The Feathery (16 page)

Later in the day, Scott returned to the locker room. Matt was still there. "We passed both drivers at zero-point-eighty-two
COR
, Matt."

"That was a close one. Let’s celebrate tonight with your last meal at the Kilt and Jeans. No players are allowed there after tonight."

"Okay, after I check to see how Chief Inspector Bradshaw’s doing in his search for the feathery and the bad guys, I’ll be there. But no more
haggis
."

LONDON

B
radshaw found out who occupied the Westminster address that Tony Jones had followed Mary Harding to. He decided to make an impromptu call on Jennifer Lawton, the owner. He took the tube to Westminster and knocked on the door of the Lawton flat. Jennifer greeted him with a puzzled look until he explained who he was and the reason for his visit.

"I missed interviewing Mary Harding about a case I’m working on. I’m on a tight schedule, and I thought perhaps you might help me fill in a few pieces of the puzzle relating to the McNair feathery robbery."

"I’ll try, but I know very little about it…although Mary did mention something about the cancellation of an auction where it was to be presented, and her client being extremely disappointed because of that. I’ve not heard about a robbery."

"There are other pieces in that consignment not as well promoted as the feathery by Covington."
"Oh, Mary didn’t mention those, Chief Inspector."
"Ms. Lawton, you may still wonder why I’m interviewing you."
"Well, yes, I’m curious why."
"My preliminary investigation has shown you have a…" Bradshaw hesitated for the right word…"friendship with Mary Harding. As I mentioned, I wanted to schedule an interview with her, but she left London before I could do so."
"Yes, she left for New York City today."
Jennifer led him down a hallway through the apartment toward a sitting room. It was a grand old apartment with high ceilings and hardwood floors. Bradshaw guessed there were ten rooms connected to the hallway leading from the spacious and well-appointed white tiled foyer. It was the type of flat his wife always wanted, but well beyond the salary of a Scotland Yard chief inspector.
He followed behind the tall, attractive brunette. She moved with the confident stride of an athlete…strong, but graceful. They entered a room where a fireplace glowed warmly to cut the chill of a rain-cooled London afternoon. Above the hearth, an assortment of trophies adorned a large white marble mantle. Each trophy had the figure of a woman golfer, and a small plaque at the base with Jennifer’s name inscribed along with the golfing event it commemorated.
Jennifer noticed Bradshaw moving in for a closer look at the trophies. "I don’t want to sound cheeky, Chief Inspector, but the trophies on the mantle are but a few of mine. If you’re interested, I can show you the more important ones later…until then, what may I do for you, sir?"
"Just a few questions." Bradshaw sat down in a brown leather chair next to Jennifer. "Do you know Sarah Covington?"
She looked at Bradshaw quizzically. "Yes, I know Sarah. We played on the European Tour together. She owns the gallery where the auction of that feathery ball was to have taken place. We were close at one time during her golfing days, but drifted apart since."
Bradshaw was silent, and his blue eyes searched Jennifer’s face for more from her about Sarah Covington. He was hoping she might expand on a rumor he’d heard about the mode of Sarah’s sexuality, and if there was a connection between Sarah and Mary Harding.
Jennifer caught on to the direction his questioning was headed. "Sarah is a lesbian."
"Could you amplify more on your relationship with Sarah Covington?"
"I was in love with her caddie. He left to go back to America when Sarah fired him, ostensibly, because she didn’t want him in a relationship with an opposing player,
me
. "
Bradshaw paused thinking about any links to Sarah’s life style. "Does Sarah Covington know Mary Harding?"
"Yes, but she hates her," Jennifer said without delay.
"Oh, why so?" Bradshaw asked.
"Their competition in the golf antique business has grown intense. Mary tried to outbid Sarah for the rare collectibles. Most times Mary couldn’t compete with Sarah because she lacked the funds to do so."
"Anything else about Sarah?"
"Just…Sarah is very possessive. If she wants something or wants to rid herself of something she goes all out. I understand she wants that feathery ball, and when she didn’t want her caddy around me she quickly fired him with dubious provocation. After that she stifled me with her possessiveness on tour."
Bradshaw needed a pause to gather his thoughts, and he looked around the room at the golf antiques spread throughout the room in cabinets. "So you’re a collector, also, Ms. Lawton?"
"I am, though on a very small scale."
"I wonder if you could help me sort out a few more things. I’d appreciate any information before I have the opportunity to interview Ms. Harding."
"I’ll try to help," Jennifer offered.
"Do you know a gentleman from Sweden…a Jaspar Johncke…an antique collector?"
"No, I’ve never met him, but Mary has mentioned him as a client. From what I know, he’s a wealthy golf antique collector who uses Mary to acquire what he wants to own."
The chief inspector looked up from his yellow legal size notepad. His blue eyes blinked nervously before he asked, "What’s your present relationship with Mary Harding?"
Jennifer gave Bradshaw a hard look. "She would like to be more than a friend, and move in with me, but I don’t want that kind of relationship. It’s difficult for me to break off our friendship. Mary sponsored me on tour for two years before I started winning. You see, from the time I was sixteen years old, I played competitive golf around attractive, physically strong, athletic women. They have always tried to influence my sexuality, but I’ve rejected that lifestyle, even though I respect it."
Bradshaw was a bit taken aback by her straight answer, but recovered enough to say, "You’ve been amazingly candid, and I appreciate that. Please understand solving this case involves a lot of puzzle pieces. Just plodding police work on my part."
"I understand, and I’ve declared my lifestyle long ago, and feel most comfortable for having done so. Jennifer smiled at Bradshaw. "I’ve never been in the cupboard, as the Americans say, so I don’t have to come out of it. I like men, you see."
Bradshaw was amused and somehow her revelation pleased him. He laughed and said, "I believe the Americans come out of the closet, not the cupboard, Ms. Lawton."
She laughed with him at the cupboard-closet terms, and it helped to ease the emotions triggered by the question he’d asked about Mary.
"Would you like some tea, Chief Inspector? We can take it in my golf room."
"Are your other trophies there?" Bradshaw asked.
"Yes, they are, and there’s more golf memorabilia in that room."

They entered a much larger room than the den. Wainscoting paneled the walls and oriental rugs covered the floors. The dark brown leather couch and chairs were well positioned to take advantage of a huge fireplace whose hearth took up most of one wall. The remaining three walls were floor-to-ceiling stained oak display cabinets.
Jennifer moved her arm by the cabinets in a gesture of totality. "These cabinets are not all filled with my trophies. Some contain a few golf antiques. I cherish each piece dearly."
Bradshaw looked through the glass of the cabinet doors at clubs, medals, art, tableware, books and balls. One cabinet was dedicated to Jennifer’s trophies and another to the golf clubs and balls used when she’d won tournaments. The third cabinet included photos of her playing companions and rivals from all over the world. There were some photos of Sarah Covington with her caddie. Bradshaw was startled when he noticed that the caddie in those photographs was the same one in a picture next to an article he’d read in the
Daily News
about the British Open long shot, Scott Beckman, the owner of the feathery. He asked Jennifer about the coincidence.
"Oh, yes. That’s Matt Kemp, the caddie that was fired by Sarah Covington. He’s a dear, and my first love. He called me when he was in London a week ago and wanted to meet. Because I’d scheduled a discussion with Mary to sort out things on that same evening, I couldn’t. However, I’m eager to see Matt after the Open when he comes through London on his way back to America."
"I see, and my best wishes go with that meeting, Ms. Lawton."
Jennifer served the tea. Bradshaw held his cup and saucer as he walked to a display cabinet filled with antique figurines. It contained bronze and marble statuettes of women performing a variety of sporting activity. The central figure in the display was immersed in a precisely aimed spotlight. His eyes fixed on the highlighted bronze of a nude woman golfer, posed at the top of her backswing. His astonishment caused his teacup to rattle in the saucer. It was the same, one-of-a-kind, bronze statuette shown in the photo given to him by Sarah Covington…the other piece stolen with the feathery from the Scott Beckman collection.
Jennifer saw his attention centered on the bronze, and got up from her seat at the tea table to join Bradshaw. "It’s a beautiful piece of work, isn’t it? I’ve been told there are no others like that bronze." She opened the glass doors of the cabinet and ran her hand over the nude body of the statuette. "It has become my favorite." .
Bradshaw recovered from his startling find enough to ask, "I say, where in the world did you acquire such an exquisite bronze, Ms. Lawton?"
Without hesitation, she answered, "Oh, Mary gave it to me on my birthday, just last week. Isn’t it lovely?"
Bradshaw placed his cup and saucer down on the tea table, and the empathy he felt for Jennifer Lawton showed in his eyes when he said, "Ms. Lawton, I must take this bronze statuette from you as evidence. It was stolen, along with the feathery ball from the same collection owned by Scott Beckman, slated for auction at the Covington Gallery."
She put her hands over her face. "Oh no, not Mary!"
"Yes, I’m afraid so." He hesitated a few seconds for her to regain composure before he asked, "I have information that Mary Harding came here before she drove to the airport. She brought a package into your flat and left without it."
There were tears streaming down Jennifer’s face when she said, "yes, Mary told me it contained something very valuable, and she wanted me to keep it until she returned from New York."
"Would you please bring that package to me?" Bradshaw asked.
Jennifer left the room and came back a few minutes later with a cardboard box. Bradshaw took a penknife from his pocket and slit the tape covering the two flaps. Inside he found another box made of wood. It took him a few seconds to determine how to open it by sliding the cover along the grooves on each side. When he did so, it exposed a yellowed parchment with numbers on it, dated…
St Andrews, July 8, 1849.
he lifted the record scorecard, and underneath was the feathery golf ball with
Hugh, 78
and the pennyweight
26
inscribed on it. Seeing the long lost feathery there sent a trill cascading through Bradshaw’s body.

Back in his office at the Yard, Bradshaw phoned Riley in New York City. "We’ve just caught a remarkable break in the case, Detective Riley."

"Any arrest?" Riley asked, impatiently.

 "None quite yet, but I have solid evidence. Both the feathery and bronze statuette are in my possession.

"Wow, that is good news! How did it all happen so fast?" Riley asked.

"By chance, I stumbled on the bronze statuette while interviewing Mary Harding’s friend Jennifer Lawton. It’s a sad circumstance. Evidently, Mary was so desperate to win over Jennifer’s affection she took the risk of giving her the bronze as a birthday gift."

"That was a risky move on Harding’s part, but I guess love is an emotion that rises above caution. Where do we go from here?"

"Mary Harding will be landing at Kennedy Airport in three hours. Could you pick her up there? She may lead you to the one who murdered
your friend, Shattuck."

Riley’s voice on the phone became loud and clear. "I’ll be waiting at Kennedy for Ms. Harding’s arrival."

Bradshaw provided Riley with Harding’s flight information. "I’ll fax you a photo of her taken by one of my men yesterday. Tally-ho the fox, and good hunting."

TURNBERRY

S
cott’s practice round on Wednesday with Bob Bray went well. It was a happy reunion for both players and caddies. Bob’s winning ways since Q-School ranked him in the top twenty-five money winners on tour, and his recent perk was a share in a Gulfstream V. Bray and two other players, who owned part of the leased aircraft, flew the Atlantic with their caddies, landing at Prestwick. Claudio Spencer was still Bob’s caddie, and he apologized again to Scott about connecting him through his Uncle Anthony to Carrabba.

After the round, Scott and Matt spent two hours on the range and putting green. Scott hit a poor shot out of a bunker on the course, so he hit fifty similar ones from the practice sand until he was satisfied with the results. They were the next-to-last players to leave the range. Tiger Woods was hitting two-iron shots over a target 250 yards away while his caddie, Steve Williams, and swing coach, Hank Haney, lurked nearby.

"Tiger’s going to keep his driver in the bag, and hit long irons off the tee, Scott. Good course management here."
"Okay, Matt. I know…I know. It’ll be a irons for tee shots on some holes for me."