by Alec Peche
“Let’s forget about this murder investigation for a few hours and just enjoy some girlfriend golf,” Jo proclaimed. “I’ll buy the first round of drinks from the drink cart when it arrives. The sky is blue, there are flowers blossoming, there are no bugs yet and I am with my best friends. What could be better?”
With that thought, they all stepped up to the tee box on the first hole. Taking turns, they all had their usually disastrous first shots with the exception of Angela. Her shot was straight on the fairway, one-hundred yards ahead. Marie, Jill, and Jo all spread out to chase their wayward first shots. The first hole was about 256 yards long, so they had plenty of time to improve their swing by the time they reached the green. Jill looked over her shoulder and saw no one behind them on the fairway. It was a nice feeling that they could take as long as they wanted to study and swing at each shot. The group in front of them came into view once, so they had a nice feeling of having the golf course all to themselves that day.
They were walking the course rather than using golf carts. They got better exercise with walking so that was an important part of the game. The second hole had everyone’s tee shot going much better. They all ended up on the fairway, but this hole was long at 414 yards. They all eventually made it to the green, but had lost count of their shots by then. Good thing they weren’t keeping score. By the time they were on the seventh hole they could see they had someone behind them on the fifth hole, as the course wrap around at this point. He was playing by himself, using a golf cart.
Jill pointed him out and commented that they would have to keep an eye open for the gentleman and let him hit through their group as he would be faster than they were. Angela stood still, squinted at the man, then took her tee shot. After she was done she pulled out her camera which had a zoom feature. She used that to focus on the gentleman playing by himself.
“Uh oh. I think that is Dr. Lewis in that cart behind us. Do you think it is coincidence that he is playing behind us?”
“I don’t know,” said Jo, worried. “How would he know we were playing this course at this time? We made a last minute decision to come here. What should we do next? Call the detectives or head back to the clubhouse by cutting through the eighth hole?”
“He is not under arrest so even if we called the detectives, what could they do?”Jill commented. “I can’t think how he could have followed us here when he doesn’t know any of us by name. Let’s pick up our balls and head to the next hole. Create some distance between us and then see what he does. Marie, it would be good if the three of us kept our backs to him and you did the face to face looks since he hasn’t met you.”
“Let’s check our cell reception in case trouble happens,” said Marie. “There can be dead zones where you can’t get any phone reception and we don’t want to be there if we need help.”
As they walked toward the eighth hole, they all checked their reception. Angela had the best reception, while Jill, Marie, and Jo’s reception wavered. They all knew the ninth hole was down a hill and isolated from the rest of the course. Depending on what move Dr. Lewis made next, they would either skip that hole entirely and head right to the clubhouse or, if he wasn’t creeping up on them, they would finish out the nine holes. None of them carried weapons, but they knew of his marksmanship skills. There were plenty of large trees to take cover behind if they saw him pull a rifle out of his golf bag.
“You know, my friends, I will admit that I am scared of this guy,” Jo’s voice sounded stressed. “Let’s just walk up this fairway to the clubhouse and skip these last holes. He has me so rattled, I really doubt I could make contact with the ball.”
“Okay let start walking back to the clubhouse, but let’s walk close to the trees,” Jill suggested. “That way we will have cover if necessary, while we walk the five-hundred plus yards of this hole. Who has the best eyesight to observe what he is doing? It seems like it's you, Angela.”
“I’ll keep watch while we walk. I am also trying to think of his awards in those shooting contests. Do you remember the maximum distance that he competed in? I think it was three-hundred yards.”
“Yes it was three -hundred yards and I think we thought the shooter that killed Doug was about fifty yards away,” Jo agreed. “Okay that means he has to get closer to us to reliably shoot. I wonder if he wants all of his dead or just one of us?”
“If he is intent on shooting us, then he’ll want all of us dead,” replied Jill. “If he is out playing a round of golf, then none of us needs to be dead.”
“He has drastically picked up his pace. He just rounded the corner from the seventh green to the eighth fairway. He has both hands on the steering wheel and he is heading this way without stopping to tee off at the eighth hole.”
They had all been walking fast with their golf bag pull carts while Angela had kept up her narrative. Jill was steering their group closer to the woods where there lots of thick tree trunks they could duck behind for protection.
Angela looked over her shoulder and said he has stopped about fifty yards away and he is digging for something in his golf bag. "I think it is time to leave our bags here and jump into the woods."
Angela's last glance confirmed the worst. Dr. Lewis had abandoned his golf cart and was moving swiftly on foot, with his rifle in hand.
They abandoned their carts and took position behind a tree each. Jill called out, “I have no reception here. Can anyone use their phone to call 911?”
She could hear everyone trying to make a call, but they had all lost reception.
“Let’s head farther into the woods now rather than waiting until he reaches us. Maybe we’ll get reception if we move.”Marie took off in a light jog with the others following on her heels. The foliage was thick and Jill hoped that ticks and snakes were not in their vicinity. They made good distance in a short time. They stopped their trek, panting, all trying to dial 911 but still no reception. They all listened for sounds of pursuit and heard it.
“Let’s keep going, we need to keep distance between him and us. Maybe we can circle around to the clubhouse,” Jill urged.
Marie again took off in the lead. She was the faster runner of their group, so the best person to have in the lead, Angela didn’t run, but she could speed walk fast enough to keep up with them in this terrain.
A bullet flew by their heads and lodged in a tree to their right. Given the shooting skill that their pursuer had, it was likely only their movement that was saving them. Jill urged them to be erratic in their running motion, moving side to side. They continued with even greater speed, and then they could hear Angela talking to the 911 dispatcher behind them. Her phone had found a cell tower.
Angela gave the report of a shot fired into the woods of the eighth hole, who their pursuer was, and ask the dispatcher to message Detectives Haro or Van Bruggin. Then she stopped talking.
“Darn, I lost cell phone reception again. At least I warned them that this might happen. I was worried that they would think this was a crank call because it sounds so far-fetched."
Marie had been doing a good job guiding them toward the clubhouse; they could see it up ahead on a slope.
Chapter Twenty-One
Then they ran into a dead-end. A huge smooth sandstone rock stood in front of them. None of the women were rock climbers had they been so inclined, but it also seemed to be a bad idea to expose themselves to a shooter by climbing up the face of the rock. Marie plunged to the left of the rock to keep them moving. The direction moved them away from the clubhouse, but there was really no other option. They couldn’t go back the way they came or turn right at the rock as both options would put them closer to Dr. Lewis. They heard another ping off the rock just as Angela, the last person, turned left at the rock. These bullets were a little too close.
A siren sounded in the distance and they hoped it was coming to their aid. Their legs and arms were scratched from weaving haphazardly through the brush and trees. It was worse for Angela who was walking fast in flip flops that she had gra
bbed off her golf bag before they had set out. If she hadn’t had the foresight to do that, she would now be running on bare feet. If that had happened, her feet would likely have been bloodied by now. As it was she had poor traction and cold feet from the wetness of the floor of the woods.
Suddenly, Jill’s phone rang. She continued jogging while answering it, recognizing Van Bruggin’s telephone number.
“Hello, we need your help like ten minutes ago. Where are you? Are you at Coyote Creek golf course?”
“We have officers that have arrived at the golf course, my ETA is still another four minutes away.”
“Dr. Lewis has shot at us twice, narrowly missing,” Jill yelled. Then she heard a third gunshot ring out and a cry of pain from Angela. “Dammit, Angela has been hit. Where are the officers? Tell them we are being chased through the back wooded side of the clubhouse.”
Jo had turned back to Angela, and had taken her by the arm to urge her on. Jill took a close look at Angela who was pale but otherwise able to maintain her walking speed. Her arm was bleeding, and it looked like more of a graze wound then being shot through the arm.
They heard a PA from the back deck of the clubhouse. “This is the police, you are surrounded, put your gun down and come out with your hands in the air.”
The announcement slowed their gunman down long enough that they made it to the side of hill, where police officers were scrambling down the hillside to reach and provide protection for the women. Using riots shields and blocked by officers in bullet proof vests, they continued their climb and reached the safety of the door of the lower level of the clubhouse. They nearly fell upon each other in their haste to get inside and out of range of the gunman.
Jill immediately began to examine Angela’s arm. One of the patrolmen fetched a first aid kit from his car and soon the bleeding was stopped. They sat against the wall, away from the windows, legs stretched out in front of them.
Then Jo looked at her friends and began to laugh, “Sorry for the laughter” she got out in a garbled fashion as the laughter was interfering with her pronunciation, “but the sight of us would not get us on the cover of Vogue magazine this month. Marie, you have a branch in your hair, Jill, your cheek and legs are bleeding, Angela has a bandage on her arm big enough to cover up an encounter with a machete, and God knows what I look like.”
Angela smiled back and added, “Could we appear on the cover of Ducks Unlimited Magazine, then?”
Soon her friends were joining in the laughter which was where the two detectives found them moments later. Sitting on the floor, wearing parts of the woods, scratched and bloody and laughing like children watching a cartoon. The detectives recognized immediately that the laughter was a substitute for hysteria, a way to deal with the adrenaline rushing through their systems. On their heels was an emergency medical services crew for Angela. They stepped aside to allow the squad into the room. The laughter died very quickly as they all returned to business mode.
Jill joined the two paramedics, identifying herself as a physician. “I examined the wound and it appears to be a grazing injury from a bullet. I don’t believe that it will require stitches, but it should be cleaned and wrapped with appropriate dressings. We made do with a first aid kit. Angela, when was your last tetanus shot?”
“I had one last year at the same time as my flu shot, so I am good. My arm bled a lot but I agree with Jill that I only need cleaning, some ointment, and a smaller dressing.”
Marie looked at the detectives and asked, “Do you have Dr. Lewis under arrest? We can identify him as our shooter and I believe that Angela got him on camera.”
“Actually, we haven’t found him yet. We have many officers scouring the woods looking for him,” replied Haro.
That announcement wiped any remaining humor off the women’s faces.
“Look we need to find a new location to sleep tonight with police officers guarding us,” Jo demanded. “This Dr. Lewis has lost his mind and he is very dangerous. He has terrific shooting skills. We can’t figure out how he knew where we were. We decided to go golfing about forty-five minutes before we showed up to the course. It’s not like our name was on the tee time book for more than an hour or that we talked about it in town.”
“Yes, we have been wondering how Dr. Lewis found us. We have never been introduced to him. Even when I was caught by him during my surveillance yesterday, I didn’t give him my name. If he looked up my license plate he would have only found the rental company.”
“Did you drive your car to this golf course?”asked Van Bruggin. “What is the make and model, I’ll go inspect it.”
“It’s a silver Ford Escort,” replied Jill. “I would give you the keys but we left our golf bags on their pull carts over at the edge of the eighth fairway before we disappeared into the woods. We’ll need to retrieve those carts for our car keys and wallets.”
“I’ll send some golf course personnel to bring your carts over here. This golf course has been closed as we search for Dr. Lewis.”
“He is going to escape,” Marie speculated. “He probably exited the woods and into a getaway car just like last time. When his third and final shot grazed Angela, I think that he stopped chasing us, as you could easily hear the sirens getting closer to the golf course. So I would look in that area. Certainly you should be able to recover the shell casings of the three shots.”
“Do you remember exactly where you were standing when you were shot?” Van Bruggin asked Angela.
“I wasn’t standing still when I was shot, I was walking fast and had just cleared the big rock face and was plunging back into the woods. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I was grazed from a direct shot or if I was hit by a ricochet off the rock.”
"We have men searching the woods and a K-9 unit out there with them,” Van Bruggin said. “Dr. Lewis may be able to elude the search and escape in a vehicle, but it's only a matter of time before he is captured. Someone mentioned, Angela, that you took his picture as he was approaching you with his gun in hand. I would like to have your camera for evidence and it will be returned to you, but that's a pretty clear piece of evidence that we can use to charge him with attempted murder. While in our custody, we will be able to link him, hopefully, to the other two murders.”
Angela reached over to the detective with her good arm to hand him her camera. She'd had the camera strap around her wrist when they entered the woods.
A couple of golf course employees entered the room with their golf bags and carts. Jill walked over to her bag and dug out her car keys and handed them to the detective.
"Let me know if you find anything on my car. Like I said, it remains a mystery as to how Dr. Lewis tracked us down on this golf course."
A police officer entered the room and told Van Bruggin that the woods were clear and they had not found Dr. Lewis. The detective looked over at the women and asked, "Are you ladies able to walk us through the woods to indicate your path and point out where you think shots were fired?"
"Of course we’re able to walk through the woods. We've already scratched our legs so I suppose it can’t get any worse," said Marie. “Angela, can you walk through the woods with your flip-flops? I know that was a pretty difficult pace given the shoes you had on your feet.”
"On our return to the woods, it will be a leisurely pace,” Angela said. "At that slower pace both my wounded arm and flip-flop shod feet will be fine while we search for bullet casings.”
“How does your arm feel my friend?” Jo asked.
“I've had flu shots in my arm that have felt worse than this injury. I could play golf with my arm; especially since the emergency personnel greatly reduced the size of the bandage," added Angela, with a smile.
"Hey, are you commenting on my doctoring skills?” Jill questioned. “I had hoped a gigantic bandage would add to your status as hero since you took one for the team.”
A crime scene tech returned to the room, having examined Jill’s car. He spoke with the detective first and then came ove
r to Jill.
“Ma’am, we found this device placed under the rubber molding around the back window of your rental car. It’s a simple GPS tracking device that you can find at any electronics store. We contacted the rental car company to see if they used such a device to track their cars, and the answer is no. I’ll take this back to the lab and see if I can track it to a computer IP address which will tell us who placed it on the car.”
“Was it on the driver or passenger side of the back window?” Jill asked.
“Driver side.”
“Hmm, it might have been Dr. Lewis. He approached my car from the back and as I was looking down at my iPhone, I didn’t see him until he banged on my window. He could have placed it there without my noticing the movement.”
Both detectives gave her a pained look shaking their heads at her lousy surveillance technique. Jill caught the motion, grinned, and said “I really do suck at surveillance. I’ll have to give thought to getting some training since doing an internet search on surveillance techniques failed to provide me with the necessary skills.”
“Ladies, are you ready to go back to the woods and direct us on our search?” asked Haro.
“Our suspect is an excellent shot. Are you sure, he is no longer in the woods?” Jo asked.
“I’ll admit that we didn’t search tree branches to see if he is hiding up in a tree, but our K-9 unit followed a scent to the end of the woods and beyond to a road, where the scent ended for the dog. That suggests he entered a vehicle and left. However, if you would feel more secure, we can provide you with bullet proof vests to wear while we search.”
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Angela agreed.
Soon all four women were wearing vests not designed for their more slender frames. The weight was heavy, and Jill and Jo were soon perspiring as they returned to the path they had taken.
“This is a reminder to never gain five pounds,” Jo noted. “I’m amazed how sensitive I am to the burden of this extra weight.”
