Chapter 12: Kansas City

The assignments for the last weekend in June came out on Monday.

I was on a crew to Kansas City.

Assistant, near side.

Robin was fourth official.

Cody's name, there on Friday's draft, was gone.

There was a man from Albuquerque in his slot, and Cody was down for nothing at all.

"It happens," Cody said on the phone. "Drafts change."

"You've been on the KC rotation for three years."

"Meg."

"He called me, Cody. He said your assignments come out of the same office as mine. Four days later you're off the list."

He didn't say anything.

"I'm going to see the chief," I said.

I drove to the league building and waited outside the chief's office for an hour and forty minutes.

He came out and stopped.

"Raynor."

"Cody Duffield was on the Kansas City crew Friday," I said. "Today he's not. Who moved him?"

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he took me into his office and shut the door and pulled up the assignment file.

His jaw got tighter.

"Nobody asked me," he said.

He picked up his desk phone, dialed an extension, and spoke into the receiver.

"Put Duffield back. Now."

He hung up.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" he said.

I thought about the laptop in my bag.

Three clips and a hunch.

"Not yet," I said. "When I tell you, it'll be something you can use."

He nodded slowly.

"Get out of my office. Drive safe."

We drove to Kansas City on Friday in Cody's truck.

Robin rode in the back seat with a cooler of sandwiches she'd finished by Limon.

Junie was at her mom's for the weekend, and had sent Cody with a list of rules for the trip.

He read them out at the first gas stop.

"Rule one. Dad, don't sing."

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