The Feathery (17 page)

Matt left to join Claudio and the other caddies at the Kilt and Jeans, and Scott met Bob Bray in the dining room at the Turnberry Hotel. Scott noticed Randal Lyle there sitting alone, and he asked the security head to join them. They began a lively discussion about gambling on British Open golf.

"The R and A and the USGA do not condone wagering by players, but they haven’t placed any controls on it during the Open," Randal said. "Of course, a player betting against himself would be subject to an investigation."

"The odds are tempting, Randal. Scott thought of the bet Matt had placed on him at 200 to 1 in London but didn’t mention it.

"Yes they are. Wagering on golf in Scotland and throughout the UK is a legal activity." Randal added. "Millions of pounds are bet on the Open each year."

"Have there ever been any problems due to the betting?" Scott asked.
"Some minor ones, like someone in the gallery cheering when a rival to the player he has a wager on misses a putt. We take care of that quickly by ejecting the buffoon from the premises."
Bray was reading a Fleet Street tabloid and started going down the list of betting odds on players at the Open. "I’m eighteen to one…not bad." Bray continued until he came to the last name on the list. It was Scott Beckman at two hundred to one. He said, "wow, I’d take a piece of that if it was legal."
Scott glanced at his watch, and stood up from the table. "I’ve got to go. I’m meeting a friend at Prestwick Airport."
"Is it a woman friend or guy friend?" Bray asked.
"A lady I met in Monterey."
"Best kind, a California girl. I married one." .
Scott didn’t bother telling Bray that Beth was from New York, but he shook his hand and wished him good luck tomorrow…the first day of British Open play.

 
T
he ramp at Prestwick Airport was crowded. Airplanes belonging to golf’s finest, past and present, were parked there. They had markings symbolic of their famous owners. Scott saw a plane with a golden bear on its nose, and two others, one with a ferocious looking tiger, and the other with a great white shark on its nose.

A set of landing lights in the distance indicated that Beth’s flight was on the final approach. The sleek jet touched down gently and decelerated to make a smooth turn onto the taxiway. A man holding a strobe light in each hand guided it into a space on the ramp. The silver Boeing 737 braked to a stop, and the engines suddenly stopped screaming.

Beth Sweeney was one of the first to exit the plane. She was wearing a brown leather jacket and designer jeans. A New York Yankee baseball cap was doing its very best to control her mass of curly jet-black hair. Scott noticed the hair had grown back to the same length it had been in Monterey when he’d first toweled it dry.

When she reached him, he gathered her into his arms. Once again, after much too long those expressive eyes looked up at him when she asked, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

"Should be, Beth, I’ve been practicing all week."

 During the drive to Turnberry, Beth briefed him on the auction results at Covington Gallery and her meeting with Sarah Covington.
"Did I make enough at the auction to pay your legal fees?" Scott asked.
"More than enough." She reached in her briefcase and showed him a check for 91,000 pounds sterling. "That’s about $160,000 at the current exchange rate."
"Great! How about the penalty for pulling the feathery out of the auction?"

"That’s the best of it. Sarah settled for $20,000 instead of the $200,000. She just wanted enough to cover her expenses in promoting the feathery. You don’t have to pay her the 20K until after the Open."

 
"Then it’s a different Sarah than I knew from our meeting in London."

"Really?" Beth looked surprised. "Sarah was very nice to me. Took me to dinner in the Soho…showed me around London. Even drove me
to the airport." A thought came into Scott’s mind…a
vision of the empty slot for the McNair feathery in that display he’d seen in Sarah’s golf antique
collection. "
That’s some turnaround. She charmed you."

"And that’s not all. Sarah offered her cottage to us. It’s on the sea in Portpatrick, at the tip of Scotland." Beth’s smile was coquettish when she
added, "I accepted on your behalf."

One of Scott’s eyebrows lifted. "That might be a good place to wind down after the Open." He glanced over at her. "Can you get a few days
off?"

She answered quickly, "I’m pretty sure I can."

"Let’s plan on going there." Sarah’s change in attitude was puzzling him. "Did Sarah mention anything about wanting to buy the McNair feathery?"

"Yes, she said to tell you she’s holding firm on her offer for the feathery."

"It’s not for sale if it’s ever recovered."

It was late when they finished dinner in the Turnberry Hotel dining room. Scott walked Beth to her room. They parted after a long kiss, both wanting more. But

Beth declared the lateness of the hour and Scott’s need for rest before starting the first day of the British Open the next morning.

Shortly after Scott entered his room, the phone rang. It was Chief Inspector Bradshaw.
"Hope I didn’t catch you too late. First off, I’d like to wish you all the best in the Open tomorrow."
"Thanks. I’m looking forward to playing. I feel fortunate to be here, and I think I’m ready. How’s the case going?"
"Very well. We’ve located the persons who had your feathery and bronze statuette in their possession."

Scott sighed with relief. "Where are they? Where did you find them?"

"I’ve confiscated the items and logged them in as evidence. I located both the statue and the feathery during an interview with a…" he paused for the correct term to describe Mary Harding’s relationship with Jennifer Lawton, and settled on…"friend of the suspect."

"Friend?" Scott asks.

"Yes, a very lovely lady who’s a professional golfer. In fact, Matt Kemp, your own caddie had a relationship with her when he caddied on the European women’s tour for none other than Sarah Covington."

Scott thought,
That must be part of the long story Matt mentioned in Santa Barbara. He’ll finish telling me about it when he’s ready. "
What’s next Chief Inspector?

"We need to know who’s responsible for the shootings in New York and Heathrow. And we’re working hard on that as we speak."

"Wow, you’ve got the feathery. How soon will this all be over?"

"Very soon. Possibly before you finish play, we may have the suspects, as you Americans call them, in custody." The chief inspector chuckled out loud. "Just concentrate on your game, Scott, and I’ll update you later."

When Scott put down the phone, his mind switched from the recovered antiques to the way he would play the first, second and third holes of Turnberry’s Ailsa course. Sleep came to him when his mind reached a vision of the third fairway.

 
NEW YORK CITY

D
etective Riley arrived at Kennedy just as British Airways Flight 1104 landed. He double-checked the photo of Mary Harding and then showed it to the immigration agents who’d clear the flight. Riley’s eyes were glued on the passengers as they streamed through the customs checkpoint.

He was getting anxious after fifty passengers or so showed their passports and moved on toward customs. Finally, there she was among the stragglers. She wore a masculine-cut tweed suit, and her brown hair was pulled straight back in a bun just as it was in the photograph. When Mary reached the agent and started to present her passport, Riley stepped forward.

"Are you Mary Harding?" Riley asked.

The sight of his NYPD detective’s badge bewildered her. "Why yes,

I’m she…What’s the meaning of this?"
"You’re under arrest for an alleged complicity dealing with armed robbery and murder. Anything you say now may be held against you in a court of law."
Next came the handcuffs, and a matron from the department walked up to escort Mary to an unmarked car waiting curbside outside the terminal. Riley joined Harding in the backseat, and the policewoman got in beside the driver. Harding was visibly shaken. Riley thought the ‘good cop’ approach might work best.
"Mary, we have solid evidence implicating you in the robbery of an antique feathery golf ball and a bronze statuette. It’s over Mary. Scotland Yard has both items in their possession as evidence."
"Oh, my God…Jennifer! She’s not involved in this."
"I know that, Mary." He made eye contact with her before he continued. "I don’t think you wanted this heist to go down with getting a man killed and another wounded. Am I right?"
She nodded rapidly. "I had no idea they’d do that."

Riley took advantage of the moment. "If you cooperate with us in apprehending the shooters, I’ll do everything I can to make sure it’s considered at your trial. This is very personal to me because the guard killed here in New York was a friend of mine."

Harding looked over at Riley. "Those hopped up fools. Now they’ve threatened me and want payment of the other half of the agreement. I’m supposed to meet with them at four this afternoon."

Riley’s question was sudden and sharp. "Will you wear a wire at that meeting, Mary?"
Harding waited only a few seconds before she said, "yes, I’ll do that."

At four o’clock in the afternoon, Riley was sitting in a surveillance van with two FBI agents. They watched Harding enter a brownstone apartment building in Lower

Manhattan. She tapped the microphone on her chest to test the wire. The lines on a display jumped simultaneously, and a couple of thuds came from two audio

speakers in the van. The FBI technician gave Riley a thumbs-up signal indicating the wire was in place and working fine.

When Mary entered the apartment the technicians heard background noise and the shuffling of chairs on the electronic surveillance equipment. Following that, harsh preliminary greetings were punctuated with swear words. Their hospitality consisted of offering Mary a line of cocaine, which she denied.

One voice said, "the fucking guys we hired in England to do the thing at Heathrow want more dough from your Swede friend. They’ve gotta hide out in Spain because Scotland Yard is closing in on their ass."

"The Swede, Johncke, is dead," Mary said.
The same voice as before asked, "somebody fucking whack him?" "No, heart attack," Mary answered.
"Shit! Anyway, you got the fifty grand in that briefcase?" "Yes."
"Let’s have it."
"I have a question first," Mary said.
"No fucking questions," came the reply by the same raspy voice.

Anyway, Mary asked the question Detective Riley wanted her to. "Why did you shoot the guard at the Covington Gallery here in New York?"

"I shot the asshole because he pulled his fucking gun on me."

They’d heard enough. Detective Riley followed behind an NYPD officer whose battering ram dislodged the apartment door from its hinges. Riley’s gun was drawn as he rushed into the room with four uniformed cops. They caught the three men by surprise, and they all dropped down on the floor as ordered, which shook the glass top on the table lined with cocaine.

"Mary, which one of these coke heads killed Lem Shattuck?" Riley asked.
She pointed at the raspy voiced one who’d admitted to it.
Riley held off one of the cops heading toward Shattuck’s killer. "I’ll put the cuffs on this guy."
The FBI technician manning the electronic surveillance gear in the van heard a shrill scream come over the speakers. It made the video lines on his monitor display jump around like pulsating spaghetti.

S
cott’s tee time for the first day of the Open was 9:18 in the morning. He ate a large breakfast to hold off any sugar-low that might occur while playing through his normal lunchtime. He washed down three eggs over easy, fried potatoes, sausages and fried green tomatoes along with a rack of toast with a large glass of orange juice.

He left the hotel at seven and walked down the long stairway leading from the hotel toward the locker room. Lines were already forming at the main gate, and masses of spectators had started funneling in. It was their yearly pilgrimage to the British Open…a Mecca-like journey for golf fans from all over the world. A large gallery was expected today, Thursday, the first day. The crowds would increase until peaking on Sunday, the final day.