Amen Corner (23 page)

He would be 48 now. Another folder went into the suspect pile.

He came across Dwight Wilson's mother, Helen, who'd been a maid at the club for decades. She'd been retired for eight years.

After more than three hours, Sam came to the final folder. It belonged to Jeff Zimmerman, a summer employee on the grounds crew during his college years in the mid-'90s. He'd quit working at the club after graduating from Emory and taking a job as a stockbroker in Atlanta.

In all, Sam had kicked out seven files of fired employees who'd been born later than 1920, but after going back over each one, only three looked like they were worth further investigation: Winston Lamar, Reggie Morton, and a guy named Bruce Summers.

Summers had been a security guard at Augusta National from 1983 until 1993, when he'd fired a handgun over the heads of some neighborhood kids who had sneaked onto the course in July, when it was closed for play. Summers had found them swimming and fishing in Rae's Creek at Amen Corner and told them to leave immediately. They did—but when Summers returned, they had come back. Or so went his account of the incident, which was included in the reason for termination. He told them to leave again or he'd call the sheriff. When the kids didn't leave, Summers said, he pulled out his revolver and fired a shot into the air. The kids had scattered, but they told their parents what had happened, and the parents contacted the club. Summers was fired, though some members objected to the dismissal.

Sam moved his chair in front of the desktop computer and went to an online obituary search site he'd used as a police detective. He entered the three names from the suspect pile. Two names came back: Lamar and Summers.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a Winston Jefferson Lamar had died February 12, 2003, in Atlanta; the date of birth and the middle name were the same as they appeared on the former bartender's employment file.

The obit from the Augusta Chronicle said that Bruce Wayne Summers had died on September 27, 1996, in Augusta. Again, the first, middle, and last names and the date of birth were a match. The suspect pile was down to one.

He looked up Reggie Morton in the Augusta phone book. No one was listed by that name, or by Reginald Morton. He went back to the computer and brought up a website that did online criminal background checks for $19 a pop. He thought about asking one of his cop pals back in Minneapolis to run Morton's name through the nationwide NCIC computer network, but he didn't want to have to explain what he was doing or who he was doing it for—not if he could get the information himself.

Sam paid for his online search with a credit card, then did a Social Security number trace on Reggie Morton. The information came up immediately.

Name(s) associated with this SSN:

REGINALD HARRIS MORTON

REGGIE MORTON

REGINALD HARRIS

REGGIE HARRIS

Addresses:

5361Baker Rd AUGUSTA GA 30909 12/1972

787 PO Box AUGUSTA GA 30909 04/1976

11A Locust St AUGUSTA GA 30909 11/1983

13 Oak Road AUGUSTA GA 30907 10/1984

156 Riley Dr AUGUSTA GA 30907 02/1992

2231 Hurst St AUGUSTA GA 30909 11/2000

Then Sam ran a check on Morton's criminal record and came up with two convictions for credit-card fraud, one for writing worthless checks, and one for possession of a controlled substance, all since his termination at Augusta National.

So Reggie Morton hadn't been a model citizen since getting the boot at the club. That didn't prove anything. What it did show, though, was that Morton—if that was the name he was going by now—had been living in town fairly recently, had a criminal background, and had some life experiences that might give him even more reason to hold a grudge against his former employer. Sam tried the name Reggie Harris in the phone book. He found a listing for R. Harris at 2231 Hurst St., the last address on the Social Security search. He dialed the number. It had been disconnected.

At least now Sam had somebody to look for. He thought about taking a drive to the Hurst Street address, asking neighbors if they knew anything about Reggie, but then he had a better idea. He called Dwight Wilson's restaurant.

“Dad, it's for you!” yelled a girl Sam assumed was Dwight's daughter Cammie. In a minute or so, Sam heard the booming voice of the caddie answer on the other end of the line.

“Dwight, it's Sam Skarda,” he said. “Did I get you at a busy time?”

“Yeah, but I got a minute. How'd you play today?”

“Not too well,” Sam said. “I shot 80.”

“Damn,” Dwight said. “I wish I'd been there. I'd have at least got you in at 79.”

Sam didn't want to keep Dwight from his customers; he told him he was looking for an old caddie he might remember named Reggie Morton, or Reggie Harris.

“Oh, hell, you mean One-eye?”

“One-eye?”

“That's all we ever called him,” Dwight said. “They fired him years ago. Yeah, Reggie Morton. That was him.”

“Seen him lately?”

“Why—you couldn't find a caddie today?”

“No, I came up with a pretty good one. She's been on the Tour. But I'd still like to find One-eye. Do you know where he is?”

“He's around. He comes in sometimes with some of the old caddies. He was away for a while, too. Got sent to the joint a couple of times.”

“Do you think you could help me find him?”

“Well, I don't know,” Dwight said slowly. “Why're you looking for him?”

Sam understood the caddie's hesitation. Dwight knew Sam had been a cop, so his interest in One-eye was probably professional. He also knew Sam would be gone by Sunday at the latest, while Dwight would be living in Augusta the rest of his life. If it came to ratting someone out, Dwight would have to live with the repercussions. Sam wouldn't.

“I'm working for the National,” Sam said. “I'm trying to help them find the killer before he gets somebody else.”

“Oh, man, One-eye didn't kill nobody,” Dwight said. “You got the wrong guy.”

“I don't know what I've got,” Sam said. “I just spent three hours going through the club's personnel files to see if I could find someone with an axe to grind. Only three people looked like they fit the profile, and two of them are dead.”

“Well, it ain't One-eye, I'll tell you that,” Dwight said.

“How do you know?”

“I just know, that's all. Are the cops looking for him? I mean, about this?”

Sam told Dwight that the GBI had an investigator working the case, but he hadn't given him Morton's name yet. If he could talk to One-eye first, he said, maybe he wouldn't have to. He was just trying to help the club stay in front of the case.

“They paying you a lot?” Dwight asked.

“So they tell me.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Sam had no doubt that Dwight was a straight arrow. He was a business owner, a family man, and a loyal Augusta National employee of long standing. He wanted to do the right thing, but he didn't feel comfortable about getting in the middle of an investigation into one of his acquaintances. Sam would have to find a way to convince Dwight he wasn't doing something slimy by helping the club.

“You think One-eye could use a few bucks?” Sam asked.

“Sure,” Dwight said.

“Well, if you can get him to stop by your place tonight, I've got a couple hundred for him, no strings attached,” Sam said. “I'm not a cop anymore, Dwight. You can tell him why I want to talk to him. If he's clean, he'll come in for the money.”

Dwight was silent for a while longer, then said: “I guess I could put the word out. I don't know if he's around, though. I ain't seen him in a while.”

“How long has it been?”

“Two weeks, maybe. I know who he hangs with, though. I'll ask around. No promises.”

“No problem. You've got my cell phone number.”

After hanging up, Sam put the remaining folders back in the file cabinet, shut down the computer, turned off the overhead light, and closed the door behind him. Who else, he wondered, would remember One-eye Morton?

Chapter Twenty-four

Sam returned to the media building and scanned the sea of reporters' faces for Russ Daly. He spotted him squeezed into his workstation on the right aisle, looking supremely annoyed at the commotion around him. Sam maneuvered his way down the aisle to the bulky columnist's location.

“Hey, that's my Diet Coke,” Daly snarled at the reporter sitting to his left as Sam arrived.

“The hell it is, Russ,” the reporter shot back. “You finished your last one about 15 minutes ago. This one's mine.”

“You sure?”

“Christ, you've drained about a half dozen since I've been sitting here,” said the reporter, who tried to move to his left to create more space between him and Daly's flab. “They don't seem to be working, either.”

“Yeah, I'm thinking of suing,” Daly said. He looked to his right and noticed Sam. “What's the latest, Columbo?”

Sam debated whether he ought to tell Daly anything. But Daly had covered the Masters for years and was plugged into the tournament and its peripheral characters as well as anyone. If he wanted information from Daly, it only seemed fair to give him something in return.

“Porter and Brisbane are backing Stanwick all the way,” Sam said in a low voice, kneeling next to Daly in the aisle—though he didn't have to worry about being heard above the drone of conversation and clicking laptops in the cavernous media room. “By the way, you were right about the guy. He's a regular Hugh Hefner—though his playmates are a little older.”

He told Daly about his encounter at the merchandise building with Peggy Francis, then got to his point.

“I'm going to tell you something off the record—and I mean off the record. If I see any of this in print, I'll tell every player I meet this week that you burned me. You won't get the time of day from them if that happens.”

Daly snorted dismissively, so Sam rose to walk away.

“Hey, hold on,” Daly said. “Okay, I'm curious. Off the record.”

Sam knelt back down next to Daly, wondering how long he could stay in that position before his knees gave out. He'd have to make it fast.

“I've got another guy to look at. Were you here in 1983, when they started letting the pros bring their own caddies?”

“Nah,” Daly said. “That was a few years before I started covering the tournament. But the stink hadn't gone away when I first got here. In fact, I did a feature on the spurned caddies of Augusta. It was in '88 or '89, I think.”

“You remember a caddie named One-eye?”

“Sure,” Daly said. “He was one of the caddies I interviewed for that story. All of 'em were pissed off about the change, but One-eye was more pissed off about it than anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He kept caddying for members for a few years, but he never missed a chance to bring up the subject of how much money he lost not caddying at the Masters. He got a third-place check in 1978 or '79 that paid his rent for six months. A guy like One-eye misses that kind of money.”

According to Daly, One-eye started taking his resentment out on the members he caddied for. If a guy hit his ball into the trees, One-eye couldn't find it. If his ball got dirty, One-eye didn't wash it. If a guy asked for a yardage, One-eye couldn't remember it. A member even caught One-eye kicking pine straw on top of his ball in the trees. He began deliberately misclubbing players. (“If you hit the club One-eye handed you on 12 or 16, you were looking at a splashdown.”) Then he started intentionally misreading greens.

“That's when they showed him the gate,” Daly said. “He'd picked up his nickname because he was so good at reading the National's greens.”

Daly had the story: One-eye was looping for Sam Snead in a practice round one day when they disagreed on a double-breaker on the eighth green. Snead thought the ball would go right and then left. One-eye said he was wrong; the ball straightened out after breaking right, and then it was going to break right again at the hole. Snead asked him if he was willing to bet half his day's pay, and One-eye said, make it the whole day. Snead putted the ball the way he thought it would break, and missed it right. Then he put another ball down and tried One-eye's line, and made it from 40 feet.

“Old One-eye says, ‘I could read putts better with one eye than you can with two!'” Daly cackled. “And the name stuck. So when One-eye started misreading putts for the members, he was done. That's about all he ever brought to the table, anyway. He was quite a character.”

“Could he be a killer?” Sam asked.

“Damned if I know. I haven't seen him since.”

“He's been in and out of a few lockups,” Sam said. “If he hadn't lost his job here, he might have stayed out of jail. That could make a guy bitter.”