Deadly Divots

by Gene Breaznell

  “I am only trying to play a round before my rounds at the hospital,” Fitch added, apparently unaware of his wordplay.

  “I’m only trying to solve a murder case,” I said, aware of sounding like a snooty headwaiter squelching a snob’s attempt to score a table.

  Why not? It’s just another cop perk, even better than parking where the country club set is not allowed. Though I’d still rather have a Beemer and be playing this course.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I sensed a presence looming behind and whirled as another golf cart stopped just short of hitting me.

  “That’s too close,” I angrily told the driver.

  “These things are nice and quiet,” said the county medical examiner, sitting behind the wheel and grinning like an idiot.

  “Too damn quiet,” I said, like Gary Cooper in High Noon. You’re dating yourself, Kanopka.

  “Not too quiet for Yankee relievers,” the ME said.

  “I don’t need relief,” I told him. I haven’t been blown off the mound. Not yet.

  “It’s a long way from the bullpen,” he added.

  “Cut the bullshit,” I said. “Get off that thing and tell me how this guy bought the farm.”

  “Beautiful course,” said the ME, ignoring my comment and the corpse. “I’ve always wanted to play here. I’d fit right in with a foursome including State Senator Molloy, Judge Harkness, and Congressman Bryce.”

  “They’re members here?”

  “It helps to be a Republican.”

  “And rich.”

  “You got that right, Detective. Guess I’ll never make the cut.”

  Who’s he kidding? He makes at least three times my salary. At least he has some hope of playing here. I’ll never even make it as a guest.

  “Anyway, the course is closed,” I told him, as coldly as I had told Dr. Fitch. “But this murder case is wide open.”

  The ME finally hopped off the cart, yanked the tarp off O’Reilly like he was God’s gift to cadavers, and proclaimed of the head wound, “That’s quite a divot.”

  “So I’ve been told,” I said.

  “Made with some force.” The ME looked closer.

  What a genius.

  “By a golf club?” I asked.

  “Can’t say for sure, ’til I get him back to the lab and examine him.”

  He always says that. I can’t understand it. Even the lowliest car mechanics offer on-the-spot opinions.

  “I need to know right now,” I insisted.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “My men need to know what to look for.”

  “Why don’t they look for the killer?” the ME asked, with a crooked grin.

  Okay, smart guy. You think making three times my salary makes you three times as smart? I never liked the ME, but I always gave him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a Yankees fan and an avid golfer. He’s also young and insecure in this new position. Maybe his workload’s too heavy. Maybe he dropped a bundle on yesterday’s doubleheader. He needs a slap, like a crisp chip shot, to bring him back to his senses. There are other ways, however, of getting information out of smart mouths and witnesses.

  “Usually, we don’t know the who,” I explained, as calmly as possible. “So we have to start with the what.”

  “I can’t say for certain.”

  “Take a stab at it.”

  “I told you, Kanopka, after I slab him and stab him back at the lab.”

  Very funny. Your head’s more swollen than O’Reilly’s belly. You should know better than anyone else that a slab’s also waiting for you someday. Hazard a guess. I won’t hold you to it. You’re not so important that your every word must be etched on the permanent record. Take your best shot. Like you would on any golf course.

  “Could it be a nine iron or a pitching wedge?” I prodded, echoing Dr. Fitch’s opinion. At least he had the guts to guess.

  “Only time will tell,” the ME intoned, as though he’s the Delphic Oracle and I don’t speak Greek.

  “Could he have hit his head on a rock, or something, and fallen into the water hazard and drowned?”

  “That’s where he was found?”

  “By the greenskeeper, floating facedown.”

  “We’ll know, if there’s water in his lungs.”

  “Yeah, I know. After you get him back to your lab.”

  “Don’t be cranky, Kanopka. I’m not even on call.”

  “Then what the fuck are you doing here?” He’s pushing me to the edge.

  “I came to get a good look at the course,” he grinned. “I told you, I can’t afford to be a member.”

  “You what?”

  “You must understand,” the ME said. “You’re also a golfer. These fairways are to die for. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.”

  “They’re spectacular, from bunker to rough, tee to green. Average golfers, you know, the lumpen of the public links, would think this place is heaven.”

  Lumpen of the public links? Now you’re hitting too close to home, and I wish I could hit you with a wicked hook or slice one into that shit-eating grin. The way I’ve been playing lately, they’ll never convict me. You’re way out-of-bounds, but you don’t even know it. I’ll gladly take a two-stroke penalty to shank my next shot in your direction. Had O’Reilly’s killer felt the same way? Could some slight, real or imagined, cause such violence? Why not? I’m damn close to it. I guess that murder can occur on elysian courses like Broken Oak.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two scuba divers waded into the water hazard while my uniforms scoured the shoreline. “Look for a possible murder weapon,” I reminded them. “Something heavy and sharp. Like a golf club.”

  “Also look for signs of a struggle,” the head of forensics told her team. “Where this guy hit the ground. We’d like to know if he was dragged or pushed in.”

  “What if he did a Greg Louganis?” someone asked.

  Everyone laughed, including me. Some people call me a hard-ass, but I understand the need for comic relief.

  One of the divers soon brought up a golf club and handed it to the head of forensics.

  “It’s a five iron,” she declared as the ME and I hurried over to see it.

  The blade of a five iron is not as wide or heavy as a nine iron, I thought, recalling that Dr. Fitch had thought the latter caused O’Reilly’s head wound. The blade angle of a five is also more closed, for hitting longer distances, plus the shaft’s longer. I can hit my five about 150 yards, unless I go for more. Then I dub it for twenty. My nine’s good for about seventy-five, with a higher arc due to the increased blade angle. It plops onto the green and stays there, unless I go for more. Same old story. You’d think I would have learned by now.

  “No one tosses a five iron into the drink,” said the ME.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “It’s the easiest club in the bag,” he grinned.

  “Not for me,” I said, with a frown. Though comic relief is common, often expected at gruesome crime scenes, I’m fond of my five iron. But the ghoulish golf humor was starting to get to me. I was excited about the find until the diver retrieved six more clubs in rapid succession—some in perfect condition, others bent and rusted. One was just a shaft: what I’d be getting if I didn’t come up with some tangible evidence pretty soon.

  “Where’s the head?” I asked, expecting the ME to tell me it was back at the clubhouse. Meaning, of course, the men’s room.

  “It must have snapped off,” he said. “Happened to one of my clubs once, with a perfectly normal swing. Not that my swing is perfectly normal. I’ve got this little hitch—”

  “We’ve got to find it,” I interrupted his golf lesson. “It could be the part that killed O’Reilly.”

  “It could be anywhere,” said the ME, suddenly more interested in all the golf balls the diver was piling on the shore.

  “Must be hundreds of ’em,” I said.

  The ME said, “We should open a driving range.”

  “And a
pro shop,” said a young cop, swinging the five iron we found after it had been placed in a plastic evidence bag.

  “Put that down!” I shouted at him. “This is not the LAPD!”

  “You can still smear the prints,” the head of forensics confirmed.

  “And blow this whole case,” I said. “Any defense attorney would have a field day with you. He wouldn’t have to be Johnny Cochran.”

  “Sorry,” said the young cop, carefully replacing the club with other collected evidence. “It’s a Ping. I always wanted a set. They’d take ten strokes off my game, but they cost an arm and a leg.”

  “Get a Ping-Pong paddle,” someone needled.

  Everyone laughed, except me. The young cop had a sick wife and three kids, and he desperately needed side jobs. Owning expensive golf clubs, like the ones members of Broken Oak routinely tossed away, was a big deal. No excuse for tampering with evidence, however.

  I found a distinctive heel print along the shore—obviously from a golf shoe, with one spike missing. Forensics marked it for a cast. I also found a pair of lacy panties in a nearby sand trap, the kind you see in Victoria’s Secret catalogs—small, suggestive, and transparent. Carol, God bless her, used to get them in the mail and promptly turn them over to me. The catalogs, not the panties. I’ve been called a lot of names, but never a cross-dresser. The panties were half-buried in the sand and were almost the same color. I would not have noticed them unless the light had been just right.

  As the trap was cordoned off, I took another look at O’Reilly’s head wound, then at the five iron in the evidence bag. The size of the blade and the wound seemed to match. It could have administered the coup de grace, or deadly divot. But what do I know?

  I headed back along the tenth fairway toward the clubhouse.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The mansion, or clubhouse, was a mountain of Gothic arches and gargoyles—a dark, stone mountain, like old brownstones in the bowels of Brooklyn, where I grew up poor as a church mouse. I scampered up a sweeping stone staircase between staggered pairs of huge cast-concrete planters that looked like funeral urns. They had flowers in them, but they were also big enough for planting bodies.

  I landed on a massive flagstone patio overlooking the golf course. Looking up, awed by all the finials and flying buttresses, I thought about old Dame Winifred rattling around inside. I could never live in a mansion this size, even if I hit the Lotto or Enron before the fall. All the repair costs and maintenance, not to mention astronomical heating bills, would croak this hopelessly proletarian homicide cop. These days if stress doesn’t get you, it’s sudden wealth syndrome.

  Massive oak doors, with ornate carvings of acorns, leaves, and stags, were tucked under low stone archways leading from the patio into the mansion. Which door to choose? The lady or the tiger? Would one door admit me to a Pleasure Palace? Would another release a club-swinging yuppie intent on making a divot in my cranium? Xanadu or Xanadon’t? I only know that Carol, an English major, would not approve of mocking Coleridge.

  A small sign on one of the doors read Halfway House. I chuckled to myself. In my world, halfway houses are rehab centers for druggies, foreign to most of the beau monde recovering from the rigors of the front nine with a spritzer and a club sandwich. Climbing on and off those carts and whacking little white balls out of the gentle rough must take its toll. I would not be caught dead in a halfway house, even if there was one at my public course.

  The Halfway House was locked. I tried another door with a sign reading Pro Shop. It opened easily for such a heavy door. Inside was a tall, athletic-looking man, apparently alone. He was leaning on a glass display counter, reading the sports section of the local newspaper. He looked about thirty-five.

  “Dang Mets dropped another one,” he said with a Texas twang.

  Flashing my ID, I told him, “I’m more interested in who dropped the guy out by the water hazard.” I’m also waiting for the Dodgers to come back to Brooklyn.

  “’Course,” he drawled.

  “Can you tell me about him?” I asked.

  “Mr. O’Reilly?”

  “Any other stiffs out there?”

  “No one deserves dyin’ like that.”

  “My sentiments exactly. But who are you?”

  “Al Jones,” the tall man grinned, extending a hand. “I’m the golf pro here.”

  “What about O’Reilly?”

  “We didn’t speak much,” Jones shrugged. “Some folks respect my bein’ their pro. Some treat me like the help.”

  At least you get some respect. Unlike us cops.

  “Never bought much in my shop, neither.”

  “Lousy customer?”

  “Worse ’n his handicap.”

  “Which was?”

  “’Bout a thirty-two.”

  “That’s not good, unless it’s your waistline.” Your handicap is based on how many strokes you shoot above par, which varies from course to course but averages seventy-two. I can play to a ten handicap, when I’m not trying to hit them as far as John Daly. Which means I’d have to give O’Reilly twenty-two strokes.

  “That’s how he liked it,” Jones grinned again.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He only turned in his highest scores.”

  “Inflating his handicap like a tech stock?”

  “He could play to a twenty-eight, for money.”

  “I know some guys like that.” I could whack them with a five iron.

  “He also shaved strokes, ignored penalties, was extra fond of the foot mashie.”

  “He kicked the ball to a better lie?” Out of the rough or a divot, off the dirt, so it sets up higher and is easier to hit.

  “Only when no one was lookin’.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Know what, Detective? The difference between golf and soccer?”

  “You said he only kicked the ball when no one was looking.”

  “Word travels fast in these parts, pardner.”

  “I’m a cop,” I reminded him. “Not your partner.”

  There’s a delicate balance between loosening people up and letting them get too familiar with you.

  “’Course,” he said, only slightly more seriously.

  “What else?”

  “Mr. O’Reilly cheated at everything,” Jones continued. “If you get my meaning.”

  “You mean, on his wife?”

  “Yup.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If I didn’t, I’d be the only one in these parts.”

  “A real Casanova?”

  “More like an old dog chasin’ cars.”

  “Mostly reflex?”

  “He wouldn’t know what to do if he caught one.”

  “Really?”

  “’Course, I’m only guessin’. He was overweight, outa shape, and he drank too dang much.”

  “You think he couldn’t get it up?”

  “He was also at least fifty.”

  “Hey! That’s not so old these days.”

  “No offense, Detective. You look like you’re in shape, for someone your age. Whatever it is?”

  “You’d better believe it,” I said, though I had not had sex, even with myself, since Carol had died a year earlier of brain cancer. I was more concerned, however, with Jones knowing so much about O’Reilly’s sex life.

  “So there was lots of gossip about O’Reilly?” I probed.

  “He was embarrassin’ to the members and a joke to the staff. Guys like him give Broken Oak a bad reputation.”

  “Like horny golf pros? No offense.”

  “Shucks. I ain’t offended. Mosta these swank clubs won’t hire a pro who ain’t married, for obvious reasons. But they hired me anyway.”

  “You saying your reputation’s impeccable?” I raised an eyebrow. Don’t bullshit me, pardner. I’ll check it out.

  “Broken Oak won’t hire a tennis pro, even if they’re married,” Jones said. “’Course, they’re the worst. They had some courts here once. Plowed �
�em under and made a drivin’ range.”

  “No tennis at all? Isn’t that unusual?”

  “This club’s for cattlemen, Detective, not sheepherders.”

  “Let me guess. An old Texas expression?”

  “Texas born and bred,” Jones grinned wider than the Lone Star State. “But I make good bread up here.”

  “Who was O’Reilly chasing lately?” I asked. Enough good-ole-boy crap.

  “Can’t say for sure.” Jones looked genuinely blank.

  “What would he have been doing on the golf course at night?”

  “Takin’ a leak? Lots of folks do it.”

  “Maybe he caught one of those skirts he chased and was caught in turn by her husband, in flagrante delicto.”

  “That mean he was gettin’ laid?”

  “An old cop expression. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an old cop, born and bred. Like my old man and his old man before him. And I don’t make enough bread, but I’m gonna catch this killer.”

  “Couldn’t have been an accident?” Jones asked.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” I told him. “What about O’Reilly’s wife?”

  “Nice lady.”

  “You know her?”

  “Took a few lessons from me.”

  “Any good?”

  “She don’t play yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ain’t ready. Wants to get comfortable with all the clubs so she don’t make a fool of herself. That’s not unusual. To some folks, a golf course is kinda like the Broadway stage. They want to make sure they know all their lines before goin’ on.”

  “Good analogy,” I said. “But I’m opening this show, directing all the performances, and bringing down the curtain.”

  I’m also not about to let any more good-ole-boy pronouncements throw me off the scent.

  “By the way,” I added, “the course is closed for the day.”

  “No skin off my nose,” Jones shrugged. “I don’t give lessons on Sunday anyway.”

  “Good,” I said, meaning it. Though it felt good to keep Dr. Fitch off the course, I do not enjoy interfering with a fellow workingman’s income, as long as he’s not the killer.

  “It ain’t good for the members.”