Free Amen Corner by Rick Shefchik

local cops aren’t saying anything, they’ve got Amen Corner taped off, and we’re talking to anyone who’s been down there,” Daly said. “But you know how most Tour pros are: If it’s not about golf, fishing or fucking, they’re not interested. I figured you might have taken a look.”
    â€œYou might want to talk to the maintenance crew,” Sam said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIt must have been some kind of herbicide used to burn that message. Maybe it was the kind they use here.”
    Sam was tired and ready to head to the showers. He thought back to the scene in the 10th fairway; if he had been investigating the death, he’d probably try to find the names of club members who opposed admitting women members. That seemed to be the only raging issue around here.
    â€œSo they haven’t released the name of the guy who was killed?”
    â€œNot yet,” Daly said. “But I know who it was.”
    â€œHow did you find out? The cops aren’t saying anything.”
    â€œI didn’t get it from a cop,” Daly said. “I’ve been covering this tournament for 20 years. Even a fat slob like me can cultivate an Augusta National source or two in that amount of time.”
    â€œOkay, so who got killed?”
    â€œA guy named Harmon Ashby.”
    Chapter Seven
    â€œHarmon Ashby! Who the fuck is Harmon Ashby?”
    Lee Doggett shouted those words at the television set in his motel room shortly after turning on CNN at 1:30 p.m.
    He’d managed to find a fleabag motel six miles west of Augusta in Grovetown, one that charged only $300 a night for what was normally a $30 room. He’d checked in just after sunrise, drank a six-pack of beer to celebrate his father’s death, and then passed out on the bed without taking his clothes off.
    When he came to, the morning was gone and he felt groggy, but he instantly recalled being on the grounds of Augusta National the night before, and strangling Ralph Stanwick.
    At least, he’d thought it was Ralph Stanwick. Now the TV reporters were saying something else.
    He flipped frantically through the channels; the news of the suspected murder was everywhere. Constant headline crawls and half-hour updates on CNN and Fox; bulletins interrupting regular programming on ABC, CBS, and NBC; special reports on ESPN and the Golf Channel. The death of an Augusta National member on the eve of the Masters was the kind of story news organizations could not get enough of.
    But the reporters kept saying that the victim was thought to be Masters Rules Committee Chairman Harmon Ashby—not Ralph Stanwick. How could he have made that mistake? Sure, it had been dark outside the cabin, but the guy looked like the Stanwick he remembered—tall, balding, sixtyish. He had come out of the cabin where the Stanwicks were staying, wearing a green jacket. Stanwick’s car was parked in the driveway behind the cabin.
    Then NBC put up a picture of Ashby. Bald, probably in his late ‘60s. There was a superficial resemblance—enough that, in the dark, you could mistake one for the other. And, apparently, that’s what he’d done. There were just too damn many old white guys at that club.
    Shit—now what?
    He came across a live feed of club chairman David Porter’s press conference on The Golf Channel.
    â€œAll of our hearts go out to Harmon’s wife, Annabelle, their son Robbie, and their daughter Cassie,” Porter said, as the cameras clicked away in the background.
    Porter prattled on about poor Harmon and his family, that there was no new information on the cause of death or the message that had been found on the green near the body. He wouldn’t speculate on what this is the last masters could mean, but there would absolutely not be any interruption in this year’s tournament. Did he think the killing had anything to do with Harmon Ashby telling the New York Times that he favored Augusta