Amen Corner (8 page)

“What else did you see?”

“Medical examiners. Forensics experts. Canine units. The usual crime scene personnel. There's no way I could tell what they were looking for from where I was.”

“How many dogs?”

“Two, that I saw.”

“What were the dogs doing?”

“Probably taking a whiz on Porter's azaleas,” Daly said. “The cops are going to get a bill for that.”

“The dogs were sniffing around the trees and bushes on the hillside left of the green,” Sam said.

“And what does that tell you?”

“Tells me they're looking for someone's scent.”

“Whose scent?”

“If I knew that, I'd be talking to the cops, not you,” Sam said, suddenly tired of Scanlon's staccato questions. “Look, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a shower.”

“Debbie doesn't mind,” Daly said. “She'd be glad to interview you while you take a shower.”

“Daly, you're a pig,” Scanlon said. “And it's Deborah. Before you go, Sam, I just want you to tell me what you think happened down there. From a cop's perspective.”

“I'll tell you the same thing I told Daly—off the record,” Sam said. Scanlon didn't indicate any disagreement, so he continued: “It looks like somebody was trying to make some kind of statement. Maybe a warning.”

“Who was he trying to warn?”

“You got me.”

Scanlon closed up her notebook and walked off.

“I'm just here to play golf,” Sam said to Daly. “Why is anyone interested in what I think?”

“Because the local cops aren't saying anything, they've got Amen Corner taped off, and we're talking to anyone who's been down there,” Daly said. “But you know how most Tour pros are: If it's not about golf, fishing or fucking, they're not interested. I figured you might have taken a look.”

“You might want to talk to the maintenance crew,” Sam said.

“Why?”

“It must have been some kind of herbicide used to burn that message. Maybe it was the kind they use here.”

Sam was tired and ready to head to the showers. He thought back to the scene in the 10th fairway; if he had been investigating the death, he'd probably try to find the names of club members who opposed admitting women members. That seemed to be the only raging issue around here.

“So they haven't released the name of the guy who was killed?”

“Not yet,” Daly said. “But I know who it was.”

“How did you find out? The cops aren't saying anything.”

“I didn't get it from a cop,” Daly said. “I've been covering this tournament for 20 years. Even a fat slob like me can cultivate an Augusta National source or two in that amount of time.”

“Okay, so who got killed?”

“A guy named Harmon Ashby.”

Chapter Seven

“Harmon Ashby! Who the fuck is Harmon Ashby?”

Lee Doggett shouted those words at the television set in his motel room shortly after turning on CNN at 1:30 p.m.

He'd managed to find a fleabag motel six miles west of Augusta in Grovetown, one that charged only $300 a night for what was normally a $30 room. He'd checked in just after sunrise, drank a six-pack of beer to celebrate his father's death, and then passed out on the bed without taking his clothes off.

When he came to, the morning was gone and he felt groggy, but he instantly recalled being on the grounds of Augusta National the night before, and strangling Ralph Stanwick.

At least, he'd thought it was Ralph Stanwick. Now the TV reporters were saying something else.

He flipped frantically through the channels; the news of the suspected murder was everywhere. Constant headline crawls and half-hour updates on CNN and Fox; bulletins interrupting regular programming on ABC, CBS, and NBC; special reports on ESPN and the Golf Channel. The death of an Augusta National member on the eve of the Masters was the kind of story news organizations could not get enough of.

But the reporters kept saying that the victim was thought to be Masters Rules Committee Chairman Harmon Ashby—not Ralph Stanwick. How could he have made that mistake? Sure, it had been dark outside the cabin, but the guy looked like the Stanwick he remembered—tall, balding, sixtyish. He had come out of the cabin where the Stanwicks were staying, wearing a green jacket. Stanwick's car was parked in the driveway behind the cabin.

Then NBC put up a picture of Ashby. Bald, probably in his late ‘60s. There was a superficial resemblance—enough that, in the dark, you could mistake one for the other. And, apparently, that's what he'd done. There were just too damn many old white guys at that club.

Shit—now what?

He came across a live feed of club chairman David Porter's press conference on The Golf Channel.

“All of our hearts go out to Harmon's wife, Annabelle, their son Robbie, and their daughter Cassie,” Porter said, as the cameras clicked away in the background.

Porter prattled on about poor Harmon and his family, that there was no new information on the cause of death or the message that had been found on the green near the body. He wouldn't speculate on what this is the last masters could mean, but there would absolutely not be any interruption in this year's tournament. Did he think the killing had anything to do with Harmon Ashby telling the New York Times that he favored Augusta National admitting women members? Porter had no idea, and he would not comment on the club's membership policy.

After the press conference, most of the news channels cut to reporters who seemed to focus on the possibility that Ashby had been killed by someone at the club, possibly another member who didn't want women joining, and didn't care if that meant shutting down the Masters. The cops probably thought the same thing.

Doggett had meant the message to scare the shit out of the bastards at Augusta National, but it hadn't occurred to him that somebody would read a political motive into it.

Maybe this hadn't turned out as bad as he thought.

Doggett got up off the bed and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, seeing a younger, stronger version of Ralph Stanwick staring back at him. He was probably about as tall as his father, 6-3 or so, and like his father, he was losing his hair. He wished he looked more like his mother. She'd been beautiful, with thick, dark hair—hair that had fallen off her head in the last photo that he'd received from her in prison. The chemo had done that.

The rage began to rise again. Stanwick still had to die. But it didn't have to be today, or tomorrow. Stanwick must have realized that Ashby wasn't the real target, but he'd never tell anybody. He wouldn't dare. Instead, he'd sit in his cabin and piss himself every time he heard a noise, every time the phone rang, and every time a stranger walked by his cabin. He would think it was Doggett coming for him. Meanwhile, Doggett could begin tearing down the club's reputation, piece by piece, while his father had to sit by and watch it all happen, powerless to stop it, praying for his life. Torture, is what it would be—the worst kind of torture, knowing that you were going to die, but having to watch someone or something you loved die first.

Just like Doggett had had to suffer in prison while his mama died.

Best of all, the cops were confused. While they were looking at the club for suspects, it would give Doggett a clear field.

He returned to the bed and clicked through the channels. The police were either clueless or keeping quiet. No details were escaping the National. But the talking heads were indulging in an orgy of speculation.

On Fox, a male attorney was engaged in a heated debate with a female newspaper columnist.

“Look,” he said, “if we force Augusta National to admit women, what are we going to do about the women's colleges? You went to Wellesley, didn't you, Deborah? And what about the Girl Scouts? The Junior League? What about sororities?”

“Red herrings,” the woman responded. “Those groups don't open their doors to the public one week per year, rake in millions of dollars, then shut half the population out the other 51 weeks of the year while the members make each other even richer with their backroom deals.”

Doggett looked closely at the woman columnist. The caption identified her as “Deborah Scanlon—NYT. Interviewed Harmon Ashby on women at Augusta National.” She wasn't bad-looking—though the short, white-blond hair and the red lipstick were a little too brassy for his tastes.

Her support of Rachel Drucker's campaign against Augusta National was articulate and passionate. Between the column and the network interviews, she was almost as visible a symbol as Drucker herself.

Doggett returned to The Golf Channel, where a male and female anchor were seated at the network's outdoor broadcast desk near the main scoreboard alongside the first hole. A third face was superimposed on a screen behind them.

“We're talking to former PGA Tour pro Danny Milligan, who once broadcast the Masters on CBS before being dropped for making controversial on-air remarks,” the male anchor said. “How are you, Danny?”

The face on the screen behind them was framed by thick, wavy gray hair that cascaded to the man's shoulders. He was clean-shaven and deeply tanned except for the age lines at the corners of his blue eyes, which were alive with merriment, in stark contrast to the logo plastered across the bottom of the screen: Masters Murder?

“Oh, I've been better,” he said, then added: “I've been worse, too.”

“We're sure Harmon Ashby's death came as a shock to you, as it did to all of us,” said the woman anchor, turning to look at the screen.

“Harmon was a great rules official, and a helluva guy,” Milligan said, in a soft southern drawl. “You don't find many like him at the National. They need all the Harmon Ashbys they can get over there.”

“Do you think he was murdered?”

“Does a golf ball have dimples?”

“Danny, you live on the outskirts of Augusta,” the male anchor said. “You do some golf broadcasting for TBS, and I know you're still very familiar with what goes on here at the Masters, even though you haven't been here for a while. What kind of impact is this going to have on this year's tournament?”

“Honestly?” Milligan said, with a grimace of distaste. “None, probably. You know how they handle things at the National: If they say it's not a problem, it's not a problem. By Thursday, they'll have Harmon Ashby stuffed and mounted in the clubhouse next to Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, and everything will be back to normal.”

“Let me ask this, then,” the woman anchor said. “What should the impact be?”

“If I had anything to say about it, there wouldn't be a Masters this year, or any year, until they open up the club to women,” Milligan said.

Doggett fingered the remote, tempted to switch to another channel, but something about Milligan's comments made him pause. He was like Scanlon—a high-profile, big-mouthed critic of the club.

“But Danny, the National is extremely accommodating to women in every other way except membership,” the female anchor said. “Women can play the course, they can attend the tournament, they can dine in the clubhouse. There have even been women caddies at the Masters, and David Porter says if a woman can qualify, she's welcome to play in the tournament.”

“It would be hard to argue that Augusta National is a hostile environment for women,” the male anchor said.

“Sure, they'll kiss their hands and put honey on their grits all week,” Milligan said. “But Sunday night the women will be headed home, and everything will be back to normal: 300 men keeping 3.2 billion women at arm's length, as though the entire gender has some kind of rash or something.”

“Well, obviously we're not going to resolve this today,” the female anchor said. “We'd like to thank Danny Milligan for being our guest. Danny, will we be seeing you here sometime this week?”

“Not unless the National's security has totally broken down,” he said. “I'm about as welcome there as the touring company of ‘Rent.'”

Fox News had a live shot of a dozen protesters walking on the opposite side of Washington Road from the main gates of the club, carrying signs saying “The Golf Gods Are Angry, Augusta National!” and “no women, no peace.” The police were trying to move them along, while several reporters were trying to get comments from them.

“It seems abundantly clear to us that Mr. Ashby was silenced for his liberal views,” said a round-faced, bespectacled woman, identified on the screen as Rachel Drucker, the president of the Women's Organization for Freedom.

Doggett switched off the TV to think over his options. He wanted to terrorize the Masters, but there was more than one way to do it. Stanwick and the other members would be on their guard now, and harder to get at. But he could kill someone who hated the National, someone everybody knows, like Deborah Scanlon, Danny Milligan or Rachel Drucker. He could leave the same this is the last masters message, and the cops, the media and the public would drive themselves crazy trying to figure out who was doing it, and why. A psycho member of the National killing the club's enemies? A nut-job protester?