigations.  I had to get her to think about what she said so that if we need to do some damage control, we are armed with a reasonable facsimile of the conversation.

Before I met the new college softball coach, I was getting a workout from our new infield coach.  She was being brutal!  It was a warm day for early Spring.  Coach Tammie Thompson, unpaid, had the infield running through double play combinations.  She especially focused on Menzie’s role.  Everything is situational.  If I am fielding the ball at shortstop or backing up Brooke at third base, Menzie has to cover the bag at second and then pivot for the throw to first.  Carla is a big target who can make up for a lot of poor throws, but so far, Menzie has never had anyone on first base, running toward second.  It is easy, if you have the skill, to catch, pivot, and throw in a direction that was behind you when you caught the ball.  But when you see a base runner about to run into you, it is not so easy to hit the target.  At least coming from the shortstop position, I can see what is coming at me and adjust.

And now, Coach Tammie had the back-ups on the bases.  She expected Menzie to be ill-prepared, so she had the runner on first base carry a foam roll about the size of a barrel.  When Menzie tapped the base and turned to throw, she had a foam roll hitting her roughly about knee high.

“What in the world?!”  She screamed!  She never made the throw to first base.

Tammie yelled, “Thank you, Menzie.  When you are turning a double play, you will always have a runner coming at you.  You cannot interfere with the runner, so, you may have to delay catching the ball when you are fielding the ball, and when you pivot, they are not supposed to interfere with you, but if they can fake a slide or tripping over their own shoelaces, they will risk it.  You not throwing to first base meant you only got one out.  If there was a runner on third base, you might have just allowed the winning run to score.  Health and safety are important, but if you are prepared to dodge, jump, do something in order to still make a controlled throw, you need to make the throw.  We are going to keep this up until you jump over the foam roll and still make the throw to first.  Watch Soap when I hit you the ball.”

As I said, I can see what is coming and I had done it a lot.  It took Menzie a while to keep her composure.  She started off by throwing balls into the stands and the dugout.  But she got the technique down.  Depending on where the runner was, she either slid to the side or jumped to avoid getting hit and she still made the throw.  A little more practice and she would have the accuracy in the throws good enough for Carla to scoop them up.  But we were ready for the showers when we were done.  All of us.  We had Margie on the mound.  Josie, Margie’s catcher from two years ago was back, now with a little boy to take care of, a single mother, and she opted to keep the boy, but we had some babysitters so she could practice and play this season, her last.  Then, Carla on first and Brooke on third.  Coach Tammie kept hitting the ball while our second-string players ran the bases.  So, we all got a workout.

I finished my shower quickly.  Menzie slumped against the shower wall, exhausted.  I said, “Hang in there, girlfriend.  I’m going to Coach’s office.  She wanted an assessment on Tammie as a coach, since Coach Kessinger was catching up on paperwork today.”

When I arrived in the hallway outside the head coach’s office, she had someone in her office.  This unknown person said, “I don’t know.  When I was interviewed for a few jobs, I contacted some friends at the state capitol, and they said that she was a drunk and a lesbian.  She washed out of their program, and I want to run a tight ship at T.R.U.S.T.  I cannot take that kind of a risk.  They say she has moved into a brothel.  And you want me to groom her for a year and have her be part of the team next year?  I don’t know if I want the headache.”

Coach Donna Kessinger replied, “I would like to say all of that is a pack of lies.  Some things went on at the state capitol that were out of Tammie’s control, but she has been on-the-ball with coaching the team.  She is a good teacher.  She has not lost her step like those in Uof suggested.  And she has not shown up drunk.  You can ask her.”

But the other coach said that she had seen some damning videos with off campus activities that were disgusting and being drunk at practice on campus.  She might entertain a tryout, but then she would never know what she was going to get if she ever put her on the team.

At this point, Coach Kessinger saw me in the hallway and waved me in.

I said, “You asked me to come by and report on the practice.  We did some really good double-play drills and Coach Tammie used the back-ups for runners.  Menzie got a good indoctrination in game-style experiences.”

The other coach said, “Oh, I didn’t know that was Tammie Thompson, but I hope your second baseman improves. The first few throws were pathetic.”

I growled, “I don’t know who you are, but Menzie has never played in a real game, and she is already better than the second-string person. And she is going to be a power hitter for us.  And you left just as she was getting the hang of evasive movement and throwing at the same time.  Who are you anyway?”

Coach Kessinger moaned, “If you still want to play softball in three more years, this is the new T.R.U.S.T. head softball coach, Tinker Evers.”

I said, “Oops!”

Coach Evers said, “I can forgive you since you had no idea who I was, and you were defending your teammate.”

I said, “She’s also my BFF.  We’ve kind of saved each other’s lives a time or two.”

Coach Evers snickered, “Softball is not life or death.”

I smiled, “But breaking up human trafficker rings is life or death, and where she saved my life, we were rescuing Menzie’s boyfriend who was being held for ransom.”

Coach Evers shook her head, “What?!”

Coach Kessinger chuckled, “You can believe it.  Sophia was the top offensive player last year and best infielder, barely better than Tammie who you were talking about.  But Sophie is a licensed private investigator.  She helps the police with Cold Cases each summer.  She runs her own bodyguard service.  And other than your volunteer positions, what else do you have that is a paid job?”

I shrugged, “I help out with my kid brother’s lab experiments.  I make my brother’s ‘functional, but ugly’, gadgets look pretty so that someone might actually buy it.”

Coach Evers snickered, “And what she lacks in confidence, she makes up with a smart mouth.”

At that point, Margie, Tammie, Menzie, and Emmett walked in.  Margie said, “And look who we have driving us back to Lily the Pink!”

I asked, “Emmett?”

Emmett nodded, “I got my driver’s license yesterday, and I wanted today to be a secret, but Margie does not know that I am handing you the keys.  Within a week or so, you’ll have your license, and you need the practice.”

I said, “Goodie!”

Coach Evers said, “Wait!  Did you say Lily the Pink?  That’s a brothel and money laundering outfit for organized crime.”

I turned to my friends, “Wait.  I have heard her say things that are not true.  Coach Evers, the new head softball coach at the university has been misinformed, and if she is not going anywhere just now, I would like to invite her for a tour of my brother’s lab, the apartment building where three of you live to avoid being homeless, at least until you got jobs there, and my Aunt Pink might go for the battle royal if the Coach here suggests she is working for organized crime.  That is if you want some myths busted, Coach Evers?”

Coach Evers said, “Well, I was going to invite Coach Kessinger out for dinner.”

Coach Kessinger smiled, “Another time, I hear the food is good for the evening meal at Lily the Pink.  What is on the menu tonight?”

Menzie said, “I hear that TomCat are testing lasagna for the next homeless dinner.  He is having fun trying recipes for a family of five and expanding that to 500.”

Coach Evers mumbled, “Shouldn’t that be TomCat is?”

I snickered, “TomCat, a.k.a. Thomas and Catherine ver Waarloosd, given a one-way bus ticket to Tracy on the promise of a scholarship, just to find a preacher embezzle the money, leaving them with three children in a strange town with no money and homeless.  Now they have fulltime employment, Tom baking for the bakery and cooking for the employees and Catherine running a poultry farm, and both in school full time.  And Thomas is being groomed to someday run a charity to feed the homeless and provide some spiritual food also.  The charity was started by my Dad this last Christmas.  And that is what Lily the Pink means to me, besides the CEO is my Aunt Pink.  People that had no future getting a second, third, or even fourth chance.  And no one there has prostituted themselves for over two years.  We can have a tour, it sounds like lasagna for dinner, and then when Mom or Dad comes over to pick up my brother and me, we can go to the nightly Vespers service before bringing you back to your car.  No wait, this is Mommie’s Club birthday night.  Maeve and Thou’s twins and Holiday Wednesday.  Catch a little birthday party with preschoolers and elementary kids and then dinner and Vespers.  A pink SUV awaits, and I have the keys.”

When we got to the SUV, Margie and Tammie got in the third-row seats.  Menzie climbed in behind me and Coach Evers behind Emmett.

I asked, “Coach Evers, if you don’t mind me asking, is Tinker a nickname or your given name?”

Coach Evers asked, “I’ll answer that question with a question.  Can anyone tell me what Tinker Evers reminds you of?”

Everybody kind of murmured, but Menzie said, “I know!”

Coach Evers laughed, “I thought you were the one who never played a game.”

Menzie said, “I haven’t, but I was the batgirl and ball girl for the team last year.  That way, I had an excuse to throw the ball around and catch it.  I would go out and shag flies with the outfielders.  That kind of thing, and when I heard that Sophie and Tammie were headed for a record in the number of double plays, I started reading about that kind of thing.  Over a hundred years ago, the shortstop for the Chicago Cubs was Joe Tinker.  The second baseman was Johnny Evers.  And the first baseman was Frank Chance.  They were so automatic in turning double plays that the call of Tinker to Evers to Chance became a well-known saying to anything done quickly, perfect, and consistently.”

Coach Evers said, “And you win the prize.  I was the youngest of six girls, and my Dad was a baseball fanatic.  He never got that boy, but he put my name down as Tinker Evers on my birth certificate.  With a name like that, I couldn’t disappoint.  I played Little League baseball and then softball.  When I graduated from an NCAA national championship team, I opted to enter coaching.  I interviewed here for an assistant coach job and at Uof, but I decided to stay where I was.  Then your coach here surprised everybody with an early retirement, right when the team only needs one or two pieces to at least get the conference championship, maybe make the World Series.  They called me up and said that they were impressed with the first interview, and I accepted the head coaching job.  I know one of the big needs is another pitcher. …”

Margie said, “That’s me!”

Coach Evers snickered, “I don’t want to get into trouble with the NCAA, but I was at Flintheart practice today to observe the reigning state champs in the top division.  I will be going to Central Baptist who won the championship in their division.  That puts a lot of serious softball talent in one city.  If we can do some serious home cooking, we can have an edge on recruiting.  Then, that might keep us going for a few years to come.  But the team needs depth at every position, even pinch runners and pinch hitters.  Signing on as a backup could make you the starter with one unforeseen injury.”

Then Coach Evers gasped, “Wait!  Menzie, I have seen your picture somewhere and Emmett looks vaguely familiar.  How could I have ever seen your pictures before?”

Menzie shrugged, “I have no idea.  I’m a nobody.  I was the batgirl and ball girl for the team last year, but I didn’t play.”

Coach Evers shook her head, “No, I don’t think so.  This might be when the Athletic Director was wining and dining me for the interview.”

Emmett suggested, “Menzie, they have our photos on the dressing rooms at the Snazzy Taz, and they used one of each of us for their engagement announcements.”

Coach Evers asked, “Engagement with Menzie?  I got the impression that you were Sophia’s boyfriend.”

Emmett laughed, “Sophie and I seem to be bound at the hip, but I substitute at the Snazzy Taz when the saxophonist is sick, but they add me to their band when Menzie sings.  So the Engagement Announcement is a poster with our pictures and the dates that Menzie and I will both be there.  Menzie has quite a following, but Pink Lady insists that school comes first.  In that respect, Mommie Pinkie manages our singing and playing engagements.  We did the National Anthem at only two football games this year, but that was for free.”

Coach Evers laughed, “That’s it!  I may have seen the dressing rooms, but I saw the big poster at the entrance to the club that had your next dates marked.  That would be past tense by now, since I interviewed in the early Fall.”

Tammie asked, “Have you seen the plans for the new athletic facilities?  They already have the foundation of the central building started.  They had to get the flood control measures completed first, so it’s been slow.  The young lady who designed the Crystal Mountain is on the project management team.  She is quite the character.”

Coach Evers groaned, “Yes, the facilities look great.  I have walked around the construction site.  But I don’t know if recruits will take us seriously when we invite them to the playhouse and the playground.  This is big time sports, and it sounds like a kiddie playground.  Who dreamed up this idea?”

Emmett said, “In knowing the largest donor on this project, the donor does not like the idea either.”

Coach Evers asked, “Who?”

I asked, “What do you know about the CEO of Lily the Pink?”

Coach Evers said, “You say that what I know is false information.  So, I will restrict my comments to the CEO being Pink Lady, a former member of the Rotten Apple Gang.  And the location used to be a brothel, and law makers in the state capitol still contend that it is a brothel.”

I nodded without losing sight of the road, “Okay, Pink Lady never ran the brothel, but it was thought that she did, even by the police here in Tracy.  My Dad, now the lieutenant in charge of homicide, investigated a homicide with the body dump in the Lily the Pink dumpster.  He found out she was a prisoner, set up as a figurehead.  She also was the accountant for the Rotten Apples.  She traded information that put nearly twenty of her cousins in prison for immunity and freedom for her ladies who were prostitutes half the time and operators of a cider operation the other half of the time.  Now, in full time cider operation, she has built a second operation in Washington state, along the Columbia River Gorge, reforming prostitutes across the Northwest to run that operation.  And most of her employees used to be prostitutes and they never want to go back there.  So, they hate it when people lie about what goes on at Lily the Pink.  But me saying this is to point out that Pink Lady was a member of the Apple family, other than keeping the books, never a member of the gang.”

Coach Evers groaned, “So, she refused to have a building named after her, so the school board of directors named the facilities after her initials, P.L.A.?”

I said, “Worse than that, Pink Lady had an affair with my uncle in her youth.  She secretly had a son and gave him up to the monastery to prevent him becoming a criminal.  He’s now the mayor of Tracy, Boaz Yeggs.  Since she was not a prostitute, just a prisoner, she stayed true to my uncle and married him a few months after their emancipation.  I am Sophia Yeggs.  My uncle is Scrambled Yeggs.  Aunt Pink’s initials are P.L.A.Y.”

Coach Evers laughed, “I won’t even bring it up, but I will now have a story to tell at recruitment visits.”

Emmett said, “And thinking of Scrambled, Soap.  Park at the Bakery and you can go through the side door into the apartment building and up to the lab.  I have to help Thomas deliver pink cupcakes to the conference center.”

I asked, “Pink cupcakes?”

Emmett shrugged, “Yeah, the Amazon had a baby girl today, Misty Greta Johnson.  Mother and daughter are doing great.”

Menzie sighed, “That is such a relief.  She had a girl.  That gets her mother off her back, but did you say Misty?”  Emmett nodded.  Menzie started to cry.

Tammie asked, “What’s wrong, Menzie?”

Menzie said, “When Joseline and Kevin came to Lily the Pink about a year ago, they were separated until they graduated, a deal to keep the press from making a stink.  Mommie Pinkie doing her thing again, accepting strays, like a lot of us.  They both tied as valedictorian, and then they got married.  During their separation, Kevin lived with the Evidents, and Joseline lived with us.  I moved in with my two kids.  We got kinda close, a sister that I never had, I guess.  And Mommy asked Baldwyn Apple to make her name on her fake driver’s license Misty Matthews, when she was forced to be a prostitute at the old Lily the Pink brothel.  Her name was really Camista Collins.  Anyway, Baldwyn, who ran the brothel, misspelled it and she has been Missy ever since.  And the person who worked as a private investigator and rescued me just before I was to be sold to a human trafficker is driving the car.  She will always be my BFF.  But as for Joseline’s baby, she named her after what my Mom wanted her name to be and Greta is the woman Joseline works with most of the time.  If she is at the hospital, who would do the safety training for the tour?”

I said, “Back to the nurses, I guess, maybe Greta, but if we do not walk up into the Crystal Mountain catwalks, it is a nice enough tour from the ground level.  We do not need a safety briefing for that.”

Coach Evers shook her head, “This is too much information.  Until I see it, I am keeping an open mind.  But an Amazon giving birth to a baby girl, a Crystal Mountain, the mayor in town is the illegitimate son of a woman suspected of running a brothel, missions for the homeless, a singing second basemen, too much, too much.”

I asked, “According to Aunt Pink, it is not enough.  She gives so much of her wealth away, but then the business keeps making her richer.  She accepted Jesus while a prisoner under a cruel man, Baldwyn Apple.  And she does everything she can to right wrongs.”

We soon got to the bakery.  Otto gave us spare cupcakes.  Then he, Emmett, and Thomas loaded up cupcakes to go to the conference center for a dinner celebration of a new baby on campus.

We toured the lab.  I pointed out the apartment for Mary and Joseph, but the door was closed, so they may have been having a group therapy session.  Coach Evers was impressed that Joseph counseled the ladies fulltime and Pink Lady had an open-door policy.  We visited with Jochebed and Coach Evers heard her story.  We cut through the Crystal Mountain from the sandbox outside the nursery to the bigger sandbox where they were playing some beach volleyball, just practice.  The ladies were enjoying Zuzka’s pregnancy.  Someone else might win the tournament this year.  We then went to the waterfall.  Coach Evers was without words at the jungle and the waterfall, and it all looked real.  I even pointed out Arabella and her parents who were still in the African Exotics area taking a last set of measurements for the day.  Up seven floors off the ground.

I explained the codenames, like Amazon, and we saw a semi-empty maintenance bay for the Turtle.  The snow plow turtle shells were hanging on the wall, since there was not much freezing weather at the moment.  There were enough photos of the Turtle Team and the Turtle on the wall for her to get some idea of why it was the Turtle.  Coach Evers had said that some of her players at her old school talked about a streaming service with a bunch of crazy people in turtle suits chasing storms.  That was where they went to get the latest weather.  She knew that Stinker had classes on studying weather maps and B.B. was the voice that told them what the weather forecast was for their area.  When I told her that the Turtle driver was my brother, Easter “Easy” Yeggs, and the photographer was his wife, Jemima, a.k.a. Stinker, the Coach couldn’t stop laughing.

We went through receiving where Anahera “Angel” greeted us with a haka.  I think she had met Coach Evers at a meeting at the university.

After the lasagna dinner, I asked Tammie to meet with us.  Tammie started off with stating that she was an alcoholic, and it had been 36 days since her last drink.  And yes, she was around women all day and where they make and serve alcoholic beverages, but she has stayed with her rules, no romance with women, no alcohol.  And she had a sponsor named Rosie.  And she had just moved into her apartment between the ver Waarloosd family and Jochebed and Georges’ apartments.  She said the only thing that made her nervous was that she worked for Pink Lady directly.  Pink kept asking her what else that was needed rather than Tammie asking her how things needed to be done.  She had the idea that Aunt Pink was empowering her, but as she has gotten used to it, that was how Pink managed.  She let people take as much control as they had the skills and knowledge to take.  While Tammie was learning her job, Pink was learning how to let go.

Finally, Pink, with her hair let down instead of in a bun, came by and said, “I suppose that my nosey niece has filled you in on everything.”  When Coach Evers asked about the wrong information, Pink replied, “I only watch the news to hear what lies they are saying now.  I think it is all to hurt my son, the mayor.  The truth is obviously something other than what the politicians are saying.  But as for Tammie, she is the latest stray that I have rescued from the streets in the big city of Tracy, and I think when she gets her Human Resources degree, she will be a big asset to us.  She is bright, and she works hard.  By the way, how was practice today?”

Everyone said fine, but Menzie said, “Brutal!” Then, after a pause, she said, “But I learned a lot today.  Tammie is a good coach.”

Pink nodded, “Great! I do not care when she works, as long as she puts in her 40 hours each week.  And I encourage all the ladies in my employ to do volunteer work.  I never knew I would have a softball coach.  But you girls keep me informed.  I want to make it to a couple of games this year.  Maybe even get tickets for a few games at the university.  I cannot stay cooped up in my office all day.”

And a final note from Dev. Yeggs:  They refuted Lily the Pink as a brothel, which has nothing to do with the investigations.  Tammie admitted being an alcoholic and hinted that she might have participated in same-sex relationships, and Coach Kessinger said that she would like to call all of it lies.  Looks like no need for damage control.

Credits

I am sure there were some first basemen named “Carl” (maybe Carla – for HoF Cap Anson, Chicago Cub from 1871-1897, playing 27 years), but when I named the third baseman Brooke, I was thinking of Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles, who played third base when I was young.  I was fans of Brooks and Don Kessinger in my youth, who graduated from the University of Mississippi and played baseball for the Chicago Cubs.  When he retired, he returned to manage the baseball team at the university, just after I graduated, and he is still active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the school.  As for Tinker Evers, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance were infielders for the Chicago Cubs, all inducted into the Hall of Fame when Don Kessinger had barely been born.  The double play of “Tinker to Evers to Chance” became so well known that the phrase is used for anything that requires teamwork and that is done efficiently, swiftly, and correctly.