Death is a Two-Stroke Penalty

by James Y. Bartlett

  “He was killed, Hacker,” she said, speaking in a quiet, haunted tone. “Somebody killed my husband. Find out who.” Then she closed her eyes again and lay back. I looked at the doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. His message was clear: the drugs were doing the talking.

  When she was asleep, I talked the resort cop into taking me out to where they had found the body of John Turnbull. The guy was trying to hold his excitement down. Security at golf resorts usually doesn’t involve anything much more exciting than a raccoon overturning a garbage can. Somebody famous croaking on his watch was big time.

  He drove me out onto the golf course, to the fourteenth hole. Located on a far corner of the course, well away from the clubhouse, fourteen is a pretty little par three that requires a scary shot over the tidal creek and salt marshes to a tiny green perched precariously close to the marsh edge. One of the architectural features of the hole is a long, curving wooden bridge that cuts across the line of the ball’s flight. The architect had built the bridge low, just barely above the highest reeds in the marsh, to keep it largely out of sight. But while the bridge was level, the terrain beneath sloped off dramatically to the tidal creek that snaked through beneath on its way out to sea. Instead of a guardrail, the bridge had been built with sturdy six-by-six timbers along the edges, designed to keep golf carts from falling off.

  It hadn’t worked for John Turnbull. When the security cop and I pulled up, there was a town police car parked on the tee near the entrance to the bridge. A uniformed policeman was standing about twenty feet out on the low bridge, where it began its graceful curve, peering over the side. The fake cop and I walked out to join him.

  John Turnbull lay face down in the marsh, pinned underneath an E-Z-Go golf cart that rested on its right side. It was not hard to picture what had happened. Turnbull had been driving over this bridge the night before, probably going too fast in the dark, and had somehow managed to jump the curb. It was a good fifteen foot drop, and he had landed partially in the tidal mud and partially on some chunks of granite riprap that had been spread along the waterline of the creek to help prevent erosion. If the fall hadn’t killed him, then the crushing weight of the golf cart falling on top of him probably had. There were scrape marks on the timber of the curbing, and a chipped place on the outer edge where the cart had toppled over.

  I looked down at Turnbull, his arms flung out helplessly. I could see the legions of hermit crabs scurrying about, marshalling their forces to begin the scavenge work that they believed lay ahead. There is nothing wasted in nature’s disposal system.

  The three of us looked down silently for a long minute. “Two-stroke penalty,” I heard myself saying. The cops looked at me. “Little known rule,” I said. “Death in a hazard is a two- stroke penalty.”

  Death does that. Makes you say stuff you don’t really mean. I’ve got a smart mouth, sure. I like to impress cops, sure. But I had come to like John Turnbull, and his wife, and I didn’t mean to be cynical and irreverent and smart-mouthed. It’s death. I had seen it before in the mean city streets. The crumpled bodies which do not jump up suddenly and yell “Ha! Fooled ya!” Death is real and there is no turning back from its grim finality. Being cynical and irreverent and smart-mouthed is my way of denying the reality, I guess. Death does that.

  I guess the two cops understood, because neither of them said anything. They just kept looking down at the tableau of death beneath us. But when a blue Ford sedan pulled up, I felt the town policeman stiffen to attention.

  A solid bantam of a man climbed out of the car on the passenger’s side. His sandy colored hair was close-cropped, military style, and he had a square jaw to match. He wore neatly pressed tan khakis, a white pinpoint cotton button-down shirt, and a dark navy tie. Even before I saw the black leather holster on his hip and the gold shield in his shirt pocket, I knew this was the homicide dick.

  The driver climbed out of the car more slowly. Rather, he unfolded himself from behind the wheel. He was a big one, with the broad shoulders and thick neck that bespoke four years’ worth of Saturday stadium afternoons, sixty minutes of interior line mayhem for Ole State. He wore navy blue slacks over a pair of thick, beefy legs, and a white shirt stretched tautly across the muscular, no-neck shoulders. He, too, wore a necktie, but his was tied so loosely, and with his collar stays flapping unbuttoned, that one wondered why he even tried.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Layden,” snapped the bantam at the town cop. “Are y’all havin’ a convention out here? Or do y’all think you might be able to establish somethin’ of a police line?”

  “Right, lieutenant, I was just getting’ to that,” Layden said, his face turning red. Layden turned to the resort cop and started rattling off orders. Typical chain of command. The two hurried off the bridge together toward the town police car.

  The bantam lieutenant strode out onto the bridge and stared down at John Turnbull’s body, his quick grey eyes registering the scene, looking for the out-of-place detail, the dissonance that might hold a clue. Then he turned to me.

  “I’m Bart Ravenel of the Charleston police department,” he said very pleasantly in that peculiar soft-spoken Southern drawl that sounded like he had a couple of cats-eye marbles under his tongue. “Who the fuck are you?” It had been years since I had been rousted by a cop, and never so politely. Must be that famous Southern hospitality.

  “Hacker, Boston Journal,” I said. “Got a statement for the press on this death?”

  Ravenel snorted and leveled his clear grey eyes at me. “Yeah,” he said. “Looks like the guy took a wrong turn. What I don’t need right now, Mister Hacker, is a wiseass. So kindly take your butt off this bridge and keep outta my way. I got an investigation to run.”

  I turned to go.

  “By the way, Mister Hacker,” he called to my back. “What brings you out here so early this morning?”

  “Friend of the family,” I called back. “I was with the widow when she got the news.”

  “Is that right?” Ravenel said. “Would you care to elaborate on that?”

  Still walking, I held up the middle finger on my right hand.

  “Doak!” Ravenel bellowed at his plus-size partner. “Mister Hacker has a statement to give. Please get down his every word. I wanna hear this one.”

  Doak had perched his XXL body on the fender of the police sedan, watching us through half-closed eyes. He was chewing on a toothpick. The squeal must have interrupted breakfast down at Mary Sue’s Roadside Café: three eggs over easy, toast, grits, ham with red-eye gravy and a pot of coffee. It might hold him until lunch. Might not.

  Ravenel disappeared under the bridge. The two other cops began stringing yellow crime-scene tape across one entrance to the bridge. That was going to make it hard to hold a pro-am here today.

  Doak shook himself like an awakening puppy and a big smile lit up his ruddy features. He foraged around in his shirt pocket before coming up with a notepad and a well-chewed bit of pencil. Strolling over to me, he held out a beefy paw.

  “Howdy there, Mistah Hacker,” he said. “Name’s Doak Maxell. Ah’m supposed to take down your statement there. Say,” he paused and looked at me hopefully. “Are you onna them golfin’ fellas?”

  “No kid,” I said. “Just a sportswriter. By the way, where’d you play ball?”

  “Clemson,” he said proudly. “Roll Tigers.” He grinned at me happily.

  “Pros?” I asked. He was big enough.

  “Naw,” he said shrugging. “Got to training camp with the Bears, but halfway through some big ole running buck...”— he paused to see if I got his pun and I rewarded him with a smile– “busted into me and relocated a few vital body parts. Never got it rollin’ again. Them’s the breaks, Coach used to say.”

  “DOAK!” came a shout from under the bridge. Doak came to attention and bellowed back. “Suh?”

  “Have you got that statement down, yet? I need you down here.”

  “Right with ya, chief,” Doak yelled back. “I like workin’ with Lt. Ba
rt,” he confided in me, sotto voce. “He’s as ornery as Coach used to be. But he’s smart...real smart.” He opened his notepad and licked the end of his pencil. Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”

  I decided to play dumb. Doak was a likable sort, but he was still an authority figure. I can’t help myself sometimes, it’s just second nature.

  “What is it you’d like to know?” I asked sweetly.

  “Damn’d if Ah know,” Doak said g ood humoredly. “Lieutenant wants your statement, thass all.”

  “Well,” I said, “If you can ask me some questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.” I can be a real pain in the ass when I set my mind to it.

  Doak’s face got a little redder. “Okay,” he said finally. “Name?”

  “Hacker. Peter Hacker.”

  “Address?”

  I thought a minute. There were a number of answers to that question. Such as my Seagrape villa address, which I really didn’t know—Fairway Road, or The Bunkers or some such. Or the address of the Boston Journal: One Journal Square. Or my North End apartment. Maybe even my inherited beach cabin up on the North Shore, where I get to spend two, maybe three weeks a year if I’m lucky.

  “Number Seven Montooksett Road, Wingaersheek Beach, Massachusetts,” I finally answered.

  Doak’s eyebrows knitted in concentration and his lips pursed as he began to write all that down. Little drops of sweat began to form at his temples. I restrained myself from laughing out loud. Which was probably fortuitous, as a red-faced Ravenel came striding up.

  “Goddamit, Doak, can’t you do that any faster?” he said with exasperation. “Get the camera out of the car and go shoot the scene, would you please?”

  “Yessir, Lieutenant Bart,” Doak said, snapping his book shut.

  Ravenel turned to stare at me. “Have you been screwin’ around with an employee of the Charleston PD?” he asked me. “Because I can take smart-ass reporters and eat them for breakfast.”

  I held up my hands placatingly. “Sorry,” I said. “Listen, I knew Turnbull pretty well, and his wife is going to want to know what the hell happened out here. Any ideas?”

  He scratched one eyebrow thoughtfully, staring out at the curve of the bridge where John Turnbull had plunged to his death.

  “I dunno,” he said slowly. “I don’t need the ME to come tell me the guy’s dead from fallin’ off the bridge. That part’s obvious. And havin’ that cart land on top of him didn’t do much good for him either. Near as I can tell, he’s been dead for several hours. Doc Wise will be able to pin it down pretty exact, but I’m thinkin’ it’s gotta be at least six, seven hours. So the main question is what was he doin’ out here in the middle of the night? Joyriding in a golf cart? You got any ideas about that?”

  “No,” I said, “And it doesn’t make sense. The guy was a straight shooter all the way, with a beautiful wife at home waiting for him. He’d gone out to attend a Bible meeting and never came home. She came and woke me up this morning, frantic with worry.”

  “Hmmm,“ Ravenel mussed. “It sure looks accidental all the way, ‘cept for what the guy was doin’ out here in the middle of the night. Damn! The goddam chief wants to know if he can play some goddam golf tournament out here this afternoon. Doak!”

  A muffled cry came in response from under the bridge. “Doak! What in the hell are you doin’?”

  Doak’s head popped over the railing of the bridge. “Makin’ pittures, like you tole me, chief,” Doak said, smiling a big slow smile.

  “Well hurry it up,” Ravenel barked. “Looks like we got some people to go talk to.”

  “Yessuh.” Doak’s head disappeared again.

  I stared out at the corner of the bridge where Doak’s head had been a moment ago. Ravenel looked at me and followed my gaze.

  “What?” he asked.

  I motioned at the wood planks of the bridge. “No tire marks,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  I waved at him to follow me, and walked down the bridge to the spot where the cart had apparently gone careering over the edge. I pointed down at the curb.

  “There aren’t any tire marks,” I said. “Picture it. Turnbull’s motoring along on the cart in the dark. Things only go maybe fifteen miles an hour, tops. It’s black as ink out here, he can’t really see where he’s going. He hits the curb here—” I pointed down – “hard enough so he’s sent flying through the air and the cart comes tumbling after.”

  Ravenel’s eyes got wider. “I get it,” he said. “If he hit that damn curb that hard, the front tire on the cart would have left a mark somewhere... a smudge of some kind.”

  We both bent down and examined the thick pine board, stained dark with creosote preservative. Ravelen fingered the fresh scrape marks on the top surface and the chipped spot on the outer edge.

  “No tire marks,” he said softly to himself.

  Within a few minutes, the fourteenth hole at Bohicket suddenly became a busy and crowded place. Three more squad cars pulled up, and the entire bridge was blocked off with that yellow tape that read CRIME SCENE – DO NOT PASS. An ambulance appeared. Too late, boys, I thought. Death on a golf course is an incongruous event. The sun had risen over the trees that guarded the beach and was contributing to the normal humidity of the day. On any other morning, the golf course would have assumed its peaceful and placid face, green and inviting with its eternal offer of the chance at recreation, fellowship and possibly a good scoring round.

  But today, it had suddenly become something obscene. “The beautiful uncut hair of graves,” was the line Whitman had used to describe green grass, a line which had always struck me as a wry but perfect metaphor for a golf course. But now the reality of its meaning sent a chill down my spine.

  Two more security SUVs pulled up, and a bevy or nervous- looking suited executives began to huddle with the police, pointing out at the bridge. I could tell they were the resort execs, trying to establish and limit their liability, claim innocence, lay the groundwork for the heavy-duty lawsuit that was bound to follow. All an accident, you see. Warned against going onto the course at night. Going too fast. Could not possibly be held responsible for the irrational actions of a single individual. Blah, blah, blah.

  The PGA tour contingent arrived next. Ned Barnacle, the tournament director, and his majordomos, all with walkie-talkies affixed firmly to belts, walked around with stunned looks. There’s nothing in the tournament manual about what to do when a golfer dies on the golf course the night before an event. If there was, it would be in a chapter called “Unforseen Delays Due to Untimely Death.”

  With the tour guys was Billy Corcoran, the press officer. I suddenly realized the PGA tour saw Turnbull’s death as a PR problem, one that might adversely affect golfdom’s money train. I could just hear the complaints from some corporate muckamuck: “You mean I paid you all that goddam money and then some shithead goes and gets killed and people all over America are suddenly associating Whitson’s Old-Fashioned Widgets with the goddam Grim Reaper? What kinda shit is that?”

  One of the tour guys recognized me and sent Corcoran over to talk to me.

  “Geez, Hacker, what gives?” he asked disingenuously, hair and shirt tails flapping in the breeze.

  “John Turnbull’s lying out there under the bridge, squashed by a golf cart,” I said tiredly. “We’re waiting for the local gendarmes to tell us what happened.”

  “John Turnbull!” Billy exclaimed, shocked. “He’s the last one I would have expected.”

  “Oh, really,” I said, turning on him. “And who would you expect to be running around in a golf cart in the middle of the night? Lee Trevino? Lanny Wadkins? How about Hale Irwin? He’s a wild and crazy guy. Geez, Billy, sometimes you can be the most demented ...”

  “Take it easy, Hacker,” Billy’s face was crestfallen. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, I just saw him last night at Bible study. Then he turns up dead and ...”

  “You were at Bible study with him last night?” I cut in sharply.

  He loo
ked a little sheepish. “Well, sure, y’know, I go sometimes. I like talking about stuff like that. It’s a swell bunch. You ought to come sometime...”

  I held up my hand. “Not now,” I said impatiently. “Tell me about last night. Did you notice anything strange about John? Anything he said or did out of character?”

  Billy thought for a moment, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

  “Nah,” he said. “I can’t remember anything like that. It was like it always is. We spent about an hour talking about the chapters we had been reading over the last week. Ed Durkee said some stuff, but mostly it was just the guys talking. Then we had a coffee break and after that Ed said he had some business stuff to talk to the group about. But I didn’t stay for that part ‘cause I had some calls to make.”

  “I see.” I motioned Ravenel over from where he was talking to the PGA bigwigs. “Billy, I want you to tell all that to this guy,” I said and introduced the two.

  “Gee,” Billy said. “Is something going on that I should know about?”

  “Nah,” I assured him. “Just some loose ends.”

  While Billy huddled with Ravenel, Doak Maxell wandered over. Big, dark, half-moons of sweat had formed under his arms and rivulets of sweat were now pouring off his temples.

  “Damn it’s hot,” he said, mopping his brow with a sleeve. “Say,” he asked me. “Is Jack Nicklaus here? Could you introduce me to Jack Nicklaus? Geez, that’d be somethin’ huh? Jack Freakin’ Nicklaus and Doak E. Maxell. Could you do that?”

  “’Fraid not, kid,” I said. “His back went out on him again. He’s down in North Palm Beach getting fed peeled grapes by his wife.”