The Club

by Jane Heller

  “Nope.”

  “Aw come on, Jude. Ride along in the cart while Ducky and I play eighteen holes.”

  I sighed. “I’d love to spend time with you, Booch, but eighteen holes will take hours. I couldn’t bear to be out on a golf course that long. It would be torture. Total boredom.”

  “All right. Then how about a compromise: come along for nine holes? It’ll only take half as long. The scenery will be nice and the company even better.”

  I kissed him. “All right, I’ll come—as long as we can take a golf cart. I realize that walking the course is great exercise, but you know how I feel about exercise.”

  “About the same way you feel about The Oaks.”

  “Exactly.”

  “No problem. We’ll take a cart. Actually, we’ll probably take two carts. Ducky doesn’t like to walk the course any more than you do. So he’ll drive his; you can drive ours.”

  The golf date with Ducky was for Sunday afternoon at five o’clock. “It doesn’t get dark until seven-thirty or so,” Ducky had said to Hunt when they were making plans. “And if we play late in the day, you won’t have to face all the Neanderthals. By five, they’re all in the bar, getting smashed. We’ll probably have the entire course to ourselves.” Hunt and I liked the idea of avoiding the members’ disapproving stares, so five o’clock it was.

  On the way to the club, we stopped at the hospital to check on Arlene. When we arrived, her parents and sister had just stepped out for a dinner break, and Tom had taken their place at her bedside. He had been there every time I’d visited.

  “Is your interest professional or personal?” I’d asked him earlier in the week. I knew he was eager for Arlene to wake up from the coma and identify Brendan Hardy as her attacker. I also knew Tom Cunningham was a lonely man who had a penchant for reaching out to women in need.

  “Both, I guess,” he’d admitted. “There’s something about her that just gets to me. Something about her face. Something about the way she…oh, I don’t know. It’s pretty ridiculous, but I have this feeling that if she ever…oh, never mind.”

  He stopped.

  “Ever what?” I prodded. “Comes out of the coma?”

  He nodded. “I just have this feeling that we’d hit it off,” he said shyly. “Stupid, huh?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “I’m just a romantic, I guess,” he said.

  “Then you and Arlene will hit it off,” I said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll just see what happens.”

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful? I thought to myself. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Arlene recovered and fell in love with Tom? And didn’t we all deserve some good news after what we’d been through?

  As Hunt and I entered Arlene’s hospital room the following Sunday afternoon, Tom greeted us, looking grim and exhausted.

  “No change,” he told us. “She’s still in the coma. But that’s not necessarily bad,” he added. “The doctor says she’s stable, whatever that means. He says she could come out of the coma at any time and be perfectly fine.”

  “I hope that’s what happens. In the meantime, how are you doing?” I asked Tom.

  “Okay. I just stopped in to check on her.” He glanced at Arlene, his eyes full of compassion.

  “You look pretty beat to me, buddy,” said Hunt. “Don’t they give cops a day off?”

  “Yeah, actually this is my day off,” said Tom.

  “Then how about relaxing a little?” said Hunt. “Judy and I are on our way to The Oaks. I’m playing golf with Ducky Laughton, and she’s going to cheer me on—if she can stay awake. Want to come along? Maybe play nine holes with us?”

  “Thanks but no thanks,” said Tom.

  “Aw, come on,” Hunt said. “You met Ducky during your investigation. He’s a neat guy, really. Nothing like the rest of the folks there.”

  “I’m sure he is, but no cigar.”

  “Now Tom, we’ve got a new chef at the club,” I teased. “He’s only temporary, until they find a real replacement for Brendan, but I hear he can make a mean cheeseburger.”

  Tom shook his head. “I think I’m going home and get some sleep. I could use it.”

  I nodded. “Maybe we’ll call you later, to see if you changed your mind and feel like company. We could have dinner.”

  “I’ll see,” said Tom. “You’ve got my home number, right?”

  “Yup. Now go on,” I urged. “We’ll check on you later. Meanwhile, we’ll sit with Arlene until her family comes back.”

  Tom gave Arlene a last look, waved goodbye to us, and left.

  “He’s torturing himself,” I said to Hunt. “He thinks he could have prevented Arlene from getting hurt. Just the way he probably thinks he could have prevented his wife from getting killed.”

  “Poor guy,” said Hunt. “I wish there was something we could do.”

  “There was something we could do and we did it,” I said. “We got Brendan to incriminate himself in the kickback scheme at the club, which provided the police with the motive for Claire’s murder. It wasn’t our fault that the justice system moves at a snail’s pace.”

  Hunt and I drove over to the club and walked to the golf course, where Ducky was waiting for us. He looked jaunty and full of pep in his kelly green slacks and bright yellow polo shirt, his chubby cheeks rosy with the outdoors. I tried to picture him as a college student at Berkeley, protesting the war and romancing Claire. But the only image that came to mind was the one Nedra had planted in my mind: the asexual husband who “got his rocks off in other ways,” whatever that meant.

  “Judy,” he said, then kissed me on the cheek. “So good to see you.”

  “Thanks, Ducky. You too,” I said and patted his arm. “It’s a relief to find someone at this club who doesn’t throw things at us.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to the Neanderthals,” he advised. “They just don’t get it.”

  “Ducky’s right,” said Hunt. “Who needs ‘em.”

  I looked at my husband and blinked. Was this the same man who had spent the past two years courting the members of The Oaks, the same man who had campaigned for their friendship? Was this the same man who’d been so desperate for a partnership at F&F that he was willing to suck up to people like Duncan Tewksbury and Addison Bidwell? Was this the same man who’d been willing to make a complete ass of himself in exchange for a chance to invest their money in crude oil, natural gas, and pork bellies? I blinked again.

  “Yeah, fuck ‘em,” Hunt went on. “It’s a beautiful evening. The course looks great. Brendan Hardy’s in jail and we’re healthy. So let’s forget all the bullshit and play nine holes before it gets dark.”

  “Atta boy,” said Ducky, who slapped Hunt on the back and winked at me.

  We were on the fourth hole when it happened. I know it was the fourth hole, not because I was ever able to tell one hole from another, but because it was on the fourth hole that Claire Cox had met her untimely death, and one doesn’t forget things like that.

  In an attempt to fortify myself against the inevitable boredom that came over me every time I tried to watch Hunt play golf, I’d brought along the September issue of Gourmet, and as Hunt and Ducky drove and putted and chipped their way onto the green, I sat in the golf cart in the late afternoon sun and immersed myself in articles extolling the virtues of Chicken Breasts with Horseradish-Scallion Crust, Peppered Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Salsa, and Raspberry Chocolate Meringue Pie.

  I was deeply involved in a recipe for Grilled Tortilla and Onion Cake when I heard Hunt calling me. I looked up and saw that he and Ducky were standing on the green, their balls a few feet away from the cup. The other golfers had long since departed for the bar, so the course was deserted; the three of us were the only ones around.

  “Jude!” Hunt waved excitedly. “You’ve got to watch me sink this putt. God willing, I’m about to birdie the hole.”

  I saluted him. “I’m sure you’ll birdie the hol
e,” I said, “but you know how I feel about watching you putt. It’s about as riveting as watching the man who comes to the house to read the gas meter.”

  Hunt pretended to pout, while Ducky laughed, shook a finger at me, and said in a high, falsetto voice, meant, I supposed, to mimic a nagging wife, “Mrs. Price, you’re not being very supportive of your husband’s golf addiction.”

  Ducky was joking, just as I had been, and so his words didn’t register at first. In fact, I went back to my magazine and promptly forgot all about them. Then, as I was rereading the recipe for Grilled Tortilla and Onion Cake and wondering whether I’d screw it up if I substituted Vidalia onions for the Spanish ones, Ducky’s remark came back to me—with a vengeance—and I gasped.

  “Mrs. Price, you’re not being very supportive of your husband’s golf addiction,” he’d scolded.

  I felt a chill, then a wave of dizziness, then a mixture of feelings—confusion, revulsion, and fear.

  “Mrs. Price, you’re not being very supportive of your husband’s golf addiction.”

  The words reverberated in my mind, and as they did, my throat closed.

  “Mrs. Price.”…“Mrs. Price.”…“Mrs. Price.”

  It wasn’t what Ducky had said that made me drop the magazine onto the floor of the golf cart and sit straight up, my body taut with terror. It was the way he’d said my name, the tone he’d used, the high-pitched, singsong voice he’d used. The same eery, sickeningly sweet voice that had belonged to the person who’d trapped me in my elevator and warned me to stop snooping around at the club.

  “Someone who just wants to send you a little message, Mrs. Price.”

  That’s what the voice had said that awful afternoon. At the time, I’d been unable to determine whether it belonged to a man or a woman. All I knew was that, despite the playful quality of the voice, it had been intended to disguise the speaker’s identity and frighten me away from the club, warning me to stop asking questions about Claire’s murder…or else.

  “Mrs. Price, you’re not being very supportive of your husband’s golf addiction.”

  I shook my head and tried to shake off the thoughts that threatened to strangle me, tried to tell myself they weren’t true, tried to tell myself it wasn’t true. But I couldn’t.

  “Mrs. Price.”…“Mrs. Price.”

  I hadn’t been the only one to blame Brendan for breaking into the house and holding me hostage in the elevator. The police had blamed him too. We’d all thought it was Brendan who had disguised his voice; Brendan who had killed Claire and nearly killed Arlene. He’d been ripping off the members of The Oaks with his kickbacks schemes; it had seemed perfectly logical that he had killed Claire to prevent her from turning him in. Even his own parents had blamed him for killing her. But we’d been wrong—all of us. Ducky was the guilty one. The question was why? Why would respectable, mild-mannered, politically correct Ducky kill Claire, a woman he admired? Because she’d jilted him when they were in college?

  “Jude! I made the putt! I birdied the hole!” Hunt said as he patted Ducky on the butt.

  “See that, Mrs. Price? You’re married to a pro!” said Ducky in That Voice. That same falsetto, singsong voice.

  So it was Ducky, I realized with devastating clarity. Ducky who had killed Claire the night of the July Fourth party. Ducky who had warned me off the case. Ducky who had struck Arlene and sent her into a coma. Ducky who was Hunt’s friend, colleague, and business associate. But why? Was he crazy? He had to be. But what had set him off? Claire’s admission to The Oaks? Her unwillingness to resume their relationship? Nedra’s affair with Rob, the tennis pro? What?

  There wasn’t time to figure out why Ducky was a monster. There was only time to get the hell away from him.

  “Hunt,” I said, trying desperately not to look Ducky in the eye. “We have to leave. Now.”

  He nudged Ducky and laughed. “There she goes again,” he sighed. “My wife, the golf nut.”

  “Hunt, I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t feel well. I want to get out of here.”

  He and Ducky looked at each other, then began to walk toward me.

  “Do you think it was something you ate?” asked Ducky.

  I tried not to look at him, tried to avoid his gaze, but I couldn’t help myself. And in that precise moment of eye contact, Ducky Laughton knew the truth: that he had inadvertently revealed himself to me—and that I was a golf cart ride away from telling the police.

  “Hunt, please. Just take me home,” I said.

  “But Ducky and I have another five holes to play, Jude,” said Hunt. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait in the ladies’ locker room? Or maybe get something cold to drink while we finish—”

  “No!” I cried. I turned the ignition key and started up the golf cart. “Please, Hunt. Get in the cart.”

  Hunt looked at Ducky, shrugged, and hopped into the cart next to me. “Sorry, pal,” he told his golfing buddy. “Can we reschedule?”

  “Sure, but not until we’re sure that Judy’s all right,” said Ducky, feigning concern.

  “I’ll be all right as soon as they put you away,” I said, unable to control the rage that surged through me. Ducky Laughton had proposed Hunt and me for membership in The Oaks, pretended to be our friend, pretended to be our lone supporter at the club, when all the while he was responsible for Claire’s murder and God knows what else.

  “What did you say, Judy?” he asked.

  “You heard me,” I said, my voice quivering. “I said I’m going to make sure you’re put away for life, make sure you don’t hurt anyone ever again.”

  Ducky’s eyes were locked on mine as his expression darkened. He turned to Hunt and said, “I’m awfully sorry this happened, old boy. Awfully sorry.”

  “Awfully sorry what happened?” said Hunt, who looked at Ducky, then at me, then back at Ducky. “Am I missing something here?”

  Before I could respond, Ducky reached for the key to our golf cart and turned it to shut the cart off. I batted his hand away and restarted the cart.

  “Hey, what’s going on, you two?” Hunt asked.

  Without responding, I shifted the cart into the forward gear, put my foot on the accelerator, and attempted to drive us down the path, past the fourth hole, around the course, and back to the first tee. All I could think about was getting away from Ducky, getting to a phone, and calling Tom.

  But Ducky had other ideas. He jumped into his cart and began to chase us.

  Dear God, I thought, as we chugged across the course in our battery-operated cart. Where in the world is everybody? The one time I want to attract the attention of the members of this dopey club, they’re nowhere to be found!

  Golf carts aren’t exactly Maseratis, but I had managed to give us a nice head start. Unfortunately, because there were two of us in our cart, it carried a heavier load and moved slower than Ducky’s. Not only that, Ducky was a more experienced golf cart driver than I was. He was able to zigzag his way along the path and gain on us very quickly.

  “Judy! Will you tell me what the hell is going on here?” Hunt yelled as he turned around and saw Ducky following in hot pursuit.

  “He did it!” I cried. “He killed Claire!”

  “Are you crazy? You know Brendan did it. So do the police.”

  “We were wrong. It was Ducky.”

  I was breathing so hard I thought I might faint, but I kept driving, kept steering the golf cart up and down the pathways that meandered across the course.

  “Jude, listen to me,” said Hunt. “I know how bored you get watching me play golf, but this is ridiculous. There are more subtle ways of telling me you’ve had enough.”

  “Hunt,” I said, “you’re going to have to trust me on this. Ducky Laughton is a cold-blooded killer. He killed Claire, he tried to kill Arlene, and if we don’t get off this golf course, he’s going to kill us.”

  “But how do you—”

  Before Hunt could finish his question, we felt a jolt from behind. Then another. And an
other. Ducky was crashing the front of his golf cart into the rear of ours!

  “Ducky!” Hunt yelled back to him. “Take it easy, would you?”

  Ducky rammed into our cart once more, harder and more insistently. We were on an elevated path that overlooked the course’s second hole, the hole that sloped steeply down to one of The Oaks’s two man-made lakes.

  “Oh, my God!” I cried out. “He’s trying to tip us over!”

  “But why?” said Hunt, who had finally realized there was cause for alarm.

  “Hunt, listen to me,” I said, trying to stay calm. “Ducky killed Claire and he knows I know. We’ve got to figure a way out of this. We’ve got to get away from him and call Tom.”

  Hunt shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe what I was telling him about his friend and colleague. Then Ducky drove into the back of our cart again, this time harder and with more speed. Our tiny wheels began to wobble and the cart pitched back and forth, and before Hunt and I knew it, we were going over.

  I grabbed Hunt’s hand as the cart rolled over, spilling us out onto the green below.

  We landed on the ground with a thud, the cart having rolled away from us and into the lake, sinking like a stone. Several seconds passed. I was so dazed, so shocked by what had happened, that I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My left arm throbbed, but I was otherwise unhurt. It was just that I was terrified. Terrified of what Ducky would do to us, now that we had no way to escape.

  “Jude, are you okay?” Hunt whispered as he lay next to me, not far from the hole he had bogeyed only minutes before.

  “She’s just fine.”

  It was Ducky, and he was standing over us as we remained on the ground, captive. In his right hand was a gun—one of those compact, oh-so-handy silvery models that fits in the palm of one’s hand. I tried not to gag.

  “Stand up, both of you,” he commanded us.

  I nodded and started to pull myself up, while Hunt remained on the ground, stunned by his friend’s bizarre actions.

  “Come on, old boy,” Ducky exhorted Hunt. “Up, up, up.”

  Hunt rose slowly, taking his place beside me on the second green, midway between the cup and the lake.