Murder in the Rough Read online

  “What?” Annie said, her brow furrowed, not sure she’d heard him. “What did you say?”

  “Huh?” replied Johnnie, shaking his head as though to clear it. “Nothing, nothing, I didn’t say anything. I’m goin’ to bed.”

  A week later, David Strickland disappeared.

  David had been abducted from his house on a foggy night in Yonkers as his newest girlfriend, Rachel, slept. Rachel was not an official suspect, but the tabloids took care of that, adding her to the mix. The World, based on no evidence whatsoever, suggested that David had been sneaking out to a reconciliatory tryst with Annie the night he disappeared, painting a picture of a “bizarro love triangle.”

  Rachel had reported panicking when, after waking and finding David wasn’t in bed, she called out for him. Running through their living room to the front door, she saw David being pushed into a black SUV by two men. In the misty darkness, she couldn’t make out the SUV’s license number or its exact make, though she testified that it looked like an Explorer. Hysterical, she called 911.

  News of David’s disappearance made the wire services on Sunday afternoon as Annie was in the final holes of what might have been her first LPGA win. She became increasingly distracted by ever-louder murmurings that seemed to be following her from hole to hole. Upset by the noise, Annie complained to her longtime caddie, Bix McCloud, who pointedly asked the crowd for quiet. After a poor drive off the sixteenth tee and wondering why all the talking around them hadn’t stopped, Annie went to an official, who felt duty-bound to tell her what was being reported on television. Her last seven holes included five bogeys and were hastily covered live by ESPN and ABC.

  The sports world intensified its obsession with Annie Bridget that afternoon. Some wrote of the bad girl getting her just deserts, but others described the beautiful, wild, possibly wronged wife, graciously playing her heart out under ever mounting pressure. Walking away from the eighteenth green after a double bogey that lost her the match, she was approached by the ABC camera crew.

  “How does it feel, Annie?” asked the sportscaster. “So near and yet so far.”

  “Hey, it’s only golf,” she answered, meaning it, fighting back tears. “I couldn’t think of anything but David the last few holes. My heart goes out to Rachel, too.” She started walking toward the clubhouse, struck by the enveloping aroma of fresh-cut grass.

  “Any ideas about what could have happened?” the reporter said, trying to keep up with her.

  “Couldn’t we talk later?” urged Annie. “This is kind of a tough time for me.” The reporter kept pace, his microphone still held out to her.

  “To come so close to a big win and then miss an easy putt there at the end. What was going through your mind?”

  Annie stopped walking for a moment and faced him. She was shaking. “I’m afraid I might say something that your parent company wouldn’t want to hear on the air. Please.”

  “Well, you heard that, Bret,” said the reporter loudly into the mike. “Golf’s Bad Girl has no comment.”

  “Do you think you might possibly cut me just the slightest amount of, how do you say in your language, motherfucking slack?”

  “They’ll just bleep that, Ms. Bridget,” said the sportscaster in an irritatingly pleasant tone. Annie noticed with astonishment that the camera was still running. She had nothing left.

  “My prayers are with them both,” she said sadly, giving up. “I’m sure he’ll be found. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”

  And, of course, there was.

  That night, Annie called her dad, who, instead of accompanying her as he often did, had stayed home with a bad flu.

  “Have you heard?” she asked.

  “I just saw it on the news,” sighed Johnnie. “They said David was on his way to see you.”

  “Well, if he was,” snapped Annie, “I sure didn’t know about it.”

  “It’ll be okay,” said Johnnie. “They’ll find him.”

  There was a silence.

  “It really got to me, Dad. I wish you’d been there. I couldn’t make a putt.”

  “Well, honey,” he said distantly. “You know, sometimes…” He breathed a long sigh and coughed. More silence.

  “Sometimes what?” she asked. He didn’t answer. “Dad?”

  No reply.

  “Dad… what?” A terrible thought flashed at her. “You don’t know anything about this—do you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, honey. You’re upset. Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Okay.” Silence. “I was just… remembering…”

  “Remembering what?”

  “Just… stuff. Vito. Stuff we joked about once when you—”

  “Joking is joking,” interrupted Johnnie. “I gotta go.”

  “Dad… ? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, honey. I’m tired and it’s just hard to feel sorry for that pathetic son of a bitch. But, hey, I’ll say a prayer for him, too, okay? But talking about it won’t do him any good.”

  It seemed to Annie that there was an unfamiliar edge in his voice, and it shook her. But she wasn’t sure of anything, and she felt frightened to pursue it.

  That night, the Voice started, waking her before dawn.

  I am denial, it breathed into her ear as she rolled over, damp with sweat. I come and I go.

  As the days passed, Annie did her best to put her fear aside and channel her energies into her game. She certainly didn’t feel she was in denial. She had asked Johnnie and he had said no. That was that.

  But the Voice followed her to her next two tournaments.

  See no evil, hear no evil, it breathed. Accomplice, it said, with variations on that theme. She considered seeing a psychiatrist, but her experience with shrinks after her mother’s death was that they only made things worse.

  She failed to make the cut two more times.

  After five months with no further leads, the story of David’s disappearance began to recede into news limbo. The police found that his bank account had been zeroed out and his car had disappeared and they speculated that maybe David hadn’t been abducted at all. Perhaps, the authorities suggested, he had fled the country, or even committed suicide, disappearing off a cliff or bridge somewhere.

  When gasoline prices started to rise and unemployment did the same, and when a fresh sex scandal bloomed in the Senate, the story died and things quieted down for Golf’s Bad Girl.

  At the Pepsi Challenge in Orlando in early March, the Voice was silent and Annie showed signs of regaining her stuff, finishing ninth. Two weeks later at the LPGA Masters in Woodside, Ohio, Voiceless for four days, her stroke was sure, and she found herself in the zone. Far from overthinking, and ignoring Johnnie’s lifetime advice, she was stepping right up to the ball and forgoing her practice swing. She was incapable of a bad shot for the last two days.

  Out of nowhere, there it was—her first major win, by four strokes.

  A month later, in Texas, Annie wowed the golf world by taking her second straight LPGA major, the Ladies National Invitational. No Voice, no thinking. Reebok came back and renegotiated. Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair sent reporters to do covers on her. Colin Farrell was photographed with her at a margarita-laden karaoke party following the tournament, and invited her to join him at Cannes as his date for the film festival. She declined—she was not, after all, officially divorced from the still-missing David Strickland—but photos of her and Farrell singing Britney Spears’s “Drive Me Crazy” before a throng of party revelers sold out that week’s People.

  Four weeks later, behind by two strokes on the par-4 eighteenth hole in the final round of the Ladies Masters, Annie’s second shot, a wedge from ninety yards out, struck the pin and was sucked down into the cup for an eagle. It tied a flabbergasted, devastated Gail Fahr, forcing a play-off. On the second hole of sudden death, Annie birdied a par 5 to steal the tournament—her third straight major win.

  The Voice, it seemed, was gone for good.

 
“Annie Bridget: is she Golf’s Bad Girl or its First Lady—or both? Hi, you’re watching ESPN and I’m Bret Shayne along with my partner, Jack Maddox, coming to you from the gorgeous St. John’s Golf club in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, just a short ride from Manhattan—but worlds away in atmosphere. This venerable club, this town, and, well, the whole sports world are here to watch as Annie Bridget is poised to tie Tiger Woods’s seemingly unapproachable record of four straight major PGA wins. This young woman, just twenty-eight years of age, graced with movie-star looks and a swing as smooth in its way as Joe DiMaggio’s, has had to endure, it seems, a life of tabloid headlines. But for these last few months, her past has been on pause and she has climbed right into this nation’s—indeed the whole world’s—hearts. I understand, Jack Maddox, that this tournament is being watched in almost a hundred countries, by men and women, golfers and nongolfers alike.”

  “Well, Bret, what Tiger Woods did for the world of golf a few years ago has reached juggernaut proportions as Annie Bridget is bringing people to this sport in numbers never before dreamed of. I heard this morning that club memberships for women are up something like 40 percent in the past few months, and I think we can lay that figure right at the feet of Annie Bridget.”

  “Well, Jack, men all over the world have been metaphorically laying their hearts at the feet of this remarkable young woman, who overcame the early, tragic death of her mother, endured a terrible ankle injury just as her career was starting to take off, and then was plagued by tabloid scandals, first when she left her husband and then when he disappeared mysteriously six months ago. They say these kinds of things only happen to movie stars, but if Annie Bridget weren’t the best woman golfer in recent memory, she probably could be a movie star. Everything this young woman does these days, she does under the magnifying glass of the press. Ms. Bridget reportedly turned down $2 million to pose for Playboy last month. But hey, when you add up the endorsements and her recent winnings and the legend that she’s creating for herself, who the heck needs Playboy?”

  “Not that some people aren’t disappointed”—Jack laughed—“but seriously, this is a young woman, Bret, whom no one can quite figure out. No new scandals, no late night appearances at the clubs, no new man in her life despite rumors of an affair with Colin Farrell and an apparent recent offer by the dashing Prince Aboud from the United Arab Emirates to make her his bride. Instead, she’s been living like a sequestered Olympic athlete, taking daily lessons from her dad, coach, and mentor, Johnnie Bridget. Over the past few months, she’s developed into one of the most disciplined players the LPGA Tour has ever seen. And how that discipline has paid off. Annie Bridget is just one round away from joining the ranks of golf’s all-time greats.”

  “She’s already joined those ranks, Jack, but—if Annie Bridget can hold her lead today, we will have witnessed one of the great feats in sports history.”

  “We understand that Annie just finished hitting a bucket of warm-up shots, signed a few autographs, and is heading to the clubhouse for her usual last-minute powwow with her dad and her longtime caddie, Bix McCloud. We’ll be right back with the tee-off, so stay with us!”

  Johnnie looked pale and more tired than usual when Annie came face-to-face with him in the trailer that the club had provided outside its own locker rooms. Was something weighing on his mind?

  Ask him. Ask him now. You have to know.

  “Dad… what is it? Are you sick? You don’t look so good.”

  No, don’t ask. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he answered, looking up at her with his lopsided grin. “Nerves. It’s nothing. Don’t pay any attention.” He was cleaning the heads of her woods with a whisk brush.

  “That’s Bix’s job, Dad,” she said, patting him on the back gratefully.

  “Bix was hungry. Or nervous. Not that he’d ever let you see it. I sent him to get a sandwich,” said Johnnie. “Besides, I like doing this.” With a fingernail, he flicked a piece of mud out from the grooves of her 4-wood. “Reminds me of when you were a kid. Makes me feel like you need me.”

  “I do need you,” she said, hugging him from behind as he worked. “Just having you around is great. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

  “Just remember to breathe on the ol’ backswing—”

  Killer!

  It rang in her ear, raspy and loud. Frightened, Annie turned to see where it came from before she realized with despair that it was the Voice.

  “You know what?” she said, moving away, nervously grabbing an open Evian bottle and taking a quick slug. “No offense, Dad, but I kind of don’t want to talk. I’m ready. I don’t want to think. I just want to go out and do it. Come what may.”

  “That’s my girl,” Johnnie said, finishing up with the clubs.

  Bix walked in. Tall and skinny, with a seventies Pete Rose crew cut and a perennial tan, Bix adjusted the yellow cardigan sweater he had worn in all three of Annie’s previous wins. The temperature was hovering now at ninety, but Annie knew that Bix wouldn’t surrender his sweater this afternoon. Bix was as superstitious as Annie was disciplined. Besides, Bix was Mr. Cool out there. Nothing ever made him sweat.

  “Nice sweater,” said Johnnie, brightening a little and turning Bix’s baseball hat around on his head.

  “You never know when it might turn chilly,” said Bix, deadpan. Annie grinned in spite of herself.

  There was a knock on the trailer door, which opened a few inches.

  “Miss Bridget,” called a solicitous young network assistant with a headset and clipboard, his eyes averted in case Annie was changing. “Your tee-off is in exactly three minutes.”

  Annie turned to Bix. “Go ahead. I’ll be right out.” Taking the hint, Bix nodded, grabbed her clubs, and left, closing the trailer door firmly behind him. Annie stared at her father.

  “Dad?”

  Johnnie turned to her. “Go get ’em, kiddo.” He gave her a loose hug. “I’m so goddamn proud of you. Like your ma used to say, ‘Come what may.’”

  Annie looked into his eyes, which seemed strangely vacant. She wanted to talk to him, to ask him once and for all, but there was no time.

  “You know who said, ‘Come what may’?” asked Annie quietly, checking herself quickly in a mirror.

  “Sure,” returned Johnnie, bewildered. “Your ma.”

  “It was Macbeth,” said Annie, turning back to him.

  “I never read any of that stuff. Too busy skipping class to play golf. But your ma said it a lot.”

  “I remember.”

  Come what may, mocked the Voice.

  “Did you… hear anything?” she asked almost hopefully, pulling on a new glove.

  “Yeah,” he said, matter-of-fact, as Annie’s eyes widened. “Police siren, I think. Probably crowd control. You’re gonna need it.” She turned toward a sliding window and peered behind a crinkly beige miniblind. There was, indeed, the sound of a siren in the distance. She tried to smile and checked his eyes again. Nothing there.

  He’s a killer, you’re his accomplice. Is that the police coming? Wouldn’t you almost welcome it?

  “Miss Bridget,” called the assistant director from outside. “One minute. Really.”

  Annie patted her father on the back and opened the trailer door. Someone had just said it was ninety degrees outside. How could it be chilly?

  You’ll find out.

  Annie was in a foursome with Gail Fahr, Janet Deeter, and Kelly Castile, a redheaded rookie who was only five strokes off the lead, and whose own natural good looks and appeal had made her a telegenic addition to the foursome.

  As Annie strode to the first tee, she put on her best smile and waved to the crowd, steeling herself for the Voice. Bix grinned, and then, as he always did at the start of a match, winked, palmed her a tee, helped her out of her pale blue nylon Reebok windbreaker, and handed her a Nike 1 ball.

  “I swear, Jack,” oozed Bret Shayne from the broadcast booth, “it’s like i
f Grace Kelly was reincarnated and took up golf. What a beauty. Can a journalist talk like that on national TV?”

  “And what a talent,” chimed in Jack Maddox.

  “And—hello!—just look at that drive!” enthused Shayne. “Long and true and straight out there… it’s gonna roll to—wow!—could be 265 yards…”

  “Two seventy-five, Bret.”

  “And smack in the middle of the fairway. Oh, baby, we’re under way!”

  Through thirteen holes, the Voice had remained mercifully dormant. Annie still held a three-stroke lead over Gail Fahr and Janet Deeter, with young Kelly Castile another stroke off the pace. Annie smashed her drive over the churning twenty-foot-wide brook that split the two hundred yards between the white tees and the pin of the par-3 fourteenth. Her shot bounced onto the green as though divinely directed, landing six feet above the pin. The crowd let out a whoop. Annie nodded, exhaled, and leaned onto her 5-wood as she stood next to Bix and watched Kelly drive her shot long, over the pin, scattering the crowd. As the ball came to rest a few feet beyond the green, Annie noticed that someone in the crowd was waving his arms as though to attract attention. She squinted and saw that it was a tall, dark guy in a madras shirt. He seemed intent on distracting Gail Fahr, who was now teeing up her shot.

  “Jerk,” Annie whispered to Bix. “Somebody ought to tell him to stop waving his arms like that.”

  “Who?” asked Bix, his eyes fixed on Gail.

  “That schmuck down there,” said Annie. “Look at him. What a putz.”

  Gail swung and hit a low drive that bounced to the green and snuggled up close to Annie’s, as though they were two balls on a pool table.

  “Some concentration she’s got,” Annie said to Bix. “God, she’s tough.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” whispered Bix as Janet Deeter set her ball onto a tee. “Just play your game and enjoy the beautiful day. You love the heat, remember?”

  Heat? What heat? thought Annie, fighting off a chill. Her eyes went back to the guy who’d been waving his arms, but she could no longer spot him in the crowd. Janet hit a beauty of a drive, and suddenly there were three balls within five feet of each other, none of them more than seven feet from the cup, with Kelly’s perhaps thirty feet away, just off the green.