Six Strokes Under

by Roberta Isleib

  I skirted around the crowd, delivered the cart to the maintenance area and my bag to my car trunk, and headed back to the putting green. Maybe if I sank a hundred short ones this afternoon, I could avoid a full-blown panic over a must-have putt during Tuesday's or Wednesday's round.

  After half an hour, I started to get a rhythm going. I felt comfortable with my left-hand low grip, which I'd revamped just a month ago, and developed an eye for the subtle breaks in the green. I focused on Joe Lancaster's putting credo: Visualize the relaxation flowing down my arms and into the putter. Putter and arms are one.

  "Miz Burdette, do you have a minute?" said the gravelly voice of Sheriff Pate. Polite of him to put it that way, but I knew chatting with him wasn't really a choice. I picked up my balls and followed him to the scanty shade of a palm tree.

  The sheriff looked frazzled and hot. His shirttails had come loose from his pants, and a wide band of dark sweat striped the length of his back. "Let's return, if we may, to the scene of Dr. Bencher's office," he said. "Explain again why you were there." I repeated what I'd told the first police officer on the scene, then Detective Maloney, then Pate himself, just yesterday.

  "I understand you were visiting with the doctor next door," said Pate. "What I want to understand is why."

  "It was my regular appointment," I said. "I generally see Dr. Baxter on Thursdays."

  The sheriff looked pained. "That's restating the obvious, darlin'. I know you were there for an appointment, but why? Why do you need to talk to a shrink? Is it a situation similar to Miz Rupert's? Problems with Daddy? Sometimes you girls ask for trouble, dressing like you were going out to work the streets." Again, his eyes ran over the contours of my body.

  I was speechless. No way in hell was I going to discuss my personal issues with Sheriff Pate. I had a handful of close friends who knew the bare facts about my meetings with Baxter, and this moron was as far from landing on that short list as anyone could get. A groundswell of anger tightened the muscles in my throat as the full impact of his words sank in. Even if a girl, Kaitlin included, wore clothes that would have sold well in a red-light district, it was unfair and downright disgusting to assume she had a set of round heels. So how did I continue talking with Pate, appearing cooperative, without telling him any of my personal stuff or leaking the rage that threatened to choke me?

  "I know you'll understand that my business with Dr. Baxter was strictly personal," I said in a low voice. "And not related to Kaitlin at all."

  "You're not helping, darlin'." He reached over and took the putter from my hand. "You're an old-fashioned gal, huh? Personally, I favor the Odyssey Triforce 2. You have toe-heel weighting on this antique?"

  "Am I a suspect in Bencher's murder?" I asked. I ignored his question about my putter. Opening the door to putting tips from Pate could very well torch my opening round before I teed up the first ball. "Maybe I should call Detective Maloney and get this straightened out," I said.

  "We're not charging you with anything yet," said Pate quickly. "Now walk me through what you saw in that office."

  I sighed. I could feel and smell the perspiration dampening a wide circle under the arms of my golf shirt. I breathed in deeply and focused on the horizontal lines of the clubhouse across the street. When I felt calm enough to speak, I repeated the story of finding Bencher lying behind his desk. In spite of Pate's barrage of questions about what I might have seen or heard, I had nothing new to add.

  "It's been nice talkin' to you. I'll see you tomorrow," said Pate, returning my putter. He left me under the palm, angry and wilted.

  Chapter 10

  By the time I reached my motel room, I'd moved through stages of outrage, despair, disgust, fear, and queasiness. Enough angst already, time for action. The week was sufficiently bad without some bozo ratcheting up the stakes with his own personal vendetta against female golfers from South Carolina. Truth: Sheriff Pate had it in for me. Dare: Could I persuade anyone else in law enforcement to see it that way? I placed a call to the number on Detective Maloney's business card.

  "Maloney."

  "Hi, Detective. It's Cassandra Burdette."

  "Hitting 'em straight?" he asked.

  "So far so good," I said, encouraged by his friendly tone. "But I'm having trouble with the Sarasota Sheriff's Department. Am I a suspect in Bencher's murder? I can't figure out why Pate's bugging me every day."

  The coziness evaporated from Detective Maloney's voice. "I warned you that you would have to stay in close touch with Pate," he said. "Those were the conditions under which we allowed you to leave the state."

  "I know that," I said. "But you didn't say he would be harassing me. How's the case really coming?"

  "No suspects arrested," he said. "That's all I can tell you. Do you want to file a formal complaint against Pate?"

  I considered this. Pate was plenty mean already. Filing a complaint would be like poking a sleepy rattlesnake with a nine-iron.

  "No. Thanks anyway." Thanks for nothing, I thought as I hung up. Then I decided to call Joe. I'd nursed my grudge long enough. Now I needed his advice.

  "You've reached the voice mail of Dr. Joe Lancaster. I can't take your call right now, but leave your name and number and I'll be happy to get back to you. Meanwhile, keep your head down and have fun out there!"

  I left a message asking him to call and then stretched out on the bed to think. I pictured Joe out on the practice green with Mike, where I should have been. Where Joe should have been with me. Where I would have been, Joe or no Joe, were it not for Pate's annoying interruption. From all appearances, the police had not made much progress in solving the murder. Either Pate still thought I had reason to kill Bencher, or he believed I had seen or heard something that would identify the actual killer. Or he got a buzz on by throwing his status around and knocking me off balance. Regardless of the reason, I was sick of our little conversations. I saw one way to get that ape off my back: look into the Bencher situation myself. Joe wouldn't approve of this plan, but he hadn't had to sit through two miserable sessions with Pate, with more tête à têtes looming the rest of the week.

  I pulled out the phone book and looked up Will Turner, the head honcho of the False Memory Consociation. In bold caps, his listing read: DR. WILLIAM TURNER, THERAPEUTIC CONSULTANT. Then a smaller line underneath: "Specializing in Post-Pseudo Traumatic Actualization." Whatever the hell that was. From the little Joe had told me, I knew damn well this guy was no doctor. At best, maybe he held a Ph.D. in some obscure academic field. Even with the constraint of a two-line listing, he managed to sound like a master of doublespeak, not to mention a fruitcake. I scribbled his number on a pad provided by the Starlight Motel. I'd call tomorrow during office hours and see if they could work me in.

  Next stop: Bible study. I hated to pretend an interest in religious fellowship that wasn't genuine, but I didn't know where else to turn. I hoped I could learn something about Julie Atwater's friendship with Kaitlin and her subsequent consultation with Dr. Bencher. How would I squeeze that out of the Bible study group? I had to trust a plan would come to me later.

  I swung through Burger King's drive-thru window and wolfed down a Whopper and large fries on my way back to the Plantation Country Club. Power eating at its finest. I found Joanne and Nicki's golfside condo, number 714, without difficulty. Wiping the last bit of mayo off my face with my sleeve, I composed it into what I hoped was a pious expression.

  "I'm here for the get-together I saw posted on the bulletin board," I said to the girl who answered the door. "Cassie Burdette."

  "Please come in. Welcome. I'm Nicki." Before I could react, she folded me into a tight bear hug. Then she showed me into the living room and introduced the four other women gathered there. They seemed normal enough, if shaded a bit in the direction of cloyingly warm. I scolded myself for unnecessary cynicism.

  At first, the conversation centered on golf. We all agreed that the Panther greens verged on the edge of su-icidally fast, and that the volunteers were sweet, the
sandhill cranes aggressive, and the fairways in excellent condition. If any of these girls lacked confidence or harbored other unpleasant feelings about the week ahead, they showed no sign of it. Nicki went to the small kitchen and returned with a plate of Oreos and a pitcher of grape juice.

  "Let's get started," said Joanne, a plump, dark-haired girl with an eerie resemblance to Rosie O'Donnell. "Our scripture reading tonight is from Romans, chapter one, verses eighteen to thirty-two." She opened her Bible and read a passage about the many faces of ungodliness, homosexuality prominent among them. It didn't look like it was going to be difficult to steer the subject in the direction I needed it to go. Joanne finished reading and prayed that we could all live as Paul had instructed us to do. Then she and Nicki went through the Bible verses line by line, explaining how we were to apply them to our lives.

  "As I see it, Paul condemned the Greeks for a lifestyle of debauchery and self-satisfaction. He expected them, and us by extension, to live a God-centered life instead. Any questions?" Joanne inquired. The group sat silent and smiling.

  I took my second plunge of the evening. "I know I have a lot to learn," I said. "I'm a part-time Presbyterian with barely a leaf-through familiarity with the Bible." Two of the other students giggled. "But you seem to be saying that we should interpret what you've read to us quite literally."

  Nicki and Joanne exchanged glances. "It's the word of God," said Nicki, holding her hands out in an expression of heavenly acceptance. Joanne clutched the Bible to her chest and bobbed her head in support.

  "I don't mean to cause offense," I said, trying for a tone of earnest confusion. "But says who? I mean, how do you know that?"

  "The men who appear in the Bible were called by God to record what he wanted said and done," said Joanne, in a brook-no-questions tone.

  I asked one anyway. "What if the meaning of a passage is unclear?"

  "If there is any ambiguity, we must take the clearest interpretation, the plainest meaning. In the case of today's reading, for example, God is telling us that homosexuality is wrong." The student sitting across from me stiffened noticeably.

  "Why would God have created people with different kinds of sexual feelings if some of them were wrong?" I asked. As uncomfortable as I was beginning to feel pushing this line of questioning, I didn't want to leave without getting the information I'd come for.

  Joanne sighed and reached for a cookie. "God didn't make them that way, Cassie. They have chosen to walk a path of sin." She twisted off the top of the Oreo and nibbled at the white cream center.

  "And how does one get off the path of sin and back into righteousness?" I asked. On the way over, I'd actually considered masquerading as a confused homosexual. Everyone knew there were players on the Tour with non-traditional lifestyles, just like in every other walk of life. However, I was not at all sure that the information I could glean would be worth the sacrifice of offering myself up to the study group as a repentant sinner. I didn't care one way or the other whether a golfer was homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, or asexual. But I did not want to begin a potential life on the LPGA Tour with an awkward reputation. I'd seen the press and the public devour those women often enough to know it was a path I'd prefer to avoid.

  The group leaders rose from their seats and came to sit on the couch on either side of me. "You are doing the right thing," said Nicki. "We'll help you."

  "I didn't mean me...."

  Joanne put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed hard. I could smell the icing on her breath as she whispered to me. "The first step is to confess your sins before the Lord. You must not give in to the devil's temptation."

  "I wasn't talking about my issues," I said. "I'm worried about a friend who seems to have started down this path. She's changed a lot recently." I hesitated. "She has family problems."

  "Ah," said Joanne. "A friend who has been, misled by the smooth words of the devil. Could it be Julie Atwater?" I lowered my eyes, then nodded.

  "Satan circulates among us on this earth," said Nicki sternly. "Sometimes he takes the form of a woman. Julie met the devil and was persuaded to follow his ways." I figured she had to be talking about Kaitlin. Who did have a bit of the devil in her, as far as I was concerned.

  "Wasn't that Julie's father I saw marching today at the club?" I asked.

  "The Lord told Mr. Atwater he must seek to destroy the devil wherever he finds him," said Joanne. "Whether that be in his own daughter or wherever he chooses to make his presence known. Mr. Atwater is a true soldier of the Lord." Her admiration of what appeared to me to be unreasoned fanaticism raised a warning crop of goose bumps on my chest and arms.

  To my enormous relief, the meeting broke up shortly after this discussion. I thanked the girls for their hospitality and comfort and bolted from the condo. The moon had risen during the meeting and now cast long, serrated shadows from the coconut palms onto the eighteenth hole. I walked out onto the fairway and willed myself to forget about anything but the upcoming competition. But the stories of Kaitlin and Julie kept returning to my mind. I wondered about the memories of molestation they reported. Had these ideas just sprung unfounded into their minds? Or had Dr. Bencher planted them there? Were they completely factual, totally untrue, or some confused combination of fact and fantasy?

  I stopped at the one-hundred-yard marker and looked toward the green, imagining this was where my final-round tee shot had landed. I pictured my drive coming to rest just enough left of center to take the pond on the right out of play, without catching the fairway bunker. Then I visualized myself hitting a perfect, soft wedge, which approached the green with the slightest draw, landed softly on the collar, and then rolled to within two feet of the cup. I heard the excited clapping and conversation of the spectators. I bounded up to the green, pulled the pin from the cup, and pantomimed sinking the putt.

  "Center cut," said a voice in the darkness. "Well struck." I recognized Gary Rupert's deep voice, and felt embarrassed that he had caught me playing charades.

  "Gary? What are you doing out here?"

  "We're staying over in that building." He pointed to the condos closest to where we stood. "I saw a phantom golfer on the green and came out to check. I'm delighted to see that it's you. But isn't it a bit dark for practice?"

  "It sounds silly," I said, choosing not to reveal my study group encounter. "I'm steadying the nerves with a little creative visualization by moonlight."

  "How about a nerve-steadying nightcap?" he asked. "It would only take a minute to run inside and get a beer." I nodded. A beer sounded great, just one, to help me unwind. The combination of building anticipation for the tournament and my clumsy detective work had hardened my back and shoulder muscles into stony knots.

  Gary returned in several minutes with two Rolling Rocks. We sat down with our backs against the bark of a live oak and drank. The moon gleaming through wisps of Spanish moss made a checkerboard of shadows on his face, softening the sharp contour of his nose and smoothing the roughness in his skin. We chatted about the day, the golf courses, the thunderstorms predicted for the following afternoon. By the time I'd finished my beer, the tightness had begun to ebb from my neck muscles. Gary took the empty bottle from my hand, then leaned over and kissed me. He broke away as quickly as he'd leaned in.

  "I'm glad we got that over with. It was ten years overdue," he said. "But maybe we can talk more back in Myrtle. You've got enough going on already this week. Have a good night, pal. Good luck tomorrow." He stood up, collected both empties, and walked back in the direction of his condo.

  What in the hell was all that about? I wondered, as I stumped back to my car. Now I'd developed a pounding headache, as well as new knots in every muscle above my waist. Gary was right: a romantic interlude had no place in a week already too full. And he didn't know the half of what I was into. So why in the bloody hell had he even brought it up?

  Chapter 11

  When I stepped out of the shower, I heard both the alarms I'd set the night before buzzing. Then the
phone rang with my backup wake-up call. Alice MacPherson had put the fear of God into me two days earlier: I wasn't taking any chances about missing the mandatory eight o'clock players' meeting.

  Gary Rupert had me steamed. As Kaitlin's on-again, off-again caddie, he had to know the dangers of introducing chaos into the fragile mind of a golfer right before a tournament. Unless he found me so irresistible he could not hold himself back. Ha! Anyway, if he was so overcome with desire, what was the deal with the one snowflake-light kiss, then scram routine? More likely, Kaitlin was using him as her secret weapon—she'd commissioned him to rattle the competition so we would deteriorate and knock ourselves out of the contest. In which case, Gary would have several very busy nights, necking, even briefly, with over a hundred girls. I listened to my new phone messages before leaving the motel. The first was from Mom. I remembered, with the usual surge of guilt, that I hadn't called her since arriving in Florida.

  No greeting, just a tremulous voice. "Max Harding came into the restaurant for lunch yesterday. He's so handsome. He asked how the week was going for you. I told him he would have to call you himself, because even though I'm your mother I would certainly have no idea. Love you." And she hung up. The second message was not much better.

  "This is Pate. I'm busy at the office today and can't get out to the club. Stop by the sheriff's department when you're finished this afternoon. Take 41 toward downtown Venice, turn at State Road 776, we're on the left." Great, just what I needed, a command appearance from the grand buffoon. I left the motel in a nasty funk.

  I grabbed a banana and a cheese Danish as I entered the dining area at the country club, then found a seat at a table with Mary Morrison and Eve Darling. Mary pointed out Julie Atwater, who chatted with Kaitlin several tables in front of us. I would not have guessed from Julie's perfectly made up face and cheerful facade that she had a major feud going on with her dad and the Bible study group. Not to even mention inner conflict.