Amen Corner (25 page)

“Now, see, that's just the sort of talk that's going to make Mark Boyce suspicious,” Sam said.

“Who's he?”

“A cop with the GBI. He's good. You don't want to get to know him.”

“Why would I?”

“Because he needs a suspect,” Sam said, as One-eye exhaled again, this time in his direction. Sam waved it away. “You got pissed off at the club and got fired. You know what that makes you?”

“It don't make me no killer.”

“It makes you what we call a disgruntled ex-employee. If they can't find the killer right away, cops always start looking for disgruntled ex-employees. I know. I was a cop.”

“That how you come up with my name?”

“Yep. So give me something for my two hundred bucks.”

“Like what?”

“Like some reason to think you didn't do it.”

One-eye stubbed out his cigarette and pulled another one from his pack. Caroline reached over with her lighter and lit it for him. He nodded at her, exhaled and took another sip from his can of beer.

“Sure, I'm pissed off at the National,” One-eye finally said. “Wouldn't you be? When they took the Masters away from us, how was we gonna survive on the money we made caddying for club members? That's maybe a couple thousand bucks for eight months' work. And you can't work no other job if you caddie. You got to be there at 6 in the morning, and you might not get out till the afternoon. You might not get out at all, but you gotta be there.”

“So why not do something else?” Sam asked.

“What the fuck am I trained for?” One-eye said. “All I did was carry golf clubs till I was 30 years old. It's okay for D here—he got the restaurant. I ain't got shit.”

“Hey, man, I worked my ass off to get this place,” Dwight said. “Nobody handed me anything. When we lost the Masters, I saved my money and bought this place.”

“You own it clear?” Sam asked.

“Still making payments,” Dwight said. “It's tough. But it beats passing bad checks to your friends.”

He and One-eye locked eyes for a moment. Sam glanced at Caroline, who seemed fascinated by the conversation.

“Yeah, I been in some trouble,” One-eye finally said. “Everybody knows that. But I'm trying to go clean. And I didn't kill nobody.”

“Somebody did—somebody who knows the course, somebody who's leaving messages.”

“What kind of messages?”

Sam looked intently at One-eye. Was he pretending not to know what had already been in the papers and on the news?

“The words this is the last masters.”

One-eye thought for a minute, puffing absently on his cigarette.

“Shit, that could be anybody. You went through all them names, and mine's the only one you come up with?”

“No, there were some others who were fired,” Sam said. “But they were either too old, or dead.”

“Lee Doggett ain't old or dead.”

Sam tried to recall if he'd seen a Doggett in the files. If he had, nothing made it worth closer examination.

“Who's Lee Doggett?”

“Big D, you remember that dude?” One-eye asked Dwight.

“Let me see,” Dwight said, rubbing his forehead. “Nah, can't say I do.”

“He worked on the grounds crew,” One-eye said. “I used to see him driving one of them big old mowers. They caught him printing up his own Masters tickets and sellin' 'em. Fired his ass.”

Now Sam knew he hadn't seen that file. He'd have pulled it out and looked it over carefully if he'd seen that reason for dismissal.

“Do you know where he is?” Sam asked.

“I seen him just yesterday, or the day before. Over at the Food Lion, buyin' beer.”

“Where's that?”

“Right across the street from the National.”

“What's he look like?”

“White dude, goin' bald. Tall. You remember him now, D?”

“Oh, yeah…kinda thin?”

“Yeah.”

“And you figure he's got a grudge against the club?” Sam asked.

“You ever get fired?” One-eye said.

“Once. Summer job as a janitor where I was in college. I overslept.”

“Didn't that piss you off?”

“Not enough to go back and kill somebody,” Sam said. “Besides, why would he care whether the National lets in women?”

No one spoke. Doggett was somebody Sam would have to look into, but the pieces didn't fit. If revenge was his motive, why pick out Ashby? Why kill Scanlon? And why spray “this is the last masters” on the grass?

Sam wasn't ready to dismiss One-eye as a suspect, either. The story about his sister in Waycross sounded phony, and it wasn't surprising that he'd come to the restaurant ready to offer up somebody else's name. Somebody had to check out One-eye's alibi.

“I'll try to find Doggett,” Sam said to One-eye. “But I need somebody who can vouch for you the last few days. Your sister, or somebody who's seen you since Sunday and knows where you've been.”

“I ain't killed nobody,” One-eye repeated sullenly.

“Where are you living now?”

“Noplace special,” he said. “I ain't really got settled since the last time I got out of the joint.”

“Where've you been sleeping the last few nights?”

“With Flat Head.”

“Who's that?”

“One of the old caddies,” Dwight said. “He's got a place a few blocks from here. He caddies at the Augusta Country Club now. I called Chipmunk, Chipmunk said to call Flat Head, and that's how I found One-eye.”

“So Flat Head will say you've been at his place?” Sam asked.

“Sure. Cause I was.”

“Not in Waycross?”

“That was before.”

Sam asked One-eye to write down Flat Head's address and phone number. He'd leave it up to the police to pin down One-eye's whereabouts Sunday through Tuesday night—if they felt like it. At least One-eye knew he was being looked at, which might be enough to keep him at home nights for the rest of the week.

“Does Flat Head know Lee Doggett?” Sam asked One-eye.

“I don't know,” One-eye said, as Dwight's mother arrived at the table with another round of beers.

“What about Lee Doggett?” Helen Wilson asked.

“Do you know him?” Sam asked her.

“I knew his mama,” Helen said. “Poor woman. She died while that boy was in prison.”

“How did you know her?” Sam asked.

Helen told him she and Laverne Doggett used to clean rooms and cabins at the National. She remembered when Laverne went away for a few months, and then came back with a new baby and a new husband. The husband was no good, Helen said. Died in a bar fight years ago. But the talk was that Joe Doggett wasn't the boy's real daddy.

“She didn't tell me that,” Helen said. “But that boy never looked like Joe Doggett. Some folks thought his real daddy might have been a member at the National.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Friday, April 11

Sam wasn't thinking about the second round of the tournament when he woke up Friday morning in the Crow's Nest. He was wondering if anyone had been killed while he slept. There were no sirens wailing out on Washington Road—a good sign right there.

He got up and turned on the TV. Nothing new in The Masters Murders, according to CNN. The body count remained at three. They were still running clips of Caroline's interview from Wednesday, and Sam wished they'd find some other tape to run. It worried him that Caroline was becoming such a visible advocate for change at the National. The killer was probably watching, too.

He thought about the employee files. Had he missed something the first time through?

He went downstairs to the dining room, poured some decaf into a Styrofoam cup, and walked down the driveway to Bill Woodley's office.

Woodley gave him the keys to the file room, where Sam carefully went back through the “D” files. Laverne Doggett's file was there. It said she'd died while on medical leave from the club. That squared with Helen Wilson's recollection.

There was no file for Lee Doggett.

Sam went back to Woodley's office and asked him if he knew who Lee Doggett was. By the blank look on Woodley's face, it was apparent that the name meant nothing to him. Sam asked who had access to the file room. Woodley said that any club official or member who needed to consult the records could do so. All he had to do was ask for the key, which Woodley kept with him. Sam asked who had used the key recently.

“Mr. Porter sends Ida to find things in there from time to time,” Woodley said. “Jimmy Fowler and Mike Wickoff, our head professional, use the files. Any member of our board of governors can get in there if he needs to—Mr. Stanwick, Mr. Brisbane—Mr. Ashby…”

Sam went straight past Ida into Porter's office.

“Do you remember a Lee Doggett?” Sam asked the chairman, who was cleaning his eyeglasses at his desk. The TV was tuned to ESPN's “SportsCenter.” Porter looked surprised to hear Doggett's name, and put his glasses back on.

“Lee Doggett,” Porter said, leaning back in his chair. “Let me think…we had a couple of Doggetts working here some years ago. One was a housekeeper. The other—her son, I believe—was…”

“A greenskeeper?” Sam said.

“Yes, that's right. Now I remember. We caught him selling forged badges and we fired him.”

That jibed with what One-eye had said.

“I believe the police said he was also dealing drugs,” Porter said. “I haven't heard of him in years. I assume he's in prison.”

“How long ago was this?”

“I don't remember exactly,” Porter said. He thought for a moment. “At least five years ago.”

“Why aren't his employment records in your files?” Sam said.

“I have no idea,” Porter said. “They should be. We never throw those out.”

“Did the police look at them after he was arrested?”

“I'm sure they did, but they wouldn't have taken them. It was a cut-and-dried case. He broke the law, we fired him, and he went to jail. We do have to fire employees now and then. Why are you interested in him?”

“I don't know yet,” Sam said. “But I've heard he's out, and I'd like to talk to him.”

Porter was quiet for a few moments. He looked at the TV screen, and saw they were showing highlights of Thursday's play. The sports channels, at least, were back to golf. The Masters was enormously powerful—almost a force of nature. It had a way of overcoming almost any obstacle. But he didn't want to find out how much more tragedy it could absorb.

The first-round scores were running in a crawl across the bottom of the screen, including Sam's 80.

“You're not going to make the cut,” Porter said. It was a statement of fact, rather than a question, or an insult.

“Not likely,” Sam said.

“But you will stay with us through the weekend?”

“Unless you want me to leave,” Sam said. “It's your dime.”

“We'll make it worth your while to stay,” Porter said, turning to face Sam. “I want you to find this maniac, whoever he is, and stop him. I'll see if I can get you some more information about this Lee Doggett.”

“Fair enough,” Sam said.

Sam left Porter's office and returned to the Crow's Nest, wondering if Porter's willingness to help him find Doggett was a way to divert further attention from Stanwick.

*

He started with the Augusta telephone book. No listing for Lee Doggett. All he had to go on was One-eye's account of seeing him at the Food Lion. That wasn't much, but it was a place to start. The Food Lion was just a short walk from the main gate. It would give him a chance to think.

He was moving against the inward surge of pedestrians as he exited the grounds. He crossed the street where a cop was directing traffic at Azalea Drive and headed toward the Food Lion, on the north side of Washington Road.

Sam stopped near a trio of young men holding “Badges Bought and Sold” cardboard signs, and pulled out his wallet to get the card Mark Boyce had given him. One of the young men asked if he wanted to buy a badge.

“Four thousand,” the young man said. “It's a good deal for the last three days.”

Sam waved him away and dialed the number on his cell phone. Boyce picked up on the first ring.

“Boyce.”

“It's Sam Skarda. I've got two names for you. One's a former caddie named Reggie Morton.”

He gave Boyce the address and phone number where One-eye was staying. He said the ex-caddie seemed like a stretch, but he did have a grudge against the club.