22

 

 

The beginning of a major golf tournament week has always felt to me like the opening of a medieval jousting tournament, except that there’s no Errol Flynn running around in green tights and a feathered cap. But there are the pennants snapping in the wind, the smell of freshly mown grass, the stands special-built for crowds of spectators, meat sizzling on the grills, smoke drifting off in the breeze. Add the Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marion and a couple of court jesters and it would be exactly the same.

A chilly rain was falling on Monday afternoon when the IBS crew arrived at Conrad Gold’s Hudson Links. The banners were hanging limply and wet on their poles and the court jesters were all inside one of the dozens of hospitality tents getting hammered on bourbon and scotch. I saw a small handful of players on the practice tee, but most of the pros were staying inside and dry.

We had all met for lunch at the Cumberland Arms Inn in the burgh closest to the golf course and our hotel home for the week. Ben Oswald had outlined our schedule, which included daily production meetings which would include in-depth reports on the players and updates on the golf course. After those sessions were over, we were free, and encouraged, to attend some of the PGA of America functions and cocktail parties which would be going on all week. The PGA of America is divided into “sections” both within and without state lines, and it seemed like every one of those sections was planning a big party sometime during the upcoming week. Based on past experience, I was only interested in attending the Nebraska section steak fry on Wednesday night. They always had excellent connections with some of the ranchers from the state who sent over the best rib eyes and sirloins in the world.

Our little white bus took us over to the Gold Club on the bluff overlooking the golf course, and despite the dreary weather, we could see the golf course laid out in waiting for the tournament. Fairways were pristine, rimmed with gallery ropes and bright with electronic message boards. The air was wet and heavy, and the tension, which had not begun to mount, was still hanging in the atmosphere along with the rain showers. This was a Big Show, one of four held every year, and it felt like it.

Ben, Van and Jimmy went in to do thirty minutes with the press. Ben explained some of the technological doo-dads we had imported for the broadcast, talked about the miles of cable that had been laid, the numbers of workers that had set up the broadcast headquarters and the times we were planning to broadcast live. Once Ben covered the logistics, Van and Jimmy talked about other PGA Championships they had covered over the years, and who they felt was playing well enough at the moment to win.

I stood at the back of the room with the other announcers, the Boz at my side, and watched the reporters asking questions. It had not been all that long ago that I had been one of them. I knew that with the rainy first day, a lot of planned interviews and preview stories had been postponed or deep-sixed, and that made the press guys nervous and unhappy. Which is never a good thing for your press corps to be.

Bartholomew Hastings, the somewhat young sports writer for the New York Times, who covered most of the major golf events for the paper, raised his hand.

“Yeah, Ben,” he said, “Would you care to comment on the recent death of your assistant, Arnie Wasserman, and how that has affected your coverage here this week?”

“Sure,” Ben said, nodding. But I noticed his eyes narrow and a bit of color rose in his cheeks. “Arnie’s death was a huge loss for all of us at IBS. He worked closely with me for the better part of eleven years. I miss him every day, both personally and professionally. I don’t know how his passing will affect our coverage. We haven’t done a major without him in all that time. But our crew is made up of professionals from top to bottom, so my expectation is we’ll do the best job we can, and I think the viewers will be pleased.”

The Timesman wasn’t finished.

“You also lost one of your announcers, Parker Long, at the tournament down in Savannah earlier this spring,” he said. “Can you tell us please if there are any connections between these two deaths?”

The red spots on Ben’s cheeks got a little larger.

“Yes,” he said. “Both Parker Long and Arnie Wasserman worked for IBS and they were my friends and colleagues. That’s the connection.”

“No,” Hastings said, “I mean any connections between the two murders?”

“We don’t know how Parker Long died,” Ben said, “And it is impertinent and, if I can say, more than a little disgraceful for you to imply that he was murdered.”

“The police in Savannah still have that death under investigation,” Hastings said. “So the question of how he died is still open.”

“And you are assuming that he was murdered,” Ben shot back. “Do you have any evidence of that?”

“No,” Hastings said, “But the police…”

“So if you have no evidence, how can you assert that the deaths of Parker and Arnie are connected?” Ben said. “You can’t. And it’s disgraceful that you imply it.”

“I’ll note that you haven’t answered my question,” Hastings said.

“You can also note that I’m about ready to come down there and kick your ass,” Oswald said. His face was now officially red.

“Nice, Ben,” the reporter said. But he sat down.

The PGA press person took charge, asked for any more questions, and when no one was brave enough to ask one, she declared the press conference to be over.

Ben stalked out, waves of steam metaphorically rising from his head. Van and Jimmy stuck around, and some of the reporters gathered around them to chat a bit and hopefully pick up another quote or two.

I went over and sat down next to Bart Hastings.

“Have you heard anything I haven’t?” I asked him.

He had been writing something in his notebook. He looked up at me.

“Hacker,” he said, acknowledging my presence. I know I was supposed to feel both a thrill and a chill that the reporter for the hallowed New York Times knew my name, but I had known Bart for five or six years. Nice guy, a little standoffish like most New Yorkers, pretty good writer. He was in his late thirties, tall and lanky, with a full head of hair and a craggy visage. Like Abe Lincoln without the beard.

“I assume you mean in regards to Parker Long,” he said finally, snapping his notebook shut.

“Yeah,” I said. “Last time I talked to Capt. Connor down in Savannah, he didn’t exactly know how Parker died. You hear anything different?”

“And why would I tell you if I had?” he said. “Perhaps the news hounds from IBS can find out.”

“Well,” I said, “I would think you’d tell me so as not to be the world’s biggest asshole. I’m not a reporter anymore, Bart. We’re not competing for scoops. I’m a TV guy now and Parker was one of ours. We’d like to find out what happened.”

“Well then,” he said, standing up. “I guess you’ll just have to read tomorrow’s paper. See you around.”

And he left. With me sitting there thinking that he really was the world’s biggest asshole.

I called Delbert Connor.

“Connor,” came the gruff voice.

“Hacker here,” I said. “What is the New York Times going to publish tomorrow about the Parker Long case?”

“No idea,” he said. “I’m a cop, not a clairvoyant.”

“C’mon, Connor,” I said. “Hastings has something. You gave it to him. You and I have been friends longer.”

He laughed at that. “Friends?” he said. “Good one.”

“What did the state lab come back with?” I said. “How did Parker get electrocuted?”

“Look, Hacker, my ‘friend,’” he said. “My investigation is still open and active. I can’t tell you much.”

“But?”

“The crime lab took Long’s headphones apart, piece by piece,” he said. “They found some…umm…unusual wiring inside.”

“What does that mean?”

“Shorthand version: someone messed with the victim’s headphones,” he said. “The lab guys found some some of the internal connections in the headphones had been tampered with.”

“Tampered with how?” I asked.

“They don’t know for sure,” he said. “But the state’s tech guy told me that the headphones Parker was wearing would have returned a lot of static noise. Parker wouldn’t have been able to hear very well. Lotta static, bad quality sound.”

“It was deliberate?” I asked. “Not just some old headphones where the wires wore out?”

“According to the lab, it looked like someone had worked to deliberately interfere with the headphones,” he said. “And then carefully put them back together to look like new.”

“But would that kill him? Zap him with power?”

“Nope,” Connor said. “That’s the part they haven’t figured out yet. There was nothing they could see that would send power back down the headphone wires and into the wearer. They ran all kinds of tests, but it never did that. But it’s something they’ve never seen before.”

“Is that what Bart Hastings is running with tomorrow?” I asked.

“How the hell do I know?” he said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because he’s the world’s biggest asshole,” I said.

“We all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?” Connor said and rang off.

I thought about what Connor had told me for a while. I couldn’t think of any reason why someone would deliberately mess around with the wires. But I could think of someone who might know.

I grabbed a courtesy van down to the golf course and wandered over to this week’s location for Television City, where there were thirty or so trailers parked cheek-to-jowl to hold all the electronics, studios, control rooms and more for the international group of television broadcasters including IBS. Technicians of various stripes were running around in barely controlled states of panic, checking cables and testing equipment, which all had to be ready to go on Thursday morning.

I found the trailers that belonged to IBS’ technical crew and stepped inside the first one. It was a dark space with a narrow aisle down the middle and all kinds of lockers and containers on both walls, holding every imaginable kind of gear: wires and cables and connectors and pins and splitters and tools and ties and more. Down at the front of the trailer, there was a space for a work bench across the width of the trailer, and this part at least was well lighted. And sitting on a metal chair at the work bench, bent over a piece of circuit board with a welding tool, was Digby Allen, our resident techie genius.

“Digby,” I said as I came up. “What’s goin’ on?”

He glanced up, eyes looking extra large as seen in reverse through one of those plastic magnifying glasses things he had strapped to his head.

“Hiya, Hacker,” he said. “Hang on a sec.”

He bent back down over his work and deftly soldered a wire to a brass connection on the edge of the circuit board. A puff of white smoke drifted up and away, its smell acrid in my nose. He looked at his work through his magnifying glasses, then nodded to himself. He took off the glasses and turned to me with a smile.

“How you doing?” he said.

“Good, good,” I said. “Listen, I have a question. Technical question.”

“Best kind,” he said. “Shoot.”

“I was just talking to the cop down in Savannah looking into Parker Long’s death,” I said. “He said that the state crime lab boys took Parker’s headset apart. Said they found the wiring inside was messed up. They think someone did it deliberately.”

“That would cause static,” Digby said without missing a beat. “He’d get a lot of feedback and interference and stuff. Be hard to hear anything.”

“That’s what the crime lab techies said,” I said. “Can you think of any reason someone would do that to a guy’s headsets?”

Digby thought for a minute. Finally, he shook his head.

“Naw,” he said. “The announcer would have a hell of time with something like that. Be a real problem.”

“So who would want to mess around with Parker’s headphones?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Digby said, shrugging his shoulders. “Someone who didn’t want Parker to hear very well. Nobody in this crew would do such a thing. That’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Crazy.”

He turned back to his work bench and I left.