A pair of lifeless legs—clad in tight black pants, one foot bare, the other wearing a spiked heel—protruded from the edge of the pond. The rest of the body was underwater, but Sam knew who the legs belonged to. He’d seen her yesterday, walking away from him and toward the speaker’s podium at Rachel Drucker’s WOFF rally, and last night leaving the dining room.
Somebody had killed Deborah Scanlon.
It was raining harder now, the drops hissing off the water. The police had already started cordoning off the area with yellow crime scene tape, but Sam was close enough to see that the killer had left the same message on the green near the body:
THIS IS THE LAST MASTERS
Whoever had done this didn’t want to leave any confusion about his identity. It was the same killer, for the same reason. First Ashby speaks out about allowing women into Augusta National. Then Deborah Scanlon. Now both of them are dead. But how was the killer getting onto the grounds? How was he moving around without being noticed? It looked more and more like an insider.
The man in the yellow poncho was Bill Woodley, the club manager. He was on his cell phone, while the police radioed back to headquarters, both relating the same message: There’s been another murder at the National.
“Anybody know who this is?” one of the cops asked, loud enough for Sam to hear.
“I do,” Sam said, over the yellow police tape.
“Who are you?” a cop asked.
“Sam Skarda. I’m playing in the Masters this week.”
“So who’s that?” he asked, jerking his walkie-talkie over his left shoulder toward the body in the pond.
“Looks like Deborah Scanlon. Columnist for the New York Times.”
The cop led Sam across the green to the body. He couldn’t quite make out her face under the water, but the hair was obviously short and blond.
“I can’t tell for sure unless I see her face.”
Another cop stepped into the water, put his hand behind the body’s head and lifted it out of the water.
“That’s her,” Sam said.
“How do you know her?” the first cop asked.
“She interviewed me on Monday. I talked to her again yesterday at the WOFF rally.”
“I was there,” one of the cops said. “I remember her. Didn’t that Rachel Drucker read from one of her columns?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “She was criticizing the National for not allowing women members.”
The cops looked at each other.
“Harwell will want to talk to him,” the first cop said. “Skarda, is it? We need you to stick around.”
“Fine,” Sam said. “I’ve got a few hours before the Par 3 tournament starts.”
Bill Woodley shook his head, having just put his cell phone back in his pocket.
“The Par 3 tournament is cancelled,” Woodley said. “I just talked to Mr. Porter. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
David Porter arrived at almost the same time Leonard Garver did. Porter looked ashen; Garver just seemed bewildered, as though a train that came through town at the same time every day had suddenly jumped the tracks. They stood over the body for a few minutes while a crew of crime scene technicians took pictures, gathered grass samples from the killer’s message, and scoured the hillside for Scanlon’s missing shoe, footprints, or dropped objects that might be tied to the killing. David shook his head and then huddled with Garver and Woodley. The first order of business was to close the grounds and ask those spectators who were waiting at the gates to go back to their cars and buses. The Par 3 tournament would not be played, for the first time since 1960, because Augusta National Golf Club was now a crime scene.
“What should I tell the staff and volunteers?” Woodley asked, at a momentary loss as to how to handle a catastrophe during the Masters, where catastrophes weren’t allowed.
“Tell them the truth,” Porter said. “There’s been an accident, and we need to investigate.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“The Masters will go on as scheduled.”
“David, do you think that’s a good idea?” Garver asked.
“It’s the only idea we will accept,” said Porter, who glanced at Scanlon’s body, still half-submerged in the pond, and quickly looked away. “It breaks my heart to cancel the Par 3 tournament. Mr. Jones and Mr. Roberts loved it. The patrons love it. I understand we have to cancel. But I will not postpone or cancel the Masters. That hasn’t happened since World War II, and it will take another World War before I stop this tournament.”
Sam was still standing inside the police tape, though several feet away from Porter, Garver, and Woodley. He wondered when Garver was going to bring up the obvious: that it looked like an inside job. It was time to question those who were most likely to be angry with the club’s critics: the members. The grounds crew didn’t care one way or the other if the club admitted women. The same was likely true of the clubhouse staff and cleaning people. They’d all have to be questioned, of course, but any detective with half a brain would be demanding from Porter a complete accounting for the members who were on the grounds that week—their whereabouts and their gender politics.
Garver was thinking the same way.
“David, we’re going to interview your members,” he said to the club chairman. “An agent from the Atlanta office of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is on his way here to help Dennis Harwell with the investigation. You’ll need to tell them whatever they want to know.”
Porter appeared to be thinking over his options—which in this case were limited. Two dead bodies in three days on the grounds of a private club tended to eliminate the club’s wiggle room, no matter how much power they had over the local authorities. This was a scandal in the making, and refusing to cooperate with police would only make matters worse. But Porter had handled potential scandals before.
“Do what you’ve got to do, Leonard,” Porter said, a heavy note of resignation in his voice. He turned and began walking back up the hill, but noticed Sam standing nearby. He paused and said something quietly to Woodley, then continued walking back to the clubhouse, Porter’s shoulders slumped in a way that made him seem far less imperious. Woodley watched them go, and then approached Sam.
“Mr. Porter would like to see you in his office when you have a moment,” Woodley said.
Bill Woodley was a small, clean-shaven man with thinning, neatly combed hair who exuded efficiency and devotion to the National. He’d been everywhere around the club in the previous two days, fielding members’ requests and promptly conveying them to the employees, who listened to Woodley as though hearing from God’s messenger. Yet Woodley did nothing to call attention to himself. Like any good manager, he made it his business to eliminate problems before they became problems. It had to be unbearable for Woodley to see the Masters marred by two murders.
“What does he want to see me about?” Sam asked.
“He didn’t say.”
“The cops want me to stay here until I’ve talked to the investigators,” Sam said.
“Of course,” Woodley said. “After that, then.”
“I’ll be there.”
Sam waited with the police until the investigator from the Sheriff’s department arrived. Lt. Dennis Harwell, the same detective Sam had talked to at the 12th hole on Monday, slipped and skidded down the steep, soggy hillside, getting mud on his tan raincoat. He looked anxious, and he had reason to be. He was responsible for solving what would be the most talked-about crime in the country, and possibly hanging a murder rap on some big-shot member.
Harwell asked the cops what time the call came in, what they’d seen when they arrived, and whether there were any witnesses. He examined the position of the body, spoke to the technicians, and knelt down to inspect the grass where the this is the last masters message had been left. Eventually he w
alked over to Sam.
“The officers tell me you know her,” Harwell said, motioning to Scanlon’s body. “A New York Times columnist?”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “Deborah Scanlon.”
“And who are you again?”
Sam didn’t like the way Harwell asked the question, as though he wasn’t inclined to believe anything Sam told him.
“Sam Skarda. I’m an amateur golfer, playing in the Masters this year. I talked to you on Monday.”
Harwell seemed to be struggling to recall their brief conversation at the murder scene on the 12th hole. He looked at Sam suspiciously.
“The Masters is a pro tournament,” he said. “How long have they been letting amateurs play?”
“Since 1934,” Sam said.
It sounded like a smartass answer, but it was the truth: From the beginning, the Masters had always invited amateurs to play. Bobby Jones himself was an amateur. Sam couldn’t help it if this cop didn’t know the first thing about the Masters.
“How did you know—Scranton, was it?” Harwell asked.
“Scanlon. I met her Monday when she interviewed me after my practice round,” Sam said. “Then I saw her at a press conference on Tuesday, and later at the WOFF rally down the road.”
“What were you doing there?” Harwell asked.
“I was curious,” Sam said.
“About what?” Harwell said.
“I just wanted to see what was going on.”
It was the cop in Sam that had checked out the rally, not the golfer. As far as he knew, he was the only player who’d bothered to go. If Harwell knew anything about golf or golfers, he would have picked up on that. But apparently he’d managed to live in Augusta for some time without ever developing an interest in the city’s most important enterprise.
“Did you see her after that?” Harwell asked.
“I saw her having dinner in the clubhouse dining room last night.”
“When was that?”
“Around nine o’clock.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No.”
“Was she with someone?”
“Yeah, a couple of people I didn’t know. They looked like TV types.”
“Were they friendly conversations?”
“Looked like it to me,” Sam said. “I didn’t pay much attention.”
“What time did she leave?”
“Around nine, like I said.”
“Did she leave alone?”
“I think so.”
“Can anyone account for your whereabouts last night?”
Sam wasn’t irritated by the line of questioning; it was standard and proper. It was just the tone of Harwell’s voice that grated on him. Sam had always tried to make witnesses and suspects feel he was on their side until and unless they started being evasive or confrontational. Sam had been neither, but Harwell still sounded as though he were looking to trip him up somehow. He occasionally jotted Sam’s answers in a small spiral-bound notebook.
“Sure,” he said. “I was at the Amateur Dinner last night, then at the clubhouse bar for a while. I spent the rest of the night with my two roommates in the Crow’s Nest.”
“The Crow’s Nest?” Harwell asked, cocking his head as though Sam had just revealed himself to be some kind of deviant. “What’s that? A bar?”
“It’s the bunkroom on the third floor of the clubhouse, under the cupola.”
“Cupola?” Now Harwell seemed convinced that Sam was jerking him around.
“The four-sided bump-up on top of the clubhouse roof, with the windows. There’s three of us staying there this week—me, Brady Compton and Tom Wheeling. They’re probably still up there. Go talk to them.”
“Don’t worry, we will. So you say you were in the clubhouse all night?”
“Yes.”
Harwell wrote something in his notebook, then flipped back through the pages.
“Do you know why somebody would want to kill…uh…Scanlon?”
The rain continued to fall, smearing the ink on the pages. Rain dripped off the brim of Sam’s golf hat; Harwell’s red, wiry hair was plastered to his head.
“She wrote a column that basically accused Augusta National of killing Harmon Ashby,” Sam said, content to get soaked if that’s what Harwell wanted.
“When did this column run?”
“Yesterday. She was also the columnist who quoted Ashby saying he would be willing to have women members at Augusta National.”
“Yeah, I know about that one,” Harwell said. Sam hoped so.
“So I’d be looking at somebody who didn’t want to let women into this club,” Sam said, hoping Harwell would take the hint and let him go.
“We’re already looking at that,” Harwell said. “How do you feel about it?”
“About what?”
“About letting women into Augusta National?”
“I don’t have an opinion,” Sam said. “It’s a private club, and I’m not a member. They can do what they want.”
Harwell made another note, then closed his book. A team from the medical examiner’s office had arrived and was pulling Scanlon’s body out of the pond, preparing to bag it and put it on a gurney. Harwell seemed to have lost interest in Sam.
“Can I go?” he asked Harwell.
“Sure, sure,” Harwell said, waving him off. “Stay where we can find you.”
“I’ll be under the cupola.”
Harwell looked up at him and started to say something, but turned away to join the ME team.
Chapter Fourteen
David Porter’s office looked like it belonged to the CEO of a bank or an insurance firm, rather than the chairman of a world-renowned golf club. It was furnished with an expensive, polished wooden desk—teak or mahogany, Sam guessed—a couple of padded armchairs, a leather sectional couch circling a round coffee table off to the side, and a 35-inch TV in a cabinet in the corner. An oil portrait of Bobby Jones was the only indication that the business done in this room involved the game of golf. The windows did not even face the golf course.
Two men, both wearing green jackets, were seated across the desk from Porter, apparently waiting for Sam to arrive. Porter introduced them as Ralph Stanwick, acting rules chairman and head of the club’s media committee, and Robert Brisbane, competition committees chairman.
Sam shook hands with each of them. Brisbane was a vigorous-looking man with thick salt-and-pepper hair, contrasting with the age spots that dotted Stanwick’s skin and balding scalp. Brisbane’s green jacket fit him perfectly; Stanwick’s seemed both too roomy and too short for him.
“Sit down, Sam,” Porter said. He had the look of a man whose child was seriously ill.
“So you’re with the Minneapolis police,” Brisbane said. “Any advice on what we should do about our two murders?”
“Be honest with the cops, and beef up your security,” Sam said.
“We’ve added security,” Stanwick said. “It didn’t seem to do us any good.”
“This is the worst crisis we’ve experienced here, at least on my watch,” Porter said, almost to himself.
“The club almost went broke in the ’30s,” Stanwick reminded Porter.
“I doubt if the world would have cared back then,” Porter said. “Now, everybody seems to have an opinion about how we should run our affairs. Some would like to shut us down completely.”
“You’ll survive,” Sam said.
“I wish I could be so sure,” Porter said. “I don’t know what we’ll do if there’s another murder.”
“Maybe we need to think about canceling the tournament, David,” Stanwick said. “I don’t mind telling you that my wife is very upset about these killings. She’s frightened, and I don’t blame her.”
/> “We’re not closing it down,” Porter said, staring at Stanwick with an edge of determination in his voice. “I’m surprised you would suggest that, Ralph. We run the risk that no one would come back next year.”
“Rachel Drucker might not come back,” Stanwick said. “That would be a good thing in my book.”
Porter got out of his chair and walked over to the portrait of Bobby Jones, as if seeking divine guidance from the club’s sainted founder. When he was invited to join years earlier, he never imagined that one day he’d be calling a press conference to announce that the Par 3 tournament was cancelled, or that he would open up the club’s membership information to the police for a murder investigation.
“My sole duty as chairman of this club is to ensure its future,” Porter said. “I owe that to Bob Jones. I owe it to Harmon Ashby, too. If we have to shut down the Masters, this club will eventually become irrelevant, and I will have failed. I’m not going to be the first chairman of Augusta National to fail.”
Sam glanced at Brisbane and Stanwick to see if they agreed with Porter’s opinion that the club needed the Masters to survive. Both seemed content to let the chairman continue.
“Someone is trying to embarrass us and destroy the club,” Porter said. “The police seem to think it’s a club member. I’m sure that it’s not, but we’ve got to give the police something else to go on.”
“David, you don’t have to tell the police a damn thing,” Stanwick said. “We’re still a private club, aren’t we? Let them conduct their own investigation. You know these killings weren’t done by a member. You know that.”
“I believe that, Ralph,” Porter said. “But we need to get to the bottom of this before the police crawl all over this club, going through every drawer in the kitchen, through all of my files, through our closets, ransacking the Cabins…”
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