Dead in Vineyard Sand (5 page)

Similarly, on the driving range, my practice shots rarely went as straight or as far as I wanted them to go, so I decided to abandon the temptation to whack the ball hard and to concentrate on trying to hit it more accurately. When we actually began play, however, this decision didn't keep me from hooking and slicing, but only from hooking and slicing as far into the woods as I had previously done.

I was interested to note that Jasper, like Glen, wasn't really that much better at the game than I was. Both of them also used a lot of putts and drove a lot of balls off in odd directions.

Only the fourth member of our group, a taciturn man named Gabe Fuller, seemed to really know what he was doing, even though, for some reason, he didn't
score particularly well. Unlike Glen and Jasper, he didn't have a lot to say other than to compliment anyone who made a reasonably good shot and to dismiss his own successes as mostly luck. Fuller was tall and thin and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt decorated with pictures of bright-colored fruits. He wore a narrow-brimmed straw hat, and never got too far from his golf bag or from Jasper.

It was another beautiful Vineyard day, with an arching blue sky and a gentle southwest wind. On both sides of the first fairway the trees moved gracefully in the breeze, and beyond them, through gaps between the tree trunks, I could see the blue water of Nantucket Sound shimmering in the sun.

I thought that my friend John Skye might be right. John, who had done his undergraduate work in Massachusetts, had grown up on a small cattle ranch near Durango, Colorado, and had made annual trips between East and West all through his undergraduate years. It was his thought that the two prettiest places in most towns, particularly those out on the Great Plains, where water is in short supply, are the graveyards and the golf courses, both of which are green oases in otherwise brown, dusty landscapes.

Certainly Waterwoods was lovely, with its yellow sand traps, its green greens, and its green fairways winding between its green trees. Even a nongolfer such as I was could see its beauty. But then I thought again, and knew that some people could look at the course and see only ugliness. The Buddha would probably understand them as people suffering from desire, the wish that things were other than they are. Most passionate activists were such people, I suspected. Their causes might be different, but their discontent was the same.

One thing I liked about both Jasper and Glen was that
they cheerfully accepted their failures, rather than growing sour and sullen when a drive went wide, a chip went over a green, or a putt went ten feet past the hole. Their moods remained upbeat and positive and they were sure that the next hole would be a joy to play. I didn't take my game seriously enough to worry about it and Gabe Fuller played well enough so that he didn't have to worry, so the four of us constituted a pleasant foursome.

By the time we'd played three holes, I had become interested in Gabe's game. He and Jasper shared a golf cart and Glen and I shared another, but I noted that whereas Glen and I often parted company to tend our second and third shots, Gabe's drives tended to stay fairly close to Jasper's, and Gabe helped him find his ball and watched him strike it before going to his own, which was inevitably just a bit farther down the fairway.

Gabe also spent more time than the rest of us looking into the trees or watching the foursomes ahead and behind us. His glances were casual and rarely lingered long, but nevertheless seemed continual.

“The important thing,” said Glen, noticing me following Gabe's gaze at the foursome following us, “is to keep moving right along. As long as you don't hold up the guys behind you, you can take as many swings as you need.”

“The golf cart helps speed things up,” I said. “Zee thinks I'm out here walking six thousand yards, but if I was actually doing that, people would be playing through us every other hole.”

“You'd think so,” said Glen, “but the truth is that those guys back there are probably just as bad as we are and don't play any faster. It's the twosomes that do most of the playing through.”

When I finally holed my putt on the third green I
was already five over par and had used at least a couple more shots than anyone else.

Jasper walked beside me to the next tee. “You ever take lessons, J.W.?”

“No.”

“I took you for a golfer when we first met, but Glen tells me you're just beginning and it shows. You look to me like a guy who could play this game, though, but what you need to do is take some lessons. I've been playing for thirty years and I still take them.” He grinned. “You wouldn't know it from my game, but it would be a hell of a lot worse without those lessons! Even the pros keep taking lessons. You should do it. No telling how many strokes you'd improve.”

“I could use some help, that's for sure.”

He grinned some more. “We all can, J.W.”

Waterwoods' fourth hole was a beauty. It was a par-three, playing downhill to a small green 160 yards away. On the left of the narrow fairway rose a tree-covered slope and on the right the slope fell away into a vine-filled ravine from which there was no escape. A sand trap guarded the front of the green, and beyond it was a splendid view of the blue sound in the distance. It was not a hard hole to par if you could hit a straight ball but it was a tough one if you couldn't, and a deadly one if you hit into the ravine.

I couldn't depend on my tee shot, of course, but I was smart enough to aim it to the left rather than to the right when I finally got to drive. The result was that I hit it in the fairway just short of the sand trap, which for me was excellent.

Jasper had also aimed to the left, but unlike my shot, his actually went that way, leaving him a tough chip from the trees; Gabe, who'd had the honors for the first time, had landed his ball on the green, and Glen's shot had landed in the sand trap.

Jasper's chip shot made the green, but mine went over it. Then, while the rest of us stood to one side, Glen studied his ball in the sand trap.

“I wish people would use the rake after they hit out of there,” he complained. I couldn't blame him for being unhappy because the floor of the trap had a rough, irregular surface, and his ball was down in a dip that would make it hard to strike cleanly. We all made sympathetic noises, glad that we weren't the ones in the trap.

Glen could only shake his head and walk down into the trap. He made a couple of practice swings, then stepped to the ball, wiggled his feet the way some people do when they hit out of the sand, and struck.

Sand sprayed toward the green, but the ball flew toward the three of us standing to the side. I ducked as it went by my ear and down into the ravine.

“Blad dast it!” cried the astonished Glen. “How the hell did that happen?” He flexed his right hand and rubbed his arm. “I damned near broke my wrist!” He glared down at the offending sand and then leaped back. “Jesus!”

I followed his gaze, and immediately understood why his shot had gone astray. Instead of hitting soft sand under his ball, his club had struck something else. There, uncovered by his stroke, was a human hand.

Glen clambered out of the trap faster than I'd ever seen him move. “Jesus!” he exclaimed again. His eyes seemed the size of hard-boiled eggs.

Jasper stepped toward the trap, but Gabe put out an arm and stopped him.

“Everybody stay here,” I said. I went down into the trap, knelt, ascertained that the hand was attached to an arm and that there was no pulse in the wrist, and climbed back to the green.

Up the hill at the tee, the foursome behind us was peering down, wondering what was holding us up. I looked at my companions. “Anybody got a cell phone?”

Gabe, who was standing close to Jasper, nodded, pulled a phone from his pocket, and said, “I'll call 911.” He, unlike Jasper and Glen, appeared very cool.

“One of us should go up there to the tee and steer people away from this green,” I said. “And one of us should get back to the clubhouse and tell the manager what's happened.” I found myself directing my words to Gabe. “Can you and Jasper stay here and keep people from corrupting the site more than we already have?” I asked him.

He nodded as he lifted his cell phone to his ear, and I turned to Glen. He didn't look like he was in decision-making mode, so I said, “We'll drive back up to the tee and you'll jump off there and make sure nobody comes down here. I'll go on to the clubhouse and let the manager know what's going on.”

Glen blinked and followed me to our golf cart. As we rode back to the tee, he spoke in a small voice: “What shall I say?”

For a man who'd made a lot of money being decisive, he seemed almost childlike. I said, “Say that there's been an accident and that the authorities are on the way, and that no one is to go near the scene. Tell them to go on to the fifth hole and play from there. Say that to everyone who's there and to everyone who shows up. Be firm.”

“I don't feel firm,” said Glen.

“Act that way whether you feel it or not. Pretend you're Donald Trump.”

I left him at the tee and went on to the clubhouse, passing other foursomes on my way. At the manager's office I found a young assistant in spotless golfing clothes. I asked to see her boss. The boss wasn't there. I asked where he was. The assistant wasn't sure and wondered if she could be of any help.

I was impatient. “There's a dead person out at the fourth green. It doesn't look like an accidental death. The police are on their way. You should try to keep people away from the site.”

Her eyes widened. “A dead person?”

“Actually,” I said, still annoyed, “I only saw a hand and forearm sticking out of the sand trap. The rest of the body may not be under there, but I'll bet that it is.”

Waterwoods' assistant managers clearly didn't have to deal with dead people very often. The young woman turned pale, and my impatience disappeared.

“If your boss carries a phone, maybe you can call him,” I said. I was pretty sure he did carry a phone because almost everyone does these days. I've even carried one myself, now and then.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” She turned and found a phone on a desk and, after a moment of fumbling, spoke into
it. “George, there's an emergency! Come to the office right away!”

I steered her to a chair. “Sit down and relax,” I said. I saw a watercooler against a wall and got a drink for her. She sipped it and a bit of color came back into her face.

Five minutes later a golf cart hummed up to the office door and a neatly dressed middle-aged man came inside. His eyes moved from the woman to me. “What's the emergency, Janice?”

Janice nodded toward me. “He'll tell you.”

“I'm George Hawkins,” he said smoothly. “I manage the course. What's the problem, Mr. . . . ?”

I had the feeling that he was expecting a complaint about the course or some offending employee or player.

I shook the hand he offered, gave him my name, and told him about the discovery at the fourth green, about 911 having been called, and about what my companions were doing to keep the site cleared until the police arrived.

He said, “Damn,” thought only a moment or two, then said, “Janice, we're closing down the first nine. Get out there with a couple of the boys and collect the people who are already playing the first three holes. Tell them we're giving their money back and that they can play the back nine for free. We'll use only the back nine until the police give us the okay to play four again. Stay cool, say you don't know what the problem is but that I'm working on it. You all right? Good. Now get going.” He gave her a smile. “You'll be fine.”

She went out and Hawkins and I waited for the police. In time, they arrived: Oak Bluffs cops and Sergeant Dom Agganis of the state police, accompanied by an ambulance. To their credit, they didn't use sirens.

The police spoke to Hawkins and then Dom came over to me. “You have a talent for showing up when the bodies are found. Ride with me and tell me about your latest discovery.” He looked at the manager. “We'll follow you, Mr. Hawkins.”

“There's a maintenance road that leads there through the trees,” said Hawkins. “We'll take that.”

He drove a golf cart, and the police cruisers and ambulance followed him. We paralleled the first three fairways and I could see young men and women guiding golfers back toward the clubhouse. As we drove, I told Dom what I knew.

“I didn't know that you're a golfer,” he said.

“My third game,” I said.

“When people learn about this, they'll pay you not to play,” said Agganis. “Bodies follow you around, and they're bad for business.”

“I'm the victim of fate.”

“Still, there might be money to be made if you play your cards right. You have to take advantage of chances when they come your way. Are we here?”

We were. We had stopped about twenty-five yards to one side of the fourth green. One branch of the maintenance road seemed to lead to the paved highway that paralleled the first hole of the course. The other wandered on in the general direction of the fifth tee, and I was struck by the road's invisibility from the fairway and green. Good golf course design apparently included hiding roads and other areas necessary for upkeep. Image is everything, as they say.

When we got to the green, Dom assigned a young cop to go up to the fourth tee to relieve Glen and send him back down to the rest of us, then went to talk with Gabe Fuller and Jasper Jernigan, who were standing right where I'd left them.

Jasper seemed to have gotten himself pretty much back to normal, and stoic Gabe remained unruffled. He had one hand on his golf bag and stood close to Jasper. His eyes floated this way and that, peering into the woods, studying the police.

By the time Glen arrived, the photographers had taken stills and videos of the green and sand trap, and yellow tape surrounded the scene. Dom and the Oak Bluffs police were getting Jasper's and Gabe's version of events, and I was studying the trap and the forlorn hand thrusting up from the sand.