Due Justice

Chapter 25

Tampa, Florida

Saturday 2:15

January 23, 1999

Running late. Stopped by to pick up the developed film and stuffed it in Greta’s glove box with all the other essential junk I had in there. No time to examine the photos now.

I’d invited Dr. Carolyn Young to Great Oaks. Easier to play my home course. Less thinking required, more time for my planned inquisition.

We’d agreed to meet at the clubhouse at 2:30 p.m. when the course would be nearly empty and she could, as she put it, help me improve my game. Dressed like a golf magazine advertisement in pink and green, she stood tapping her pricey spikes on the pavement out front when I dashed up.

“Sorry--”

“Never mind. We’ve loaded your clubs. Shoes, too. Let’s go,” she said. Strode toward the cart.

I didn’t dare take a minute to pee.

Carolyn Young might have been 55 years old, but she sure didn’t look it. If her smooth skin, firm breasts, and great legs were the result of modern medicine, I wanted some. I suspected her patients felt the same way. A perfect advertisement for her plastic surgery practice.

She commandeered the wheel; “I’m in charge” attitude apparent in every movement. Nothing about her was tentative. No idle chit-chat, either.

When we arrived at the first tee, she instructed, leaving no room for negotiation.

“Take the first shot. I’ll check your swing.”

After my respectable tee shot, she said, “Your swing isn’t bad. You’re too tense.”

Gee, ya think?

She pulled her driver from her bag and stood over the tee wagging her butt. “Loosen up. Let the club do the work. Watch me.”

In an easy, relaxed way, Carolyn knocked the snot out of that golf ball. Amazing hit. A good twenty yards farther than my lie. I’d thought maybe she played golf with Marilee Aymes every week to salve a guilty conscience. Not sot. Marilee was a good golfer, but not that good. Carolyn must have let Marilee win. Also amazing.

But why?

After the first three holes, Carolyn had given me enough suggestions for this lifetime. Some were helpful, but most were pure harassment. If she’d constantly harped like this with Morgan, no wonder he’d dumped her gorgeous ass.

On the fourth hole, I watched my ball sail ridiculously right, over the creek and onto the fairway on the other side.

Carolyn waited behind the wheel, hand tapping impatiently, one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. “Come on. Don’t dawdle.”

I strolled to my bag and placed my club deliberately. Took my sweet time.

“Enjoyed meeting Fred Johnson when I substituted for you last week,” I said before sidling up to my seat. “He’s overshadowed by Grover in their partnership, don’t you think?”

My butt barely touched the vinyl before she’d lifted her foot from the brake and the cart jumped forward. I grabbed the side rail and held tight.

She drove the cart at breakneck speed along the paved path, over a fat snake, ka-plomp, ka-plomp, and never slowed. I looked back; the snake slithered off, undead, as we sped across the bridge, over the creek, and beyond.

She replied, “Grover has a big personality. It’s too bad he’s not as good a lawyer as he fancies himself.”

“He gets some awfully big verdicts, and he always seems to have the most high profile cases in town,” I shouted over the wind whistling and the protesting whine of the cart’s gas powered engine.