by Brad Smith
“We was outside, I’d be buying you a drink, motherfucker,” he was saying, sticking his hand out as he came.
Virgil regarded the proffered hand doubtfully but decided it was better to take it than not. He glanced toward the guardhouse, wondering how soon until lockup.
“Yeah, I know what you did, bro.”
The redhead flopped down beside him on the bench, stretched his legs out. Virgil’s head was fuzzy from the nap, and from the events of the past few hours.
“My mother was here, she’d kiss you on the mouth,” the redhead said. He had foul breath, as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth in weeks.
“I don’t know who you think I am,” Virgil said. “But I’m pretty sure I’m not.”
“I know who you are, motherfucker. I know exactly who you are. Screw over there just told me. You the man popped a cap in lawyer Mickey’s ass. Same day he threw me under the bus. What I call payback.”
Virgil looked at the kid now. He had a crazy cast to his eyes and bad skin, blackheads and pimples on his chin and neck. He was a walking cliché, Opie Taylor channeling Snoop Dogg.
“Dupree was your lawyer?” Virgil asked.
“Was. That’s the key word. Thanks to you, I guess he ain’t nobody’s lawyer no more. You and me doin’ the same dance here, homes. Murder in the first. Justifiable all the way round. Some guy bonin’ my girl and thinks he gonna get away with that shit? Not on my watch.”
“What’s this about your mother?”
“Oh, my mother. She tore lawyer Mickey a new asshole same day Mickey bought it on the golf course. He turn his back on me and my mother ripped him. You don’t fuck with my mama.”
“What’s your name?”
“You ain’t figured it out yet? Shit. I’m almost famous, man. Call me Byron. Lord Byron, if you want.”
“Byron what?”
“Byron Fairchild. You sayin’ you never heard of me?”
“No. I guess that’s why you’re almost famous.”
Virgil was rescued from Byron Fairchild when a guard’s voice came over a speaker system and announced lockup. The guard from earlier led Virgil back inside and into an overnight holding cell. Virgil noticed with relief the other prisoners filing into another building. He’d had a disturbing premonition of sharing a cell with Lord Byron.
As it was, he had the cell to himself. He mentioned to the guard that he hadn’t eaten and the guy told him it wasn’t a cafeteria, but then he came back twenty minutes later with a couple of Snickers bars. Virgil ate them both and then lay down on the cot. He put himself to sleep by going over what he needed to do on the farm for the rest of the year to keep his head above water. He didn’t allow himself to think about the situation at hand because he had no idea what to do about it.
The two cops that had come out to the farm, Brady and Delano, collected him in the morning and drove him to the courthouse in downtown Kingston. On the way, they stopped at McDonalds and bought him an Egg McMuffin and coffee. Delano removed the cuffs so Virgil could eat and left them off until they parked in the lot behind the courthouse.
They led Virgil inside through a back door, down a hallway lined with holding cells with iron doors, and into the courtroom, where they sat him in a prisoners’ dock opposite a jury box. The room was old, the furnishings constructed mainly of oak. Virgil looked out at the gallery full of people poised with cameras and voice recorders and iPhones. He realized they were from the media and after a moment he further realized they were there for him.
Maybe for that reason, his case was called first. The judge was a woman of about sixty. She wore stylish half glasses, and a detached air. She did not look at Virgil until after the charge of first degree murder was read. Then she dropped her chin to look over her glasses at Virgil.
“Do you understand the charges, Mr. Cain?” Her voice was husky and lived-in, a voice that Virgil associated with late nights and honky-tonks and good whisky, although there was nothing else about the judge that suggested any of that.
“Yes,” Virgil said. He wasn’t sure if he was required to address her by some specific term—your honor, or whatever. But he couldn’t imagine that failing to do so would land him in any more trouble than he was already in.
“Do you wish to enter a plea today?”
“Yes.”
“How do you plead?” She was no longer looking at Virgil. It seemed she was looking past him, to the throng in the seats. Maybe she had just noticed them, although that seemed unlikely. By her expression it was hard to determine if she was delighted or dismayed to have them in her courtroom.
“Not guilty,” Virgil said.
She shifted her gaze back to him. “Where is your lawyer?”
“I don’t have one.”
“And why not? I gather you were informed that you are entitled to representation. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And surely you are aware of the gravity of these charges?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
From her expression then, the slight arc of her eyebrows, Virgil was pretty certain that whatever he was supposed to call her, it wasn’t ma’am. She held the look for a long moment, then consulted a ledger of sorts in front of her.
“You’ll be back here on August fourteenth,” she said. “Ten o’clock in the morning. And Mr. Cain, you will be accompanied by your lawyer at that time. If you are not accompanied by your lawyer at that time, this court will appoint you one.
Just to clarify, I am attempting to discourage any addle-brained notions you might be entertaining of defending yourself. Now, is that clear?”
“Yes, ma—” Virgil caught himself. “Yes.”
She smiled then, and called the next case.
EIGHT
Claire drove out to Burr Oak Golf and Country Club later that morning. As a courtesy she called Joe Brady’s cell to ask him to ride along, knowing full well he was busy escorting Cain to court for his arraignment and, as such, was unavailable. She didn’t want him with her, today or any other day. In truth, she wished he wasn’t involved in the case at all. It was her bad luck, and the bad luck of the department, that he had taken the call in the first place. When the tip came in from a civic-minded patron of Fat Phil’s bar that Virgil Cain had threatened Mickey Dupree ten days before the murder, Claire had been driving back from Saratoga Springs, where she’d gone to visit a friend on her day off. Otherwise, she would have most definitely done an end run around Joe.
Claire had played golf once in her life. It was at the Ulster County Celebrity Classic, an event held annually to raise money for various area charities. The celebrities varied from year to year, but they were consistent in that they were usually people Claire had never heard of. The tournament was a best ball, or what was called a scramble, and she played with three other cops, all of whom were avid golfers. Each foursome was required to have at least one woman and so she was asked to play, even though she barely knew the difference between an iron and a wood. Nonetheless, she actually won a prize for longest putt made by a woman. Claire discovered that day that she could putt very well, a skill she attributed to her prowess on a pool table, honed back in her class-skipping high school days. But the term “by a woman” rankled her, smacking of both sexism and country club elitism. Not only that, but the game in general bored her to tears. She began to enjoy herself that particular day only after a few rounds from the beer cart, but, as her late great-uncle Willis used to say, “Hell, even killing rats can be fun, you got enough beer.”
She arrived at Burr Oak shortly before noon, and a golfer in the parking lot directed her to the club pro, who was standing by the practice green helping an older man in green pants with his putting. The pro was midfifties, she guessed, with brittle blond hair and a deep tan. He wore a lot of gold—necklace, rings, bracelets on both wrists. Claire introduced herself and he smiled hopefully.
“You here to give me my golf course back?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Your guys stil
l have the seventh green taped off,” he said.
“Can’t you just play the other holes?” she asked.
The old man in the green pants made a noise like he was blowing something out his nose. “I don’t pay twenty grand a year to play seventeen holes.” He said it without looking over, just kept hitting putts.
Claire watched him for a moment, then turned back to the pro. “Let’s go out there and have a look. Where’s the guy who found the body?”
He was a course worker named Jimmy, and he soon pulled up in a Gator to accompany Claire and the pro to the seventh hole. The green itself was surrounded by yellow tape, as was the bunker where Mickey Dupree had been found. The pro drove to the edge of the tape and stayed in the cart while Claire walked over to the sand trap. The slope down into it was steep, and the bottom of the trap was probably five feet below the level of the green. She could see Dupree’s footsteps where he had descended, and she could see where he had stood before hitting his shot. The sand was flattened where the body fell. There was dried blood, but not a lot. Not as much as Claire would have thought.
“He was on his back?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “A little on his left side, but pretty much on his back.”
Claire glanced over at him. He was a kid, early twenties, and was very earnest in his replies. “I know you’ve been over this a few times, but bear with me, okay?”
“Yeah. No problem.”
She looked at the spot where the body had lain. There was no evidence that he had struggled in death, no sand disturbed where his arms or legs might have flailed, or where he may have tried to get up. Just a compressed area where the body had landed. Which meant that he was basically dead before he hit the ground. Or that the blow to the head had knocked him unconscious before he had been impaled.
“There was nothing else here,” she said. “He was killed with just the shaft of the club. What about the end—what do you call it?”
“The head.”
“What about that? You didn’t see it anywhere?”
“No,” Jimmy said.
“Your guys combed the bushes pretty good, looking for it,” the pro said.
“What kind of club was it?”
“Ping,” Jimmy said. “Five iron.”
Claire kept looking at the spot where the body had lain. Something wasn’t right. She turned. It was a good twenty feet to the bunker’s edge. “Ping. Is that a good club?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Behind the spot where Mickey Dupree had been found, the sand was disturbed where the ambulance crew had obviously pulled the body out of the sand trap and onto the grass a few feet away. The rest of the bunker had been raked here and there, presumably during play the day of the murder. As such, the grooming lacked uniformity, the sand being drawn this way or that. And then Claire realized.
“Was any of this raked after the body was found?”
“No,” Jimmy said.
“Nobody touched it,” the pro assured her.
“Then the killer must have flown in and out of here on gossamer wings,” Claire said. “Because he didn’t leave any footprints.”
“You’re right,” the pro said. He thought a moment. “Well— obviously he raked them out himself.”
“Obviously he did. But why?” Claire took a couple of steps in the fine sand and pointed at the marks she left. “Nothing distinct there at all. No tread, nothing. Look at Dupree’s tracks. Nothing to show they were his. Now remember this guy was in a hurry. The course wasn’t busy but it was hardly deserted. You were out here, Jimmy. Right?”
“Yeah.”
She indicated the Gator. “Were you driving that?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“He would have heard it. Quiet night, he would have heard it. But he still took the time to pick up a rake and obliterate his tracks.”
The pro had an inspiration. “He was a golfer.”
“He was?”
“It’s second nature to a golfer to rake a trap,” the pro said. “It’s just standard etiquette.”
Claire considered this for a moment. “I’m not sure about that. I have to wonder if a golfer who follows a fellow golfer into a sand trap and kills him with a steel shaft to the heart hasn’t just thrown etiquette out the window.”
She smiled at the pro, who just shrugged, his contribution to the investigation over. Claire stepped out of the trap and looked around. Just past a copse of pine trees to the south was a wrought-iron fence, beyond which the property dropped into a ravine. She could see a narrow creek running along its course. On the far side of the ravine, maybe five hundred yards away, stood a wooden fence, stained or painted red.
“What’s over there?” she asked.
“Coopers Falls Park,” the pro told her.
Claire walked over to the trees and had a closer look at the ravine and the park on the other side. She had been to the park a couple of times but hadn’t realized it practically backed up against the golf course. In the matted grass past the wrought-iron fence she could see innumerable golf balls, as well as sandwich wrappers and beer cans and other trash. She spotted a couple of golf club shafts there, and a putter that some unhappy duffer had bent into the shape of a horseshoe.
When they pulled up beside the clubhouse, the old man was still on the putting green. He looked over as Claire and the pro got out. Then he went back to his putting.
“Well,” he said, again not favoring Claire with a glance. “Is she going to give us the course back?”
Claire regarded the old man, then said to the pro, “You can take the tape down. We’re finished here.”
“Good Christ,” the old man said, rolling a putt six feet past the hole.
“Mr. Greenjeans here is chomping at the bit,” Claire said.
“Although if I couldn’t putt any better than that, I’d take up knitting.”
The old man finally looked at her. “You think you could do any better?”
“Hell, yeah,” Claire told him. “I won a trophy.”
Mary was at the clinic when she got a phone call from Donald Lee at the SPCA, asking her to come by his office at lunch-time. There was somebody he wanted her to meet. It sounded very clandestine, although when she pressed him on it all he would say was that it concerned the horses they’d seized from the Hopman place.
She had scheduled three spays for the morning, and the last one took her until quarter past twelve so it was twenty to one when she walked into the SPCA compound on the north edge of town. Donald was in his office and with him was a teenager wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt. His left forearm was in a cast and his face was bruised, his bottom lip cut. His name was Logan.
“What’s going on?” she asked Donald.
“That gelding we had to put down turned out to be a thoroughbred. He was so emaciated you couldn’t tell. But he was tattooed.”
“And?”
“Horse belonged to Miller Boddington.”
“Shit,” Mary said. “How the hell did he end up there?”
“That’s where this young man comes in,” Donald said. Logan looked at Mary, then shrugged like he was apologizing for something. “Hopman’s been getting horses from Boddington for a couple years.”
“How do you know this?”
“I been working for him. Until recent, anyway. He’s been in a real bad mood lately and I had enough of it.” He smiled ruefully. “I want to get smacked around, I can stay home with my old man. Least he tells me he loves me afterwards.”
Mary indicated the broken arm. “Hopman do that?”
“Yeah.”
The kid didn’t elaborate and Mary wasn’t of a mind to push him on it. “So what’s the connection between him and Boddington?”
“Hopman’s always looking for cheap horses,” Logan said.
“Or was, anyway.”
“Tell her why,” Donald said.
“Sends them to Europe for meat. People eat horses in Europe. Hopman had a guy over there, took all he could send him.”
>
The kid wouldn’t look at either Mary or Donald while he talked. His eyes moved back and forth across the tile floor, as if he were looking for something he’d lost. He had a bit of cringe in him, but it seemed it had come to him honestly. Mary glanced over at Donald.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she said. “A guy who’s selling horses for meat wouldn’t gain anything by starving them.”
“He couldn’t deliver that last bunch,” Logan said. “So he just left them.”
“Why couldn’t he deliver them?”
“Way I heard it, he owes too much money to the shipping company. There was always people coming around there looking for money. I never saw anybody get paid, though.”
“I’ve heard that about Mr. Hopman,” Mary said. “He likes to get his hay for free.”
She focused on the kid’s cast again. “Why’d he do that?”
The kid shrugged, his eyes still sweeping across the tile.
“Hopman accused Logan of making the call to us about the animals,” Donald said.
“Was Hopman right?” Mary asked the kid.
He looked at her finally, but didn’t say anything. As if part of him was proud of what he’d done, but another part didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Good for you,” Mary said. “Did you go to the police about him beating you?”
“No,” the kid said quickly. “I’m not gonna do that.”
“You have to do that.”
“No. I’m just going to stay away from there. I’m gonna go live with my mom for a while. She wants me to go back to school.”
“There’s something else,” Donald said. “Logan says the day we seized the horses, Hopman apparently found another shipping company that’ll deal with him. Some Dutch liner. He was buying hay and grain to bring them back to weight. And he was buying more horses. That’s why he was so pissed about us showing up.”
“What’s this about more horses?” Mary asked Logan.
