Six Strokes Under (8 page)

"I'm going to hit the hay," I said, standing and sliding a twenty-dollar bill onto the table. "I'm beat."

"Sure you don't want to go clubbing with us?" Eve demonstrated an abbreviated funky chicken.

"Thanks anyway, big date tomorrow. My first encounter with the Panther."

I made my way back through the bar, which was now crowded, noisy, and smoky. I caught sight of Gary Rupert sitting at a stool on the far side of the room, but I'd had enough conversation for one night with him as well. It wasn't until I was buckling the seat belt in my rental car that it occurred to me how familiar the man talking with him looked. Something about the broad shoulders and slightly thinning hair.

I drove back to my motel, wishing I could get Sheriff Pate's warning out of my mind. Even worrying about double bogeys on the four holes that comprised the Panther's Claw would be preferable to imagining the possibility of being stalked for information I did not possess. I thought back over the evening. I decided to put any feelings about Gary, sexual or otherwise, on hold. His sweet defense of Kaitlin reminded me of my own brother, Charlie. Charlie would stick up for me no matter what the circumstances. In this case, Gary had to be off the mark. From all that my dinner companions reported, Kaitlin didn't have much going that could be sincerely defended. In fact, I didn't have to stretch far to picture her, in my place, in the ugly scenario Sheriff Pate had described—a crime of passion gone sour. Disappointment twisted into murder. For what it was worth, I'd run that by Pate tomorrow.

 
Finally,
my turn on the tee had come. I smelled the sharp scent of the newly cut Bermuda grass. A morning mist made visibility zero more than fifty yards down the fairway. Not that it mattered. My three-wood had squirted short and crooked, barely out of sight. Then Kaitlin's drive whistled three hundred yards straight down the middle. The spectators who lined the first hole cheered. "Rupert! Rupert!" Their bloody, pulsing lips mirrored my memory of the dying Dr. Bencher.

I dragged myself awake and lay breathing hard in a tangle of sweat-dampened sheets. I got up and stumbled halfway to the minifridge before I remembered that yesterday's shopping expedition had yielded only a six-pack of Busch. The beer might dull the shooting anxiety that nightmare had left behind, but I knew it would also blow the rest of the day. I flicked on the TV and did my stretching and calisthenics, waiting for the complimentary continental breakfast buffet to open up downstairs.

At 6:30, I bought a copy of the
Herald-Tribune
in the lobby. I planned to shroud myself in the paper and fend off potential chitchat with traveling salesmen about the latest tip from
Golf Digest
on how to get out of a sand bunker. I loaded my tray with orange juice from concentrate, anemic-looking coffee, corn flakes, and a chocolate-covered donut that had seen fresher days. Becky's mom was probably whipping up a whites-only, veggie omelet and a fresh fruit salad while Becky lounged in bed watching cartoons.

I skimmed a small article on the front page of the
Tribune:
LPGA SECTIONAL QUALIFIER RETURNS TO PLANTATION GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB. The writer described how the future stars of the LPGA generally scrapped their way through Q-school and onto the professional golf Tour right here in Venice, Florida. It certainly wasn't news, but the facts in black and white caused my heart to rev up in what had to be an unwholesome way. At the end of the article, the reporter interviewed the club manager about the unusually strong presence of protesting pickets at Futures Tour venues over the last half year.

"This is a sporting event, not a political debate or a circus. We will absolutely not tolerate any disruption of that kind at this tournament," insisted Manager Jones. "These people have been put on notice."

Kaitlin's Deikon dude appeared next to me with his tray of breakfast food.

"Yo. Mind if I join you? It's Lassie, isn't it?"

  "Cassie," I said. I knew I needed a haircut, but really, a collie? Jesus, this guy was a dope. And I did mind if he joined me, but with his buns already hitting the wrought-iron cafe chair across from me, I saw no gracious way out. So I folded up the paper and pulled my tray back to make room for him at the table. "And you're Wally."

"Walter," he corrected me. "Wally makes me sound too much like a pet walrus."

I laughed politely. "And you must get all the bad jokes about
Where's Waldo."

"That I do." We chewed for several minutes in silence.

"So, who've you landed for equipment sponsors?" he said.

"No one yet," I said, perking up a bit. Could he be feeling me out to make an offer? Maybe some good would come out of this intrusion after all. "So far, there's not been an awful lot worth representing." Damn, that sounded too negative. "The best is yet to come," I added quickly. "I'm on the comeback trail."

"It's a dog-eat-dog world," he said. "At this level, you have to have something really special going for you—like Kaitlin does—to get yourself noticed." I nodded, trying not to take too much offense. After all, I hadn't been playing on the Futures Tour, and he would have had no opportunity to see my talents otherwise. "But lots of my competitors are here this week, looking for just the right future star to show off their up-and-coming-gear. You girls aren't the only ones having to fight for a living." He grinned. "So don't be discouraged. You could get discovered."

"We'll see." I wiped my chin with my napkin. "Tell me about the Tee Warrior-slash-Ball Hog."

His face crinkled up in an expression of horrified disbelief. "How do you know about that?"

"I was on the next tee at the Grandpappy range when you were showing the club to Kaitlin," I said. "She sure did make it sing." I tried to rein in my mocking tone.

The tension in his face relaxed. "She's really something, isn't she? I want to get her down to headquarters so the technical guys can measure her club head speed and the torque she puts on the shaft. As far as I'm concerned, she's got the template for a nearly perfect swing." He laughed. "Perfect body, too, but don't tell her I said that. She'll get the PC police after me." I waited for him to comment about how he'd like to measure the torque she put on
his
shaft, too.

He grinned as if reading my mind. Peculiar twitching movements had begun to march up the side of his neck and into his jawline. This guy seemed clearly head-over-heels in love, but laced with an Oil Can Boyd kind of just-about-tipped-over-the-edge intensity.

"But, hey, listen, that club, the Ball Hog or whatever we end up calling it, it's not out yet," Walter said, dropping his voice to a low rumble. "I'm not supposed to be using it for demo. My ass would be grass. So do me a favor and keep it under your hat, okay?" I nodded. "Hey, have a fantastic day," he said, cramming the last half of a bran muffin into his mouth. "I got places to do and things to be."

"Catch you later then, dude," I said. I watched him lunge out of the delicate chair and jam the contents of his tray into the trash.
Hunk
was the only way to describe him—muscles that made every Deikon logo on his clothing quiver. But Lord, what a moron.

Back in the motel room, I dialed into my cell phone voice mail. Joe had left the first message the night before. "I hope you're not still ticked off. I'm at Sawgrass. Mike's a mess. I'm trying to hold him together, but it may take every bottle of Elmer's glue and roll of Scotch tape they have in Ponte Vedra. His new caddie doesn't have your magic touch. I'll get over as soon as I can, but it could be Thursday. Call me tonight. By the way, before he was killed, Bencher was up to his eyebrows fighting the False Memory outfit. They had him targeted for harassment. He had hired a big-name lawyer and was set to testify against one of their founders next month. Turns out the guy lives in Sarasota—Will Turner. I'll look him up when I get over there. Stay cool. I'm thinking of you."

Mike could eat his heart out. I didn't want to wish him ill, but I had to admit a small measure of satisfaction that the new caddie wasn't doing the job I had for nine months. I deleted Joe's words and moved on to Sheriff Pate.

"We need to talk. If I don't catch you on the course, call this afternoon." He didn't even bother to leave his name. Another moron, as far as I was concerned. Only this one I couldn't afford to alienate.

I warmed up briefly at the driving range, then drove my cart toward the first tee of the Panther course. The club grounds seemed a lot busier than yesterday, the practice areas bursting with lady golfers and their caddies. I noted an astonishing array of body types: tall and willowy, short and chunky, narrow shoulders, Atlas shoulders, flat butts, huge asses that spread across more than one zip code.

In my previous life on the PGA Tour, I had been a rare woman in a man's world. There were advantages to that-— like the absence of cat-scratching, back-biting, hormon-ally driven emotional roller coasters, such as the ride Kait-lin Rupert appeared to be on. On the other hand, the guys tended to skate on the surface of their feelings, relying on communal beer drinking, dirty jokes, and stories about the largesse of golf groupies to carry their friendships. I had orbited the outside perimeter, peering in—not a man, not a player, and certainly not included in the caddies' inner circle.

"Interesting career selection," Dr. Baxter had said after I described my life on the Tour. "You felt quite isolated, but at the same time, special. We should explore what went into your choice." According to him, you couldn't just stumble into something—everything you did or said had some deeper meaning. Hah!

Two Asian women introduced themselves to me on the path to the tee. Sachiko was blocky and masculine. Hiroko was so delicate I couldn't imagine she had the strength to swing a full-length driver. Neither one spoke much English. I was able to make out that they were Japanese, had spent the last year competing on the Asian Tour but had not met Jack Wolfe, and not much else. Hiroko introduced me to her mother, who was even smaller than her daughter. She carried an enormous silver umbrella to shade herself from the Florida August sun. She was dressed in exquisite golf clothing, down to white anklets with pink pom-poms and spiked Lady Fairway silver saddle shoes. Perhaps she was poised to take her daughter's place in the event of an emergency.

Divot, one of the volunteer Munchkins I'd met yesterday, greeted us on the first tee.

"How are you girls doing?" she asked.

"Great," I said. "We haven't hit a single ball yet, so no chance to get into trouble." The Japanese women laughed.

"You may find the greens a bit fast," said Divot. "An underground water pipe burst two days ago. Our irrigation system is out of commission until they get the replacement part from Miami. We're dreadfully sorry for any inconvenience."

As we set off down the first fairway, there was little sign of the tension that I knew would dominate the first round of the tournament. Like the other girls, I could repeat any shot that didn't meet my standards. Today I was under no obligation to accept balls hooked out of bounds, putts missed on either side of a hole, skulled chips, balls in the water, or any other missteps with ugly consequences. I added my own descriptive notes to the LPGA yardage book, hoping Laura would be able to decipher my scrawl. I was pretty confident their measurements and drawings would be accurate. But the difference between pretty confident and dead sure could mean the difference between a career on the Tour and one teaching the basics of the golf swing to ungrateful preadolescents.

In my humble opinion, other than putting, the Panther's Claw presented hurdles more psychological than physical. In fact, the whole course was straightforward. Under the best of circumstances, it suited my game just fine. All I had to do was drive the ball straight, hit consistent medium and short irons, and drop the putts. Hah!

Other than four three-putts, I limited my damages to one brush with disaster, a triple bogey on the par-four twelfth hole. The hole required a straight drive, then a blind shot over trees and marsh to the green. Under ordinary conditions, this would present no great challenge. But after I'd blocked my tee shot right, my attempt at a miracle wedge buried the ball so deep in the woods a trained bird dog couldn't have found it. I told myself I'd learned some things. And that's what practice rounds were for.

We finished the round and headed back to the clubhouse. If anything, Divot had understated the speed of the greens. As we passed the pit dug alongside the seventeenth hole that contained the broken water pipe, I prayed the missing part would arrive soon. Mastering greens that ran like billiard tables during this already difficult week seemed too much to ask.

Protesters with placards, a confusion of players and volunteers, and a handful of police officers crowded the area outside the LPGA office. Sheriff Pate and several of his cohorts barked out orders instructing the individuals with picket signs to clear the premises. I recognized Leviticus, who carried the same Bible verse I'd seen in Myrtle Beach. He probably hadn't seen a shower stall or laundromat since then either. The other protesters were strangers. This time the signs read; "Whatever Happened to 'Honor Thy Father'?" and "Mythical Memories Cause Real Pain." I had to assume their presence was related to Kaitlin's suit. It was hard to see how she could concentrate on golf with that much ruckus around her.

I skirted around the crowd, delivered the cart to the maintenance area and my bag to my car trunk, and headed back to the putting green. Maybe if I sank a hundred short ones this afternoon, I could avoid a full-blown panic over a must-have putt during Tuesday's or Wednesday's round.

After half an hour, I started to get a rhythm going. I felt comfortable with my left-hand low grip, which I'd revamped just a month ago, and developed an eye for the subtle breaks in the green. I focused on Joe Lancaster's putting credo: Visualize the relaxation flowing down my arms and into the putter. Putter and arms are one.

"Miz Burdette, do you have a minute?" said the gravelly voice of Sheriff Pate. Polite of him to put it that way, but I knew chatting with him wasn't really a choice. I picked up my balls and followed him to the scanty shade of a palm tree.

The sheriff looked frazzled and hot. His shirttails had come loose from his pants, and a wide band of dark sweat striped the length of his back. "Let's return, if we may, to the scene of Dr. Bencher's office," he said. "Explain again why you were there." I repeated what I'd told the first police officer on the scene, then Detective Maloney, then Pate himself, just yesterday.

"I understand you were visiting with the doctor next door," said Pate. "What I want to understand is why."

"It was my regular appointment," I said. "I generally see Dr. Baxter on Thursdays."

The sheriff looked pained. "That's restating the obvious, darlin'. I know you were there for an appointment, but why? Why do you need to talk to a shrink? Is it a situation similar to Miz Rupert's? Problems with Daddy? Sometimes you girls ask for trouble, dressing like you were going out to work the streets." Again, his eyes ran over the contours of my body.