Our opponents weren’t giving up. Both of them hit good shots. The dentist knocked a three-wood all the way to the back of the green, and his partner fetched up hole high, but on the left edge. Neither could be called a legitimate birdie attempt, but either one should be able to get down in two for par. And there was always the chance of a lucky putt falling in from long distance. Fortune can be both merry and spiteful when she wants.
On the green, the three of us marked and waited for Jackie to come out of the bunker. He entered looking glum, remembering his disastrous swing on the last hole. He stood in the bunker for a moment, swishing his sand wedge back and forth and looking at his shot.
“How close do you want it, pards?” he called to me.
“Anyplace in bounds would be nice,” I replied.
Give him credit, he had his skull swing grooved. Once again, his fierce downward blow caught all ball and with a terrifying click the ball shot out of the bunker and rocketed across the green at about knee height. I felt myself flinch when I heard the thin connection and registered the blur of the white missile. My brain had but a split second to realize that his ball was heading, once again at warp speed, for the deepest of the woods.
But somehow, some way, on its path to oblivion, Jack’s ball ran smack into the center of the yellow flagstick sticking out of the hole. There are probably about 76 things that could have happened once the relentless speed of the ball came into contact with the immovable force of the metal stick. The ball could have ricocheted off in almost any direction. Instead, the ball hit the flagstick with a resounding clang absolutely dead center, about halfway up, and dropped like the dead straight down and into the hole. Slam dunk. The white Shuttlecock Club flag atop its pole fluttered a few times as the pin swung back and forth as if waving in surrender. And then all was still.
Fortune, wherever the hell she lives, must have been watching all this and peeing herself with laughter. The rest of us were struck dumb in amazement. It was such an improbable result from such a bad shot that there was nothing one could say. It was pure, dumb, animal, golf luck. I shook my head, more to clear away that vision that was echoing through my mind, and to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. I looked over at my partner. He was standing in the bunker, in that classic finish pose again, and this time, he was grinning from ear to ear.
“I meant to do that,” he said innocently.
That was it. Game, set and match. The Dude and the dentist were ashen faced, as I would have been in their shoes. They had been hoping to drop one of their long putts, and now one of them had to make it to tie.
“Gentlemen,” I said. “After a shot like that, there is only one honorable thing to do. We concede both of your putts—good, good.” I waved at them to pick them up. “I cannot in good conscience allow our team to win this excellent match with a shot of such pure, unadulterated bullshit as that last one was. Pick ‘em up boys. Match ends all square and let’s go have a drink.”
I shook hands with both of them, who by this time were grinning. Then I walked over to the hole, pulled out Jackie’s ball and hurled it deep into the woods where it belonged. Jackie, after raking the bunker, came onto the green and congratulated our opponents on a fun match. We headed off to our cart.
“Easy game, golf,” he said, putting his sand wedge away.
I just shook my head.
We drove the half-mile or so through the woods, across the main road and over the entrance bridge to the Shuttlecock Club’s island, and finally pulled up beside the clubhouse where all hell had broken loose. There were two Lowell police cars parked haphazardly at the rear entrance to the golf house, and a TV truck from Boston, it’s corkscrew antenna poking through the oak branches looking for a clear sightline to the heavens.
One of the cart kids was standing there. “What the hell’s going on?” Jackie asked the kid.
“McDaggert’s been arrested,” the kid said. “Cops got him handcuffed in his office.”
“Crap,” Jackie said with a straight face. “We’re supposed to tee off in ten minutes.”
The kid looked at Jackie as if he were retarded, until I burst out laughing. Then he grinned, although he kept glancing at Jack to see if he was serious or not.
“I – I think the rest of the tournament’s been cancelled,” he finally said.
“Crap,” said Jack, heaving himself wearily out of the cart. “Let’s go see what kind of cock-up the Lowell PD has committed this time.”
Abandoning our cart, we walked around to the front of the golf house. Jack pushed his way into the crowded grill. But I saw Angela Murphy talking on her cell phone across the parking lot, and veered off towards her. She snapped her phone shut just as I got to her.
“Wassup?” I said, nodding a greeting.
“They got reasonable cause on McDaggert,” she told me. “Found out that he was in hawk to Papageorge. More than $25,000. And Vitus was about to foreclose the guy’s house. That gave him motive, and he was definitely here early that morning. One of the cart kids saw him running out of the cart barn about 30 minutes before you found the guy hanging back there. Tierney thinks its pretty cut and dried.”
“What do you think?” I asked her.
Angela shrugged and looked away. “Dunno,” she said. “Sounds plausible to me. Guys have been killed for less.” She shook her head at some silent thought and then glanced back at me. “What do you think?” she asked. “You knew him.”
“I find it hard to believe,” I said. “Ted McDaggert doesn’t strike me as a violent man. And he’s been in debt to Vitus for years: Papageorge financed his years trying to be a touring professional. I can’t believe that Vitus would call in his note. He’d get more benefit for himself by keeping Teddy in debt: free golf lessons on demand, a cut of the pro shop profits, able to cheat on his handicap.” I shook my head. “Nah, I can’t see Teddy as the perp.”
“Well,” Angela said. “Guess we’ll find out at the trial, huh?”
A cop came out of the rear door to the clubhouse and gave Angela a little signal. We hustled over. So did the cameraman from the TV truck. Another cop came out and opened the back door of the squad car. Then two more beefy cops, each holding the arm of Ted McDaggert, his hands handcuffed behind his back. His face was red and sweaty, his eyes unfocused. The cops stopped briefly in a pool of sunshine.
“Ted, Ted,” yelled the TV guy, his camera rolling tape. “Did you do it Ted?”
McDaggert just stared at the guy for a moment, then turned his head away. Angela had whipped out her handheld tape recorder.
“Any comment, Mr. McDaggert?” she asked, her tone gentle but firm.
He looked at her and saw me standing next to her. He nodded at me in greeting. “I didn’t do it, Hacker,” he said to me. “It wasn’t me.”
The cops decided that was enough interviewing, and hustled Ted into the back of the squad car, shut the door and drove him away. A small crowd of members and their guests had wandered outside from the grill room, and they watched as the police car made its way down the main entrance drive, across the first fairway and over the bridge. No one said anything.
I motioned to Angela and we went inside, making our way through the pro shop and back towards McDaggert’s tiny warren of an office. Lt. Tierney was sitting at Ted’s desk, and Jack was sitting across the desk, making some notes on the back of a pink While You Were Out pad.
“Ah,” Tierney said as we walked in. “The rest of the media horde has arrived. C’mon in. Might as well only say this once.”
Tierney explained that Ted McDaggert was being held on suspicion of first-degree murder. He said the police’s preliminary investigation of the crime had established a motive – Ted’s ongoing debt to Papageorge – and that witnesses had placed Ted at the scene during the time the crime was supposed to have occurred.
“’Suspicion of homicide’ is different from actually charging him with the crime, isn’t it?” Angela asked. “Doesn’t that usually mean you thi
nk he’s the guy, but you’re not quite sure?”
Tierney gave her a hard look across the desk.
“We believe we have the perpetrator,” he said. “The investigation will continue as we still have a few details to clean up.”
“Such as?” I chimed in. No sense letting Angela have all the cop-baiting fun.
“No comment,” he said, frowning. “I’m not going to tell the goddam media all the details of our investigation.”
Jack looked over at me. “That means they had to make an arrest to keep the good citizens of Lowell happy,” he said. “But Teddy was just the easiest move. If they had him dead to rights, they’d be giving us the DNA scans, and a filmed re-enactment of the crime.”
“Probably the mayor told the cops to haul someone’s ass in today,” I mused aloud. “Make it look like they’re making some progress for the next news cycle.”
Lt. Tierney stood up, his face red. “Are you two jokers finished?” he bellowed. “We made a goddam arrest. Now go and put that in your freakin’ newspapers.”
He noticed Angela was scribbling notes furiously in her notebook.
“And that was off the freakin’ record, Murphy,” he said, his face getting redder.
Angela nodded, but kept writing.
Tierney started to push past me in the doorway, but stopped and looked at me with a smirk.
“Say,” he said. “I hear that Rene Lemere wants to have a chat with you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard that too. Have you happened to learn exactly when and where?”
He smiled evilly. “Rene and the Lord work in mysterious ways,” he said. “When he’s ready, you’ll know.”
“I don’t suppose the Lowell PD wants to furnish us with some protection?” I asked hopefully.
Tierney snorted. “What for?” he laughed. “I haven’t heard anything about the threat of bodily harm. Just that he wants a little chat. Nothing illegal about that, compadre. If you piss him off, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”
With a final smirk, he walked out.
Jack and I looked at each other for a moment. Angela broke the silence.
“Why does the local Mob guy want to see you, Hacker?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Get a few tips for his golf game?” I suggested. Jackie laughed. Angie did not.
“Seriously, Hacker,” she said, gnawing on the end of her pencil. “What have you done?”
“Well,” I said, “ I think Jack and I kinda pissed off the club manager.”
Angie raised her eyebrows.
Jack chimed in helpfully. “It was probably threatening him with that gun that did it,” he said.
Angie drew in a sharp breath.
“But I saved him from being shot by Papageorge’s widow,” I said plaintively. “Some people are just impossible to please.”
Angie had buried her face in her hands and was shaking her head back and forth. “Holy Mother of Jesus,” she said. “You guys are a couple of pips, y’know?”
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
Angela looked at her watch. “You could probably make it to the Canadian border in four hours, be in Montreal by 10. Maybe there’s a late flight to Switzerland. I understand they’re neutral. You might be safe there.”
I laughed sarcastically. “We ain’t running from no small-town hood,” I said.
Angie looked at me. “Hacker,” she said. “He may be a small-town hood, but he’s got guns and people who work for him who will use them to shoot you and then go home for dinner with their wives. And he’s also connected to a big-time hood, which is to say Carmine Spoleto. Do not fuck around.”
“Angela’s right,” Jackie said suddenly, standing up. “But so is Hacker. We can’t screw around any longer and we ain’t running.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked Jack.
“I doubt it,” he grinned at me. “But you tell her.”
“What?” Angela asked, exasperated.
“Instead of waiting for Lemere to find us, we go find him,” I said. “Ask him what he wants.”
“Beard the bear in his den,” Jackie said, nodding.
“Just go knock on his door and say ‘Hey, Rene, we were in the neighborhood, thought we should chat?’” Angie said incredulously.
“Exactly,” we said in unison.
“Clear the air,” I said. “Action’s better than inaction. Besides, I gotta get back to town. Frankie’s got a load of crap for me to do tomorrow.”
Angie blew out her breath in frustration, and probably would have smacked her forehead but she was holding a pencil and might have poked her eye out. But she was getting ready for a big long lecture. I could feel it coming.
“That’s probably the dumbest plan I ever heard,” she started.
Jackie cut her off at the pass. “Maybe so,” he said, but it’s the only one we got.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“So,” he said. “It’s decided. Let’s go have a drink.”
“Like the last cigarette before the execution?” I laughed.
“No,” he said, “Like the first drink in about an hour.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Angela was not to be stopped from delivering her ser- mon. We were being irresponsible, it was dangerous walking into a situation for which we were not prepared, we were going to get hurt, would likely end up going on a deep-sea fishing trip in which we would function as the bait, this was not to be taken lightly, whatever were we thinking, were we crazy, was our life insurance paid up, how would she explain my certain demise to my employer at the Boston Journal, not to mention our families … and so forth.
We eventually told her we’d call as soon as we could to assure her of our continued safety and escaped to the men’s locker room upstairs. Jackie ordered a tall vodka on the rocks. I asked for a club soda. Jack looked at me accusingly so I had Roland put a slice of lime in it as well.
“So,” I said when our drinks arrived. “Do we have anything that resembles a plan of action?”
“Hacker,” Jackie said as he took a long pull of his 16 oz. glass of vodka. “We are so far from having a plan it isn’t funny. All we know is what we know. So we go see what Rene wants from us, we ask him to answer our questions and then maybe we all go out for a beer and a shot.”
“Or skip the beer part and just get shot,” I said.
“Whatever,” Jackie said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say.”
“Never heard you say that before, pards,” I told him.
“Whatever,” he said again, and drained his drink. But my accounting, that was 8 oz. per swallow. I cannonballed my club soda, choked a little, and slammed the glass down.
“Just do it,” I said.
Outside, dusk was beginning to creep out from beneath the hedges and trees, softening the edges of everything and turning the world gray. But even from 50 feet away, as we walked towards Jack’s car, we could see the blond woman leaning against the rear bumper. She wore black Capri pants, a red pattern sweater and had a suitcase-sized woven bag hanging over her shoulder.
“Hiya, fellas,” said Leta Papageorge as we approached. “Goin’ my way?”
“Dunno,” Jack said, not breaking stride. “Which way are you going?”
“Well,” she said, “I was hoping you’d take me down to police headquarters so I can bail poor Teddy out. I don’t think he was the one who killed Vitus.”
Jack and I looked at each other silently.
“I brought lots of cash,” she said, “See?” She opened her bag. There were blocks of wrapped bills inside. Lots of them.
“Might take more than cash to get him out,” I said.
“Might have to give them the killer. Until then, they think Ted’s the one and I don’t think he’s gonna get bail.” “Oh,” she said, and her face fell for a moment. Then she brightened. “Then I guess I’ll go wherever you guys are going.”<
br />
“Don’t you have a funeral to plan or something?” Jackie asked, unkindly.
“Up yours, Connolly,” she said. “Vitus’ family is handling all of that, and frankly, we’re both glad that I have nothing to do with it. It’s scheduled for Wednesday and I’m still trying to decide if I’m going.”
“I know the name of a good grief counselor if you want,” Jack said. “Help you to buck up and all that.”
He unlocked the car and Leta popped the back door and jumped in. Jack and I looked at each other and shrugged and got in.
“Are you armed and dangerous?” I asked as Jack wheeled us out of the parking lot and down the long, curving entrance road.
“Of course,” Leta said cheerfully from the back seat. “You think I’d go out with all this cash and no means of protection?”
“Well,” I said, “You got us, now, and where we’re going, I’m afraid having a gun might not prove to be the best idea.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, excitedly.
“To see Rene Lemere,” Jack said.
Leta Papageorge blew out her breath. “Holy crap,” she said.
I turned around in my seat and looked at her. “You know him?” I asked.
“Ahhh…know of him,” she answered, her eyes not meeting mine, but looking out the window at the passing scenery. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll keep my pistol.”
I shrugged. “Your funeral,” I said. Jackie laughed.
Jackie was driving down the river towards Lowell. We passed an ice cream store, the old waterworks, and a new pavilion alongside the water whose sign read: “Lowell Sailing Center.”
“Hey,” Leta said. “Did you guys know that Vitus had a son?”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah. Surprise to me, too. My beloved husband never mentioned him to me. Turns out he was married twice before, the first time for about six minutes apparently. One of Vitus’ aunts took great pleasure in telling me. Apparently she told the son, too, ‘cause he’s flying in for the festivities.”
“Where’s he live?” Jack asked.
“Jesus,” Leta said. “Someplace in Hicksville. Ottumwa, Iowa or some damn place. Auntie Kay said that Vitus never liked the kid and he tried to get as far away from his father as possible. Which I guess is Ottumwa.”
Death at the Member Guest Page 20