Amen Corner

by Rick Shefchik

  “What a piece of work,” Daly said, shaking his head. “She almost gives us cheap-shot artists a bad name.”

  “What do you think of the turnout?” Sam asked.

  “I’m stunned,” Daly said. “There’s a few hundred more misguided souls here than I thought there’d be. I guess a murder is good for ratings in the protest business, too.”

  A sustained chant of “What do we want? Membership!! When do we want it? Now!!” died away, and then Rachel Drucker revved up again

  “Sisters and brothers, did you read the New York Times today?” she shouted. Some applauded and yelled their approval. “Their wonderful columnist, Deborah Scanlon, wrote a brilliant piece in today’s paper that told it like it is. My good friend Deborah is with us today, and I’d like her permission to quote from her column.”

  As the crowd cheered, Scanlon’s blonde head nodded consent near the podium. Drucker put on a pair of glasses and began to read:

  “‘…anyone who speaks out against the virulent sexism of Augusta National will pay dearly for the indiscretion…The world is finally closing in on these throwbacks to the antebellum South days; the noose—if you will forgive the use of that term in this context—is tightening around the club…There is still time for this club to redeem itself. If, as so many suspect, the killer can be found in the club’s directory, David Porter must do all he can to help bring him to justice. Then, the next step is clear: Begin to remove this stain by admitting not just one woman, but many. And not next week, or next year. Now!’”

  The crowed roared.

  A few minutes later, Drucker left the podium and the crowd began to disperse. Sam took another look at the perimeter of the field. If someone had wanted to take a shot at Drucker, they’d had their chance.

  Chapter Twelve

  Deborah Scanlon returned to the Augusta National media center after the WOFF rally, gratified to have heard her own words echoing from the loudspeakers. She watched the coverage at her work station, and was pleased to see that every newscast was devoting several minutes to the protest. What the WOFF lacked in numbers, it was making up for in air time. Scanlon was also pleased to see that her own face was included in most of the reports, as a cut-in when Rachel Drucker was quoting from her column. Maybe there’s a book deal in this, she thought as she flipped through the channels.

  The Times golf beat writer was still working on his feature for the next morning, so Scanlon made the walk from the media center to the clubhouse dining room by herself. The grounds were nearly deserted, as the guards escorted the last spectators through the gates to their cars and shuttle buses in the gathering dusk.

  There was something so staged, so cloyingly precious about Augusta National, Scanlon thought as she approached the clubhouse. It was Southern Gothic meets Disney World. Every charming touch that Clifford Roberts and his successors had taken such pains to implement and preserve had a faint aura of artificiality, as though the entire 365 acres was a theme park devoted to a reality that no longer existed anywhere but here. She half expected to see Rhett Butler lighting a cheroot on the porch overlooking the course, or little Bonnie Blue riding around the Founders Circle on her pony.

  It was silly, really. Augusta National had been a perfectly good fruit nursery; now it was a nice golf course. It was just a piece of land, after all. Why grown men elevated this place all out of proportion to its importance was a mystery to Scanlon. Then again, as she walked through the main entrance and took in the aromas emanating from the dining room, she was reminded that covering the Masters was the best assignment of the year. Big-name golfers, wonderful weather, heavenly food, and an opportunity to crusade for social justice—what more could a columnist want?

  *

  Sam attended the annual Amateur Dinner with Compton and Wheeling in the clubhouse library that night. They were joined by more than a dozen members, many of the pros who had played in the Masters as amateurs, and David Porter, who made a fourth at the table with Sam and the other two amateurs. Jack Nicklaus spoke informally after dinner, telling stories about his first trip to Augusta National and his memories of conversations with Bobby Jones.

  “Someday, I’d like to be talking to the amateurs at this dinner about meeting Jack Nicklaus,” Wheeling said.

  “Someday, a guy will be talking to the amateurs about meeting me,” Compton said. Sam and Wheeling looked at each other and laughed.

  “I knew you were a legend the first time I laid eyes on you,” Sam said to Compton, who took it as a compliment.

  Porter asked Sam to stay for a moment after the dinner ended. Sam hadn’t been able to see through Porter’s polished veneer at dinner. He was used to making fast first impressions; it was necessary in police work when you often didn’t get a second chance to be right about someone. But in this case, his judgment was influenced by all he’d heard and read about the strict leadership at Augusta National. He sensed an iron resolve behind Porter’s slick manner, but that was probably a prerequisite to run this club.

  “So you’re in law enforcement, Sam,” the chairman said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I have the highest regard for people willing to put their lives on the line for the public good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I understand you told the reporters today you might not return to the Minneapolis police force after the Masters?”

  Sam was surprised Porter had time to monitor his press conference, with everything else going on at the National this week. He was a keen, well-informed man. Sam vowed not to underestimate him.

  “I’m going to make a decision after the tournament,” Sam said.

  “What else would you do?”

  “Private investigation, I suppose,” Sam says. “I’m not qualified for my dream job.”

  “What would that be?”

  “A man of leisure.”

  Porter laughed. Sam had noticed during Nicklaus’ talk that the chairman enjoyed a witty remark, a side of himself that Porter wasn’t inclined to let the public see.

  “We hire investigators from time to time,” Porter said. “Let me know what you decide. I may call on you some day.”

  Porter’s offer seemed genuine—he had a reassuring demeanor that was undoubtedly a big reason why his corporation had chosen him to be its frontman—but why would he want to hire Sam? There had to be plenty of private detectives in Georgia.

  “I trust a man who takes the time to become an accomplished golfer as much as I do an officer of the law,” Porter said, as though reading Sam’s mind. “It’s a rare combination—an appealing one. To be honest, I find many of the competitors here a little narrow in their range of interests and accomplishments.”

  They shook hands and Porter excused himself.

  Sam wondered if Caroline Rockingham might have returned to the clubhouse for a drink in the bar. He walked downstairs to the Trophy room, but didn’t see Caroline there—but he did see Deborah Scanlon, making good on her promise to enjoy the club’s lamb. She was dining with a striking auburn-haired woman who Sam vaguely recognized from one of the evening news broadcasts, and a well-coiffed man who had to be a television executive. Scanlon certainly wasn’t the most engaging personality Sam had ever met, but there was no denying the influence of her newspaper. With the exposure the membership issue was getting this week, Scanlon was on the verge of becoming a celebrity—and she looked the part.

  Sam sat down at the bar and asked for a list of their single-malt scotches. He ordered a Glenmorangie, still hoping Caroline might show up. Eventually Scanlon got up and left the dining room by herself. Still wearing the form-fitting black pants and spiked heels, Scanlon caught the eye of several old Augusta National green jackets—some approvingly, others not amused.

  “She’s got a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here, after what she wrote today,” one member grumbled to another, loud
ly enough that Scanlon could have heard it as she walked out. If she did, she gave no sign.

  Sam had a second scotch, but Caroline still did not drop by. When he went up to the Crow’s Nest, Compton was on his cell phone, calling a string of incredulous buddies back in Oklahoma to tell them how great Augusta National was, how great the Crow’s Nest was, how great the weather was, and how great he was. Wheeling called his wife and his father, then began fiddling with his putter, which he’d brought with him to the Crow’s Nest. He cleaned nonexistent specks of material from the insert face of the putter, then practiced his putting stroke on the rug.

  “Do you think I’m bringing the blade too far to the inside on the takeaway?” he asked Sam, who was lying on his bed reading an autographed copy of Bobby Jones’ Down the Fairway that he’d pulled from the bookshelf.

  “Let me look,” Sam said, sitting up on the bed and pretending to study Wheeling’s stroke. “Nope. Looks fine to me.”

  Sam went back to reading. He had no intention of offering any real advice, which could just mess up Wheeling’s game. The guy was just looking for reassurance, so he told him what he wanted to hear. Eventually Wheeling tired of fussing with his putting mechanics, called his wife one more time and then went to bed. Compton ran out of people to call and turned in, too. By 10:30, the lights were out in the Crow’s Nest.

  *

  Deborah Scanlon left the clubhouse and headed to the parking lot behind the media building. The sky was black and starless; unlike the venues for most major sporting events, the clubhouse area at Augusta National did not have towering light poles to bathe the vicinity in artificial daylight.

  “Miss Scanlon?” she heard a man’s voice say as she walked across the driveway in front of the pro shop. The man seemed to have emerged from the shadows by a hedge that abutted a pair of 10-foot tea olive trees.

  “Yes?” she said, stopping to look at him. He was a tall man wearing a dark jacket, tie, and ball cap.

  “Mr. Porter would like to talk to you,” the man said.

  Scanlon was surprised and excited to know that she’d somehow earned a private audience with the man who ruled Augusta National. She’d penetrated his wall of indifference.

  “He’s at the Stephens Cabin,” the man said. “I can escort you.”

  “Thank you,” Scanlon said. “That would be nice.”

  It did make her feel better to have an escort after dark, just in case there really was some psycho running around.

  A few cars came and went down Magnolia Lane—players heading back to their rented homes after dinner, and members returning to the club from parties in town. Scanlon and her escort walked along the sidewalk in front of the clubhouse as a security guard stopped the incoming cars to talk briefly with each driver.

  “Did the club hire more security for the rest of the week?” Scanlon asked her escort as they passed the Founders Circle and walked toward the east practice range.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the tall man said. “Can’t be too careful anymore.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Scanlon said.

  They walked down a driveway between the food service building and the practice range, and past the back of the Eisenhower Cabin, which was lit up like the other cabins east of the clubhouse, with music and laughter drifting from the cocktail parties inside. The service road took them past the par 3 course—down a steep hill to their left—with the Tennessee, California, and Stephens Cabins to the right. Some 20 luxury cars were parked on the grass outside the cabins.

  Scanlon thought “cabin” was such an inadequate word for the elegant two-story white buildings. In most parts of the world, they’d be considered mansions.

  Scanlon wasn’t sure which one was the Stephens Cabin. She thought it was to the east of the Jones Cabin—and the Firestone Cabin, which the Ashbys had been sharing with another couple. The Stanwicks, was it? She’d never been in any of the cabins, even in the daylight. What little light there was on the service road was coming from the floodlights that illuminated the steep back lawns of the cabins.

  They seemed to be walking away from the cabins and closer to the path that led down the dark, shrubbery-dotted hillside to the par 3 course and Ike’s Pond.

  “Look, I thought we were…”

  Scanlon never finished the sentence. A staggering blow to the side of her head knocked her to her knees. She was too stunned to scream, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have been heard. The man had his hand over her mouth, his forearm around her throat and was dragging her down the hill, out of sight from the cabins, toward the spring-fed pond below. Panic surged through Scanlon’s body, already rubbery from the pain in her head. At barely 110 pounds, she was no match for the tall man dragging her down toward the water. She tried to dig her heels into the wood chips and pine straw that covered the hillside, but they merely bounced along the ground as her attacker forced her forward. She flailed at him with her arms, but the best she could do were weak, glancing blows against his shoulders. As they gained momentum, her attacker fell on his side, still hanging onto Scanlon and covering her mouth. They rolled downhill, bouncing off bushes and scraping away the ground cover. Finally they rolled to a stop, and dread replaced Scanlon’s disorientation as she felt her feet splash into the water.

  Desperately she managed to work her tongue out of her mouth and between the man’s fingers, trying to create enough space to suck his little finger partially into her mouth and bite down on it. The man shifted his grip on her mouth, and she felt his arm tighten around her throat. If she could just make some noise, make noise—make some noise! The thought was racing around wildly in her head like a horse in a barn fire. She couldn’t scream, but somehow she had to attract some attention. They were going into the water—maybe someone in the cabins would hear a splash.

  She kicked her legs frantically against the water, but then felt his weight on top of her as they both plunged below the surface. She tried to preserve what little air she had left in her lungs, while still fighting her attacker. She tried again to bite one of his fingers. This time the hand came off her mouth, but she was still underwater. With the last of her strength, she twisted to her right and rolled her head downward. Her legs came up out of the water, and she splashed them down as hard as she could against the surface. The motion made the man lose his grip and drop Scanlon into the pond. With her head still underwater, and her last breath nearly gone, she kicked her legs at her attacker and felt the spiked heel on her left foot make hard contact somewhere around his stomach. He recoiled in pain, and Scanlon struggled to get her head above the surface. They were in two feet of water, and she started to push herself up, feeling the water cascade from her forehead as she broke the surface, seeing the stars over the shoulder of the man looming above her, starting to open her mouth to take in enough air to scream…

  But he was on her before the air ever reached her lungs, and pushed her back down into the water just as she began her gasp. The chemically treated water from Ike’s Pond flooded down Scanlon’s windpipe. She continued to thrash as she choked on the water, but less forcefully now. The blackness that was the sky and the water soon overwhelmed everything, and then she stopped moving.

  Still Lee Doggett held her head under the water for another minute, as though he feared this hellcat might come back to life. Finally he let her go and pulled himself to the bank of the pond, panting and holding his stomach. He lifted his sopping jacket and shirt; the bitch’s heel had punctured the skin. He was bleeding.

  Doggett looked back at Scanlon’s body in the pond. Her head was still underwater, her feet splayed up onto the bank. He reached over and took off her left shoe. No point in leaving it behind. It would be their only chance to find his DNA.

  He put the shoe in his right jacket pocket and stood up carefully, looking up the hill through the pine trees and listening to see if their splashing had attracted any attention. She hadn’t bee
n able to scream, and the sound from the parties in the cabins up above would have masked whatever noise they made tumbling down the hill or splashing in the water. He was sure they hadn’t been heard.

  He pulled the plastic spray bottle from the pocket inside his jacket and popped the protective cap. Then he squeezed herbicide onto the green next to the pond, not 10 feet from the columnist’s legs, leaving the words that in the morning would read:

  this is the last masters

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wednesday, April 9

  Sam awoke to the sound of raindrops spattering on the windows of the cupola above the Crow’s Nest. He’d wanted to sleep until at least eight, but the drumbeat of the raindrops overhead, which normally would have had a soothing effect on him, instead made him feel anxious.

  Rain had been in the forecast for several days, and Sam had been looking forward to it. Some of the pros had been saying the greens were getting so firm and crunchy that, unless it rained, no way in hell would their approach shots hold. They’d all get a chance to see if the rain helped later that day during the Par 3 tournament.

  Sam got out of bed and went down to the Trophy Room for a light breakfast. He expected to find a few reporters and club members, but the room was deserted except for two gold-jacketed waiters standing next to the buffet line. That’s when he heard the sirens. A minute later, two Richmond County squad cars pulled up the rain-slicked circular driveway in front of the clubhouse, followed by an ambulance. Now he was more than curious. Something was going terribly wrong at this year’s Masters.

  He pulled on his rain jacket and golf hat and walked out the front door to the Founders Circle, where a crowd of employees and green jackets had gathered around the emergency vehicles. The sheriff’s deputies got back in their cars and followed a golf cart, driven by a man in a yellow rain poncho, past the short-game practice range toward the cabins above the par 3 course. Sam walked along behind them, following the police and EMTs as they scrambled down the steep hill toward Ike’s Pond. Several grounds crew members stood next to the pond, with a riding lawnmower idling a few feet away, staring at something at the water’s edge.