Death in a Green Jacket

by James Y. Bartlett

  Brett Jacoby walked in. He was wearing his own green jacket, over a blue oxford shirt, striped rep tie and khaki trousers, and carried a sheaf of papers under one arm. “Yeah, Charlie,” he said, “What’s up? I gotta get back to the media center. We’ve got some early finishers coming in for interviews and …”

  I stepped out from behind the door. Brett turned and looked at me. His eyes widened and his face blanched.

  “You!” he said, gasping. “But you’re …”

  “Dead, Brett?” I said. “Burned to a crisp in the Motel 6? Gone but not forgotten? Sorry to upset your plan, but that wasn’t me in Room 234 last night, bucko. In fact, I haven’t been there all week. So that makes four people you’ve murdered, by my count.”

  “What?” Grosvenor was stunned. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about John Judge, Christian Geer, and those poor unfortunates who died in the fire early this morning.” I said. “Brett here thought I was staying in that motel room. I’ll bet Billy Moore rebooked the room for cash and just kept my name on the register. Easy way to make a thou or so under the table. He had my reservation on record and my deposit in the bank. When I told him my girlfriend and I were staying with a friend in town, he took advantage. Then Brett here apparently decided I was too dangerous to his plan to leave town alive, so he came up with the idea of killing me…and Mary Jane…in a hotel fire. Almost worked.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Grosvenor said.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said. “You have been wondering for several weeks now why the Colombian cartels were starting to squeeze you, haven’t you? Why did they kill John Judge? Why did they send Juan Obrador personally to talk to you? What the hell was going on? You hadn’t done anything. Right?”

  Grosvenor nodded, almost against his will. Jacoby stood there, blood drained from his face. His eyes, however, were locked on me. He wasn’t moving.

  “That’s why Brett here was able to convince you to call me in to nose around,” I continued. “That was probably the last thing in the world you wanted to do, bring a news reporter inside the gates. But he convinced you that I could ask questions the cops never would, or could. The cops didn’t know about RoJo, and the contraband that Grosvenor Group had long been shipping up from South America.” The chairman started to protest. I stopped him with a look.

  “He figured that I could find out what Enrico and the Obrador cartel wanted. Easier than the cops, anyway. And knowing what a smartass I am, he probably figured that I would end up shot by Enrico de la Paz, or someone else. And if that happened, the police would swoop in and round up the usual suspects. Rico. The Obradors. That would get Brett here off the hook.”

  “What hook?” Grosvenor asked, casting his eyes at Brett.

  “He’s been running a shadow operation,” I said. “Probably since he got here six years ago. He found out what you’ve been up to all these years. He wanted a cut, his share, his due. Did he use your name? Or was it your family? By the way, the federal agents I’ve been hanging around with all week wanted me to tell you that your sister-in-law Beatrice Samper has left town. Probably gonna try and make a run for the border tonight. “

  I stopped. A thought occurred to me. “Wait a sec,” I said, looking at Brett again. “That’s how you did it, isn’t it? And why. Once Charlie here became chairman of Augusta National, he had to get out of the smuggling business. Too much to lose if he got caught.”

  I began pacing back and forth, the ideas coming together in my head.

  “But Brett wanted to keep the gravy flowing,” I continued. “And I’ll bet the Obrador sisters did too. Beatrice and Marta. Your own wife, Charlie.” I looked at him. He had sunk down in his chair, shoulders slumped. “They were used to living pretty high off the hog, weren’t they? So when you put the official kibosh on the smuggling operation, Marta, Beatrice and Brett here decided to take it over and keep it running. Same operation, new operators. None of the logistics changed, just the ownership group. And Charlie didn’t even have to know about it. Perfect!”

  I kept pacing. Brett Jacoby was still standing in the middle of the room, his eyes following my every move.

  “But he couldn’t keep it secret. People talk. Gossip gets around. People have been whispering about Grosvenor since he took over. But they’ve been whispering about Marta Grosvenor, not Charlie.”

  I snapped my fingers. “And Christian Geer. Geer was coming to see Grosvenor with information he discovered about the operation. Isn’t that right, Brett?” He stared at me. “What did he have? Bank statements showing the millions you three had stashed away in Europe? Questions from international trade sources? Whatever it was, it must have been dangerous enough for you to risk stabbing him with a hypodermic. That took some guts.”

  “What?” Grosvenor’s head snapped up. “Geer was killed?”

  “Yup,” I said. “Lt. Travis agreed with me that the circumstances were a little too cute and he ordered a fast autopsy. Someone injected Geer with a whole lot of atropine. His heart exploded almost instantly.”

  I looked at Jacoby. “Too bad, Brett,” I said. “Normally, an old foreign guy like him, they would have packed him up in a box and shipped him home for burial. But that was one too many strange deaths in the same place. I convinced Kitchen we had to look.”

  “But what about the Judge boy?” Grosvenor said. “Why was he killed? And buried here?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” I said. “There’s been nothing that connects John Judge to any of this stuff. Until now.”

  I looked at Brett Jacoby. “I just found out that he was doing your taxes, Brett,” I said. “He must have found something in your records that didn’t make sense. Asked you about it. He was a straight shooter, wasn’t he? He would have been allergic to anything illegal, especially running drugs. Did you try to talk him into going along with the plan? Offer him a bribe to keep quiet? That wouldn’t have worked. You’d have to have threatened him with bodily harm. Did you introduce him to Enrico de la Paz? The enforcer. Is that where he heard that name?”

  Brett Jacoby stood stock-still, saying nothing.“Did you have him come over here?” I continued. “Or did you meet him elsewhere? Either way, you were staring right into his face when you pulled the trigger. How does that feel? Shooting some innocent young man to save your own sorry skin? I wondered why he had been shot in the chest. Somebody like Rico would have snuck up and aced him in the back of the head. But sticking him in that bunker was brilliant. That threw all the suspicion onto Enrico and then on to Charlie. His dark past coming back to haunt him. Nice plan.”

  Grosvenor looked over at Brett Jacoby, who was still standing in the middle of the room, still as a stone, his eyes narrow and never once leaving my face.

  “But Brett told me that this la Paz fellow was the killer,” Grosvenor said. “How can you be sure he wasn’t the one?”

  “Ah, we all thought that Rico was the bad guy,” I said. “It fit the story. Cold-blooded killer, hired assassin for the cartel. He had to have been the one who killed John Judge. The theory went that he was trying to warn you, Charlie. Put you on notice. But for what? You had no idea what was going on. You thought you were out of that business.”

  For the first time, Brett Jacoby spoke. “How do you know Rico wasn’t the one who set the motel fire last night?” “Because you announced this morning in the media center that ‘Hacker had been murdered.’ The story on the wires just said that police were reporting two killed in a motel fire. Nothing was said publically about murder. Just two died in a fire. Could have been an accident. Smoking in bed. Electrical fire. You were the only one who called it a murder. And just now, you said it was a set fire. The only one who could have known that is the one who set the fire. And that’d be you.”

  “It still could have been Rico,” Brett said. “He’s a known killer for goodness sakes. You’re just jumping on my turn of phrase. That’s hardly proof.” His lips turned up in a hop
eful smile.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It isn’t proof. You’re right. But what you may not have known is that Enrico de la Paz was picked up by the feds last night in Atlanta. At about 7:10 p.m., as a matter of fact. I know because I was there. And now Beatrice is on the run. You’d better tell Marta to start hauling ass too, because they’re gonna be coming for her pretty soon.”

  Grosvenor sat there dumbfounded. I was staring at Brett Jacoby so I could watch the emotions playing across his face. The confidence suddenly washed away by fear, the hope by the realization that his goose was pretty much cooked. Grosvenor reached for the phone. “I’m calling security,” he said.

  Jacoby looked down at his feet. I walked over and stood in front of him.

  “So that leaves you, Brett.” I said. “You were coordinating the drug operation for the Obrador girls. You killed John Judge when he learned what you had been up to. You killed Christian Geer before he could spill the beans to Charlie here. Then last night, you tried to kill me. You’ve been a one-man killing machine, huh? It must get easier after the first one. Does it, Brett? ”

  He nodded, sadly. Then he swept his arms up violently, tossing his armful of papers in my face, and pushing me over backwards. He pivoted and kicked Charlie Grosvenor right in the stomach. I heard the air go out of Grosvenor, and he fell to the floor groaning. When I lwas able to regain my feet, Brett Jacoby was gone. I started to run after him, but, looking down, I could see that Grosvenor was in trouble. He was paper white and gasping for air. I rolled him over onto his knees and tried to help him regain his breath. He was moaning and making horrible raspy sounds that sounded like something inside was broken.

  The door crushed open and three Pinkertons burst into the room. Two of them grabbed me roughly and slammed me against the wall. The other one bent over Grosvenor and then pulled out his shoulder radio and began shouting orders for an ambulance. The two guards held me immobile for the nearly two minutes it took before Grosvenor was able to speak. He finally gasped out the words.

  “Not…Hacker…Jacoby…He’s the killer... Find him.”

  The two guards let me go. I dashed out into the hall and down the stairs. Halfway down, I leaped over a green jacket lying on the stairs. I stopped and looked inside the right flap. On the label was a small sewn patch that read: B. JACOBY. I left it there, hustled down through the lobby and out the back door. The Pinkerton kid was still guarding the door, but his eyes were big as he listened to the radio reports squawking in his earpiece.

  “Jesus,” he said when he saw me. “What the hell is going on up there?”

  “Did you see Brett Jacoby come out here a minute ago?” I asked.

  “Why, yeah, I did,” the kid said. “Funny you should ask.”

  “Why? What?”

  “He was wearing a hard hat,” he said. “Like one of those” He nodded over by the big old oak, where two of the grounds men were picking up trash with their metal stabbers and putting it into large canvas carriers slung around their shoulders. They were wearing blue coveralls and bright yellow hard hats. “Never seen him in one of those.”

  He told me in which direction Jacoby had headed. I ran down onto the broad grassy lawn beneath the tree. In the distance, I could hear the bursts of sound that represented cheers after someone dropped a birdie putt, and the low rumble of applause rolling up the hill from the depths of Amen Corner. Everywhere, people were milling, trying to squeeze into a space around the 18th green, or wandering further down the hill to try and find a place along the ropes. Others headed down to 17 and beyond that, the 15th tee. My eye caught sight of several workers wearing yellow hard hats, but they all seemed to also be wearing the blue coveralls of the trash pickers. Jacoby had disappeared into the crowds.

  I turned on my heel and ran back to the back entrance. I grabbed Jack the young Pinkerton kid by the arm.

  “I need you,” I said. “You gotta do what I say. Jacoby is a killer and he’s getting away. I need to get up to the Crow’s Nest. Now.”

  He looked into my eyes once, and nodded. He took off to the locker room door and I followed along behind. He pushed several people including, I think, Vijay Singh, roughly out of the way and led me inside and up the stairs. Jack Nicklaus, wearing his own member’s green jacket, was coming out of the Champion’s Locker Room on the second floor. “Whoa fellas,” he said. “Where’s the fire?”

  I didn’t have time to explain, and followed the Pinkerton kid as he took the steep stairway two at a time. Inside, I pointed up at the cupola windows, and he nodded, bent over and hoisted me up onto the beams. I almost fell over backwards, but caught my balance just in time, and yanked myself up where I could stand and look out the windows. I could not believe how many people were scattered across the rolling hills of Augusta National. It seemed every inch of fairway and green on the back nine holes were rimmed with people at least six or seven deep. I began scanning the crowds, trying to pick out a yellow hard had. Again, I saw several, but again, they all seemed to be workers.

  Then, down across the 18th fairway, in the woods that protect the right side of the 18th fairway and continue over to the 10th fairway, I saw a yellow hat bobbling. The figure wearing the hat ducked behind one of the scoreboards and came out on the other side. Yes! He was wearing a blue oxford shirt and khakis. I saw him look back over his shoulder and pick up his pace. He was heading down toward Amen Corner.

  “There he is!” I yelled. “Looks like he’s heading for eleven. “Let’s go!”

  I jumped down, not caring this time what kind of noise I made, and the Kid and I hightailed it down the stairs and out of the clubhouse. I started running. Behind me, I could hear the kid breathlessly radioing in. I didn’t wait for him, but took off running down the hill.

  Between the ninth green and the 18th fairway is a wide open field that slopes away from the clubhouse and down the hill. In the old days, it had been used as the practice range, and they even held a long-drive contest for the contestants before the tournament began. But today, it’s just a big wide-open grassy hill, where people can walk up from the seventeenth fairway or angle down towards Amen Corner.

  Jacoby had already made it around the last fairway, and the people were jammed in all the way down to those fairway bunkers on the left side of the fairway, where many a Masters dream has come to ruin. I could see that almost no one was standing around the bunkers, because with those upswept lips and flashed sand, it’s almost impossible to see the green or even another player on the fairway.

  So I blasted down that hill at full speed, headed for the bunkers, pushed past some people, ducked under the ropes at the fairway’s edge and scampered across the narrow pathway of grass that separates the two huge, yawning bunkers. Behind me, I heard someone yell “Hey!” as I kept running across the fairway and towards the woods on the far side. One twosome had already played their approach shots and was struggling up the steep hill towards the last green, and I didn’t even want to look back down at the tee in the distance to see if I was disrupting play. I gave a quick look over my shoulder and saw the Pinkerton kid following my lead, about twenty paces behind.

  Once across the fairway, one of the marshals in his own yellow hard hat tried to corral me, probably thinking I was a streaker who had lost his nerve. I gave him my best Laurence Maroney shoulder fake and juke and left him grasping at air. A second or two later, the Pinkerton kid rumbled past and yelled at the guy not to worry.

  Bursting out of the woods, I jumped the ropes again and headed down the last part of the hill on the 10th fairway. That hill is incredibly steep, which is why the hole plays as a par-four even at 500 yards. I got going so fast, I felt my feet begin to spin out, and did an amazing acrobatic roll and slide down the steepest face of the hill. If I were a Titleist, I would have been a good drive. After I stopped rolling, I picked myself up at the bottom and kept going. A couple of beer-soaked patrons, who apparently didn’t realize that the tournament had finished with the 10th hole, gave m
e a nice round of applause. The kid, breathing hard, caught up with me.

  Both panting deeply now, we ran up the rise to the 10th green, and down the pinestraw covered ground towards the eleventh fairway, skirting the new monster tee set back to the left deep into the woods. Once on the fairway, we motored down the middle of the empty fairway until we reached the crest of the hill. I slowed and the kid came to a stop beside me. We sounded like a couple of coal-powered locomotives trying to make it up the last bit of grade in the Rockies, geezing, rasping and trying not to throw up.

  At our feet was the grandeur of Amen Corner. The fairway we stood on, the eleventh, was tilted from right to left, pushing everything towards the woods that waited on that side. At the base of the hill was that nasty little pond, dark and forboding, and behind that, the green, which also seemed to slope right into the pond. Off to the right at the bottom was the par-three twelfth, the green perched atop a shaved rise that fell down into the blue gash of Rae’s Creek where it widened into a deep, still watery fissure. Behind, framed by rows of towering loblolly pines was that narrow sliver of green, the bunker in front and the two behind providing almost nothing in the way of a margin of error. At the same time, the delicate dogwoods and the achingly colorful masses of azaleas made the setting look like it had been borrowed from Heaven.

  I scanned the crowd again, looking for Jacoby. Nothing. The kid grabbed my arm. “There he is!” he said, pointing to the left of the eleventh green. Behind that green, Rae’s Creek winds around close to the back of the putting surface, backed up and deepened by the dam that creates the hazard in front of 12. Jacoby, still wearing his hard hat, was heading for the wooden dam.

  “What’s down behind there?” I asked.

  “Thick woods, the overspill, some brush and a few snakes,” the kid said. “He won’t get far.” He radioed in our position. I turned around and saw a phalanx of four-wheeled scooters heading down the hill on ten. The cavalry was coming.