Greene drove slowly through the stone gates of the Humber River Golf Club. He’d been here many times a few years earlier during his investigation of Hodgson’s murder case, and he remembered how everything about the place had the feel of old money. The sculpted gardens, the granite steps leading to large clubhouse double doors, the high-ceilinged foyer with its elaborate moulding, wainscotted walls, and dark oak floors.
Established in the 1920s when the area was a wealthy Toronto enclave, the club had expanded over the years and now owned a swath of beautiful property that backed onto the Humber River. As with all the golf, tennis, and social clubs in the city back in the early twentieth century, originally membership was restricted to keep out Jews, Asians, Blacks, Italians, Greeks, and Irish Catholics. That had changed slowly over the years, but these days the club faced another type of foreign invasion from the homeless people who’d taken up residence across the river.
Repelling them wasn’t an easy task. The club built a fence around the property, only to find it cut through, climbed over, or dug under. Members reported finding liquor bottles and needles on the putting greens, and tents made from plastic sheets in the nearby woods. In the parking lot, members’ luxury cars regularly had their windows smashed in and their contents stolen. As the tent city across the river grew, things got worse. Despite the club’s hiring security guards to patrol the grounds 24/7, there was a string of robberies out on the course’s more remote holes: members forced to surrender their watches, jewellery, and cell phones at knifepoint. It all culminated with Hodgson’s killing the man who tried to rob him.
Greene pulled into the parking lot. Since it was mid-November, there weren’t many cars, but a bunch of colourful trucks were lined up by the far fence: Disco Dan’s Dancing Show; Peter’s Party Photo Booth; Barbara’s Big Balloons; Greg’s Golf Games.
These would be the suppliers for the party that Hodgson was throwing tonight for his daughter, Britt, the young golf protégé. Like everything Hodgson did, it was going to be a big event.
Greene took his time going over to the main clubhouse. It was a point of pride amongst homicide detectives that they walked and didn’t run—unless, of course, the situation was urgent. There was also a good reason for this: they always wanted to project calm. Confidence.
Gerald Waterbridge, the club’s general manager, was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Greene had met Waterbridge when he worked on Hodgson’s case, and Waterbridge had been unfailingly cordial and cooperative. His prime concern back then was the reputation of his club. He must be doubly concerned now.
“Detective Greene, welcome back to Humber River,” Waterbridge said, holding out his hand.
Dressed as always in blue blazer, white oxford-cloth shirt, old school tie, grey flannel pants, shining black loafers, and conservative eyeglasses, Waterbridge projected what Greene thought was the perfect buttoned-down image for the perfect citizens at their perfect golf club.
“Nice to see you again too,” Greene said.
“I can’t honestly say it is good to see you again here,” Waterbridge said with a nervous laugh. He looked worried, but ever the gentleman, gave Greene a warm handshake.
“Perils of the job,” Greene said. “No one likes to see a homicide detective show up at their door. Especially for a second time.”
“You are right about that,” Waterbridge said, trying not to sound nervous but not succeeding.
A large van pulled up beside them. The signage on this one read Barry’s Big Blow Ups and featured poster-sized photos of people in various poses. The driver and a workman jumped out and opened the van’s sliding side door.
“Excuse us, gents,” the driver said. “Major delivery.”
The workman popped inside the van and handed a life-sized poster out to the driver. It was a glossy photo of a young girl in mid golf swing.
“That must be Britt,” Greene said to Waterbridge.
“Her father’s pride and joy,” Waterbridge said.
“Can one of you gents get the door?” the driver asked. “We’ve got a bunch of these babies.”
Waterbridge rushed up the stairs and opened one of the big oak doors. Greene joined him and opened the other as he watched the men carefully unload four huge photos of Britt in various stages of her young golfing career.
“It’s going to be quite a party,” Greene said, when the deliveries were done.
“And I’m going to make a point of not being here,” Waterbridge said.
They went inside and climbed the main staircase. It was lined with portraits of the club presidents, all men with classic old Toronto names: Laidlaw, Osler, Burnamthorpe, Islington, Witherspoon, Johnson. Hodgson’s was the second-to-last one on the wall. It was like walking through a time machine starting back in the 1920s, when the men had long bushy sideburns and large, thick eyeglasses, and wore dark business suits with wide lapels and even wider ties. Over the decades the facial hair disappeared, the eyeglasses shrunk in size, the suits grew lighter, the lapels and ties thinner.
At the top of the stairs Greene stopped to look at a photograph of a conservatively dressed woman in a plain business suit, a string of pearls around her neck. The label identified her as Alice Burnamthorpe and gave the years of her birth and death. She’d died twenty years ago at the age of thirty-seven.
“Beautiful, wasn’t she?” Waterbridge said, standing by Greene’s side.
Greene turned to him.
“Alice was my wife,” Waterbridge said. “First and only woman club president. Scratch golfer. Wonderful mother. You know, Detective, when you’re young and in love and get married and have kids, no one tells you that on your fifteenth anniversary your beautiful wife is going to become ill and die three months later. Do they?”
“I’m sorry,” Greene said.
“It was hard on the boys. They were young.” Waterbridge pointed back to a portrait midway down the stairs. “Horace Burnamthorpe, club president nineteen forty-two to forty-seven, was Alice’s grandfather.”
“Her family were lifers at the club.”
“And extremely proud of it. I’m doing everything I can to carry on the tradition.”
Waterbridge led Greene into the enormous dining room. Three massive chandeliers hung from its wood-panelled ceiling. There was a stage at the far end, and to one side floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the manicured back lawn. The big room was buzzing with activity as workers set up various booths and stations for the night’s activities. A small army of waiters were scurrying about setting the tables with white tablecloths and sterling silver cutlery.
“As you can see,” Waterbridge said, “Mr. Hodgson is having an intimate little party for about two hundred of his closest friends.”
“He never does anything small, does he?”
“I’m afraid not.”
In his time here, Greene had learned much about the intricate dynamics of this private golf club. It was situated on prime green space, in a city sorely lacking in parkland, and the last thing the members wanted was any kind of publicity. Especially since the taxes the club paid were a pittance of what the city could earn if the land were divided up into much-needed residential homes.
Every once in a while the idea of expropriating the land bubbled up in the press, spurred on by a crusading journalist or activist. A few years ago the club quietly made a deal with the city to quadruple the taxes they’d pay for the next fifty years. To finance this, and because many of the old-money families their members came from were dying off, they opened up club membership. The new members with their new money were brash and flashy. None more so than Hodgson. He’d been a pariah here even before he was charged, and now he was a cross they were forced to bear.
“I’ve saved us a seat in the corner,” Waterbridge said, leading Greene to a table near the stage. Greene sat and looked out the windows at the manicured back lawn. A golf cart with the word Security displayed on its side, driven by a man in uniform, zipped along the paved path that bisected the lawn before it scooted off toward the river below.
An athletic-looking young man with a set of golf clubs slung over his shoulder walked along the stone path by the window. Seeing Greene and Waterbridge, he stopped and waved before continuing on.
Waterbridge’s face lit up and he waved back.
“That’s Jack, my youngest son,” he said to Greene.
“How many children do you have?” Greene asked. It was good to make small talk before asking the harder questions.
“Two boys. Losing their mom when they were young was tough on them and, let me tell you, they’re a study in opposites. The older one is the academic. He hates golf, won’t even set foot in this place anymore. Jack, he was never a great student. He’s doing a slow victory lap at community college right now. He loves golf and works here part-time. I’m grooming him for my job, that is if the club can survive this mess we’re in.”
“Two murders in the valley in two days.”
“Terrible. What can we do? Last year the members put together a Help the Homeless Fund. We raised more than twenty thousand dollars and bought all sorts of sleeping bags, ski jackets, gloves, socks, and toques. It’s a drop in the bucket and, between you and me, I’m not sure it didn’t make matters worse. Just made it easier for people to camp out over there.”
“The members must be frustrated.”
Waterbridge threw up his hands. “Nothing we do seems to work and, frankly, all this bad news is hurting our new membership drive. Besides, these young people all want to do yoga and cycling and circuit training. Some of our newer members want to build a gym and hire personal trainers. Imagine what the founders would think of that.”
“It’s hard to envision one of those old men with the sideburns and the heavy suits going to a spin class,” Greene said.
“Right you are,” Waterbridge said, smiling.
He looked at Greene. They both knew the preliminaries were over.
“How can I be of assistance, Detective?”
“One of your employees found the second dead body down in the valley this morning.”
“Mr. Roshan. Works in our security detail. Excellent employee. Thank goodness he wasn’t too badly hurt. We’ve sent a gift basket to his home. So dedicated, he’s insisted on working tonight.”
Greene looked back out the window. Before coming here he’d checked the police reports for the last twelve months. There had been twenty-five reported incidents at the club, everything from golf pins broken in half, to human feces left in holes on the greens, to members’ cars being broken into and scratched, and their tires slashed and deflated. Hodgson’s vehicle in particular had been the target of much of the vandalism.
“I have to ask you about Karl Hodgson,” Greene said.
Waterbridge nodded. “I thought so.”
“A week before the first murder, the tires of his car were slashed.”
“I was here when the police arrived.”
Greene looked back at Waterbridge. Nothing happened at the club without his knowledge. Waterbridge bit his lip. What Waterbridge didn’t know, and Greene was not going to tell him, was that Greene had checked Hodgson’s car registration. He drove a large black SUV, which was consistent with the description of the vehicle that Roshan said had knocked him off his bike.
“Does Mr. Hodgson still play his solo rounds early on Monday mornings?”
“Rain or shine.”
Waterbridge looked off to his side. A server was approaching with two menus in her hand, and he caught her eye and waved her off. When Greene was here three years earlier, Waterbridge kept offering Greene free food, and Greene kept refusing.
“It’s late in the season. Did he still play this morning?”
Waterbridge tried to keep his face neutral, but Greene could see he was not happy with the answer he was about to give. He took off his glasses, pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and cleaned them. Greene knew it was a stall.
“He did, by himself as usual,” Waterbridge said, after he’d finished with his glasses.
Greene nodded. They both knew what this meant. Hodgson might have had the opportunity to kill the homeless woman. And for Waterbridge, this meant more bad publicity for his precious golf club.
“Did you see him after he finished the round?”
“No. But I never do.”
“Why not?”
“To tell you the truth, Detective,” Waterbridge said. He poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. He was stalling again.
“I’m afraid that Mr. Hodgson doesn’t use the locker facilities anymore. He keeps his clubs and his gear in his vehicle. The course is still open, he played his regular Monday morning nine holes before anyone else was on the course.”
“Would someone have seen him come or go?”
“Seen him? No. I checked this morning and he registered online as usual, but you see, Mr. Hodgson is not, how can I say it, not one of the club’s most popular members, even though he was acquitted at his trial and he has won the seat on city council…”
His voice trailed off.
“I understand,” Greene said.
The old guard, the old money, had given Hodgson the cold shoulder for the sin of bringing bad publicity to their private enclave.
Greene had to be careful with his next questions. It was dangerous to reveal too much. But he had to find out about the specially made golf balls with members’ initials stamped on them.
“One more question. Do many members get their golf balls embossed with their initials?”
Waterbridge jerked his head to look at Greene. “Many do. Mostly the newest members, to be frank.”
“Who does that for them?”
“We send them out to a printing company down by the lakeshore.”
“How does it work?”
“Simple. A member puts in a request at the pro shop. We scan and send them over the order and once a week they deliver the golf balls.”
“Can you give me the name of the company and your contact there?”
Waterbridge appeared confused. “I can.” He pulled out his cell phone and began looking through it. “I assume, Detective, that if I ask you why you want this information, you’d suggest that I don’t ask.”
Greene smiled but didn’t respond.
Waterbridge found the contact and flipped his phone around. Greene wrote the information down.
“Thank you,” Greene said, standing to leave.
Just then a loud booming sound came at them from the stage. “Sound check, sound check,” someone said.
Waterbridge cringed.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy your night,” Greene said. “Away from all the hoopla at the club.”