Harold Stilwell stuck his head in the door, looked down at me and grunted. “You’re up, I see,” he said. “Sorry about the ropes and such. Wynnona said she needs to talk to you and make you listen to some reason.”
It was a good thing I was gagged. Had I been able to talk, I’m not sure what I would have said. But I suspected it would have been obscene.
Stilwell went away, leaving the door open. Cooler air flooded in, for which I was thankful. I didn’t like the way I was beginning to smell. He was back in a minute.
“Listen,” he said to me. “I don’t really know why you gotta be all tied up like that, at least with the gag thingy. You could yell your fool head off out here and nobody’s hear a thing, ‘cept maybe a gator or two. Here, I brought you a beer. I’ll take that thing out and help you drink it, and you promise to behave until Wynnona gets here. Deal?”
I nodded and he reached behind me and untied the gag. I spit the thing out and worked my jaws up and down, trying to relax the muscles.
“Here you go,” he said and, holding the can of Budweiser out like he was feeding a baby, he poured some into my open mouth. I can’t remember when anything tasted better.
“Thanks,” I gasped.
“Don’t mention it,” he said and took a draught from the can he had brought for himself.
“Harold, what the fuck is going on?” I demanded.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head.
“Now, Hacker, don’t get started with me,” he cautioned. “I told you…Wynnona needs to talk to you and she said this was the only way she could get you to listen. I don’t like it much, tell you the truth, but Wyn said it’s gotta be this way.”
“Wyn is wrong, Harold,” I said. “This is called kidnapping and assault. Both you and Wyn can go to jail. I would listen to anything Big Wyn had to say, but this is breaking the law.”
He was silent, silhouetted in the light streaming in the door from the main body of the camper. He took another long pull of his beer.
“What has she got on you, Harold?” I asked. “She catch you sleeping with a young rookie, like Benton? She pay off your gambling debts? One thing I’ve learned this week, Big Wyn has something nasty on just about everybody around her. So what’s she got on you, pal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said sullenly.
“The hell you don’t,” I said heatedly. “She finds the weak link in everyone and pushes on it until it breaks. Once it does, she owns you. Forever. That’s how she’s run this organization for the last twenty years. That’s how she controlled Benton Bergmeister until she killed him. That’s –”
“Wynnona Stilwell did not kill Benton Bergmeister,” Stilwell jumped up and yelled. “She’s a fine Christian woman…”
“She’s a witch, Harold,” I said. “She likes to ruin other people’s lives. I don’t know what she has on you, but she runs your sorry life, too. Hell, she even got you to be an accessory to kidnapping! Don’t tell me what a fine Christian woman she is.”
Harold stood there, breathing heavily. He drained his beer and hurled the can away, where it clattered against the wall and floor. “I’m telling you, Hacker, you’ve got it wrong,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
I decided to give him one more push.
“Okay,” I said. “If you insist on being dickless…”
It was one shove too many. With a strangled cry of fury, Stilwell sprang at me, grabbed me by the throat and slammed my head backward, against the thin, metal wall. The light in the small room swam around and around and my consciousness went swirling with it, down and around and out the drain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A splash of cold water on my face pulled me up from the void. I opened my eyes and groaned at the assault of harsh light in my eyes. I had been moved into the larger compartment of Harold’s motor home, the combination living room and dinette, where I had been plopped down on the built-in bench next to the small table. My head had been resting on the cold, hard Formica surface.
I groaned again and slowly raised my head, wincing in pain. My hands were still bound tightly behind my back, my legs tied at the ankles. I leaned back against the backrest and looked around. Things were still foggy. The light from the overhead bulbs was unrelentlessly harsh. I could hear a generator plugging away outside.
Harold Stilwell stood over me, holding an empty water glass. Standing by the entrance to the motor home was Big Wyn, who stared at me with a combination of interest and hatred.
“Okay, Wyn, he’s awake,” Harold said. “I’m going outside and have a smoke.” He fumbled in his overalls for pipe and tobacco and went out the door into the night.
Wynnona Stilwell took two steps toward me and stood there, towering above me. I raised my eyes upward at a painful angle to look back at her. There was an unmistakable aura of conqueror and vanquished in the little cabin of Harold Stilwell’s motor home. Big Wyn’s eyes were bright and clear and shone with power. I imagined those eyes looked the same on those countless afternoons when she had marched down the eighteenth fairway with another insurmountable lead, the cheers of her fans ringing in her ears.
“You have caused more trouble than you are worth,” Big Wyn said to me now, her voice deep and sure and completely different from the wavering tones I had heard earlier in the afternoon. I looked closely at her again. Something had rejuvenated her.
“You have stuck your nose into places you shouldn’t have,” she continued. “You have made my life most unpleasant. Normally, I could deal with that. There have been other reporters who tried to do slam pieces on the Tour, even on me. I’ve taken my share of punches. It don’t last. People forget about it. Life goes on. But you’ve gone too far, Hacker. You are a danger to everything I’ve worked for over the last twenty years. I can’t let you do that.”
“I haven’t done anything, Wyn,” I said. “You’re the one who created this house of horrors. Now you have to live with the consequences. You’re already in deep trouble. Don’t make it any worse for yourself. Cut the crap, let me go and I’ll tell the cops you came to your senses, no harm done.”
She laughed. Threw back her head and laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh mingled with madness. It sent a sudden chill down my back.
“Hacker, you don’t know how much you sound like my father,” she said now. “He was such a spineless little bastard who always tried to sound like a real man, a fighter. He tried to make us believe he was The Man, had all the answers, knew everything. He didn’t know shit.”
Her eyes had suddenly turned hot and bright.
“I was Daddy’s little girl, or supposed to be. Be all cute and cuddly, wear pretty dresses, get married and settle down, raise a family. He had high hopes for me, his little girl. But I wasn’t his little girl. I was always a tomboy. Always loved sports. Found out I was good at it. I could even beat the boys most of the time. Man, did that feel good!”
She was pacing now, back and forth in the contained space of the motor home.
“He never understood. He always said it was just a phase, that I’d settle down sooner or later and become a lady. Well, I knew I was never going to be a lady. I was going to be a champion. I was going to become the best golfer in the world. That was my dream. It was never his. One day, he came home from work early and saw me and my best friend kissing. Next day, he dropped dead of a heart attack.”
She ran her fingers wearily through her graying hair. “He never understood. Never tried to.”
There was nothing I could say. The sadness of Wyn’s life swept over me, followed by despair. I was the prisoner of an unbalanced woman. I was in trouble.
“Anyway, Hacker, that’s all in the past,” she said, her voice regaining its edge. “Now it’s all about you and the trouble you’ve caused.”
“How many of your other press critics have you kidnapped and assaulted?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Never had to before,”
she said. “Most of ‘em you can buy with a little bit of this or that and they go off their own way. But you weren’t likely to do as you were told. I knew that from the day I laid eyes on you.”
“Is that all this is?” I demanded. “A power struggle? Does that justify things like beating up Honie Carlton?”
Big Wyn shook her head with a frown. “Well now, I didn’t really approve of that,” she said. “I told Julie just to lean on the girl a little bit, make an impression on her. But Julie sometimes gets a little carried away. And I think she likes to hurt people. That can be useful sometimes.”
I shook my head in wonder. “And what about Benton? He told me he was going to walk away from your little circus here. I’ll bet he was going to blow a few whistles, too. Isn’t it nice that he accidentally took the wrong pills on a full stomach of booze?”
She avoided my eyes. “Accidents happen,” she mumbled.
“I don’t suppose the lovely Casey Carlyle had anything to do with that accident?” I suggested.
She spun on me. “How did you know that?” she demanded. Then she halted, realizing what she had just admitted.
“Two plus two, Wyn,” I said. “I know she’s the general errand girl around here, as well as your main undercover agent. It makes sense that if Benton needed a refill on his prescription, he’d call Casey to have her go get it. The way I figure it, she went and got his scripts filled, and then got one for herself….probably a big bottle of Nembutal. I checked with the medical examiner. Both Nembutal and Minizide – which was what Benton was taking – come in nearly identical capsules. Hard to tell them apart, especially if you’re drunk. I figure Casey switched the pills in the bottles and gave Benton the ones that eventually killed him.”
“You can’t prove that,” Hacker,” she said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I shrugged. “The cops are checking all the drugstores around here, and they’ll find out it was Casey who filled Benton’s prescription. They’ll find hers, too. I figure tomorrow they’ll be hauling her lovely ass in for questioning. It won’t look good, Wyn, not good at all.”
The door to the motor home was suddenly swept open and Honie Carlton was pushed inside. She too had her hands tied behind her back and had a gag in her mouth. She looked at me with wide, frightened eyes and moaned once, softly. Coming in behind her, a vicious smile creasing her face, was Julie Warren, followed by Harold, who looked concerned.
Julie shoved Honie onto the bench opposite me. The girl was sick with fear and when she sat down, I could see the beginnings of fresh bruises on her face, and a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.
“Goddammit!” I yelled. “If you touch another hair on this girl’s head, I’ll have you thrown in jail for the rest of your sorry lives!”
Big Wyn laughed aloud and backhanded me with a solid swing of her meaty hand. My head rocked back against the wall and I gasped at the sudden, stinging pain. Moments later, I felt blood run out of my nose and begin to drip down onto my shirt. Honie shuddered and moaned again.
“You, my friend, ain’t gonna do nothing of the sort,” Big Wyn said to me menacingly.
“Here now,” Harold Stilwell protested from the doorway. “There’s no cause for that, Wynnona. You said you just wanted to talk some sense into this fella. You didn’t say anything about …”
Big Wyn spun around and spat her words out. “Shut the hell up, Harold! Shut up! When I want to hear some goddam thing from you, I will ask. Until then, shut up!” She stared at her husband. He looked away.
“Wyn,” I gasped, “This has gone far enough. You can’t believe you’ll get away with this. The story will come out. Barley Raney …”
“Barley Raney will do what he’s told,” Wyn snapped. “We know you haven’t transmitted your story full of lies to Boston. We also know you work alone. So we’ll take our chances that once you’re out of the picture, the story dies.”
“That’s the plan?” I rasped. “You’re going to murder Honie and me? Is it worth that much to you?”
Big Wyn just smiled her nasty little smile. She wheeled around, opened the door to a locker and reached inside. Turning, she held a shotgun, what looked like a Remington .365, over/under. Honie uttered another terrified moan when she saw the gun. I wanted to moan as well, but stifled it. Moaning is not manly.
“The story will be that horny ole Hacker here ran off with one of the young assistant publicity officers,” Big Wyn said. “You see, they were old friends, but Miss Carlton grew up in the nicest ways all of a sudden and Hacker just had to have it. So off they ran. Probably screwin’ their way around the Caribbean or something. You’re on vacation, right Hacker? You won’t even be missed for a week or two. And we’ll have a letter of resignation from Honie here, citing personal reasons. It’ll play. People’ll snicker and then forget all about you two.”
“God, that’s brilliant,” Julie Warren breathed.
Harold Stilwell cleared his throat. “Uh, Wynnona, I’m not sure I understand …”
“Oh, you understand all right,” Big Wyn said sarcastically. “You know exactly what’s going on here. So here –” She thrust the shotgun at him. “Take ‘em out to the swamps, shoot ‘em, and make sure they go into a lagoon with a couple of hungry gators. We don’t want any bodies floating up in a few weeks.”
Harold took the gun and stared at it for a moment. Then he looked up at his wife. “Wyn, honey, I can’t …”
“Harold Stilwell,” Wyn’s voice thundered in the small motor home. “You will do as I say. I have spent the last twenty years taking care of your sorry ass. Everything you own I gave you. The food you eat, the clothes on your back, even this godforsaken piece of trash you live in…they are all mine. Ever since I took you away from that grease-monkey shop of yours, I have given you everything. I earned all the money. All you have ever been good for is doing what I told you to do. Without me, you’d still be a dumb hick living in nowhere, Indiana. So quit beating around the bush and do what I say.”
His eyes teared suddenly, and he ducked his head in shame. “Wyn,” he pleaded. “Don’t make me.”
“Goddam it!” she yelled, bending down and getting right in his face. “Did you hear what I just said? You are a worthless worm without me. Worthless! Now I’m not going to tell you again, you worm. Just suck it up and go do it. Do you hear? DO IT!”
Harold Stilwell stood up straight as if he had been jolted by lightening. His eyes were still wet, but he glanced down and jacked a shell into the chamber. The authoritative click sounded like a death knell to me.
Suddenly, the gun roared. Instinctively, I flinched and ducked and I saw Honie, across the table, jump at the sound.
Harold Stilwell held the shotgun pointed at the ample midsection of his wife. She was looking at him with a puzzled expression. She stood there, unmoving, for a long moment while the smell of cordite filled the little motor home. Then, as if in slow motion, she crumpled, wordless, to the floor.
Julie Warren, who had been standing and grinning against the far wall, sprang forward with a cry. “What the…! Wyn! WYN?” She pulled Big Wyn Stilwell over onto her back. Wyn’s midsection was a mass of spattered blood. “You killed her!” Julie yelled furiously at Harold, her spit spraying. “You killed her! Goddam it! You …”
She took a half step towards Harold. The gun roared a second time and Julie Warren’s face disintegrated in a horrifying spray of red mist. The ceiling, the walls and Honie and I were instantly covered with a film of blood and tissues from Julie’s exploding head. As her lifeless body tumbled to the floor, I fought down the bile that rose quickly in my throat. Across the table, Honie whimpered once and fainted.
Only now did Harold Stilwell move. He slowly stepped over the two bodies, reached into the storage locker from which the shotgun had come, and pulled out a handful of fresh shells.
“No, Harold, don’t” I begged. “There’s been enough killing here tonight.”
If he heard me, he didn’t react.
He calmly broke the shotfun open, popped out the spent, smoking shells and thumbed two fresh rounds into the magazine, he clicked the gun closed again and pumped them into the chamber. Slowly he turned, the gun pointing in front of him, until he was facing me.
“Harold, please,” I said. “Shoot me if you have to, but don’t shoot the girl. She’s got her whole life in front of her.”
Harold never said a word. His eyes were gray and dead and empty. He raised the gun, turned it around and tucked the barrel under his chin.
“No!” I yelled frantically. “No! No! No!”
The gun roared for a third and final time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was almost midmorning before someone showed up. It was Charley Dillon, the Doral maintenance man who was a friend of Harold’s, who finally stopped by to share a cup of coffee and swap some engine stories with Harold. His old pal was mostly faceless and splattered against the wall of his motor home.
Sticking his head in the door of the motor home, Charley also saw the bodies of Big Wyn and Julie Warren, a semi-comatose Honie and me. I was sitting on my bench, hands bound behind my back.
“Good morning,” I said when his horrified face reflected the carnage he saw. “I’d appreciate it if you would untie me first and then call the cops.”
He untied my hands second. First he blew his breakfast all over the ground outside the RV. I figured it had been six or seven hours that I had been sitting there. Six or seven hours with three dead people and one young and innocent victim. Six or seven hours with nothing to do but look at graphic death and think about things. Like evil. Life choices. Unhappiness. Life and death.
Strangely perhaps, I found myself thinking more about Harold Stilwell than his famous golfing wife. I knew that Big Wyn’s story would get the most play in the news reports inevitably to follow. Famous golf star blown away by her deranged husband. Tragedy on the links! An American heroine meets an untimely end. I could almost hear Jack Whitaker doing one of his wordy essays on the tube, waxing poetic about “death be not proud,” or some such nonsense.
Death from the Ladies Tee Page 19
