Deadly Divots
Page 4
“Of course,” he insisted, as if sexual impropriety bothered him more than murder.
“Final answer?”
“Al Jones is the consummate professional.” Randall’s eyes narrowed.
“Consummate?”
“A poor choice of words, perhaps, though even gendarmerie such as yourself must understand my meaning.”
“I understand that Al Jones could have slipped out to the water hazard, unnoticed in the dark, and whacked O’Reilly.”
“Or I could have slipped away from the cocktail party,” Randall smiled crookedly, “and done the dastardly deed.”
“Précisement,” I said, surprising Randall and myself, recalling an expression used by Dame Winifred’s prissy little tec in the few pages I had read.
CHAPTER SIX
It was easy to find the caddy shack beyond the garbage compactor out behind the clubhouse. It was not easy to tell which smelled worse. Several caddies milled about or sat on overturned milk crates. All wore drab, mismatched clothing. It looked like a hobo camp. Some scowled at my approach, as if they knew I had closed the course and cut off their primary source of unreported income.
I empathized with them. Having caddied in my youth, I know how difficult it is carrying two heavy golf bags, how frustrating to keep looking for balls mishit by duffers like O’Reilly. How you get shortchanged and stiffed for tips. How looping for the likes of the terrible-tempered Dr. Fitch can be hazardous duty.
Beside the shack, a tall, skinny caddy slumped in a tattered armchair that must have come from the compactor. It was obviously his throne, and he was King of the Caddies. Emperor of the North Pole. He smoked an unfiltered cigarette and swigged something cheap from a bottle in a brown paper bag.
“You Slim?” I asked, flashing my ID like a French postcard. The other caddies shied away, as if I was checking green cards.
“Good guess.” Slim grinned, displaying his rotten teeth and tossing his cigarette butt into a knocked-down campfire near his oversize feet.
“Ever caddy for Mr. O’Reilly?” I asked, wondering why Slim and his ilk were even allowed at such a posh country club. Still, I felt more at ease among these dregs than I had with Dr. Fitch and Randy Randall.
“Mr. O’Reilly, him dead,” Slim said, sounding like The Heart of Darkness, another book my wife had urged on me, hoping to improve my police-blotter mind and get me off golf books. Or at least appreciate the work of a fellow Polack. But Joe Conrad only put me to sleep. Just like Dame Winifred.
I poked my head inside the shack and wished I hadn’t. Now I understand the word mephitic. In addition to the stench and possibly its cause, there was a broken-down couch covered with soiled towels, some rolled up like a pillow. Someone had been sleeping there. Or taking serious naps.
“Tell me about Mr. O’Reilly,” I said.
“What’s to tell?” said Slim. “Dead’s dead, ain’t it?”
“How’d you find out?”
“The greenskeeper told me. He also said you closed the friggin’ course.”
“Sorry about that.” I know what it’s like living hand-to-mouth. “What else do you know about Mr. O’Reilly?”
Slim lit another cigarette, took another swig from the bottle in the brown paper bag, and said, “Worst hacker I ever saw. Hook, slice, hook, slice”—he nodded like a bobble-head doll—“all around Robin Hood’s barn. I was always lookin’ for his ball in the friggin’ woods or watchin’ it land in the water. Carryin’ eighteen for O’Reilly was like thirty-six for anyone else.”
“That bad?”
“Wherever his partner hit it, O’Reilly’d hit the opposite direction. Almost like he meant it. We zigzagged every friggin’ hole, like we was rollin’ papers.”
“You roll your own?”
“Only with Mary Jane in ’em. Just kiddin’, Detective.”
I don’t mind anymore. Not since it’s okay for U.S. presidents, though they don’t inhale, and Carol used it to alleviate the pain of her cancer.
“What else do you know?”
“The dude was a shitty tipper. Never took my advice, neither. I can play this friggin’ game. Gave him some damn good tips and helped with his club selection. I know this friggin’ course better than most. Also got control like you wouldn’t believe. Like the ball’s on a string. Anybody saw me tee it up could tell you I got a sweet friggin’ swing. Coulda made the pro tour. All I needed was backin’.”
“Sure,” I said. Sure only that the bottle in the brown paper bag was doing most of his talking. I knew too many aging ex-athletes who coulda, woulda, shoulda. Including me. I only hope I don’t start believing myself.
“Who played with Mr. O’Reilly?” I asked.
“Most everybody had a regular foursome, ’cept him. He hung around with anybody, weaselin’ his way into games.”
“Dr. Fitch?”
“Naw. Never. Fitch couldn’t stand the bastard.”
“What about you?”
Slim stubbed out his cigarette butt on the armchair where the wood frame was exposed.
“Ferocious Fitch, I call him,” he said. “Hit me with his drive once when I was caddyin’ for him. He should caddy for me. I hit ’em better than most of the pros.”
“He meant to hit you?”
“Naw. He had no idea where it was goin’. But instead of apologizin’, he nearly hit me with his friggin’ driver when he flung it.”
“You sure he wasn’t aiming at you?”
“Naw. It was a wicked friggin’ slice. I was standin’ out of bounds, where I’m s’posed to. He wasn’t pissed at me. He threw the friggin’ club after the ball because it cost him two strokes.”
“You must have been upset.”
Slim shrugged. “Tipped me double that day. ’Fraid I’d sue them tangerine pants off him. I could also play the pants off him, or anybody else, if I wanted to.”
I had to chuckle, then ask, “How do you know he didn’t like Mr. O’Reilly?”
“Just a guess.”
“Overhear any arguments, outbursts, fights?”
“Just the word around here. But don’t hold that against Ferocious Fitch. Nobody liked O’Reilly.”
“Really?”
“Loved to gamble. Nassaus, greenies, skins, you name it.”
“What’s wrong with Nassaus?” You bet on the front nine, the back nine, plus the whole eighteen. “The most you can lose for a dollar Nassau is three bucks.”
“You can lose eighteen for dollar greenies, if you’re always last on the green.” Slim grinned as if he’d beaten me handily. “You can also lose your butt bettin’ skins, if you can’t win a hole.”
“I bet these members can afford it,” I told him.
“They don’t bet chump change, Detective, and they don’t abide cheatin’.”
“O’Reilly cheated?”
“Know what a sandy is?”
“Sure. Out of the trap and into the hole in two strokes.”
“Usin’ your clubs, ’steada throwin’ the ball.”
“O’Reilly did that?”
“That’s nothin’. Whenever he lost a friggin’ ball out of bounds or in the rough, where he spent most of his time, he dropped an identical ball through a hole in his pants pocket.”
“Nice guy.”
“I’m gonna miss him.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I wandered back onto the course, where I soon noticed a stocky black man squatting in the middle of the sixth fair-way. A par five dogleg angled by towering oaks I could never clear with my best drive but would have to try. The man was studying something in the grass and was startled to find me suddenly behind him. He jumped up, holding a screwdriver like a butcher knife and a wrench like a billy club.
“Take it easy,” I told him. “I’m a cop.”
“Then you should know better than sneakin’ up on someone like that.” He wore a black baseball cap with a big white X on the crown.
“You should know the course is closed.” Sometimes I like to sound officious.
“So I could arrest you for trespass.”
“I heard that before.”
“Got a problem with cops?”
“You wouldn’t believe how many times I been stopped and questioned coming and going from work in this lily-white neighborhood.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you work here?” I admired the hole again. Maybe I could clear those oaks.
“You cops know nothin’ but grabbin’ the first black bastard you see when there’s been a crime,” the man said, bringing me back to reality.
“There was a murder here this morning,” I said.
“I know.”
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“I need to fix this sprinkler head.”
“You with the maintenance crew?”
“I’m the greenskeeper.”
“Really?” I may have sounded surprised, but I was only impressed with the perfect condition of the greens.
“I’m the head greenskeeper,” he said, tugging down the brim of his cap and glaring at me, like Bob Gibson readying to throw a knockdown pitch.
“I’m the head of the murder investigation,” I told him.
“You also wonderin’ how a black man got this job?”
“Of course. It doesn’t fit our racial profiling.”
He smiled quirkily and said, “At least you’re honest.”
“For a cop?”
“Guess so.” He chuckled, shifting his cap to a slightly more friendly angle.
“I’m also wondering who killed Mr. O’Reilly.”
“So you go straight to the black man?”
“You got a name?”
“Vince Henry.”
“Actually, you’re the third person I’ve questioned. And the first African American. They tell me you found the body.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“What time was that?”
“About 4:30.”
“What were you doing here so early?”
“I already told you.”
“Keeping the greens? I get it. I’m only half Polack.” Maybe a little self-effacing humor will make the questioning easier.
“I won’t touch that one.”
“Thanks. But what can you do out here before dawn, when there’s no light?”
“Make sure these sprinklers are shutting off and a head hasn’t popped. I got a flashlight, but I know this system in the dark. I helped design and install it. When a section of the course goes dry or gets flooded, I catch holy hell from the head of the greens committee.”
“That’s bad.”
“So’s his temper.”
“Let me guess. Would it be Dr. Fitch?”
Vince Henry nodded. I noticed the power in his neck and upper torso. I also noticed a big gold ring on a thick black finger.
“School ring?” I asked.
“College of hard knocks, Detective. I had a football scholarship and was headed for the pros, ’til I blew out both knees.”
“You jumped up pretty quick.”
“Fear can do that.”
Rage, too, I thought.
“Doesn’t O.J. have bad knees?”
“He was acquitted.”
“I heard he plays a lot of golf.”
“Maybe he killed O’Reilly.”
“You know him?”
“O.J.?”
“O’Reilly.” I didn’t like the look on Vince Henry’s face. I hastily added, “Take it easy. I only have a few routine questions.”
“Then get it over with. I need to fix this sprinkler head.”
“How’d you go from football to this business?”
“I learned a lot about grass on the gridiron. Mostly with my face in it.”
“How’d you find O’Reilly’s body in the dark? You trip over it?”
“Come on, Detective. He was floating facedown in the water hazard. You must know that.”
“Just checking.”
“I got good grades in college. Some of us niggers can study as well as run the hundred.”
“This may come as a surprise, but most of us cops confirm everyone’s eyewitness account. How far out was the body?”
“’Bout ten yards. I had to wade in.”
“We must have your footprints, along with a few others.” We have so many, it’ll take weeks to sort them out.
“But how could you see him?” I asked. “There was no moon. It must have been pitch black.”
“I told you I got a flashlight.”
“Where is it?”
“Back at the shed.” He pointed at the glorious green distance. “My pants got wet. I had to change ’em.”
I nodded and asked again, “Did you know Mr. O’Reilly?”
“I know most of the golfers, mostly by sight. ’Specially the ones who tear up the course.”
“You mean tear it up with good scores?”
“I mean they drive their carts onto the greens, which can ruin them, never rake the traps after they dig up the sand or replace their divots. They have no common courtesy and no regard for the rules. O’Reilly was one of the worst. I called him on it once.”
I’d treat this course with kid gloves if I ever got to play it, though I can’t say I always do the same on some crummy public courses. At least I’m not as bad as some players I’ve seen, who dig up more grass than a mole and never replace it.
“How did Mr. O’Reilly react?”
“See my hat?”
“Sure.”
“He told me the X must be how I sign my name, my IQ in Roman numerals, or the number in my family on welfare.”
“Nice guy.”
“I’ll miss him.”
I hate it when this happens. No one liked the victim. Everyone had a motive to kill him and the opportunity. There are too many questions and too few answers, like one of Dame Winifred’s mysteries.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun was finally setting. About time. It had been a long day and I was welcoming the night, weary of questioning the country club set and a staff more concerned with the club being closed than a man being murdered. Worried about forensics giving up. Annoyed at most of my men standing around with their thumbs up their butts. So I sent them home.
I was standing alone by the water hazard where O’Reilly was found, watching shadows from the stands of tall oak gradually shroud the fairways. Considering that twilight’s the best time to play golf, when the sun can’t take its toll on my thin Irish skin, from my mother’s side. The course is dead empty and you can play any hole you please, with no one watching your duck hooks and slices. You can also play a hole that causes you trouble over and over, until you get it down pat, until the next time you play it and have to learn it all over again. It’s seldom a hole with obvious difficulty, like water hazards and extreme rough, where you know what you have to do or die trying. It’s usually the subtle ones, with side-hill lies and slick greens, where you pray for divine guidance and bogies.
A patrol car coasted toward me along a cart path, stopped, and a uniformed cop climbed out.
“The scene of the crime?” he asked.
“You got it,” I said.
“I’ve seen a lot worse,” said the uniform, admiring the grounds, enjoying his play on words. These college-educated cops are clever.
“You keeping an eye on it tonight?” I asked.
“I’m your man, Detective.”
“Keep it tidy so forensics can take another good look in the morning.”
“Okay to smoke?”
“Just don’t drop the butt, or I’ll have yours. And don’t go near the water. If you leave any footprints or DNA samples, you’ll be my prime suspect.”
“Okay to pee?”
“Do it in those bushes over there.”
“You’re worse than Internal Affairs,” said the uniform, lighting a cigarette.
I said, “They didn’t teach you not to smoke in college?”
“I got reamed for smoking at another murder scene,” he sa
id, grinning impudently.
“Fuck up forensics?”
“Worse. The victim’s family complained. They said I was killing them with secondhand smoke.”
“You were in their house?”
“So what?”
“I wouldn’t let you smoke in mine.” Especially when Carol was still alive. After a while, she couldn’t even stand the smell of her medicinal marijuana.
“Would you yank me off the beat for six weeks of sensitivity training?”
“So you’re the one.” Oh, now I remember.
“That’s me, and why I got this graveyard shift.”
“Well, it’s okay with me if you smoke. They’re your lungs. Just don’t step on anything that could be an endangered species.”
“I know,” the uniform smiled. “The only thing worse than messing up DNA is messing with the EPA.”
“You college kids are so clever.”
“You’ll open the course tomorrow?”
“You planning to play it?”
“I’d give my right arm.”
“What about your left?”
“You know better than that, Detective. Golf’s a lefty game. That’s the hand that gets the little glove and controls the whole swing. Your right only goes along for the ride. If you play right-handed, of course.”
“If you’re not a hooker,” I added, “with a right that tends to take over.”
We laughed and spoke longingly about playing the course instead of pounding a beat on it.
“All it takes is fifty grand for the initiation fee,” said the uniform.
“Plus the right pedigree,” I said, wondering about O’Reilly, who had comported himself, from all accounts, in a manner unbefitting even shanty Irish.
We segued from class envy and golf dreams into murder, which seemed perfectly natural, considering the way O’Reilly got whacked and the way I’d been murdering the ball lately.
“Forensics come up with anything?” the uniform asked.
“A million balls,” I said. “This water hazard was loaded with them.”
“These members can afford to lose ’em,” said the uniform, wistfully.
“We have as many lost balls as murder suspects,” I added, turning to leave.