Chapter 23 The Actual Smoking Gun
The Actual Smoking Gun
I had told Ethan on the phone Friday night that I’d vomited into a metal wastepaper basket in the courtroom.
“Braggart,” he said, mocking me.
“And, yet, it was nowhere near the most embarrassing moment in my life. How is that even possible?”
“I’m sure you were only one of thousands of twenty-year-olds vomiting into trash cans on Friday,” he said. “Sure, most of them were at parties. But, still, you were far from alone.”
Only he knew how scared I was. I hadn’t even told Spencer.
And so, when my voice broke when Ethan and I were speaking two days later, on Sunday afternoon, he volunteered to come to Westchester to watch week two of the trial as moral support.
“I couldn’t ask that of you,” I said.
“You didn’t ask. I volunteered.”
My parents, of course, had first met him after I’d failed to kill myself.
(I am going to pause here to invite you into my library, where I am writing.
I just looked at that last sentence on my computer and found it interesting that I used the word failed, instead of tried.
Most people would have used the word tried.
The fact I chose a different verb is an indication not of my creativity as a writer, but a signal of my shame.
At least that’s how I read it. It’s not shame that I attempted—there it is, tried!
—to kill myself, it’s that deeply entrenched sense of self-loathing and embedded failure that would turn out to be the real groundwater of Mira Land.
I was very lucky that Ethan had returned to Capen House that evening, but maybe, good God, I really couldn’t even kill myself right.)
My parents also knew Ethan from his visit to Tallmadge, and they were aware that the two of us spoke often on the telephone.
So, his presence in the courtroom would not cause them to wonder about what other secrets I might have, because he himself was no secret.
And if they did not know him well enough yet to know how they felt about him as a suitor for their imperfect, difficult daughter, they were always going to be grateful to him for saving my life.
Still, I felt guilty at the idea that he wanted to be there for me. I didn’t feel I deserved that. I didn’t feel I deserved him.
“You have classes,” I reminded him. “You’re actually in college. You’re finally in college. You don’t want to blow it.”
“It’s not a big deal and I won’t blow it. If you change your mind, just ask.”
“I will,” I assured him. But I knew I never would.
When I walked into the courtroom on Monday morning, there were Olivia and Jane Foster seated on the bench beside their parents.
This was their first appearance at the trial, and I was surprised they were there, given that it had only been the previous Friday when the state had treated everyone in attendance to the forensic photos of Kenny Foster’s brain.
Moreover, it was a school day. But there they were.
They were dressed very much the way I was: business casual for kids.
Or, perhaps, spring wedding. Olivia was wearing a blue-and-white-striped minidress that buttoned up the sternum.
Her younger sister, Jane, was in a paisley smock dress with a Peter Pan collar.
Once we were seated, but before the judge had entered the courtroom, I asked Mr. Barker why he thought they were here now.
“Spring break at the Tallmadge school. That’s all.”
“That’s it?”
“Yup, pretty much. Look, this is all conjecture, but maybe Lindley recruited them when he heard they had no school this week. We’re supposed to begin our defense later today, and having them here may make our witnesses more uncomfortable when they testify,” he answered.
“But who knows? Could be as simple as the idea that the two girls wanted to be here and lobbied successfully with their parents.”
“Why would anyone want to be here?” I asked, disgusted.
“Well, you’re a defendant. They’re not,” he reminded me, and it was the sort of tough love I deserved.
The state’s last witness was going to be Curt Bolger, Harry Fallows’s assistant and that fellow who had always looked to me like a soldier or made man in an organized crime family—an extra, perhaps, in one of Coppola’s Godfather movies.
“What sorts of things do you do at Tallmadge?” Lindley asked, once he had introduced Bolger to the jury.
“Well, Harry doesn’t have an assistant pro right now, so I do a lot of things an AP might, but also a lot of the things an assistant clubhouse manager might do,” he answered.
“So, I don’t give lessons, but I do plenty of club fittings.
I check members in and out and help schedule the tee times.
I get them their bags, I bring them to the first tee sometimes.
Or to the caddies or the carts. Basically, I work with Harry and Dom. ”
“Dom Gorski—the caddy master.”
“That’s right.”
“Dom is usually at the caddy shack, correct?”
“He’s got what we call the bus stop, yeah.”
“The bus stop?”
“A little kiosk. But it’s comfy enough. It’s between the clubhouse and the first tee. He can see the caddies and the golfers. We work together to hook up the caddies and members.”
“So, it’s usually just you and Harry Fallows at the office and pro shop and bag room?”
“And sometimes it’s just me, because Harry gives a lot of lessons. He might be on the course or the putting green or at the practice net—our little driving range. Or what used to be our little driving range. I mean, we got rid of the practice net after…you know.”
We all knew. Lindley didn’t need to press for clarification, but he did. “After…you know?”
“After Miss Winston killed that poor Kenny Foster with a golf ball.”
My lawyer objected. It was sustained. But every word in Bolger’s short sentence was a gut punch.
“So, once in a while, you’re there alone?” Lindley asked.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Is the pro shop ever left unattended?”
“It is, but it’s rare. I mean, someone could shoplift balls or head covers or maybe even a golf shirt.
I don’t really think a Tallmadge member would do that, but you never know.
And we don’t want it empty, because we want to be there if a member needs help.
Service, that’s what we’re about. If a member wants to buy a towel or tees or balls or whatever, we want to be there.
So, in the busy season and on weekends, we employ a couple kids from the nearby college to work the register. ”
“When Mr. Fallows is away from the building, does he lock his office?”
“Yeah, he does.”
“The bag room? Is that locked when you and Mr. Fallows are on the course or away for a few minutes?”
“If we’re only going to be gone for a very short while, we don’t always bother. We don’t want members to be unable to get their bags.”
“How often is it unattended?”
“Like with the pro shop, it’s rare.”
“But it happens?”
“Yes, on occasion,” he admitted, information we all had garnered from his deposition, and information that both sides could mold to fit our version of the truth.
Bolger hadn’t wanted to acknowledge this, but my lawyer had shown him testimonials from seven different club members who said they had, in their years at Tallmadge, found it easier to retrieve their bags themselves than either try to find Fallows or Bolger or wait for them to return.
And so the district attorney was trying to get ahead of this revelation, to make it seem to the jury that the fact the room sometimes was unlocked and unattended was not a matter of consequence, because it was so infrequent.
“So: sometimes the members get their bags themselves. How often does that happen?”
“Well, when it’s busy, I’m probably there. Or Harry is. Or even Dom. It’s when it’s slow they’re more likely to just get ’em themselves.”
“Give us an example, please.”
“Like, it’s a Tuesday at eleven a.m. Harry might be giving a lesson, Dom might be getting a coffee, and maybe I’m fixing a golf cart.
And, suddenly, a member appears because he took the day off and figured he’d play a round.
So, he goes in and gets his bag. Or a member’s kid like Frank Pendleton shows up at four o’clock.
Good kid, home from college for the summer, wants to play a quick nine.
If I’m talking to Eddie—our greenskeeper—by the first tee, I’m not going to stop what I’m doing and race back to get Frank his bag. ”
“How does a member know where to find their bag if you and Harry aren’t there?”
“Every member knows their bag number. It’s easy.”
Eric Lindley looked a little pensive, but I had learned by now that this was his countenance as he got to his point or, in some cases, went in for the kill. “So, Monday, July 31, 1978. Another Caddy Day. Were you at the club that afternoon?”
“I was, yeah. I was alone. Harry and Dom had the day off, and the pro shop was closed, so none of the kids we hire were there.”
“What were you doing that afternoon?”
“Lotta maintenance stuff. Mostly on the carts. Wiping ’em down, charging ’em, replacing a wheel on one.”
“Did you see Miss Winston?”
“Sure. She was at the driving range.”
“Did you see her finish up?”
He nodded. “It was about four in the afternoon. I was at the carts, and she was walking back to the clubhouse and the bag room with her bag. I shouted hello. Asked her how she was hitting ’em.”
“And what did she say?”
“She smiled like she’d just won a tourney and said, ‘I tore that net a new hole!’ ”
And there, of course, was the actual smoking gun.
We knew it was coming from the discovery process, that period when the state and the defense share their evidence. I scanned the jury, a reflex, and they were riveted. Two were staring at me, their eyes a little wide, and they looked away the moment our gazes met.
“What did you think she meant?”
“I thought it was funny. I thought she meant she was hitting ’em real good.”
“You didn’t think anything more about it?”