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Authors: Rick Shefchik

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BOOK: Amen Corner
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Only two people—Doggett and his father—would really know what was going on. And, in a few days, he'd make sure that number was down to one.

He pulled out his wallet and found the scrap of paper on which he'd written the phone number for Augusta National's main switchboard. As he had a day earlier, he dialed the number and asked for Ralph Stanwick in the Firestone Cabin. This time a man answered the phone.

“Hello,” the voice said.

“Ralph Stanwick?”

Doggett could sense a fearful pause on the other end of the line.

“Who's calling?” Stanwick finally asked.

“Your son. Enjoy your last Masters, old man.”

Doggett hung up.

Chapter Eight

After his practice round, Sam took a long shower in the locker room and then went up to the Crow's Nest. His roommates had arrived and unpacked, but they were apparently out on the course. He settled into an armchair in the common area and turned on the TV.

The coverage of the Masters on Augusta television must have been over the top in a normal year. This year, with the death of Harmon Ashby, it was beyond shrill. He flipped stations and found that the networks and cable news channels were also devoting extensive coverage to the mysterious death. One of the networks had already created a logo for the story: “Murder at Amen Corner?” They were obviously hoping to remove the question mark as soon as possible. He clicked back to one of the locals, where a big-haired female anchor was reporting on the case.

“…Augusta National Chairman David Porter said this afternoon that the club did not know whether Ashby's death was self-inflicted, foul play, accidental or a result of natural causes.”

Sam had to laugh at that last possibility. What were the odds that a member of Augusta National would topple into a pond a few feet from a warning message that the Masters was going to end?

The station went to footage shot at the afternoon press conference. The calm, no-nonsense figure of David Porter stood before a bank of microphones and tape recorders, the Masters logo displayed behind him and the sound of automatic cameras squeezing off shot after shot in the background. He looked grim and concerned, but not devastated, as though announcing a failed business deal.

“All of our hearts go out to Harmon's wife, Annabelle, their son Robbie, and their daughter Cassie,” Porter said. “He was my friend for more than 20 years…there wasn't a more dedicated member of this club. No one loved Augusta National and this tournament more than Harmon Ashby. We will miss him dearly.”

The reporters paused for a respectful instant, and then bombarded Porter with questions.

“No, this will not delay the start of the Masters,” Porter said. “We will have a moment of silence for Harmon Thursday morning before our ceremonial first tee shots, and then we will run the tournament as usual. Harmon would have wanted it that way.”

Sam always wondered how people knew what a person would have wanted. Maybe Harmon Ashby would have wanted the membership to postpone the tournament for a year and add a dozen women members before starting it up again. Who could know?

“What's that…?” Porter said on the TV, pointing at a reporter to distinguish between the many questions being shouted at him. “No, I have no idea how those words got on the 12th green, or what they mean…No, I won't speculate…

“No, we won't comment on any aspect of the police investigation…No, absolutely not. I will not discuss our membership policies here. That would be totally inappropriate.”

But totally relevant. “this is the last masters” certainly suggested that someone was not happy with the way Augusta National was being run. David Porter couldn't dodge that one forever.

“…the damage to the green was not severe,” Porter was saying. “We'll have our maintenance crew working on it as soon as the police give us permission to repair it. We think we have a satisfactory way to cosmetically deal with the defaced area, until after the tournament.”

Sam had heard the stories that the National put something in the water to make the ponds bluer. If that was true, they could certainly make the grass greener.

The TV coverage switched from the press conference to the small protest across Washington Road from the main gates.

“It seems abundantly clear to us that Mr. Ashby was silenced for his liberal views,” said WOFF president Rachel Drucker. Behind her, a dozen protesters shook their signs in the air and yelled their agreement. Drucker didn't look all that threatening—like somebody's plump aunt, with no fashion sense. Sam couldn't understand what good she thought she was doing there. Ashby's death was a tragedy, not a convenient excuse to get TV time to push a political agenda.

“Open your gates to your sisters, Augusta National!” Drucker shouted on camera. “Don't let Herman Ashby die in vain!”

If she's that broken up about it, she could at least get his name right.

Compton and Wheeling eventually returned from their practice rounds; introductions and mutual congratulations were exchanged among the three. Compton was a wiry college kid who had thought of nothing but a professional golf career since the day he was old enough for his dad to buy him his own set of Pings. Wheeling was a little older. After graduating from Duke, he had tried the pro mini-tours for several years before reluctantly accepting the reality that he wasn't quite PGA Tour material, and preferred the comforts of working at his father's yacht brokerage firm in Newport, R.I. He'd reapplied for his amateur status, and once he knew his future didn't depend on each four-footer, he was able to relax enough to play his best golf. After winning last year's Mid-Am, he was thinking of going back to Q-School—but he was putting that off until playing in the Masters.

“I'm hungry,” Sam said. “Anyone want some lunch?”

“Already ate,” Wheeling said. “I need to work on my putting.”

“I gotta call my buddies back home,” Compton said. “I promised them I'd give 'em a picture-phone tour of the clubhouse.”

Sam walked down to the first floor of the clubhouse and entered the men's grill. He smiled when he saw a sign outside the room that said women were permitted inside during Masters Week. That must chafe at some of the hard-liners.

He sat at the bar and ordered a bowl of seafood chowder and a grilled bacon, tomato, and cheese sandwich with a bottle of Heineken.

“This seat taken?” Sam heard someone ask him as he was finishing his lunch.

He looked up to see an attractive, smiling brunette with shoulder length hair, a black sleeveless top, and black shorts that nicely accented her tanned legs.

“All yours,” he said.

She sat down and ordered a gin and tonic.

“I don't recognize you,” she said.

“That's because we've never met,” Sam said. “I'd remember.”

“No, I mean, you're a player, right?”

“How can you tell?”

“I know golfers. You've got that look. The hat tan, for one thing. And your left hand is much whiter than your right, from wearing a glove. Ironed trousers, instead of wrinkled khakis. You're not a pro—I'd know you, if you were—but you're a player. Let me guess: You won last year's Mid-Am?”

“No. Publinx.”

“Congratulations. First Masters, right?”

“Right. And last.”

“You don't know that.”

“Let's just call it an educated guess.”

“Now I know you're a golfer. You've got that determined streak of pessimism.”

Sam looked at the brunette as she took a sip of her drink. No doubt about it—she was gorgeous. Her thick dark hair, glinting in the afternoon sunlight that slanted through the grillroom window, was parted on the left and swept over to the right above her arched black eyebrows. Her flecked blue-green eyes seemed probing and serious, while her full lips and deep smile lines projected a sense of playfulness.

Sam glanced at her left hand, not sure if it was his cop instinct or his libido that made him want to check out whether she was married. She wasn't wearing a ring.

He offered his hand and she took it with the kind of firm, full-palm grip he liked, but didn't often receive, from a woman.

“Sam Skarda,” he said.

“Oh, I should have known,” she said, a wry smile cracking the corner of her mouth. “Caroline Rockingham.”

Sam had no idea what to say next. He'd never seen a photo of Shane Rockingham's wife, but he wasn't surprised she was model-pretty.

“Shane talks about you,” she said. “You went to college together.”

“We played on the golf team together. I'm not sure Shane actually went to college.”

“When you won your tournament last year, he said he'd always wondered what happened to you. So what happened to you?”

“I became a cop,” Sam said.

“Now, that I wouldn't have guessed,” Caroline said, leaning back and looking him over again.

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Maybe I'm not used to seeing cops with golfer's tans.”

“I've been on a leave of absence for almost two years,” Sam said. “I got shot.”

“Woah,” Caroline said, her forehead creasing. “Now that's an occupational hazard. All Shane has to worry about is putting on enough sun block.”

Caroline opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“One thing I like about the South,” she said, lighting her cigarette and exhaling a cloud of smoke away from Sam. “Nobody ever tells you that you can't smoke inside.”

“What would you do if they did?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Put it out, I guess. I'm not like Shane. I don't like trouble in bars.”

“He does?”

“Don't all golfers get into trouble in bars?”

“Not me,” Sam said. “Not usually, anyway.”

“Shane does. Even if they don't know who he is. I think it's his attitude.”

“What attitude is that?”

“Oh, you know—‘I play golf for a living, and you probably drive a truck.' That kind of thing.”

“I don't play for a living,” Sam said. “Maybe that's why I don't get in a lot of barroom brawls.”

“I'll bet you could break one up.”

“I have.”

She crossed her legs and leaned back with her right elbow propped on the arm of her chair, the cigarette up in the air. She looked at him with a mischievous smile.

“So you knew Shane in college,” she said. “What was he like then?”

“Charming. Reckless. Arrogant. Fun.”

“He hasn't changed,” Caroline said.

“I know,” Sam said. “We played a practice round together this morning.”

“Oh, really,” she said, surprised. “Did my name come up?”

“No. Shane was too busy showing me how far he hits it.”

“Yes,” Caroline said, pushing the lime around in her drink with a plastic straw. She seemed far away now. “He can definitely golf his ball.”

“So why aren't you together anymore?”

“Because he's charming…reckless…what else did you say?”

“Arrogant and fun.”

“Yeah, he's all that,” Caroline said, shaking her head and tapping the ash off her cigarette. “We separated right after the Bob Hope. You might have read about our little dust-up in Las Vegas.”

“I saw something.”

“I can't help it—I still like the guy…at times,” she said. “But everything changed after I stopped caddying for him.”

“That's when he started making money.”

“That had something to do with it. But up until then we were partners. After I went home, I was his wife. He started thinking of me as just another lay.”

“Are there kids?”

“No, thank God,” Caroline said. “Although that would have given us something in common. Now…”

“Nothing?”

“Pretty much. A lot of memories. Bouncing around airports and train stations in Thailand, Japan, Malaysia…cheap meals, bad golf courses…I miss all that. Now we have money, and that's about it.”

Sam finished his beer and signaled to the bartender for another round. What had started out as a promising meeting had suddenly become awkward. Sam wasn't like his old buddy Shane; he didn't make moves on married women. But what about separated women? He was attracted to Caroline, but didn't know what the rules were.

“If you're separated, what are you doing here?” Sam asked her.

“I love the Masters,” she said. “It's beautifully antiquated.”

“You don't feel like a traitor to your gender when you come through the gates?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “Why should I? I can sit in the men's grill and have a drink and a smoke, just like the guys. Besides, Shane made the mistake of requesting a clubhouse pass for me before he moved out. It was mailed to our address in Tucson, in my name. I'm not giving it up.”

BOOK: Amen Corner
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