December… 2041

Asheville, North Carolina Police Department Headquarters

It was way too early in the morning, the day after… but crime doesn’t sleep and neither did Officer Ortega. The air at Headquarters was thick with the scent of old coffee and Mr. Sanford’s sweat. Ortega sat at his desk, the dim light from his beat-up desk lamp making the crime scene photos look even uglier.

“Didn’t know the horseshoe was still popular…” Ortega admiring Mr. Antollini’s moustache…

Bernardo Francisco Antollini was dead. Not just dead, dumped. Found crumpled under a table in an empty ballroom, the final act of PEBA’s 35th Annual Winter Meetings, baseball’s biggest off-season schmooze-fest.

The rich and so-called powerful baseball minds had wined and dined in an identical ballroom nearby without a clue, cutting deals, making trades, just waiting to stab each other in the back and put one over on the more inebriated Owners and General Managers.

“Wonder if Arlington got one put over again…” Ortega mused… enough baseball though, he needed to focus. There were no bets on the game here.

Now, Antollini was just a cold slab of meat in the Asheville morgue. Mr. Sanford wasn’t the only thing smelling…

Coroner’s note said blunt force trauma. No weapon found. No witnesses, supposedly. Things weren’t panning out with Mr. Sanford, the Assistant General Manager… or was that the Assistant to the General Manager? He spent the night crying in his cell and was useless when they tried to get more from him earlier in the morning.

Ortega had heard it all before. But he knew, someone in that ballroom knew something. Someone always did. But in a world where baseball’s elite played by their own rules, people kept their mouths shut.

He flipped the file shut and exhaled slow, pretending he could crush the migraine between his eyelids. This wasn’t some back-alley stickup in New Jersey, this was a message. The kind you don’t send unless you are sure no one’s coming to collect on that bad trade.

A heavy knock on the door.

“Ortega,” Kimble grunted, stepping in. “Forensics found something under the body. You’re gonna wanna see this.”

Ortega grabbed his coat and stood, head aching.

This wasn’t just about a dead man. This was about the game behind the game, and in the world of the Planetary Extreme, the rules didn’t matter.

Ortega followed Kimble down the dimly lit hallway, the ache in his head beginning to throb again. No amount of coffee was going to cure it. They stepped into the forensics lab, where a tech in a wrinkled lab coat held up a clear evidence bag.

Inside was a matchbook. Baby blue, with dark blue lettering… The Blue Orchid. One of those out-of-town spots where men like Antollini went when they wanted to talk business without the wrong ears listening. Or when they had something to hide… like the sale of a billion-dollar ballclub right out under everyone’s nose…

“It was under his body, half-soaked in blood,” the tech started. “Might’ve fallen out of his hand when he hit the floor.”

Ortega took the bag, turning it over between his fingers. The name rang a bell. The Blue Orchid had a reputation enough to know about it out here in Asheville. A place where high rollers, bookies, and washed-up ballplayers nursed their regrets over whiskey and bad bets. “Kimble, you recognize this?”

Kimble shrugged, “Should I? I don’t get out that way much. I was hoping you would know.”

Antollini had been in Aurora recently, he must have. That meant something. But what? The Blue Orchid wasn’t the kind of place you walked into without a reason, but Ortega had one now. If he played his cards right, he just might walk out with answers.

Ortega exhaled, tucking the evidence bag into his coat pocket.

“Looks like we are taking a trip, Kimble,” he muttered… “but before we do… I think it’s time to have that word with Mr. Crocker. He’s from around those parts… meet me in interrogation room 2”

With a nasty smile on his face, Kimble left to fetch Mr. Crocker.

To be continued…

Winter Drama: The Death of Antollini pt. 1