Amen Corner (33 page)

Porter took the receiver and said, “This is David, Rudy.” He listened for a minute, then another, without saying anything. Then he spoke.

“I'm sorry you feel that way, Rudy, because we've enjoyed our relationship with CBS over the years. I'll call NBC, ABC, and Fox this morning and tell them you've terminated your option to carry the tournament next year.”

Bukich's tan seemed to slide off his face and land in his lap. He pushed his chair away from his desk and put his hand up to his head as though he'd suddenly felt a wasp fly into his neatly coiffed hair. Porter, meanwhile, sat placidly in his chair as he once again listened to the voice coming from the corporate headquarters 667 miles to the north.

Finally David Porter said, “I knew you'd understand, Rudy. Yes, we'll be as unobtrusive as possible. Our goal is the same as yours: We don't want our viewers to even suspect that there's anything different about this year's broadcast. We're trying to avoid a massive panic here, but we're also trying to prevent another killing.”

He listened for another moment.

“That's right…I won't be calling the other networks…Yes, I hope so, too. Come down soon, Rudy, and we'll tee it up.”

Bukich's breathing seemed to return to normal as he eased his chair back toward his desk. He would not go down in history as the CBS Executive Producer who lost the Masters to another network.

When Porter handed the phone back to Bukich, he gave a quick nod to Boyce. Bukich, meanwhile, listened to his boss for a few moments, then put down the receiver.

“Anything you want, David,” he said. “If Tony gives you any trouble, I'll deal with him.”

Chapter Thirty-three

Porter and Brisbane left the CBS cabin and drove their cart back to the clubhouse. As Sam and Caroline got in their cart, Boyce got a call on his cell phone. He put a hand over his ear, listened for a minute, then snapped the phone shut.

“Our boys found out where Doggett's been staying,” Boyce said. “They traced last night's call to the Curtis Motel in Grovetown. Doggett checked in early Monday morning.”

“Right after Ashby was killed,” Sam said.

Boyce nodded. “Want to come along?”

“Sure,” Sam said, turning to Caroline. “You coming?”

“Of course,” she said.

*

The white paint was peeling off the siding of the one-story motel building, located next to the railroad tracks in a working-class neighborhood. The trees on the block looked as if they needed water, and the trash cans could have used more frequent collecting. A handful of kids were riding their bikes up and down the cracked sidewalks. Some barefoot young men in jeans and muscle shirts stood in a driveway next door, drinking Miller Genuine Draft and looking under the hood of a 1991 Mercury Sable. No one in this neighborhood would have paid much attention to Lee Doggett as he came and went.

An unmarked squad car was already parked out front of the building when Boyce and Harwell pulled up. Sam parked the Cadillac behind Boyce's car.

“Nice ride,” said a shirtless kid wearing a sideways Braves cap as Sam got out of the car.

“It's not mine,” he said.

“Yeah, I figured,” the kid said. Sam looked at Caroline, who had her hand over her mouth to hide a smile. “You all cops?”

“Some of us,” Sam said. “You know a guy named Lee Doggett? Stayed at this motel? Tall, thin white guy, losing his hair?”

“Nope,” the kid said, staring blankly at Sam.

“Drove a light blue Chevy pickup…loud engine?”

“Oh, him,” the kid said. “Yeah, I know the truck. It ain't around today.”

Sam and Caroline went into the crowded motel room. The unit's manager or owner, a dark-skinned man with a Middle Eastern accent wearing a white shirt, black pants, and sandals, stood with Boyce just inside the open door while two uniforms poked around the drawers and closet. Harwell was looking in the small refrigerator that hummed away on a counter back near the bathroom.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” one of the uniformed cops said to Boyce. “Take a look at this.”

He had lifted the bedspread off the floor and found a white shirt, a black tie, a black baseball cap, and a black stiletto-heeled shoe.

“Deborah Scanlon's,” Sam said.

“Manolo Blahnik,” Caroline said, looking at the shoe.

“Who?” Boyce said.

“That's the designer,” Caroline said.

Boyce picked up the shoe with a gloved hand and held it up to the light coming in through the window. He gripped it by the toe and examined the heel.

“Blood on the heel,” Boyce said. “Ten to one it's Doggett's.”

“She put up a fight,” Sam said. “I'm not surprised.”

“Why would he keep the shoe?” asked Caroline. “Souvenir?”

“Maybe because he knew his blood was on it,” Boyce said. “But he didn't seem to care whether we found it here.”

“He isn't worried about us knowing who he is—not anymore,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Boyce said. “That's what worries me.”

Boyce had one of the cops put the shoe in an evidence bag. There wasn't much else, as far as Sam could see. It looked like the kind of place you'd expect to find a guy who was fresh out of prison.

Sam noticed a plastic squeeze bottle on the floor next to the dresser. It contained some kind of clear liquid. He called Boyce over and asked him to unscrew the cap. Boyce held up the open bottle with his gloved hand and Sam sniffed it. The sharp smell stung his nostrils.

“RoundUp,” Sam said.

Another uniformed officer walked into the room.

“Lieutenant, you know that black Mercedes we've been looking for? The one Stanwick drives?” the cop said. “It's right up the block.”

*

Lee Doggett had driven the blue truck into Augusta, left it on a side street near the banks of the Savannah River and spent the night under a highway bridge. When he woke up he was in cool shadow, the sunlight hitting the knee-high grass on the hillside a few feet away, promising another warm, humid day. He guessed it was at least 9 a.m., judging by the angle of the shadows. The gates at the National would be open by now. The crowds would be filing onto the grounds. Would they be looking for him? Did the media have his name and picture now? He would have to get to a TV—after he shaved.

He picked up his gym bag and walked down the concrete embankment of the overpass to a grassy path that led to the chain-link fence he'd hopped over the night before. He climbed the fence again and went north on a narrow street that connected downtown to a few warehouses along the south side of the river. Once he reached the river, he found an isolated spot among some rocks and waist-high weeds. He reached into the sluggish water and soaked his face and his hair. He took the twin-blade razor out of his bag and began shaving his head. When he was sure he'd gotten everything, he reached into the water again and rinsed his smooth skull. He caught his blurry reflection in the rippling water. He had achieved the look he wanted: that of a dying man.

He tossed the razor into the river and waited for his shirt to dry, staring at the barges along the far bank. He figured his new look and his Masters badge would get him past the cops and the guards, even if they did have his name and his picture. But once on the grounds, he needed to become even more inconspicuous. Too bad he didn't have one of his uniforms from his days on the grounds crew. That would've provided all the cover he'd need—but the National had taken them all when he was arrested.

He got up from the riverbank and checked the angle of the sun. The first groups would be teeing off soon, and he needed to find a TV. He started walking toward Washington Road.

*

The sight of Stanwick's twisted, bloody body inside the trunk of his car had been jarring to Caroline. She turned away, walked back to Sam's car and sat in the front seat until they were ready to return to the club. After a hearse from the M.E.'s office took Stanwick's body away, the police sealed off Doggett's motel room, sent Scanlon's shoe to the GBI lab, and towed Stanwick's car to the impound lot.

“You don't think this is over, do you?” Boyce said to Sam.

“No. Do you?”

“Hell, no.”

Sam and Caroline followed Boyce and Harwell on the slow drive back to the club. It was time for Caroline to meet Tony Petrakis and start hunting for the killer. The drive down Magnolia Lane had lost its charm for Sam; a sense of foreboding had replaced the awe and excitement he'd first felt driving through that fabled tunnel of branches.

“Where will you be this afternoon?” Caroline asked Sam as they neared the television compound.

“Walking the grounds, looking for our boy,” he said.

“And if you find him?”

“That's up to him,” Sam said.

“I know this is your line of work,” Caroline said. “But I wish…”

“What?”

“Never mind. Do what you have to do. But be careful, okay?”

The grounds were now teeming with spectators, none of whom had the slightest idea that they were in the middle of the most extensive manhunt in America.

The security guards cleared Caroline and Sam into the TV compound, and Sam asked a young man wearing a CBS polo shirt where they could find Petrakis. He pointed to one of the extended white trailers with “CBS Sports” and the familiar eye logo painted in blue on the side. They went up the metal stairs and opened the door. Inside they saw a bank of two dozen TV monitors against the far side of the truck, positioned above the director's console. The tournament coverage would not begin for another hour, but Tony Petrakis was already swiveling from side to side in his chair, shouting at his camera operators through the microphone attached to his headset.

Petrakis was a short man with a round middle that he chose not to confine by tucking in his pale blue short-sleeved shirt. He had thick, wavy hair that was either dyed or unnaturally black. Everything on his face protruded—his forehead, his eyebrows, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, and an assortment of little lumps and bumps.

Boyce and Harwell were already there. Their presence did not seem to have a calming effect on the director.

“No, Goddammit, I want a close-up of Crenshaw's hands—his hands, for Chrissake, not his crotch! Get me a different angle!” Petrakis yelled. He glanced contemptuously at Boyce and Harwell. “Fuckin' cops breathing on me, when I'm trying to do a golf tournament here!”

Boyce took Sam and Caroline aside. Petrakis, he told them, was dead set against having his cameras used to search for Doggett. Of course, it didn't matter what Petrakis wanted; he could walk out of the trailer, and they'd just replace him with the assistant director. The plan was the same: The camera operators not involved in showing important action would be scanning the crowds slowly, and Caroline was to watch the monitors for anyone who looked like Doggett.

“I don't need this shit,” Petrakis muttered. “I don't need this shit at all. Love's looking at eagle on 8. I don't care if he's 10 shots behind! Get that fuckin' camera off the crowd and put it on Love! We're doing golf here, not ‘America's Most Wanted'!”

Boyce interrupted Petrakis and introduced him to Caroline.

“So you're the one who almost got sliced up,” Petrakis said, glancing at Caroline—then glancing back again for a longer look before turning back to his monitors. “How do you know you'd even recognize this guy?”

“Anybody ever chased you around a motel room with a hunting knife?” Caroline said.

“Not yet,” Petrakis said, staring at a shot of the rippling flag on the 12th green.

He shouted more directions into his headset, then turned to face Caroline.

“They've done tests where a guy runs into a classroom and screams at the professor and runs back out again,” Petrakis said. “Two minutes later, nobody in the class can agree on what color the guy's fuckin' shirt was.”

Petrakis swiveled around in his chair and pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket.

“You mind?” he said. He bit off the end and spit it into a nearby waste basket.

“Go ahead,” Caroline said. “You're the boss.”

“If I was, you wouldn't be here,” Petrakis said.

He lit a match and puffed on the cigar until the end glowed. He exhaled a cloud of smoke, as though putting up a barrier between himself and his intruders.

“People overestimate television,” Petrakis said. “Just because you've seen Oprah or Jay Leno a thousand times on TV doesn't mean you'd recognize them on the street. You probably wouldn't know your next-door neighbor if you saw him on monitor eight.”

He exhaled another puff of smoke and spoke through the gathering haze.

“That's what makes me the best at what I do,” Petrakis said. “I get the perfect angles, the right shots, the views that tell the story I want to tell. I don't just show pictures of golfers—I show you their souls.”