“I got what I needed,” Sam said. “How’s the course?”
“If it stops raining, we’ll play tomorrow,” Porter said. “It’ll be soft, but the course drains beautifully.”
Sam looked back up the hill toward the 11th fairway. From the clubhouse, everything rolled downhill to this spot. He looked up at the dismal grey overhead, catching a raindrop in the eye, and thought about that old blues song about the sky crying. In this case, the tears weren’t running down the street; they were running down the fairway.
Chapter Seventeen
“Danny Milligan played 20 years on the PGA Tour without ever winning a tournament,” the NBC reporter’s voice intoned over video of Milligan, wearing a rainsuit and practicing chip shots on his backyard practice green during a steady drizzle. “But he did win the hearts of countless spectators who loved his comic antics at tournaments. He also won the attention of CBS Sports president Rudy Mendenhall, who hired the puckish pro to join his network’s golf broadcast team.”
Sam had returned to the Crow’s Nest and turned on the TV to see if there were any developments in what the networks were now calling The Masters Murders. Tom Wheeling was out practicing on the soggy course in the near-dark, searching for that one final piece of the puzzle that might help him stay inside the cutline. Brady Compton was convinced his game was in great shape. He sat in a lounge chair next to Sam, watching the NBC Nightly News.
The reporter doing the Milligan story was Jane Vincent, the woman who been at Scanlon’s table Tuesday night, and the one who had thrown some tough questions at David Porter during that morning’s press conference. She must have known that Deborah Scanlon was scheduled to interview Milligan today—the day after she was murdered. Vincent had taped her piece at Milligan’s house across the Savannah River in South Carolina, prodding him for his reaction to the latest events at the club he loved to hate. The network was airing it during the last ten minutes of its Wednesday evening newscast, the spot usually reserved for off-beat takes or in-depth analysis of the day’s biggest story. The murders at Augusta remained the day’s biggest story.
“But after being part of his network’s coverage of the Masters for several years, Milligan ran afoul of the Lords of Augusta National,” Vincent’s voiceover continued. “During a rain delay in 1996, Milligan was asked by fellow CBS broadcaster Nigel Frawley where the pros went during a suspension of play at the Masters. Milligan joked that they went into the locker room, took off their rain-soaked clothes, and quote ‘snapped wet towels at each other’ unquote.”
The video image switched to a close-up of Milligan, seated under an overhang on his deck, that day’s rains dripping off the roofline behind him. Milligan’s ’70s-style gray shag haircut, mischievous eyes, and impish smile were the features of a born clown. Yet it was obvious that Milligan was not quite as jovial as usual.
“Rudy Mendenhall got a letter from David Porter three days after the tournament, telling him my services would not be needed at the next year’s tournament,” Milligan said, looking off to the right of the camera at Vincent. “He said they were taking that action because of my disgraceful, disparaging, and untrue remarks about behavior in the club’s locker room.
“I mean, come on. It was a joke. It’s a golf tournament, not a funeral. Oh, I’m sorry—that’s probably another touchy word now.” Milligan smirked in appreciation of his little jab.
“But that’s not the way his superiors at CBS saw it,” Vincent’s narration resumed, over some stock video of a previous Masters tournament. “The network agreed to Milligan’s ban, and he was subsequently dropped from the network’s golf crew. He now works for Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta.”
The footage switched to that week’s WOFF protests on Washington Road, during which the crowd’s anti-Augusta National chants could be heard at diminished volume.
“Now Milligan is siding with the protesters who gather daily down the road from the notoriously all-male golf club. Their numbers have been growing each day since the murders of rules chairman Harmon Ashby and New York Times columnist Deborah Scanlon, both of whom had been openly critical of the club. Milligan has a message for them: Right on, sisters and brothers.”
The video returned to Milligan, sitting on his deck, with Vincent seated across from him.
“So you support the protests against Augusta National?” she asked him.
“Yes, absolutely,” Milligan replied, his normally merry eyes now narrowed. “It’s a national travesty that Augusta National hasn’t admitted a woman member. They must think it’s still 1934. Wake up, fellas; we’re in a new century. Woman can vote, blacks can drink from public fountains, gays can hold hands in public.”
“Do you think someone at the club had anything to do with the murders?”
“They tried to kill my career,” Milligan said.
“Couldn’t your opinion just be dismissed as sour grapes?” the reporter asked. “After all, they did ban you from their broadcast.”
“Believe me, I felt this way long before I made the wet towel remark,” Milligan said. “If I’d known that they were going to ban me for that, I would have told the audience what the players really do during a rain delay at Augusta National.”
The video cut back to the scene of Milligan chipping in his backyard, as the reporter described Milligan’s current life as a part-time broadcaster, part-time senior tour player, and part-time man of leisure at his comfortable home just across the Savannah River in Beech Island, S.C. He’d built the home recently on the site of a former horse ranch, adjacent to a nature preserve. The camera pulled backward and panned the house, a sprawling ranch-style structure with a stand of mature pine trees visible over the rooftop, and a vast field beyond the backyard.
“Perfect for auditioning new drivers,” Milligan said.
“I asked Milligan if he were worried about repercussions within the golf world for continuing to criticize Augusta National,” Vincent said, as the image on the screen cut back to a close-up of Milligan’s face.
“Nah,” Milligan said with a wink. “I’m playing a lot better these days. If TBS dumps me, I’ll just enter more senior tournaments. And I’ll donate some of my winnings to the WOFF. We’ll get a woman into Augusta National if I have to help her shinny up the drainpipe.”
*
“You want to watch any more of this?” Sam asked Brady Compton.
“Nope,” Compton said, taking the remote from Sam. “Do they get the Cartoon Network here?”
Compton flipped through the channels, then got up from his chair and walked into his cubicle to place another call to one of his buddies back home. Sam turned off the TV and glanced at the travel alarm clock by his bed. It was nearly seven. Sam had no plans for dinner, and again found himself thinking about Caroline Rockingham. He looked up the number of for the Southwinds Inn and asked them to ring her room. No answer.
Could she be out with Rockingham? Sam didn’t want to think about that.
Tom Wheeling walked up the stairs into the Crow’s Nest—soaking wet, with muddy pants cuffs and sweat mingled with bits of grass and dirt in his disheveled hair. He looked as though he’d spent the entire day gouging one soggy divot after another out of the Augusta practice range. Yet there was a big grin on his face.
“I found it,” he announced.
Sam said, “You’d better put it back before David Porter finds out.”
Sam remembered that he needed to call Dwight to check on his health. He found the number for Big D’s in the phone book. An older woman answered and called Dwight to the phone.
“I’m gonna show up,” Dwight said when Sam asked him how his leg was feeling.
He didn’t sound confident.
Chapter Eighteen
Doggett’s high-beam lights cut through the sticky night air as he made a left turn on 13th Street and headed north across the Savannah River into
South Carolina. He made sure to hold his speed just below the limit. Now would not be the time to get picked up for a traffic violation. They’d run the plates, and find out the truck was stolen. He had plenty of time to get to where he was going. Plenty of time to think about what he’d done, and what was still left to do.
Killing Ashby had been a fuck-up, but not one he particularly regretted. The cops were no closer to figuring that one out than they were the morning they found the body. Killing the columnist had started out to be nothing more than a necessary task. He bought a practice round ticket from a scalper for $60, and carried a tie, a ballcap, and a windbreaker onto the grounds with him. As the crowds were leaving at the end of the day, he went into a restroom outside the media center and put on his uniform. When he emerged in the dusk, he was indistinguishable from a Securitas guard.
Scanlon had been easy to spot leaving the press building—there weren’t many women who looked like her walking around the grounds of the National. She had put up a good fight for someone so light. He had expected to kill her quickly, and his rage had kicked in again as they struggled—especially when she kicked him in the stomach with her sharp heel. When he was squeezing the air out of Scanlon’s lungs, it reminded him of the times he’d had the urge to do that to his own wife.
That murder—and the message left next to the body—had received saturation media coverage. Every TV station and newspaper in the country was providing priceless publicity. Now the goal was tantalizingly close at hand: David Porter had cancelled the Par 3 tournament. Maybe after tonight, he’d cancel the Masters. Even if he didn’t, it would keep the club on the defensive until the final blow could be administered.
Doggett followed U.S. Highways 1 and 278 through North Augusta, and took 278 east as it became Williston Road. There were very few cars, houses, or buildings along the dark highway. He didn’t know the exact location of the house he’d seen on the NBC News story earlier in the day, but he knew he could find it. He’d driven through that part of Beech Island a number of times on his way to go fishing near Aiken. He was certain he’d passed the ranch land with the pine forest across the road.
He turned left off the highway a few miles outside of town and went north. The house he was looking for would be set well back from the road and isolated from other homes among scattered loblolly pines. After several miles, the road dipped into a valley and then rose again to a plateau, where he saw a pine forest on the left side of the road and a long split-rail fence on the right, interrupted by a private driveway. The mailbox at the end of the driveway was shaped like a small golf bag, with a miniature flagstick on the side that could be flipped up to signal outgoing mail.
What a fool. He might as well broadcast where he lives.
Doggett pulled the truck slowly to the shoulder of the road, turned off the lights, and sat in the darkness for 10 minutes. He hadn’t seen a car on the road since he’d left the highway. Still, it might draw suspicion if he parked on the road, so he started the engine and backed the truck into the driveway, leaving the lights off. When he was a good 20 feet from the road, he turned off the ignition and waited for another 10 minutes. He couldn’t see the house from where he was, and doubted he’d been heard. Nevertheless, there could be a motion-detection system, or even a security camera. He could leave in an instant if someone came out of the house to investigate.
He reached under the passenger seat for his nylon gym bag, unzipped it, and pulled out the hunting knife and the work gloves.
When he stepped onto the driveway and quietly closed the driver-side door, he noticed the full moon in the clearing sky. The night was warm and muggy for April, but it appeared a high-pressure front was coming in. The weather would be spectacular for tomorrow’s opening round, assuming they played it.
The driveway, lined with azalea bushes and mature beech trees, curved to the left and opened to a large parking area in front of a four-car tuck-under garage. The house itself was a cedar-and-stone ranch-style structure with a large lawn and field on the other side of the house—probably where the practice green was. There was a floodlight on the parking area in front of the garage and a porch light next to the front door; Doggett kept to the grass and walked around to the back where it was dark.
He crept slowly up to the double doors that led from the living room out to the deck. The lower level of the house was brightly lit; through the glass doors he could see a man with a bald head relaxing in a plush leather couch, facing a big-screen television mounted in the exposed stone chimney above the fireplace. He was watching a report from the rain-soaked Masters on The Golf Channel.
That wasn’t Milligan. Milligan had long gray hair. Doggett felt himself getting angry. Not this again—do I have the wrong fucking house?
He looked closer at the bald man. The face was right. Then he noticed a long gray wig hanging from a hook near the front door. It was Milligan, after all. The long hair was a rug. Fucking phony.
How to do this quickly and efficiently? He could try to lure him out onto the deck, but if Milligan heard a suspicious sound, he might come out with a gun. Then it occurred to him—Why not just ring the doorbell? Milligan would come to the door. That’s all he needed.
Doggett walked around to the front of the house, holding the knife behind his back with his right hand, and went up to the front porch. One last run-through: This was the right house, Milligan appeared to be alone inside, and there were no other houses nearby. He rang the bell.
After 30 seconds, the door swung open. Danny Milligan appeared in the entryway—wearing his gray shag hairpiece.
“I don’t know how you found this place, but we’ve got all the Girl Scout cookies we need,” Milligan said. “Unless there’s something…”
“There is,” Doggett said, bringing the knife from behind his back and pushing Milligan backward into the house. Milligan stumbled against a foyer table, but didn’t take his eye off the knife, which Doggett held up near his nose while clutching the collar of Milligan’s shirt with his other hand. He kicked the door closed behind himself.
“Hey, let’s talk about this, bucko,” Milligan said. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes danced with fear. Doggett liked that. He enjoyed watching the funny man squirm. Not so funny now, was he?
“Was it something I said?” Milligan asked. “Whatever it was, it was a joke. I don’t mean any of it. They pay me to say that stuff. They write it for me. What is it? Tell me—come on!”
Milligan was backing into his living room as Doggett pushed forward. This was good. They were in the middle of a very large house. They’d never be seen or heard.
“Don’t worry,” Doggett said. “It’s nothing personal.”
He pulled the knife across Milligan’s throat, creating an ear-to-ear smile that the clown clutched at with his hands in horror. The blood spurted outward as Milligan collapsed backward, bounced off the plush leather couch he’d been sitting on, hit the large-screen TV, and fell to the floor. As the announcers on The Golf Channel discussed Ernie Els’ chances of winning a green jacket, Danny Milligan’s blood dripped slowly down the 72-inch screen. The toupee had been dislodged and lay in the spreading pool of red on the hardwood floor of Milligan’s great room.
Doggett put the knife under his belt while he looked around the room. He went to the double doors that led to the back deck, pushed them open, and went back into the living room. He lifted Milligan’s ankles and dragged his body across the living room floor, leaving a red smear on the floorboards. Milligan’s left arm snagged a cotton throw rug as he was pulled toward the door; Doggett kicked it aside and dragged the body out onto the deck. Milligan’s head sounded like a bag of apples as it bounced down the steps to the back lawn.
Dew was beginning to form on the grass, making it easy to slide Milligan’s body across the lawn to the middle of his own practice green. Doggett dropped Milligan’s ankles and pulled out the spray bottle of herbici
de. He actually took time to admire the quality of the natural putting surface Milligan had been able to maintain in his back yard. He must have used a professional-grade walk-behind to cut the grass down to 1/8 of an inch. Almost up to Augusta National standards.
Then Doggett defaced the perfect canvas by spraying this is the last masters on the closely cut Bermuda grass.
Doggett walked back into the house and shut the doors behind him. He went into the kitchen, which could be seen through an open archway from the great room. He opened several cupboards until he found ingredients that would do the job: a can of corn niblets and a bottle of vegetable oil. Keeping his work gloves on, he opened and drained the niblets and filled the rest of the can with the oil. He found a potato masher in a drawer by the cooktop and crushed the contents of the can until it was a slimy batter.
He returned to the back yard and poured the oily corn mixture over and around Milligan’s body, putting an extra glob on his face. That should do it. If the blood doesn’t attract the fire ants, this stuff definitely will.
As he drove back to Augusta, Doggett thought about tossing the knife into the Savannah River. Then he dismissed the idea. He would need the knife at least once more.
Chapter Nineteen
Thursday, April 10
Sam was awake when the first rays of dawn streamed into the Crow’s Nest. It was not yet six. Wheeling was already up and getting dressed, even though he had an afternoon tee-time. Sam got up, too.
He’d dozed fitfully all night, dreaming that his group had been called to the tee while he was still in the clubhouse looking for something he couldn’t name or describe. He’d wake up, realize it was a dream, that he hadn’t been disqualified, then fall back to sleep and begin the same dream again.
He was glad that Bobby Jones had started the tradition of pairing the amateurs with past Masters champions. Compton was playing in the morning with Tiger Woods; Wheeling was going out in the afternoon with Vijay Singh. Sam hadn’t met Frank Naples yet, but he was a fan favorite and reputed to be one of the friendliest and most easy-going players on tour. He’d make a good buffer between Sam and Rockingham.
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