Death at the Member Guest by James Y. Bartlett

Author:James Y. Bartlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780982265963
Publisher: James Y. Bartlett
Published: 2019-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I went upstairs to the locker room to find my wayward partner. He was in the card room, sitting in one of the oversized plush chairs, cocktail at hand, lost in thought. I asked Raymond to bring me a cup of coffee and sat down next to him.

“Well,” I said, “That was an interesting morning. What have you got planned for the afternoon? A car crash or a bank robbery?”

He laughed, took a sip of his drink. “Hey, never a dull moment here among the country club set. You’d rather be writing dull stories about golfers?”

“Touché,” I said as Raymond brought me my coffee. “But unfortunately I can’t go for the Pulitzer on this one since my dumb ass boss still thinks I’m in upstate New York.”

“Ah, the tangled webs we weave,” Jack smiled at me. I nodded and sipped some coffee.

“So,” I said, “Who do you think dun it?”

“Elementary, my dear Hacker,” Jack said in his best affected-Brit accent. “I don’t have the first clue. That’s what I’ve been sitting here thinking about. The problem is, there are maybe a thousand people who had good reason to string ole Vitus up. Maybe more.”

“Yeah,” I said, “But there weren’t a thousand people who were here this morning. More like a hundred or so. It’s gotta be someone who’s still on the island.”

“Unless they high-tailed it before the body was found,” Jack pointed out.

“Or swam across the river,” I added.

Jack made a face. “Phew,” he said, “Then the cops would just have to smell him out.” He paused and sipped at his drink. But his eyes were bright and alert. The events of the morning had obviously captured his attention.

“Here’s what I think,” he said. “A lot of people hated his guts. But there’s a pretty big leap between hating someone’s guts and actually killing them.”

“True enough,” I said. “Murder is usually a crime of passion. Something that tips the scales from good old-fashioned hate to actually acting on it. It can be a threat to someone you love, or a threat to something you love, like money, a job, a Callaway ERC II driver.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack laughed. “That’s it…Vitus was trying to steal someone’s driver.”

“Let’s take the lovely Leta, for example,” I said. “She somewhat engenders the concept of passion.”

“Somewhat,” Jack said. “Like with about half the membership here at Shuttlecock.”

“At least one of whom I saw playing tongue tag with her last night,” I said, and told Jack the story of my inadvertent voyeurism the night before.

“Do tell?” Jack said, raising his eyebrows. “Any idea who the lucky guy was?”

I shook my head. “Too dark,” I said. “And I was trying to keep out of their way.”

“So,” he said, “Mystery Kisser goes to the head of the class. Suspect number one.”

I held up my hand. “But it could be coincidental. And, in truth, the fact that Leta was fooling around with someone here at the club, not an uncommon occurrence according to you, is not really a good reason for someone to kill Vitus.

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