We retrieved my clubs from the trunk of the car and walked over to the practice range.
"I can't believe it," I said. "How the hell did that happen?"
"You're not the only one who can't believe it," whispered Laura. "Take a look at that."
At the far end of the range, Walter Moore had taken Kaitlin by the shoulders. He shook her with a barely controlled fury. "How could you do this? How could you pull a stunt like this? You and me—we are finished. Washed up, sweetheart."
Kaitlin unfastened his hands from her arms and stepped back out of his reach. "First of all," she said in an ice cold voice, "I didn't do anything. I had nothing to do with putting that stinking club in that bitch's bag. Second"— she brushed off her shirt where his hands had gripped her shoulders. "Second, you big, dumb oaf. We certainly are finished because we never were started. I can't believe you were stupid enough to think for one minute that I was interested in anything but your equipment. No, let me rephrase that to make it quite clear—not your equipment, your golf clubs. Now get away from me before I call security." She gave him the same quick shove she'd given her mother that first morning back in South Carolina. Only Walter, significantly larger and more solid than Kaitlin's mother, did not lose his balance.
I had never seen anyone look as angry as Walter Moore. The twitches that I'd noticed during our two breakfasts now resulted in bulging eyes and fierce jerking movements in his lips and cheeks.
"His birdie is cooked," I said to Laura. "He's lost two endorsement deals—So Won's out of the tournament, and Kaitlin's a nightmare. Plus, you know he's got to be in hot water over the discovery of the illegal club. He nearly had heart failure when I asked him about it. He wasn't supposed to have shown it to anyone yet. He was just grandstanding for Kaitlin's benefit."
"Do you think she really put it in So Won's bag?" said Laura. "Why would it mean that much to her to be in first place, halfway through the tournament? I could understand it a little better if all the rounds were over."
"I don't understand the girl, myself," I said. "Maybe she didn't believe she could ever beat So Won fair and square." I felt the vibration of my cell phone in my back pocket, where I'd placed it after we finished the morning's play.
"Cassie, it's Joe—"
"Doc! You won't believe what's happening here. First of all, I'm in for tomorrow!" I accepted his excited congratulations, then explained about So Won Lee's disqualification. "I feel bad about how it happened," I said. "I only made the cut because someone else screwed up, or she got screwed, whatever the case may be."
"You did what you had to, that's all that matters," said Joe. "Listen, could you use another hand there?"
"Are you finally coming over? Even after what a grump I was last night? That's fantastic."
"Mike gave me the boot," said Joe. "Told me he couldn't take having me look over his shoulder for one more minute. That's just fine, I said. Cassie could use me at Q-school. I knew you'd make the cut. I just knew it."
"Joe's coming," I told Laura.
"I have one problem," said Joe. "I had a little accident and I'm in the hospital at Ocala."
"Oh, my God, are you all right? I'll come right up."
"I was hoping Laura could come and pick me up. I'm fine, but my arm's in a sling and the doctor won't let me drive. But you need to stay where you are, young lady. Let me speak to Laura." Laura took the phone and scribbled down directions for the hospital.
"I hate to leave you alone another evening," she said after she'd hung up.
"I did fine alone last night," I said. The embarrassing memory of Max Harding's visit flashed through my mind. This time, I'd stay in the motel room. Completely alone.
"He figures it'll take me three hours to get up there. Four tops, if I hit traffic," said Laura. "I'll be back snoring in the other bed by midnight."
"I'll be fine," I said. "Go. Take the car. I can catch a ride over to the motel. I'll work a couple hours here, eat a good dinner, and turn in early. We don't tee off tomorrow until later in the morning anyway."
I worked at the practice range until dusk, mostly sticking to the plan Laura and I had agreed on. No last-minute grip shifts, no new swing thoughts, just a couple hours of smooth tempo and visualization of success on the course. Ha. Okay, so there were a few negative thoughts regarding the fact that every iron I had hit today leaked right. And how the hell could I have skulled two chips when I hadn't produced a line-drive trajectory that plug-ugly since the eighth grade? Not to mention the small matter of one-third of my attempts on the short grass resulting in three-putts. I tried to push away the doubts that whispered I didn't belong in the contest tomorrow. I'd show myself and everyone else that my place here had been earned and was deserved.
One of the volunteers flagged me down on the putting green. I wasn't in the mood to talk. A pounding headache and my fragile grip on an optimistic outlook for round three took the urge for chit-chat with a stranger right out of me.
"Cassie," she said. "Aren't you Cassie Burdette? Did you hear that Kaitlin missed her interview this evening?" She had the breathless voice of someone who couldn't wait to tell you their news, because the more people she told and the more personal details she had to tell, the more important she felt. "They looked for her everywhere. Do you have any idea what happened to her?"
"I have no clue," I said. "We're not friends."
The volunteer scurried off, I assumed in search of someone who'd turn out to be a more sympathetic listener and less of a grump. I ambled over in the direction of the clubhouse to look for a ride home to the Starlight. The headache I'd woken up with this morning still pulsed uncomfortably. I couldn't wait to get back to my motel room, take a couple of Advil, and sink into the oblivion of sleep.
On the short walk back to the clubhouse, Kaitlin's missed interview began to nag at me like a paper cut on my trigger finger. I couldn't get away from it. No one missed an interview in the professional golf world unless they'd pitched a major temper tantrum. Sponsors took note of that sort of acting out and adjusted their deals downward accordingly. Fans and tournament officials knew every detail about which golfers were a pain in the butt. It added pressure to a career path that was already difficult enough.
I knew Kaitlin was aware of this. And I knew that someone as fiercely competitive and frantic for attention as she would not miss her interview for anything less than a serious emergency. Maybe she'd developed food poisoning so immobilizing she couldn't even pick up the phone to call over and alert the tournament officials.
Or maybe she got called home this afternoon for a death in the family. Nah. She'd finish the tournament, then go home, figuring the dead person wouldn't care whether she showed up that night or a couple days later.
I scolded myself for being catty and decided I'd stop by her condo to atone for my uncharitable thoughts. In the process of being a Good Samaritan, I might get lucky and catch a ride home from her more agreeable brother. I could use a little cheering up.
Chapter 18
As dusk fell, I walked to Kaitlin's condo by way of the Bobcat's eighteenth fairway. Earlier today, I'd assumed I would never see this hole again. Now I had two more shots at it. I cut through a hedge and found the Ruperts' entranceway. Inside the vestibule, the door to their apartment was just cracked open. My knock echoed in the tiled hallway.
"Kaitlin," I called. "Hello. Gary. It's Cassie. Kaitlin! Anybody home?"
No answer. I knocked and called three more times.
The Ruperts' neighbor stuck his head out from his door. "Time to take a hike, girlie. Either they aren't home or they don't want company. Whichever it is, scram." He slammed his door shut.
Now, a dilemma. The last time I stepped uninvited through someone's open doorway, I'd discovered a dying, soon to be dead, man. One of those in a lifetime was enough. On the other hand, if either of the Ruperts was in trouble and I hadn't checked on them, I knew I'd feel responsible. And finally, I had to admit that a small part of me welcomed the chance to snoop.
&
nbsp; I opened the screen door and walked in. The condo was similar to the one where I'd attended Bible study, with a combination living area/kitchen, decorated with rattan furniture, pastel colors, and tropical prints. I nudged each of the bedroom doors open and peered in. Gary's room was spotless; the only personal item in evidence a copy of Into Thin Air, which lay open on the bedside table. Kaitlin's bedcovers slopped onto the floor, blending with a pile of what I assumed was dirty laundry. I stepped over the pile and opened the door to her closet. No funny business there either. I decided to use the bathroom before heading home.
I pushed on the partly open door. It was jammed in place. I pushed harder, wedging my shoulders and head through the opening until I could look into the bathroom. There was nothing remarkable other than a cosmetic salesperson's dream supply of beauty products and a pile of dirty towels and clothing so substantial it blocked access to the facilities.
One of the many reasons I was thankful not to be Kaitlin's roommate. I turned to leave, feeling I'd done my duty. Maybe they'd simply forgotten to lock the door on the way to their dinner. In any case, it was really none of my business. Then I noticed a note left on the kitchen counter.
"Gone to pick up Mother and Pop at the airport. I'll drop them off at their hotel and be back after ten. Hope you had a good dinner and made things nicey-nice with Walter." Signed with a G and a smiley face.
The only mystery remaining was which Rupert had forgotten to close and lock the condo door. My money was on Kaitlin. I did also have to wonder how she'd feel about her parents arriving at Q-school, given the bad blood between them. And how she could possibly manage to make things "nicey-nice" with Walter Moore, given the lather he'd worked himself into this afternoon.
I walked back to the clubhouse to look for a ride home. The only light shone from a room near the dining hall, which had been turned into a temporary first aid station for the Q-school contestants.
"Can I help you?" asked the young man seated at the desk just inside the room. He smiled and gestured to the book he'd been reading. "Anatomy," he told me without my asking. "I'm starting medical school in the fall and I want to have a head start before I get there. They say it's brutal the first year."
"Sorry to bother you, then," I said. "I was hoping to catch a ride back to my motel."
The student ran his fingers through his blond brush cut. "As far as I know, everyone's gone home for the day. It was a happenin' scene here, I suppose you heard. Everyone was bushed. Would you like me to call you a taxi?"
I nodded. This guy might not know anything about medicine yet, but at least he had the makings of a good bedside manner. I hoped his years in med school wouldn't wipe that out. He dialed and spoke to the dispatcher at Triple-A Taxi.
"All the cabs are out at the moment, but they'll send someone over ASAP. It might be half an hour," he told me after he'd hung up.
"Damn," I said. Then belatedly, "Thanks." I felt too antsy to just sit and wait. "I guess I'll go over to the range and pace off some distances. The accuracy of my irons wasn't all that great today." Not that he cared about my golf game. "Could you send the taxi over if they show up before I get back?" The student nodded and returned to his anatomy text.
I walked across the road and past the Panther putting green and pitching area to the driving range. I paced across the field, visualizing precisely where I should be hitting each of my clubs. Joe would be proud. Fifty yards, one hundred, one fifty, two hundred, two fifty, three hundred, the markers read. Fairways and greens were my goal for tomorrow's round. And, getting all those putts to the neighborhood of the hole. Nothing was more demoralizing than a birdie putt left short.
Just ahead, I saw the pit that had been dug to repair the Panther's irrigation system. I suspected that pit, with its ensuing speedy putts, would be featured in a lot of nightmares in the year to come. I wondered why it had taken so long to get the replacement part. The course could lose its greens altogether if the new widget didn't arrive soon. I wondered if Julie's ball from this morning's round still lay in the pit. Two shots out of bounds on one hole— there was some really lousy luck. I leaned over and looked into the excavation.
"Shit!" I yelled. The pale form lying in the hole was definitely not a golf ball. I punched 911 on my cell phone. "There's a woman in the pit on the driving range. I think she's badly hurt. We need help right away."
The operator inquired about the location of the incident and then took my name. "Stay where you are," she said. "We'll send someone by."
I pressed end and glanced back in the direction of the pit. Hell if I was going to wait here alone. I sprinted over to the first aid office where I'd seen the student working.
"Help!" I said, struggling to catch my breath. "There's a body in the pit over on the range!" He looked doubtful. I tried to appeal to his status as Future Doctor of America. "Please hurry. We might have the chance to save her life."
He closed his book slowly, marking his place with a brochure for Busch Gardens. I grabbed his hand and dragged him to the driving range.
The medical student and I approached the pit. He held out a small penlight attached to his key ring. I flashed it over the bottom of the hole. A woman's body lay crumpled in one corner. In spite of the dim light, I was quite sure it was Kaitlin Rupert. I directed myself to observe the scene clinically, as Sheriff Pate, or even Joe Lancaster, would have done. I would not give into either the wave of nausea that flooded me or the powerful urge to scream and run.
A skimpy white lace brassiere and underpants had been stripped from Kaitlin's body and lay tangled on the loose dirt beside her. Along with her white-gold hair, they were saturated with blood. A golf club appeared to be embedded in the side of her head. The medical student nudged me aside and peered into the pit. There was a moment of stunned silence.
"I haven't finished reading the chapter on the brain," said the student. "But I'd say it's a nine-iron to the parietal lobe."
"It's not a nine-iron," I said. My voice came out tight and shrill. "It's a driver. It looks a lot like the Fairway Bruiser. Titanium shaft and illegally inflated coefficient of restitution, creating a springlike effect in the club face. Or on someone's brain. Outlawed according to Appendix II, 5a, the USGA Rules of Golf." And Kaitlin said I didn't know the rules.
"Are you feeling all right?" the student asked. He grabbed my forearm, guided me back from the edge of the excavation, and began to grope for my pulse. "Put your head between your knees if you feel faint. It's not uncommon for the layperson to feel woozy when they encounter the scene of an accident."
"This was no accident," I said.
The student keeled over and did a face plant into the grass.
From the rear seat of a Sarasota Sheriff's Department cruiser, I watched officials drape yellow crime scene tape around the end of the driving range containing the pit and Kaitlin's body. By the light of the flashing strobes on the police cars, I saw the medical student in the back of a second cruiser. Even from a distance, and even granting that intermittent blue lights would not do favors for anyone's complexion, his skin appeared sweaty and pale. I could not picture him handling a bloody ER assignment with the requisite gruff detachment.
"Kindly step out of the vehicle." The curt voice of one of the officers startled me out of my reverie about the medical student's future. I faced three more policemen when I emerged from the car. "Why were you out here?"
"It sounds weird," I said. "It was just a feeling I had, that somehow Kaitlin was in trouble. I can't really explain it all logically." It sounded more than weird. Even to my own ears, my explanation sounded weak, suspicious, and completely unconvincing. I forged ahead anyway, describing hearing about the missed interview, going to the Ruperts' condo, and then pacing off distances at the practice range while I waited for a cab. Finally, I described how I'd spotted the body and returned to the club to enlist the aid of the medical student.
Just then, Sheriff Pate swaggered up. Ignoring my wave, he drew the other officers several yards away from me
.
"Pate says this is the second body you've stumbled on in two weeks," said the man who had been interviewing me, when he returned from the conference with Pate. "Interesting coincidence."
"Interesting is not how I'd describe it," I said. "Grisly, terrifying ..." The wall that had risen inside and blocked my feelings about discovering Kaitlin suddenly gave way. I sank to a squat beside the cruiser and began to cry.
"Get back in the vehicle," said Pate. "We're going to take a ride to the station."
At the sheriff's department, my interrogation did not wind down until after ten o'clock. I reviewed my movements during the entire evening for two different officers. Their questions took two unpleasant turns. First, the following irrefutable fact was established: I had found not one, but two, dead bodies in the short span of two weeks. No one knew this more vividly than I did.
Second, I had benefited from So Won Lee's elimination out of the golf tournament. Because of the illegal golf club found in her bag, I had squeaked into the second half of the tournament. Making me a logical perpetrator for the misplaced club. And now that same golf club had turned up as an apparent murder weapon. Were these events connected? I had no clue. I had no reasonable explanation for either of them. I reported in detail my conversations over the last week and a half with Walter Moore and Kaitlin herself, hoping they might shift suspicion from me to someone else. At this point, anyone would do.
"Sheriff Pate," I began.
"Sheriff Pate?" hooted one of the other officers. "In his dreams, he's Sheriff Pate. Low-down-on-the-totem-pole Deputy Pate, to you." Pate squirmed with discomfort as several of the deputies taunted him.
Why the hell had he lied to me about his title?
"We are not intending to arrest you tonight, Miss Bur-dette," said the only deputy who had not participated in razzing Pate. "But you may not leave this county until we inform you that you may go. Is that clear enough?"
Six Strokes Under Page 14