He shuffled around again, but he did look at me finally with something resembling pride.
“I did it for Arnie,” he said.
“Wasserman ordered you to kill him?” I said. I hope I sounded as surprised as I was. “Man, that’s ice cold.”
Digby smiled at me, as if I was an idiot. “No, he didn’t order me,” he said. “Nobody orders me to do anything. I did it because he and Ben wanted Parker gone. Off the team. But they couldn’t do it, because he had a contract through the end of this year, and he wasn’t going to resign.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” I asked. “That’s all private personnel records and stuff like that. How do you know?”
“You people look at me and just think ‘There’s old Digby Allen, tech guy.’ Everyone thinks I’m as dumb as a rock.” He straighted his shoulders. “Well, I’m not. I know how to access people’s emails. I can bug a telephone. I know how to listen. I know things. I find out things. I’m not stupid.”
He looked at me with a superior smirk. “I know what school your daughter goes to,” he said. “Except she’s not your daughter, is she? She’s a step-daughter or something. Not really yours.”
“Wow,” I said. “You do know how to snoop around on people. That’s pretty goddam impressive.”
Kelsey looked at me sideways. I think—I hope—she understood I was just trying to keep him talking.
“So what do you mean you killed Parker for Arnie?” I continued.
“They wanted Parker gone,” he said. “Him and Ben. I figured out the way to do it. I fixed up some earphones that would conduct an electrical charge directly from the router unit into the ear pieces.”
He sat back in his chair and laughed.
“I gotta tell you, it was a bitch and a half testing those phones to make sure they worked,” he said. “But I figured it out. Then I just had to wait my chance. I knew Parker would be calling for help after I screwed up his headphones so he got a lot of static. And sure enough, he did.”
“But I thought Sheila answered the call that afternoon,” I said. “She told the cops she’d changed a fuse or something in the desk unit.”
Digby laughed again.
“And I was waiting until she left,” he said with a grin. “Sure enough, ole Parker was sitting there, mad as a wet hen because he still couldn’t hear a damn thing. So I just gave him my new earphone set and he plugged it in.”
His eyes went a little unfocused for a moment. He was reliving the moment.
“Fuckers worked like a charm,” he said. “Beautiful blue flash and zappo! That was the end of Parker Long. I unplugged the phones, plugged his old ones back in, put them on his head and got out of there. Pretty damn simple.”
“And then you came back to New York and told Arnie what you did, right?” I pressed. “What…did you think he’d approve?”
“He’d know he would have to keep me around,” Digby said, smirking again. “I had him. Him and Ben. They were the ones who wanted Parker gone. I just did what they wanted done.”
“Well, Digs,” I said, “The one small little hitch in your plan is that neither one of them wanted Parker Long dead, they just wanted him to retire.”
“He’s retired,” Digby said. “Permanently.”
“Yeah, but I imagine that Arnie was a little freaked out when you told him what you’d done,” I said.
Digby frowned.
“Maybe he was so freaked out that he threatened to call the cops,” I said. “Maybe he was so freaked out that he threatened to have you fired.”
Digby Allen shrugged.
“Whatever he was going to do, he can’t do it now,” he said. “I followed him home that afternoon. Saw him go into that girl’s apartment. I knew they were screwing. I monitored their emails. Saw him come out a bit later. Followed him to the grocery store. Knew he was going back for more.”
“So you waited, just far enough away from the market to avoid the security cameras,” I said. “And then, pop.”
Digby giggled, “Pop is right,” he said. “Pop goes the weasel.”
Kelsey finally spoke.
“You’re one sick fucker, Digby,” she said.
Her comment landed like a slap across the face. Digby’s face turned red and his eyes narrowed.
“Enough talking,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
He rummaged around in his waistband and pulled the gun out. He kept it under the table so nobody standing nearby could see.
“Hacker, I want you out of here,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve been a good friend to me. So I want you to leave first. Once you’re outside, Kelsey and I will leave. I’ve got a car stashed down by the trailers. As long as nobody tries to stop us, I’ll let Kelsey live. If not…”
He let that idea drift in the air.
“Okey doke,” I said. I stood up. “I’m outta here. Kels…I’d do what he says.”
Digby looked scared. A little desperate. Perhaps at the end of his rope. Those were not good things for someone like Digby Allen to be thinking, with a loaded gun in his hand.
I glanced over at the bar. The Boz was standing there with his new best friend from Texas. He had a beer in one hand and some kind of munchies in the other. He saw me looking at him. I tried to send some mental warning messages, but I’ve never been very good at clairvoyance. And I couldn’t really try to wave him over, without risking getting shot in the gut.
Kelsey shot a look at me, a look of desperation. I could imagine she was a bit stressed, having heard Digby’s plan for her. I tried a short reassuring smile and hoped it registered.
“You guys take care,” I said. I started walking away, but as I passed by Digby, I reached out, grabbed his shirt collar and yanked it hard, backwards and down. His folding chair tipped back and over, his feet coming up and kicking the big table hard and almost turning it over, too.
Kelsey screamed and leaped away. “He’s got a gun,” she yelled. “Gun!”
That was the magic word to create instant chaos. People in the hospitality space began to scatter. Women screamed. Men shouted. Chairs overturned. Doors slammed open as people began shoving each other out of the way in an attempt to escape.
I kept a tight hold on Digby’s shirt collar, but he reacted quickly, turning and twisting to get free. I reached over and grabbed the gun from his hand, pointed the barrel straight up and put two shots through the roof of the place. I needed some police on the scene and that was the fastest way I could think of to get them.
The ear-splitting sound of the gun shots—after the cry of ‘gun’—sent the panic level up a few more notches. More screaming, more shouting and people began leaping over tables, jumping over the front of the viewing area outside and otherwise scrambling away any way they could.
Digby gave a final hard twisting move—he was surprisingly strong—and I heard something tear. Then he was free and I was holding nothing but a piece of his collar which had ripped away at the seams. I was looking at the scrap of material stupidly when Digby picked up one of the white folding chairs and whacked me with it, across my back and shoulders. I went down in a heap.
“What the everloving fuck!” cried the Boz, as he picked me up a few seconds later. I looked around. Digby was gone. He had melted into the crowd of panicked people and skedaddled. Kelsey had disappeared as well, melting into the panicked crowd and hopefully getting outside and to safety.
I was still holding Digby’s ripped shirt collar in one hand, and his gun in the other. The security guy from the door came up behind Boz and looked at me. He wasn’t armed, of course, and he didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“You’d better drop that,” he said. “Cops will be here in a minute, if they see anyone holding a gun, it’ll be shoot first and ask questions later.”
I handed the security guy the pistol and grabbed Boz.
“We gotta go get Digby,” I said. “Can’t let him get away.”
32
/> We dashed out the door to the hospitality space, ran down the stairs and headed out behind it. People were still fleeing the sounds of gunshots in various stages of panic, and I could hear the whoop-whoop of an approaching police car. There was a well-trodden swatch of grass where people walked going to and from the tee box to the green. Behind that was a long row of Port-A-Potties, probably twenty or more. The air was redolent with that delightful mixture of pine-scented disinfectant and ammonia seeping out from the collected gallons of urine in the tanks.
We did a quick scan up and down the length of the walkway. It was full of people, panicked and not so much. No sign of a fleeing Digby anywhere.
Behind the johnnies was a swath of woods: trees, underbrush, pine straw. I could see another fairway through the trees, about twenty yards away.
“C’mon,” I called to Boz and he followed me as I dashed through the woods. Once past the trees, there was a short uphill bank covered in thick rough and then we reached the fairway. I think it was the eleventh hole, but I didn’t stop to check. The tee box was about a hundred yards down to our left, and the fairway continued on to the right another hundred yards or so before turning left and heading up hill to the green, surrounded by bunkers and now in the shadows in the late afternoon.
And heading toward that hill, running in a kind of limping desperation, torn shirt flapping around as he moved, was Digby Allen. He was almost three hundred yards away, and getting further from us by the second.
I heard a motorized cart pull up with the squeaking of the brakes. I turned and looked and saw Willie McLeod, the Gold Club’s Canada goose hunter. Sitting next to him on the bench seat was Bullet, his border collie. Bullet’s head was cocked slightly and he looked at us with a what the hell? expression on his doggie face.
“Problem, gents?” Willie asked. “Heard on the squawkbox that there’s been shots fired.”
I pointed up the fairway at the figure of Digby Allen, who was struggling up the hill in front of the green.
“That’s the bad guy,” I said. “Can Bullet reel him in?”
“Ach, laddie, he was made for this,” Willie said with a nod. “Would help if the yonder lad was a sheep, but not to worry.”
He started to take off the dog’s lead.
“Wait,” I said. “This might help.”
I was still holding the torn shred from Digby’s shirt. I held it up to Bullet’s nose, rubbed it around for a few seconds.
Willie snapped his fingers, twice. Bullet jumped down off the bench seat and went into full attention mode, eyes locked on Willie, body tensed, quivering, ready for action. Willie pushed his hand forward and gave a short, sharp whistle.
The dog took off as if the starter’s pistol had fired for the 100 yard dash at the Olympics. We watched as Bullet tore up the fairway in a streak of black and white fur. It took him maybe ten seconds to cover the three hundred yards, and he caught Digby just as he reached the top of the slope at the front of the green.
Bullet nipped at Digby’s feet, trying to gnaw at his Achilles tendon. He didn’t succeed in actually biting him, but he did manage to trip him up, and Digby tumbled forward. The dog leaped on his back, barking and growling and jumping around in a frenzy. He had subdued his prey and he was not going to let it get away.
Digby seemed to give up. He curled himself into a fetal ball, covered his head with his hands and arms, and lay still.
We had jumped into Willie’s flatbed cart and motored up the fairway after the dog. We arrived at the green at about the same time as three or four uniformed police officers, who converged from several different directions. Guns drawn, they approached Digby slowly and waited until Willie whistled his dog to heel. Bullet obeyed reluctantly and came trotting back to the cart, looking pleased with himself. The cops moved in, put Digby in handcuffs and led him off towards the clubhouse.
Willie gave his dog a couple of pats on the head, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a dog bone. Bullet grabbed it in his teeth, jumped up onto the flatbed and, after three revolutions, lay down and began happily munching on it.
“You got a bottle of Scotch in that other pocket?” the Boz asked Willie. “Cause I’m thinking Hacker here could use a wee belt. Or three.”
It was several hours later when the IBS crew gathered in one of Conrad Gold’s meeting rooms in the big clubhouse on the hill. The sun had long since set, the people had finally been chased out of the hospitality tents and told to go home, the greenskeeper’s crew had done their night-time duties closing down the course, and the cops had spent a lot of time huddled with Digby Allen, who was now in the back of a state police car on his way back to the city to await arraignment.
Mary Jane and DJ were there, having caught one of the courtesy buses from the Cumberland Arms to the Gold club. I had called her and told her to come down, knowing I’d be tied up for a while in the aftermath.
Kelsey Jenkins had refused all offers for a visit to the local hospital to get checked out. She swore she wasn’t injured in any way, just freaked out when Digby had come up behind her and stuck a gun in her back. She had come up to Boz and me and gave each of us a big hug.
“You saved my life,” she said.
Feeling my wife’s eyes on me, I kept my hug short.
“For the love of God, Hacker,” Ben Oswald said. “What in the hell happened here today?”
Oswald had lost his outward appearance of command and control. He looked shaken, shrunk, completely drained.
“Digby found out that you and Arnie had plans to let him go,” I said. “He pretty much admitted that he’s bugged and eavesdropped on everyone here and back at IBS headquarters. That’s the problem with really top-notch tech guys—they know how to access a lot of private conversations.”
“How did killing Parker have anything to do with our plans for him?” Oswald said. He looked confused.
“I think it was a combination of audition and statement,” I said. “He was showing Arnie—and, by extension, you—that he had the ability to do whatever you wanted. In his slightly addled mind, he thought he would gain points with you by eliminating another problem you had: what to do about Parker Long.”
“Christ Almighty,” Ben said, “We weren’t trying to push Parker out the door. He and I had talked, and I knew he was ready to retire. Arnie and I had just talked about ways that would happen and what we’d do next. I liked Parker…hell, I even loved the guy in a way. How could that idiot Digby think we wanted Parker to be killed?”
“Well,” I said, “We’re talking about the mind of a psychopath, which is often very different than a normal mind. But I think Digby believed that after he’d told Arnie how he had solved his Parker problem that Arnie would be impressed, and maybe a little scared, and agree to keep Digby on. Digby was hoping Arnie would be appreciative, but if it turned out he wasn’t, Digby figured at the least, Arnie would be scared. Either way, Digby would get what he wanted.”
“Why didn’t Arnie call the cops right away?” Van Collins asked. “Somebody came to me and said he just killed Parker Long, or anyone else, I’d have him in handcuffs in ten seconds flat.”
“I don’t know,” I nodded at Van. “And we’ll probably never know. Maybe he thought Digby was just kidding. Maybe he didn’t believe Digby had it in him to kill somebody. Maybe he thought he could use this information against Digby somehow, use it to his, Arnie’s, benefit. From the little I know about Arnie Wasserman, any of those alternatives are possible, even the last. Arnie could be, I’m told, a little manipulative.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Jimmy Williams said. “I don’t think anybody here trusted Arnie a lot. You could never be sure about that guy.”
There were several heads nodding around the table. Ben Oswald saw that and shook his own head.
“I can’t believe you people thought that way,” he said. “Arnie was good people. He was like a son to me.”
“Sorry, Ben,” Jimmy said. “From my point of view, he was
the assistant to my boss. He was always writing shit down in his notebook. He also liked to crack the whip from time to time, remind us who was boss. Nope…I could work with the guy, but I never liked him all that much.”
Ben put his head in his hands. “I must be getting old,” he said. “Maybe it’s time for me to go.”
“Now Ben,” Kelsey said. “Don’t be maudlin. There’s always a chain of command in any organization. We all understood who was who and what was what. Like Jimmy said, Arnie was an OK guy. You just had to remember who he worked for.”
“Man, oh man,” Ben said.
“How did you figure out it was Digby?”Mary Jane piped in, DJ squirming around on her lap.
I smiled at them. “It took a while,” I admitted. “At first, it seemed obvious that someone, probably someone with a strong technological knowledge base, had electrocuted Parker with his own headphones. But then the forensic team down in Georgia reported that Parker’s headphones were fine, except for the loose wires or whatever was causing the static interference. That wasn’t what I expected. I was sure he had been fried with his own headphones. So it was back to square one.”
“Then Arnie got shot,” Mary Jane said. She knew how my brain worked.
“Yeah, that made me think entirely differently,” I said. “If the two deaths were connected, and I thought they were, I had to figure out why. The strongest connection between the two was actually you, Ben.”
“Me?” he sat upright, head thrown back in amazement. “You thought I killed them both?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t say you were the killer, I said you were the strongest connection between the two deaths. I knew you didn’t kill Parker Long—he was in his booth and you were in the control room doing the broadcast. I was sitting there watching you operate. And I figured the New York cops checked out everyone’s whereabouts on the night Arnie was killed, so I knew that they didn’t like you for that murder.”
P.G.A. Spells Death Page 22
