“Well, the Vickster needs to go pick up the clothes on the floor of her room and get ready to go,” Mary Jane said, pushing her daughter down the hall. “You, too, big fella.”
An hour or so later we were all in Milton, gathered at the palatial estate of Carmine Spoleto above the marshlands that were part of the Neponset River basin. Carmine’s three daughters were there, along with husbands and children, and so were the handful of goombahs that Carmine kept around the place for security. Tiny Tony was there, but wasn’t cooking today. It was Easter Saturday and Carmine’s daughters had scheduled the big family to-do for today, so we could all celebrate Easter in our own ways. The Hacker family intended to sleep late, go out for lunch somewhere and watch golf in the late afternoon. Although I was not hopeful baby DJ would be down with the sleeping late part.
The party self-separated as always: the male adults gathered in the living room with cocktails and munchies, to talk about the Red Sox, Wall Street and other important topics. The womenfolk congregated in the kitchen, from which several amazing smells emanated. They were slamming the wine pretty hard, and bursting out with occasional loud peals of laughter. We menfolk just assumed that one of us was the subject. And all the kids, ranging in age from sixteen on down, were sent upstairs where Carmine’s goombahs had installed all the latest shoot ‘em up video games on the huge TV in the video room.
After a while, Carmine pulled me aside.
“Go get your wife and daughter,” he whispered to me. “I have something to show you.”
We met him outside the front door. Tiny Tony had pulled up one of the black SUVs that Carmine owned. Tinted windows and I assumed armor-plated. The head of the New England mob can’t be too careful.
“Where are we going?” Mary Jane asked. She was carrying DJ on her hip. “Do we need to get the car seat?”
“Get in, get in,” Carmine said, waving her into the back seat. “We’re not going far. The bambino will be fine. Andiamo.”
Victoria sat between her Paw Paw and Tiny Tony in the front seat. Tony drove us down the main driveway, but turned hard right just before the road onto a narrow lane that circled down behind the main house toward the marshes. In about a hundred yards, we pulled up in front of a two-story structure located on the shore. There was a narrow passage cut through the marshes leading up to the dock that extended out in front of the building.
“What is this?” Mary Jane said.
“This is my boat house,” Carmine said. “Casa de barca.”
“I didn’t know you had a boat,” Mary Jane said.
“I don’t,” he said. “I hate boats. Come see inside.”
There was a wooden stairway leading up to the second floor. Tiny Tony stayed with the car while we all climbed up, and Carmine unlocked the door. He stood back and motioned us to go in.
I heard Mary Jane’s intake of breath as she looked at the place for the first time. It was pretty impressive. We entered into a little vestibule with hooks along the wall and trays for shoes and things on the floor, and beyond that was a combination living room, dining room and kitchen. The front of the space was all window wall overlooking the acres of marsh and river that stretched out into the distance. There was a deep, black leather U-shaped sofa and granite-topped cocktail table in front of a large TV, a light-wood dining table with six chairs and a granite pass-through counter from the kitchen, which was full of stainless steel appliances and wooden cabinets.
The walls were cypress planks, stained a light cherry and filled with nautical art and artifacts, oars and steering wheels and the like. A hallway down one side led to the back part of the house, where I assumed the bedrooms were. And over next to the kitchen was a black metal circular staircase which led up to a loft space overlooking the living room space and sharing the same window walls looking out at the marshes.
“My God,” Mary Jane said, staring at all this, “I never knew you had this place down here.”
Carmine shrugged. “It was here when I bought this place twenty years ago,” he said. “I never used it much. Some of the boys would sleep down here when I needed them to be close by. Other than that, it’s always been pretty much vacant.”
Victoria ran over to the metal staircase and climbed up to the loft. I heard her muffled yell, and she leaned over the railing. “There’s a bedroom up here,” she called. “Plus a bathroom!”
Carmine smiled up at his granddaughter. “And two more bedrooms in the back, plus the master bath,” he said.
Mary Jane and DJ went to look. I stayed. There was a wrap-around porch in the front that extended down one side of the building. There was a big propane grill under a cover in one corner.
“This is a great space,” I said. “Really nice. Impressive. But I really don’t think we can …”
“Hacker,” Mary Jane called from the back. “You gotta come see this.”
I went down the hall. There was a small room on the left, a big bathroom in the middle and a nice sized bedroom to the right. Mary Jane was standing with DJ at the French doors which opened from the bedroom onto the wraparound deck. She pointed. Outside the doors, on the end of the deck, was a big, brand new hot tub.
“Jeezus,” I said.
“Does that mean you’re having some of those carnal thoughts again?” she asked sweetly.
I went back into the living room. Carmine, looking like the cat who swallowed the canary, was perched at the pass-through, half sitting on a bar stool.
“What is this all about?” I said.
He shrugged. “This place is practically unused,” he said. “The boys can bunk in the basement in the big house, if I need them. Your family needs a new home. This might work, yes?”
“I can’t take this place from you for nothing,” I said.
“Of course not,” he cut me off. “I would never make such an offer. I am a businessman. Also, that would be insulting to someone like yourself.”
“Well, I’m glad you understand,” I said, nodding. “It’s really a lovely place, but …”
“How much do you pay in rent now, there in Cambridge?” he asked.
I told him the number. He nodded.
“You will pay me the same amount,” he said. “Every month.”
Mary Jane came and stood next to me. DJ was looking around and cooing at things.
“That is a very fair offer, Paw Paw,” she said. “Are you sure the other girls will be okay with us living here?”
He nodded. “Si, I have spoken to them,” he said. “They all think it’s a great idea. Plus, I will have family close at hand if, Dio non voglia, something might happen to this old man.”
I assumed he was talking about a medical emergency, not the guns-and-bullets kind. He was, after all, in his eighties.
“So,” he said, turning his rheumy eyes toward me. “What do you think? Do we have a deal?”
I looked at Mary Jane, who was flush with excitement. DJ was chewing on a red rubber ring, but he looked like he approved. Victoria leaned over the railing above us. “You better say yes, Hacker, or I’ll never speak to you again!”
“OK,” I said. “I guess it’s a deal.”
Carmine and I shook hands. Victoria shrieked and did a loud clumping happy dance a floor above. Mary Jane leaned over and kissed me. DJ blew a raspberry.
“I hope you will be very happy here,” Carmine said.
22
The beginning of a major golf tournament week has always felt to me like the opening of a medieval jousting tournament, except that there’s no Errol Flynn running around in green tights and a feathered cap. But there are the pennants snapping in the wind, the smell of freshly mown grass, the stands special-built for crowds of spectators, meat sizzling on the grills, smoke drifting off in the breeze. Add the Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marion and a couple of court jesters and it would be exactly the same.
A chilly rain was falling on Monday afternoon when the IBS crew arrived at Conrad Gold’s Hudson Links. The banners were hanging limp
ly and wet on their poles and the court jesters were all inside one of the dozens of hospitality tents getting hammered on bourbon and scotch. I saw a small handful of players on the practice tee, but most of the pros were staying inside and dry.
We had all met for lunch at the Cumberland Arms Inn in the burgh closest to the golf course and our hotel home for the week. Ben Oswald had outlined our schedule, which included daily production meetings which would include in-depth reports on the players and updates on the golf course. After those sessions were over, we were free, and encouraged, to attend some of the PGA of America functions and cocktail parties which would be going on all week. The PGA of America is divided into “sections” both within and without state lines, and it seemed like every one of those sections was planning a big party sometime during the upcoming week. Based on past experience, I was only interested in attending the Nebraska section steak fry on Wednesday night. They always had excellent connections with some of the ranchers from the state who sent over the best rib eyes and sirloins in the world.
Our little white bus took us over to the Gold Club on the bluff overlooking the golf course, and despite the dreary weather, we could see the golf course laid out in waiting for the tournament. Fairways were pristine, rimmed with gallery ropes and bright with electronic message boards. The air was wet and heavy, and the tension, which had not begun to mount, was still hanging in the atmosphere along with the rain showers. This was a Big Show, one of four held every year, and it felt like it.
Ben, Van and Jimmy went in to do thirty minutes with the press. Ben explained some of the technological doo-dads we had imported for the broadcast, talked about the miles of cable that had been laid, the numbers of workers that had set up the broadcast headquarters and the times we were planning to broadcast live. Once Ben covered the logistics, Van and Jimmy talked about other PGA Championships they had covered over the years, and who they felt was playing well enough at the moment to win.
I stood at the back of the room with the other announcers, the Boz at my side, and watched the reporters asking questions. It had not been all that long ago that I had been one of them. I knew that with the rainy first day, a lot of planned interviews and preview stories had been postponed or deep-sixed, and that made the press guys nervous and unhappy. Which is never a good thing for your press corps to be.
Bartholomew Hastings, the somewhat young sports writer for the New York Times, who covered most of the major golf events for the paper, raised his hand.
“Yeah, Ben,” he said, “Would you care to comment on the recent death of your assistant, Arnie Wasserman, and how that has affected your coverage here this week?”
“Sure,” Ben said, nodding. But I noticed his eyes narrow and a bit of color rose in his cheeks. “Arnie’s death was a huge loss for all of us at IBS. He worked closely with me for the better part of eleven years. I miss him every day, both personally and professionally. I don’t know how his passing will affect our coverage. We haven’t done a major without him in all that time. But our crew is made up of professionals from top to bottom, so my expectation is we’ll do the best job we can, and I think the viewers will be pleased.”
The Timesman wasn’t finished.
“You also lost one of your announcers, Parker Long, at the tournament down in Savannah earlier this spring,” he said. “Can you tell us please if there are any connections between these two deaths?”
The red spots on Ben’s cheeks got a little larger.
“Yes,” he said. “Both Parker Long and Arnie Wasserman worked for IBS and they were my friends and colleagues. That’s the connection.”
“No,” Hastings said, “I mean any connections between the two murders?”
“We don’t know how Parker Long died,” Ben said, “And it is impertinent and, if I can say, more than a little disgraceful for you to imply that he was murdered.”
“The police in Savannah still have that death under investigation,” Hastings said. “So the question of how he died is still open.”
“And you are assuming that he was murdered,” Ben shot back. “Do you have any evidence of that?”
“No,” Hastings said, “But the police…”
“So if you have no evidence, how can you assert that the deaths of Parker and Arnie are connected?” Ben said. “You can’t. And it’s disgraceful that you imply it.”
“I’ll note that you haven’t answered my question,” Hastings said.
“You can also note that I’m about ready to come down there and kick your ass,” Oswald said. His face was now officially red.
“Nice, Ben,” the reporter said. But he sat down.
The PGA press person took charge, asked for any more questions, and when no one was brave enough to ask one, she declared the press conference to be over.
Ben stalked out, waves of steam metaphorically rising from his head. Van and Jimmy stuck around, and some of the reporters gathered around them to chat a bit and hopefully pick up another quote or two.
I went over and sat down next to Bart Hastings.
“Have you heard anything I haven’t?” I asked him.
He had been writing something in his notebook. He looked up at me.
“Hacker,” he said, acknowledging my presence. I know I was supposed to feel both a thrill and a chill that the reporter for the hallowed New York Times knew my name, but I had known Bart for five or six years. Nice guy, a little standoffish like most New Yorkers, pretty good writer. He was in his late thirties, tall and lanky, with a full head of hair and a craggy visage. Like Abe Lincoln without the beard.
“I assume you mean in regards to Parker Long,” he said finally, snapping his notebook shut.
“Yeah,” I said. “Last time I talked to Capt. Connor down in Savannah, he didn’t exactly know how Parker died. You hear anything different?”
“And why would I tell you if I had?” he said. “Perhaps the news hounds from IBS can find out.”
“Well,” I said, “I would think you’d tell me so as not to be the world’s biggest asshole. I’m not a reporter anymore, Bart. We’re not competing for scoops. I’m a TV guy now and Parker was one of ours. We’d like to find out what happened.”
“Well then,” he said, standing up. “I guess you’ll just have to read tomorrow’s paper. See you around.”
And he left. With me sitting there thinking that he really was the world’s biggest asshole.
I called Delbert Connor.
“Connor,” came the gruff voice.
“Hacker here,” I said. “What is the New York Times going to publish tomorrow about the Parker Long case?”
“No idea,” he said. “I’m a cop, not a clairvoyant.”
“C’mon, Connor,” I said. “Hastings has something. You gave it to him. You and I have been friends longer.”
He laughed at that. “Friends?” he said. “Good one.”
“What did the state lab come back with?” I said. “How did Parker get electrocuted?”
“Look, Hacker, my ‘friend,’” he said. “My investigation is still open and active. I can’t tell you much.”
“But?”
“The crime lab took Long’s headphones apart, piece by piece,” he said. “They found some…umm…unusual wiring inside.”
“What does that mean?”
“Shorthand version: someone messed with the victim’s headphones,” he said. “The lab guys found some some of the internal connections in the headphones had been tampered with.”
“Tampered with how?” I asked.
“They don’t know for sure,” he said. “But the state’s tech guy told me that the headphones Parker was wearing would have returned a lot of static noise. Parker wouldn’t have been able to hear very well. Lotta static, bad quality sound.”
“It was deliberate?” I asked. “Not just some old headphones where the wires wore out?”
“According to the lab, it looked like someone had worked to deliberately interfere with
the headphones,” he said. “And then carefully put them back together to look like new.”
“But would that kill him? Zap him with power?”
“Nope,” Connor said. “That’s the part they haven’t figured out yet. There was nothing they could see that would send power back down the headphone wires and into the wearer. They ran all kinds of tests, but it never did that. But it’s something they’ve never seen before.”
“Is that what Bart Hastings is running with tomorrow?” I asked.
“How the hell do I know?” he said. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Because he’s the world’s biggest asshole,” I said.
“We all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?” Connor said and rang off.
I thought about what Connor had told me for a while. I couldn’t think of any reason why someone would deliberately mess around with the wires. But I could think of someone who might know.
I grabbed a courtesy van down to the golf course and wandered over to this week’s location for Television City, where there were thirty or so trailers parked cheek-to-jowl to hold all the electronics, studios, control rooms and more for the international group of television broadcasters including IBS. Technicians of various stripes were running around in barely controlled states of panic, checking cables and testing equipment, which all had to be ready to go on Thursday morning.
I found the trailers that belonged to IBS’ technical crew and stepped inside the first one. It was a dark space with a narrow aisle down the middle and all kinds of lockers and containers on both walls, holding every imaginable kind of gear: wires and cables and connectors and pins and splitters and tools and ties and more. Down at the front of the trailer, there was a space for a work bench across the width of the trailer, and this part at least was well lighted. And sitting on a metal chair at the work bench, bent over a piece of circuit board with a welding tool, was Digby Allen, our resident techie genius.
“Digby,” I said as I came up. “What’s goin’ on?”
He glanced up, eyes looking extra large as seen in reverse through one of those plastic magnifying glasses things he had strapped to his head.
P.G.A. Spells Death Page 15
