“It means it’s not Conner’s club.” Fitz laid the suspect nine-iron on the changing bench. “See that? It’s bent, too. Just a bit, in the middle.”

O’Brien crouched down beside him. “Sure enough.”

“That explains why your game went to hell in a handbasket whenever you used the nine,” Fitz said. “The shaft’s too short for you and it’s bent to boot. Small wonder your drives sliced.”

“Damn,” Conner said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Why didn’t I think of it, is the question.” Fitz folded his arms angrily across his chest. “It’s my job.”

“You couldn’t possibly have known. It looks like the other clubs.”

“It’s my job to know. I should’ve suspected the second your game went off. If it had happened to Arnold Palmer, I’d have realized immediately it must be the club. But when it’s you, I just assumed-”

Conner arched an eyebrow. “Ye-es…?”

“I just assumed-“ Fitz drew in his breath. “Well, never mind what I assumed. I’m sorry, Conner. I should’ve been on top of this.” He addressed himself to Lieutenant O’Brien. “So you see what really happened, ma’am. Conner isn’t the murderer. Someone pulled a switch.”

O’Brien frowned. “I’m not entirely convinced. His fingerprints were all over the murder weapon.”

“Course they were. It’s his club. The killer probably used gloves.”

“The fact that the clubs were switched doesn’t prove he didn’t commit the murder. He might’ve switched the clubs just to throw us off his trail.”

“Could you both stop referring to me in third person?” Conner asked.

Fitz gave O’Brien a penetrating gaze. “Do you really think this man is capable of thinking of something that smart?”

“Now wait a minute-”

O’Brien nodded. “Good point. I suppose I have to release him-that is, you, Cross. For the moment, anyway.” She withdrew the key from her pocket and popped open the cuffs. “Mind you, you’re still under suspicion. So don’t leave town.”

“Can’t. Got a tournament to play.”

“There’s no point in arresting you and initiating a preliminary hearing unless I can make the charge stick. I need to be able to answer some of these questions about the murder weapon.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. Maybe if we traced this club-“ She picked up the nine-iron resting on the changing bench and examined the metal base. “Blast. The serial number has been scraped off.”

“What more proof do you need?” Conner said. “Obviously, that club originally belonged to the killer. He scraped off the serial number so you couldn’t trace him. Then he switched it for mine and used mine to kill John.”

“Maybe so,” O’Brien said, deep in thought. “But if that’s so-someone was intentionally trying to frame you.”

“She’s right,” Fitz concurred.

“But who would want to see you in trouble?”

Fitz answered for Conner. “Who wouldn’t?”

16

O’Brien smiled thinly. “I heard you were doing a little investigating on your own yesterday. I assumed you were just covering yourself. Diverting suspicion.”

“You were wrong,” Conner said firmly. “I want to know who murdered John. And if you can’t figure it out-I will.”

“Bold words from a man who makes his living knocking a little white ball around.” O’Brien clipped her cuffs to the back of her belt. “Well, if you have any sudden brainstorms, or remember anything new, I expect you to call immediately.”

“I will,” Conner promised. “And Lieutenant-”

“Yeah?”

“I swear I didn’t kill John.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“You know, there’s one thing I haven’t heard yet. You say the murder weapon was a golf club. How exactly was John killed?”

The corners of O’Brien’s mouth turned up, as if a playful thought was tossing around in her brain and she just couldn’t decide whether to go for it or not. “You really want to know?” she said finally.

“That’s why I asked.”

She pondered a moment. “I suppose it might be useful to have someone around who understands this silly game.” She nodded. “Okay, come with me.”

Conner blew air through the holes in the top of his face mask. “This isn’t what I had in mind.”

Merry crinkles outlined O’Brien’s eyes. “You said you wanted to do some investigating.”

“Yeah, at the golf course. Not the county morgue.”

Before he’d had a decent chance to protest, O’Brien had shoved him into her car and driven him ten minutes downtown to the coroner’s office where, Conner was delighted to learn, the autopsy of his best friend’s remains was still in progress. She’d issued him a face mask and rubbed some Mentholatum under his nose. It was supposed to kill the smell of formaldehyde and… whatever else might be in the air.

It didn’t.

“Look at it this way, Cross,” O’Brien drawled. “You’ve missed the preliminary examination. Dr. Jarrett is already well into the actual postmortem.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, basically, the preliminary examination involves the skillful violation of each and every bodily orifice.”

“Sounds like the sort of thing you’d enjoy.”

“Whereas the postmortem involves the actual slivering and dismembering of bodily tissue.”

“Delightful.”

“With a few other tests and examinations along the way, just to keep things lively. C’mon-let’s go inside.”

Together, they stepped into the operating theater. There was one table in the room, and one body on the table, partially draped by a sheet. Even in this deteriorated condition, Conner had no trouble making an identification.

It was John McCree. His best friend. What was left of him.

In life, John had always had a wonderful tan. The miracle tan, the press called it, since it seemed to stay with him even during the off-season. But today, his complexion was a sickly ochre, complementing the puke green paint on the operating-room walls.

His face was much as it had been when Conner had last seen it. There was still a pronounced gash on the side of his skull, but now the blood had dried and coagulated. Conner suspected some of it had been removed; it had seemed much messier when he first rolled the body over in the sand trap. His jaw seemed loose, perhaps even disconnected. From the murder? Conner wondered. Or had the decomposition already begun?

“Let me introduce you to Dr. Jarrett,” O’Brien said. “Dr. Jarrett, this is Conner Cross, the world-famous golfer.”

Dr. Jarrett made a grunting noise that may have been a greeting but sounded more as if he were in gastric distress. He never looked up from his work.

“Is he always this friendly?” Conner asked.

“This is a good day for him,” O’Brien answered. “He hasn’t tried to evict you or started throwing stilettos.”

“Stilettos?”

“Surgical stilettos. The man is deadly with them. Could probably get work with the circus. As you’ll likely see when I start asking him questions.”

Conner made a mental note to keep a close watch on the man’s throwing arm. What surprised him most about Dr. Jarrett was his age-or lack thereof. The good doctor appeared to be in his early thirties, maybe even younger. Conner wasn’t sure why that surprised him. Somehow he had always imagined coroners as aged, grizzled men, hunched over the autopsy table, finding perverse pleasure and strange satisfaction in filleting corpses. With his broad shoulders and long blond hair (currently tucked into a hairnet), Dr. Jarrett looked more like he should be down at the beach with Gidget and Moondoggie than in the au-topsy room.

“Dr. Jarrett’s only been with us for two years,” O’Brien explained, as if reading Conner’s mind, which he didn’t rule out. “But he’s greatly distinguished himself in that time. He’s considered the top forensic man in the county.”

Goody, Conner thought. That explains everything. Except why I’m here.

“Dr. Jarrett,” O’Brien said, projecting her voice across the operating table, “have you had a chance to run any time analysis?”