Six Strokes Under (11 page)

"You don't have to answer this," I said, "but what about... ?" I stopped, unsure whether I'd offend her if I said the word lesbian.

"Aha," she said. "You've stumbled across rumors about my sexuality. My conversion." I shrugged. "Rumors that my interest in men is dead have been greatly exaggerated." She laughed. "Not that it's anyone's business, but talking to Bencher about my father this way raised a- lot of questions all around. It will be a long time before I have them all sorted out."

"I can understand that," I said. And I could. My own father hadn't done badly on Bencher's first criterion. But then he hadn't just stepped back, he'd taken a nosedive off the face of the earth. He certainly wouldn't qualify as a moon, probably not even a distant planet.

We stopped talking to hit our second shots. Julie's ball went left this time. I hit a screaming worm-burner, so low it nearly took out two sandhill cranes preening on the mounds, before it skipped into the pond.

"I think I need to concentrate on what I'm doing here," said Julie. "That's pretty much all I know to say anyway."

I knew she was right—I, too, should have been paying attention to the landscape of the golf course, getting familiar with quirks and challenges that I'd be facing in the tournament later. Joe would have had my head for my lack of focus. We finished the remainder of the round without further conversation, other than "nice shot" or, following a number of my unfortunate skirmishes with the water, the woods, and the rough, "tough luck." Nothing seemed to be working. I pulled out the note card listing swing thoughts I'd worked on with Joe and Odell back at the Palm Lakes driving range. These short phrases were to be used to help clear messages from mind to body that interfered with a smooth swing.

"Don't get too technical," Joe had told me. "Your body knows very well what to do. Your mind has to let go, get out of the way, and let your body do its job."

Whispering "Let it go" produced a snap hook out of bounds on five. Using "Let it flow," I popped two balls in the water on six. By the time we reached the eighteenth green, where Gary had watched me pantomime my putt last night, I was more over par than I even wanted to count.

"Lucky thing you got that out of your system," said Jessica. "Good luck tomorrow, girls."

I turned in my cart and prepared to head north to Pate's office and the airport. My cell phone vibrated, letting me know I'd received a message while out on the golf course.

"Cassie, it's Jack. Sorry I missed you. The time difference is killing me. Good luck tomorrow, Gorgeous, and don't let anyone tell you Budweiser isn't in your training regimen. Have one on me. Let me know how it's going. Take care."

I whistled all the way to Sarasota.

 The sheriff's department was a cream-colored, stucco building with a Spanish-style tile roof, both neater and friendlier-looking than its ambassador, Sheriff Pate. I parked and rolled out into the blanket-heavy heat of the afternoon.

"I'm here to see Sheriff Pate," I said to the girl at the desk.

She laughed.
"Sheriff
Pate? I'll tell him you're here." What the hell was so funny? Given Pate's grumpy disposition, I wasn't surprised that the girl didn't offer me coffee or even a seat. This office seemed unconcerned with public relations. Ten minutes later, Pate arrived and ushered me into a windowless gray room that I could imagine worked well for pressuring reluctant suspects into confessing.

"Big day tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"How'd the round go today?"

"Fine, thanks." I sure as hell wasn't going to discuss my golf problems with this bozo.

"Any new thoughts about Bencher?"

"Honest to God, Sheriff Pate," I said. "I'm doing my best to forget about Bencher. I told you everything I possibly knew. I even made up a few extra details just to make you happy." I could see he didn't find my little joke at all funny.

"This is serious, Miz Burdette. A man's been killed here."

"I'm well aware of that, sir. You may remember that I found him."

"Then until we solve the case and determine that you in fact were not involved, I'd suggest you do your best to cooperate."

"I'm trying." I didn't want to cry in front of Pate, but it was going to take all the willpower I had to hold back the frustrated tears.

"I'll look for you over at the Plantation tomorrow," he said. "They may need some extra protection if the protests continue." He sighed as if it were a great burden to have so much responsibility.

"That's it? I'm free to go?" Pate nodded. I left the building, again infuriated and confused by the man's interrogation. Today, I couldn't discern any real reason for him to have asked me in.

I felt better the instant I saw the round face and sturdy fireplug shape of Laura Snow getting off the plane. She insisted her size was a by-product of her combination Eastern European peasant and Choctaw heritage, and that it brought many advantages—not the least being a low center of gravity, useful for weathering windstorms and balancing golf swings. In addition, Laura brimmed with optimism and common sense. At the moment, I needed both.

"Before we get dinner," I said after extracting myself from her vise grip hug, "we have one quick stop to make. A five o'clock appointment with Dr. William Turner."

"Who the hell is Dr. Turner?" asked Laura, laughing. "Don't tell me you can't last a whole week without seeing a shrink?"

"It's been tough here," I pretended to whine. "Without you or Joe."

"No, really," said Laura. "Who is this Turner and why is he delaying my dinner?"

"I'll tell you the whole story over a beer later," I said. "But in a nutshell, this guy is a big wheel in the False Memory Consociation. Joe told me about him. So I made an appointment."

"Joe told you to see him? What do you plan to discuss?" Her worried tone told me this wasn't going to go over easily.

"Joe didn't send me to see him, he just mentioned that his office is here in Sarasota. I'm thinking of telling him I'm an incest victim."

"Are you nuts? You're here to play golf—"

I cut her off before she could work herself into a fullblown rant. "I wouldn't get involved with this if the pork-rind blowhard who calls himself the sheriff wasn't pressuring me. He doesn't have the slightest idea how to solve a murder case, so he just shakes me down every chance he gets, just hoping some random piece of crucial evidence will drop out." I guided the Pontiac off Route 41 into a strip mall that housed a pet store, a deli, and several sorry-looking professional offices.

"How are you going to pull this off?"

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Will you go in for me?" Her scowl did not require a verbal translation. "I'll try not to be long."

Dr. Turner's waiting room was plainer than the one shared by Baxter and Bencher. Metal chairs with thin, blue vinyl cushions lined the walls. A faded travel poster featuring the Eiffel Tower hung above the secretary's desk. If I had to wait long, there wouldn't be much to distract me from counting the fast thumping of my heartbeats.

"I'm here to see Dr. Turner. I'm Cassandra Burdette," I told the receptionist.

"He's tied up with some unexpected business. You can have a seat over there." She flipped her long blond braid over her shoulder and waved at the metal seats in the corner of the room. I sat and paged through the latest issue of
My Self
magazine. While I read "Cheapo Beauty Buys That Will Take Ten Years Off Your Face," the secretary painted her nails purple. During "The Single Best Diet for Your Abs," she lined her eyelids with silver and applied three coats of mascara. I couldn't help staring as she began dabbing at her cleavage with cotton balls dipped in two separate colors of liquid foundation.

"It's the new thing," she explained when she caught me gawking. "The shadows fool the eye into thinking there's more there than is actually the case."

I smiled. To me it appeared that her gifts in that department were bountiful to begin with. Through the connecting office door, I heard voices raised in heated conversation. The secretary lifted her shoulders in an apologetic shrug, outlined her lips in magenta, then filled them in with glossy pink. When I could no longer stand sitting still, I got up and began to pantomime my putting stroke.

"Are you here for that golf tournament?" the secretary asked.

"Yes," I said. "Qualifying school."

"Gosh, that must be so exciting. I'm Jeanine. I love golf. I never miss the Players' Championship in Ponte Vedra. I was so excited when I heard the PGA Championship was going to be held there this year, too! I tried to get time off this week to go, but Dr. Turner's swamped." She pursed her perfect pink lips into a pout. I would not have pegged her as a golf fanatic. Nor did she look particularly busy.

"I caddied for one of the rookies last year," I told her. "He's playing over there this week. His first major. Mike Callahan."

"That must have been so exciting," she said. "Do you know Rick Justice? He's my favorite. I know everyone is gaga over Tiger Woods. But I just love that Rick. He's adorable with that little turned-up nose and sweet smile. I cried when I heard the speech he gave at the British Open."

I nodded. Everyone remembered that speech. It had been sweet, completely from the heart.

"You must know all those guys, then. Did you realize he's on the list of the country's most eligible bachelors? Do you have any idea how I could meet him?"

I could picture Laura warning me that I needed to mind my own business in order to concentrate on my tournament. So I started to give Jeanine my standard spiel about players' privacy. Then it occurred to me we might strike a useful trade.

"Yes, I know lots of the guy golfers. I know Rick." Which was almost technically true. We had nodded at each other when Mike warmed up next to him before last year's Kemper Open. Rick went on to win the tournament, while we packed up early, having missed the cut by ten shots. "He's just as sweet as he looks on TV."

"Could you arrange for me to meet him? Oh, my God, it would be a dream come true!"

"I
can't promise too much, but I could certainly call over and get you a grounds pass to the tournament for the weekend. Maybe Mike would introduce you after the round is finished on Saturday. The guys aren't always in the most social mood, though. A lot depends on how the day went." I knew damn well I was leading her on. Mike Callahan would no more consent to playing matchmaker than put on a pair of culottes and tee off on the women's Tour. Though he definitely had the legs for it.

"Oh, wait 'til my girlfriends hear about this! They'll be absolutely green. Let me give you my home phone so you can tell me what you were able to set up." Distributing her still-tacky nails carefully around a purple pen, she wrote out her name and number in looping script and offered it to me. "Oh, my God, what do you think I should wear?"

"As you can see," I said, gesturing to my baggy khaki shorts and navy blue golf shirt, "I'm not part of the fashion vanguard. I choose clothes strictly for comfort and the size of their pockets. And I really can't speak for Rick's taste."

"Oh, he definitely dresses preppie. Haven't you seen him in the Polo ads? He looks so cute with his hair slicked back!"

I laughed. "I know you'll come up with something nice. That magazine"—I pointed to where I'd been sitting— "says the trend is to show skin, but not necessarily cleavage. I guess bare breasts are considered cliché this year. So what does that leave? Halter tops? Short shorts?" I hated to egg her on with sleazy suggestions, but if you wanted to stand out from the pack of golf groupies in the gallery, there was an awful lot of competition.

"Oh, my God, how could I ever repay you?"

"Well, maybe you could help me with something. I came to talk to Dr. Turner about the False Memory Consociation. I need to get some information about what's going on in the Rupert case."

"Oh, so you're not a patient."

"No." I wondered how far the goodwill I'd built up with her over the prospect of meeting Rick Justice could take me. I decided to chance a plunge. "But I'm actually thinking of telling him that I am."

She nibbled at her lower lip. "You'll definitely get more out of him that way. He's one weird doctor. I can't wait to get out of this job. Don't tell him this, but I've got applications in everywhere."

"Weird how?"

"He's always fighting with someone. And either on top of the world or in a really bad mood. This office isn't big enough to stay away from him when he's like that."

"I hate to sound dumb, but I really don't understand what all this false memory stuff is about."

She dropped her voice to a whisper. "He's never really been willing to discuss the organization with me in detail. He says I don't need to know other people's private business. But I think he's spent a lot of time lately hunting down and recruiting parents who've been accused of abuse by their kids. He wants them to fight the counselors who do this kind of work. And he's more aggressive than he ever used to be."

"Lawsuits, you mean?"

"That's all I know about." Her raised eyebrows suggested there had to be more. "All I can say is that if Will Turner goes down, he'll take everyone he can with him." She made a zipping motion across her lips.

I glanced at my watch. It was now 5:30. "Damn, I have a friend waiting out in the car."

"I'll call him and see how much longer he'll be," said Jeanine. She dialed the intercom into Turner's office and had a brief conversation. "He's so sorry. He's just about ready to wrap things up." I heard two doors slam from inside Turner's office.

"Let me give you my cell phone number in case you think of anything else." I handed her a scrap torn off the paper she'd given me. "And I'll call you about the tournament this weekend."

"Miss Burdette?" A tall man with a thin mustache peered out of the office. He wore gray polyester slacks, pilled around the pockets and the seat, and a white short-sleeved shirt so thin I could see the outline of his muscle T-shirt underneath, along with a crop of bushy black chest hair. Definitely a candidate for the fashion "don'ts" column of
My Self
magazine.

"I'm Dr. Turner. Please come in. You can go home now, Jeanine," he said to the secretary. He frowned. "I thought I told you to leave at five." Jeanine scraped the beauty products off her desk into the top drawer and scurried out of the room.

Turner's inner office was as plain as the waiting area. Metal filing cabinets covered one wall; bookshelves piled with masses of papers lined the other side. The desk was crowded with a computer, fax machine, scanner, and more stacks of papers and files. Nothing at all on the walls.

"Have a seat," he said, indicating twins of the metal chairs I'd seen in the outer office. "Sorry about the wait. Sorry about the mess. We just moved in a couple of weeks ago and I haven't got things sorted out." His forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Miss Peters said you wished to discuss a possible family problem with me. Tell me about that."

"I've been in counseling." My voice came out in a squeak. "When I told my mother some of the things I'd been remembering, she begged me to come to talk to you before anything else.... Before I confronted my father." Now my voice shook with what I hoped was a reasonable imitation of genuine distress. It didn't take much effort. After Jeanine's description of Turner, this charade had begun to feel seriously dicey.

"Your mother sounds very smart," said Dr. Turner, leaning forward in his chair. "I'm glad you decided to talk to me first. Can you tell me what you've been remembering?"

"I'm really not comfortable going into it," I said. "No offense, but I don't know you at all. If you don't mind, could you talk about what you do first? How you go about helping someone in my situation?"

"Of course," he said, beaming reassurance. "In our research, we've learned that sometimes people remember things about their past that didn't actually happen."