“What can I do for you, Mr. Hacker?” he asked.
I went through my spiel, while he leveled those eyes at me. I don’t think he ever blinked. When I finished—my story sounded lame even to me—he nodded once, reached over and pulled open his left-side desk drawer. He reached in, took out a slender file folder, put in on his blotter, and shut the drawer. He flipped the file open. There appeared to be one piece of paper in it. Kitchen peered at it as if it were the first time he had ever seen it. I pulled out my reporter’s notebook, sat there waiting and listened to the silence. Finally, he looked at me.
“Judge, John H., aged 26,” he began to read in a toneless voice. “Resided at the Talmadge Apartment complex on Western Boulevard in Grovetown. Not married. No criminal record except for two speeding tickets in the last four years. Employed by BellSouth Corporation as an accountant in their construction division, also in Grovetown. Victim last seen when he left his office after work on 29 March, approximately 5:15 p.m. Body discovered by employees of the Augusta National Golf Club on the morning of 31 March. Victim had been shot twice in the upper chest. Ballistics reports the weapon was a 9 mm Norinco 77B. The weapon has not been found.”
He flipped the folder shut with the finality of death, while I scribbled notes. “That’s all I can tell you,” he said. “The investigation is continuing. I’m afraid I can’t release any further details. Thank you for coming in.”
“That’s it?” I said in amazement. “No leads? No speculation as to why the body was dumped at the National?”
“I don’t deal in speculation, Mr. Hacker,” Kitchen said, looking at me coldly. “We will release facts on this case at the appropriate time. Which is not now.”
“Because the investigation…”
“…is continuing,” he said, finishing my sentence. I thought I saw a slight twitch at the corner of his lips. It might have been a smile.
“You know, sometimes the public can be helpful in providing information,” I said. “Freezing us out might be counterproductive to finding out who actually killed this guy.”
“Our investigators are following up all leads,” Kitchen said, glancing at his watch.
“Why is it that your department has not been communicating with Augusta National?” I asked. “Are the local powers here trying to protect someone over there?”
Kitchen stood up, his face turning red. “My job is to find out who killed John Judge and bring them to justice,” he said, his voice cold and angry. “I will do that, just as I do for every murder that occurs in Richmond County, in the best, most efficient, and most professional way I know how. And nobody will tell me how to do my duty, whether it’s those fancy pants out-of-towners over on Washington Road, or some smart-ass reporter from Boston. You got that?”
I stood up too. “Yeah,” I said. “Loud and clear. Thanks for your time.” I felt his eyes burning a hole in my back as I walked out.
Chapter Eight
Out in the warm sunshine on the sidewalk outside the sheriff’s office, I thought about all the things I didn’t know. Making it worse was that I had no one locally I could call on for help. In Boston, I had lots of sources who could help flesh out the details of whatever I needed to know. But here in Augusta?
Well, actually, I did know someone. I asked a police officer coming out the door where the offices of the Augusta Chronicle were. He told me how to navigate the four blocks or so, and within a few minutes I was riding up the elevator to the newsroom. I asked around and found my luck had turned. Graham Dodd was in his office, rocked back in his chair, feet up on the desk, reading the Atlanta newspaper.
“Hacker!” he said when he saw me standing there. “You’re early! Show doesn’t start until next week.”
The Chronicle is much too small of a newspaper to employ a full-time golf writer—as are most dailies in America. Graham Dodd’s title was associate sports editor, which meant he was just waiting until the sports editor, the 80-year-old Morris Williams, either died or finally forgot where his office was. Williams was one of those ancient figures who began writing sports back in the depths of the Depression, and despite his growing senescence, could still crank out a column that mentioned Warren G. Harding, Barry Bonds, Mickey Mantle, Red Grange and Mikhail Gorbachev, yet still make some kind of sense.
But Graham Dodd did most of the work. During Masters week, Dodd would organize the others in the sports department to crank out reams of copy on the golf tournament, with sidebars and take-outs and backgrounders on all the players, while Morris Williams would park his skinny butt in one of the lawn chairs under the oak tree and hold court for four days. The rest of us working sportswriters, who all had some kind of similar situations back in our own newsrooms, empathized with Dodd.
Graham Dodd had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Masters tournament, and many of us learned to double-check our facts with him. He was gracious, willing to share, and we all looked forward to seeing him every year. But that was the only time we ever saw him—he never attended any of the other major tournaments. I once asked him why, and he gave me a wink. “Paper’s owned by a cheap bastard,” he said. Enough said. He seemed genuinely glad to see me. “C’mon,” he said, “Let’s go get some lunch.”
We went back down onto the street and he led me through a side alley and into a dark, wood-paneled tavern. It wasn’t quite the noon hour yet, so the place was mostly empty, except for two off-duty soldiers in green T-shirts, camo pants and boots sitting at the bar drinking beer. A tired-looking woman with gray hair stood behind the bar wiping glasses down with a towel and stacking them on the glass shelves. A TV set in the far corner blared the day’s news from CNN.
“One of Augusta’s finest establishments, I see,” I said.
Graham laughed. “Naw, it’s one of Augusta’s finest dumps,” he said. “But it’s the closest to the newspaper office and we’ve kept the place alive for generations now. Besides, they make a good burger.”
We sat down at a rickety table for two, the top stained with cigarette burns. Graham looked over at the woman behind the bar. “Hiya, Doris,” he called. “Two burgers all the way and a coupla Buds.” Doris nodded and trundled off to the kitchen in the back.
“So, Hacker,” Graham said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
I looked at him. He was an avuncular sort, with a shiny balding head and narrow spectacles that kept slipping down the end of his nose. His eyes were alive and intelligent. I could tell he knew something was up. Call it the newsman’s sensibility.
“I came up to nose around a little on that murder thing,” I said. “Trying to see if there’s a story in there or not.”
“Ah,” Graham said, leaning back and nodding sagely. “The body in the bunker. Sounds like P.D. James, doesn’t it? I figured it was only a matter of time before someone came down to do a little digging. What have you found out?”
“I found out that the local cops aren’t saying anything,” I said. “I just went to see some guy named Travis Kitchen. He gave me nothing and tossed my ass out the door.”
Graham chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard Kitchen can be a hard case. But he isn’t one to be pushed around. Some people have tried through the years. Most of them are doing time now.”
“So what the hell is the story?” I asked. “Has your paper run anything?”
“Naw, not really,” he said. “Reported the facts when it happened, of course. Our crime-beat guy tried to do a follow-up and got the same treatment as you, apparently. The official word is there is no official word.”
“And?”
“And our crime guy’s job is to walk in that building every day and find out who’s been arrested for what,” Graham said. “He ain’t gonna get very far with the job if he rocks the boat. So he’s laying low, waiting until the cops decided to tell him something about the case. They will, eventually.”
“What about trying to actually do some reporting?” I wondered.
Graham laughed a little, softly, to himself. “Hacker,�
�� he said, “You always forget that the Augusta Chronicle ain’t the Boston Whatever-the-Hell-your-paper is. Or the New York Times. One, we don’t have the budgets to do major investigative stories. Two, our owners don’t really want us to rip the seamy cover off anything. They like it when everything is nice and peaceful and quiet and they can sell lots of ads and nobody is mad at anybody. We’re a little Podunk town newspaper, Hacker. Go along, get along.”
Doris came over with a tray, from which she unloaded our burgers and two frosty longneck bottles of Budweiser. She reached over to the table behind us and slapped bottles of ketchup and mustard down. Then she turned and shuffled away. Service with a smile.
“Doesn’t anybody care why that kid got shot?” I wondered. “Isn’t there any gossip on the street?”
“Ah,” Graham said, pouring ketchup liberally over his fries. “The street gossip. Now that’s different. There’s always talk on the streets. Lots of it.” He took a big bite from his burger, which told me that he wasn’t going to talk anymore until he’d finished eating. I wasn’t that hungry after my breakfast at the National, but I took a big bite out of my sandwich anyway. Dodd was right—it was good.
“So what is the street saying?” I asked when we had both semi-demolished our lunch. He took a swig from his beer bottle and smiled at me.
“Well,” he said. “I’ve heard several theories. One, it was a drug deal gone bad. Kid was shot in the chest. Dealer says ‘you’ve been cheating me: Boom, boom.’ End of story.”
“Are we talking about the same event?” I protested. “From what I’ve heard, the kid was lily white and pure.”
Graham shook his head. “C’mon, Hacker,” he said. “You live in a big city. You should know that drug runners can be anyone, white, black, green or blue. And they often think they’re smarter than the bad guys. Usually, they’re not.”
I took another sip of beer. I had to admit, he had a point. I really didn’t know that much about the Judge kid, other than what I’d heard in the diner in Blythe. I made a mental note to fix that.
“Another version I’ve heard is that the kid was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe someone was trying to rip him off, and he fought back.” Graham frowned. “But while we do have a lot of car jacking and petty theft here in beautiful Augusta, that doesn’t really make much sense.”
“Nor does it explain why whoever killed him decided to drop the body beneath six inches of silica sand on the 10th fairway,” I noted.
“Then there are those who believe that it was someone over at the National,” Graham said, smiling at me. “Maybe one of the Pinkerton guys got a little trigger happy, caught the kid trespassing, and accidentally shot him.”
“Which might explain why none of their vaunted security cameras caught anything that night,” I said. “They went back and erased the tapes. Difficult, but not impossible.”
Graham raised his eyebrows. “Where did you hear that?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Hey, I’ve been doing a little nosing around,” I said. “Got my sources. But why would they shoot him twice?”
He thought a minute, chewing on his lower lip. “Still doesn’t quite fit together,” he said finally. “Besides, with all the local mojo they have around here, the guards could easily claim self-defense or accident and nobody, really, would think twice about it.”
“Okay,” I said. “That one is doubtful, but possible. What else?”
Doris came over and took our plates away. Graham asked me if I wanted some of their peach pie, but I declined. Doris made a cursory wipe of our table with a dingy gray cloth and disappeared.
“Well,” Graham said, “It’s nothing you can really pin down, but there has been some talk about the new chairman out there at the National.”
“Grosvenor?” I said, disbelievingly. “You’re telling me Charlie Grosvenor, the chairman of Augusta National shot and killed some local kid?”
He held up his hand in a stop sign. “Slow down, Hacker,” he said, laughing at the expression on my face. “All I’m telling you is that I’ve heard a little whisper of gossip that Charlie has been rubbing some of the old guard out there the wrong way. Nothing definite, nothing for attribution, ever. Just that in the last year, since he took over, some noses have been put out of joint. I don’t put much stock in such things. I mean, Charlie is, what, the fourth or fifth guy to run that place since I’ve been around? And every new guy has his own way of doing things, which usually means somebody doesn’t like something he does. It’s the nature of the beast. I mean, Augusta National does not do change well.”
“You can say that again.” I muttered.
“But I’ve heard the same grumbling maybe three or four times in the last nine months,” Graham said. “From three or four different people. What it means, I don’t have a clue. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.” I thought about that for a minute. Graham’s information was interesting gossip, and it backed up what Conn Thackery had told me, but I couldn’t see how it affected the murder of John Judge.
“Well,” I said finally. “Maybe the murder weapon will turn up on eBay like Cliff Roberts’ gun, and we can trace it back to Charlie.” I was referring to the gun that Clifford Roberts had used to kill himself down by the pond on the Par-Three course at Augusta back in 1977, when he was dying of cancer. Years later the gun had turned up at a classic firearms auction. It had been traced back to the official photographer for the club. There had been hell to pay on that one.
Graham winced and laughed. “That’s cold, Hacker,” he said.
“Speaking of the murder weapon, that Kitchen guy mentioned a gun I’ve never heard of,” I said. I pulled out my notebook and flipped through the pages. “Yeah, here it is. He said it was a 9 mm Norinco 77B. You ever heard of that?”
Graham laughed. “Hacker, I’m a sports writer for Pete’s sake. I can’t even keep up with golf technology. But I’ll ask our crime guy if he knows anything about it. He’s a gun freak anyway.”
He had to get back to work. I had more dead ends to beat my head against.
Chapter Nine
I decided to try finding out more about John Judge. I drove back out to I-20, headed west a couple of exits and turned off at the Groveland exit. Immediately, I found myself in American suburbia. I could have been on a road in southern California, northern Iowa, western Michigan or eastern Florida. It was a four-lane road chockablock with brand-name stores and restaurants. Taco Bell next to the Target next to the Burger King next to the Barnes & Noble next to the McDonalds next to the Wal-Mart next to the Home Depot next to the Ford dealer next to the Best Buy next to the Toys R Us. Squeezed in between were strip centers with karate studios, dry cleaners, liquor stores, grocery stores, cellphone stores and sub shops. It seemed to stretch onward for miles, this soulless, visually polluting, spiritually empty stretch of American capitalism that we’ve all become far too used to, and dependant upon.
In a mile or so, I saw a fire station. With all the merchandise stacked, boxed and stored along this stretch of highway, it figured the town fathers would make sure they could protect the town’s lifeblood. They probably even made some developer pay for it in return for a tax abatement. I went inside and asked the uniform behind the desk where the local telephone company office was. He told me how to get to a nearby office park, set back off the four lanes of commerce.
When I got there, I spotted the BellSouth office. I parked outside and went in. Behind the reception counter was a young woman, maybe 18, with pink-streaked black hair, heavy mascara and lots of silver dangly things hanging from various parts of her body. She was painting her nails a brilliant shade of pink. She looked bored.
“Hep you?” she asked, barely looking up.
“I’d like to speak to the manager,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at that. “Of what?” she asked. She held up her fingers and peered at the paint job.
“Of the late John Judge,” I said. “He did work here, didn’t he?”
She looked at me then. Gave me the full up-and-down body scan.
“Another cop?” she said, almost to herself. “Ain’t you guys finished with that?”
I slid one of my business cards across the desk. “Not a cop,” I said. “Reporter.”
She didn’t look at it or pick it up. Probably didn’t want to smudge her nails. “Oooo,” she said, batting her blackened lashes at me, “You gonna put me on Inside Edition?”
I fought back the impulse to leap across the desk and choke the very life out of her. “Sorry,” I said. “I deal with printed words. In a newspaper. The kind you have to actually read.”
She scrunched up her nose as if she suddenly smelled something foul. “Don’t know anyone who reads newspapers,” she informed me archly. She pronounced the word ‘newspaper’ as if it were the thing she could smell.
“Which could be why the republic is in grave danger,” I said. “The manager?”
“Who shall I say is calling?” she asked.
“Hacker,” I said. “Boston Journal. Just like it says on that card.” I pointed to it, still lying on the desk where I had laid it. She sighed once, as if the stress caused by my expectation that she might actually pick the thing up and look at it was too much for her to bear. She picked up her telephone handset and pressed one of the intercom buttons, careful not to smudge her new paint job.
“Mack?” she said. “A Mister Hackman from the New York Times is here to see you.” She paused and listened. “I think he wants to ask about Johnny,” she said. She listened again. “OK,” she said and hung up.
“If you can wait five minutes, he’ll try to work you in,” she said. “That’ll give him time to shut off the online porn stuff he likes to watch during the afternoon.”
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