The Sand Trap (19 page)

Rebecca looked ready to cry. Texas, New
Hampshire and Florida stared at the ground and did not know what to
say. Melanie saw Chad and Frank look at each other, grin and turn
and walk back to the bunker where Chad’s ball had landed. “Right.
Let’s go,” she agreed and reached over to the golf bag and pulled
out her driver. “My choice this time.” Melanie and the Marshal
started to tromp off down the fairway to the spot beside the water
where she had hit her last shot. Rebecca started to run after her
but Melanie nodded towards the fans on the right side of the green
and quietly said, “Stay up here Rebecca. Keep an eye on those
guys.”

The rule requires that the ball be placed as
close as possible to the spot where the original shot was made. In
this instance Melanie would have to place her ball by dropping it
from shoulder height into the original two inch rough. The spot was
not hard to find since Melanie’s first shot with the 5 wood cut a
quarter inch deep swath through the patch of grass. She dropped the
ball and it landed in the swath from the previous swing. Melanie
looked at the Marshal and he nodded. She took her previous stance
in the mud and sand near the edge of the water. “This one’s for you
Dad,” she said to herself as she took a full, rhythmic swing. She
watched as the Persimmon head came rushing at the ball and was
amazed at how the club head could compress the ball so much before
it sprung into the air on its way forward. She continued to watch
the club head as it chased the ball and, held back by the shaft,
wrapped around her shoulder.

A reporter who was standing beside the ninth
green would later describe the moment as surreal. Like the last
shot, they could see Melanie drop the ball and take a swing from a
stance mostly hidden by the bank that made her look like she was
hitting from her knees. Like the last shot it appeared to be
heading for the green. Unlike the last time there was complete
silence; the reporter said even the birds stopped singing and the
silence was like the void of noise just before a big
thunderstorm.

And unlike the last shot this one landed on
the green and rolled into the hole.

The silence continued for what seemed to
Rebecca like minutes before the roar from the growing group of
Melanie supporters totally drowned out the groans from the Chad
fans. Texas, New Hampshire and Rebecca jumped up and down and
hugged each other. Coach just stood beside the green with a stunned
look on his face. Rebecca turned to Chad at the other side of the
green and gave him a middle finger just as she saw him mouth “fuck”
to his Caddie and jump down into the bunker with his sand iron.
Without even waiting for Melanie or the Marshal to get back he hit
his sand shot twenty feet past the cup. Melanie’s shot had given
her a four, so he had to sink this putt to halve the hole and
continue the match. Melanie and the Marshal arrived just in time to
see the putt role a foot wide of its mark.

When Chad failed to sink the putt it was all
over. He took off his hat and walked over to Melanie who was
standing a little breathless, but expressionless at the side of the
green. He reached out his hand to her, but she reached up and as
she pecked him on the cheek for the crowds to see, whispered in his
ear, “I can take you anytime I want.” And then she quickly walked
into the swarming well-wishers, laughing and giving high fives and
yelling, "Washroom! Washroom!” Texas, New Hampshire and Florida
emerged from the crowd and formed a phalanx around her. Texas and
Florida took each arm and New Hampshire cleared the way in front as
they headed to the clubhouse and the women’s locker room. When they
reached the entrance she gave them each a warm hug.

“Thanks guys. I love you all. I wish you
everything you want in life!”

And she quickly disappeared into the locker
room.

When she had not come out of the locker room
after twenty minutes, the guys became a little worried. New
Hampshire stuck his head in the door and yelled her name but there
was no answer. Texas went and found Rebecca and dragged her away
from the reporters who were talking to her while they waited for
Melanie to appear. Rebecca walked quickly with him to the clubhouse
and went to the locker area in the women's change room. Where
Melanie had a locker there was no Melanie. But there were two
neatly folded piles of clothes on the bench beside the locker. One
pile was the new golf clothes that Rebecca had bought Melanie
earlier in the tournament and the other pile was her old clothes
from the Folly. On top of that pile was the frayed baseball hat
with
BUMSTEAD
stenciled on the front
.
But there was
no Melanie to be found.

Rebecca ran outside to the guys and ordered
them to start searching the clubhouse and the grounds. “She isn’t
there. But she can't be very far,” she pleaded.

They all went in different directions asking
questions and looking for any sign that Melanie had been there.
Rebecca ran through the main clubhouse asking everyone if they had
seen her and as time passed she started to get a sick feeling in
her stomach. By this time Coach had found Rebecca and was helping
look as well.

“My God – what have we done?” Rebecca was
close to tears.

Coach gave her a hug and did not seem to
care who saw. “It’s OK. We’ll find her,” he comforted as they went
out the front door of the clubhouse.

Rebecca saw it right away.

Her BMW had been parked right at the front
door and it was gone. She remembered Melanie had specifically asked
to drive this morning so she had the keys and for the first time
she started to realize that whatever was going on had been
preplanned by Melanie.

“Quick, get your car,” she ordered. "She’s
probably gone back to the resort.”

As the other searchers came around the
corner of the clubhouse she quickly told them where they were going
and asked that they stay here in case she came back. Rebecca and
coach roared off in his old Datsun with only half a muffler to try
and find Melanie back at the resort. When they arrived the BMW was
nowhere to be found.

“Look Rebecca. Let’s go up to your room.
Maybe she left a clue as to where she went?”

When they entered the room it was empty and
nothing had been touched since the morning. Melanie’s other clothes
were still in the closet and drawers, and the dirty dishes from
last night were still in the sink. They were starting to leave when
a knock came at the door and when Coach rushed to the door with the
hope that it was Melanie who had forgotten her key, they were
disappointed when they saw the desk clerk.

“Sorry to bother you Ma'am. But your
roommate asked me to give this to you when you came back.” He
handed her an envelope, the kind of resort envelope that was in
every room, with her name on it in Melanie’s handwriting.

Rebecca sat down on the chesterfield. Her
hand was shaking as she ripped open the envelope and started to
read the first of over a dozen hand written pages. She sobbed
uncontrollably as she read the pages and handed them over to coach
one by one, and he soon cried like he had never done in his
life.

My dear wonderful Rebecca,

First of all, my sincere apologies to you
for doing this to you, but I have thought it through very carefully
and I don’t have a choice. I hope that you will understand. You
have been the only real friend that I have ever had in my life; the
first that didn’t care that I was different and knew me and I know
liked me for what I was, not what I could do. I know now that golf
can never be a part of my life and in many ways that saddens me but
in other ways it frees me from a burden that until this tournament
I really didn’t know I was carrying. I am so sorry for not letting
you in on my strategies to beat Burt and Chad. The fact is the one
for Chad didn’t work. He never broke during the whole eighteen
holes despite my apparent insanity and it was just a fluke that I
ended up winning the match. Of course I’m glad for you, Coach and
the women who put so much weight on this silly game. Please enjoy
and revel in the place that I leave you.

The letter went on to describe in full
detail the evening with Chad and the events that followed. Rebecca
had to stop reading and as she continued to read Melanie’s
description of the rape, she leaned over and threw up on the living
room carpet.

Coach just kept saying “Oh my God … Oh my
God ...” over and over again.

It appeared that Melanie had written all the
descriptive parts of the letter earlier and added the comments on
today sometime in the last hour. The last page gave Rebecca some
directions.

Rebecca I’m telling you this not so that you
will take legal action against these boys. Without me around to
testify I know that it would be your word and this letter against
theirs and since everyone now thinks I am totally bonkers it would
likely be thrown out.

And I do not want my Dad, my Grandma or
anyone else in Bumstead to know what happened. I don’t need
anyone’s sympathy. It was really all my fault anyhow.

I think that this letter will be enough to
get them thrown out of school. Their loss to me at golf and the
indignity of expulsion should be enough for now. I have the feeling
that Burt’s caddy, Henry, might crack fairly quickly under some
questioning so Coach or the President might give him a go. But I do
not want anything public on this Rebecca. I couldn’t endure that
people would only remember me as a rape victim.

I do have some other favours to ask.

Please talk to my Dad, Granny and Bob and
Helen. Tell them I am fine.

At reading this Rebecca’s heart skipped a
beat.

I know that Granny will understand running
away. You can tell my Dad that he raised a girl who can take care
of herself.

Tell them I love them and wish them
well.

Your best friend

Melanie McDougal

Rebecca read the letter but she did not know
what to do. Should she look some more? But where? She suspected
that with a plan this well executed it was unlikely Melanie would
easily be found. Later she would find her car at the San Diego bus
terminal but no one inside remembered seeing someone of Melanie’s
description or selling her a ticket. For now she just sat on the
chesterfield with Coach’s arms wrapped around her as she cried
until there was nothing left.

It would be a very long time before anyone
associated with Clapshorn would ever hear of Melanie McDougal
again.

PART TWO: GORD
2012

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Part 2 - Chapter 10: The Job

He had to time his absence from the student
recruitment fair just right. Too soon and there would be too much
time for the police to focus upon people at the fair. Too late and
he would not get back before the fair finished for the day.

“I’m going to take a break – bio , tea and
maybe a walk around to see what the other institutions are up to,”
Gord Salmy announced to his assistant Monica Findley. “You can
handle the booth for a while.”

Gord and Monica had worked together on these
recruitment fairs for eight years, so she was used to his
disappearances at these things. For an “old guy,” as she teased
him, he had trouble sitting still at the best of times and sitting
in these recruitment booths for sometimes ten hours at a time was
simply beyond his attention span. He was a good boss though, and
she never minded covering for him and sometimes he would disappear
for hours. Who would know except her anyhow? They were always
operating the booth at some student recruitment fair somewhere in
the world that was very distant from the university’s home in
Ottawa, Canada.

“Sure,” she responded. “Just be back before
the fair closes. Remember this is last day so we have all of this
stuff to pack up.”

“No worries mate, “he announced, faking the
accent of the Aussies in the booth beside them. “Be back before you
can sing a verse of waltzing Matilda!”

Monica laughed at his corniness. To the
surprise of a Korean family waiting politely to talk to her, she
threw a university brochure at him as he squeezed past the booth
table and took off down the alley between the three hundred or so
post secondary institution booths from over eighty countries who
were at the recruitment fair to sign up Korean students to their
institutions. So far this year Gord and Monica had been to Saudi
Arabia – tough on a woman recruiter Monica remembered. She loved
the shopping in China since she could never afford the real thing.
Sao Paulo rocked at night for a twenty-eight year old. And Spain –
it was good thing that Gord spoke Spanish, and Italian, and
Mandarin, and Arabic and maybe more. But Korea was a good fair. She
really liked the Korean people, loved the food and the shopping was
great. Seoul was a safe city for a young woman like her to walk
around at any time of the day or night. The only problem was the
language and since most cab drivers only spoke Korean she had to
take a little card from her hotel to make sure she could get
home.