Dead Center by David Rosenfelt Page A

his sports room. It’s a small guest bedroom that has been converted into a shrine to the long-departed Milwaukee Braves baseball franchise.
    There is baseball memorabilia everywhere, all relating to the Braves. Calvin was only eight years old when the Braves won the 1957 World Series, but he remembers virtually every pitch.
    His prized possessions are a foul ball that Warren Spahn hit into the stands and Calvin’s father caught one-handed, and a piece of gum that Eddie Matthews spit onto the ground on the way into the stadium. “It’s one of the few pieces of baseball memorabilia that could be authenticated with a DNA test,” he says.
    Tara and I spend an hour at Calvin’s, but he and I talk very little about the case. This is more my choice than his; my decision is clearly going to be more personal, more about me than about Jeremy Davidson’s legal situation.
    As I’m getting ready to leave, Calvin asks me, “You think you’re gonna do this?”
    “I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m not saying I’m a traveling superhero, but for me to inject myself into this situation, to transfer my life here, I sort of need to think an injustice has been committed. I’m just not sure it has.”
    “I know the kid may have done it,” he says, “but I just don’t think he did. To tell you the truth, I’d defend him either way.”
    “And that’s another point,” I say. “He’s already got you.”
    “You know, I don’t spend all my time scaling cards into wastebaskets,” he says. “I checked you out, read some transcripts of your cases…”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m a good attorney… competent. I cover all the bases,” he says.
    “And?”
    “And Jeremy Davidson needs more than that. He needs you.”
    “More bullshit?” I ask, ever wary.
    He shakes his head. “Not this time.”
    I tell him that it’s flattering but not necessarily convincing, and he doesn’t make any further effort to recruit me. Another effort he doesn’t make is to feed me and Tara, and by the time we head back to the hotel, we are famished. As evidence that there is indeed a merciful God, He has placed a pizzeria just a block from the hotel. I order a large pie with a thin crust, but “thin” must be a relative term. This crust is almost an inch thick and is stuffed with cheese. I’m starting to discover that in Wisconsin, even the cheese is stuffed with cheese.
    Tara and I sit at a little table outside the pizzeria and chow down. It’s not an East Coast pizza, but it’s not bad. I get Tara some bread, which she seems to find to her liking. Pigs that we are, we order a second pie and some more bread, and by the time we’re finished, we look and feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Pillsbury Dough Dog.
    We go for another hour walk to get rid of the bloated feeling, which again takes us through the entire town. By the time we approach the hotel, it’s almost seven o’clock and we’ve gotten enough exercise that it’s soon going to be time to think about an evening snack. Perhaps a couple of pizzas…
    To my surprise and delight, the hotel gets cable TV, including the ESPNs and CNN. Between the pizza and a Knicks-Spurs game, for the first time I feel like Findlay is providing the intellectual and cultural stimulation I require. I settle down on the bed and start reading through the case notes that Calvin gave me, with the basketball game on as background music.
    There is a knock on the door, and when I open it, I see the bellman, who is bringing me a small coffeemaker that I had requested. He gives it to me, and I hand him a five-dollar bill, the smallest that I have. For a moment I’m afraid he’s going to have a stroke.
    “You gave me a five-dollar bill.”
    “I know that.”
    He’s clearly unsettled by this. “I don’t have change.”
    “I didn’t ask for any.”
    It finally dawns on him that this is for real, and he goes through an endless vow that if there’s anything I need, ever, all I have to do is