The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

by Elizabeth Sims

  I didn’t see Truby right then, though I knew she was sticking close. Cupping a hand to my mouth, I leaned toward a concentration of women, all but one of whom leaned eagerly in toward me, and softly said, “Anybody have a tampon? Super?”

  The first woman I happened to make eye contact with drew away instead of forward; she sort of recoiled, in fact. She was wearing sunglasses, but I saw her eyes through them. She flipped her gaze away instantly, as I found a nosegay of tampons thrust eagerly my way. I plucked three supers from the bunch, giving solemn, quick thanks. Everyone understood my gratitude.

  The woman who’d looked away melted into the crowd, and I lost sight of her. Something about her was off. She’d appeared surprised when I asked for a tampon, or frightened, or something. I replayed the tape of her in my mind’s eye. Plastic sunglasses, a bad hairdo—a mousy tangle that hung down beneath a wide-brimmed hat: sort of a low-budget Garbo. I didn’t know.

  29

  I managed to change my tampon and wash my hands in a john before Genie teed off. The tension of the whole damned day was getting to me, and I wasn’t even playing. At one point I snatched a quick word with Truby, described Garbo to her, and went back to hoping for the best.

  As Genie and Coco matched each other stroke for stroke through the fifteenth hole, now battling the desert wind as well as each other, the crowds grew more silent. Lona fell back to three over, and began to lose her composure over her long shots, spraying them all over the place. She had fallen prey to the pressure of being in contention on Sunday: My first major title, maybe. Oh, God, I could win it. Please don’t let me blow it.

  I kept shifting my awareness between my caddie duties and watching the crowd.

  The sixteenth hole is a bitch. A long par four with a sharp right-hand dogleg, it rewards a perfect drive, but if you give it anything less, you’re in big trouble: trees, fairway bunkers, screwy slopes. Most players hit a three-metal here, leaving the driver in the bag, so as to easier land the ball in the narrow, safe throat of the fairway.

  Here Genie got in trouble again, pushing her drive badly right, giving herself an impossible shot to the green. When we got to the ball, we saw that the gigantic eucalyptus tree in the right rough was exactly on the line between her ball and the flagstick.

  That was one big honking tree. You know eucalyptus? In California they grow real, real tall and dense, like enormous drum major hats.

  “Ah, shit,” I muttered involuntarily when I saw the situation.

  Genie walked up. “I either need to start it left and bend it around that tree or...” She gnawed her lip.

  “Think you could just hit it straight and land it on the right edge?”

  Squinting, my boss said, “The angle’s not that good. I’d be in the bunker or worse. Remember how wide that bunker is?” She laughed softly. “Dewey said I don’t need to work the ball. Well, I always knew he was full of it. I’ve got to work it now, and I hope he’s watching on TV.”

  Coco’s drive had landed exactly where she wanted, in the left-center of the narrow fairway throat. She’d allowed herself a half-smile as everybody watched it float down and roll into perfect position for a safe approach to the green. I thought about that sprinkler head I’d watched her look for that night, and I’m pretty sure she winked at me as she pocketed her tee.

  I stood watching Genie make the mental calculations and go through the physics—or metaphysics, more accurately—of the shot she wanted to make. I could see her seeing it in her mind’s eye, feeling the swing in her little inner Genie. The marshals had pushed the fans back, and stood holding the ropes against a row of stomachs.

  I saw Garbo again, standing with her arms folded, watching Genie from thirty yards up. I looked at her hard, but it was like looking at a discarded mannequin. I noticed she was wearing a white dress, grayed with age, in a dated A-line shape.

  Perhaps it’s needless to say, but Genie hit the shot of the tournament right then. She tucked her head down and swung, and the ball took off like a quail, on a rising angle, skimmed past the eucalyptus, and, with the spin she’d put on it, curved gracefully to the right, coming to rest at the front edge of the green.

  She’d barely talked to me since the first tee, but several times she’d made a point of touching me more than necessary whenever I handed her a ball or a drink of water. Her hand would linger at mine, her fingers on my skin, or she would use two hands, cupping my hand briefly in hers. Then she’d take a nice relaxed breath.

  I knew when she hit that shot there would be no stopping her today at all. This day would be hers. She parred sixteen, and Coco did, too.

  I studied Coco for any cracks. There were none: no perspiration on the upper lip, no fiddling with club shafts, no telltale dive into a porta-pot to cope with nervous bowels.

  Still, one of them had to beat the other. One of them had to make a birdie or a bogey. Something had to happen.

  And it did on the seventeenth, the pretty par three, where Coco’s supporters chanted for her to make another hole-in-one. She nearly did, too: Her shot landed softly a foot from the cup and rolled five feet past. She made the birdie.

  Genie’s ball went into the deep left-side bunker, from which she blasted a beautiful recovery, but it needed to go in, and it didn’t. She made par, and now, at the eighteenth, Coco Nash was in front by a shot.

  Genie was totally serene. The wind, which now verged on a gale, ruffled her hair, but that was the only part of her that was ruffled, I’m quite sure.

  She had to gain a stroke on her opponent on this final hole to tie and send them both into a playoff, and she needed to gain two to win it outright. If she eagled and Coco made par, she would win.

  If you’re a fan, you know the eighteenth is a very tough hole to gain a stroke on, let alone two. It’s the signature hole of the Dinah Shore course, the killer par five, long and hazardous, with an island green. To make it onto the green in two shots is very rewarding—and very rare; only the longest hitters can do it. Most golfers play it safe, laying up their second shot to set up an easy wedge over the water to the pin. If you make your putt, you’ve got your birdie. But if you go for the green in two and find the water, you’re lucky to make par; bogies are the usual result of such a pride-fueled fiasco.

  I’d loved that eighteenth hole for years, watching on television. Damn, that second shot to the dance floor is the most daring shot in women’s golf, and it comes on the last hole of the biggest major. Oh, yeah.

  And now, being here, watching the contest I was watching, I thought I’d wet my pants.

  Genie, however, stood looking down that fairway as if she were about to drive a motor scooter to the green. She was tranquil, she was confident, she knew she could do it, had done it before, would do it ten times in a row if she had to.

  Coco had the honors, by dint of her birdie on seventeen. She stepped up and sent off a rocket straight and true, the ball landing in one more perfect spot, exactly at the bend in the dogleg, sitting on the close-cropped fairway grass that felt like velvet beneath our feet.

  Genie went next, with as smooth a swing as any she’d made in her life. She hit it so hard it ran through the fairway, past the bunkers on the right, and rolled to a stop in the first cut of rough.

  I made a sound, but Genie took my arm and murmured, “If it’s sitting up, it’ll be easier to hit it off there than the fairway.”

  I understood: A close lie, even on the fairway, gives you little margin for error, as you attempt to sweep your ball away with a fast-moving fairway metal. But a ball sitting up nicely in a fluffy bit of grass is almost like hitting from a tee: A professional can catch the ball very slightly on an upswing, thus adding to the height of the shot and to the chances of the ball holding the green when it comes down again.

  Lona, whom everyone had by now forgotten about, bunted a safe short drive down the fairway.

  This tournament happened to be the swan song for the Texas legend Deborah Wolsey, who had announced that she would retire at the end of thi
s season. Old as she was, she’d played an outstanding tournament, making it onto the leaderboard after the second round, and into the next-to-last group today.

  There’d been a tremendous ovation when Deborah’s group approached the eighteenth green, quite a deservedly long one, and that caused a delay in play as she acknowledged the crowd’s tribute. The fans really loved that woman, especially the old-timers who easily remembered her playing in the very first Dinah and all of them since then. Finally, she had to ask the crowd in the big grandstand to hush down so her group could putt out.

  Our group strung itself across the fairway at Lona’s ball, waiting.

  And as we stood there, I felt a new dread enter my heart, such as I’d never known. For I saw plainly that if there was to be a cataclysm, the time was now.

  It was a dazzling moment. The contest had reached its climax, and all the witnesses were ready to see something they’d never forget. There was the whole tableau of competition, the whole dream; everybody’s brass ring lying out there in the afternoon desert sun, lying there for the taking beneath the eyes of God and ABC Sports.

  30

  I was scanning the crowd ahead and to the right when I saw my low-budget Garbo duck beneath the rope and charge onto the course toward us. My blood pressure doubled. I looked for a weapon in her hands but saw none, at first.

  It took her maybe four seconds to cover the ground to where Genie and I were standing. Genie was gazing at the ground, gathering all her fibers for the perfect shot to the green she needed to make.

  Hoisting Genie’s bag to chest level, like a tackling dummy, I stepped into the woman’s path just as she reached us. Her hand was held high, ready to strike with something. What was it—a rock, a grenade? A bottle? She was clutching something. She ran into me full blast, but I was braced, the bag with its fourteen clubs and unusual payload giving me extra weight. She more or less bounced off. The pocket Todd was in was on my side of the bag, and I was sure he hadn’t gotten crunched.

  By this time Genie had leaped away, behind me, putting maybe three yards between us, moving more on instinct than from a clear sense of what was going on.

  There was a confused gasp from the nearby portion of the gallery.

  The two police officers assigned to us had been talking together, some distance back in the fairway, but now noticed the trouble and began to react.

  Coco Nash had been leaning on her two-iron, near her ball and caddie on the other side of the fairway. Instantly, she started toward Garbo, raising her club.

  The woman threw herself against me again, but I managed to stand my ground. She bobbed one way, then another, trying to get a clear path to Genie. She grabbed one of the bag’s straps and, with frightening strength, snatched it away from me one-handed and flung it to the ground. She was still holding her weapon, and I saw, to my total bafflement, that it was a lightbulb. Genie had stepped closer, staring at this woman, as if trying to make sense of what was happening. Now very close to Genie, the woman cocked her arm with the lightbulb, preparing to smash it into Genie’s face. All this took only instants, but to me it happened in slow motion.

  Rage flared inside me against this bizarre assailant, and I forgot my plan of jumping on Genie. I lunged for the lightbulb, got hold of her wrist, and hung on, trying to twist it. We both crashed to the ground. I saw liquid sloshing in the bulb—its screw end was covered with duct tape—and realized then what kind of damage she intended to do. She grabbed my throat with her free hand and squeezed hard.

  Coco Nash, using all her strength and skill, slammed the forged blade of her two-iron squarely into Garbo’s hand holding the lightbulb. She missed my arm by a millimeter.

  I heard the crunch of bone, and Garbo let out a roar, a full-chested baritone bellow right in my face, and I saw that this was no lady—it was Dom Dengel in a disguise that was as pathetic as it had been effective. I was close enough now to see his stubble; his sunglasses and hat had fallen off, and the wig was slipping to one side. Along with the bones in his hand, the lightbulb shattered, too, and the shards flew as the liquid within splashed on the two of us.

  Dengel screamed then, as he felt the searing pain of the acid on his face. Whatever kind it was, it was strong. I could smell it and see it: The sour, harsh liquid was turning his face red in blotches already. He let go of my neck, and I rolled off him to the grass. The cops had seen the acid flying, realized what it was, and were reluctant to grab hold of him with their bare hands. They stood uncertainly over him as, his hands to his face, he screamed. One cop fumbled for some latex gloves from his equipment belt.

  I got to my feet, not feeling anything, and saw Genie flanked protectively by a pair of tough-looking women with mullet haircuts who had followed our group. They were Coco Nash’s muscle, I realized. They’d hustled Genie about fifty yards back up the fairway, and were watching to see what would happen next. A third mullet had materialized next to Coco and had her in a bodyguard hold, her arm linked through Coco’s, her hands gripping for good measure.

  Dengel screamed through his pain, “Yeah, arrest me!”

  He struggled to his knees as the cops fumbled with their equipment saying, “Shit! Shit!”

  The wig fell off and there he was, wearing some kind of waitress dress, looking like Sluggo in drag.

  The cops got one cuff on him as he squinted and struggled and sobbed. The red marks covered most of his face and one eye. Something was happening to his flesh: Was it starting to melt?

  Everyone was staring, rooted, dumbfounded, as Dengel pointed up the fairway to Genie with his yet-free hand and yelled, “She’s the killer! Genie fucking Maychild is the killer! Right there, right there! Now you have to deal with me, Genie!”

  He reached into the pocket of his dress and pulled out a little white card. “Here’s his fingerprints! See? See?” He kept struggling, and I saw more cops coming running. “His name was Nick!” Dengel screamed. They finally got both cuffs on him. The white card fluttered to the ground. The cops were now holding him gingerly, one on each arm, right next to Genie’s bag, when the bag lurched and Todd came shooting out like a champagne cork. He leaped straight into the air, right in the cops’ and Dengel’s faces, and hit the ground running as fast as his bunny legs would go. I perceived that, fed up with all this nonsense, he’d gnawed his way out.

  The cops were so startled they lost hold of Dengel, who seized the advantage and bolted toward Genie. I knew Coco’s thugs wouldn’t let him reach her. The cops, now half a dozen strong, thundered after him, and I dared think everything would be all right, after a fashion, when Coach Marian Handistock emerged from a spot directly behind Genie and did what I should have known she would do.

  Beating the police to Dengel, she set herself and, with both hands, rammed the blade of a commando-style knife straight into his chest. She sawed it back and forth for good measure, his blood surging onto her arms.

  Yes, I should have known that if Dengel tried anything with Genie, Handy would kill him, and somehow I even should have known she’d find the right knife to do it with.

  A collective scream rose from every throat, and the shadow of the blimp passed over.

  Dengel was dead before the end of the first commercial ABC hastily cut to.

  Coach Handy turned and gave Genie one long clear look, then stepped bloody and empty-handed into the arms of the police.

  Todd had disappeared up the fairway, seeking a safe place, which, he’d concluded, wasn’t anywhere near me.

  I picked up the white card Dengel had dropped. On it were two rows of five tiny black smudges. That was all. A cop plucked the card from my hand.

  Truby appeared at my side shouting, “Water! Pour water on her! Water, everybody, come on!”

  I reached up to my face, suddenly feeling a hot spot on my jaw and another on my forearm.

  “Don’t touch it! Lillian, sit down on the ground. Here, here, gimme!”

  Surrounded now by a small crowd, I felt my head and arm being showered with cooling water. I co
ughed for air. The water ran off pink, and Truby said, “You’ve been cut, too. Son of a bitch! More water!”

  “I’m a medic,” said a voice at my arm. “She’ll be all right.”

  _____

  If this was just a made-up story, you would surely not believe that the tournament eventually resumed that very day, and that the sporting finale everybody wanted to see was, in fact, given them. But maybe you watched on television, so you know, or maybe you saw it with your own eyes from any of the thousands of vantage points overlooking the eighteenth hole that afternoon.

  31

  A cool hand patted my shoulder and a cheerful voice said, “Honey, you’re in the best place in the world to get your face fixed. After all, this is Palm Springs. People come from all over the world.”

  It was true.

  I could see only white, and smell only cleanliness, beneath the drape the emergency room nurse had placed over my eyes, in preparation for the plastic surgeon.

  “Oh, he’s the best,” said the nurse. “Believe me, this is nothing. Now let’s see that arm again. There.”

  An hour later I had five stitches in one cheek, five more near my ear, and a small patch of raw skin on my jaw. My whole face felt numb.

  “Don’t get up yet,” the doctor said. “The acid didn’t go through all your skin layers. Your friend here acted fast and did the right thing. How did you know to flush the area with water?”

  “I had a boyfriend who had a car battery explode one time,” said Truby, who was sitting next to me on a straight chair.

  “Blot your stitches with a little hydrogen peroxide once a day,” said the doctor. “See a doctor when you get home. Once the cuts heal, the scars shouldn’t be noticeable at all. I’m putting some gauze on your arm to protect it, but you can take it off tomorrow. I think I got all the glass out, but don’t be surprised if a sliver works its way out in a month or two. Better stay lying down for a few more minutes. I’ll be back.”