A Hole In One

by Judy Penz Sheluk

  The thought of someone cheating hadn’t even occurred to Arabella, which was just as well. She’d had enough sleepless nights over this jet ski business.

  Once again, she let the others go first. All three managed to clear the pond and land on the green, but no one was anywhere close to getting a hole in one. Arabella breathed a sigh of relief; they might not be eligible to win, but it still freaked her out to think someone else might. She went through her mental prep, took her swing, and watched her ball veer directly into the woods.

  “Hey, you made it over the water,” Hudson said, hopping into his cart. “For someone just starting out, that’s not a bad shot.”

  Arabella caught Emily’s look and smiled. He really was a nice guy. “Thanks, Hudson. Whether I can find my ball is an entirely different story. Why don’t I look for it while you guys putt in? I’m sure one of you will be able to get it in the hole.”

  They crossed the pond on a wooden bridge just wide enough for their golf carts, parked on the path next to the hole, and grabbed their putters. Luke, Hudson, and Emily walked to the green and began debating which ball to hit. Arabella trundled over to the woods, feeling stupid and hoping like hell it wasn’t infested with poison ivy. The woods were thicker than she’d expected. She walked in a couple of feet, using her putter to push the branches aside.

  That’s when she started to scream.

  5

  Arabella had nearly tripped over the body of a man, mid-to-late sixties. Based on his physique—long and lean—he’d either been fit or blessed with a great metabolism. She pulled herself together and leaned down to take his pulse, knowing full well she wouldn’t find one. The hole in his chest was her first clue. The second was the cloudy film over his sightless blue eyes. She had no idea how long he’d been dead, but his wrist was still warmish to the touch. She resisted the urge to close his eyes.

  Arabella stood up to find Luke, Hudson, and Emily standing behind her, their eyes wide, mouths gaping open. The guy from the insurance company was running across the bridge, a piece of paper flapping in his hand. Luke pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Gilly,” he said, his voice tense, “there’s a problem at the third hole. You need to call off the tournament. Get Levon and whomever else you can summon up to ride out to the other holes and gather everyone back into the clubhouse. Do not take them by the third hole. I repeat, do not take them by the third hole. Make sure nobody leaves. I’ll get the police here.”

  There was a moment of silence after Luke made his announcement to Gilly. Arabella strained her ears to try to pick up what she was rambling about on her end. Probably trying to figure out if it was really necessary to call off the tournament, Arabella thought once she heard Luke speak again. “Yes, it’s definitely a matter for the police. Sound the horn, the one you’d use if there were a threat of lightning. Our foursome will do our best to secure the area. You do the rest.”

  The five of them stood awkwardly, not quite sure of what to say or where to look. Fortunately, Luke took on the role of leader of the pack, shepherding them away from the body toward their golf carts. After a couple of minutes, the insurance guy, who introduced himself as Trent Norland, started the conversation. He kept fidgeting with the sheet of paper as he spoke.

  “To think I was sitting here all this time with a dead body only a few yards away. I hope the police don’t think I had anything to do with it.”

  “I’m sure they won’t,” Luke said.

  Arabella wasn’t so sure. She figured they’d all be persons of interest, at least initially. But she wasn’t about to say so. The group fell silent again.

  The wait for the police seemed endless, at least for Arabella, though in truth it was less than ten minutes before Constable Aaron Beecham and Detective Sheridan Merryfield arrived on the scene.

  It had been about a month since Arabella had seen Aaron. The first thing she noticed was that he’d lost weight, and a lot of it. He’d always been what could best be described as burly. Now, however, he was borderline gaunt, which was made all the more obvious as he stood next to Merryfield—a tall man with skin the color of Kraft caramels, biceps that strained the sleeves of his shirt, and hands the size of goalie gloves.

  “Aaron,” she said. She wanted to reach out and hug him, tell him she’d missed him, ask if he was okay, but it wasn’t the appropriate place or time.

  “Arabella, Luke said you’re the one who found the body.” All business. Not even a hint of a smile in his gray-blue eyes.

  She swallowed hard and pointed to the wooded area. “My ball went into the trees.” Merryfield’s gaze focused on the woods, and then back to Arabella. “Go on.”

  “I was rooting around for my ball using my putter. I was afraid there might be poison ivy. I’ve had it before and…and it doesn’t matter. That’s when I found the body.”

  “Did you touch anything?” Merryfield asked.

  “I took his pulse. There wasn’t one. That’s when I noticed the hole in his chest. Or maybe I noticed the hole in his chest before and tried to take his pulse anyway. It’s a blur. But the surrounding area, I know I didn’t touch that, except with my putter, of course.”

  “Did anyone else touch anything?”

  Emily, Luke, Hudson, and Trent shook their heads in unison.

  “We were putting when we heard Arabella scream,” Emily said.

  “I was sitting beside the tee box,” Trent said, gesturing toward the chair. “Trent Norland. I’m with the company providing the hole in one insurance. For the jet ski? People cheat. I’m here to make sure they don’t.”

  Merryfield nodded and made his way over to the body. “Looks like a single gunshot wound to the chest,” Merryfield said quietly, addressing Beecham. “Someone from the coroner’s office will be here any minute. See if our murderer left any clues. It would be nice if he left the gun behind.”

  Beecham slipped on a pair of gloves and trod gingerly into the woods. Merryfield turned his attention to Trent.

  “How long were you sitting there by yourself before the first group arrived?”

  Trent flushed under Merryfield’s gaze. “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. I didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious.”

  “Who was in the first foursome?”

  Trent referred to the sheet of paper he’d been holding. “Poppy Spencer, Chantal Van Schyndle, Ned Turcotte, and Miles Pemberton. None of them hit their ball anywhere near the woods.”

  Arabella knew Poppy, of course. Chantal owned the Serenity Spa and Yoga Studio, and Ned was the owner of Birdsong. Both shops were on Main Street in Lount’s Landing, near the Glass Dolphin, but she’d never heard of Miles Pemberton. She cast a quick glance at Emily, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  “Did anyone hear a gunshot?” Beecham asked.

  “It’s a shotgun tournament,” Luke said. “Gilly Germaine—that’s the tournament organizer—used a real shotgun. So we did hear a shot.”

  “Actually, we heard two shots,” Arabella said. “The first shot was about twenty-five minutes before Levon drove us out to our respective holes. I remember thinking it was overkill.” She blushed. “Sorry, bad choice of words. What I meant was, Gilly is very…detail oriented. I assumed she’d taken a practice shot, but when I asked her about it at the rules briefing, she said it was impossible, that the shotgun was locked up in the clubhouse. She thought it was a car backfiring.”

  “I didn’t hear it, but I had my ear buds in listening to tunes,” Luke said.

  “It could have been a car backfiring,” Hudson said. “Or a shot from a shotgun,” Arabella shot back.

  Emily’s eyes brightened. “Do you think one shot might have been the one to start the tournament, and the other shot killed—” Merryfield’s look stopped her cold.

  “Ladies, and by that I mean you, Emily Garland, and you, Arabella Carpenter. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. You are not, I repeat, not to start investigating this. You were lucky to come out of your last investigation alive, and we don’t have
the manpower or the patience to babysit you.”

  Arabella knew Emily missed her job as an investigative reporter. But this was different from their last case. It wasn’t like they had any connection to the dead man. Except…

  “There’s something vaguely familiar about him,” Arabella said, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  “Familiar how?” Merryfield asked.

  “I can’t put a finger on it. Does anyone else get the same feeling?”

  “Can’t say as I do,” Hudson said. “I’m positive I’ve never seen this man before in my life.” Luke frowned and shook his head.

  Trent followed suit.

  “I don’t recognize him. Maybe he came into the Glass Dolphin when I wasn’t there,” Emily offered.

  “No, it isn’t that. I make it a point to remember customers.” Arabella was still trying to figure it out when Levon rode up in his golf cart, the black and gold Marshal flag flapping. He pulled up next to the green.

  “Everyone is being escorted back to the clubhouse. Gilly is in a major league snit over this. She claims her reputation will be irreversibly tarnished—” Levon’s voice trailed off as he caught sight of the body, his face ghostly pale beneath his tan.

  “Do you know this man?” Merryfield asked.

  “It’s been a few years, twenty-four to be exact. But yes, I’d recognize him anywhere. His name is Marc Larroquette.”

  Arabella let out an involuntary gasp, tried to stifle it, didn’t quite succeed.

  “Marc Larroquette. A relative of yours, then.” Aaron Beecham’s eyes flicked from Arabella to Levon to Arabella and back again.

  “You could say that,” Levon said. “The last time I saw him he was going out to get a pack of smokes. I was fifteen at the time. You see, this man is…was…my father. My long-lost father. And until now, I haven’t been missing him.”

  6

  Arabella was sure Levon was lying. Perhaps not about Marc Larroquette being his father, because there was a strong physical resemblance between the two. But Levon had seen Marc recently. She had seen Levon arguing with the dead man a couple of days before.

  She’d been walking through the park when she’d heard Levon’s voice, low, but tinged with simmering, barely controlled anger. She saw him and the man she now knew as Marc Larroquette semi-hidden in the wooded area behind the main pathway. Arabella had reversed her route to slip away unnoticed. The last thing she needed was Levon thinking that she was following him.

  But if she had seen Levon with Marc, then others might have as well. In fact, in a town the size of Lount’s Landing, it was pretty much guaranteed.

  Maybe Levon was worried that he’d be suspected of murder if the truth got out. Though Levon was promising to help the police in any way possible, what if the police caught him in a lie?

  Arabella knew something the police didn’t. When the police were talking to Levon, he took his sunglasses off and gently rubbed his right eye. Maybe Merryfield and Beecham would think he had allergies, but Arabella knew her ex rubbed his right eye when he was lying.

  For the moment, the police appeared to accept Levon’s explanation, although Arabella knew there would be plenty of other questions to come—for all of them.

  Merryfield told them to make their way back to the clubhouse and await further instructions. He stared long and hard at Levon as he said, “Constable Beecham will follow behind to make certain that no one gets lost along the way.”

  Arabella knew then that Levon was a suspect. His pained expression showed he knew it, too.

  The silence in the Bogey Ballroom of the Miakoda Falls Golf and Country Club was palpable. Incredible, given all thirty-six golfers were in attendance. It looked like everyone had stayed with their foursomes and Arabella followed suit, taking a seat at a table with Emily, Luke, and Hudson. Trent joined them, looking decidedly like a guy who wanted to be anywhere but here. Horseshoe bald, he was almost unrecognizable without the Blue Jays baseball cap, but the plaid pants were a dead giveaway. What was it about golf that made plaid pants seem like a good fashion choice?

  She scanned the room for Levon and saw him sitting alone at the back of the room, his gaze averted, shoulders slumped forward. She recognized Constable Sarah Byrne, a recent recruit to the Cedar County Tri-Community Policing Center, affectionately known by locals as the One-Tric-Pokey.

  Arabella had met Sarah a few months earlier at a “Welcome Rookie” barbecue hosted by Detective Merryfield, with Aaron Beecham as her date. The day of the party, Sarah had worn white capris, a blue and white cropped tee shirt, and a hint of makeup, her strawberry blonde hair hanging loose in soft waves that barely brushed the top of her bare shoulders. Today, Sarah’s face was devoid of makeup, her hair had been pulled back into a French braid, and her police uniform of black pants, black shirt, and black vest bulked up her trim figure.

  Arabella continued looking around the room. Based on the stunned look on people’s faces, she figured they knew about the basic situation.

  Gilly Germaine looked positively green, her eyes darting from person to person, eventually landing on Levon. She started to walk toward him but stopped when he looked up, shook his head, and re-averted his gaze. Her lower lip trembled a bit, but she carefully hid her disappointment—or was it confusion?

  Arabella thought no one else was paying enough attention to notice.

  She was wrong. Aaron’s blue-gray eyes were assessing both Gilly and Levon.

  Every move Levon made was being closely monitored. Heck, every move she made was probably being closely monitored too. She was the one who’d found the dead body of her ex-husband’s allegedly long-lost father. Maybe the police would think she and Levon had been in on it together. Or would they? Surely Aaron wouldn’t suspect her?

  A microphone crackled. The golfers murmured to one another and shuffled their chairs to face the side of the room where Merryfield, Beecham, and Byrne stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Gilly sat at a table off to their left, her posture unnaturally rigid, as if willing herself not to cry. As much as Gilly annoyed her, Arabella couldn’t help but feel sorry for the woman. Levon said the tournament had been Gilly’s all-consuming project. She’d put hours of hard work organizing the tournament and arranging for silent auction donations.

  Merryfield’s voice quieted the murmurs and stilled the shuffles of chairs. He licked his lips quickly, a flick of the tip of his tongue. It was a habit Arabella had observed when he’d interviewed her last year. That had been another murder. She shivered, even though the room was warm, the air conditioning struggling against the heat outside, and the packed house inside.

  “Thank you all for your cooperation,” Merryfield said. “While we cannot stop you from discussing this after you leave here, we ask that you use discretion. Please do not resort to gossip or embellish the facts. In that spirit, Constable Beecham will update you on what we have learned so far.”

  Aaron Beecham cleared his throat and took the mic. Arabella was struck again by how much weight he had lost since she’d seen him last. Had their breakup affected him physically?

  “At approximately nine-fifteen this morning, one of the golfers in the tournament hit a ball into the wooded area adjacent to hole number three,” Beecham began. “While searching for the ball, the golfer discovered the body of a man. An investigation is underway. Constable Byrne and I will conduct individual interviews in the Eagle Lounge. Once your contact information has been recorded and your interview completed, we ask that you leave the premises. We do, however, reserve the right to speak with you again in the future, should the need arise. Are there any questions?”

  Gilly raised her hand. “I realize this sounds insensitive, but what about lunch and the silent auction?”

  “The silent auction will have to be postponed,” Merryfield said. “Since it will take some time to interview everyone, lunch would be a good idea. But I’d like to keep the movements of the kitchen staff to a minimum.”

  “We have trays of assorted sandwiches, salads, and dessert
s prepped for each table,” Gilly said. “I’ll ask for the food to be set up on a banquet table instead, buffet-style, along with coffee, tea, and water.”

  “Thank you, Gilly, that’s an excellent solution. Are there any other questions?”

  A few folks raised their hands. A tall, reed-thin brunette stood up. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, she wasn’t dressed in golf attire. The woman wore a floral sundress in muted shades of pink and purple, and glasses with thick-rimmed frames that matched. Not beautiful, at least not in the traditional sense, but oddly compelling. Luke, Hudson, and Trent were staring at the woman as if transfixed.

  “Oh for cripes sake,” Emily muttered, her face flushed with displeasure. “What the hell is Kerri Say-no-more doing here?”

  “She’s probably here to cover the tournament for the paper,” Arabella whispered, hoping Emily wouldn’t make a scene. She knew her friend was still sensitive about being terminated by Inside the Landing. Being replaced by Kerri, a woman she’d previously had a combative relationship with back in Toronto, had been almost too much to bear.

  “One person at a time, please,” Beecham said, shooting a warning glance in Arabella and Emily’s direction. Emily’s flush deepened, and the scowl on her face looked as if it might become permanently ingrained.

  “The woman in the floral dress. Please state your name and your question.”

  “Kerri St. Amour, editor of Inside the Landing. Do you know the identity of the dead man?”

  “Yes, but we are unable to make his identity public at this time. Are there any other questions?” Beecham’s eyes scanned the room. Kerri St. Amour remained standing. With no other hands raised, he turned his attention back to the reporter. “Ms. St. Amour?”

  “You said that a golfer had discovered the body, but you didn’t say who that individual was. Can you share that information with us?”