Deadly Divots

by Gene Breaznell

  Ignoring that last comment, I looked at the card. On the front was a young, lanky-looking Al Jones. On back was only a single line of stats.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I whispered.

  “Even they can’t help Interstate hitters,” Mike said.

  “I didn’t mean that. He batted left and right, a switch hitter.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. He sucked from both sides. He was also stupid, using an alias like Al. Even you could figure that out.”

  I gave him the finger.

  “Watch out,” Mike warned. “Some shyster’ll throw Alva in your face when you go to trial. Claiming the murder was his parents’ fault for giving him a girl’s name.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I dropped the golf shoes from Al Jones’s locker at the forensics lab. It would take some time to examine them. Too much time, if you ask me. I know, nobody asked. But lab techs do not have the same sense of urgency as the average tec, though homicides should be solved posthaste. If killers are not caught within forty-eight hours, the odds against finding them become astronomical.

  On my way back to Bayville, I wondered if the missing spike would be enough for a conviction. Even if it matches the heel print by the water hazard, it does not place Jones there when the murder occurred. Being a switch-hitter won’t convict him, either. I need a motive. There are no murders without motives. The motive for O’Reilly’s murder must lay, so to speak, with his wife and Al Jones.

  I need some hard evidence, no pun intended. There’s nothing yet, nothing with enough substance to scare the suspects and somehow trip them up. Rendering tried-and-true detective’s handbook methods useless. Sure, I can play one suspect against the other. I can also recruit a fellow tec for good cop/bad cop. But Mrs. O is sharp as a tack, and Jones is smarter than his good-ole-boy exterior indicates. There’s a plenitude of little gray cells between them, as Dame Winifred Randall’s Couloir might observe, and their alibis are in alignment. I need something unusual to unmask them. Something beyond the detective’s handbook, but short of the good old wham-bam. Something needs to happen. “’Tis here but yet confused,” my higher-educated wife might have put it, “knavery’s plain face is never seen ’til used.” She was full of Shakespeare quotes, and occasionally full of herself, God forgive me.

  I got home at 6:00 P.M., late for some working people, not late enough for someone living alone. There’s too much daylight left in the summer. I noticed that my lawn needed cutting and my house needed painting. Most of all, I needed a drink.

  I parked beside my tenants’ car, pleased they were home in their upstairs apartment. Their creaking floorboards and muffled conversations were the next best thing to a companion of my own. I wished they were my kids.

  I grabbed the mail on my way to the kitchen. There were scads of bills, something serious-looking from the PBA, what felt like five pounds of advertising fliers, and the local mullet wrapper, with a breaking front-page story on the murder at Broken Oak Country Club.

  I tossed everything onto a kitchen counter and frisked the fridge for a cold one. Horror of horrors, no brewskis. I deserve at least one; the day’s been long and hot. I’ve also got a good excuse to celebrate, being on the cusp of collaring Al Jones. I guess I can wait, for the beer and the bust. I’m also waiting for the lab work on his shoes, for the guys in the white coats with all the gizmos. Though I’d rather go for the gusto and bust Jones right now. It has to be his heel print by O’Reilly’s body. He had to be there with a five iron, swinging it southpaw like a baseball bat. Rookie cards don’t lie. He also had to be boinking Mrs. O. Why wait for DNA on the panties and in the condom from the bunker, when lab techs have a bunker mentality? What’s forensics compared to gut feelings? What gas chromatic mass spectrometer can determine if Jones had acted on his own or if Mrs. O put him up to it? Why not bust him right now? DNA? A fig. Just give me a few minutes alone with that tall Texan in a backroom at headquarters. Sure, Kanopka. Then you can bend over and kiss your butt, plus your career, good-bye.

  I found a warm Bud behind the toaster oven, stuffed it into the freezer, and went to my bedroom. Watched beer never chills. But what to do in the interim? I noticed Dame Winifred’s little paperback lying helpless and exposed on my night table, like O’Reilly’s open fly by the water hazard. Now that I know it’s Murder on the Moor, according to Randy Randall, will I like it any better? I sat on my bed and began reading.

  The little book was oddly becoming comfortable, like one of my regular snitches. It was also oddly like O’Reilly’s murder, though I did not expect to find any useful insights. An old biddie with a rusty Smith-Corona can’t compare with twenty years of busting felons with my trusty Smith & Wesson.

  A few more pages fell out. I slipped them back in. They did not fit quite right, like an old deck of cards that can’t stack straight and even. Reading on, I learned that the gun-loving earl of Cranbrook was more concerned about his grouse hunt than about the corpse out on his moor. Like Dr. Fitch being more concerned about getting in a round of golf than about O’Reilly?

  A butler was also lurking. Like Randy Randall? Plus the gamekeeper who found the body out on the moor with a bullet hole in its back, like Vince Henry, the black greenskeeper at Broken Oak who found O’Reilly? Other odd help, like Slim and his cadre caddies, also crept in and out. And the murdered guy on the moor was nearly as obnoxious as O’Reilly. Despite the similarities, however, I had nothing in common with Detective Peter H. Couloir and his little gray cells.

  In the next chapter, Dame Winifred introduced two new characters. Mrs. Phelps was the victim’s wife, a renowned concert pianist and most attractive. She reminded me of Mrs. O and was most likely messing around with the next new character, Algernon Spotswood, a fun-loving sportsman, aka Algie, a frequent guest at the earl’s estate. Algie was grouse hunting with the earl prior to Mr. Phelps’s body being discovered. He could easily have copped the Webley-Vickers .44 from the earl’s arms collection and done the dastardly deed.

  Algie also reminded me of Al Jones and pond scum. Murder on the Moor had more red herrings than a Sheepshead Bay fishmonger. All of them slowed up the story. I’m used to cutting to the chase.

  Dame Winifred gave Algie an alibi. “I arrived here only this morning,” he said, “well after this unfortunate incident. And I do understand that the poor chap was shot quite some time ago.”

  I stopped reading a moment, wondering if Al Jones and Mrs. O were together right now. Perfecting their alibis? Performing carnal acts? Should I put a tail on them? Was the murder planned in advance? Had Jones seized the moment? Encountering O’Reilly hopelessly drunk, helplessly peeing into the water hazard? Where’s the five iron with ashes on its blade and, as Peter H. Couloir would say, a soupçon of O’Reilly’s blood? In fact, he’s questioning Algie about the murder weapon on the next page.

  “You are an expert with firearms?” Couloir asked.

  “Quite, Detective. From my experiences as a military officer, champion skeet shooter, and hunter.”

  “Are these weapons of destruction all rifles, monsieur?”

  “And pistols, of course. But I resent your implication that they are weapons of wanton destruction. I use them only for targets and humane, well-regulated hunting. It’s called sport, old man.”

  Way to go, Couloir. Algie sounds like a charter member of the NRA. Piss him off some more. You’ve been too polite so far. Pissing off suspects is one of my favorite pastimes, my most successful method for making them tip their hand. I wonder how far I can go with Al Jones before he grabs a shiny new iron from one of his display racks and swings it at my cranium. Can I duck quickly enough? My reflexes ain’t what they used to be.

  “And you are familiar with the Webley-Vickers quarantequatre?” Couloir went on.

  “The .44?”

  “Mais oui.”

  I suddenly like Couloir’s lapsing into French, further trying Algie’s patience. I also approve of his testing Algie’s knowledge of the murder weapon. He seems more familiar
with guns than he lets on.

  “An extremely powerful hand gun, Detective. Standard military issue, for officers, you know.”

  “You were a guest of the Earl when his Webley-Vickers was removed from its display case?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I imply nothing, monsieur. I am merely setting the time frame, and putting my facts in their proper order.”

  End of chapter? I flipped the page to make certain. How could it end with Couloir backing down? He may have been a good detective in his day, but that was then and this is now. The only thing we have in common is no female companionship. But I’m not sure he misses it. Despite his heavy gray matter, he seems a little light in the loafers.

  I wonder if my Bud’s gotten cold. I need some beer in my belly as well as sizzle in my synapses.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tuesday morning I was wide awake at the crack of dawn, excited about getting to forensics and getting the goods on Al Jones. Having dreamed that his golf shoes, with the missing heel spike, matched the heel print by O’Reilly’s body, I figured dreams about murder are not always nightmares. I hopped out of bed, showered, shaved, pulled on some clothes. Then I hurried outside to my car and drove to the Glen Cove Dunkin’ Donuts for some coffee and an oat bran muffin. I don’t like making arrests on an empty stomach.

  The forensics lab was open when I arrived. The techs were excited and extremely pleased with themselves. My dream had come true. The shoe with the missing spike matched the print by the water hazard exactly. They also found traces of ash in the seams between the soles and the uppers of both shoes. The same kind of ash in O’Reilly’s head wound, from the blade of the five iron.

  “What’s the source of this stuff?” I asked the head tech.

  “A fire,” he shrugged. “What else?”

  I said patiently, “I already know that ashes come from burning something.”

  “Probably a campfire,” the tech continued. “There’s wood, paper, traces of tallow.”

  “Tallow?”

  “Animal fat. From a hamburger, maybe.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. “They were having a barbecue, and the killer is a Campfire Girl.”

  The tech shrugged again and said, “Possibility. But this is more like fast food. Maybe a Big Mac.”

  “Great,” I said sarcastically. “What good are these electron microscopes and molecular measuring devices, or whatever you use, most likely a ginsu knife and a veal mallet, when they diminish matter, and my evidence, to such an elemental state that I can’t see the woods for the trees?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” the lab tech said. “Fact is, these elements are inextricably linked.”

  I paused a moment, giving my woefully weak little gray cells a chance to catch up, then said, “You mean the ashes on the five iron and the ashes on the shoes, plus the heel print at the site of the murder, will get me a conviction?”

  “If you know who was wearing the shoes.”

  “Great,” I said, meaning it this time.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I drove immediately to Broken Oak to arrest Al Jones. Though I believed I could still handle a man Jones’s size by myself, I’m only five-ten and he’s got six inches on me. I brought along another detective and a uniformed cop as a backup.

  “That’s Jones’s Crown Vic,” I told them, parking near a large sedan in the lot closest to the clubhouse.

  “Looks like a state trooper’s car,” said Vinnie Donnelly, the other detective, who’s spent seventeen years working homicide and would kill to play golf here.

  “I’d stop him in a heartbeat,” growled the uniform, named Mickey Roche, who used to chase speeders on the Grand Central Parkway. “Those Texas plates stand out like a sore thumb.”

  “Take it easy,” I told Mickey. “You’re not on your Harley.”

  “This guy’s also armed and dangerous,” Vinnie reminded us, though we only knew about the five iron.

  “He’s lucky we’re not bustin’ him in the Lone Star State,” Mickey said, as we climbed out of my car. “They got the death penalty there and they use it.”

  “They should execute some of these cars,” said Vinnie. “I thought these people had big bucks. Look at that crummy, dirty, banged-up Yugo.”

  “The beaters belong to the staff,” I told him.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s too early for most of the members,” I said, wondering if Dr. Fitch was out on dawn patrol.

  “And the course looks empty,” Mickey added.

  “Good thinking,” Vinnie told him. “You might make detective, someday.”

  “What makes you think I’d want to?” Mickey growled. “Your pay and your rank’s no better than mine.”

  “Our hours are shittier,” Vinnie said.

  “Okay,” said Mickey. “I’ll give you that.”

  “Wait near the car,” I ordered, still head detective on this case.

  They both nodded.

  “I’ll go into the pro shop,” I continued. “If I’m not out in five minutes, come and get me. But watch out for a tall Texan with a five iron.”

  “Or a smoking hog leg?”

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  I followed a cart path past the first tee and practice putting green. The summer sun was rising peacefully, birds were chirping. Wisps of night mist lingered in vales along the verdant fairways. Don’t get distracted, I warned myself. Al Jones could be lurking in the larkspur. Lurking in the Larkspur ? Sounds like the title of a Dame Winifred mystery.

  The door to the pro shop was slightly ajar. I opened it wider, ever so slowly, hesitating before stepping inside. It was too quiet and too dark. I stood perfectly still, hoping to hear someone moving, to feel the presence, with infinitesimal airflow, or something metaphysical. The Force be with me. Something told me someone was in there.

  Stepping quickly and quietly inside, I closed the door behind me. Too many cops make targets of themselves in open door frames. I found a light switch but left it off. My antennae were out and my hackles were up. Goosebumps and gut feelings were needed more than little gray cells now that Jones could be hiding behind a counter or a clothing rack, gripping his five iron.

  I gripped my .38 snub-nose, which feels even better than a five iron. Unless I’m hitting about 150 yards to the green.

  There were too many hiding places. I slipped past some shelves loaded with pastel cotton sweaters and argyle socks. I would not mind having a few of the items in my golf wardrobe, though I would mind dressing better than I play. I scolded myself for thinking about clothes and my golf game. The older you get, the tougher it gets to stay focused.

  I focused on two tall racks of women’s clothing that could be a gauntlet for the good-ole-boy golf pro. He could easily leap out, five iron flashing, bludgeon my aging cranium and the few gray cells left, slip outside past my backup, and hightail it out of town.

  I heard a muffled sound from a stockroom in back. I slipped between the two tall clothing racks, thankfully not getting whacked. I sidled toward the stockroom door, with Smith & Wesson leading the way.

  I know that Jones is in the stockroom, but he may not know that I’m in the shop. He’s making too much noise. I breathed a soft sigh of relief, believing that surprise was in my favor. Until I cocked my pistol and kicked in the stockroom door, shouting, “Freeze!”

  “Christ!” Randy Randall clutched his chest.

  “Where’s Al Jones?” I snapped, hoping I had not given Randall a heart attack.

  “I-I haven’t seen him . . .” Randall’s voice went up at least an octave, as if I were squeezing my trigger and his scrotum.

  “What are you doing in here?” I demanded.

  “I own this shop,” Randall said, testily. Recovering his composure too damn quickly, along with his snotty attitude.

  “So you’ve told me,” I said. “But your golf pro’s guilty of murder and I’m arresting him.”

  “I haven’t seen him this morning,” Randall sa
id. “Please put that pistol away.”

  I grudgingly lowered my snub-nose. Why is it cops who always get handcuffed? Forget it, Kanopka. The killer’s escaping. This is not the time for police-related polemics.

  “Stay here,” I told Randall. “My backup will be in any minute. I hope they don’t mistake you for Jones.”

  I darted to the front door and shouted outside to Vinnie and Mickey, already on their way up the cart path, “It’s Kanopka! Jones is loose! Call for more backup! Search the grounds!”

  I went back to Randall, who was still in the stockroom, and told him, “Wait outside in front.”

  “I can’t,” he insisted.

  “Why not?”

  “You need me. Are you searching the mansion?”

  “You bet.”

  “It’s a maze of dark hallways and a myriad of anterooms.” “So?”

  “With secret passages, false panels, concealed closets, and pocket doors.”

  “So what?”

  “Al Jones knows some of the hiding places,” Randall said, “but I know them all.”

  I realized that he was right.

  “You can stay with me,” I said, “but behind me.”

  Randall followed me through the side door from the pro shop into the men’s locker room.

  “How many other ways out of here?” I asked.

  “Only one,” he told me. “Through the main house. If he opens any windows, an alarm will go off.”

  I quickly but cautiously checked the showers, toilets, sauna, janitor’s closet, culs-de-sac formed by the fancy wooden lockers, pleased that Randall was guiding me through the labyrinthine layout but annoyed that Al Jones was nowhere to be found.

  We entered the main house.

  “Ever get lost in here?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” said Randall, guiding me swiftly through the kitchen, past Garland stoves with umpteen burners into a pantry that would make Emeril envious and a walk-in freezer the size of an Iron Chef’s ego. Still no Jones poised to lam-baste me with a frozen leg of lamb.