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Twist in the tale...

If she hadn't been a five foot ten inch blonde with eyes the colour of the Mediterranean and legs longer than a Paul Molitor hitting streak I probably wouldn't have listened to her story, let alone ended up working it. She said she'd come to meet me because she'd heard I was the best private detective in the area but I could tell from the small furrows on her brow and her quizzical expression that she wasn't entirely convinced that the guy slouched in front of her by the bar and on his eighth drink of the morning was the right person for the case. Still, she ploughed on with her narrative, something about her brother recently taking on a new job in the area but things not seeming right, furtive whisperings and supposed financial irregularities. Being honest, I wasn't entirely sure there was even a crime involved, let alone one I could possibly solve. Shapely as she was, I was about to say farewell to this lovely and head off to another, quieter bar when I heard her mention the name Stearns.

"Stearns?"
"Yeah, David Stearns. My brother. The person with the new job I was telling you about. You know him then?"

Well, I didn't know Stearns personally, but I sure had heard of him. You can't live in a place like Milwaukee where everyone is so crazy about baseball the word "football" is almost never uttered without having heard of the guy. As a Brewers fan myself I knew he'd recently come into the team and was trading players left, right and centre to try to sort out the Crew's fortunes. Sure, he hadn't bagged a top player like Cameron Maybin or Jeremy Hellickson yet, Hooper Norris hadn't returned and we'd didn't even have one Matt LaPorta, let alone nine, but at least things were interesting with all the deals going on. I leaned forward, took out my notepad and began writing down every word. When she finally finished talking an hour later things weren't much more straightforward but I did know something was up. It wasn't just that the team had weirdly collapsed in the last season and a half, but payroll had been cut dramatically and apparently no-one would give Stearns a straight answer when he asked anything about the available money. It didn't look the most promising of cases, but when you get to work on anything involving arguably one of the top four or five sports franchises in the entire West Milwaukee area you don't look that gift horse in the mouth. Besides, being given a couple of thousands dollars retainer by a dame who looked like she stepped straight off a sportscar commercial didn't hurt either.

At least I knew where to start. Seemingly Stearns wanted to protect his position and wouldn't talk to me but perhaps his predecessor would. With nothing else to go on, Doug Melvin not only knew the inner workings of the team but, having been moved to another job by Stearns arrival, was one guy with a clear motive to screw things up for the club. I packed my passport, sixteen thermal jackets, some Avril Lavigne, Nickelback and Bryan Adams cassettes for currency, and headed north of the border.




Like all Canadians of any age and gender, Melvin sported a thick, lustrous moustache, almost as if the bitter, icy winds of the frozen Northwest tundra could be kept at bay by the force of his upper lip alone. Nevertheless, as he leant backwards in his seat and folded his arms across his chest I could tell that he was struggling to appear relaxed and nonchalant. Try as he might though he was unable to stop his left foot from tapping out a rhythm as staccato as the bullets from some two-bit hoodlum's sub-machine gun.

"Sure" barked Melvin as he poured himself another drink from the decanter on his desk, "I knew the Crew weren't exactly healthy, but I'm damned if I had any idea it would end up as it did. If I had, would I have been out there busting my ass 24-7 for nothing, eh? Could I have forced Lucroy to have such a poor start to the season, eh? Was it my fault that half of our pitchers didn't know how to throw a fucking pitch, eh? You can ask as many questions as you like, even threaten to send me to some doggone hellhole where there's not a single minute of hockey on TV, but one thing I'll tell you straight up is I've no idea about the collapse, no idea about the finances and no idea what is going on at that club!"

There was no need to ask any more questions. As Melvin pressed a button on his remote control and the theme tune for "The Kids in the Hall" jolted out of his 72 inch screen I knew all there was to know. Melvin was up to his neck in it and scared - shit scared. Even though his new "special adviser" position for the Brewers gave him as much power and leverage as a failed archaeology major begging clubs for a sabermetric position at the Winter Meetings his lips were firmly sealed. But what the hell kinda person could put the frighteners on a guy like Big Doug? As ever, when investigating a case like this there's two ways you can go, either go down the chain of command and hope against hope some subordinate lackey will be stupid enough to squeal or go upwards and face up to the bosses with only a 44 revolver and your own wits to protect you. As a Brewers fan I was never one for the simple way out. I dumped my remaining three copies of Nickelback's "Sunny Side Up" album onto an incredibly grateful taxi driver as payment for my two hour journey to the airport and flew back to Milwaukee. I had a meeting with Mark Attanasio.

Like anyone else who watched the Crew I knew plenty about Attanasio. You don't get to a position like his without being on top of your game and you don't hire a guy like Slingin' David Stearns without having serious cojones. As I entered his plush office in Miller Park I was on edge. Attanasio was sharp. Damn sharp. The type of sharp you only get through participating in annual intellectual cut-and-thrust argumentation in a cramped commentary booth with a cerebral guy like Bill Schroeder. Still, as he started pacing around in front of me, talking generalities about the Crew I knew he didn't feel completely comfortable being grilled about the team's missing money. "You're right, of course" said Attanasio as he continued walking up and down, "we haven't got much money to go around. We can't go throwing around cash at free agents any more and we can't get the same pedigree of players as teams like the Mets do, let alone the Cubs, Yankees or Dodgers. Yeah, we're saving a bit on payroll this season but it'll all be put back into the team when we have a window to contend".

I didn't believe him. I'd gotten far too cynical to believe that there wasn't something else going on. Owners never really save up money to reinvest in clubs in the future. Most likely Attanasio was saving up the cash for his own personal reasons and if that was the case you could see why he'd be reticent to admit it but, hell, it's his club and he can do that if he chooses. Still, there had seemed to be something more than reticence in Attanasio's eyes as he strode around his office and it didn't all seem to quite fit together. He'd talked about the stress at the club and how it had got to many players. One player had cracked entirely and it seemed to me that if someone had already began losing it, chances were that faced with a semi-sober detective asking the odd sensible question they might say more than they intended.




Well, in my line of work visits to the psychiatric hospital are as inevitable as the Cubs failing to win the World Series, but nothing prepared me for what lay ahead when I headed south down the interstate that evening to visit Matt Garza at the nearby mental hospital. The nurse warned me that he was in no fit state to be interviewed but, distracted by her tight-fitting uniform and billowing blonde locks, I was pretty relaxed. Too relaxed. As I entered the padded cell he turned and I caught my first glimpse of his transylvanian features. His left eye twitched repeatedly and he had no meaningful control of his right arm whatsoever. Every ten seconds or so it would spasm involuntarily, almost as if he was trying his hardest to throw to first base but somehow actually sailing the ball thirty foot back in the stands. The guy's mind was shot to pieces. Any general questions were met with a strange mixture of manic laughter and attempts to count up to ten. Direct questions about what had happened to the Crew that year were met with the insistence both that things were "fun" and "rough". He made as much sense as letting a St Louis Cardinal look after your youngest child. It was time to go.

It was dark on my way to the car but that was no excuse for not seeing the punch. It connected cleaner than a right hand from Martin Maldonado and sent me sprawling to the ground. I'd taken a few Hyattings before and knew from the crotch punching and the kicks to my liver that any attempt to reach for my gun would only end up with broken hands if not worse. As shots of pain sped through my body all I could do was curl up, cover my head and hope for the best. I desperately wanted to black out to avoid the agony but didn't, at least not until I'd heard the voices of the goons laughing at their handiwork. "That'll teach him to mess with other people's business", "Yeah, you've got pause for thought now, big guy" and then "Oh yeah, one last thing so you don't forget us!" followed by a kick to my temple so incredibly vicious that it sent me immediately into the blessed relief of darkness...




In this game, as you get older you don't necessarily get wiser but you do realise your own limitations. And one of mine was that I loved the Crew too goddamn much. I'd let my emotions get the better of me and couldn't have done a worse job if I'd deliberately kittenmittons'd the whole case. Something had definitely been happening at Miller Park but I hadn't concentrated fully and now there wasn't much to do but self-medicate in some downtown dive, whisky sour in one hand, unfiltered cigarette in the other. Even though I prided myself on having a KUG rating higher even than Tony LaRussa's blood alcohol count my entire body ached and I wished I'd never taken the case. I knew more booze wasn't the best answer but it was the only one I had. Besides, Stearns' sister had arranged to meet me here and I had to tell her that she'd better hire someone who was less washed up and could work the case with the attention it deserved. It was the least I owed her.

That was my intention. However, when she glided into the room wearing a flowing summer dress and a smile as sweet as a Ryan Braun swing it was never going to be that simple. Nothing in this case was. We talked about how I despised the case even more than Ken Macha hated Hungarians and how the odds of it being solved were higher than Jeremy Jeffress. She winced when I told her about the beating and begged me not to give up. Seemingly, my progress had been the subject of quiet whispers and discussion at Miller Park and people were talking about how Stearns was desperate to see the case solved. Although Stearns had taken Melvin's old job, according to his sister Doug has gone out of his way to speak to him and get him to pass a message to me saying he hoped I had the pedigree to solve the case.

"Pedigree". That was the second time in this case someone had said that word. I'd had far too many late nights and hungover mornings examining BABIP and the deficiencies of traditional pitching metrics to doubt the existence of luck but right then it didn't seem like that word was being passed to me by chance. Downing my remaining three inches of whisky and stumbling past Stearns' sister I knew where I needed to head. I ran woozily out of the bar towards my car, drunkenly slammed my foot on the accelerator and began weaving through the traffic towards Miller Park.

As I came screeching to a halt outside the main entrance and sprinted inside I realised exactly what a fool I'd been. The mentions of "pedigree", Melvin's "doggone hellhole", "pause" for thought - it all pointed in one direction. Garza wasn't totally crazy - after all, it takes a certain weird type of sanity to give up completely on a shitty team - but I'd been an idiot and missed what he meant when he said it was "rough". However, as I ran up the steps towards Hank's executive doghouse my instincts from chasing too many criminals and repeatedly studying "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" told me I was going to be too late. Sure enough, the doghouse was not only empty but so spotlessly clean that I knew forensics would have as much chance of finding any evidence as KRod would of being voted "Humanitarian of the Year". Hank was gone, without so much as a Long Goodbye.




The days went by and neither hide nor hair of Hank could be found. I searched every possible hiding place and literally followed every lead but he had covered his tracks too well. It was as if he had never existed. No one else appeared to care about the case at all, seeing it as just another run of the mill "megalomaniac canine reign of terror instils fear into staff to cover up massive embezzlement" story. The kinda tale on page 17 of the local paper that the average person barely glimpses at before turning to the horoscopes. But something about the whole thing didn't quite seem right. In hindsight it was as easy as an aspiring teenage actress at a Hollywood party jacked up on cheap speed and desperate for her break. It was too easy. Where was Hank? Why had the money never turned up? What on earth was a dog doing in the story anyway?


They say that old detectives never really die of natural causes, they just end up suffocated by the memories of the cases they couldn't solve. Well, until a Monday morning a few weeks later, I was pretty much resigned that when it came for me to take The Big Sleep this case would be one of those pressing its weight down on me. I'd been distracting myself working another coupla local baseball stories, an old, unsolved fraud case about some Cuban guy who'd impersonated a shortstop and a strange insurance scam involving falling luggage and a broken hand but, to be blunt, they were mainly ways of paying for the booze to help me forget about the Hank case. Somehow though, when I stumbled out of bed that day with bloodshot eyes and a headache the size of Todd Coffey and caught a glimpse of the postcard lying on the floor by the front door I knew immediately it meant something. Sure enough, next to my address on the card was a single paw print, just about the exact size and shape as you'd expect from a four or five year old mixed-breed part-Bichon Frise and, when I turned it over, the picture was of a large city at night time with the words "Welcome to Phoenix" in bright yellow lettering.

When you've just woken up from a disturbed four hours sleep after a night in a seedy bar drinking Jack Daniels until you vomit over your own pants it sometimes takes a while to figure out the obvious. In my case it was about forty seconds before my synapses began firing and making the right connections. Arizona! All the pieces fell into place. The Diamondbacks had never forgiven the Brewers for embarrassing them in 2011 - it was one thing to lose (hell, the D'backs had plenty experience of that!), but being shown up across the nation by a bunch of free wheeling, fun loving, loose spirited and downright talented ball players from Milwaukee made them desperate for revenge. It wasn't coincidence that Hank first appeared a year or two later. It wasn't coincidence that he was found next to the Brewers camp in Maryvale, Arizona. It wasn't coincidence that despite mass publicity no-one at all claimed the "missing" pup. The Brewers collapse in 2014 and subsequent poor performance wasn't coincidence either and it sure as hell wasn't coincidence that the Crew's budget for players was dramatically cut at almost exactly the same time as the Diamondbacks shelled out millions for ex-Brewers star Zack Greinke. Hank had been Arizona's inside man the whole time, stealing the Brewers money and using it to bankroll the Diamondbacks!




Sure, no-one ever did find Hank and there was never enough evidence to convict anyone, but retribution has it's own way of seeking out its victims. When later that year Greinke stood on the mound, winked at the camera and pitched what appeared to be a deliberately grooved fastball for Khris Davis to grand slam the Crew to victory over Arizona in the NLCS there were more than a few suspicions. When it turned out Greinke had not only included secret sections in his contract with the Diamondbacks that made the Mets contract with Bobby Bonilla look a bargain but had also inserted a hidden "must-trade" clause to Milwaukee it all became pretty clear. He completely denied it, but to those of us in the know it was obvious that Greinke had inklings of what was happening the whole time and decided to take revenge his own way. By then though we were drunk on the Brewers World Series win and oblivious to the details. As far as I was concerned justice had prevailed.

There's only one place a story like this ends and that's right back at the starting place. I'd stumbled into the same bar as before at the same time of year and in the same state of drunkenness. The barman beckoned me over and showed me an unmarked letter that some guy in a baseball cap had dropped in for me an hour or so ago before heading straight out without so much as a thanks. Opening it and reading the letter inside I saw it was passing on details about the Hank case, a case I'd hoped I'd never have to think about again. Seemingly rumours had been flying around certain circles that the guy who'd masterminded the whole operation was some shady Keyser Soze character in the Arizona area with an indecipherable pseudonym who'd engineered some cover story about being a Brewers fan. I guessed immediately that if others had failed to figure out the real identity of such a cunning mastermind I'd have almost no chance, but something compelled me to make a start. I pulled out my notebook, scrawled down the impenetrable words "Yar Nivek" from the letter and ordered my ninth whisky of the day...