by Bill Flynn
Bradshaw needed a pause to gather his thoughts, and he looked around the room at the golf antiques spread throughout the room in cabinets. "So you’re a collector, also, Ms. Lawton?"
"I am, though on a very small scale."
"I wonder if you could help me sort out a few more things. I’d appreciate any information before I have the opportunity to interview Ms. Harding."
"I’ll try to help," Jennifer offered.
"Do you know a gentleman from Sweden…a Jaspar Johncke…an antique collector?"
"No, I’ve never met him, but Mary has mentioned him as a client. From what I know, he’s a wealthy golf antique collector who uses Mary to acquire what he wants to own."
The chief inspector looked up from his yellow legal size notepad. His blue eyes blinked nervously before he asked, "What’s your present relationship with Mary Harding?"
Jennifer gave Bradshaw a hard look. "She would like to be more than a friend, and move in with me, but I don’t want that kind of relationship. It’s difficult for me to break off our friendship. Mary sponsored me on tour for two years before I started winning. You see, from the time I was sixteen years old, I played competitive golf around attractive, physically strong, athletic women. They have always tried to influence my sexuality, but I’ve rejected that lifestyle, even though I respect it."
Bradshaw was a bit taken aback by her straight answer, but recovered enough to say, "You’ve been amazingly candid, and I appreciate that. Please understand solving this case involves a lot of puzzle pieces. Just plodding police work on my part."
"I understand, and I’ve declared my lifestyle long ago, and feel most comfortable for having done so. Jennifer smiled at Bradshaw. "I’ve never been in the cupboard, as the Americans say, so I don’t have to come out of it. I like men, you see."
Bradshaw was amused and somehow her revelation pleased him. He laughed and said, "I believe the Americans come out of the closet, not the cupboard, Ms. Lawton."
She laughed with him at the cupboard-closet terms, and it helped to ease the emotions triggered by the question he’d asked about Mary.
"Would you like some tea, Chief Inspector? We can take it in my golf room."
"Are your other trophies there?" Bradshaw asked.
"Yes, they are, and there’s more golf memorabilia in that room."
They entered a much larger room than the den. Wainscoting paneled the walls and oriental rugs covered the floors. The dark brown leather couch and chairs were well positioned to take advantage of a huge fireplace whose hearth took up most of one wall. The remaining three walls were floor-to-ceiling stained oak display cabinets.
Jennifer moved her arm by the cabinets in a gesture of totality. "These cabinets are not all filled with my trophies. Some contain a few golf antiques. I cherish each piece dearly."
Bradshaw looked through the glass of the cabinet doors at clubs, medals, art, tableware, books and balls. One cabinet was dedicated to Jennifer’s trophies and another to the golf clubs and balls used when she’d won tournaments. The third cabinet included photos of her playing companions and rivals from all over the world. There were some photos of Sarah Covington with her caddie. Bradshaw was startled when he noticed that the caddie in those photographs was the same one in a picture next to an article he’d read in the Daily News about the British Open long shot, Scott Beckman, the owner of the feathery. He asked Jennifer about the coincidence.
"Oh, yes. That’s Matt Kemp, the caddie that was fired by Sarah Covington. He’s a dear, and my first love. He called me when he was in London a week ago and wanted to meet. Because I’d scheduled a discussion with Mary to sort out things on that same evening, I couldn’t. However, I’m eager to see Matt after the Open when he comes through London on his way back to America."
"I see, and my best wishes go with that meeting, Ms. Lawton."
Jennifer served the tea. Bradshaw held his cup and saucer as he walked to a display cabinet filled with antique figurines. It contained bronze and marble statuettes of women performing a variety of sporting activity. The central figure in the display was immersed in a precisely aimed spotlight. His eyes fixed on the highlighted bronze of a nude woman golfer, posed at the top of her backswing. His astonishment caused his teacup to rattle in the saucer. It was the same, one-of-a-kind, bronze statuette shown in the photo given to him by Sarah Covington…the other piece stolen with the feathery from the Scott Beckman collection.
Jennifer saw his attention centered on the bronze, and got up from her seat at the tea table to join Bradshaw. "It’s a beautiful piece of work, isn’t it? I’ve been told there are no others like that bronze." She opened the glass doors of the cabinet and ran her hand over the nude body of the statuette. "It has become my favorite." .
Bradshaw recovered from his startling find enough to ask, "I say, where in the world did you acquire such an exquisite bronze, Ms. Lawton?"
Without hesitation, she answered, "Oh, Mary gave it to me on my birthday, just last week. Isn’t it lovely?"
Bradshaw placed his cup and saucer down on the tea table, and the empathy he felt for Jennifer Lawton showed in his eyes when he said, "Ms. Lawton, I must take this bronze statuette from you as evidence. It was stolen, along with the feathery ball from the same collection owned by Scott Beckman, slated for auction at the Covington Gallery."
She put her hands over her face. "Oh no, not Mary!"
"Yes, I’m afraid so." He hesitated a few seconds for her to regain composure before he asked, "I have information that Mary Harding came here before she drove to the airport. She brought a package into your flat and left without it."
There were tears streaming down Jennifer’s face when she said, "yes, Mary told me it contained something very valuable, and she wanted me to keep it until she returned from New York."
"Would you please bring that package to me?" Bradshaw asked.
Jennifer left the room and came back a few minutes later with a cardboard box. Bradshaw took a penknife from his pocket and slit the tape covering the two flaps. Inside he found another box made of wood. It took him a few seconds to determine how to open it by sliding the cover along the grooves on each side. When he did so, it exposed a yellowed parchment with numbers on it, dated…St Andrews, July 8, 1849. he lifted the record scorecard, and underneath was the feathery golf ball with Hugh, 78and the pennyweight 26 inscribed on it. Seeing the long lost feathery there sent a trill cascading through Bradshaw’s body.
Back in his office at the Yard, Bradshaw phoned Riley in New York City. "We’ve just caught a remarkable break in the case, Detective Riley."
"Any arrest?" Riley asked, impatiently.
"None quite yet, but I have solid evidence. Both the feathery and bronze statuette are in my possession.
"Wow, that is good news! How did it all happen so fast?" Riley asked.
"By chance, I stumbled on the bronze statuette while interviewing Mary Harding’s friend Jennifer Lawton. It’s a sad circumstance. Evidently, Mary was so desperate to win over Jennifer’s affection she took the risk of giving her the bronze as a birthday gift."
"That was a risky move on Harding’s part, but I guess love is an emotion that rises above caution. Where do we go from here?"
"Mary Harding will be landing at Kennedy Airport in three hours. Could you pick her up there? She may lead you to the one who murdered
your friend, Shattuck."
Riley’s voice on the phone became loud and clear. "I’ll be waiting at Kennedy for Ms. Harding’s arrival."
Bradshaw provided Riley with Harding’s flight information. "I’ll fax you a photo of her taken by one of my men yesterday. Tally-ho the fox, and good hunting."
TURNBERRY
Scott’s practice round on Wednesday with Bob Bray went well. It was a happy reunion for both players and caddies. Bob’s winning ways since Q-School ranked him in the top twenty-five money winners on tour, and his recent perk was a share in a Gulfstream V. Bray and two other players, who owned part of the leased aircraft, flew
the Atlantic with their caddies, landing at Prestwick. Claudio Spencer was still Bob’s caddie, and he apologized again to Scott about connecting him through his Uncle Anthony to Carrabba.
After the round, Scott and Matt spent two hours on the range and putting green. Scott hit a poor shot out of a bunker on the course, so he hit fifty similar ones from the practice sand until he was satisfied with the results. They were the next-to-last players to leave the range. Tiger Woods was hitting two-iron shots over a target 250 yards away while his caddie, Steve Williams, and swing coach, Hank Haney, lurked nearby.
"Tiger’s going to keep his driver in the bag, and hit long irons off the tee, Scott. Good course management here."
"Okay, Matt. I know…I know. It’ll be a irons for tee shots on some holes for me."
Matt left to join Claudio and the other caddies at the Kilt and Jeans, and Scott met Bob Bray in the dining room at the Turnberry Hotel. Scott noticed Randal Lyle there sitting alone, and he asked the security head to join them. They began a lively discussion about gambling on British Open golf.
"The R and A and the USGA do not condone wagering by players, but they haven’t placed any controls on it during the Open," Randal said. "Of course, a player betting against himself would be subject to an investigation."
"The odds are tempting, Randal. Scott thought of the bet Matt had placed on him at 200 to 1 in London but didn’t mention it.
"Yes they are. Wagering on golf in Scotland and throughout the UK is a legal activity." Randal added. "Millions of pounds are bet on the Open each year."
"Have there ever been any problems due to the betting?" Scott asked.
"Some minor ones, like someone in the gallery cheering when a rival to the player he has a wager on misses a putt. We take care of that quickly by ejecting the buffoon from the premises."
Bray was reading a Fleet Street tabloid and started going down the list of betting odds on players at the Open. "I’m eighteen to one…not bad." Bray continued until he came to the last name on the list. It was Scott Beckman at two hundred to one. He said, "wow, I’d take a piece of that if it was legal."
Scott glanced at his watch, and stood up from the table. "I’ve got to go. I’m meeting a friend at Prestwick Airport."
"Is it a woman friend or guy friend?" Bray asked.
"A lady I met in Monterey."
"Best kind, a California girl. I married one." .
Scott didn’t bother telling Bray that Beth was from New York, but he shook his hand and wished him good luck tomorrow…the first day of British Open play.
The ramp at Prestwick Airport was crowded. Airplanes belonging to golf’s finest, past and present, were parked there. They had markings symbolic of their famous owners. Scott saw a plane with a golden bear on its nose, and two others, one with a ferocious looking tiger, and the other with a great white shark on its nose.
A set of landing lights in the distance indicated that Beth’s flight was on the final approach. The sleek jet touched down gently and decelerated to make a smooth turn onto the taxiway. A man holding a strobe light in each hand guided it into a space on the ramp. The silver Boeing 737 braked to a stop, and the engines suddenly stopped screaming.
Beth Sweeney was one of the first to exit the plane. She was wearing a brown leather jacket and designer jeans. A New York Yankee baseball cap was doing its very best to control her mass of curly jet-black hair. Scott noticed the hair had grown back to the same length it had been in Monterey when he’d first toweled it dry.
When she reached him, he gathered her into his arms. Once again, after much too long those expressive eyes looked up at him when she asked, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
"Should be, Beth, I’ve been practicing all week."
During the drive to Turnberry, Beth briefed him on the auction results at Covington Gallery and her meeting with Sarah Covington.
"Did I make enough at the auction to pay your legal fees?" Scott asked.
"More than enough." She reached in her briefcase and showed him a check for 91,000 pounds sterling. "That’s about $160,000 at the current exchange rate."
"Great! How about the penalty for pulling the feathery out of the auction?"
"That’s the best of it. Sarah settled for $20,000 instead of the $200,000. She just wanted enough to cover her expenses in promoting the feathery. You don’t have to pay her the 20K until after the Open."
"Then it’s a different Sarah than I knew from our meeting in London."
"Really?" Beth looked surprised. "Sarah was very nice to me. Took me to dinner in the Soho…showed me around London. Even drove me
to the airport." A thought came into Scott’s mind…a vision of the empty slot for the McNair feathery in that display he’d seen in Sarah’s golf antique
collection. "That’s some turnaround. She charmed you."
"And that’s not all. Sarah offered her cottage to us. It’s on the sea in Portpatrick, at the tip of Scotland." Beth’s smile was coquettish when she
added, "I accepted on your behalf."
One of Scott’s eyebrows lifted. "That might be a good place to wind down after the Open." He glanced over at her. "Can you get a few days
off?"
She answered quickly, "I’m pretty sure I can."
"Let’s plan on going there." Sarah’s change in attitude was puzzling him. "Did Sarah mention anything about wanting to buy the McNair feathery?"
"Yes, she said to tell you she’s holding firm on her offer for the feathery."
"It’s not for sale if it’s ever recovered."
It was late when they finished dinner in the Turnberry Hotel dining room. Scott walked Beth to her room. They parted after a long kiss, both wanting more. But
Beth declared the lateness of the hour and Scott’s need for rest before starting the first day of the British Open the next morning.
Shortly after Scott entered his room, the phone rang. It was Chief Inspector Bradshaw.
"Hope I didn’t catch you too late. First off, I’d like to wish you all the best in the Open tomorrow."
"Thanks. I’m looking forward to playing. I feel fortunate to be here, and I think I’m ready. How’s the case going?"
"Very well. We’ve located the persons who had your feathery and bronze statuette in their possession."
Scott sighed with relief. "Where are they? Where did you find them?"
"I’ve confiscated the items and logged them in as evidence. I located both the statue and the feathery during an interview with a…" he paused for the correct term to describe Mary Harding’s relationship with Jennifer Lawton, and settled on…"friend of the suspect."
"Friend?" Scott asks.
"Yes, a very lovely lady who’s a professional golfer. In fact, Matt Kemp, your own caddie had a relationship with her when he caddied on the European women’s tour for none other than Sarah Covington."
Scott thought, That must be part of the long story Matt mentioned in Santa Barbara. He’ll finish telling me about it when he’s ready. "What’s next Chief Inspector?
"We need to know who’s responsible for the shootings in New York and Heathrow. And we’re working hard on that as we speak."
"Wow, you’ve got the feathery. How soon will this all be over?"
"Very soon. Possibly before you finish play, we may have the suspects, as you Americans call them, in custody." The chief inspector chuckled out loud. "Just concentrate on your game, Scott, and I’ll update you later."
When Scott put down the phone, his mind switched from the recovered antiques to the way he would play the first, second and third holes of Turnberry’s Ailsa course. Sleep came to him when his mind reached a vision of the third fairway.
NEW YORK CITY
Detective Riley arrived at Kennedy just as British Airways Flight 1104 landed. He double-checked the photo of Mary Harding and then showed it to the immigration agents who’d clear the flight. Riley’s eyes were glued on the passengers as they streamed through the customs checkpoint.
He wa
s getting anxious after fifty passengers or so showed their passports and moved on toward customs. Finally, there she was among the stragglers. She wore a masculine-cut tweed suit, and her brown hair was pulled straight back in a bun just as it was in the photograph. When Mary reached the agent and started to present her passport, Riley stepped forward.
"Are you Mary Harding?" Riley asked.
The sight of his NYPD detective’s badge bewildered her. "Why yes,
I’m she…What’s the meaning of this?"
"You’re under arrest for an alleged complicity dealing with armed robbery and murder. Anything you say now may be held against you in a court of law."
Next came the handcuffs, and a matron from the department walked up to escort Mary to an unmarked car waiting curbside outside the terminal. Riley joined Harding in the backseat, and the policewoman got in beside the driver. Harding was visibly shaken. Riley thought the ‘good cop’ approach might work best.