Deadly Divots

by Gene Breaznell

  “You would have missed me,” she said. “I’ve already checked out.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  She was about to answer when Randy Randall and the minister accosted us.

  “Sorry for your loss,” one of them said. I’m not sure which one it was, as each spoke like a ventriloquist.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. O, as demurely as her dress would allow.

  “My only loss is my golf game,” I said.

  “When you are fully recovered,” said Randall, “you must play here.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t been angling for an invitation. Not yet.

  “Any Monday,” Randall added.

  “Aren’t you closed on Mondays?” the minister said.

  “Our course will remain open for this detective,” Randall said, “after all he has done for us.”

  We’ll see about that. To Randall and the country club set, it will always be us and them.

  “Then why not invite him when he can use the clubhouse?” said the minister. “He’ll need to shower, change his clothes, get a bite to eat.”

  “Of course,” Randall said, without missing a beat. “Why hadn’t I thought of that?”

  Thank God for the clergy, I thought, until Randall added, “We’ll put him in a foursome with Dr. Fitch. They know each other.”

  I tried to smile. I’d rather play with Slim. There’s no way Fitch wants to play with me either. When I recover, I’ll opt for Mondays. I’ll bring Enrique, maybe a couple of other cops, but I won’t abuse the privilege.

  “He’ll fit right in with any foursome,” the minister said. “Monday is when the caddies play.”

  “Not anymore,” Randall said.

  “Why not?” the minister asked.

  “Let us just say,” Randall lisped, “that Slim put a different slant on the situation.”

  “Poor, tortured soul,” the minister intoned, putting his hands together as if praying. I would have commented negatively, to put it mildly, had he not done his best to try and upgrade my golf invitation.

  “I suppose he’s toast,” Mrs. O said evenly.

  “In this state?” I laughed.

  “We do not enforce the death penalty,” Randall said, like it’s a good thing.

  “An eye for an eye diminishes all of us,” said the minister.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll get life,” I assured them. “The jury will be in tears when they learn how he lived in a dilapidated caddy shack, with only a small campfire to keep warm.”

  “What a shame.” Randall clucked his tongue as if he had nothing to do with Slim’s living conditions. He turned abruptly and headed toward a group of his relatives, taking the minister with him.

  “Slim stoked his campfire with a five iron Dr. Fitch threw away in a fit of temper,” I informed Mrs. O. “Ashes from the blade were in the head wounds of both murder victims.”

  “You must be a good detective,” she said.

  “Good detectives use their little gray cells to uncover the evidence,” I admitted. “I need to get hit in the head with it. I was standing in those ashes when I first questioned Slim.”

  She laughed, tenderly touched my forearm cast, and asked, “May I sign?”

  I thought she was kidding until she tugged at my jacket lapel, like she was starting to undress me. She plucked a ballpoint from my inside pocket, as comfortably as Carol would have done. As if we had been married for years, or at least had more than a one-night stand. I thought of commenting on our relationship, or lack thereof, but returned to the safer subject of murder.

  “A lefty killed Al Jones and your husband,” I said. “Slim’s a lefty, but he plays righty golf.”

  “Okay to sign right here?”

  “According to Slim, he could only manage to steal right-handed clubs as a kid. So that’s how he plays. But when he swings them like a baseball bat, it’s always lefty. I can vouch for that.”

  “Has he always been a caddy?” She started signing.

  “And a drifter.”

  “You don’t feel a little sorry for him?”

  “It was a long time before I made enough money for good clubs,” I said, “but I never stole any or murdered anyone. Lawyers are always coming up with that kind of crap,” I added. “Switching sympathy from victims to criminals. Though I must admit that Slim did not have much of a life.”

  “Compared to a great detective?”

  “Don’t write anything like that. Remember the ashes?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” said Mrs. O, as she finished signing. “There. How’s that?”

  “I can’t read upside down,” I said. Peter H. Couloir probably could, but he was a great detective.

  “What about my drawing?” Mrs. O asked.

  “It looks like a little palm tree,” I said, twisting my forearm for a better look, though it hurt. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going back to Florida,” she said, “the land of fresh starts, like the signs say down there.”

  “You can start fresh in Bayville,” I said, wondering how far I would go to get her to stay. “I read somewhere that the chamber of commerce is putting up a sign.”

  Mrs. O laughed and said, “Florida’s also got fresh orange juice.”

  “So does Bayville,” I said, “but you have to squeeze it yourself.” Carol used to squeeze mine. Could I let Mrs. O do it for me?

  “I’m sick of living in a motel,” she said.

  “I’ve got a house,” I shrugged, as if the front door had always been open, and Carol would understand my blatant invitation. “You could stay there.”

  “That’s sweet,” said Mrs. O, “but I couldn’t impose.”

  “It’s no imposition,” I insisted, “and no commitment.”

  “Commitment’s what I need. Oh, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know what you mean . . .” I hesitated a moment, pretending to read the message on my cast, and told her, “I think you mean, do we have anything in common beside murder and one night together in bed?”

  “You are a good detective.”

  “You like Chopin?” I said. “You know, the Polack composer who wrote all those nocturnes?”

  “I also like polkas,” said Mrs. O, lightly touching my cast again. Letting me know I still had a chance.

  “What about mystery novels?” I asked. “Where the murders occur around Gothic mansions like this one, and get solved in wood-paneled drawing rooms by impossibly clever, tweedy little tecs?”

  “I do like mysteries,” she admitted.

  “What about golf?” I asked. “I’m a better teacher than any golf pro.”

  Mrs. O rolled her eyes, like I should be committed instead of Slim.

  When the memorial service was over, Mrs. O and I went together to our cars. “Follow me,” I said, stowing my crutches and levering myself into my driver’s seat, careful of the cast on my right arm. The injury could help my golf game. My right arm’s too strong and I tend to hook the ball.