Prologue
Casey Granger peered at two fingers just over 60 feet and six inches away. Ty Beachamp called for the hook.
Granger nodded, and offered the faintest of smiles that few would have noticed.
Beachamp shifted his crouch behind home plate slightly to his left, moving away from the left-handed batter.
With his glove just inches from his face, Granger set a curveball grip on the cowhide with his left hand. He pivoted on the rubber while kicking his right leg in the air, and pushed forward off his left leg and let the baseball go.
The 89-mile-per-hour rotating white sphere seemed headed for the batter’s head. In 0.45 seconds, the man in the batter’s box leaned back as his knees buckled, while the pitch broke down and across the plate. It snapped into Beachamp’s mitt, and the umpire called, “Strike three!”
As the batter turned and headed back to the bench shaking his head, Beachamp pointed at Granger approvingly, and then fired the ball down to the third baseman.
As the ball was tossed to the shortstop, the second baseman, and back to third, a rumble erupted from the darkening, late-afternoon July sky.
Granger looked at third baseman Brodie Blue, and said, “Come on, you’ve got to be kidding.”
Blue tossed Granger the ball, and said, “Don’t worry about it, Casey. Stay focused.”
Granger took a deep breath. “Right.”
Brodie smiled broadly and tugged on his cap, which featured the team logo of a king’s crown sitting on a surfboard riding a wave.
But before Granger could return to the mound, another rumble in the sky unleashed a torrent of water in the form of large raindrops falling in unrelenting sheets.
After five-and-one-third innings of pitching perfect baseball, Granger’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly as the home plate umpire took off his mask and waved his arms, indicating a delay in the game and signaling that the grounds crew should roll out the tarp.
Members of the South Shore Surf Kings sprinted off the field. The 1,350 fans remained in place, shielded by a metal roof.
Since the grounds crew consisted of only three people, Surf Kings’ manager Sam “Salty” Waters, coach Johnny Garcia, and two players – Brodie Blue and Jackson Quick – joined the unrolling and unfurling process of the tarp.
While pushing the long tube from foul territory and across the first and second base side of the field, Quick’s feet periodically shifted and turned due to unevenness in the tarp, almost tripping once. He glanced down, but kept on pushing.
Once unrolled, the seven men ran to grab handles on the cover, in order to unfold and pull it across the rest of the infield as the rain actually managed to intensify.
They moved quickly and in unison amidst the large raindrops. None of the men took note of the bumps in the tarp as they pulled.
While the seven forged ahead, the sources of the bumps in the tarp were exposed.
Eyes focused on the third base line, the men continued tugging.
But then screams and shouts could be heard over the rain pelting the tarp. Jackson Quick and one of the official members of the grounds crew looked back first. They immediately stopped, and dropped the tarp handles as their mouths fell open.
Waters, Blue, Garcia and the other grounds workers then stopped and turned.
The Surf Kings’ manager, followed closely by Quick, stepped onto the tarp and approached the items now uncovered. As he slowly advanced, Waters managed to utter, “What the hell?”
Quick blessed himself, and whispered, “Jesus.”
Blood-crusted parts of a human body – portions of legs and arms, a torso and a head – were strewn across the tarp.
Pastor Stephen Grant had risen from his seat next to the Kings’ bench. As he looked out on what had unfolded, Grant said, “Dear Lord, please, not another one.”
