William Bernhardt - Final Round

Conner shot up in the air, his face stricken.

“What?” Fitz asked, moving forward quickly. “What is it?”

Conner found he couldn’t speak. He could barely manage to point down toward the sand.

There was an arm in the shirt sleeve.

A horrible sensation coursed through Conner’s body. His brain was beginning to put two and two together, and he didn’t like the sum. Taking a deep breath, he bent down and began brushing away the sand surrounding the tattered shirt sleeve.

The shirt was attached to a body, all buried beneath the sand. Grabbing it with both hands, Conner pulled the body out and rolled it over to get a look at the face.

Conner heard Fitz drawing in his breath, just behind him. He was finding it hard to speak himself.

His worst fears were confirmed. It was his best friend, John McCree, with his mouth filled with sand. And a fist-sized bloody gash on the side of his head.

At the Masters, falling out of favor with the powers-that-be can be fatal. After finishing second, Frank Stranahan looked forward to going for the win. But the next year, he had an unfortunate contretemps with Cliff Roberts and was thrown out of the tournament before it had even started. Herman Keiser’s upset victory endeared him to many, but Cliff Roberts disliked him so intensely that he accused Keiser of stealing his championship green jacket.

Jimmy Demaret won the Masters three times, but that wasn’t enough to impress Bobby Jones or Cliff Roberts. Demaret had told a slightly off-color joke on the grounds one day that resulted in a written reprimand from Jones. And the Augusta National, as many others learned before and after Demaret, had a long memory. Unlike Augusta favorites Gene Sarazen or Ben Hogan (neither of whom won three times), no bridges, ponds, or cabins were named for Jimmy Demaret. “I can’t even get an outhouse named for me,” Demaret commented.

“My God,” Fitz whispered under his breath. “What happened?”

Conner found his tongue frozen and his brain almost equally paralyzed. His eyes were locked on the bloody, sand-encrusted figure buried beneath the surface of the trap. A million thoughts raced through his brain, and almost as many emotions as well. John. John !

He heard Fitz rustling behind him. “We should… do something.”

Conner heard the words and knew them to be correct, but he was far too immobilized to act upon them. He didn’t know what all he was experiencing-part shock, part grief, part panic. John !

“We can’t just leave him here,” Fitz muttered. “Other players will be along soon.”

All true, but at the moment, the tournament was the furthest thing from Conner’s mind. He kept staring at John’s blood-streaked face, while his brain leap-frogged through the conjoined life the two of them had shared. This is the boy who turned me onto golf, he thought. This is the kid who got me through high school. This is the man who helped me break onto the tour. Everything I am, I am because of this man.

This man whose corpse was buried in the sand trap on the eighteenth hole.

Conner pushed himself up to his feet, drinking in air, hoping the sudden rush of oxygen would clear the cobwebs in his brain. We have to do something , Fitz said again, or perhaps Conner was only hearing an echo in the nether reaches of his brain. At any rate, the statement was true. Very true.

Conner stumbled back to his golf bag and pulled out a cell phone. He flipped it open and then, with concentrated effort, punched 9-1-1.

About an hour after the police finally arrived, the crime scene was secure. Tournament play had been halted; the entire sand bunker and surrounding area was cordoned off with orange warning cones and yellow tape. A man in a suit was videotaping, recording the position of the body and the surrounding area. Three technicians in coveralls were cautiously searching for trace evidence-hair, fiber, blood. Another man was dusting for fingerprints; yet another was on his hands and knees, pressing his nose against the fairway, searching for the imprint of a footprint that might be recordable.

A Sergeant Turnbull from the Augusta police department had responded to Conner’s call. He was a short, stocky pit bull of a man in a tacky suit. They’d been over Conner’s testimony about a thousand times, or so it seemed to Conner. What was there to tell? They were playing the course, his club went down in the sand, and he found… John. All Conner had done was brush some of the surface sand away from his head and shoulders and flip over the body, which wasn’t buried all that deeply. If Conner hadn’t discovered him, someone else would’ve, and soon.

Conner could tell Turnbull wasn’t satisfied, but didn’t know what to do about it. Or perhaps he just had other priorities at the moment. “Don’t leave town,” he said curtly.

“Of course not,” Conner mumbled. The whole thing seemed unreal to him, like a bizarre dream from which he couldn’t wake himself.

John was dead. This had to be a dream-a nightmare.

“Who did this?” Conner said suddenly, not really expecting an answer.

To his surprise, Turnbull offered one. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Unfortunately, the perp doesn’t seem to have left many clues.”

“Clues?”

“Right. They’re always helpful when you’re trying to track a killer.”

“A-“ Conner eyes widened. “Then you think it’s-”

“Murder? Course it is. You thought maybe he beat himself to death on the side of his head? And then buried himself in a sand trap? I don’t think so.”

“But-who-?”

“We were hoping you might have some thoughts on that subject. Know anyone who had a grudge against McCree?”

Conner racked his barely functioning brain. “I can’t think of anyone.”

“We’re not finding any hair or fibers, although it would be a miracle if we could recover trace evidence from a sand trap. This fairway is cut so short it can’t hold onto anything, much less a footprint or a stray hair. No fingerprints on the body. Basically, we’re at square one. A very unpromising investigation. Glad it isn’t my problem.”

“It isn’t?”

“Nah. I’m just a lowly sergeant. I was just the highest rank in the office when your call came in. They’ll assign this to a lieutenant-Lieutenant O’Brien, probably. I expect you’ll get to tell your story all over again. Probably several times.”

Great, Conner thought silently. I can hardly wait.

“Y’know, if there’s… anything else you might know about this mess, I’d sure be obliged if you told me.”

Conner cocked one eyebrow.

“Maybe right now it seems best to clam up, but let me tell you from experience-the truth always comes out eventually, and it’ll go easier for you if you come clean.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Conner said, almost choking on his words. “He was my best friend.”

“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure. But you know how these things happen. One thing leads to another. Situation gets out of control. First thing you know, someone does something they regret later. It’s no one’s fault, really. It just happens.”

“I did not kill my friend.”

“Now, if you were to give me the straight skivvy, I would be extremely grateful. I’d make sure you got every break in the book. It would mean a lot to me.”

“Like maybe a promotion to lieutenant?”

Turnbull seemed unperturbed. “God knows I put in enough time to deserve it. So whaddaya say, Cross?”

Conner’s expression was as sheer as a cliff wall. “I say I didn’t kill my friend. Get your promotion from someone else’s misery.”

Conner pushed his way out of the circle of investigation and, to his surprise, Turnbull allowed him to go. He supposed the cops had no reason to keep him under lock and key, no matter what they thought. He wouldn’t be hard to find when they wanted him.