A Hole In One

by Paul Weininger

  They met that Sunday and every time one of them took a club to strike the ball, they looked over each other’s shoulders to see if there was anything disquieting.

  Jack was up first. He took a driver, practiced a couple of swings, and then hit the ball in such a trajectory that it flew approximately 330 yards straight on the green for the par four, 510-yard hole. He turned to the others and took a bow. “May I please have a standing ovation, Gentlemen.” They applauded in amazement at the shot.

  Todd asked how he managed to do it.

  “I finally found the sweet spot on my club.”

  Todd replied, “Well, in that case, I would suggest you have someone shoot you in the ass every time you plan on golfing with us, since it helps you find the sweet spot.”

  The look Jack gave Todd could have killed him. “Todd, I was not shot in the ass but in my kidney and that’s not something to joke about. I was in the hospital for quite a while and then I had to stay at home, not being permitted to do anything but remain in bed, doctor’s orders. The only thing I was able to do was walk out to my backyard and practice my swing and hit into a golf practice net. Is that clear?” he said with a smirk on his face.

  He got a big laugh out of them with that comment. Todd said he first thought, “Jack was going to punch me in the head” for real, but then Green concluded with his sarcastic punch line, which was even better than the previous one made by Neil.

  Bloom was up next. He expected the guys to say, “You’re up, Putz.” But they didn’t. He walked over to the tee box and laid his ball on the tee. He took out a wood driver and hit the ball about 250 yards straight into a sand trap. Looking skyward, he exclaimed “Why God, do you always punish me when I play golf?” Everyone got a chuckle out of the remark.

  Todd was up next. He took his ball and placed it on the tee. He felt overly aggressive against the ball and was about to teach it a lesson. He struck it almost three hundred yards but hooked it to the right and into a grove of trees and shrubs: “Shit!” To which the Rabbi gave him a disapproving look, but also winked at him with a wry smile.

  Tony was up last. He had his special clubs with him and was extremely confident of getting a double eagle. That meant getting a score of three under par for this hole. He placed the ball on the grass right next to the tee box and took out his best club. He looked down at the ball and only took his eyes off it once to look at the flagstick. He started his swing just as he saw Tiger Woods do it on TV. He followed through gently but with as much power as he could, to make that ball feel the pain of the strike. He hit it so hard it must have felt hot, because approximately 285 yards ahead it landed in a water trap to cool off. “Shit, shit, shit,” Tony muttered. He also left a divot in the grass, which he now had to fill in before leaving his spot.

  Once Tony got to the water trap, he was given a mulligan—permission to use a second ball to continue playing versus diving into the water and trying to hit the ball from there, an impossibility. It didn’t take too much longer for them to realize they were too heavily burdened with anxiety to continue. They agreed to cease golfing until the shooter was caught or killed.

  Eighteen

  Detective Pratt set off to question Tony’s business partner, Gerald Biggers, in Scottsdale. He had an hour and a half drive with traffic. When he got there, he put an official police sign with the department’s insignia and his badge number on his dashboard. With the “On Official Business” sign, he was able to park wherever he wanted to. No other cop would dare give him a ticket.

  He walked into the accounting firm of Pilaris & Biggers, noticing about six secretaries and administrative assistants, along with perhaps five accountants and one bookkeeper. Biggers approached Pratt and said, “Good morning, sir, may I help you? I’m Gerald Biggers.”

  “Yes, you can,” he answered and took out his ID along with his badge. “I’m Detective Pratt and I understand that you are Tony Pilaris’ junior partner, correct?”

  “Well yes, I am. What does that have to do with any police business? Has Tony been arrested or is he in any kind of trouble?”

  “If you call getting shot at trouble, then I would answer yes to your question.”

  “I don’t understand, Detective, are you saying he took a shot at you or that someone shot at him?”

  “What I’m saying, Mr. Biggers, is that someone shot at him but missed. Can you think of any of your clients that might want to ‘off’ him because he may know too much about their money and or stocks, which may not be completely kosher?”

  “No, we have no such clients. Everything he handles, I review for accuracy. It’s part of our procedure to keep me abreast of what his customers are claiming on their taxes. Please understand, our customers are big corporations.”

  “Even big corporations can do illegal things. Ever hear of Enron, Mr. Biggers?” replied Pratt.

  “Of course, I have, but you can rest assured we don’t have any clients remotely like Enron or accounting practices like they had. You see, among our responsibilities is auditing them on a quarterly basis and certifying their annual reports. Any fraudulent numbers on their part that we don’t catch makes us equally liable.”

  “I see,” said the detective. Now he was looking straight into Gerald Biggers’ eyes and asked him a question out of left field. “Mr. Biggers, how satisfied are you with being number two in this firm, since I hear you’re the one who brings in most of the money?”

  “Detective, you’re not suggesting that I drove up to Sedona and shot at Tony so that the firm would be mine, are you?”

  “Well, that thought has crossed my mind. What exactly would your alibi be, Mr. Biggers?”

  “First of all, I resent the implication that I might attempt to murder my senior partner. That is beyond absurd. May I suggest that you lay down your lance and sword, Detective? I would also suggest that should you find it necessary to pursue such stupid, unfounded ideas, I will contact this city’s top attorney, who’s also a client of ours, and file charges against you for harassment. Regarding my alibi, I have twelve people right in this office that can vouch for my being here every day. Feel free to ask anyone right now if you still think I may have been involved.”

  Johnny now had another person he could cross off his list of possible suspects. Now was a good time to follow up on the lead that had occurred to him a few weeks ago. He began by returning to the hospital and interviewed Nurse Warner, the one that cared for Bloom while he was a patient. He asked if she noticed any visitors coming around to visit Bloom or staying longer than normal.

  The nurse’s response intrigued Johnny Pratt.

  She remembered that Bloom’s wife paid him a rather lengthy visit the same day Pratt was there to interview him. She remembered telling Mrs. Bloom, “You’re going to have to leave now, visiting hours are over.” Nurse Warner told Pratt that he was dozing and must not have noticed when the man’s wife left.

  Pratt asked her to describe the wife and she said, “Very young, reddish hair, probably in her twenties and extremely beautiful, like a model.”

  “Did either he or his wife correct you when you called her Mrs. Bloom?” he inquired.

  “Why no, isn’t she?” asked the nurse.

  “I really can’t say, since I didn’t see her leave,” he lied, knowing the Rabbi wasn’t married. Pratt gave himself a mental high five and thought boastfully, “I’ve got them both for lying and I think I’ve got my first legitimate suspect.”

  ◆◆◆

  Neil Bloom heard his front doorbell ring and went to answer the door. It was the other detective who partnered with Pratt.

  “Rabbi,” Sommerville asked pointedly, “are you absolutely certain that you want to stick to your story that you never had an affair with Carol Jacobson, considering that I have a witness that will testify differently?”

  Bloom thought this was a trick but wasn’t sure if Carol might have been scared enough to have told him everything. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective. You have a witness
who contradicts what I told you?”

  “Do you remember Nurse Warner who took care of you at the hospital?” he asked the Rabbi.

  “Of course, I do, she was a real sweetheart. Why do you ask?”

  “She remembers waking both you and your wife, calling out to the woman laying her head on your chest as Mrs. Bloom and neither of you correcting her. We have since learned this woman was Mrs. Jacobson.”

  “And you mean to tell me that a nurse who accidentally misspoke is now your key witness to my dishonesty?” asked Bloom critically. “Mrs. Jacobson was just a friend who came to visit me and sat there as I fell asleep due to my meds. And you believed that her also taking a nap while resting on my chest made us lovers? Come now, Detective Sommerville, your reputation as one of the best detectives in town would not suggest a conclusion based on such miserable evidence. It seems to me that your shovel is digging in the wrong places.”

  “All right, Rabbi,” Jason said with composure, “I’ll play your poker game, but I can assure you that I will go all in if you choose to keep playing.”

  The detective returned to his car and just at that moment got a fortuitous call on his radio. “Detective, this is Sgt. Raymond with officer Caballo. Like you directed, we followed the Rabbi and Mrs. Jacobson and three times they went to the same hotel, the Oak Creek Inn, in the town of Old Creek. We saw each of them enter the hotel and leave about four hours later. Neither signed in with their real name. They entered at separate times and signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Herman. They also left at separate times.”

  This was the information Sommerville felt he and Pratt needed to prove that Bloom and Carol had lied during the Rabbi’s questioning about their affair.

  Bloom didn’t know the cops were following him until he got the phone call from Pratt to come down to the station. Immediately afterwards, Neil received a call from Carol frantically asking why Pratt wanted her to come down to the station for more questions. “Relax,” he told her hopefully, “they don’t have anything that can hurt us.”

  They arrived at the police station ten minutes apart and were questioned separately. The Rabbi was first and Carol right after. Little did they suspect that not only were they followed, but the police also had dated and timed the photos of the two to prove when they were going in and coming out. Pratt made Carol Jacobson an offer. He would not tell her husband Jules about her affair with Bloom if she agreed to admit to the affair in exchange for protecting her secret.

  “That may be true but it’s a private matter and nothing you can arrest us for,” she replied. “Yes, we are seeing each other and are in love. If you really believe you’ll get your shooter that much faster by ruining my marriage and having Neil lose his congregation, then go ahead and tell everyone about us. What we are solely guilty off is being in and making love, nothing else,” she answered adamantly.

  “Wrong, Mrs. Jacobson, you are also guilty of adultery,” Johnny corrected her.

  “One more thing, Detective, I offered to divorce my husband and Neil told me not to.”

  Pratt responded with “Okay, let’s just ride this out and see what your husband does. He may want to divorce you.”

  Neil saw Carol come out of the detective’s interrogation room and waited for her to come outdoors and away from Pratt’s front window. She walked toward him as he was standing across the street in front of a mechanic’s garage. They met halfway, hugged, and kissed. She told Neil she admitted their affair to Pratt. Now both understood that they no longer had anything to lose had they been seen together. The news would probably get out from someone at the police department anyway. Still, they decided to keep their relationship quiet to cool off additional rumors. It was bad enough the police knew; they didn’t need to leave themselves open to Jules and the rest of the congregation finding out. They agreed to stop seeing each other until things quieted down.

  Nineteen

  “911, what’s your emergency?” asked the operator.

  “There’s a large fire burning in my neighbor’s backyard,” answered Frank Weissman.

  Frank, who lived in Flagstaff next door to Bloom, reported the fire out of concern that it might spread to his own yard. The local community’s police black and whites arrived first in less than five minutes. After they doused the fire using one of the extinguishers they carry in their trunk, they radioed the fire department and notified them that it was not necessary for them to come. Then they contacted Flagstaff Sheriff Tambor to report they found human remains under the ashes. Tambor, hearing the unusual crime report, got on his radio and directed Detective Jason Somerville to that address and told the two black and whites to remain where they were until Somerville arrived. Jason called Pratt, whom he often partnered with on certain cases, and told him about what he found at the home of a major Sedona citizen. Pratt suggested they wait until the next day to meet, since he needed time to finish preparing for an upcoming court case. After giving the address, he responded to Pratt that he would meet him there the next morning at 9:00. He also told Pratt the premises belonged to Rabbi Neil Bloom.

  After the call to Pratt, Somerville went to the front door of the neighbor that had reported the fire. No one answered. Jason walked around the premises looking and knocking against every window but saw nothing unusual and assumed the owner of the property was out. Jason then directed the two black and whites to protect the area to assure that nothing touched anything in the backyard, “not even a deer.” He told the officers on the scene to call for replacements before going off duty so the area would stay secure until he and Detective Pratt arrived the next morning.

  The next day Jason showed Pratt the Rabbi’s backyard. Seeing what they did told them they needed to speak to the witnesses next door while everything was still clear in their memory banks. Colleen Weissman answered the door and invited them in. Frank entered the room and the retired couple sat in their easy chairs while inviting the detectives to “Please sit on the couch.”

  Frank and his wife tried to answer whatever the police wanted from them. Frank explained he was the one who called 911 near eleven o’clock the previous morning and described his observations to the detectives.

  “Yesterday morning while I was picking some weeds in my front yard, I saw the Rabbi next door in his backyard. I think it was around 10:30 when I saw the Rabbi dragging what appeared to be a large object wrapped in a tarp and place it in his backyard. My being in the front and his being in the back did not obstruct my view of what he was doing. It was kind of a diagonal view,” said Frank. “He must’ve come out one of his sliding doors in the back of his home, and that’s when I saw him place the bundle on the ground on top of a layer of leaves. He then covered it with tons more dead leaves and pine needles right onto the pile, then poured some liquid all over it and lit it on fire. I called Colleen out to see it burning because the fire seemed a little too high for my comfort. I assumed he was probably burning an old and no longer legible tattered Torah. As Bloom returned to his front door, rather than enter through the rear sliding doors, I asked him what he was doing. The Rabbi confirmed that it was two old Torahs he was burning.”

  Jason inquired, “Why do you think he was doing this so early in the morning?”

  “I asked him that. He told me that they must be disposed of before sundown. However, he told me he had to burn them early since he would not be home before sundown due to going away for a couple of days to visit family and administer a funeral service,” Frank replied.

  “And you believed the Rabbi when he told you that? Didn’t you think it was suspicious that he did something like that so early in the morning?”

  “They are rather large and probably very heavy,” Frank Weissman pointed out. “In many synagogues they can be up to four feet long, top to bottom. I’ve seen Rabbis during services holding them with both arms. I am Jewish, but I’m not an expert on all the rules and customs of my religion. I thought Rabbis must know how to dispose of their old, no longer useable Torahs, just as we do to a worn-out American flag,
which must be burned when it’s disposed of. He certainly wasn’t acting as if he was trying to hide his actions. Otherwise, I assume, he would have returned into his house using the back door. I had no reason to be suspicious about anything at that moment.”

  “So, what happened then?” Pratt asked.

  Frank replied, “When Bloom returned from his backyard and was about to enter his front door, he heard me say hello to him, turned toward my voice and saw us. He just didn’t quite look like himself, nor was his hand wave to us the same as it always is.”

  With a suspicious frown, Pratt asked “What do you mean his wave wasn’t the same as it always is, and that he didn’t quite look like himself?”

  Frank Weissman thought carefully for a moment before attempting to answer those questions. “First, in all the years we’ve lived next to him, the Rabbi always raised his arm above his head when he waved at us, kind of enthusiastically, like he was glad to see us. This time his hand was about chest high and he waved rather weakly; it just wasn’t the same wave as we’re used to.”

  “Secondly, he didn’t quite look like himself because his posture was quite different. He was more crouched over at the waist than I’ve ever seen him before. He looked more like someone who normally does heavy lifting and his posture was due to painful back muscles or something. But he wasn’t carrying anything heavy any longer.”

  “Well, if the Torahs were that heavy, especially since he had to lift them to place them on a tarp and roll them up, it might account for his sore back that day. Is that all you can tell me about that incident?” inquired Pratt.

  “Well, I did see something else that terrified me.”

  “What was that Mr. Weissman?”

  “I noticed something that looked like a skull protruding from the ashes. I wasn’t able to tell if it was human or not, but it scared the shit out of me just seeing it.”