Amen Corner (15 page)

“Sure,” he said. “I was at the Amateur Dinner last night, then at the clubhouse bar for a while. I spent the rest of the night with my two roommates in the Crow's Nest.”

“The Crow's Nest?” Harwell asked, cocking his head as though Sam had just revealed himself to be some kind of deviant. “What's that? A bar?”

“It's the bunkroom on the third floor of the clubhouse, under the cupola.”

“Cupola?” Now Harwell seemed convinced that Sam was jerking him around.

“The four-sided bump-up on top of the clubhouse roof, with the windows. There's three of us staying there this week—me, Brady Compton and Tom Wheeling. They're probably still up there. Go talk to them.”

“Don't worry, we will. So you say you were in the clubhouse all night?”

“Yes.”

Harwell wrote something in his notebook, then flipped back through the pages.

“Do you know why somebody would want to kill…uh…Scanlon?”

The rain continued to fall, smearing the ink on the pages. Rain dripped off the brim of Sam's golf hat; Harwell's red, wiry hair was plastered to his head.

“She wrote a column that basically accused Augusta National of killing Harmon Ashby,” Sam said, content to get soaked if that's what Harwell wanted.

“When did this column run?”

“Yesterday. She was also the columnist who quoted Ashby saying he would be willing to have women members at Augusta National.”

“Yeah, I know about that one,” Harwell said. Sam hoped so.

“So I'd be looking at somebody who didn't want to let women into this club,” Sam said, hoping Harwell would take the hint and let him go.

“We're already looking at that,” Harwell said. “How do you feel about it?”

“About what?”

“About letting women into Augusta National?”

“I don't have an opinion,” Sam said. “It's a private club, and I'm not a member. They can do what they want.”

Harwell made another note, then closed his book. A team from the medical examiner's office had arrived and was pulling Scanlon's body out of the pond, preparing to bag it and put it on a gurney. Harwell seemed to have lost interest in Sam.

“Can I go?” he asked Harwell.

“Sure, sure,” Harwell said, waving him off. “Stay where we can find you.”

“I'll be under the cupola.”

Harwell looked up at him and started to say something, but turned away to join the ME team.

Chapter Fourteen

David Porter's office looked like it belonged to the CEO of a bank or an insurance firm, rather than the chairman of a world-renowned golf club. It was furnished with an expensive, polished wooden desk—teak or mahogany, Sam guessed—a couple of padded armchairs, a leather sectional couch circling a round coffee table off to the side, and a 35-inch TV in a cabinet in the corner. An oil portrait of Bobby Jones was the only indication that the business done in this room involved the game of golf. The windows did not even face the golf course.

Two men, both wearing green jackets, were seated across the desk from Porter, apparently waiting for Sam to arrive. Porter introduced them as Ralph Stanwick, acting rules chairman and head of the club's media committee, and Robert Brisbane, competition committees chairman.

Sam shook hands with each of them. Brisbane was a vigorous-looking man with thick salt-and-pepper hair, contrasting with the age spots that dotted Stanwick's skin and balding scalp. Brisbane's green jacket fit him perfectly; Stanwick's seemed both too roomy and too short for him.

“Sit down, Sam,” Porter said. He had the look of a man whose child was seriously ill.

“So you're with the Minneapolis police,” Brisbane said. “Any advice on what we should do about our two murders?”

“Be honest with the cops, and beef up your security,” Sam said.

“We've added security,” Stanwick said. “It didn't seem to do us any good.”

“This is the worst crisis we've experienced here, at least on my watch,” Porter said, almost to himself.

“The club almost went broke in the '30s,” Stanwick reminded Porter.

“I doubt if the world would have cared back then,” Porter said. “Now, everybody seems to have an opinion about how we should run our affairs. Some would like to shut us down completely.”

“You'll survive,” Sam said.

“I wish I could be so sure,” Porter said. “I don't know what we'll do if there's another murder.”

“Maybe we need to think about canceling the tournament, David,” Stanwick said. “I don't mind telling you that my wife is very upset about these killings. She's frightened, and I don't blame her.”

“We're not closing it down,” Porter said, staring at Stanwick with an edge of determination in his voice. “I'm surprised you would suggest that, Ralph. We run the risk that no one would come back next year.”

“Rachel Drucker might not come back,” Stanwick said. “That would be a good thing in my book.”

Porter got out of his chair and walked over to the portrait of Bobby Jones, as if seeking divine guidance from the club's sainted founder. When he was invited to join years earlier, he never imagined that one day he'd be calling a press conference to announce that the Par 3 tournament was cancelled, or that he would open up the club's membership information to the police for a murder investigation.

“My sole duty as chairman of this club is to ensure its future,” Porter said. “I owe that to Bob Jones. I owe it to Harmon Ashby, too. If we have to shut down the Masters, this club will eventually become irrelevant, and I will have failed. I'm not going to be the first chairman of Augusta National to fail.”

Sam glanced at Brisbane and Stanwick to see if they agreed with Porter's opinion that the club needed the Masters to survive. Both seemed content to let the chairman continue.

“Someone is trying to embarrass us and destroy the club,” Porter said. “The police seem to think it's a club member. I'm sure that it's not, but we've got to give the police something else to go on.”

“David, you don't have to tell the police a damn thing,” Stanwick said. “We're still a private club, aren't we? Let them conduct their own investigation. You know these killings weren't done by a member. You know that.”

“I believe that, Ralph,” Porter said. “But we need to get to the bottom of this before the police crawl all over this club, going through every drawer in the kitchen, through all of my files, through our closets, ransacking the Cabins…”

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.