Six Strokes Under (26 page)

I called Joe's cell phone and left a message telling Laura to expect a roommate arriving after midnight.

 I slept until late morning, when Laura bounded into the room and shook me awake.

"I don't know how you put up with Mike for almost a year," she said, flinging herself on the bed next to me. "That man is a beast."

"How'd he play?"

"He shot seventy-four. He's certainly not scaring the leaderboard. And talk about walking on eggshells—it's more like broken glass when you're carrying Mike's bag. My hat's off to you. You're either a saint or a masochist."

I laughed. "He's not so bad. Just remember, you're a mallard in the rain, babe, a mallard in the rain."

She stuck her tongue out. "Are you ever getting up? We're dying to hear all the gory details of what happened with Gary Rupert. Joe's over at the putting green watching his guys. Can you meet us there in twenty minutes?"

I reached the practice area half an hour later, and worked my way around the enthusiastic fans crowding the putting green for a glimpse of their favorite players. Sheesh. This was a different world than the low-key buzz at the Plantation Golf and Country Club. Joe grabbed me from behind and folded me into one of his trademark bear hugs. All my plans to act standoffish washed directly down the drain.

"I owe you an apology," he said. "I didn't get a chance to congratulate you. I'm so proud of you." He hugged me again. "You must have thought I didn't give a hoot. We looked all over for you before we left, but you'd already gone to lunch with Gary."

I wasn't going to admit how bad I had felt about being left alone yesterday—lousy enough to have gotten trashed and practically thrown myself into a murderer's arms.

"I wanted to celebrate with someone. Maybe I jumped the gun a hair going off with Gary. It was not a good afternoon." I glanced over at Laura. "Jack Wolfe called just before you left to tell me he's gotten married."

"Who in God's name would marry him?"

"Easy, girl," I said. "This is my ex-boyfriend you're talking about." Laura lifted her eyebrows at that. "Anyway, her name is Masako and she doesn't speak much English."

"Which explains everything very nicely," said Laura.

"Time out, ladies," said Joe. "Tell us about Gary."

"We were having a pleasant enough lunch." I thought back over the sequence of yesterday's events. "He was a little snotty to the waiter, but other than that, things were fine. Right up until the moment I suggested his mother made a great murder suspect."

"You what?"

"I still think it was a good theory. We"—I gestured to the three of us—"never really talked about her, even though she looked suspicious all the way along. She belonged to Turner's wacko organization, she had a lot of conflict with Kaitlin, and she acted squirrelly whenever we ran into her. Call it sexism, call it ageism, but for some reason, we didn't consider her as a killer."

"I can't believe you told Gary that!"

"I'd had a glass or three of Chardonnay—my tongue was a little loose at that point. Anyway, he dropped me off at my room, then showed up later and attacked me. So I beaned him with the nine-iron. That's pretty much all there is to tell."

"What was Harding doing there?" said Joe.

"Gary had been blackmailing him for years. He made him stay away from me by threatening to expose an old photo." I held both arms up in my best Richard Nixon/ Bill Clinton imitation. "Don't ask me anything else about it. I'm not talking."

"So Max got suspicious of Gary and showed up at your place?"

I nodded. "He saw us go to lunch and watched Gary come back to my room. By then, I'd already cold-cocked the guy and didn't need the cavalry."

"I don't understand why he didn't try to kill you right away," said Laura. "Why did he wait until later to do the job?"

"Even though I was teasing him about which words Bencher might have been trying to communicate to me, he must have thought it over and decided I couldn't be trusted."

"I bet if you had some hypnosis, you could remember what Bencher really said," said Laura.

"I don't want to know." In fact, after this week, they'd have to tie me down to hypnotize me. And I'd fight going under every step of the way. Right now I knew as much as I needed to know about my life—except for the future. And that would require a crystal ball, not a headshrinker.

"I followed up with the sheriff's department this morning. Right now, Gary's not admitting anything," said Joe. "But his mother has been talking. Apparently she suspected that Gary was molesting Kaitlin years ago. She knew she should have done something. But Coach was always so hard on Gary; she thought he'd go crazy if she told him what she suspected. So she told herself boys will be boys."

"She knew about the abuse and she didn't do anything?" I said. "That's outrageous."

"But not unusual," said Joe. "People overlook the most incredible evidence in the name of protecting someone else in the family, or themselves, for that matter."

"I don't get it. Why would Mrs. Rupert have joined that kooky false memory outfit if she knew Kaitlin had really been molested?" Laura asked.

"She wanted to protect Gary, but she didn't want Kaitlin to get her father in trouble. She knew Coach hadn't done anything. I guess she hoped Kaitlin would just drop the charges, with enough opposition."

"She's got a forklift load of garbage on her conscience now," said Laura. "How's she going to live with herself?" She shook her head in disbelief. "I have to say, Gary Rupert surprised me. I really had my money on the phony Dr. Turner."

"If Turner didn't kill Bencher," I said, "why was he so intent on scaring me away from his office?"

"He'd mounted such a campaign of harassment against Bencher, he must have worried someone would take legal action against him," said Joe.

"Besides which," said Laura, "he made a darned good murder suspect. He was smart but sleazy and his tactics were just this side of guerilla warfare."

"Hit some short putts now," Joe called over to the golfer he'd been observing. "You want to start the round with the sound of the ball hitting the cup in your mind."

"Now that sounds familiar," I said. "How much is that guy paying you for that canned line?"

"Someday, I'd like to hear more about the session you had with Turner," said Joe, ignoring my teasing. "He's an interesting character."

I nodded, glad Joe didn't have the time to spare now. I was still digesting the ideas he'd raised about my own family. The glass half empty, the glass half full.

"So who put the club in So Won Lee's bag?" asked Laura.

Joe shrugged. "No one's come forward." They both looked at me. We all knew that I had benefited most from that maneuver. Did someone want Kaitlin out? Or me in? I'd probably never know.

On the far side of the practice green, I spotted Jeanine. She wore deep purple short shorts and a matching low-cut tank. She was animated, sexy, and drop-dead gorgeous. Through the crowd, I could just see the baseball caps of two men clustered around her.

"Who the hell is Jeanine talking to?"

Joe laughed. "I may have created a monster. She's got Mike Callahan and Rick Justice fighting over her like it was their last chance at a meal. Or a birdie putt."

"Some girls have all the luck," I said. "I'm off guys for the time being. Hey, didn't I hear someone say something about buying me lunch? I'm starving."