How the case begins
The Harmon Herons are having the season the town has waited twenty years for: first place in July, a pitcher everyone calls the Arm, and the little ballpark on Route 9 selling out its wooden grandstand on Friday nights. Then the grounds start misbehaving. Every home game, like weather with a schedule, the infield dirt goes soft and slow somewhere around the seventh inning: bunts die in front of the plate, double-play balls sit down in the clay, and visiting managers fill out protest cards in handwriting that gets angrier by the week. By August the league office has mailed its politest threat and sent Mr. Ott, a man with a clipboard and no known sense of humor, to find out whether the Herons are doctoring their grounds. The team swears innocence. The groundskeeper, Gus Malone, thirty years of chalk lines and infield rakes, says less than anybody, which is saying something. And his son Danny, the Arm himself, winds up on Friday night knowing two things the grandstand does not: the pennant is eleven wins away, and something inside his elbow has started keeping its own score.
- 1Slow Dirt
- 2The Wet Rack
- 3The Geography of Slow
- 4The Scouting Report
- 5What the Book Knows
- 6The Shakeout
- 7The Innocent Bench
- 8Eleven Wins
- 9Two Names
- 10The Seventh Inningbring your clues
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and every puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale needs them. Your clues keep themselves on this device.
Prefer pen and paper?
The whole case as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger to fill in, and the ending sealed on the last page.
The people of the case
- Gus Malone. Groundskeeper, thirty years. Chalk lines straight as scripture, and a hose he has lately been using at hours no schedule explains.
- Danny Malone. Gus's son. The Arm. Twenty years old, first place, and lately shaking out his elbow between innings when he thinks the dugout is not looking.
- Skip Harmon. The manager, grand-nephew of the town's founder. Wants the pennant so badly he has stopped saying the word.
- Doc Freels. The team doctor, part-time, also the county's veterinarian. Knows arms, knows horses, knows when someone is dodging his waiting room.
- Mr. Ott. The league's man, sent with a clipboard to ask about the dirt. Asks everything twice and writes down the second answer.
- Ruthie Vale. The scorekeeper, sixteen seasons. Her scorebook is the true history of the franchise, and it has started telling her something.
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