Free Amen Corner by Rick Shefchik Page A

National admitting women members? Porter had no idea, and he would not comment on the club’s membership policy.
    After the press conference, most of the news channels cut to reporters who seemed to focus on the possibility that Ashby had been killed by someone at the club, possibly another member who didn’t want women joining, and didn’t care if that meant shutting down the Masters. The cops probably thought the same thing.
    Doggett had meant the message to scare the shit out of the bastards at Augusta National, but it hadn’t occurred to him that somebody would read a political motive into it.
    Maybe this hadn’t turned out as bad as he thought.
    Doggett got up off the bed and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, seeing a younger, stronger version of Ralph Stanwick staring back at him. He was probably about as tall as his father, 6-3 or so, and like his father, he was losing his hair. He wished he looked more like his mother. She’d been beautiful, with thick, dark hair—hair that had fallen off her head in the last photo that he’d received from her in prison. The chemo had done that.
    The rage began to rise again. Stanwick still had to die. But it didn’t have to be today, or tomorrow. Stanwick must have realized that Ashby wasn’t the real target, but he’d never tell anybody. He wouldn’t dare. Instead, he’d sit in his cabin and piss himself every time he heard a noise, every time the phone rang, and every time a stranger walked by his cabin. He would think it was Doggett coming for him. Meanwhile, Doggett could begin tearing down the club’s reputation, piece by piece, while his father had to sit by and watch it all happen, powerless to stop it, praying for his life. Torture, is what it would be—the worst kind of torture, knowing that you were going to die, but having to watch someone or something you loved die first.
    Just like Doggett had had to suffer in prison while his mama died.
    Best of all, the cops were confused. While they were looking at the club for suspects, it would give Doggett a clear field.
    He returned to the bed and clicked through the channels. The police were either clueless or keeping quiet. No details were escaping the National. But the talking heads were indulging in an orgy of speculation.
    On Fox, a male attorney was engaged in a heated debate with a female newspaper columnist.
    â€œLook,” he said, “if we force Augusta National to admit women, what are we going to do about the women’s colleges? You went to Wellesley, didn’t you, Deborah? And what about the Girl Scouts? The Junior League? What about sororities?”
    â€œRed herrings,” the woman responded. “Those groups don’t open their doors to the public one week per year, rake in millions of dollars, then shut half the population out the other 51 weeks of the year while the members make each other even richer with their backroom deals.”
    Doggett looked closely at the woman columnist. The caption identified her as “Deborah Scanlon—NYT. Interviewed Harmon Ashby on women at Augusta National.” She wasn’t bad-looking—though the short, white-blond hair and the red lipstick were a little too brassy for his tastes.
    Her support of Rachel Drucker’s campaign against Augusta National was articulate and passionate. Between the column and the network interviews, she was almost as visible a symbol as Drucker herself.
    Doggett returned to The Golf Channel, where a male and female anchor were seated at the network’s outdoor broadcast desk near the main scoreboard alongside the first hole. A third face was superimposed on a screen behind them.
    â€œWe’re talking to former PGA Tour pro Danny Milligan, who once broadcast the Masters on CBS before being dropped for making controversial on-air remarks,” the male anchor said. “How are you,