Deadly Divots

by Gene Breaznell

  “Next time,” I quipped, “I’ll slap us with summonses for littering.”

  “Won’t be no next time, Detective. You got your killer.”

  That’s what they’re saying.

  I studied the golf ball trail apparently left by Gregory. The balls, now little flags placed by forensics, were spaced approximately the same distance apart, almost in a straight line. As if dropped systematically. By a homicidal maniac on the dead run? Or a fat guy having a heart attack? Not likely.

  Running beside the trail of flags, I dropped several golf balls I had found elsewhere, releasing them as carefully as possible to achieve straightness and equidistance. But the little buggers rolled all over the place. Like most of my golf shots.

  “Tryin’ out for the Olympics?” Vince said, looking like I’d flipped.

  “Someone running couldn’t have done this,” I said, indicating the flags, flapping in the breeze like banners inspiring my defeat.

  “His balls would be all over the place,” the greenskeeper grinned.

  We laughed, man to man. Balls have no racial boundaries.

  “How come you find all the bodies out here?” I asked. “Maybe they should call you the cryptkeeper.”

  “Occupational hazard,” he shrugged.

  “But you haven’t told me all you know,” I said, ignoring the fact that more cops die in the line of duty than greenskeepers. “You’re the only one who’s out here all the time,” I added.

  “Tell me about it, Detective.” The boundaries were back up.

  “You know who drives their carts onto the greens, who fails to replace their divots, and who so much as farts.”

  “All I know is two guys got their skulls busted, the fat dude had a heart attack, and you leveled my fountain grass lookin’ for evidence.” The tall clumps of decorative grasses adorning the sides of the fairway were somewhat the worse for wear, but that shouldn’t bother him more than murder.

  “All I know,” I shot back, “is that you’re full of shit.”

  “Say what?” The greenskeeper clenched his big fists.

  “You heard me.” I stepped close to the burly ex–football player, sizing him up, considering the extensive damage he could do to me.

  “I told you all I know,” he said. “What else do you want? You already got your killer.”

  “He’s no killer. He was running away from the killer.”

  “But he was holdin’ the murder weapon,” Vince insisted. “I saw it myself. I also heard your medical examiner.”

  “It could have been planted,” I told him, stepping even closer, ready to duck if necessary.

  “I get it.” Vince glared at me. “I do a lot of planting out here. Is that what you’re tellin’ me? All this grass, these bushes and shit. I chased him down and planted that five iron on him.”

  “You also collect old golf clubs.”

  “But I wasn’t chasin’ the fat dude. I woulda caught him before he croaked.”

  “And?”

  “He woulda looked a lot different.”

  “I thought your knees were bad.”

  “So were O.J.’s.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I studied Al Jones’s appointment book again. I had been so excited about Mrs. O’s many lessons that I had ignored Mrs. Fitch. Her first lesson was back in March. Jones had just arrived from Texas. Unlike Mrs. O, however, Mrs. Fitch was penciled in for only one a week. Slow and steady. The smart way to cover up an affair.

  I kicked myself for not considering that a woman who’s really working on her golf game might load up on lessons while one who’s cheating might limit herself. You don’t flaunt your extramarital affairs at clubs like Broken Oak, where too many old bluenoses live in disproportionate fear that some young dish is after their balding, impotent husbands. You are very discreet. Word gets around anyway, seems like.

  Leafing through Jones’s appointment book, I also noticed that Mrs. Fitch’s name was gradually abbreviated, as Jones had done with Mrs. O, leading me to believe the big O stood for orgasm. The first few weeks it was Mrs. Fitch, then Mrs. F, and finally a big F. Meaning, for Broken Oak bluenoses, familiar? Or something even more familiar? I drove to her house in Centre Island.

  Blue-collar Bayvilleites, like me, have trouble spelling Centre Island. It’s that phony-baloney English thing. Centre Island’s very existence is also enigmatic. It’s a mere spit of sand jutting into Long Island Sound, just beyond Bayville, its homes protected from riffraff like me by a gatehouse and round-the-clock guards. Though I had a bona fide appointment to see Mrs. Fitch, the guard at the gatehouse, a retired cop, acted like he was doing me a favor to let me in.

  Each house on Centre Island is bigger and better than the next. Dr. Fitch is a rich son of a bitch, who can easily afford to bust lots of golf clubs. Can I bust him for murder? His property had two driveways. One led to the front of the house, the other to the service entrance. I chose the former, though the charges made by service persons and homicide cops can both be murder.

  Fitch’s house was about the size of O’Reilly’s, but you couldn’t find a blade of crabgrass in the lawn and the gardens were edged with a laser. I parked near the front door, hopped out of my car, and suddenly became aware of another presence.

  “Detective Kanopka?” A childlike voice wafted from behind a weeping cherry tree that could have made the cover of Horticulture magazine.

  I turned to face a lovely young blond, probably a Swedish au pair, parting the cherry boughs like a beaded curtain.

  “I’m here to see Mrs. Fitch,” I said.

  “That would be me,” said the blond. At the sight of my surprise, she continued, “Don’t worry, Detective. I’m often mistaken for my husband’s daughter. I don’t mind in the least.”

  Bet it bothers your ill-tempered hubby.

  “Is he home?”

  “He’s operating.”

  “So you can’t be his nurse,” I said.

  “I was,” she admitted. “He left his first wife for me. The one who helped him earn his way through med school. I know it’s a cliché. Now she’s a castoff. Probably homeless and roaming the streets. While I’ve got all this.”

  “You knew Mr. O’Reilly?”

  “The lush? The deadbeat? The pig?”

  “So you did know him.” She described his shortcomings so matter-of-factly, I responded in kind, though I must have sounded ridiculous.

  “Thankfully,” she said, “not so well.”

  “Did he ever make a pass at you?”

  “He wouldn’t have dared.”

  “Did you know Al Jones?” Let’s see how matter-of-fact she can be about the tall Texan.

  “I took golf lessons from him, but I strongly suspect you already knew that.”

  “Were you lovers?”

  “Come on, Detective. You can do better than that. Boffing the golf pro’s just another cliché. Am I a suspect?” She must have worked in the ER, the way she remained so calm under my questioning.

  “Your husband is a suspect,” I told her.

  “Save yourself the trouble and the embarrassment, Detective. My husband is a great cardiologist. He saves lives. He doesn’t take them.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, producing a ballpoint and a small spiral pad, pretending to take notes, attempting to increase her emotion and her wariness. “But his temper’s notorious,” I added.

  “Only on the golf course,” she said, glancing at my pad. “Breaking a few clubs here and there is harmless and cathartic.”

  “Where was he last night?” I asked.

  “Right here, with me.” Mrs. Fitch defiantly placed her hands on her svelte hips. “We have help who can verify that.”

  I jotted “HELP!” on my pad, more as a cry than as a reminder to question her domestics.

  “We found another body at Broken Oak,” I told her, defiantly dotting the ‘i’ in her last name, which I had scribbled for no reason.

  “Was he a member,” she asked, as coolly as if admitting a John Doe
to the hospital morgue, “or part of the staff?”

  It seemed that she and her husband, both cool customers, were made for each other. But she had slipped up. “How do you know it’s a man?” I asked, stopping my scribbling.

  “I had to call it something,” she told me, hands still on hips. “But what makes you think my husband had anything to do with it?”

  I frowned, thinking, what makes you think the best defense is an offense? The more you rile me up, the more likely I’ll run you in. Now I’ll run you over to my car, where I’ll show you the golf shoes with the missing heel spike.

  “Recognize this?” I asked, handing one of the shoes to her.

  “It’s a golf shoe,” she said, examining it more closely than I thought she would. “My husband’s size, 10-D, like millions of other men.”

  “Most women don’t know their husband’s shoe size,” I said, though I was not certain. “Do you buy his shoes and clothing?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Surgeons are often too busy saving lives to go shopping.”

  “I get the message,” I told her. “And you’re Florence Nightingale, but did you buy these?”

  “How should I know? I’ve bought him several pairs of golf shoes in the past. I can’t possibly recall when or where. He goes through them so fast. He throws them out long before he wears them out, or gives them away, believing that new equipment makes him play better. If you were a golfer, you would understand.”

  I can also understand his breaking clubs, though I can’t afford the luxury. But I was still interested in her golf lessons.

  “Did Al Jones help your game, or was it too tough to concentrate?” I asked, picturing him reaching around her from behind, adjusting her grip, starting her swing, touching just the right places.

  She laughed, as if I had dubbed a shot and scattered the gallery.

  “We have a witness who saw you and Jones together the night Mr. O’Reilly was murdered,” I continued.

  She laughed again and said, “There was a cocktail party. Lots of people could have seen us together, talking about my golf lessons.”

  “Our witness also saw you two out on the course,” I said. “I suppose you were getting some air,” I added, “or working on your sand shots.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Detective. It was too dark.”

  “Not so dark that our witness couldn’t see you and your golf pro getting it on in one of the sand traps.”

  “That’s disgusting,” she said, throwing the shoe at me. She turned and ran toward the house.

  Only then did I notice her badly bruised, dark purple cheekbone, barely hidden under a thick layer of makeup.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I had no witness who had seen Al Jones and Mrs. Fitch getting it on in the sand trap. That was all a bluff. You could call it entrapment. I needed to see her reaction. I don’t think she whacked anyone, but her husband could have been looking for her and Jones out on the course in the dark, found O’Reilly peeing into the water hazard, and whacked him instead. Then Fitch could have come back and whacked Jones a few nights later, when Gregory, out collecting golf balls, spotted him. Then he went after the cousin, causing his heart attack, planting the five iron in his hands instead of his cranium. Is Dr. Fitch really Dr. Death? But why would Fitch make the neat trail of golf balls?

  On my way home that evening, I stopped at the Tides and spied Mrs. O crossing Bayville Avenue. Headed toward the beach, she did not see me. I hopped out of my car and followed her.

  Except for a lone fisherman casting into the water, the beach was deserted. The tide was high and the sun was setting. Long Island Sound rolled and glowed like a pool of liquid mercury. Maybe it is liquid mercury, considering the pollution.

  Despite the Sound’s metallic content and occasionally high coliform count, Bayville has a great beach for sunning and swimming. Unlike the ocean, there’s no undertow and no breakers. Including the ball breakers that harried homicide cops endure constantly. I often strolled the beach on quiet evenings, after long, frustrating days on the job.

  Mrs. O was about a hundred yards ahead of me, minding her own business, admiring the sunset. I scurried after her like a fiddler crab, my cop brogans filling with sand. Sensing someone behind her, she turned and looked surprised to see me.

  “Am I under arrest?” she asked. “Or is this some sort of stakeout? Or maybe cops also like sunsets?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “For a murder suspect, or someone you just made love with?” She slipped her hands into the back pockets of her khaki shorts, threatening to poke her braless breasts through her thin cotton T-shirt. It was a shirt advertising a Daytona Beach bikers’ bar. She must be too young for me.

  “I think I know the killer,” I said.

  “Oh?” She seemed unconcerned.

  “It’s Randy Randall’s cousin.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A mentally retarded, morbidly obese relative Randall kept locked up.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “His murder is. He was found this morning out on the golf course. He apparently suffered a heart attack.”

  Mrs. O whispered, “That’s not murder” and continued admiring the sunset. Besides being too young, she could be too smart for me.

  “He was clutching a five iron,” I added. “Probably the murder weapon for the two others.”

  “What does that prove?” she said, cross-examining me as Carol used to. “And why would he have killed my husband?” Carol could always sense when I was on shaky ground.

  “He felt threatened,” I said, watching Mrs. O’s reaction instead of the setting sun. “He believed that your husband would have razed Broken Oak and erected condos, though he only left his room late at night to raid the refrigerators and collect lost golf balls.”

  “How could he see them?”

  “How could he miss them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those refrigerators are huge.” I smiled at my little joke, but Mrs. O frowned. Like Carol, she was better than me at staying on the investigative track.

  “He may have had a flashlight,” I added. “I’ll check it out.”

  “If he only left his room late at night,” she asked, “how did he know who my husband was?”

  “Maybe he saw a photograph from the club roster,” I tried. Though there were no club rosters in Gregory’s room, or any photographs.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “He recognized my husband from a puny snapshot in a club roster, and knew it was him in the dark?”

  “You a lawyer?” I said.

  “Why would he have killed Al Jones?” said Mrs. O.

  “There’s no apparent motive,” I admitted, picking up a smooth rock, trying to skim it. It disappeared after only one bounce. One bounce and you’re out? A metaphor for my recently revived sex life?

  “You know Mrs. Fitch?” I asked.

  “We spoke a few times. Very briefly. Mostly going to and from our tables in the Broken Oak dining room. She never had much to say. Her husband did all the talking. She’s much younger. I think he smothers her. I know nothing about him. Call it a woman’s intuition, but I don’t think he’s a nice person.”

  That seemed to be a pretty good appraisal, though I’m wary of anyone telling me more than I ask for. “Ever notice anything unusual about her appearance?” I asked. “Any cuts or bruises?”

  “You think he beat her?” Mrs. O raised an eyebrow, making me wonder if her husband had ever gotten rough with her.

  “She’s got a hell of a shiner,” I said.

  “I only noticed,” sighed Mrs. O, “that she’s a natural blond.”

  Now she’s telling me too little, making me even warier, causing me to ask the salient question, “Did you know she was having an affair with Al Jones?”

  “Am I supposed to be jealous?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Despite what you may think,” Mrs. O said, measuredly, staring at me i
nstead of the sunset, “I was only interested in golf lessons.”

  “What about Dr. Fitch?”

  “He’s not my type.”

  Though that’s not what I meant, at least I was pleased to hear it. “I was referring to Fitch’s business dealings with your husband,” I said.

  “I thought Randall’s cousin was the killer,” said Mrs. O.

  “You and everyone else,” I said, trying to skim another rock. Watching it sink without a single bounce.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I left Mrs. O at the beach and went home with a headache. I looked for some aspirin in my medicine cabinet and found only an empty bottle. I found a few loose tablets in my golf bag in a pocket I stuff with tees, balls, gloves, socks. Can old socks enhance acetylsalicylic acid? Like hooch aged in old oaken casks? I also found, in another pocket, the last page of Murder on the Moor, mingling with an old jockstrap. Can old jocks enhance murder mysteries? Or solve them?

  I swallowed two tablets and uncrumpled the last page. I had to read it, though my head throbbed and I had no idea how the page got in my golf bag. Peter H. Couloir had gathered all his suspects into one room, no mean feat, and explained that the evil earl of Cranbrook, whom I had suspected all along, did not murder Marty Phelps out on the moor, then murder Algernon Spotswood and stuff his body into a steamer trunk on the Orient Express. Couloir had also exonerated the earl’s weird uncle Esmond, though he was holding the smoking gun, and accused Mrs. Phelps of engineering some sort of plot. He based his entire theory on a single whiff of Mrs. Phelps’s perfume and the antifeminist opinion that her dainty digits could not have handled the considerable recoil of a Webley-Vickers .44. Mystery buffs may be used to such machinations, but they boggle the mind of modern-day homicide cops. Anyway, I started reading.

  “. . . your gamekeeper.” Couloir looked at the Earl, then at Mrs. Phelps. “And your lover,” he told her.

  “Preposterous!” said the Earl. “This young man has been in my employ for nearly seven years. He is scrupulously honest and his conduct is impeccable.”