Murder in the Ball Park by Robert Goldsborough

Author:Robert Goldsborough [Goldsborough, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Suspense
ISBN: 9781480445611
Google: vx1VAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1480445657
Barnesnoble: 1480445657
Goodreads: 18281810
Publisher: Center Point
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Keith Musgrove edged into the office warily, as if expecting a trapdoor to open and drop him into the basement. His eyes, magnified by those thick lenses, darted from left to right and back again before settling on the substantial figure of Nero Wolfe. “I am . . . Keith Musgrove,” he said in an apologetic tone that suggested we must have been expecting someone of greater importance.

“Mr. Musgrove,” Wolfe said, “please be seated, and thank you for coming tonight. I trust you were served refreshments. Would you like anything more?”

“No, no, I am just fine, thank you, just fine. Your man gave me coffee, very good coffee,” he said, hunching narrow shoulders as I steered him to the red leather chair. He sat on the front few inches of the cushion, kneading his hands and blinking. Maybe Fritz had served him too much coffee in the front room, or maybe he was always wound this tightly.

Wolfe waited until the pollster had ceased twitching before starting in. “I will begin by making the same request to you that I did to Mr. Davies. Please describe the events at the Polo Grounds from the moment you entered the stadium.”

I won’t bother feeding you a verbatim of Musgrove’s report on what happened at the ball park as it essentially duplicated what Davies had told us. What you are getting here is the equivalent of an edited transcript.

“I sat on the aisle, with Todd on my right and Orson next to him,” Musgrove said in his high-pitched voice. “I don’t go to baseball games very often, so I was really concentrating on the action on the field, trying to learn something about strategy and such. When the home run was hit and the shot came, I probably was the last one of us aware of what had happened, as I related to the police. What followed was, well . . . I would call it pandemonium.”

“Did you see Mr. Milbank fall?”

“No, no, I didn’t. Todd yelled something, and that’s when I turned to look. Orson was already down, with Mona and Mr. Davies bending over him. Then all sorts of other people came rushing over, some of them shoving me aside. Finally, a policeman arrived—a little late, I should say,” Musgrove sniffed.

“You were the senator’s pollster,” Wolfe stated.

“Yes. He had been a client of mine since his first campaign for the state senate years ago.”

“You have other clients?”

“Oh my, yes, I do,” Musgrove said, leaning forward and finally showing some animation. “Although my firm is small—only four full-time employees, including me—we do work for several New York state assemblymen, another state senator, he’s from up in Rochester, and members of the state legislatures in New Jersey and Connecticut as well. And we also do polling for various special interest groups. We are in demand, if I may say so.”

“At the time of his death, what did your polls say about Senator Milbank’s chances for reelection in the autumn?”

Musgrove made a clicking noise with his tongue and studied the ceiling.

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