Porter trailed off, sickened by the loss of privacy his membership was facing. Sam sympathized with him, to a point. Porter had no right to impede a murder investigation simply because he abhorred prying into his club members’ private lives—yet such an investigation violated every principle Porter had been entrusted to uphold at Augusta National. These were some of the richest and most powerful businessmen in America, none of whom would have joined the club had they ever imagined that their personal and professional affairs would be pawed over by homicide detectives. On the few occasions when David Porter granted an interview with the national press, the questions invariably came around to the club’s members: Who were they, what did they do, and what did it take to get an invitation to join? Porter’s answer was always the same: “We don’t discuss our membership.” Well, the members were going to be discussed now. They were going to undergo an inquisition. No wonder Porter, normally the sunny face of optimism with the press, was so glum now.
Then again, Sam couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Porter was taking this especially hard because he believed—or even knew—that the killer was a member. Maybe he was protecting someone.
“We’ll cooperate with the police as much as we’re forced to,” Porter said. “But Sam, we’d like you to conduct your own investigation.”
“David seems to think you can be trusted,” Stanwick said, not indicating whether he shared Porter’s opinion.
“We’ll give you access to every document, every record, every phone number, and every address we have,” Brisbane said.
“We’re hoping you can work faster than the police, and find out who the killer is before they turn this club upside down,” Porter said. “We know you came here to play golf. We want you to play in the tournament. But we’ll pay you well if you’ll help us find this bastard, whoever he is.”
“You must have detectives on your payroll,” Sam said.
“Not for this sort of work,” Porter said.
“What happens when you offer an invitation to a new member? Don’t you have someone check him out first?”
“No, we don’t,” Stanwick said. “If a man is recommended for membership by a member, that’s good enough for us. There’s no background check. We just vote him up or down.”
“If the new member proves to be a problem—and it rarely happens—he’ll lose his membership, and the member who recommended him will usually resign,” Porter said. “It’s an effective screening policy.”
“When do you use private eyes?”
“To stop badge scalping and forgery. They mingle with the patrons and read the classifieds. If they find a patron selling a badge, we drop that patron from our ticket list.”
Sam had heard that the National aggressively pursued badge sellers and brokers, but there had to be other times when a detective was necessary. He asked Porter if they ever needed outside help to clean up a mess or lean on someone. Porter hesitated, looked at Stanwick and Brisbane, and then told Sam that the club had hired an investigator a few years back to look into allegations against one of their bartenders. Some members suspected that he was eavesdropping on conversations and passing on business information to competitors.
“The investigator was incompetent and indiscreet,” Porter said.
“What happened with the bartender?”
“We never did prove he was passing on information, but we fired him anyway,” Stanwick said. “Everyone who works here understands the policy: Keep your nose clean and you won’t have any trouble. If there’s a question about you, you’re gone.”
“That’s the kind of information I’ll need if I take this job,” Sam said. “Can you think of any ex-employees who might have a grudge against the club?”
“No, not offhand,” Porter said. “The police are focusing on the members and current employees.”
“They have to,” Sam said. “You have to eliminate those closest to the crime first. There might be something obvious there, and if there is, this case will be solved pretty fast. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Sam was willing to work this case only if everyone at the National truly wanted to find the killer, no matter who he was. He didn’t want to take part in a sham investigation, where certain conclusions would not be welcome.
“What about Drucker?” Stanwick said, narrowing his eyes at Sam.
“What about her?” Sam asked. He knew where Stanwick was going, but he wanted to hear the man explain it himself.
“Well, Hell’s bells, who’s been outside our gates all week trying to make us look like the devil incarnate? She’s got to be the happiest person in America that we’re in this mess.”
“I thought about that,” Sam said. “But Deborah Scanlon was a friend of hers. I doubt she would knock off one of her most effective supporters.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Porter said.
“David, before I commit to this, I’ve got to ask you straight out,” Sam said. “Do you have any knowledge of, or any suspicion of, a member being involved in this?”
Porter looked at his fellow club members. Stanwick, seated in a leather armchair near Porter’s desk, shook his head in an emphatic indication that, in his opinion, there were no Augusta National members so craven and black-hearted. Brisbane also shook his head. Porter turned back to Sam.
“No,” he said simply.
“Then let me ask you this,” Sam said. “How dead-set is the club against admitting a woman?”
Porter leaned back in his swivel chair and drummed his fingers on the armrest, trying to decide how much he should reveal with his answer.
“We’re not,” Porter finally said, moving his weight forward again. “In fact, we had finalized plans to invite a specific woman to join the club. Then Rachel Drucker showed up with her protesters, and now all this. We’ve decided to wait.”
“Who were you going to invite?” Sam said.
Porter glanced at Stanwick, but quickly decided to put his cards on the table.
“Margaret Winship.”
Sam was surprised by the name, but he shouldn’t have been. The widow of a former President of the United States would make a logical first female member. Her husband, Warren, had played at Augusta National many times, and it was openly understood that a membership was his for the asking once he left the White House. His fatal heart attack a year after his second term ended had prevented him from inheriting Ike’s long-vacant role as the National’s resident world leader emeritus. But inviting Mrs. Winship to join was a perfect first step for a club that had never before had a woman member. She would not use the golf course; she was unlikely even to use the clubhouse for social purposes. She might attend the Masters, but her impact on the club itself would be so minimal that the members would barely be aware of her inclusion. Yet inducting her would accomplish precisely what the protesters outside the gates seemed to be demanding: that the rich, powerful men of Augusta National allow at least one rich, powerful woman to write an annual check for membership dues.
“I trust you to keep that information confidential,” Porter said to Sam, staring straight at him. “We want to wait a few months before making the announcement. You can see how it would look now if we go ahead with the invitation.”
“It will look like we caved in to a few screeching harpies,” Stanwick finished. “There will be no end to the demands on this club if the public believes a mob at our front gate can dictate our policies to us.”
Stanwick’s description of the WOFF made it clear to Sam that the decision to admit Margaret Winship had not been unanimous, and that there were still a good number of Augusta National members who would be quite happy to keep her invitation in their pocket indefinitely.
“How many of your members know this?” Sam asked.
“Only the board of governors,” Porter said. “Myself, Ralph, Robert—Harmon Ashby—a
nd Johnny Brooks.”
“Who’s he?”
“An old friend of Bobby Jones,” Brisbane said. “He was a fine amateur player in the ’40s.”
“Is he here?”
“No,” Porter said. “He’s too ill to attend this week.”
There was a knock at the entrance to David Porter’s office. Dennis Harwell entered, accompanied by a man wearing a brown sport coat and a brown fedora with a broad hatband. Sam loved fedoras, but didn’t think he could pull off the look. The man with Harwell looked good in a fedora. His face looked appropriately hardened, with a pock-marked complexion, dark eyebrows, and a nose that seemed a little large for the space it had to occupy. Yet there was an odd cheerfulness to his manner as he presented his badge for inspection.
“Good morning, Mr. Porter,” he said with the smile of a door-to-door salesman. “Mark Boyce, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta office. How y’all doin’ today?”
“As well as can be expected, Mr. Boyce, under the circumstances,” Porter said, rising from his chair. “Would you mind removing your hat?”
“Sure, I understand,” Boyce said, casually taking the fedora off as though he were going to do so anyway. “Another murder—shitty deal, with the Masters coming and all. I think you know Mr. Harwell of the Richmond County Sheriff’s office?”
It was obvious who was running the investigation now. Sam was glad that the GBI had been called in; Harwell had been in over his head.
“Let me tell you up front, I sympathize with you people,” Boyce said. “I love this tournament. Makes me sick that some dickwad is ruining Masters Week for all of us. We’ll get him. I promise.”
Boyce pulled up a chair from the edge of the office, placed his hat over his knee and pulled out a notebook.
“We’re going to need to start interviewing your members,” he said. “If you can give me the names and locations of every member who is in town this week, that would be swell. We also need a list of all your employees, their shifts and their home addresses. Who’re you?”
Boyce pointed his pen at Ralph Stanwick.
“My name is Ralph Stanwick,” he said. “I’m the rules chairman.”
“Good, good. Where have you been staying this week?”
“I’m staying in the Firestone Cabin with my wife.”
“Now, that’s where the Ashbys were staying—right?” Boyce asked. He looked at Stanwick with an innocent, half-lidded glance that indicated he was enjoying the fact that Stanwick found this process degrading.
“Yes,” Stanwick said. “It’s a large cabin, with room for two couples.”
“Let me see if I remember my Masters geography,” Boyce mused, theatrically scratching his temple with the pen. “That would be just to the south of the 10th tee, right? Right between where they found Mr. Ashby’s body at Amen Corner, and where they found Ms. Scanlon’s body this morning in Ike’s Pond. That right?”
“Yes,” Stanwick said.
“Anybody with you when the murders occurred?”
Stanwick told Boyce that he and his wife were sound asleep in their cabin Sunday night when Ashby was killed. He hadn’t heard him go outside. Last night they had early dinner on the porch outside the clubhouse library with Mr. Porter.
“That right?” Boyce asked Porter.
“Yes. I returned to my apartment after dinner.”
“And where’s that?”
“In the eastern annex to the clubhouse.”
“We returned to the Firestone Cabin around 8:30,” Stanwick said. “We watched some television and went to bed.”
“Your wife with you the whole time?”
“Certainly.”
“She’ll say so?”
“Why wouldn’t she, Mr. Boyce?” Stanwick said. “It’s the truth.”
“Is she here today?”
“Yes, my wife’s at the cabin.”
“What about you, Mr. Porter? Your wife around?”
“No,” Porter said. “She doesn’t attend the tournament. I’m too busy to spend any time with her. She’s back home in New York.”
“We’ll have a talk with your wife,” Boyce said to Stanwick. “Just a formality. Seems to me we’re looking for somebody who’d enjoy running around at night throwing people into ponds. You don’t look like that kind of a guy.”
Sam had to suppress a smile. Boyce was the kind of detective he liked to work with: blunt, but not overtly suspicious of everyone. He kept his interviews moving and kept his subjects off-guard without intentionally antagonizing them.
“And who’re you?” Boyce said, pointing the pen at Brisbane.
“Robert Brisbane—competition committees chairman,” Brisbane said.
“Where’re you keeping yourself this week?”
“I’ve got a room in the East Wing.”
“Your wife around?”
“No, she’s back in Des Moines, recovering from a tennis injury. She’s watching on TV this year.”
“And you?” Boyce said, looking at Sam.
“Sam Skarda. I’m a participant in this year’s Masters.”
“Oh, hell, I’ve heard of you,” Boyce said, squinting at Sam as he turned to shake his hand. “That was some round of golf you played in the finals of the Publinx last year. Showed those college kids a thing or two.”
“You follow golf?”
“Hell, yeah. We all do around here—isn’t that right, Detective Harwell?”
“Right,” Harwell said. Sam thought Boyce winked at him.
“You’re a cop, right?” Boyce said to Sam.
“On leave,” Sam said.
“We’ve asked Mr. Skarda to help us look into this situation,” Porter said.
“You gonna do some pokin’ around?” Boyce asked Sam. “Hell, that’s fine. We can use all the help we can get—especially from the inside. Here’s my cell phone number. Call anytime. Just keep us informed.”
Boyce smiled as he handed Sam a card, but his eyes lost their twinkle with his last directive. Boyce couldn’t keep the club from bringing in a private eye—in fact, he must have expected it. But that didn’t mean he’d let Sam interfere with his investigation.
“I’ve already interviewed Skarda,” Harwell said. “He was staying in a room called the Crow’s Nest last night, with two other golfers.”
“That’d be Wheeling and Compton, the other two amateurs,” Boyce said, proving he did know his golf. “Say, I’ve always wanted to get a look at the Crow’s Nest. Can you take me up there sometime, Sam?”
“Anytime you want.”
David Porter realized he had lost control of the room after Boyce had breezed in, and he wasn’t a man used to surrendering control. He didn’t let the situation last.
“What can you tell us, Mr. Boyce?” he asked the investigator. “Have your people had a chance to examine the victim today?”
Boyce regained his professional focus just as quickly.
“The body’s at the county coroner’s office,” Boyce said. “The autopsy isn’t complete, but the M.E. says it looks like Ms. Scanlon was murdered, same as Ashby. Somebody jumped her, got her in the water, and held her under till she drowned.”
“And there are no signs of where the killer came from, or where he went?” Porter said.
“Nope. He’s a wily devil.”
The room was silent for a moment as everyone contemplated the facts on the table. Someone was moving around the Augusta National grounds after dark with enough freedom to murder victims singled out for their support of women joining the club, and then escaping without a trace. Why wouldn’t the finger point at an Augusta member?
“I have to prepare for a press conference,” Porter said, breaking the strained silence. “My secretary can help you with the membership information.”
; With that, Porter stood up. Sam looked at the two cops, then stood up himself.
“I have to call my caddie and tell him he has the day off,” Sam said.
Chapter Fifteen
Dwight was disturbed by the news of Deborah Scanlon’s murder, but not disappointed to hear that the day’s round had been called off.
“I couldn’t go today,” he said on the phone. “My leg is too sore.”
“How about tomorrow, Dwight?”
“You know I want to, but every time I try to move, it tightens up again. Maybe you better talk to the caddiemaster about gettin’ someone else.”
“Stay off it if you can.”
“I can’t,” Dwight said. “I got a restaurant to run.”
“A restaurant?”
“I got a bar and grill downtown called Big D’s.”
Sam told Dwight he’d call him later to see how he was doing. Then he walked across the clubhouse parking lot to the media center to attend Porter’s press conference. He wanted to know what the chairman was willing to tell the public, and what information he wanted to hold back. Porter had said the previous private investigator they’d hired had been “indiscreet.” Sam didn’t intend to make that mistake.
The press building amphitheater was packed with reporters when Sam walked in. The golf writers and sports columnists who looked forward to covering the Masters as the year’s plum assignment had now been joined by dozens of their newsroom colleagues—some sent after the news broke about Ashby, only to learn upon their arrival about their fellow journalist Scanlon being killed. Even the sportswriters who would normally sleep in on a Wednesday morning were elbowing for laptop space at their own assigned work areas.
Sam was trying to find some wall space halfway up the right-hand aisle when he heard a familiar rasp over his shoulder.
“I don’t think we’ve had a turnout this big since Tiger told Fuzzy to go to hell,” Russ Daly said to anyone within ten feet of him.
Several of the reporters seated around him frowned at Daly’s remark. He adopted a pained expression and said, “Aw, c’mon, I’m just trying to lighten the mood here. Debbie would have laughed…”
Amen Corner Page 12
