Amen Corner (34 page)

“I thought the camera operators did that,” Caroline said.

“I love those guys, but a chimp could do what they do,” Petrakis said, with a wave of his hand. “They point and shoot. They could make a perfectly good video of your kid's fuckin' birthday party, but here they'd be helpless if I didn't tell them what to do. If you put one of them in this chair, the Masters would be a fuckin' joke. I tell you, this is the hardest job in television.

“You take that pencil-pusher in the office…” Petrakis gestured with his cigar toward the cabin where Peter Bukich's office was located. “He gets paid twice as much as I do, and for what? Kissing ass and staying out of my way.” He looked directly at Caroline through the cigar smoke. “And that's what I want you to do.”

“Kiss your ass?”

“Stay out of my way. Sit over there. Look at the monitors. Don't talk to me unless you're abso-fuckin'-lutely sure you see the guy. Otherwise, I don't want to know you're here.”

“Don't worry, you won't,” Caroline said, looking at Sam with an expression that said: Are you really going to leave me with this asshole?

Boyce handed Sam a radio that clipped onto his belt and a connected earpiece, and told him to monitor the main police frequency.

“If Caroline spots Doggett, you'll know about it as soon as I do. Same goes for you: If you see him, or anything that looks wrong, talk to us on your handset. We can get a dozen cops almost anywhere on this course within two minutes.”

“How are you going to take him down if you spot him?” Sam asked.

“As quietly as possible,” Boyce said. “He won't be able to get a gun in here. We shouldn't need to use ours. Now, let's find this asshole.”

Chapter Thirty-four

No one gave Lee Doggett a second glance as he walked with the crowds on the sidewalk along Washington Road. His shaved head was protected by his blue bucket hat; his eyes were shielded by a pair of cheap sunglasses. He looked, as did hundreds of others around him, singularly focused on getting into the Masters.

He was almost weak with hunger. Some eggs and bacon would taste good, he thought, and maybe a beer or two. Someplace with a TV.

Up ahead he saw the Hooters sign, and four waitresses wearing tight white shirts with the owl logo, waving their arms at passing cars.

“Hi there!” one of the Hooters waitresses said as he approached. She had wispy blonde hair teased into the consistency of cotton candy, average breasts squeezed toward significance by a push-up bra, and a tired, frozen smile on her face.

“You serving breakfast?” Doggett asked.

“Same menu all day,” she said. “Wings and sandwiches and all that. The grilled cheese sandwich is good. Are you going to the Masters today?”

“I wouldn't be anywhere near here if I wasn't,” Doggett said.

“Oh,” the blonde said, her smile slipping. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It's kind of a zoo out here. I'll be glad when the week is over.”

“Me, too,” Doggett said. He stared at her chest for several seconds longer than was polite, then crossed the Hooters parking lot and went inside.

He chose a booth from which he could see the wide-screen TV over the bar, and set his gym bag down next to him. The tournament coverage hadn't started yet. The Fox News crawl reported: “No new developments in The Masters Murders…” Good. The news media didn't have his name and photo yet. The public wouldn't be looking for him. But the cops and security guards would be.

A waitress came by, with larger breasts than the one he'd talked to out front. He ordered the grilled cheese sandwich and a beer while staring at the double O's on the front of her shirt, and when she left he stared even longer at her tight orange shorts. He drained his beer while he was waiting for his food, waved the waitress over, and ordered another. He never took off the bucket hat or the sunglasses.

As he drank his second beer, he saw a discarded newspaper on the seat of an empty booth. He got up and brought it back to his table. There was a front-page story about police efforts to find the Masters Murderer, but there was nothing new about the investigation. Milligan's funeral would be held Monday, to allow his former CBS colleagues to attend before leaving town. Scanlon's body had been flown back to New York. Ashby had been cremated before a private ceremony on Friday, with speculation that his ashes would be spread somewhere on the golf course; David Porter said the club would have no comment. No indication whether they'd found that guy in the canal. Even if they did, there was nothing to tie him to the Masters Murders. And it was too soon for the papers to have any news about Stanwick.

The WOFF was still demanding the cancellation of the tournament. Rachel Drucker had called the National “a monstrous evil.” The mayor and sheriff both expressed hopes that this year's Masters could be concluded without further incident. Security had been greatly increased at and around the golf course. Police were checking out many leads, but still had no suspect they could name.

Just another lie from the cops. They always lie.

Doggett turned to the sports page and found the same kind of banner headline the Masters always got on Saturday: garcia, mickelson tied for halfway lead. As if there was nothing else going on at the National. Well, that would change soon enough.

Paging farther into the sports section, Doggett found a quarter-page ad for a Masters memorabilia sale at the Augusta Antique Market on Washington Road. He'd seen the place many times; it was just a few blocks away, at a strip mall. The ad said the sale had begun on Monday and would run through Sunday. Doggett looked at a clock by the cash register: 1 p.m. He had time to check it out. There might be something he could use.

*

Half an hour later, Doggett paid $5 admission to enter the Masters Memorabilia Show and Sale at the Antique Market. Inside were dozens of vendors at display tables, hawking hats, towels, shirts, jackets, beer glasses, pins, and golf balls with the Masters logo.

He wandered through the displays, maneuvering around souvenir shoppers who either didn't have tickets to the tournament or thought they might find better deals here than in the National's merchandise building. No one seemed to be buying anything, and Doggett wasn't surprised. Bunch of junk.

He was about to leave when he spotted a booth with a white drapery behind it, from which hung the usual array of Masters hats, photos, and shirts—and a white Augusta National caddie jumpsuit, with a green “22” over the left breast pocket and the Masters logo over the right. Doggett had seen those suits many times over the years, and this one looked authentic.

The man and woman sitting at the table in the booth were playing cards when Doggett stopped.

“That thing real?” he asked the man, who laid his cards face down on the table so the woman couldn't see what he had. She did the same. They were both about 45, with the same short, frizzy brown hairstyle. Each wore a green Masters sweatshirt and blue jeans.

“What thing?” the man asked.

“That caddie suit,” Doggett said. “Where'd you get it?”

“A guy came in this week and sold it to us,” the man said. “Said he'd caddied at the Masters himself. It's real, all right.”

“Let me see it.”

The man got up from his chair, took the caddie suit off the hanger and handed it to Doggett, who turned it over and looked at the back. Perfect—a player's name was still on it.

“How much do you want for it?” Doggett asked.

“Two seventy-five,” the woman said. “You don't see many of these for sale.”

Doggett said, “I'll give you two hundred.”

The man and the woman looked at each other, trying to decide.

“Two fifty,” the man said.

“Two,” Doggett said, shaking his head.

The man looked at the woman again.

“Cash,” Doggett said.

“Sold, mister,” the woman said.

Doggett counted out $200. Then he put another $15 on top.

“I'll take that green Masters hat, too,” Doggett said, pointing to a solid green baseball cap with the yellow Augusta National logo. The man put the hat on the table and handed him two dollars change. He asked Doggett if he wanted all his purchases in a bag. Doggett said no.

“Is there a bathroom around here?” Doggett asked.

“Down that aisle, all the way to the back. It's on your right.”

Doggett picked up the caddie suit and the hat and walked to the back of the hall, where he found the men's room. Inside a man wearing shorts and sandals stood at the urinal. Doggett ignored him as he slipped off his shoes and took his pants and shirt off in the middle of the bathroom. The man at the urinal turned to look at him over his shoulder as Doggett stepped into the caddie suit and zipped it up.

“Oh, man, I saw that suit,” the man said, as Doggett put the hat on. “That's so cool. You could pass for a real Masters caddie.”

Doggett didn't respond. He pulled his pants on over the caddie suit, then put on his T-shirt and windbreaker. The suit wasn't a bad fit—just a little short in the arms and legs. It would be hot and bulky, but a little sweat didn't bother him.

He put his shoes back on and stared at the other man in the bathroom, who had finished at the urinal and had moved over to the sink, standing with his back to Doggett. Would this guy get suspicious? Would he mention to somebody that he'd seen a guy changing into an Augusta National caddie suit in the men's room? Doggett could strangle the guy with his belt in about ten seconds. Then he wouldn't have to worry about him.

“You going to a costume party or something?” the man at the sink asked, glancing into the mirror at Doggett, who was staring at him.

“Yeah,” Doggett said. “A Masters theme party. Lots of laughs.”

“I'll bet,” the man at the sink said. The water continued to splash as the man pumped away at the nearly empty soap dispenser. He finally managed to get a few drops onto his hands, and lathered up as much as he could. The water was getting too hot, so he turned the spigot on the cold water to balance the temperature as he rinsed the soap off his hands. He heard the guy in the caddie suit doing something with his belt buckle, so he knew he was still there.

“Who do you like this year?” the man at the sink asked as he turned off the water. He pulled a couple of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall to his right. Then he turned around.

The man wearing the caddie suit was gone.

Chapter Thirty-five

Doris Higgins figured she and her husband Jim had rented their last motorized scooter for the day. Spectators had to be off the Augusta National grounds at about 6:30. It was 2:30 now, and nobody wanted to pay a full day's rent for just a few hours.

Jim had walked down the road to talk to some of the other vendors. Doris pulled a paperback crime novel out of her shoulder bag and settled into the folding chair under the awning of their RV, waiting for the rentals to start returning.

The scooter business had been a bonanza for Doris and Jim. They'd tried selling Masters souvenirs at the corner of Berckmans Road and Washington Road, but there was so much competition outside the gates, everyone selling the same stuff, that they'd never made much of a profit.

When they learned that Augusta National would allow scooters onto the grounds during the Masters—to enable elderly, weak, or ill patrons to handle the steep hills—Jim invested in a fleet of 20 scooters. Each had four wheels under a sturdy red platform, with a steering column in front and a gray office-style seat on top of the motor housing. The whole thing weighed less than 150 pounds, but it could easily support a 300-pound person.

Doris and Jim figured they'd take in about $15,000 this Masters Week. They'd seen a slight dip in rentals after those two awful murders Monday and Tuesday, but now that it was Saturday, and the weather was glorious, and the talk of the killings was beginning to fade, the crowds were as good as ever. They'd rented out all but a couple of scooters every day except Wednesday, when it had rained and the course had been closed for the investigation.

Doris was just getting engrossed in her paperback when she heard someone asking about renting a scooter.

She looked up and saw a tall man wearing a bucket hat and sunglasses, looking at the two remaining scooters parked on the grass near the street. He appeared able-bodied, but Doris noticed he had no hair on the sides of his head—and how bundled up he was. The temperature was almost 80, but the man seemed to be wearing two layers of clothing. The poor man must have cancer.

“I can help you,” Doris called to him, getting out of her chair.

He didn't seem to mind that he needed to return the scooter in less than four hours. That would be plenty of time, he said. How does it work? Doris sat on the scooter and showed him how to start it, how to accelerate, how to brake, and how to steer.

“It's very much like a riding lawnmower,” she said. The man said he was familiar with lawnmowers.

“It's going to be $75,” she said. “I'm sorry—I know it's getting late in the day, but we can't pro-rate the price.”